The Gentle News » writing

Fifteen Complicated Things Everyone Should Do Without Seeking To

Farris — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:50:15 +0000

Develop an addiction and defeat it with the help of someone you love.
Disagree with a physician’s diagnosis or prescription and realize that such an event should not happen most times you visit a physician.
Watch a wealthy person confidently walk away without looking back after pressing the “auto-close” button on a door or hatch to their luxury car.
Judge said wealthy person harshly until they’re out of your sight.
Realize you might be a little jealous as they’ve left your sight and the door is still in the process of closing.
Notice a grammatical error while you’re typing it and remember by the time you’re through that it isn’t an error but a matter of style.
Leave that “error” because it’s how you write, and possibly how you speak.
Look back over your writing and notice another such usage mistake that you should have caught while writing it.
Leave that one, too.
Obsess over a well-known book to such a degree that some friends get sick of you talking about it.
Use “my dog ate it” as an honest and truthful explanation for why something turned out the way it did.
Correct a friend’s grammar.
Years later, remember correcting that friend’s grammar and call them to say you’re sorry you were such an asshole years ago.
Take a job you don’t enjoy because you need the money.
Enjoy some tiny aspect of that job enough to stick around longer than you originally intended.
Know the following: When to use numerals, when to spell out the numbers, and when to correct a friend’s seemingly incorrect count of an enumerated list.

What’s in a name?

Farris — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:08:47 +0000

In a way, Farris Goldstein is my real name. I decided over a decade ago that, as much as I embrace technology, putting my thoughts out on the wires should probably be guarded by some kind of pseudonym. Those who know me understand that I’m just a silly guy who enjoys individual role playing, even if I bristle at the thought of rolling a bunch of dice and slaying imaginary dragons all weekend in a room full of other nerds.

I’ve been accused with everything from schizophrenia to multiple personality disorder to just plain batshit crazy. But I know I’m not crazy. I know the name I was given, and I love it. I also know that, for as long as I can remember, I’ve used internal creativity to successfully stave off the development and diagnosis of all those scary disorders.

Now I’ve actually been published on those wires with my real name, and I’m having a tiny identity crisis. Ever since I realized I was a writer I’ve worried about whether to finally just be Me and let the various avenues of my craft point to the same name. It would make putting together a portfolio much easier, but it’s just not that fun.

I have two such irons already in the fire, one of which actually pays a financially negligible but tangibly rewarding income. In addition, I have two Big Ideas that I want to remain passionate about, but since they’re targeted to mutually exclusive audiences, the more perverse one will definitely require a fake name.

But the other one… Oh, man, I wish I could say more about the other one, but it’s something that all sources say I should keep under my hat until it’s close enough to complete that I can’t help but put my John Hancock on it and show it off to everyone like a Heisman trophy. That one will definitely get my real-real name on it, possibly even with a pretentious middle initial.

Dammit, since when do I use sports references? Gotta nip that in the bud/butt.

Writers and Tinkerers Alike: Fontify Your Handwriting

Farris — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:42:33 +0000

First, an invitation: If you’ve actually done this, or something similar, before, then awesome. I’d love to know if you found it useful, amusing, both, or neither.

Second, a warning: If you have not done this, or anything similar, do not tell me why you don’t want to do it. You can tell me why you can’t do it at present. However, if you don’t want to do something neat and simple and quick that I think could be helpful and entertaining, I’m neither concerned about nor interested in the demotivational details.

JewingDings

That’s my handwriting. This isn’t some fancy-ass, heuristic AI that studies your hand movements and creates an elegant synthesis of a real person’s writing. This is just my damn letters scanned in and quickly indexed into a font. People have been doing this kind of crap for at least a decade or two. Why am I just now doing it?

Because I’m lazy. And that’s the last excuse. If you ever pour words out of your head onto a screen or page, then whether you read them back to yourself or quickly forget you wrote them, go to the image link and do this. Now, if you have a printer and a scanner nearby. No, really. Stop working, playing, or caring for your children and do it immediately.

I’ve written three things I actually consider good writing since installing this font earlier today. And I don’t feel like throwing them away and irreversibly shredding them.

Four steps, and it only took me about 8 hours to do it. Translated into normal human time, it should take you about four or five minutes if you have the scanner and printer.

My Uncle Walter, I Don’t Know

Farris — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 08:29:53 +0000

One week ago, Walter Cronkite died. I only heard the news yesterday. He was never much of an icon to me personally, but I know he’s important and was good at his job. His industry has always confused a lot of people, and has steadily lost ground in terms of the number of assholes and mediocre models polluting its purpose over the years. If you’re a my-side-their-side type, one side says he was perfect and the other side says they liked his old stuff better, before he got all preachy. I never bought any of his albums, but the mainstream stuff seemed OK to me.

I have vague memories of my Dad admiring Cronkite, and there’s very little Papa Goldstein likes that isn’t mostly good. That’s not hero worship. My Dad saves lives almost daily, and I’m certain Walter saved a decent number over the course of his career. Who’s the hero? My answer is obvious, but I don’t worship anyone.

It’s getting immensely easier to enjoy living as I stop trying to prove a point to anyone and just do what’s good. Now, let me go ahead and violate that progress a tiny bit to illustrate what I’m trying to say. Please don’t slime me.

Les Lye died. Today. Yesterday. Whatever you want to call it. To me, it’s happening right now. I am more deeply affected by Lye’s passing than Old Iron Pants. Why is it that I found out about Lye, whose name I’m sure is not nearly as recognizable as Cronkite, so quickly? Because my dear friend Enos tweeted it.

So, thanks to Enos and Twitter, I’m spending these wee, weekend-inaugurating hours watching You Can’t Do That On Television episodes, Turkey TV clips, reading interviews and smiling a lot. Beats the hell out of spending a Friday night doing invoicing and then finding out a month or more later that one of the adults who raised me had died without my knowing or getting a chance to acknowledge it in a timely manner.

If you grew up watching Les and the shows he worked, really absorbed them, and enjoyed them for yourself rather than because your parents “let you” watch Nickelodeon just like all the other kids, then I think you’re pretty much incapable of true malice. You truly can’t do what he did on television anymore, and that’s a little sad.

It amazes me that this stuff was censored at all. It amazes me even more that you can’t find as many genuine, ageless laughs in a month’s worth of today’s “edgy” live-action television for kids as YCDTOT was able to dish out in every episode. Put that right next to Mr. Wizard’s World, and basic cable was really all a happy little nerd needed to make it out of the eighties alive. Oh, and a caring, loving family. Preferably one that won’t beat you too much for wanting to tell a good fart joke every now and then.

Now, what am I going to do with all these pies? Maybe I’ll just try a bite.

P.S. Please slime me.