My October With Yo-Yo Ma!

He's my latest favorite! 

Cello Suites, No.1 In G Major, (BWV 1007)

October memories.

Pic : A duet with Condoleezza Rice

Falling Foul of Twitterati

The award-winning novelist Jonathan Franzen has kicked up a Twitter storm, after complaining on BBC Radio 4's Today program about the impact of social networking on writers' lives.

In an interview with Today presenter James Naughtie, Franzen said the literary world is now so obsessed with Twitter that agents refuse even to look at manuscripts by writers who don't tweet.

"What I find particularly alarming from the point of view of American fiction is that [social media] is a coercive development, agents will now tell young writers: 'I won't even look at your manuscript if you don't have 250 followers on Twitter'," said Franzen. "I see people who ought to be spending their time developing their craft, and people who used to be able to make a living as freelance writers, I see them making nothing and coerced into this constant self-promotion."

It's not the first time the author has hit out at modern techno-fuelled culture's effect on literature. In a Guardian article last month, Franzen asked:

What happens to the people who became writers because yakking and tweeting and bragging felt to them like intolerably shallow forms of social engagement? What happens to the people who want to communicate in depth, individual to individual, in the quiet and permanence of the printed word, and who were shaped by their love of writers who wrote when publication still assured some kind of quality control and literary reputations were more than a matter of self-promotional decibel levels?

Franzen's latest attempt to put the case for struggling writers was met with disbelief and derision on Twitter.

Francesca Main, editorial director at Picador – publisher of the Booker prize shortlisted novels Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent, and Harvest, by Jim Crace – tweeted: "Franzen says it's alarming that agents turn away writers for having too few Twitter followers. It's alarming J-Franz believes this nonsense."

She added later: "Most of the authors on Twitter have a book out far more frequently than those who spend loads of time grouching about it."

The Sunday Times columnist and novelist India Knight tweeted: "Lighten up, Franzo."

Franzen's latest book, The Kraus Project, is a study of the works of Viennese satirist Karl Kraus, a relentless critic of dehumanising technology and the popular media's twisting of reality.

Franzen said: "It [technology-driven culture] gnaws away particularly at my soul because I'm a fiction writer. For something like literature it's maybe not such a great model. You see this in any number of ways – very directly you see the demolition of the independent book business and the brick and mortar book business by Amazon. But also this crowd-sourcing model, everything shared, communal, it doesn't really work, not to pay freelance writers; and most important, the whole definition of literature is that people go off by themselves, develop a distinctive voice. It's not a communal enterprise."

by Liz Bury

pic: Jonathan Franzen speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme

@Guardian

دلم به شدت برای نفس عمیق تنگ شد... از نفس عمیق تا لرزاننده چربی؛ گفت و گو با مریم پالیزبان http://t.co/VpQF4AfYw2
— Pedram83 (@Pedramr83) October 14, 2013

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby becomes a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”

Nietzsche

Danke, Manuel!

An invaluable gift from Manuel Trummer.

Danke schön!

Thank You!

Happy Birthday!

pedram, 30 August 2013

Well Being Not a Priority

Working overtime may cost you your health, according to a Kansas State University doctoral researcher.

Sarah Asebedo, doctoral student in personal financial planning and conflict resolution, Edina, Minn., conducted a study using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. She and her colleagues -- Sonya Britt, assistant professor of family studies and human services and director of the university's personal financial planning program, and Jamie Blue, doctoral student in personal financial planning, Tallahassee, Fla. -- found a preliminary link between workaholics and reduced physical and mental well-being. The study, "Workaholism and Well-Being," will appear in Financial Services Review, a journal of individual financial management.

"We looked at the association between workaholism and physical and mental well-being," Asebedo said. "We found workaholics -- defined by those working more than 50 hours per week -- were more likely to have reduced physical well-being, measured by skipped meals. Also, we found that workaholism was associated with reduced mental well-being as measured by a self-reported depression score."

The link between workaholism and well-being has been assumed for years; however, there was a lack of research supporting the link until this study, Asebedo said. To understand why people work overtime even when they know it is not good for their well-being, the researchers used Gary S. Becker's Theory of the Allocation of Time, a mathematical analysis for choice measuring the cost of time.

"It looks at the cost of time as if it were a market good," Asebedo said. "This theory suggests that the more money you make, the more likely you are to work more. If you are not engaged in work-related activities, then there is a cost to the alternative way in which time is spent. Even if you understand the negative consequences to workaholism, you may still be likely to continue working because the cost of not doing so becomes greater."

According to Asebedo, Becker's theory suggests that not only can working more make a person wealthier but it also creates less leisure time to spend money. As income increases a person may be more likely to work more and create an unhealthy habit.

As a full-time wealth manager for Accredited Investors in Edina, Asebedo has found the research useful in counseling clients. She advises workaholics to be aware of the effect excessive work has on their physical and mental well-being and to be prepared for what they can do to mitigate or counteract the effects during busy work periods.

"From a financial planning and counseling perspective, it's good to be aware of workaholism," Asebedo said. "It helps me understand what can be the cause of my clients' stress. It's just a reminder that you may want to dig a bit deeper into clients' work lives. Sometimes you might find that they don't like what they are doing and they want to make a change, yet financially, they don't know how they can accomplish that."

Asebedo received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Kansas State University. She returned to the university to get her doctorate in personal financial planning through the Division of Continuing Education distance program because she was interested researching the role conflict resolution plays in financial planning.

Data for the study was taken from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort, a nationally representative sample of 12,686 young men and women who were interviewed on an annual basis from 1979 through 1994 and are currently interviewed on a biennial basis.

Source: Kansas State University