The most interesting thing I learned recently is that it takes ten thousand hours of practice to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert - in anything, including writing --
        

"In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or twenty hours a week of practice over ten years. Of course, this doesn't address why some people don't seem to get anywhere when they practice....but no one has yet found a case in which true world-class-expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it take the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery…the strength of a memory is related to how many times the original stimulus has been experienced."

 

This fascinating concept comes from "This is Your Brain on Music," which I had planned on reviewing for Slow Trains, but it wasn't as great of a book as it should have been, though it did hold some noteworthy and new ideas. It didn't mention any ideas, however,  about how I've suddenly landed in a bright & shiny snow globe this winter here in Denver -- I swear, I shake my head ever so slightly, and wow, ever more snow falls. We actually have more snow in the city than in our fabulous mountain ski towns….which is just wrong. We're known for our average 300 sunny days a year in Denver, which makes the snow melt asap, even when it comes…but not this time, it's been crazy here.

We do have big sunny Denver news, though -- we were just chosen for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, which makes me ecstatic. We have a new Dem governor here, though really the Denver metro area has always been "blue" -- the problem has been that many of Colorado's outlying areas (think almost to Kansas) have outweighed the metro area and kept us in the "red."  Bringing the convention here, where we just opened our great new light rail system, is like, you know, the Audacity of Hope ( buy this one on CD, or get it from your library – he reads it himself, it's excellent)...and I just read where Oprah loves him (Barack Obama) so much she'll probably get him into the White House, just like a things-I-love book selection.

A thing that I personally love (well, beside Taylor Hicks, I can't help it, he's adorable, and sexy – check the video of "The Right Place"), is the great team of talented editors we have at Clean Sheets.  I have arrived with my first blog entry at myspace belatedly in 2007, trailing in the sparkling wake of Toronto's  Nola Summers,  Clean Sheets'  resident astrologer, poet, and all-around great editor. A little promo for Clean Sheets here, a little rauxa energy, and a whole lot of music, what's not to love. Except maybe that time-suck factor – Michael Chabon is quoted as once saying --

 "Writers of the past had absinthe, whiskey, or heroin. I have Google. I go there intending to stay five minutes and next thing I know, seven hours have passed, I've written 43 words, and all I have to show for it is that I know the titles of every episode of The Nanny and the Professor." ….

...but of course that was before myspace. I'm going to try and do a monthly blog about excellent things and ideas and Big Fun, since that's what I love to read in others.

So here's something weird, but it's the most Big Fun I've had recently at a sporting event – I went to my first professional lacrosse game, no kidding. I went in part because my college-freshman son works at the  sports arena on a "street team," getting paid to give away free stuff to fans (tough job), but it was the Colorado Mammoth's opening game, and it's all lights and music and kiss-cams and hot girls in the hot tub at one end – who knew? The game was rough and fast and furious -- the hilarious highlight of it all was … a "sock trick." Six goals scored by one player =  a "sock trick", and yes, the many die-hard fans throw their socks on the field, it's party-time, drinking time, and  highly recommended fun if you have one of these teams in your city.

A favorite rollicking book of the past year was "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert – this one is also available on CD read by the author. It's a lot of good travel writing, through Italy & India & Bali, some interesting girl-angst, a love for the Italian language, and her passion for the idea of living temporarily in a country (Italy) where the train stations' names called out are often food ("Bologna!" etc...).   One of my favorite parts is when she talks about how every city has one "word of the street" that sums it up and helps you understand the vibe there --  Rome is SEX, the Vatican is POWER, New York is ACHIEVE,  LA is SUCEED, Stockholm is CONFORM.....  and then she rolls on into what your personal word might be, and what the "word" for your family growing up might have been.....  here in Denver I'm sure the city's word is PLAY, since the outdoors, skiing, etc are such a big part of the energy.  My own word is RAVEON, sorry but I'm taking that as one word!....or if forced to pick another I'd choose DANCE...and my family growing up, though nobody was Swedish, was definitely some form of CONFORM, or BEHAVE, or maybe even BEQUIET.  I'd love to hear other peoples' comments & words for their places and lives...

Another excellent writer I dove into last year was Barbara Kingsolver – I started rereading "The Bean Trees" and never stopped til I got to "Pigs in Heaven," ran through the essay books -- "High Tide in Tucson," etc...I quite envy what she did with the Bean-->Heaven storyline, and as every writer knows, it's the ones you envy that you have to recommend!

The most amazing movie series that I somehow missed until this year is "49 up",  a series that started with "7 up", interviewing a group of British 7 year olds about what they were going to do when they grew up. The intervening every 7 years ("14 up", "21 up", etc….) films are remarkable, or as Roger Ebert says in his interview that's on "49 up", this must be the most noble use of filmmaking.   It all makes you think way back, and forward -- who were you at 7?  at 14?  now?  want to be at 49? at 56?.... try writing it down, it's an excellent writing exercise.

Here's 20 free "best of" downloads from Salon, they're a great source of new music. -- I particularly like Jennie Pearl's "Maybe in Another Year."

 I'll end this with notice of a new writing contest at Clean Sheets  -- with "sex & spirituality" as the theme,  which may foretell  a book to follow along in the Sex & Laughter series, which will probably fold right in as part of our From Porn to Poetry series soon, representative of all the great CS writers I have the privelege of working with...

    rave on!