Free advice for Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben's foreword to Maggie Jackson's new book Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age begins with predictable irony:

As I settled down at my desk to write this brief foreword, a light on the computer blinked to indicate that a new e-mail had arrived. This left me with a quandary that by now must afflict most Americans most days of their lives: continue with the train of thought that I'd begun to follow or see who was hailing me and for what purpose.

McKibben clicks, replies, talks on the phone with the e-mailer, loses half an hour. And as the foreword ends,

The inbox is flashing again, clamoring for my attention. Loving novelty, I head in its direction; craving depth, I do so with a tinge of regret.

I'm puzzled when people who are skeptical users of technology seem unaware that they can prevent at least many digital distractions. Some free advice for Bill McKibben:

1. Turn off automatic e-mail checking and notification. (I'm assuming that the "light on the computer" involves Microsoft Outlook or a similar program.) Check e-mail manually, less frequently.

2. Use distraction-free writing technology. (I'm guessing that McKibben was getting ready to open Microsoft Word.) A text-editor beats Word for composing. Dark Room and WriteRoom are good choices too: in full-screen mode they remove access to other programs. Writing a draft in pencil or pen removes all computer-based distraction.

3. Read Mark Hurst's book Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload. One reason McKibben is distracted: Jackson's book offers no practical advice for managing digital claims on our attention. Hurst's book does.

Bill McKibben's quandary need not be a quandary. We already have the means to remove many of the distractions that can come between attention and the digital task at hand.

Two related posts
Driven to distraction
Review of Bit Literacy

Review: David Murray and Mal Waldron

David Murray and Mal Waldron, Silence (Justin Time, 2008)

David Murray, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone
Mal Waldron, piano

Recorded October 2001 in Brussels

Free For C.T. (Waldron–Max Roach) 10:44
Silence (Murray) 3:30
Hurray For Herbie (Waldron) 7:52
I Should Care (Sammy Cahn–Axel Stordahl–Paul Weston) 12:36
Jean-Pierre (Miles Davis) 10:03
All Too Soon (Duke Ellington–Carl Sigman) 7:08
Soul Eyes (Waldron–Kelly Beverly Wolfe) 14:17

This recording gives us two great and markedly different improvisers whose interplay bespeaks a deep musical and emotional connection. Had Murray and Waldron ever played together before making this recording? The one-page insert accompanying the CD gives no information about the circumstances of this collaboration.

Every track here is a standout, but I'm especially drawn to the last four (which twenty-five years or so ago might have formed the two sides of a perfect LP). Waldron introduces an ascending half-step figure in the seventh bar of "I Should Care" that reshapes (or Waldronizes) the melody, and he and Murray recast the first four bars of "All Too Soon" as a series of three-note phrases. "Jean-Pierre," one of the bright moments of Miles Davis' later years, is reharmonized into a gospel-funk extravaganza reminiscent of Murray's "Morning Song" (or Billy Preston's "Nothing from Nothing"). And finally, "Soul Eyes," whose lengthy coda suggests the joy these musicians found in playing together.

A bonus: sound quality is extraordinary. Three cheers for Michael W. Huon and Olivier Huillet, who did the recording, and Bill Szawlowski, who mixed and mastered.

I've gone as long as I can without saying it: what a record!

Samples of the first five tracks are available here.

Domestic comedy

"I haven't watched any Olympics tonight."

"What do you want, a medal?"

Sylvia Sweets Tea Room

[Sylvia Sweets Tea Room, corner of School and Main Streets, Brockton, Massachusetts, December 1940 or January 1941. Photograph by Jack Delano (1914–1997). Click for a larger view.]

Another beautiful photograph from the Library of Congress. It would be grand to cross the street (we have the light) and stand hatted and overcoated outside Sylvia Sweets.

What makes this photograph's 21st-century existence especially exciting is that Brocktonians have filled in some of the history of Sylvia Sweets and environs in their comments on the photo's Flickr page. (The Library of Congress information as to location was simply "industrial town in Massachusetts.") The Flickr contributors include William Wainwright, son of George L. Wainwright, whose law office was on the second floor of the building. (William practices law in Brockton in what is now a three-generation family firm, Wainwright and Wainwright.)

Don't miss the photograph in its original size, with the window signage at least partly readable. Fried clams, 40¢!

This photograph is one of the 4065 photographs that the Library of Congress has made available via Flickr. Wikipedia has an article on photographer Jack Delano.

Related posts
Library of Congress photographs
Orange crate art
Sylvia Sweets remembered

Note to self re: bookbuying

Many times in the past two years, I've bought just-out hardcover non-fiction and been hugely disappointed, sometimes by the ideas, sometimes by the writing, sometimes by both. So listen up, self:

When you learn of new non-fiction that addresses matters of culture, education, language, or technology, wait. Read a sample online or in a bookstore. Consider whether you're willing to take on several hundred pages of the writer's prose. Look at Amazon reviews (which are sometimes far more discerning than those found in traditional media). And ask yourself, self, the crucial question: do you need to buy this book, or can you be happy getting it from the library?

And remember, self, if you buy the book in hardcover, it might be out in paperback by the time you get around to reading it.

Returning from vacation with Hi and Lois

The Flagstons returned home today, with plans aplenty and little Trixie still riding in the front seat. What can be done to get some real seatbelts for these characters?




Related posts
Hi and Escher?
House?
House?
Sunday at the beach with Hi and Lois
Vacationing with Hi and Lois

Overheard

Elaine, replying to a television commentator on the Summer You-know-whats:

"It's not poetry; it's diving!"

All "Overheard" posts (via Pinboard)

Little Gap of horrors

What happened to the poor guy on the floor? Perhaps he fell over from the weight of all those layers. His headless peeps are unperturbed, as was a Gap employee who was working (and kept working) at a display of merchandise just ten feet away while my family marveled at this display.

Ukulele fever

The New York Times takes note of the ukulele's renewed popularity:

Suddenly there's something irresistible again about ukuleles.

Again? The ukulele has never been resistible.

The Times article suggests several reasons for renewed interest in the uke, including Jake Shimabukuro's virtuoso performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Oddly though, the Times doesn't mention George Harrison's own possible influence. The scenes of George with uke in hand in the documentary The Beatles Anthology (1995) prompted me (and, I suspect, others) to pick up the instrument. (George's uke can be heard at the end of the Beatles' "Free as a Bird.")

And in case you're wondering: yes, it's possible to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on the ukulele.

Related post
While my ukulele gently weeps

Capital "I"

Caroline Winter wonders why we capitalize the first-person singular pronoun:

Consider other languages: some, like Hebrew, Arabic and Devanagari-Hindi, have no capitalized letters, and others, like Japanese, make it possible to drop pronouns altogether. The supposedly snobbish French leave all personal pronouns in the unassuming lowercase, and Germans respectfully capitalize the formal form of "you" and even, occasionally, the informal form of "you," but would never capitalize "I." Yet in English, the solitary "I" towers above "he," "she," "it" and the royal "we."

Read all about "I":

Me, Myself and I (New York Times)