On Sunday, I was trying to decide between buying a specialized notebook case or a messenger bag.  I opted for the latter because it has a lot more space to store papers, books, other knick knacks that are useful for the work I do.  The faux leather or real leather on some notebook cases were tempting....

Andy Crouch

I'm grateful to Andy Crouch, for pointing out in last Sunday's sermon, the three operative verbs
in the description of the 12-year old Jesus at the temple. See Luke 2:46 (NRSV):
"After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the
teachers, listening to them and asking them questions." At the
university, do I sit, listen, and ask questions?

See two of Andy's online projects:

As I was looking for how to link to Luke 2:46, I found a number of
useful links to help me find Bible passages, especially for the the
NRSV:

Berkeley Asian Americans; Orhan Pamuk as a writing son

Little Asia on the Hill is a fascinating NYT article about the huge number of Asian-American students on the Berkeley campus.

This morning, I read Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Lecture: My Father's Suitcase, an essay that stirred up deep emotional wells in me as a writer and a son. A choice quote:

    The writer’s secret is not inspiration—for it
    is never clear where that comes from—but stubbornness, endurance. The
    lovely Turkish expression “to dig a well with a needle” seems to me to
    have been invented with writers in mind. In the old stories, I love the
    patience of Ferhat, who digs through mountains for his love—and I
    understand it, too. When I wrote, in my novel “My Name Is Red,” about
    the old Persian miniaturists who drew the same horse with the same
    passion for years and years, memorizing each stroke, until they could
    re-create that beautiful horse even with their eyes closed, I knew that
    I was talking about the writing profession, and about my own life. If a
    writer is to tell his own story—to tell it slowly, and as if it were a
    story about other people—if he is to feel the power of the story rise
    up inside him, if he is to sit down at a table and give himself over to
    this art, this craft, he must first be given some hope. The angel of
    inspiration (who pays regular visits to some and rarely calls on
    others) favors the hopeful and the confident, and it is when a writer
    feels most lonely, when he feels most doubtful about his efforts, his
    dreams, and the value of his writing, when he thinks that his story is
    only his story—it is at such moments that the angel chooses to reveal
    to him the images and dreams that will draw out the world he wishes to
    build. If I think back on the books to which I have devoted my life, I
    am most surprised by those moments when I felt as if the sentences and
    pages that made me ecstatically happy came not from my own imagination
    but from another power, which had found them and generously presented
    them to me.

Thick description

As I was writing the first chapters of my mashup book, I was drawn to
reading a tribute in the NYRB by Robert Darnton to Clifford Geertz (The New York Review of Books: On Clifford Geertz: Field Notes from the Classroom). Is using "thick description" the right way to write my book?

    For example, in expounding the esoteric notion of the hermeneutic
    circle--the conception of interpretive understanding favored by the
    philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer--Cliff did not begin with an exposition
    of Gadamer's general principles and a theoretical account of
    descriptive as opposed to causal explanations in the human sciences.
    Instead, he asked the students to imagine themselves explaining
    baseball to a visitor from Outer Mongolia whom they had taken to a
    game. You would point out the three bases, he said, and the need to hit
    the ball in such a way as to run around the bases and reach home plate
    before being tagged out by the defense. But in doing so, you might note
    the different shape of the first baseman's glove or the tendency of the
    infield to realign itself in the hope of making a double play. You
    would tack back and forth between general rules--three strikes, you're
    out--and fine details--the nature of a hanging curve. The mutual
    reinforcement of generalizations and details would build up an
    increasingly rich account of the game being played under the observers'
    eyes. Your description could circle around the subject indefinitely,
    getting thicker with each telling. Thick descriptions would vary; some
    would be more effective than others; and some might be wrong: to have a
    runner advance from third base to second would be a clear mistake. But
    the descriptions, if sufficiently artful and accurate, would
    cumulatively convey an interpretation of the thing itself, baseball.

There should be time to look back at 2006!

Today is the last day of 2006. Happy New Year!

As I sat the church today, I concluded that it would be a good time to
reflect on this past year. Alas, I won't be able to do so
comprehensively today. I'm under pressure to keep working on my book
(that is, to keep looking forward) today. I will take next month
(January 2007) as a transition time in which to look back and to look
forward.

Bird by Bird

Serendipitiously, Laura had in her backpack my copy of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
I remember it to be an entertaining and inspiring guide for writers the
first time I read it over five years ago. Now I'm re-reading Bird by Bird
as I embark on my time of joyful trial and write my first book. The
most memorable phrase from the book is "shitty first drafts," one I use
with relish to describe the first round of chapters that emerge from my
computer. I'm not overly concerned with my dismal prose since I'm just
trying to get all my thoughts down on paper. Now if I don't move
quickly to fixing up the words into serviceable text as my first
deadline approaches, the holiday relaxation will begin to wear thin!

Notelets for 2006.12.02

The East Is West: The Best Chinese Restaurants in Southern California - New York Times:

    THERE are probably more Chinese in Los Angeles
    than in any metropolitan area outside of China. (The same very likely
    could be said of Mexicans, Iranians, Koreans, Japanese and more, which
    is what makes Los Angeles the best international eating city in the
    world.) Fifty years ago, most Chinese immigrants were concentrated in a
    typical downtown Chinatown, which still exists, but more as a relic
    than a vibrant community.

100 Notable Books of the Year - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times.

Berkeley poet Lerner writes from heartland:

    It can be challenging to convince students that
    reading and writing are inextricable, that writing is just a very
    intense form of reading, as Wallace Stevens said.

Rebecca Loudon: Wallace Stevens once said that the act of writing poetry was actually a very intense form of reading.

What's the actual Wallace Stevens quote?

Jesus and Evangelical Power conference

Although I missed most of the Jesus and Evangelical Power conference, held on October 27-29, 2006 at First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, I attended Ruth Padilla DeBorst's second presentation of Too Close to the US and Too Far From God (mp3). As I noted on the conference blog,
I was intrigued by her comment about how the export of genetically
modified food into her country has driven out a lot of local farming
(since local farmers would have to buy patented seeds). I was looking
for confirmation that I heard her correctly and substantiation of her
claims. Some other commenters followed up, pointing to:

I'm hoping that the blog will soon be restructured to better facilitate
discussion around particular talks. I'm also looking forward to
listening to the talks, which are all available for download as mp3s.

Notelets for 2006.10.23

I'm quite pleased that Dave Gustafson has released SourceForge.net: EccoTools
as an open source Python library for manipulating Ecco Pro. He was kind
enough to let me use earlier versions of his code a while back. His
officially releasing his code into the public makes it easier for me to
share whatever little utilities I've written.

Laura is right: It's time for me to write a chapter from my Book. The
one that occurs to me is the one on maps. Then the chapter on blogging.

The Complete Novels of Jane Austen



The Complete Novels of Jane Austen

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.


Though I've not actually read any of Jane Austen's novels, I almost gave into a strong and irrational impulse to borrow the 1200 page compilation of the complete novels of Austen. Kinda odd if I consider that if just one of her novels had been on the shelf, I would have passed over it without notice. My best understanding is that I fall easily for the easy prospect of completeness -- that holding all the novels in my hands was more important than actually reading any one novel.

I'm fortunate that I'm not such a dilettante in all areas of life, though it's a continuing challenge not to distract myself too much with indulging in the world's potentialities.