Is laziness a uniquely human trait?

Posted on August 26, 2012 by Philip Heckman

Today I watched a sharp-shinned hawk fly low over a field toward a lightpole on the far side.

Instead of flying to the pole’s peak, the hawk stops beating its wings 20 yards away. Spread wide and tilted back, the wings act like a kite to convert the hawk’s forward momentum into lift. With no further expenditure of energy, the hawk rises quickly from its flying height of 10 feet to 40 feet. It settles on the top of the pole as gently as dust, proof of the precision of its calculation.

How did this mere bird learn the principles of aero-dynamics behind that maneuver? Experience, of course, but experience guided by considerable intelligence.

Here’s another example: A dog retrieves a stick longer than itself by biting it in the middle. The heavier end drags awkwardly on the ground, however, making it hard to carry. Without hesitation, the dog shifts its jaws inch by inch toward the heavier end of the stick until it reaches a balance point. Problem solved.

Can we speak of these animals as having a knowledge of physics? Or is the ability to do the least amount of work mindlessly innate?

At any rate, we’re fooling ourselves if we think that humans are uniquely lazy. Or even very good at it.

On the contrary, we clearly don’t have enough sense to prefer the most efficient course of action. For example, considering our invention of bureaucracy, we might be the only species that makes more work for itself than is necessary.

Heard any good voices lately?

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Philip Heckman

Readers finish books because they want to know what happened. Readers start books because they find the storyteller appealing.

Most readers make the decision to proceed with a book within the first few pages, usually before the plot gets going. And what evidence do readers have to go on? Only the narrator’s voice, the trickiest element of storytelling.

Here’s my favorite example of a voice that demands attention:

People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.

The plot details in this opening paragraph of True Grit are incidental. More important is the fact that in these first two sentences author Charles Portis deftly conveys his narrator’s basic character–her morals, intelligence, and determination–and we fall in love with her at once. With the sound of Mattie Ross’ voice, we instantly commit to her tale. Her voice makes us believe, respect, and root for her. There is no way to turn away from her story after we hear her speak.

I believe creating a narrative voice that is credible and compelling is the writer’s single greatest challenge. Plot isn’t worth a damn unless we give a damn about the storyteller. The voice we hear on page one better be someone who sounds interesting. After all, he or she is asking to live inside our heads for a while.*

What is your favorite narrative voice–the one that sold you on his or her story from the very first sentence?

* By the way, the same point applies to nonfiction. Even some textbooks are more readable than others because of the writer’s voice.

Bedtime in the House of Usher

Posted on August 19, 2012 by Philip Heckman

This weekend singer-songwriter Usher revealed that the works of Peggy Parish are revered in his household.

Ms. Parish is the creator of the popular Amelia Bedelia books about a maid with an extremely literal mind. Each of the more than three dozen titles in the series describes how Amelia repeatedly misinterprets the simplest instructions. For example, when told to “dust the furniture,” Amelia cheerfully applies a liberal layer of dirty powder to the couch.

Usher told NPR interviewer Linda Wertheimer that as far as his three- and four-year-old sons are concerned, “These are the funniest books ever. We have our reading time before they go to bed, and they absolutely love them.”

Usher’s admission is noteworthy for two reasons: First, of course, it’s encouraging to hear any celebrity, especially one whose life is as tumultuous as Usher’s, confess to one of the most ordinary rituals of parenthood.

And second, it’s always fun to see deserving books endure. Amelia Bedelia appeared in 1963 and the series continues to this day at the hand of Herman Parish, Ms. Parish’s nephew. (Amelia Bedelia Unleashed is scheduled for release in 2013.)

Usher’s experience shows how the appeal of a good idea, executed well, can live far beyond the generation of its origin. For nearly 50 years, Amelia Bedelia’s particular form of silliness has tickled new audiences and through bedtime storytelling exerted its power to become, in a small but meaningful way, part of the bond between parent and child.

What is your favorite memory of being read to as a child?

What books do your children or grandchildren most often ask you to read?

Joseph Grand and the horse he rode in on

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Philip Heckman

Joseph Grand is a character in The Plague, by Albert Camus, a slim but inspiring novel bounced from liberal arts reading lists by the ruthless obsolescence of relevance. The story takes place during an epidemic in 1940s Algeria. Grand is a civil servant, distinguished by his colorless fulfillment of duties and his obsession with writing a perfect novel, a work of art of such obvious quality that:

“On the day when the manuscript reaches the publisher, I want him to stand up— after he’s read it through, of course—and say to his staff: ‘Gentlemen, hats off!'”

Unfortunately, Grand can’t get past the first sentence. His ideals don’t allow him to move forward until the text is flawless. As he puts it:

“I grant you it’s easy enough to choose between a ‘but’ and an ‘and.’ It’s a bit more difficult to decide between ‘and’ and ‘then.’ But definitely the hardest thing may be to know whether one should put an ‘and’ or leave it out.”

At one point, Grand’s opening reads:

“One fine morning in May a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flowery avenues of the Bois de Boulogne.”

As soon as he solves one problem–the substitution of “slim” for “elegant” say–another crops up. It’s “handsome” this time, which he believes doesn’t paint a clear enough picture. He rejects “plump” as demeaning and vulgar. He discards “beautifully groomed” as awkward.

Then one evening he announced triumphantly that he had got it: “A black sorrel mare.” To his thinking, he explained, “black” conveyed a hint of elegance and opulence.

“It won’t do,” Rieux said.

“Why not?”

“Because ‘sorrel’ doesn’t mean a breed of horse; it’s a color.”

“What color?”

“Well—er—a color that, anyhow, isn’t black.”

Grand seemed greatly troubled. “Thank you,” he said warmly. “How fortunate you’re here to help me! But you see how difficult it is.”

Well said, my muse. Only you would understand how many times I previewed this post before publishing.

I have this thing about charts

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Philip Heckman

Statistical graphics are commonly used to “bulk up” news stories and add a sense of scientific authority to their claims. However, most charts in the popular media are junk–hard to read and misleading at the same time. This one (fig. 1), for example, appeared widely after the suicide of former San Diego Chargers linebacker Junior Seau.

The tragedy prompted speculation about how a career’s worth of head injuries caused by collisions against today’s larger opponents might’ve contributed to Seau’s death. But the chart is awful. What are the two average weights supposed to be–286 or 295? 303 or 310?

The first step to improving this chart (after fixing the typo in the title) is to dump the fake 3-D effect (fig. 2). Now you can clearly see that the correct values are 289 and 306.

The 2-D chart is still deceiving, however, because it suggests that the average 2011 player was nearly three times the size of the average 1994 player.

Fixing this is simply a matter of basing the chart’s scale on zero (fig. 3). This makes it obvious that the average 2011 player was roughly 6% bigger than his 1994 counterpart.

This redesigned chart is now accurate and easy to read, which should be the absolute minimum standard for statistical graphics. It’s still a bit dry, but any attempt to “prettify” the numbers should be careful to maintain this standard. Here’s what an accurate, legible, more visually interesting statistical graphic might look like–don’t you agree?

Opening for a YA novel I’m working on

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Philip Heckman

It had been a while since I’d worked on a YA novel about a boy confined to his apartment building for the summer. When I ran across this draft opening paragraph I decided it was time to return to the story.

My mother, Abigail Wilson Secrest, doesn’t like the idea of
me watching violence on TV. So I make sure she doesn’t find
out.

I remember this old movie I saw once. Cowboy is sitting in
a saloon alone, drinking a glass of beer. Bad guy walks in and
starts drinking and complaining. Says to the dancing lady: You
know what I hate? I hate this town, it’s dirty and it stinks.

Drinks some more and says to the bartender: You know what I
hate? I hate this rot-gut whiskey of yours. It tastes like the
Pecos River after a herd of cattle went through.

Drinks some more and says to the cowboy: You know what I
hate: I hate your ugly face. And the bad guy pulls out a gun
and waves it at the cowboy. What do you got to say to that? he
says. And then the bad guy puts the gun under the cowboy’s
chin. Answer me, he hollers at the cowboy, or I’ll blow your
head off.

Next thing, the cowboy’s gun goes off from under the bar
and the bad guy flies backwards through the air dead. Cowboy
puts his gun on the bar and says to the bartender: You know what
I hate. I hate a man who needs help shutting up.

Let me tell you what I hate.

A wish for Pablo Neruda

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Philip Heckman

Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People, by Monica Brown, is a picture book of obvious merit. The book (illustrated by Julie Paschkis, Henry Holt and Company, ISBN 978-0805091984) won a 2012 Américas Award, which is given to works that “authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States”.

Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People is beautifully written and illustrated, yet I feel that it’s missing something. Paschkis’s illustrations incorporate English and Spanish words into the scenery surrounding Neruda’s figure as Brown’s text describes how he grew up to become a world-renowned poet.

Unfortunately, by the end of the book, Paschkis’s technique seems to tease as much as celebrate. For despite Ms. Brown’s evocative account of Neruda’s personal and professional life, which details what Neruda wrote about, the text includes no examples of Neruda’s poetry.

(An afterword directs readers to several resources, where those who are motivated can track down and read his poems on their own. This would be welcome supplemental information. It’s no substitute for examples of the poetry that the text so lavishly praises, however.)

This is a missed opportunity and a drawback to an otherwise excellent book for young children. For example, when Brown describes Neruda’s mastery of language and sensual observation:

Pablo wrote poems about the things he loved–things made by his artist friends, things found at the marketplace, and things he saw in nature.

Including the final lines of a poem such as “Ode To The Artichoke” would’ve enriched her point:

But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She’s not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a pot.

Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.

Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People certainly presents to children who are beginning to explore poetry a wonderful portrait of a lyrical genius. I just wish that the book had made it easier to appreciate his genius in action.

Picture book challenge

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Philip Heckman

Challenge: Create a 100-word picture book text using the following five words: otter, toast, fan, bouncing, trap. Here’s my effort:

Seldom Visits His Foamily

Seldom messed his firmly, beck in Bouncing, Idaho. So he cooled his debtor on hiss chip cell fan.

“All see you on Fried-dough,” he sat. “Whale have a niece dinar to gather.” But his doter coot barley hair ham.

Seldom toast some clues in a beg. After a lung plane trap, he trove a rundle cow to his farther’s horse. It wed be gut to see his ruler tiffs after so money yours.

But won his madder opined the drawer, she sad, “Aim sap raised! You naval cull. I axe pact add year otter brooder!”

Lamenting the loss of déjà vu

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Philip Heckman

My local newspaper carried this dispiriting item today:

“For Kirsten Tomlinson, so much of the 2012 prep softball season must have felt like deja vu. Poynette’s senior pitcher helped the Pumas repeat as Northern Capitol Conference champions.”

I’m not unhappy for Ms. Tomlinson, who I’m sure deserves the honor. I’m unhappy for the loss of a sublimely useful term and the concept behind it.

You see, Ms. Tomlinson’s second consecutive award did not create “the illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time.”

No, the young athlete’s worthy achievement was a repeat, a second memorable occurrence. In other words, it was not déjà vu at all.

“Déjà vu” is one of those rare French imports (from the early 1900s) that we in the U.S. have accepted enthusiastically. 1960s-era Yankee catcher Yogi Berra is widely given credit for declaring that teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris’s repeated feat of hitting back-to-back home runs was a case of “déjà vu all over again”.

Since then, we’ve steadily been losing our original sense of déjà vu.

I’m not a usage nanny (although I do admit to some strong prejudices). In this case, however, I find it sad that, through verbal sloppiness, we seem to be throwing away a perfectly good term. One whose uniqueness is acknowledgment of an odd existential pleasure.

So if “déjà vu” is going to be a synonym for “been there, seen that,” what are we going to call that delightful shiver of false recognition that comes from, say, walking into a strange room and feeling that, by means of some impossible cosmic twist, we’re returning to a place we once knew well?

My definition of “distinguished” children’s literature

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Philip Heckman

As surely as wasps follow your fruit salad, the announcement of each year’s Newbery Award winner signals the arrival of another installment of “sez who?”

The annual Newbery Award goes to “the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children,” courtesy of the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association. The selection is often criticized, partly because the award does not define its main criterion.

As Kathleen T. Horning points out in an excellent history of Newbery controversy: “Rather, the focus for the Newbery Medal has always been on distinguished books—whatever “distinguished” means to the group of children’s librarians making the selection each year. From the beginning, the term was left intentionally vague…”

Too bad. That discussion would’ve done a great service to children’s literature. Although no one has asked me for my take on what “distinguished” means in the context of children’s literature, here it is. I believe that:

A distinguished book respects its audience–its intellect, emotional maturity, and empathy.
A distinguished book breaks new ground by drawing attention to little-known subjects or revealing new truths about familiar ones.
A distinguished book invites readers to examine their values and assumptions, not to “correct” them, but to reaffirm them or revise them.
A distinguished book contains surprises that bring a renewed, albeit different, delight upon re-reading.
A distinguished book remains distinguished, despite changes in society in general or literary fashion in particular.