Postscript

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I am not a connoisseur of beat boxing, but this good old boy seems to have the knack…

 

Same guy, this time as someone’s grandfather performing in the hood…

From Wikipedia: Beatboxing (also beat boxing or boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines… using one’s mouth, lips, tongue, and voice. It may also involve vocal imitation of turntablism, and other musical instruments. Beatboxing today is connected with hip-hop culture, often referred to as “the fifth element” of hip-hop, although it is not limited to hip-hop music. The term “beatboxing” is sometimes used to refer to vocal percussion in general.

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Notes From My Journal

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Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don’t 

“Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” – Pope John Paul II

My reverence for personal freedom above almost every other social value prompts me to be suspicious of any law or regulation that limits individual liberty.

Thus, I much prefer Florida’s response to the COVID epidemic over New York’s. (And in terms of keeping COVID-caused deaths to a minimum, as I’ve pointed out several times, Florida has done as well as, or better than, the states that imposed Draconian measures.)

Likewise, I don’t like the idea of vaccine passports.

But sometimes, in our daily lives, we make decisions that do not entirely correspond to our grandest ideas and intellectual orientations. I’m not talking about hypocrisy (although a good topic) but compromise.

Here’s the dilemma:

For a year now, the monthly meetings of my book club (The Mules) have been conducted via Zoom.

It’s been an okay experience. But we would all prefer to get back to having the meetings at my Cigar Club, where I served food and drink and where, after the meeting, some could linger for a smoke.

I am happy to get back to hosting the meetings. But today, I received a note from our unofficial president suggesting that I should make the in-person meetings at the Cigar Club open only to members that have been vaccinated.

Hmm…

We are about 15 people, of which 9 are my age (70s), a few are in their 60s, and a few are younger. About half of the old guys have “comorbidity” issues – and they are all about taking every possible precaution. So if I don’t impose a vaccination requirement, they won’t feel comfortable if they decide to come.

Meanwhile, two of the younger guys are anti-vaxxers. So if I do impose a vaccination requirement, they won’t be able to come and will have to decide whether or not to attend on Zoom.

What should I do?

And who am I to force them to make these “choices”?

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Worth Considering

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To Buy or Not to Buy: Suzanne and I Compare Notes on 7 Paintings by Denis Nunez  

One of the fun things I like about collecting art with a partner is that you get to know one another’s preferences – generally and with respect to particular artists.

When Suzanne Snider and I are buying pieces of the most important modernist artists for our permanent collection, our preferences are almost always in total alignment. That’s because we have spent so many years studying these artists and their work that we know exactly what sort of images best represent them at various stages of their development.

It’s not so easy when choosing work by contemporary artists. These are living artists, few of whom have reached a level where they are traded by the large, international auction houses and collected by major international museums. In other words, there is no uniformity of opinion as to whose fame will endure and which of their styles and periods will be considered their best.

But that doesn’t stop us from forming our own opinions and having debates about the pros and cons of individual pieces.

Yesterday morning, Suzanne sent me 7 recently available pieces by Denis Nunez, a contemporary Nicaraguan artist that we’ve been keeping an eye on.

Rather than tell her, I asked her to guess which ones I liked (and might want to bid on) and which one I hated.

Here are the 7 pieces. (See if you agree with my favorites.)

Suzanne thought I would like #1, #2, #5, and #6. And knowing that I hate semi-abstract representations of attractive women, she guessed that I would hate #7.

She was very close. I liked #1, #2, and #6. And, yes, I hated #7.

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Postscript

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Is this racism?

If you’ve played competitive half-court basketball, you’ll know, as this guy does, that it is not. The problem is that some guys are wimps and sore losers.

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Worth Reading

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You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation

By Deborah Tannen, PhD

Originally published in 1995 by Virago

The book’s thesis is that, from childhood, boys and girls learn different approaches to language that result in communication problems when they get older. She calls these different approaches “gender-lects.”

For most women, Tannen says, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport, a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships. For most men, it is primarily a means to preserve independence and negotiate and maintain status in a hierarchical social order.

So, for example, men often dominate conversations, even where they know less about a subject than a female interlocutor. And women often listen more because they have been socialized to be accommodating.

These patterns mean that men are far more likely to interrupt another speaker and not take it personally when they are themselves interrupted, while women are more likely to finish each other’s sentences.

I thought Tannen’s most interesting point was that these patterns have paradoxical effects. Men use the language of conflict to create connections. Conversely, women can use the language of connection to create conflict.

More takeaways:

* Women try to be equal to each other; men try to one-up each other.

* Women judge how something impacts relationship symmetry; men judge how something impacts relationship asymmetry and hierarchy.

* Women favor rapport talk, which is about sharing personal information to create connection; men favor report talk, which is about sharing impersonal information to create connection.

* By understanding certain differences in how we speak, we can learn to better understand the other person’s “gender-lect.”

 

Critical Reviews 

“Deborah Tannen combines a novelist’s ear for the way people speak with a rare power of original analysis. It is this that makes her an extraordinary sociolinguist, and her book such a fascinating look at that crucial social cement, conversation.” (Oliver Sacks)
 
“[A] refreshing and readable account of the complexities of communication between men and women [with] vivid examples and lively prose.” (New York Times Book Review)
 
“Tannen has a marvelous ear for the way real people express themselves, and a scientist’s command of the inner structures of speech and human relationships…. A chatty, earnest, and endearing book that promises here-and-now rewards.” (Los Angeles Times)

“Utterly fascinating.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

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Notes From My Journal

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The Geriatric Language of Love 

“We are born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed.” – Thomas Fuller

You Just Don’t Understand was considered groundbreaking in its day. It was on the NYT bestseller list for nearly four years, eight months at #1, and was translated into 31 languages.

But in recent years, as you can imagine, it has been criticized for its unwokeness. A typical comment was made by someone named Alice Freed who grumbled that it “simultaneously perpetuates negative stereotypes of women, excuses men their interactive failings, and distorts by omission the accumulated knowledge of our discipline.”

As I said above, the book’s thesis is that, from childhood, boys and girls learn different approaches to language that result in communication problems when they get older.

One of those many problems concerns how and why men and women complain. Women, Tannen says, often complain to establish rapport and to seek understanding, which they get from other women. Men are generally reluctant to complain because they see it as an admission of failure. But when they do complain, they are generally asking for solutions. And that is exactly what they get when they complain to other men.

But when men and women complain to one another, things go awry. When women complain to men, men assume they are looking for answers. So, they give them answers – which is pretty much the opposite of what the women want.

There is a wonderful little video on this, which shows the dichotomy succinctly and hilariously:

Over the years, I’ve tried to remind myself that sometimes sympathies are more wanted than solutions. It’s not an easy thing to remember and a tougher thing to do. I try, but I’m thinking: “What bloody good is this nodding and comforting doing? I know the damn solution. Why can’t I just say it and save us both some precious time?!”

That was then. This is now.

As I reluctantly edge into my seventies, I’ve noticed a surprising change – at least in my personal life.

As my body descends ever so gradually into incapacity (on its way to dust), I find myself complaining to all who will listen about the many symptoms of this decrepitude that bother me so. I want to talk about my painful knees, my arthritic fingers and toes, the steady, almost daily, ebbing of physical and mental energy, etc.

My coevals seem to enjoy these conversations, too. And when we have our bitch fests, we do it like men. Each complainer is allowed about 2 minutes of whining for which he must endure about 10 minutes of mansplaining how his problems can be solved. And I’m fine with that. In fact, it’s quite good, because the various solutions offered are often contradictory, which offers an opportunity for a third stage of vigorous testosterone pumping or dumping debate.

But I’ve noticed that when I make these same complaints to K and she gives me much of the same advice (“Stop eating ice cream… Stop wrestling… Get more rest…” etc.), I am not pleased at all.

K’s advice is every bit as solid and sensible as the advice I get from my male friends. But I find that I don’t want it. I want what I used to believe only women want: words and gestures of sympathy, expressed with a bit of cooing and petting. Nothing less. And certainly nothing more.

I’m sure, if Deborah Tannen were my counselor, she’d tell me to simply explain what I want (need?) from K and that everything then would be alright.

In fact, I’ve tried that. But the conversations have usually gone like this:

Me: [Complaining…]

K: [Giving me advice…]

Me: “I know that. But I really just want…”

K: “Well, if you know what to do, then do it. Or stop complaining!”

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From My Work-in-Progress Basket

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My Million-Dollar Minimum Fee 

“You get what you pay for.”

When Early to Rise was at its peak, I was regularly petitioned by readers asking me to mentor them. I was always flattered by such requests and wrote personal no-thank-you notes, which were generally well received.

But then someone wrote me back, accusing me of being stingy with my time. I sublimated my indignation into an essay in which I recounted the experience that first made me realize how rude it is to expect someone you hardly know to devote his valuable time to you.

The essay was widely read, but it did not achieve its goal of forestalling further demands on my time. After several more requests arrived, I published one of them (name withheld) with a blunt reply that pointed out the obvious considerations:

* Time is a limited resource. When you ask people for their time, you are asking for a lot.

* You are not the center of the universe. Just because you need help doesn’t mean others are obliged to help you.

Alas, that didn’t work either. So I tested another idea.

It was at a conference. After I gave my speech, a young woman, brimming with excitement, cornered me to describe her brilliant business idea and suggest that I might want to mentor her.

Now it just so happened that one of the concepts I’d talked about in my speech was that in business, time is money. And in order to use your time as advantageously as possible, you need to know how to value it.

“You take the amount of money you wish to make this year and divide it by 2000 (the number of working hours in 50 40-hour work weeks),” I’d told the conference attendees. “So if you want to make $100,000, the value you ascribe to each hour is $50. If you want to make $500,000, it is $250. If you want to make $1 million, it is $500.”

With that in mind, I did a quick calculation and told the young woman that I would be delighted to help her, but my minimum fee was $5,000 an hour. (This happened at a time when my income was quite high.)

“Huh?” she said.

“What?” I smiled.

“You must be kidding.”

“Actually, I’m not. You see, for every hour I would spend working on your business, I’d be taking an hour away from working with one of my partners or employees on one of my businesses. And each of those hours is worth about $5,000 to me.”

She became indignant. “Well, it’s not worth that much to me!”

“Well then, you have your answer,” I said.

That ended the conversation.

But I didn’t like the way it made me feel. Not only was I pretty sure that I had failed to get her to understood the very important lesson I was trying to teach her, I knew that in her eyes, it looked like I just didn’t care if she succeeded or failed.

I chewed on that a while, and came up with another approach… one that finally worked.

I had, basically, two clients at the time. One was a large company and the other was a start-up. The deal I had made with the second client was the same as the deal I had cut for myself with the first. And that was a combination of a base yearly fee and an incentive bonus, with a minimum payout of a million dollars.

It had worked extremely well for my first client and was working extremely well for the second. So I decided that I would incorporate it into my response to all future requests for my time in helping others build their businesses.

From then on, I would say, “I would be happy to consider helping you. But you should know that my minimum compensation starts at $1 million.”

That did the trick. It ended the conversation politely and without provoking resentment. And so I used it successfully for several years. Until someone – some already successful businessperson that wanted to grow his business – called my bluff.

“Sure,” he said. “No problem.” He reached into his satchel, pulled out a checkbook and a pen, and said, “How should I make it out?”

Now I was the one learning the lesson. I had met someone smart enough to understand the value of my time and rich enough to pay me for it. But I knew from experience that mentoring a new business was itself a full-time job, even if my role would be simply to give advice. And I honestly didn’t have the physical or emotional bandwidth for that kind of commitment.

I had to admit to him that my million-dollar minimum fee was specious. But I made a counterproposal.

I told him that I would give him all the same advice, answer all the same questions, make the same suggestions and introductions, etc. as I would if we had a formal agreement – but I’d do it for free.

Now he was perplexed.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean just that. I’ll do it for free… but at my convenience and on my terms. You can hit me up at my favorite cigar club any Friday between 5:30 and 9:30, which usually means between my first and my fifth tequila. After that, you’re not going to want to listen anyway.”

“And that’s all for free?”

“Yes.
“I don’t get it,” he said.

I explained. If we went with the fee arrangement, he would feel obliged to follow my advice. And since he would follow my advice, I would feel obliged to help make his business succeed. That mutual obligation would put a lot of pressure on both of us. It would be a serious business relationship.

But if I gave him the same advice for free, I’d feel no obligation to make it work. And he’d have no obligation to follow it. We’d both just be shooting the breeze. The advice would be the same. But its value (to him and to me) would be de minimus.

He told me he would think about it.

And then, the next day, he called to say that I was right. So he’d have to decline my free offer.

“But don’t forget,” he said, “my original request – and a million dollars – is still on the table.”

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Worth Considering

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From Letters of Note – “a reassuring reminder that 99.9% of people have at some point worried about, needed more of, and sometimes written awkward, angry, or amusing letters about, money.”

John O’Hara, letter to The New Yorker editor Harold Ross, 1939:

I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, letter to Poetry editor Harriet Monroe, March 1, 1918: 

Spring is here – and I could be very happy, except that I am broke. Would you mind paying me now instead of on publication for those so stunning verses of mine which you have? I am become very, very thin, and have taken to smoking Virginia tobacco.

Wistfully yours,

Edna St. Vincent Millay

P.S. I am awfully broke. Would you mind paying me a lot?

 

Dylan Thomas, letter to Purpose editor Desmond Hawkins, October 22, 1936: 

YOU PURPOSE PEAPOTS OWE ME A QUID FOR THOSE TWO POEMS. How are you? Try to remember to keep some lunch dates free for me when I come up to town in about a fortnight’s time. I’ve got some new poems and some new jokes and some new diseases, I’m feeling fine. A WHOLE POUND YOU PEAPOTS… MONEY, TINKLY MONEY, FOR GOD’S SAKE.

Robert Louis Stevenson (age 15), letter to his father, April 1866: 

Respected Paternal Relative:

I write to make a request of the most moderate nature. Every year I have cost you an enormous – nay, elephantine – sum of money for drugs and physician’s fees, and the most expensive time of the twelve months was March.

But this year the biting Oriental blasts, the howling tempests, and the general ailments of the human race have been successfully braved by yours truly.

Does not this deserve remuneration?

I appeal to your charity, I appeal to your generosity, I appeal to your justice, I appeal to your accounts, I appeal, in fine, to your purse.

My sense of generosity forbids the receipt of more – my sense of justice forbids the receipt of less – than half a crown.

Greeting from, Sir, your most affectionate and needy son.

 

British Naval Officer, letter to a creditor, 19th century: 

I am in receipt of your “Final Demand” for payment of my account. I have to inform you that my normal practice concerning the settlement of debts is to place all of my bills in a hat once a month, from which I draw out two or three for payment. I have followed this procedure with regard to your bill. However, if I receive another letter from you, Sir, the tone of which I consider to be rude, your bill will not be put in the hat at all.

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