FW: Frisbee story and a lecture

So my wife and I decided that it is finally spring (for real this time). On Monday, we put on our shorts and headed to the park across the street to toss a frisbee. It seemed like a fine thing to do. Our first few dates involved frisbees, and we haven't been able to play yet this year, so we looked forward to it all day. We were just starting to get back into the swing of things when I tossed it over the fence and into the road where it was immediately smashed by an oncoming convertible. We picked up the pieces and slowly walked to the dumpster. My wife poured in a handful of dirt on top of our frisbee, and we walked back home humming Amazing Grace. There is no moral to this story.

I went to a presentation this morning that featured Dr. Howard S. Becker, a renowned sociologist and jazz pianist. He gave a brief lecture on how to write better, specifically geared to writing in the social sciences. He had a lot of good things to say about how to revise a paper, and he said a lot about how to get started, and how to write clearly. But mostly what I remember is that he used "Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino as an example of wonderful writing. He said that Calvino is "a winner", and that's good enough for me. The book is about Marco Polo and a fictional conversation he had with Kublai Khan. The great Khan asks Polo about the cities he has seen, and Polo begins to make up tales about strange and exotic cities. One of these cities is inhabited by a people that throw their garbage out on the street, and when it piles up too much, they leave and settle somewhere else. There are 55 stories, each 2-3 pages long, that describe lots of different cities. I think that sounds absolutely fascinating. It reminds me of Boccaccio's "The Decameron". Pretty interesting stuff. I'm a sucker for short stories, especially Italian ones. I might have to drop out of school so that I can read all these books that I never get around to. Sometimes I think the only way to get a really useful, well-rounded education is to drop out of college. But my wife would kill me, and I'd be next to that frisbee.