Today’s the birthday of Marcel Proust, born in 1871. Found this quote from him (in a letter to Andre Gide), courtesy of the Today in Literature e-newsletter:
I believe, contrary to the fashion among our contemporaries, that one can have a very lofty idea of literature, and at the same time have a good-natured laugh at it.
I like it!
You know what driver’s-ed classes don’t teach you? They don’t teach you how complicated it is to make your way through a busy intersection of more than two streets, especially when there are no traffic signals.
I thought about this failure today, in connection with the 1972 film of the musical 1776.
Until last night, I’d never seen the movie and never (truth be told) had wanted to. No objection to musicals per se, you understand. But I’ve always had a hard time with light and frothy musical treatments of truly momentous historical subjects.
(Yet I very much like Cabaret, and agree with Pauline Kael’s assessment at the time it was released: “A great movie musical, satirical and diamond-hard.” Satire with an edge: good. But perkiness? Eh, well…)
But last night my resolve was weak. The Missus and I were both wiped out by planning, preparing, and executing a July-4th cookout for […counting…] ten people. While she escaped to her office, collapsing into a fog of online gaming, I just sat, stretched out, on the sofa, TV remote close to hand. And clicked. And clicked. And clicked…
For some reason probably having to do with the previous day’s power failure, when I first turned it on the channel was set at 2: the Home Shopping Network. (click) PBS had David McCullough on Charlie Rose, talking about John Adams. (click) Wonder what’s on Turner Classic Movies…? Hmm. William Daniels in colonial garb. Singing. Singing? Did William Daniels sing? What was this, anyhow?
By the time I realized what it must be, I’d been sucked in.
[Read more…]Regarding the entry I just posted, and the references therein to neurotic uncertainty over whether a book is DONE, this quote from William Strunk, Jr. (the original author of the classic Elements of Style
It is worse to be irresolute than to be wrong.
Boy, do I hope so. :)
Funny thing about writing a book — at least if you’re neurotic enough (and I am that neurotic): you never really know if it’s DONE. The best you can hope for is that it’s done enough.
Last week, right around now, I was exulting about having completed the “final” draft of Merry-Go-Round. I certainly didn’t have quotation marks around that word.
What a difference a week makes…
Over there on the right, in the list of links to other sites, you’ll find a category called “Je Ne Sais Quoi.” Per the American Heritage Dictionary online at the Bartleby site, this phrase — literally, in the original French, something like I know not what — means, “A quality or attribute that is difficult to describe or express.”
I came up with that category because every now and then I come upon a site which is so striking — in its writing or conception, not necessarily its look — that I know I’ll want to revisit it from time to time, if not daily, just to see what its proprietor might be up to at the moment. Often, these sites lead me (through their blogrolls, especially) to other such sites, and I come to realize that the site I first found isn’t unique at all. It may not even be the “best” (whatever that means) of its type. But the first one goes into the Je Ne Sais Quoi basket anyway, where I expect it to stay.
The very first site for which I couldn’t figure out a decent other category, and hence came up with this one, was the “Dealing in Subterfuges” blog, written by the pseudonymous “Jordan Baker” — perhaps (but not probably) coincidentally, a character in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
One of my little… well, I hesitate to call it a fetish. Doesn’t have the same level of intensity. (Er, or so I imagine.)… Anyway, one of my almost unconscious preoccupations is to notice product packages. All kinds of packages: breakfast foods; video games; aspirin bottles; gift wrap; so on and so forth.
Of course the actual physical structure is often ingenious, all the Tab As and Slot Bs and spot-gluing. It boggles, simply boggles that someone was clever enough to create some of these things.
But aside from the structure of packages — the way the cardboard or plastic is folded, crimped, cut, and stamped — what interests me is the text printed thereon, by which I mean the non-functional text. Not the instructions. Not the FDA and FTC warnings and notices. Rather, I mean the product names (sometimes) and the flat-out advertising copy which graces the packages.
For instance, there’s the following. (Note that it’s trademarked, by the way.) Any guesses what product’s packaging might include such inspiring verbiage?
A hint for those of you who might be telling yourselves something like I know I’ve seen this somewhere…
Update, 6/19/2008 10:12 am: If you really really need to know the answer to this mystery, see the full package (with some product) here. And if you’re still not sure what that is, go to the manufacturer’s home page. Ponder, then, the larger mystery of the mystery slogan’s… umm… grandiosity?
Over in the list of this blog’s categories, in the sidebar at the left, you will see “Writing” as a main category and — now, finally — a sub-category called “Merry-Go-Round.”
Actually, that sub-category has always been there. But in a WordPress blog, apparently, a (sub-)category doesn’t show up in the list until there’s an actual post assigned to it. So this is that first post.
Alas, it’s not the “Merry-Go-Round” post I would have preferred to lead with.
So I’ve got my annual car registration renewal notice here.
In Florida, Virginia, and probably some other states, car registration isn’t handled via a state DMV (although there is such a thing). Rather, it’s handled by the county tax collector. Presumably, this simplifies keeping tabs on everybody — the DMV doesn’t have to “know” you’ve moved, because the tax collector (and God love ’em) will know it.
Anyhow, there’s an option to renew the registration online. The notice provides the Web address to do so, specifying that you can use MasterCard, Visa, ATM, debit, or cash card to make the payment. And there’s a caveat:
(Additional fees apply for registrations processed through this web site.)
Elsewhere on the form is a yellow information box. It says:
Please complete your renewal as usual. Consider renewing online — it saves time, money, and gas.
Got that? Additional fees apply when you renew online. But… it saves you money!
Fair enough: it doesn’t say whose money it will save. Maybe it means the tax collector’s — don’t have to do all that troublesome handling of paperwork.
I’m just sayin’.
