Let's not oversell it.

When you are selling a modestly desirable product or service, the best thing to do is to list that product's advantages and then maybe make it look 10-20% more exciting than it really is. What you do not want to do is try to make it look 300-400% more exciting than it really is. A little more sexiness, a little more oomph sells your product - a lot more sexiness, a lot more oomph makes your ad seem mocking and sarcastic.

Exhbit A: "When I grow up I want to be a CERTIFIED MEDICAL CODER!"


There is nothing wrong with being a certified medical coder. It's a useful job with flexible hours and generous pay. Studying to be a certified medical coder is a reasonable professional decision for many people. But here's the thing: no child has ever said "I want to be a certified medical coder when I grow up!"

Most people have ordinary jobs that pay the bills and hopefully provide them some degree of daily satisfaction. Most people do not have dream jobs and that's fine. Certified medical coder is no one's dream job. But by mentioning that fact in your ad, you're basically reminding potential students of all the better things they once longed to do and that hardly seems like the best way to drum up enthusiasm for your school.

Exhibit B: Awesometown**.

(Thanks to Daily Billboard for this photo.)

Valencia is a planned community about 40 miles north of Los Angeles, most notably home to the Six Flags Magic Mountain* amusement park. And doubtless there are some nice things about living in Valencia: low crime, good schools, affordable housing, plenty of parking.

What Valencia is not, however, is awesome. No one thinks Valencia is awesome. And so by calling Valencia "AWESOMETOWN" all you are doing is reminding people how utterly ordinary Valencia really is.

*No connection to Thomas Mann.

**Also, should be "Awesometowne."

Goodbye, Shanghai!

Tonight is our last night in the city. So long, Shanghai, I'll miss you. I spent more than two years in China, including my first year and a half of married life. I made a lot of great friends, had a lot of harrowing adventures, learned a lot of new things, and most importantly, became a little more good-natured, patient, and fearless. And I even got a book out of it.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be living back in my native Los Angeles - stay tuned!

I have been thinking quite a bit about poetry lately. First, I read again Edmund White's excellent essays on T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein in Axel's Castle. Then I came upon a (sadly misplaced) article arguing that popular music lyrics now serve the function once served by verse. The author explains that music's reliance on rhythm and rhyme trip the brain's poetry synapses in a way that modern free-form verse cannot. Then, I came upon this article on the state of modern American poetry in the New Yorker, occasioned by Ruth Lilly's $200 million grant to Poetry magazine (the magazine that first published "Prufrock"). While less conservative than the piece on pop music, this article too takes a few swipes at MFA workshop verse.

I am tempted to enter into a pact with my fellow writers wherein we all swear to never enter into an MFA program. Unfortunately, such a pact is much like one of those arrangements wherein a pair of platonic friends promise to marry one another if neither is married by the age of 40: Everyone enters the arrangement secretly hoping to renege. Eventually, the fortunate recipient of a fellowship or a wife is obliged to break his promise, while the faithful adherent becomes, essentially, the loser that's left.

Some very interesting observations from Dyske Suematsu on Asian art, criticism, and the Western notion of expertise.

Mourning and Melancholia

Freud's Mourning and Melancholia finally arrived today-- I ordered it and several other books in October with the justification that I needed to bump up my father's birthday order to a minimum that guaranteed free shipping. And so indulgence is wed to generosity.

But I digress. I took a break from real (read: paid) work to start it this afternoon, and of course I highly recommend it - and all the good doctor's work. I also highly recommend Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy for anyone so inclined, whether by intellectual bent or emotional trauma.

Starbucks, the urban weathervane

While working at "the office" today, I saw that Starbucks has started serving pumpkin lattes, apple spice cakes, and other autumnal foods. Fall is officially upon us! - just as winter is welcomed in with eggnog lattes, peppermint mochas*, and spiced cider. I think it would be fair to say I am extremely excited.


*I do not recommend the peppermint mocha, which feels like a dash of minty sweetness taking you into an alley out back and kicking all your teeth in.

Incidents and Accidents

I've spent the last hour searching accident report websites. I wanted a present for Dev and I was hoping to find some type of potentially gruesome accident category (hunting, scuba diving, dirt biking) and subscribe to an industry accident report magazine. I discovered two things: #1. accident report subscriptions are really expensive; #2. everything is terribly hazardous.

A brief survey of the web includes accident reports for roller coasters, circus performers, nuclear plants, mining, paragliding, oyster farming, avalanches, crane operation, and "general amputation accidents."