Adventures in Omphaloskepsis

More About Me

Gaze too long into the navel and the navel gazes back

Skylla and Charybdis not included

My Odyssey

Odyssey? A wee self-aggrandizing, aren’t we? I could have called it “My Journey” but I like the evocations of Homer and Kubrick (also self-aggrandizing), so odyssey it is … with apologies to Odysseus, who would not be impressed.

See my full vita on LinkedIN

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (okay, Pomona, California)

I am born to two quiet Lutherans (is there any other kind?). Garrison Keillor is right: We do not go for whooping it up, or a lot of yikkety-yak.

For the next
18
years …

My parents raise me. They model virtues: honesty, humility, integrity, moderation, and faith. They provide a true foundation. It is a lodestone. It has gravity. It pulls me back to the path when I wander into the wilderness. Another gift: each summer we go to a different national park; we visit most of the states, taking in the breadth and diversity of this nation; I learn that people in other places do not necessarily live like me, dress like me, or sound like me; and I realize that empathy is the key to understanding people of different backgrounds.

Junior High and High School

Through science kits I discover technology; through books, writing; through movies, music; and through photojournalism, photography (and I get my first SLR cameras). I become enamored with calligraphy, beginning my lifelong fascination with typography and graphic design. Also, I temporarily contemplate a career in architecture because I love to design fantasy amusement park rides (especially haunted houses) and I take architectural drafting courses. Music wins out, however.

College

The University of La Verne. Its faculty have a crazy idea: focus on the students and teach (no classes led by teaching assistants while absentee professors do research). I study music, learn to sing, and make the acquaintance of literature, mythology, theatre, and so much more. I realize that I don’t want to believe what my parents believed just because they believed it, so I turn to C. S. Lewis and find that faith and reason, far from incompatible, are inextricably intertwined.

Grad School

I am told that this will be the most intellectually exciting time of my life. It is. It is also the most disillusioning, and it sours me on pursuing an academic career. But I receive an M.A. in historical musicology with an emphasis on non-serial music since 1945, focusing on aleatoricism in composers such as Lutoslawski and Penderecki—which really impresses at cocktail parties. Or would have. Pity I never went to any.

Claremont Colleges Library

I begin my career—and get married and become a parent, renewing my life’s course. I put my photographic background to use imaging rare books and manuscripts and build my first exhibition websites. This leads to website design and administration. I discover web usability and embrace user-centered design, evaluating designs by observing people interact with working mock-ups. I also do some writing for Claremont library publications that reach out to students and faculty.

The Claremont Colleges Services (TCCS)

TCCS is parent to the library system, and I am given the position of overseeing all TCCS websites. This provides many more opportunities to explore UX/UI design; and I become attuned to accessibility issues through collaborations with web designers at the colleges. Because the management of our websites touches many people (mostly within IT and Communications) I write extensive documentation detailing the structure and coding behind TCCS’ web presence; and I do other writing as well, authoring a cyber security informational campaign for the campus community.

Sabbatical, Family Care, Pandemic

When my parents died, they left a house with a half-century of accumulation that needed to be cleared out before the home could be sold. For most of a year I deal with this—full time. Then my wife gets the diagnosis; I pass on opportunities so I can see her through surgeries and radiation. Just as she has recovered and is out of the woods—and I am working toward re-engaging with my career—the pandemic hits and the economy shuts down. Even so, I bolster and expand my skills through online classes.

A New Chapter

I am excited to embrace whatever opportunities present themselves. To adapt an old movie tagline, the adventure is just beginning.

Things that interest me

My obsessions

User-centered everything

Web design. Architecture. Furniture design. Automotive design. Ergonomics. The method: have empathy, observe, ask questions, and look at heuristic data. Use what works and dump what doesn’t.

Thought and its expression

Philosophy and theology. Truth and how we define it. Embracing the enduring over the ephemeral.

Words and writing

Favorite words and phrases: defenestrate, enkindle, esprit de l’escalier, gradient, lacuna, lugubrious, mensch, omphaloskepsis, recrudescence, splat, and tickety-boo.

Music

Bach and Brahms, Mingus and Monk, Sinatra and Sassy, Browne and Bareilles are among my faves. Too many others to mention, including a lot of guilty pleasures (like ELO and Esquivel!).

Also: history of audio recording technology, recordings, and engineers. Mercury Living Presence. RCA Living Stereo. C. Robert and Wilma Cozart Fine. Roy DuNann. Rudy Van Gelder. Heretical view I hold: digital sound is an improvement over analog. Discuss.

Cinema

Directors, especially Hitchcock, Ford, and Kubrick. Cinematography and cinematographers, especially Toland and Storaro. Motion picture aspect ratios: Academy ratio, Cinerama, Cinemascope, VistaVision, Ultra Panavision, etc. At one point my favorite word was “anamorphic.”

Mid-century anything

Case Study homes. The Eames. That ball clock designed by drunken geniuses. Mad Men. Star Trek—the original series, natch: just look at the furniture!).

And the rest

Cartography and all things nautical (yo ho ho). National Parks. Museums of all kinds.

“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
P. J. O’Roarke

Books that have influenced me

“… there is only one situation I can think of in which [people] … read better than they usually do. When they are in love and are reading a love letter, they read for all they are worth. They read every word three ways; they read between the lines and in the margins; they read the whole in terms of the parts, and each part in terms of the whole; they grow sensitive to context and ambiguity, to insinuation and implication; they perceive the color of words, the odor of phrases, and the weight of sentences. They may even take the punctuation into account. Then, if never before or after, they read.”
Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

Books About Books

How to Read a Book – Mortimer J. Adler

The Lifetime Reading Plan – Clifton J. Fadiman

The Western Canon – Harold Bloom

“Without books, God is silent, justice dormant, natural science at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in darkness”
Thomas Bartholin

Philosophy, Religion, and Mythology

The Five Books of Moses (the Torah, tr. Everett Fox)

Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way – Philip Jenkins

The Hero with a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell

Dialogues – Plato (tr. Benjamin Jowett)

The Basic Works of Aristotle – Richard McKeon, ed.

Aristotle – John Herman Randall, Jr.

Confessions – Saint Augustine

Miracles – C.S. Lewis

The Hidden Face of God – Gerald Schroeder

“He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
Aeschylus, Agamemnon, tr. Edith Hamilton

History

Our Oriental Heritage (The Story of Civilization, Vol. 1) – Will and Ariel Durant

The Rise of the West – William H. McNeill

The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Anti-Federalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle Over Ratification 1787-1788 (Library of America)

Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention – Catherine Drinker Bowen

On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography – Sarah Greenough, et al.

Literature & Drama

The Iliad and The Odyssey – “Homer” (tr. Robert Fagles)

Agamemnon and Prometheus Bound – Aeschylus

Moby Dick – Herman Melville

Music

Classic and Romantic Music – Friedrich Blume

The Great Conductors – Harold C. Schonberg

Visions in Jazz – Gary Giddins

Why Sinatra Matters – Pete Hamill

“A musicologist is a man who can read music but can’t hear it.”
Sir Thomas Beecham, Bart., C.H.

Design

Tech books are notorious for becoming obsolete the moment they’re published, but here are four evergreens; the details may be dated but the principles are perennial.

Don’t Make Me Think – Steve Krug

Designing Web Usability – Jakob Nielsen

Designing with Web Standards – Jeffrey Zeldman

Contextual Design – Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt

Sundries

The Inner Game of Tennis – Timothy Gallwey

The 12 Week Year – Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington

How to Make Yourself Miserable – Dan Greenburg and Marcia Jacobs

(Think of the last book as an antidote: do exactly the opposite of what it recommends and you’ll be fine, which is probably what the authors intended; the fact that it’s also a hilarious work of humor is simply a bonus.)

Favorite Recordings

Not a comprehensive list of the greatest recordings (though some of the greatest are included), just some I hold close to my heart, recommended to you.

Classical

Bach: Bach [keyboard works, incl. the Well-Tempered Clavier, Bks I and II; Goldberg Variations; Two and Three-part Inventions; English and French Suites; Toccatas; Partitas; etc.]. Angela Hewitt, piano. Hyperion CDS44421.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in d minor. Soloists; Chor und Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele; Wilhelm Furtwängler, cond. EMI D128215.

Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem, Op. 45. Soloists; Philharmonia Chorus; Philharmonia Orchestra; Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI 6 78330 2.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in f minor, Op. 36; Symphony No. 5 in e minor, Op. 64; Symphony No 6 in b minor, Op. 74. Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra; Evgeny Mravinsky, cond. Deutsche Grammophon 419 745-2.

Mahler: Symphony No. 1, “Titan”; Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”; “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen”. Soloists; Westminster Choir; New York Philharmonic; Columbia Symphony Orchestra; Bruno Walter, cond. Sony SM2K 64447.

Jazz

Erroll Garner: Concert by the Sea. Columbia CK 40589.

Thelonius Monk: Brilliant Corners. Riverside OJCCD-026-2 (RLP-226).

Miles Davis: Kind of Blue. CK 64935.

Charles Mingus: Blues and Roots. Atlantic R2 75205.

Gerry Mulligan: Night Lights. Mercury 818 271-2.

Vocal

Sarah Vaughan. Sarah Vaughan. Verve (EmArcy) 314 543 305-2.

Jeri Southern: The Very Thought of You: The Decca Years, 1951-1957. Decca GRD-471.

Ella Fitzgerald: The Cole Porter Songbook. Essential Jazz Classics EJC55454.

Frank Sinatra: Songs for Swingin’ Lovers. Capitol CDP 7 46570-2.

Johnny Hartman: John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. Impulse! GRD-157.

“When I’m making a film, I’m the audience.”
Martin Scorsese

Favorite Films

Light + editing = emotion.

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)

Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989)

It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)

Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982)

La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016)

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1946)

North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)

The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1941)

The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952)

Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

Scrooge (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1951)

To Kill a Mockingbird (Richard Mulligan, 1962)

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg [Les Parapluies de Cherbourg] (Jacques Demy, 1964)

Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Wings of Desire [Der Himmel über Berlin] (Wim Wenders, 1987)

“Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. After looking at the Alps, I felt that my mind had been stretched beyond the limits of its elasticity, and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I had to spread these to fit it.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, Chapter XI

Final Thoughts

Gleaned through the years from the thoughts of others, attribution not always certain.

Observations

Watch what people do; don’t focus on what they say they do.

Focus on process, not the hoped-for result. Set up the proper conditions, whatever they are, and let things happen naturally. Applies to singing, playing tennis, or anything else requiring attention to form and follow-through.

Instead of dwelling on what you can’t change, focus on what you can. And if you want to stop doing something, you’ll need to replace it with a healthy alternative; focus on your desired path, not what you’re trying to avoid or you’ll just keep bumping into your obstacles, whatever they are.

Make joy and gratitude actions, not only emotions; make them intentional habits of mind, not just responses. Live life as something that happens for you, not to you.

Ideas

Each of us is obligated, regardless of occupation, to make people’s lives better—or at least to do no harm. If what you’re doing is making things worse, you need to ask yourself why you’re doing it.

True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.

You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

(Some spuriously attribute the last one to C. S. Lewis; others see Gnostic negativity toward the body in it — I do not. I do see it as a tonic to today’s tendency to view existence through an exclusively material prism.)

More About Me

My Odyssey