In Boston again, for the second time in a month. Feeling the winter here cut through my coat collar reminds me of places even further north. Incidentally, I just came across this rambling bit, from a nondescript text file I left on my own desktop in November 2006.
There are not enough stars in Boston. Stars, which depending on your vantage point could resemble the icy tips of invisible stalactites or mutilated balls of burning gas floating impossibly through the black. Fortunately, we are very, very far, and the air outside is — without fail in this neck of Maine — very, very cold. So cold it feels like a different shade of cold every time I step outside, the combination of the stars and wisps of clouds and the dry, clear night eliciting a sensory amnesia, a short term memory loss brought on by feelings of metaphysical insignificance before the looming face of infinity above.
I want to record every drop of sensation in words, in calculable thought, in action. But what performance of a verb could possibly capture frost? Or the cruel bent of a tree branch? I can tell you it’s hardly cruel at all in the daylight, and that bodily ache of mine for a word or a sentence, a tome, a treatise on my right to be here, all but disappears after I’ve digested breakfast. (more…)
I’m proud to announce my journalistic debut this Monday, a news report on a study which claimed to show that transcendental meditation decreases the risk of death due to heart disease. On Wednesday, my article earned a (mostly) positive nod from Paul Raeburn of the Knight Science Journalism tracker, a blog that “peer reviews” science reporting on the web.
Mr. Raeburn wondered why news outlets didn’t give this study very much attention, considering how dramatic–more to the point, how publicly funded–its results were. He also criticized what little coverage there was for being too credulous and not asking a few obvious methodological questions. I know this is old news now, but since I was one of the reporters who dropped the yoga ball (so to speak) with this story, I’ll try to clear up a few facts that were lost in Monday’s deadline shuffle. Info that wasn’t previously reported is in bold.
(You may want to read my original article and the study’s press release to get a few basic details. Don’t worry, both are short.)
(more…)
The New Yorker carries two features this week with some great anecdotes illustrating how current psychology views the role of effort and free will. I’ve thrown in a link to my new favorite science publication, Seed Magazine, which combines top notch science feature-writing with an impressive breadth of cultural awareness. They also have an impeccable design department headed by Ben Fry, who wrote the textbooks to a visualization class I took.
Malcolm Gladwell describes a computer-engineer-turned-little-league-basketball-coach who takes his daughter’s team to victory in the junior nationals simply by using a continuous full-court press. It’s a deadly effective strategy, but also “socially horrifying.” The article explores other examples where simply “putting in a lot of effort” is met with resistance by our culture at large.
Jonah Lehrer writes about a psychology study that found that children who are able to suppress their craving for candy for a future reward end up being more successful later on in life. While this isn’t terribly surprising, the underlying psychological explanation–metacognition, or the awareness of your own thought processes–is intriguing. Is highly developed metacognition a genetic trait, or can it be cultivated? You can probably guess which answer is most appealing to the readers of the New Yorker.
Seed Magazine features the “eusocial” insects–ants, bees, and wasps–to illuminate an age-old puzzle in evolutionary theory: how does altruism evolve? Why is it that most hive members become sterile workers, slaving away while unable to pass their genes on to the next generation? One idea is that workers are still helping out their own genes since they are related to the queen (who does have offspring). However, some species have “selfless” social roles even when hive members aren’t closely related.
Can you tell a story in two sentences? Post it to this blog, and maybe you’ll even win $50 AUD (Australian dollars). The guy who edits and picks the stories is a freelance writer from Melbourne, Australia with an eye for interesting sentences. Most of the submissions aren’t mind-blowing, but some manage to pack quite a bit of wittiness and drama into very few words.
Here are two good ones. Make sure to pause and think about them for a moment, for full effect. And then read the editor’s comments on why they’re good — strangely insightful.
I caressed the empty space in our bed, still warm where once you were and supposed that you were gone forever. Soon my pillow was soaked with tears, my body exhausted by wrenching sobs, and then I heard the toilet flush.
Sharon Cohen | Editor’s comment
One of them would be free.
The other one would spend the next twenty years writing his memoirs, a best seller, implicating the one who was “free”.
Jean Blasiar | Editor’s comment
See more two-sentence short stories at the site.
LOST:
I went to bed early last night and when I woke up, I discovered I’d lost my right to marry. It’s pretty easy to recognize–four California Supreme Court justices spotted it several months back, although it took them a long damn time to finally find it. It’s in like-new condition–I personally haven’t had a chance to use it yet, and was really looking forward to the opportunity. A couple of my friends and family still have theirs, and even enjoy it so much they’ve used it several times. If you can find it for me, I’d really appreciate getting it back. I’m not sure, but I think the shady gang of thugs who stole it were heading for Utah or maybe Fresno, so please keep an eye out. Thanks.
[Lost: My Right to Marry from The Best of Craigslist]
Thanks to Elsa, I’ve stumbled across something that is probably more funny, insightful, and entertaining than Stuff White People Like, Overheard in New York and PostSecret combined: The Best of Craigslist, nominated by the site’s own users. Who knew the comedic and literary talents of our communities would explode given a chance to display them while bartering for goods? I guess this is the time-honored tradition of story-telling to vendors at the market, recreated for the online marketplace.
The gems are countless, but just to give a few examples, they run the gamut from simple misunderstandings to vague allusions to sexual deviancy. It’s unclear how much is written seriously, but interesting to speculate. And although most of the posts harbor at least a little pretense of having some Craigslist-ian purpose (i.e. a frustrated rant about members of the opposite sex thinly disguised as a personal ad), occasionally the posters seem to be purely using the postings as a way to life-blog or to write short stories. There are publishing opportunities to be had in this, Craig.
