I was surprised but delighted to see this piece from my brother. I should report that Walter Martin is still active and productive, though now located back in his Texas hometown. He is currently translating classical poems from the "Greek Anthology," I don't think he is doing it for the money,
I’m not a religious man, but if there’s a heaven, I imagine it being a bit like Walter’s back room. Books, a record player, and my glasses never break.
Compelling contrast. I moved to San Francisco in 1991 and left in 2018. When I moved there, the neighborhoods were thriving with people with Walter Martin's values. When I left the spectrum had shifted entirely. Yet I suspect the people with Walter's values have never felt that they lost out, if only in the finer sense. The tension between these poles is as old as human culture.
This is brilliant. You know a business or product is a raving success when its name becomes a verb. I'd call Walter a success as well, if he's been able to make a living as a passionate book lover and a translator of ancient Greek poetry. We are fortunate enough to have a bookstore something like Walter's in our city, though I doubt there's a secret treasure trove hidden on the premises. It has survived the menace known as Amazon, and has come through Covid in fine shape, for which I give thanks every day. I'm well into geezerhood now, which is probably why I cannot read for pleasure on an electronic device. I need to hold a book in my hands and turn the pages. I wish I'd had the chance to know Walter.
Great piece! Started off innocently enough - an "I was there!" kind of thing, but very quickly went deep. I'm old enough to remember you had to wait for the library to open (not on Sundays, where I live) if you needed information on something, and many small public libraries didn't have much of the sort of book Walter stocks.
I'd have to go with Walter. I passed your newsletter along to a friend in Cambridge MA whose daughter works for Google. She still lives at home but Google wants her to move to NYC.
It seems that some (maybe even Ted) are getting more tangled up in the particularities of Walter Martin specifically rather than what he represents generally. WM-types can be inspiring and edifying, but also cooler-than-thou gatekeepers. I am not taking from this that I should become a literary connoisseur, but rather that I want to continue deeply interrogating my own values and living them so unapologetically that someone might someday (perhaps unfairly) accuse me of being a snob about them.
As for the "google kids were wide eyed believers" argument, it's clear that there is a deep and broad chasm between the 1999 wide-eyed kids and the extractive 2022 megalith helping crush commercially viable opportunities for musicians and others (don't forget that Ted is a pro music critic). So while painting world-dominating twisted moustaches on the "tech kids upstairs" isn't fair, some of them made or tolerated the choices that led to now and an argument that "it didn't start this way" feels spurious. What strikes me about some of the disagreements is that they are focused on the individuals and whether they should be demonized or lauded, and that seems to miss the point (for me at least) entirely.
For some I’ve had one of those triangle diagrams that display the hierarchy of things scrawled on a post-it note on a bulletin board in my office. There are four tiers from top to bottom. The smallest is at the top and contains the word “wisdom”, followed in descending order by “knowledge”, “information”, and lastly by “data” at the bottom, taking up the most space. Your piece does a fine job of conveying the sense and feel of these levels of intelligence. Something tells me that Facebook’s digs may have been close by, closer to Google than to Chimera.
I loved your "subversive history" of music and I appreciate your writing here, but this attack on Google would have perhaps been better left in a drawer (I assume you don't write on a computer). Does it really need to be pointed out that every technology has drawbacks as well as benefits? Your assumption that the early Google people above the bookstore were hatching "plans for world domination" seems unlikely. I suspect that if you'd actually spoken to any of them, you would have found a deep idealism and excitement over the opportunity they were given to create transformative new tools. It is easy to forget now what a frustrating and limited place the Web was before Google (though perhaps you consider the Web another source of evil). As a literatus and sophisticate yourself, you may be aware of Socrates's attack on writing in the Phaedrus. His criticisms were not wrong, but he ignored the many useful things that still relatively new technology enabled.
On the other hand, thanks for your appreciation of Walter Martin. Technology and literature do not have to be enemies.
I was surprised but delighted to see this piece from my brother. I should report that Walter Martin is still active and productive, though now located back in his Texas hometown. He is currently translating classical poems from the "Greek Anthology," I don't think he is doing it for the money,
I’m not a religious man, but if there’s a heaven, I imagine it being a bit like Walter’s back room. Books, a record player, and my glasses never break.
Compelling contrast. I moved to San Francisco in 1991 and left in 2018. When I moved there, the neighborhoods were thriving with people with Walter Martin's values. When I left the spectrum had shifted entirely. Yet I suspect the people with Walter's values have never felt that they lost out, if only in the finer sense. The tension between these poles is as old as human culture.
This is brilliant. You know a business or product is a raving success when its name becomes a verb. I'd call Walter a success as well, if he's been able to make a living as a passionate book lover and a translator of ancient Greek poetry. We are fortunate enough to have a bookstore something like Walter's in our city, though I doubt there's a secret treasure trove hidden on the premises. It has survived the menace known as Amazon, and has come through Covid in fine shape, for which I give thanks every day. I'm well into geezerhood now, which is probably why I cannot read for pleasure on an electronic device. I need to hold a book in my hands and turn the pages. I wish I'd had the chance to know Walter.
Great piece! Started off innocently enough - an "I was there!" kind of thing, but very quickly went deep. I'm old enough to remember you had to wait for the library to open (not on Sundays, where I live) if you needed information on something, and many small public libraries didn't have much of the sort of book Walter stocks.
Ted, thank you for sharing your perspective, wisdom, and humanity.
I'd have to go with Walter. I passed your newsletter along to a friend in Cambridge MA whose daughter works for Google. She still lives at home but Google wants her to move to NYC.
It seems that some (maybe even Ted) are getting more tangled up in the particularities of Walter Martin specifically rather than what he represents generally. WM-types can be inspiring and edifying, but also cooler-than-thou gatekeepers. I am not taking from this that I should become a literary connoisseur, but rather that I want to continue deeply interrogating my own values and living them so unapologetically that someone might someday (perhaps unfairly) accuse me of being a snob about them.
As for the "google kids were wide eyed believers" argument, it's clear that there is a deep and broad chasm between the 1999 wide-eyed kids and the extractive 2022 megalith helping crush commercially viable opportunities for musicians and others (don't forget that Ted is a pro music critic). So while painting world-dominating twisted moustaches on the "tech kids upstairs" isn't fair, some of them made or tolerated the choices that led to now and an argument that "it didn't start this way" feels spurious. What strikes me about some of the disagreements is that they are focused on the individuals and whether they should be demonized or lauded, and that seems to miss the point (for me at least) entirely.
For some I’ve had one of those triangle diagrams that display the hierarchy of things scrawled on a post-it note on a bulletin board in my office. There are four tiers from top to bottom. The smallest is at the top and contains the word “wisdom”, followed in descending order by “knowledge”, “information”, and lastly by “data” at the bottom, taking up the most space. Your piece does a fine job of conveying the sense and feel of these levels of intelligence. Something tells me that Facebook’s digs may have been close by, closer to Google than to Chimera.
Yeah I remember Chimera at both locations and also the bar next door! Good times!
Ted, you're embodying the spirit you laid out in your article. I enjoyed it very much.
I think “shareholders to please” is me of the more fraught-with-danger missions…
Good read. Thanks, Ted!
Great piece, Ted.
good article other than your misappropriation of the word 'preside' / i guess that was in pursuit of a compelling headline and more subscribers : )
I loved your "subversive history" of music and I appreciate your writing here, but this attack on Google would have perhaps been better left in a drawer (I assume you don't write on a computer). Does it really need to be pointed out that every technology has drawbacks as well as benefits? Your assumption that the early Google people above the bookstore were hatching "plans for world domination" seems unlikely. I suspect that if you'd actually spoken to any of them, you would have found a deep idealism and excitement over the opportunity they were given to create transformative new tools. It is easy to forget now what a frustrating and limited place the Web was before Google (though perhaps you consider the Web another source of evil). As a literatus and sophisticate yourself, you may be aware of Socrates's attack on writing in the Phaedrus. His criticisms were not wrong, but he ignored the many useful things that still relatively new technology enabled.
On the other hand, thanks for your appreciation of Walter Martin. Technology and literature do not have to be enemies.