Crank Book Quotes

Librarians...possess a vast stone of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth-breather there is.

Introverts feel “just right” with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo.

Why should people in one part of the globe have developed collectivist cultures, while others went individualist? The United States is the individualism poster child for at least two reasons. First there's immigration. Currently, 12 percent of Americans are immigrants, another 12 percent are children of immigrants, and everyone else except for the 0.9 percent pure Native Americans descend from people who emigrated within the last five hundred years. And who were the immigrants? Those in the settled world who were cranks, malcontents, restless, heretical, black sheep, hyperactive, hypomanic, misanthropic, itchy, unconventional, yearning to be rich, yearning to be out of their damn boring repressive little hamlet, yearning. Couple that with the second reason - for the majority of its colonial and independent history, America has had a moving frontier luring those whose extreme prickly optimism made merely booking passage to the New World insufficiently novel - and you've got America the individualistic. Why has East Asia provided textbook examples of collectivism? The key is how culture is shaped by the way people traditionally made a living, which in turn is shaped by ecology. And in East Asia it's all about rice. Rice, which was domesticated there roughly ten thousand years ago, requires massive amounts of communal work. Not just backbreaking planting and harvesting, which are done in rotation because the entire village is needed to harvest each family's rice. The United States was not without labor-intensive agriculture historically. But rather than solving that with collectivism, it solved it withe slavery.

To all my readers. I don't need my daughter's okay to do anything. I was a writer before she was my daughter. The CRANK books were inspired by my desire to keep others from following in her path, but they are FICTION. And seriously, WTF do I need her permission for? Are you effing kidding me? I'm her MOTHER.

I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds praised most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least. The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read. The healthy and unaffected man, even if luxuriously brought up and widely experienced in good cookery, could praise a very modest meal: the dyspeptic and the snob found fault with all. Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.

sometimes the human race likes to crank things up a little. They increase the production of bodies and their escaping souls.

February is always a bad month for TV sports. Football is gone, basketball is plodding along in the annual midseason doldrums, and baseball is not even mentioned. It is a good time for building fires, reading books, watching movies, and cranking up random sex orgies with the neighbors.

You might argue that I make the rounds no matter what year it is, but sometimes the human race likes to crank things up a little. They increase the production of bodies and their escaping souls.

What he would become. But he had a plan, didn't he? Several plans, depending on the contingencies. But each plan had the same ending--it was just a matter of how he got there. He would last for as long as he needed to write what he needed in that journal. Something about that simple, empty little book, waiting to be filled. It had given him a purpose, a spark, a winding course to ensure the last days of his life had reason and meaning. A mark, left on the world. He would write all the sanity he could muster out of his head before it was taken over by its opposite.

Nothing is a masterpiece - a real masterpiece - till it's about two hundred years old. A picture is like a tree or a church, you've got to let it grow into a masterpiece. Same with a poem or a new religion. They begin as a lot of funny words. Nobody knows whether they're all nonsense or a gift from heaven. And the only people who think anything of 'em are a lot of cranks or crackpots, or poor devils who don't know enough to know anything. Look at Christianity. Just a lot of floating seeds to start with, all sorts of seeds. It was a long time before one of them grew into a tree big enough to kill the rest and keep the rain off. And it's only when the tree has been cut into planks and built into a house and the house has got pretty old and about fifty generations of ordinary lumpheads who don't know a work of art from a public convenience, have been knocking nails in the kitchen beams to hang hams on, and screwing hooks in the walls for whips and guns and photographs and calendars and measuring the children on the window frames and chopping out a new cupboard under the stairs to keep the cheese and murdering their wives in the back room and burying them under the cellar flags, that it begins even to feel like a religion. And when the whole place is full of dry rot and ghosts and old bones and the shelves are breaking down with old wormy books that no one could read if they tried, and the attic floors are bulging through the servants' ceilings with old trunks and top-boots and gasoliers and dressmaker's dummies and ball frocks and dolls-houses and pony saddles and blunderbusses and parrot cages and uniforms and love letters and jugs without handles and bridal pots decorated with forget-me-nots and a piece out at the bottom, that it grows into a real old faith, a masterpiece which people can really get something out of, each for himself. And then, of course, everybody keeps on saying that it ought to be pulled down at once, because it's an insanitary nuisance.

The value of Greek prose composition, he said, was not that it gave one any particular facility in the language that could not be gained as easily by other methods but that if done properly, off the top of one's head, it taught one to think in Greek. One's thought patterns become different, he said, when forced into the confines of a rigid and unfamiliar tongue. Certain common ideas become inexpressible; other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation. By necessity, I suppose, it is difficult for me to explain in English exactly what I mean. I can only say that an incendium is in its nature entirely different from the feu with which a Frenchman lights his cigarette, and both are very different from the stark, inhuman pur that the Greeks knew, the pur that roared from the towers of Ilion or leapt and screamed on that desolate, windy beach, from the funeral pyre of Patroklos. Pur: that one word contains for me the secret, the bright, terrible clarity of ancient Greek. How can I make you see it, this strange harsh light which pervades Homer's landscapes and illumines the dialogues of Plato, an alien light, inarticulable in our common tongue? Our shared language is a language of the intricate, the peculiar, the home of pumpkins and ragamuffins and bodkins and beer, the tongue of Ahab and Falstaff and Mrs. Gamp; and while I find it entirely suitable for reflections such as these, it fails me utterly when I attempt to describe in it what I love about Greek, that language innocent of all quirks and cranks; a language obsessed with action, and with the joy of seeing action multiply from action, action marching relentlessly ahead and with yet more actions filing in from either side to fall into neat step at the rear, in a long straight rank of cause and effect toward what will be inevitable, the only possible end. In a certain sense, this was why I felt so close to the other in the Greek class. They, too, knew this beautiful and harrowing landscape, centuries dead; they'd had the same experience of looking up from their books with fifth-century eyes and finding the world disconcertingly sluggish and alien, as if it were not their home. It was why I admired Julian, and Henry in particular. Their reason, their very eyes and ears were fixed irrevocably in the confines of those stern and ancient rhythms – the world, in fact, was not their home, at least the world as I knew it – and far from being occasional visitors to this land which I myself knew only as an admiring tourist, they were pretty much its permanent residents, as permanent as I suppose it was possible for them to be. Ancient Greek is a difficult language, a very difficult language indeed, and it is eminently possible to study it all one's life and never be able to speak a word; but it makes me smile, even today, to think of Henry's calculated, formal English, the English of a well-educated foreigner, as compared with the marvelous fluency and self-assurance of his Greek – quick, eloquent, remarkably witty. It was always a wonder to me when I happened to hear him and Julian conversing in Greek, arguing and joking, as I never once heard either of them do in English; many times, I've seen Henry pick up the telephone with an irritable, cautious 'Hello,' and may I never forget the harsh and irresistible delight of his 'Khairei!' when Julian happened to be at the other end.

Cranks are much too important. They are part of the other America—Greil Marcus’s old, weird America. A charlatan is a crank with a book deal and a radio program and a suit in federal court. A charlatan succeeds only in Idiot America. A charlatan is a crank who succeeds too well. A charlatan is a crank who’s sold out.

I sent letters of enquiry to all persons whose names were given, and received not one reply. There are several ways of explaining. One is that it is probable that persons who have experiences such as those told of in this book, receive so many "crank letters" that they answer none. Dear me — once upon a time, I enjoyed a sense of amusement and superiority toward "cranks". And now here am I, a "crank", myself. Like most writers, I have the moralist somewhere in my composition, and here I warn — take care, oh, reader, with whom you are amused, unless you enjoy laughing at yourself.

Cynthia had been on friendly terms with an eccentric librarian called Porlock who in the last years of his dusty life had been engaged in examining old books for miraculous misprints such as the substitution of "1" for the second "h" in the word "hither." Contrary to Cynthia, he cared nothing for the thrill of obscure predictions; all he sought was the freak itself, the chance that mimics choice, the flaw that looks like a flower; and Cynthia, a much more perverse amateur of misshapen or illicitly connected words, puns, logogriphs, and so on, had helped the poor crank to pursue a quest that in the light of the example she cited struck me as statistically insane. ("The Vane Sisters")

The big guys who ran things didn't want you thinking or feeling. It slowed down production. They wanted you scared and working so you wouldn't bump up against the truth--life could be fun. Yup, they wanted you scared. They wanted you grim. They wanted you madly cranking out Barbie dolls or Post Toasties or Xerox, or they wanted you overworked and underpaid at teaching so you could at least feel smart, and they wanted you to keep having kids so you'd have to keep working at whatever job you were stuck in and not have time to think or feel or, if you did, you certainly wouldn't have time to do anything about it, or even get close to the big fun, the fun that belonged only to them. And then they wanted your kids to hop on the same treadmill.

introverts and extroverts differ in the level of outside stimulation that they need to function well. Introverts feel “just right” with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo.

today’s psychologists tend to agree on several important points: for example, that introverts and extroverts differ in the level of outside stimulation that they need to function well. Introverts feel “just right” with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo.

Failure is one of those things that 'serious people' dread. Invariably, the persons most likely to be crippled by this fear are people who have convinced themselves that they are SO bitchen they shouldn't ever be placed in a situation where they might fail. Failure is nothing to get upset about. It's a fairly normal condition; an inevitability in ninety-nine percent of all human undertakings. Success is rare—that's why people get so cranked up about it.

It's the outgrowth of a natural human contradiction: people want to read good books, but people are also invincibly lazy ... so they read only stupid, easy books, but they still keep feeling the original want - and eventually, that causes them to call the stupid, easy books they actually do read good ... because it seems like such a neat little solution to their problem! And if those stupid, easy books are big enough financial successes or garner a wide enough audience of people trying that same solution, those of us who aren't invincibly lazy and actually do read good books - or at least real books - on a regular basis start to get characterized as cranks and killjoys and snobs, because we still have the nerve to say the Harry Potter books are awful, or that there's no literary worth to anything Stephen King has ever written, or that Susan Sontag is grotesquely overrated, or that nobody should be reading Raymond Carver .... and so on. All those judgements are right, but as the crowds grow larger wanting to elevate what they've settled for, they start to look more and more eccentric ...

it what I love about Greek, that language innocent of all quirks and cranks; a language obsessed with action, and with the joy of seeing action multiply from action, action marching relentlessly ahead and with yet more actions filing in from either side to fall into neat step at the rear, in a long straight rank of cause and effect toward what will be inevitable, the only possible end. In a certain sense, this was why I felt so close to the others in the Greek class. They, too, knew this beautiful and harrowing landscape, centuries dead; they’d had the same experience of looking up from their books with fifth-century eyes and finding the world disconcertingly sluggish and alien, as if it were not their home.

today’s psychologists tend to agree on several important points: for example, that introverts and extroverts differ in the level of outside stimulation that they need to function well. Introverts feel “just right” with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo. “Other people are very arousing,” says the personality psychologist David Winter, explaining why your typical introvert would rather spend her vacation reading on the beach than partying on a cruise ship. “They arouse threat, fear, flight, and love. A hundred people are very stimulating compared to a hundred books or a hundred grains of sand.

He chopped a garlic, set a pot of water to boil on the stove, and poured a healthy amount of kosher salt into it. He threw the garlic in a pan of olive oil and let it sizzle for just a minute before taking it off the heat. The smell began to relax all of them and Gretchen and Jane settled themselves at his counter and watched him cook. He poured them both large glasses of red wine and watched as their bodies physically relaxed. He could see the tightness in Jane's jaw go away and he smiled. It was hard to feel bad about the world when the air smelled like garlic, when pasta and cheese were being prepared, when you had a good glass of red. Sautéed garlic could save the world. "I call this my bad day pasta," he told them. "It's a carbonara-cacio e pepe hybrid. Tons of cheese and salt and pepper." He cut off two slices of Parmesan and handed one to each of them. He knew the crunchy crystals and salt would go great with the wine. He whisked the egg and stirred in the cheese. He reserved some pasta water. He cranked his pepper mill. He swirled the pasta into a warm bowl as he added the egg mixture until it was shiny and coated. Jane took a sip of her wine and watched Teddy. "Mike doesn't eat pasta," she said. Teddy took three shallow bowls out of his cabinet and set them on the table. He distributed the pasta among them, sprinkled them with extra cheese and pepper. "Anyone who doesn't eat pasta is suspect in my book," he said. "Amen," Gretchen said.

Understanding Metro's history may illuminate today's debates. To conservatives who decry Metro's expense--around $10 billion in nominal dollars--this book serves as a reminder that Metro was never intended to be the cheapest solution to any problem, and that it is the product of an age that did not always regard cheapness as an essential attribute of good government. To those who celebrate automobile commuting as the rational choice of free Americans, it replies that some Americans have made other choices, based on their understanding that building great cities is more important than minimizing average commuting time. This book may also answer radicals who believe that public funds should primarily--or exclusively--serve the poor, which in the context of transportation means providing bus and rail transit for the carless while leaving the middle class to drive. It suggests that Metro has done more for inner-city African Americans than is generally understood. And to those hostile to public mega-projects as a matter of principle, it responds that it may take a mega-project to kill a mega-project. Had activists merely opposed freeways, they might as well have been dismissed as cranks by politicians and technical experts alike. By championing rapid transit as an equally bold alternative, they won allies, and, ultimately, victory. Most important, this book recalls the belief of Great Society liberals that public investments should serve all classes and all races, rather than functioning as a last resort. These liberals believed, with Abraham Lincoln, that 'the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves--in their separate, and individual capacities.' This approach justifies the government's role in rail not as a means of distributing wealth, but as an agent for purchasing rapid transit--a good that people collectively want but cannot collectively buy through a market.

Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation – none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy. Who will say it? Will America say, We have stolen it, or France step down? Will Russia confess, or Poland say, We have sinned? All bloated on their scraps of destiny, all swaggering in the immunity of superstition. Ishmael, who was saved in the wilderness, and given shade in the desert, and a deadly treasure under you: has Mercy made you wise? Will Ishmael declare, We are in debt forever? Therefore the lands belong to none of you, the borders do not hold, the Law will never serve the lawless. To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation’s sweetest dreams of itself. The Covenant is broken, the condition is dishonoured, have you not noticed that the world has been taken away? You have no place, you will wander through yourselves from generation to generation without a thread. Therefore you rule over chaos, you hoist your flags with no authority, and the heart that is still alive hates you, and the remnant of Mercy is ashamed to look at you. You decompose behind your flimsy armour, your stench alarms you, your panic strikes at love. The land is not yours, the land has been taken back, your shrines fall through empty air, your tablets are quickly revised, and you bow down in hell beside your hired torturers, and still you count your battalions and crank out your marching songs. Your righteous enemy is listening. He hears your anthem full of blood and vanity, and your children singing to themselves. He has overturned the vehicle of nationhood, he has spilled the precious cargo, and every nation he has taken back. Because you are swollen with your little time. Because you do not wrestle with your angel. Because you dare to live without God. Because your cowardice has led you to believe that the victor does not limp.

Greiser, an unbending Himmler loyalist, SS-Obergruppenführer, and race crank, proposed to tackle the problem by the book, calling in the specialists of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office to conduct a person-by-person racial screening to determine who was fitted to remain and who would be forced into the Generalgouvernement. (Jews, being unassimilable by definition, were not subject to screening, but summarily expropriated and deported.)

Christians throughout the ages have sought the wisdom of our earliest teachers, those who were closer in space and time to Jesus. They are heroes we have in common among denominations, unlike later saints who are treasured by one or the other church but not by all. For the sake of this book, the church’s earliest teachers are like odd and strange aunts and uncles in an extended family. They are embarassing at family gatherings. It’s harder to figure out what to talk to them about than it is with someone whom you would choose voluntarily as a friend. And yet these unchosen cranks make you you. And if you can overcome that initial awkwardness, there is wisdom there, and even love.

OVER THE NEXT century and a half, Barrington’s cause was taken up by a long procession of rogues, explorers, scientists, pseudoscientists, and outright kooks. In the 1820s, a colorful crank from Ohio named John Cleves Symmes Jr. toured the United States, arguing that there were large holes at the North and South Poles that connected to networks of probably inhabited subterranean cavities. Scientists scoffed, but his “holes at the poles” concept, encapsulated in his best-selling book Symmes’ Theory of the Concentric Spheres, struck a chord with large audiences and eventually helped influence Congress , in 1836, to appropriate $ 300,000 for an ambitious voyage toward the South Pole. Two years

The public couldn’t get enough; writers such as Braddon reaped a new financial harvest with every book. She admitted that she cranked out some volumes as bill-paying hack work. Once she complained to Bulwer Lytton that “the amount of crime, treachery, murder, slow poisoning & general infamy required by the halfpenny reader is something terrible,

Yesterday I was talking to a friend, and she mentioned there was a difference in me. She asked if I was happy, and commented that she noticed I seemed less excited about life. When I probed deeper, she commented I used to be excited about writing, my play, etc. Not that I needed to explain, but I felt she needed to hear this: "I am not one of those writers who cranks out book after book. Yes, when I was writing my first book and when I was working on my play, I was all in. It felt like a calling. I was driven to do it...but I'm so much more than a writer. I'm in a new phase of my life. I'm exploring other interests. My focus is different-no less exciting-but different all the same. I'm comfortable with that, and I need you to be comfortable with it, too. I'm contented. I like that word better than happy. I'm always up to something. Don't be distracted by my seriousness. That usually means I'm thinking. If something were wrong, I have no trouble reaching out for help. I'm keenly in touch with myself." I say this to say, folk will measure you by a past accomplishment (or failure in some cases) and forever hold you to that standard. It's okay to change your path...to follow your dreams...to allow room for another passion. You don't need anyone's permission.

Hideous, and yet comic too; for the spectacle of these feverish cranks toiling to create a new heaven and a new earth and thinking themselves the leaders of mankind, when they were dancing like puppets at the will of a few scoundrels engaged in the most ancient of pursuits, was an irony to make the gods laugh. I asked who was their leader. Macgillivray said he

DURING THE RIDE back up to Telluride, among tablelands and cañons and red-rock debris, past the stone farmhouses and fruit orchards and Mormon spreads of the McElmo, below ruins haunted by an ancient people whose name no one knew, circular towers and cliffside towns abandoned centuries ago for reasons no one would speak of, Reef was able finally to think it through. If Webb had always been the Kieselguhr Kid, well, shouldn’t somebody ought to carry on the family business—you might say, become the Kid? It might’ve been the lack of sleep, the sheer relief of getting clear of Jeshimon, but Reef began to feel some new presence inside him, growing, inflating—gravid with what it seemed he must become, he found excuses to leave the trail now and then and set off a stick or two from the case of dynamite he had stolen from the stone powder-house at some mine. Each explosion was like the text of another sermon, preached in the voice of the thunder by some faceless but unrelenting desert prophesier who was coming more and more to ride herd on his thoughts. Now and then he creaked around in the saddle, as if seeking agreement or clarification from Webb’s blank eyes or the rictus of what would soon be a skull’s mouth. “Just getting cranked up,” he told Webb. “Expressing myself.” Back in Jeshimon he had thought that he could not bear this, but with each explosion, each night in his bedroll with the damaged and redolent corpse carefully unroped and laid on the ground beside him, he found it was easier, something he looked forward to all the alkaline day, more talk than he’d ever had with Webb alive, whistled over by the ghosts of Aztlán, entering a passage of austerity and discipline, as if undergoing down here in the world Webb’s change of status wherever he was now. . . . He had brought with him a dime novel, one of the Chums of Chance series, The Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth, and for a while each night he sat in the firelight and read to himself but soon found he was reading out loud to his father’s corpse, like a bedtime story, something to ease Webb’s passage into the dreamland of his death. Reef had had the book for years. He’d come across it, already dog-eared, scribbled in, torn and stained from a number of sources, including blood, while languishing in the county lockup at Socorro, New Mexico, on a charge of running a game of chance without a license. The cover showed an athletic young man (it seemed to be the fearless Lindsay Noseworth) hanging off a ballast line of an ascending airship of futuristic design, trading shots with a bestially rendered gang of Eskimos below. Reef began to read, and soon, whatever “soon” meant, became aware that he was reading in the dark, lights-out having occurred sometime, near as he could tell, between the North Cape and Franz Josef Land. As soon as he noticed the absence of light, of course, he could no longer see to read and, reluctantly, having marked his place, turned in for the night without considering any of this too odd. For the next couple of days he enjoyed a sort of dual existence, both in Socorro and at the Pole. Cellmates came and went, the Sheriff looked in from time to time, perplexed.

When you first rise in the morning tell yourself: I will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, the jealous and cranks. They are all stricken with these afflictions because they don’t know the difference between good and evil.” – Marcus Aurelius

The only people relatively happy with the status quo were the project managers and their group manager, who were working in accordance with their professional credential, the Project Management Professional (or PMP), granted to them for passing an exam from the PMI. They didn’t take responsibility for project failure, nor were they ever held accountable. Their role was to crank the handle on the bureaucracy and point the finger of blame at the department managers when expectations were not met. If there was going to be resistance, we would expect it to come from the project managers. Everyone else was eager for change.

Barbecues, beach days, & those long, lazy summer nights—hello, summer! It's time to bask in the sun, flip burgers like a pro, & enjoy endless evenings under the stars. Say goodbye to your winter woes & hello to sandy toes, tan lines, & ice-creams. Whether you're hitting the waves, grilling up a storm, or just lounging with a good book, summer’s got it all. So grab your shades, crank up the tunes, & let the good vibes roll. Here’s to the season of fun, sun, & a whole lot of awesome!

book, In the Name of Science, Martin Gardner defines the characteristics of the common crank or pseudoscientist.

Mostly writing requires massive dedication, a whole lot of time spent alone, way too much sitting, countless hours spent thinking hard, and unending and occasionally painful dedication to forming ideas and laboring over the production of sentences, paragraphs, scenes, dialogue, punctuation, and all the elements that go into writing a novel, a play, a screenplay, or a poem. When we're not writing, we're thinking, plotting, imagining, or editing, which can be far more tedious than cranking out first drafts. --Fire Up Your Writing Brain

Learning to praise, then, changes us. Lewis couldn’t help but notice that the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least. The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read. The healthy and unaffected man, even if luxuriously brought up and widely experienced in good cookery, could praise a very modest meal: the dyspeptic and the snob found fault with all. Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.306  The Reordering of Our Loves Why would praise and adoration have such an effect on us? It is because, of the three kinds of prayer—adoration, confession, supplication—praise is the one that directly develops love for God, and if St. Augustine is right, what we love is basically what we are.

Several days later Murray asked me about a tourist attraction known as the most photographed barn in America. We drove twenty-two miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the signs started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were forty cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides--pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book. "No one sees the barn," he said finally. A long silence followed. "Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn." He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced at once by others. "We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies." There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides. "Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. This literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism." Another silence ensued. "They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said. 13 He did not speak for a while. We listened to the incessant clicking of shutter release buttons, the rustling crank of levers that advanced the film. "What was the barn like before it was photographed?" he said. "What did it look like, how was it different from other barns, how was it similar to other barns? We can't answer these questions because we've read the. signs, seen the people snapping the pictures. We can't get outside the aura. We're part of the aura. We're here, we're now." He seemed immensely pleased by this.

The apartments had probably been built back in the 70’s when the country was going through some ugly social times. Maybe the country was going through its adolescent phase and breaking out with a bad case of social acne. Cheesy professors were running around the country proclaiming “turn on, tune in, drop out.” A mean-spirited drunk from LA was cranking out poems about the low-life and reaching for another beer out of the refrigerator on stage as part of his performance. The porn industry was in its golden era. People proclaiming their individuality and uniqueness were all dressed the same. Mothers thought they were educating their kids by letting them watch Sesame Street, but they were just turning their kids into TV junkies and a future generation of pudding heads with blank faces ready to believe anything on the lamestream media. The Vietnam War eventually came to an end after Laos was clustered bombed, which had nothing to do with ending the war. Dominoes didn’t fall. A new war memorial went out for bid. Some crazy scientist found a way to make clothes out of chemicals - polyester. Dwarfs found their favorite hangout - the disco. The whole country seemed to be dancing to the disco beat, hypnotized by the flashing strobe lights off the big, shiny ball.

Reference sections consisting solely of URLs and/or popular books suggest that the author is an amateur, and possibly a crank with an obsession, who is completely unaware of the academic literature on the subject. (Note that for some purposes, URLs are fine but using nothing else is a worrying sign.) References

Within a week of this call, my brother and I embarked on our 1-week book writing journey. We used this method to write our first book. The Result: We cranked out a 200+ page book in 1 week. What I am going to share with you in the next three chapters are the shortcuts that my mentor shared with me and the ones that helped me and my brother write our book in just 7 days. It is simple and super easy … but boy, oh, boy, is it effective. It’s so simple that I’m almost embarrassed so share it. Even though it works like crazy, this method is ignored by 99% of first-time authors. That’s why they never finish their books. I’m about to share it, but I need something from you first: Can you pinky promise you won’t laugh at how simple it is? I’m serious. Did you imaginary pinky promise me yet? I guess I’ll just have to take your word on it. In a nutshell, here’s the 3-step process he taught me: Mind map → Outline → Write

Will wolfed down his sandwich, drank half his water, and went to work examining the boxes. He discovered that all of them had dates scrawled on the side, so he cranked up to his highest speed, motored around the room rearranging them, and had them neatly arranged in chronological order in less than twenty minutes. Three equal rows, forty boxes in each, lined up in the center of the room. Some were sealed; most were open. Their weight varied greatly; some were packed solid and heavy with books and ledgers, while others contained nothing but rolled-up maps.

There are no “innocent” theories in science. All of them are ideologically, dogmatically, paradigmatically designed to deny idealism, rationalism and any hint of religion. There is not a single scientific theory that is not wholly predicated on the denial of idealism, rationalism and religion. You would not be allowed to be a scientist if you ever openly advanced any idealist, rationalist or religious arguments. If you did, you would be fired, or marginalised, or called a crank. Your funding would definitely be cut. All of this makes science a pseudoscience, a quasi-religion, a Church of Meaninglessness, a faith in purposelessness, a cult of irrationalism. Outside mainstream religion, it’s the most closedminded subject in the world. It’s the opposite of what its propaganda trumpets. It’s as bad in its own way as Islam.

Immediately, they both started cranking out squats. They both counted out loud as they did them.

Water. Drinking water, water purification system (or tablets), and a water bottle or canteen. Food. Anything that is long lasting, lightweight, and nutritious such as protein bars, dehydrated meals, MREs24, certain canned goods, rice, and beans. Clothing. Assure it’s appropriate to a wide range of temperatures and environments, including gloves, raingear, and multiple layers that can be taken on or off as needed. Shelter. This may include a tarp or tent, sleeping bag or survival blanket, and ground pad or yoga mat. A camper or trailer is a fantastic, portable shelter, with many of the comforts of home. If you own one keep it stocked with supplies to facilitate leaving in a hurry, as it can take several hours load up and move out if you’re not ready. In certain circumstances that might mean having to leave it behind. Heat source. Lighter or other reliable ignition source (e.g., magnesium striker), tinder, and waterproof storage. Include a rocket stove or biomass burner if possible, they’re inexpensive, take very little fuel, and incredibly useful in an emergency. Self-defense/hunting gear. Firearm(s) and ammunition, fishing gear, multi-tool/knife, maps, and compass, and GPS (it’s not a good idea to rely solely on a GPS as you may find yourself operating without a battery or charger). First aid. First aid kit, first aid book, insect repellant, suntan lotion, and any needed medicines you have been prescribed. If possible add potassium iodide (for radiation emergencies) and antibiotics (for bio attacks) to your kit. Hygiene. Hand soap, sanitizer, toilet paper, towel, toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, and garbage bags. Tools. Hatchet (preferably) or machete, can opener, cooking tools (e.g., portable stove, pot, frying pan, utensils, and fuel), rope, duct tape, sunglasses, rubber tubing, and sewing kit. Lighting and communications. LED headlamp, glow sticks, candles, cell phone, charger (preferably hand crank or solar), emergency radio (preferably with hand crank that covers AM, FM, and Marine frequencies) and extra batteries, writing implements, and paper. Cash or barter. You never know how long an emergency will last. Extensive power outages mean no cash machines, so keep a few hundred dollars in small bills, gold or silver coins, or other valuables on hand.

I can’t believe I almost forgot about this one.” Gran pointed to a galvanized steel trash can in the corner. The lid was sealed with conductive tape. “Gramps made it. It’s a homemade Faraday cage. The lid is super tight. He lined it with cardboard and extra aluminum foil on the inside for extra protection.” The Faraday cage would have protected the electronics inside from the EMP. It took a few minutes for Quinn to get it open. She set the lid aside and pulled out a hand-crank radio, a pair of walkie talkies, a couple of LED flashlights, and a Kindle e-reader. “That e-reader is full of reference and survival books. Medicinal herbs, edible plants, wilderness first aid, how to survive nuclear fallout, how to build a spring house and a latrine. And the Bible, of course. The usual beach read fare.

Coding, writing books, recording podcasts, tweeting, YouTubing—these kinds of things are permissionless. You don’t need anyone’s permission to do them, and that’s why they are very egalitarian. They’re great equalizers of leverage. [78] Every great software developer, for example, now has an army of robots working for him at nighttime while he or she sleeps, after they’ve written the code, and it’s cranking away. [78]

Very often, of course, these critics of work and champions of leisure are themselves highly productive individuals. You don’t produce an epic like Wordsworth’s The Prelude or win the Nobel Prize for literature, as Russell did, or crank out a shelf load of books after the fashion of Lafargue or Botton, without working hard. But this paradox is only apparent. What they criticize is work that one is forced to do; their own “work” is simply the worthwhile and fulfilling activity to which they devote their leisure time. Lafargue and his ilk do not insist that everyone use their leisure productively; like Baudelaire, they see loafing as a valid way of living. But others are more judgmental. Schopenhauer, for instance, is fulsome in his praise of leisure, seeing it as one of life’s greatest goods since it allows a person “to exercise his pre-eminent quality, whatever it is,” and doing this constitutes happiness. Yet he is scathing about “mere idlers” and “contemptible loafers” who have material wealth enough to be leisured but insufficient mental resources to use their free time well; instead of achieving happiness, he sneers, this type will simply be bored.12

The slogan that ‘in the long run we are all dead’ is also a characteristic manifestation of an unwillingness to recognise that morals are concerned with effects in the long run – effects beyond our possible perception – and of a tendency to spurn the learnt discipline of the long view. Keynes also argued against the moral tradition of the ‘virtue of saving’, refusing, along with thousands of crank economists, to admit that a reduction of the demand for consumers’ goods is generally required to make an increase of the production of capital goods (i.e., investment) possible. And this in turn led him to devote his formidable intellectual powers to develop his ‘general’ theory of economics – to which we owe the unique world-wide inflation of the third quarter of our century and the inevitable consequence of severe unemployment that has followed it (Hayek, 1972/1978).

Katy Cannon, a UK-based novelist, reports that she has developed this more persistent and abundant perspective on time over the years. At the start of 2013, she had a four-year-old daughter and had just sold her first book. Her contract called for her to turn in another book six months later, which seemed like the sort of work/life disaster one might need to write a very British novel about. But she did it, and in 2016 she wrote and edited five books, a novella, and three short stories (also using the pen name Sophie Pembroke). This is how she makes such prolificacy work. She takes about two weeks to plan her books, outlining scenes and working with her editors on characters and plots. Then, execution happens in small bursts. She sets a timer, and in a twenty- to thirty-minute block of total focus, she can write an 800- to 1,000-word scene. She does two or three of these blocks a day, generally putting down 2,000 to 3,000 words. This is not a huge number; I suspect the average office worker cranks out close to 2,000 words in emails daily. But 2,000 is enough, because Cannon just keeps going. Over a four-day workweek of these two or three bursts per day, she produces about 10,000 words. That means she can write a 70,000- to 80,000-word novel draft in seven to eight weeks. Add in the planning time and two weeks for editing, and that’s a full book in eleven to twelve weeks. Are the books perfect? No, but no book is ever perfect, even ones that take eleven to twelve years to write. As for some idealized book that never made it out of the author’s head, where it would be sullied by reality? We don’t even need to have this conversation. Cannon’s books have the virtue of being completed and out in the world, giving readers pleasure. Done is better than perfect, because there is no perfect without being done.

The entire basis of science is to find ways to deny meaning. What is Darwinism? It’s how to replace a designed universe with a random, purposeless universe that evolves to no end. What is the Multiverse? It’s a way to avoid explaining this universe by asserting that every random universe is possible. What is indeterministic “wavefunction collapse”? It’s a way to avoid explaining causation and determinism. What is the claim that free will is illusory? It’s a way to avoid explaining subjective agency, avoid explaining the autonomous mind – the soul. There are no “innocent” theories in science. All of them are ideologically, dogmatically, paradigmatically designed to deny idealism, rationalism and any hint of religion. There is not a single scientific theory that is not wholly predicated on the denial of idealism, rationalism and religion. You would not be allowed to be a scientist if you ever openly advanced any idealist, rationalist or religious arguments. If you did, you would be fired, or marginalised, or called a crank. Your funding would definitely be cut.

The founding conference of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was held in May 1963 while the world’s press was saturated with reports of the savage police response to the civil rights marches in Birmingham, Alabama. The assembled African leaders sent President John Kennedy an eloquent message: “The Negroes who, even while the [OAU] Conference was in session, have been subjected to the most inhuman treatment, who have been blasted with fire hoses cranked up to such

In her book, The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby mercilessly lampoons the very American notion that, because there are two sides to every question, both deserve respect and both must, in some way, be true. The Gut tells us that this is only fair, and we are a fair people, after all. All one has to do is muster an argument with enough vigor, package it well, and get enough people to buy both the idea and the product through which it is expressed. The more people buy, the more correct you are. The barriers that once forced American cranks to adapt or withdraw- or even merely to defend- their ideas all have fallen. It is considered impolite to raise them again, almost un-American, since we are all entitled to our opinion.

Practice 9 Prepare Yourself for the Day: The Stoic Morning Routine “When you first rise in the morning tell yourself: I will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, the jealous and cranks. They are all stricken with these afflictions because they don’t know the difference between good and evil.” – Marcus Aurelius

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