What Good Writing Is

A common way to praise an actor is to say, "I could listen to/watch him read the phone book." If you would allow us to tweak this saying to praise a writer, we would like to say here that we would willingly read a magazine article about the phone book if it were written by Michael Lewis.

Michael Lewis, currently a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, might be the best magazine feature-writer working today. His best-known work is probably Moneyball (2001), a book about the new economics of baseball that enthralled both sports fans and business junkies--and probably a whole bunch of other readers, as well; along the way, it made a celebrity of Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane and had tremendous influence on the way baseball executives tried to put together winning teams. He also published a book about football, The Blind Side (2006), and recently completed a major-sports trifecta with an article for The New York Times Magazine, "The No-Stats All-Star" (February 13, 2009), about basketball.

Now, you might say, "Well, Solipsist, you're a sports fan. Of course you would find these pieces interesting." Fair enough. But Lewis's primary subject--even in many of his sports articles--is the business world. Suffice to say the Solipsist generally has little to no interest in the world of high-finance, which seems mostly to consist of people who make and lose obscene amounts of money for doing apparently nothing. But Lewis can even be gripping on these subjects. Here's the opening paragraph of "In Nature's Casino," an article about catastrophe bonds, from the August 26, 2007, Times Magazine:

"It was Aug. 24, 2005, and New Orleans was still charming. Tropical Depression 12 was spinning from the Bahamas toward Florida, but the chances of an American city's being destroyed by nature were remote, even for one below sea level. An entire industry of weather bookies--scientists who calculate the likelihood of various natural disasters--had in effect set the odds: a storm that destroys $70 billion of insured property should strike the United States only once every 100 years. New Orleanians had made an art form of ignoring threats far more likely than this; indeed, their carelessness was a big reason they were supposedly more charming than other Americans. And it was true: New Orleanians found pleasure even in oblivion. But in their blindness to certain threats, they could not have been more typically American. From Miami to San Francisco, the nation's priciest real estate now faced beaches and straddled fault lines; its most vibrant cities occupied its most hazardous land. If, after World War II, you had set out to redistribute wealth to maximize the sums that might be lost to nature, you couldn't have done much better than Americans had done. And virtually no one--not even the weather bookies--fully understood the true odds."

Nothing special, here, really--nothing spectacular. But Lewis quickly and expertly establishes his main themes--the carefree carelessness of New Orleans, the business of predicting catastrophe, the fundamental American optimism (or naivete) that allows people to overlook the possibility of massive disaster--in a way that draws in even those who by mid-2007 thought they had read everything they would ever want to read about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

Lewis has a way of crafting a sentence to maximize its effect. Here's a nifty little example of reverse parallelism from a recent Vanity Fair article on Iceland's financial collapse (yet another topic we would hardly have thought to be intrigued by):

"Tall, white-blond, and handsome, Olafsson looks exactly as you'd expect an Icelander to look--which is to say that he looks not at all like most Icelanders, who are mousy-haired and lumpy." ("Wall Street on the Tundra," April 2009)

Did we say we would read Lewis if he wrote about the phone book? From the same article:

"[T]he Reykjavik phone book lists everyone by his first name, as there are only about nine surnames in Iceland, and they are derived by prefixing the father's name to "son" or "dottir." It's hard to see how this clarifies matters, as there seem to be only about nine first names in Iceland, too."

If one of the marks of a good writer is the number of times he or she makes you stop reading to laugh and read a passage to whoever happens to be in the same room with you (despite the fact that they're trying to watch TV or something), then Michael Lewis is a seriously good writer. Check him out.

Ouch

"You'll be a de-entist

(Be a dentist)

You have a talent for causing things pain

(PAIN!)

Son, be a de-entist

(Be a dentist)

People will pay you to be inhumane"

--Little Shop of Horrors

When did Alice in Chains become dentist-office music? We did find it more pleasing than muzak, but it hardly qualifies as soothing. And then, to hear the opening power-guitar of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Around the World" at the moment the dentist went in for the extraction--there was something positively Tarantino-esque about that.

Yes, the Solipsist had a couple of wisdom teeth pulled today. The anesthetic is just starting to wear off as he writes these words, so forgive him if he's more scattered than usual.

We are a bit old to be getting our wisdom teeth pulled, but we honestly never realized that you were supposed to. We thought wisdom teeth were like appendixes: You got them pulled if they were causing pain, not as a matter of course. A couple of weeks ago, though, our dentist told us that the teeth were, in fact, causing problems--minor infections and things--even though we couldn't really feel it. So out they had to come.

We never cease to be amazed at the power of anesthetics. You really don't feel a thing, despite the seriously disconcerting grinding and cracking sounds emanating from your mouth-al area.

Pondering the imminent extraction, we found ourselves marveling at the idea of "professional expertise." We couldn't figure out how a tooth extraction really worked--specifically an extraction of teeth that were fairly far back in the mouth and wedged in among other teeth. Was the dentist just going to go in and yank them out? What if he couldn't get the proper leverage? Would some major surgical intervention be required?

This is the kind of thing we think about: Will professional experts be able to do the task you have hired them for? About a year ago, we chipped our elbow. We were frantic. Would it heal properly? You know, an elbow! How do you put a cast on that? We were sure that this would stump any and all medical personnel: "You know, Mr. Solipsist," the astonished hospital administrator would say, "your elbow presents a medical conundrum so confounding that we have called in a specialist from Vienna to help us figure out a way to heal you. You have managed to chip your elbow in such a spot as no elbow has ever been chipped before in the annals of medical history!" Imagine our disappointment when the ER intern took a look at our chart, prescribed Vicodin, and passed us along to a nurse for bandaging.

Suffice to say our dentist was similarly unfazed by our wisdom teeth.

So now we sit, gauze in mouth, throbbing in jaw, pleased that we have survived our first major dental procedure (not counting six years of orthodonture). We imagine the possibility that, once the wound has healed, we will discover that the pulling of the wisdom teeth has, in some Marvel Comics-like way, somehow given us super powers--maybe the ability to chomp through steel, or to pick up radio signals from another dimension.

Whoa, the painkillers must be kicking in.

In Memoriam

Miriam Luby Wolfe

Theodora Cohen

The quality of mercy is not strained . . . . We have to admit, we've never exactly understood that phrase. Oh, sure, we get the gist of it: Be merciful. It's a good thing. But what does it mean to not be "strained"--that you should be merciful easily? The next line--"It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath--suggests that mercy is something that should come lightly, easily. . . .

It doesn't.

Back in 1988, just before Christmas, a Pan Am flight out of Heathrow blew up over the previously unknown town of Lockerbie, Scotland. Today, the Scottish government released Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only man ever convicted for participation in the bombing (who didn't even have the decency to be a suicide bomber), on compassionate grounds. He's dying of prostate cancer, and he was returned to his homeland, Libya, to die. Many of the victims' friends and families are understandably upset.

We have no compassion for Megrahi, but who cares--he'll be dead soon enough anyway, and he'll feel a lot more pain along the way than any of his victims. We give a big "thumbs up" to the Libyan people, who showed real class and dignity by giving this guy a hero's welcome. Hope you never need American help for anything.

We should mention here that the Solipsist knew some of the people on that plane. Among the 270 passengers on that flight were 35 students from Syracuse University--our partial alma mater--who were returning from their study abroad semester. Watching the Facebook commentary of our Syracuse classmates brings back the shock and fear of that December night. When the phone rang around 11:00 that night, we knew the news wasn't going to be good.

We knew two of the students in particular. Theodora (Theo) Cohen was one of the first people we met at SU, one of the first to befriend us. A real free spirit, who will live forever in our memory as a Midummer Night's Dream fairy, who--in her interpretation at least--was something of a cross between a spider and a cat, slitherbouncing across the stage, making a variety of chirping noises. RIP, Theo.

And then there was Miriam Wolfe--a scene partner, an "enemy," and, finally, a very dear friend. At first, she came across as a typical "theater geek"--someone desperate to prove that she belonged among her creative classmates. And since the Solipsist himself was just as insecure (though more wallflower than theater geek), we did NOT get along. But then, sophomore year, she returned to campus so joyous, so much more at ease with herself, so much more willing to have fun! YNSHC was determined to hold onto his grudge against her, until his roommate pointed out that he--the Solipsist--was being a shmuck. Miriam and YNSHC held an informal summit at Burger King and decided we could be friends.

And we were.

Miriam was actually quite the goofball--and we say that with nothing but immense affection--the world needs more goofballs. Once, when we were doing a scene with another classmate--a scene from As You Like It between Touchstone and the Goatherdess, Audrey--Miriam gamely volunteered to play a goat. She thoroughly upstaged the Solipsist, for which we still have not quite forgiven her, but what could we do? Talent won out.

But she still had insecurities. Once, after YNSHC had decided to leave Syracuse and turn his attention to more "reasonable" pursuits than acting, we had a long conversation with Miriam about dreams and goals. She actually said she envied--envied--us for the fact that we were not sticking with an acting major. She was apprehensive about the future--about what it would mean to devote her life to performing. But the fact is, she had no choice.

Several acting teachers, in one way or another, constantly gave us advice of this nature: If you can do anything--anything--other than act, do it. Because it's a hard life. But Miriam could only do that. Not that she wasn't intelligent or passionate enough to do other things, but that--acting, singing, dancing--was what she was born to do. She would have been out of place anywhere else.

On this day, it does no good to dwell on injustice. Remember the people who deserve to be remembered.

RIP, Miriam.

Altius Citius. . . Senior?

"Frank Levine [age 95] belongs to a generation of track and field athletes who are breaking records for speed, distance and endurance at ages once considered too old for competition. In a sport tarnished by doping scandals, the older athletes raise anew the question of what constitutes a natural body for people who are at an age when drugs are a part of life." ("For Older Athletes, Drug Question Emerges")

We'll try to resist the urge to make some obvious joke about elderly pole-vaulters and Viagra. (OK, so we won't try very hard.)

No, but seriously, aside from the sociological questions about what constitutes a "performance enhancing" drug in for an elderly athlete, this is a feel-good story. You don't have to put aside your gold-medal dreams when you enter your golden years: You can simply take part in the U.S.A. Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Apparently "masters" are the new old.

The Masters program organizes activities for people in 5-year divisions, starting at age 30. We understand that this year's world master's championships drew unprecedentedly huge crowds: Well over 40 people attended the various events.

And no wonder. Competition was fierce. Records collapsed more frequently than the athletes themselves. In the 90-94 year old category, Irv "The Grey Cheetah" Rosenblatt shattered the world record for the 100-Meter Dash in an astonishing 4 hours, 32 minutes, 12.23 seconds. While impressive, his victory in the race was tarnished when his sole competitor, Nicky "Gatling Gun" Robinson, was disqualified for wandering off around the 50-Meter mark to take a nap by the high-jump.

The 85-90 year old marathoners established a blistering pace, completing the first 13 miles in just over a week and a half. The winner is expected to cross the finish line sometime around Labor Day. Mdubeze "Arthritis" Ochekwu of Kenya is still the favorite.

(Digression: It's funny because they're old. EOD)

(Additional digression: WOS says, "You wouldn't write that way about black people. Why is it OK to do it about old people?" We have no good answer. WOS points her finger and yells, "Ageist!" EOAD)

The highlight of the games was the pole-vaulting competition which turned into a fierce battle between Australia's Nigel "The Flying Elderly Crocodile" Simpkins and American Kenny "Kenny" Widlow. Simpkins had seemingly clinched the gold with a vault of two feet, 3 1/4 inches, but then he tested positive for a foreign substance; it seems he was taking Viagra to, uh, add a little springiness to his pole.

All right, so we couldn't resist.

Stop, Hey, What's That Sound?

There's somethin' happening here.

What it is ain't exactly clear.

There's a man with a gun over there.

From Yahoo! News:

"About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among the protesters outside the convention center [in Phoeniz, AZ] where President Obama was giving a speech Monday. . . . The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault rifle because he could. 'In Arizona, I still have some freedoms,' he said."

As opposed to where? California? Actually, the Golden State has been fairly active restricting rights, lately, especially if you're gay and want to get married.

Why is it that when certain people talk about "rights," the only one they seem to care about is the somewhat questionable one about being allowed to carry light armaments wherever they want? Considering the fact that this "gentleman" had brought a military style rifle to a speech, one cannot help but question his commitment to the entire Bill of Rights--particularly that pesky first amendment about people having the right to speak. Does he feel so threatened by words that he needs to defend himself with a gun? Or is he just a moron who can't marshall words in defense of his own viewpoints.

Seriously, what are he and people like him--according to the same news report, people have been showing up with guns at many of the President's speeches--trying to prove? Does anyone bbelieve them when they say they are merely "exercising their rights"? Do they believe it themselves? Is getting up and speaking (or even, god help us, screeching) about one's opposition to proposed legislation not a sufficient exercise of one's rights? Or writing to one's congressman? Or writing a letter to the editor? Or an op-ed piece?

Paranoia runs deep

A thousand people in the street.

The only reason to brandish weaponry is to intimidate. This is so obvious we feel ridiculous even writing it, but it bears amplification. The armed townsfolk are not simply saying, "We disagree with this policy." They're saying, "We disagree with this policy, and we're prepared to use lethal force against anyone who disagrees with us."

We fear for President Obama, but at least he has the Secret Service. How long is it going to be before one of these second-amendment absolutist lunatics gets trigger happy and starts spraying bullets at the hippies and tree-huggers--or at anybody else he feels threatened by? Shockingly, when asked for comment on the gun-toting protesters, the National Rifle Association had nothing to say.

The ironic thing is that if this kind of thing goes on much longer, a whole lot more people will need a well-functioning health care system. We hope the emergency rooms are ready to handle mass casualties.

What Writing Is

Our FFB Emi Ha is back in the blogosphere. She's just completed a writing class and is full of piss and vinegar.

(Digression: "At first, she was just full of vinegar."--Abe Simpson. EOD)

In yesterday's post, she exhorted her followers to take pen in hand or keyboard under fingertips and write. "If you say you are a writer," she writes, "you are a writer." There's something to that, but, speaking as a basic writing teacher, we're not so sure. We have plenty of students who could say all they want that they are writers, but it would be like the proverbial five-legged sheep that we discussed in an earlier post. Calling themselves writers doesn't make it so.

What makes a writer a writer is writing. This is just semantics, though. Where we find ourselves in disagreeance (yes, we know it's not a word) with Ms. Ha is in her definition of writing itself: "Words let out are words let out. That's writing." Actually, that's speaking. What makes writing "writing"--or "Writing"--is the process.

For example, if we were speaking but not writing, we might have have used a strange made-up word like "disagreeance." You may object, "Uh, Mr. Solipsist, Sir, you DID use the strange made-up word 'disagreeance.'" Well, of course we did, but when we used it, we were writing. You all just didn't see the process, which went something like this:

"Hmmm. . . .I want to indicate that I don't agree with Emi Ha. [Yes, when we compose, we often think of ourselves in the first-person singular; it's strange, we know.] At the same time, she is a friend, so I don't want to come across as any more of a pompous jerk than is absolutely necessary. I'm in a state of disagreeance with her. Is that even a word? Hmm. . . . "Blogger.com" is showing me a red underline, so I guess it isn't a real word. Should I say "disagreement"? "Where we find ourselves in disagreement. . . . " Doesn't sound right. Not sure if the usage is right, but, beyond that, it sounds kind of harsh and bureaucratic. "In conflict"? No, way too strong. I can't really think of anything better, and this is taking far too long. OK, just go with "disagreeance," but add a disclaimer that you know it's not a real word. That's pretty good. Sounds kind of silly/funny. Self-deprecating. May raise a smile on Ms. Ha's face, and it may even allow me to provide a sort of object lesson on the writing process. Like this."

And that's what goes into one word! And that's what writing is.

We know where Emi Ha is coming from: She's an enthusiastic writer who already knows the process. She's internalized it. Plus, she just spent several weeks in the virtual company of others like her. Sadly, the majority of people we encounter don't understand the process. They think that what they see on the page took about as much time for the writer to write as it takes a reader to read. Good writing will give that impression, that tinge of inevitability. But remember, Sloppists, what a reader gets is not the only thing the reader could see.

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Just for laughs, check out www.translationparty.com.

The basic premise of the website is that you type in an English phrase--any English phrase. The program then "translates" the phrase into (presumably literal) Japanese. The Japanese phrase is then re-translated, literally, back into English, which is then re-translated into Japanese. The process continues until a literal English translation is translated into Japanese and then translated back into English with NO changes. The phrase is then said to have reached equilibrium. Here's what happened when we tried "So simple a caveman could do it":

English: So simple a caveman could do it.

Japanese: シンプルなので、野蛮な男には無理だと

Back to English: So simple, it is impossible caveman

Back to Japanese:だから単純な、それは不可能な野蛮な男

Back to English: So simple, it is impossible caveman.

Equilibrium has thus been found.

That one's actually fairly normal. It's more fun when you get something totally off the wall. When the Solipsist typed in, "I would like to feed your fingers to the wolverine," the initial Japanese translation came back into English as "I, I would like to send a finger to the state of Michigan." After numerous attempts, the program informed us that "It is doubtful that this phrase will ever reach equilibrium."

The Solipsist wins again!

A $15 Million Dollar Bargain

A candidate for the "perfect sentence"?

"On 14, Woods intentionally bladed a sand wedge, hitting the ball on its equator and rolling it from the collar of the fringe into the hole from 15 feet to move eight under." ("As Charges Are Mounted, Woods is Steady")

Yeah, we have no idea, either. But it certainly sounds impressive, and isn't that worth something? Makes it kind of poetic. Like anyone knows what Pound meant by "The apparition of faces in the crowd / Petals on a wet black bough." Or what Gertrude Stein was going on about with "A rose is a rose is a rose." In particular, we wonder if "equator" is a term of art for a part of the golf ball (presumably somewhere in the middle) or if the reporter was being metaphorical. If the former, fine; if the latter, we're not sure it was worth it.

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Speaking of Tiger Woods, we feel we should explain what we meant yesterday when we alluded to the fact that we don't think athletes are "overpaid."

Consider Eli Manning. As mentioned yesterday, he just signed a contract extension with the New York Giants worth somewhere north of $15 million a year. Why so much? He plays quarterback--the most important offensive position on a football team--he has proven himself a winner, and, in contrast with the Michael Vicks of the world, he is a solid citizen and good team figurehead. Still, you may reasonably argue, his job consists of throwing a football; how does he deserve $15 million a year?

Well, short answer: He doesn't. Nobody does. If you want to get Marxist about it--or even Peter Singer-esque--for anyone to receive that much more income than is necessary for one's basic needs is downright unethical (if not morally reprehensible).

Without going to those extremes, though, most people--most Americans and sports fans, anyway--might adopt the middle-class capitalist argument: "We understand that elite athletes have skills that other people don't, and that organizations are willing to pay large sums of money to secure the services of those athletes. What Eli Manning does may not be vital to the functioning of society, but he does do it better than 99.9% of the population and should be compensated accordingly. For the very reason, though, that his skills are not vital to the functioning of society, there should be some reasonable upper limit to the compensation he and players like him receive." The reasoning, if we may put words in people's mouths, goes something like this, "If a fireman, who actually saves lives, doesn't make anywhere near $15 million a year, then a football player certainly shouldn't."

Now, we would argue that firefighters (along with police, teachers, public defenders, ambulance drivers, doctors, nurses--feel free to add your own favorites to the list) should probably be paid more than they are now. But the whole "value to society" argument is actually an argument in favor of paying athletes and other entertainers lots and lots of money. Bear with us.

How much are the services of a firefighter worth? Well, if your house is on fire, and your children are trapped inside, a firefighters' services are priceless. If you had to pay them before they would run into your house, you would empty your bank account, max out your credit cards, sign promissory notes and be happy to do so. But someone who lives across town from you wouldn't value those services as highly. In fact, if we consider that many people will never need the services of their local fire department, we can see that the actual value to each potential user is low, and, by extension, so is the amount of money they might be willing to spend to secure firefighters' services. Maybe ten dollars a year per resident? In a large city, that could translate to $10 million a year--for the fire department as a whole--which then needs to be distributed between costs like salaries and equipment. In a smaller town, the budget would be even smaller.

(Digression: Of course, there are positive externalities associated with fire protection, which is why they are funded out of public budgets. Right now, though, we're just speaking about the actual immediate value to the users of the service--the price they might pay if they had to fund the services directly. EOD)

So what about athletes? Well, again, the actual immediate value of any individual athlete to most people is low. But not as low as we think. As a Giants fan, the Solipsist is happy to have Eli Manning on the team. If he were asked to pay Manning or the Giants directly, though, he wouldn't fork over a large chunk of his cash. But if you asked him, "Is having Eli Manning on your team worth, say, ten dollars a year?" Sure. Do the Giants have more than a million fans? Undoubtedly. So, if each of those fans thinks having Eli Manning on the team is worth an extra ten dollars a year (which they spend in the form of tickets and merchandise and cable fees and so on), then the Giants have made a sound business decision, and who are we to begrudge the "spoiled" athletes for claiming the monetary rewards that they have, in fact, earned?

We also just want to put this out there: The Solipsist is probably about 1/1000 as good a football player as Eli Manning. So, y'know, if the Giants want to save a little money, we're willing to helm the offense for a mere $15,000 a year. (Just please use some of the savings to invest in a very very very very very good offensive line!)