Caroline, yes

Caroline of Caroline’s Crayons is drawing again. Take a look: crayons encore.

[Post title with apologies to Tony Asher and Brian Wilson.]

A Van Dyke Parks simile

From Pasadena’s KPCC: Kevin Ferguson interviews Van Dyke Parks, in a conversation that runs from Spike Jones and “The Bare Necessities” to Song Cycle to SMiLE to VDP’s recent collaboration with Inara George. Here is VDP describing SMiLE — “a wonderful piece of work,” he calls it — via a simile:

I look at it not as a mural, as I’d hoped it would be, like muralistic. But in fact, it’s about as big as a postage stamp, I think, and about as worthy.

What do you mean by that?

Well, number one, it gets you somewhere. The work is of modest dimension. It’s a small thing. Like a stamp, it has a great deal of handiwork in it. It’s quiltwork; it is not pixelated information.

Listen: Van Dyke Parks interview (KPCC).

A holiday gift from Clare and the Reasons

Frog Stand Records is giving away an MP3 of Clare and the Reasons playing Wham!’s “Last Christmas.”

“Last Christmas” (feat. Ella ‘The Cat’ Fitzgerald)

Don’t miss 3:56–4:11.

Richard Nixon on the Irish

From what seems to have been an ongoing series, “Richard Nixon’s Family of Man”:

“The Irish have certain — for example, the Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish.”

What’s he talking about, the Irish can’t drink? I’m only half Irish, and I’ll drink the sonofabitch under the bloody table.

Advice for procrastinators

As Fall 2010 deadlines loom, five ways to rethink habits of mind that can contribute to procrastination:

Replace “I have to” with “I choose to.”

Replace “I must finish” with “When can I start?”

Replace “This project is so big and important” with “I can take one small step.”

Replace “I must be perfect” with “I can be perfectly human.”

Replace “I don’t have time to play” with “I must take time to play.”

Neil Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1989).

The Now Habit is an excellent book: I say that as a past master of procrastination. One caution: at the end of the Fall 2010 semester, play might mean nothing more than a walk, or a cup of coffee with a friend.

And now it’s time to make breakfast and get to work.

[A copy of The Now Habit resides in the David Foster Wallace archive at the University of Texas at Austin. Did DFW latch onto this book before Infinite Jest, or after?]

Advice for exam-takers

As Fall 2010 nears its end: How to do well on a final examination.

And for contrast: How to do horribly on a final exam, a tame version.

[Nancy panel by Ernie Bushmiller. Found while playing Five-Card Nancy.]

Emily Dickinson’s birthday

Emily Dickinson was born 180 years ago today.

You ask of my Companions Hills — Sir — and the Sundown — and a Dog — large as myself, that my Father bought me — They are better than Beings — because they know — but do not tell — and the noise in the Pool, at Noon — excels my Piano. I have a Brother and Sister — My Mother does not care for thought — and Father, too busy with his Briefs — to notice what we do — He buys me many Books — but begs me not to read them — because he fears they joggle the Mind. They are religious — except me — and address an Eclipse, every morning — whom they call their “Father.” But I fear my story fatigues you — I would like to learn — Could you tell me how to grow — or is it unconveyed — like Melody — or Witchcraft?

From a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, April 25, 1862.

(Thanks to Music Clip of the Day for the reminder.)

James Moody (1925–2010)

Alto and tenor saxophonist, flutist, singer, and architect of the solo that became “Moody’s Mood for Love.”

James Moody (Official website)
James Moody, Jazz Saxophonist, Dies at 85 (New York Times)
WBGO 2008 tribute

Milton!

My friend Rob Zseleczky reminded me that today is Milton’s birthday. As in John Milton, as in

Milton! thy name effulgent speaks to men,
As ever thus the poet truth proclaims.

I just made up those lines.

I like “Lycidas” best.

Other posts with John Milton
Inclement weather
“[S]omething carelessly solid”

At the Continental Paper Grading Co.

Fourteen down, forty-two to go. Best wishes to my fellow graders, and best wishes to to the employees of the Continental Paper Writing Co., who make our work possible.

[The Continental Paper Grading Co. was founded in 1919. Elaine and I spotted the building on a train ride to Chicago a few years ago.]