// A Leave Of Presence

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I recently came across an aphorism that made me smile: “The purpose of speaking is to be understood; the purpose of writing is to avoid being misunderstood.”

I smiled because – I mean – how many wooden, lifeless bits of prose have you read in your life which were caused by someone taking this idea too far? There’s a reason that this particular type of bad writing is often called “legalistic”: It is a joyless, bloodless, anti-human kind of writing – which is probably part of why you have to pay a lawyer $300 an hour to read it.

Most of the writers that I enjoy place their words on the page with a sort of lightness. It feels like someone speaking to you, like someone trying to be understood. If good writing is a sort of magic trick, then a good writer is the magician, the rabbit, and the top hat – all rolled up in one. It is craft combined with the courage to show yourself as you are that lets you pull yourself out of the hat.

It’s a hard thing, but some writers can seemingly do it with ease.

// more //

// ♬ Current Listening — March 2013

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Here’s the music that I’ve been listening to this month:

  • David Bowie quietly announced his first new studio album in a decade. ‘The Next Day’ (iTunes / Amazon) has been free to stream for weeks and now gets its official release. Some good stuff here!
  • Simon Green is a producer who releases music under the moniker of “Bonobo”1. If you missed his last album — the beautiful ‘Black Sands’ (and its subsequent album of remixes) — you’re in luck: He’s about to release a new collection called ‘The North Borders’. Its first single, ‘Cirrus’, is available now (iTunes / Amazon) and the video for it is already on YouTube. Enjoy the visual trip to M. C. Escher’s 1950′s Suburban fantasy:
  • Speaking of Escher, check out the track by that name on Chilly Gonzales’s “Solo Piano II” (iTunes / Amazon). Then buy the entire album.
  • Adrian Younge (of “Black Dynamite” renown) has collaborated on a new album with soul legend William Hart, the singer of The Delfonics. The somewhat literally-titled “Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics” is a fun mix of modern and traditional approaches to the genre and is now online as a preview on NPR’s site. Pick it up on iTunes or Amazon and increase your shhhmooove factor by several orders of magnitude.2
  • Dave Grohl’s new documentary film ‘Sound City’ (iTunes) is ostensibly about the arc of a well-known music studio but, to me, it’s really more of a look at what imbues art with life. So much of what I love about music — and music-making — is in Grohl’s film and the soundtrack (iTunes / Amazon) makes great use of that Rupert Neve console.
  • “New York – Addis – London: The Story of Ethio Jazz (1965-1975)” by Mulatu Astatke is rocking my world. Sooooo good. (iTunes / Amazon)
  • What do you mean you haven’t heard “Anywhere But Here” (iTunes / Amazon) by Killer Mike?!? Fix that. Fix it now. Seriously — Every time I hear this track, El-P’s nasty synth bass line gives me involuntary Billy Idol-grade sneerface. In case you missed it when it came out, Mike’s “R.A.P. Music” album (iTunes / Amazon) contains so many bangers, one after another, that I believe it may qualify as a full English breakfast. Solid lyrics, coupled with some fantastic production to support them, have kept me listening to this since its release last year. And I think you’ll agree — Ronald Reagan hasn’t been pilloried like this since the heyday of 80′s hardcore punk.3
  • Speaking of smart, cool hip-hop, make sure you didn’t miss out on “Raw Money Raps” by Jeremiah Jae (iTunes / Amazon) which came out about the same time as Killer Mike’s album.

For all you Spotify users, I’ve made a playlist of these songs (and a few more). Click here to check it out!

  1. That lovable, most priapic of primates… [↩]
  2. “The Delfonics?“, you say. “Didn’t they perform a song in “Jackie Brown” that Pam Grier grooved to in her bathrobe while Robert Forster tried to maintain his cool?” You’re right again, my smart and cultured Veritrope readers. [↩]
  3. Somewhere — Jello Biafra is smiling. Well… you know… smiling for him. [↩]

// AppleScript Updates for Evernote, DEVONthink Pro, Mail, and Folder Action Importer

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A quick heads up to all you AppleScript fans. I recently pushed out some bug fixes for a few of my favorites, including:

Each script’s page has a link to the Bug Reporter form should you encounter any issues. Any other comments or thoughts should go — you guessed it — in the comment thread. You can also use the contact form to send me a private message, send me a message on Twitter, or reach out via everyone’s new favorite social network — App.net.

As always, I appreciate your feedback!

MailTags for Apple Mail

One more note — Some users of the Apple Mail to Evernote script have asked me to put back some code which makes it work with MailTags. I removed it to reduce the complexity of the code (and, frankly, because no one told that they loved it), but if you feel the same way and want it back, please let me know!

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