~ Mark

https://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/mlarson/3877420797/tumblr_li2xqux5wK1qzdvhi?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio
http://mlarson.tumblr.com/post/3877420797/audio_player_iframe/mlarson/tumblr_li2xqux5wK1qzdvhi?audio_file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tumblr.com%2Faudio_file%2Fmlarson%2F3877420797%2Ftumblr_li2xqux5wK1qzdvhi

oldhollywood:

Duke Ellington – Midnight Indigo (via Anatomy of a Murder: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

One of the great soundtracks.

High Noon

~ Mark

High Noon. Great movie. Here are some very good reasons to watch it: 1. It takes place in real time – 85 lean, tense minutes. The deadline is firm. No dilly-dallying. 2. There’s plenty left unsaid/implied. I love when the backstory and mechanics aren’t fully clear and you end up guessing (often along with the characters themselves) and interpreting relationships based on a few clues here and there – a gesture, a look, a rhythm of conversation that suggests years. (And in this movie, given that the plot hinges on an event approaching at noon, there’s not much time for backstory, either.) 3. Gary Cooper is really good. I need to see more with him. 4. Grace Kelly. 5. It’s the first film appearance of Lee Van Cleef.

~ Mark

Odds are good that you primarily know one sort of person: highly educated, high-achieving, extremely cerebral, etc. Odds are also good that you give too much weight to feedback and ideas from this sort of person, while discounting arguments and complaints from people who don’t know the right way to persuade you. Try to keep that in mind.

Ezra Klein – Common mistakes made by economists. (via) I’ve come across a lot of good posts about arguments and opinions.
~ Mark

Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s Rulin’s, 1942. (via). See also Johnny Cash’s to-do list and David Foster Wallace on the philosophical depth of country music.

  1. Work more and better
  2. Work by a schedule
  3. Wash teeth if any
  4. Shave
  5. Take bath
  6. Eat good – fruit – vegetables – milk
  7. Drink very scant if any
  8. Write a song a day
  9. Wear clean clothes – look good
  10. Shine shoes
  11. Change socks
  12. Change bed clothes often
  13. Read lots good books
  14. Listen to radio a lot
  15. Learn people better
  16. Keep rancho clean
  17. Don’t get lonesome
  18. Stay glad
  19. Keep hoping machine running
  20. Dream good
  21. Bank all extra money
  22. Save dough
  23. Have company but don’t waste time
  24. Send Mary and kids money
  25. Play and sing good
  26. Dance better
  27. Help win war – beat fascism
  28. Love Mama
  29. Love Papa
  30. Love Pete
  31. Love everybody
  32. Make up your mind
  33. Wake up and fight
~ Mark

Before we learned to tell stories, we learned to read them. In other words, we learned to track. The first letter of the first word of the first recorded story was written–“printed”–not by us, but by an animal. These signs and symbols left in mud, sand, leaves, and snow represent proto-alphabets. Often smeared, fragmented, and confused by weather, time, and other animals, these cryptograms were life-and-death exercises in abstract thinking. […] The notion that it was animals who taught us to read may seem counterintuitive, but listening to skilled hunters analyze tiger sign is not that different from listening to literature majors deconstruct a short story. Both are sorting through minutiae, down to the specific placement and inflection of individual elements, in order to determine motive, subtext, and narrative arc.

John Vaillant in his excellent book, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. Great storytelling and lots to learn about tigers and Russia. I also liked this bit:

Evidence suggests that the reason tigers and their kind continue to capture our attention is because, over time, this has proven the most effective way to prevent them from capturing us. Maybe this is why it is impossible not to wonder what Markov and Khomenko saw and felt in their last moments–an experience so aberrant and alien to us, and yet strangely, deeply familiar: there is a part of us that still needs to know.

Une femme est une femme (A Woman Is a Woman)

~ Mark

Une femme est une femme (A Woman Is a Woman). What a wacky movie. Anna Karina wants to get pregnant. Boyfriend Jean-Claude Brialy won’t help while buddy Jean-Paul Belmondo is all too willing. Lots of rich primary colors. Hints at the musical genre every so often, and sometimes it seems operatic, with bits of dialogue like recitative punctuated with responses or embellishments from the orchestra. It’s very self-aware, playing with the form, making no attempt to stay absolutely true-to-life, sometimes literally winking at the camera. It’s all good fun. I caught several references to other films, and it’s likely there are more clever ones that I didn’t notice. This is probably my favorite of the Godard movies I’ve seen so far.

Is this a tragedy or a comedy? With women you never know.

~ Mark

When I was younger I developed what I called the Baseball Theory of life. At that point the average life expectancy was something like 72 years. If you divide that by nine, it’s eight years an inning. Once you turn 32 you’re in the top of the fifth inning. At 36 you’re in the bottom of the fifth. It’s an official game at that point. You can’t mess around any more.

Chris Jones of Esquire (via dontdrinkfromthecarton)

Restrepo

~ Mark

Restrepo. This is as depressing as you’d expect. It’s also some ballsy filming, tastefully done. I’m really glad the film kept its focus on the on-the-ground experience without straying into speechy political analyst territory. People who weren’t there don’t get to talk.

Should you pursue mastery? | Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist

~ Mark

At some point, all first dates become the same. The beginnings of relationships are all the same, but deeper connections require understanding more and more about yourself to keep going. That’s what I think of mastery. […] It occurs to me that mastery is irrational. Pursuing it makes life more difficult and more interesting than people really need life to be. But people who are driven to mastery can’t stop. It’s either charming or boorish. I’m not sure which.

Should you pursue mastery? | Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist