Category: Writing

  • Cleaning Up Email

    What a pointless task, yet one that I find very rewarding. Not only at work, but at home as well. Getting that empty Inbox, or only having read emails in it that I will take care of later. The work email is worse. I get too many in that account, and it fills up quickly.

    But the personal one really isn’t that personal.

    I used to communicate with friends and family through email, but looking through my personal Inbox, I see that I really haven’t used email for catching up with friends in years. There are some family emails, but that clearly is losing its power.

    It is a text messaging word now.

    This really isn’t news to anyone under the age of 40.

    For me it is like I just received confirmation again that the way people communicate has changed once again. There were physical letters, then the phone, then email, and now text messaging. (Skype, Facetime and video messaging in my mind really doesn’t have the same impact.) I don’t think this really has an impact on society, it’s just an observation.

    I say no impact because I think that humans have been trying to make communication between each other as direct and casual as possible. Formal language is a sham, and I think it was used to create a line of educated and uneducated. There are no rules in communication as long as the listener was able to clearly understand the direction and intent.

    I would have this debate with people in college all the time; about what were the rules to the English language. They held there were rules, and my position was always, the language never had rules, and what we perceive that the rules are today, will change in 100 years.

    Don’t believe me, then look at the letters written 100 years ago. Not letters from well educated world leaders, but the letters of the people who lived, and worked in your town. That language and today’s language are noticeable different, but it still communicates intent to our modern ears.

    Language evolves just like everything else.

    There are no rules.

  • The Chef Show (Sort’a Review)

    I don’t actually like writing reviews of show. (Though I did it for Trotsky on Netflix, and somehow got a bumper crop of readers.) I never feel that I get down to the real reason why I like a particular show, but when I have a dialogue or conversation, I feel like I do much better. Either way, I don’t do it often, but here we go again.

    I started watching The Chef Show with Jon Favreau and Roy Choi, and it is presented like a companion piece to the movie Chef that came out in 2014. Though the movie was a little weak on plot, it sure made up for it with the passion its characters had for the food they made. It reminded me of Big Night, and Jiro Dreams of Sushi, as both of those movies were infused with an infectious love of not just food, but the joy of preparing food.

    Which gets us to The Chef Show, which isn’t like a normal cooking show. What is being presented isn’t for me to learn how to cook anything. It’s more like I’m being shown the joy of preparation and being around other chefs. The one detraction I have is that it does have a Food Network/reality show feel to it, like “would you believe that we happen to run into…” ya-da, ya-da. (Like Jeffery just “happens” to be walking by Ina’s kitchen when she is finishing making a meal.) We all know it’s staged.

    The best parts are just Favreau and Choi working together in the kitchen. There is a feeling of friendship between the two of them, and also a teacher/student relationship. Which is fun to watch because Favreau is an A-Lister in Hollywood and has more money than all of us, and doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to, and there he is being politely yet firmly being chided by Choi on his knife skills, and Favreau takes it with a smile. It’s fun to watch, but more than that, it is enjoyable to see the joy in the hard work of preparing food.

  • New Job

    Well, I went and got myself a job which starts on Monday. It has been a challenging, and at some points, difficult three months of job hunting, but the work paid off and I will be gainfully employed.

    I did wonder if the change to my employment status played a part on the latest jobs report.

    But with the new job came a reality, which was that we are staying in California.

    I know that living in California was the plan all along, but everything still felt up in the air until I found a job. Now that I have one, we can let out a sign of relief and also start planning for a future here.

    And the planning was the part I had been holding off on. I didn’t know where I was going to be working, if we needed to get another car, or if we had to move, again, so that our commutes were reasonable.

    Now, its decided.

    Now we have to start thinking about schools and all of those other things. Local elections and festivals, and relaxing weekends in the mountains.

    But for me…

    The thing I get to start planning is a study/art studio. Oh, that creative thing that I couldn’t have in New York, as our apartment was too small. Bookshelves to put my books on, and a desk to create at.

    A little thing, but something that I have been wanting to do for 20 years.

  • All Over the Place Today

    I have been working on this post for the past three hours. It’s not that I can’t think if what to say, or am blocked on being able to write…

    It’s more like I am being pulled in 100 different directions on ideas, and I can’t seem to focus down on one of them.

    I was going to write about Weezer’s new album…

    But then I thought I need to write about the shutdown…

    But then I was also thinking about that The Rentals did put out one good album…

    But what are my thoughts about those MAGA high school kids…

    But then I started thinking about how we might move out of our apartment which would mean two moves in less than a year, and I don’t know if want to deal with changing everything again…

    And that reminds me of how much most people hate change and that creates stress and miscommunications…

    And…

    See? This is how it has been today. And I have other things that I need to work on…

    I have a story to edit, then I wanted to do a writing/sketching session of new ideas, and also I wanted to draw some new landscapes…

    I will try again at this tomorrow…

  • The Unexamined Life Sucks…

    Which I think is a more accurate translation from ancient Greek.

    I watched a documentary on Freud last night, and it didn’t help me sleep. What struck me in this program was that it claimed that in moments when Freud was stuck and frustrated by his own theories, he would apply them to his own life to see if they stood up to objective scrutiny. Depending on how you feel about Freud, you may feel that he succeeded or failed.

    It reminded me of Socrates’ quote, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I know that he said it, or supposedly did, at his trial, choosing death rather than exile. Now, my interpretation is that the ancient world was about examining the external, and the modern world is about examining the internal.

    I remember wanting to write books from a very early age. I remember wanting to have as many books around me as possible. I can even remember memorizing the books my parents read to me, so I could act like I was “reading” them. (My daughter has started to exhibit the same behavior now.) I remember “scribbling” with wavy lines on paper, like I was handwriting a story. When I did learn how to write, this might have been when I was 9 or 10, I asked for and received a child’s typewriter for Christmas. I also remember wanting to tell stories; make them up, read them, perform them, etc.…

    But where did this come from?

    I understand the nature/nurture dynamic, but it can’t be all nature, can it? Being given books by my parents clearly had an impact, but is that it? Did books give me a feeling of power? Were books my “friend” when my older brothers left me alone to do older brother things? Was it playing by myself in those situations where I was forced to use my imagination to create my own stories as I did not have the interaction with another child? Or is it just something that is in me that was inevitable?

    I’m not sure if there is a clear answer here, or even a need for an answer, as in, what does that answer really “give” me? I am who I am, and I don’t regret it.

    But…

    As I mentioned above, my daughter has exhibited one of these behaviors. Is that coming from me, genetically, or from the example I set?