Author Archive: Paul Epps

EppsNet at the Movies: Gravity

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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?

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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 →

Expanding My Repertoire

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My piano teacher asks me if there are any pieces I want to learn . . . “How about . . . ?” and here I name a piece by Chopin. “This one?” she asks and starts to play it. “Yeah.” “It’s hard.” “Well, it sounds quite impressive but I think if you break it down it’s just arpeggios and thirds.” “No, it’s not just thirds,” she says and starts to play it again to show me. “And that’s with the left hand. Do you think you can play that with your left hand?” “My left hand’s not very good.” “I know.” “So that one is too hard.” “Yes.” “OK, how about . . . ?” and here I name another piece by Chopin. “That’s the only piece that’s harder than the first one.” “How about this?” I ask, and play a YouTube video on my phone. “What is that?”… Read more →

Forget About Female Leadership

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Everyone can shut up about “let’s get more women into leadership positions.” Because they don’t want leadership positions. Or they’d get them. Obviously. Women want to have time for their kids. And leaders – especially top-down leaders – dedicate their lives to their work. There won’t be female leadership and male leadership. There will be people who lead at home and people who lead at work. People will take ownership of outcomes for the areas of life they care most about. — Penelope Trunk Read more →

Childish Economics

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I have a very difficult time imagining the economic ‘theory’ that motivates proposals such as this one by Pres. Obama [to “streamline” the Fair Labor Standards Act so that more white-collar employees would be eligible for overtime pay]. The best that I can do is to imagine how a two-year-old child would respond if asked to propose a way to raise workers incomes. — Don Boudreaux Read more →

I Am the Bath Day Messenger

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My wife is preparing to give the dog a bath in the kitchen sink . . . I say, “Lightning says be sure to warm up the water before you start spraying him with it.” “I always do that.” “He says that in his experience, the water is sometimes too cold . . . I’m just telling you what he said. Don’t shoot the messenger.” Read more →

4 Links

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5 Design Techniques to Incite User Emotion (UX Movement) 5 Modern WordPress Alternatives to Keep an Eye On (Six Revisions) Kafka’s Joke Book (McSweeney’s) Yoonique Baby Names: 2014 Edition (STFU, Parents) Read more →

Death Row Headlines We’d Like to See

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I saw this headline on MSN News this morning: Texas Set to Execute Aspiring Rapper Here’s an undated photo of the musical murderer: The fact that he was an aspiring rapper seems comically irrelevant to the fact that he was convicted of slitting a man’s throat — which didn’t kill him — and then stabbing him — which did. Some future Death Row headlines we might expect to see from MSN: Texas Set to Execute Aspiring Comic with 37 Twitter Followers Texas Set to Execute Amateur Banjo Player Texas Set to Execute Man With Irritating Laugh Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies: City Lights

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Could there be a more perfect ending to a film? I’m a sap for a great ending, so I don’t even care that there were maybe a couple of moments where I caught myself thinking “This bit hasn’t really held up well over time.” Rating: City Lights Director: Charles Chaplin Cast: Charles Chaplin (as Charlie Chaplin) A Tramp, Virginia Cherrill A Blind Girl, Florence Lee Her Grandmother, Florence Lee The Blind Girl’s Grandmother IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →

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