In 1957, The New York Times [published] two lists of skills. One was drawn from a corporate personnel manual, the other from a kindergarten report card: List A: Dependability; Stability; Imagination; Originality; Self-expression; Health and vitality; Ability to plan and control; Cooperation. List B: Can be depended on; Contributes to the good work of others; Accepts and uses criticism; Thinks critically; Shows initiative; Plans work well; Physical resistance; Self-expression; Creative ability. A successful executive in 1950s America, in short, was expected to have essentially the same skills as a well-behaved four-year-old. (B is the kindergarten list, by the way.) — Matter Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Miss Marple
Really, I have no gifts — no gifts at all — except perhaps a certain knowledge of human nature. People, I find, are apt to be far too trustful. I’m afraid that I have a tendency always to believe the worst. Not a nice trait, but so often justified by subsequent events. — Miss Jane Marple Read more →
Gabriel García Márquez, 1927-2014
Gabriel García Márquez, the influential, Nobel Prize-winning author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and “Love in the Time of Cholera,” has died, his family and officials said. He was 87. — CNN.com CNN reported the death of García Márquez with more or less equal weightiness as the following “top stories”: CNN reporter faces claustrophobia Is it possible to live forever? 7 ways to be more interesting See Rosie O’Donnell’s 50-lb. weight loss Miley Cyrus tour postponed W.H.: No comment on Bieber petition I didn’t cherry-pick those stories, by the way. They were all listed as Top Stories on CNN.com. CNN is a “serious” news outlet. García Márquez’s death was also reported in the “popular” media, amongst reality show updates, celebrity pregnancies and Kardashians. Orwell wrote about a society in which books are banned. As it turns out, there’s no need to ban books because no one has any interest… Read more →
Defensive
I’m not being defensive! You’re the one who’s being defensive! Why is it always the other person who’s being defensive? Have you ever asked yourself that? Why don’t you ask yourself that? — Nathan Thurm Read more →
EppsNet at the Movies: A Serious Man
When the truth is found . . . to be lies. And all the hope . . . within you dies. What then? Life is bleak. If you try to lead a good life, bad things happen. If you yield to temptation, worse things happen. Religion offers no more wisdom, insight or consolation than a Jefferson Airplane song. P.S. I know the lyric should be “joy” and not “hope” but in the movie the rabbi says “hope.” Rating: A Serious Man Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg Larry Gopnik, Richard Kind Uncle Arthur, Sari Lennick Judith Gopnik, Fred Melamed Sy Ableman IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →
Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road. — Jack Kerouac
Which Experts Predicted a UConn-Kentucky Title Game?
PunditTracker tracked March Madness 2014 brackets for 26 “experts” from ESPN, Yahoo, Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports, plus President Obama. Number of pundits who picked UConn to win the tournament: Zero. Number of pundits who picked either UConn or Kentucky to reach the final game: Zero. Number of pundits who picked either UConn or Kentucky to reach the Final Four: Zero. Number of pundits who picked either UConn or Kentucky to reach the Elite Eight: Zero. Read more →
EppsNet at the Movies: Gravity
As a kid, one of my hobbies was card tricks. When I started learning card tricks, I had the misconception that the quality of a trick was proportional to how difficult it was to perform. Hard tricks = good, easy tricks = lame. Today I can perform exactly zero card tricks. I don’t remember even one. What I do remember though is the general principle that the quality of a trick depends on the effect – what the audience sees – and not at all on how the trick is done. An audience doesn’t know or care if you’ve practiced a trick for years or if you just learned it five minutes ago. The principle applies to things other than card tricks. You can read on IMDb and elsewhere about the technological challenges that had to be overcome in making Gravity. The state-of-the-art cinematography and visual effects would not have… Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
If you don’t know me and I don’t know you, don’t call me up and shout, “Hey Paul! It’s Zach Flack with Equity Staffing!” as though I might have been sitting by the phone thinking “Wouldn’t it be a little slice of heaven if I got a call from Zach Flack over at Equity Staffing?” If I don’t know you, but I might recognize your name, then possibly some heightened level of emotion is warranted, e.g., “Hey Paul! It’s Bill Gates with Microsoft!” or “Hey Paul! It’s Pope Francis at the Vatican!” Otherwise, tone it down and stop annoying people. Read more →
Let it Bleed
At my piano lesson tonight, I noticed what looked like a streak of blood on one of the keys. The next thing I noticed was that the tip of my right index finger was bleeding — apparently a paper cut from a sheet of music, although I didn’t feel anything at the time. I didn’t want to ruin the piano so I stopped playing and tried to get everything cleaned up. I asked my teacher, “If you’re playing a concert and you start bleeding, what should you do? Just keep going?” “Yes.” “What if in addition to being a pianist, you’re also a hemophiliac and you might die? Would that alter your advice?” “Are you a hemophiliac?” “Fortunately, no.” Read more →
Neil Young Acoustic Show at the Dolby Theater
We were lucky enough to see Neil Young’s solo acoustic performance at the Dolby Theatre in LA last night. I say “lucky” even though we paid for the tickets because they did sell out rather quickly. Here’s the set list, to the best of my recollection. I may have some of the harmonica instrumentation wrong. He had the harmonica rack on for the whole show; some songs he played it and some he didn’t. First Set From Hank to Hendrix – guitar, harmonica. A good opener for this kind of a show: From Hank to Hendrix / I walked these streets with you / Here I am with this old guitar / Doin’ what I do. / I always expected / That you should see me through / I never believed in much / But I believed in you. On the Way Home – guitar, harmonica Only Love Can Break… Read more →
At Any Rate, That Is Happiness
Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep. — Willa Cather, My Antonia Read more →
I Already Knew That
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him. — Leo Tolstoy Read more →
Optima dies . . . prima fugit — Virgil
Get Rich Making Dumb Decisions
The people on the short side of the subprime mortgage market had gambled with the odds in their favor. The people on the other side — the entire financial system, essentially — had gambled with the odds against them. Up to this point, the story of the big short could not be simpler. What’s strange and complicated about it, however, is that pretty much all the important people on both sides of the gamble left the table rich. . . . The CEOs of every major Wall Street firm were also on the wrong end of the gamble. All of them, without exception, either ran their public corporations into bankruptcy or were saved from bankruptcy by the United States government. They all got rich, too. What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they don’t need to make smart decisions — if they can get… Read more →
I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: “Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it. — Voltaire
Don’t Try to Be Funny at the Vet
I’m picking up a prescription for Lightning at the vet . . . the new girl, Lauren, is at the desk. “It’s a little different this time,” Lauren says. “We didn’t have the Prednisone 5mg, so we’re giving you Prednisone 10mg, and instead of giving him half a tablet, you’ll give him a quarter of a tablet. I already cut them.” “Oh gosh, thanks! Did you cut them on the lines?” Lauren is new so she hasn’t heard this one yet. “To the best of my ability.” “That’s good. Lightning doesn’t like it when they’re not cut on the lines.” She’s not getting the joke but that’s okay. I’ll help her out by taking it completely into the realm of the absurd. “He feels like it doesn’t show attention to detail,” I say. “I’ll make a note of that for next time.” “Yes, you should do that. Go ahead and… Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Richard Yates poses the question of how much reality people can stand, and the answer he comes up with is “not very much.” Alternatives to facing reality head-on are explored in Revolutionary Road: avoidance, denial, alcoholism, insanity and death. Some excerpts: “You want to play house you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, you got to have a job you don’t like. Great. This is the way ninety-eight-point-nine per cent of the people work things out, so believe me buddy you’ve got nothing to apologize for. Anybody comes along and says ‘Whaddya do it for?’ you can be pretty sure he’s on a four-hour pass from the State funny-farm; all agreed.” And all because, in a sentimentally lonely time long ago, she had found it easy and agreeable to believe whatever this one particular boy felt like saying, and to… Read more →
Why Do (Some) Smart Kids Fail?
A woman is telling me about her two sons . . . they’ve grown up to be fine young men, she says. It’s disappointing, of course, that neither of them managed to finish high school but it was really unavoidable because the older boy was much smarter than his peers and so he was always bored and academically unengaged and finally dropped out completely, and the younger boy just imitated whatever the older boy did. I’ve heard this type of woulda-coulda-shoulda before and I have to admit I’ve never been totally receptive to it: this happened . . . then that happened . . . the kid did such-and-such . . . It sounds very passive. Parents aren’t supposed to be passive observers. There are intervention points every day. If things aren’t going in the right direction, you do something to take them in a different direction. Look in any… Read more →
The Surprising Benefits of Nonconformity
New research finds that under certain circumstances, people wearing unconventional attire are perceived as having higher status and greater competence. — The Surprising Benefits of Nonconformity | MIT Sloan Management Review Read more →