Suddenly hot to buy an Obamapen? Go here (Amazon Associates link). Now, get out your yellow pad and may your world narrow, may darkness encompass you, and may the metaphorical light beam down upon you.
December 8, 2020
"Because he thinks the computer can lend 'half-baked thoughts the mask of tidiness,' he writes his first drafts longhand on yellow legal pads..."
"... the act of typing it into the computer essentially becomes a first edit. He says he is 'very particular' about his pens, always using black Uni-ball Vision Elite rollerball pens with a micro-point, and adds that he tends to do his best writing between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.: 'I find that the world narrows, and that is good for my imagination. It’s almost as if there is a darkness all around and there’s a metaphorical beam of light down on the desk, onto the page.'"
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92 comments:
The way the left goes on about him, Obama kind of embodies for them the old adage that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Permission to squeeee?
It almost never ceases to amaze me the pedestal they've put this sophomoric mind upon.
Fuck Obama. Please God I can’t take another second of him.
He is America's Mandela
After Mandela check out South Africa political spiral
“Imagination “? Sounds about right.
I’m going to vomit now.
Metaphorical lightbringer?
fatuous twit.
I’m getting shivers down my leg.
I sort of understand Obama's point here. I find that the process of writing things down in clear prose makes me stupider, so to speak. If I write something out too early, I end up getting locked into a particular sequence of reasoning or presentation which it then takes effort to break. A sort of verbal overshadowing effect, I find. Much more effective to leave things loose and sketchy until I have worked out in my mind what the details ought to be and how they ought to be pieced together linearly, in the way prose has to flow.
Give Obama credit. If it hadn't have been for him, there would never have been a President Trump.
The media tonguebaths continue.
Following Robert Caro?
By Obama's age my handwriting had become illegible even to myself.
why i am not coming onto Althouse so much anymore.
drivel
I thought he etched stone tablets with his fingertips.
When can we expect a new autobiography.
I get the impression that he spouts this kind of bullshit even when he fucks.
It's his nature...
his latest book, 'A Promised Land'
if you like your country, you can keep your country.
He sure does like to talk about himself.
"that is good for my imagination"
Like, fictionalizing your girlfriend in your autobiography?
But then, O himself is a fiction.
...he writes his first drafts longhand on yellow legal pads... He says he is 'very particular' about his pens... he tends to do his best writing between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.
"I find that the world narrows, and that is good for my imagination. It’s almost as if there is a darkness all around and there’s a metaphorical beam of light down on the desk, onto the page."
"From what I've heard you're using your paper not for writin', but for rollin' doobies!"
This story belongs in the file: "Obama is so full of shit."
Increasingly insufferable. Reminds me of several men I shouldn't have dated.
And then he hands his pads to Bill Ayres, who reads Obama’s pads, sets them on fire, and then writes the manuscript himself from scratch.
Jesus, no matter the topic, he is always the most pompous blowhard on the subject.
There was a headline at Slate about forcing Trump to never speak in public again (stupid lib fascism, I know) and my first thought was, I'd be for it if it can apply to all former presidents. W paints, Clinton talks but his own side won't listen to him... I don't see a downside.
Half baked Obama thoughts---it's a feature not a bug.
But I will say that --back in my law practice days--when I needed to draft something complicated, I usually liked to start late in the evening---when most everybody else was out of the office--and I'd work on an outline or a first draft with a yellow pad. That said that first outline or first draft was several iterations away from being final.
But who knows maybe Obama thinks more clearly between 10 pm and 2 am--after all thats Partayyyy Time! He can recall the choom smoke in his eyes then.
It is $18 for the kindle edition, that's pretty steep. The KJV bible is $2 and not as highly rated. But it has more pages and wasn't written with a ball point pen :)
Didn't they give the jug-eared little freak 70 million or something as an advance? So he could buy a little cottage by the sea whose rise was terminated by his election? It's hard to believe they could ever make that money back selling his bullshit books. It must be some kind of payoff.
In reading the lead up in this Althouse post, I was thinking, "Who is this fiction writer?"
Well, of course it's Obama.
Obama administration 3.0 coming soon.
I do most of my writing between midnight and 3am.
he tends to do his best writing between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.
That's when Bill Ayers is available to do the actual writing.
Not a fan of Obama but I like “the mask of tidiness.” Does that one fit over the nose?
It’s almost as if there’s a metaphorical beam of light?
Typical Obama—sounds lofty and meaningful, but on closer inspection, it says nothing at all.
He is the bestest author ever to live!!! How did we ever survive without his words of wisdom/??? PUKE!!!! What a load of Bullshit. Ask him if that is how Bill Ayers wrote Dreams of my Father for him?? Did Bill use that pen??
Brooks, the house Con, salivated over BHO’s pant crease. Seemingly you are panting over a supposed BHO brain crease.
The only thing sadder than the thought of Obama spending his late nights scrawling on yellow legal pads is the thought that his sycophants actually believe that this happens.
The man is a popinjay. He has no art, no literary skill. His talents are political and technical: he knows how to get needed votes with the minimal cost and effort required.
The Bible tells us that where your treasure is, their will be your heart also. Where is Obama's treasure?
In the reactions above I haven't seen these words to describe the quotes, his style, and him, so I'll put them here:
pedestrian
hackneyed
contrived
self-important
self-aggrandizing
The love for this rather ordinary guy amazes and baffles me.
Does anyone actually believe Obama writes his own books?
Biden admitted in a dementia slip that he had the largest vote fraud team going in.
REfill the swamp.
He writes like a girl.
"It’s almost as if there is a darkness all around and there’s a metaphorical beam of light down on the desk, onto the page." The Lightworker's modesty continues to be an example for all!
Pre-pandemic, our office supply cabinet maintained a stock of blue Uni-ball Vision Elite pens. I do like the "feel" of that particular pen on the page quite a bit. It is a very smooth writing experience. Also, the pen deposits enough ink that you never have to squint at the results. The main drawback is that the ink is very prone to smudging until it dries, so the writer has to be mindful of hand position. Largely because of the smudge factor, I think I prefer basic, run-of-the-mill Bic Round Stics over the Uni-ball.
stevew said...
In the reactions above I haven't seen these words to describe the quotes, his style, and him, so I'll put them here:
pedestrian
hackneyed
contrived
self-important
self-aggrandizing
The love for this rather ordinary guy amazes and baffles me.
Agreed. "Pedestrian" is probably my most used word to describe his intellect. Obama's only real talent is getting influential people excited about him. He is a real life Chauncey Gardner.
He says he is 'very particular' about his pens, always using black Uni-ball Vision Elite rollerball pens with a micro-point...
Say, weren't we just discussing how the inclusion of super-detailed information is often a tell for when someone is lying?
Chicago Jesus writes over 700 pages about...himself.
Saw a documentary of Air Force One. Show a clip of his first trip from Chicago to Washington. Took him 10 minutes to order a freakin burger.
What a self important putz
Joe Smith said
I get the impression that he spouts this kind of bullshit even when he fucks.
It would be hard to tell - his speaking would get muffled by the pillow.
What about those 7 unsalted almonds?
That sounded like bullshit just like this pen fetish does...
Sure, he's not a great writer. But the books weren't great either and in theory not beyond his ability to write them, with help to be sure, but there's little reason to assume that he isn't filling legal pads some nights in his mansions.
It's the "radical empathy" thing that sticks out for me. I don't think that really fits. Obama tries to understand the motivations of other people, I suppose, but he seems terribly aloof and apparently doesn't really enter into their emotions. Whether he's good at interpreting the actions of others and divining their thoughts isn't clear, but it's more of a gambler's instinct than anything emotionally deeper than that.
Bill Ayers can confirm that Obama's practice of not typing the first draft on a computer goes back to Dreams of My Father. In fact, Obama did not use a computer or pens on any of the drafts of that book.
I'm sorry. I'm not buying any of this. I still refuse to believe that Obama wrote any of his books. Sure, maybe bits and pieces. But I smell a bad skunk here. A fraud. A story. A narrative that has been his entire public persona. He has a ghost writer or writers.
If he uses a legal pad, it's to outline the story narrative which is then given to his writers. He may have a few ideas, paragraphs, perhaps even a few pages to get them the 'sound' of the book, the feel of it. But they take it from there.
Obama doesn't write for publication. Didn't do it in college. Still doesn't.
The story I heard about _Dreams From My Father_ is that he took an advance, was running up a hard deadline, couldn't get it together, so he took all of his scatter-shot notes to Bill Ayres, who actually can write to order.
From "Obama, the Best-Selling Author...
LOL, assumes facts not in evidence.
Is there any actual proof that Obama wrote ANY or part of any of the books that bear his name? We have no proof he actually published anything while in school. No proof he write his first book. No proof he was the actual author of anything.
"Best-selling author"? What does that actually mean? It means not "the best selling" but is more of a scale. Where does Obama actually exist on the scale of all selling authors? I suppose it is a plus it was not "most read" as there is no proof that many folks have actually read his books as opposed to purchasing them as a way to funnel money to the Obama(s). Conspiracy, you say? Well there is more factual basis in this than there ever was in the Trump/Russia story though I will grant you that is a very low bar...
Biff said...
Largely because of the smudge factor, I think I prefer basic, run-of-the-mill Bic Round Stics over the Uni-ball.
12/9/20, 6:09 AM
Sounds like you prefer a thicker line. I tend toward thinner and love the Uni-ball micro(s). Currently using their ONYX micro. Can get away with using there vision when the other is out. I shy away from the gel pens due to the smudge factor.
The Pilot precise V5 extra fine is also quite to my liking.
I do wish they were available in a thicker barrel version. I actually have a really decent Quill thick barrel pen that can accept the Quill fine refills. Very comfortable writing experience.
President Freshman Seminar will always have his nauseating sycophants elevating his low-middlebrow intellect to ridiculous heights. Can't this insufferable, self-important mediocrity just go slither off to his multi-million dollar Martha's Vineyard estate? He's fast approaching the level of second billing on "Puppet Show and Spinal Tap."
Let us all gasp in astonishment at how wonderful this man is.
He writes at night because Michelle is finally in bed and done bitching at him.
There are much better pens...
...just as there are much better Presidents.
If you like your pen, you can keep your pen.
Between 10 PM and 2 AM is generally when I have my bleakest thoughts. Interesting to see how another views that time.
I dislike the laudatory tone of Obama Reporting though. It's like the some members of the Press are trying to convince themselves they didn't err in electing someone who didn't do very much.
Gag! Barf! Puke!
@Biff says these pens have a tendency to smudge until the ink dries. Obama's a southpaw. No lefthander, dragging their hand over the writing, would use a wet pen.
Hahaha! @tommyesq nailed it. All these details are a liar's tell.
Stevew, don't berate the rather ordinary guys in this world. They trounce an empty suit (make that a fucking empty suit) in all areas of human endeavor.
I'm sure his third autobiography will be a best seller, and drive the demand for his fourth autobiography, with an option for a fifth one.
"It would be hard to tell - his speaking would get muffled by the pillow."
Zzziing!
On that note: "There are much better pens..."
Obamas's favorite word, "I," is the only difference between 'Pens' and 'Penis.'
Think about it.
So, given the half-baked quality of his speeches and published writing, I deduce that his hand-written first drafts must be about one-quarter baked. (And I'm being generous.)
This is my lack of confidence that Mr. Obama wrote any of that book.
(There's nothing wrong with a ghostwriter for such a thing! Just ... don't preen about how Writerly you are and play at Being A Real Writer, etc.
No faith, no trust. Nope.)
Trump mastered the art of multiple ghost written autobiographies. Demand driven.
"Trump mastered the art of multiple ghost written autobiographies. Demand driven."
Do some research.
For instance, 'The Art of the Deal' cover states, 'With Tony Schwartz.'
It is pretty obvious to most people that Trump was interviewed and/or wrote the outline of the book and another author cleaned it up.
His other books have other author credits as well.
It's not ghost writing when there is no ghost.
You are outdoing yourself in revealing you obtuseness...
One, hardly anybody in public life writes a whole book without help, and that includes Obama.
Two, look at a sample of the latest book:
Michelle and I attended a total of 10 inaugural balls that evening. Michelle was a chocolate-brown vision in her flowing white gown, and at our first stop I took her in my arms and spun her around and whispered silly things in her ear as we danced to a sublime rendition of “At Last” sung by Beyoncé. At the Commander in Chief’s Ball, we split up to dance with two charming and understandably nervous young members of our armed forces.
C'mon, it's not hard to suppose that he came up with most of that - maybe all of it by himself. It's not that great.
From his first book:
A FEW MONTHS AFTER MY twenty-first birthday, a stranger called to give me the news. I was living in New York at the time, on Ninety-fourth between Second and First, part of that unnamed, shifting border between East Harlem and the rest of Manhattan. It was an uninviting block, treeless and barren, lined with soot-colored walk-ups that cast heavy shadows for most of the day. The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn't work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle.
It's better than the first excerpt. It does look like somebody touched that up, maybe a lot. Whether Bill Ayers wrote the book, though, is a lot more questionable.
Can you imagine having to live with this preening, pretentious ass?
I'd kill myself.
Lewis Wetzel said...
The story I heard about _Dreams From My Father_ is that he took an advance, was running up a hard deadline, couldn't get it together, so he took all of his scatter-shot notes to Bill Ayres, who actually can write to order.
That is what I remember. Something about going to Bali to get Dreams into shape, and not having a good time of it. Thus the hand-off.
NYT on Obama's writing:
"Because he thinks the computer can lend 'half-baked thoughts the mask of tidiness,' he writes his first drafts longhand on yellow legal pads...""... the act of typing it into the computer essentially becomes a first edit.
I developed an aversion to writing in high school, courtesy of greatly disliking the Junior Literary Critic method used to teach composition. Decades later, I found that writing was a lot easier for me on a PC, and lost my aversion to writing. Bear in mind that I am not as good a writer as Obama.
Some have suggested writing an outline on paper. That seems like a good idea.
Sigivald said...
Just ... don't preen about how Writerly you are and play at Being A Real Writer, etc.
Oh, but preening is something that O excels at!
Wait, yellow legal pads?
What does Fang Fang have to say about that?
Racist!
Please use Google before purporting to set me straight. Ghostwriters are sometimes credited. Of course Trump wrote not a word.
Well, Obama definitely wrote this one with no help.
I'll likely be among dozens of people who finish it.
Have a diminishing stash of those pens. Our Costco does not sell them anymore. They are smooth writing. The caps tend to crack.
The Obama quote reminds me of Mark Twain making fun of young women's poetry.
"Please use Google before purporting to set me straight. Ghostwriters are sometimes credited. Of course Trump wrote not a word."
From the liberals beloved Wikipedia:
"A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author."
How about dictionary.com:
"a person who writes one or numerous speeches, books, articles, etc., for another person who is named as or presumed to be the author."
Cambridge Dictionary?:
"someone who writes a book or article, etc. for another person to publish under his or her own name..."
If they are credited, they are NOT ghostwriters. This is not a difficult concept.
And for once you're correct, the Google machine is a wonderful thing.
@ Readering - Google. Wikipedia. Ghostwriting. First paragraph. "A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, memoirs, magazine articles, or other written material. Memoir ghostwriters often pride themselves in "disappearing" when impersonating others since such disappearance signals the quality of their craftsmanship.[1] In music, ghostwriters are often used to write songs, lyrics, and instrumental pieces. Screenplay authors can also use ghostwriters to either edit or rewrite their scripts to improve them. Usually, there is a confidentiality clause in the contract between the ghostwriter and the credited author that obligates the former to remain anonymous. Sometimes the ghostwriter is acknowledged by the author or publisher for his or her writing services, euphemistically called a "researcher" or "research assistant", but often the ghostwriter is not credited. "
That doesn't seem to match what you said.
Good Lord, Obama. How can we miss you if you won't go away?
'I find that the world narrows, and that is good for my imagination. It’s almost as if there is a darkness all around and there’s a metaphorical beam of light down on the desk, onto the page.'
10 PM to 2 AM? So, he's writing at night? After the sun has gone down and almost certainly under an electric light? I don't think Obama knows what metaphorical means.
Alternate NYT Headline:
Magic Negro President uses Magic Pen.
The MSM View:
Obama's ghostwriters = handpicked experts who have their brains picked by the Mighty Obama.
Trump's ghostwriters = Hacks who try to make trump's gibberish understandable.
Its possible some people don't understand how most celebrity/Presidential books get written. Its not just that there's a "ghost writer", there's literally a team of people at the Publishers who "guide" the book from start to finish. They don't just edit and revise, they review and approve the overall narrative.
I doubt Obama wrote anything by himself alone. He's too mediocre.
"I get the impression that he spouts this kind of bullshit even when he fucks.
It's his nature..."
Run that by Reggie Love.
12/8/20, 9:32 PM
I do not believe him. He has spent his life telling half-truths. When I read the intro, before I knew it was Obama, I thought this was referring to the thought and writing process of some well-respected author. What, pray tell, did Mr. Obama ever write prior to entering the White House? Was he known for his skill and eloquence with a pen? I've not heard of it, if he was.
"A FEW MONTHS AFTER MY twenty-first birthday, a stranger called to give me the news. I was living in New York at the time, on Ninety-fourth between Second and First, part of that unnamed, shifting border between East Harlem and the rest of Manhattan. It was an uninviting block, treeless and barren, lined with soot-colored walk-ups that cast heavy shadows for most of the day. The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn't work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle."
BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. Didn't happen, Oblowhard didn't write it, hwat a fraud this useless empty suit of a human being is. Gawd.
Everything I've seen so far has had the bland consistency of tone of an "as told to" ghostwriter.
In the usual usage, "with" or "as told to" is an acknowledgement of a ghostwriter.
For people who find it inconvenient to acknowledge that a piece is mostly ghostwritten, the acknowledgement section will thank the ghostwriter for their "help." Hillary's latest book thanks three or four of her speechwriters in this way.
Michelle and I attended a total of 10 inaugural balls that evening. Michelle was a chocolate-brown vision in her flowing white gown, and at our first stop I took her in my arms and spun her around and whispered silly things in her ear as we danced to a sublime rendition of “At Last” sung by Beyoncé. At the Commander in Chief’s Ball, we split up to dance with two charming and understandably nervous young members of our armed forces.
Notice the even tone and recitation of publicly available details in this passage. It sounds like someone describing a picture or working from news reports. There aren't any elements that definitively come from Obama's point of view (calling something "sublime" or "charming" doesn't qualify).
Now consider a famous passage from U.S. Grant's memoirs (with some help from Mark Twain):
At the time of which I now write we had no transportation and the country about Salt River was sparsely settled, so that it took some days to collect teams and drivers enough to move the camp and garrison equipage of a regiment nearly a thousand strong, together with a week's supply of provision and some ammunition. While preparations for the move were going on I felt quite comfortable; but when we got on the road and found every house deserted I was anything but easy. In the twenty-five miles we had to march we did not see a person, old or young, male or female, except two horsemen who were on a road that crossed ours. As soon as they saw us they decamped as fast as their horses could carry them. I kept my men in the ranks and forbade their entering any of the deserted houses or taking anything from them. We halted at night on the road and proceeded the next morning at an early hour. Harris had been encamped in a creek bottom for the sake of being near water. The hills on either side of the creek extend to a considerable height, possibly more than a hundred feet. As we approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could see Harris' camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on. When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there and the marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable.
The passage is nothing but point of view! A ghostwriter would never put this in, because the external documentary record doesn't exist, and because the entire importance of the affair is what happens in Grant's mind. There's no spurious detail like "10 balls" or "'At Last', by Beyonce".
As a rule, the stuff that sounds like it's copied out of Wikipedia was supplied by a ghost.
You can ignore the book, it's quite ok.
Has he ever had a fully baked idea?
I suppose he has had ideas while fully baked, but that doesn't really count.
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