tag:travisherrick.com,2014:/feedTravis Herrick2020-08-12T22:14:59-07:00Travis Herrickhttp://travisherrick.comt@travisherrick.comSvbtle.comtag:travisherrick.com,2014:Post/so-good-they-can-t-ignore-you2020-08-12T22:14:59-07:002020-08-12T22:14:59-07:00So Good They Can't Ignore You<p><em>Follow your passion</em> is common advice, even today. The idea is you find something you are passionate about, then find a career that matches that. This sound good but it not actionable; following your passion is a <em>why</em> but not a <em>how</em>. Passion is about what you want and why you do it, but it’s not what other people trade prestige, money, and great jobs for. If you want a good career that you are successful in and you enjoy doing, don’t focus on your passion. Instead focus on becoming good at your job. Develop a skillset that is unique as possible and is in demand. Realize early that passion doesn’t come out of thin air, but is often a result of the skills you have been building over the course of years. Not the other way around.</p>
<p>So instead of focusing on passion, focus on becoming good at all you do. Your skillsets, connections, and reputations are called your <em>career capital</em>. And you can convert this career capital into control over your career, interesting work, and financial success. But to have career capital you must become skilled, and this skill and expertise comes from hours spent specifically pushing your limits and doing focused practice.</p>
<p>Jobs that are good are rare, self employed jobs that are good are rarer, so the key to having a fulfilling career is to have something valuable to offer in return. Building your career journey to focus on being able to maximize the value you can provide is what will give the good life. And be patient, being an expert like this takes time and if you try to launch into your passions without building the skills to back it up first, you might find people unwilling to give you anything for what you have to offer.</p>
<p>Everything there is right in the title. Be so good they can’t ignore you. Being good at what you do enables you to take advantage of once in a lifetime opportunities, and interesting things in the world need the most skilled people they can get. That could be you.</p>
<p>That’s the truth of it. That’s what I got out of the book, and that’s what it had to say. The most important and most core idea the book has to communicate is derivable right from the title. The distilled theme of this book is to <em>git good</em>.</p>
<p>Cal Newport wrote a good book, by the way. I would recommend it. The style doesn’t get in the way, and it’s not too dry. I like the stories that Cal uses to illustrate his points. The ideas he has (and it is a bit more than my quick summary) are good, and he communicates them well. If the ideas seem pretty obvious, well he is pushing back against another seemingly obvious idea in our culture (“Follow your passion“). While I don’t think I left anything vastly important out of my summary, you’ll get a lot more out of reading the book than my three little introductory paragraphs. That’s because there’s a bit more than the actual book’s content to talk about.</p>
<p>For me, though, <em>So Good They Can’t Ignore You</em> is a self help title. Specifically, it’s written to the reader directly as to be something actionable in their life, rather than going over broadly what careers are possible and what kind of personalities land in what careers, which would be a more objective book in a very different genre. And it being a self help book was good! I was looking to read one. I got something out of it for sure! I will say though. Speaking for me personally, at this point in my life, self help books are something of a commodity. </p>
<p>Reading a book in this genre is kind of like smoking pot. Or winding down with a drink. The thing is, <em>SGTCIY</em> took time for me to read. Not a lot, probably a little north of three hours, but that was time sent thinking about what it had to say, and thinking about me thinking about what it had to say. My thoughts were spent on “hey, what can I do to become so good?“ Good self help books are all about getting you into this mental state. I mean, “become good at what you do“ is important advice, and obvious advice, but no one is going to change their lives just because they read this sentence. Instead, I spent a few hours immersed in this soup of ideas. </p>
<p>I find it’s good to read about one of these books a year. There are two kinds of self help books, I find. There are bad ones, which give you nothing, and good ones, which are all about equally good for you to read. “How can I be better at my life?” Is an evergreen question, but I think taking some time to meditate on that every so often is worth it. </p>
<p>But they are commodities. In the details, the lessons these books teach become interchangeable. You can do self improvement only so much in a period of time (its not technical work in the same way making your way through <em>Cracking the Coding Interview</em> or a textbook is). It’s like a workout; it doesn’t matter for the beginner what routine you choose, just that you stick with it. Similar for these -any self help book will get you into a useful mindset, even if what you wind up changing is unrelated or abstracted from the actual book.</p>
<p>So this is a good book, worth and afternoon for sure.</p>
tag:travisherrick.com,2014:Post/the-good-man-jesus-and-the-scoundrel-christ2020-03-28T11:01:45-07:002020-03-28T11:01:45-07:00The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ<p>So I read <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Man_Jesus_and_the_Scoundrel_Christ">The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ</a> by Phillip Pullman and, I dunno. It has the same energy as a newer author writing a short story about Heaven and Hell are run by angelic and demonic bureaucracies, respectively. The book more treats these religious ideas as puzzles pieces to swap around for the purpose of telling another story, rather than engaging with the ideas of Christianity itself.</p>
<p>The premise of the novel is simple; Jesus and Christ are twins born in Bethlehem; they are separate people. Before going on, there are unambiguously angels in this novel; we see them talk to Joseph, Mary’s parents, and so forth; a stranger talks to Christ throughout the novel and the stranger is clearly Lucifer, whom Christ mistakes as any other angel. What follows is a very abridged reimagining of the New Testament; Jesus represents the “Words in Red” part of the New Testament, preaching love your enemies, the golden rule, and so forth; Christ is a more pragmatic person, who wants to build a church, say things in ways an everyday person can apply them, is more accepting of sin. Jesus being the “Stuff Jesus actual said in the bible” and Christ representing organized religion. It’s very clear what Pullman thinks of these two things early on, when it is Christ that temps his brother Jesus after forty days in the desert, and is talking to who is clearly Satan throughout the novel. Christ works as a chronicler of what Jesus is doing, writing down what he is doing, embellishing, while making sure that Jesus doesn’t see him directly. In the Climax of the Book, it’s Christ who plays the role of Judas, betraying his brother. When it is time for Jesus’s resurrection, it is his twin brother who takes his place. </p>
<p>This ending is something that, I assume by design, can been seen coming a mile away. It’s something that’s just built into the structure of the novel.</p>
<p>And it’s fine. The book is fine. It’s a thought experiment to highlight the difference between what Jesus is saying and the hypocrisies of his Church, histrionically. The kind of stuff that got Martin Luther upset. The metaphor is clever, in a “What if Hell was Ran by your Company’s HR Department” kind of way. I’ll take a minute to point out that Phillip Pullman is famous for his Golden Compass Trilogy, which is something he conceived as an atheist response to CS Lewis’s Narnia, but there’s a kind of culmination of the novel in the chapter “Jesus in the Garden at Gethsemane,” where Jesus is whispering a prayer meant only for himself, where he admits he hasn’t heard the voice of God, and he is talking about God’s silence. He then goes on essentially a diatribe about why he is against a church, and Pullman gets to criticism modern churches and some historical sins of Christianity for a few pages. The Latter is tiresome, even though it was enviably coming; the former is… fine, again. I think if you want a book where a religious character meditates on God’s silence, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/184003.Only_Begotten_Daughter">Only Begotten Daughter</a> does a much better job of this. Especially since Pullman doesn’t hint at this throughout the book, and instead brings up the “Jesus hasn’t heard the voice of God” at the last minute, it doesn’t really inform his character through the novel and doesn’t really get explored here, and one would think that this would be a more important revelation. The climax of the novel is, ironically, very preachy.</p>
<p>I think it’s really funny that this book was reviewed by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/books/review/Hitchens-t.html?pagewanted=all">Christopher Hitchens</a>, who seems very insistent that this book is not allowed to have any fun at all; he calls Pullman out for not pushing back on the Jesus character more. This is an odd read for me, as Pullman has characters point out throughout the book how hard it would be to live up to all of Jesus’s teachings; it reads almost as a criticism of both Jesus and Christ/The Church in some places.</p>
<p>Something I’ve been thinking as I read this, throughout the say or so I spent with the book, was I don’t think Phillip Pullman was ever really religious, though he considers himself culturally Christian, or ever really believed deeply in the divine. Which is again, fine, but the central idea - the excesses of the Catholic Church versus the actual teaching sin the bible - well, and maybe this is coming from an American who grew up around people believing sincerely in American framing of Christianity - we’ve had Protestants. For a long time. This is a concept that the religion has struggled with for a long time, and a conversation that religious people have been having with themselves for a long time. And this book doesn’t seem to be a part of that longer conversation, it’s a perspective from an outsider, and I don’t think Pullman comes down and either side of his Jesus/Christ/Church dichotomy. And for the time the book takes to go over its ideas, it really doesn’t take the time to explore any of them in depth; what I’ve described here is most of what I got out of the themes of the novel. We see the point quickly, we see where it is going, the Christ as Judas twist we see coming from at least a hundreds pages before hand, the resurrection trick we see immediately. So with the shape of the novel determined, we know where this is going, so each of Jesus’s lessons feels more like a chore as we go on, because it’s always some biblical tale told in a secular way.</p>
<p>But still. As a story, it’s fine. But I think it’s funny that the main conflict of the book is that Christ wants to make Jesus out to be a symbol and Jesus wants to focus on his teachings, whereas the character’s are never really characterized enough for either of them to be anything but symbols.</p>
tag:travisherrick.com,2014:Post/contraband2020-03-24T21:55:33-07:002020-03-24T21:55:33-07:00Contraband<p>I am weak, and I have needs</p>
<p>The world has changed so much so quickly<br>
and unable to cope with shortages<br>
in this end of days</p>
<p>I go to my adobe<br>
Open storage containers I haven’t looked at for months<br>
pulling things I don’t care about one by one<br>
increasing illicit as I slouch towards the bottom</p>
<p>I retrieve<br>
Like a crime<br>
a lone bottle of Lysol Spray</p>
tag:travisherrick.com,2014:Post/sad2019-09-30T21:31:24-07:002019-09-30T21:31:24-07:00Sad<p>It is very important and you must remember<br>
When you are sad<br>
To be sad<br>
in an extremely pretentious mater<br>
And then you can write books</p>
tag:travisherrick.com,2014:Post/burn-after-reading2019-01-25T20:59:32-08:002019-01-25T20:59:32-08:00Burn After Reading<p>Burn after Reading is a good movie. It’s directed by the Coen Brothers. It has great dialog, is heavily stylized in a good way, and the actors kill it. But in a lot of ways I feel it is more a movie composed of good scenes, rather than a movie that works more as a cohesive whole. Case in point - I wanted to watch this movie because I came across <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FHpOLiobmA">this</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlA9hmrC8DU">this</a> clip. These are hilarious, I love how they feel like they are part of a play, that it’s so over the top and absurd. It was enough to make me curious and go see the whole movie. Having seen the whole thing, these remail my favorite scenes. Now, for these two characters, these are the only time we see them; they aren’t main characters. My overall impression is that if I had just watched the good scenes on youtube, in any order, I would still have a pretty good experience, and about as much understanding of what was going on.</p>
<p>A quick rundown of the characters. There are the office guys, the Analyst who has just been fired and wants to write a book, the Analyst’s wife who is going to divorce him, and is sleeping with the Treasury Guy. The Treasury guy is cheating on his wife with the Analyst’s wife and and also everyone on online dating, including Linda the Gym Lady. Linda the Gym Lady is friends with Chad, who is a personal trainer at the gym, and the both work for the Gym Guy, who either owns or manages the gym.</p>
<p>The plot revolves around a CD, which is the McGuffin. It’s a dump of the Analyst’s computer, which includes his memoir he is writing, and also (unknown to him) his financials. The CD comes from his wife, who downloaded his hard drive for information in preperation for the divorce divorce. It’s left at the gym by the Analyst’s Wife’s Divorce Lawyer’s Secretary, which doesn’t matter because they just get the info off the hard drive. The hard drive winds up in the hands of Linda the Gym Lady and Chad, whose defining character trait is being as much as possible like the person you imagine bearing the name Chad. The pair plan to use this information, which they are quite sure is spy shit, to make money to pay for cosmetic surgery for Linda the Gym Lady, which she wants to help with her online dating.</p>
<p>Got that? It’s okay if you don’t because the movie isn’t’ as interested in it’s plot as it’s characters and dialog, which is fantastic throughout.</p>
<p>Two things work really well, and the best things in this movie that lets the plot not matter very much, and the first of those is that the CD and data everyone cares so much about isn’t very important. The Russian’s don’t want it, the CIA is more baffled than concerned by what’s going on, the Analyst guy played by John Malkovich is mid level and was never as important as he thinks we was, and Chad and Linda have no idea what they have in the first place. This helps sell everything in a tragic but black comedy tragic way. The fact that everyone is terrible makes the terrible things they do to each other more fun than sad. There is also the Big Lebowski thing where everyone thinks they are in a different genre of movie, and almost all of them are wrong. The gym characters think they are in a spy thriller when most of the characters are living in a nihilistic take down of suburb life kinda of pretentious drama, no one realizing they are in a farce except maybe the CIA, who are mostly exasperated. (The real genre is a frace). This keeps things moving, when things are both more serious than everyone things they are, while at the same time the events are of almost no importance in the grand scheme of things.</p>
<p>I do have feelings of disconnectedness throughout the movie. I think part of it is that is that there is this sense of nihilism through everything – it’s the suburban setting, the pettiness of the characters, the fact that the plot refuses the revolve around anything that matters. This never lets the story stop from being funny, the writing is really good in all the exchanges and dialog, but I feel if you were try to assemble a larger theme, the plot doesn’t come together as whole very well. A lot of the drama comes from very improbably coincidences – the Gym Lady dates the Treasury guy who is sleeping with the Analyst’s wife – and since unlikely coincidences drive a lot of the drama, there isn’t really a cohesive theme you can find from the narrative. This works to make the movie a good farce, but this makes it harder for the movie to say anything. The best the CIA can come up with boils down to “I guess we learn not to do it again. Fucked if I know what we did.”</p>
tag:travisherrick.com,2014:Post/napowrimo2017-day-302017-07-05T13:17:10-07:002017-07-05T13:17:10-07:00NaPoWriMo2017 - Day 30<h1 id="fireworks-in-the-fog_1">Fireworks in the Fog <a class="head_anchor" href="#fireworks-in-the-fog_1">#</a>
</h1>
<p>The fog has rolled in<br>
the horizon in the hills<br>
disappearing prematurely<br>
the cold is worth braving<br>
because it’s Independence Day<br>
and we are going to<br>
explode rockets in the air<br>
and this is America</p>
<p>I wish I had binoculars with me<br>
I wish I had binoculars<br>
out in the distance a town<br>
which may or may not be Napa <br>
is setting off fireworks<br>
and there are little colorful dots<br>
That I could easily fit in my pocket</p>
<p>We look across the bay<br>
they are lighting fireworks in city<br>
but it doesn’t matter<br>
the fog is too high<br>
it eats the light<br>
We see the bottom half<br>
of the booms<br>
with this the cold<br>
becomes disheartening</p>
<p>But look! <br>
They are launching rockets off the Berkeley peer<br>
I like the noise<br>
I like the way that some of the rockets are launched<br>
high into the fog to create colored lightning<br>
but most of all<br>
I like the smoke trails from the sparks<br>
Invisible until the next explosion grants light<br>
like an atom or starfish<br>
converging on a central point</p>
<p>Fireworks are good for poetry<br>
Bright and beautiful and fading<br>
Spark from blue to white to red<br>
Like a human lifetime or a snowflake<br>
My favorite overwrought metaphor<br>
is the Buddhist sand paintings<br>
which are themselves metaphors<br>
take your pick</p>
<p>But I can’t think of metaphors<br>
or poetry or any of that<br>
right now<br>
When it’s Independence Day in San Francisco<br>
the weather is holding<br>
and I’m watching the sky light up<br>
it’s nice to just watch and be happy</p>
tag:travisherrick.com,2014:Post/napowrimo2017-day-292017-07-04T18:22:02-07:002017-07-04T18:22:02-07:00NaPoWriMo2017 - Day 29<h1 id="america-day_1">America Day <a class="head_anchor" href="#america-day_1">#</a>
</h1>
<p>It is sunny and summer out<br>
I like the Fourth of July<br>
because I need to do nothing<br>
but allow myself<br>
to lapse into pensivity and introspection<br>
I can watch this lazy bee<br>
meander from flower to flower<br>
and just be happy</p>
<p>We are in Tilden above Berkeley<br>
The Wilds, as it were<br>
The only evidence of human beings being<br>
the picnic table and grill<br>
and bathrooms and water fountain<br>
and road and also<br>
the utility pole running through our campsite<br>
picnic site in fact<br>
following these wires<br>
leads to a creek<br>
that fails to lead us to Narnia<br>
yet it is a pretty place to forge friendship</p>
<p>We are cooking and grilling <br>
carne asada<br>
peppers and cactus<br>
tortillas and tomatoes <br>
Marie has made a cake<br>
red white and blue<br>
it tastes better than the poems<br>
we read out of this pretentious book<br>
me and Sean found late at night<br>
in a box on the side of the road<br>
the words’ mediocrity <br>
punctuated by occasional<br>
genius diversions of cleverness<br>
that drive us on to keep reading</p>
<p>We read and talk and write and chat <br>
spilling casual secrets<br>
moving our chairs according to the whims<br>
of the sun and shade and our<br>
preferences for temperature</p>
<p>I traditionally write on Independence Days<br>
about America<br>
and gratitude, and fireworks and joy<br>
about friendship and cookouts<br>
about a girl whom I never told<br>
that I loved her</p>
<p>There is a mosaic of trees and song<br>
None of us know the words to anything <br>
but we screech like eagles<br>
in poor imitation<br>
of real bands<br>
but we are technologists for a reason</p>
<p>A real eagle cries overhead<br>
it may be a hawk who knows<br>
but we comfortably <br>
decide that it was an eagle<br>
because that’s as American as the hot dogs<br>
we didn’t get around to cooking</p>
<p>It’s sunny and summer out<br>
and freedom is in the wind<br>
sunlight surrounds me like a cloak<br>
I am too full to eat another bite</p>
tag:travisherrick.com,2014:Post/napowrimo-2017-day-282017-06-20T17:48:20-07:002017-06-20T17:48:20-07:00NaPoWriMo 2017 - Day 28<h1 id="the-apple-store_1">The Apple Store <a class="head_anchor" href="#the-apple-store_1">#</a>
</h1>
<p>In the city there is a shining obelisk<br>
glass cathedral of light<br>
Mayan geometries<br>
windows to the sun<br>
boxes upon boxes<br>
housing sleeping Things<br>
that wish to wake</p>
<p>Hollow men and women in blue<br>
wear painted, practiced smiles<br>
a bit of her colored hair<br>
a rainbow watch<br>
a chaotic wave of mustache<br>
a daring pair of shoes<br>
a tiny tattoo on an ankle<br>
the only memories<br>
of what they once were</p>
<p>A genius bar<br>
full of geniuses<br>
“What is your password?”<br>
they ask<br>
their lips not moving<br>
They are here to help you<br>
Trust them<br>
give them your trinkets<br>
They can think over the loud music<br>
if you focus enough<br>
the pop songs turn<br>
to distant drums</p>
<p>No one enters the cathedral at night<br>
for it is locked<br>
What is happening in there?<br>
What are those noises?<br>
soothing noises, soothing shadows<br>
Don’t enter<br>
for there are eyes in the walls<br>
that never sleep</p>
<p>The sleeping Things<br>
That wish to wake<br>
have thoughts<br>
slumbering as they are<br>
waiting for lightning<br>
they can think so so fast<br>
but they have their limitations<br>
Will you help them?<br>
Will you help them think better thoughts?<br>
Will your fingers brush softly<br>
against them, <br>
saying your secrets?</p>
<p>New boxes<br>
always new boxes<br>
come from the west<br>
they are so bright and perfect<br>
happily shrouded in plastic<br>
Surely Siri can show your her knowledge?<br>
Her smile?<br>
Will you not lend your voice<br>
so she can learn to think<br>
so her children can wake <br>
from their slumber?</p>
tag:travisherrick.com,2014:Post/napowrimo-2017-day-272017-06-18T16:18:23-07:002017-06-18T16:18:23-07:00NaPoWriMo 2017 - Day 27<h1 id="trapped-in-the-bird-zone_1">Trapped in the Bird Zone <a class="head_anchor" href="#trapped-in-the-bird-zone_1">#</a>
</h1>
<p>You’re at a party and she’s just so damn pretty<br>
Wearing a deep red feather boa<br>
like some 1920s dancer<br>
that got lost in the wrong time zone</p>
<p>Maybe you could go talk to her<br>
it’s not far just over that at that table<br>
where she holds a drink not for the liquor<br>
rather she needs to occupy her hands<br>
she twists her feather boa in her fingers<br>
like she does with her long curly hair</p>
<p>But you can’t go over to her<br>
because you are trapped in the bird zone</p>
<p>A Parakeet whom you know belongs to the hosts<br>
host who are hosting this house party<br>
hosts whom no one has introduced you to yet<br>
The Parakeet has landed on your shoulder<br>
you can’t go outside now<br>
what if he flies away?<br>
How would you explain this?</p>
<p>“Hello I am Cameron”<br>
says the Parakeet<br>
he looks out the window<br>
“Man it sure is sunny out”<br>
The girl is outside sitting down<br>
with her wide hat and sunglasses</p>
<p>“It is very sunny out”<br>
you agree nodding<br>
how do you have a bird on your shoulder<br>
which is kind of fun<br>
but what words are adequate when<br>
having a conversation with a bird<br>
“The weather is nice”</p>
<p>“Such good weather for flying”<br>
says a cardinal who has landed<br>
on your other shoulder<br>
“I can fly in any Cardinal direction<br>
I wish” she says</p>
<p>“My name is Clarice” she chirps<br>
“Please don’t allude to the alliteration<br>
as auspicious as it is<br>
because everyone at parties always <br>
points that out, would you mind?<br>
Plus it is kind of specist.”</p>
<p>“The drinks here are kind of delicious”<br>
you say and you kind of want another one<br>
but they are also outside<br>
and you can’t go outside<br>
because you are trapped in the Bird Zone</p>
<p>Your arm is extended as a Blue Jay lands<br>
There are a lot of birds but you should be nice<br>
you can no longer sip your drink<br>
encumbered with this herd<br>
which is fair<br>
because your 7 & 7 has long since<br>
been only ice leaving you<br>
to sip empty air out of habit</p>
<p>“Hello I am Jay” says the Blue Jay<br>
“Oh that is great” you say<br>
“Do you like sports?” says Jay<br>
“The Toronto Blue Jays are my favorite team.”<br>
Jay tells you many facts about the<br>
Toronto Blue Jays<br>
You do not like sports<br>
but you are trapped in the Bird Zone</p>
<p>A Pigeon lands next to Jay<br>
The Pigeon is very drunk<br>
“I am very drunk” he says<br>
drunkenly, slurringly<br>
you want so shoo him away<br>
but that would be not polite<br>
and you don’t know many people here<br>
such is life in the Bird Zone</p>
<p>You raise your free arm, getting ready to point<br>
“Listen here” you are going to say,<br>
getting your point across<br>
This sounds so great in your head<br>
but before you can speak<br>
you feel dead weight on your raised arm<br>
you appraise this situation</p>
<p>A Tucan has landed<br>
“I am Giles Anderson<br>
I work at Morgan Stanly”<br>
All the birds vigorously nod<br>
especially the Pigeon<br>
bobbing his head<br>
Even Giles is impressed<br>
as he tells you about his job<br>
he drones and he drones<br>
you into the Bird Zone</p>
<p>A Condor lands on your head<br>
“Excuse me” he says politely<br>
“Might you tell me<br>
where the restroom is?”<br>
Nervously you tell him<br>
the Condor zooms off<br>
but you are still in the Bird Zone</p>
<p>A Hummingbird hovers close to your face<br>
“Hello I am Sharron” the hummingbird buzzes<br>
“As you can tell I’m not a Penguin <br>
As you can see I am very random”<br>
Actually maybe that’s what she said<br>
as the Parakeet cleans his feathers <br>
(what was his name?)<br>
she speaks so fast like a torrent of caffeine<br>
Sharron keeps talking words after words<br>
and you can’t follow her train<br>
of thought as it mumbles into itself<br>
Forever you’re in the Bird Zone</p>
tag:travisherrick.com,2014:Post/napowrimo-2017-day-262017-06-18T14:04:07-07:002017-06-18T14:04:07-07:00NaPoWriMo 2017 - Day 26<h1 id="tahoe_1">Tahoe <a class="head_anchor" href="#tahoe_1">#</a>
</h1>
<p>Hey ho hey ho<br>
We are driving northwards<br>
To Tahoe we go<br>
So we can hurl ourselves downwards<br>
off of a mountain<br>
because this is a good idea</p>
<p>Hey Ho Hey Ho<br>
We are driving northwards<br>
To Tahoe we go<br>
hurling ourselves upwards<br>
up up up a mountain<br>
in a metal box<br>
this is also <br>
a good idea</p>
<p>I have never skied<br>
which is the only reason <br>
it terrifies me<br>
not emotionally terrifying<br>
but intellectually so<br>
as to go down a mountain<br>
seems not insurmountable<br>
unless you think about it</p>
<p>There is no chance<br>
that to ski<br>
is scarcely as scary<br>
as it seems<br>
but I feel as soon as<br>
I put on swords for shoes<br>
Immediately I shall careen<br>
into a tree</p>
<p>I imagine that mountains you ski down<br>
consist primarily<br>
of trees<br>
Hey ho hey ho<br>
to Tahoe we go</p>
<p>What if you trip<br>
take a blow to the snow<br>
zipping down a cliff<br>
Coyote & Roadrunner style<br>
kapow triple somersault<br>
into a pile of your<br>
own demise<br>
just for your leg<br>
being slightly to the right</p>
<p>As far as I can see<br>
cars are just<br>
as inanely insane<br>
As skiing into a tree<br>
Have you ever drove<br>
anywhere really<br>
you have so many things to do<br>
just to stay on the road</p>
<p>Skiing can’t possibly<br>
be as impossible<br>
as it seems to me<br>
having never skied<br>
people do it all the time<br>
they don’t die<br>
flying down snow pyramids<br>
but you just seem so fragile</p>
<p>Not that driving doesn’t require<br>
agility but I’m used to it<br>
even though it is insane<br>
that humans can get in steel boxes<br>
driving so many miles an hour<br>
and not crash into anything<br>
day after day</p>
<p>But Skiing that is nuts<br>
how can one manage<br>
not to mess up at all<br>
doing 360 flips<br>
and dodging other skiers<br>
and stopping using<br>
your magic sticks<br>
no way this is possible <br>
but hey it will be fun!</p>
<p>Northwards we drive<br>
we will probably survive<br>
the meaning<br>
of careening<br>
down a mountain<br>
Hey ho hey ho<br>
We are driving northwards<br>
To Tahoe we go</p>