Regarding trying new dental materials, Dr. Sorenson told me this one:
Be not the first by whom the new are tried
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
—Alexander Pope
Are you more interested in being right, or understanding?
Adrian Tan delivered an amazing combination of wisdom and wit to a graduating class in Singapore:
Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.
He’s also the author of The Teenage Textbook, which I can’t find anywhere online, much less in English. Still, I’d like to read it.
New York Magazine asks, What Was the Hipster?
Above all, the post-2004 hipster could be identified by one stylistic marker that transcended fashion to be something as fundamental as a cultural password: jeans that were tight to the calves and ankles. As much as I’ve investigated this, I can’t say I understand the origin of the skinny jean. Why, of many candidates for fashion statements, did it become ubiquitous?
And:
The most confounding element of the hipster is that, because of the geography of the gentrified city and the demography of youth, this “rebel consumer” hipster culture shares space and frequently steals motifs from truly anti-authoritarian youth countercultures. Thus, baby-boomers and preteens tend to look at everyone between them and say: Isn’t this hipsterism just youth culture? To which folks age 19 to 29 protest, No, these people are worse. But there is something in this confusion that suggests a window into the hipster’s possible mortality.
The main thing I take from the author is this: hipsters have progressed from awful to not-as-awful, with potential to do something. A bit of a hollow core right now, though.
Apparently, Henry Royce’s fireplace mantle read thusly:
QUIDVIS RECTE FACTUM QUAMVIS HUMILE PRAECLARUM
The translation is: “Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble.”
“You have a right to your own opinion, not your own facts.”
ThinkGeek sells an Avenging Unicorn Playset:
Unicorn has 7 points of articulation. People have one point of impalement.
I continue to be impressed with their products at ThinkGeek.
Mykala: “Is that guy doing Tai Chi?”
Alex: “No, he’s tying his shoe. He’s doing Shoe Chi.”
Mykala: “You mean Tai Shoe.”
Alex: “You always think up the funny ones; I was so close!”
Biking home, as I do everyday, is always more interesting during rush hour. A few days ago, I hopped on my bike, and started passing cars all the way down Washington Avenue. The weather was beautiful, so the ride was quite pleasant. During such unseasonably warm weather, drivers tend to open their windows. So, one driver had their arm dangling out, a lit cigarette held casually in their fingers. For more than a few seconds during my approach of the car, I thought about grabbing that cigarette and throwing it on the ground as I passed by.
I call it an external will helping fight addiction. Perhaps the opportunity will arise again.
When I’m a parent, I want to use old-fashioned words. If I want everyone to quit fighting, I’ll say “Kids, stop your quarreling!”
If I think we should all sit out on the porch after dinner: “Let’s retire to the colonnade.”
Someone’s hair is getting a little long: “Your tresses need to be shorn.”
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