A just-surfaced note from David Mamet, executive producer of the now-cancelled The Unit, to the show's writing team.  The caps are his.  If only more executive communication had this level of real-human plainspeak.

QUESTION: WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL. [...]

THINK LIKE A FILMMAKER RATHER THAN A FUNCTIONARY, BECAUSE, IN TRUTH, YOU ARE MAKING THE FILM. WHAT YOU WRITE, THEY WILL SHOOT.

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

DO NOT WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT. WRITE A RIPPING THREE, FOUR, SEVEN MINUTE SCENE WHICH MOVES THE STORY ALONG, AND YOU CAN, VERY SOON, BUY A HOUSE IN BEL AIR AND HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU.

You owe it to yourself to read the whole thing.

(Via DF)

From Roger Ebert's profile in Esquire, entitled 'The Essential Man':

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear, he writes in a journal entry titled "Go Gently into That Good Night." I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris. [...]

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

I can only hope that if I ever find myself in a situation similar to Ebert's, I have half as much perspective, dignity and class.

Zadie Smith, author of the acclaimed Changing My Mind, writing about David Foster Wallace in the Five Dials tribute to the late author:

In a culture that depletes you daily of your capacity for imagination, for language, for autonomous thought, complexity like Dave's is a gift.  He recursive, labyrinthine sentences demand second readings.  Like the boy waiting to dive, their resistance 'breaks the rhythm that exclues thinking'.  Every word looks up, every winding footnote followed, every heart- and brain-stretching concept, they all help break the rhythm of thoughtlessless -- your gifts are being returned to you.

If you don't have the Five Dials celebration of David Foster Wallace, get it here [PDF].  It's free and delivers thousands of dollars worth of emotion and power and literary awe directly into your spinal column.

One tip: don't read on a computer.  Go old school and print this out and read it off the reconstituted pulp of felled trees.  Trust me.

Finally, know that an unshot skeet’s movement against the vast lapis lazuli
dome of the open ocean's sky is sun-like – i.e. orange and parabolic and right-to-left – and that its disappearance into the sea is edge-first and splashless and sad. — from A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

One of the most beautiful sentences DFW ever put to paper.

I'm a three-time (soon to be four-time) published author. When aspiring authors learn this, they invariably ask what word processor I use. It doesn't fucking matter! I happen to write in Emacs. I also code in Emacs, which is a nice bonus. Other people write and code in vi. Other people write in Microsoft Word and code in TextMate+ or TextEdit or some fancy web-based collaborative editor like EtherPad or Google Wave. Whatever. Picking the right text editor will not make you a better writer. Writing will make you a better writer. Writing, and editing, and publishing, and listening -- really listening -- to what people say about your writing. This is the golden age for aspiring writers. We have a worldwide communications and distribution network where you can publish anything you want and -- if you can manage to get anybody's attention -- get near-instant feedback. Writers just 20 years ago would have killed for that kind of feedback loop. Killed! And you're asking me what word processor I use? Just fucking write, then publish, then write some more. One day your writing will get featured on a site like Reddit and you'll go from 5 readers to 5000 in a matter of hours, and they'll all tell you how much your writing sucks. And most of them will be right! Learn how to respond to constructive criticism and filter out the trolls, and you can write the next great American novel in edlin.

Bingo.  Do yourself and read Mark Pilgrim on The Setup, which is interesting way, way beyond this little quip about writing.

Foreign Policy asked their top Global Thinkers to recommend their favorite – or most important – books.  The responses range from children’s books to biographies to policy manuals to fantasy novels.  Here’s the full list of their suggestions.