How to improve writing (no. 45)

The opening sentence of a New York Times obituary:

Robert R. Taylor, a serial entrepreneur who popularized hand soap from a pump, gambling $12 million to prevent competitors from duplicating it, and fragrances like “Obsession,” which he advertised with artful eroticism, died on Aug. 29 in Newport Beach, Calif.

To my eyes, the writer has crammed too many bits of information into one sentence — a problem one sees again and again in news writing. Notice especially how long it takes to travel from soap to “Obsession.” The abbreviated Aug. and Calif. (house style, I know) end up looking absurd when a sentence makes room for so much else.

A better start:

Robert R. Taylor, a serial entrepreneur who popularized hand soap from a pump and fragrances like “Obsession,” died on August 29 in Newport Beach, California.

Or better still:

Robert R. Taylor, a serial entrepreneur who popularized products as various as liquid soap and the fragrance “Obsession,” died on August 29 in Newport Beach, California.

Or again:

A serial entrepreneur who popularized products as various as liquid soap and the fragrance “Obsession,” Robert R. Taylor died on August 29 in Newport Beach, California.

The missing details can appear in the paragraphs that follow, where they will have a better chance to register.

Related reading
All How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 45 in a series, “How to improve writing,” dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

Shaw’s Southern Belle Crab Cakes

It was the only item of its kind in the freezer case. Do you see what’s wrong? If so, you’re a smarter shopper than I was. But I won’t get fooled again.

If you see what’s wrong, or if you don’t, please leave a comment. I want to keep some mystery in the post itself.

Nora Johnson on falling in love at seventy-one

In The New York Times, Nora Johnson writes about falling in love at the age of seventy-one with an eighty-three-year-old man:

He seemed to have good health, except for a little diabetes. He had a cane and could still walk — a block or so. There were false teeth, identified by a golden stud that appeared at one side of his disarming smile. He had most of his hair. Best of all, when he talked, it was worth listening to.

Johnson is the author of the novel The World of Henry Orient and other works.

A related post
An excerpt from The World of Henry Orient

Beatlemania, flagged

I was typing up a page for a class:



Change Beatlemania? Never.

Find Next? Not happening.

Ignore? Impossible. The screaming!

The Oxford English Dictionary takes care of a definition: “addiction to the Beatles and their characteristics; the frenzied behaviour of their admirers.” Again: the screaming!

Related reading
All Beatles posts (Pinboard)

[I was typing the first paragraph of Colin Fleming’s “1963: The Year the Beatles Found Their Voice” (The Atlantic, June 2013), useful for showing how a writer might create a genuine thesis statement for an essay. But 1963? I can’t agree.]

September 11

[Thornton Dial, Looking Out the Windows. 2002. Metal grating, fabric, plastic toys, stuffed animals, rope carpet, wire fencing, carpet scraps, metal, corrugated metal, metal screening, wire, nails, paint cans, Splash Zone compound, enamel, and spray paint on carpet on wood. 100 x 50 x 13 in. Collection of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation.]

In 2011, I posted another Thornton Dial work made in response to the events of September 11, 2001: Interrupting the Morning News.

[Image here. Description here.]

Gum machines, comics, Kubrick, chins

[Henry, September 10, 2013.]

Streetside gum machines live on in the panels of Henry. Every day, this strip offers pictures of the gone world.

And here is a gum machine in a New York City subway station, photographed by Stanley Kubrick for Look. Thanks, Ezra, for passing it on.

Also:

To: Henry

From: Michael

Re: Chin

When you grow up, grow a beard.

More gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry

Rachel Toor’s writing tricks

“It’s taken me a long time to feel secure enough to admit to such simple and obvious practices”: Rachel Toor explains what’s in her little bag of writing tricks. The Find command and ugly fonts: especially useful tricks.

A related post
The F word

Pencildom!

At Contrapuntalism, Sean announces an astonishing discovery: there really is a Pencildom.

Marxism for the young

Readers under, oh, say, thirty: Do you know who the Marx Brothers are? Have you ever seen a Marx Brothers movie?

If you think that these questions are insulting, please believe that I have good reason to ask. So please, leave a reply in the comments. Thanks.

A small bit of good news

From The New York Times:

Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that if President Bashar al-Assad wants to avert an attack on Syria he should hand over all of his chemical weapons within one week. Russia, the Syrian government’s most important backer, quickly welcomed the idea.

The United States has had ample experience of what can happen when limited military engagements, premised on “high confidence,” begin to play out. The choice, to my mind, is not between doing nothing and bombing; the choice is between bombing and seeking alternatives to bombing.