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Veronica's avatar

Really enjoyed reading this, and thank you especially for sharing various links to the music. I’m now listening to Caravan Palace’s Lone Digger (totally new for me) and just loving it—such fun, awesome energy (both the music and the video, and you’re right, the live performance video is even better). 🙏🤓✨

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Justus's avatar

Thanks! Happy you're enjoying it, they really have a fun energy!

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Ann Collins's avatar

I'm curious about Pinker-- will definitely check out the physical book to see the diagrams. Thanks for the music recommendations. I love to experiment with music to see what best enhances my thinking and writing time.

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Justus's avatar

If you're in a reading about writing mood, I'd also suggest Verlyn Klinkenborg's Several Short Sentences about Writing. It's quite poetic in its prose and I owe it big time cause it started my ongoing Penny Delights project....

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Ann Collins's avatar

I absolutely love that book. It has saved me from staring at the blank page. I always think: "Just start! Write a couple of simple, clear sentences and see what happens."

It works every time.

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Justus's avatar

Nice! I really need to revisit that book. I'm a multiple drafts sort of dude, but I love his suggestion to slow down and just write one good one at a time. It's good to occasionally force myself to work differently from my usual practice.

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Aug 18, 2023
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Justus's avatar

Interesting. Then again my pieces are always so short I never use an outline. I basically throw up a rough draft (brain, finger, keyboard, save) and then come back (days, months, years) later to push and pull (usually deleting a lot) until I end up with finished piece. Any structure in my posts (the ones that have an artificial constraint) arises organically out of the initial mess.

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Aug 18, 2023Edited
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Justus's avatar

Oh that's too bad...I thought that was Pinker's speacialty. But yes, I feel like there are a lot of popular-academics who have adopted poses of knowing more than they actually know. This book thankfully avoids the culture war as far as I can tell!

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Aug 18, 2023Edited
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Justus's avatar

Yikes..yeah when you stack theory upon theory without any evidence (aside from anecdotal just so lobster stories) you can go in weird directions for sure. Add the pressures of social media influencer fame and you end up wit JBP.

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