William Zinsser on Writing

 

Anyone who has ever had to write anything for anyone can gain something from these videos and the books they are drawn from.

Personally I have been through both of these journeys — to write well, and writing to learn — separately from these books.

Writing to learn, I discovered quite by accident, is the best reason to write, at least for me. Now I write to amuse and inform myself, I write to learn by researching and tying threads together, and I write to organize thoughts and test my own assumptions about a topic. It’s quite energizing and I feel like I understand a little bit more around the world around me every day.

You have to understand a topic to write clearly about it. If you find you have trouble writing about it, you probably don’t understand it well enough quite yet. That means go back and learn more, and then come back to the writing.

Of course a secondary goal is to entertain readers enough that they want to come back next time. But I find that, for me, if I flip the goals around and make that the primary goal, the magic goes out of it.

Writing to Learn

Top notch advice, all of that.

Then there’s the one thing every single human wishes they could do better: write well.

Believe it or not, everyone can become a much better writer by following some rules and being disciplined about cutting out unnecessary words. Use active voice and present tense. Eliminate long words when short ones will do. Etc.

Clarity is king.

It’s more of a craft than an art, and that means everyone can learn enough to be better.

Only prodigies can sit down and just write once and be done with it. Jack Kerouac famously did that with “On the Road”, writing the whole thing on a single sheet of rolled up paper. Put that out of your mind; it does not work like that.

Here’s how it does work. On Writing Well.

I have not read either of these books, but know the concepts within them very well. 

Quotes by and about Willie Mays

Lots of good quotes by Willie, but I want to highlight this one:

I always enjoyed playing ball, and it didn't matter to me whether I played with white kids or black. I never understood why an issue was made of who I played with, and I never felt comfortable, when I grew up, telling other people how to act. Over the years, a lot of organizations have asked me to be their spokesman, or have wanted me to make speeches about my experiences as a black athlete, or to talk to Congressmen about racial issues in sports. But see, I never recall trouble. I believe I had a happy childhood. Besides playing school sports, we'd play football against the white kids. And we thought nothing of it, neither the blacks nor the whites. It was the grownups who got upset ... I never got into a fight that was caused by racism." In Say Hey : The Autobiography of Willie Mays (1988)

Exactly right. 

I am not a fan of “activists” and other troublemakers demanding that athletes and others in the public eye enlist their pet social causes. That’s using people, and it’s presumptuous and rude and arrogant as hell. 

More from the Say Hey Kid:

• Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what it most truly is, is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.
• I didn't think like that, about best seasons. What if you thought '97 was your best year — what would you do now? I never looked back. I couldn't dwell on last year's season. I always looked forward. I never worried about what other people were doing — except the guy I was playing against.
• I can't tell you about moments because I wasn't into that. I just played every day and enjoyed what I was doing. When I made a great catch it was just routine. I didn't worry about it. Winning was important. Winning.

These quotes show that he was 100% dialed in. 

He had conquered the mental part of sports, which is always the hardest part to conquer. That’s a big part of being able to play for a long, long time, as he did.

Gil Hodges:

I can't very well tell my batters don't hit it to him. Wherever they hit it, he's there anyway.

And finally, Leo Durocher:

I never saw a f*cking ball get out of a f*cking ball park so f*cking fast in my f*cking life

LOL, well, it does get the point across!

Baseball Almanac has many, many baseball quotes here. 

I’ve written about Willie before, just use the search box at the right side of this page.

Quoted: Thomas Sowell

The most basic question is not what is best
but who shall decide what is best.

Thomas Sowell 

This should be obvious — especially to an American — but as a people we continue to not get it. 

This was the whole point of starting a new nation with power vested in the people to control their government rather than the other way round. 

Getting Older and Looking Back

A few days ago Gerard van der Leun at American Digest wrote about getting older and rather than quote a chunk of it, I suggest you go read it yourself. 

But here’s a quote I liked for the imagery:

... looking back, all the important events in my life seemed to just happen, seemed as if I was walking backward in a dark tunnel that every so often had an opening that looked out on the world.

Life is like that. As Forrest Gump famously said, “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”. I can vouch for that. We make plans and God laughs, which to me is another way of saying, work on your adaptability and resilience skills, because you will need them. 

He’s also linked two music videos, “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Once in a Lifetime” which he ties together in the meat of the post. 

Its pensive without being maudlin, and entertaining and thought provoking. So much of his content is like that, a calming influence in my life and the lives of so many of his readers, like a port in a storm. I strive to be half as good and usually fall short. 

Imagine that, an internet stop that actually lowers your blood pressure.

I’ve been reading his site daily for nearly its entire lifespan which is approaching 20 years. 

His post got me thinking about my own experiences with getting older — so I left this comment on his post.

I too have found that getting older sharpens my appreciation for being alive and fully present in the moment, for the random events that shape us and present opportunities for growth, and delineating between what is time well spent and what is not. All to the good. 

Time just “feels different” at 62 or 75 than at 45 or 52 — more urgency and also more relaxed at the same time, somehow. Trying to explain this to younger (but not “young”) people works as well as you would expect it to.

Happy Thanksgiving to him, and to you. 

This mornings sunrise from my front door letting the dog out at 6:30:

Top 10 Bob Uecker Quotes

Bob Uecker was a major league baseball player — barely — back in the 1960s, who as we all discovered later was also one of the funniest people on the planet. A natural joke writer with great deadpan delivery, he appeared on Johnny Carson many times. 

He became an announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1971, shortly after his retirement — he says he knew it was over when his baseball card came out with no picture — and still does their games today at age 87. 

1. I think my top salary was maybe in 1966. I made $17,000 and 11 of that came from selling other players' equipment.
2. In 1962 I was named Minor League Player of the Year. It was my second season in the bigs.
3. The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.
4. Between me and my roommate, we've hit 400 Major League home runs.
5. I remember one time I'm batting against the Dodgers in Milwaukee. They lead, 2 - 1, it's the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, two out and the pitcher has a full count on me. I look over to the Dodger dugout and they're all in street clothes.
6. The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up.
7. I spent three of the best years of my life in 10th grade.
8. I led the league in go get 'em next time.
9. Sporting goods companies pay me not to endorse their products.
10. The highlight of my baseball career came in Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium when I saw a fan fall out of the upper deck. When he got up and walked away, the crowd booed.

Another quote I like: "I hope the fans have enjoyed listening as much as I've enjoyed doing the games. I don't ever go to the park where I don't have a good day. I don't like losing. But I don't think I ever go to the park where I have a bad day. I don't think once."

Fans know and quote his lines from the movie "Major League" at every opportunity ... “juuuust a bit outside” ...

He’s a good broadcaster too ...

There’s a good Twitter account for baseball quotes at https://twitter.com/BaseballQuotes1

Quotes above pulled from azquotes.com

Top 10 Satchel Paige Quotes

One of the greatest pitchers of all time was also one of the greatest Original Quote Machines of all time. 

My favorites:

1. "Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter.”
2. "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?"
3. "I ain't ever had a job, I just always played baseball."
4. "I don't generally like running. I believe in training by rising gently up and down from the bench."
5. "I use my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, my hesitation windup, my no windup. I also use my step-n-pitch-it, my submariner, my sidearmer, and my bat dodger. Man's got to do what he's got to do."
6. "Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don't move."
7. "My pitching philosophy is simple - keep the ball way from the bat."
8. "One time he (Cool Papa Bell) hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit his ass sliding into second."
9. "There never was a man on Earth who pitched as much as me, but the more I pitched, the stronger my arm would get."
10. "When a batter swings and I see his knees move, I can tell just what his weaknesses are then I just put the ball where I know he can't hit it."

"Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don't move." 

Sounds easy when you say it like that! 

Number 10 sounds like great advice for any pitcher at any age.

More at Baseball Almanac. 

Satchel Paige on Wikipedia and at Baseball Hall of Fame.

Here he is on “What’s My Line” in the mid-60s.

Dalrymple on Accepting Lies

When the lies told to a society become endemic, it’s vital to understand that it’s no longer about separating truth from lies, it’s about “othering” and humiliation. 

It’s about being subjugated one lie at a time.

This Theodore Dalrymple quote explains it very well:

Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to. 

This is how you subvert a nation and a people. 

Once again:

“... not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate ... the less it corresponded to reality the better ...”

Read that again three or four times, until it really penetrates the rusted recesses of your mind.

It’s tempting, after hearing a pile of lies from the government or anyone else trying to take your money, freedom, and self-respect, to point out what is untrue and then assume victory. 

This is a victory only on the debate stage in your mind.

Comprehending such a thing as lies told on purpose, for the explicit purpose of humiliation, is very difficult for those of us raised in Western society based on Enlightenment values of logic, reason, facts, and truth. It just doesn’t fit into the worldview. 

So you need to find a new worldview. “What is true and what is not” … it’s just not relevant in this context.

But consider the next part of the quote:

“To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.”

Don’t be a willing party to your own subjugation.

Tommy Lasorda Quote on Your Feelings and How Many People Care About Them

Hint: That Number is Zero

Eighty percent of the people who hear about your troubles don't care, and the other twenty percent are glad you're having them.

Very similar to a quote I often use:  nobody cares about your feelings.

Of course neither one is 100% true but that doesn’t obscure the message, which seems to need reinforcing more and more.

Your feelings, thoughts, inner struggles, emotions, whether you are offended by something or not — those things are yours and nobody else’s. 

Richard Feynman on Stupidity