Donald Miller, author of 2003's Blue Like Jazz, has come out with a new book and is now on a speaking tour with my good friend and former roommate Susan E. Isaacs, author of Angry Conversations With God. International Arts Movement is co-sponsoring their stop in NYC on 10/22. I can't wait.

books, cultivation and creation, humor, memory, movies, story, traces of god

Christy:

The saddest thing about life is that you don’t remember half of it. You don’t even remember half of half of it. Not even a tiny percentage, if you want to know the truth. I have this friend Bob who writes down everything he remembers. If he remembers dropping an ice cream cone on his lap when he was seven, he’ll write it down. The last time I talked to Bob, he had written more than five hundred pages of memories. He’s the only guy I know who remembers his life. He said he captures memories, because if he forgets them, it’s as though they didn’t happen; it’s as though he hadn’t lived the parts he doesn’t remember.

I thought about that when he said it, and I tried to remember something. I remembered getting a merit badge in Cub Scouts when I was seven, but that’s all I could remember. I got it for helping a neighbor cut down a tree. I’ll tell that to God when he asks what I did with my life. I’ll tell him I cut down a tree and got a badge for it. He’ll most likely want to see the merit badge, but I lost it years ago, so when I’m done with my story, God will probably sit there looking at me, wondering what to talk about next. God and Bob will probably talk for days.

I know I’ve had more experiences than this, but there’s no way I can remember everything. Life isn’t memorable enough to remember everything. It’s not like there are explosions happening all the time or dogs smoking cigarettes. Life is slower. It’s like we’re all watching a movie, waiting for something to happen, and every couple months the audience points at the screen and says, “Look, that guy’s getting a parking ticket.” It’s strange the things we remember.

A fascinating detail from one of the many good, inspiring, and challenging obituaries of the Green Revolution's pioneering crop scientist, Norman Borlaug. The Economist's obit is also full of lovely details.

agriculture, cultivation, food and drink, gardens and cities, science

Nate:

In 1953, Dr. Borlaug began working with a wheat strain containing an unusual gene. It had the effect of shrinking the wheat plant, creating a stubby, compact variety. Yet crucially, the seed heads did not shrink, meaning a small plant could still produce a large amount of wheat.

Dr. Borlaug and his team transferred the gene into tropical wheats. When high fertilizer levels were applied to these new “semidwarf” plants, the results were nothing short of astonishing. The plants would produce enormous heads of grain, yet their stiff, short bodies could support the weight without falling over. On the same amount of land, wheat output could be tripled or quadrupled. Later, the idea was applied to rice, the staple crop for nearly half the world’s population, with yields jumping several-fold compared with some traditional varieties. This strange principle of increasing yields by shrinking plants was the central insight of the Green Revolution, and its impact was enormous.

Of course all these lists of "50 best things" are, even at their best, arbitrary and hyperbolic. But they're also fun—clearly scratching some itch in the collective mind of reader and writer. In the case of food/travel lists like this one, they really can be a treat.

asia, cultural worlds, england, europe, food and drink, lists, philippines, turkey

Nate:

20. Best place to buy: Olive oil
Turkish embassy electrical supplies, London

The most unlikely olive oil vendor in the world? At his electrical supply shop in London’s Clerkenwell, Mehmet Murat sells wonderful, intensely fruity oil from his family’s olive groves in Cyprus and south-west Turkey. Now he imports more than a 1,000 litres per year. His lemon-flavoured oil is good enough to drink on its own.

76 Compton Street, London EC1, 020 7251 4721,www.planet mem.com

26. Best place to eat: Filipino cuisine
Lighthouse Restaurant, Cebu, Philippines

“The Lighthouse in Cebu in the Philippines is my favourite restaurant. We always eat bulalo (beef stew), banana heart salad, adobo (marinaded meat), baked oysters, pancit noodles, lechon de leche (suckling pig) and, to drink, green mango juice – my daughter is addicted to it! The staff are so friendly and welcoming. The chef has been there for more than 20 years, so the food is very consistent.”

Gaisano Country Mall, Banilad, Cebu city, Philippines, 0063 32 231 2478

Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul, and Mary, has died—a voice that was a central part of my own musical formation and cultural tradition. But I'm also struck by the larger import of this part of her obituary. If we want to create culture-shaping music, art, or for that matter businesses or NGOs, it will require whole communities where people can immerse themselves, literally and figuratively, in practice and performance.

community, creativity, music

Andy:

Mary Allin Travers was born Nov. 9, 1936 in Louisville, Ky. When she was 2 years old, her parents, both journalists, moved to New York. Almost unique among the folk musicians who emerged from the Greenwich Village scene in the early 1960s, Ms. Travers actually came from the neighborhood. She attended progressive private schools there, studied singing with the renowned music teacher Charity Bailey while still in kindergarten and became part of the folk-music revival as it took shape around her.

“I was raised on Josh White, the Weavers and Pete Seeger,” Ms. Travers told The New York Times in 1994. “The music was everywhere. You’d go to a party at somebody’s apartment and there would be 50 people there, singing well into the night.”

I find it fascinating that over five centuries ago, a Korean king, in an effort to demonstrate love for his people, created an alphabet, thus enabling them to "express their concerns." Now one of his descendants is trying to expand that gift by giving the Korean alphabet, Hangul, to nations without a writing system of their own.

communication, cultural worlds, generations, horizons of the possible, korea, language

Christy:

By sharing the [Korean] script with others, Ms. Lee said, she is simply expressing the will of her ancestor King Sejong, who promulgated the script. (She is a direct descendant, 21 generations removed.)

The national holiday, Hangul Day, on Oct. 9, celebrates the king’s introduction of the script in 1446. Before that, Koreans had no writing system of their own. The elite studied Chinese characters to record the meaning, but not the sound, of Korean.

“Many of my illiterate subjects who want to communicate cannot express their concerns,” the king is recorded to have said in explaining the reason for Hunminjeongeum, the original name for Hangul. “I feel sorry for them. Therefore I have created 28 letters.”

“The king propagated Hangul out of love of his people,” Ms. Lee said. “It’s time for Koreans to expand his love for mankind by propagating Hangul globally. This is an era of globalization.”