BOOK REVIEW: The Heart and Mind and Soul of a Writer

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. Translated by Richard Zenith. Penguin, 1998. 540 pages.

It would have been too easy for Fernando Pessoa to call his magnum opus The Book of Solitude. Nearly the entire book unfolds as a private reckoning with isolation, boredom, and despair. Pessoa's self-reflections on identity and his probings into the elusive nature of reality keep coming at the reader like a tsunami of emotions. Yet Pessoa settled on the more apt title The Book of Disquiet, because solitude is merely the setting. Disquiet is the recurring condition that animates this fragmented and disjointed, but ultimately revelatory and life-affirming treatise.

This is not a fiction or nonfiction work in the conventional sense. Published after Pessoa’s death from pieces, some as short as a single sentence, written over many years, it offers no sustained plot and little forward movement. Its narrator—most often identified as Bernardo Soares, one of Pessoa’s semi-fictional literary personalities (he called them heteronyms)—is an assistant bookkeeper in Lisbon whose outwardly uneventful life gives rise to a vast interior drama. Streets, offices, rented rooms, passing clouds, and overheard conversations become occasions for metaphysical inquiry.

The fragmentary form is essential to the book’s effect. Thoughts emerge and reemerge, contradict one another, and dissolve before reaching firm conclusions. Rather than weaken the work, this instability makes it persuasive: consciousness itself rarely proceeds in a straight line. Pessoa captures the mind as it drifts between observation and fantasy, self-knowledge and self-deception, longing and resignation.

That method can also make The Book of Disquiet demanding. Read too quickly or in long stretches, its melancholy and repetition may feel oppressive and disappointing. It rewards a slower approach: a few fragments at a time, with pauses for reflection. The pleasure lies less in discovering what happens than in encountering sentences that give exact form to feelings usually left vague.

Pessoa turns passivity into intellectual adventure and ordinary urban life into an inexhaustible mystery. His narrator may distrust action, intimacy, ambition, and even happiness, but his sensitivity to language and perception is intensely alive. The result is a strange paradox: a book about withdrawal that offers readers an unusually intimate companionship.

The Book of Disquiet is bleak, repetitive, and structurally unfinished—and these qualities are inseparable from its greatness. It does not resolve its narrator’s unease; it teaches us how carefully we can observe unease. For readers willing to surrender plot for atmosphere and certainty for introspection, Pessoa’s masterpiece remains one of literature’s most penetrating portraits of consciousness. I am one of those readers. Pessoa can make you one too.

The Other Way

There's always another way. Even the brainless Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz knew that when he told Dorothy Gale, "Of course, people do go both ways. That's the trouble. I can't make up my mind. I haven't got a brain. Only straw." Knowing is one thing, and choosing another. Anybody can say, "This way or that way," and only a poet can urge us to take the path less chosen, but it's not as easy as all that.

Case in point, the way of doing something is tedious and exhausting, and the other way of doing the same thing is easier. But you might mess up doing it the other way. The broken plastic wall anchor that you drove into the sheetrock too hard, the day-old bread you microwaved to mush just because you would not wait ten minutes to heat it in the oven, the grease-stained blouse you are now wearing because you didn't want to put on the apron in the presence of company.

Then consider that other way of getting there can get you there quicker. But that way is far more dangerous. The corner around the building you cut too quickly because what were the chances of bumping heads with someone walking just as fast from the opposite direction, the light you ran because you were sure the other car you collided with would let you pass, the two stairs-per-step climb that caused you to lose balance and fall backwards.

And finally, you've got the other way of seeing things can make you more sensitive to the world. But seeing things that way might make them eat you up. Yielding the floor to someone out of respect who won't shut up, listening sympathetically to someone you knew all along was disturbed who now accuses you of sexual harassment, helping a blind man across the street just to later find he pickpocketed you.

You won't, no you can't, go both ways. You always have to choose. Even when you do something the way you've always done it, go the way you've always gone, see things the way you always have, you are choosing. And even when you do nothing, go nowhere, and see nothing, you have chosen. No sense in denying it. 

East Side, West SIde

Wednesday, September 30, 2026, 4:02 p.m. to 4:20 p.m. – Words heard during a fast walk on Forty-second Street, New York City, from Grand Central Station to Port Authority Bus Terminal: brother, you got some change, God bless you ... it's this way ,,, and then she said ... a latte ... about three thousand, I said three thousand for that ... now it's your turn ... get over here ... when she was in Amsterdam ... you can't get them now ... don't ask me ... he would have said the same thing ... it's the same difference ...  next week sometime ... it was the spark plugs ... that was then, this is now ... how can anyone blame you for doing that after what they did to you ... ya no viene acui ... once in a while ,,, how do you get there ... it was way more than I was willing to pay ... let's go somewhere else, the line's too long ... not until then ... so he walks in, turns on the light and we all yell surprise and the jerk walks right back out and we're like all surprised like what was that all about and the cake is sitting there in the middle of the table, you know, and nobody thinks of going after him or if they do they ain't saying nothing, so Louise, she's a pisser, she starts cutting the cake and says oh well, more cake for us ... whenever you want ... sir, can you help me for a meal.

The Art of the Pause: Why Effective Writing Requires Unplugged Thinking

I asked Google Gemini, "Write a blog post for WORDS ON THE LINE by Philip Vassallo."  In less than five seconds, it replied, "Here is a draft for a new blog post tailored to the tone and philosophy of your blog." After the line break below, I have left intact the formatting and paragraphing, and I have not changed a word or punctuation mark of this post, including the title.

I have done this thought experiment for three reasons: First, I was curious about AI'sselection of content. Here I would give it a C because I have discussed the points it mentions in so many words repeatedly over the past 22 years of writing WORDS ON THE LINE. Second, I was interested in seeing how close AI comes to imitating my sense of structure (I would give it an A, as I have been teaching this organization strategy for decades) and my approach to style (here it gets a B since I would be more concise). Third, and most important, I wanted to know if AI could add value to WORDS ON THE LINE for my readers. To this point, I am undecided. But I promise not to fade away in the face of AI. To be continued.

The AI Revolution in Education, Part 3: Further Suggestions

No single policy will resolve the AI challenge in education. As technology changes, educators will have to change with it. Here are six evergreen practices that should be at the heart of instruction with AI.

1. Explain  the purpose of every assignment. If students are to practice independent writing, unrestricted AI assistance may defeat the purpose. If they are evaluating arguments, AI might provide useful material to critique.
2. Require students to disclose their AI use. This practice is no different from requiring students to cite their sources. In using AI, what did they request, accept, reject, or revise? Making AI use visible turns it from a hidden shortcut into an accountable part of the learning process.
3. Make AI itself an object of study. Give students an AI-generated response and ask them to find its factual, logical, or stylistic weaknesses. Through such an exercise, students can learn an important lesson: fluent language is not necessarily reliable knowledge.
4. Vary assessments. Discussions, presentations, drafts, demonstrations, reflections, collaborative work, in-class writing, and other teaching modes can provide evidence that a final product alone cannot.
5. Invest in teacher learning. Teachers need training to cultivate their AI knowledge, ethical understanding, pedagogical skills, and continuing professional competence. 
6. Create thinking spaces. The education system should place independent thinking at the heart of all learning. If students are to think for themselves, they must have facilitators ushering them into spaces, physical and otherwise, where AI answers are not immediate. Students and teachers alike must prize the uniquely precious human gift of abstract thinking. 

Not every problem needs an instant answer, nor does every sentence need technological assistance. Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers. Learning can be hard, and that's a good thing. Instead of removing all difficulties, add new challenges. Educators should not keep AI outside the classroom at all costs, nor to put it everywhere simply because it is available. They should include it where strengthens learning and exclude it where it replaces learning.

The AI Revolution in Education, Part 2: The Response

If educators cannot simply eliminate artificial intelligence from the classroom, how should they approach it? So far, we have devised some practical responses.

1. Start with the mindset that AI is an assistant, not the source of knowledge. Using AI purposefully will make students more responsible for learning. When they obtain information based on their results-driven, informed, and focused prompts, they will see AI as another powerful resource, not as the center of learning. 

2. Teach students to question AI rather than simply use it. Students can compare an AI response with reliable sources, identify errors, challenge its reasoning, or ask why one answer is more convincing than another. This approach brings critical thinking into AI literacy.

3. Recreate assignments. Instead of asking students only for a finished essay, teachers can examine outlines, drafts, revisions, sources, and reflections. The process becomes part of the learning.

These approaches suggest that educators do not necessarily have to choose between AI and no AI. They can instead ask whether a particular use of AI advances the learning objective. That question matters because the appropriate use of AI will differ by age, subject, assignment, and purpose, and a science laboratory, a literature discussion, and a college research paper should not necessarily have the same AI rules.

The essential shift is from asking, "How do we stop students from using AI?" to asking, "What do we want students to learn, and what evidence will show that they learned it?" AI may change the answers to those questions, but it must not eliminate those questions.

The AI Revolution in Education, Part 1: The Problem

Artificial intelligence has created dilemmas for educators with no simple solution. Should schools ban it, permit it, or regulate it? Each choice creates at least six problems:

1. Enhancing learning. If AI writes a student's paper, what has the student learned? Evidence suggests that students recall less of the AI-generated content in their assignments, suggesting they do not study the new information.
2. Legitimizing Writing. If AI can produce a competent essay in seconds, why should students struggle to write one? This question implies that writing may go the way of the slide rule.
3. Equalizing access. If students do not have equal access to technology and sophisticated AI tools, will the have-nots have  the knowledge required to use them effectively? AI can therefore create new educational inequalities, even as it promises greater access to information.
4. Protecting privacy. Might students and teachers enter personal information or student work into systems whose data practices they do not fully understand? UNESCO identifies privacy, human agency, accountability, and equity as important considerations in educational AI.
5. Assigning responsibility. If AI provides a wrong answer, who is accountable for accepting responsibility? This point is no small one because content verification can be untraceable.
6. Engendering relevance. What should education preserve when technology changes what people can do? Answering this question is not only at the heart of education but a major factor for giving people worldwide relevant employment.

AI technology is changing every imaginable industry from dairy to diamonds, from medicine to electricity. The challenge is not simply deciding whether AI belongs in education, but which parts of education should remain unmistakably human.

Key to the City

I don't remember the nightmare, but it bolted me out of bed. The clock showed I hadn't set the alarm and was late for work. I grabbed my keys and hopped toward the front door while putting on trousers, socks, shoes, and shirt. Half dressed, I tried unlocking the car door parked on the curb. It would not open. I darted back into the house. Honey, my car key doesn't work for some reason, may I have yours? Don't you remember today is D-Day? D-Day? Don't you remember I took ownership of the car and changed the key as part of the divorce agreement? What divorce agreement? You forgot you signed it? When? What difference does when make? How am I going to get to work? How should I know? Where's my phone? Don't you know it's always where you last put it? Why would I ask if I did? Do you remember that you stayed here last night as a courtesy I extended to you? What? Are you telling me you forgot that this house is no longer yours and I changed the house keys as part of the divorce agreement?

The walk to the train station, the wait for the train, the train ride itself, the run from the train to the office were painfully slow. I rushed into the office and said good morning to whoever I passed, but they all returned my greetings with strange stares. I tried unlocking my office, but couldn't get in. My manager walked up to me. What are you doing here? The key doesn't work. We changed the key. Why? You don't work here anymore. Since when? Close of business yesterday. Why didn't anyone tell me? You weren't around as usual. 

It was nine thirty and I had a hundred bucks in my pocket and the door to the bar across the street was wide open. The owner Charlie was there cleaning up the place and airing it out. Charlie, if I help you get things in order, will you sell me a bourbon neat? If you want to drink this early, knock yourself out. I took the chairs off the tables, swept the floor, and bought a bourbon. Charlie worked at the bar on his laptop all along. The only words we shared were, Give me another, Here you go. The more I drank, the cleaner and emptier the bar looked.

Six or seven shots and a hundred dollars later, I walked out of the bar with nothing in my pocket but three useless keys. I decided to walk home, wherever home now was. Down the block in City Hall Park, there was some commotion going on. A big crowd of people was cheering below the City Hall steps. At the top of the steps was the mayor handing the key to the city to someone famous, but I couldn't make him out. The crowd was chanting some rap lyrics, so I figured he was a recording artist. I stood there with a plan. After the rapper shook the mayor's hand and thanked his mother, music producer, entourage, and fans, he walked down the steps to embrace his following. I couldn't have planned it better. He was high-fiving some devotees and taking selfies with others, flashing his key to the city. He was heading in my direction, and I drew closer to him to quicken the process. Just when he stood in front of me, he raised his right arm for a high-five. From his left hand, I snatched his key to the city and made off for the busy streets hoping to disappear in the crowd. The rapper chased after me followed by two bodyguards, a half dozen police officers, and even some of his fans. But catching everyone by surprise gave me a pretty good head start. I was just a few steps from finding shelter in the mass of tourists and businesspeople scurrying around town. My heart was about to explode, in part because of the chase and in part because of the thrill of having the key to the city. Who would have thought this day would turn out so great?

Founded in 1996

August 2 marked the thirtieth anniversary of my quitting a steady, secure job to become the sole proprietor of a risky business in the educational services sector. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 19% of such businesses fail within their first year, 46% fail within five years, and 61% after ten years. I'm not a big-time gambler, so I sometimes shake my head in bewilderment that I decided to go solo. Why would I take such a big risk at age 42 with a mortgage and two daughters, ages 14 and 11, meaning a quarter million dollars in college bills ahead of me, to walk away from a job with a reasonable salary, pension, health benefits, a company car, and good friends?  

I had a long time to answer this question. For seven years, I prepared myself to walk away from a role that I ultimately spend 19 years doing by calculating my potential income across the expanse of industry changes, learning whatever I could about the operational side of the business I wanted to enter, and honing my skills to succeed at it. I would have been happy with an equivalent income since I was fortunate to have a wife who had healthcare benefits from her work as a public-school teacher. Throughout those seven years, I continually weighed the pluses and minuses of going into business for myself.

It turns out that my predicted disadvantages and advantages, as well as my ultimate decision, were spot on. 

Starting with the downside, I would never again get a paid vacation, holiday, or sick day. I would work for billable time. I would lose the company car and the healthcare benefit. I would sit on a frozen abysmally low pension from my job, not payable for another 23 years, and I would no longer be able to contribute to a 403B plan reserved for nonprofit employees. I would have to surrender the company car, so I would now have to buy one of my own. Although I did not belong to a union, I enjoyed job security in an autonomous, specialized role. I would also miss the camaraderie of several friends.  

On the upside was the possibility of earning more income, but that was not a guarantee. I would have greater control of my time, even though I never shied from 75- to 90-hour workweeks. Important to me was the constant challenge of finding creative solutions to my clients' problems. I love learning, and surviving in this business depended on obtaining a great deal of self-education to stay at the top of my game. Without a boss, I would feel independent to make choices that mattered to me. I would never again argue with management. I would have only myself to blame for making poor decisions, holding on to bad clients, and partnering with ineffective collaborators.

It all has worked out. Despite formidable challenges, including recessions, natural disasters, an epidemic, and clients' strategic changes, I have earned far more than I expected, so my daughters went to colleges I would not have otherwise been able to afford, and my financial future is more secure. I traveled for work to China, India, and throughout the United States. I worked for some of the largest companies and municipalities in the world, and I have worked with brilliant, diligent people who have made me smarter. I remain close to my friends from my old job 30 years later.

Yes, risks arise in leaving a dependable job for an unknown future in a private business. I would not recommend it for everyone, but the ride continues to be worth it for me.

A Thank-You Letter to Benjamin Bass

Strand Bookstore, New York City. Photo by Ajay Suresh

Dear Benjamin Bass, 

When as a struggling Lithuanian immigrant you founded the Strand Bookstore nearly a century ago in 1927, I'm sure you wanted to see the day when it would flourish. And you did, long before you died 51 years later. Your store continues to be a must-visit spot for travelers around the world who come to New York City, whether to buy a reasonably priced, hard-to-find book or to satisfy their curiosity about the store's mammoth size (18 miles of books, as your tagline says).  

You were alive when I first frequented your store in 1971 as a City University of New York student living 12 miles away in the Bronx, and although I now live 32 miles away, I still stop by whenever I can. I look at the hundreds of used books on my shelf that I've bought in excellent condition and at affordable prices from Strand, realizing that I owe much of my education to you. In truth, your legacy is one of the reasons I hesitate to move much farther away. 

So thank you for offering the perfect deal to the millions of people who have wanted to be educated or entertained through the endless, transformative power of books. I have always felt that when it comes to the book business, the customer always gets the better end of the bargain. We can reread the same book at different ages in our life and discover how much we have changed. This might be a good time for me to acknowledge your business model as a labor of love, too. Finally, thank you for believing in the magic of books and for being such an important part of my life. Here's to the next hundred years.

With appreciation and admiration,

Phil Vassallo

On Forgetting Words

In a dream last night, a friend pointed to the vertical groove between his nose and lip and asked me for the word identifying it. I couldn't recall no matter how hard I tried. I learned the word in the third grade, when I was eight years old, but I just couldn't name it. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. in a Porto, Portugal hotel room, realizing I couldn't recall the word in my waking life either. So I looked it up on my phone as my wife slept peacefully beside me. Philtrum. A word I have not used, or probably seen, since I learned it more than six decades ago. How could I forget? My name, Phil, starts the word!

In a sweat, I started going through other visible body parts: eye, iris, pupil, lens, cornea, eyebrow, eyelash, then down to my foot, heel, Achilles tendon, ankle, ball or plantar fascia, toes, instep—what's the formal word for instep? Another one that sent me to my Google assistant: dorsum. Darn, another forgotten word! I was experiencing a waking nightmare. Was I at the doorstep of dementia? I kept naming body parts, like a child counting sheep, until I fell asleep.

I woke up a few hours later pleased that I recalled philtrum and dorsum, but doubting I'd remember them for long. My minor difficulty made me think of the poem "Forgetfulness" by Billy Collins. When I first read it more than thirty years ago, I found it amusing, but it reflected my reality more and more as time passed. 

When a more focused temperament grounded me, a familiar adage came to mind: If you don't use it, you lose it. Philtrum, philtrum, philtrum, philtrum. Dorsum, dorsum, dorsum, dorsum.

Toilet Humor: Watch What You Say!

East side, West side, it makes no difference when it comes to communicating clearly. People know not what they say, at least some of the time. Take the three photos on the left as evidence. I snapped shots of these signs, from top to bottom of a wall above a urinal in a men's restroom in a New Haven, Connecticut restaurant; a toilet door in a men's restroom in a Maui, Hawaii restaurant; and a bathroom wall in a hotel room in Kennebunkport, Maine. 

The top one is intentionally funny, but the bottom two are unintentionally so. Most English-reading people who understand metaphorical language would laugh at the top sign if they were standing at that urinal. But the middle, unwittingly a double entendre, conjures an image of David spying on Bathsheba as she bathed, and the bottom one is more like a solecism, evoking a scene too revolting to explain in this blog.

How do we guard against creating such unintended meanings and logical errors? The wicked side of me would answer, "Why guard against them? They're funny. The more, the merrier." But my professional side must say that in serious writing, from business messages dramatic scripts to novels, we should avoid them, and we can do so by carefully examining syntax (word order) and diction (word choice). Errors in semantics are most  common when we are rushed or careless. All the current writing tools notwithstanding, including AI, we need to make a final careful read before pressing send. 

I Know the Way

Apple Maps says it's this way, Google Maps says it's that way. Either way will take a long time. I know another way anyway, and it's not that bad a way, so I'll go my way. 

AllRecipes.com says cook it this way, Food.com says cook it that way; either way is complicated. I know my way is simpler, and it's tasty but I'll never know if it's tastier than the AllRecipe or Food ways unless I try them. But I don't care because I like my way, so I'll cook it my way.

Instagram says wear it this way, TikTok says wear it that way; either way seems ostentatious. I know my way is inconspicuous, but I like it that way, so I'll wear it my way.

The Pattern app says this will happen to me, the Sanctuary app says that will happen to me. Either happening is distasteful and uncomfortable to me. I plan to do something reckless, maybe dangerous, but far more tasteful and comfortable, so I'll do it my way.

The battery of my phone died, and I'm still here. That doesn't matter anymore. I know the way.

There Are Two Ways

There are two ways to do some things, but it's not as simple as saying it's the right way or the wrong way.

There are two ways of driving to my house, the direct route and the scenic route. I would not call the scenic route the indirect route, because both drives seem direct enough. It's just that the direct route has two fewer traffic lights and one less turn through the town center but does not offer a view of the river, as the scenic route does. When alone, I choose the route based not on time but on my state of mind. When I think of myself I take the direct route, and when I think of you I take the scenic route. 

There are two ways to walk to the park, the shorter route about four hundred meters past the homeless men sifting through trash cans and urinating in the gutter when they aren't lying in a death trance against a graffiti-riddled abandoned tenement, or the longer route about five hundred meters along a cobbled path beneath a canopy of trees upon which black-capped chickadees, goldfinches, and scrub jays sing while hopping from branch, fluttering their wings, and defacating on the path below. The choice seems just about equal to me, and I take them both whether I am alone (the shorter route) or with you (the longer route).

There are two places we can go out for a drink, the local bar or the high-end bar. The local bar is not a low-end bar. In fact, it is greater than a high-end bar if you don't mind drinking by the landlocked town square and if you prefer drinking alongside the locals, the people who know the news of the community, the history of the bar, the quirks and penchants of the patrons, and the mixology of the bartenders. All night either a juke box plays the Great American Songbook or the player piano spins Tin Pan Alley tunes. The high-end bar is so called only because it overlooks the bay, which allows the proprietor to charge more for the drinks. But it's a throwback too. Dark wood planks cover the floor, wall, and ceilings. A candlelit chandelier flickers over the center of the room, four gas lights glow on the walls of each corner, sawdust is littered across the floor, and a black woodburning cast iron pot belly stove covers the center of the room. Warm Guinness is on tap. A neighborhood quartet commands a round table in a far corner plays Irish folk songs between sips of whisky on fiddle, banjo, tin whistle, and bodhrán. Both locals and out-of-towners go there. We go to the local bar when we have more time on our hands and to the high-end bar when we have less.

And you tell me there are two ways of loving you, the way I want to love you and the way you want me to love you. You say neither is the bad way, but they are different. As you put it, one is the sensory way and the other the soulful way, one way that fuses you into everyone and everything around you so that  you are in harmony with my world and one that masks everyone and everything around you so that only you come into focus and the world disappears. You have not told me which is the way I want to love you, and which is the way you want me to love you. And I have not asked, nor will I. But you tell me I love you both ways. 

Why I Came

I came to your wedding uninvited. You have known the groom for three years, I have known you three hours. With him you have traveled the world. With him you have seen hundred-year-old sea turtles circle your anchored schooner along the Great Barrier Reef, fed Atlantic puffins upon the rocky fields at the Cliffs of Moher, tasted freshly picked lechosa near Angel Falls, heard the thunder of bighorn sheep head-butting in the Grand Canyon, lost your breath at the radiance of the aurora borealis in Akureyri. With him an Indian Chief in Acoma explained the oneness of the earth and humanity, a Buddhist Lama in a Tibetan gompa described the sanctity of the balep he fed you, a Wiradjuri elder by the Wambuul River told of the secrets the sun and the moon keep, a Yanomami Pata Thëpë in an Amazon rain forest summoned the spirit of the macaw. 

But in only three hours, I, no longer a stranger to you, foreshadowed all these moments. I laid at your feet the mysteries of life, and you received them as if you had been waiting for me long before you knew my name. Yes, just for the unbearable delight of looking into your eyes, touching your cheek, holding your hand. I remember the warmth of your fingers closing around mine, then loosening, as if even then some merciful part of you was practicing leaving me. You would not have gone with him to these places and listened to those wise leaders if it were not for my urging. I beheld you, beheld you, beheld you, penniless, rich with passion and desire, not of the flesh but of the spirit. Is that not what you wanted? We met years ago, but I have never forgotten those three hours with you; they have outlived meals, cities, illnesses, prayers, every sensible attempt to call them small. I have always been with you—in the silence before sleep, in the instant before laughter, in every distance you crossed with him. Your union with him may endure, but your bond with me is of stone. We get one chance in this world. You were mine for less than an evening.

You know I am here, don't you? Without looking at me, you see me. I saw it when the music began: the smallest break in your smile, the breath you swallowed before anyone else could notice. I know you won’t approach me, though your husband will eject me from your wedding without ever knowing who I am. You won’t approach me because if you come near enough to hear me breathe, if you look at me once, you know my answer will be the same as when I came to you at the start of our three hours together years ago, when you were standing alone in Greenwich Village, or was it on the Croisette, or was it on the Grand Canal, or was it near the Chillon Castle, when you asked me, in a language you were learning, “Why did you come here?”

The Importance of Record Keeping

For writers, records are a working memory. A notebook, writing log, or even a spreadsheet preserves the small decisions that shape a project: when an idea appeared, why a paragraph was cut, where a source came from, which draft solved a problem, and what remains unfinished. Without those records, a writer may waste time reconstructing choices instead of building on them.

Good records protect momentum. Writing can happen in fragments, between appointments, after reading, or in response to a sudden phrase. A dated log of sessions, notes, questions, and next steps helps the writer return quickly to the work. It shows progress when the project feels stalled and reveals patterns, such as the hours when writing comes easiest, the obstacles that recur, and the habits that produce stronger sentences, paragraphs, and pages.

Records matter professionally as well. Writers who submit work need to track titles, markets, submission dates, responses, contracts, rights, payments, and follow-up deadlines. Such details prevent duplicate submissions, missed opportunities, and confusion over ownership or payment. Accurate notes and source records strengthen credibility and make fact-checking easier.

Most important, record keeping gives writers evidence of growth. Earlier drafts, rejected openings, research trails, and revision notes show how a piece became what it is. They remind writers that writing is not a single flash of inspiration but a series of choices, experiments, and returns. Keeping records honors that process and makes future work more deliberate, efficient, and confident.

I use two types of record for my creative works in progress: a 200-page paper notebook like the illustrated one in this post and Microsoft Word files. Whatever type you use, be sure to create a reliable notation system for easy reference.

AI and Education: The Struggle Continues

AI is already reshaping education, and schools cannot simply ban it and return to the old classroom. Recent reporting in the New York Times shows how quickly AI has participated in homework, essays, lesson planning, and classroom routines.
 
The biggest concern is academic honesty. “Student Cheating Is Becoming Impossible to Detect in an A.I. Era” (NY Times, June 18, 2026) explains that AI can help students generate or revise writing instantly, making take-home assignments harder to judge. And AI detectors are becoming less reliable, as AI, whose grammar is typically flawless, can insert predictable grammatical errors to disguise that it created the content. Thus, teachers can miss cheating or wrongly accuse honest students, creating more suspicion and less certainty among educators.

 
In response to this challenge, teachers are redesigning lessons. “Adapting to a New World: Teachers on How A.I. Is Reshaping the Classroom” (NY Times, February 26, 2026) notes that teachers are bringing more writing into the classroom, asking students to describe their writing process and strategy. Others are using AI carefully for brainstorming, feedback, or practice while teaching students to recognize its limits.

 
“This Teacher Has Doubts About A.I. But He Won a Prize Using It” (NY Times, June 17, 2026) tells the story of a New York City teacher who won a prize with help from AI to create history lessons for his students while still having reservations about AI's use in the classroom. Teachers do not have to blindly accept every new tool, but they cannot ignore a technology students will—and should—continue to use. In fact, our very ambivalence should be the fuel to fire new ideas on when and how to use AI in the classroom, office, and boardroom. 

 
The goal should be responsible use: clear policies, better lessons, and practical assignments that teach students the difference between making AI a writing assistant and avoiding due diligence. AI may change how students write and study, but education should still help them think for themselves. 

A Return to the Lighthouse International Film Festival

For the fourth consecutive year, I attended the Lighthouse International Film Festival (LIFF) in Long Beach Island (LBI), New Jersey, from June 10 to 14. This year, the 5-day festival screened in 198 films from 31 nations in 4 venues scattered across the island. The films ranged from short length to feature length, narratives to documentaries, TV and web series to film house productions, and included specialties like darkhouse (horror), surfing, high school and college productions. Thus, much of the world and the entire film community were represented on the barrier island. And the entertainment, for the most part, was first rate.

To start with, LBI is a nice 5-day destination in early June, when the LIFF perennially runs. You can count on Atlantic surf walks along uncrowded beaches, or a lighthouse visit on the northernmost point of the island, sunrises on the beachside and sunsets on the bayside, plenty of specialty shops, great breakfast places like Uncle Will's or The Chicken or the Egg, and cool restaurants with bay views like the Bird and Betty's and Tucker's Tavern, or with a garden courtyard like The Gables, many of them with entertainment. So if you want to just lie low, LBI will give you that. 

During the film festival, I saw 40 shorts ranging from 2 to 25 minutes and 7 feature length movies, some of them exceptional, most notably Union County with Will Poulter (97 minutes) and 5th with Eric Roberts (16 minutes), both about people trying to overcome addiction. For most of these shows, the moviemakers or actors attend a Q & A directly after their film. 

One of best things about getting a festival pass for only $125 is the freedom to attend any of the movies as well as other special events, such as breakfasts and parties with the filmmakers. After a while, one feels they are a part of a community of like-minded people. Keep open early June 2027 to experience this singular event.

What's Standard English, Part 8: The F Word

I could get in trouble for this one.

I conclude this series with the word that prompted me to start it. While the F word is far from standard writing in the workplace, it is becoming increasingly pervasive in office speech, and you might find it here or there in writing. I have seen "WTF" in business text messages. You know what that means.

That spread does not mean the F word has lost its shock value. It still seems overtly and inappropriately aggressive, which is exactly why people use it. In speech, it may function as anger, emphasis, surprise, admiration, or even solidarity, depending on who says it, to whom, and under what circumstances. A close colleague may utter it jokingly and strengthen rapport; the same word from a manager in a tense moment may feel threatening or abusive. As with so much language, meaning lies not only in the word itself but in the relationship and context.

One thing for sure: Using the word would have ended a politician’s career a long time ago; now it’s little more than an understandable, innocuous sound bite.

The issue is bigger than one taboo word. It is about the steady migration of informal speech into professional environments. Workplaces now absorb the habits of texting, social media, streaming culture, and casual conversation far more quickly than they once did. What earlier generations would have considered plainly unprofessional may now pass without notice in some offices, especially in fast-moving, high-pressure, or highly familiar teams. The standard has certainly loosened.

It makes sense to remember that expanded acceptance is not the same as universal acceptance. A word that passes easily among peers may damage credibility with clients, offend a reader, or create risk in a difficult Human Resources situation.

Has the F word entered standard English? Not fully. But it has undeniably moved closer to the center of ordinary usage than many people are willing to admit. Standard English changes as culture changes, and professionalism now depends less on rigid rules than on audience, judgment, and timing.

What's Standard English, Part 7: :-) 😀 :-( 👍

The emoticons and symbols in the heading of this post represent the first time I have used them in the 21-year history of this blog—or anywhere, for that matter. I try to let my words speak for me in print. But that doesn't mean I am following some kind of usage convention. The standard is to use them. Such devices, once reserved for text messaging, have been the norm in business email for some time. They have specific meanings known by the writer and reader, so I suppose they count as language.

Still, their rise creates an interesting tension. Emojis can clarify tone in the quick, stripped-down medium of email. A brief “Thanks” may seem abrupt; “Thanks 🙂” may appear warm and appreciative. A thumbs-up can save a whole sentence. In fast-moving exchanges, these marks can do the work that facial expression, gesture, and speaking voice do in conversation.

On the other hand, they also blur the line between informal and formal writing. A smiling face or laughing symbol may seem harmless between teammates, yet the same mark may appear unserious in a difficult message, a disciplinary response, or a communication with a client. As with salutations, punctuation, and word choice, context governs everything. The writer must ask not merely, “Is this common?” but “Is this right for this reader and this moment?”

So are emoticons and emojis now part of Standard English? In practice, yes—at least in many everyday forms of digital writing. They may not belong in every document, and some writers and readers (like me) will resist them, but they are no longer fringe devices. They have become one more way that writers signal meaning, attitude, and relationship. Once again, the lesson is the same: standard English is not fixed. It changes because people do.