Category: Reading

Books, & links to all kinds of stuff I found interesting

[Link] Walter Tevis’s nephew recalls his visits

Henry Balke, the nephew of Walter Tevis, the author of Queen’s Gambit, recalling his uncle’s work:

he often spent hours of a writing workday reading at random and rationalizing what appeared as lassitude. In fact, narrative ideas and stylistic nuance were forming in his brain much of the time. He tended to become bored, even with New York at his doorstep. This was a persistent temperamental trait, not dependent on the presence of diversions or interests. He spoke about it in interviews and conversations with me. When things coalesced, Walter wrote quickly and beautifully, scenes and characters emerging fully formed. He rarely produced work needing revision or a spot in his wastebasket.

Found on Headbutler

[Link]: How to do the think you’re avoiding

We often spend our days doing everything but the hard thing we don’t want to do. We’ll research something to death instead of actually just doing the thing. We’ll talk about it, read about it, buy all the equipment for it, but not actually do the thing. We’ll do our email, messages, small tasks, and check social media or the news — just real quick! — instead of doing the thing.

Why?

Leo Babauta has a few suggestions

[Link] Coordination in a Large Group Without Plans or Leaders

“A widespread belief is that large groups engaged in joint actions that require a high level of flexibility are unable to coordinate without the introduction of additional resources such as shared plans or hierarchical organizations. Here, we put this belief to a test, by empirically investigating coordination within a large group of 16 musicians performing collective free improvisation—a genre in which improvisers aim at creating music that is as complex and unprecedented as possible without relying on shared plans or on an external conductor. We show that musicians freely improvising within a large ensemble can achieve significant levels of coordination, both at the level of their musical actions (i.e., their individual decisions to play or to stop playing) and at the level of their directional intentions (i.e., their intentions to change or to support the music produced by the group).”

From a study published in Nature.

[Link] Mentors

VC Fred Wilson, while writing about the importance of mentors, also suggests this:

The thing about mentors is you can’t really ask someone to mentor you. It kind of happens organically. Someone takes you under their wing. They see something in you and want to bring it out, develop it. That’s how the best mentor/mentee relationships happen. And they are so great.

 

[Link] Born to run (things)

Seth Godin’s writes about The Boss showing up despite all odds, the company you keep, of doing the work.

Showing up is something almost every creative leader has in common. In business, in the arts, in society. Consistently shipping the work, despite the world’s reaction, despite the nascent nature of our skill, despite the doubts.

[Link] The Last Interview, & Other Conversations

Jesse Kornbluth’s Headbutler book recommendations are usually pretty on the money. This one, “RBG: The Last Interview & Other Conversations” going on my reading list.

She was a professor at Columbia University — the first time Columbia has chosen a woman for a full-time post higher than lecturer. She immediately noticed the university was firing 25 women who were working as maids, but had fired no men. “I went to the university vice-president, and told him that the university was violating Title VII.” He replied: “Professor Ginsburg, Columbia has excellent Wall Street lawyers representing them and would you like a cup of tea?” So she took her own employers to court. Eventually, Columbia decided in the end to fire no one. RBG: “Faced with the necessity of having to drop about 10 men before they reached the first woman, they found a way to avoid laying off anyone.”