All my good jeans are inherited.
— Éa
The pitch clock has worked: Baseball has become enjoyable to watch! ⚾️
🎧 🎵 Ram (1971) by Paul and Linda McCartney.
An oddball, trifling McCartney album I enjoy front to back. (One of only two.) Proof that music need not be deep to be good. The most Beatlesy of all their solo albums, full of fun melodies, interesting chord progressions, charmingly goofy singing, and production that’s generous without ever falling into schmaltz. It’s fun to picture Paul enjoying cutting records with his wife! (And I’ll listen to Linda over Yoko any day.) The album is not the headwaters of indie pop, as has been claimed; that’s the Beach Boys’ two 1967 albums. But it is a very good early exemplar. The only criticism I’ll brook is that it may come across at times a tinch too self-consciously mannered.
As I age, I find I’m less of a Lennon guy and more of a McCartney guy. Is that progress? Is that common?
🎨 I’m dithering writing to myself about Paul McCartney while wife is making this:
“Only rich people can live like Wendell Berry,” said my friend Josh last night, helping me articulate a misgiving I have about what The Farmer advocates. I don’t think it’s entirely true, but I do think it’s an examining thought worth bringing when you read Berry. 📖
🎧 🎵 I’m glad I kept my CD copy of Superchic[k]’s Karaoke Superstars. Cute, catchy, honest, lightly theistic punk-pop whose lead vocalist was clearly in her early twenties when she wrote it but was nevertheless equipped with the kind of wisdom that twenty-somethings need.
In conversation with a friend last night, we developed a fourfold list of precepts that, if held together (in partial tension, for sure), will lead to a happy life:
- Give thanks in all circumstances.
- Do what you’re doing. Don’t worry about the rest.
- Follow the impulses of your eyes and the desires of your heart, yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.
- It’s a fact that you will not accomplish and experience all the things you want to before you die.
The ideal birthday communication is neither the tired greeting card not the awkward phone call. The first is unremarkable; the second requires too much of the recipient. Instead, it’s a heartfelt voice message sent via text. 🎉
Circumvent Google’s default search results page—including its new, unwelcome AI results—and return to a simple list of blue links. 💻
Saying “thank you for your patience” before the speaker knows his listener will give it is presumptuous. Better to say “I’m sorry.”
I stand with carbohydrates. 🍞
🎧 🎵 I happened across a CD copy of local bluegrass stalwarts Tussey Mountain Moonshiners’ 2016 album SHINE last year at the AAUW used book sale. It cost me a dollar. It’s (more than) good enough to make me feel as if I have stolen from them.
Hypothetical future album title: Self-Preservation for the Sake of Others
What is microblogging for?
Is style a virtue? If so, how?
Scott: Hey, no pointing. It makes me nervous.
Sullivan: I wasn’t pointing. I was air-rubbing your teeth.
Ever take a grief nap? I sure have.
Carla: There’s a book I wanna read.
Éa: Me, too. But I finished it.
What could I be doing now in theory that I’m not doing because Carla thinks I would be overextending myself in light of family life and my involvement with house church (which is true):
- singing in a small, tight-harmony musical group,
- Big Brothering,
- raising funds for College Avenue path to campus, and
- writing songs (as if).
Now, maybe once I finish the Cross essay, I can start singing again.
I should be more strategic with how I spend my time. Wait. More strategic? Oi vey.
Instead of my task list, my new default should be being with Carla.
Sixteen candles, and what do you get? A man, I say, and a good one yet.
Humor and trust, ‘magination and joy, Honesty, playfulness, ambition and, boy, Invention and wonder, forgiveness and caring, Spontaneity, patience, focus, and sharing.
↑ A virtue list I wrote years ago. And all of them, Son, you continue to show! Permit me to add to it just a few more That you seem to have added to your inner core:
Ability, sympathy, detachment, loyalty, In my view, Oake, you’re better than royalty.
I’m proud of you.
I caught my son meditating this morning. God, Your ball!
We actually talked about a wind-down in the time footprint of my contribution at DiamondBack today in my annual review. Progress!
Now, as with paying reparations to descendants of slaves, the devil is in the details: At what point do we start doing it, i.e., what is the trigger? What does it look like, step-wise, to do it? Certainly, it doesn’t happen until I’ve finished paying my part in my children’s education (i.e., until they finish their post-secondary educations). Maybe at that point, I take whatever the difference is between the proposed raise and the years-aggregated inflation rate as time? What will that mean for my work itself? At what point will I no longer be able to make a contribution to DiamondBack?
Ben did say wage inflation will always trail price inflation. That seems like a problem.
“Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be’—she always called me Elwood—‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.”
The word of the year for 2024 is “commitment,” as in an actor committing to a role, having no hesitation or second thought.