There's always something good in the NYT magazine

Hale men occasionally tend towards hippyism. Dad had some seriously long 70's hair and Uncle Rosebud drove a sweet VW bus. My occasionally sloppy appearance isn't hate, it's heritage.

I sometimes attempt to directly stimulate my inner-hippy through books. I read some of dad's old Richard Brautigan novels and Confederacy of Dunces with much enjoyment.

Several years ago, I picked up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a quarter at a used book sale, hoping for a similar reading experience. I was sorely disappointed, I can't think of a worse book that I actually waded all the way through.

Anyways, Rosebud passed along an article from NYT Magazine that was what I imagined Zen to be before I actually read it. "The Case for Working With Your Hands" uses words like "gestalt" and "metacognition" as unpretentiously as possible to make a case for physical work as a stimulant to intellectual vigor. Nothing in the article should be particularly controversial -- it's pretty commonsensical -- but it's a good summary of the dangers of cubicle-conformity wrapped up in a particular guy's story. Worth a read.

Also worth a read is the latest Point-Counterpoint where Jim and I bloviate on tenure.