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Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Wednesday, June 8, 2005
The Midnight Disease
This past weekend I was in New York City for Book Expo America, a large tradeshow for book publishers and booksellers. It was my first time to attend and quite interesting to see all those books. But none of them were for sale and, as a bookaholic, that was painful. So on Saturday I took time out for a little wandering around Manhattan. I went to Grand Central Station to look around a bit and meet John Mohan of Rosebud PLM, Inc. for lunch at Pershing Square. While wandering the terminal before lunch I stopped in Posman Books. I was standing at a table piled high with paperbacks when suddenly a stack of books tumbled off the table (I didn't touch them! Honest!) and scattered across the floor.
The title was "The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain" by Alice W. Flaherty. This immediately caught my attention. Flaherty is a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and teaches at Harvard. She also suffers from manic-depressive disorder and hypergraphia. Hypergraphia is the compulsive need to write, which Flaherty puts to good use. Midnight Disease is a compelling book. Though dense (it's not a book I can skim) there is rarely a wasted word. In a style similar to Oliver Sachs (author of "Awakenings" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", among others), Flaherty weaves a tale of science, history, and analysis that is rich with anecdotes
and medical histories of writers past and present.
I've only managed to get through the first 100 pages so far, but Flaherty's scientific exploration of creativity is fascinating. It's a refreshing change from the plethora of new-age, right-brain creativity books on the market and balances historical perspective with recent case studies to build a unique view into the human mind. Anyone who's interested in writing or its practitioners, professional or otherwise, or anyone who's ever struggled to write should find this book worthwhile. In fact, I think anyone interested in the origins of creativity will enjoy it.
BTW, Rosebud PLM makes a cool collaborative editing plug-in/service for Adobe Acrobat that lets multiple users do real-time, shared editing of a PDF document without having to use e-mail or a WebDAV server. If you have to do document reviews or editing of any sort you should check it out. And Pershing Square has the best bacon I've ever eaten. Because I hadn't had breakfast on Saturday I had a 3-egg omelet with a side of bacon for lunch. It was so good I went back on Sunday for breakfast. The bacon was nitrate free. I didn't know such a thing existed. Worse, I didn't know that nitrates were the cause of the dry, salty aftertaste that hangs around for hours after eating bacon. I don't often eat bacon but, in the words of Will Smith, "I gotta get me some of that!" If you're a carnivore you should try it.
Good food, good books, good show. I love New York.
Monday, April 4, 2005
Economics in One Lesson
Henry Hazlitts 1946 classic on economics, Economics in One Lesson, is now available online. Excellent. Its probably the best economic primer around and something I encourage everyone to read. It addresses economic principals and consequences in everyday terms anyone can understand. Next to Hazlitt I like Thomas Sowells Basic Economics not as quick to read but close, and very thorough.
Economics In One Lesson Online
Lynne Kiesling: Henry Hazlitt's seminal text Economics in One Lesson is now fully available online. It's a clear, straightforward articulation of basic economic principles. Thanks to the Foundation for Economic Education for doing so, and to Mahalanobis for the tip....
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Terry Frazier at 4:41 PM
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Categories: Books, Business & Finance
Terry Frazier at 4:41 PM
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Thursday, March 31, 2005
Kudos to Daniel Pink
A few days ago I wrote about Daniel Pink's excellent session at SXSW. As I said then, Pink gave away copies of his new book, A Whole New Mind, at his session but I didn't get one because there were more attendees than books. At the end of the session Pink told everyone that he would send books to anyone that didn't get a copy if they'd leave him a business card, and then he collected cards from all of us wallflowers. I thought this was nice but, to be honest, I didn't expect to see anything. Not that I doubted his sincerity - I just figured the cards would be handed to some wonk at the publisher, get buried under a pile of "more important stuff", and never be heard from again.
I was wrong. Yesterday I got my copy of the book. It came in a hand-addressed, padded envelope with Daniel Pink's return address. The copy of the book had been signed by Pink, with a nice little inscription. I don't know why I was surprised, but I was. And pleasantly so. Daniel Pink kept his word, and he did it himself. Very cool. As I said earlier, Pink's session was one of the best at SXSW. Now he's become one of my heroes. In this day of automated everything and piss-poor customer service it's refreshing to find someone who takes their relationships with customers seriously. Big kudos to Daniel Pink.
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