Progress

More Times Select content (shh...):

In 1877 a New York cigar manufacturer grumbled that his cigar makers could never be counted on to do a straight shift's work. They would "come down to the shop in the morning, roll a few cigars," he complained to the New York Herald, "and then go to a beer saloon and play pinochle or some other game." The workers would return when they pleased, roll a few more cigars, and then revisit the saloon, all told "working probably two or three hours a day." Cigar makers in Milwaukee went on strike in 1882 simply to preserve their right to leave the shop at any time without their foreman's permission.

In this the cigar workers were typical. American manufacturing laborers came and left for the day at different times. "Monday," one manufacturer complained, was always "given up to debauchery," and on Saturdays, brewery wagons came right to the factory, encouraging workers to celebrate their payday. Daily breaks for "dramming" were common, with workers coming and going from the workplace as they pleased. Their workdays were often, by the 20th-century standards, riddled with breaks for meals, snacks, wine, brandy, and reading the newspaper aloud to fellow workers. An owner of a New Jersey iron mill made these notations in his diary over the course of a single week:
"All hands drunk."
"Jacob Ventling hunting."
"Molders all agree to quit work and went to the beach."

Thank god that situation has been taken care of, we've cut out the communal newspaper reading, drinking, and trips to the beach, and can squeeze every drop of monotonous, mechanized, hyper-specialized productivity from our workforce so people can finally buy the shit that really makes life worth living.

Slacker with "potential" vs. Philosopher with "system"

It's the battle of the century! I'm in the fourth round of a debate with Alex. Maybe it's the third round...maybe the fifth...I don't know, I'm dazed. Heart pounding...muscles aching...focus drifting in and out.

[cue Eye of the Tiger]

This contest is nothing short of beautiful.

Exerpts soon.

Wallace and Beauty

I couldn't link to David Foster Wallace's writing on Federer because of that annoying Times Select thing but here are the offending lines.

Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.
The human beauty we're talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings' reconciliation with the fact of having a body.
Of course, in men's sports no one ever talks about beauty or grace or the body. Men may profess their "love" of sports, but that love must always be cast and enacted in the symbology of war: elimination vs. advance, hierarchy of rank and standing, obsessive statistics, technical analysis, tribal and/or nationalist fervor, uniforms, mass noise, banners, chest-thumping, face-painting, etc.

You can see that Wallace is a good writer, a little self-satisfied, and totally wrong.