The most dangerous game

I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have papers to grade, textbook orders to fill out, an NSF proposal to referee, dissertation drafts to read. I am working on this essay as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time. All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you.

I've been meaning to post an excerpt from John Perry's essay for, well, for some time now. You can read "Structured Procrastination"--at your own risk--by clicking here.

Prof. Perry also has a nice essay on horizontal organization, the art of spreading out your work in piles all around you. You can read "A Plea for the Horizontally Organized"--again at your own risk--by clicking here.

Garrett Wade

I happened to mention it while teaching: the Garrett Wade catalogue must be the most beautiful tool catalogue ever made. You can see the online version by clicking here. The print version, on non-shiny paper, is even better.

GMH, journal-keeper

The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was a dedicated journal-keeper. Did he write in Moleskine notebooks? Who knows. Here's a sample from Hopkins' journals:

Aug. 10 [1872]. --I was looking at high waves. The breakers always are parallel to the coast and shape themselves to it except where the curve is sharp however the wind blows. They are rolled out by the shallowing shore just as a piece of putty between the palms whatever its shape runs into a long roll. The slant ruck or crease one sees in them shows the way of the wind. The regularity of the barrels surprised and charmed the eye; the edge behind the comb or crest was as smooth and as bright as glass. It may be noticed to be green behind and silver white in front: the silver marks where the air begins, the pure white is foam, the green / solid water. Then looked at to the right or left they are scrolled over like mouldboards or feathers or jibsails seen by the edge. It is pretty to see the hollow of the barrel disappearing as the white combs on each side run along the wave gaining ground till the two meet at a pitch and crush and overlap each other.

About all the turns of the scaping from the break and flooding of wave to its run out again I have not yet satisfied myself. The shores are swimming and the eyes have before them a region of milky surf but it is hard for them to unpack the huddling and gnarls of the water and law out the shapes and the sequence of the running: I catch however the looped or forked wisp made by every big pebble the backwater runs over--if it were clear and smooth there would be a network from their overlapping, such as can in fact be seen on smooth sand after the tide is out--; then I saw it run browner, the foam dwindling and twitched into long chains of suds, while the strength of the back-draught shrugged the stones together and clocked them one against another.

Looking from the cliff I saw well that work of dimpled foamlaps--strings of short loops or halfmoons--which I had studied at Freshwater years ago.

It is pretty to see the dance and swagging of the light green tongues or ripples of waves in a place locked between rocks.

No wonder Hugh Kenner referred to Hopkins' "poetic of detail." For Hopkins, looking (as in his modest preface, "I was looking at high waves") is synonymous with the most careful, extended attention to detail. The excitement of this passage for me lies in realizing just how right Hopkins' words are: "rolled out by the shallowing shore," "as smooth and as bright as glass," "solid water," "the huddling and gnarls of the water," "the looped or forked wisp made by every big pebble," "the foam dwindling and twitched into long chains of suds." Reading this passage, I can see--really see--what I've been seeing and missing.

You can see images of three pages from Hopkins' journals by clicking here.

Update: I've added the two short paragraphs that complete this GMH journal entry (I didn't know that the anthology I was borrowing from had made cuts). Thanks to Sean Payne, whose blog, Sign Language, you can visit by clicking here.

Learning styles

Here's an interesting link, to a free learning styles inventory (via lifehack.org). The score in each category can run from 0 to 20. My numbers:

Visual 13
Aural 14
Verbal 19
Physical 5
Logical 13
Social 9
Solitary 17

Yes, I'm a solitary (and sometimes logical) reader, or at least that's how I learn best. This inventory might not tell you anything you don't already know. Then again, it might.

*

April 23, 2018: The idea of “learning styles” looks more and more dubious. And this inventory of learning styles now looks to me much more like an inventory of habits of mind and elements of personality. My numbers in 2018:

Visual 8
Aural 15
Verbal 19
Physical 9
Logical 13
Social 10
Solitary 18

Go figure.

[Note: The above site asks for a name and email address and says that providing them is "completely optional." But you don't get to see your result until you've filled in the "optional" blanks. Just giving initials and a throwaway email address (e.g., "junkmail@mailinator.com") is sufficient. Mailinator is a terrific resource when a website asks for an email address.]

The class of 1935

It can be poignant to read the class notes in college alumni magazines. Recent graduates typically report job successes, marriages, and new arrivals. But here's something from the class of 1935:

Dick had just recovered from a heart attack and was resting up for a few days before going back to the hospital to receive a pacemaker. He and Mary were relaxed. At five o'clock on the day he died, they had their favorite "old-fashioneds," followed later by one of their favorite meals, and they ended the evening, at bedtime, by saying the rosary together. Mary slept downstairs because she was just recovering from a hip replacement. In the morning, Dick didn't respond to her calling. His ailing heart had quietly stopped beating. We should all be so lucky when the time comes.

A memory of Dick (John) Vaughan, written by his friend Edward T. Sullivan, correspondent for the Boston College class of 1935, published in the Spring 2005 issue of the Boston College Magazine. The surviving members of this class would now be in their early nineties.

[Note: An old-fashioned is a drink made with sugar, bitters, lemon peel, and whiskey, served on the rocks.]

There'll always be an England

From the Chicago Tribune:

Watch out for "happy slapping," the latest youth craze to sweep Britain.

It's not a new dance step or even a new designer drug. It's a criminal assault.

Groups of teenagers approach an unsuspecting person and begin punching and kicking him or her while capturing it all on their mobile camera phones. The images are later uploaded and shared on the Internet.

The victims can be young or old, male or female. Bus stops, tube stations and parks are considered prime venues. In most cases, the injuries are minor. But on Saturday, British newspapers reported that an 11-year-old London girl had been raped by a gang of happy slappers, and Scotland Yard confirmed that three 14-year-old boys had been arrested.

The craze apparently started in London late last year but has spread across the country. British Transport Police say they have investigated about 200 attacks in London alone since the beginning of the year, but they acknowledge that most go unreported.

Happy slapping is the latest manifestation of what Britons call "yob culture." The word "yob" dates to the 19th Century--it likely derives from "boy" spelled backward--and it denotes a kind of loutish, anti-social behavior associated with working-class youth in Britain's urban centers. The British soccer hooligan is the quintessential yob.

You can read the article "'Happy slap' yobs breed fear, anger" by clicking here.

[If asked for a name and password, use noaccount@mailinator.com and noaccount.]

Back to school

From "College in the 40s," by Michael Bracken, who went back to college at 42 and will graduate at 48:

While my son speeds through college without stopping for marriage, children and career, I relish the few advantages of being a college student at my age. I especially enjoy the reaction at the local multiplex when I request the "student discount," and my wife takes great pleasure in telling people that she sleeps with a college student.

You can read the essay (from Inside Higher Ed) by clicking here.

The New York Times invents a word?

From the New York Times:

Ostentious outfits were on display in York, England, for Ladies Day of the Royal Ascot races.

Does the Times mean ostentatious?

Neither the Oxford English Dictionary nor Merriam-Webster OnLine nor dictionary.com has an entry for "ostentious."

[This sentence appears in a photo caption--no way to link to it, alas.]

Update: By 3:23 p.m., the caption was gone, replaced by this one:

Women looked their very best in York, England, for Ladies Day of the Royal Ascot races.

"Human rights" and other four-letter words

It's remarkable that I find myself in agreement with a Wall Street Journal editorial, but today I do. From the WSJ (June 15):

Microsoft's Kowtow

"Where do you want to go today?"

That was Microsoft's slogan in the mid-1990s, one that evoked the unlimited possibilities inherent in the age of the Internet and the software revolution. The answer to that question today would be, "hopefully not where they discuss 'freedom,' 'democracy' and 'human rights,'" at least not if you expect to use Microsoft's new portal in China.

The software giant has just bowed to the Chinese government by banning these words. If you type them on Microsoft's new portal, a message appears telling you to try different ones. If this weren't insulting enough, the message actually says, according to news reports, "this item should not contain forbidden speech such as profanity. Please enter a different word for this item."

To be fair to Microsoft, it is not alone. Yahoo! and Google have also caved in to China. Google chose last year to omit sources the Chinese government does not like from its Google News China edition, saying that it didn't make sense to provide a link to sites that would probably be blank anyway. All of these Internet companies make the point that it is better to make a compromise, gain a foothold in China and then offer China's masses the smorgasbord of information that is out there.

That view got backing from none other than Colin Powell, who happened to be in Hong Kong this week as this story was breaking. Microsoft figured it is "best for them and better for Chinese citizens to get 95% of the loaf," the former Secretary of State said at a conference when we asked him what he thought of an American company banning the word "freedom." While acknowledging that "Microsoft, and Google, and other information providers, have had to make a compromise that we wouldn't find acceptable in the United States," Mr. Powell said, "I think it's probably best for them to make that kind of compromise." Mr. Powell added that he thought the Chinese government was fighting a losing battle in thought control over the Internet, at least "if Chinese teenagers are like the teenagers in my family."

It is admittedly difficult for China's government to block Internet content from its estimated 87 million users, a number that is growing. But it is a lot easier if it has the cooperation of the industry. These corporations might also remember that Beijing needs their business. The Internet is where demand and supply meet these days, and China's leaders need economic growth to continue if they are not to face large-scale upheaval. Certainly the Microsofts and Googles might try to drive a harder bargain.

"Best in Class"

From the New Yorker:

Daniel Kennedy remembers when he still thought that valedictorians were a good thing. Kennedy, a wiry fifty-nine-year-old who has a stern buzz cut, was in 1997 the principal of Sarasota High School, in Sarasota, Florida. Toward the end of the school year, it became apparent that several seniors were deadlocked in the race to become valedictorian. At first, Kennedy saw no particular reason to worry. "My innocent thought was What possible problem could those great kids cause?" he recalled last month, during a drive around Sarasota. "And I went blindly on with my day."

The school had a system in place to break ties. "If the G.P.A.s were the same, the award was supposed to go to the kid with the most credits," Kennedy explained. It turned out that one of the top students, Denny Davies, had learned of this rule, and had quietly arranged to take extra courses during his senior year, including an independent study in algebra. "The independent study was probably a breeze, and he ended up with the most credits," Kennedy said.

Davies was named valedictorian. His chief rivals for the honor were furious--in particular, a girl named Kylie Barker, who told me recently that she had wanted to be valedictorian "pretty much forever."

Kennedy recalled, "Soon, the kids were doing everything they could to battle it out."

You can read Margaret Talbot's "Best in Class," on the lengths some young people will go to to be high-school valedictorians, by clicking here.