Players

Perhaps the most inspiring thing I've seen in the last quarter.

"And something very unusual happens. That fixed behavior--which is rigged and stereotyped and usually ends up with a meal--changes. ... And an incredible ballet begins. ... They are beginning to do something that neither would have done without the play signals."

"John mentioned that I've done some work with murderers."

"It doesn't have a particular purpose, and that's what's so great about play. If the purpose is more important than the act of doing it, it's probably not play."

"[M]anipulation of objects is the hand in search of a brain. The brain is in search of a hand, and play is the medium by which those two are linked in the best way."


http://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html

Joy

Reread

So Cory Doctorow wrote this great book called Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.

There's this wonderful quotation from that novel:

Have you read all of these?” Alan asked as he shifted the John Mortimers down one shelf to make room for the Ed McBains.

“Naw,” she said, punching him in the shoulder. “What’s the point of a bunch of books you’ve already read?”

Actually it's quotations from the novel, because of reincorporation, but you get the idea.

Best Regards, Constant Reader,
Will

Feast of the Ascension

I learned a new word today.

Giaour. It is word of Turkish origin that Muslims use to refer to infidels, or Christians, or Greeks. It is old. Lord Byron wrote a poem titled Giaour.

I learnt it from Lepanto. If ever I own or have access to a camera regularly, I'll record it for you on the 'tube. (In no sense do I understand conversational Deustch; I just like how it sounds, and am amazed by what one can learn without understanding the narrator.)

So it wasn't the wasted day I labored to make it after ten.

My point in bringing all this up is that I had no idea, none, that Chesterton wrote verse. It's like suddenly discovering that in your friend's attic are the scores of really good portraits she's done for the last twenty years which she never mentioned. Also: Cervantes reference!

And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye, 45
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.
...
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work, 100
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
...
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, 140
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

Now We Can Do Big Things For Love

Edited 20080329 to correct doff to dopp.

Life teaches us that motivations other than getting paid aren't enough to add up to serious work.

And now we have to unlearn that lesson, because it is less true with each passing year. People now have access to myriad tools that let them share writing, images, video--any form of expressive content, in fact--and use that sharing as an anchor for community and cooperation. The twentieth century, with the spread of radio and television, was the broadcast century. The normal pattern for media was that they were created by a small group of professionals and then delivered to a large group of consumers. But media, in the word's literal sense as the middle layer between people, have always been a three-part affair. People like to consume media, of course, but they also like to produce it ("Look what I made!") and they like to share it ("Look what I found!"). Because we now have media that support both making and sharing, as well as consuming, those capabilities are reappearing, after a century mainly give over to consumption. We are used to a world where little things happen for love and big things happen for money. Love motivates people to bake a cake and money motivates people to make an encyclopedia. Now, though, we can do big things for love.

Clay Shirky, from Here Comes Everybody!, Chapter 4: Publish then Filter

Thomas has been promoting this book for several days, in several ways. I read a bit and talked to him for an hour and a half or so, in the middle of the day. Then I left for my father's house, in quest of, among other things, my dopp bag (which my mother assures me is simply another way of saying 'toiletries bag').

(If you should see a red leather dopp bag, somewhat frayed, do not approach it. Call the police immediately. It is suspected in the removal of myriad whiskers and three unobjectionable beards, as well as countless travel ablutions. It is to be considered armed [razor] and extremely dangerous.)

I read the above driving to Opelika and while loitering over chili in my mother's house. It's one of the more delightful things I've read, and I wished to share it with you; because I love you.

Anniversary

Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all's over;
I only vex you the more I try.
All's wrong that ever I've done or said,
And nought to help it in this dull head:
Shake hands, here's luck, good-bye.

But if you come to a road where danger
Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,
Be good to the lad that loves you true
And the soul that was born to die for you,
And whistle and I'll be there.

--

'Tis five years since, `An end,' said I;
`I'll march no further, time to die.
All's lost; no worse has heaven to give.'
Worse has it given, and yet I live.

I shall not die to-day, no fear:
I shall live yet for many a year,
And see worse ills and worse again,
And die of age and not of pain.

When God would rear from earth aloof
The blue height of the hollow roof,
He sought him pillars sure and strong,
And ere he found them sought them long.

The stark steel splintered from the thrust,
The basalt mountain sprang to dust,
The blazing pier of diamond flawed
In shards of rainbow all abroad.

What found he, that the heavens stand fast?
What pillar proven firm at last
Bears up so light that world-seen span?
The heart of man, the heart of man.

--

Bitter words from a better man,
the shadeling prince A. E. Housman