Be Pro-Active
“What is this song or picture, this engaging personality presented in life or in a book, to me? What effect does it really produce on me? Does it give me pleasure? And if so, what…
Tag: Michael Dirda
These Two
[Dale] Carnegie commanded anyone wishing to acquire truly extensive and precise diction to give over his days and nights to the Bible and Shakespeare. So I began to read these two sacred texts at bedtime. …
Dirda on Proust
Dear CK Michael Dirda is one of my favorite bibliophiles. I have several of his books, which, like Mustich‘s tome, I regularly browse in utmost delight. This morning in his Bound to Please, I came…
A State of Wonder and Serenity
What is this song or picture, this engaging personality presented in life or in a book, to me? What effect does it really produce on me? Does it give me pleasure? And if so, what…
Be Here Now
In one of Tolstoy’s parables, a peasant is plowing a field. The narrator asks the old man what he would do if he knew that Death was coming to take him away within the hour….
Practice
An awed interviewer once exclaimed To the jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, “You do amazing things on the saxophone, Mr. Parker.” The musician replied, “I don’t know about amazing— I practiced for fifteen hours a day…