We’re going to change things up a bit here at SGap. Instead of presenting our weekly endorsements on Friday afternoon, we’re going to shoot for Mondays instead. There are other changes to the blog on the way too, so stay tuned. But in the mean time, here’s what three of us have been enjoying recently.
Marian
Some of us are still trying to finish our dissertations. That makes graduation season really anti-climactic – or worse, yet another excuse to succumb to crippling writer’s block. For those of us facing the unique blend of urgency and paralysis that is the PhD candidacy, there’s Pomodoro. Schemed up in the first place by a student trying to improve his study habits, the Pomodoro Technique is a strategy for cutting work time into discreet, bite-sized units – effective especially for large, unruly projects like a dissertation. The technique is named after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that Francesco Cirillo first used to compel himself to work nonstop in 25 minute stretches (each stretch is called a “Pomodoro”), punctuated by 5 minute breaks. Work hard and without distraction for 25 minutes – that’s one Pomodoro – and you’ll feel enough sense of accomplishment to enjoy that quick break, the thinking goes. Stack three or four Pomodoros in a row, and you’ve now put in close to two solid hours of work. Something about setting the timer – the ticking, the watching the minutes disappear – can serve as a powerful motivator. If you don’t have an old-fashioned timer at home (but those are the best, aren’t they?) there are now apps and basic websites where you can set your Pomodoro timer virtually. Here’s to finishing that thesis (or novel, or any other daunting project) twenty-five minutes at a time.
Tom
Not too long ago, Marian, at the end of her post on Joan Didion and the well-aged essay, mentioned that she’d been hearing good things about a number of younger essayists, including Eula Biss. Around the same time, friend-of-the-blog Anna also recommended to me Biss’s debut collection of essays entitled Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays. And here I am further recommending Biss’s fantastic book to you: the thirteen essays comprising Notes from No Man’s Land are some of the most straightforward, frank, and smart pieces on race in America that I’ve read. Take, for instance, the book’s first piece, “Time and Distance Overcome” (read it here, or watch Biss read it here). The first third of the essay reads like a fairly straight history of the invention of the telephone and the subsequent need to install telephone polls across the country. But then Biss recounts, almost clinically (á la The Part About the Crimes in Bolaño’s 2666, though not nearly as unrelentingly), a number of cases in which black men were hung on those same polls during those same early decades. The essay quickly transforms into the related history of two different American innovations, the telephone and the lynching, which Biss makes seem so natural that I was surprised I hadn’t before read about the two together. Biss often weaves together multiple histories, including deeply personal ones, making connections and revealing larger truths that, upon reflection, make so much sense. But it’s her talent telling stories, both beautiful and powerful, that ties everything together so well. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
Keith
Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal interviewed Donald Rumsfeld the other day about the ex-secretary of defense’s latest vanity project. Instead of tossing Rumsfeld softballs about his book, though, Ryssdal decided to pitch some questions about the many foreign policy failures of the Bush Administration. And when Rumsfeld tried to duck questions by shifting blame, Ryssdal kept after him. The interview has become a story in itself; the BBC reported on it last night. Criticisms of Ryssdal in the interview’s comments are predictable. Some argue that this sort of political discussion doesn’t belong in a show about economics. Whatever – if the journalists who are supposed to cover politics actually held politicians accountable, public radio hosts wouldn’t have to step in and pick up their slack. Others suggested that Ryssdal was rude and inappropriately aggressive. Anyone who listens to an interview with Donald Rumsfeld and complains about manners and professionalism has a moral compass so out of whack that it’s pointless to argue about directions.
