ism

"The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur."
- Reputedly said by George W. Bush to Tony Blair

low tide

"You never know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out."
- Warren Buffet

idiot

"I'd rather say nothing and be thought an idiot than open my mouth and remove all doubt."
- Mark Twain

GBP

[Xinhua/Reuters Photo]

Jeff Koons' "Stacked" sold at auction for 2,841,250 GBP

groups of seeds

Click to enlarge.

halloween is around the corner

impressively trained and dedicated men

Riding a moose, 1900.

"[Theodore] Roosevelt's example, his style, and his administrative methods made it easy as it was necessary for him to persuade dozens of impressively trained and dedicated men to enter the service of the federal government. In an earlier generation, such men had scorned public life, largely then the preserve of the party faithful who in the discharge of their duties too rarely exhibited purpose, intelligence or energy. Determined to invigorate government, Roosevelt gave public office a fresh mission, 'to look ahead and plan out the right kind of civilization ... to develop from ... wonderful new conditions of vast industrial growth.' His youth and vigor, his zest in experience and in people, captured the imagination of his contemporaries and of younger men who might otherwise have been content, as their fathers had been, with careers in law firms, banks and executive suites. Roosevelt's practice of delegating responsibility to those he trusted also attracted his recruits. Just as he believed in using the full powers of his office, so did he urge them to use theirs."
- John Morton Blum, The Progressive Presidents, p.45

rattus

"Well at breakfast; dead at lunchtime."
- Bubonic plague, circa mid-17th century London

Quisling

Soldier holding gun to the head of a collaborator caught in the liberation of Rennes. Photograph by Bob Landry, 1944.

on directing

"I hire you. You know what you're doing. I know what I'm doing. Let's go make a movie."
- Morgan Freeman on Clint Eastwood's directing philosophy where single and second takes are common where the industry average can be five of six takes.

on self-direction

"When you direct yourself, you usually have a crappy director."
- A thirty-two year old Jack Nicholson, photographed in 1969

What booze looks like under a microscope

Pina Colada

A study indicates that heavy drinkers of alcohol live longer than abstainers.

both

Rabbi Hyman Schachtel's [1907-1990] maxim was that "Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have." However, research indicates that happiness is both wanting what you have and having what you want.

shoes

Peter York looks at the development of marketing here:

[In the 1970s] Our reports were more fancy essays, involving intelligent taxonomies, elaborate conceits and a lot of art references. We wouldn’t have called it marketing then because that generic sailed too close to the cheery, cheesy world of promotions, direct mail and what advertising people called below-the-line; in other words, little better than sales.

When I set up in business with a partner, we described what we did as “research-based strategy”, aligning ourselves with the coming world of management consultancy. We chose not to align ourselves with advertising, the more obviously glamorous front end of marketing. Ad-land seemed a bit rackety. I’d learnt my MR trade before I wrote a word of journalism, but it came in handy, especially the taxonomy part – what we called “market segmentation” – when we described people, what they wanted out of life and how it explained their shoes.

swede

“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”
- Ingrid Bergman [1915-1982]

zero birth rate

Vatican City is the world's smallest country.

modus operandi

"Give them pleasure - the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare."
- Alfred Hitchcock [1899-1980]

Churchill

Why Americans like Winston Churchill more than the British here.

Via Against Dumb.

search for enlightenment

"All of modern philosophy consists of unlocking, exhuming and recanting what has been said before."
- V.S.  Ramachandran

Idea of perfect happiness

"A clear horizon."
- Alfred Hitchcock

therapy

PSYCHOLOGIST

Yes. The pressures you feel, and again, I am neither labeling nor judging them, are keeping you from fulfilling your potential -- you're in a rut. So stop the Tom Foolery -- the Shenanigan's, Will.

Prussia

David Frum on Prussia's lost history here.

Most famous painting in Oxford

Paolo Uccello, The Hunt in the Forest, circa 1470

living room

Henri Mattise, The Piano Lesson, 1916

improvisation

"Performing with Fred Willard is like following someone in a car who doesn't use turn signals - you never know where you're going."
- Martin Mull

the picture that begins modern art

Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows, 1890

span

"If you live long enough and don't embarrass yourself too much, people will take you sort of seriously."
- Bill Murray

Freedom to Choose

Free To Choose (1990) Vol. 1 - The Power of the Market from Free To Choose Network on Vimeo.

$300 million

high-voltage power lines in Iceland