Hot Air

I'm Eoin Cunningham and this is my blog. You can also find my work in the Irish Times from time to time, and my grubby fingers have been all over David McWilliams's last three books. We've got one out now, as it happens. I'm also nearly finished a funny and scary novel called Ratcatcher. When I'm done, I'll shout about it from the rooftops - but if you're in the industry and would like a sample let me know. Other than the above: if you need someone who can write journalism, copywrite, scriptwrite, edit, research, project manage, brand consult, help with strategic planning and lots besides, please drop me a line at the address below. Email me I'm on Twitter The old blog

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This is what Powerscourt waterfall looks like when you get separated from most of the adults but have nearly all the kids and a dog. This is also how far away a nice beer seems to your lizard brain.

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FINALLY.

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On voting

In 2005, David Foster Wallace famously gave a commencement speech at Kenyon college. Or at least: for a certain sort of book-infatuated person (hello!) For me, Wallace articulated brilliantly what the gift of being human is (or should be) all about: "attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day." Or more directly: "The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death." I'm not good at following this advice. Everyone I know, especially those closest to me, know I have a degree in selfishness, a masters in procrastination; and a black belt in being tetchy. But I think that if you are alive you have to know the amazing, improbable fortune this represents. I could tell you about the ups and downs of my life - all the things I've suffered since I opened my eyes in the Coombe back in 1978 - or I could tell you about all those who I've loved who have suffered for whatever reason - because they're gay, the wrong colour, or gender, age, or any number of reasons. But I haven't suffered, not really. And I don't feel comfortable using my loved ones as emotional Top Trumps. That said, sometimes choices are even more obvious than "who is the greatest Batman artist of all time?" (Neal Adams), or "Should George Lucas ever be allowed near my precious childhood again?" (NO): Should everyone be allowed to spend their lives with the person they love? (I'm sticking with the singular here, Mormons). Should they and their families have the same protection & security as everyone else? I think that if you appreciate the wonder of being alive the answer must be yes. If you want there to be any worth in the life you are fortunate enough to lead it's your responsibility to allow that freedom to others - all others. I voted yes today. You may not agree (please think about it again if you don't), but if you have the ability to vote (and especially if you even vaguely think 'yes'), get to your polling station. There's only a few hours left to make the future.

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Easily the best book I've read about information's opinion of free. #2colourprinting @doctorow

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So: do you like your novels unremittingly depressing, set in the 19th century, gripping, and LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG? Me too, I guess.

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FRIDAY LONGFORM LINK BONANZA

GENETIC LOTTERIES - GLADWELL ON DOPING Very interesting post/review by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker on The Sports Gene by David Epstein and The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton. One book looks at the degree to which random genetic fortune means superhuman athletes compete against mere mortals, while Hamilton's memoir describes how chemistry can bring those puny humans up to an equal footing.

“I’ve always said you could have hooked us up to the best lie detectors on the planet and asked us if we were cheating, and we’d have passed,” Lance Armstrong’s former teammate Tyler Hamilton writes in his autobiography, “The Secret Race” (co-written with Daniel Coyle; Bantam). “Not because we were delusional—we knew we were breaking the rules—but because we didn’t think of it as cheating. It felt fair to break the rules.”

Whatever you think of Lance Armstrong - and his vilification seems to be as much about his character deficits (arrogance, vindictiveness, iconoclasm) as his artificially inflated red-blood cell count - this is a good read.   MARISSA MEYER ON DESIGN  

On a personal level, I love brands, logos, color, design, and, most of all, Adobe Illustrator.  I think it’s one of the most incredible software packages ever made.  I’m not a pro, but I know enough to be dangerous :)

So, one weekend this summer, I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the trenches with our logo design team: Bob Stohrer, Marc DeBartolomeis, Russ Khaydarov, and our intern Max Ma.  We spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday designing the logo from start to finish, and we had a ton of fun weighing every minute detail.

  Yahoo's CEO discusses how she helped her designers reboot the company logo using her mad Illustrator skills, via her Tumblr 

EPIC KUBRICK    A classic profile of the then recently passed Stanley Kubrick by Michael Herr, who co-wrote Full Metal Jacket. 

They say he had no personal life, but that’s ridiculous. It would be more correct to say that he had no professional life, since everything he did was personally done; every move and every call he made, every impulse he expressed, was utterly personal, devoted to the making of his movies, which were all personal. In terms of worldly activity, since you’d have to look to the spiritual sector to find anything like it, I never knew anyone who cared so much and so completely about his work.

It's a long one - put it on Instapaper or similar - but it's a must-read.

- and since we're here, you may have missed this from last year, on Kubrick's fondness for one-point-perspective:

  MURDER BY CRAIGSLIST

Finally: 

Wanted: Caretaker For Farm. Simply watch over a 688 acre patch of hilly farmland and feed a few cows, you get 300 a week and a nice 2 bedroom trailer, someone older and single preferred but will consider all, relocation a must, you must have a clean record and be trustworthy—this is a permanent position, the farm is used mainly as a hunting preserve, is overrun with game, has a stocked 3 acre pond, but some beef cattle will be kept, nearest neighbor is a mile away, the place is secluded and beautiful, it will be a real get away for the right person, job of a lifetime—if you are ready to relocate please contact asap, position will not stay open.

- terrific report by Hanna Rosin for the Atlantic on the Ohio serial killer & his protegé, who preyed on white working class men

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Walls of Chicago

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Today we are finally launching the online economics course I have been building with David McWilliams for the past year. If you're interested in the world, you should take this course. It's completely unique and you can do anywhere, anytime. All you need is an internet connection. We take you from the foundation of the Euro to the Asian crisis, from the great property boom/bust of the Noughties to the rise of China and today’s massive expansion in central bank activity in the economy. Along the way, we learn about the big ideas in economics over the past two centuries - how they have improved the world, but also how they have damaged it. We look at the Great Depression of the 1930s and see how the conditions that brought it about are echoed by those of the 2000s. We also look at how, if it is unchecked, fear can rule the economy and thus, the world. Plus, we delve into our future, examining how human exploitation of the limited resources of Earth is the biggest issue we and our heirs will face. So, if you want to know how the global economy works and your place in it, this is the course for you. Hope you enjoy!

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Going to college? Read me first.

So, among lots of other things, I freelance for the Irish Times. Last week I wrote a couple of articles - on how to avoid having any fun in college (important stuff in there), and the strange and horrifying way the universe might have been altered had Tom Selleck been Indy instead of Harrison Ford. Hopefully I'll be doing more over the next while, but enjoy these in the meantime. If you are looking for a journalist, copywriter, editor, researcher or indeed a project manager (- and who isn't, right?) drop me a line anytime. College Fun & How to Avoid It Get up, read through some notes, eat, recite the Periodic Table, go to school, have lunch, search for “continental drift” on Wikipedia, feverishly reread Hamlet on the bus home, eat dinner, dive into piles of notes; fall asleep and dream of your Leaving Cert exams being disrupted by huge robots made from Bunsen burners inexplicably repeating directions to the train station in French. Repeat for two years. Read more The choices you make can change your history Are you sure about your chosen course? Really sure? Are you certain you wouldn’t rather do chemistry? Or juggling? Perhaps you’ve been wrong about this medicine thing. All the cool kids are doing millinery these days; is it too late to make the jump? Thanks to the CAO change of mind form, you no longer have to fear spending decades in the trenches of Hollywood moviestardom, when your true love is marine biology. Maybe you’re more than happy with your chosen career, and who can blame you: leaking official secrets to the news media is the trend du jour. But even if you are, who among us has not wondered about the path not travelled? To help you clarify things in your mind, we’re going to take a look at five seismic decisions that changed history. Read more