I recently acquired the unabridged audio cd of Steve Martin’s autobiography thanks to a Father’s Day-related gift card (thanks Mom!). If you have talked art, culture, drama, or writing with me at all, you know that I consider Steve Martin one of the best contemporary playwrights, screenwriters, and novelists.

Ever since watching VHS rentals of his comedy act from the 1970s, I have always had a hard time explaining what I believe to be his genius, but listening to the autobiography helped my quantify it a little more. In the book he discusses the development and philosophy of his act, and how it influenced his body of work. The philosophy is mixed with anecdote, jokes that killed, jokes that bombed, and life story.

It isn’t a story for all time, but it is a great story of how hard work, talent, and serendipity forged the life and career of an amazing writer and performer. I suppose if you don’t like Steve Martin, you won’t like the book. But I found it interesting, insightful and funny. The audio cd is, thankfully, read by Martin so the nuance and meaning isn’t left to interpretation of a narrator. I have found myself laughing out loud less frequently these last few years, but Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life provided ample opportunity.

I’m a few days behind on this, but I highly recommend listening to the May 9th episode of This American Life. It’s a TAL look at the stories behind the sub-prime/housing/credit crisis. It has the same elements of all the economic crises in recent years: tragedy of the commons, the few making obscene profits at the expense and suffering of others, neglected warning signs, fallacious thinking that went unquestioned, and of course, far-reaching implications that no one considered because they were getting rich in the short term.

One might think that we as a society would learn this lesson after The Great Depression, the S&L Scandal, Enron and the deregulation of the California electric grid, the dot com bubble, and the current gas crisis. But I’ve never been accused of optimism.

Apologies for the dearth of recent posts. I’m working a lot on other projects in my off time. For now, I am going to suggest reading the essay Lies We Tell Kids by Paul Graham. Plenty of things to think about, you probably won’t agree with them all, but that’s why we read, yes? Plenty of pithy snippets, but I’ll highlight this one:

If parents told their kids the truth about sex and drugs, it would be: the reason you should avoid these things is that you have lousy judgement. People with twice your experience still get burned by them. But this may be one of those cases where the truth wouldn’t be convincing, because one of the symptoms of bad judgement is believing you have good judgement. When you’re too weak to lift something, you can tell, but when you’re making a decision impetuously, you’re all the more sure of it.

Go read it.

If you are interested in the social, societal, and organizational impact of technology and the internet, and have 45 minutes, watch this video posted by the Berkman Center at Harvard.

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (Event Video/Audio)

Very worth it. Via 43f