Disco Demolition Night

I'm considering moving this blog...

2010-03-26T00:29:00.000-07:00

I've considered it, and I've done it. You can find the new home of this blog
here.

750 Words

2010-03-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

I'm trying a new website writing program, oh, just for the heck of it, I guess. It's called 750 Words and the idea is that each day you write 750 words. It can be about anything. I imagine I'll write little stories mostly. 750 words takes me about 15 minutes. It's the equivalent of 3 double-spaced pages, they say. The first entry was about the idea of writing 750 words a day. The second one was about a guy telling a bunch of Japanese businessmen a bullshit story. We'll see how this experiment goes.

Call tech support

2010-02-26T20:57:00.000-08:00

I made these awhile back. I was going to do a whole series. I guess three is a series.

Stew

2010-02-20T00:39:00.000-08:00

How the Mighty Fall and Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins

2010-02-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

I picked up Jim Collins’ Good to Great a couple years ago while on vacation. It was an easy-to-read, research-based, insightful look at how companies make the leap from, as the title suggests, good to great. This book examines the opposite phenomenon, category leaders that make a series of mistakes and plummet into irrelevance or non-existence. With the same diligent research, Collins and his team find five stages of decline and the warning signs that a company might be headed down that path:

1. Hubris born of success. The company enjoys success and develops an arrogant belief that they have it figured out or an attitude that they no longer need to innovate and can rest on their past successes.
2. Undisciplined pursuit of more. A company’s success in their core business leads them to a reckless pursuit of growth in other areas, often over-committing financially and/or simultaneously neglecting the core business that bore them success in the first place.
3. Denial of risk and peril. Although warning signs start to emerge that a company’s current path is untenable, they ignore the risk in hopes that they will overcome it or that, in another show of hubris, their previous success makes failure impossible.
4. Grasping for salvation. With their impending demise staring them in the face, the company makes drastic, often ill-advised changes in an attempt to pull out of their nosedive. They might hire a new superstar CEO, rebrand themselves, or implement a series of company-wide reorganizations. Collins makes the point that it actually is possible for a sinking company to recover from Stage 4 and even come back stronger than before, but it requires, at the very least, a disciplined return to their core competencies, not just a reshuffling of the deck chairs.
5. Capitulation to irrelevance or death. In a final death rattle, the once-great company resigns to being irrelevant, is swallowed by another company, or closes its doors for good.

These are the commonalities in the process of demise from company to company, but Collins points out that the specifics that lead a company down this dark path can vary. He quotes Tolstoy: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Like in Good to Great, the most interesting part of this book is these specific case studies. Across industries, Collins examines companies that got it right, and then got it spectacularly wrong.

While Good to Great was probably a more helpful book with more concrete answers, as Collins points out, sometimes it’s more about the questions than the answers. And “What should I not do?” is a good question. There’s also something tragic (in the Shakespearean sense) to the company that rises to greatness only to collapse under the weight of its own arrogance. And that can be enjoyable to read about.

The audiobook is read by Collins, who can be over-the-top at times, but he obviously feels passionate about what he’s saying, so it’s tolerable.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan [audiobook read by Scott Brick]

2010-02-08T18:20:00.000-08:00

Most of what we eat is not food. That’s the simple premise in Pollan’s follow-up to The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Most of what we eat are food-like substances (and that might be generous), packed with preservatives, artificial flavors, fillers and other chemicals that don’t exist in nature. Pollan makes the point that if our grandparents walked into the modern supermarket, they wouldn’t recognize many of the things on the shelves. This is not good.

It’s the Western obsession with nutrients as opposed to food that has led us here. Sometimes flaky dietary science, a culture desperately seeking out the “magic bullet,” big-budget marketing campaigns from American food manufacturers and laws and regulation that place the financial health of the agricultural industry above the physical health of the population have all contributed to a situation where people really aren’t sure what they should and shouldn’t be eating. As Pollan points out, that’s a uniquely human dilemma.

Although he give the disclaimer that he’s nobody to be telling anybody what to eat, he does give some good, common sense rules of thumb: Eat mostly plants (mostly green plants). Eat less. Think of meat as more of a side dish. Don’t eat things with ingredients you can’t pronounce. Paradoxically, avoid foods that make health claims on their packaging (which implies, firstly, that they have packaging—something else to probably avoid). Shop around the edges of the grocery store. All of these direct us to eat food, not food-like, processed, manufactured food-like substances. It’s a great message, and with all the confusing health claims out there, it’s nice to have a call for simple common sense.

The audiobook is read by Scott Brick who does a fine job.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane [audiobook performed by Tom Stechshulte]

2010-02-07T22:32:00.000-08:00

Lehane is a fantastic writer of thrillers. All of his writing has an intense quality that keeps you on the edge of your seat with the pervasive sense that something terrible could happen at any time. This book, probably more than any of his other books, is laced with that paranoia. And although it starts off as a crime story, it’s really further down the spectrum toward psychological thriller, borderline gothic horror at some points. Somewhere close to Silence of the Lambs, perhaps.

The book opens in 1954, with two U.S. Marshalls taking a ferry out to Shutter Island, the location of Ashecliffe Hospital, a mental hospital for the criminally insane in Boston Harbor, to investigate the escape of a patient. The whole story is told from the point of view of Teddy, one of the Marshalls, as he delves deeper and deeper into the dark secrets of the island and the even darker mysteries of his own psyche. The twists and turns of the plot, at which Lehane is a master, are what make the story so interesting, so I won’t give any away here.

Lehane’s writing is as good as it always is, though the characters felt a little more stock than normal. While incredibly creepy, I didn’t connect with them as much as I did in his past stories. And perhaps because much of the book deals with the inner workings of the mind, I found pieces of it pushing the bounds of believability. Worth the read, although not Lehane’s best.

The audiobook is performed by Tom Stechschulte, who does a fantastic job at voicing multiple characters with distinct personalities. It’ll be interesting to see how the movie is (directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio).

2666 Group

2010-02-03T18:26:00.000-08:00

I'm reading Roberto Bolaño's 2666 with an online reading group. It's a very dense book, heavy in both senses of the word and I thought that a reading group would be helpful.

It's a fantastic book, although I'm only 100 or so pages into it. It's a collection of five loosely-related "books." I'm mid-way through the first.

Anyway, as I was doing some reading online about Bolaño, I came across this quote, from Rodrigo Fresán’s eulogy of Bolaño (translated from Spanish):

I don’t know how there can be writers who still believe in literary immortality. I understand that there might be those who believe in the immortality of the soul, and I can even believe there are those who believe in Paradise and Hell and in that freaky intermediate station that is Purgatory, but when I hear a writer speak of the immortality of definite works of literature I feel like slapping him. I’m not talking about really belting, so much as just one slap, and afterwards, probably, hugging and comforting him. In this I know that you won’t be in agreement with me, Rodrigo, because you are basically a non-violent person. As am I. When I say, deliver a slap, I’m more thinking of the palliative character of certain slappings, like those in the movies that are administered to hysterics so that they will react, stop screaming, and save their own lives.

It's such a nice quote, because it gets at what most writers aspire to--a type of literary immortality. Even those who imagine an granddaughter finding a dusty old box of journals in the back of the attic some day and pouring over them as if she has found, in the ramblings of her grandfather, an epic tale, humorous bits about a different time, the unpublished Great American Novel or, perhaps, just a bit of insight from someone who has seen more of life than she has.

Book List 2009

2010-01-15T18:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to my final Book List 2009, as a pdf.

Favorite Movies 2009

2010-01-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

1. Tyson

2. The Hangover

3. Inglorious Basterds

4. Where The Wild Things Are

5. Avatar

6. Up In The Air

7. Watchmen

Desert Solitaire: A Season In The Wilderness by Edward Abbey

2010-01-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

This was perhaps my favorite book from 2009. Written in 1968, during Abbey’s time as a park ranger in Arches National Monument near Moab, Utah, it falls somewhere between Jack Kerouac and Bill Bryson in both style and substance. Abbey is a cranky old coot, railing against civilization, the park service, the government, the tourists and the roads built to bring them into the depths of the parks. But I underlined the heck out of this book. It’s philosophy, environmentalism, natural history, taxonomy, folklore, poetry and angry ranting all in one. Abbey’s sense of humor and sarcasm are endearing, and his environmentalist spirit is inspiring, though dated by some of Abbey’s more hypocritical moments: he has long beautiful passages detailing the beauty of the canyonlands, yet offhandedly mentions rolling an old tire down the slope from the road for the fun of it; and with Luddite fervor, he lambasts the obnoxious presence of ignorant tourists in the park, yet longs to head to the mountains where he can carve his initials into the trunk of a juniper tree. Still, these faults aside, Abbey is a fascinating thinker, and his descriptions of the natural beauty around him are at times stunning. I’ve spent a little time in Joshua Tree and the canyonlands of southern Utah, and reading Abbey’s descriptions made me want to go back and explore them further. And the case he makes for our need to have a wilderness, an “out there” that serves both the few that explore it as well as the many who simply take comfort in knowing that it exists, that we haven’t developed every square inch of our crowded world, is both compelling and, I think, spot on.

My Favorite Books of 2009

2009-12-26T15:07:00.001-08:00

Here are my favorite books of 2009 (these aren't all 2009 releases, nor are they the "best" books by literary or other merits, just my favorites that I read this year). Each one is linked to my original review of it.

NONFICTION
1. Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

2. The Chris Farley Show by Tom Farley Jr. and Tanner Colby

3. Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter

4. How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer

5. Shop Class as Soul Craft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford

FICTION
1. The Murphy Stories by Mark Costello

2. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

3. The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

4. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

5. Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan

Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon [audiobook]

2009-12-19T23:48:00.001-08:00

This is a collection of riffs on different topics that circle around boyhood, fatherhood, and the bridge that ties the two. Chabon, who grew up with a good but distant father, now has four boys of his own and, as the title suggests, doesn’t always feel like he knows exactly what he’s doing. I’m not a father myself, but it’s easy to enjoy and relate to many of Chabon’s observations, and his honesty (both the honesty with which he writes and the honesty with which he deals with his kids) is admirable. Chabon’s refreshingly modern version of manhood calls into question the traditional ideas of masculinity (his mother pokes fun at him for carrying a man purse) as well as the traditional roles of the father (he’s not much of a handyman and prefers drawing superheroes with his kids to throwing the football with them). And he and his wife (who has written to much acclaim on the topic of motherhood) work as a team of equals as they tackle the dilemmas of parenthood (should they have their boys circumcised? how do they answer questions about drugs?). But the best part of the book is the exuberance with which Chabon embraces the concepts of childhood (imagination, superheroes) while at the same time lamenting the things that have changed since his own childhood (why did they have to go and add so many strange colors to Legos? what ever happened to kids being able to explore the neighborhood freely and alone?). This book would be a great gift for a young father, but it has enough insight and witty observation on the changing landscape of American suburbia to be relatable for anyone. Chabon’s writing, as always, is top notch, and he balances humor, serious criticism and poignancy very well.

If there were anything to criticize here, it would be that I found the author's reading voice slightly irritating at first. But the content is great.

Independent People by Halldor Laxness

2009-12-06T21:01:00.000-08:00

Laxness, an Icelandic author, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955 for his ability to create epic tales. This is certainly one of them. It’s the story of Bjartur, an Icelandic sheep farmer who is set like a mountain in his ways. He stubbornly bears the loss of family members, attacks on his sheep, political corruption and the changing world around him, set on his goal to live independently and build his home and farm, Summerhouse.

“Yes, it was a good man indeed who could stand immovable as a rock in these times, when everything around him, including money and views of life, was afloat and swirling in perpetual change; when the strongest boundary walls between men and things in time and place were being washed away; when the impossible was becoming possible and even the wishes of those who had never dared to make a wish were being fulfilled.”

The most interesting conflict though, better than Bjartur’s conflict with the world, is his stubborn feud with his equally strong-willed daughter, Asta Solilja. The pig-headed way in which Bjartur disowns his daughter and refuses to make amends makes you hate him, but in the end, as he is weighted down by debt and loneliness and finally begins to admit regrets, it’s hard not to feel for Bjartur. For his entire life, he has been principled to a fault, but principled nonetheless. It is then, as he looks over Summerhouse, ruined by poor financing and poor construction, that he writes:

“For what are riches and houses and power
If in that house blooms no lovely flower?”

Independent People is a book that at times feels like it is being endured, much as Bjartur endurs the harsh northern winters. While there are moments of action, sharp conflict and shocking surprise, much of the novel is concerned with the various diseases that infect the sheep, descriptions of the weather and landscape, the politics of socialism and the poems that Bjartur enjoys writing and reciting. It’s rewarding in the end, but is a slog to get through. It has been compared to Tolstoy. The story at times also reminded me of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, though I would be quicker to recommend that book. As frustrating as it is at times, by recommending Independent People to someone, I’d worry that they might return and throw the book at me.

So my 3rd cousin takes some rad photos...

2009-12-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, I got an email from a guy named Dan Dion. I'd never met him before and had no idea who he was, but apparently, we were related. Another cousin of mine had been doing some great genealogy work and had contacted him, giving him my email address since we both live in the Bay Area. Dan is my 3rd cousin.

Turns out, Dan is also a fantastic photographer. He's been the house photographer at the Fillmore for 15 years, along with the Warfield, Shoreline Amphitheater and Cobb's Comedy Club, among other venues.

Last night, I attended the opening of a photo exhibition: Dan Dion's Rock, Jazz, and Furthur: Photos from The Fillmore Auditorium 1994-2009. I got to meet Dan and take in his collection of historic photographs of amazing musicians, both backstage portraits and performance photos. Really cool stuff. It includes photos of some of my personal favorite musicians (Petty, Tweedy, Nick Cave) and quite a few legends (Cash, BB King, John Lee Hooker, Radiohead). I think my favorite shot was one just to the left of the entrance, of a David Byrne show. Dan captured the whole stage, the band, what looks like a dancer in an S&M outfit to the side, and about 15 rows of the crowd including, in the lower left, the mostly-exposed butt of a crowd surfer wiping out. Looks like a great show.

If you have a chance, you should swing by the gallery. The show runs through the end of January.

Tennessee Biodiesel

2009-12-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

Gifts are important because they tell people what you think of them.

I got this hat from my client. Apparently, they get lots of schwag and thought of me when they got this one. I think I like that.

Oakland, How I Love Thee

2009-12-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

I saw this on the bus. Fantastic. I think Oakland should use it as their official logo. Put it on shirts and stuff.

Actually, maybe I'll just use this photo as a standard reply to emails I don't want to receive.

Right Idea

2009-12-01T15:45:00.000-08:00

Oakland

2009-11-30T15:31:00.000-08:00

This video captures the vibe of what makes Oakland so cool. Sent to me via Kelly.

Holiday Party

2009-11-24T14:52:00.001-08:00

I'm on the holiday party committee at work. Not a Christmas party, a holiday party. We have to come up with themes. One of the themes I was pushing for was "Fiasco," but that seemed too vague. So I suggested a disability-themed holiday party. At the door, everyone would draw a piece of paper from a hat. Their paper would have a disability they have to pretend they have for the party. Some examples:

Rickets
Partial Paralysis of the left leg
Cleft palette
Limited use of right arm
No opposable thumbs
Midgetism
Dwarfism (must research how this is different from midgetism)
Two left feet
Blonde
Beat by father and/or uncle
Raised by wolves
Deaf in right ear
Tourette’s in Spanish (you yell bad words, but only in Spanish)
Castrated
I.Q. of a Doberman (they are smart dogs)
No Liver
Social Narcolepsy
Retrograde Amnesia
Shortness of Breath
Racist
Bionic Fist
Not circumcised
Mad as Hell
Cervical cancer

Everyone else would have to guess what their disability is.

This was not the theme selected for our holiday party.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

2009-11-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

This is the story of a moment in time, a few hours really, and its consequences. The story takes place on the wedding night of a young couple, Florence and Edward. They are staying at a small hotel on Chesil Beach, and when the time comes to consummate the marriage, well, let’s just say there is a misunderstanding. This is prudish, pre-sexual-revolution Britain, the incident is blown out of proportion, and the fears and frustrations of Edward and Florence, the same fears and frustrations of any young couple just married, manifest themselves in a pointless and stubborn argument.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Most of it, the part that leads up to and surrounds the incident itself, I found quite boring. McEwan’s writing is solid, but the Victorian sensibility of it all just isn’t my thing. But the last part of the book, when Edward is looking back on the incident many years later and thinking about how that one small moment had such a large impact on his life—that part’s really moving and relatable and masterfully executed. And it made the rest of the book worth it.

On Chesil Beach is the first McEwan I’ve read, but from what I’ve heard, it deals with a favorite topic of his—how small events, even the ones that don’t feel like events at the time, can change everything. It’s little more than a short story, really, which is the perfect length for it. If the upfront required much more investment, I’m not sure I would recommend this book. But as it is, I found it to be a quick and powerful read.

Bonsai!

2009-11-22T20:05:00.001-08:00

Today we went to Berkeley Horticulture and got a half pound of red worms for the compost bin. Introducing them to the worm bin was about as satisfying as buying a bunch of pet birds and watching them fly away. But they're supposed to turn the scraps that we throw in there into rich plant food. We'll see how that goes.

We also picked up a couple of bonsai trees. Terri got hers in a pot, all nice-looking and everything. I decided to be wild and crazy and got the tree by itself, an English boxwood, then got a pot, some little grassy stuff and some pumice. I made a little treescape. I want to get a miniature Japanese to watch over my tree. Despite my penchant for naming everything, I'm not sure I should name the tree. Maybe I'll just name the place. New Delaware. Maybe something.

Also of note, yesterday I tried out my new hedge trimmers and almost cut my finger off. I won't recount how, exactly, as it's rather embarrassing. I'll just say that the back stairs, door and kitchen floor were all spattered with blood and I had to run back out to the hardware store and buy a new extension cord.

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter [audiobook read by Karen White]

2009-11-22T18:46:00.000-08:00

Ever since I listened to this book, I’ve been asking my wife if we can get some chickens (or perhaps a goat, since I’m not sure how the bulldogs would do with chickens, or vice versa). The answer is a consistent and resolute “Absolutely not,” but this book makes it seem like a fantastic experiment.

Novella Carpenter moved with her husband to Oakland from Seattle, and rented a home in a not-so-nice part of the city, an area nicknamed Ghost Town for its empty lots and abandoned buildings. Next to her apartment was one of these vacant lots, in which she planted some vegetables. This was the beginning of an obsession that would eventually lead her to rooting through the dumpsters of Chinatown, salvaging food scraps to take home to her pigs.

Carpenter’s farm, in addition to producing crops, was at various times home to chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbit, pigs, goats and bees. With the exception of the bees (she’d kept bees in Seattle), all of these experiences were new to her. There’s a lot of trial and error and experimentation both in raising the animals and figuring out how to slaughter them. And that’s where the book gets really interesting. Carpenter’s obsession wasn’t just with raising the animals, but with understanding the whole process.

While most of us eat animals, we also mostly take them for granted. Carpenter didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to raise the animals and then sell them to a butcher or auction them off. So in addition to the trials of raising livestock in downtown Oakland, we get a vivid, unsettling, but ultimately very honest description of how these animals become food.

Carpenter has a witty, light-hearted but heartfelt voice, and Karen White’s read of the book fits the attitude well. I’ve recommended this book to several people. I even sent an email to the Slate Political Gabfest (they’re sponsored by audible, and their promotion was what got me hooked on audio books in the first place) recommending Farm City, and they read my recommendation on their podcast. Here’s the link to the podcast. My moment of fame came on the November 5, 2009 Gabfest at about the 18:00 mark.

Boogie Woogie Piano Festival at Yoshi's

2009-11-20T13:58:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was driving home and heard a radio promo for the Boogie Woogie Piano Festival at Yoshi's, a jazz club in Oakland. Since I'm learning a bunch of boogie woogie on the piano, I thought it would be good to go. Fun time. Some great piano, including the amazing 96-year-old Pinetop Perkins who, according to Wikipedia is one of the two oldest touring delta blues musicians, member of the Blues Hall of Fame and recipient of Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Apparently, in the first show that night, Pinetop kept wandering out on stage before he was up. During our show, they had to go back to the dressing room and get him. He walked out assisted by a cane in one hand and a guy supporting him under his other arm. They sat him at the piano, adjusted his mic, and his giant hands just started playing.

Mitch Woods, who organized the event and played the role of MC and opening performer, said that when he picked Pinetop up at the airport, he asked him what his secret to his longevity was. "I like it here," Pinetop said.

I hope I'm able to play piano when I'm 96. Here's a short clip of Pinewood in action.

Wish I Were Invited

2009-11-11T11:23:00.001-08:00

I googled "party pics." This is by far the best party that has ever taken place.

Trampoline Evolution

2009-10-22T01:23:00.000-07:00

When I was young, we had a trampoline in our back yard. We used to jump up and pick leaves off the tree branches above. Naturally, the leaves to pick got higher and higher, and toward the end of the summer it felt like we were flying. It was a lot of fun.

This trampolining puts that to shame:

Crazy Wingsuit Flying

2009-10-20T22:09:00.000-07:00

Shop Class as SoulCraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford [audiobook, read by Max Bloomquist]

2009-10-18T00:43:00.000-07:00

People don’t do things with their hands anymore. That’s the central lament of this book. We don’t make things. Instead of fixing things, we throw them out. We don’t even have the knowledge of how things work to fix them if we wanted to. The trades are devalued in schools, seen as lesser career paths compared to office jobs. As such, we have a culture divorced from the physical things around us.

But what Crawford argues, convincingly, I think, is that the job of physical laborers, of craftsman, have an inherent value to society and to the craftsman that cannot be found in an office. A craftsman draws on experience that goes beyond routinized labor, and in the end he is judged by the physical evidence of his work—does it work? There is value in doing things with our hands, in the act of creation, in the act of physical problem solving. In interacting with our physical world. Perhaps because of our hyper-digitized world, you see a rise in the craft arts, in home improvement, in gardening—in hobbies involving our hands.

Crawford recounts many of his own experiences as an electrician and a mechanic at a motorcycle shop. In prose that at often is rather poetic, he conveys the frustration, education, humility, pride and spirituality that all can come through an act of physical creation or solving a problem that involves physical and mental challenges.

Where Crawford strays into more dubious territory is when he begins to make generalized value judgments about office work. He compares the relationships of office managers to the relationships of mechanics in a shop, with the office managers using a kind of two-faced code compared to the mechanics’ straight-talk. And he compares the definitive success or failure of a craftsman—he can see the results of his work at job’s end—to the more nebulous results of an office worker—often a project is ongoing, success is more abstract and less defined, and as a part of a team it’s often difficult to suss out one’s personal contribution. While I would agree that a sense of accomplishment might be harder to come by in an office environment, Crawford makes too many generalizations based on his minimal office experience and, in the end, comes across as condescending.

That said, the broader premise of the book is important and well said. As for the audiobook, however, I wasn’t a fan of Bloomquist’s read. He overemphasized too many words and made it feel a little forced.

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July

2009-10-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

Miranda July’s voice is wholly unique, in both her film work and this collection of short stories. And it comes off as genuine her, rather than consciously weird. The stories in this collection are hit and miss for me, though more hit (and the misses are still interesting to read). By the end, the weird sexual situations were a little less unsettling, and the quirkiness of her voice had lost some of its intrigue. But overall, a great read, with a lot of charm. And while many people focus on the quirkiness of her voice, I was blown away more by how many great lines are in these stories. My favorite stories were “The Shared Patio,” “The Swim Team,” “The Sister,” and “Something That Needs Nothing.” I look forward to reading her next book.

A Couple Photos I Wish I'd Taken

2009-10-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

And one that I did:

The Hole

2009-10-11T19:24:00.001-07:00

Another post on sweet-juniper about an abandoned neighborhood, this one in my hometown of Cincinnati. Eerie.

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane [audiobook read by Michael Boatman]

2009-10-11T19:15:00.000-07:00

Dennis Lehane is best known for his crime thrillers (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), so this, an ambitious historic novel, is a departure for him. Clocking in at just under 24 hours (over 700 pages for the book), it’s ambitious undertaking for the reader as well. But the time is well spent, one of my favorite books in recent memory.

The story takes place mostly in Boston near the end of World War I, a time that, for those who lived it, must have seemed like the end of the world. There is the Spanish flu epidemic, the May Day riots, rampant racism, a molasses flood, terrorist bombings, and a strike by the Boston police department that led to days of rioting that nearly destroyed the city.

Through these tumultuous times, we follow Danny Coughlin, a cop from a family of dedicated police officers, who struggles with his dual role as the dutiful son of an officer and the leader of the officer’s union. Crossing paths with Coughlin is Luther Laurence, a black man from Tulsa who fled to Boston after a deadly shootout. Throw into that mix several real-life historical characters (Babe Ruth, Governor Calvin Coolidge, John Hoover and Eugene O’Neill among others), and you have a sprawling, historically fascinating, multi-layered story with well-drawn, conflicted characters. On top of that is Lehane’s talent for suspense, which keeps it from ever getting dull.

The audiobook is performed by Michael Boatman, who deftly voices the narration as well as the dozens of characters, many with accents. A consistently solid performance.

Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson

2009-10-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

Anderson, editor of Wired, examines the nature of “free.” The history of free, Anderson explains, has been mostly one of marketing gimmickry—“buy one, get one free,” “free sample,” “free delivery,” etc.—where the “free” is built into the cost of the item or is in exchange for a further commitment, either contractual or implied.

But the key to today’s free, as we see online with Google or Youtube, is that whereas the material economy is an economy of scarcity, today’s economy is one of abundance. Said differently, physical products will always be scarce—they must be produced, there will always be a finite number of them, and no matter the efficiencies, there will always be some cost of production. An economy of abundance, on the other hand, might have upfront production costs, but mass production thereafter is costless and fluid. It doesn’t cost any more to make 100 copies of an mp3 than it does to make one. There are as many available as there is demand. And according to the law of supply and demand, an infinite supply dictates a price of zero. An economy of abundance will always push prices toward free.

Furthermore, the “Internet generation” expects free, demands it even. The debate around music piracy and the misguided efforts of the record industry to litigate otherwise aside, the question of the future is not if free but how free? As in, what is the model going to be that will allow us to monetize free?

Anderson gives some potential examples: there is of course ad-supported free content, where advertisers subsidize the content in exchange for eyeballs; there is the tiered free, where a few users pay for an expanded or pro version of something while others use the scaled-down version for free (think Flickr or Quicktime); and there is the use of free to promote something that makes money (giving away a free book to support a career as a consultant). And there are other models.

But, as Anderson admits, the free model hasn’t really been figured out yet, Youtube as case in point. And that’s where Anderson’s book is open to criticism. It’s a fantastic overview of the idea of free, and a thought-provoking discussion starter. But unless someone figures out how to reliably monetize free, it will never be the force that Anderson predicts. It will never become more than an amateur economy, or a promotional device. To get free to work on its own, someone will need to solve the paradox of profiting from it.

Yeahhhhhhh boy!

2009-10-09T00:14:00.001-07:00

blip.fm

2009-10-08T00:27:00.000-07:00

Started a station on blip.fm, which lets you play dj and share your station with friends (or like-minded strangers). Quite fun. And yet another way to find new tunage.

This is just to say

2009-10-07T21:21:00.000-07:00

This is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

-william carlos williams

-----------

This is Just to Say
I have stolen
the car
that was in
the driveway

and which
you were probably
keeping
to sell

when you were older
and needed money
to send your children
to college

-----------

This is just to say
I have taken
the cat--
the one you
call Snowball

and which
you apparently loved
more
than me

Forgive me
we'll be better off
without that mangy
flea circus around

-----------

This is just to say
I have crashed
the plane
that was carrying
your son to San Diego
for medical school.

Forgive me—
he was a bright boy,
handsome and vibrant

but you should see
the crater;
it is something to behold

-----------

This is just to say
I have crushed
your nuts
so gently resting
under my stiletto.

Forgive me—
they were hard to resist
with their scurrilous hair

and goosy flesh.
Funny a source of such pleasure
could make you cry so

Spicy Pony Head

2009-10-06T23:45:00.001-07:00

The Sound of Young America

Rejected: Tales of the Failed, Dumped and Canceled by John Friedman

2009-10-06T23:20:00.000-07:00

John Friedman runs a show in New York called The Rejection Show, which celebrates the all-too-common experience of not succeeding. This book is a collection of some material from that show, various writers, comedians, actors and cartoonists reflecting on their favorite rejections.

Overall, the material in all over the place. Some of it, honestly, should have been rejected. Other pieces have moments of laugh-out-loud humor. Neil Pollack’s short story, “Brother Elk,” is a pretty solid short story. And both the collection of rejected headlines from The Onion and rejected jokes from Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” both have some hilarious lines. But in general, the bigger the bomb, the better the comedy. And that goes to Kevin McDonald’s recounting of a show his comedy troupe did at El Macombo rock club. It ends with the audience hurling homophobic insults (their act followed a gay men’s choir) and two of the performers getting into a fistfight on stage.

I recently heard an interview with John Friedman, and perhaps better than anything in this book were some of his insights on what it means to fail and, in this case, what it means to celebrate failure. By looking at his failures as something to be collected, as positives in that regard, he gave himself the freedom he needed to really take some creative risks.

Sub

2009-09-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

A small German submarine came into our pond.
I don’t know how it got in there. It must have come in through one of the drainage pipes. How it navigated the creek is a mystery, but there it was. About the size and shape of a baseball bat.
It surfaced maybe a yard from shore. At first I thought it was a turtle, but then the hatch opened and several tiny German sailors appeared, barking orders.

Illustrated By Copywriters

2009-09-15T18:33:00.001-07:00

A new website. Coming soon.

How old are you?

2009-09-14T16:13:00.001-07:00

I ever tell you my Kerouac story?
You met Kerouac?
I punched him out.
What?
Asshole was trying to steal my girl.
You punched him?
Out cold.
How old are you?
What do you mean how old am I? How old do you think I am?
Not old enough to have known Kerouac.
Looks can be deceiving, my friend. Looks can be deceiving.

Feral Houses

2009-09-12T01:50:00.001-07:00

Sweet Juniper has a fascinating collection of abandoned houses, reclaimed by nature in Detroit. Beautiful and sad at once.

Light in the East Bay

2009-09-12T01:23:00.000-07:00

A nice big, full, double rainbow to the south, viewed from our living room.

Sunsets are usually beautiful in the bay. Sometimes equally as spectacular are the hills. Windows of all the houses sparkle, and sometimes the light can get so bright and orange that it looks like everything's on fire.

Last Saturday night, the fog rolled in low and Cal's stadium looked like a spaceship was landing during the game. There was also a full moon, which made for some a creepy atmosphere everywhere.

Inglorious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino

2009-08-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

In Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist history of World War II, he shows that while the Allied Forces were unable to exact a revenge on the Nazis that matched their crimes, it is well within his power as writer and director to do so now. He imagines a brutal revenge fueled by a wrath that the Allied Forces could or would not muster. As with all of Tarantino’s films, Basterds is a meditation on violence, particularly violence in cinema. And while the violence is graphic, what is more unsettling is the nagging suspicion that he selected the Nazis as antagonists primarily to make such brutality “acceptable.” In fact, the more brutal the fate of each Nazi, the more we self-consciously cheer. But the violence issue aside, the film is masterfully crafted. Several of the scenes are among the most riveting in recent memory, and the whole film has that other Tarantino trademark—it is incredibly entertaining.

"Big Cities" by The Young Offenders

2009-08-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

Great song, great guys. And the directorial debut of my buddy, Jon.

Neil Debuts "Heart of Gold"

2009-08-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite Neil songs. Love the bit at the beginning with him trying to find the right harp.

Sunday

2009-08-03T17:19:00.000-07:00

Went up to Joaquin-Miller Park with Meghan and Brian on Sunday.

Then we went and tried out mattresses, which isn't very hard work at all.

Saturday's Work

2009-08-03T17:05:00.000-07:00

I waited for an hour for a truck at U-Haul. That's not as bad as the poor people waiting in line when I left, pictured here.

Job #1 was to dig up this lemon tree from our neighbor Heather's yard and transplant it to ours. Hoping he holds on, because he looks nice there.

Job #2 was to hoist our couch up over the balcony, because it wouldn't fit up our stairs.

Walter was doing some work of his own.

Let The Right One In

2009-07-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

Creepy, vampire movie set in Stockholm, Sweeden. A young, awkward boy, the brunt of constant bullying by his classmates, finds a new friend in the girl who moves in next door. The only minor setback is that she's a reluctant but very real bloodsucker.

We watched a version that was dubbed in english, which was pretty annoying, but overall a freaky good movie. Well made.

How We Learn by Jonah Lehrer

2009-07-24T20:42:00.001-07:00

This is a study of how we make decisions. Through interesting case studies and backed with a good deal of scientific and psychological research, and layman’s neurophysiology, Lehrer explains how different parts of our brain function when we’re presented with choices.

Using examples as varied as Tom Brady searching for an open receiver, focus group participants ranking spreadable jams, pilots landing malfunctioning airliners and professional poker players sniffing out bluffs, Lehrer explains how making the right decision involves a struggle between our rational and logical brains. The misconception is that using logical problem-solving always leads to better decisions. But Lehrer argues that depending on the type of decision, the number of factors involved, and the level of our experience, relying on our “emotional brain” is often more accurate. This is because we condition our brain and the dopamine levels in it to predict certain outcomes—in other words, we train our instincts to “sense” the right decision and can react much faster than our logical brain could.

Many people have rightly compared this book to Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. Both are about decision-making, but How We Decide is better supported and seems a little clearer in its thesis. Overall, a very enjoyable listen. David Colacci, who I recently listened to reading Wonderboys, does an excellent job here as well.

Sidetracked by Henning Mankel

2009-07-24T20:01:00.001-07:00

This book starts with two seemingly unrelated but equally gruesome incidents. In one, Swedish inspector Kurt Wallander is called out to a farm to investigate a complaint of a trespasser in the crop fields. There, he finds a young, obviously frightened girl. But before he can talk to her, she douses herself in gasoline and lights herself on fire. Not far from there, a retired politician walks down to the beach from his home before turning in for bed. There, he is hatcheted in the back by what appears to him to be a dwarf.

This is the fifth book in Mankel’s series about a Swedish detective Kurt Wallander. I haven’t read any of the others, but it was easy to get a sense of Wallander’s character and I actually liked the allusions to the other stories without much explanation.

I don’t read a lot of crime fiction, but a friend recommended this book, and it held up well to James Patterson and other similar books that I have read. It’s fast-paced, smartly written and has plenty of twists and turns. Mankel deftly balances what he reveals and what he keeps a mystery, inserting just enough of the scenes where the crimes are committed to keep it suspenseful but not give too much away. It’s also not a perfectly plotted crime novel—it’s messy, with mistakes and dead ends, which gives it a more realistic feel. And Mankel adds pieces of dialogue and side plots about personal life to make him seem well-rounded without bogging down in it. Overall, a pretty enjoyable summer read.

Public Enemies by Michael Mann

2009-07-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

When I saw Heat, another Michael Mann film, in the theater back in college, I was by myself and it was probably one of the best movie-going experiences I can remember. The theater was mostly empty, and the gunshots seemed to ricochet off the stadium seats around me. This time, I was in Chicago, where much of Public Enemies takes place, and again I was alone.

Is it fair to compare Public Enemies to Heat? They're both Michael Mann films about bank robbers, and they both make the case for the good in the bad guys and the bad in the good guys and how relationships are affected when men become obsessed with what they do.

So there, I guess I am comparing. But Heat, with its extra thirty minutes, is able to develop the characters much more fully. We get to see the home lives of the three main characters. In Public Enemies the relationships are a little more flat. Johnny Depp, who plays John Dillinger, and Christian Bale who plays Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent chasing him, both do a great job, as usual. But Dillinger's relationship with his girl isn't fully developed, and we don't know what Purvis is like at home. As such, this movie relies more on the shootouts and bank robberies to pull us through. And while nobody shoots bank robberies as well as Mann, and while I walked out of the theater thinking, "Man, I should get a tommy gun," I didn't care as much for the characters as I did in Heat.

As the plot goes, there are some good moments, most carried by Depp's ability show his inner conflict. My favorite was, toward the end, when he walks into the police department's "John Dillinger Unit" while all the cops are sitting around the radio listening to the Cubs-Yankees game. He strolls casually around the office, examining all the photos of him and the evidence from his case on the walls, realizing that of his gang, he's the last one left. Then, at the height of his bravado, he asks what the score of the game is. Aside from these moments, there are few surprises. After all, it's a true story and the end was known 80 years ago.

Bill Withers

2009-07-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

Great great interview with Bill Withers on The Sound of Young America.

The Sound of Young America

The Move

2009-07-05T19:47:00.000-07:00

It's been a long but very good five days. We have maybe 75% of our stuff unpacked. Some of it is set up temporarily until we get into the upstairs when the former owners move out in a few weeks.

Here are some pics of the move.

Dude, enjoying a last few moments at the old place.

Leaving the old house.

The new place.

The Dude and Walter christening the back yard.

The yard is pretty much a blank slate. I've been thinking about what I can do with it (without tripling the water bill).

The front yard, on the other hand, is fully landscaped. All I need to do there is get the automatic drip system working.

Inside before.

Inside after (kind of).

I love our charming little broom closet. Reminds me of Grandma's house.

We've been getting the hang of the narrow driveway. The real fun was when I pulled the moving van up it without thinking, then had to back it out. I only scraped the wall once.

Most of our rooms look like a tornado hit.

The kitchen is almost completely unpacked and set up.

Making the first meal in the new house.

Lots of new stuff, but we can still keep some of our routines.

The Meanest and Nicest Things From the Past Few Days

2009-06-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was on BART, a crowded car, and a blind guy who I often see got on with his black lab guide dog. A bunch of us were already standing as there were no seats left, and someone (one of the standing people), asked the blind man if he'd like to sit down. He said, "If there's an available seat."

So the guy who asked looked at a man sitting in one of the seats and said, "Yeah, I think we can find one."

The guy in the seat stood up and got all huffy about it, saying, "Oh, are you an usher? I didn't realize there were ushers on BART. Do you want to find anyone else a seat? Maybe you'd like to find everyone a seat."

We rode along some, then he brought it up again, saying, "How do I get a job as an usher? I'd like to give away seats."

Dude, the guy was frickin' blind. Don't be such a jackass.

And then for the nicest thing I saw...(you'll have to click on it)

At Home At the Zoo by Edward Albee

2009-06-21T22:59:00.000-07:00

Albee wrote the second act of this play in 1958. Titled The Zoo Story, it tells the story of a chance meeting between Peter, an executive at a New York publishing company who leads a fairly sheltered existence. Peter is sitting on a bench reading a book in Central Park when he is interrupted by Jerry, an unstable self-proclaimed transient who longs to have "a real conversation" with someone. Peter reluctantly obliges.

The first act, written by Albee in 2004 to better fill out Peter's character, gives us a glimpse into Peter's home life, his relationship with his wife, two daughters and two parakeets. Although not as dramatic as the second act, it is charming, funny, and does give us a better sense for how sheltered Peter's existence really is.

The play overall was pretty good. The acting was solid, and the minimalist set design was striking. There was a little too much monologue in the second act for me, and I actually would love to see a third act in which we see the effect of the conversation with Jerry was on Peter when he goes back to his life. Right now, it feels like an unfinished thought.

The Hangover by Todd Phillips

2009-06-19T22:40:00.000-07:00

My one worry about this movie wasn't that it wouldn't be funny, but that I would have seen all the funny stuff in the trailers. And although I think it would have been more surprising if they hadn't given so much away in the trailers, it's still one of the funniest movies I've seen in awhile.

The premise is pretty simple: four buddies (actually three buddies and a brother-in-law) head to Vegas for a bachelor party. The next morning, they wake up to find the room trashed, a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, one of them missing a tooth and the groom missing altogether. Oh, and none of them can remember a thing about what happened the previous night. So they spend the next two days trying to locate the groom and reconstruct their evening from the contents of their pockets and various other clues.

What makes The Hangover smarter and funnier than most other lewd Animal House-style party comedy is the plot construction. Since none of the participants can remember the night (until the very end, when, in a nice touch, one of them finds his digital camera and we're treated to a roll of hilarious snapshots), we're taken along for the ride as they try to sleuth it out. And as bizarre the assortment of clues in their room is, it only gets more bizarre and more random as it starts to come together.

Props to Ed Helms (Andy from The Office) for his hilarious performance, and to Zach Galifianakis, who plays the off-kilter brother-in-law.

When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris [audiobook]

2009-06-16T22:37:00.000-07:00

Sedaris could describe rice and make me laugh. Seriously, I don’t think there’s any other writer who makes me laugh out loud so often. Here, he gives more of the same, which, in my opinion, is just what I want him to do. Quirky memoirs, mostly about his family, oftentimes lewd, but always hilarious. He describes his neighbors, people in the seats around him on public transportation, and his attempts to learn Japanese and quit smoking, among other things. And there’s nobody more suited to read a Sedaris book than the author himself. Yes, his nasal, someone snooty voice can take a moment to get used to, but it brings his sarcasm to life perfectly. If you’re not a Sedaris fan, this book certainly won’t make you one. But if, like me, the guy cracks you up, then this book will do the same.

Collapse by Jared Diamond

2009-06-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

Diamond is probably best known for his book Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, which dissected the reasons that certain societies thrive while others sputter and die out. And it’s hard not to compare this book to that one, as both cover similar territory. But while Guns continually introduces new principles contributing to the fate of societies throughout the book, Collapse seemed to just introduce new cases to illustrate the same principles repeatedly. And for that reason, it started to lose my interest about midway through.

To be sure, there are interesting stories. I was fascinated by the Easter Island section, in which it seems that those giant statues for which the islanders became so famous were most likely the greatest cause of their demise; so many resources were burned through as different groups on the island competed to build larger monuments that before too long, there were no trees and the environment was in shambles.

The answer of this book’s central question (Why do societies collapse?) is that they use up their natural resources. And perhaps that’s why it felt monotonous to me at parts. There is no mystery, as the title of the book suggests. It’s resource management. And we see this again and again. The way it happens varies from case to case, and Diamond outlines several factors that can create, or combine to create, natural catastrophe. He also uses varied cases, both in time and place--Pacific Islanders, Anasazi, Vikings, Mayans, modern Rwanda and Australia and his home state of Montana, where the current struggle for land management is critical. But with all these varied examples, it’s the same story over and over.

Diamond does not take a tree-hugger’s perspective to the issue of environmentalism, and there is nothing obviously political in his approach. It’s a cautionary tale, for certain, but he both criticizes and applauds modern efforts by governments, organizations and corporations for their roles in resource management. Because, as the cases illustrate, environmentalism is not a political matter. It’s not about being able to go camping. It’s a matter of survival. When a society depletes its resources, through mismanagement or war, or because its population grows so large that its natural resources cannot support it, collapse is eminent.

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon [audiobook read by David Colacci]

2009-06-12T23:51:00.000-07:00

This is the story of a Grady Tripp, a writer and professor at a Pittsburgh university who, after publishing one highly-lauded novel, now finds himself more than 2,500 pages into his second novel with no end in sight and no direction. Likewise, he floats through this novel, blown around like a pinwheel by characters with more drive (but no more sense) than himself—James Leer, a suicidal writing student who at a party shoots the chancellor’s dog and steals her husband’s prized and priceless Marilynn Monroe jacket, worn by the star on the day she married Joe DiMaggio; Terry Crabtree, his agent, a lover of cross-dressing men, regular-dressing men, and drinking; and Hannah Green, a student who rents a room from Grady and has a crush on him though, in one of his few sensible acts, Grady keeps away. Mix up all these misfits with a bunch of booze and weed, and you get a story that is a lovable mess of slapstick, desperation, complete chaos, and characters that you find yourself liking but constantly shaking your head at.

Chabon is a writer’s writer, and there’s probably nothing he’s more suited for writing about. It’s a joy to hear the sentences he constructs, and the characters and their complicated but believable relationships are great. I hesitated to get this one on audiobook, as I wanted to actually read it, but after hearing a few good reviews, I decided to try listening. David Colacci’s performance is fantastic, and his dry sense of humor fits Chabon’s style perfectly. All around a great collaboration and a sheer joy to listen to.

Alameda Flea Market

2009-06-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

The Alameda Flea Market happens on the first Sunday of every month on the old Alameda air strip. It's enormous. You could spend the whole day there walking around and still not see everything. Today, as we were waiting in line to get in, the guy working there said he thought they could have over 6,000 people today, with the beautiful weather and all (although the wind got pretty heavy late in the day and was wreaking havoc with some of the display tents).

With the move to the new house coming up, we tried to limit ourselves. We'll have a better idea of what we need when we get there, and I'm sure we'll be back looking for cheap furniture to fill the rooms of the new place. Still, we found a cool 1930s-style clock and a 1950s orange chair.

Boleros for the Disenchanted at the A.C.T. Theater

2009-05-31T21:41:00.000-07:00

This was the second of our series of three plays that we bought as a package at the A.C.T. Theater in downtown San Francisco. I'm not a connoisseur of theater by any means, but we like to go a couple times a year, usually because I recognize the play's author.

Boleros for the Disenchanted was written by Jose Rivera, who penned the screenplay for The Motorcycle Diaries. Boleros is based on his parents' relationship. The story takes place in two acts. In Act I, we see how the young couple, Flora and Eusebio, meet and fall in love in Puerto Rico in the early 1950s. Act II then skips ahead to Alabama in the 90s and we see their lives after 40 years of marriage. The play is about love idealized, the fantasy version, and love in reality--the long term, sickness with the health, bad with the good kind of love.

Overall, it was pretty good. The acting was strong, and actors played different roles in Act I and Act II, adding another level of complexity and symbolism (for example, the actor who played the young Eusebio in Act I appears as a priest in Act II to read old Eusebio his last rites). The parallel structure of the two acts worked well, but seemed a little heavy-handed with the theme. Still, there's very little else I could criticize in the play.

TV On The Radio - Fox Theater

2009-05-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

TV On The Radio is such a cool band to see live. Just a complete wall of sound. Which makes the Fox Theater the perfect place to see them. Newly renovated with a great sound system, you can pick out all the layers of a band like TVOTR. And I had one of the best spots in the house, on the rail at the front of the first raised section, basically 30 feet back at stage level, looking right over the mass of people on the floor.

This was my third show at the Fox (Fleet Foxes and The Black Keys). Hard to pick my favorite, but these guys are awesome all around. And it's one of those shows that makes you like the recorded albums even more.

WONDER BOYS by Michael Chabon, [audiobook read by David Colacci]

2009-05-17T20:52:00.001-07:00

Hyundai Commercial

2009-05-10T19:56:00.000-07:00

Sitting around watching the NBA playoffs, I saw the Hyundai Genesis spot with a website to edit your own spot. I thought why not? I'm sitting here doing nothing. I could win a car, I think. Here's my spot.

NOTE: For some reason, when I used the embed tag they provided, it doesn't have the music I put on it, and it had an error in the tag which I had to fix. Geez. How not to do user-generated content.

TYSON a James Toback film

2009-05-09T22:20:00.000-07:00

Many people thing Mike Tyson is a psychopath, hands down. After all, this is a man who was convicted of and served three years for rape, then came back and bit Evander Hollyfield's ear off in a fight, and now sports a Maori facial tattoo. But what you see from this documentary is that there's a surprising amount of depth and, not as surprising, much conflict in Tyson's character.

Aside from interview and fight clips and archival footage, the only voice in the movie is Tyson's. He's telling his story, his side of things. The movie covers his coming of age in his rough Brooklyn neighborhood, his time in and out of juvenile detention centers, and then his relationship with trainer Cus D'Amato, who got Tyson off the streets, recognized the potential, and made Tyson a believer in himself. D'Amato is one of the few people who actually looked out for Tyson's best interests. Tyson tears up when he recalls that D'Amato was the one who told him, who actually bet him, that Tyson would become champion if he listened and did everything D'Amato told him to do.

Tyson's knockouts are stunning on the big screen, and the movie artfully brings them to life as it tells the story of his early career. Tyson talks about his rape conviction (which he still denies), why he bit Hollyfield's ear off, and the later, ugly days of his career.

But the best part of the movie is just listening to the man talk. The bizarre poetry of Mike Tyson's stream-of-consciousness is fascinating. His vocabulary is surprising, and his take on things is always unique. Tyson comes across as just laying it all out there. He's been judged his entire life. He has nothing to hide from anyone. He takes responsibility for everything he's ever done, and talks about how big a role fear has played in his life.

The film is not a defense of Tyson. It's an honest profile. A peek inside his complicated mind. For all those who have written Tyson off as a lunatic, they will find this film surprising. And they might be surprised to find themselves feeling some sympathy for Iron Mike.

Ant Farm and Other Desperate Situations by Simon Rich

2009-05-04T21:02:00.000-07:00

This is a very short but very funny collection of imagined scenes by a former Harvard Lampoon writer. These whimsical bits range from Abraham’s awkwardly quiet ride back to town with Isaac (who he almost just sacrificed), to the reaction of kids who are told for the first time that there are actually machines for computing the math problems they’ve been tortured figuring out by hand all these years, to ants trying one last time to dig that tunnel that’ll get them out of the farm (I know this is our eighth attempt and we keep hitting glass, but I have a good feeling about this one!). Some are better than others, but none take more than sixty seconds to read. I can think of much worse ways to spend my minutes.

Sweet Paintings by Amy Casey

2009-05-03T13:41:00.001-07:00

Really cool, imaginative paintings by Amy Casey.

Ridiculously cool.

2009-05-02T19:05:00.001-07:00

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Talk About a Badass

2009-05-02T17:59:00.001-07:00

The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas by Davy Rothbart

2009-05-02T16:30:00.001-07:00

Davy Rothbart is best known as the personable and fun-loving founder of Found Magazine. I once saw him during a speaking tour in which he and his brother criss-crossed the country in an old van, sharing their favorite found items that people had submitted to the magazine.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this thin collection of short stories. I figured they’d be weird and funny, but was surprised at how solid they were throughout. The language is simple, and the stories are quirky and surprising without being silly. There’s some real depth here, and Davy shows some chops. My favorite stories are the title story and “Elena,” about a boy’s infatuation with a Mexican prostitute.

The Murphy Stories by Mark Costello

2009-05-02T01:59:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of taking Costello’s fiction writing class at the University of Illinois back in the mid-90s. He was a great teacher, and I wish I’d known at the time how masterful a writer he is. I came across his story, “Murphy’s Xmas,” included in the Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction (it was also included in The Best American Short Stories 1969). That story is the one which closes this 1973 collection.

The stories give snapshots of the life of Michael Murphy, a Midwestern Irish Catholic father, husband and drinker. Unfortunately, Murphy is most skillful at the latter. Each story gives us a glimpse into his life at various points, from his late teenage days to the death of his father, his strained relationship with his wife, several affairs and finally a heartbreaking Christmas where he realizes what he’s ruined.

The prose in this book borders on poetry. And as troubled a character as Murphy is, it’s hard not to feel sympathy for him. As much as he creates his own problems, and as selfish as he sometimes is, there’s something very relatable in him. In 1994, Costello published a follow-up, Middle Murphy, which I look forward to reading next.

Castle by J Robert Lennon

2009-04-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

I’m a huge fan of Lennon’s Mailman and Pieces For the Left Hand, so even though I have a long list of books to read, I immediately ordered this one and bumped it to the top of the list when I read about its release.

The story begins when Eric Loesch, a middle-aged loner, moves back to his mid-western hometown of Gerrysburg, where he buys an old fixer-upper on 620-acres of wooded land outside of the small town. Loesch is not a particularly likable man. He is rude to the people he encounters in the town, arrogant and stiff. And we get the sense that he has some rather dark secrets in his background. It’s a promising start to the story, especially with Lennon’s talent for creating quirky, flawed characters and intriguing stories about small-town life.

But about halfway through the book, the story takes a bad turn. Just as it’s getting genuinely creepy (mysterious sounds from the house at night, shadowy figures moving around in the forest), it goes off on two weird tangents, one that would stretch credibility for a Scooby-Doo plot, and a flashback at the end that feels out-of-place and tacked on. The latter, incorporated into the story with more deftness, might have worked and helped explain some of the character’s quirks. But the main plot arc is still so preposterous that I kept looking for signs that it was all an allegory, or a dream, or something other than just a bad story.

I’ll still read anything Lennon puts out, and I give him props for taking a big swing with this one. He just whiffed.

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama [audiobook]

2009-04-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

I started a membership to an audio book club, which allows me one free download a month and lets me fill in my walking time with books as well. In selecting audiobooks, I’m considering who is reading them as much as who wrote them. Especially this first book, I was very anxious to hear Obama’s story told in his own voice.

Although written before Obama’s political career took off, it’s hard to listen to this book and not hear Obama the president. But it was the fact that this book was written early in Obama’s career, before he was a guarded, calculating politician, that drew me to it. He is very frank about everything from his disappointment with his father to his drug use, from his take on race relations and search for an identity to his dealings and disillusionment with Chicago politics and community leaders. His early life would be an interesting story for any man—considering that he’s now the president, it’s really interesting.

As a president, Obama is a top class writer and orator. As an author, he tends to overwrite a bit for my taste. And as a reader of audiobooks, he’s so-so. He has a commanding voice, but his accents slip in and out when he does dialogue and he comes across a little stiff. Still, I wouldn’t have anyone else read this book. And overall, it’s a great and insightful look into a living historical figure.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

2009-03-07T16:41:00.000-08:00

Gladwell’s books are always addictive and interesting to read, but I always feel a tad let down at the end when I think about what the book was actually saying. He puts forth a simple premise that seems fairly intuitive, then supports it with fascinating case studies. The premise itself could probably be covered in an article, but it’s the case studies that make it persuasive. And Gladwell’s real strength is in his uncanny ability to find these varied stories from different fields and then make unexpected connections to support his premise.

In Outliers, Gladwell’s simple assertion is that our notion of the self-made man, the superstar who rises to the top of their profession by their own hard work and natural talent, is a bit of a myth. Yes, those geniuses of whatever field they’re in are indeed talented, and yes they do work hard, but in every case they have benefited from a multitude of other factors: the day and year they were born, who their parents were, their economic situation, and a great deal of good ol’ luck.

Again, though, it’s not this premise that’s groundbreaking; it’s Gladwell’s method of supporting it. To tell us why people are successful, he explains why most NHL hockey players are born early in the year, why many of Silicon Valley’s greats were born within a few years of each other, how being kept out of the elite New York law firms in the mid 1950s helped Jewish lawyers succeed twenty years later, how cultural customs can cause planes to crash, and why in the south a person is much more likely to be murdered by someone they know than by a stranger. It all comes back to the question of nature vs. nurture, and whether a self-made man can ever claim to be truly self-made. Gladwell’s answer is: not really.

The Learners by Chip Kidd

2009-03-01T16:43:00.000-08:00

This is Chip Kidd’s follow-up to The Cheese Monkeys, picking where the first book left off. It’s 1961 and Happy, now out of art school, lands a job at the small New England ad agency where his instructor started his career. Much of the book is about office life, and though it may be an accurate portrayal of what it was like in an advertising agency at the time, with its slapstick humor, quippy dialogue and martini lunches, I found it all corny and too clever for its own good.

Nor did I care much for the world outside the agency or Kidd’s interjections about typeface and design. It’s not that I don’t appreciate these things—working in an ad agency myself, I was expecting this to be the most appealing part of the book—I just felt like Kidd was heavy-handed with it all.

The only thing that saves the book is when Happy is contacted by a Yale professor Stanley Milgram to create a small-space ad calling for volunteers for Milgram’s now-famous experiment in which he tested how willing people are to follow orders, even if it means hurting another person. By placing Happy in this historic moment, Kidd adds interest to what is otherwise a pretty uninteresting book. Definitely a let-down after Cheese Monkeys.

The Chris Farley Show by Tom Farley Jr. & Tanner Colby

2009-02-15T16:55:00.000-08:00

When I was in college, I saw Tommy Boy for the first time. At one part, I laughed so hard that I fell off the sofa with tears in my eyes. I thought I was going to hurt myself.

Chris Farley was from Madison, Wisconsin. Maybe it was his Midwestern roots, or his Chicago connection, or my age when he was at his peak, but he was one of my favorite comedians. This book is a hilarious and heartbreaking oral history of Chris’s life by those who knew him best. I was laughing out loud at page 3, and nearly cried several times through the second half of the book. By the end, it had brought back all the good memories I had of watching his skits, and I felt like he was a friend I had grown up with.

Chris would do anything to be funny: not to get a laugh, but to give a laugh. Chris believed God gave him a talent and that it was his ministry in life to make people laugh so hard they cried. This comes through loud and clear from everyone in here. People loved Farley. He walked into a room and you laughed before he could say a word. He had such a good heart and such a giving personality.

What became apparent at the end of his life, was that he also had more than his fair share of demons. He wrestled with numerous addictions, constantly struggling with his weight, alcohol and drugs. He visited rehab more than a dozen times. His friends reached out to him time and again, but in the end, nobody could break his downward spiral.

All the big names are in here: Dan Akroyd, Lorne Michaels, David Spade, Adam Sandler, Tom Arnold, Chris Rock—all of his fellow Saturday Night Live cast members and writers, people who knew him from Second City and The Improv Olympic, as well as childhood friends and family. They paint a portrait of a spectacular man who, at his best, could light up any room with his larger-than-life personality and, at his worst, could tear up a room with drug-crazed antics.

There are a lot of facets to this book. Some celebrity exposé material, some stuff on Chris’s philosophy and what it was like to work with him, and a good deal on his complicated relationship with his father and the culture of alcoholism that ran through his family. The book chronicles his many trips to rehab and subsequent relapses. It covers his movie-making, including interesting bits on the movies that he had in the works (he was originally cast as Shrek and had recorded a good portion of the film and was trying to get a Fatty Arbuckle biopic off the ground). It talks about his deep faith and superstitious quirks and his on-the-set antics and friendships. But the most touching thing, I thought, was the amount of charity work he did unbeknownst to many of his closest friends. He visited old folks’ homes and hospitals regularly. He befriended a homeless man with whom he had dinner weekly and treated to plays and concerts (something nobody knew about until the man spoke at Chris’ funeral).

The toughest part of this book is that even as you find more and more to like about Chris Farley, it pulls no punches when it comes to discussing his addictions. And a sadness pervades all of the great and hilarious stories, because we all know how this one is going to end. I haven’t been this affected by a book in awhile. I still have a heavy heart.

On a strange side note, as I just finished the book, I looked on Facebook to see if there were any Chris Farley fan pages. There are. And then I noticed that today is his birthday. He would have been 44.

Songs For The Missing by Stuart O'Nan

2009-02-12T16:59:00.000-08:00

In the first chapter of this book, we meet Kim Larsen, an 18-year-old girl from a small town in northern Ohio, savoring the last days of summer before heading off to college. She is nothing remarkable—just a young high school girl in Everytown, USA. And then she disappears.

Somewhere between hanging out with her friends at the river and her job at the gas station, she goes missing. It takes her family until the next morning to realize that Kim never came home the night before. As they call around to friends, they begin to suspect the worst.

The novel shifts viewpoints between those most affected and makes us feel the weight that presses down on the family in every moment. As the hours, then days, then months and years pass, everyone is pulled between the need to carry on with life and the guilt of not spending every waking moment in search of Kim. Her father must eventually go back to work, her friends must go off to college, her mother obsessively organizes fundraiser and awareness events but still must go to the mall and feed the family. And in all of it, we feel the anguish of not knowing.

This is both the central strength and greatest frustration of the book. It’s not a suspense thriller or crime novel in the traditional sense. There are no fast-paced chase scenes. There is no trail of clues. The novel leaps in the air in the first chapter, and then hangs there, coming down like a helium balloon. Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone) is quoted on the book’s back cover. And although the subject might be familiar to Lehane fans, the pacing and plot is the polar opposite. It is a meditation in loss, poetic, reflective, and ultimately painfully realistic.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

2009-02-02T17:03:00.000-08:00

It’s tough to say anything bad about this a classic, always included in “Best Novels of the 20th Century” lists. The story is about a group of partying American ex-patriots living in Paris, and their week-long sojourn to Spain. It’s full of drunkenness, love triangles and assorted debauchery. But the strength of the novel is the style. Although the book was originally published in 1926, it still feels fresh. Sure, some of the language and details are dated, but it’s hard to miss how much Hemingway’s style influenced modern writing. It’s sharp and insightful, with crisp dialogue and characters that are all relatable in one way or another. While I wouldn’t put it on my list of favorite books, the style alone is worth the read.

Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer

2009-01-14T17:29:00.000-08:00

This book should have been titled The Weird Things That People Believe and Why They’re Wrong. The book is a collection of Shermer’s articles (previously published in his Skeptic magazine) which refute a wide range of topics—from fringe beliefs like Holocaust denial and implications of race, to the popular UFO abductions and mind-reading, to creationism and witchcraft and recovered memories, among others.

There is a good chapter early in the book that explains the role of the scientific method and rational argument to the skeptic, but most of the book is spent profiling and attempting to debunk beliefs. Only in the final chapter, “Why Smart People Believe Weird Things,” does Shermer return to the promise of the book’s title.

That said, the book is for the most part an interesting read. It gives a good historic overview of the evolution-creationism debate, and some surprisingly non-judgmental profiles of people who believe all these various “weird” things. There is also a chapter about Ayn Rand and Objectivism, which Shermer skewers as a near-cult, that I found enjoyable (even though Shermer mounts a bit of an ad hominem argument against Rand herself after denouncing such an argument a few chapters prior).

Overall, a pretty uneven book that, while it has its moments, never really comes through in its central promise.

Passive Aggressive Notes by Kerry Miller

2009-01-02T17:33:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of Found Magazine and Post Secret, this is a collection of not-so-polite notes between roommates, neighbors, co-workers and other co-habitators, submitted by readers of passiveaggressivenotes.com. While many of the notes concern the minutia of life in a shared space—reminders to do the dishes, take out the trash, clean the microwave, angry admonishments of whoever took “my last Starbucks frappuccino bar”—they’re all little comments on what it means to live together. Some are funny, some irritating, most just painfully relatable.

Disco Demolition Night

1979-07-12T01:35:00.000-07:00