Stuff I read

There is book learning and then there is real-world learning, and we tend to think that learning in the real world is more valuable and genuine. As Ishmael boasted in Moby-Dick, “A whale ship was my Yale college and my Harvard.”

But I believe this is prejudice of the worst kind. Even those of us who love books frequently underestimate their power to teach us nearly anything we might want, or need, to know.

Flippancy works best for people who already agree with you in principle. Jokes and references have to be gotten; irony and sarcasm need to be picked up. They’re fun when they’re for you. The earnest, thorough stuff, on the other hand, has to waste its fun doing the boring work of reaching out to all possible listeners—explaining where it’s coming from, inserting caveats, acknowledging exceptions and counter-arguments, etc. It builds a case; flippancy gets to just dance entertainingly on a case.

Some conservative pundit suggested that the president should’ve declined the prize, but it is not gracious to reject a compliment, one should accept it with becoming modesty, as Mr. Obama did, that’s what your mother brought you up to do.

How would you like to die?

John Cleese: Slowly and happily.

Terry Gilliam: Asleep, like my uncle in the front seat. Not like the kids laughing in the back.

Michael Palin: Laughing.

Eric Idle: Of laughter. (When I tell him that was also Palin’s answer, he says, “Hopefully at the same joke.”)