More on the Peeler-Man

The post previous to this one was about Joe Ades, salesman extraordinaire ("He could talk a starving dog off a meat truck," says one article), who passed away last week after a lifetime as a street-vendor. Street vendor? Don't feel badly for him. He dressed in thousand-dollar suits and lived in a Park Avenue apartment, and said, "Never underestimate small amounts of money over 60 years."

As usual, Priscilla went into her super-sleuth mode and found the Swiss company that makes the veggie peelers Joe Ades sold, and I found this outlet for them on the Internet. For such a well-spoken product, there are surprisingly few places to buy one.

Here's another video that ran on the NBC Today show a few years ago about Mr. Ades (thanks, Prisc!):

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I'd Have Bought One in a Heartbeat

I'd read about this guy before -- Joe Ades, an institution on the streets of New York City. He was a master salesman, selling Swiss-made vegetable peelers for $5 each. He apparently passed away this week. I'm sorry I didn't get one of his veggie peelers:

Interesting and Amazing

(Borrowed with thanks from http://www.friends.hosted.pl/redrim/Reading_Test.jpg)

Writing Good ;-)

Pardon my intentional grammatical mistake in the title -- it should be "writing well." "Good Writing" would have been correct (adjective modifying a noun), but "Writing Good" is incorrect (adjectives can't modify verbs; adverbs ["well"] modify verbs).

That grammatical error hopefully grabbed your attention for the point of this post: a lesson in writing well from Michael Masterson, a hugely successful copywriter (as cited by Bob Bly in his recent email newsletter). Masterson says writing is made stronger by focusing on "the power of one:"

•One big idea
•One appropriate emotion
•One purpose
•One audience

"The more ideas, emotions, objectives, and different types of readers you try to cover and reach out to in your copy, the more watered down and weaker it becomes."

Masterson also says, "Great writing is good thinking expressed as cleanly as possible." (From an AWAI tele-seminar, 1/8/08.) I have long thought that great writers ought to be called "great thinkers" instead, since nothing gets put down on paper that doesn't originate first in the mind. Granted, writing helps to refine thinking by slowing down the process, and re-writing creates re-thinking, which is helpful. But still, writing begins as thinking, so poor writing (whether grammatical mechanics or the realm of ideas) is a sign of poor thinking. And surely that has something to do with the quality of "thinking" to which we expose ourselves and our children. Minds that are continually exposed to "great thoughts" must surely stand a better chance of having great thoughts of their own. (That's a generalization, to which history offers exceptions -- deprived people who nonetheless produce great thoughts with little training or prompting.)

We were taught the "Big Idea" principle in seminary, applied to sermon preparation, but it applies equally to any kind of writing. My writing doesn't always measure up, obviously, but it's good to be reminded of what makes good writing better.

What Will People Buy?

Bob Bly is one of America's top copywriters, earning three-quarters of a million dollars annually with his words. In a recent newsletter he cited a finding from the Early to Rise Internet Marketing Conference (2008) concerning what people will buy on the Internet (as researched by entrepreneurs Brock Felt and Buck Rizvi). They group Internet purchases (marketing-driven purchases) into four categories:

1. Products that alleviate the prospect's pain.
2. Products that solve a problem.
3. Products that give or enable pleasure.
4. Products that prevent a problem or condition.

#1 and #2 are the easiest to sell because people will spend money to alleviate pain or solve a problem.
#3 will sell, but pleasure is less demanding than pain/problems, so they rank third.
#4 is the most difficult product to sell because -- (here's the point of this post) -- as health marketers have long known, people will buy cure but not prevention.

The implications of that italicized finding are huge, not just for marketing, but for the state of how short-sighted we are in general. We would rather live the way we want, then spend money immediately to make the pain or problem our lifestyle created go away, than take the long view and spend money on prevention. That philosophy underlies the entire healthcare system in America (though prevention is gaining more credibility as America's corporate health continues to decline).

We Are What We Eat (The Movie)

Aaron Lucich is a young guy who set out in 2005 to find a sustainable food system, and he is making a movie about his quest. At present, the movie consists of segments -- lots of interviews with a Who's Who in sustainble/organic agriculture efforts (farmers, PhD's, M.D.'s, etc.) -- not yet compiled into the finished piece. (And the segments I have watched are extremely well done.)

The web site for We Are What We Eat (the working title of the movie) is here. (There is little there at present.) The video segments posted there don't seem to play as well as they do when viewing them on his Facebook site. They can't be embedded on blogs or other web sites at present, so you'll have to view them in situ.

I STRONGLY encourage you to set aside 20 minutes to watch one of the segments: The unaminous voices of the individuals featured is overwhelming. What saddens me so is that we don't have people like these experts setting agriculture/environmental/medical policy in Washington. The men and women in this clip are so knowledgeable -- they have spend their professional lives studying the earth, farming it, and connecting soil with health. They have not only a scientific basis for what they say but an intuitive sense that our current ways of living are unsustainable. This segment begins with Charles Walters (founder of ACRES USA), one of the patriarchs of the eco-ag movement -- and maybe one of the smartest people alive. If you watch the video segment I recommend below, be sure to stay for the final 4-5 minutes where the interviewees are identified. It's great to put names, faces, and voices with some of the legends of the eco-ag movement.

The segment I'm recommending is here on Lucich's web site (though I couldn't get it to play). It plays easily on his Facebook site here. I'm a member of Facebook so I gained access to the video easily -- I don't know if you have to have a Facebook account to see this video or not, but it would be worth establishing one just to see the video. If you are active on Facebook, while at the video site become a "Fan" of Lucich's site to add to the momentum for the movie he is developing.

JUST ADDED: I found a <3 minute version of the video I'm recommending above on YouTube. PLEASE watch the longer 20 minute version -- but this short will give you a taste:

Joel Salatin

Everybody who cares about sustainable food supplies needs to know who Joel Salatin is. He is the owner of Polyface Farm ("farm of many faces") in Swoope, Virginia. He is an author, a brillianly creative farmer, a political rebel, and a committed Christian. He has revolutionized animal farming for small-scale sustainable farmers by his creative approaches to pasture rotation. He makes a very healthy living selling beef, poultry, pork, and rabbits off his farm. He will not ship meat anywhere, selling only to those in his surrounding counties. He has written numerous books, sharing his ideas for others to use. And ACRES USA uses Polyface Farm annually as a hands-on field-day site so Joel can lecture on and demonstrate his methods. (They charge $400-$500 an hour for guided tours of the farm with Joel or his son, Daniel, leading the tour. Self-guided, walkabout tours are free -- and hundreds of people pass through the farm every week.) Author Michael Pollan has written extensively about Joel Salatin.



As a Christian, I wish I could talk with Joel sometime about his dual commitments to Scripture and the consumption of animals. (Though nobody treats animals more gently and humanely than he does.) I would also like to ask him if he recognizes any connection between his lifelong consumption of animal flesh and his prostate cancer. There is such a clear link in research literature between those two that it amazes me how a smart guy like Joel Salatin doesn't see the (alleged) connection. I hope he lives long and strong -- and wish he would bring the same brilliance to plant production that he applies to animal farming. (He gardens, but it's primarily for his own family's consumption and a minimal amount of on-farm sales to others. His main "cash crop" is animals.)

Finger Exercise

Doing the CoolIris video was a new thing, so I did another one of a little guitar piece I created for some daily fingering exercise. Don't blink or you'll miss it: (The guitar is a Kevin Ryan Mission Grand Concert made by Kevin Ryan. See his beautiful guitars here.)