“A Better High-School Reading List” 

JM sent me this article from the National Review… and I thought it was great.

“In their enthusiasm for children to read the classics,” say the editors, “school curricula often kill love of literature in students by requiring them to read difficult books without considering readability or purpose.” The article then goes on to make 9 suggestions “to better prepare students for a life of great books.”

The suggestions include:

* The Sun Also Rises instead of The Great Gatsby

* All the King’s Men instead of Ethan Frome

* Salem’s Lot instead of Dracula

* Benito Cereno instead of Moby Dick

* A Tale of Two Cities instead of David Copperfield

Click here to read the entire list, and the very good arguments for making these changes.

Bits and Pieces 

Inflation: What the latest numbers mean to you 

You have probably heard the Republicans criticizing the Biden administration for goosing up inflation. And you may not know if it’s true. Or, if it is true, how it happened – and, most importantly, what it means to you.

It actually means many things, and we’ll be talking about some of them in future blog posts. But for now, you should understand one very simple thing. America’s benchmark inflation index grew by about 6.2% for the 12-month period ending in October. And, unfortunately for savers, bank accounts paid practically zero interest this year. So though you may have the same number of dollars in your account as you had last year, the purchasing power of those dollars – i.e., what you can buy with them – has diminished at that same 6.2% rate.

But… the art market is surging! 

However, if you own fine art, you’ve been the beneficiary of inflation. Not just monetary inflation, but a surge of demand among the ultra-wealthy that has sent the fine art market soaring. Click here.

Interesting Fact 

I was surprised to learn that many of my favorite Christmas songs – pop standards from the 1920s to the mid-1960s that are included in what is now known as “The Great American Songbook” – were written by Jewish songwriters.

Some examples:

* “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and “A Holly, Jolly Christmas” by Johnny Marks

* “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” by Mel Torme

* “Let It Snow” by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne

* “Silver Bells” by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston

And, of course…

* “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin

When Customer Complaints Were Taken Less Seriously 

America’s sue-everyone-for-anything culture was in its infancy in 1974, when a sports fan wrote the management of the Cleveland Stadium to complain about a dangerous new audience “pastime.”

Gentlemen:

I am one of your season ticket holders who attends or tries to attend every game. It appears that one of the pastimes of several fans has become the sailing of paper airplanes generally made out of the game program. As you know, there is the risk of serious eye injury and perhaps an ear injury as a result of such airplanes. I am sure that this has been called to your attention and that several of your ushers and policemen witnessed the same.

Please be advised that since you are in a position to control or terminate such action on the part of fans, I will hold you responsible for any injury sustained by any person in my party attending one of your sporting events. It is hoped that this disrespectful and possibly dangerous activity will be terminated.

Very truly yours,

Dale O. Cox

Days later, Mr. Cox received the following letter in response:

(Source: Letters of Note)

Good (but Not Great) News

On October 7, I wrote about Julius Jones, an innocent man on Oklahoma’s death row. Jones was scheduled to be executed on November 18. But last week, thanks to the intervention of The Innocence Project, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt commuted Jones’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

I’m very happy that Oklahoma will not be executing Julius – but I also know that life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit is not a satisfactory solution.

If you’d like to pass along this news, you can do so here Twitter and here Instagram.

Meanwhile, South Korea is jumping on the “metaverse” bandwagon 

The South Korean capital city is promoting itself as a digital city. The working title: “Metaverse Seoul.”

The goal is to “enable seamless interaction of citizens with the state.”

Among the planned features: digital cultural events, digital tourist sites, and digital avatars to handle (real or digital) official municipal complaints.

The city has invested 3.9 billion South Korean won (about 3.3 million US dollars) in the 10-year project.

Click here.

What’s with Beeple? 

Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist better known as Beeple, was on Jimmy Fallon recently, talking about how he went from selling work for $100 to becoming one of the richest living artists in less than one year by selling his NFTs.

Watch the clip here.

Russell Brand talks about his purple belt 

I know Russell Brand first as a comedian with a cool and quirky sense of humor, then as a surprisingly good actor, and recently as a social commentator – a dangerous thing to do, considering his other professions.

But I was surprised to learn that he is also a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), something I’ve been doing as a sport and exercise for the past 25 years.

 What distinguished BJJ from many other martial arts was, until recently, the ranking system. You could not buy or practice your way into a belt promotion. You received one only after proving yourself in competition with others in your rank.

Here’s Brand, explaining, quite movingly, what his purple belt means to him.

Speaking of wrestling… 

Steve Ludwin, rocker, influencer, and world-famous expert in rejuvenation through snake venom injections, sent me this note:

Mark – I know you like wrestling. This was yesterday after my 55th birthday and I am very sore today.

Here he is, “wrestling” with one of his snakes to Shane MacGowan’s “The Snake With the Eyes of Garnet”…

3 Words I’m Trying to Work Into My Conversations 

* Ineffable – from the Latin for “unutterable” – means incapable of being expressed in words. Example: “The beauty of a sunset is ineffable.” The word can also refer to something too taboo to be mentioned. (At one time, “ineffables” was a jocular euphemism for “trousers.”)

* A batten is a strip of wood nailed across parallel boards to hold them together. Thus, the nautical term “batten down the hatches” means to cover the hatches with a tarp and nail it down with battens to make it secure.

* Untoward (“not” + “toward”) means not having the inclination to or for something; unruly; difficult to manage. Example: “His untoward behavior forced the professor to banish him from her class.”

Two Poems About War… and Death 

 Ah! Here’s something!

A response to the November 13 issue, where I talked about how much I liked Alan Ginsberg’s poem Howl, and how it had a powerful effect on me when I first read it in my late teens.

The email is from AS, a fellow writer:

I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never read Ginsberg. But from the small sample in your blog today, I think one would need to take Prozac prior to reading his works. In my darkest days, the things I wrote would be seen as comedy compared to him.

Hmm. I know AS. In his lightest days, his view of the world is 10 shades darker than Howl.

I read Howl as a poem of celebration – even exaltation.

I don’t mean to sound like a total ass here, but this is what is so great about art. The same expression – whether it’s a film or a painting or a poem – can elicit such different responses.

What better way to spur a real conversation? I love it when this happens!

At the end of his email, AS then “recommends” two poems that he says I “would never read”:

* On the Wire by Robert Service

* I Have a Rendezvous With Death by Alan Seeger

In fact, I’ve already read or heard them read at least a dozen times. They were written long before I was born, but were very popular in the 1950s and throughout the Vietnam War years.

They share some similarities:

* They were both written during WWI.

* They are both about death – the death of the speaker.

* They both became part of the common culture, at the level of Rudyard Kipling’s If…

But one is much better than the other. And, no, it’s not a matter of opinion. I have it straight from… well, let’s just say, “I’m right.”

So that’s what today’s assignment will be. Read these two poems and let me know what you think.

I Have a Rendezvous With Death

By Alan Seeger 

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air –
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath –
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear…
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Alan Seeger 

Alan Seeger was born in New York City in 1888 and died in 1916. He was killed in action in World War I during the Battle of the Somme, while serving in the French Foreign Legion. A statue representing him is on the monument in Paris that honors fallen Americans who volunteered for France during the war. Poems, a collection of his works, was published posthumously by Charles Scribner’s Sons.

On the Wire

By Robert William Service 

O God, take the sun from the sky!
It’s burning me, scorching me up.
God, can’t You hear my cry?
Water! A poor, little cup!
It’s laughing, the cursed sun!
See how it swells and swells
Fierce as a hundred hells!
God, will it never have done?
It’s searing the flesh on my bones;
It’s beating with hammers red
My eyeballs into my head;
It’s parching my very moans.
See! It’s the size of the sky,
And the sky is a torrent of fire,
Foaming on me as I lie

Here on the wire… the wire….

Of the thousands that wheeze and hum
Heedlessly over my head,
Why can’t a bullet come,
Pierce to my brain instead,
Blacken forever my brain,
Finish forever my pain?
Here in the hellish glare
Why must I suffer so?
Is it God doesn’t care?
Is it God doesn’t know?
Oh, to be killed outright,
Clean in the clash of the fight!
That is a golden death,
That is a boon; but this…
Drawing an anguished breath
Under a hot abyss,
Under a stooping sky
Of seething, sulphurous fire,

Scorching me up as I lie
Here on the wire… the wire….

Hasten, O God, Thy night!
Hide from my eyes the sight
Of the body I stare and see
Shattered so hideously.
I can’t believe that it’s mine.
My body was white and sweet,
Flawless and fair and fine,
Shapely from head to feet;
Oh no, I can never be
The thing of horror I see
Under the rifle fire,
Trussed on the wire… the wire….

Of night and of death I dream;
Night that will bring me peace,
Coolness and starry gleam,
Stillness and death’s release:
Ages and ages have passed,
Lo! it is night at last.
Night! but the guns roar out.
Night! but the hosts attack.
Red and yellow and black
Geysers of doom upspout.
Silver and green and red
Star-shells hover and spread.
Yonder off to the right
Fiercely kindles the fight;
Roaring near and more near,
Thundering now in my ear;
Close to me, close… Oh, hark!
Someone moans in the dark.
I hear, but I cannot see,
I hear as the rest retire,
Someone is caught like me,
Caught on the wire… the wire….

Again the shuddering dawn,
Weird and wicked and wan;
Again, and I’ve not yet gone.
The man whom I heard is dead.
Now I can understand:
A bullet hole in his head,
A pistol gripped in his hand.
Well, he knew what to do, –
Yes, and now I know too….

Hark the resentful guns!
Oh , how thankful am I
To think my beloved ones
Will never know how I die!
I’ve suffered more than my share;
I’m shattered beyond repair;
I’ve fought like a man the fight,
And now I demand the right
(God! how his fingers cling!)
To do without shame this thing.
Good! there’s a bullet still;
Now I’m ready to fire;
Blame me, God, if You will,
Here on the wire… the wire….

Robert William Service 

Robert Service, a British-Canadian of Scottish descent, was 40 when World War I broke out. He attempted to enlist, but was turned down. He briefly covered the war for the Toronto Star. He then worked as a stretcher bearer and ambulance driver with the American Red Cross “until his health broke.” Convalescing in Paris, he wrote a new book of mainly war poetry, Rhymes of a Red Cross Man. The book was dedicated to the memory of his brother, who had been killed in action in France. Service received three medals for his war service: the 1914–15 Star, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.

Bits and Pieces 

Okay, Just Between the Three of Us, I Was Disappointed… 

It’s happened again. I recently discovered that a rule of grammar I’ve been dutifully obeying all my life has been rescinded.

I’m talking about the usage of “between” and “among.” The rule, which I learned as a child from my mother, was espoused by Frank Vizetelly in the 1920 edition of A Desk-book of Errors in English: “Among may apply to any number,” he said, but “between applies to two only.”

For decades, I’ve been happily correcting others when they broke this rule. But just last week, I came across an updated entry about it in the Usage Notes section of the Merriam-Webster website.

In spoken English, Merriam-Webster’s editors tell us, the between/among tenet has been violated continually throughout the history of our language.

Okay. That, I can understand. The rabble have always had their ways with the language. What upset me was this: Two of the greatest lexicological luminaries – Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster – allowed for the fact that “between” is sometimes used for three and more.

You can read the entire between/among argument here.

Elon Musk, the Twitterverse, and the True Value of Tesla 

Earlier this month, Elon Musk went on Twitter and asked his followers if he should sell 10% of his stake in Tesla.

More than 3.5 million of them responded. And their answer was: “Yes! Sell!”

Elon did. And almost immediately, Tesla stock fell, wiping out nearly $235 billion from the value of the company.

It was, as Bill Bonner pointed out in his blog, the same company, the same products, the same earnings… customers, COVID… everything.

“So why,” he asked, “would a share be nearly 19% less valuable?”

My answer: It’s a form of magical thinking, the same sort of irrational logic I talked about in my November 8 essay on government spending.

Bill shows how this works: If you “add up all the money that was or has been invested with Edison, Ford, Rockefeller, Jobs or even Zuckerberg… and subtract the value of all goods and services rendered, the sum will be hugely positive.” But if you do the same for Elon’s projects, the result will be “a staggeringly negative number.” His businesses do not make money; they lose it. They destroy wealth; they don’t create it.

Elon Musk is the world’s richest man today, because, Bill says, “the Federal Reserve has falsified the value of capital… and rigged the auto market with carbon credits… [His] enrichment, in other words, parallels the growing wealth of the entire elite caste. It is not based on actual output – neither on sales nor on profits – but on fake money and fake interest rates.”

She Could Have Been Mine! 

I began my art collecting habit in 1985 when I wandered into an art gallery in Palm Springs, CA. The proprietor, Bernard Lewin, turned out to be one of the world’s most important collectors of Mexican art. He was an intelligent, articulate, and gentle man. For most of a week, I spent an hour or so a day with him, learning about Mexican modernists.

I ended up buying two pieces from him: a mixograph by Rufino Tamayo, and an oil painting by José Clemente Orozco. I could have bought a small oil painting by Frida Kahlo, but Mr. Lewin dissuaded me. “She’s getting a ride because she’s the wife of Diego Rivera,” he said. “If you’d like, I can show you something by him.”

Even back then, I couldn’t afford a Diego Rivera. But if I had stretched my budget, I could have bought that small painting by Frida Kahlo.

On November 16 at Sotheby’s in New York, Kahlo’s 1949 self-portrait – titled “Diego y yo” – sold for $34.9 million. The highest price ever paid for a piece of Latin American art, including works by Rivera himself!

See the painting here.

A New Brand; How Long Will It Last? 

On Christmas, Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers, will be getting a new name: the Crypto.com Arena.

The arena’s owner, AEG Worldwide, said it struck a 20-year naming rights agreement with Crypto.com. The company, which was founded in 2016, facilitates cryptocurrency trading. In addition, according to its website, it provides cryptocurrency-based credit cards and allows users to “borrow up to 10 times their capital to invest in digital currencies.”

Yes, you read that right. And, no, I don’t get it either.

Companies have long used stadium/arena branding deals as part of their PR efforts. These deals provide lucrative long-term income to the stadium/arena owners and teams and expose the companies’ brands to the public whenever the teams are covered by the media.

But it doesn’t always work out for them. During the late 1990s, several dot-coms that put their brands on stadiums didn’t make it. One of the most memorable: Enron Field, home of the Houston Astros.

Read about this latest rebranding here.

Readers Write… 

From AG, a friend and colleague, after reading my review of Steven Pinker’s “Rationality”… 

Mark,

I’m going to recommend a book that should end up on your all-time Top 10: Steven Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now.” The main thesis – that things are getting better for most people in most places in most ways – is not widely recognized.

Pinker – who is a libertarian-leaning Democrat – was savaged by the far-left for this book, because it undermines their most sacrosanct belief: that we live in a horrible world at a terrible time and only massive government social programs can begin to change that. That led Pinker to two retorts. The first is that if there’s one thing progressives can’t stand it’s progress. The other: It’s not pessimism that causes people to believe the world is getting steadily worse. It’s ignorance.

Thanks for the recommendation, AG. I’ve just ordered a copy!

The End of GE as We Know It 

GE surprised many on Wall Street with an announcement on November 9 that it is going to split itself into three separate publicly traded companies. One in aviation, another in healthcare, and the third in energy.

For anyone following GE for as long as I have, this is not a big surprise. The company has been struggling for decades with a messy, overburdened corporate structure and a mountain of debt.

The details, according to Forbes:

* GE Healthcare will become its own company in early 2023.

* GE Renewable Energy, GE Power, and GE Digital will be combined into a single business in early 2024.

* Once those carveouts are completed, all that will remain of GE will be its aviation division, which makes jet engines, avionics systems, and a range of other products for both commercial and military markets. Larry Culp, who has been CEO of GE since 2018, will remain at the helm of this division.

With the split, GE says it is on target to reduce its total debt by more than $75 billion by the end of the year.

I don’t see this as an isolated event in the landscape of big businesses. I expect to see many more.

Worth Quoting 

* “Even if it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, go on out and sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures; sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed music; sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

* “To the most trivial actions, attach the devotion and mindfulness of a hundred monks. To matters of life and death, attach a sense of humor.” – the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi

* “Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.” – Theodore Isaac Rubin

3 Words I’m Trying to Work Into My Conversations 

* Shavetail is US Army slang for a newly commissioned officer. It comes from the practice of shaving the tails of young, newly broken pack mules to distinguish them from seasoned ones. A derogatory term, it can also refer to any inexperienced person. Example: “While you two shavetails were goofing around, I got the job done.”

* Toplofty – a humorous colloquialism that appeared in the first half of the 19th century – means haughty and arrogant. Example from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: “… celescalating the himals and all, hierarchitectitiptitoploftical, with a burning bush abob off its baubletop…”

* Xenology is the scientific study of extraterrestrial life. It was derived from the Greek “xenos” (stranger, wanderer). Example: “His interest in xenology motivated him to start writing science fiction.”