angle of repose

i read a book by wallace stegner a few years back called 'angle of repose' ... everytime i see a pile of dirt or sawdust like this one, i enjoy thinking about the term ...

from wikipedia "Explanation of the Novel's Title

The title is an engineering term for the angle at which soil finally settles after, for example, being dumped from a mine as tailings. It seems to describe the loose wandering of the Ward family as they try to carve out a civilized existence in the West and, Susan hopes, to return to the East as successes. The story details Oliver's struggles on various mining, hydrology, and construction engineering jobs, and Susan's adaptation to a hard life."
a good read, and an enjoyable, thought provoking, though only very occasionally, useful term ....

What I'm Reading Now

Yowza! ... What am I reading now ??? Hmmm ... I'm all over the map these days. Click the pictures to enlarge them ... Upper left corner is David Mathias's excellent new book on Greene & Greene furniture ... I'm kind of picking my way through it, savoring it a couple pages at a time, admiring his detailed photos and written observations on both the Greenes and the talented makers of their designs, the Hall brothers. Without the brothers' talents, the Greene brothers's furniture would, in my humble opinion, have looked assuredly different.

To the right there, a classic from my design library that I visit over and over and encourage my guys to consider from time to time ... It was written by David Pye, I believe in the 70's and has been a sort of 'guide' for me over the years. It's all about the 'mark of the hand' and how a design without that mark is different from one with it ... Keeps us all from obsessing too much, and helps to eliminate the danger of a 'perfectly executed' (dead) object. It's many other things too ... design + art, seeing beauty, 'seeing' in general ... it's all there ... try it, you'll like it ...

ahh Carl Haiisen ... this one had characters from The Ocean Reef Club, a place on Key Largo where I lived for the winter of 1970...classic light, humorous entertainment ... suspend disbelief, laugh ... Classic Carl ... See here too ...

The New Yorker article on the new surge in uranium mines. A psychological mystery about people who actually want to have uranium mines in their towns even though some of their relatives died early and horrible deaths from the last round of it .. go figure...
And then a serious article in Rolling Stone on glacial melting ... absolutely frightening ... ditto with BP and bankruptcy ... These folks are digging pretty deep and doing some excellent writing about it ... I'm a returning RS subscriber who lapsed when Hunter Thompson died a few years back ... Now I remember .... They are good.

And, 'Islands in the Stream', a Hemingway classic I missed somehow. Some of the finest writing on deep sea fishing, family, friends, war .... the big picture ... For the first time, I got a serious linear connection between Hemingway and another of my favorite storytellers, Cormac McCarthy ... A fine piece of writing that stirred some deep thoughts on the creative process. Phew! Those folks drank a lot though ...
And lastly .. one of my clients sent me this one ... 'Shop Class as Soulcraft' by Matthew Crawford. Crawford is an educated man with several advanced degrees who has gone from working in a 'think tank' (knowledge work), to working with his hands as a motorcycle mechanic and electrician. He compares 'knowledge work' with 'manual work' and makes the point that the manual kind has been somewhat demeaned in today's hierarchy of education goals. He discusses the kind of diagnostic thinking and brain action that come with working and learning with your hands ... He's preaching to the choir here, and it was a bit of a heavy sled, but I stuck with it. He's got a point. I find my work as a designer/craftsman/builder/maker/customer relations person totally and completely engaging. I didn't need to read the book to know that, but it's nice to have it pointed out to me and my employees by an obviously very smart person, that we are indeed on the road to intellectual fulfillment if not that big pile of dollars in the sky. I can't imagine myself behind a desk full time, or in a situation where, at the end of the week, I couldn't point to some concrete evidence of the effort I had put in for that week ... It's Friday; it was a good week; we worked on a ton of different stuff and I feel really good about all of it.

This is one in a series of post I have written on this subject. For others, here's a link ... and here, another ... Get out of the shop from time to time ... read a little

What I'm Reading, 2010

You lost me there for a minute .... I've been reading ... And, actually, I am pleasantly surprised at the flow of new inquiries and project design requests trickling in ... We're currently working on a walnut slab table project, the ladderback chairs, a new vanity project inspired by Dean Martin's Bar, a couple of steel and walnut tables, and my website, where we have added a new section called 'client testimonials'. There's a recent one in the 'Updates' post below. Over the years, clients and friends have suggested that I post some client letters, but, somehow, it seemed a little shameless to me ... I've been converted recently by a persuasive consultant, and now that I have them up there, it feels pretty good.

I've also been reading some. Winter is a good time for that. I recently finished Greg Mortenson's powerful new book 'Stones Into Schools', an update from his previous bestseller, 'Three Cups of Tea'. It's a great read and a timely and persuasive testimony to the potentail power of education rather than bombs in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It has recently been adopted by the US military as a common read for soldiers on duty there. The stories of challenges and sucesses building schools there are truly inspiring.



Also, one of my friends/clients has written a book about his family's experience. It's called 'What Else But Home', and the subtitle is 'Seven Boys and an American Journey Between the Projects and the Penthouse.' As a family who had two different 'guests' in our home for Will's junior year and most of his senior year in high school, it particularly resonated with Kit and I. The Rosen's journey, however, was much different. It's another testimony to education and support rather than discipline and (attempted) control.



And, finally, a revisit to a favorite author, Jim Harrison, who we have been reading for at least 20 years now. This guy can get you thinking with every, and I mean every, sentence. I borrowed it from a friend but I'm going to get my own copy. Some sections are so beautifully written and thought provoking they just take your breath away .... You find yourself opening to earlier sections to reread the best parts before opening to where you left off. A historic saga of family life and nature on the American Plains ... Try Dalva too ...

2/20 ... update .... having been so taken with The Road Home, I visited the library and in the last week and read two more of Mr. Harrison's books. The Summer he Didn't Die, and yesterday, in the throes of a headache and general malaise, The English Major in about a 20 hour period ... Both lived up to my expectations and if you like his style, you'll probably enjoy thesee too ....

Another One Bites The Dust ... Robert Parker

One of my longtime favorite authors has left the building .... Robert Parker has been my go to guy for a relaxing weekend read since my father-in-law introduced me to him about 20 years ago. There was an article in the Boston Globe today detailing his career ... 65 books in 37 years, and, though I haven't read them all, I haven't found a bad one yet ... Snappy dialog, great characters, mostly happy endings, varied subjects and plot lines, easy, relaxing reading ... It's not War and Peace, but that's not what you're looking for on the weekends, is it? If you haven't tried him yet, I'm sure your library has about 20 of his books to choose from ... Any of the Spenser detective series, or the Western, 'Appaloosa' would be a great place to start ..... You can't go wrong ... For a short taste of what you might be in for, click the Robert Parker link above and try 'Author Blog'.

Hey! I'm A Real Writer !!

Someone, (Woodshop News) , has actually paid me to write something for them. Appropriately enough, it is a short essay about blogging ... Even got a blurb on the cover ... It's online here now ... Check it out ... dan

Stephen King Comes To Town

As I have mentioned before, we have The Northshire Bookstore, one of the finest independent bookstores in the country, right here in our town. Famous and not so famous writers come by almost weekly. Paul Krugman was here in October. Bill McKibben was in town not that long ago ... Ken Burns called in sick Monday night and is rescheduled for the 15th ... We get a lot of of them ... Tonight I went to see Stephen King. We took the boys when he came to town in the mid 90's and I remembered it as fun evening. Tonight was also fun, with a bonus introduction by local author John Irving. I recently finished reading Mr. King's book 'On Writing'. As I am about to receive my first paycheck as a professional writer, (you'll hear about that soon enough), I thought it might be a good idea to see what real writers have to say about the writing process. I was not disappointed by his book. I was educated and entertained by his stories and advice, and, in the end I realized that what he said about writing can apply to most any craft ... To wit:

to be a good writer, read a lot....pay attention to what other folks do
have a good toolbox and keep your tools sharp ...
enjoy what you do and approach it with some seriousness ...
but have a sense of humor ('please God you have one' he says) and fun ...
keep it simple without over embellishing ....
do some work everyday if you can ...
don't do it only for the money...

There's more, but you should find out for yourself ... Or if you just like Mr. King's books, he's got a new one out called 'Under The Dome' and as he informed us tonight, 'it's about a town... under a dome'. 1074 pages about it ... 'you can use it as a doorstop when you're done reading it'.

My Design Library

One of my readers emailed to ask what resources I use for my designs ... A while back, the local bookstore , one of the largest and best independent book stores in the country, was considering doing a feature on artist's libraries on their website and I sent them a few pictures. They never got around to doing it that I know of, but I still have the pictures. They're not the best or sharpest photos, but they'll give you some idea of the reference books we have accumulated over the years. It helped that we did a major renovation project there in the late 80's and I kind of stocked up then ... I have identified the ones I go back to over and over with 1, 2 or 3 dots with 3 being the 'best'. More titles have been added since the photos. I'm kind of a book junky ... Click the photos to read the titles ...

Best of the best here are the 'Foxfire' books for old time stuff, 'The Encylopedia of Furniture Making' and 'Cabinetmaking' by Fierer

If you blow this up you can read most of the dotted titles. Looks like I missed the pair of blue books in the lower right .. very important ... Wallace Nutting Furniture Treasury ... Out of print, I believe

Hmmm .. Nutting did get dotted in this photo .. Also lots of other good ones to the right ... Greene and Greene .. Nakashima, Carribean Style .. they're all good

'The Artist in His Studio ... The importance of a good workspace for creativity to flow .. josef Albers on color theory ... 'Perspective Made Easy' ... That's an $8. winner ...

The "art" books ... You can't have too many .. Watch for sales
I would be interested in hearing of your favorites ... Leave them in the comments below ... Thanks ...

What (Else) I'm Reading ...

Two things have caught my attention recently ... One, 'The End', by Michael Lewis of 'Moneyball' and 'Liars Poker' fame actually explains, in English, how the large banks and financial companies have come to be where they are today. It was passed to me by one of my clients and I have shared it with friends and relatives who have been as stunned by it as I was ... It'll take about 20 minutes or so, but it lays it all out there .... read it and weep ...

2/25/09 The recent Wired magazine has a cover story called 'The Secret Formula That Destroyed Wall Street' that is another in the "I can't believe this really happened' series ... It's online now (3/14) ... A highlight .... "At the end of 2001, there was 920 billion in credit default swaps outstanding. By the end of 2007, that number had skyrocketed to more than $62 trillion. " How's that again ??? How many trillion? Whoa... we might be done for ...

On a happier and equally fascinating note, I recently read the new Malcolm Gladwell book, 'Outliers'. Mr. Gladwell has written two others, also in my local library, "Blink' and 'The Tipping Point'. 'Outliers' is a relatively quick read that purports to explain what forces laid the groundwork for folks like Bill Gates, The Beatles and Asian math students to succeed and excel in what they do, and how certain coincidental circumstances often contributed to that sucess. It's the little things that count according to Mr. gladwell, and after reading his book, I agree. I now think about how I ended up doing what I'm doing, (total coincidence) why I like it (meaningful work) and how I got good at it (The 10,000 Hour Rule). Check it out .... Great ending ...

PLUS ... You can never go wrong with a Robert Parker book... Will and I read 'Apaloosa' a couple weeks ago after Will saw the movie ... and I'm reading 'Gunman's Rhapsody' now, a historical fiction of the life of Wyatt Earp ... If your local library is like mine, they got about 25 of 'em. The guy is a master of witty and funny dialog ...

John Updike Has Left The Building

A man of words and culture has passed on. As a reader with a wide range, I haven't focused on his novels but was often entertained when I encountered his short stuff on golf, manners, and everyday life. I posted a short excerpt back in July which I will repost here in his honor and add a link to a thought provoking sort of short story from the New Yorker ... Worth a read if you like short fiction ...

His way of looking and writing about everyday life is a skill I admire and his often thoughtful critcisms of art and literature as well as his precise and wordy sense of humor are usually worth a read if you bump into them.

Here's the golf story ... click to enlarge it for better reading ...

And from yesterday's Times.... a more eloquent summary

Tom Peters' Blog

I've known Tom Peters, the 'In Search of Excellence' guy, for 10 years or so, since he married a friend of mine back in the 90's. Lately, I've been reading other stuff that's out there on the web and I think his blog is one of the best for business related thinking ... It never fails to make me at least just stop for a minute (or laugh), and reflect on what's going on in the world, what I'm doing in it, and how I'm doing it. Soooo ... If you're in the mood for reflection (and who isn't these days) check out his blog here.. While I was reading there, he had a link to this inspirational and thought provoking post 'Nine Predictions for 2009' by Tom Asacker. All good reading ... enjoy! ....

and he claims he's innocent ...

Thought For The Day: 'Heuristics'

Click photo above to read it ... "move forward on incomplete information" .. I love that ...

My son Sam pointed out this little gem of advice for the problemsolver (and what woodworker/artist isn't one?) from editor Brian Gilbert in the Spring issue of The Hammer's Blow, the ABANA quarterly. It's a summary of one of Robert Genn's letters to artists. The full text of Robert Genn's letter is here. Some of his other posts, like the 'The Zen of Art' and the one on 'Shibui' are also worth a read. The web is amazing for the connections you can make to other people's thoughts, and sometimes they are just the thoughts you need to move your own art and life along.

And, if you read The New Yorker and like articles on thinking and working and problem solving, try Jonah Lehner's "The Eureka Hunt" in this week's (July 28th) issue. It's along these same lines... Enjoy...

Golf

Just so you know .... My life is not all woodworking and writing this blog. I read, a lot, actually, and mostly not about woodworking. And play tennis, and, this summer, play golf. Mostly I play with the previously mentioned Bill LaBerge at the local Lake Saint Catherine Country Club where we literally 'tear up the course' as often as not. Today is Bill's birthday and we plan to head out after lunch. Since I have previously loaned him Carl Hiiasen's 'Downhil Lie; A Hacker's return to a Ruinous Sport'. I thought a birthday golf post would be just the thing for him. It's from John Updike's 'Golf Dreams', quoted without permission, but with the intention of encouraging you to buy the book or get it from your local library where I got my copy. Golf writing, in the right hands, can be extremely entertaining; more so, at times, then the game.
Click on the entry below so you can read it ....