Vonnegut never provided an etymology for granfalloon, but it’s not too hard to follow his logic. “Proud”? That’s the gran-. “Meaningless”? Possibly the -loon. This splendidly useful word is so puffed up, so grandiose, so silly — compare buffoon, lampoon, and the Bugs Bunnyism maroon — that it can only mean what it sounds like.
One of my favorite Vonnegutisms. Ting-a-ling, too.
Via Kottke, fnnch on making a living as an artist:
When you turn an avocation (hobby) into a vocation (job) you have to do new things you do not enjoy. Emails, events, meetings, accounting, and more. These are not only a drag but can actually strip the joy from the rest of your art practice.
This intersects with Arthur Brooks’s writing on leisure, which I’ve written about here and here.
Laze.net:
Is that judgement we make of ourselves really real? Can we stop being performative to ourselves like we often are for others? Should we stop giving a fuck about what we think of us, too?
Nick Miroff, writing for the Atlantic:
But it wasn’t the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year that finally cost Noem her job today, making her the first ousted Cabinet secretary of Trump’s second term. Instead, it was her self-promotion.
Robert Greene, in The 48 Laws of Power:
“Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please and impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite—inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.”
I mentioned Arthur Brooks’ article on leisure in the Atlantic a while back, and prior to that, my nagging sense of guilt when doing “not work”:
I’ve long felt a nagging sense of guilt about doing non-work things, because there’s always work hanging out there. The benefit of many years of work experience includes seeing other people who you respect professionally struggle with the same things you do: too much to do, too little bandwidth, material restrictions, etc.
He retells his article on his podcast, Office Hours, and it’s a good listen.
Herman Martinus, via Hey Dingus:
That means that over a lifetime, one full year of exercise leads to 10 full years of extra life. That’s a 1:10 return on investment! So even without any of the additional benefits (which I’ll get into later), this is still one of the best investments you can make.
“One full year of exercise” is Martinus’s calculation of exercising for 45 minutes four days per week. So effectively giving up that time to exercise yields a longer lifespan. It’s an interesting way to think about it.
Another interesting take: exercise doesn’t make you happier, but it does reduce negative emotionality.
Howard Luks, presaging one last snowman:
No one tells you how parenting changes. At first, it’s all beginnings. First steps. First words. First days of school. You’re trained to look forward, always forward. And then, without warning, life quietly starts handing you endings instead. Not loud ones. Soft ones, often unannounced.
Greg Morris, on running:
That’s the thing about these moments. The anticipation is always worse than the act. Your brain builds a wall of reasons not to do something, and every single one of them evaporates the moment you start moving. It’s a pattern I recognise now, having gone through it week after week in marathon training blocks. The dread arrives, I entertain it for a bit, then I go out and run anyway. Afterwards, I wonder what I was so worried about.
It’s true about so many things.
A correlate: discipline beats motivation.
Adam Kirsch:
If we want to keep reading from going extinct, then the best thing we could do is tell young people what so many great writers readily admit: Literature doesn’t make you a better citizen or a more successful person. A passion for reading can even make life more difficult. And you don’t cultivate a passion for the sake of democracy. You do it for the thrill of staying up late to read under the covers by flashlight, unable to stop and hoping no one finds out.
Reading is a Vice
We were fixing to take Aaron back up to New Brunswick today, but the snow in the forecast is forcing us to wait until tomorrow. I am thankful for the all-wheel drive on the WRX. Our original plan was to roll up to New Brunswick yesterday and spend the night; I found a Marriott in Somerset and a nice little French bistro, Sophie’s. Aaron preferred getting in another day at home, though, so I cancelled the reservations and we hung around. He was hard at work on a model for his fraternity yesterday. We did the required errands and had cheese and salami at home with a growler of rosé. Rhonda and I have off from work tomorrow, so it’s no trouble either way.
It would be easy to let the merriment surrounding Bellview’s release of their new rosé overshadow a new dry red blend, but ahem: I draw your attention to their new Boreas. They describe it thus:
A medium bodied dry red blend of Cabernet Franc and Regent with an herbal taste on the tongue and a long, lasting finish.
It’s pretty fruity up front, with a nice dry finish. We got a 500 ml growler last weekend and it was really good with dinner last week.
Hookmark is a fascinating utility for the Mac. In short, it allows you to copy links from one file or application to another, and it is invaluable if you spend a lot of time managing various bits of data across applications on your Mac.
I’ll give you a simple example: Here’s my “Car Maintenance” project in OmniFocus:
You can see in the project’s notes field, there’s a link to a folder on my Mac, “Maintenance.” There are lots of different files in that folder that I might need access too, including some how-tos, reference materials, and maintenance logs.
Similarly, you can link to files (even blocks of text in PDFs) using Hookmark. Here’s a screenshot of some specific files I linked (I linked the project to the files); invoking Hookmark shows the files I’ve linked to the project.
I can link emails from MailMate to tasks or projects, link Google Suite links to projects and tasks, and more. You can even send links to Instapaper. It’s a great service for keeping yourself organized, and I’m not sure I’m even scratching the surface of what it can do.
One of the central frustrations of being a Mac user who likes to use an iPad, though, is that many of the utilities that make the Mac so great aren’t available on the iPad. And that was a central limitation of using Hookmark until very recently, when CogZest introduced Hookmark Pal.
The upshot is that your Hookmark links work on your iOS devices. It’s called a “pal,” I suppose, because it’s not a universal app that works across all of your devices; Hookmark Pal gets you some of the features you depend on, without the full experience of using Hookmark on your Mac. It’s a welcome addition for sure.
Hookmark Pal for iPhone and iPad – Hookmark
App Store
it’s bittersweet when they leave, but a joy to watch them grow.
All religions, all political movements and national identities, all business ventures, all charitable activity and all artistic pursuits are nothing but “immortality projects ,” desperate efforts to break free of death’s gravitational pull.
Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote
And yes, I did put the comma inside the quote, because that’s where it belongs.
Do we hope to capture these moments… these ephemera… to avoid forgetting them? In the hopes that we’ll see them again one day and remember them fondly? To think that we are, somehow, casting the shadow of our mortality just a bit longer than its natural demarcation?
I mentioned last weekend that I was trying to replace the flushing components in the toilet upstairs. The problem I ran into was that I couldn’t spin the nuts off of the bolts in water tank; the metal used in the bolts was softened by all those years of submersion in water, I guess, and not even some strategic spritzes with Liquid Wrench helped.
I mentioned it to our superintendent at work (who was in the process of installing his own bathtub, which made my problem seem tiny), and he suggested using a hacksaw. I ended up using just a hacksaw blade, over a couple of sessions, to cut the bolts between the base of the commode and the tank.
It wasn’t fun but it’s done! We have a freshly refurbished can upstairs. I did the same for the downstairs bathroom years ago. So I can log another home repair to my spreadsheet. Regarding said spreadsheet, I just started it today to keep track of when I service or repair something so I can remember how long it’s been since I tangled with a wary structure, appliance, or some other thing that awaits my attention.
I do a lot of these things in part to save a buck, and to avoid the hassle of trying to find someone to come out and do them for me. I feel like most of my home repairs have a very imperfect version of doneness, as I’m not the handiest of fellas, and always have something in mind I’d rather be doing. But you can’t argue with feeling a sense of accomplishment having fixed something yourself.
Next Friday is another visit to New Brunswick to visit Aaron. I found a host of places to try for dinner, including some intriguing Portuguese joints. I’m second guessing not trying one of those spots (not that it’s too late) because I met a couple at a party last night, and she was from Sayreville. I not a teleologist but I do find such moments of serendipity intriguing. I think we’ll enjoy the Metuchen Inn, though. Looking forward to the visit and the inevitable stop (stops?) at Stokelan Winery.
Do I have to tell you that we’re enjoying some spritzes in this fine fall weather? Rhonda is toasting up some nachos to accompany them using some leftovers from the week.
I hope you’re doing something that resonates with you from toes to dome. We only have this moment: the past is gone, and the future lies, uncertainly, in the moments, days, and years ahead.
I’ve been curious about Kagi search since reading about it on Daring Fireball and listening to an interview with one of the developers. I’ve been using Duck Duck Go for a while, and Google, too, and the AI results I get with the latter really have started to bother me. I decided to try Kagi’s trial tier, and while not exciting by any stretch, I found myself very happy with the results I was getting, and when the generous demo bank of searches wore out, I couldn’t see myself going back. It seems a little wild to pay for a search engine, but as with RSS readers, the value proposition is hard to resist.
I’ve been trialing the Finder replacement Path Finder by Cocoatech for years now, but I never found a reason to purchase a license. It popped up on Bundlehunt so I bought a few for my Macs. It’s an interesting twist on the Finder. One of the features I really like is how it displays labels in a window; it’s much less subtle than the Finder, which I like, especially in looking at a folder organized using the Johnny.Decimal system, which I’m currently half-assing. I also really like the Path Navigator feature. Tahoe’s Finder enhancements have been welcome, though. I has a great Yoink-like feature, called the Drop Stack, that lets you move files without opening multiple windows.
Andre Agassi was a rock star American tennis player who was divisive in terms of his fan base, but was always fun to watch. He evolved, from tennis rebel to statesman, during his career. This video is great, from the tennis angle and from the how-do-I-get-better angle.
Took this pic at work of the Air with Michael Caputo’s six-color sticker affixed. Looks great.
I’ve contributed my fair share of posts about why (bother) blogging at all, and while I resist the solipsistic urge to overly consider myself, I am serially drawn to make some sense of it. Here are some recent posts to consider.
David Johnson:
That is me and blogging. I enjoy writing. It moves me, flexes a creative urge within me, one that I cannot leave alone or ignore – a wish to explain, describe, explore through the written word. I enjoy it for its own sake, for my sake. I am very happy if someone loves what I write or share, and I will keep writing even if the next piece is not seen.
For the Love of Writing…of Blogging
Sylvia:
Then one morning, I wrote something in my journal, I think, or for a blog post that has stuck with me ever since: I blog for an audience of one: me.
This realisation keeps me writing, keeps me sharing what I write.
Sebastian:
My latest blogging adventure has been going on since 2024 and I am still looking for my blogging style. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I treat it as my path. A path that leads through my thoughts, which sometimes follow a straight path and sometimes bumpy roads. However, regardless of whether I feel like writing down a one-sentence thought or a multi-paragraph reflection, I am guided by something that Leslie Lampart beautifully put into words: “If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking”. So I’m writing because I’m thinking.
I’m writing because I’m thinking
Joan Didion:
In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act. You can disguise its qualifiers and tentative subjunctives, with ellipses and evasions — with the whole manner of intimating rather than claiming, of alluding rather than stating — but there’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space.
There’s probably no one irreducible reason why; for me, it’s thinking, it’s a creative urge, it’s purpose without material value, it’s work without economic propulsion, it’s maybe even a phenomenological _sine qua non._Maybe a Buddhist attachment, in a negative sense: attachment to identity or narrative, a desire for permanence . It’s the text equivalent of my photos collection, the left-brain accounting of my wanderings on this pebble. I can’t apologize for scrolling through either my photos or my posts for a myriad of reasons.
Do we hope to capture these moments… these ephemera… to avoid forgetting them? In the hopes that we’ll see them again one day and remember them fondly? To think that we are, somehow, casting the shadow of our mortality just a bit longer than its natural demarcation?
Yes. Yes we do.
It brings me no joy to write that my link post to What You’re Saying When You Give Someone the Silent Treatment remains perennially popular here. Here’s Arthur Brooks from his email newsletter on the same topic:
As a reaction to disagreement, the “silent treatment” is about the worst choice possible for everyone.
People who ruminate on a conflict with their partner—turning it over and over in their mind—are especially prone to punitive actions, including the silent treatment. Try not to get stuck perseverating on the dispute, and use your words instead.