Nobody ever went broke writing a readable guide to writing in English, especially those that rise to the ranks of standard recommendations alongside Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. Both of those books endorse and exemplify the virtue of brevity, but even such short volumes take a great deal longer to read and internalize than this eminently to-the-point English style guide by the “Pope of Modern Advertising,” (and, for his part, a fan of Roman and Raphaelson’s Writing That Works) David Ogilvy, originally composed in the form of an internal memo.
Ogilvy sent it out on September 7th, 1982, directing it to everyone employed at Ogilvy & Mather, the respected ad agency he’d founded more than thirty years before. “The memo was entitled ‘How to Write,’ ” says Lists of Note, “and consisted of the following list of advice:”
3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.
5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.
6. Check your quotations.
7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning—and then edit it.
8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.
9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.
10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.
And since we all send out more written communication today than we would have in 1982, the points on this list have only grown more advisable with time. “The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather,” Ogilvy adds. “People who think well, write well.” Amid all this practical advice, we’d do well not to forget that essential connection between word and thought. I like to quote a favorite Twitter aphorist of mine — and, per Ogilvy’s warning, I’ve checked my quotation first — on the subject: “People say they can’t draw when they mean they can’t see, and that they can’t write when they mean they can’t think.”
For more on the methods of Ogilvy the self-described “lousy copywriter” (but “good editor”), see also Lists of Note’s sister site Letters of Note, which has a 1955 letter wherein he lays out his work habits. A seemingly effective one involves “half a bottle of rum and a Handel oratorio on the gramophone.” Your mileage may vary.
If you’ve followed our recent philosophy posts, you’ve heard Gillian Anderson (The X‑Files) speak on what makes us human, the origins of the universe, and whether technology has changed us, and Harry Shearer speak on ethics — or rather, you’ve heard them narrate short educational animations from the BBC scripted by Philosophy Bites’ Nigel Warburton. Now another equally distinctive voice has joined the series to explain an equally important philosophical topic. Behold Stephen Fry on the Self.
If the notions that we know nothing, that we have no fixed identities, that we create ourselves (and/or our selves) by our own actions, and that a trickster demon may be controlling your thoughts even as you read this seem too detached from everyday experience to easily grasp, at least we have a sensible English voice like Fry’s to guide us through them. The stereotypes may say that the people of that practical-minded land don’t go in for this kind of talk. But I propose a refutation: specifically, a refutation in the form of a return by Fry to talk about two of his fellow Britons, David Hume and George Berkeley. They had a few things to say about the self — to put it mildly.
Opinions on what we generally mean by the phrase “political correctness” vary widely. Does it refer to the ways we try to maintain basic politeness and common decency in what we like to think of as a pluralistic, egalitarian society? Or is it a form of Orwellian, state-sponsored mind control that squashes dissent and banishes unpopular ideas from public discourse? On the one hand, stories of unacceptably abusive behavior in workplaces, classrooms, and government buildings abound, seeming to require placing reasonable limits on speech. On the other hand, extreme examples of rampant “trigger warnings” and other such qualifiers—on college literature syllabi, for example—can seem hypersensitive, patronizing, and silly at best.
In the Big Think video above, Marxist theorist, cultural critic, and professional provocateur Slavoj Žižek approaches the term as a kind of enforced niceness that obscures oppressive power relationships. He begins with an example, of a so-called “postmodern, non-authoritarian father,” who uses a subtle form of emotional coercion, playing on feelings of guilt, to enforce love and respect for a grandparent. This model, says Žižek, is “paradigmatic” of “modern totalitarianism”:
This is why the formula of modern totalitarianism is not “I don’t care what you think, just do it.” This is traditional authoritarianism. The totalitarian formula is, “I know better than you what you really want.”
“In this sense,” says Žižek, “I am horrified by this new culture of experts.” In his typically animated style, he leaps from case to case—the banning of public e‑cigarette smoking, for example—to show how concerns about public health or racism give way to meaningless, culturally stultifying moralizing. His point that political correctness can be a humorless “self-discipline” is persuasive. Whether his examples of “progressive racism”—or the social release valve of obscene or racist jokes—translate to an American context is debatable. (Trigger warning: Žižek drops a couple n‑words).
Does the uncouth Žižek get a pass because he disavows personal prejudice, even as he makes light of it? Is there really a “great art” to the racist joke that can bring people closer together? Do we need a “tiny exchange of friendly obscenities” to establish “real contact” with other people? I for one wouldn’t want to live in a society without obscene humor and honest, open conversation. But whether all forms of political correctness— whatever it is—are “modern totalitarianism,” I leave to you to decide. It does seem to me that if we can’t have political debates without fear and shame then we really have lost some measure of freedom; but if we’re unable to debate with good will and sensitivity, then we’ve lost some important measure of our humanity.
It’s not surprising perhaps that we are in a film nerd supercut golden age. After all, all film students have access to video editing software, almost all movies are available digitally, and websites, like this one, are perpetually hungry for new content. Great supercuts reveal something new or unnoticed about a great director, like how Yasujiro Ozu uses hallways or Kubrick favors one-point perspective. Editor Jacob T. Swinney, who won the internet last month with his video “First and Final Frames,” just released the third out of a promised four-part supercut on Quentin Tarantino.
The director of Pulp Fiction and Death Proofis, of course, known for his dialogue – razor-sharp, obscenity-laden repartee crammed with references to pop culture or obscure movies. What is a Tarantino movie without a rant about the true meaning of “Like a Virgin,” say, or a lengthy discourse on the difference between McDonald’s menus in American and in Europe? Swinney strips away all that dialogue to explore some of the recurring visual and audial motifs that lard Tarantino’s films. What you realize after watching these is just how stylized his movies are. Tarantino loves expressionistic sound effects, flashy insert shots, generally aping the look and feel of his cinematic heroes like Sergio Leone or King Hu. You can watch the first film above and the next two below.
The first film called “Hearing Tarantino” is about all the pungent, stylized sounds the QT has used. As you can imagine, there are lots of gurgling of blood and clanking of swords. What you might not have noticed is how many cartoony whooshes and zings he has folded into the sound mix.
The second vid, “Tarantino’s Extreme Close Ups,” shows lots of eyes bearing expressions somewhere along the terrified-pissed off spectrum.
And the third piece, “Tarantino: Driving Shots,” shows just how much of his movies take place in cars.
The fourth film has yet to come out, but I hope it’s on Tarantino’s not-at-all creepy obsession with women’s feet. You can probably fill a couple minutes just on Uma Thurman’s alone.
Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veeptopus, featuring lots of pictures of badgers and even more pictures of vice presidents with octopuses on their heads. The Veeptopus store is here.
Japanese scientists have developed a camera that confirms what we’ve long sensed: “wine glass shape has a very sophisticated functional design for tasting and enjoying wine.” That’s what Kohji Mitsubayashi, a researcher at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University, told Chemistry World.
It’s a little complicated, and I’d encourage you to read this Chemistry World article, but the upshot is this: Mitsubayashi’s team used a special camera to analyze “different wines, in different glasses – including different shaped wine glasses, a martini glass and a straight glass – at different temperatures.” And they found that “different glass shapes and temperatures can bring out completely different bouquets and finishes from the same wine.”
In the video above, you can see the new-fangled camera in action, demonstrating how wines at different temperatures (something that’s affected by the geometry of the glass) release different vapors. And those translate into different flavors. Get more on this at Chemistry World.
Next month, when you step into one of the “five special elevators servicing the observatory atop the new 1 World Trade Center,” you will get a pretty great view. Though it’s not the view you might initially imagine. The New York Timesdescribes what you’ll see:
From the moment the doors close until they reopen 47 seconds later on the 102nd floor, a seemingly three-dimensional time-lapse panorama will unfold on three walls of the elevator cabs, as if one were witnessing 515 years of history unfolding at the tip of Manhattan Island.
For less than four seconds, [the Twin Towers devastated on 9/11] will loom into view on one wall of the cab. Then, in a quick dissolve, they will evanesce.
The timelapse animation, shown in a smaller format above, was designed by the Hettema Group in Pasadena, CA, and Blur Studio of Culver City, CA. Hope you enjoy the early preview.
Back in the 1980s, Canada Trust installed a bunch of ATM machines and began convincing customers that banker’s hours were a thing of the past. Now customers could get money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And who better to tell customers how they could conveniently tap their cash than Johnny Cash. Enter the Johnny Cash Machine. Don’t believe me? Here are two 1985 commercials to prove it.
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If someone asks whether you like Tales of Mystery and Imagination, you’d better clarify which Tales of Mystery and Imagination they mean: the first complete collection of horror and suspense stories by master of psychological unease Edgar Allan Poe, or the first album by progressive rock band The Alan Parsons Project? But if you like one, you might well like the other, given that Parsons based his group’s debut, which contains such tracks as “The Raven,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” directly on Poe’s work.
Not only do Parsons’ compositions use Poe’s themes, they use Poe’s words. “How important the Poe concept is is questionable,” declared the contemporary Billboard review, “but the LP as a whole holds up well as a viable musical work.” It having been 1976, the writer does note its “strong FM potential,” but time has much increased Tales of Mystery and Imagination’s status in rock, progressive or otherwise. All Music Guide’s Mike DeGagne more recently called the album “an extremely mesmerizing aural journey” and “a vivid picture of one of the most alluring literary figures in history.”
Of course, those two reviews don’t evaluate quite the same production, since, in 1987, Parsons, a born studio tinkerer, went back and remixed Tales of Mystery and Imagination. He added a good deal of not just 1980s-style reverb, but new guitar bits and pieces of Poe recital, this time performed by no less an ideal reader than Orson Welles, who’d sent Parsons a tape of his Poe performance shortly after the original album appeared. You can hear his contribution on the tracks “A Dream Within a Dream” and “Fall of the House of Usher.” Both above. The complete album is available below on Spotify.
You might wonder what work of Poe’s, exactly, you hear Welles reading from, since none of it sounds like the writer’s best-known passages. The words spoken in “A Dream Within a Dream” come from a reflection Poe wrote in his Marginalia, and those in “The Fall of the House of Usher” perform something of a remix themselves, combining more nonfiction from the Marginalia with the introduction to his Poems of Youth. Only a dedicated Poe enthusiast indeed would recognize all these passages, but surely such a person would love both Tales of Mystery and Imagination and Tales of Mystery and Imagination. If you, personally, don’t go in for Poe in the prog-rock treatment, might I suggest Parsons’ take on Asimov?
Image by Fred Palumbo, made available by the Library of Congress.
Put THIS in your pocket. The Library of Congress is celebrating National Poetry Month by launching its new Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature. It debuts with 50 choice poetry recordings, spanning 75 years of time. In the past, you’d have had to visit the library in person to listen to these goodies on reel-to-reel tape. Now you can take them to the gym, plug in as you wash dishes, post online links for your minions to enjoy.
Newly ensconced Consultant in Poetry Gwendolyn Brooks (was there ever a more recognizable voice?) prefaces her reading by pledging her intention to register “on the public consciousness and conscience the generally neglected richness of ‘minority poetry.’”
Robert Frost tells Randall Jarrell of his desire to identify American antiquity — to feature in his poetry a woodchopper’s hut that looks “as old as Babylon.”
Paul Muldoon shares the story of how he came to own the eelskin bag that is the star of “The Briefcase.”
As part of its ongoing commitment to the form, the Library will be adding to the online archive on a monthly basis. Let every month be Poetry Month! You can stream the complete collection here.
He only talks for five minutes–and before you know it, he’s produced a sketch of The Bard. We wish it was more, but his observations make for some good inspirational quotes, whether you dabble in art or not. He critiques art schools for dropping drawing from their curriculums because drawing doesn’t jibe with their computer-based, career focus. “While people have what they need, perhaps, for their professional life, what they don’t have is a fundamental instrument for understanding the reality of that life,” he opines.
Drawing is how Glaser understands the world, and how it keeps him present in reality. It’s the basis for all art that is to come, no matter if the student goes on to abstraction. It’s also essential, he says, for child development, and any child not given the tools to make art is being done a disservice.
For those wondering about that book Glaser mentions writing, Drawing Is Thinking, you can get it here.
And if you’re curious about Frank R. Wilson’s The Hand, which Glaser compliments, it’s here.
And finally, if you need a quick primer on the man, here’s a quick overview of Milton Glaser by the New York Times. “Drawing is my greatest pleasure,” he says, and it shows.
Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts who currently hosts the FunkZone Podcast. You can also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, read his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.
No profile of Haruki Murakami, the most globally popular novelist alive, fails to refer to the high number of languages (as of this writing, the count has reached 50) in which his 14 Japanese-language novels have appeared in translation. But outside Japan, monoglot Murakamists (especially readers of only English) have a problem: they still can’t read a wealth of Murakami’s other, non-novelistic writing, including the full-length, two-volume version of Underground, his study of the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attack; his Portrait in Jazz books on his favorite music; and most of his many essays and movie reviews.
Even some of Murakami’s fiction has remained more or less off-limits to global readers. I discovered this when I came across a collection of his I’d never even heard of while book-shopping in Seoul. Realizing that of course more Murakami material would find its way into Korean, a grammatically similar language to Japanese, than English, I set about checking every bookstore in the city I knew for other unknown volumes. One book of short stories, titled in Korean 밤의 원숭이 (Spider Monkey of the Night), particularly delighted me with its strange and extremely brief tales, each accompanied by charming illustrations.
But where did these stories, with their titles like “Hotel Lobby Oysters,” “Julio Iglesias,” and “Takayama Noriko and My Libido,” come from? They came, as Neojaponisme’s post on them explains, from the world of advertising, and specifically from a company called “Onward,” which marketed the American Ivy League fashion label J. Press in Japan:
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Onward spent massive sums on advertising J. Press in the print media. The classic ad format, often seen on the back cover of lifestyle magazine Popeye, showed a Japanese or American man telling a colorful story about their favorite trad clothing item. In 1985, as Japanese pop culture went in more avant-garde directions, Onward came up with a new idea — asking up-and-coming novelist Murakami Haruki to write a very short story inside each month’s advertisement for magazines Popeye, Box, and Men’s Club.
“So once a month from April 1985 to February 1987, Murakami wrote a ‘short short’ (短い短編), which was set on its own page with an illustration by famed artist Anzai Mizumaru at the top and a small J. Press logo in the lower left corner.” During that time, out came Murakami’s hit novel Norwegian Wood, which rocketed him to a level of fame that effectively put him in exile from his homeland. But the advertorial short-short form still appealed to him, and in 1993 he got famous penmaker Parker to sponsor 24 new ones.
At the time I was sitting on the hotel lobby sofa and vaguely thinking about oysters. Not lemon soufflé, not pencil sharpeners – oysters. I don’t know why. I just suddenly realized that I was thinking about oysters.
The oysters I was thinking about on the hotel lobby sofa were different from oysters thought about anywhere else. They were shaped differently, they smelled differently, and their color was different, too. They weren’t oysters harvested in some cove. They were pure oysters harvested in a hotel lobby.
After thinking about oysters for a while, I went to the sink to wash my face, then retied my tie and returned to the sofa. When I got back, the oysters had already disappeared from inside my head. Again, I don’t know why. Maybe it was because I washed my faced or because I retied my tie. Or maybe the hotel oyster season is extremely short.
When the girl came 17 minutes after our appointed time, I told her about the hotel lobby oysters. The image was so distinct I felt like I had to tell someone about them.
“You want to eat oysters?” she asked.
“No, these oysters, they were purely oysters as a concept, unrelated to my appetite,” I explained. “The oysters came into being as the very essence of oys—“
“But you do want to eat some, right?” she said.
When she mentioned it and I settled down to think about it, I certainly had developed an incredible desire to eat oysters. We went to the hotel restaurant and ate 25 oysters while drinking wine. Sometimes I think my appetite originates from a really strange place.
I was sitting at my desk at 2:00 in the morning and writing. I pushed my window open and a spider monkey came in.
“Oh, hey, who are you?” I asked.
“Oh, hey, who are you,” the spider monkey said.
“Don’t copy me,” I said.
“Don’t copy me,” the monkey said.
“Don’t copy me,” I copied him.
“Don’t copy me,” he copied me in italics.
Man, this is really annoying, I thought. If I get caught up with this copycat-crazed night monkey, who knows when this will end. I’ll just have to trip him up somewhere. I had a job that I had to finish by morning, and I couldn’t very well keep doing this all night.
“Heppoku rakurashi manga totemuya, kurini kamasu tokimi wakoru, pacopaco,” I said quickly.
Since I had said something completely random, I couldn’t actually tell if the monkey had copied me correctly or not. Well, that was pointless.
“Leave me alone,” I said.
“Leave me alone,” the monkey said.
“You got it wrong, I didn’t say it in italics that time.”
“You got it wrong, I didn’t say it in ītalics that time.”
“I didn’t put a macron over the i.”
“I didn’t put a macron over the eye.”
I sighed. No matter what I said, the spider monkey wouldn’t understand. I decided to not say anything and just keep doing my work. Still, when I pressed a key on my word processor, the monkey silently pressed the copy key. Click. Still, when I pressed a key on my word processor, the monkey silently pressed the copy key. Click. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.
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