Ten improvements to a painting by John Constable

Today I have made ten improvements to a painting by John Constable. Can the John Constable scholars out there name all ten? There is a huge prize for anyone who can! I haven't even thought of the prize because I am so confident of the following:

1. No one will ever spot the claw coming out of the window!

2. John Constable scholars don't, as a rule, read clerkmanifesto.

3. Even if someone were clever enough to spot the claw, everyone will think the volcano was part of the original painting since John Constable was so obsessed with volcanoes!

Which brings us to the question:

How would John Constable feel about these extraordinary liberties being taken with his painstaking and quite brilliant art?

I think John Constable would enjoy the contest, but be unable to spot the hard to see tenth improvement due to his being dead.

Rest in peace, John.

 

Requiem of a sports fan

Over the past five or so years I have seen a lot of soccer games. And in almost every one of them a team has lost. Even in the occasional tied game there is the lurking element that it is a kind of loss for both teams because ties in soccer are worth so much less than a win. So then let's just say that in every single one of this vast array of games I have had to watch a team lose.

It happened yesterday.

It happened today.

And it will, ugh, happen tomorrow.

I am too sensitive for this! I already bear a burden of grief. Where am I supposed to put all these losers? How big a heart do you think I have?

That last question was directed to god. I don't expect you to answer. Though go ahead if you like because god sure as hell won't be stepping up.

Excuse me. Let me just take a deep breath.

Okay. 

I am a strong person.

I think I could handle this. I have resources to draw on. I believe in myself.

I could probably endure a team losing in every game of soccer I watch. If only it wasn't so freakishly often the team I want to win.

More beautiful game

Home tending to my mysterious ailment which I wish I'd stop mentioning, I am watching plenty of Women's World Cup soccer. So that's what you''ll hear about, not my mysterious ailment, which keeps coming up, even though this is all about soccer, and not about my embarrassing ailment which please god we are finished covering on the blog and will all be super cured any second now.

The morning game brought us China v Italy, and if I was inclined to toss it off as a team that over achieved to the top of their group (Italy) versus an able but mediocre team slated for destruction (China), the afternoon game of Netherlands vs. Japan has really brought this home. I was happy to see Italy go so surprisingly far this tournament, but Japan and Netherlands are really good teams, and I have quite warmed up to the skill level of this tournament. 

I am all in on this Netherlands team, which sadly may sign their death warrant, going by my luck. I have only seen the first half so far and it's anyone's game. One thing that makes me fond of the Netherlands is certainly their fans. They are heavily represented here, wear a ton of their team's signature color (orange), and seem to bring horns to their games where they play songs in the audience. I was sad that one of their ferocious wingers, who wore her hair as leopard spots on her head, reverted to a platinum blonde crew cut, but I'm willing to accept that that's none of my business. Lieke Martens, the best player for Netherlands, managed the kind of brilliant goal one has to figure is mostly luck, but also leaves one curiously wondering. The ball came from a corner to her feet and she one touch redirected it thorough the legs of the Japanese defender into the bottom right corner of the net. One nothing Netherlands.

But Japan has rather won me over too, to my surprise. After a lackluster group stage they play cohesively, technically, and with wonderful passing. At the end of the first half they produced possibly my favorite goal of the tournament to tie it up. It started with a nice pedestrian pass in to the middle. At the top of the box a player passed with one touch in tight company to their teammate, who brilliantly let it pass between her legs, spun round, and sort of double touched it through the middle to the charging Hasegawa who just sliced it over a sprawling keeper for the goal. Beautifully done!

So I'm looking forward to the second half. 

Too bad someone has to win.

Sam Kerr

We are holding a very fancy betting pool at my library to celebrate The Women's World Cup. Because $20 here bought a person a randomly selected team and an also random Golden Boot Player (that's the person who scores the most goals in the tournament), loyalties were widely distributed and the library fanbase was scattered across 24 teams.

That was until Australia's Sam Kerr was briefly interviewed following a dramatic come from behind victory against Brazil in game two. She said something to the effect of:

"We don't listen to the h8ers. Me an' the girls showed them and they can go suck on that one."

Perhaps curiously, we all became Sam Kerr fans.

Then, five days later, Sam Kerr scored four goals against Jamaica to propel Australia into the round of 16. At this point Sam Kerr hysteria seized the library staff. Yellow and green started showing up everywhere. People were drinking Fosters in the break room at all hours. Walking by any conversation between co-workers here, one could catch the tang of fake Australian accents, and it was a matter of course to hear the phrase "The h8ers can suck it."

Why Sam Kerr? What captured our imaginations?

We library employees are pretty civil people, not overly given to coarse language. And also we are in the USA where our team looks far more likely to triumph in this World Cup than a scrappy, mixed blessings Australian team with one great player instead of, let's see, seven, no, eight!

But here's the thing: These American women are great. They are admirable. They all seem like people who are going to do well in life. The look like they'd make good Vice Presidents, heads of marketing divisions, Directors of College Athletics Departments, big time Head Coaches. They seem like young, successful people, jocks, crisp and apple pie and strong and lean and off into the upper middle classes and beyond.

And good for them.

But Sam Kerr is easy to picture working at our library, angrily shelving away the afternoon, irritated beyond reason about misfiled items, muttering "h8ers!" to herself. One can naturally see her kicking our automated check in bins to get them working. It is no stretch to envision her here in our back room, grousing to her co-workers about some unpleasant patron, or the indignities of management, inappropriately uttering "they can suck it" as everyone awkwardly wanders away.

Media reviews are mixed at best about Sam Kerr's intemperate remarks. There were plenty of commentators ready to call her classless or claim she was distracting her team. But you gotta expect that kind of noise from the h8ers. We at the library take no particular stand on Sam's rustic expression. That's not the point. 

We simply recognize her somehow, for good or ill, as one of us.

How to shelve a cart of mysteries in 5 minutes flat!

You say it can't be done? "Impossible!" You exclaim?

You say it takes nearly 15 minutes at a concentrated clip to shelve a cart of mysteries?

You say that no one has ever, even shelving at full tilt as hard as they can, gotten it done in under the 11 minute mark?


Sure. I would have agreed with you, once, not long ago. I too would have scoffed at the possibility. But then something happened.



I shelved a cart of mysteries in five minutes flat!



I SHELVED A CART OF MYSTERIES IN FIVE MINUTES FLAT!




And I'm here to tell you that you can too.

So here is:

How to Shelve a Cart of Mysteries in Five Minutes Flat

1. Get yourself a full cart of mysteries.

2. Make sure the books are all in order according to author's last name and title (this is officially legal according to the Guinness Record's Rules).

3. Comb the shelving area to clear it of mistakes and distractions. You'll never hit five minutes if you're fixing previous errors, cleaning garbage, and reshelving.

4. Make sure that, by coincidence, 90% of all the books on your cart are by Sue Grafton.

5. Shelve your heart out. No! Don't stop to peruse the collection! There's nothing to see here anyway! They're all just Sue Grafton books! Just shelve!



Done correctly it will clock out between 4:58 and 5:03.


How does this work?

No one knows. It's an imponderable mystery and magical feat that I share with you!


What do you get for this stunning, superhero like feat?

The average is about 17 dollars an hours.

Financed by thermostat

It's a brilliant idea.

Huge money maker.

Eventually you'll be seeing them everywhere, but hopefully you'll remember that you first heard about them right here: Revenue Generating Thermostats.

How did I think of this genius... contraption? I don't know really. It was a moment of serendipity. 

It was the first warm Spring day of the year and my co-workers were complaining about the library being too hot, a common Summer refrain here. On a simultaneous, but unrelated note, someone said something about decreased revenue related to our considering getting rid of late fines on Children's materials, and some flash of genius detonated in my head.

I saw a vision of Caravaggio paintings.

The Churches of Rome are amazing. One of the most amazing things about them is that several of them have some of the greatest paintings ever made, hanging humbly in the side chapels. So a person goes into a Roman Church for free, for example, wanders down the aisle to see a set of three wildly famous Caravaggios, but unfortunately finds that the paintings are only roughly visible in the church's gloom.

However, there is a saving grace. There's a coin box on the wall. One puts a euro in the box, it clicks like a circuit breaker tripping, and, poof, the masterworks are all marvelously lit up for everyone's viewing pleasure. At least for a minute or two.

All these things collided in my head at once and I thought: What if the library thermostat, which we locally have no control over, were instead adjustable for money? There would be two boxes, a blue box and a red box. If one puts money in the blue box it makes the building cooler. If one puts money in the red box it gets warmer. The more money one puts in the box the colder (or warmer) it gets.

It would be a cash cow.

Picture this: a group of boiling library workers gather to complain; about the heat, management, county directives, library patrons, and so on. Someone proposes a collection of quarters to cool the place off. Three dollars are gathered and plunked into the blue box. The temperature drops a few degrees. A patron living on a combination of vegetable juices and our public Internet computers catches a chill as a result of the dipping temperature. She pops up to throw a dollar or two into the red box. An overheated child running through the kid's room begs a dollar from her mom to put in the blue box. A sensitive and readily freezing Senior Citizen promptly and angrily plunks ten dollars into the red box, and it's soon 85 degrees in the library.

It's a war. An endless, hard fought, desperate, passionate war, and in this war the library will have cornered the market on arms sales. The hell with kid's fines. We might be able to end all late fines.

But it's not just the money. Not a day goes by where one of my co-workers doesn't complain about the temperature one way or another, usually both ways. People using the big meeting room are generally incensed about it being too hot. Just yesterday a patron with seven-inch-long fingernails went into a long, surprisingly informed tirade about how we spent x amount of dollars on our remodeled building but can't properly heat or cool our building, I can't remember which. Well, none of that will be the library's fault anymore. With the red and blue Revenue Generating Thermostats everyone will be empowered! 

Sure, rich people will be more empowered than poor ones. And competition will make everyone like hamsters on wheels. But that's just Capitalism. In Capitalism everyone can suffer, in varying degrees, and have it be their own fault.

We can't do anything about that!

I mean, except make some money off of it.

Customer feedback

In order to improve your experience on our site we are asking that you fill out this brief customer survey. It will only take four hours and 35 minutes and you will be entered in a drawing for a $100 Visa gift card that you won't win, but sometimes the dream is enough.

If you'd like to opt out of this survey simply complete the survey at which point you will be given the option to "Opt out". At that point select the "Opt out" option and you will be returned to the start of the survey.

This survey is conducted by an independent company on behalf of this site. Their complete lack of humanity and ethics in regards to your data and time in no way reflects upon the site hiring them. While we appreciate your survey input please understand that any views you express that in any way deviate from our preconceived notions about, well, everything, will be summarily disregarded.


1. How did you first hear about this site?


A. It was the first 47 search results in my Google search.

B. I haven't heard of it. Where am I?

C. https://surveysthatenteryouforvisacardsyouwontwin.com

D. I was tricked into coming here by one of your bots and haven't bothered to leave because the Internet has made me insanely passive.



2. How well does this site meet your needs?


A. You tell me what my needs are and I'll tell you how you meet them.

B. Not well at all; I can't find a relevant response choice to this question!

C. When should I expect my Visa gift card?

D. E.

E. D.



3. How likely are you to refer a friend to this site?


A. Not likely at all. I have no friends.

B. Not likely at all. This is not a reflection on your site, rather, I just care about my friends.

C. Not likely at all because I still haven't figured our where I am.

D. Not likely at all without a coupon scheme, credits for friends referred, a special to offer friends, a Visa gift card per friends referred, or friends (see A. above).




4. Do you have any other comments or feedback you'd like to share that's not covered in the pre selected responses?


A. No, the pre selected responses are so perfect. Where can I hire you guys to run a survey for me?

B. No, I loved the pre selected responses. I hated the questions with my whole being though. Hated, hated, hated, hated! 

C. Only if it's going to affect my final score.

D. Yes, where do I enter my, oh, you bastards, I see what you've done!

Three star library

The 2018 Library Journal Star Ratings for Libraries is out. It has probably been out for awhile, but I only just noticed. You see, I sort of accidentally stepped in it and thought "What's that smell?".

Sorry, that was a little strong. I was actually just sending the magazine in transit somewhere, and since I always have hated the Library Journal Star Ratings I took a look at it because I occasionally like to hate things and I wasn't near the Internet at that time.

Boy, don't get me started on that Internet!

Now before anyone says "Aw, it's just sour grapes because your library only got three stars!" I just want to say, hey, we discuss things respectfully around here and there's no reason to bring that kind of tone to this discourse!

Oh, right, I did just compare Library Journal's list to dog crap, but I apologized!

So let's keep it clean everybody.

Anyway, yes, my library did get three stars, which is not four stars. And it is definitely not five stars. But there are a lot of caveats I'd like to point out about this.

1. Being on the list itself is already supposed to be a triumph. Most library systems across America have no stars at all!

2. This is for library systems. I can't help it if my "Jewel of the System" library is being dragged down in aggregate by other libraries in my system that are run by lunatics.

3. I don't take any offense. I guess in reality we probably are, fairly speaking, about a three star library.

4. And this is the super important one, actually it's the only important one: This is a terrible way to measure libraries! It's all data, data, data, and not even that much of it. It's all about how many visits per capita, how many checkouts, how many e-book checkouts, computer use, and program attendance.

Now I'm not saying this data is useless in measuring the quality of libraries, but I am saying that everything they do use is worth maybe three percent of judging a library.

Do you know how you can get the other 97 percent?

Here, let me present an analogy. Let's say you are one of the biggest food and restaurant magazines in the country. You want to name the best restaurants. So here's what you do: You find out who has the most customers per table. See how much butter they use per customer. Find out how many items they have on their menu. Add it all up, best restaurant!

Or you can go and eat there.

Florence and Messi

Although my wife and I aren't leaving on our trip to Florence for ten months I have begun to peruse the guide books. And I have been immediately drawn to how many of these guidebooks try to helpfully rank the sights for me, usually working on a three-star system:


Three Stars: Don't miss!

Two Stars: Worth a visit if you can.

One Star: Go if convenient or of particular interest to you.


Now when I say I have been "drawn" to these rating systems, I mostly mean that they attract me towards them only to leave me in frothing rage at their blithe lack of nuance, cookie cutter opinions, and sheer lack of understanding.

Soon, no doubt in this very space, I will tell you how I would rank the cultural sights of cities, and how something like The Doria Pamphilij or San Luigi dei Francesi, both in Rome, could be better bets than The Colosseum or The Vatican Museum.

But not today.

Today I am too irritated at an aspect of all of this, an aspect I will call Local Relativism.

Here, take the best tourism sight in your city. If you live outside of North America you can't play. I'm terribly sorry. If you're in New York we can try, but it might not work. But you all can follow along and feel superior. Has everyone else chosen? Good. 

I chose The Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, wait, no, The Mall of America. The Mississippi River? Oh, oh, Minnehaha Falls!, no, no, go back to the Mall, no, Foshay Tower or the Spoon and Cherry or... 

Scratch that. I have no idea what to choose. I don't know, I couldn't decide. 

But I'm relieved you so confidently chose yours!

Let's say you live in New Orleans and you chose, random example, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. That's your three star sight. Your benchmark. And I vaguely remember it as a fascinating place from a long ago trip, although I may be remembering a different cemetery.

But now let's put that three star sight in Rome.

No longer is it number one on the list. It is, and no offense is meant by this, now the 11,243rd best sight in the city. Which is not bad, really. But do you think all the 11,242 sights above it have three stars?

No, they don't. The fancy review guidebooks will have given maybe eight places in Rome three stars. This leaves 11,235 places, all more highly regarded than St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, having not gotten three stars. 

The reason they only have eight three-star places in Rome is because they are comparing Rome to Rome. It is like taking 84 different people who are all 7 feet 3 inches tall and deciding who is tallest. Then saying only four of them are really really tall.

Four 7'3" tall people are really really tall

Five 7'3" tall people are pretty dang tall

And five 7'3" tall people are kind of really tall 

All of the others are merely listed, albeit acknowledged as "Tall".



At this point, the very point where you might just be beginning to see what I mean, you might also be wondering what has me so upset.

Two things:

I don't like the way the guidebooks keep giving The Medici Chapel, in Florence, one or two stars. We are planning on staying across the street from The Medici Chapel and I am taking it personally! That's our Medici Chapel! Those are Michelangelos in there! If we had one knee of one of those sculptures in my Twin Cities we would be known as The Michelangelo's Knee cities. 

But it's Florence, so, whatever, one star.

But the second issue is even more important, but is, oddly, not travel or city related. 

Messi was recently chosen as the 5th best soccer player of the year. 

In case I haven't found a way to lecture on this to you Messi is inarguably the greatest soccer player who ever lived. But he's been doing it for awhile now and people have gotten a little tired of it. "Eh, he'll have other years." They say. And so they choose The St Louis Cemetery No. 1 as the best soccer player in the world for a year. Because each year of Messi soccer is 7'3" tall or like one of the best sights in Rome or Florence; there are just so many!

People like to talk about things like this as subjective. Maybe that's fine. But the moment you pick favorites, have a contest, or try to helpfully award stars, objective gets to enter into it. And once it does

1. Messi is better than everyone else at soccer. It's weird but actually objectively true. You can still watch this in real time.

2. Rome is a very nice city to visit if you do it properly. I am suspecting the same for Florence but I have lost faith in the guidebooks who tell me so.

3. If you try to compare Michelangelo's knees unfavorably, even slightly so, to anything else in art or a city, you're just going to look silly.

I'll admit I'm a little worked up about this, so it might not make total sense, but you'll have trust me on it. I can't fix it. I'm afraid I've injured my fingers from typing too hard.

Hundred year Messi

I quite fancy how they talk about floods. There are 20-year floods, or 100-year floods or just... floods. It all comes down to just how often these things happen historically. Of course the massive climate change we are affecting on The Planet is messing up those sorts of standards, but I'm still keen on the idea.

Sometimes I like to apply it to athletes.

Yes, I am going to talk about Messi.

No, you won't be able to stop me, but you can always go away and look at something else interesting on the Internet...

If you can find anything!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Good luck with that.




Hello?





Hello? 





Well, I'm surprisingly happy just talking to myself about Messi. Perfectly happy all alone. Messi is so entertaining after all, isn't he?






Oh, I knew you were here all along.

Last week Messi was playing soccer. At one point in a not particularly great game a much too high and fast pass came to Messi. He headed the ball at a very difficult angle to send it far up in the air. Then he positioned himself for it by backing into the defending player so it would land in front of him. Catching it delicately on the top of his foot he literally pulled the ball in that single move behind him, through the legs of a defender he cannot, obviously, see, then he pivoted physically around this defender to collect his own pass and race down the sideline.

When one sees this move in real time it doesn't look like much because it's so quick and it so defies what seems possible that one is inclined to ascribe it at least partly to accident. Only slowed down does a person say, oh, he meant to do that. Even still there is something hard to process about it.

I don't post links on my blog.

But what's a rule if one can't make an exception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeaOIaA9KJs&feature=youtu.be

The world of soccer sort of knows how good Messi is, but I think they also struggle with it. His main competition, comparatively, is a player, still alive, whose heyday was the eighties, Diego Maradona. This would make Messi into, sort of, the thirty-year Messi. I don't see it though. There's plenty of footage, but it's sport, so there's a great deal of emotion and fandom. I may be guilty of such things myself. I have seen these brilliant, dazzling feats of Maradona, but, just, it's not as good. He's not as good. It's just that...

...what do you do in sports if there isn't a contest? What if there isn't really a viable argument? What if you get a hundred year player, the hundred-year Messi?

What if it's a thousand?











  

Dear Small Publisher

Dear Small Publisher:



Life is hard for you, the small publisher. You operate on a dream, a delusion, a vision of the world as it should be, and a thin margin. With so many damn writers everywhere you'd think there'd be a findable amount of really good ones. But no, it's all needles in a haystack out there, tan, hay colored needles. So then you'd think with all these many, many stalk-of-hay writers there'd at least be a lot of readers among them. If all these millions of people plying you with their strangely matching manuscripts would just buy a few books every year you might even be able to publish a few of their books. They're not all terrible. Instead, apparently, between rounds of fevered manuscript writing, all these prospective writers appear to relax by watching the same damn television shows, or maybe popping onto the the Internet to "facebook" with their writer friends about what small publisher is about to lower their standards some more.  And if any of these hopeful authors do buy a book it's bound to be one of the same hundred books by the same mostly cheesy, occasionally brilliant, hundred authors who will never ever publish with you. Not with some behemoth publishing conglomerate showering money and false promises on them and on their sharp-eyed, cruel agents.

If only you found that diamond in the rough, or, let's face it, if you figured out how to compress coal. To hell with that needle, you'd take a piece of hay that was a bit sharper than usual. You just need a little chance!

I am here for you.

I am here to give you that chance. Yes, it is just a chance, but it is an amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity.

It's the "Greatest Publisher in America" contest. I am offering the small publishers of America a chance to publish the finest American author. I am offering a competition. It's about time that the best publisher in the world got to publish the best author in the world!

Yes, my dear small publisher, it's time to put it on the line. It's time to set aside your small, inching struggle and instead reach out boldly in the direction of your dreams. You will probably never find that needle by grubbing endlessly in the hay. Hell, there's not even going to be a needle in there. Why would someone put a needle in a haystack anyway? The needle is right here, in my hand. I am holding it out to you. And it's not just any needle. It is a needle made of diamond. A needle made of diamond! With a bonus spool of spun golden thread! It is yours if you take the chance!

Simply fill out the application for the contest to publish below. Sign and date it, and send your application and processing fee of $40 to the contest address postmarked by the contest deadline. Answer the following questions correctly and you will have earned the opportunity to publish the best new author in fifty years. But remember, it's a contest, your answers can't just be great, they have to be better than the many fine small publishers who are reaching out for this same crazy, miraculous dream. Good luck!

Contest Application

(complete in full)

1. Many small publishers think it's the author's job to publicize, but the great publishers know that only they have the power and resources to create audiences. If you won this opportunity to publish a future Nobel Prize Winner who no one has ever heard of, what would you do to make sure hundreds of millions of people read all of his books?





2. How much money do you think an author who is a genius should get per copy? How much per E-book?

          ____ 75% of net sales
          ____ 50% of gross receipts
          ____ They should pretty much have it all. I'd just be so honored.


3. During the editing process how likely are you to say the following things:

     A. Wow, this is good stuff!

          ___ Sounds like me
          ___ Not my style.

     B. I think that's enough work for today. Let me buy you a fancy lunch.

          ___ It's possible if things are going well
          ___ I am already mulling over our restaurant choices


4. Besides The New York Times and Publishers Weekly, who do you see quoting on the back cover of the first book? What do you think they'll say?





5. Do you think you'll get all choked up when you read your name in the acknowledgements?

           ___ I am hard boiled, but fair and dedicated
           ___ It could happen
           ___ I feel kind of weepy already








Contest deadline is FEBRUARY 22, 2016. Make check for $40 payable to "Greatest Publisher in America Contest".

Please enclose a SASE if you would like to be notified in the event that you do not win as notification costs are not included in your application fee.




Good luck!

Letter to MacArthur Foundation

Dear MacArthur Foundation:



It has come to my attention that you give out grants to people for being geniuses. I have a perfect candidate for you:

Me.

Now before you shred my application here, let me say that I understand. You probably get people telling you they're geniuses all the time. But there is a difference between me and them; I can prove that I am a genius!

Go ahead, ask me any question, any question at all.

No, I mean, just think it, clearly, in your mind.

Now remember your question for a bit. You'll see.

I know this isn't a traditional application for a genius grant, but geniuses are often iconoclastic. For instance, I am highly iconoclastic. One of my iconoclastic qualities is an inability to follow proper procedures, that is, my bizarre insistence on making everything into a bespoke experience. This is what I am doing here in my pursuit of a MacArthur Fellowship. I am approaching it in an unconventional fashion. Up until now you have only awarded your genius grants (which you don't call genius grants, but you're fooling no one) to those artists, scientists and innovators who have followed the appropriate path, people who have achieved things, excelled in their field, met with critical success, reached an audience, produced a known body of work, been nominated through proper channels, been approved through sober consideration, and so on. This has allowed you to get a very particular kind of genius.

I am not that kind of a genius.

I am a different kind of genius.

What kind of genius, you wonder.

More of a Wile E. Coyote kind of genius. A super genius.

Of course, the big difference between myself and Wile E. Coyote is... well, I can't think of any at this time. But with the proper acclaim of a MacArthur Fellowship I feel we could break the cycle of blinding confidence followed by bitter disaster.

I'm just saying, wouldn't you at the MacArthur Foundation like to know what roadrunner tastes like? Metaphorically speaking, I mean. Of course you would. I alone can bring the world that metaphorical roadrunner. That's the sort of genius I can be.

What does all this mean? I don't know. Roll the dice MacArthur Foundation. Roll the dice. Papa needs new shoes.

By the way, the answer to your question is:

Only time and water.

Ah, I must disagree with you, that is the correct answer to your question. Perhaps you misremembered just what the question was.

Look, I hate to get on my high horse, and I mean no disrespect to you or your organization, but who are you going to believe on this, yourself- a grants administrator, or me- a genius?

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. Despite our temporary disagreement around "the question" I am feeling a lot positive vibrations here from you, so I am going to go ahead and count myself as a MacArthur Fellowship Recipient and tell everyone I know about it. I look forward to receiving my button, t-shirt, bundles of cash, paperwork and everything. Nevertheless, if you decide not to go with me just let me know, and there will be no hard feelings.



Gratefully yours,





F. Calypso

Your benefits

If there's one thing I'm not good at, it's marketing. Marketing and sales. And bowling. Bowling, music, marketing, sales, and sewing. And money, endurance sports, filling out forms, and corporate style professionalism.

There's a few other things, but I don't want to get too far off topic, or try your patience. The point is that I am not good at marketing. Sometimes my blog feels a little sad that I am unable to properly perform the tasks that will allow it to flourish in the world. But my blog has a very sporting personality and, to disappointment, my blog is inclined to say "As long as you try, that's what means the most to me."

And so, in that spirit, I would today like to inform you as to the various benefits one can accrue as a regular reader of clerkmanifesto. You might want to consider increasing your level.

 

Dilettante Level:

To reach the dilettante level you need only occasionally read one of my posts and not react with outright hostility to them.


What you get:


Several humorous anecdotes that don't really work for sharing with others and a useful reminder to get off the Internet.


Trying to Keep Up Level:
 
To reach the trying to keep up level you need merely have the vague ambition to read all my posts, which you only sort of, but not quite, manage to do.

What you get:

All of the above benefits plus the hope that you will one day be mentioned in a blog post.


Subscriber Level:

To reach the subscriber level you need merely sign up to receive the blog regularly via email.

What you get:

All of the above benefits plus a less appealing font to read it in and the comforting sense of watching the brutal hurly burly of an intense blog in action from the safety of a luxury box seat with tinted windows.


Commenters Level:
 
To reach the commenters level you need to read fairly regularly and comment once every couple weeks, usually in batches of comments.

What you get:

All the benefits other than subscribers level plus personalized responses to each comment even when the blog writer is slightly heartbroken that the comment did not start out by complimenting the blog.


Proselytizer Level:

To reach the proselytizer level you need to regularly read the blog and work tirelessly to spread it around and bring it to a wider audience, never admitting defeat no matter how fruitless your efforts.

What you get:

All of the above benefits plus useful tips on how to spell "proselytizer".

Van Gogh vs. Dylan

Two figures who appear frequently here are Vincent Van Gogh and Bob Dylan. Nevertheless they rarely appear together. I don't think they know each other, though they may have met once or twice at one of those parties one ends up at that are just wall to wall celebrities. Bumming around town one hardly even sees a single celebrity, but then one pops ones head in at some high roller's soiree and bam, it's all "I never thought I'd see Einstein chatting with Boyz II Men and Gummo, the fifth Marx Brother." But those parties aren't really the kind of place where one gets to know someone, even if one might want to.

But because I never talk about Dylan and Van Gogh together we never get a chance to discuss the issue that invariably leaps to mind every time I bring up either of them, namely:

Who Was the Greater Artist, Bob Dylan or Vincent Van Gogh

We go head to head in all the vital categories and accord a definitive winner!

1. Image

Van Gogh: Unstable, Passionate, troubled, and in love with life.

Dylan: Mercurial, hard to pin down, iconoclastic, cool, and seedy.

The edge goes to Dylan here because of the ear slicing incident.

2. Popularity

Van Gogh:  Labored in unwanted obscurity through life. Pretty much owned the "most favorite artist ever" charts through the 1980's and 90's.

Dylan: Feverishly respected by his peers and ever sporting a large, fiercely devoted fan base, he nevertheless has tended to be outcharted by lesser talents.

The edge to Van Gogh as no one ever complains about his voice.

3. Ancillary Products

Van Gogh: Cards, key chains, mugs, posters, movies, umbrellas, and really anything you can slap an image on.

Dylan: Chevrolets, women's underwear, harmonicas.

The edge to Van Gogh. Neither of them went the super classy route, but Van Gogh gets credit for being dead during it.

4. Style.

Van Gogh: Straw hat, "Arty Farmhand", scowl.

Dylan: Black hat, "Hobo Chic", scowl.

The edge to Dylan. Sometimes it seems like Van Gogh doesn't care.

5. Financial Value of Work

Van Gogh: Now that we've decided to give all the money in the world to a couple thousand people, there's not much left that's so rare and valuable that they have to fight over it. Van Gogh paintings fit into that tiny grouping.

Dylan: Works hard and can sell out your mid-sized arenas, but until he's willing to do a more fan friendly Vegas style performance he won't land many of those juicy corporate shows.

The edge to Van Gogh. Someone should do the decent thing and dig him up and put him in a solid gold casket.

6. Range of Talents

Van Gogh: Besides being as great a painter as anyone ever, he was also as good at drawing as anyone else ever. He wrote nice letters. He could also preach.

Dylan: In addition to all the music stuff, he paints, writes excellent quality non fiction, and is not a bad actor. He's done a bit of film making and no small amount of political activism, though he might not like it if you called it that. He is also a good lay historian of American Music.

The edge to Dylan, despite the fact that he has done no notable blogging.

Totals:

Popularity, Ancillary Products, and Financial Value of Work to Van Gogh for a score of three.

Image, Style, and Range of Talents to Dylan for a score of three.

Curses, it's a tie!

Only a nationwide vote can settle this now.

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Getting all votey

I voted. I generally take this to be a grim and unpleasant experience in which I am vaguely and hopelessly attempting to stem the tide of something worse happening. I have yet to feel like something good is on the ballot. I vote like I am a passenger in a car being driven by a crazed, drunken, and reckless driver, pressing my right foot desperately into the floorboards of the car, deluding myself that I can will the floor into being a brake.

Contributing to this grim vision is my conception of my vote merely being canceled out by some horrible person of opposite political persuasion. Just one person in the small crowd of my polling place, voting the evil party line, is enough to mute me and empty my vote. Alas, what a bleak thought of my voting insignificance!

But I have a solution!

You all go ahead and vote first.

Go ahead.

Are you all done?

Good.

Now cancel out all your contrasting votes. Just put a line through on each side. Yes, sorry, that's the way it goes in a two party Democracy, dissenting opinions and all. 

You all evenly canceled out? Good, good. Clear the ballot then. I'm going last!

I'll be the best President you ever had.