David Moldawer

It occurred to me the other day—for the very first time!—that “author” and “authority” must derive from the same root. Isn’t it funny how something so obvious can stare you right in the face? As I discovered, both words derive from the Latin verb augēre, meaning “to

In this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awce_j2myQw], Francis Ford Coppola explains how he approached directing The Godfather. (Thanks for the link, Ozan [https://bookshop.org/books/think-like-a-rocket-scientist-simple-strategies-you-can-use-to-make-giant-leaps-in-work-and-life-9781541762596/9781541762596] !) Remember the previous essay about Stanley Kubrick’s boxes [https://mavengame.com/2020/11/worth-the-fuss/]? Coppola did something

John Gruber recently posted [https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/04/18/ellison-gates] the following excerpt from a biography of Oracle founder Larry Ellison [https://smile.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison-Oracle/dp/0743225058/] , in which Ellison recalls an encounter with Bill Gates: > It was around eleven o’clock in the morning, and

Yesterday, my contractual copy of another published book arrived in the mail. It’s solid, heavy—no pamphlet. Looks like I’ve accomplished the feat yet again. At this point, I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out the trick to writing books. Let me tell you what it is

“There is only one recipe for a best seller and it is a very simple one,” wrote [https://lithub.com/ian-fleming-explains-how-to-write-a-thriller/] Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. “You have to get the reader to turn over the page.” Even with the right elements for a thriller—an “unmannered prose

Agnes de Mille left the company performing Rodeo, her landmark ballet, to choreograph a musical on Broadway. Months later, she had the opportunity to see how the show was doing in her absence. What she saw horrified her: “It was unrecognizable,” she wrote. Without her presence to keep the dancers

I used to get hung up on technique. As a theater major in college, I expected to be taught how to put on a show, soup to nuts. Build a stage like this, lights go here and here, tell the actors to do this, and so on. Unlike my High

Though he was operating within a tight timeframe and a limited budget, Brian Eno conducted many sonic experiments during the making of Another Green World. To me, this is pretty admirable considering the exorbitant cost of a day in the recording studio. Rather than just hand the musicians a fixed

A friend who reads the newsletter recommended Geeta Dayal’s entry in the 33 1/3 series on Brian Eno’s Another Green World [https://bookshop.org/books/brian-eno-s-another-green-world/9780826427861]. I didn’t know the album, but Dayal’s book, he wrote, is “not just about the recording but about

When I’m established, when I’m recognized, when I’m financially secure, when I’m famous, when I have a thousand followers—ten thousand—a hundred thousand. Then! Then I’ll put in the work. Then I’ll do it for real. When the time comes, I’ll be