And now for my next trick...

ears ago friends introduced me to the work of German painter Gerhard Richter. Richter often layers paint which he then scrapes away at giving the piece a third dimension. What I like about Richter's approach is how he literally digs deeper.

In carving up my tome of a children's book on financial education, I settled on a single story that transcends financial education. This made me wonder - have I dug deep enough or have I just scratched the surface?

The depth of my exploration of this topic became particularly clear as I read Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money. Make that the book's afterword. For as good as the book is, the afterword is even better because of Ferguson's discussion of cognitive psychology - particularly our ability to avoid biases such as overestimating success and underestimating risk and failure - and its impact on our ability to make good financial decisions on a daily basis. 

Question is, how many of us will ever read Ferguson's afterword? How many will read the 26 page study by Eliezer Yudkowsky that the afterword is based on? 10% of the population? 1%? How many of us have read all our email? Exactly.

In the last few years Rockabye Baby! started putting out albums called "Lullaby Renditions of..." various musical artists. They've done Radiohead, Bob Marley, Adele, Journey, Kanye West and many more. In each case they replace vocals with xylophones and other kid-friendly instrumentals. These renditions did for pop music what Baby Einstein did for classical music.

Yudkowsky's study discusses eight points in particular that are just as interesting as the findings of the marshmallow test. In a series I'm simply calling, "Big Ideas, Little Books," I will now for my next trick write a 32 page children's book for each of the eight ideas discussed in the study. And I will write them all in the next eight days. If DiMaggio can get a hit in 56 straight, I can write 16 rhyming couplets for eight days straight.

Fouling Off Pitches

ther than the tried and true cliches we hear from baseball players these days during post-game interviews, add, "I got a pitch in my zone" or "I stayed within my zone." In other words, he didn't swing at crap. He got a good pitch and he turned it into a hit. But, you know, it doesn't always work out like that even when we get a good pitch to hit.

The other day I met with a former executive director of a large city Junior Achievement (JA) branch. Above all others, this is the group I want to pick up Hooey Savvy because they specialize in financial literacy programs and already serve 4 million students in the U.S. every year. In other words, I dug in and figured I'd get a BP fastball that I'd smack out of the park. What I got was chin music.

I learned that JA creates its own materials, ie, its own books and programs on financial literacy. I also learned that local branches must buy these materials from headquarters and that these materials form the foundation off which the branches work. The branches can use materials that do not originate from headquarters, but only as supplemental material. In addition, I learned that JA is a big bureaucracy and only reviews the materials for specific grades once every three to six years.

For as thick in the head as I am, the prospect of getting dusted by JA for the next few years sounds about as much fun as a Nolan Ryan headlock beat down.

On the fridge I keep the following quote: "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer" (Einstein). Consider Einstein the Paul O'Neill or the Johnny Damon of physics - fouling off pitch after pitch, staying alive, grinding down the pitcher, till he got one in his zone he could drive.

Which is where I am with Hooey. I've fouled off a few good pitches and I may have to foul off a few more. But the deeper I get in the at bat the better a feel I get for what's coming.

In other news, I am close to agreeing with an illustrator to ink up Cookie-Wise Pablo - the 32 page picture book version. She'll need a couple months, but hey, it might just be ready for the 2012 holiday season. Also, thanks to John Odell at the National Baseball Hall of Fame I have some leads on vendor and usher jackets from back in the day for The Boston Squeeze. Of the photos John and the Hall of Fame's photo department provided, this is my favorite.

Your Community on Hooey

s I work on the Kickstarter proposal and marketing plan for Hooey Savvy's Cookie-Wise Pablo, my kids book on financial education, I really want to show that it can have an impact on a community. To that end, I'd like to quantify that impact by tracking one community that reads Hooey against another similar community that does not.

Unfortunately, I sincerely doubt a single kids book can improve the average credit scores of a community in one, three, six or twelve months. It may take years. But, hey, you never know. Long story short, I'd like to show folks the progress they've made in a tangible and/or quantifiable way. What I do know is that it shouldn't take millions of tax payer dollars to achieve.

In Nudge, a book about libertarian paternalism, the authors, economists at the University of Chicago, give numerous examples of clever government initiatives that yield big results at little cost. Competition and public humiliation always seem to go down well. In this case, we could pit two communities against each other to see who can improve their average credit scores the most in a year...with the scores updated monthly in the local paper or painted on a wall in a very public place for all to see. Throwing in a prize for the winner (other than better credit scores and lending rates) never hurts. Getting elected officials to line up behind an out-of-towner might hurt.

Project Updates: Got a rather uncompetitive quote from the L.A. illustrator and so the search continues. Am hoping folks in Texas will be up to the task. Floramay Holliday is interested in giving some of Hooey's songs a go. She's got a great voice, lots of experience and a natural way about her music. I'm excited to hear what she comes up with. Thank you, Dewey Ervin, for bringing her talent to my attention. Have a meeting with Equifax next week in Atlanta. Looking forward to learning more about the company. Early work on my baseball work of fiction, The Boston Squeeze, continues to come together a little everyday.

That Yankee Bastard

nce upon a time I played in a fantasy baseball league with a bunch of dudes from Georgia. My team name? That Yankee Bastard. TYB (or, in the rare week I had the upper hand, That Bastard) had its moments (Thank you, Justin Verlander, for that 86 point no-no in '07!). But having gone to school in the South, I have a good feeling for what flies and what hits the fan.

That being said, from what I've been told, Texas is not the South. I know Texans, I went to school with Texans, I like Texans. Believe it or not, I've found an odd kinship between New Yorkers and Texans. Both groups have a certain, "This is how we do things" mentality. (More explicitly, in NYC it's, "This is how we do things. Don't like it? Go fuck yourself." In Texas, I take the follow-up sentences to be implied.) Texas females are one of the few groups of newbies to NYC that I don't worry about.

But this time, I'll be on Texas turf.

Looking ahead, I've drafted a sketch of what I'd like to accomplish on this first trip:

1) It's important that I get a good feel for what financial education is being currently offered and how Hooey can complement that.

2) It's equally important to listen to folks in the community to make sure Hooey addresses the financial problems or gaps in learning that they say currently exist.

3) As a you-don't-even-have-to-open-your-mouth-'cause-we-already-know Yankee, I need to propose a simple, straight-forward, easily executable plan that will not get rejected out of hand. That plan, at this time, is to provide every public school third grader and every local public library in the chosen community with a free copy of Hooey Savvy's Cookie-Wise Pablo (in English or in Mexican-Spanish). I won't ask for it to become part of the curriculum and I won't ask for librarians to read it. I'd just like it to be available at home or in the local library.

4) I need to shake a lot of hands and arrange a lot of face time. I could easily email all the folks that I've built a database around, but they can just as easily drag and drop my ass into their trash cans. By making the trip I show I am interested in their community and that my ass, for as scrawny as it is, does not belong in the trash.

5) Thanks to the standards set by "No Child Left Behind" and the Texas Department of Education's buying power, it would behoove me to bring Hooey in line with these standards as best as possible.

Those are the broad strokes. Jamie Oliver didn't just show up in West Virginia and commandeer an elementary school kitchen. It takes time and trust. If I can put in the time and build the trust, hopefully I can accomplish a fraction of what he has.

Project Updates: The L.A. illustrator has looked at the text of Hooey, likes it and is putting together a budget proposal. To fill in other gaps in the budget, I've also reached out to a local video production guy about a short Kickstarter presentation, have put together a preliminary list of Kickstarter rewards to offer and have some musicians potentially interested in recording some of the songs from Hooey. The Boston Squeeze continues apace. Have finally found a format that will carry the story and, thanks to Mr. Patrick Jordan, I've staked out some possible locations for the Squeeze's fictional Boston-area stadium. It's not a Pettitte curve yet, but it sure ain't a hanging curve.

Detailing Hooey Savvy

f I find a book, a movie or a song to be great it's usually because it's memorable. This hit me the other night as I watched Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. What's memorable in this film?

1) The father-son interplay between Bill Murray and Owen Wilson

2) The red hats

3) The Zissou Adidas sneakers

4) Seu Jorge covering David Bowie songs in Portuguese

5) The Jaguar Shark

6) "Staralfur," the Sigur Ros song that introduces the Jaguar Shark

7) The Bond Company Stooge

8) The written correspondence between Murray and Wilson

9) Wilson's accent (never mind the moustache)

10) The unpaid interns

And the list goes on. Why? Because Anderson gave his characters detail and those details made them memorable. The importance of being memorable struck me because I know, in its present form, Hooey Savvy is not memorable. It has its moments, but it needs to be more consistent. Making it memorable is the goal of the fourth round of edits which starts tomorrow and should conclude next week.

The Clown Expert

n search of a good read last night, I picked up John Julius Norwich's A History of Venice (1981). Before reading the introduction's first paragraph where Norwich takes us back to his inaugural visit to Venice in 1946, I read Norwich's bio.

As the author of a 638 page tome on the history of Venice (through 1797), I figured he had a doctorate in history from a British university. On the contrary, he had only an undergraduate degree in French and Russian before joining the British Foreign Service. Well, then, I assumed, he must have been posted in Venice. Actually, he served in Yugoslavia, Lebanon, and Geneva.

This made me wonder: So what makes this clown an expert qualified to write about Venetian history?

Having read the tome before and discussed it with another historian who noted Norwich's lack of primary language sources, it is still evident through his writing and his bibliography that Lord Norwich did not just jot down his memories and feelings. Is it the definitive history of Venice? Probably not. Is it a good primer? I believe so. Does he know more than I do about the subject? Yes he does.

And this is something I enjoy about writing: The prep work necessary to write about subjects one may not be an expert in at the beginning. This is particularly true of my current project - the Hooey Savvy kids book on financial education. I have no formal training in economics, but in learning about it I also learn how to understand it and how to teach others about it in simple terms. If I had degrees in economics I might have a hard time simplifying what I've been studying and thinking about for the past decade for an audience of kids because I will have become fluent in the language. As someone new to the subject and particularly the language, I have to simplify it, to translate it for myself first before I can even speak it with anyone else.

Do I believe that what I've written is expert? Not presently. And that's why I'm reaching out to economists, among others, to proofread the work to make sure it is accurate and evenhanded. I believe that it is possible to get the economics right without having to sacrifice the kid parts of the book as so many others have.

In other news, it's the first day of Spring Training!

Progress Update: Finished writing lyrics to the 80 or so songs needed for the book. Have moved on to the third draft which I will finish in the next ten days.

28 stories, 60+ songs and the competition

ooey Savvy, my kids book on financial education, continues to develop at a good clip. I have written first drafts of the book's 28 stories and this week I'm writing 60+ songs to go with them. Once those are finished, I'll give them all a long third look before seeking outside counsel from teachers, parents and kids.

This past fall I read 10-15 books by the competition. From those I took away six flaws that I address in my book. They are:

1) A paucity of kid or animal protagonists for kids to identify with;

2) No songs or rhymes to help understand or remember difficult concepts;

3) Graphic design heavy on AP stock photos from the trading floor, not illustrations that complement the written word;

4) A number of books that try to explain the entire financial system in a single go while reading like a textbook (ie, books difficult to read in one sitting);

5) Few books that bridge the divide between financial street slang which we all know and more formal synonyms which many of us do not; and

6) An introduction to the gray and black markets.

While I await feedback from my editing group, I plan to re-read those books and many more and to review them on this site. In light of the obvious conflict of interest, I will attempt to set up a grading system with which to judge these books so we're talking oranges to oranges and to be as objective as possible.

That should cover the next two weeks or so.

All Aboard

fter a long hiatus, the Little Engine is pulling out of the station again. I'm particularly excited to announce Hooey Savvy, my primary literary focus the last few months. Hooey is a kids book about financial education. While there's been a lot of talk about what brought about the financial crises of the last few years, too little has been said about education as a means to prevent future crises. I hope Hooey can help in that regard.