Cross-X arrived late last week and it’s at the top of my reading pile, right under The God Delusion. Confession: I took some time out to read the new Stephanie Plum silliness, Janet Evanovich’s Twelve Sharp.

Truth be told, I’m enjoying Dawkins as much as I enjoyed Evanovich. My atheism is ad hoc, a by-product perhaps of a stoned reading of Being and Nothingness combined with a common sense understanding of my consciousness bookended by the darkness before my life and the darkness after my death. Dawkins hasn’t gotten that deep or maudlin, rather he’s giving me a good humored ride through the territory where ever so many earnest people wrestle with this stuff as if it matters in a larger sense than raw international institutional power struggles, Vatican turf battles and the occasional pogrom, genocide or crusade.

If my mockery of the blighted ignorance of those whose god is more than metaphoric sparks a simple conversation or two, I’ll be pleased. The whole “leap of faith” thing has been an arrow in my quiver since Norman Mailer bandied the phrase about as explanation for his need to explore other forms. I never thought a generation later would be mired in christian evangelical nonsense giving that commonplace phrase more weight than, say, “spirited venture.” I love Mailer in all his mawkish adolescent hostility and aggressiveness. Every mirror is flawed, but few writers are unafraid to live, to grasp the authenticity of their own experience and reflect it back to the world.

I’m looking forward to getting into Joe Miller’s book soon. And maybe Dickey’s Chasing Destiny while I’m at it.

Just an observation that gormless seems to have replaced feckless as the mot juste at UFOB recently.

Neil Patel offers five hints for making your blog popular through content. The hints are simple:

1. Break news.
2. Post on weekends.
3. Write timeless posts.
4. Teach don’t sell. And,
5. Join in on conversations.

Here’s some breaking news! Next weekend I will offer training centered on the following timeless posts:

I expect a huge conversation to come out of our examination of these five timeless posts. Naturally, everyone is invited to join in!

witness ze Frank “leveraging the emotional aftertaste.“

If I had a scanner
I’d scan it in the morning
I’d scan it in the evening
All over that land…

(I do have a picture of Anne Galloway’s ear somewhere around here, a picture taken at the University of Chicago, the tutor was there, he’ll vouch for the provenance… a picture which I will be happy to share if I can only find it.)

Correcting Shelley, who mentions “…the belief that all we need are mentors: examples of women who have ‘made it’. Given such is supposedly enough to somehow make women feel more comfortable, and thus encourage more to enter the profession.”

What Shelley describes as a “mentor” I am used to thinking of as a “role model.” In order to improve social conditions and economic opportunities, career opportunities, opportunities for self-fulfillment for all, both mentors and role models are needed. A person who has a mentor is fortunate indeed. I wonder how many people actually have someone who plays this role in their life? As a middle-class white male I could have used mentoring, but I never really had any. The counseling program at my high school was a bad joke. As a young person, from adolescence through maturity, I wore my attitude like a suit of armor, daring anyone to get within sword’s reach. If anybody did reach out, I was undoubtedly too obtuse to welcome or even recognize the opportunity.

On the other hand, as a white middle-class male, I couldn’t help but gain some empowerment from my milieu. All of the men with jobs, supporting families in homes they owned, with two cars in the garage, a boat and a trailer in the driveway, a pedigreed cocker spaniel shitting on the nicely mowed lawn… all of these and more opened mental pathways for me, outlined a set of expectations that I sensed were within reach. I knew that I had choices because I had role models that showed me the opportunities that existed for people like me. But I never had a mentor who would explore a wider range of opportunities, open doors, or simply coach me in ways that would help me make good choices, understand the challenges associated with the choices, and help me to address those challenges.

This has been a poor-me post, brought to you by the piece of shit the world revolves around.

1. It’s good to structure your list around some achievable set of ideas. Most of us have ten fingers, ten toes. Why not ten ideas? (As for twenty, see number two, below).
2. Readers will make time for a list of ten ideas, but unless there is something compelling them, like a grade, or desperation, most will skip right over a list with twenty ideas.
3. Lists can be in any order. This is a matter of personal privilege for the list maker, since the list readers will average out in their preferences. Some people prefer to save the best for last, like dessert… but some people enjoy dessert before the broccoli. Some people won’t even eat the broccoli. Some people will skip dessert. What you want to avoid is reading your list publicly if you have one of those stringy pieces of spinach in your teeth. Or broccoli. Often a mirror check before going onstage will help in this regard, but if you can’t manage a mirror check, then you can at least swoosh some water around in your mouth in hopes of removing noisome material. Don’t swoosh it for too long though or you will draw unwanted attention.
4. Items in your list should contain explanatory context. Without explanation, people might not understand why you have included an idea in your list. (See number 5, below).
5. Chalk.
6. Numbered lists are effective no matter what the medium. If you plan to create the list as part of a team building exercise it is good to prepare by bringing writing materials and something to write on. In a pinch you can use colored markers on windows, or you can make your list on the sidewalk. If you choose this latter route, then it would behoove you to use a marking medium that is easily removed, since maintenance crews and municipal ordinances frown on spray paint. (See number 5, above).
7. Some lists are meant to be alphabetized. Numbers are often redundant in this context. If you are working with an alphabetized list, you usually will skip the numbering. On the other hand, if the enumeration ihas value, for example when a bird-watcher is putting together a list of all the different kinds of birds he has ever seen, then both alphabetizing and numbering may be called for. In that case though, you would hope it wasn’t a list of ten items or the guy would be a pretty punk bird watcher. Or maybe a newbie. I don’t want to get into the ad birdinem arguments here, so suffice it to say as a general rule that you either number or alphabetize, but don’t bother with both.
8. It’s better to prepare your list of ten items before you step on-stage, or you may get to number eight and — you know — like, draw a blank.
9. Consider using bullet points, and not numbering the list.
10. A list of ten items numbered from 0 to 9 is typographically more pleasing than one that starts with 1 and moves to 10. The displacement of the second digit can mess up your formatting entirely, so you may want to start with zero. Starting with zero eliminates the need for the extra keystrokes involved in getting the ones column to line up. Some people don’t care, and then numbers one through nine appear in a column above the leading digit in the ten, but I find this to be ugly and recommend against it. Also, I would avoid proportional fonts if you are handing out copies of the list. With proportional fonts nothing lines up right. Ever.
11. The numbering backward thing is dumb, and not even Letterman can make it funny.

riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back

…

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later
on life down through all christian minstrelsy.

all svanity