When Genius Bombs, Part 2
[Now you know...the rest of the story.]
Geniuses work hard. They're prodigious. They can't stop themselves from churning out work. Thomas Edison couldn't stop inventing. Joyce Carol Oates can't stop writing. Shaw published 55 plays. Milton Avery spewed paintings by the museum-load; when asked how he got inspiration, he said by going to the studio every day.
The academics who study creativity have concluded that geniuses come up with ideas and analyze situations pretty much like everyone else. "Nobody is a genius simply because of the shape of their head and their brain," says Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard. "People get ideas. Nobody knows where ideas come from. And they try to work them out. And people who are the best artists are very good working out the implications of those ideas. But it's not the case that every idea is a good idea."
Here's a bad idea: "Wellington's Victory."
Beethoven composed it to celebrate a British victory over an army commanded by Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother. It is often compared unfavorably to another piece of bombast, the "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky. Jim Svejda, in "The Record Shelf Guide to the Classical Repertoire," says, "As if it weren't bad enough losing most of his army to the Russian winter and then getting mauled at Waterloo, poor Napoleon . . . also had to have his nose rubbed in it by two of history's supreme masterpieces of musical schlock: Tchaikovsky's refined and tasteful 1812 Overture and this embarrassing garbage by Beethoven."
One need not buy it to listen to it. You can go to the Library of Congress, to the Music Division.
" 'Wellington's Victory' doesn't quite work at the gut level," concedes Sam Brylawski, a recorded-sound specialist, as he fills out the request slip. "But it's not like listening to someone in the basement on an out-of-tune guitar."
The request slip goes to a person at a desk. Somewhere, unseen, a record album is pulled and dusted. After about 10 minutes the album jacket, minus the album, appears, enclosed in plastic, on a dumbwaiter. The person at the desk says into a telephone, "The listener is ready." From the other end of the line, someone decrees that you go into listening booth No. 9.
In the booth you punch a button labeled "Talk." A voice says hello. You say you're ready to listen. A moment later, "Wellington's Victory" has begun.
You hear drums in the distance, faint.
They get louder. Faster. Then they get much louder and much faster. The army is approaching.
Trumpets! Or maybe bugles. They are bugling with great fanfare.
Then: Flutes, gentle, chirpy, happy, a Yankee Doodle sort of thing, like what you'd imagine a fife-and-drum outfit playing, and then some loud strings, and then an army approaches from another direction, with more drums and trumpets and a little fussy-personage music with a triangle tinkling in the background, and finally the battle royal explodes, with cannon noises and gunshots, the drums pounding, trumpets blaring, the room almost shaking with banging and whanging and thudding and thumping. If they could play it in Sensurround, you'd get injured.
Someone had the temerity to write a bad review of the piece as soon as it came out. Beethoven was incensed. He wrote a note in the margin of the review:
"You wretched scoundrel! What I excrete is better than anything you could ever think up!"
(Of course he didn't really write "excrete." He wrote in German. And he used a word that made the point much more graphically.)
Crossing Genres
Leonardo da Vinci notwithstanding, genius usually doesn't carry over from one genre to another. Harold Bloom says, "Cervantes was a disaster on the stage. He wrote very bad stage plays, like the 'Siege of Numancia.' It's his most famous play. It failed. Badly."
Within a field such as math, someone can be good at one thing and inept at another. The mathematician Henri Poincare could not add. He wrote, "I must confess I am absolutely incapable of doing an addition sum without a mistake."
Even within a masterpiece there can be a flub -- "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" may be the greatest American novel ever written, but in the final few chapters Tom Sawyer suddenly reappears, and there's a tortured sequence where Tom tries to engineer the liberation of the slave Jim even though Jim isn't locked up and they could all just walk away. Tom thinks it must be a dramatic liberation. Huck sort of tags along. Unfortunately it's too late to edit that part out.
Brilliant minds screw up for all sorts of extra-artistic reasons. Maybe they are doing something just for the money. Maybe they're sick. Maybe they're no longer sick -- some scholars think Edvard Munch ("The Scream") lost his edge after he had psychiatric treatment, says J. Carter Brown, former director of the National Gallery of Art.
Another problem is overreaching. That's what happened to Einstein. He was a very smart man. Indeed he may have been the smartest human being on the planet in his day. But he could also be, relatively speaking, a moron.
In the first two decades of the century Einstein was on a roll like the scientific world hadn't seen since Isaac Newton. Einstein discerned, through thought experiments, that the universe obeyed fantastic principles of relativity, and that Newtonian physics, while valid, was still only an approximation of reality. He enveloped Newtonian physics in his new theory of relativity, which we would explain here if we knew anything about it other than clocks move slowly in really fast spaceships.
He followed the special theory of relativity with something even more intellectually astonishing: The general theory. Special, then general.
Then he tried to do something bigger. He wanted a unified field theory. This would be a theory that somehow linked gravitation with electromagnetism. That was the bridge too far. Eight decades later it still hasn't been done. In his mad quest Einstein refused to accept many of the new orthodoxies of quantum mechanics. He thought the universe was fundamentally deterministic -- that one thing followed another in a predictable fashion. His colleagues said nuh-uh. The universe is probabilistic, they said. Can't be sure of anything.
"He was very uncomfortable with the Uncertainty Principle," says Frank Wilczek, a professor of natural science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., where Einstein worked for several decades. Wilczek has frequent reason to think of Einstein -- he lives in Einstein's house on Mercer Street. "It is a pity that he might have made further great discoveries if he had taken quantum mechanics to heart. As great as he was, he certainly could have done better in those last 35 years."
One can understand Einstein's instinct, though. He believed in himself. He did the special, he did the general, why not the unified? He knew there was something more out there, a mystery at the fundament of creation, and it would have been unnatural not to seek to solve it.
You start reconfiguring the universe, it's hard to stop.
One Chair
Mark Rosenthal, a curator at the National Gallery, applies the rule to artists: "The really good ones are trying extremely hard every time out. They're always trying to make a masterpiece, they're always trying to do something wonderful."
Rosenthal sits surrounded by Rothkos. They are big, bold canvases, abstract, a visual language not everyone can understand, but which Rosenthal finds profoundly moving, like listening to magnificent music.
He says that being creative is a lonely job. Every artist's studio is the same. There is one chair. The artist paints half the day, and sits in the chair the other half of the day, looking critically at the art. "There's only one chair because artists work alone. And they sit there. I'm sure if we could be transported back to Rembrandt's time, it'd be the same thing. There'd be one chair."
Robert Sternberg, a Yale psychologist and co-author of "Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity," says creativity has three aspects:
1. Synthetic. You have to generate ideas. Geniuses come up with a lot more ideas than everyone else. "In most fields, the people who really are well known are prodigious. They're large-volume producers. But you don't even realize that in their repertoire is a lot of junk. You just don't hear about the junk," says Sternberg.
Creative ideas can be applied in unlikely places. Sternberg cites the example of a 3M engineer who was trying to make a strong adhesive. He screwed up and made a weak adhesive. So then he asked himself: Of what use might a weak adhesive be? This led him to invent Post-It notes.
2. Analytic. You have to know which ideas are the good ones. J. Carter Brown recalls the prayer that the esteemed art critic Bernard Berenson used to say: "Our Father, who art in Heaven, give us this day our daily idea, and forgive us the one we had yesterday."
3. Practical. You need to know how to market the idea. How to pitch it. This is the part of creative genius where someone like Madonna excels.
Sternberg mentions Bill Clinton as a political genius who hasn't mastered all three of these steps. Clinton is most adept at steps 1 and 3. He synthesizes boatloads of ideas, and in the right forum he's a smooth salesman, bordering on slick. But he doesn't self-select very well. "His good ideas get lost in the klunkers," says Sternberg.
They Can't Help It
Leon Botstein, the composer, says you can't plan your breakthroughs. You just have to keep plugging away, and wait, and hope.
"Breakthrough is not when you want it, it's not when you expect it. It's a function of the constant activity. It is only the constant activity that generates the breakthrough."
And what causes the constant activity? It's not money. It's not glory. It's an "inner necessity," he says. Unless you have this inner necessity to create, you'll probably never do anything of brilliance, Botstein believes.
"Without constant, almost irrational, obsessive engagement, you'll never make the breakthrough," he says. "The difference between you and the person you consider great is not raw ability. It's the inner obsessiveness. The inability to stop thinking about it. It's a form of madness."
So this is what separates the great ones from the rest of the world. It is not simply that they are smarter, savvier, more brilliant. They are geniuses because they can't stand to be anything else.
Shakespeare wrote 24 masterpieces, by Harold Bloom's count. Almost his entire output appeared in a 20-year period. At his peak he managed 13 plays in seven years. They weren't too shabby: "Much Ado About Nothing," "Henry V," "Julius Caesar," "As You Like It," "Twelfth Night," "Hamlet," "Merry Wives of Windsor," "Troilus and Cressida," "All's Well That Ends Well," "Measure for Measure," "Othello," "King Lear," and "Macbeth." As a general rule, when a creator creates most, the creator creates best.
F. Scott Fitzgerald experienced the flip side of that rule. His first novel, "This Side of Paradise," established him as a popular, promising novelist. He soon wrote another novel and then a couple of years later came his masterpiece, "The Great Gatsby." Then he began to struggle. "Gatsby" was hard to follow. He began a book called "Tender Is the Night" but couldn't finish it. Years passed. He drank a lot. He dithered. He partied with his expatriate friends in France. Still he didn't finish the book. His wife had a nervous breakdown. Finally after eight years of labor he completed it. The novel has some terrific parts. It also has some parts that are cringe-inducing.
Linda Patterson Miller, a professor of English at Penn State, says, "I keep going back to that book, 'Tender Is the Night,' thinking it's got to be better than it is."
She cites one passage as particularly horrible. It's when Dick Diver returns to his hotel with the young starlet Rosemary Hoyt. Diver is married. His wife, Nicole, is sleeping nearby. But he and Hoyt are infatuated with each other. They go into Hoyt's room.
"When you smile -- " He had recovered his paternal attitude, perhaps because of Nicole's silent proximity, "I always think I'll see a gap where you've lost some baby teeth."
But he was too late -- she came up close against him with a forlorn whisper.
"Take me."
"Take you where?"
Astonishment froze him rigid.
"Go on," she whispered. "Oh, please go on, whatever they do. I don't care if I don't like it -- I never expected to -- I've always hated to think about it but now I don't. I want you to."
Prof. Miller says, "It's absolutely childish and embarrassing to read."
Fitzgerald wound up going to Hollywood to write screenplays -- artistic death. Meanwhile he cranked out short stories for magazines. Did it for the money. Drank. Drank some more. Died young.
It's a sad story. But the most creative minds know better than anyone else the difference between a "Gatsby" and a "Tender Is the Night," between a "Titus Andronicus" and an "Othello." Genius recognizes itself, and its counterfeit.
In his notebook, Fitzgerald jotted down his thoughts on seeing his brilliance dissolve into mediocrity:
I have asked a lot of my emotions -- one hundred and twenty stories. The price was high . . . because there was one little drop of something -- not blood, not a tear, not my seed, but me more intimately than these, in every story, it was the extra I had. Now it has gone and I am just like you now.
Once the phial was full -- here is the bottle it came in . . .
April evening spreads over everything, the purple blur left by a child who has used the whole paintbox.
By |
November 13, 2007; 4:22 PM ET
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Posted by: Dave of the Coonties | November 13, 2007 4:36 PM
I wuz first?
Posted by: Dave of the Coonties | November 13, 2007 4:37 PM
U wuz.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | November 13, 2007 4:55 PM
Sounds like Beethoven was a little ahead of his time, writing special effects music for movies, which weren't invented yet and wouldn't be for 100 years.
Thanks again for a bang-on follow up to the first part.
BTW, to the Shaw seeker-- I shaw Shaw at Project Gutenberg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/s#a467
Posted by: Wilbrod | November 13, 2007 5:05 PM
Mind if I repost?
Don Harron, you 'Merkin's might recognize him as Charley Farquarson on "Hee Haw" (Canadian invention [so proud}), used to read excerpts of GB Shaw's (aka Corno di Bassetto}'s, music criticism on his radio show. Brilliant stuff. On Fridays he (Harron, not Shaw) read passages from Samuel Pepys "Diary" and described one of his days in the manner of the above mentioned author(Pepys not Shaw).
Now, while this was all very amusing, it's not the point of my post. I cannot find a jot nor tiddle of GBS's criticism on a site that does not demand money for the privelige of perusing the Masters musings.
Can any of the literary mavens out there help me?
Posted by: Boko999 | November 13, 2007 04:18 PM
Posted by: Boko999 | November 13, 2007 5:42 PM
A great article, Joel.
Posted by: nellie | November 13, 2007 5:42 PM
Oops!
Thanks Wilbrod.
Posted by: Boko999 | November 13, 2007 5:53 PM
Wow. Was that just a Kit? Or will we see that in the paper tomorrow?
I think genius is when you have an idea, grab on to it, research it, go down to the Library of Congress and then write a fabulous Kit about it.
(I also want to know which one of us here is Milton Jenne.)
Posted by: TBG | November 13, 2007 6:11 PM
It always comes down to marketing.
"He screwed up and made a weak adhesive. So then he asked himself: Of what use might a weak adhesive be? This led him to invent Post-It notes."
Reminded me of this:
http://www.skepticfiles.org/en001/monty16.htm
Hog out.
Posted by: Boko999 | November 13, 2007 6:12 PM
In the jungle
The mighty jungle
The blog sleeps tonight.
Posted by: Anonymous | November 13, 2007 7:22 PM
And still
It sleeps.
Posted by: Anonymous | November 13, 2007 7:47 PM
I love the interweebs.
Shaw on Shakespeare, a play, the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, and Frank (Gotta Love Me) Harris.
http://www.online-literature.com/george_bernard_shaw/2887/
Posted by: Boko999 | November 13, 2007 8:14 PM
Shh, the boodle's not asleep. It's watching House.
Posted by: Wilbrod | November 13, 2007 9:05 PM
TBG,
This was part 2 of a vintage article by Joel from back when he was young and energetic and full of ideas. Before his genius ran out and he descended into piddling out silly vignettes so that imaginary people on the interweb could ignore them.
Posted by: yellojkt | November 13, 2007 9:35 PM
I came late to the party. Is this the source of the aluminum foil beanie gag:
http://www.paladin-press.com/detail.aspx?ID=28
Tee-hee
Posted by: bill everything | November 13, 2007 9:51 PM
2 fascinating kits in a row. Super!
The definitive research on foil hats was published 2 years ago:
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/
Posted by: frostbitten | November 13, 2007 10:04 PM
I only ask because I was lamenting the end of that venerable purveyor of the bizarre, the illegal, and the loony, Loompanics.
I was in mid wiki when I saw that Loompanics went out of business and sold its "assets" to the Paladin Press, another stallwart of "responsible" publishing.
It is so much fun to read why you need to buy these books.
Posted by: bill everything | November 13, 2007 10:08 PM
Frosti,
Thanks for the update on the latest research! This is more sinister than I ever imagined.
Posted by: bill everything | November 13, 2007 10:16 PM
New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year (drum roll) is locavore.
Read about it here: http://blog.oup.com/2007/11/locavore/
If this is already widely known, please forgive. The only paper I've read today is USA Today.
Posted by: frostbitten | November 13, 2007 10:31 PM
I like being a locavore when the garden's ready to harvest. But I'm not ready to keep a chicken coop nearby or live off deer.
Posted by: Wilbrod | November 13, 2007 10:40 PM
The jungle was nourished tonight by a mighty rain shower.
Toured the new Publix. They're now selling imported-from-Italy frozen pizzas that I'll have to compare to the cheaper ones at Wal-Mart. Wonder if I should count the artichokes.
Beethoven might have been good at movie music, like so many of his 20th century counterparts. NPR presents the Academy Award-nominated movie music every year, with shrewd commentary. We seem to accept edgier orchestral music in the movie theater than in the concert hall.
I recall a Steve Reich piece (not written for movies) that seemed perfectly suited to an agonizing stuck-elevator scene.
Posted by: Dave of the Coonties | November 13, 2007 10:41 PM
Are tinfoil hats a stroke of simple genius?
Hmmm...
bc
Posted by: bc | November 13, 2007 11:19 PM
There's a radio station the plays Skynyrd's Tuesdays Gone every Tuesday at Midnight. I love that song, one of my all time favorites. I crank it up and drive up my mountain.
Wildlife report: I still see frogs hopping across the road this late in November, amazing!!
I also chased a couple of deer up the road along the river, one headed up the steep hill, the other into the river.
Beautiful star lit sky tonight.
Posted by: greenwithenvy | November 14, 2007 12:27 AM
'Morning, Boodle, Cassandra. Where is everybody? Scotty? Where's those Grover waves? Yoki, you still in Ireland, or are you back yet and recovering from jet lag? Welcome home, Maggie O.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | November 14, 2007 6:04 AM
Mornin' all...
greenwithenvy... I'm envious of your drive.
This *is* an excellent kit (as was the first part).
I've always believed the saying that "genius is a form of madness" (and still do). I remember doing a paper in college on how many of the best poets, writers and musicians were drunks or drug addicts who suffered a variety of mental illnesses and died at an early age either from their addictions or suicide (Poe, Plath, Hendrix and Joplin come to mind). The common thread among them all was that they had an uncommon passion for their art and were overly susceptible to the goings on in the world around them and were devoured by either or both.
I don't consider myself a "genius" (far from it), but I did score high enough on the IQ test to be called one. I've done some cool stuff over the years in music and art and writing that have been called "genius", but a real genius is able to follow through and turn brilliant ideas into reality. That follow through is what's always tripped me up and left me in the "could-a-been-a-contenda" category.
Ah well... so it goes, huh?
Peace :-)
Posted by: martooni | November 14, 2007 6:40 AM
*midweek-but-not-quite-feeling-like-it Grover waves*
More substantive comment must wait for additional caffeine and a little BackBoodling.
:-)
Posted by: Scottynuke | November 14, 2007 7:45 AM
Well, that didn't take long...
*wandering off to find Dr. House's defib paddles to get things going again*
:-)
Posted by: Scottynuke | November 14, 2007 8:09 AM
It's funny that I don't remember when this article was first published. Maybe I was engaged in a week long orgy of mind-altering indulgences at the time.
Yeah. Right.
This is such a wise article that I am a little ashamed of my earlier quibbling over the proper definition of Genius. Whatever one calls it, great creativity is clearly a fragile phenomenon. What always surprises me is the linkage between great creativity and other factors - some benign and some not. I guess a brain wired to see the world differently sometimes misfires in other ways.
TBG mentioned Frank Lloyd Wright the other day - clearly a brilliant, brilliant architect. And one who truly did seem to create effortlessly. There are no preliminary sketches of his fantastically complex "Falling Water." It went from his brain to paper. Yet, having just read a biography on him, I assert that the man was also horribly arrogant and self indulgent.
I guess this is why it is so refreshing to, know and again, encounter someone of great creativity who also seems, you know, basically nice.
You know, an "Achenbach."
Posted by: RD Padouk | November 14, 2007 8:14 AM
Hmm. I seem to have inserted a spurious "k" in "now and again" above. In order to maintain "k" constancy, upon which our universe rests, I clearly must omit one somewhere else.
Posted by: RD Padou | November 14, 2007 8:18 AM
I collect stories about brilliant/talented/accomplished/artistic/achieving AND nice peeps. Like Frosti's NOT SUING blog effort, well, my collection is very small.
BTW, I always read that blog title as Not Suey.....like a Chinese menu option of NOT the Chop Suey....
Off to impart pearls of wisdom to sleepy students. Pray that one lodges and takes root AND that I may see evidence.
Posted by: College Parkian | November 14, 2007 8:26 AM
RD, if you figure out the value of "k," please let me know, 'k?
I'm ready to help you write and publish the value of the "k" Constant.
[Or should we call it "kappa?" Who needs the Λ (Lambda) constant anyway?]
bc
Posted by: bc | November 14, 2007 8:30 AM
RD said "Whatever one calls it, great creativity is clearly a fragile phenomenon."
Not to pull a Shirley Maclaine here or otherwise sound like a loon, but I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the most moving works in art don't come directly from the brain but from "somewhere else" and the ideas are just channeled through the brain.
But then synapses are tricksy little buggers.
I think a lot of "genius" can be compared to dropping a fishing line into a giant lake of Chaos and seeing what bites and what you can reel in.
Some things you keep. Others you throw back.
Posted by: martooni | November 14, 2007 8:32 AM
K: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_%28disambiguation%29
Posted by: omni | November 14, 2007 8:41 AM
Actually, to further the Chaos fishing trip analogy...
There are those who fish from the shore and those who fish from boats.
If you fish from shore, your chances of drowning are greatly diminished, but your chances of catching "the big one" are also diminished.
But when you go out into the deep waters and risk being pulled overboard by "the big one", that's where the *really* good fishing is.
I think many of the great thoughts and works over the years were by people unafraid of boats and deep water, not landlubbers.
Posted by: martooni | November 14, 2007 8:46 AM
I didn't make the connection until I hit post and then caught up on the boodle, but my blog today has a Shakespeare quote generator.
http://livebythefoma.blogspot.com/2007/11/bard-and-i.html
Have fun.
Posted by: yellojkt | November 14, 2007 8:47 AM
"A boodle! A boodle! My kingdom for a boodle!"
from Achenbach III
Posted by: yellojkt | November 14, 2007 8:49 AM
You make a good point there, omni.
Maybe we call it the Kappa Constant?
RD, it's your kall.
bc
Posted by: bc | November 14, 2007 8:51 AM
Indeed. In school we used to joke that "k" was the all purpose constant. The only thing more ubiquitous was the name "Euler."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_named_after_Leonhard_Euler
Posted by: RD Padouk | November 14, 2007 8:52 AM
Apparently the definition of NOT SUING is as debatable as what exactly genius is. As it happens I have a new entry up on the Not Suey blog:
http://www.notsuing.blogspot.com/
Good morning to all!
Over 50 degrees when I got home from St. Paul last night, snowing now. One of my favorite organic farms, just 90 minutes south of here, was still harvesting cabbages on Monday. Unbelievable.
Posted by: frostbitten | November 14, 2007 8:52 AM
Huh, "A Midsummer Night's Boodle" is one of my favorites.
bc
Posted by: bc | November 14, 2007 8:53 AM
A few grafs below from Ellen Goodman's recent op-ed about gender cards. I was reading it this morning and wondering why in the Kit and ensuing disussion about genious there was not one mention of a woman?
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07313/832380-35.stm
Up to now, this has been a remarkably degendered campaign. For once, the female candidate has been seen as the establishment candidate. She's also been the tough guy in the race. But that doesn't mean people haven't noticed she's a woman. Nor does the fact that she's been pretty adept mean that women aren't still in a double bind.
As a recent Catalyst survey of corporate leaders said, women are still "damned if they do and doomed if they don't" meet the expectations of gender stereotypes. Linguistics professor Deborah Tannen describes the fate of achieving women this way: "Our image of a politician, a leader, a manager, anyone in authority, is still at odds with our expectations of a woman. To the extent that a woman is feminine, she's seen as weak. To the extent that she puts it aside and is forceful, aggressive and decisive, she's not seen as a good woman."
And now, anyone who complains about all that is playing the gender card. Should we call it a triple bind? I am trying to remember whether any man has ever been accused of playing the gender card and what it looked like.
Remember Ronald Reagan when he asked Walter Mondale to arm-wrestle? Remember the first George Bush when he told the longshoremen he'd "kicked a little ass" in his debate with Geraldine Ferraro? John Kerry in the brush shooting small birds? Arnold Schwarzenegger ridiculing "girlie men"? George W. in his flight gear? Rudy Giuliani cross-dressing? No, scratch that last one!
Appealing to masculinity is the pandering norm. But notice that 15 out of the 16 presidential candidates are male? Notice that 2 percent of the Fortune 500 CEOs are female? Notice that Hillary was the butt of half the late-night comedy jabs at the Democratic candidates? No fair! You've got that old gender card up your sleeve.
Posted by: Loomis | November 14, 2007 9:13 AM
SCC: My bad...one mention..Joyce Carol Oates
Posted by: Loomis | November 14, 2007 9:15 AM
How about The Boodler of Venice?
Or my personal favorite, MacBPH.
Posted by: TBG | November 14, 2007 9:16 AM
Hey! At least one of our very own is right there in Weingarten's list of Top Rice Contributors.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/11/06/DI2007110602265.html#wed
Posted by: TBG | November 14, 2007 9:22 AM
I had never heard of the Catalyst group Ellen Goodman quoted until Maureen Dowd referenced them as well today.
http://dowdreport.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-am-i-single.html
Ellen Goodman made some excellent points there. Dowd just navel-gazed.
Posted by: Mo MoDo | November 14, 2007 9:36 AM
TBG, I kinda sorry you linked to the Weingarten list. I got hung up reading the swirley backstory.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | November 14, 2007 9:36 AM
Congrats to Kber! I haven't gotten above 49 myself, in spite of going for 3000 grains of rice several times.
Posted by: Slyness | November 14, 2007 9:37 AM
Though it *did* put a spring in my step.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | November 14, 2007 9:37 AM
Women genius:
Marie Curie
"Male conspiracy cannot explain all female failures. I am convinced that, even without restrictions, there still would have been no female Pascal, Milton, or Kant. Genius is not checked by social obstacles: it will overcome." -Camille Paglia, in Sexual Personae
"There are no female geniuses because there are no female Jack-the-Rippers." -Camille Paglia
Posted by: yellojkt | November 14, 2007 9:43 AM
I decided to cheat to see if I could get it above 50 and so far no. But then I came to this stumper:
virgule means:
leafstalk
foray
slash
crossroads
Isn't a virgule a comma?
Posted by: omni | November 14, 2007 9:50 AM
I got those Paglia quotes from this website:
http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/genqtpg.html
There's some even more incendiary stuff in there.
Posted by: yellojkt | November 14, 2007 9:52 AM
Ye Gods, the blogosphere is cruel!! Who knew???
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111302302.html
Yes, I'm very glad the Boodle remains a bastion of kindness and intelligence.
:-)
Posted by: Scottynuke | November 14, 2007 10:01 AM
it seems to me that for every 3-4 right you add one point. Every wrong answer deletes one point. The lowest is 1 and the highest, even after twenty correct answers at 50 is 50.
Posted by: omni | November 14, 2007 10:02 AM
A press release from July from the Catalyst group, summarizing their findings on gender stereotyping at work (can we include politics, or general performance?). Thanks, MoreMoDo, for the heads up!
http://www.catalyst.org/pressroom/pressdoublebind.shtml
Extreme perceptions: Women leaders are perceived as "never just right." If women business leaders act consistent with gender stereotypes, they are considered too soft. If they go against gender stereotypes, they are considered too tough.
The high competence threshold/lower rewards: Women leaders face higher standards than men leaders and are rewarded with less. Often they must work doubly hard to achieve the same level of recognition as men leaders for the same level of work and "prove" they can lead.
Competent but disliked: When women exhibit traditionally valued leadership behaviors such as assertiveness, they tend to be seen as competent but not personable or well-liked. Yet those who do adopt a more stereotypically feminine style are liked but not seen as having valued leadership skills.
Posted by: Loomis | November 14, 2007 10:04 AM
" Notice that Hillary was the butt of half the late-night comedy jabs at the Democratic candidates? No fair! You've got that old gender card up your sleeve." Not neccessarily. If HRC had Kucinich's numbers and vice versa, the story would not be her. The jokes would be about UFOs. One thing I find very interesting about the current contest is the strength of Clinton among African Americans as opposed to Obama. I think back to Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill and how we were told then that race trumped gender. Now, apparently, not so much.
Posted by: kurosawaguy | November 14, 2007 10:10 AM
Some feel that the OJ trial was all about race trumping gender.
Posted by: RD Padouk | November 14, 2007 10:12 AM
13/15 I'm embarrassed to say. I got 4 and 12 wrong. yeah, even after reading Weingarten's chat yesterday I still got 12 wrong. Must have been a brain fart. Yeah that's it, a bart.
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/education_1/?page=quiz36&Quizid=36
Posted by: omni | November 14, 2007 10:23 AM
'Salright, omni, 13/15 too...
:-)
Posted by: Scottynuke | November 14, 2007 10:28 AM
12/15 but i second guessed two answers, so I should have gotten 14.
Posted by: yellojkt | November 14, 2007 10:29 AM
That quiz shows clearly that my spelling ability is as demonstrated on the boodle. Awful.
Posted by: dr | November 14, 2007 10:30 AM
15/15 but that doesn't mean much when the correct spelling is right there to compare with the incorrect.
Posted by: frostbitten | November 14, 2007 10:34 AM
I got them all but I question if this is a test of reading style as much as spelling.
For although I could easily tell which of those words looked "right," I dare say I would have blown several if called upon to spell them out loud.
I think this is somehow related to that "word recognition" versus "phonics" debates.
Posted by: RD Paoduk | November 14, 2007 10:38 AM
Carl Hiaasen was in especially fine fettle on Sunday-
"(Rejected first draft of the Rev. Pat Robertson's endorsement of GOP presidential contender Rudy Giuliani).
Good morning, fellow Christians. I am honored to stand here before you, under the somewhat disbelieving eyes of God, and announce my support for Rudolph W. Giuliani for the presidency of the United States.
I'm not going to pretend that Rudy is the dream candidate for Christians with a conservative social agenda. Not only has he been married three times (to three different women!), he's been a supporter of abortion rights and gay marriages.
So, yes, Rudy's basically the anti-Christ. But, hey, if he can beat Hillary, who cares?
I admire what my Jewish friends call chutzpah, and it took plenty of that for Rudy to come seeking my endorsement. If you recall (as too many people do), I joined Jerry Falwell in blaming the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America's permissive attitude toward homosexuals, feminism and prime-time television, among other biblical evils.
It wasn't the first loony thing I've ever said, and it won't be the last.
Of course, Rudy was mayor of New York on the day that God allowed the pagan hijackers to crash those jetliners into the World Trade Centers, so one might have expected him to hold a grudge because of my callous remarks.
Not Rudy. He couldn't have been nicer.
Some people would call that shameless groveling, but I call it old-fashioned respect. I might be a reactionary old windbag, but I've still got my own TV network -- and Rudy knows better than to tick me off.
Back in the good old days, when I was at the peak of my faith-healing powers, amazing miracles happened every Sunday in church. Why, I cured everything from hemorrhoids to cancer!
In a way, my endorsement of Rudy is a miracle, too.
For both of us, it's a partnership of faith and courage. By supporting a candidate with such disgustingly tolerant social views, I'm risking the scorn of my fellow right-wing tele-evangelicals.
Brutal campaign
Likewise, Rudy is risking the scorn of his GOP rivals for aligning himself with a religious figure as controversial and demonstrably unhinged as myself.
Having run for the presidency myself (unsuccessfully, due to Satanic forces in the liberal media as well as a shortage of corporate donors), I know how brutal a national political campaign can be.
With all due respect to Jesus, I, too, know what it's like to be crucified for things that you say. For example, people openly scoffed when I claimed to have spared Virginia from a hurricane by praying for the storm to go someplace else.
Did I back off or apologize? Did I make up some bogus excuse, like, ``I must've mixed up my medications that day?''
Not Pat Robertson. No, I always tell like it is -- or, more precisely, the way the Lord tells me to tell it.
Admittedly, sometimes I don't hear Him correctly. For example, I could have sworn He warned me that a giant tidal wave was going to devastate the Pacific Northwest in 2006.
Disney's gay customers
It didn't happen, which was sort of embarrassing, but it's possible that I got the date wrong. Regardless, I won't be investing in any waterfront time-shares in Seattle.
Nor will you catch me cavorting at Disney World, either. As I've stated before, God intends to smite the theme park with ''earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor'' for opening its doors to gay customers.
It was none other than He who confidentially informed me that Ariel Sharon brought on his own brain clot by letting the Palestinians govern Gaza; that a natural disaster would befall Pennsylvania school board members who support the teaching of evolution; and that the United States would be better off if somebody detonated a small nuclear device inside the State Department.
Does Rudy Giuliani share these views? He hasn't said, and I haven't asked.
For now, we focus on the core values and priorities that we share in common, such as defeating the Islamic extremists and, when that job is done, assassinating Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the little commie gerbil.
Guided by Higher Power
In closing, to all my Christian followers and fellow Republicans who've questioned my decision, be assured that I was guided by the same Higher Power with whom I chat on a daily basis, and whose voice can blessedly be heard above the turbines of my private jet.
The fact that any serious candidate for the White House would court my support, after all the nutty and reckless stuff I've said, proves that the Lord truly has a sense of humor. For what else could this be if not divine intervention?
My new best friend Rudy is thrilled to be endorsed by me, and I am likewise thrilled to be taken even semi-seriously."
13/15 on that there spellin' thang.
Posted by: kurosawaguy | November 14, 2007 10:45 AM
Based on my result, 14/15, I have to agree with Padouk that it is not spelling test. No way I can spell at that level.
But I can read apparently, which is good.
Posted by: shrieking denizen | November 14, 2007 10:47 AM
I got 14/15 which I think proves RD's point, I can recognize the correct spellings when given a choice but would probably pick wrong when I use the words in writing. I must say I was very surprised at the 14/15.
Posted by: dmd | November 14, 2007 10:49 AM
RD-I think you are on to something, though as a teacher I've been forced to think about spelling and how I do it. It's always been easy for me but when I slow down enough to explain it to kids I find that I use word recognition, phonics, knowledge of word origin, and some mnemonics. Some of my students also need to add "muscle memory" thus I would give young spellers a choice on Thursdays of "5 times each, use in a sentence, or draw a picture that defines the word." The kids who needed "5 times each" rarely chose the other options. I could go on and on about the need to systematically build fluency with academic vocabulary to "close the gap" and probably will soon.
Posted by: frostbitten | November 14, 2007 10:52 AM
RD, you have given me the perfect out. Yeah its a reading problem, not a spelling problem. My quiz score was 12/15. Actually, for me it isn't a reading problem, its a seeing problem. Letters go missing from the middle and I see them only when I move my eyes.
Posted by: dr | November 14, 2007 11:06 AM
Has anyone else ever written out the various permutations of a word in order to decide upon the correct spelling? Back in the olden days before spell checking, I used to do this all the time.
Posted by: RD Padouk | November 14, 2007 11:10 AM
RD I still write out words to determine the correct spelling, however, I must hand write these as I find it easier to determine my own correct spelling in handwriting as opposed to typed. I even did it on the quiz :-)
Posted by: dmd | November 14, 2007 11:14 AM
DR, have you been to an eye doc? If you truly don't see the letters until you move your head, you may have the beginnings of macular degeneration. Not to worry you or anything....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macular_degeneration
Posted by: Maggie O'D | November 14, 2007 11:19 AM
Yeah, RD, I've done that, and it sometimes works, but the problem is that my gut only works at first glance. Once I look at the words for a while, the right way starts looking strange, and the wrong way starts looking plausible. That's why I've always thought that multiple-choice or find-the-wrong-words kind of tests/practices for spelling learners are counterproductive. They just build the habit of reading the misspelling, which then starts looking normal.
Posted by: bia | November 14, 2007 11:22 AM
13/15. I got #13 and #14 wrong, which probably means laziness was involved (refer to yesterday's discussion). I, however, was familiar with the correct definition of "swirlie" and I'm not from the Midwest. It was on a Frasier episode.
Posted by: Raysmom | November 14, 2007 11:24 AM
15/15 on the spelling quiz.
Sheesh, my spelling's not that great.
bc
Posted by: bc | November 14, 2007 11:29 AM
bia - I know that phenomenon well. Sometimes familiar words will start to look totally wrong to me.
For example, in my earlier shout-out to the perceived niceness of Mr. Achenbach (little do we suspect the truth) I became briefly convinced I was spelling his name wrong. It looked so momentarily odd.
Of course, this happens to me in other ways as well. Things that are utterly commonplace will occasionally become confusing. Then I shake my head and things make sense once more.
I am hopeful they come up with a good drug for this before it is too late.
Posted by: RD Padouk | November 14, 2007 11:31 AM
As if the recent faux FEMA press conference wasn't ridiculous enough, washingtonpost.com reports this morning that FEMA is now in the business of using self-promotional rap lyrics, targeted to children. It's never too early to start the indoctrination. Here are the lyrics for "FEMA for Kidz Rap"*:
Disaster . . . it can happen anywhere,
But we've got a few tips, so you can be prepared
For floods, tornadoes, or even a 'quake,
You've got to be ready -- so your heart don't break.
Disaster prep is your responsibility
And mitigation is important to our agency.
People helping people is what we do
And FEMA is there to help see you through
When disaster strikes, we are at our best
But we're ready all the time, 'cause disasters don't rest.
*I'm biting my tongue so I don't put biting comments in parens at the end of each couplet.
Posted by: Loomis | November 14, 2007 11:35 AM
It's incredible to think that someone would write "heart don't break" and "mitigation is important to our agency" in the same body of work.
Posted by: TBG | November 14, 2007 11:41 AM
From Mary Beth Sheridan's story on the home page:
Then there's FEMA for Kids, a Web site starring the Disaster Twins, Robbie and Julia, a sort of Dick and Jane of the emergency age.
"Let's shelter in place!" their teacher says brightly, grabbing her duct tape and plastic sheeting.
The programs have not met with universal admiration. Skeptics note there has been little formal evaluation of the results. James Carafano, a homeland security specialist at the Heritage Foundation, said some are downright "stupid."
"Mathematically, the odds of any child being killed by a terrorist in the United States are infinitesimally small," he said. "You might as well give them classes on how to avoid being hit by asteroids."
Posted by: Loomis | November 14, 2007 11:42 AM
"People helping people is what we do
And FEMA is there to help see you through"
Actually, "People Helping People" is the official motto of my agency (which is most definitely NOT Fema). Sometimes when a customer gives me grief about one particular aspect of my editing, I reply that perhaps in keeping with government jargon we should change the motto to "Persons Helping Persons."
It has such a nice ring to it.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | November 14, 2007 11:46 AM
While I don't think kids need to be taught duck and cover type stuff, every school I'm in has all sorts of color coded emergency procedure levels and drills. The name Malvo mean anything?
Posted by: yellojkt | November 14, 2007 11:48 AM
Although it once occurred to me to rewrite our motto as "Persons Effectuating Amelioration of Deleterious Opporant Factors of Constituent Persons."
Posted by: Curmudgeon | November 14, 2007 11:48 AM
Mudge, that just sings.
Posted by: Raysmom | November 14, 2007 11:51 AM
Yello my kids have "lock down" drills as well, which frighten me, I went to school after the duck and cover drills ended and fire drills and the odd tornado drill were about all we had. Now my kids learn how to close drapes when a shooter may be in the vacinity. They just don't make up rap songs about it.
Perhaps part of the emergency preparedness is to make sure all the necessary help can arrive as quickly as possible, this is not the first such incident I have read about.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/14/border.firetruck/index.html
Posted by: dmd | November 14, 2007 11:53 AM
"Mitigation is important to our agency" rolls so well off the tongue.
Almost as well as our Public Safety Department "Emergency Preparedness" division.
Posted by: shrieking denizen | November 14, 2007 11:58 AM
Yes, it does have a kinda Cole Porter lilt to it, I thought, Raysmom.
(Howya been, BTW? How's Ray? Chewed up any slippers lately?)
Posted by: Curmudgeon | November 14, 2007 12:07 PM
I have lurked here for a long time, but this article has made me want to join the boodle. Well done Joel!
Posted by: DouglasG | November 14, 2007 12:08 PM
Then welcome aboard, DouglasG. (You aren't by happenstance married to a certain other well-known boodler, are you? Because she is married to an esteemed personage of your name and initial.)
If you are not he of whom I speak, then tell us a bit about yourself.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | November 14, 2007 12:11 PM
15/15. I just recognize what looks right. But ask me to spell something and I run to AskOxford.com. I've been known to open a blank Word document and see if I can get spellcheck to give me the correct spelling.
Posted by: Slyness | November 14, 2007 12:15 PM
Slyness I do that as well, I also tend to check words in the American/British and Canadian dictionaries in the hope that at least one of them will include my spelling.
Posted by: dmd | November 14, 2007 12:18 PM
Howdy DouglasG et al (that's lawyer talk). 15/15 on the quiz. Reading, spelling, whatever.
RD & bc, back in 2000 we blondes worried a lot about the "y to k" problem.
Here's a shout-out to PopSocket. A large vacant lot on my way to work, usually notable for its profusion of bluebonnets in spring, now sports three large signs -- Ron Paul: Hope for America
Posted by: Ivansmom | November 14, 2007 12:22 PM
Jeez, Joel, it's Kits like this that make me realize why none of the devotees from Hewitt's blog ever visit here any more. All this high-minded logic and everything just boggles the mind. I even learned something. Whew!
Posted by: CowTown | November 14, 2007 12:23 PM
Maggie O, yes it is. I have a small piece of tissue growing between the retina and the optic nerve. My eye guy says when I am blinder, they will fix it. The problem does create some funny happenings. Reading street signs can be downright hilarious, but only if I am not lost.
It does affect my work, but the problems it creates are not big enough to risk the surgery. It means I may have to find a new job, one less reliant on reading, but that would be a good thing.
Meantime, I am determined to use it as an excuse for as much as I can.
Posted by: dr | November 14, 2007 12:23 PM
Mudge, I'm coming up for air after a hectic couple of months ((vacation, followed by the mother of all sinus infections, followed by a vewwy, vewwy busy period at work). Have lurked, but have not had time to form a coherent, non-work-related sentence. Ray is going through a rawhid-adoration phase at this point.
Slyness, I often keep a blank Word document open just for spell-checking purposes.
Have not been able to get past 45 on the freerice thing. And I used to be a high-verbal-SAT smartypants.
Posted by: Raysmom | November 14, 2007 12:23 PM
SCC: rawhide. Rawhid is what kids do to the carrots they don't want to eat.
Posted by: Raysmom | November 14, 2007 12:26 PM
*faxin' DouglasG the official Boodler membership package (thought I'd say KIT, dincha??)*
:-)
Posted by: Scottynuke | November 14, 2007 12:34 PM
The UK Prime Minister, all Scot that he is, wants to promote Britishness. So he comes up with the idea to have a motto, 5 words or less, for the UK. There are a couple of funny suggestions the Times got from its readers but you may enjoy this one the most:
Americans who have missed the boat.
Ha!
The rest of the article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2852658.ece
Posted by: shrieking denizen | November 14, 2007 12:36 PM
New Kit, of course!
Posted by: shrieking denizen | November 14, 2007 12:37 PM
Someone might have already said something to this effect, but I just finished reading a pop evolutionary psychology (I know there's trouble there) book that made a point at one place that creative output (for men, at least, and with a few notable exceptions) tends to fall after a peak in a person's 20's-30's. The idea being the creative output is a way to attract mates, but once you've reached a certain age, either you 1) no longer need to attract them or 2) have other means to do it with (like money).
Posted by: Lurker Jason | November 14, 2007 12:52 PM
On the subject of the role of motivation in genius: I am 100% convinced of this concept, even if I don't fully understand it. At one time I was employed as a teacher of a class of mentally handicapped students whose disability was classified as "severe and profound" mental retardation. These were high school age students whose IEP goals were on the level of "will turn his head toward a sound." In my quest to find stimulating materials for them, I tried various "busy box" toys that are manufactured for very young children. When I was shopping for those toys and then later when they were in my classroom it was my observation that nobody of "normal" level intelligence could see one of them without reaching over and ringing the bell or opening the little door or whatever it was designed to do. Nobody could ignore the busy box. But my students could. Even though for the most part they had the gross and fine motor skills necessary to make the spinner go around or the bell ring, they didn't have the DESIRE.
When my daughter was an infant I could always see that she was driven to the next level of development by an inner force. From the time she first turned over from her back to her stomach, and then started to push up and then crawl and so on, she would perservere through countless failures (negative reinforcement! why wouldn't she give up if all she ever had was negative reinforcement?) until she finally succeeded. The students in my special education class were missing that inner urge, it seemed to me; it wasn't really comprehension that was missing in them, but desire, or interest.
On the other end of the IQ spectrum, I think it must work the same way. What my mentally handicapped students lacked is the same thing that Einstein had more than his share of--but I can't really define what it is.
Posted by: kbertocci | November 14, 2007 1:00 PM
14/15 this time. Sad really, I got 12/15 the last time we took this test. You'd think I would have done better, considering we took the same quiz a month or so back. At least I didn't second guess myself like my last attempt at this examination 8 or so weeks ago. I remember I got 'pronunciation" wrong a the last time I visited that web page.
No problem this time. Oboy.
Posted by: Boko999 | November 14, 2007 1:05 PM
"Take another crack at it", I always say.
If at first you don't suceed, try, try again.
Never say die.
Posted by: Boko999 | November 14, 2007 1:14 PM
*discrete throat clearing*
peeps are over at the new kit boko.
Posted by: shrieking denizen | November 14, 2007 1:23 PM
15/15. I also made 50 on the freerice test. The longest I was able to sustain it was for about 5 or 6 words. I sent my name too late in the evening to make Weingarten's list.
Posted by: ScienceTim | November 14, 2007 1:38 PM
Thanks for the fine welcome! You boodlers are sooo nice! That is, until I realized that the "official Boodler membership package" was delivered by a rabid rottweiler.
No relation to any other boodler. Twin Cities resident. Came here via the Dave Barry Blog and have never left.
Posted by: DouglasG | November 14, 2007 2:37 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
I get the impression that Beethoven's sound effects in "Wellington's Victory" were really, really spectacular by the standards of the day, and the piece was a boffo hit.