I took this photo yesterday of a westerly-facing tree outside of our television studios and didn’t share it with you. Shame on me. The light was catching it so nicely, and everything. So here’s the westerly-facing tree.
Trees, of course, face all directions. That’s the sort of useful information that you keep coming back here for, I know.
And also this insight, a phrase I coined today, but a feeling that has long been on the mind of any expert who has ever talked about their craft to a non-expert.
Shortcuts used shouldn’t always be the shortcuts taught.
It had to do with a conversation about writing, and the root of it is the cliche, you have to know the rules so you can break the rules.
Or “learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist,” which is often attributed to Pablo Picasso, or “know the rules well, so you can break them effectively,” as the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso supposedly said. (And hasn’t the web ruined us on standalone quotes? I no longer believe anyone said anything, but that everything was said by Abraham Lincoln quoting Calvin Coolidge.)
I’m pretty sure I learned the theme from my algebra teacher, of all people. Learn the rules to break the rules. And that’s what algebra was like for me.
How I got through calculus and trig is something of an open mystery.
More time in the television studio tonight. It was the sports crew shooting tonight, and those shows will start to come online tomorrow.
Here are the news shows from yesterday, though. All the local that is news, and all the news that is local …
And the Halloween-themed show that I teased here yesterday …
Why do trees face all directions? It’s a question of survival to be prosperous. Tree branches grow to give the most leaves the most light, because light means they can run photosynthetic process. The rest is us being misanthropomorphic.
