On Vocabulary - Jason Schneiderman

Today's poem on Poets.org is a a wonderful meditation on words lost, found and discovered

I used to love words,
but not looking them up.

Now I love both,
the knowing,

and the looking up,
the absurdity ....

Discovery is always tinged
with sorrow, the knowledge

that you have been living
without something,

so we try to make learning
the province of the young,

who have less time to regret
having lived in ignorance.

Link to full poem

A great observation that we often make learning chiefly the "province of the young". Why? Perhaps we hate admitting ignorance.

I disagree (as he says "This may surprise you") with his conclusion of notliking the author who ended his book on a obscure word. Picking up dictionaries is good.

It's never to late...

It's never too late to be who you might have been.
George Eliot

The Mother of all Puzzles

From a reader submitted puzzler on Car Talk (Aug. 23, 2008) which I first read about in William Poundstone's book "Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google". Hilarious reactions by readers on Peter Norvig's post on G+!

So, either you can laugh about it, or start solving this mother of all puzzles!!

A hundred prisoners are each locked in a room with three pirates, one of whom will walk the plank in the morning. Each prisoner has 10 bottles of wine, one of which has been poisoned; and each pirate has 12 coins, one of which is counterfeit and weighs either more or less than a genuine coin. In the room is a single switch, which the prisoner may either leave as it is, or flip. Before being led into the rooms, the prisoners are all made to wear either a red hat or a blue hat; they can see all the other prisoners' hats, but not their own. Meanwhile, a six-digit prime number of monkeys multiply until their digits reverse, then all have to get across a river using a canoe that can hold at most two monkeys at a time. But half the monkeys always lie and the other half always tell the truth. Given that the Nth prisoner knows that one of the monkeys doesn't know that a pirate doesn't know the product of two numbers between 1 and 100 without knowing that the N+1th prisoner has flipped the switch in his room or not after having determined which bottle of wine was poisoned and what colour his hat is, what is the solution to this puzzle?

Update:
 On second thought this should be called "The deranged offspring of all puzzles" instead of the title above. 

Andre Kertesz - On Reading

Robert Gurbo in the introduction to Andre Kertesz's book On Reading writes that the famous series is reissued at a time when digital media, ebooks and computers are threatening to eliminate the reader of the printed word.  The timeless image of a person head-down poring over a book is now being replaced with people transfixed in similar ways to their cell phones, laptops, e-readers.

The New York Times ran a photo spread on the impossibility of capturing street images of people without anyone head down checking their devices (Misha Erwitt's: Cellphone pre-occupation). The series of pictures shows people in states of preoccupation talking, texting, checking email. (My favorite is the the woman talking next to the Giacommeti statue). In comparison, as Gurbo notes in the preface, "... Kertesz's timeless images of people transported to another world by the intimate process of opening a book or newspaper ... "

Is there an essential difference? Is there a difference between a person texting on a bench versus a person reading a book? Is it more of a disconnection from reality and your surroundings to be staring into a computer screen into the vastness of the internet versus fingers curled around a folded newspaper?

I went back and forth between the collections and I tried to reach a conclusion - is one better than the other? or is is just a symptom of conditioning?

Sounds like a beaten down trope - "digital bad, analog good"

To me, there is an appropriate choice of words for  Erwitt's series versus Kertesz's.

Preoccupied vs. absorbed
Distracted vs. transported
Disconnected vs. immersed

It's hard for me to believe that anyone can actually read anything on the internet with it's easy-to-navigate HTML links. Add to that the numerous distractions of messages, tweets, and emails. You don't really travel anywhere on the internet, you simply bounce around.

This is one my favorite images from Andre Kertesz's collection of photographs - On Reading.  A boy eating an ice-cream reading the comics section from a scattered bunch of newspapers. Andre Kertesz captures the essence of reading: the solitary, self-absorbed pleasure that transports you to a different place. The only thing that would mar that image would the silhouette of a person talking on the cellphone. Of course, the boy would not notice.

Acceptance

A student once asked his Zen master,  "Why did you not ever marry?"

The Zen master replied, "Well, I was looking for the perfect woman".

The student eagerly asked, " Did you not find the perfect woman?"

"Oh, I did", replied the Zen master with a smile.

"Then...what happened.. why did you not marry her?"

The Zen master paused and with a twinkle in his eye said, "Well, she was looking for the perfect man."

(paraphrased from  John Gottman)

Ralph Williams on Shakespeare

Ralph Williams who lectured on Shakespeare is one of the best-loved professors at Michigan. He has now retired but thankfully is still around in an emeritus capacity. Link to this short series of meditations on Shakespeare, passages and language.
LSA video: Part I

Monkeys, Shakespeare and the Internet

"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."
~Robert Wilensky

Social significance of rocks

 "The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks!'

Henri Cartier Bresson

"I still believe there is a real social significance in a rock - just as there is in a line of unemployed.  For that opinion I am charged with inhumanity, unawareness."

Ansel Adams, to Edward Weston

"I agree with you that there is just as much 'social significance in a rock' as in 'a line of unemployed.'  All depends on the seeing . . . If I have in some way awakened others to a broader conception of life - added significance and beauty to their lives - . . . then I have functioned, and am satisfied."

Edward Weston, to Ansel Adams

Ole' Brittania

The Encyclopedia Britannica announced on Tuesday that the 2010 edition was the last print edition. They would not be printing any more. After 244 years, the mother of all encyclopedias decided that that a better business model would be to move to an online-only version.
(See New York Times report). They were not selling well: there were 4,000 editions of the 2010 edition that were still in the warehouse (unsold) and perhaps many more at distributors all over the world.

It pained me to read that suddenly the staple of many libraries and many homes will cease to be. Market forces had triumphed and Schumpeterian 'creative destruction' has triumphed. It represented a whole world for many of us. Whether you were a reader or not, there was something magnificent about just seeing those bound editions on a shelf. (A more magnificent experience was experienced on reading them).

We did not own the Britannica while growing up. It is and was very expensive. Instead our Dad got us another set - Grolier's - which we used so much that the plastic covers tore from the frequent removal, and putting it back,  or not putting it back, leaving it open in the midst of things. My father was actually very proud that they looked so worn and used over the years. He liked to joke about people who also had such  bound editions of encyclopedias gracing their living room, but in such pristine shape that "they could not be possibly be read more than a few times".

The Encyclopedia Brittanica was not so common in people's homes in India (It was mostly the World Book who had a team of dedicated franchisees). I cannot recall anyone possessing an edition. You would find it libraries everywhere. There was always an aspirational quality associated with it. My Dad and I often talked about replacing our set with it. We never did.

I did have access to it.  The Encyclopedia Britannica was kept in a special metal cabinet at the Poona Club Library. The editions were somewhat old, but they were placed in a prominent spot by the entrance. It had the effect of a jewel-case - they were  seen by everybody who walked in, they were always locked up and you needed to ask the librarian special permission to access the volumes. They could not be checked out. They could be read in the library only.  I used it for special school projects and essays that I needed to write. But,  that wasn't the main reason. I did it mostly because I had a good reason to walk up to the librarian and ask for the keys.  As a precocious 12-yr old I wanted to show up the adults and thumb my nose at their 'lowly' tastes as they read magazines at the reading table.  Here I was carrying this gigantic brown-leather volume of the Britannica, then noisily going through those light, translucent pages with the smell of  volumes that had lain there for too long, and then I took notes. A real serious reader and scholar in their midst.

A few months ago, I decided to stop being so stingy and donated a substantial amount to the Wikipedia foundation.  I have spent  hours and hours on their website looking up the most arcane, mundane, or insane subjects. Oddly, the so-called 'Britannica-killer' also needs $$$ to survive. A fact that makes you think everything that is good cannot be free, or that you can live off the charity of others forever. Wikipedia is a great idea. It has made access to information more or less democratic (provided you have an internet connection). I am all for that. But, I am also for the older version.

True that  HTML links are easy to click, words and things are easy to find.  You could be reading an article and if you wanted to know something you were a tab and a few keystrokes away. The information online is more updated and there is a lot more of it. All true. But there is something else to old media - books, newspapers, dictionaries and the encyclopedia. You get lost more often, you take time to find something that you were looking for. In passing, you read a lot more words, learn a lot more things than a goal-direction search. Besides, there is the sheer physicality of of it. Turning pages, holding the spine, carrying all that weight of words and knowledge ... our ideas and knowledge are not as abstract as we think them to be. There is nothing more alive, living and breathing than an actual sheet of paper with words on it (This computer won't understand).

Yes, I have ordered the last set.

Update:
Today, I received a call from the distributor that they cannot fulfill my order given the overwhelming response. He said that they received 100 orders within 2 hours after the story broke (I presume on the NYT website). Apparently, antique collectors, other bibliophiles (like myself) suddenly woke up and decided to order that last edition. He thinks that this is not going to be valuable. Perhaps not. It's not the reason why many of wanted to buy it. On parting he wanted to bribe me with a DVD for 2012 for me not to leave negative feedback on Amazon.

On Distraction

If you are reading this then you are most likely distracted from doing what you should be doing. If  Hanif Kureishi is right then this can be a good a thing. (Hanif Kureishi on Distraction). The article was on the subject of Ritalin and how that can atomize someone's natural creativity to enforce a more standardized view. Of course, this is over-medicated America. But Kureishi, a distracted person himself,  writes:

I might have been depressed as a teenager, but I wasn’t beyond enjoying some beautiful distractions. Since my father had parked a large part of his library in my bedroom, when I was bored with studying I would pick up a volume and flip through it until I came upon something that interested me. I ended up finding, more or less randomly, fascinating things while supposedly doing something else. Similarly, while listening to the radio, I became aware of artists and musicians I’d otherwise never have heard of. I had at least learned that if I couldn’t accept education from anyone else, I might just have to feed myself.

From this point of view — that of drift and dream; of looking out for interest; of following this or that because it seems alive — Ritalin and other forms of enforcement and psychological policing are the contemporary equivalent of the old practice of tying up children’s hands in bed, so they won’t touch their genitals. The parent stupefies the child for the parent’s good. There is more to this than keeping out the interesting: there is the fantasy and terror that someone here will become pleasure’s victim, disappearing into a spiral of enjoyment from which he or she will not return.

But, I digress. Coming back to the subject of distraction, Kureishi at the end talks about the virtues of distraction. Like anything else, it's a fine line to draw the distinction between good and bad distractions:

It is said that distractions are too easy to come by now that most writers use computers, though it’s just as convenient to flee through the mind’s window into fantasy. In the end, a person requires a method. He must be able to distinguish between creative and destructive distractions by the sort of taste they leave, whether they feel depleting or fulfilling. And this can work only if he is, as much as possible, in good communication with himself — if he is, as it were, on his own side, caring for himself imaginatively, an artist of his own life.

Oscars 2012 - The Artist

Unlike years past, I did not post my Oscar Predictions this year. I did manage to see most of movies that were nominated to make educated guesses, but I was a bit disappointed with 2012 being a lackluster year in terms of the movies. I can't think of any movie (except one) from the list of the best movies nominated which I would want to see again in 10 years. Of course, the only real  shining gem from 2012 is The Artist which correctly won the awards that it should have. There have been reviews that have been less than flattering and consider the whole movie a sort of gimmick - a very vocal criticism of a silent conceit. It isn't correct to compare it to an actual silent movie from decades ago. It's a movie that is made in the present time and critiques the present time. It is pure satire - in the manner of Jonathan Swift - on this day and age where the real essence of the movies is lost in the pursuit of more technology (James Cameron take note). If all is technical skill, what becomes of art?

Interesting silent movie (could not disagree more with both critics)
New Yorker: The Critics

Mr doggy doggers

Aashiqi - Love by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

A beautiful poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz:

Aashiqui

woh log bahut khushkismat the
jo ishq ko kaam samjhte the
ya kaam se aashiqi karte the
hum jeete ji mashroof rahe
kuch ishq kiya, kuch kaam kiya
kaam ishq ke aade aata raha
aur ishq se kaam uljhata raha
phir aakhir mein tang akar humne
dono ko adhoora chod diya…


(my translation)

Love

They were very fortunate
who thought love was their work
or who loved their work
While alive, I kept myself busy
I loved a bit, I worked a bit
work came in the way of love
and love in the way of work
and finally frustrated
I gave up, leaving both incomplete ...

You have a right...

Perhaps a gimmick, but does make you stop and think

  Poem In Which Words Have Been Left Out
  by Charles Jensen

You have the right to remain
anything you can and will be.

An attorney you cannot afford
will be provided to you.

You have silent will.
You can be against law.
You cannot afford one.

You remain silent. Anything you say
will be provided to you.

...

See webpage linked for complete poem.

Where your electronics come from

If you didn't catch this story on the radio, or live where you can't hear this live, you might want to take a look at This American Life: The apple factory. Especially, if you are an Apply fanboy, or any kind of nerd who likes technology, or any consumer in the First World who uses products that are Made in China. They are cheap, and you can hear why. The justification for the sweatshops above is standard economic theory: the rising tide of globalization lifts all boats, even little ones in far-off places. The alternatives are much worse. But, it helps to consider what the least of all evils is.