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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

CAAF: No matter how long it takes, no matter how far

February 1, 2008 by cfrye

Sorry, work ate up my week, and I’ve felt toward my life like Daniel Day-Lewis getting swept away in Last of the Mohicans, all “You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you!”
For one little project I had to compile a list of business jargon. Trolling around the Internet looking for lingo, I came across this bit of wisdom in an article about procrastination*:

Make up your own rewards. For example, promise yourself a piece of tasty flapjack at lunchtime if you’ve completed a certain task.

It’s such a minor, random thing but I’m completely diverted by that “piece of tasty flapjack at lunchtime.” At the paper where I used to work my friend M. and I went through a period where we tried to insert the phrase “in the ensuing melee” into all of our articles, e.g., “City Council debated the measure and in the ensuing melee the motion passed with a 7-2 vote.” And as this article is otherwise sane, I’m just going to guess that the writers at MindTools have something similar going with “piece of tasty flapjack.”
So, more here Monday. Until then, hope you have a good weekend with lots of tasty flapjacks!
* Also, can there be anything that smacks more of procrastination than reading an article about how not to procrastinate? The whole thing should be four words: “Get back to work.”

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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