Steve Donoghue wrote what I thought was the best tribute to Vidal; it was graceful, heartfelt, lyrical. And absolutely the most gorgeous photo of the young Vidal I've ever seen. Though I will take him to task on Gore's "abandoning his country"; Vidal always maintained US residence and lived in the US for the last decade or so. And America was a huge theme of his life and much of his work.
The NY Times had a mostly factually accurate obit but marred with lots of snarky asides and uncalled-for digs. The funniest part of the Times obit was this marvelous correction:
Correction: August 1, 2012. An earlier version misstated the term Mr. Vidal called William F. Buckley in a debate. It was crypto-Nazi, not crypto-fascist.
I am so glad we got that cleared up.
The line in Steve's tribute that resonated with me was his line that, with Vidal's passing, "The 20th Century is over." To think of a time when a man of letters could live by his pen and be a public intellectual -- it boggles my mind. Vidal, Mailer, Vonnegut are the first names that leap to mind, and they evoke a time and place that seem almost as distant and quaint as Dickens' London.
I have to agree with most of the chattering classes that Vidal's essays are what I would come back to, again and again. To read them is to have Vidal whispering in my ear -- the voice and cadence and rhythm of his prose is part of what makes them so seductive to me.
I always preferred his literary essays and reminiscences over his political essays. I respect that it was part of Vidal's personality and commitment to his country and what he felt were his responsibilities to be involved in the cut and thrust of current politics, and he had to settle for a Cassandra role rather than that of a lawmaker and politician (a role he probably would have preferred -- what a soapbox!). But I think his political writing will age more quickly than his literary ones, and we will have to see whether his political assessments will hold up over the next 20 years. I think they won't. I think he landed several heavy punches on the influence of money and television on politics, and his skeptical and hectoring voice will be missed from the daily debate, but I have real doubts about his conspiracy theories and his isolationism.
Of the novels, I read the American Chronicles series in order and while entertaining I won't go back to them. Two Sisters is probably the novel I remember the most and the one I'm most inclined to want to keep for re-reading; an odd melange of script, fiction, and memoir, playing on themes he toyed with throughout his fiction. Julian was also very good and I have Creation waiting on the shelf. I've never been interested in the "inventions" -- Duluth, Myra Breckinridge -- but I should give them a try.
One of his observations I come back to often was his idea of what was at the center of the culture. In pre-literate times, it was poetry. Then prose and novels were at the center, and pushed poetry to the margins. Then radio and movies were at the center, pushing novels away, and poetry further away. Then television. All the while, poetry and the novel were pushed further away from what might be called the mainstream. I wonder now if there are multiple centers or if there is no center -- the center cannot hold.
Of all the forms he worked in, I would suggest that the interview offers the most visceral thrill of undiluted Vidal. Like Harlan Ellison and Stephen Fry, Vidal seemed most at home in a chair with a camera pointed at his face. Being prodded by random questions elicited that voice and those opinions that people like me love going back to again and again.
Arts and Letters Daily has a good roundup of obits and articles on Vidal. Search on Vidal's name to find the entry.
When I first got the idea to restart the blogging, my first thought was: "No, don't start this Monday, start next Monday." It felt like the safe option: give myself time to scope out other blogging tools, come up with a list of topics,develop a workflow, etc.
And then the second, more challenging voice of The Coach came in: "Why wait? Start tomorrow. Just get started. If you wait till you're ready, you'll never be ready." And I knew that starting before I felt I was ready was the wiser course.
Now, were I starting a military campaign or PR blitz, yes, sure, plan to the nth degree and get your ducks in a row, etc. But for a personal project like this, starting before I was ready meant I had to eschew the perfectionism, set up some quick ground rules to prevent myself from putting up higher and higher barriers (I've now reduced my first draft writing time to 15 minutes to inspire faster writing and shorter drafts), and just dive in.
My banjo teacher, who is also a spiritual teacher, said one time that "The perfection is in the doing." It's so easy for me to forget that, to get hung up on the result or the desired outcome before I've taken a single step.
One of the great teachings of Constructive Living for me was that you cannot control the results, you can only control your behavior. So starting -- and starting imperfectly -- is better than not starting. Starting is in your control. Once I started, I discovered in the doing several little tricks that would not have occurred to me had I relied only on planning. And even if I had planned everything to a faretheewell, I'd have had to adjust my plan based on what I discovered as I was doing. So the better course of action was to fire-ready-aim-fire.
So start the diet today, start exercising today, start writing today. Starting -- and starting again fresh tomorrow -- is always in your control.
Mark Forster recommended the use of timers in his book Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play. It sort of starts with the idea of timeboxing, a demarcated bit of time within which you choose to work on a specific task. A teacher may set aside 45 minutes to grade papers, say, and then take a 15-minute break. The teacher has timeboxed that task for 45 minutes and included a break, since if she simply sat and plowed through all of the papers in a single setting her brain would curdle and the last papers in the pile would have less of her focus and attention than did the first papers.
Forster recommended various ways to attack high-resistance tasks using a timer and timeboxing. One that I remember was to set a timer for 5 minutes with a one-minute break, then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, etc. Focusing on the high-resistance task (or even a list of tasks) is easier when you agree with yourself to focus for only five minutes. Oftentimes that can be enough to get the ball rolling, and I find myself wanting to continue past the appointed time. It's important, though, to STOP what you're doing when the timer goes off. Your agreement with your mind is that you'll only work when the timer is active and then you'll take a break; your mind needs to know it can trust you. It's how you can get it on your side.
Forster had several other patterns in his book (one of them was a 5-10-15-20-25-30-25-20-15-10-5 sequence), all with the intention to help you get through the initial chaos of a high-resistance project or task and to ease you into doing the work you need to get done. Also, in these seemingly small margins of time, you will actually accumulate several hours worth of work. Oftentimes, just getting started is the hardest thing, and little tricks like this can be tremendously useful for just that purpose.
In recent years, the Pomodoro Technique has held sway and it's the one I tend to use the most often at home and at the office. It's kind of boggling to imagine that the simple idea of a 25-minute timebox has spawned web sites, apps, blog posts, ebooks, etc. In the old days, that probably would have been 2 pages in a chapter of any decent time management book.
An interesting twist on the timebox is the decremental timebox system (hat tip to a poster at Mark Forster's FV forum for the link). I've not used it much yet, but it's a rather fascinating idea.
I use two timers. At the office, I use the Time Timer, which is nicely visual and utters a little beep at the end of a session. (If I'm away from my desk when the timer goes off, I prefer the timer not drone on loudly for several seconds, thereby annoying my cubemates.) At home, I use the Datexx Miracle Time Cube (which is a winner simply for the name alone). It only offers 5-15-30-60 minute intervals, but it's dead easy to use and fun, which otherwise, why bother?
I have been inspired to restart blogging by, as usual, several seemingly random prompts that combusted in that imaginative furnace I am pleased to call my mind.
The first was Shannon Wilkinson’s recent completion of 13 weeks of straight Monday-Friday blog posts. The challenge, of course, is in coming up with enough ideas to fill up that many posts. But I firmly believe that the more you write, the more you can write.
Another prompt was reading Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein, particularly the chapter on becoming an expert by working past the “OK plateau.” The OK plateau is that level of skill whereby you get good enough results without improving your execution.
Foer’s example is that of typewriting. Most people’s typing speeds improve to a certain speed and then stay there. The patterns and movements are well-burned into the neurons so that they hardly have to “think” about typing anymore.
So, to type faster, the key is to move those unconscious skills up to the conscious level where they have to be examined, honed, improved, etc. This is exactly how my banjo teacher has instructed me to practice — set the metronome faster than I can play comfortably. The point is to get uncomfortable and stretch and confront your weak spots, which the faster speed highlights.
As far as blog posting — well, I’m not out to set any records. But I would like to challenge myself, particularly on producing a lot of writing. I always have a ton of little ideas, and one way to break the blog barrier is to write faster, shorter posts. Since I typically take a long time to write a post, this will be good exercise for me.
My plan is to write 50 Monday-Friday blog posts over the next 10 weeks (thanks for the M-F idea, Shannon!). This gives me the weekend to rest up, maybe write some posts in advance, and hone my writing and posting process. One reason I stopped blogging is because I couldn’t figure out a great workflow. I hope this exercise will help me use my software tools better.
And I have a few other reasons for wanting to write regularly. I will talk about them in later posts.
Philosopher William Irwin Thompson says that we humans are like flies creeping along the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. We literally cannot see the splendor that surrounds us. As a result, we don’t live in reality. We’re lost in our habitual perceptions, blinded by our favorite illusions, and addicted to beliefs that hide the true nature of the universe. That’s the bad news, Libra. The good news is that every now and then, each of us slips into a grace period when it’s possible to experience at least some of the glory we’re normally cut off from. The veil opens, and previously undetected beauty appears. The weeks ahead will be the closest you’ve come to this breakthrough in a long time.
