Youth and Young Manhood

Maxin’ and relaxin’ by the pool. Photo by Sarah

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:22:00 -0500

Maxin’ and relaxin’ by the pool.

Photo by Sarah

The cornfield behind Snus Hill Winery - Madrid, Iowa

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:13:00 -0500

The cornfield behind Snus Hill Winery - Madrid, Iowa

True Expression, age 12

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:33:34 -0500

I helped out at Austin Bat Cave on Tuesday, editing their soon to-be-released student anthology. After pouring over dozens of poems, short stories and writing exercises, I concluded that teenage writers can be classified into two groups:

Kids writing like a writer.
Kids writing the way they think.

The first group is comprised of “good students.” Their writing receives top marks for the use of big words, adjectives and adverbs. It might go something like this:

The forest was dark and eery, but the tall, handsome man wasn’t afraid - nothing frightened him now that he’d seen war.

The second group is a motley collection of students who are average, ESL, ADD, ADHD, low-income or who simply don’t care about school. Their writing receives poor marks for containing inappropriate language. Or for being one page instead of three. Or for starting sentences with conjunctions.

The way we are evaluating these students is backwards.

Stuff written by the second group may be rough, broken and confused - but it’s real. They don’t need an F, they need an editor. Thankfully, organizations like Austin Bat Cave free students from the constraints of our education system and allow them to be creative.

Here was my favorite piece from the anthology:

True expression is how you show what you’re doing. You could write, draw, doodle, sing and/or dance. I doodle to create and am creating a mural.

Start with something small and create something large.

Are you kidding me? That’s better than anything I’ve written in months.

A+

Dan Gilbert's Personal Guarantee

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:31:00 -0500

Dan Gilbert's Personal Guarantee:

Once in a rare while, someone really pisses me off.

After a healthy dose of whiskey, I open Gmail and draft a letter so scathing, it makes paint peel and school children cry.

Rationality returns with mere seconds to spare, however, and I opt for the button labeled “Discard.”

Dan Gilbert?

He hits “Send.”

Deer Tick - Dirty Dishes It’s a good thing I don’t...

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 10:20:00 -0500

Deer Tick - Dirty Dishes

It’s a good thing I don’t listen to this song on vinyl…the grooves would be worn to nothing.

It’s some dirty dishes and you wanted more
And you got left, and it hurt
Oh but it could be worse
Yeah, things could be so much worse

Download

Sharing Time

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:47:00 -0500

On Youth and Young Manhood, I try to post things I’ve created. If you give me your attention, you can be fairly certain you’re reading something new…something I made for you.

This also means I don’t share the great things others have created, however, and I wanted a way to do both.

Over the past two weeks I made big changes to YYM. I now have a place to showcase the great work of others while still keeping the main content my own.

If you’re reading this somewhere other than YYM and haven’t seen it, you might have a look.

Some things that are new:

Articles - a list of my favorite liberal arts 2.0 pieces from across the web
I Worked Here - posts in the sidebar from the infrequently updated and never before mentioned photo blog about where I work
Books - Non-fiction I’ve read, with excerpts of my favorite parts
“Best Of” - a compilation of my favorite pieces from the YYM archive
A list of the people I follow

Thanks for letting me create (and curate) for you.

Lacey's Travel Advice

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:35:03 -0500

You can use travelocity to book it because if you want, you get to swim with the dolphins for free as a bonus. Although I wouldn’t recommend this because dolphins are extremely unhappy in captivity and are killed in large numbers because of places like that.

Advice on your "Someday" List

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:27:32 -0500

Start now. It will take longer than you think.

El Paisano Hotel - Marfa, TX

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:15:16 -0500

El Paisano Hotel - Marfa, TX

Where Can I Fly & For How Much

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:34:08 -0500

Where Can I Fly & For How Much

I don’t care it if is the last prom on earth…

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:12:00 -0500

I don’t care it if is the last prom on earth…

If you use Car2Go in Austin (or are considering it), you might...

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:05:00 -0500

If you use Car2Go in Austin (or are considering it), you might be interested in this website. It’s a mobile version of the Car2Go car finder feature.

It’s an improved experience to their standard car finder for your computer, too, because it automatically shows cars near you.

(For iPhone, I use the app Go2Car. It works better than the Car2Go app, which despite the name isn’t an official application anyway.)

Nice work edireson…

I became a US Bank customer in 2003 when I moved to Ames, Iowa...

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 21:46:00 -0500

I became a US Bank customer in 2003 when I moved to Ames, Iowa for college. I was lured into their Lincoln Way branch with the promise of a branded frisbee (or was it a water bottle?) if I opened a student checking account.

The initial supply of checks lasted until the fall of 2008, eventually exhausted by rent payments, utility bills and checks written to college roommates with subjects such as “For the BJ…thanks!”

(The final example above is one in a series of efforts to write a subject line so embarrassing, the receiving party wouldn’t have the nerve to cash it. Perhaps because my friends didn’t have much money, or perhaps because they had even less shame, this technique never once succeeded.)

When it was time to reorder, I chatted with Sarah and asked her to pick out new checks for me.

Me: Hey, respond to what I wrote about Argentina
Me: also pick out some checks for me
Me: I’ll buy whatever you pick
Me: checksinthemail.com
Me: swear it

Sarah: what’re these checks for
Sarah: personal use?

Me: Yeah
Me: personal
Me: not business
Me: god I wouldn’t let you do that

Sarah: :-D

Me: not that I write checks to customers anyway

Sarah: hm
Sarah: http://secure.checksinthemail.com/product.aspx?lineid=12&productid=1848
Sarah: whaddaya think?

Me: is it random kittens
Me: ?

Sarah: yeah kittens in purses n shit

Me: haha
Me: OK
Me: done

With check writing now limited to monthly rent, my supply of Rachel Hale kitten checks is still ample. And once monthly I get to look at a new kitten picture and smile. And be happy. Because why not have kitten checks, right?

Sarah’s first art show opens tomorrow in Dubuque, Iowa. Titled “Keep on the Sunny Side,” it’s a chance for Sarah to unveil what she was doing every day last fall in that barely furnished apartment near the UT campus.

There’s a Dave Eggers interview floating around the Internet this week that discusses “selling out.” Here Eggers discusses his literary magazine McSweeney’s:

McSweeney’s has no political goal. We only want to publish work that we like, and to do so with an attention to the craft of book and magazine production. Art made with mission statements is not art.

I don’t think Sarah paints to make a point. And I don’t think she has a grand mission. She just paints things that make her happy (like Trees in Love or Miss Peacock) in hopes that they’ll make other people happy. Kinda like bigger, prettier, more expensive Rachel Hale kitten checks…

Congratulations on your first show Sarah. I hope you sell out.

Who says you can’t run an ad agency out of a trailer in your...

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:22:00 -0500

Who says you can’t run an ad agency out of a trailer in your backyard?

Your typical ad agency has guys in $550 suits working in a posh high-rise with glass walls, marble floors and polished mahogany tables.

Then there’s Big Blue Sky Creative, a two-man ad agency that operates out of a tiny travel trailer in Chad Swisher’s South Austin backyard.

“After all, it’s Austin, so why not?” said Chad, who bought the 14-foot, 8-inch ‘71 model Scotty for $650 about five years ago and fixed it up. He says it was “a hunk of junk” when he found it.

What Chad calls the “reception area” consists of a new awning and two red lawn chairs by the trailer’s front door.

via unconsumption and @smashadv

Photo credit: John Kelso, American-Statesman

Be The Mayor

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:01:00 -0500

Be The Mayor:

A helpful little tool for Foursquare feuds.

Mom Genes

Thu, 27 May 2010 09:59:00 -0500

23 and Me is a service that allows you to analyze your DNA. Through your DNA analysis, you can discover ancestry, genetic pre-dispositions to disease and a whole host of other interesting things about you and your body.

I’ve wanted to do this for over a year, but couldn’t justify the roughly $500 price tag. But on April 23rd, they had a $99 special under the guise of “DNA Day.”

Sold!

A week later, my kit arrived in the mail. I hocked a few loogies in a tube, sealed up the envelope and slid it into the blue postal box. Time to play the waiting game…

An email Monday night let me know the results were in. I logged in to 23 and Me and for the first time during the process, I felt a bit nervous. Warnings were frequent and ominous and several results were “locked” until I accepted a legal agreement.

When the results were revealed, however, my fears were assuaged. I discovered I was related to Warren Buffett (one of my heroes). I also have a lower than average risk for most major diseases.

The few health issues to which I’m more predisposed seem pretty benign. A speedy heartbeat and restless legs? I can live with that.

In summary: I have excellent genes ladies. Call me.

Our $100 day was nearly a month ago, but I had to “develop...

Wed, 26 May 2010 09:17:00 -0500

Getting supplies at Wal-Mart

Classy ladies eating tacos

A toast to our SXSW guests

To Peter Pan for mini-golf

Pirate salute

$1 beers at Saloon

Off to Highball for SkeeBall

Hey mister, what'd we win?

We won candy cigs

The end?!?

Our $100 day was nearly a month ago, but I had to “develop film,” then “scan pictures into my personal computer” and finally “upload photos to my personal weblog.” These things take time.

If I wasn’t so sick from eating half a container of Oreos, I’d do a $100 day every week.

“It’s laughably easy to find someone to critique a sentence, to find a missing apostrophe or...

Fri, 21 May 2010 14:05:00 -0500

“It’s laughably easy to find someone to critique a sentence, to find a missing apostrophe or worry about your noun-verb agreement.

Sometimes, you’re lucky enough to find someone who can tell you that a paragraph is dull, or out of place.

But finding people to rearrange the chapters, to criticize the very arc of what you’re building, to give you substantive feedback on your strategy—that’s insanely valuable and rare.”

via cesart

If you’re an Austinite and in need of a quick getaway, I...

Tue, 18 May 2010 16:57:00 -0500

Rope swing

Park and pulpit

Overlooking my friends

If you’re an Austinite and in need of a quick getaway, I submit for your consideration Krause Springs.

Text Playlist

Thu, 13 May 2010 08:12:00 -0500

viafrank:

A lot of designers and creative folk that I know keep a morgue file, a folder of random elements that they find from old jobs that got killed, inspirational bits, torn images from magazines, and other scraps. In fact, a lot of these Tumblr blogs are just that.

I do a bit of that myself, but I keep what I perceive to be a more valuable, important morgue file: one made of the best writing on the web I come across. I take this list and revisit and reread it every 4 to 8 weeks. You could almost consider it a playlist of text: it’s very select (I artificially limit it to 10-15 articles), I typically read them all in one sitting, and the order and pacing is very purposeful. Most revolve around what it’s like to be making things in 2010, and a lot of the people that I respect the most have pieces in it. It’s almost a pep talk in text form. I visit it when I’m down, when I’m lazy, when I’m feeling the inertia take over.

Read More

Frank Chimero is probably my favorite Tumblr / person right now.