Bobulate

When it’s clear summer has officially dethroned spring to become the sole proprietor of the season, my thoughts immediately turn to tradition. Tradition, as a condition of summer integrity, is crucial as it begets the connections between idleness and frenzy, between new and old, and between intellectual stimulation and lazy creativity. But no matter what the parameters, one thing is consistent from summer to summer — the critical nature of the prefix “re.”

You see, the prefix “re,” borrowed from Latin meaning “again” or even “again and again,” signals the critical cadence of summer, as summer is perhaps the underdog season of tradition itself. As footloose as we imagine ourselves in summer — barefoot and lightly clothed (apologies, San Francisco) — it’s actually replete with rituals as rigorous as the December shopping season. “Re” is affixed to just about every activity, signaling a return to familiarity, a reset, and our revelry in it. More…

Inbox Zero. To get to the unimaginable, unattainable place only reserved for the likes of those disciplined enough or courageous enough to manage it, one has to be comfortable with “delete.” Delete as a colloquial term is fairly recent, but as part of our language and social structure, the concept of deleting is clearly not. We’ve been promptly disposing of items that others have prepared for us for centuries.

Why then, does one feel like an utter failure when one must delete an email without having taken action on it? Are there precedents for these defeatist feelings in other aspects of our lives that we can draw upon? More…

I’m only doing a few conferences this spring and summer, as I’m focusing most of my attention on building the new master’s program. But starting tomorrow morning, I’ll be heading to the SXSW Interactive Festival, the not-to-be-missed get-together, where I’ll be attending for the fourth time. More…

Melissa Pierce, the documentary filmmaker who is exploring the link between authenticity and creativity, recently sat me down to inquire about my own take on the matter for her upcoming film, Life in Perpetual Beta. Whether there is a link between finding what is authentic and what is creative, I’m still not certain.

To me, part of the answer is vaguely reminiscent of John Dewey’s pursuit of the link between perception and recognition, a topic I’ve brought up too many times to mention again here. For my own creative moves forward, however, I know I’m remaining authentic if I don’t get too comfortable, which it seems became the focus for the cut for the film clip here. More…

It used to be that having drinks after dinner was a sign of something substantive. First dates that led to after-dinner drinks signified something promising; group dinners that moved the conversation to a bar signified a good time; a professional dinner meeting that started and ended with martinis, a success.

But the drink is no longer the only signifier of substance, I’m finding. It’s post-dinner links that are really indicative of substance. More…

This month marked my five-year anniversary as a subscriber and an allegiant fan of Cook’s Illustrated magazine. The publication started out 15 years ago, but in recent years, the Cook’s folks have been growing a small but venerable empire with a website, the more colorful and gregarious Cook’s Country, and the television show, “America’s Test Kitchen.” It’s become an elegant and relentless cooks’ paradise. More…