Steven Pinker reviews Malcolm Gladwell

From a New York Times review:

The common thread in Gladwell’s writing is a kind of populism, which seeks to undermine the ideals of talent, intelligence and analytical prowess in favor of luck, opportunity, experience and intuition. For an apolitical writer like Gladwell, this has the advantage of appealing both to the Horatio Alger right and to the egalitarian left. Unfortunately he wildly overstates his empirical case. . . .

The reasoning in Outliers, which consists of cherry-picked anecdotes, post-hoc sophistry and false dichotomies, had me gnawing on my Kindle.

Another reason books are better than e-readers: easier to gnaw.

A kitchen girl and a restless corpse

Our son Ben Leddy and his friend Claire Johnson play a medley of the traditional “Kitchen Girl” and their own “Restless Corpse.”

Enjoy.

The Coen brothers and typos

Peter Stormare played Gaear Grimsrud in the Joel and Ethan Coen’s Fargo (1996). Here he comments on his second line in the film, “Where’s Pancakes House?”:

I said, “It’s gotta be Pancake House.” And then when we were doing the scene, I was saying "Where’s the Pancake House?" And Ethan: “Peter?” “Yeah?” “What were you saying there?” "Where’s the Pancake House?" “No, it says Pancakes House.” “Oh, I thought it was a typo.” “No, no, there’s no typos in our scripts.”

From Minnesota Nice (dir. Jeffrey Schwarz, 2003), a short documentary on the making of Fargo

Verizon’s $1.99 typos

Press the wrong key on your phone? That’ll be $1.99. David Pogue explains:

Verizon: How Much Do You Charge Now? (New York Times)

I’m really disliking Verizon right now.

[A simple way to fight back, as I discovered in the comments on Pogue’s column: go into your phone’s settings and change the behavior of the cursor keys, or whatever keys ring up at $1.99.]

Van Dyke Parks in Germany

Van Dyke Parks is playing Germany. Google Translate steps in to explain, sort of:

The U.S., as well as idiosyncratic legendary arranger, producer, songwriter, keyboardist and vocalist takes on his first ever Tour of Germany on 15 November in der Passionskirche in Berlin und zwei Tage darauf im Mousonturm in Frankfurt/Main auf. November in the Passion Church in Berlin and two days later in Mousonturm in Frankfurt on.

Seliger presents Van Dyke Parks ago (MusikWoche, via Google Translate)

“U.S., as well as idiosyncratic” is an excellent characterization of Van Dyke Parks. As is “ago.”

Sonny Rollins and golf

Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, in an interview with The Guardian:

I do yoga, I eat right, and my enthusiasm and energy are still there. When I don’t have that, I’ll know it’s time to take up golf.

Rollins is seventy-nine.

Related posts
Sonny Rollins in Illinois
Sonny Rollins on paying the rent

Umberto Eco on lists

Umberto Eco, in an interview with Der Spiegel:

Q: Why do we waste so much time trying to complete things that can’t be realistically completed?

A: We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That’s why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It’s a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don't want to die.

Two list-related posts
To-Do List
Whose list?

November 11, 1919

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, two minutes of silence:

[“All London Silent at Armistice Hour.” New York Times, November 12, 1919.]

Jim Kaler on Earth

“This lovely thing”: Jim Kaler, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at the University of Illinois, commenting on Earth as seen in the photograph Earthrise, drawing a contrast between the barren moon and our beautiful blue home. This comment came in the course of a talk on “Other Stars, Other Planets.”

The final speculative thought from Professor Kaler’s talk: since new planets, as we now know, are forming all the time, it may be that we are early witnesses to the life of the universe.

Further reading
Jim Kaler’s website

Germaine Greer hates on Proust

If you haven’t read Proust, don’t worry. This lacuna in your cultural development you do not need to fill. On the other hand, if you have read all of À la recherche du temps perdu, you should be very worried about yourself. As Proust very well knew, reading his work for as long as it takes is temps perdu, time wasted, time that would be better spent visiting a demented relative, meditating, walking the dog or learning ancient Greek.

And that’s just the first paragraph. Hoo boy.

Germaine Greer, Why do people gush over Proust? (Guardian)

[I’ve corrected the French title, mangled in the original.]