Enumerated Update

Hello friends... Just getting to last Friday's update, but since it was an eventful week, pop-culture wise, here goes.

1) Restful Peace: First and foremost, deepest sympathy on the loss of American treasure Harper Lee. I hope that Truman Capote has thrown her the best "Welcome Home" party ever.

2) Divided: We are following the Apple privacy issue very closely, and the arguments in favor/against shattering its own security were quite heated around our house last week, with one family member firing off a heated letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, while the other family member suggested, "Just keep hitting refresh repeatedly because I'm sure a reply is coming any minute now..."

These are complex issues, and here is Apple's position if you're interested.

For the record, I am opposed to any iPhone backdoor/master key situation. While I am eager to catch criminals and terrorists, I fervently believe there is some middle ground for compromise. As an aside, it would also be much easier to catch criminals were law enforcement professionals not burdened by those pesky ideas of due process. Yes, I would love to bend the rules sometimes, but they are in place for excellent reasons, for the greater good.

3) Infinite Jest: I realize I have been hitting the David Foster Wallace button a lot lately, and in doing so have almost cured my fascination. However, I would be remiss if I did not point out that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Infinite Jest.  NYT explores how well the novel is holding up, and here is Jay McInerny's original review, which I had never read.

Unless his estate publishes another posthumous release, I won't mention him again for a while.

4) Sentences: I have a lengthy list of favorite words and always mean to compile a list of "100 favorite words" or something. The perfect sentence is more elusive, but here is a collection of great ones.

5) Cubicles: While I have to be brutally honest and admit that I do not miss working in an office, I do miss my friends, and especially miss those hallway chats or, if you will, water cooler moments. Although this is a little silly, it nails the idea of missing the inane chitchat. Sure, Skip and various friends take the brunt of my vapid observations now, but there's something about the lowered expectations of what passes for funny at work and the silly observations that I sometimes make. It's a good combo, or else people have been especially kind.

Probably the latter.  :)