Author Archives: JMN

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About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

A Copy Editor’s Quibbles

Posted on February 4, 2019 by JMN

nyti.ms/2DOiA9C And there are the words Dreyer currently dislikes most, even more than he dislikes “munch” and “nosh” and other distasteful eating-adjacent terms. Sitting recently in his book-crammed office at Penguin Random House, where he is vice president, executive managing … Continue reading →

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Tono Romo, Ex-Quarterback

Posted on February 4, 2019 by JMN

nyti.ms/2UwA4ws “I just want to leave you with something I’ve learned in this process,” he said, referring to his quarterbacking years. “I feel like we all have two battles or two enemies going on. One with the man across from … Continue reading →

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The Staff of Life. And Caviar.

Posted on February 2, 2019 by JMN

[Photo by JMN — Reus, Catalonia] You need to start with good white toast; Pepperidge Farm “Very Thin” is our preferred. It isn’t sweet like so many shelf-stabilized loaves, and it has excellent structure to stand up to the ingredients … Continue reading →

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I Can Just Hear Those Hands

Posted on February 2, 2019 by JMN

“[***’s] just out making noise, ringing his hands and pouting in a corner,” Aguilar said Friday. (Sarah Ferris, Heather Caygle, “Congress tunes out ***’s border wall threats,” Politico, 2-1-19) (c) 2019 JMN.

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An Interesting Painting

Posted on February 1, 2019 by JMN

This painting by Frida Kahlo appears in the article by Rebecca Kleinman, “Frida Kahlo Was a Painter, a Brand Builder, a Survivor. And So Much More,” NYTimes, 1-31-19. It’s interesting on many levels, not least for its depiction of the … Continue reading →

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Remarkable Insights from Working with Translators

Posted on February 1, 2019 by JMN

nyti.ms/2UzwdPr A connection between languages On this day in 1786, a Briton living in India delivered a discourse on a little-known proposition: that Sanskrit, Persian, Latin, Greek and other languages might have a common source. The commentary set off the … Continue reading →

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Planck’s Comment (from Reddit)

Posted on January 30, 2019 by JMN

TIL Max Planck was told by his professor not to go into physics because “almost everything is already discovered.” Planck said he didn’t want to discover anything, just learn the fundamentals. (r/todayilearned) Me. Ditto. Music. That guitar. (c) 2019 JMN.

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What’s Done

Posted on January 30, 2019 by JMN

What’s done is dung and cannot be undung. (Karl Ove Knausgaard. Quoted by Dwight Garner in his review of Chris Christie’s “Let Me Finish,” NYTimes, 1-28-19) (c) 2019 JMN.

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Opinion | Warning! Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ – The New York Times

Posted on January 30, 2019 by JMN

Deep learning, deep insights, deep artificial minds — the list goes on and on. But with unprecedented promise comes some unprecedented peril. — Read on http://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/opinion/artificial-intelligence-surveillance.html … Deep trust and deep loyalty cannot be forged overnight. They take time. That’s … Continue reading →

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Fixing To

Posted on January 30, 2019 by JMN

[Drawing by Tom Jones] I’m fixing to get back into the swing of things blogwise. Since November I’ve been immersed in a Mediterranean voyage of discovery and recovery in the family nature of things. “Fixing to” (the “g” is silent) … Continue reading →

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