Andy
: ?A simple, excellent culture-making question from Merlin Mann.?The beginning of a blood-curdling recession hardly seems like the time to ruminate about fantasy resources, I’ll grant you that. But, I want you to think about something. Really think about it.
If, tomorrow morning, you had 60% of the time and resources you needed to start making anything you wanted, what would it be? And, what would you do first? . . .
The reason I throw in that “60% of what you need,” is that it’s just enough to make the question interesting and ambitious. Give someone no resources, and they have no imagination. Give them all the resources and they break ground on a Hooters in their garage. But, give someone most of the resources they need, and you have a delightful real-world challenge to the creative imagination.
—John Gardner, in Excellence (1961)
]]>Nate
: ?Andy makes quite a bit of hay with the Tip O'Neill quote in Chapter 15 -- though I doubt even the editor of the Yale Dictionary of Quotations would be able to find a prior instance of the phrase "all culture-making is local."?The next time you hear a commentator credit “All politics is local” to Tip O’Neill, impress your friends by mentioning that the line appeared in The Frederick (Md.) News, July 1, 1932, when the future speaker of the House was only a teenage proto-pol.