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Murakami on Time and Money

Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can't buy.
Haruki Murakami
THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE
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A Leave Of Presence

Some Thoughts on Roger Ebert’s Writing

I recently came across an aphorism which made me smile:

The purpose of speaking is to be understood; the purpose of writing is to avoid being misunderstood.

I smiled because – I mean – how many wooden, lifeless bits of prose have you read in your life which were caused by someone taking this idea too far? There’s a reason that this particular type of bad writing is often called “legalistic”: It is a joyless, bloodless, anti-human kind of writing – which is probably part of why you have to pay a lawyer $300 an hour to read it.

Most of the writers that I enjoy reading place their words on the page with a sort of lightness. It feels like someone speaking to you, like someone trying to be understood. If good writing is a sort of magic trick, then a good writer is the magician, the rabbit, and the top hat – all rolled up in one. It is craft combined with the courage to show yourself as you are that lets you pull yourself out of the hat.

It’s a hard thing, but some writers can seemingly do it with ease.
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♬ Current Listening — March 2013

Here’s the music that I’ve been listening to in March 2013…

Here’s the music that I’ve been listening to this month:

For all you Spotify users, I’ve made a playlist of these songs (and a few more). Click here to check it out!

  1. That lovable, most priapic of primates… [↩]
  2. The Delfonics?“, you say. “Didn’t they perform a song in “Jackie Brown” that Pam Grier grooved to in her bathrobe while Robert Forster tried to maintain his cool?” You’re right again, my smart and cultured Veritrope readers. [↩]
  3. Somewhere — Jello Biafra is smiling. Well… you know… smiling for him. [↩]