Toilets clog, pilot U-turns; Erasing the paragraph; Finding a podcast without f-bombs
3 Things this week and the poem clouded
Happy weekend! Thanks for spending part of it with Things I Wrote Down. I have a lot of new subscribers here this week, and to you I want to say a big WELCOME!
Aside: I think this was my second biggest week of growth since I launched a few years ago, which is an unexpected surprise. The first was when linked to one of my 10 Qs, something I couldn’t have planned.
If you’re new, let me set the table for the content you’ll get in your inbox:
On Sundays I share three places I explored on the web with stories or info that stood out. I also typically share a poem.
Thursdays I drop an original article.
If you’re here because of the poetry contest, that thrills me! You can submit here.
No matter how long you’ve been reading, I’m so grateful you’re here. Now here are three things and a poem.
1. Toilets clog, pilot U-turns
Imagine this: you're half way to your destination on an international flight, closer to the arrival airport than the departure, and your pilot turns around and flies back to where you took off from.
Why? Because the toilets won't flush. This is what happened to an Air India flight this week. I was paying special attention because some filmmaking family members are about to fly Air India. I pray this doesn’t happen to them (or anyone else. Ever).
Make this make sense to me. Why turn around?! Why make the passengers endure the over-ocean voyage again?
The official answer? “Because it was the middle of the night. The closest European airports weren’t properly staffed.” Uh-huh. So, they had to U-turn and go back to Chicago. Something doesn’t smell right.
Flight is still a miracle, but it's been a terrible few weeks. The awful Blackhawk crash with a passenger flight in DC, the flipped runway landing of the Delta plane in Toronto. The toilet fiasco over the Atlantic.
Get me a private jet (with pristine bathrooms and experienced pilots) please.
2. Erasing the paragraphs
My wife sent me a link to this article by
. It’s called “The Ruthless Elimination of the Paragraph” and in it he explores and critiques the erasure of the traditional paragraph in modern writing. He zones in on the popular work of John Mark Comer.1I've read the book of which James speaks, and this observation was one of the first things that hit me. "This guy's pages are sentences long," I remember thinking. His writing reminded me of Leonard Sweet when I read the book with my team at work: confident enough to do what he wants, playful, and somehow admirably humble-braggy. I read the short sentences as the author’s way to foreground significance.
Author: Here’s a short sentence.
Reader: Slow down. Pay attention. Everything 👏🏻 here 👏🏻 matters👏🏻.
In all honesty, the minimalist style also reminded me of the a Left Behind books. The latter ones (books 15 through 82, if memory serves). In these books, the plot thinned, the kearning and the line spacing doubled or tripled so that the page count hit book length. I don't think that's happening with Comer, but when reading a faith-based bestseller, one compares.
For me the style looks like the transcript of a teleprompter. Bite-sizes chunks of text the presenter can easily read and recite back to an audience with whom he can scan, make eye contact with, engage. James argues that this emerging style, including in theological works like Comer’s, comes across more like TV. They're rushed, as though fighting for attention.
Ironic, of course, in a book about slowing down. (See what I just did there?)
James highlights that:
Paragraphs develop and extend ideas outward. They engage objections and questions that readers might aim at the thesis statement. They clarify and focus what the writer is saying. But in the minimal paragraph style, there’s no time or willingness to do this. The train of thought must continue, must progress and pivot to the next point.
If you like to nerd out about literary style, you’ll enjoy the article.
Have you entered the Things I Wrote Down poetry contest yet?
3. I found a podcast without f-bombs
It’s March Break in Ontario, hence the empty lots at rental car franchises and the more-than-the-usual airline ticket prices. So we did the cross-province drive this week to visit Petra's family's farm. (Quick rant: It was more than $1,100 to travel by train to eastern Ontario, which was my preference. ELEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS).
The kids are at the age where we can all play the license plate game, or they can be on their tablets and mom and dad can have a couple of uninterrupted hours to talk (cue the Hallelujah Chorus).
We tried to listen to a few podcasts. I enjoy political pods and commentary. But we had to shut every one of them off as we cruised down the highway with the kids in earshot. Boy is it ever hard to find a show these days without explicit language! Especially when talking about the current political climate in US and Canada. People are angry and stressed!
We landed in the Ramsey network. Real life, but without the language.
There were a few highlights over the miles. Like the woman who called after she lost her daughter to a murder-suicide and now has the grandkids and a mortgage she didn't expect. Or the widower who is a millionaire, but drives a 25-yr-old truck that gets in the way of second dates.
It's nice to hear common sense financial advice in the midst of everyday life.
We also enjoyed the travel tips from Rachel Cruze and George Kamel on their Smart Money Happy Hour. I learned that you should never drink coffee provided on an airplane, since airlines never clean their water filters. (Especially on Air India —joking. But now I have lots of inflight beverage regrets).
Fresh fiction, in your inbox
As you may know, I’m writing a new fiction series week-over-week, in real time, at The 49. It’s a thrill. Subscribers get new content in their inbox every week. And there’s an audio version that drops on Tuesdays.
You read this far. Here’s a poem as your reward.
Here’s my weekly poem. All these references to flying reminded me of trips around the world and the astonishing view of the clouds. It’s from my collection God / he.
It’s short and sweet, but hopefully it’ll take your mind off the plugged toilets and the fact that your inflight coffee may be the reason for your lung infection.
Clouded
Here is where I admit that every time I’m angry or annoyed in traffic I remember Comer’s exhortation in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry to slow down and take the setback as an invitation to practice patience.
I’m the other Andrew’s aunt and I want to support him in every way possible. But I wholly endorse and love your writing.