Hi all,
I often joke about 2015 was 'the year of no successes'. But this moniker, perhaps clever, is technically untrue. I did have one massive success in 2015- I finally managed to finish reading K.A. Applegate's Animorphs series. (1)
It turned out that, despite perhaps being the oldest person in world history to ever read these books, I managed to draw a number of valuable reinforcements from my project last year. To commemorate the one-year anniversary of my reading, I made a list of these concepts that I drew from re-reading the series.
In the interest of keeping this post under ten millions words, though, I limited it to one observation per major character plus a couple of thoughts I linked to memorable minor ones.
Without further ado, then- a list of things I could have learned at ten had I paid more attention while reading...
******************
Jake- focusing entirely on process over outcomes is an academic concept
It takes about two-thirds of the first book to establish the basic premise for the next sixty-three books. There is an alien invasion, circumstances (somehow) dictate only five kids can (secretly) fight it, they'll do this by turning into animals for up to two hours at a time, they'll call themselves the Animorphs, and there are possibly some love ('like') interests among those in the group. A standard mix of fantasy, realism, shipping potential, and mind-numbing nonsense for those familiar with the genre.
The less important issue of leadership comes soon after. It begins when the group spontaneously agrees that Jake should be the leader. Why? Why not!
'You're the leader. You just are,' is the closest thing to a reason provided (or something like that, as I'm quoting from memory there). Well, then! Plus, he's tall and good-looking, or so Cassie says.
Despite no formal decision to make Jake the leader and no stated desire from him to serve as the leader, it just kind of becomes the case over time. The hierarchy established, the rest of the series emphasizes the strength of Jake as a leader.
The consistent lesson about power and leadership is driven home by contrasting Jake to other leaders in the series. Time and again, the negative results of a leader's concern with establishing their own power prove decisive in a given plot. The power-blind failures of other leaders create opportunities that the Animorphs take advantage of to narrowly escape dangerous situations or, on rare occasions, win a battle.
Jake's leadership differed from those he crossed paths with. He maintained a process-oriented mentality whenever possible. This meant doing things the right way- the classic 'we will not become the enemy' thinking- even as circumstances tempted him to do otherwise. Such consistent, principled leadership did not mean Jake was never questioned or doubted by his team. But these concerns were focused on his decisions, not his leadership, and the group trusted Jake throughout the war to wield his power in the best interest of the war effort.
And yet, when the desired outcome is clear, process is only relevant to a point. There is no better example of this idea than Jake. At multiple times in the series, he decides the fate of unarmed prisoners. He does not make the same decision each time. His failure to uphold his own principles by the end of the war drives home this major lesson from the series. After countless battles over multiple years, even a leader of Jake's strength makes decisions aimed at ending the war no matter the cost to allies, innocents, or his own psyche.
Jake's path in the series reveals the contradiction built into emphasizing process over outcomes. No amount of high-minded rhetoric extolling the virtues of process will change the fact that all process exists to achieve outcomes. At some point, the outcome appears so close that the temptation to abandon process becomes too great to resist.
Rachel- without balance, strengths are in danger of becoming weaknesses
Rachel is the true warrior of the group. At times, those in the group speculate that Rachel likes the war, that she is in a way grateful for it. Her involvement enabled her true self to shine through in a way that math class, gymnastics, or shopping at the mall never allowed.
Rachel's choices of animals to turn into (grizzly bear, elephant, etc), her enthusiastic preference for combat over stealth missions, and her consistent place at the front of the line whenever the group charges into the teeth of the enemy all perpetuate this thinking. But it is tolerated for her attitude and bravery embolden many in the group and her ferocity as a warrior open up many opportunities to hurt the enemy that prove invaluable to the team.
However, Rachel's boldness in battle often veers into sheer recklessness. A number of occasions see her bravado endanger the lives of others in the team.
Rachel's stories in the series highlight the need for balance. Sometimes, balance comes from within. This is the case for those in the team who harness the aggression inherent in the animal forms they take on to enter battle.
For someone like Rachel, internal balance is impossible. Jake, in another example highlighting his ability as a leader, brings this balance on many occasions. He steps in to prevent Rachel's aggression from causing damage to herself or plans battle strategy to limit the possibility of her over-extension into enemy territory.
Her struggle throughout the series to control her own aggression demonstrates the age old adage of having too much of a good thing. As a runner whose injuries tend to come from running too much or someone who has been drunk, once (or twice)- I can relate to the experience of pushing too far when things are going well. Like Goldilocks, the blond haired Rachel is a reminder of the importance of 'just right' despite the obvious temptations to seek out the extremes.
Cassie- live your gimmick
I imagine Cassie is a favorite character for many readers of the series. She is, perhaps disappointingly for the bloodthirsty reader, almost entirely committed to pacifism.
Despite fully involving herself in almost all the battles, Cassie is constantly bringing what Marco describes as 'morals' into the team's discussions. She keeps one eye locked on questions of ethics at all times, even in the midst of horrible situations brought on by the war, and sometimes becomes so distracted by her 'tree hugging' (Marco again) that her commitment to the war effort is called into question.
One specific incident highlights this point better than any other. In one rather incredible book, Cassie steps out of the war. She does so by brokering a mutual agreement with one of the enemy- she'll stop morphing if the Yeerk agrees to step away from her role as an invader. This is not a particularly helpful agreement for the Animorphs- Cassie is one of six fighting thousands. Luckily, they are able to get away with the well-intentioned error thanks to an unknown technicality regarding the morphing technology.
And yet, Cassie ultimately proves the value of a peaceful approach even in the middle of a fierce war. It is her decision, motivated as always by her peaceful nature, that ultimately proves a decisive factor in ending the invasion. It would have been so easy for Cassie, at almost any point in the series, to choose to ignore who she was while involved in the battle. And yet, by living in a way fully true to her nature throughout, she was able to do exactly what was required when it counted the most.
I think, sometimes, it becomes very easy to lose sight of this kind of thing. We forget, for example, that such a thing as commitment is trivial without constant acts of commitment. We spend our time thinking or feeling that we are a certain way without ever actually doing the things consistent with such a person. I'm reminded of my own recognition just over a year ago that, though I considered myself a charitable fellow, it had been years since I donated a nickel to a cause or given an hour of service to the community.
I worry that those who live too long in a way untrue to themselves or in conflict with their own perceptions wake up one day and realize that they became who they pretended all along to be. Cassie provides a prescription against such a morning. At all times, she retains her sense of self and never allows her role as a warrior to take over her identity. She knows herself well enough that she can carry the contradiction of being a peace-loving killer without allowing it to unbalance her or limit her ability to contribute to the cause.
Marco- you should laugh and you should cry
Marco is the most outwardly reluctant of the team to participate in the battle but, upon learning that his mother is among those already enslaved by the enemy, is among the most dependable in the group throughout the series. (2)
Most fans will likely remember Marco for his worldview- you can laugh or you can cry. Marco, framing the expression as a choice, chooses the former. But as the series moves forward, I started to see the options as another example of required balance. Laughing and crying are not the mutually exclusive options that Marco frames them to be.
Marco illustrates the danger of laughing when perhaps he would be better off crying. By withholding his own feelings from his fellow Animorphs and failing to acknowledge these emotions to himself, Marco makes himself more difficult to trust. In more than one instance, these failures manifest in ways that place the entire team in mortal danger.
I think it goes the other way, as well, in that there is danger to over-sensitivity, in letting what could be easily laughed off pierce or wound instead. (Marco, as mentioned earlier, is very astute in recognizing this possibility with Cassie.) In framing laugh or cry as a choice, though, Marco hardens himself emotionally instead of dealing with his pain in a healthy way. It prevents him, among other things, from growing over the course of the series in the way Cassie did.
Tobias- people respond to incentives- but not always like you think
As mentioned above, one of the ground rules for the series was that no animal form can be taken for more than two hours by anyone. The consequences are significant- anyone in morph for longer than that will remain stuck in that form, unable to return to human form, for the rest of their lives.
In a plot twist that would have made Chekhov proud, Tobias is trapped in a red-tailed hawk morph almost immediately. By the end of book #1, the Animorphs are down one morph-capable human (but benefit in other ways from Tobias's consistent aerial presence).
There are many easy lessons to draw from Tobias's story. In many ways, his transformation into a bird of prey brings out the very best of his character. Tobias endures his suffering in a manner that ultimately fosters his growth. When granted an opportunity to return to his human form, Tobias declines, opting instead to regain only his morphing ability. There is much wisdom in interpreting his story through the lens of a trapped mind escaping the fate of its body.
However, I have taken a perhaps simpler and certainly less direct interpretation here. Tobias shows us that what glitters is not always gold, especially to those uninterested in wealth. To the other Animorphs, the two-hour limit is to be obeyed at all costs. And yet, as it turns out for others, the same two hours is merely a waiting period prior to salvation, to escape from the body that imprisons.
It reminds me of something I've prattled on about in this space before- incentives are often falsely treated as dictum. People, it turns out, are much more complex and their decisions are much more difficult to predict than is suggested by incentivization. A bonus scheme might encourage more effort- or it might help an employee realize that the time is not worth the reward. (3)
Ax- it is very hard to acknowledge how people change
Ax, the sixth and final main character, is the only non-human member of the group. He joins the Animorphs after his spaceship crash lands into the ocean. Though only the equivalent of a cadet in the military structure of his species, the Andalites, Ax nevertheless proves immensely valuable thanks to his knowledge of the alien universe.
At a number of times in the series, the team is able to make contact with the Andalites. Each time, I found notable how quickly Ax reverts to his ingrained social habits. Despite massive success as a participant in the battle on Earth, Ax remains a cadet in the eyes of his superiors and acts like it whenever he communicates with them.
It is striking how familiar patterns of communication take over, often without warning, in social settings. We talk about how it was 'just like the old times' whenever we see old friends even though, invariably, no person remains exactly the same during even the briefest of separations.
Perhaps it is simply too difficult or risky to make the full effort, each time, to redefine relationships based on what's just come to pass. On the other hand, though, it is a fact that close friends drift apart all the time. Perhaps an increased willingness to acknowledge and explore the ways we change every day is one step toward building strong and lasting relationships.
Cassie's dad- deal with what is
Cassie's dad is a veterinarian who takes care of injured wildlife in a barn behind their home. In one book, Cassie is upset about a bird that was clearly left for dead by an unknown person. How could someone injure an animal like this, she cries.
Her dad's advice is very simple- don't worry about how it should be, just deal with what is.
The temptation to dwell in the past limits our ability to make a full impact in the present. Instead of encouraging people to find ways to make the world a better place, such thought patterns encourage people to throw their hands up in the air, blame the powers that be, or simply check out from the problem entirely. All of these responses serve to give away the power that all persons comes into the world with.
Visser Three- The Peter Principle
Visser Three is the leader of the invading forces, the Yeerks. His rise, chronicled in various snippets throughout the series, details a power-hungry lunatic whose only tactical response to almost every situation is violence. The Peter Principle is a management theory which states that people are promoted until they reach a job that they cannot do. The quote attributed to the inventor, Laurence J. Peter, is well-known- 'managers rise to the level of their incompetence'.
Fortunately for Visser Three's career prospects, the Yeerks are a very violent species. It takes him to around sixteenth in command and third in the field within the military hierarchy. Such a lofty position places him in charge of the invasion of Earth.
This is where the Visser meets his (her? The Yeerks, perhaps, are so advanced that they do not use gender designations) bureaucratic match. The stealth tactics needed to invade Earth with minimal loss of resources are a poor fit for Visser Three's behead first, behead later leadership style.
On the other hand, what did his/her superiors expect? All the Visser did in prior conflicts was behead first, behead later. The Visser rose, rank after rank, until his blade-happy tactics became the source of incompetence, not merit.
Personally, I find the Peter Principle one of the more pointless concepts I've ever had enthusiastically explained to me. It defines academic- an observation which predicts failure without prescribing solution. To hire without considering past performance or merit invites politics. And don't we all love politics?
The Ellimist- love conquers hate
The Ellimist is a god-like figure whose considerable power allows him to make changes in what is referred to as 'space-time'. In short, this means he is capable of almost anything, except of course when he isn't. Tough to explain, really.
The biggest limit to his power is his enemy, the Crayak. The Crayak is interested in consolidating his power through the destruction of potential challengers. The Ellimist battles with him throughout the galaxy to contain his evil intentions and preserve as much life as possible.
Early on in their struggle, the Crayak gains the upper hand. The turning point comes when the Ellimist changes his strategy. Instead of trying to defend every one of the Crayak's targets from extinction, the Ellimist wanders the galaxy, creating new life. He creates life at a rate faster than the Crayak is able to destroy it. The trend is acceptable to neither and a truce is called. When the conflict resumes, it does so under newly established ground rules limiting the direct intervention of these two beings in the fates of sentient species.
The lesson here is tough to work with in any immediate way, no doubt about it. It certainly looks nice on fortune cookies. And yet, I sense there is something important to it.
It reminds me of a lesson from Thich Nhat Hanh's How To Love. He describes how the heart is like a cup holding water. When life, inevitably, pours salt into the cup, the task is not to bemoan the salt or throw away the cup. Rather, it is to expand the cup so that the salt becomes diluted and the agony of the salt is borne with lessened intensity. The heart expands only through love and only through a lifetime of such growth is it possible to bear the many griefs, losses, and sufferings that we all encounter on the journey of a full life.
******************
And that does it...goodbye, young adult section of the library...
Thanks as always for reading. I'll be back Monday with something more adult.
Until then, take care.
Tim
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. Well, 2015 was before 2016...wait, you did WHAT all year?
This was no cheap achievement, even if you factor in that the books were written for fifth-graders. The series spans sixty-four total books and each took between one and two hours for me to read...in 2015...as a fully-grown adult.
Though no math wizard am I, it appears I spent up to five whole days reading these books in 2015. On second thought, maybe this was not an achievement at all.
This moment was at least seventeen years in the making. I recall talking to a classmate in fifth grade about the most recent release (specifically book #26 and the tiger on its cover) so I am confident stating that I was reading them in that year. At some point after that conversation, I stopped reading the series. If memory serves correctly, this was somewhere around book #38, about fifteen shy of the end. According to a combination of my best guesswork and a glance at the publication dates, this stoppage took place around the middle of 2000.
It would make sense that I stop at that point. The cool kids in junior high weren't reading Animorphs, you know? Or just reading at all, really. Everyone just watched TV. Actually, now that I consider it, things have not changed much since then. Moving right along...
So, from around that point until December of last year, I lived in a constant state of suspense about the conclusion of the series. Who died? What...well, that was about it. WHO DIED? I knew someone died. Hopefully Voldemort. He was mean.
Driven by the need to answer that pressing question (and to perhaps clear up a confusion or two with other popular series), I dove right into the Animorphs at the start of last year. I read about five or six books per month to keep a consistent pace throughout the year. And, unsurprisingly, someone did die in the end.
I was surprised by a lot of other things. The books were not all good- some were outright bad- but some were very, very good. Books #7, #13, #19, #23, #31, and each of the 'chronicles' were particular standouts. Despite the up and down quality of the books, I struggled to stick to my schedule- I was tempted every month to just read them all as quickly as possible.
The biggest surprise was the depth to which the realities of war were explored. Characters in this series die, sometimes gruesomely. Families directly and indirectly involved in the conflict are torn apart. Veterans and civilians deal with mental aftereffects and physical limitations brought on by injury or destruction. I learned more about some aspects of war from these books than I did in any history class or well-regarded 'adult' history book.
The value of knowing these things at the age of ten is debatable. At that age, perhaps lining up toy soldiers and running them over with the matchbox you pretend is a tank is a better use of time. Still, compared to other 'similar' books that my peers were reading at the time- like the ridiculous Goosebumps series- I think reading seven-tenths of the Animorphs was a hugely positive thing for me.
Plus, it is always fun to read about animals.
I considered framing this post as a 'Life Changing Book'. Ultimately, the Animorphs did not align with the stated premise- it is a series, not a single book, and the changes to my life were not observable through direct behavior.
2. I almost went with 'beware the unnecessary, over-logical explanation'...
Most of Marco's participation in the series centers around a self-created conflict- could he kill his own mother in a battle? He spends a lot of time convincing the rest of the team that he could and, of course, no one believes him. It brings to mind an experience I've had many times over the years- sitting through the 'over logical' explanation- usually coming from someone who is perhaps trying to convince him or herself of something as much as they are anyone in their audience.
In making his case, Marco often resorts to what I sometimes refer to as a 'debate club' strategy. Marco's explanations in these situations are generally supported by several details, insights, or sub-explanations. However, it usually ignores the big big BIG thing- he is going to kill his own mother! I call this 'debate club' logic because, in some cases, the weighing of arguments is trivial in the face of just one comment, clearly stated, that is obvious enough to merit the end of the discussion.
Ultimately, I could not really do much to fuse those two observations together. So, I decided to just tuck it here into the footnotes as a half-formed lesson.
3. Economics again!
Truisms such as 'you always repay your debts' highlight the misunderstanding. If such a thing was always the case, the interest rate would be right around 0%. Actually, wait, bad example.
Here is perhaps the most well-publicized example of incentives gone wrong.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Friday, November 25, 2016
the haymarket shopping guide
I put down Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I'm not done with it but I'm nearly there. Early on in this book, ten days ago, Murakami made a comment along the lines of 'a true gentleman should never discuss his fitness or nutrition habits'. The next two hundred pages or so have been all about his running.
Well, then. If it applies to Murakami, it probably applies to me. Or maybe not. Who knows? Were those dumb posts, about my running or nutrition or fitness? Perhaps ungentlemanly? I can live with ungentlemanly.
I'm not sure what I should do, if anything. Maybe that's the problem, I can't decide. I've read enough. I pick up my wrinkled bag from the corner, roll it up into a ball, and shove it into my pocket.
I stumble down the stairs and out into the cool morning air. Nine-fifteen on a Friday morning feels a lot earlier than it did this time last year. I walk slowly over toward the Hubway bike share rack.
Fortunately, there are a couple of bicycles to choose from. At this hour, sometimes it is completely empty. The commuting habits of my neighbors, that's something new I've learned this year,
Not that it would matter much if I ended up walking, I realize. I'm not required anywhere today. I don't need to do anything. I don't even need to shave.
I free a bike from the rack with my keychain, tuck the cuffs of my jeans into my socks, and pedal off.
The route to Haymarket is identical to the route I took, on foot, each morning to catch the bus. I start by pedaling up Cambridge and make a left turn at New Sudbury. Halfway down the hill is, was, the bus stop.
Today, I go past the bus stop, where one time a bomb-sniffing dog got really excited about my lunch. Keeping the JFK Federal Building on my right, I turn toward Faneuil Hall, onto Congress Street. I rack the bike moments later and head over to Haymarket.
I'm know there is cash in my pocket but I confirm it, anyway. About twenty dollars is all that's needed. It's cash only, at Haymarket. I will not go as far as saying cash is king, here, but debit, credit, or even checks have no purchasing power.
I enter the market over on the north side, by the entrance to the Bell In Hand Tavern. My routine is to walk the entire length of the market, beginning here on Hanover Street. When I reach the end of my walk, I'll turn around and make the same route in reverse, shopping as I move from vendor to vendor. I succumb to habit as I do every Friday morning.
The starting point is a vestige of my original pattern. Last winter, when I first started shopping here, I would buy fish at the end of each trip. Otherwise, I ran the risk of the fish going bad before I walked home. There were also olfactory considerations. I tend to run into people on Saturdays.
The fish market is on my right and the salmon fillets look particularly tasty. At around four bucks a pound, on average, it is tempting, but I ignore the bait. It's Thanksgiving week and I anticipate that my protein 'needs' will be taken care of without any help from cut-rate seafood.
To my left is the first of many vendor tables, all piled with produce, each protected from the elements by giant tarps hanging overhead. The vendors are packed in tight, one next to the other. I imagine the tarps viewed from above make Haymarket look like one long, winding tent, shaped a little like a backward 'C' written by a pen quickly running out of ink.
A little kid, somewhere between six and eight years old, emerges in front of me. Half-crawling, half-running out from beneath a table, he stands and rearranges a couple of bags of red onions with one hand. Any produce item not obviously on the ground is as close to a hallmark as you find here. In the other hand is a piece of lettuce, about the size of a greeting card. He bites into it, chews, and slams the remaining portion into the pavement at his feet.
The action beneath these temporary roofs is a mixture of the sudden and the familiar. For every vendor I recognize by face or by voice- 'get your STRAAAAAAW-BERRIES!'- there is an amused tourist, energized child, or determined senior forcing me to stop, turn, or accelerate subtly to prevent collisions.
I keep my hands in my pockets for now, not to protect against the wind or pickpockets, but to simply take up as little space as possible. My fingers brush the twenty. It's crisp. The wind is a month away and the pickpockets remain a fiction whispered about in the aisles of local grocery stores.
The crowd thins out as I round the corner and start down Blackstone Street. On this initial walk through the market, I observe what is available. Though the food more or less comes from the same place, there is enough variation among the vendors to make tracking the differences worthwhile.
Price, obviously, is one area. I note that bell peppers this week are in the middle of their usual range, about two for a dollar, two for a dollar-fifty in the case of the larger red peppers. Avocados are back, as well, and I see the recent price decline reflected in those vendors offering the 'superfood' at two for a dollar.
Spinach is on offer, at three dollars a bag. Is this also a superfood? It is definitely gluten-free, I think. One bag is a lot of spinach, about the size of my torso. And three dollars is at the lowest end of the usual price range. Spinach is always hard to turn down since it appears about once every other week or so. I remind myself that I am anticipating fewer meals at home than usual. I pass, reluctantly.
As I accumulate mental notes of today's offerings, I arrive at the first stop on my winding stroll. Haymarket Pizza has been open since 1972 or nine o'clock, depending on your point of view. It's still early and I suspect my desire for a slice originates from a Pavlovian response to routine than from true hunger.
At $2.50 per slice, there is no end in sight for this important weekly tradition. Plus, there is practical value in breaking a twenty here, another cash only establishment. Do these places ever get robbed?
I enter, ready to order my meatball breakfast. On rare occasions in the past, I've gone inside to find no meatball slices in sight. In the case of such an emergency, my policy is to order a slice from the third pizza on the right portion of the front counter. The quality is good enough across the board for such trivial rules to work without issue. My suspicion that today is an average day is confirmed when I observe a full pie of meatball slices.
I leave a dollar tip and go back outside. Slice in hand, I pass Harry's Cheese and Cold Cuts, located directly next door. It's position on my right confirms that I am still on my first walk through the market.
I usually refer to it by the part relevant to me- Harry's Cheese. I have no idea when I last purchased a cold cut. In fact, it's likely I more recently cut my hair, which hung down to the top of my rib cage after my shower last night.
What Harry's does during the week is anyone's guess, unless you are Harry. Then I suppose it's your life.
In any event, if it is like what they do on Fridays and Saturdays I'll assume they are among the most profitable establishments in the zip code. The selection is excellent and the quality is reflected in both reviews and cheese samples. Today, each block of cheese on offer is about the size of my palm, which is standard here. I note that my favorite, smoked gouda, is fully stocked.
I continue past the cheese shop, a landmark signalling the halfway point of my walk. I'll be back shortly. I've stopped there every Friday since February except for those rare weekends when I was out of town for weddings.
I continue observing the different produce options as I work toward the far end of the market. I won't need green beans or broccoli this week. I never need asparagus or cauliflower.
On the other hand, baby carrots, beets, and russet potatoes store well in my shoebox of an apartment, sometimes for over a week. I'll seek these out to have on hand, just in case...what? Just in case they cancel Thanksgiving?
Something like that. Things don't always work out according to plan, unless the plan was to not buy golden beets. As almost always is the case, the elusive product is nowhere to be seen.
By the time I turn onto North Street, my slice is down to crust. I recognize my signal to start shopping. I glance toward Faneuil Hall as I unroll my shopping bag. For some reason, I had the foresight to grab this bag just days before I got sacked from my old job. Non-taxable severance pay. Reusable shopping bags are tremendously useful and always green, though mine is technically black.
I'm fairly certain, actually, that what I carry my groceries home each week in is a tote bag. For the past year it has deputized ably as a reusable grocery bag, though, and when it comes to bags, you are what you carry. Carry the same thing long enough and that's all it is good for.
I begin ambling back through the stalls, retracing my steps, with my slowly disintegrating companion slung over one shoulder. The logo of one of my former employer's clients is on the side. I wonder what the tourists think of this. If they are from New York, likely nothing.
I mentally review my week's shopping list and compare it to my observations from my first walk through the stalls. I immediately buy a bag of onions. I always buy these when I first spot them. A bag of onions, about four or five fist sized ones, always cost a dollar no matter who is selling them. This is because the quality is virtually identical at all stands.
Broccoli works in a similar way and, even though I am not buying those this week, my eye finds them simply out of habit. I spot the other items I intend to buy here and there but, informed by my earlier observations, I walk past what I know I can buy for a better price or a higher quality later.
I think back to my initial surprise about the variety at Haymarket. Peppers, for example, vary in size, color, and ripeness to a degree that I quickly realized I needed to pay attention to. Otherwise, my plan to store them for several days is usually thwarted by slow-moving rot. The same logic applies to potatoes and beets. I've only seen golden beets once so I have no idea what they do.
My notes for today are not all related to quality. In some cases, I just track the cheapest option. This is my standard strategy for blueberries and blackberries since I only buy these to eat on the walk home. Any hidden signal of impending rot built into the low price is rendered irrelevant by my assertive consumption of these...superfoods? But how could a superfood go so bad so fast?
I nearly trip over a fire hydrant. Appropriate timing, really, as nothing symbolizes the tension of the fixed and the changing better. The vendors were crowded a little closer together last year. This morning, the space between tables stationed by the hydrants accommodates any group of tourists who wish to stroll four abreast, snapping photos of cukes, kukumbers, or cucumbers, the spelling revealing who took the sharpie that morning.
I've been told these fire safety measures, likely drafted and approved with automobiles in mind, have forced a few vendors to pack up midday. Folding tables don't have wheels or air conditioning. I wonder what that scene was like and what happened to all the food. The shoemaker's children have shoes, I'm sure.
I regain my footing and march on. The green beans, piled high, defiantly hold their posture as I walk past. They know by now that I won't bother today. Like the spinach, green beans are an item I aim to buy at the highest possible price. The 'premium' is worth it for these items whose spoilage potential is captured by the price level.
Good thing I studied economics in college. I'm smart enough to waste an additional dollar a week on green beans. Who knew that green beans were a Giffen good?
For spinach, I think, I would have figured out this logic on my own. Never justify spinach, I say. Maybe I suspect this because the stakes are high for spinach- if I pick and store the leafy greens correctly, I'll have something to add to a full week's worth of meals. I learn quick when something is on the line.
I'm back at the cheese shop, its position on my left a reflection of the reversal of my earlier route. The selection is better than usual this week. Perhaps this is because I am here a little earlier than usual. The smoked gouda, as always, looks good, and I see that there is something new this week- shaved Parmesan. It'll be nice to have something clean shaven in my apartment.
'OK, I'll try something old and something new,' I say, as I point first at the smoked gouda and then at the Parmesan.
'Maybe something blue?' comes the response, a triangle of blue cheese waved in my direction. I chat with this man each week and he is very much aware of my preference for smoked gouda.
'No, thanks.' I laugh.
'Thought you were going for the full progression, for sure.' I hand him a five and he hands me the cheese. I can't think of a clever way to borrow cheese so I leave the comment hanging.
'Cubs fan?' I ask, pointing at his new hat. We chat for a few minutes about the bet he lost, whether the Patriots are any good, Thanksgiving plans. Turns out the cheese shop does better than usual business the week before the holiday, explaining the improved selection I noticed earlier.
As we converse, I notice once more the blue cheese. I tried that one, I realize, two weeks ago, but the tinfoil wrapper made me nervous about biting into fillings. I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually enjoy cheese.
We wish each other a pleasant holiday and I move on. My bag is not full but I'm nearing the end of my short shopping list. The second vendor past the cheese shop is selling a lot of asparagus, at one dollar a bunch, but all I really need is tomatoes.
Asparagus, among a couple of items, is in a group of produce that I've bought in the past but not purchased again. Eggplants are the newest to this category. I bought one eggplant last month that I ignored until I discovered it, last week, halfway through a deflation-like process. That was a true shame. I like eggs and I like plants but, sometimes, one plus one equals less than two. In this case, even less than one.
I'm on the lookout for tomatoes. Anytime I buy onions, I also buy one of tomatoes, zucchini, or summer squash . I usually combine these to saute with the onions. Since zucchini prices are unpredictable and summer squash is not really a favorite of mine, I tend to buy vine tomatoes at about $1.25 per pound, making my move when I see four or five of these that are 'fully red'.
For some reason, I can't remember where I intend to buy tomatoes. The zucchini looks good, though, at the stand I'm walking past.
I stop and take a closer look. One zucchini for two dollars. An unusually bad deal, twice the usual price. Good thing I studied math in college. I'm smart enough to save a dollar on zucchini. If I do that two hundred thousand times...
'Need a bag?' I look up at the vendor.
'Oh, I'm not sure. Not yet.'
'It's four for two, good deal, man.'
Four? I take a closer look. Indeed, my 'one' is unmistakably a four, albeit a bony four, perhaps one- excuse me, four- that recently completed a fad diet or grocery shops here at Haymarket. A produce heavy diet is an unappealing but effective weight-loss regimen. I'm not sure why it is four for two instead of two for one.
'Your four looks like a one, man!' I hear from behind me. I turn to see a vendor behind me. Banter among the vendors is pretty common, especially when they are positioned around those aforementioned fire lanes. The space cleared for the fire hoses prevents tarps from falling between the tables.
I smile at him briefly and move on. I doubt I'll see the 'one' again. I still need tomatoes.
Foods that are essentially the exact same yet vary in price and quality are the toughest to figure out. Usually, it is the prepackaged stuff like blueberries or blackberries, priced anywhere from $0.50 to $2 per container. Baby carrots also fall into this category. Again, the mold moves in quick on the fruits above but I always solve that problem by eating them on the way home. For the carrots, I just have a look at the expiration date printed on the bags. I guess those have a true hallmark. One eye still looking out for tomatoes, I decide a box of blueberries for the walk home is a good idea.
I reach the end of Blackstone, or at least the portion of it reserved for the market. On the corner of the sidewalk is the woman I heard earlier. Two girls, shorter than me, holding those foldout tourist maps, ask her where Hanover Street is.
She looks down at the pair. 'You're ON Haaaaan-ovah Street!' she says, the cadence familiar to us weekly strawberry seekers.
It's true but the girls are confused. They look back and forth. I see what they see, tables and tarps and little old ladies with rolling suitcases. I wonder if they see tomatoes. Home, surely, makes more sense than this. Maybe it's time to go home.
I can't decide. I'm not required anywhere today. I need to do something. I'll need to go home, at some point, to put the food away. Maybe I could write a little bit, then, though I don't know what about. I'm fit, but to write? I can't decide.
I guess I could look for a job. But the odds don't seem very good today. I can't even find a fucking tomato. Did I even see one, earlier? Who knows anymore. I've been looking for a long time. Everything I've seen so far is for someone else.
I walk on. What else is there to do? If I'm going to find anything, it'll be in the last place I look. It's crowded, again, and I put my hands back into my pockets, but I'm still in everyone's way. I feel the bill, still crisp, but different this time. I'm almost out of money.
I crumple it into a ball and shove it further into my pocket. I stumble off the curb and out into Hanover Street. I walk slowly toward the entrance of the market. I start to smell fish. I'm not done yet but I'm nearly there.
Well, then. If it applies to Murakami, it probably applies to me. Or maybe not. Who knows? Were those dumb posts, about my running or nutrition or fitness? Perhaps ungentlemanly? I can live with ungentlemanly.
I'm not sure what I should do, if anything. Maybe that's the problem, I can't decide. I've read enough. I pick up my wrinkled bag from the corner, roll it up into a ball, and shove it into my pocket.
I stumble down the stairs and out into the cool morning air. Nine-fifteen on a Friday morning feels a lot earlier than it did this time last year. I walk slowly over toward the Hubway bike share rack.
Fortunately, there are a couple of bicycles to choose from. At this hour, sometimes it is completely empty. The commuting habits of my neighbors, that's something new I've learned this year,
Not that it would matter much if I ended up walking, I realize. I'm not required anywhere today. I don't need to do anything. I don't even need to shave.
I free a bike from the rack with my keychain, tuck the cuffs of my jeans into my socks, and pedal off.
The route to Haymarket is identical to the route I took, on foot, each morning to catch the bus. I start by pedaling up Cambridge and make a left turn at New Sudbury. Halfway down the hill is, was, the bus stop.
Today, I go past the bus stop, where one time a bomb-sniffing dog got really excited about my lunch. Keeping the JFK Federal Building on my right, I turn toward Faneuil Hall, onto Congress Street. I rack the bike moments later and head over to Haymarket.
I'm know there is cash in my pocket but I confirm it, anyway. About twenty dollars is all that's needed. It's cash only, at Haymarket. I will not go as far as saying cash is king, here, but debit, credit, or even checks have no purchasing power.
I enter the market over on the north side, by the entrance to the Bell In Hand Tavern. My routine is to walk the entire length of the market, beginning here on Hanover Street. When I reach the end of my walk, I'll turn around and make the same route in reverse, shopping as I move from vendor to vendor. I succumb to habit as I do every Friday morning.
The starting point is a vestige of my original pattern. Last winter, when I first started shopping here, I would buy fish at the end of each trip. Otherwise, I ran the risk of the fish going bad before I walked home. There were also olfactory considerations. I tend to run into people on Saturdays.
The fish market is on my right and the salmon fillets look particularly tasty. At around four bucks a pound, on average, it is tempting, but I ignore the bait. It's Thanksgiving week and I anticipate that my protein 'needs' will be taken care of without any help from cut-rate seafood.
To my left is the first of many vendor tables, all piled with produce, each protected from the elements by giant tarps hanging overhead. The vendors are packed in tight, one next to the other. I imagine the tarps viewed from above make Haymarket look like one long, winding tent, shaped a little like a backward 'C' written by a pen quickly running out of ink.
A little kid, somewhere between six and eight years old, emerges in front of me. Half-crawling, half-running out from beneath a table, he stands and rearranges a couple of bags of red onions with one hand. Any produce item not obviously on the ground is as close to a hallmark as you find here. In the other hand is a piece of lettuce, about the size of a greeting card. He bites into it, chews, and slams the remaining portion into the pavement at his feet.
The action beneath these temporary roofs is a mixture of the sudden and the familiar. For every vendor I recognize by face or by voice- 'get your STRAAAAAAW-BERRIES!'- there is an amused tourist, energized child, or determined senior forcing me to stop, turn, or accelerate subtly to prevent collisions.
I keep my hands in my pockets for now, not to protect against the wind or pickpockets, but to simply take up as little space as possible. My fingers brush the twenty. It's crisp. The wind is a month away and the pickpockets remain a fiction whispered about in the aisles of local grocery stores.
The crowd thins out as I round the corner and start down Blackstone Street. On this initial walk through the market, I observe what is available. Though the food more or less comes from the same place, there is enough variation among the vendors to make tracking the differences worthwhile.
Price, obviously, is one area. I note that bell peppers this week are in the middle of their usual range, about two for a dollar, two for a dollar-fifty in the case of the larger red peppers. Avocados are back, as well, and I see the recent price decline reflected in those vendors offering the 'superfood' at two for a dollar.
Spinach is on offer, at three dollars a bag. Is this also a superfood? It is definitely gluten-free, I think. One bag is a lot of spinach, about the size of my torso. And three dollars is at the lowest end of the usual price range. Spinach is always hard to turn down since it appears about once every other week or so. I remind myself that I am anticipating fewer meals at home than usual. I pass, reluctantly.
As I accumulate mental notes of today's offerings, I arrive at the first stop on my winding stroll. Haymarket Pizza has been open since 1972 or nine o'clock, depending on your point of view. It's still early and I suspect my desire for a slice originates from a Pavlovian response to routine than from true hunger.
At $2.50 per slice, there is no end in sight for this important weekly tradition. Plus, there is practical value in breaking a twenty here, another cash only establishment. Do these places ever get robbed?
I enter, ready to order my meatball breakfast. On rare occasions in the past, I've gone inside to find no meatball slices in sight. In the case of such an emergency, my policy is to order a slice from the third pizza on the right portion of the front counter. The quality is good enough across the board for such trivial rules to work without issue. My suspicion that today is an average day is confirmed when I observe a full pie of meatball slices.
I leave a dollar tip and go back outside. Slice in hand, I pass Harry's Cheese and Cold Cuts, located directly next door. It's position on my right confirms that I am still on my first walk through the market.
I usually refer to it by the part relevant to me- Harry's Cheese. I have no idea when I last purchased a cold cut. In fact, it's likely I more recently cut my hair, which hung down to the top of my rib cage after my shower last night.
What Harry's does during the week is anyone's guess, unless you are Harry. Then I suppose it's your life.
In any event, if it is like what they do on Fridays and Saturdays I'll assume they are among the most profitable establishments in the zip code. The selection is excellent and the quality is reflected in both reviews and cheese samples. Today, each block of cheese on offer is about the size of my palm, which is standard here. I note that my favorite, smoked gouda, is fully stocked.
I continue past the cheese shop, a landmark signalling the halfway point of my walk. I'll be back shortly. I've stopped there every Friday since February except for those rare weekends when I was out of town for weddings.
I continue observing the different produce options as I work toward the far end of the market. I won't need green beans or broccoli this week. I never need asparagus or cauliflower.
On the other hand, baby carrots, beets, and russet potatoes store well in my shoebox of an apartment, sometimes for over a week. I'll seek these out to have on hand, just in case...what? Just in case they cancel Thanksgiving?
Something like that. Things don't always work out according to plan, unless the plan was to not buy golden beets. As almost always is the case, the elusive product is nowhere to be seen.
By the time I turn onto North Street, my slice is down to crust. I recognize my signal to start shopping. I glance toward Faneuil Hall as I unroll my shopping bag. For some reason, I had the foresight to grab this bag just days before I got sacked from my old job. Non-taxable severance pay. Reusable shopping bags are tremendously useful and always green, though mine is technically black.
I'm fairly certain, actually, that what I carry my groceries home each week in is a tote bag. For the past year it has deputized ably as a reusable grocery bag, though, and when it comes to bags, you are what you carry. Carry the same thing long enough and that's all it is good for.
I begin ambling back through the stalls, retracing my steps, with my slowly disintegrating companion slung over one shoulder. The logo of one of my former employer's clients is on the side. I wonder what the tourists think of this. If they are from New York, likely nothing.
I mentally review my week's shopping list and compare it to my observations from my first walk through the stalls. I immediately buy a bag of onions. I always buy these when I first spot them. A bag of onions, about four or five fist sized ones, always cost a dollar no matter who is selling them. This is because the quality is virtually identical at all stands.
Broccoli works in a similar way and, even though I am not buying those this week, my eye finds them simply out of habit. I spot the other items I intend to buy here and there but, informed by my earlier observations, I walk past what I know I can buy for a better price or a higher quality later.
I think back to my initial surprise about the variety at Haymarket. Peppers, for example, vary in size, color, and ripeness to a degree that I quickly realized I needed to pay attention to. Otherwise, my plan to store them for several days is usually thwarted by slow-moving rot. The same logic applies to potatoes and beets. I've only seen golden beets once so I have no idea what they do.
My notes for today are not all related to quality. In some cases, I just track the cheapest option. This is my standard strategy for blueberries and blackberries since I only buy these to eat on the walk home. Any hidden signal of impending rot built into the low price is rendered irrelevant by my assertive consumption of these...superfoods? But how could a superfood go so bad so fast?
I nearly trip over a fire hydrant. Appropriate timing, really, as nothing symbolizes the tension of the fixed and the changing better. The vendors were crowded a little closer together last year. This morning, the space between tables stationed by the hydrants accommodates any group of tourists who wish to stroll four abreast, snapping photos of cukes, kukumbers, or cucumbers, the spelling revealing who took the sharpie that morning.
I've been told these fire safety measures, likely drafted and approved with automobiles in mind, have forced a few vendors to pack up midday. Folding tables don't have wheels or air conditioning. I wonder what that scene was like and what happened to all the food. The shoemaker's children have shoes, I'm sure.
I regain my footing and march on. The green beans, piled high, defiantly hold their posture as I walk past. They know by now that I won't bother today. Like the spinach, green beans are an item I aim to buy at the highest possible price. The 'premium' is worth it for these items whose spoilage potential is captured by the price level.
Good thing I studied economics in college. I'm smart enough to waste an additional dollar a week on green beans. Who knew that green beans were a Giffen good?
For spinach, I think, I would have figured out this logic on my own. Never justify spinach, I say. Maybe I suspect this because the stakes are high for spinach- if I pick and store the leafy greens correctly, I'll have something to add to a full week's worth of meals. I learn quick when something is on the line.
I'm back at the cheese shop, its position on my left a reflection of the reversal of my earlier route. The selection is better than usual this week. Perhaps this is because I am here a little earlier than usual. The smoked gouda, as always, looks good, and I see that there is something new this week- shaved Parmesan. It'll be nice to have something clean shaven in my apartment.
'OK, I'll try something old and something new,' I say, as I point first at the smoked gouda and then at the Parmesan.
'Maybe something blue?' comes the response, a triangle of blue cheese waved in my direction. I chat with this man each week and he is very much aware of my preference for smoked gouda.
'No, thanks.' I laugh.
'Thought you were going for the full progression, for sure.' I hand him a five and he hands me the cheese. I can't think of a clever way to borrow cheese so I leave the comment hanging.
'Cubs fan?' I ask, pointing at his new hat. We chat for a few minutes about the bet he lost, whether the Patriots are any good, Thanksgiving plans. Turns out the cheese shop does better than usual business the week before the holiday, explaining the improved selection I noticed earlier.
As we converse, I notice once more the blue cheese. I tried that one, I realize, two weeks ago, but the tinfoil wrapper made me nervous about biting into fillings. I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually enjoy cheese.
We wish each other a pleasant holiday and I move on. My bag is not full but I'm nearing the end of my short shopping list. The second vendor past the cheese shop is selling a lot of asparagus, at one dollar a bunch, but all I really need is tomatoes.
Asparagus, among a couple of items, is in a group of produce that I've bought in the past but not purchased again. Eggplants are the newest to this category. I bought one eggplant last month that I ignored until I discovered it, last week, halfway through a deflation-like process. That was a true shame. I like eggs and I like plants but, sometimes, one plus one equals less than two. In this case, even less than one.
I'm on the lookout for tomatoes. Anytime I buy onions, I also buy one of tomatoes, zucchini, or summer squash . I usually combine these to saute with the onions. Since zucchini prices are unpredictable and summer squash is not really a favorite of mine, I tend to buy vine tomatoes at about $1.25 per pound, making my move when I see four or five of these that are 'fully red'.
For some reason, I can't remember where I intend to buy tomatoes. The zucchini looks good, though, at the stand I'm walking past.
I stop and take a closer look. One zucchini for two dollars. An unusually bad deal, twice the usual price. Good thing I studied math in college. I'm smart enough to save a dollar on zucchini. If I do that two hundred thousand times...
'Need a bag?' I look up at the vendor.
'Oh, I'm not sure. Not yet.'
'It's four for two, good deal, man.'
Four? I take a closer look. Indeed, my 'one' is unmistakably a four, albeit a bony four, perhaps one- excuse me, four- that recently completed a fad diet or grocery shops here at Haymarket. A produce heavy diet is an unappealing but effective weight-loss regimen. I'm not sure why it is four for two instead of two for one.
'Your four looks like a one, man!' I hear from behind me. I turn to see a vendor behind me. Banter among the vendors is pretty common, especially when they are positioned around those aforementioned fire lanes. The space cleared for the fire hoses prevents tarps from falling between the tables.
I smile at him briefly and move on. I doubt I'll see the 'one' again. I still need tomatoes.
Foods that are essentially the exact same yet vary in price and quality are the toughest to figure out. Usually, it is the prepackaged stuff like blueberries or blackberries, priced anywhere from $0.50 to $2 per container. Baby carrots also fall into this category. Again, the mold moves in quick on the fruits above but I always solve that problem by eating them on the way home. For the carrots, I just have a look at the expiration date printed on the bags. I guess those have a true hallmark. One eye still looking out for tomatoes, I decide a box of blueberries for the walk home is a good idea.
I reach the end of Blackstone, or at least the portion of it reserved for the market. On the corner of the sidewalk is the woman I heard earlier. Two girls, shorter than me, holding those foldout tourist maps, ask her where Hanover Street is.
She looks down at the pair. 'You're ON Haaaaan-ovah Street!' she says, the cadence familiar to us weekly strawberry seekers.
It's true but the girls are confused. They look back and forth. I see what they see, tables and tarps and little old ladies with rolling suitcases. I wonder if they see tomatoes. Home, surely, makes more sense than this. Maybe it's time to go home.
I can't decide. I'm not required anywhere today. I need to do something. I'll need to go home, at some point, to put the food away. Maybe I could write a little bit, then, though I don't know what about. I'm fit, but to write? I can't decide.
I guess I could look for a job. But the odds don't seem very good today. I can't even find a fucking tomato. Did I even see one, earlier? Who knows anymore. I've been looking for a long time. Everything I've seen so far is for someone else.
I walk on. What else is there to do? If I'm going to find anything, it'll be in the last place I look. It's crowded, again, and I put my hands back into my pockets, but I'm still in everyone's way. I feel the bill, still crisp, but different this time. I'm almost out of money.
I crumple it into a ball and shove it further into my pocket. I stumble off the curb and out into Hanover Street. I walk slowly toward the entrance of the market. I start to smell fish. I'm not done yet but I'm nearly there.
Thursday, November 24, 2016
i'm thankful for haymarket
Hi all,
Happy Thanksgiving. Hope everyone is finding the time today to reflect on what they are most thankful for. I find this is best done in the presence of family, friends, and/or a store-bought cylinder of cranberry sauce, but everyone should do it their way, you know?
What am I thankful for? There is a lot, of course. But I'm not up for digging too deep today. No ranting and raving about birthday cakes or American flags.
Today, I'll keep it simple. No politics at the holiday table, right? I'm keeping the spirit of that idea in mind with this one. Let's just enjoy each other's company today, reader, and feel free to go take a nap when you start to tire.
I'm thankful that I have great friends. It was on the way back from the North End after a couple of (boozy) coffee drinks with some of these friends when I first stumbled through Haymarket. I remember wandering through the open-air market, blinking into the bright lights and wondering- how much could a banana cost? Apparently, much less than I thought. Maybe it was the alcohol. (1)
I'm thankful I chose to return every weekend after to purchase my weekly allotment of fruits, vegetables, cheese, and, on occasion, fish. It's been a huge but welcome change in my life. Grocery shopping, always dull, has been a lot more fun in the hectic atmosphere created by screaming vendors and crazed shoppers. Did I mention, cash only? It's cash only.
I'm always thankful for anything I learn from. Somehow, I've learned quite a bit from this Haymarket experience. Naturally, I feel gratitude toward this long-running Boston tradition.
I'm thankful to know how expensive it is to store edible food. Most items here cost somewhere between twenty and thirty percent of what they do at the grocery store checkout. Initially, this gap seemed silly to me. Surely, the rich mega-corporations are exploiting my need to eat?
But then I considered whether it was sillier for me to expect to have the ability to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at almost any time during my waking hours. A single bell pepper apparently takes somewhere between fifteen and seventeen weeks to progress from seed to full maturity. It takes four months to grow one pepper! And yet I take it for granted that I can just walk ten minutes away into an air-conditioned Whole Foods with just a few quarters and exchange those for a pepper that is ready to eat.
Broadly speaking, I'm thankful to have the option of not planning ahead for dinner. It seems like a luxury. That said, I do tend to plan when I can and, though I never planned to think about my meals a full week in advance, I am thankful that I started doing so. At the very least, it is much less work overall when I need to cook and prepare meals in bulk a few days ahead of time- a necessity in some cases when the food I buy is on the verge of spoiling in a day or two.
I'm thankful I learned that Haymarket is not a farmer's market. Some see this as an obvious fact but failing to see the obvious is something I tend to do from time to time, especially when bags of baby carrots are two for a buck. I suppose I assumed any food sales taking place in an open-air setup = 'farmers market' but Haymarket actually = 'surplus market'.
I'm sure I would have learned the distinction eventually, of course, but knowing it now helps prevent me from sounding like someone who never goes outside when I wander an actual farmer's market. I'm thankful for anything that confirms I regularly leave my apartment.
I'm thankful to know that mass starvation (Mass starvation? You know, like Massachusetts?) will probably come with a week's advance warning. This is because most of the Haymarket produce is in a local wholesaler warehouse for a few days before arriving at Haymarket. The timing is due to major food shipments arriving in the area on Thursday and Friday nights. To clear up space, these warehouses sell their stock in bulk to vendors who set up shop the following morning.
I'm not sure if this knowledge is useful but I'm thankful to have it. Can't hurt, you know? The alternative would be to read some book about it, possibly written sensationally. Some things are better learned from chatting with the venders and shoppers who experience all of this firsthand. (2)
I'm thankful that I think with clarity about personal expenses. Shopping at Haymarket results in a significant weekly reduction of the grocery bill. I cannot state a precise figure but I do not think suggesting I save in the range of thirty to forty dollars a week is out of line. Knowing that living further away from the city epicenter would likely reverse these weekly savings proved very helpful this summer when I was weighing my options for a potential move out of my current apartment. I'm thankful I came to this realization before making any decisions I would regret later, presumably while standing in line at a Star Market or, imagine, a Trader Joe's.
Thankfully, I learned where the best place to go for a meatball pizza is. Silly, no? Drop by Haymarket Pizza and grab a slice sometime. It's on me, assuming it costs about five bucks total. The slices are not award winning as far as I know but trust me, I've tried a lot of meatball pizzas and I keep going back to this one.
Of all the days of the year, today is a good day to comment on food. It is a feast day, after all, and in between mouthfuls of 'highly nutritious' food like stuffing and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, celebrating the unofficial start of America's first racially-motivated and land-grabbing geno- whoops, sorry there, almost forgot about that 'no politics at the table' thing!
I guess I'm thankful to have the freedom to say that sort of thing, though, were I so inclined. For now.
I'm thankful for all the silly pseudo-food we eat so that arrogant folks like me can feel superior for blogging about spinach every once in a while.
Most of all, though, I'm thankful for my reader(s). Thank you all, readers ranging from those who have read just one post of mine (unless it was that one about Wordpress- then I'm not sure why you came back) or who have diligently pored over each syllable (including the words 'seems', a word I seem to use about every three sentences). Though I must admit- I think I would do this blog without you- it is far more interesting, fun, and rewarding when other people actually read and react to what I put together.
So, thank you all for poking around these parts the past few months. Thank you for spreading the word when you agree that something I wrote is of some value. I anticipate that the coming year will present challenges with my schedule but hope to maintain a pace as close to the current one as possible. Someday, when I put a paywall up on this blog, I will make sure to reward you loyal ground-floor readers with at least fifty percent off on the first post! Perhaps you will utilize those savings on a bag of onions over at Haymarket...wait...have I told you about Haymarket?
Finally, I think we all can agree that perhaps the thing to be most thankful for on Thanksgiving is leftovers. Same spirit here- drop by tomorrow for my unofficial Haymarket shopping guide.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Tim
Footnotes / imagine complaints / I'm just gonna go watch football
1. No seriously, how much?
At Haymarket, usually about fifty to sixty cents per pound.
Someone tell Lucille!
This is actually the same price at some grocery stores. Not everything at Haymarket is a great deal.
2. Or I just pulled all the info from this article...
You decide.
Happy Thanksgiving. Hope everyone is finding the time today to reflect on what they are most thankful for. I find this is best done in the presence of family, friends, and/or a store-bought cylinder of cranberry sauce, but everyone should do it their way, you know?
What am I thankful for? There is a lot, of course. But I'm not up for digging too deep today. No ranting and raving about birthday cakes or American flags.
Today, I'll keep it simple. No politics at the holiday table, right? I'm keeping the spirit of that idea in mind with this one. Let's just enjoy each other's company today, reader, and feel free to go take a nap when you start to tire.
I'm thankful that I have great friends. It was on the way back from the North End after a couple of (boozy) coffee drinks with some of these friends when I first stumbled through Haymarket. I remember wandering through the open-air market, blinking into the bright lights and wondering- how much could a banana cost? Apparently, much less than I thought. Maybe it was the alcohol. (1)
I'm thankful I chose to return every weekend after to purchase my weekly allotment of fruits, vegetables, cheese, and, on occasion, fish. It's been a huge but welcome change in my life. Grocery shopping, always dull, has been a lot more fun in the hectic atmosphere created by screaming vendors and crazed shoppers. Did I mention, cash only? It's cash only.
I'm always thankful for anything I learn from. Somehow, I've learned quite a bit from this Haymarket experience. Naturally, I feel gratitude toward this long-running Boston tradition.
I'm thankful to know how expensive it is to store edible food. Most items here cost somewhere between twenty and thirty percent of what they do at the grocery store checkout. Initially, this gap seemed silly to me. Surely, the rich mega-corporations are exploiting my need to eat?
But then I considered whether it was sillier for me to expect to have the ability to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at almost any time during my waking hours. A single bell pepper apparently takes somewhere between fifteen and seventeen weeks to progress from seed to full maturity. It takes four months to grow one pepper! And yet I take it for granted that I can just walk ten minutes away into an air-conditioned Whole Foods with just a few quarters and exchange those for a pepper that is ready to eat.
Broadly speaking, I'm thankful to have the option of not planning ahead for dinner. It seems like a luxury. That said, I do tend to plan when I can and, though I never planned to think about my meals a full week in advance, I am thankful that I started doing so. At the very least, it is much less work overall when I need to cook and prepare meals in bulk a few days ahead of time- a necessity in some cases when the food I buy is on the verge of spoiling in a day or two.
I'm thankful I learned that Haymarket is not a farmer's market. Some see this as an obvious fact but failing to see the obvious is something I tend to do from time to time, especially when bags of baby carrots are two for a buck. I suppose I assumed any food sales taking place in an open-air setup = 'farmers market' but Haymarket actually = 'surplus market'.
I'm sure I would have learned the distinction eventually, of course, but knowing it now helps prevent me from sounding like someone who never goes outside when I wander an actual farmer's market. I'm thankful for anything that confirms I regularly leave my apartment.
I'm thankful to know that mass starvation (Mass starvation? You know, like Massachusetts?) will probably come with a week's advance warning. This is because most of the Haymarket produce is in a local wholesaler warehouse for a few days before arriving at Haymarket. The timing is due to major food shipments arriving in the area on Thursday and Friday nights. To clear up space, these warehouses sell their stock in bulk to vendors who set up shop the following morning.
I'm not sure if this knowledge is useful but I'm thankful to have it. Can't hurt, you know? The alternative would be to read some book about it, possibly written sensationally. Some things are better learned from chatting with the venders and shoppers who experience all of this firsthand. (2)
I'm thankful that I think with clarity about personal expenses. Shopping at Haymarket results in a significant weekly reduction of the grocery bill. I cannot state a precise figure but I do not think suggesting I save in the range of thirty to forty dollars a week is out of line. Knowing that living further away from the city epicenter would likely reverse these weekly savings proved very helpful this summer when I was weighing my options for a potential move out of my current apartment. I'm thankful I came to this realization before making any decisions I would regret later, presumably while standing in line at a Star Market or, imagine, a Trader Joe's.
Thankfully, I learned where the best place to go for a meatball pizza is. Silly, no? Drop by Haymarket Pizza and grab a slice sometime. It's on me, assuming it costs about five bucks total. The slices are not award winning as far as I know but trust me, I've tried a lot of meatball pizzas and I keep going back to this one.
Of all the days of the year, today is a good day to comment on food. It is a feast day, after all, and in between mouthfuls of 'highly nutritious' food like stuffing and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, celebrating the unofficial start of America's first racially-motivated and land-grabbing geno- whoops, sorry there, almost forgot about that 'no politics at the table' thing!
I guess I'm thankful to have the freedom to say that sort of thing, though, were I so inclined. For now.
I'm thankful for all the silly pseudo-food we eat so that arrogant folks like me can feel superior for blogging about spinach every once in a while.
Most of all, though, I'm thankful for my reader(s). Thank you all, readers ranging from those who have read just one post of mine (unless it was that one about Wordpress- then I'm not sure why you came back) or who have diligently pored over each syllable (including the words 'seems', a word I seem to use about every three sentences). Though I must admit- I think I would do this blog without you- it is far more interesting, fun, and rewarding when other people actually read and react to what I put together.
So, thank you all for poking around these parts the past few months. Thank you for spreading the word when you agree that something I wrote is of some value. I anticipate that the coming year will present challenges with my schedule but hope to maintain a pace as close to the current one as possible. Someday, when I put a paywall up on this blog, I will make sure to reward you loyal ground-floor readers with at least fifty percent off on the first post! Perhaps you will utilize those savings on a bag of onions over at Haymarket...wait...have I told you about Haymarket?
Finally, I think we all can agree that perhaps the thing to be most thankful for on Thanksgiving is leftovers. Same spirit here- drop by tomorrow for my unofficial Haymarket shopping guide.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Tim
Footnotes / imagine complaints / I'm just gonna go watch football
1. No seriously, how much?
At Haymarket, usually about fifty to sixty cents per pound.
Someone tell Lucille!
This is actually the same price at some grocery stores. Not everything at Haymarket is a great deal.
2. Or I just pulled all the info from this article...
You decide.
Friday, November 18, 2016
prop admin- october 2016 reading review
Good morning,
My review of what I finished up in October is below.
As a note- I forgot to include my thoughts on one book from October (The Five Love Languages, finished 10/21). I'll include that as part of my post for November.
*Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (10/1)
Like many of Murakami's novels, this one saw two parallel storylines (described in alternating chapters) slowly converge as the narrative progressed. Unlike some of his work that I read in the past, this convergence was not obvious at the start. I found it notable the way Murakami adjusted his writing technique to bring out the tone of the two environments depicted in each storyline.
The danger in writing about novels here is always the possibility of becoming the unwanted spoiler (this is part of the reason why I skip writing about Eureka Street, below). So, to put it as vaguely I am able, I felt one storyline explored how our consciousness responds and interprets the external forces acting on it. The other, I thought, delved into the reaction of the consciousness to the pressure placed on it from internal forces.
The balance created by this storytelling method results in a thorough examination of the struggle to understand the forces that direct our lives. To complicate matters, it always seems that these forces lie just beyond our control. Of the many symbols and metaphors that supported this analysis, I found the idea of one's 'shadow' both the most memorable and most insightful. The shadow is always there, in one sense, and yet we have no control over when it is cast or how it realizes its full shape. (1)
*Drown by Junot Diaz (10/4)
I came around to this book after Chuck Klosterman's But What If We're Wrong cited Diaz as an example of the type of author that might slide under mainstream notice today yet end up being considered a major influential literary figure in a century's time.
It is hard for me to judge a particular writer's mainstream appeal. But I did not initially agree with this thought- from my occasional wanderings through bookstores, I knew Diaz as one of those writers whose new releases automatically make the front display case. Still, I had never read anything from him so I thought the time might be right.
I finished Drown with no original insights or reflections. If you enjoy short fiction, you'll enjoy Drown. But do you really need me to tell you that? I do think I saw what the fuss was about, so to speak, but this collection did not resonate with me in the way others have done of late.
*Nine Gates: Entering The Mind of Poetry by Jane Hirschfield (10/7)
This book of essays explored various aspects of poetry. The two essays I enjoyed most were 'Poetry as a Vessel of Remembrance' and 'Writing and the Threshold Life' but there was something to discover in each of this book's essays. (2)
Like many of the books I've read recently, there is much reflection on the process of writing. To write about one's experience, says Hirschfield, is to allow what is thought of once to be examined twice. Each piece of writing is potentially a building block upon which to build foundations for previously unseen or unconsidered relationships among one's experiences.
The fear of self-revelation is identified as an obstacle which impedes originality. Hirschfield saw this fear as particularly problematic, I suspect, because she sees original thinking as the default outcome for anyone actively seeking the truth.
*Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch (10/10)
This book collected the writing and web comics from the blog of the same name. This was a fun read and the drawings were funny. I enjoyed the way Brosch's voice came through in many of the chapters here.
One memorable chapter detailed a letter she wrote to herself as a young child. (Mostly, it was about dogs.) Getting a letter from yourself is an interesting idea. I suppose the feeling would be similar to what I feel now when I re-read books that I have not opened in several years.
Not all of the chapters were about funny or playful topics. Her chapters about depression were very good. Sadly, it seems to me that though there is nothing logical about the condition, the temptation to explain its causes is too significant to prevent some from trying. Like any prescription of logical medicine to treat emotional hurt, such explanations can wound as much as soothe those in pain.
*Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin (10/14)
This 1961 essay collection covered a wide variety of topics in a style perhaps familiar to Baldwin's readers (up until this book, a group I was not a part of). I suspect it is a follow up of sorts to his more widely known collection Notes of a Native Son.
Like many writers who explore the murky world of unspoken assumptions and half-ignored truths, Baldwin devotes significant time and effort in his writing to simply state what we today consider as given. This leaves less time than I am sure he would have preferred to examine the consequences of these truths. Still, I feel the simple act of acknowledging was a great service to many readers of his time and, unfortunately, many of his observations about this country's racial, sexual, and class distinctions ring forcefully true nearly six decades after this collection's publication.
I got the impression that part of his desire to seek out, expose, and describe the hidden truths that govern life's larger forces grows from personal experience. He details the difficulty of conversation without self-revelation. If a given topic of discussion is off-limits, the ability to converse freely is stunted by the fear of accidentally stumbling into the taboo topic. I thought that was a brilliant insight into how patterns of communication develop among even the closest groups of people.
Baldwin's writing is particularly powerful when he observes the world through the lens of another. He muses about how locals in places known as 'refuges' view passport-wielding tourists. Do the locals regard their home with the same sense of respite? He wonders about how children in segregated schools think about their environment. Surely, learning in a divided school implies that education is preparation for how to live in a divided adult world?
Like Anne Truitt, Baldwin is a strong believer that the act of clear writing requires an embrace of the necessary solitude in the act. Yet with enforced solitude comes loneliness. I sense he thought less of talented writers who turned away from this reality to pursue more 'social' projects (specifically in his comments about Norman Mailer and his burgeoning interest in politics) but this is merely speculation on my part as a reader.
I snuck one of the lines I liked from this book into a previous post- 'The future is like heaven- every exalts it but no one wants to go there now.' I obviously liked the line despite my general impatience for incremental progress.
*Crash by Jerry Spinelli (10/15)
Long-time readers of the blog (though apparently not my SPELL CHECKER) will recognize Spinelli as the author of my favorite book, Maniac Magee. Each book is about a boy of middle school age who also is a terrific athlete (the surface similarities end right around there).
Crash is about the difficult journey from seeking external validation to cultivating internal worth. Crash Coogan, the title character, makes this transformation over the course of a year marked by personal difficulties for him and his family.
Overall, it remains a kid's book (young adult, if you stretch) but still one I found reading again as an adult a worthwhile project. There is always wisdom in the ways people try to become the best versions of themselves.
*Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson (10/17)
I'm very grateful to have read this book. Interestingly, I cannot recall how I ended up stumbling across it. Usually this information is irrelevant to me but for this one, I would like to know.
I'm not quite ready to write in full about this one at the moment. It will have to wait for another time, either in next month's reading review or in its one individual post.
*Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (10/19)
I read Good Omens... on a recommendation and, though not my usual type of reading, enjoyed it very much.
One memorable quip from the book- beware the light at the end of the tunnel for you never know if it is actually an oncoming train.
*What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (10/28)
I read this book once before in my early twenties and finished up with no intention of reading it again. When I saw it at a bookstore, though, I picked it up and flipped through it. I noted a few passages were about the author's writing process, something I did not remember about the book from the first reading, and thought it might be a good idea to try it again.
I found the first half of the book superior to the second. It is more about Murakami's journey as a writer with running as the backdrop. The latter half focused more on his running (and cycling, and swimming- Murakami does triathlons fairly regularly) and I found this portion less aligned with what I am currently seeking out in my pseudo-memoir reading. (3)
I liked his insights into the nature of long-term projects. These projects, Murakami observes, require rhythm. To keep the flywheel spinning, so to speak, is like keeping a planet in orbit- it means pushing ourselves to our own limits without extending beyond them. To do so is dangerous for it may cause instability and hinder the momentum of the project. This is the shared element, for Murakami, of long-distance running and writing novels.
*Prospect by Anne Truitt (10/29)
The third of Truitt's personal reflections. Prospect was written in her seventieth year and tied up the life experiences she detailed in her first two books. As a result, though the focus often was the happenings in her life as she wrote, the book explored a much broader range as Truitt examined her place in the world, the art community, and her family.
Naturally, I found many comments about art throughout. Looking back on her life and career, Truitt considers the sources of the creative spirit and carefully compares her conclusions against the wisdom accumulated from decades of experience.
She comments that art, though intensely personal as a process, is perhaps on a general level the most generic of human pursuits. Artwork created for the creator is rarely necessary, she notes, and too much of it can kill off the creative spirit. She implies with these remarks the critical role the public eye plays in the creative process- art deemed deficient in a public context implies the failure of the artist to fully excavate and process their own experiences.
She also looks at her own dwindling physical capabilities and writes philosophically about the challenges they present in her daily life. For Truitt, constant improvisation in meeting these challenges was the gentlest suggestion at the need for a permanent solution. To ignore fatigue or push on against it meant tapping into reserves of energy, the depths of these reserves almost always unknown until the moment they fully emptied.
The most interesting thoughts came through whenever she looked at how life worked out for those closest to her. For some, she writes, success served only to reveal a wound that success alone could not heal. For others, a failure to value genuine or general quality with an eye to the long run turned out, in the long run, to manifest as regret.
The surest route to compassion, she saw over and over again, was personal failure. Perhaps it is the case that the conflict in acknowledging the value of failure as learning device with the fear of failure itself presents the biggest obstacle for many in learning life's lessons in empathy.
*Conamara Blues by John O'Donohue (10/30)
Longtime readers here may recognize O'Donohue as the author of several books I read earlier this year. Conamara Blues is a collection of his poetry.
Overall, I did not find much here to get excited about. I did note a couple of poems I liked ('Thought Work' in particular) and I've shared them below. (4)
I found interesting in this collection how much of what he wrote in those books I read earlier this year came through in the form of the poetry here. Though the form of expression is different, the thoughts and feelings that run invisibly between the lines evidently spring from the same place in O'Donohue's soul.
This poem, 'Thought Work', resonated with me on many levels. Sometimes we rebuild with recycled debris, others times we seek branches from trees long forgotten.
'Thought Work' by John O'Donohue
Off course from the frail music sought by words
And the path that always claims the journey,
In the pursuit of a more oblique rhythm,
Creating mostly its own geography,
The mind is an old crow
Who knows only to gather dead twigs,
Then take them back to vacancy
Between the branches of the parent tree
And entwine them around the emptiness
With silence and unfailing patience
Until what has fallen, withered and lost
Is now set to fill with dreams as a nest.
That's all for today. I have no choice- I did not read any other books!
My next post is going to be on Thursday- doing the usual holiday thing. Post will go up before 6am. Don't expect anything significant for this one, though.
Thanks as always for reading. Have a nice weekend.
Tim
Foontotes / imagined complaints
1. You liked a Murakami book? Stunning...
I really enjoyed the latter half of it in particular and finished up with the impression that I missed some important ideas. In fact, it was this lingering feeling from reading this book that prompted a prior blog post about 'note taking' for fiction. I intend to read this book once more someday.
It is true that I've enjoyed much of his work over the past couple of years. I suspect part of this includes how strongly I relate to the protagonists- generally male, late twenties to early thirties, somewhat of a loner, vaguely drifting through life, irrelevantly Japanese, and unfussed about all these facts.
2. You can take the poem out of the poet, but...
I liked this poem the most of the few featured in the book.
'Hidden Things' by Constantin Cavafy
From all I did and all I said
let no one try to find out who I was.
An obstacle was there that changed the pattern
of my actions and the manner of my life.
An obstacle was often there
to stop me when I'd begin to speak.
From my unnoticed actions,
my most veiled writing-
from these alone I will be understood.
But maybe it isn't worth so much concern,
so much effort to discover who I really am.
Later, in a more perfect society,
someone else made just like me
is certain to appear and act freely.
3. Speaking of triathlons...
I commented a month ago about my surprise to learn that the Olympic triathlon did not include a full marathon. I guess my surprise reveals my failure a few years ago to read this book carefully because Murakami describes the event in full, I suppose for ill-informed readers like me.
4. And the other poem I promised...
'Double Exposure' by John O'Donohue
Sometimes you see us
Run into each other in a place
Where we cannot simply pass,
Say at a party, and you overhear
Our breath quiveringly collect
To shape a voice sure enough
To play out some pleasantry;
Something humorous is preferable,
It covers perfectly and shows
That everything is as it should be.
As smoothly as possible
We allow ourselves to be waylaid
By some other conversation and escape.
Though we move around the room,
We always know where we stand,
Still strangely bound to each other
In this intermittent dance
Between the music, each careful
To hold up the other side of all
We were to each other before
It stopped, and let nothing slip
From the invisible ruin
We carry between us
Monday, November 14, 2016
life changing books- moneyball
Hi,
A quick note before I start today because I feel a little background information will help clarify some of the shortcuts I take in the post.
The post below is about Moneyball. Most of this book focuses on Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics and their methods for hiring players. Baseball teams are structured a little differently than most organizations so when I say they 'hire' players, I refer to how they draft, sign, and trade players to fill out their rosters.
The structure of professional team sports also allows anyone to assess the performance of any other team's players by simply watching games. In the context of a professional baseball team, I consider all of these activities- anything undertaken to better assess a player's ability- as part of what I'll refer to as 'the hiring process'.
Thanks for reading. Back on Friday with my October reading review.
Tim
******************
My very first post introduced a concept I called 'life changing books'. Recognizing that I might disappoint readers who set lofty expectations based on this eye-catching (or perhaps eye-rolling) title, I made sure to clarify that these posts would only describe how the featured book led to a tangible change in my life. (1)
I started with this gimmick because I wanted to write about Michael Lewis's Moneyball. This book, I knew, changed my life. Thus, the 'life changing books' gimmick was a convenient and even semi-logical way to justify starting my blog with a tired topic.
Once I started writing, I recognized very quickly that I was mistaken. This book did not change my life, at least not in the way I thought it did when I started writing. It helped me pick a major, I suppose, and it gave me something to discuss with fellow baseball fans (I liked baseball back then). Those were not the life changing kinds of things I wanted to write about.
I struggled with the post a little longer before shelving it for a future date. I wrote about tipping instead. (2)
This inability to write the Moneyball post seemed a failure at the time. When I look back at that exercise, however, I no longer frame it as a failure. In fact, I recognize a certain degree of wisdom in the way I stopped writing when I realized I was unready to write. (3)
In choosing to stop writing, I conceded that though this book might have changed my life, I was yet unprepared to articulate how. It clarified for me that the story I envisioned about its impact on me was not the same story as the one I was attempting to write. There was something missing in my understanding of how the lessons from this book altered my way of looking at the world. Without this understanding, the post was impossible to finish.
At various points over the course of the past year, my thoughts drifted toward this book and the general concept of writing a post about it. Eventually, I noticed a trend- Moneyball came to mind whenever I started to think about hiring (or more generally, how people fill open positions).
In a way, hiring is the essence of this book. Hiring is the theme that underlies each section of the book, the thread that connects one story to the next. Lewis explores the different ways baseball teams approach the question of who to hire next- evaluating performance, imagining ways a change in role or position could impact a player, accumulating data from interviews, tests, or assessments- and paints a compelling portrait of how difficult a task this is for these teams.
On the surface, the book simply observes how data analytics reshaped the hiring process for baseball teams. There is discussion of different statistical techniques and examples of successful players that no one except the database guru with his laptop computer (Paul DePodesta) predicted. Sometimes, the book focuses on details such as those above regarding the team's specific methods. But it always ties back to how the method impacts a team's hiring decisions.
The key insight is delivered about halfway through. As I recall, the comment was along these lines- 'if you rule out a given group of people for a job, you lessen the likelihood of finding the best person for the job'. It could be rephrased- if you consider all types of people for a given job, you will have the best possible chance of finding the best person for the job. In a competitive environment, such thinking will lead to an edge over those who choose to eliminate people from consideration for non-performance reasons. (4)
I have thought about this one idea so often this year. (Given how many job descriptions I have read this year, I suppose this is not a stunning revelation.) I note how many companies and organizations utilize all available means to find the best candidates to hire. They do so with what I see as genuine intent to expand their applicant base as much as possible.
But I also note that most sentences in job descriptions serve the purpose of exclusion. Some go to such lengths that the wording generates confusion (example: 'required- at least three to seven years of experience'. So, wait, at least what part of the range??).
I find myself increasingly appreciative of expressions that beckon the hesitant forward, phrases like 'recent college graduates encouraged to apply', that sort of thing. Often, I wonder which companies are inadvertently discouraging the best candidates to apply through lengthy, intimidating, or over-specified job descriptions.
The presidential election brought the same idea to mind on many (many, many) occasions. From one point of view, there has been no better time to point out the truism that 'anyone can become President in America'. After all, the top candidates for election were a woman and a complete political outsider. A victory for either would have made history. They campaigned throughout the year to fill the seat vacated by Barack Obama (the significance of his 2008 election victory requiring no further discussion in this space, one populated with my savvy, politically-astute reader(s), of course).
And yet, there are some restrictions in place. There is an age limit (thirty-five) and the office is open only to natural born citizens. Those who have served at least two years as the president can only be elected to the office once more. There are reasons for these restrictions. But ruling out so many candidates without regard to merit does, mathematically speaking, make it less likely that the best candidate for the job is running. (5)
I thought of it once more as reaction to one of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast episodes reached my ears. Apparently, this show took a very unflattering look at how some colleges and universities choose to spend their money. I did not hear the episode and I therefore will refrain from commenting directly about the specifics.
However, it did bring to mind a point not directly related to that episode (though hearing about it obviously triggered some kind of association in my head). Let's suppose two schools are identical in every way. One admits students on a need-blind basis (decision makers are unaware of a student's finances until a decision has been made on the applicant) and the other does so on a need-aware basis (a student's finances are not considered yet decision makers acknowledge being aware of it prior to finalizing a decision on an applicant). Which of these two schools will admit better students?
The idea came to mind whenever an Uber driver came close to running me over as they cut off the bike lane on the way to a passenger pickup. These ride-sharing companies are doing nothing that a cab company could not imitate. But the basic philosophy of the hiring practice is different- Uber has made it possible for just about anyone who wishes to become a cab driver to become one at low additional cost. A cab company cannot flexibly adjust its workforce in the same way Uber can to match the ebbs and flows of demand. The threat to Uber comes not from the traditional companies that know the industry best but rather from those who draw their employees and contractors from an equally wide applicant base.
Today's post is my second attempt at writing about Moneyball. Prior to February, I saw this book as a source of inspiration for studying statistical concepts or seeking analytical solutions to thorny problems. Today, I see a story of how hiring practices in one industry (to the extent that baseball is 'an industry') were further democratized by a team willing to consider a wider pool of potential hires than their competitors. Doing so gave them a competitive edge that immediately paid dividends on the field of play.
This general lesson about biases in the job market and the value of thinking on your own to overcome these biases proved valuable in ways many times more valuable than leaning the statistical nous required to calculate home run statistics. The idea extends beyond hiring, which is good because not everyone cares about hiring the next intern or data analyst or backup left fielder. It comes into play anytime options are being considered and the likelihood of arbitrarily ruling things out exists.
I guess, looking back, I cannot be entirely sure just how well I used to do when it came to considering the fullest pool of options for a given decision. That makes it tougher to quantify the extent to which this book did impact my thinking about this idea. However, the clarity of thought that comes from asking 'am I eliminating options based on merit only' is one of the most valuable techniques I try to use. Moneyball, without a doubt, confirmed my need to explore in that direction.
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. Life changing books? No, I do not recall...
To those who worried (or hoped) that this feature disappeared quietly into the night- worry (or hope) no more. Despite getting distracted over the course of 2016 with posts about 'more important' topics such as brackets, soccer tournament analogies, and fake conversations about marijuana, I am confirming today that I intend to continue posting these little retrospective reading reflections. Since Ihave a lot of
free time thanks to my somehow still unemployed status work feverishly,
night and day, to bring you readers clever and original posts each week
(or just post, in the case of some weeks, most recently last week), there is just no immediate
urgency to get back into that particular feature.
But it will return, you have my word on that.
(For whatever my word is worth, of course.)
2. Tipping, that was fun. Perhaps I should have called this the 'net worth changing books' series...
If I tip three times a week and I tip one extra dollar because of that book...
3 x 1 = $3 extra dollars per week
52 weeks in a year --> 3 x 52 = $156 dollars per year
Read the book about six years ago, so...
6 x 156 = $936 extra money spent due to this book (so far). With that money, I could hire a skilled writer to ghostwrite this blog for me (probably would bump the quality up a bit, for sure).
I suppose I could go on to calculate how much money that would be if invested conservatively over the next forty years. I'll spare everyone that exercise. We all got bored learning about personal finance in school.
3. You don't learn this kind of thing in school...
I imagine the concept of not writing is very difficult to fully understand for any eager student. (In fact, I barely understand it right now- I have no idea if what I am writing in this footnote is relevant in any way to anything).
Most of my experience writing anything involved actually writing- never was I assigned a paper in which I was instructed to think of a topic, struggle with it, and then stop until I was ready to actually write about something I understood.
I suppose such an assignment would be impractical in an academic setting. What a shame it would be to learn at the expense of practicality. This means the challenge to learn this particular lesson falls into the category of what must be learned beyond the confines of the syllabus.
4. Process over results...
This line narrowly edged 'focusing on process over results' as the line I remembered best from the book. This particular quote was delivered while one of the A's player evaluators watched one of the players striking out (again, the 'if I recall correctly' caveat here since I am trying this from memory).
Applying this mentality in the baseball context meant that if a player took a good swing at a good pitch yet missed, there was no need to fret. However, a player who succeeded despite taking poor swings as a hitter was cause for concern, not celebration, among the decision makers in the Oakland front office.
5. What, you want me to show my math?
Here is my math...
x = DID YOU SEE ANY OF THE CAMPAIGN?!?
A quick note before I start today because I feel a little background information will help clarify some of the shortcuts I take in the post.
The post below is about Moneyball. Most of this book focuses on Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics and their methods for hiring players. Baseball teams are structured a little differently than most organizations so when I say they 'hire' players, I refer to how they draft, sign, and trade players to fill out their rosters.
The structure of professional team sports also allows anyone to assess the performance of any other team's players by simply watching games. In the context of a professional baseball team, I consider all of these activities- anything undertaken to better assess a player's ability- as part of what I'll refer to as 'the hiring process'.
Thanks for reading. Back on Friday with my October reading review.
Tim
******************
My very first post introduced a concept I called 'life changing books'. Recognizing that I might disappoint readers who set lofty expectations based on this eye-catching (or perhaps eye-rolling) title, I made sure to clarify that these posts would only describe how the featured book led to a tangible change in my life. (1)
I started with this gimmick because I wanted to write about Michael Lewis's Moneyball. This book, I knew, changed my life. Thus, the 'life changing books' gimmick was a convenient and even semi-logical way to justify starting my blog with a tired topic.
Once I started writing, I recognized very quickly that I was mistaken. This book did not change my life, at least not in the way I thought it did when I started writing. It helped me pick a major, I suppose, and it gave me something to discuss with fellow baseball fans (I liked baseball back then). Those were not the life changing kinds of things I wanted to write about.
I struggled with the post a little longer before shelving it for a future date. I wrote about tipping instead. (2)
This inability to write the Moneyball post seemed a failure at the time. When I look back at that exercise, however, I no longer frame it as a failure. In fact, I recognize a certain degree of wisdom in the way I stopped writing when I realized I was unready to write. (3)
In choosing to stop writing, I conceded that though this book might have changed my life, I was yet unprepared to articulate how. It clarified for me that the story I envisioned about its impact on me was not the same story as the one I was attempting to write. There was something missing in my understanding of how the lessons from this book altered my way of looking at the world. Without this understanding, the post was impossible to finish.
At various points over the course of the past year, my thoughts drifted toward this book and the general concept of writing a post about it. Eventually, I noticed a trend- Moneyball came to mind whenever I started to think about hiring (or more generally, how people fill open positions).
In a way, hiring is the essence of this book. Hiring is the theme that underlies each section of the book, the thread that connects one story to the next. Lewis explores the different ways baseball teams approach the question of who to hire next- evaluating performance, imagining ways a change in role or position could impact a player, accumulating data from interviews, tests, or assessments- and paints a compelling portrait of how difficult a task this is for these teams.
On the surface, the book simply observes how data analytics reshaped the hiring process for baseball teams. There is discussion of different statistical techniques and examples of successful players that no one except the database guru with his laptop computer (Paul DePodesta) predicted. Sometimes, the book focuses on details such as those above regarding the team's specific methods. But it always ties back to how the method impacts a team's hiring decisions.
The key insight is delivered about halfway through. As I recall, the comment was along these lines- 'if you rule out a given group of people for a job, you lessen the likelihood of finding the best person for the job'. It could be rephrased- if you consider all types of people for a given job, you will have the best possible chance of finding the best person for the job. In a competitive environment, such thinking will lead to an edge over those who choose to eliminate people from consideration for non-performance reasons. (4)
I have thought about this one idea so often this year. (Given how many job descriptions I have read this year, I suppose this is not a stunning revelation.) I note how many companies and organizations utilize all available means to find the best candidates to hire. They do so with what I see as genuine intent to expand their applicant base as much as possible.
But I also note that most sentences in job descriptions serve the purpose of exclusion. Some go to such lengths that the wording generates confusion (example: 'required- at least three to seven years of experience'. So, wait, at least what part of the range??).
I find myself increasingly appreciative of expressions that beckon the hesitant forward, phrases like 'recent college graduates encouraged to apply', that sort of thing. Often, I wonder which companies are inadvertently discouraging the best candidates to apply through lengthy, intimidating, or over-specified job descriptions.
The presidential election brought the same idea to mind on many (many, many) occasions. From one point of view, there has been no better time to point out the truism that 'anyone can become President in America'. After all, the top candidates for election were a woman and a complete political outsider. A victory for either would have made history. They campaigned throughout the year to fill the seat vacated by Barack Obama (the significance of his 2008 election victory requiring no further discussion in this space, one populated with my savvy, politically-astute reader(s), of course).
And yet, there are some restrictions in place. There is an age limit (thirty-five) and the office is open only to natural born citizens. Those who have served at least two years as the president can only be elected to the office once more. There are reasons for these restrictions. But ruling out so many candidates without regard to merit does, mathematically speaking, make it less likely that the best candidate for the job is running. (5)
I thought of it once more as reaction to one of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast episodes reached my ears. Apparently, this show took a very unflattering look at how some colleges and universities choose to spend their money. I did not hear the episode and I therefore will refrain from commenting directly about the specifics.
However, it did bring to mind a point not directly related to that episode (though hearing about it obviously triggered some kind of association in my head). Let's suppose two schools are identical in every way. One admits students on a need-blind basis (decision makers are unaware of a student's finances until a decision has been made on the applicant) and the other does so on a need-aware basis (a student's finances are not considered yet decision makers acknowledge being aware of it prior to finalizing a decision on an applicant). Which of these two schools will admit better students?
The idea came to mind whenever an Uber driver came close to running me over as they cut off the bike lane on the way to a passenger pickup. These ride-sharing companies are doing nothing that a cab company could not imitate. But the basic philosophy of the hiring practice is different- Uber has made it possible for just about anyone who wishes to become a cab driver to become one at low additional cost. A cab company cannot flexibly adjust its workforce in the same way Uber can to match the ebbs and flows of demand. The threat to Uber comes not from the traditional companies that know the industry best but rather from those who draw their employees and contractors from an equally wide applicant base.
Today's post is my second attempt at writing about Moneyball. Prior to February, I saw this book as a source of inspiration for studying statistical concepts or seeking analytical solutions to thorny problems. Today, I see a story of how hiring practices in one industry (to the extent that baseball is 'an industry') were further democratized by a team willing to consider a wider pool of potential hires than their competitors. Doing so gave them a competitive edge that immediately paid dividends on the field of play.
This general lesson about biases in the job market and the value of thinking on your own to overcome these biases proved valuable in ways many times more valuable than leaning the statistical nous required to calculate home run statistics. The idea extends beyond hiring, which is good because not everyone cares about hiring the next intern or data analyst or backup left fielder. It comes into play anytime options are being considered and the likelihood of arbitrarily ruling things out exists.
I guess, looking back, I cannot be entirely sure just how well I used to do when it came to considering the fullest pool of options for a given decision. That makes it tougher to quantify the extent to which this book did impact my thinking about this idea. However, the clarity of thought that comes from asking 'am I eliminating options based on merit only' is one of the most valuable techniques I try to use. Moneyball, without a doubt, confirmed my need to explore in that direction.
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. Life changing books? No, I do not recall...
To those who worried (or hoped) that this feature disappeared quietly into the night- worry (or hope) no more. Despite getting distracted over the course of 2016 with posts about 'more important' topics such as brackets, soccer tournament analogies, and fake conversations about marijuana, I am confirming today that I intend to continue posting these little retrospective reading reflections. Since I
But it will return, you have my word on that.
(For whatever my word is worth, of course.)
2. Tipping, that was fun. Perhaps I should have called this the 'net worth changing books' series...
If I tip three times a week and I tip one extra dollar because of that book...
3 x 1 = $3 extra dollars per week
52 weeks in a year --> 3 x 52 = $156 dollars per year
Read the book about six years ago, so...
6 x 156 = $936 extra money spent due to this book (so far). With that money, I could hire a skilled writer to ghostwrite this blog for me (probably would bump the quality up a bit, for sure).
I suppose I could go on to calculate how much money that would be if invested conservatively over the next forty years. I'll spare everyone that exercise. We all got bored learning about personal finance in school.
3. You don't learn this kind of thing in school...
I imagine the concept of not writing is very difficult to fully understand for any eager student. (In fact, I barely understand it right now- I have no idea if what I am writing in this footnote is relevant in any way to anything).
Most of my experience writing anything involved actually writing- never was I assigned a paper in which I was instructed to think of a topic, struggle with it, and then stop until I was ready to actually write about something I understood.
I suppose such an assignment would be impractical in an academic setting. What a shame it would be to learn at the expense of practicality. This means the challenge to learn this particular lesson falls into the category of what must be learned beyond the confines of the syllabus.
4. Process over results...
This line narrowly edged 'focusing on process over results' as the line I remembered best from the book. This particular quote was delivered while one of the A's player evaluators watched one of the players striking out (again, the 'if I recall correctly' caveat here since I am trying this from memory).
Applying this mentality in the baseball context meant that if a player took a good swing at a good pitch yet missed, there was no need to fret. However, a player who succeeded despite taking poor swings as a hitter was cause for concern, not celebration, among the decision makers in the Oakland front office.
5. What, you want me to show my math?
Here is my math...
x = DID YOU SEE ANY OF THE CAMPAIGN?!?
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
moneyball was my favorite book, once
Good morning,
A couple of months ago, I commented briefly on Chuck Klosterman's But What If We're Wrong. My thoughts centered around the portion of his conversation with Dan Carlin, a political commentator, historian, and podcast host, that explored the way President Reagan's legacy was shifting over time. I return to that conversation today to link another topic they discuss in detail- the general trend of history as an academic subject- to a book I once considered my personal favorite.
Historians, according to Carlin, struggle with finding the balance of arranging verified facts into a story and presenting informed opinions based on their own interpretations. As Carlin sees it, the trend is constantly moving toward emphasis of the former (and he does not see this as necessarily a good thing). (1)
The way this discussion was presented in the book limited its application to history. But I think this is in some ways a general trend. Our access to facts is greater today than at any point in the past. Our access to facts tomorrow will be greater than our access to facts today. This access is tempting. Surely, if we dig through it all, we will unearth great revelations in the data that will make life better than it ever was before.
The first book I ever read that captured the struggle with this balance was Moneyball. Written by Michael Lewis, this book documented how baseball's first advanced statisticians revolutionized the way baseball teams analyzed their data. It quickly became my favorite book and remained so for most of my high school and college days.
To summarize, the statisticians' approach of seeking verifiable facts within data worked in direct opposition to the methods relied upon by traditional scouting. Drawing on a lifetime of intuition honed through their careful observation of the sport, scouts made their living by simply interpreting the games they saw from the bleachers and forming conclusions. They passed these 'scouting reports' on to the teams that employed them.
When I was young, I believed in the pattern for change described by this book. I was enthralled by the idea of drawing conclusions from data. I sought to learn as much math, statistics, and economics as possible in my college coursework. Fully prepared by a rigorous double major to do this sort of analysis, I sought work that promised direct involvement with analytical projects and exposed me to deeper thinking about the field.
Back then, the possibility that I would drift away from this line of thinking in the coming years would have seemed remote. Surely, big data was the way forward and I was among the fortune few for whom the future had arrived.
And yet, here we are. Over the past half-decade, I began to recognize limits in the approach of advanced analytics. Some of those limits were built into the field and could be overcome with diligence (such as the difficulty in gathering clean data of an appropriate sample size) but many of the limits were my own.
I sensed that the skills needed to reflect, interpret, or emphasize on a personal level would atrophy if I continued to specialize in analytical work. I feared this trend would either render me incapable of answering any question where the data was insufficient or tempt me to answer, anyway, hoping that shaky data would prove a better guide through uncertainty than careful intuition.
Today, I'm drifting somewhere between the two extremes. I do not have a sense of where the right place for me is along the continuum. Perhaps this exemplifies the best approach- ready to adjust as the situation requires but always mindful of balancing the extremes.
It is a compromise of sorts between empathetic interpretation of events and calculated arrangement of facts. The middle ground allows clean facts to support unexplainable insight. It gives leeway for intuition to direct the next exploration project within a data set.
One way to summarize this position is to examine the story from Moneyball about how on-base percentage was considered a great innovation in baseball analytics. On-base percentage is not a complex statistic to compute. In fact, it is an easily calculable ratio. The simple but thoughtful application of this statistic rather than the complexity of computing the metric is what made this method successful.
The story highlights a basic problem with an over-reliance on analytically focused approaches. Rather than remaining open to new intuition and constantly evaluating updated information to make better decisions, too often more complex or time-consuming analysis of the same data to answer the same question is utilized instead. As Carlin observed in the case of history, focusing too minutely on the known details often diminishes the understanding of those details not yet known. It also reduces the role of intuition required in asking the right questions about complex situations.
Moneyball, I see today, is not the cool story about analyzing data that I long considered it to be. It is a story about how to ask the right questions about the worth of baseball players. Those featured asked 'What are the established metrics telling us about players' instead of accepting the status quo for player evaluation. By pondering this question, they forced new questions to use in determining the best players.
Just like Moneyball, What If We're Wrong is a book about asking the best questions. Dan Carlin's two podcasts are examples of the same. Books and shows like these are extremely valuable for how they cultivate the skill of examining, questioning, and interpreting the world around us. What little practical value such media has in simple or immediate contexts is offset by how they equip their audiences to approach novel or unseen challenges. The skills called on in these examples challenge us to assess rather than compare, to determine what is best rather than just settle for what is better. (2)
Thanks again for reading. Back on Monday to wrap up my thoughts about Moneyball.
Tim
Footnotes...
1. Dan Carlin's podcasting style is slanted toward the latter...
I recently learned from one of his shows (can't recall which, though probably Hardcore History) that swordsmanship (again, can't remember where, though probably samurai-era Japan or somewhere in Central Asia) is one of these topics that historians have no record to draw from. There is apparently no technical documentation of how people fought with swords.
Historians know there was likely sword fighting given depictions in artwork and the recovery of the weapons. However, no primary source explains the tactics or techniques used by swordsmen in battle or in sport. What we see in movies is an interpretation agreed upon over time about how these duels likely took place.
Another example Klosterman and Carlin use to illustrate this point is society's perceptions of democracy and totalitarianism. Someone who suspects that totalitarianism is a better form of governance will always run lose an argument against someone who presents the verified facts that history's totalitarians have been horrible leaders. A person who interprets that totalitarianism fails only when poor leaders take power is not taken seriously at all.
2. This method requires some patience, though...
In general, the writing or programming that explores ways to ask the best questions rather than those looking for the best answers seem to suit me.
It is a tricky approach because the answers to bad questions often inspire great ingenuity (just see my mock job interview questions I posted a couple of months ago). Clever responses often hide the uselessness of poor questions.
Most of the time, answers to bad questions mislead us or tell us only trivial information about how things truly work. It is the great questions, those without clear, immediate, or even any answers, that drive away the trivial until only what is true remains.
A couple of months ago, I commented briefly on Chuck Klosterman's But What If We're Wrong. My thoughts centered around the portion of his conversation with Dan Carlin, a political commentator, historian, and podcast host, that explored the way President Reagan's legacy was shifting over time. I return to that conversation today to link another topic they discuss in detail- the general trend of history as an academic subject- to a book I once considered my personal favorite.
Historians, according to Carlin, struggle with finding the balance of arranging verified facts into a story and presenting informed opinions based on their own interpretations. As Carlin sees it, the trend is constantly moving toward emphasis of the former (and he does not see this as necessarily a good thing). (1)
The way this discussion was presented in the book limited its application to history. But I think this is in some ways a general trend. Our access to facts is greater today than at any point in the past. Our access to facts tomorrow will be greater than our access to facts today. This access is tempting. Surely, if we dig through it all, we will unearth great revelations in the data that will make life better than it ever was before.
The first book I ever read that captured the struggle with this balance was Moneyball. Written by Michael Lewis, this book documented how baseball's first advanced statisticians revolutionized the way baseball teams analyzed their data. It quickly became my favorite book and remained so for most of my high school and college days.
To summarize, the statisticians' approach of seeking verifiable facts within data worked in direct opposition to the methods relied upon by traditional scouting. Drawing on a lifetime of intuition honed through their careful observation of the sport, scouts made their living by simply interpreting the games they saw from the bleachers and forming conclusions. They passed these 'scouting reports' on to the teams that employed them.
When I was young, I believed in the pattern for change described by this book. I was enthralled by the idea of drawing conclusions from data. I sought to learn as much math, statistics, and economics as possible in my college coursework. Fully prepared by a rigorous double major to do this sort of analysis, I sought work that promised direct involvement with analytical projects and exposed me to deeper thinking about the field.
Back then, the possibility that I would drift away from this line of thinking in the coming years would have seemed remote. Surely, big data was the way forward and I was among the fortune few for whom the future had arrived.
And yet, here we are. Over the past half-decade, I began to recognize limits in the approach of advanced analytics. Some of those limits were built into the field and could be overcome with diligence (such as the difficulty in gathering clean data of an appropriate sample size) but many of the limits were my own.
I sensed that the skills needed to reflect, interpret, or emphasize on a personal level would atrophy if I continued to specialize in analytical work. I feared this trend would either render me incapable of answering any question where the data was insufficient or tempt me to answer, anyway, hoping that shaky data would prove a better guide through uncertainty than careful intuition.
Today, I'm drifting somewhere between the two extremes. I do not have a sense of where the right place for me is along the continuum. Perhaps this exemplifies the best approach- ready to adjust as the situation requires but always mindful of balancing the extremes.
It is a compromise of sorts between empathetic interpretation of events and calculated arrangement of facts. The middle ground allows clean facts to support unexplainable insight. It gives leeway for intuition to direct the next exploration project within a data set.
One way to summarize this position is to examine the story from Moneyball about how on-base percentage was considered a great innovation in baseball analytics. On-base percentage is not a complex statistic to compute. In fact, it is an easily calculable ratio. The simple but thoughtful application of this statistic rather than the complexity of computing the metric is what made this method successful.
The story highlights a basic problem with an over-reliance on analytically focused approaches. Rather than remaining open to new intuition and constantly evaluating updated information to make better decisions, too often more complex or time-consuming analysis of the same data to answer the same question is utilized instead. As Carlin observed in the case of history, focusing too minutely on the known details often diminishes the understanding of those details not yet known. It also reduces the role of intuition required in asking the right questions about complex situations.
Moneyball, I see today, is not the cool story about analyzing data that I long considered it to be. It is a story about how to ask the right questions about the worth of baseball players. Those featured asked 'What are the established metrics telling us about players' instead of accepting the status quo for player evaluation. By pondering this question, they forced new questions to use in determining the best players.
Just like Moneyball, What If We're Wrong is a book about asking the best questions. Dan Carlin's two podcasts are examples of the same. Books and shows like these are extremely valuable for how they cultivate the skill of examining, questioning, and interpreting the world around us. What little practical value such media has in simple or immediate contexts is offset by how they equip their audiences to approach novel or unseen challenges. The skills called on in these examples challenge us to assess rather than compare, to determine what is best rather than just settle for what is better. (2)
Thanks again for reading. Back on Monday to wrap up my thoughts about Moneyball.
Tim
Footnotes...
1. Dan Carlin's podcasting style is slanted toward the latter...
I recently learned from one of his shows (can't recall which, though probably Hardcore History) that swordsmanship (again, can't remember where, though probably samurai-era Japan or somewhere in Central Asia) is one of these topics that historians have no record to draw from. There is apparently no technical documentation of how people fought with swords.
Historians know there was likely sword fighting given depictions in artwork and the recovery of the weapons. However, no primary source explains the tactics or techniques used by swordsmen in battle or in sport. What we see in movies is an interpretation agreed upon over time about how these duels likely took place.
Another example Klosterman and Carlin use to illustrate this point is society's perceptions of democracy and totalitarianism. Someone who suspects that totalitarianism is a better form of governance will always run lose an argument against someone who presents the verified facts that history's totalitarians have been horrible leaders. A person who interprets that totalitarianism fails only when poor leaders take power is not taken seriously at all.
2. This method requires some patience, though...
In general, the writing or programming that explores ways to ask the best questions rather than those looking for the best answers seem to suit me.
It is a tricky approach because the answers to bad questions often inspire great ingenuity (just see my mock job interview questions I posted a couple of months ago). Clever responses often hide the uselessness of poor questions.
Most of the time, answers to bad questions mislead us or tell us only trivial information about how things truly work. It is the great questions, those without clear, immediate, or even any answers, that drive away the trivial until only what is true remains.
Friday, November 4, 2016
proper admin- fall 2016
Hi all,
Welcome to 'proper admin', my bi-monthly cleanup of everything I can't quite work into its own post.
Thanks for reading these past couple of months.
Tim
Blog Admin- Fall 2016
Not much new admin to cover this time around. I suppose with the bimonthly setup I can no longer name these posts by month. So, I am loosely organizing months into the six seasons we all learned in grade school:
September/October- Fall
November/December- Is it WINTER already??
January/February- Still think its a clever idea to own a car, eh?
March/April- How is it still WINTER???
May/June- Spring, sometimes. Buy Old Spice stock.
July/August- Perpetually sweaty. Buy Old Spice.
Speaking of bimonthly- let's clarify my use of it (since the world, for some reason, has two completely plausible meanings). I am using it to mean occurring twice monthly.
The word from the peanut gallery...
No questions this time around but a couple of comments did make me laugh out loud:
Comment: "I’m starting to think blogs are one of the worst inventions ever...whatever I learn from blogs (is) always non-sensical gibberish in the general scheme of things...except your blog, but maybe in a few months I’ll feel the same about it..."
Response: Keep reading, you'll get there!
Comment: "You read a blog, half paying attention, and at the end agreeing with the blogger. Then you read the next entry and realize Tim made a fool out of you..."
Response: My bad...the only person I intend to make look foolish around here is me.
People seemed to enjoy reading my ramblings about the ballot questions. Thanks for the kind words.
Commentary on Fall 2016 blog posts (True On Average)
*9/6- Finding Meaning In Work
I very much enjoyed writing this one. Maybe the only post I've really enjoyed writing so far.
People should work where they can make an impact. If they cannot, they should consider doing something else. Let's keep in mind that impact in this case is a word with a very individualized meaning.
*9/9- Proper Admin September
It was a good decision to relax the posting schedule. I think the guidelines served a purpose at a time where I was unsure about my direction (and not just in the context of this space).
Of late, I have a much clearer concept of inner-direction and this has made it easier to write posts without the external pressure of a schedule.
*9/14- Proper Admin September- Books
I'm sure that quote from George Saunders played into the debate series I ended up doing in late October.
*9/19- Hitting The Pods Button
This post was a homage of sorts to a pair of books I read about a year ago. Exercises In Style by Raymond Queneau tells the same story one hundred times, each chapter using a different technique than that utilized in the prior one (one is written like a play, one is first-person, one is in another language, etc). 99 Ways To Tell A Story by Matt Madden does a similar thing with comic strips.
The main idea from these books is reflected in this post- the way we choose to narrate our own experience is very much our own decision. Given that the books covered relatively mundane basic plots, it seemed a good fit for my own relatively dull 'experience' with podcasts.
I have no idea when this specific idea came to mind, though. No clue why I recalled it for this post and not for another one. Necessity is the mother of invention, they say. (I wonder what 'they' say about plagiarism.) (1)
*9/23- I Read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up So You Don’t Have To
I think more highly of this book each week. It applies to so much more than just the 'stuff' you shove under your bed or into your closet.
*9/28- Where Does Art Come From?
A quote from Makoto Ueda about 'Hell Screen' is an excellent summary for the many thousand words I've blubbered on about regarding the balance of life and art:
“For Akutagawa the dilemma was insoluble: if the artist chooses to place his art ahead of his life, in the end he must suffer the destruction of his life..."
Well, maybe that is a bit over the top, but the quote was intended to comment on Akutagawa's view and his alone.
I am still working on my post for the other story from this collection that I wanted to write about. It has taken its proud position alongside the several thousand other 'posts' I have suggested I will do over the course of the past eight months.
There is also a 'leftovers' post coming that may or may not feature T.I...
*10/3- Neo Moments
Neo Moments are embarrassing. This is probably why people do not make more of them when they happen.
I internalize my embarrassment in these situations. Whenever I have such a realization, I always wonder why I did not think of it before. Technically, this can be said about any thought. Acknowledging this helps a little. However, I suspect my embarrassment comes from a wiser part of my self that knows I did indeed think of it before and just had not bothered to do anything about it until now.
*10/7- How Many Books Should I Read This Year?
One of my classic 'who could give a shit about this' concepts that I ultimately went ahead with once I determined a broader application. The main idea that measuring anything properly requires two metrics is incredibly powerful.
The people I encounter who have a strong grasp of statistics (in the academic sense) AND are able to apply it to the real world tend to do this naturally. Those who do not reach decisive conclusions despite small sample sizes, improper experimental design, or failure to account for the known characteristics of the underlying population.
*10/12- Slightly Fueled
Sports fans tend to do their best ranting when they are annoyed about the commentary.
*10/17 ~ 10/28 - Make America Debate Again (six parts)
To no one's surpise, I have some additional thoughts from that post. I'll post them sometime in November as a 'leftovers' post.
*10/31- Proper Admin- September 2016 Reading Review
A name change! Sometimes, it is good to meet the expectation you set. Other times, it is simpler to just change the expectations.
Commentary on Fall 2016 blog posts (The Business Bro)
*9/1- The Manager Playbook
Ultimately, I did not get this role due to a lack of required 'technical skills'. Though missing out on a role is always disappointing, the reason given made perfect sense.
I never bothered to write a 'programming playbook'. I think that one fact says a lot about what I gravitate to and what I find important in terms of my own personal progression. Recognizing this truth about myself led to greater focus in my job search efforts over the past three months.
*9/8- A Dualing View To Hiring
The fire alarm went off at the Boston Public Library approximately two seconds after I finished up my thought about someone yelling FIRE in a meeting room. The ensuing scene was pure chaos. It resembled the end of Spaceballs or perhaps any Arrested Development episode- people going this way and that, running into each other, generally getting in everyone's way.
For some reason, just standing up and walking outside does not come naturally in this situation. I have no idea why this is the case. (Let's blame TV or that silly little boy who always went on and on about a wolf.)
I was reminded of the first time a fire alarm went off at my first job. Some colleagues remained at their desks, typing away. I was still young enough back then to worry about things like sticking out in the crowd. Was this a drill that I did not know about? The prospect of being the first one out of the building during a fire alarm was bad enough- being the only one out seemed like a fireable offense. I solved the problem by asking a co-worker if she thought we should leave.
It is sometimes alarming to look back on our own insecurities.
Another work fire alarm became memorable in a different way. This took place one morning at eight-fifteen, too early save for a groggy handful of us. One perpetually late colleague stunningly made it in early that day. This same person remarked 'this is why you never come in early' once everyone had secured their own safety.
Such a truthful insight. Unexpected delays like other people interrupting you, equipment breakdowns, or false alarms in general never seem to happen at six-fifteen in the evening.
That comment grew into a 'come in early' rule of thumb for me. Over the next two years, if I could not justify arriving by seven, I usually came in at nine-thirty. It was one of the most productive work decisions I have ever made.
*9/15- Leaving By Example
This was not a real post, I suppose, but the idea that I was doing too much comes through once more. When quality slips or profitable projects are left undone, a business must hire. This pointless pair of blogs should follow its own rules of thumb.
*9/22- Principled Leadership
The desire to lead in this way is probably an inverse function of how much you enjoy issuing dictum after dictum from your leadership position.
*9/29- Leadership 101
Of all the posts I wrote for this blog, I thought this one was the clearest example of writing bringing additional insight on a topic for the author. I say this because even though most of the ideas from this post came from my manager playbook, I never considered the individual ideas as components for a personal leadership framework.
I've found this post helpful in clarifying the core of what I consider basic leadership principles. With that understanding firmly in place, the clear next step is to link the other ideas and concepts from that playbook to their appropriate supporting place within those principles. When I resume writing posts for this blog, the focus will be on expanding that framework through linking isolated ideas and understandings I have accumulated over the years.
My final comment about podcasts...
The podcast ranking idea is done. For the future, I'll recommend episodes I especially enjoyed. If I have nothing, I'll write nothing. (2)
My recommendation for today is from a show I believe I first heard about two years ago. The episode is called 'The Living Room'. At that time, I found the episode so incredible that I decided to subscribe to the Love And Radio podcast.
Eventually, I stopped listening to the podcast. It was a tough decision because there were occasionally great episodes. Ultimately, my interest in the subject was not strong enough to keep my ear through the less than stellar episodes.
However, I still remember 'The Living Room' as one of the best podcast episodes I have ever heard. For what it is worth, someone (who presumably is paid to think about podcasts all year) at The Atlantic agreed, placing this episode third on a list titled the 'Top 50 Podcast Episodes of 2015'. (I'm not sure what to make of that ranking but at least its inclusion on the list indicates that it is, at the minimum, good enough.)
If you have half an hour to kill, I recommend listening to that one episode. Click here for a link to the episode...
The pointless top ten of the month...
Another short-lived feature. This one I discard reluctantly because I enjoy making pointless top ten lists. However, with this post now covering two months instead of one, the need for 'original content' is no longer there.
As a teaser for an upcoming post- my thought a month ago was to list the ten things I buy most often at Haymarket. I am considering a separate post on the topic- a Haymarket shopping guide, maybe, or something focusing on my nutrition concepts. Stay tuned...
My culinary tastes continue to expand
One new food item I began consuming recently is beets. Nothing fancy. I just boil them up a bit with a lid on the pot and cut the skin away after I can get a fork into the beet without too much resistance.
A word of warning to those considering a step into this world. For some, beets do change the color of certain bodily functions. Don't overreact and go to the ER (not that I did) or worry overnight (which I may have done). This might be a trivial point if you eat beets in moderation (no comment).
I started buying vegetable dumplings. Although my diet is not anywhere near what I (or anyone) would describe as 'vegetarian', I am noting a certain trend in that direction. Over the course of the past few years, I have eaten less and less meat at home. Switching from frozen pork dumplings to their vegetarian counterpart is another step along this particularly foggy but well-marked pathway.
On sale, these dumplings cost $2.25 per pound. That is just a shade above Haymarket rate for almost all raw vegetables. At those prices, perhaps everyone will soon abandon meat eating.
How much could a banana cost, ten dollars?
The container of table salt I have used for nearly six years finally ran out this month. Assuming that a half-decade's supply of anything would cost a notable sum, I went to the cheapest grocery store I could think of in search of a replacement.
In such times, only the Super 88 in Brighton fits the bill. The Super 88 is the most basic Asian grocery store around. The H Mart in Central Square is essentially the 'Hollywood' version of the Super 88.
Walking in, I noted immediately that bananas were on sale for forty-nine cents a pound. This was a great sign- right at Haymarket rate.
Eventually, my wanderings took me to the salt section. Notably, this was not the same area in which a shopper would find soy sauce- even though soy sauce is composed of almost one hundred percent salt.
How much could salt cost, indeed? Apparently, ninety-nine cents. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it surely was not that.
The Super 88 in general is a joy to browse in. There is always something that makes me laugh. On this trip, I noticed a product called 'Super Gluten' on sale for two at two dollars (the price for one was $1.99). In a time where increased awareness of coeliac disease has generated a robust demand for gluten-free products, I had to laugh out loud at the thought of a product choosing to 'zig' while the rest of the food industry 'zagged'.
Is it time for my (bi)-monthly U2 comment?
One rule of thumb I use for moving a book from my 'to-read' list onto an actual library request list is something I vaguely refer to as 'this subject seems to come up all the time'. (The most recent book that fits into this category was the one about 'Tidying'.)
Just Kids by Patti Smith is the next such book. Author of M Train, a book I read earlier this year, I've noted in the past couple of months that things keep coming up which involve her in some unanticipated way.
One is a concert clip from a U2 show in Paris. Over the years, the band has occasionally covered her songs. On their most recent tour, they used 'People Have The Power' as intro music before taking the stage. In this particular clip, they bring Patti Smith onstage at the conclusion of the show to perform that same song together. For some reason, I've started listening to this clip regularly over the past few weeks.
Two others unprompted mentions of Patti Smith came through separate conversations with friends. One friend recalled a summer spent in Maine listening to many of her records. Another talked about going to see her appear at a recent event in Boston.
Those three coincidences were good enough for me. Throw in the fact that Just Kids has idly sat on my 'to read' list since I finished up M Train and I figured the time was right. It is currently sitting on my bedside table, buried under several other recently borrowed library books, each with its own equally pointless personal meaning to me.
I think re-reading M Train soon will be worth it, as well. I enjoyed it back in the late winter when I read it for the first time. I suspect that the wisdom gained in the months since leave me prepared to understand it from a different perspective. (3)
Let's call it 'Big Papi Park' from now on...
I found out there was a place called Roethlisberger Park in Cambridge. Huh.
For once, a thing around here called a square is actually square-shaped...
Good rules require exceptions, they say.
RULE: Dunkin' Donuts produces bad donuts.
EXCEPTION: The Reese's Peanut Butter Square
Did I leave the apartment at all?
Leaving the apartment is a nice concept but I find it helps to have a destination. Over the past few months, I've tried a number of different ways to find things to do in the area. As it tends to go in these cases, I've experienced varying levels of success.
The most successful general strategy has been signing up for weekly newsletters. These describe different events going on around town for the upcoming week. Though I tried many and found almost all of them to have some value, the only one I continue to use is from 'The Boston Calendar' (link). This newsletter is fairly comprehensive and its arrival on Wednesday or Thursday is well-timed to when I start filling in the space in my unplanned weekends.
Another decent strategy is to check websites routinely for updates or new events. The Boston Jazz Calendar is the best example of this (link). The best part of this website's design is how the events are always arranged in order of start time. I suppose this is a luxury that can be afforded a niche calendar.
The Boston Globe compiles upcoming author appearances each week. I could subscribe to this as a newsletter, I suspect, but I am also not sure if I'll get full access given the paywall structure. For now, I check each Thursday for the events taking place over the coming week (link for the week of October 30 through November 5). This rhythm ensures I'll stay under the five article monthly limit.
The last website is the Boston Event Calendar and I check this on the 25th of each month (link to the August 2016 page). This one features mostly mainstream events and appears to focus on the tourist crowd (one way to clarify this- many of the events are accompanied by hotel recommendations). Still, sometimes I get a valuable note or two from my monthly check-in at this site.
That was not the question...
One event I checked out in October was the Boston Book Festival (featured on two of the four above lists, for those tracking this sort of thing). This annual event is exactly what is sounds like (though it does appear that the organization which runs this event is based in Cambridge).
I took in two events at this year's edition. The first, called 'Publisher Idol' (or perhaps 'Writer's Idol'- I forget) was an American Idol style competition where publishers judged the first two hundred and fifty words of manuscripts submitted by audience members. At any point, the judges were allowed to stop the reading to make comments about the submission or simply discuss the publishing industry in general.
The event was very entertaining. I learned quite a few useful facts about the industry. I was emboldened to learn that publishers seek books that ten thousand people will spend twenty-six dollars to buy. That does not seem like much at all. Anyone can write a book that does that, right?
The judging process revealed additional fascinating details. Based on the figures provided by the publishers, I learned that a full-time publisher would look through eight to ten thousand manuscripts per year. That works out to about thirty to forty a day or about five per hour. The speed at which decisions must be made in such an environment is staggering to think about.
I thought it was a good sign that the exact strategy I used to write the podcast post was a specific suggestion from the most vocal of the three judges- start writing, then work with what you have to see if structure, starting point, and all that such could benefit from a change.
I plan to write in more detail about an additional aspect of this experience during my next go-around on The Business Bro.
The second event featured Colson Whitehead, author of the recently published The Underground Railroad. Whitehead read from this book, discussed it briefly with the host, and fielded questions from brave (or possibly concussed, in one sad case) audience members.
The comment I liked most from Whitehead was in response to a question of whether a person outside a particular group could write from the perspective of someone in that group. Whitehead pointed out that, as a man, he had no problem writing a novel whose protagonist was a woman. Though I am currently hard at work trying to improve my ability to actually answer the questions I am asked, I did find this 'non-answer' of sorts both appropriate in the context of the event and insightful for its polite simplicity.
As always happens at these readings, I thought hard about asking a question and ended up asking no questions. I realized on my way out that the problem with my unasked questions is that they invariably tend to make me, the questioner, look insightful or clever. They never seem to account for what I want to learn from the author or grant an opening into which the author might choose to expand with insight or cleverness of their own.
Good questions, I concluded, should bring forth good answers. The best question is trivial if it leaves no possibility for a good answer. Perhaps I would feel more inclined to ask a question at my next such event if I am able to craft a question that invites a good answer.
Anything else?
A lot else, actually. An awful lot.
I watched a movie for the first time in over a year and went to see a Lake Street Dive concert (also for the first time in over a year). I hit a one-year anniversary (of sorts) on Hubway and took a personality test that turned out to be much more insightful than I ever could have anticipated. On one rainy Thursday evening, I enjoyed a profound conversation about how to emphasize the ongoing act of living in an environment where the first impression overwhelmingly steers one's thoughts to dying.
These all are the sorts of things I usually write about in this proper admin space. This time around was no exception. But I found as I expanded on those experiences that each fit better into the flow of separate posts. Not requiring the support of the framework within 'proper admin', I decided to take these out and wait to post them on a different day.
Over time, I am finding less of a need for the 'proper admin' structure than I did when I started blogging back in February. The anticipation of this change is expressed in my introductions- proper admin is a space for what I could not work into a post. The way this change has manifested surprised me, though.
I had always thought I would simply become better at immediately writing about what came up over the course of the month. What has ended up happening is that I am now more willing to wait on an idea, recognizing that some experiences simply require more time before I understand what I have to say about it.
It takes me back to Colson Whitehead and the last of his comments that stuck with me. According to the author, the idea for a story based on the premise that the Underground Railroad was literally a train that ran underground was something that grew out of a misunderstanding he had studying history as a young child. He eventually learned the meaning of the metaphor but never forgot the image produced that one day by his imagination.
As his writing career progressed, Whitehead thought about drawing on this concept for his next project. Each time, he concluded that he must wait, that he was not yet ready to draw this particular story out of himself. When he finally put pen to paper for The Underground Railroad, he did so because he understood that he was finally ready to begin.
With Whitehead's comments in mind, I confirm that these posts are not the exhaustive catalog they were over much of this year. I found the structure both helpful and enjoyable. But regardless of structure, the task of writing remains to write well. The aim in removing those topics listed above is to find a more appropriate time to try and accomplish this.
Thanks for reading over the past couple of months. Back again on Wednesday with a (much) shorter post.
Tim
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. For some reason, I still like M&Ms...
Writing this post brought back a memory from my first week at college. The freshman orientation program involved a multi-day trip with nine to eleven fellow new students. About halfway through day one of this trip, we were handed a bag of M&Ms and encouraged to take as many as we liked. Well, I liked M&Ms and I had not eaten all day. So I took eighteen.
We were then told that we were going to count our M&Ms and tell one thing about ourselves to the group. Now, being a somewhat shy fellow (up to that point, I had spoken between three and twenty non-required words on the trip) I did not find this a particularly exciting development. I was also not sure exactly what I could say. Somehow, I decided the best plan was to tell one short story about each year of my life.
I talked about doing gymnastics on a broken arm (age five) and the day I proved once and for all that lefties do not play shortstop (age eight). I shared my obsession with my alleged memorization of Tokyo's subway system (age three) and detailed the day my basketball team scored eight points during the first half of a game- a night that a prospective college coach decided was a good time to see me play (age seventeen). I even talked about getting banned from the sixth grade/senior citizen book group about Louis Sachar's Holes, an accomplishment I believe remains unmatched at the Norwood Junior High School (age twelve).
One thing I know for sure- neither I nor anyone else learned a single thing from my desperate tirade. But I do remember people enjoying it, for whatever reason.
2. So what kinds of podcasts do I like, anyway?
After ten years, I have a good understanding of what works for me. Podcasts presented like a simple recording of a conversation are right in my wheelhouse. Shows where one person essentially narrates their own thought process also work.
I think podcasts that feel overproduced- meaning too much music played in the background or too many extended transitions- are generally not my kind of show. Shows that focus too much on storytelling or technical accuracy will quickly lose my interest. These general preferences grew out of much turnover in my podcast lineup over the past ten years.
Sometimes, I end up learning things unrelated to content from the shows I listen to. One example from a podcast I recently tossed aside is Happier with Gretchen Rubin. She wrote a pragmatic book that I've read a couple of times called The Happiness Project and this podcast is essentially the radio version of that. There was nothing wrong with the podcast but, having read the book, I think most of the wisdom available is already with me.
What I found interesting was the premise behind her 'a little happier' shows. Unlike her weekly thirty to forty-five minute episodes, these were one to three minute shows where she covered only one idea. Usually, the idea was illuminated with a quick, symbolic example. Listening to these little podcasts helped spur the decision to limit the posts for The Business Bro blog to six hundred words or less and provided a rough framework for how I would write about one and only one idea at a time.
Well, usually.
3. Plus, what was the book about, anyway?
I don't even know how to state what I think the book was about. Perhaps how to get on with the business of living when our past and present fail to show the way forward? Maybe a guide for building a nest with the twigs and branches that are inevitably lost by all trees?
Welcome to 'proper admin', my bi-monthly cleanup of everything I can't quite work into its own post.
Thanks for reading these past couple of months.
Tim
Blog Admin- Fall 2016
Not much new admin to cover this time around. I suppose with the bimonthly setup I can no longer name these posts by month. So, I am loosely organizing months into the six seasons we all learned in grade school:
September/October- Fall
November/December- Is it WINTER already??
January/February- Still think its a clever idea to own a car, eh?
March/April- How is it still WINTER???
May/June- Spring, sometimes. Buy Old Spice stock.
July/August- Perpetually sweaty. Buy Old Spice.
Speaking of bimonthly- let's clarify my use of it (since the world, for some reason, has two completely plausible meanings). I am using it to mean occurring twice monthly.
The word from the peanut gallery...
No questions this time around but a couple of comments did make me laugh out loud:
Comment: "I’m starting to think blogs are one of the worst inventions ever...whatever I learn from blogs (is) always non-sensical gibberish in the general scheme of things...except your blog, but maybe in a few months I’ll feel the same about it..."
Response: Keep reading, you'll get there!
Comment: "You read a blog, half paying attention, and at the end agreeing with the blogger. Then you read the next entry and realize Tim made a fool out of you..."
Response: My bad...the only person I intend to make look foolish around here is me.
People seemed to enjoy reading my ramblings about the ballot questions. Thanks for the kind words.
Commentary on Fall 2016 blog posts (True On Average)
*9/6- Finding Meaning In Work
I very much enjoyed writing this one. Maybe the only post I've really enjoyed writing so far.
People should work where they can make an impact. If they cannot, they should consider doing something else. Let's keep in mind that impact in this case is a word with a very individualized meaning.
*9/9- Proper Admin September
It was a good decision to relax the posting schedule. I think the guidelines served a purpose at a time where I was unsure about my direction (and not just in the context of this space).
Of late, I have a much clearer concept of inner-direction and this has made it easier to write posts without the external pressure of a schedule.
*9/14- Proper Admin September- Books
I'm sure that quote from George Saunders played into the debate series I ended up doing in late October.
*9/19- Hitting The Pods Button
This post was a homage of sorts to a pair of books I read about a year ago. Exercises In Style by Raymond Queneau tells the same story one hundred times, each chapter using a different technique than that utilized in the prior one (one is written like a play, one is first-person, one is in another language, etc). 99 Ways To Tell A Story by Matt Madden does a similar thing with comic strips.
The main idea from these books is reflected in this post- the way we choose to narrate our own experience is very much our own decision. Given that the books covered relatively mundane basic plots, it seemed a good fit for my own relatively dull 'experience' with podcasts.
I have no idea when this specific idea came to mind, though. No clue why I recalled it for this post and not for another one. Necessity is the mother of invention, they say. (I wonder what 'they' say about plagiarism.) (1)
*9/23- I Read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up So You Don’t Have To
I think more highly of this book each week. It applies to so much more than just the 'stuff' you shove under your bed or into your closet.
*9/28- Where Does Art Come From?
A quote from Makoto Ueda about 'Hell Screen' is an excellent summary for the many thousand words I've blubbered on about regarding the balance of life and art:
“For Akutagawa the dilemma was insoluble: if the artist chooses to place his art ahead of his life, in the end he must suffer the destruction of his life..."
Well, maybe that is a bit over the top, but the quote was intended to comment on Akutagawa's view and his alone.
I am still working on my post for the other story from this collection that I wanted to write about. It has taken its proud position alongside the several thousand other 'posts' I have suggested I will do over the course of the past eight months.
There is also a 'leftovers' post coming that may or may not feature T.I...
*10/3- Neo Moments
Neo Moments are embarrassing. This is probably why people do not make more of them when they happen.
I internalize my embarrassment in these situations. Whenever I have such a realization, I always wonder why I did not think of it before. Technically, this can be said about any thought. Acknowledging this helps a little. However, I suspect my embarrassment comes from a wiser part of my self that knows I did indeed think of it before and just had not bothered to do anything about it until now.
*10/7- How Many Books Should I Read This Year?
One of my classic 'who could give a shit about this' concepts that I ultimately went ahead with once I determined a broader application. The main idea that measuring anything properly requires two metrics is incredibly powerful.
The people I encounter who have a strong grasp of statistics (in the academic sense) AND are able to apply it to the real world tend to do this naturally. Those who do not reach decisive conclusions despite small sample sizes, improper experimental design, or failure to account for the known characteristics of the underlying population.
*10/12- Slightly Fueled
Sports fans tend to do their best ranting when they are annoyed about the commentary.
*10/17 ~ 10/28 - Make America Debate Again (six parts)
To no one's surpise, I have some additional thoughts from that post. I'll post them sometime in November as a 'leftovers' post.
*10/31- Proper Admin- September 2016 Reading Review
A name change! Sometimes, it is good to meet the expectation you set. Other times, it is simpler to just change the expectations.
Commentary on Fall 2016 blog posts (The Business Bro)
*9/1- The Manager Playbook
Ultimately, I did not get this role due to a lack of required 'technical skills'. Though missing out on a role is always disappointing, the reason given made perfect sense.
I never bothered to write a 'programming playbook'. I think that one fact says a lot about what I gravitate to and what I find important in terms of my own personal progression. Recognizing this truth about myself led to greater focus in my job search efforts over the past three months.
*9/8- A Dualing View To Hiring
The fire alarm went off at the Boston Public Library approximately two seconds after I finished up my thought about someone yelling FIRE in a meeting room. The ensuing scene was pure chaos. It resembled the end of Spaceballs or perhaps any Arrested Development episode- people going this way and that, running into each other, generally getting in everyone's way.
For some reason, just standing up and walking outside does not come naturally in this situation. I have no idea why this is the case. (Let's blame TV or that silly little boy who always went on and on about a wolf.)
I was reminded of the first time a fire alarm went off at my first job. Some colleagues remained at their desks, typing away. I was still young enough back then to worry about things like sticking out in the crowd. Was this a drill that I did not know about? The prospect of being the first one out of the building during a fire alarm was bad enough- being the only one out seemed like a fireable offense. I solved the problem by asking a co-worker if she thought we should leave.
It is sometimes alarming to look back on our own insecurities.
Another work fire alarm became memorable in a different way. This took place one morning at eight-fifteen, too early save for a groggy handful of us. One perpetually late colleague stunningly made it in early that day. This same person remarked 'this is why you never come in early' once everyone had secured their own safety.
Such a truthful insight. Unexpected delays like other people interrupting you, equipment breakdowns, or false alarms in general never seem to happen at six-fifteen in the evening.
That comment grew into a 'come in early' rule of thumb for me. Over the next two years, if I could not justify arriving by seven, I usually came in at nine-thirty. It was one of the most productive work decisions I have ever made.
*9/15- Leaving By Example
This was not a real post, I suppose, but the idea that I was doing too much comes through once more. When quality slips or profitable projects are left undone, a business must hire. This pointless pair of blogs should follow its own rules of thumb.
*9/22- Principled Leadership
The desire to lead in this way is probably an inverse function of how much you enjoy issuing dictum after dictum from your leadership position.
*9/29- Leadership 101
Of all the posts I wrote for this blog, I thought this one was the clearest example of writing bringing additional insight on a topic for the author. I say this because even though most of the ideas from this post came from my manager playbook, I never considered the individual ideas as components for a personal leadership framework.
I've found this post helpful in clarifying the core of what I consider basic leadership principles. With that understanding firmly in place, the clear next step is to link the other ideas and concepts from that playbook to their appropriate supporting place within those principles. When I resume writing posts for this blog, the focus will be on expanding that framework through linking isolated ideas and understandings I have accumulated over the years.
My final comment about podcasts...
The podcast ranking idea is done. For the future, I'll recommend episodes I especially enjoyed. If I have nothing, I'll write nothing. (2)
My recommendation for today is from a show I believe I first heard about two years ago. The episode is called 'The Living Room'. At that time, I found the episode so incredible that I decided to subscribe to the Love And Radio podcast.
Eventually, I stopped listening to the podcast. It was a tough decision because there were occasionally great episodes. Ultimately, my interest in the subject was not strong enough to keep my ear through the less than stellar episodes.
However, I still remember 'The Living Room' as one of the best podcast episodes I have ever heard. For what it is worth, someone (who presumably is paid to think about podcasts all year) at The Atlantic agreed, placing this episode third on a list titled the 'Top 50 Podcast Episodes of 2015'. (I'm not sure what to make of that ranking but at least its inclusion on the list indicates that it is, at the minimum, good enough.)
If you have half an hour to kill, I recommend listening to that one episode. Click here for a link to the episode...
The pointless top ten of the month...
Another short-lived feature. This one I discard reluctantly because I enjoy making pointless top ten lists. However, with this post now covering two months instead of one, the need for 'original content' is no longer there.
As a teaser for an upcoming post- my thought a month ago was to list the ten things I buy most often at Haymarket. I am considering a separate post on the topic- a Haymarket shopping guide, maybe, or something focusing on my nutrition concepts. Stay tuned...
My culinary tastes continue to expand
One new food item I began consuming recently is beets. Nothing fancy. I just boil them up a bit with a lid on the pot and cut the skin away after I can get a fork into the beet without too much resistance.
A word of warning to those considering a step into this world. For some, beets do change the color of certain bodily functions. Don't overreact and go to the ER (not that I did) or worry overnight (which I may have done). This might be a trivial point if you eat beets in moderation (no comment).
I started buying vegetable dumplings. Although my diet is not anywhere near what I (or anyone) would describe as 'vegetarian', I am noting a certain trend in that direction. Over the course of the past few years, I have eaten less and less meat at home. Switching from frozen pork dumplings to their vegetarian counterpart is another step along this particularly foggy but well-marked pathway.
On sale, these dumplings cost $2.25 per pound. That is just a shade above Haymarket rate for almost all raw vegetables. At those prices, perhaps everyone will soon abandon meat eating.
How much could a banana cost, ten dollars?
The container of table salt I have used for nearly six years finally ran out this month. Assuming that a half-decade's supply of anything would cost a notable sum, I went to the cheapest grocery store I could think of in search of a replacement.
In such times, only the Super 88 in Brighton fits the bill. The Super 88 is the most basic Asian grocery store around. The H Mart in Central Square is essentially the 'Hollywood' version of the Super 88.
Walking in, I noted immediately that bananas were on sale for forty-nine cents a pound. This was a great sign- right at Haymarket rate.
Eventually, my wanderings took me to the salt section. Notably, this was not the same area in which a shopper would find soy sauce- even though soy sauce is composed of almost one hundred percent salt.
How much could salt cost, indeed? Apparently, ninety-nine cents. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it surely was not that.
The Super 88 in general is a joy to browse in. There is always something that makes me laugh. On this trip, I noticed a product called 'Super Gluten' on sale for two at two dollars (the price for one was $1.99). In a time where increased awareness of coeliac disease has generated a robust demand for gluten-free products, I had to laugh out loud at the thought of a product choosing to 'zig' while the rest of the food industry 'zagged'.
Is it time for my (bi)-monthly U2 comment?
One rule of thumb I use for moving a book from my 'to-read' list onto an actual library request list is something I vaguely refer to as 'this subject seems to come up all the time'. (The most recent book that fits into this category was the one about 'Tidying'.)
Just Kids by Patti Smith is the next such book. Author of M Train, a book I read earlier this year, I've noted in the past couple of months that things keep coming up which involve her in some unanticipated way.
One is a concert clip from a U2 show in Paris. Over the years, the band has occasionally covered her songs. On their most recent tour, they used 'People Have The Power' as intro music before taking the stage. In this particular clip, they bring Patti Smith onstage at the conclusion of the show to perform that same song together. For some reason, I've started listening to this clip regularly over the past few weeks.
Two others unprompted mentions of Patti Smith came through separate conversations with friends. One friend recalled a summer spent in Maine listening to many of her records. Another talked about going to see her appear at a recent event in Boston.
Those three coincidences were good enough for me. Throw in the fact that Just Kids has idly sat on my 'to read' list since I finished up M Train and I figured the time was right. It is currently sitting on my bedside table, buried under several other recently borrowed library books, each with its own equally pointless personal meaning to me.
I think re-reading M Train soon will be worth it, as well. I enjoyed it back in the late winter when I read it for the first time. I suspect that the wisdom gained in the months since leave me prepared to understand it from a different perspective. (3)
Let's call it 'Big Papi Park' from now on...
I found out there was a place called Roethlisberger Park in Cambridge. Huh.
For once, a thing around here called a square is actually square-shaped...
Good rules require exceptions, they say.
RULE: Dunkin' Donuts produces bad donuts.
EXCEPTION: The Reese's Peanut Butter Square
Did I leave the apartment at all?
Leaving the apartment is a nice concept but I find it helps to have a destination. Over the past few months, I've tried a number of different ways to find things to do in the area. As it tends to go in these cases, I've experienced varying levels of success.
The most successful general strategy has been signing up for weekly newsletters. These describe different events going on around town for the upcoming week. Though I tried many and found almost all of them to have some value, the only one I continue to use is from 'The Boston Calendar' (link). This newsletter is fairly comprehensive and its arrival on Wednesday or Thursday is well-timed to when I start filling in the space in my unplanned weekends.
Another decent strategy is to check websites routinely for updates or new events. The Boston Jazz Calendar is the best example of this (link). The best part of this website's design is how the events are always arranged in order of start time. I suppose this is a luxury that can be afforded a niche calendar.
The Boston Globe compiles upcoming author appearances each week. I could subscribe to this as a newsletter, I suspect, but I am also not sure if I'll get full access given the paywall structure. For now, I check each Thursday for the events taking place over the coming week (link for the week of October 30 through November 5). This rhythm ensures I'll stay under the five article monthly limit.
The last website is the Boston Event Calendar and I check this on the 25th of each month (link to the August 2016 page). This one features mostly mainstream events and appears to focus on the tourist crowd (one way to clarify this- many of the events are accompanied by hotel recommendations). Still, sometimes I get a valuable note or two from my monthly check-in at this site.
That was not the question...
One event I checked out in October was the Boston Book Festival (featured on two of the four above lists, for those tracking this sort of thing). This annual event is exactly what is sounds like (though it does appear that the organization which runs this event is based in Cambridge).
I took in two events at this year's edition. The first, called 'Publisher Idol' (or perhaps 'Writer's Idol'- I forget) was an American Idol style competition where publishers judged the first two hundred and fifty words of manuscripts submitted by audience members. At any point, the judges were allowed to stop the reading to make comments about the submission or simply discuss the publishing industry in general.
The event was very entertaining. I learned quite a few useful facts about the industry. I was emboldened to learn that publishers seek books that ten thousand people will spend twenty-six dollars to buy. That does not seem like much at all. Anyone can write a book that does that, right?
The judging process revealed additional fascinating details. Based on the figures provided by the publishers, I learned that a full-time publisher would look through eight to ten thousand manuscripts per year. That works out to about thirty to forty a day or about five per hour. The speed at which decisions must be made in such an environment is staggering to think about.
I thought it was a good sign that the exact strategy I used to write the podcast post was a specific suggestion from the most vocal of the three judges- start writing, then work with what you have to see if structure, starting point, and all that such could benefit from a change.
I plan to write in more detail about an additional aspect of this experience during my next go-around on The Business Bro.
The second event featured Colson Whitehead, author of the recently published The Underground Railroad. Whitehead read from this book, discussed it briefly with the host, and fielded questions from brave (or possibly concussed, in one sad case) audience members.
The comment I liked most from Whitehead was in response to a question of whether a person outside a particular group could write from the perspective of someone in that group. Whitehead pointed out that, as a man, he had no problem writing a novel whose protagonist was a woman. Though I am currently hard at work trying to improve my ability to actually answer the questions I am asked, I did find this 'non-answer' of sorts both appropriate in the context of the event and insightful for its polite simplicity.
As always happens at these readings, I thought hard about asking a question and ended up asking no questions. I realized on my way out that the problem with my unasked questions is that they invariably tend to make me, the questioner, look insightful or clever. They never seem to account for what I want to learn from the author or grant an opening into which the author might choose to expand with insight or cleverness of their own.
Good questions, I concluded, should bring forth good answers. The best question is trivial if it leaves no possibility for a good answer. Perhaps I would feel more inclined to ask a question at my next such event if I am able to craft a question that invites a good answer.
Anything else?
A lot else, actually. An awful lot.
I watched a movie for the first time in over a year and went to see a Lake Street Dive concert (also for the first time in over a year). I hit a one-year anniversary (of sorts) on Hubway and took a personality test that turned out to be much more insightful than I ever could have anticipated. On one rainy Thursday evening, I enjoyed a profound conversation about how to emphasize the ongoing act of living in an environment where the first impression overwhelmingly steers one's thoughts to dying.
These all are the sorts of things I usually write about in this proper admin space. This time around was no exception. But I found as I expanded on those experiences that each fit better into the flow of separate posts. Not requiring the support of the framework within 'proper admin', I decided to take these out and wait to post them on a different day.
Over time, I am finding less of a need for the 'proper admin' structure than I did when I started blogging back in February. The anticipation of this change is expressed in my introductions- proper admin is a space for what I could not work into a post. The way this change has manifested surprised me, though.
I had always thought I would simply become better at immediately writing about what came up over the course of the month. What has ended up happening is that I am now more willing to wait on an idea, recognizing that some experiences simply require more time before I understand what I have to say about it.
It takes me back to Colson Whitehead and the last of his comments that stuck with me. According to the author, the idea for a story based on the premise that the Underground Railroad was literally a train that ran underground was something that grew out of a misunderstanding he had studying history as a young child. He eventually learned the meaning of the metaphor but never forgot the image produced that one day by his imagination.
As his writing career progressed, Whitehead thought about drawing on this concept for his next project. Each time, he concluded that he must wait, that he was not yet ready to draw this particular story out of himself. When he finally put pen to paper for The Underground Railroad, he did so because he understood that he was finally ready to begin.
With Whitehead's comments in mind, I confirm that these posts are not the exhaustive catalog they were over much of this year. I found the structure both helpful and enjoyable. But regardless of structure, the task of writing remains to write well. The aim in removing those topics listed above is to find a more appropriate time to try and accomplish this.
Thanks for reading over the past couple of months. Back again on Wednesday with a (much) shorter post.
Tim
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. For some reason, I still like M&Ms...
Writing this post brought back a memory from my first week at college. The freshman orientation program involved a multi-day trip with nine to eleven fellow new students. About halfway through day one of this trip, we were handed a bag of M&Ms and encouraged to take as many as we liked. Well, I liked M&Ms and I had not eaten all day. So I took eighteen.
We were then told that we were going to count our M&Ms and tell one thing about ourselves to the group. Now, being a somewhat shy fellow (up to that point, I had spoken between three and twenty non-required words on the trip) I did not find this a particularly exciting development. I was also not sure exactly what I could say. Somehow, I decided the best plan was to tell one short story about each year of my life.
I talked about doing gymnastics on a broken arm (age five) and the day I proved once and for all that lefties do not play shortstop (age eight). I shared my obsession with my alleged memorization of Tokyo's subway system (age three) and detailed the day my basketball team scored eight points during the first half of a game- a night that a prospective college coach decided was a good time to see me play (age seventeen). I even talked about getting banned from the sixth grade/senior citizen book group about Louis Sachar's Holes, an accomplishment I believe remains unmatched at the Norwood Junior High School (age twelve).
One thing I know for sure- neither I nor anyone else learned a single thing from my desperate tirade. But I do remember people enjoying it, for whatever reason.
2. So what kinds of podcasts do I like, anyway?
After ten years, I have a good understanding of what works for me. Podcasts presented like a simple recording of a conversation are right in my wheelhouse. Shows where one person essentially narrates their own thought process also work.
I think podcasts that feel overproduced- meaning too much music played in the background or too many extended transitions- are generally not my kind of show. Shows that focus too much on storytelling or technical accuracy will quickly lose my interest. These general preferences grew out of much turnover in my podcast lineup over the past ten years.
Sometimes, I end up learning things unrelated to content from the shows I listen to. One example from a podcast I recently tossed aside is Happier with Gretchen Rubin. She wrote a pragmatic book that I've read a couple of times called The Happiness Project and this podcast is essentially the radio version of that. There was nothing wrong with the podcast but, having read the book, I think most of the wisdom available is already with me.
What I found interesting was the premise behind her 'a little happier' shows. Unlike her weekly thirty to forty-five minute episodes, these were one to three minute shows where she covered only one idea. Usually, the idea was illuminated with a quick, symbolic example. Listening to these little podcasts helped spur the decision to limit the posts for The Business Bro blog to six hundred words or less and provided a rough framework for how I would write about one and only one idea at a time.
Well, usually.
3. Plus, what was the book about, anyway?
I don't even know how to state what I think the book was about. Perhaps how to get on with the business of living when our past and present fail to show the way forward? Maybe a guide for building a nest with the twigs and branches that are inevitably lost by all trees?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)