Category: Written Word

Meetings: The Opposite of Brainstorming

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After just reading the agenda for an upcoming meeting, I came across this post relative to the brainfreeze pain, then numbness, we often experience during long, draining, sometimes contentious, artificial interactions.

Writer Seth Godin reflects on meetings:

Where do you find good ideas?

Do you often find ideas that change everything in a windowless conference room, with bottled water on the side table and a circle of critics and skeptics wearing suits looking at you as the clock ticks down to the 60 minutes allocated for this meeting?

If not, then why do you keep looking for them there?

The best ideas come out of the corner of our eye, the edge of our consciousness, in a flash.  They are the result of misdirection and random collisions, not a grinding corporate onslaught.  And yet we waste billions of dollars in time looking for them where they’re not….

Uninvite the devil’s advocate, since the devil doesn’t need one, he’s doing fine.

‘More Flags. More Fun.’

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But in whatever language, why should Cinco de Mayo matter to Texans?

That is the question posed to numerous children by reporter Vianna Davila in the San Antonio Express-News. 

Here is my answer.  If the neighboring Mexican Army under the command of General Ignacio Zaragoza had not defeated the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, undermining the power of the French-installed emperor, Maximilian (read C.M. Mayo‘s The Last Prince), who knows what flag might have ended up flying over Texas?  Perhaps, the ambitious Emperor Napoleon III might have used Mexico as a stepping stone to seize major portions of the United States, vulnerable and weak following years of civil war.

In Texas, the collective historical memory is selective.  Six (or more according to some historians) flags should mean more than a theme park.  And the American flag has only flown over this state half as long as those of Spain and Mexico. 

And at least this is not Arizona, whose “free to be” “brand essence” tourism campaign now rings hollow.  Below is cartoonist Steve Benson’s Cinco de Mayo greeting from The Arizona Republic.

The rich cultural mix in San Antonio makes this a great place to live.  As the Six Flags website says:  “More flags.  More fun.”

Note added on July 13:  C.M. Mayo now has a second blog for those seriously researching the “French Intervention” in Mexico and also provides podcasts online of some of her presentations on both her writing and writing in general. 

When I went to link to her new blog, came across an entry about Don Miles’ Cinco de Mayo.  The post also contains the news that Austin already is planning a four-day celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Pueblo, including a reenactment of the battle itself, for May 2012.   Will San Antonio sit back and be upstaged?

‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’

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On Salon.com, Laura Miller is shining (note the foreshadowing) a spotlight on the most evil writers ever to appear on screen:

Every so often, though, filmmakers tell us what they really think about those perverse souls who cling to the fusty old medium of print — namely that they’re pretentious, manipulative, insecure and overly fond of the sauce.  And, you know what? They’ve got a point….

Hey, I resent that.

Easy to guess who tops the list in what has always been, for me, one of the scariest scenes on film – not any of the expected attack scenes, but the buildup starting with Jack (Nicholson) Torrance’s writer-interruptus tantrum:

…leading to the one where the vulnerable Wendy (Shelley Duvall) peeks at Jack’s writing.

I make it a habit to leave my midpoint-manuscript lying about so no family members worry I am merely tapping out “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” compulsively, over and over and over, so no key wears out faster than another.