Nothing matters and nothing works

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

A still life left behind by one of my children

In Paul Ford’s funny and informative guide for people who have been asked to be in the media, he lays out “the most important rule of media”:

Nothing matters, and nothing works. If you’re selling a book, everyone will want you to go on TV to promote the book. That will sell negative ten books. Some stupid tweet will sell 1,600 copies of the book. I mean obviously if Oprah wants to feature you and tells people to get your book, the math changes. Sometimes things do work! But in general nothing matters, and nothing works. You won’t cost yourself your career if you say no.

In my experience, this is (sometimes painfully) very true.

For more of Paul’s wisdom, see: “Why wasn’t I consulted?” and “What to say when you don’t know what to say”

Books + gear

Sunday, February 16, 2020

As a wannabe musician, I especially I love it when people post photos of my books in their studios with music gear.

Hit pause

Saturday, February 15, 2020

A reminder: Give it five minutes. Do a 30-second fact check. Take a moment and pause.

Here is a heart-shaped piece of cactus I found on yesterday’s walk. I’ve just finished Iain Gately’s excellent essay on the iconography of love, “A Heart-Shaped History,” all about how the ♥ became the near-universal symbol for love:

The ♥ in geometric terms a cardioid, is common in nature. It appears in the leaves and flowers of various plants, it is formed by swans when they touch beaks, by doves as they unfold their wings, by strawberries, cherries and beet-roots in cross section, and is suggested by various portions of the human anatomy.

Lots of tasty historical tidbits follow — the Egyptians, for example, left hearts inside of the corpse so the Goddess could weigh them in the afterlife, the Greeks’ Eros shot his arrows at people’s eyeballs instead of their chests, the ♥ replaced the grails in the first decks of cards, etc.

As far as accuracy goes, Leonardo da Vinci produced the first well-rendered depiction of the heart in 1498. (Scientists wouldn’t figure out what the heart actually did until a century later.) Leonardo drew a seed next to one of the drawings in his notebooks, and wrote, “The heart is the nut which generates the tree of the veins.” (Isaacson devotes a whole section to Leonardo’s heart studies in his biography.)

Isaacson points out this page, where Leonardo draws a heart inside of his longtime companion, Salaì:

At the top is a drawing of the heart’s papillary muscle and a description of how it shortens and elongates when the heart beats. Then, as if he were being too clinical, he let his mind wander and pen begin to doodle. And there, in loving profile, is a drawing of Salai, his beautiful curls flowing down his long neck, his signature receding chin and fleshy throat softly modeled with Leonardo’s left-handed hatching. In his chest is a section of a heart, with its muscles sketched in. An analysis of the drawing shows that the heart was sketched first. It seems as if Leonardo drew it, then sketched Salai around it.

Happy Valentine’s Day.