Eat Your Book

I was talking to an author who had worked for a multinational food company and had recently switched to a not-for-profit organization. She had a book in mind and wondered how many copies we typically sold for a book in that category. I gave her a five-figure range.

“Oh, I guess I’ll have to get used to that,” she said, “because where I came from, we talked about selling millions of boxes.”
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Not the Center of the Universe

This really bugs me.

People who should know better–including Ph.D.s–keep making the same mistake. I just read it in a 2008 book, which I will not name to protect the guilty.

The Myth. In the Middle Ages people believed the sun went around the earth because it put the earth and humanity at the center of the universe–elevating the prominence of humanity in the cosmos.

The Fact. According to Medieval cosmology, the hierarchy of the cosmos was from the outer extremes (most important and most perfect) down to the center (least important and least perfect). Aristotle said that the heavenly realms were so superior that they were made of something entirely different from the four elements of earth, water, air and fire. The fifth element–the quintessence, or aether–was found only in the heavenlies. In other words, the closer to the center something was, the less ethereal, and thus the more imperfect it was.

Earth, being irregular (mountains, valleys, etc.), changing and subject to corruption, was the least perfect. The moon, as Medieval cosmologists could clearly see, also had imperfections but fewer than earth. The planets were more perfect (but had an irregular motion accounted for by epicycles). The realm of stars was even more perfect. Beyond that, well, heaven of course. Some cosmologies also put the most imperfect–hell–at the very center of the earth itself.

So putting earth at the center of the cosmos was not a statement of human hubris but of human humility.

There, I feel better already.

Strunk and White at 50

I’d better write this blog very carefully, omitting all needless words.

Today we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the release of The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, affectionally shorthanded by its disciples as Strunk & White. In an age of chronic blogging, constant Facebook updating and compulsive Twittering, we need fewer words more than ever. No doubt Strunk and White have saved us from millions.
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Forced Empathy

He was livid.

I hadn’t been on the phone for thirty seconds before the president of the firm we had been working with was giving me a generous piece of his mind. I had been unresponsive and unprofessional, he said . . . and more. Much more.

I was trying to get a word in, but he didn’t let up. He kept going at me for at least another five minutes without adding any new information. This actually worked to my advantage. It gave me time to think.
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The Legacy of Benjamin Babbitt

By now we all know that 2009 is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin (both born on February 12). Book publishers have taken full advantage of this by issuing dozens of new books on these gentlemen. But no book is being published about a man whose two hundredth birthday we will celebrate on May 1, who has also had a profound effect on society. His name is Benjamin T. Babbitt. What did he do?
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