On my 100th posting
According to Blogger, this is my 100th posting. When I realized that I was close to the century mark, I looked back at my first posting.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
On starting a blog
There was a well-known designer who was asked by an interviewer how he did his best work. His answer, "with an eraser", is one of my favorite quotes.
posted by HCaldwell 11:06 AM 0 comments
Then I went into my hard drive and pulled up the original draft of that initial posting. I remembered that I had taken to heart the advice from the last paragraph of the essay. I had only posted two sentences from the original three paragraphs. For the sake of posterity and just because I want to, here is the entire, uncut and unedited draft of my first posting.
On starting a blog
When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was a musty smelling tome found on my father's bookshelf. It was called, A Book About A Thousand Things written by George Stimpson and published in 1946. It was full of wonderfully useless tidbits like "What becomes of the heart of a hollow tree?" and "Why are small places called 'jerkwater' towns?". I had probably read that book twenty times by the time I was twelve. It wasn't so much that the individual items were of particular interest to me. I loved that book because it dealt with so many different seemingly unrelated things. Each page spun you in a new direction. It let you make your own connections between these divergent topics. To borrow from popular culture, it was a book about nothing. So it became a book about anything and everything. This is a blog about nothing.
I have always been a fan of Mark Twain's essays. I prowl around used bookstores looking for collections of his less known essays. He had the ability that few writers and "people who write" ever seem to learn. He never took himself too seriously. Unlike today's celebrities, who feel compelled to tell us what is the best "governance for Tibet" or their solution to the problem of world hunger; he knew he was full of crap. I enjoy his honesty and his lack of misplaced ego. I hope this blog is so full of crap that I can never make the mistake of taking it or myself too seriously.
There was a well-known designer who was asked by an interviewer how he did his best work. His answer, "with an eraser", is one of favorite quotes. I will try to do my most insightful work with the backspace key.
To be posted 4/28/2005
When I get to the 200th posting, I will post the other stuff that I wrote today for my 100th posting, but decided at the last moment to cut.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
On starting a blog
There was a well-known designer who was asked by an interviewer how he did his best work. His answer, "with an eraser", is one of my favorite quotes.
posted by HCaldwell 11:06 AM 0 comments
Then I went into my hard drive and pulled up the original draft of that initial posting. I remembered that I had taken to heart the advice from the last paragraph of the essay. I had only posted two sentences from the original three paragraphs. For the sake of posterity and just because I want to, here is the entire, uncut and unedited draft of my first posting.
On starting a blog
When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was a musty smelling tome found on my father's bookshelf. It was called, A Book About A Thousand Things written by George Stimpson and published in 1946. It was full of wonderfully useless tidbits like "What becomes of the heart of a hollow tree?" and "Why are small places called 'jerkwater' towns?". I had probably read that book twenty times by the time I was twelve. It wasn't so much that the individual items were of particular interest to me. I loved that book because it dealt with so many different seemingly unrelated things. Each page spun you in a new direction. It let you make your own connections between these divergent topics. To borrow from popular culture, it was a book about nothing. So it became a book about anything and everything. This is a blog about nothing.
I have always been a fan of Mark Twain's essays. I prowl around used bookstores looking for collections of his less known essays. He had the ability that few writers and "people who write" ever seem to learn. He never took himself too seriously. Unlike today's celebrities, who feel compelled to tell us what is the best "governance for Tibet" or their solution to the problem of world hunger; he knew he was full of crap. I enjoy his honesty and his lack of misplaced ego. I hope this blog is so full of crap that I can never make the mistake of taking it or myself too seriously.
There was a well-known designer who was asked by an interviewer how he did his best work. His answer, "with an eraser", is one of favorite quotes. I will try to do my most insightful work with the backspace key.
To be posted 4/28/2005
When I get to the 200th posting, I will post the other stuff that I wrote today for my 100th posting, but decided at the last moment to cut.
posted by HCaldwell | 6:00 AM
1 Comments:
Mark Twain's pen name was derived from the 'Two Fathom marker' on the hand lead line, used on ships to find the depth of the water.
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