Dale Carnegie 2.0

Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People has been updated as How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age. A ghastly sample sentence:

Today’s biggest enemy of lasting influence is the sector of both personal and corporate musing that concerns itself with the art of creating impressions without consulting the science of need ascertainment.

Dwight Garner, Classic Advice: Please, Leave Well Enough Alone (New York Times)

My sector of personal musing has consulted need ascertainment, and it has been determined that it would be interesting to read the original book. Elaine just found a copy at a library book-sale.

“You've got to find out what's eating them”

Success in a carnival’s mitt camp (fortunetelling booth) requires close-reading skills:

“Sometimes they come for a lark and you can always spot that kind. But more often, even though they’re keeping up a bold front, they are worried deep down. If you’re going to be a mitt reader you’ve got to find out what’s eating them. Take the other day, a girl about thirty-five comes in. I spotted the mark on her finger where she had taken off her wedding ring — often they’ll do that to try and fool you. I could tell she was married, all right — an unmarried woman is looking out, this one was looking in. I figured she had at least two small children — she had that hunted look. Her clothes had been good last year, but this year they’d been made over and she was no seamstress. To me, that meant less money this year than last. She had no servants — I got this from her hands. I spotted her as conservative and unimaginative, from her clothes and hair-do. And timid from the expression of her mouth and eyes. Also some anxiety and self-pity. Anxiety alone might have indicated worry over illness in the family — husband, children or herself. Anger, either on the surface or boiling underneath, would mean another woman. But anxiety and self-pity together work out as a rule to money worries.

“You can see from this how closely you can peg them before they even sit down; but you’ve got to have good eyesight and be pretty quick to observe. After all, I pay fifty a week to the carny management for this spot on the midway and when we hit the fair dates it goes up to a hundred. When you have to get up ‘the nut’ that way every week, you’ll really sharpen up your brains if you have any.”

William Lindsay Gresham, Monster Midway: An Uninhibited Look at the Glittering World of the Carny (New York: Rinehart, 1953).

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“GEEK WANTED IMMEDIATELY”

Van Dyke Parks’s windshield

“My windshield is bigger than my rear view mirror”: Van Dyke Parks, responding to a question about whether music was more fun forty-five years ago. From an interview with the Louisville Eccentric Observer. VDP opens for Fleet Foxes tonight in Louisville.

[I know: the URL reads van-dyke-parkss-mirrors. I’m not sure what I was thinking.]

Word of the day: non-trending

I was happy yesterday to think up the word non-trending as a way to describe what one hears on WKCR-FM (mostly classical music and jazz). It turns out though that non-trending is — dang — already a word. In which case, I’ve repurposed it to mean not “unpopular” but “of permanent interest.” Homer and Sappho are non-trending.

The verb trend means “to show a tendency,” “to become deflected.” Trending, which comes us to us via Twitter, involves only one tendency: toward short-lived popularity. The word itself seems marked for a short life. As Jesse Kornbluth writes, “This time next year, I won’t be at all surprised to read that trending is ‘just soooo 2011.’”

[I found Kornbluth’s piece via Submitted for Your Perusal. Matt Thomas reads the Sunday New York Times far more thoroughly than I do.]

Brown October

[Life, October 3, 1955.]

When I found this ad (by chance, natch), I suspected that there’s more to an Ann Page Bean Bake than meets the eye. And I don’t mean the dish’s invisible ingredients (onion, oregano, and “salad oil”). I mean the phrase “brown October.” It comes from John Greenleaf Whittier’s 1866 poem “Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl”:

The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And close at hand the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

This poem of course was once beloved, wildly popular stuff. (And no doubt still is, here and there.) I assume the ad involves an allusion, meant to be recognized. You can keep brown October’s Bean Bake, but pass the cider and nuts, please.

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Blue October (and Helen Hunt Jackson)

Jo Jones Centennial Festival

[“Closeup of percussionist Jo Jones at cymbals at recording session for film Jammin’ the Blues, being directed by photographer Gjon Mili.” Photograph by Gjon Mili. Hollywood, California. October 10, 1944. From the Life Photo Archive.]

Now playing, and playing until noon, October 8: the Jo Jones Centennial Festival on WKCR-FM. Papa Jo Jones, drummer extraordinaire, was born on October 7, 1911.

WKCR-FM is one of the great resources for non-trending music. The station is hurting: throw some money its way if you like what you hear.

[Thanks to Music Clip of the Day for spreading the news.]

Blue October

[Poster by Albert M. Bender. Made by the Illinois WPA Art Project for the WPA Statewide Library Project. Stamped August 30, 1940. From the Library of Congress’s online archive American Memory.]

“October’s Bright Blue Weather” is the title of a poem by Helen Hunt Jackson. It begins,

O suns and skies and clouds of June,
    And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
    October’s bright blue weather

What are you reading as bright blue October begins? Me, William Lindsay Gresham’s Monster Midway (1954), on carnivals and carnies.

“Dear Blogger”

Lisa Hirsch at Iron Tongue of Midnight has something to say to Blogger:

You will have to tear my current template from my cold, dead fingers before I replace it with the unreadable, photo-blog-oriented crap you're currently pushing. What is wrong with you?

“Unreadable, photo-blog-oriented crap” is another name for Blogger’s new Dynamic Views templates, which look to my eyes like a self-parodic exercise in distraction. Dynamic Views might bring a temporary increase in page loads, as people click on snippets out of curiosity, but I suspect that the novelty would soon wear off and become off-putting. Why? Because the design doesn’t respect the reader’s investment of time and attention. See for yourself:

[The Official Gmail Blog in Mosaic view. Click for a larger view.]

I’ve clicked on the “Send feedback” button on the Gmail Blog (bottom-right corner) and added my 2¢. You might want to do the same.

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The new Blogger interface

Domestic comedy

“I never met a substitute chord I didn’t like.”

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All domestic comedy posts (via Pinboard)

[Elaine and I were playing pre-dinner-party music, violin and guitar, for a good cause (the Y): “Autumn Leaves,” “Lullaby of the Leaves,” “On a Little Street in Singapore,” “Pennies from Heaven,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Mood Indigo,” “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”, and “When Day Is Done.” If you’re wondering about substitute chords, this Wikipedia article should leave you thoroughly confused.]

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