So! Here’s what I’ve been up to.
What I’ve Learned Since Yesterday Morning
I am apparently too shifty to be selected for a trial jury. Whoda thunk it??
(Furtively trying to catch up on all I’ve missed these past 2 days.)
Intelligent Life's Winter Issue: "The Ballerina and the Terrorist"
“When Peru’s most wanted man was captured in 1992, a young ballerina went to jail too, for harbouring him at her studio. The story was turned into a novel and film, “The Dancer Upstairs.” This year, the author of the novel, Nicholas Shakespeare, flew to Lima to meet the dancer at last—and to ask her whether she was guilty…”
Wonderful, wonderful article from The Economist’s quarterly magazine.
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I want my reporters to reject the false idea that you simply poll people at both extremes of any issue, then paint a line down the middle and point to it as reality. We have to reject the tired notion that objectivity means the reader can get all the way to the bottom of the story and not know what to think. We do have to be objective in our journalism, but this does not mean we are empty vessels with no ideas of our own, and with no prior experiences that influence what we ultimately deliver: That is a fantasy, and an unhelpful one at that…
Peter Goodman, the business editor of the Huffington Post, hits it on the head here.
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(Reblogged from dpstyles)
There are a thousand things we could be doing each day, and it’s my job to identify the 1 or 2 that are most important. You have to make every detail perfect. and then you have to limit the number of details.
prioritization is definitely one of the most important things to be done in a startup
Jack (via brycedotvc)
Great quote. Smart guy. This is the hardest thing to do at foursquare too. (via dpstyles)
This is my new mantra.
Finally have redecorated my apartment’s den/media room. The biggest change here is that I’ve replaced the couch I’ve had since college with one I can fully stretch out on; the arms on the last one had started to list after all the years. And completing this effort are new chocolate-colored plush pillows, which I adore.
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The two great American literary forms are the sermon and the sales pitch.
Lewis Lapham, to The Morning News. [Via here.]
I’ve seen “Black Swan” twice now, and Darren Aronofsky has made a hell of a film that you won’t be able to shake. I’m sure those who inhabit this world will point out its small flaws — as I’ve heard some already do — but it’s a heck of an endeavor all around that’s going to win a bunch of Oscars.
I love this photo, taken a few weeks back at my niece’s birthday party; Elmo is alleged to have made an appearance. Here she is with her mom and dad, about to blow out the candles on her birthday cake.
I can’t believe she’s two years old!
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If you get to go to one fancy party in your life, or if you go to five hundred, I can almost guarantee that you’re not big enough to be “over it.” There’s nothing more obnoxious than people who make a big point of being blasé about a glamorous party. In the grand scheme of things, if you’re at one of these parties, you have a pretty nice life. And you may never have the chance to go again. Don’t complain about all the parties. Be humble. You’re lucky. Enjoy it.
So, so true.
(From Chiara Atik’s farewell column for Guest of a Guest, see here.)
The New Yorker: "What Does Procrastination Tell Us About Ourselves?"
A wonderful article by James Surowiecki that I’ve — ironically — been procrastinating in putting up here.
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To “spike” a story is to eliminate it before it sees print…If you look at old photos of newsrooms from the ’30s or ’40s, you will see eyeshade-wearing men, their sleeves held up with garters, sitting at long tables. Sticking up from those tables are metal spikes. A story that was insufficient for whatever reason would be smashed atop the spike, the paper perforated and pinioned like a butterfly or the head of a traitor.
Via the Washington Post.
I never knew about the origins of this journo-word, but — now that I do — I really, really want one of those spikes for my office desk. (Put aside the fact for now that I’d inevitably injure myself somehow on it.)
