William Zinsser, writing advice

William Zinsser offers writing advice to international students at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism:

Writing English as a Second Language (The American Scholar)

Useful for all students of writing.

Huffington Post, misleading headline

Above, the main headline at the Huffington Post right now (where it appears at about twice the size). Reading it, you would click, without even thinking, anticipating the news of a catastrophic aftershock. And you would not find it. What you would find is a report on the earthquake’s aftermath.

The Huffington Post is notorious, in my house anyway, for its cynical efforts to increase page views. Click on a headline to read a story; get a page with that headline, no story; click again. It’s difficult to decide whether the above headline is a matter of an ill-considered metaphor or the work of the Department of Page Views. At any rate, it helps to explain why I’ve begun to get the news from the BBC.

[Ben, you were right.]

Sue Shellenbarger on time-management (again)

Sue Shellenbarger updates readers on her experiment with three time-management strategies: FranklinCovey’s Focus, GTD, and the Pomodoro Technique.

Related reading
No Time to Read This? Read This (Wall Street Journal)

Haiti

The Rachel Maddow Show has a list of twenty-eight charitable organizations at work in Haiti:

Haiti earthquake: How to help (MSNBC)

Also: you can text HAITI to 90999 and a $10 donation to the Red Cross will be charged to your cellphone bill:

A Disaster in Haiti and How You Can Help (U.S. Department of State Blog)

Thelonious Monk plays Duke Ellington

From a seventieth-birthday tribute to Duke Ellington, Berliner Jazztage, November 7, 1969:

“Satin Doll” (Ellington–Billy Strayhorn–Johnny Mercer)
“Sophisticated Lady” (Ellington–Irving Mills–Mitchell Parish)
“Caravan” (Ellington–Irving Mills–Juan Tizol)
“(In My) Solitude” (Ellington–Eddie DeLange–Irving Mills)
“Crepuscule with Nellie” (Monk)
“Blues for Duke”

The final piece, with Joe Turner (piano), Hans Rettenbacher (bass), Stu Martin (drums), was likely created on the spot. “Caravan” is the highlight, I’d say; “Satin Doll,” a charming surprise. “Caravan,” “Solitude,” and “Sophisticated Lady” appear on the 1955 Riverside LP Thelonious Monk Plays the Music of Duke Ellington.

What did we do before YouTube? Without.

Two related posts
T. MONK’S ADVICE (1960)
Mini-review: Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane

Van Dyke Parks and Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr’s album Y Not, out today, has a significant contribution from Van Dyke Parks.

[Update, February, 7, 2010: In a promotional clip, Starr explains that the Starr–Parks song “Walk With Me” began as a “God song.” “I don’t write about God,” said Parks.]

Card-file steals scene in TV debut

[“Now you go out to the Altro Corporation Monday morning and report to a Mr. Hodgeman.”]

The above scene is from “Betty, Girl Engineer,” an episode from the second season of Father Knows Best, first aired on April 11, 1956. The plucky card-file, a newcomer to the home screen, upstages Mr. Glover (Jack Harris), a clipboard, and several unnamed students who have been taking a course in vocational education. Off-screen, Betty Anderson (Elinor Donahue), also a student in the course, waits to sign up to work with a surveying crew. Its members will include a college man who thinks women have no place in engineering. The episode will go on to treat sexual discrimination and harassment in a less than satisfying way, as Betty’s harasser falls for her; and she, for him.

This card-file later had small roles in Dragnet and Car 54, Where Are You? before going into real estate.

Threatening to upstage the card-file is an enigma. What, what is that cup-like object on the desk?

January 10, 2012: Looking at the enigma again, I think it might be the ink reservoir for a dip pen, minus the pen, something like this one.

Related posts
“Betty’s Graduation”
“A Woman in the House”
Repurposed tea tin (An index-card holder)

Bill Madison on 3-D TV

He’s skeptical, and very funny:

Next Stop, Wonkavision? (Billevesées)

3-D makes it easy for me to think about living with no TV.

The Murry Wilson letter

Murry Wilson to Brian Wilson, May 8, 1965, from an eight-page single-spaced letter:

Brian you were a wonderful young boy and regardless of what you may think, I gave you very much love and I idolized you as a baby. You can never know how many hundreds of times I picked you up and kissed you and carried you on my shoulders, sang to you and taught you words, songs and so many things because you were a baby. I can remember giving all three of my sons love in many forms and actually, when I was strict from time to time, it was because I felt it was my duty as a father to give you the security a punishment gives. . . .

I cannot believe that such a beautiful young boy, who was kind, loving, received good grades in school and had so many versatile talents, could become so obsessed to prove that he was better than his father.

Murry Wilson’s cruelty to his sons and his competitiveness with Brian are well known. “Brian, I’m a genius too,” he says on the tape of the infamous "Help Me, Rhonda" recording session. This 1965 letter, now in the possession of the Hard Rock Cafe, is a sickening mix of emotional manipulation, self-deception, and self-pity. Read it and imagine having such a father:

The Murry Wilson letter (Letters of Note)

A related post
SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.

Roger Ebert, “Nil by mouth”

Roger Ebert can no longer eat, drink, or speak:

The food and drink I can do without easily. The jokes, gossip, laughs, arguments and shared memories I miss. Sentences beginning with the words, “Remember that time?” I ran in crowds where anyone was likely to break out in a poetry recitation at any time. Me too. But not me anymore. So yes, it’s sad. Maybe that’s why I enjoy this blog. You don’t realize it, but we’re at dinner right now.

Read it all:

Nil by mouth (Chicago Sun-Times)

The next time I teach Homer’s Odyssey and talk about food and drink and hospitality in the poem, I’ll be asking my students to read Ebert’s piece.