Books, February 2010

Ok, I've got a few books to get through (and a few more that I'll have to post later)
We'll start with Fiction...

"Juliet, Naked" by Nick Hornby is a quick little shot at exploring wasted time, reclusive rock stars, fanatic internet conspiracy theorists followers, and the search for meaning among the aftermath of alcohol infused bed hopping. Classic and very readable Hornby of "High Fidelity" fame.

"The Way of Shadows" by Brent Weeks is book one of a trilogy (the others are: "Shadow's Edge" and cleverly enough, "Beyond the Shadows"). I rarely like fantasy books, but I have to give Mr. Weeks credit, these books are unputdownable and completely diverting. If you'd like to read a dark and brooding adventure in a land where assassins are king, blades speak, battles rage and ancient mysteries slowly unravel, get the trilogy.

"The Sheriff of Yrnameer" by Michael Rubens was a cute (he's a writer for the Daily Show) experiment in sci-fi storytelling. About a future time when Earth is pretty much blown to bits and rogue spacers roam the galaxy. If you want to read a light and playful little romp, go for it, just know I bought it for the cover illustration and am proud to say that I'll keep it for the cover illustration.

"Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami is considered a classic. He's a good writer and this was a very readable and absorbing exploration of Japanese culture and a bit of magical realism.

"Wireless" by Charles Stross was a collection of short stories that were pretty uneven but certainly engaging and exploratory. Nowhere near as good as his novels but I could see how one or two of these stories could easily become a major new work. I think it'd be worth reading to see how his mind works as it crunches through thoughts and dreams and ideas on the way to becoming stories.

"Huge" by James Fuerst is about a little kid that is the reincarnation of Mickey Spillane. Totally a fun book about growing up (a little) and solving mysteries (or at least thinking you're solving mysteries).

"Transition" by Ian Banks looks like a new universe in the making. Typical Banks malevolent and dark humor peppered throughout a story about alternate universes and the enforcement officers who live across worlds holding back catastrophic badness. Love it.

"The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown is another one by Dan Brown. Do I have to say more? Think of it as cotton candy. This time instead of the church he takes on the founding fathers. A good read if you like the same story told over and over again (though it gets a bit strained and was certainly not as good as The DaVinci Code).

"This is Not a Game" by Walter Jon Williams wasn't as good as other musings on the topic (or other Williams books) but it does paint a credible future world and plays with the potential of crowdsourced augmented reality good guys, bad guys, and game designers. Worth reading if you like that sort of thing.

If you like the smell of paint, walking along the Seine and a touch of impressionist mystery, read The Swan Thieves Though not The Historian in terms of scope or vampire fun, she can definitely write. The book explores what it means and meant to be an artist both today and in the early 1900s. It also paints the picture of a man who is single mindedly obsessed and the doctor detective trying to discover the meaning of his patient's paintings. My only reservation is that there isn't much mystery and I was waiting for some kind of twist or turn that never really came (or if it did it was so predictable that I didn't notice).

I’m afraid I wasn’t all that wrapped up in Let The Great World Spin. I expected something as powerful as the Man on Wire film which was stunning. It was well written but didn’t drag me in like others in the “New York as character in the story” genre. Again, bought it for the cover and the promise of some connection between the early days of the twin towers and their later demise.

Something better but not quite easy on the brain is "Chronic City" by Jonathan Lethem. He's crafted another loopy lyrical lounging lay-about classic. It is laced with lunacy (or at least out of this world orbits) and lost loves. It has all the typical things you'd expect in a novel about a slightly alternate world New York City, like a roaming tiger, a run amok tunneling machine, a grown up blank slate but lovable or at least affable child actor with a girlfriend astronaut trapped in a decaying orbit in the sky, and a lazy eyed rock critic-conspiracy theorist named Perkus Tooth who is pretty certain that Marlon Brando is still alive waiting on another island to be called forth to save the city from the cynical billionaire mayor.

The Hunger Games was a quick read (warning it is book one of three and only two are out so far). Aimed at young readers, it can be a bit basic at times, but it’s worth a read if you like “dystopian death race boy meets girl and they both have to kill each other to survive” stories.

"Her Fearful Symmetry" by Audrey Niffenegger is your basic story about twin girls who have girls who maybe die and haunt and sometimes body hop. Worth reading just for the pleasure of how she writes.

"Mariposa" by Greg Bear was worth reading if you like slightly futuristic thrillers about insolvent America, overeaching corporations as military replacements, and a sprinkling of smart dust.

"The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers" by Thomas Mullen is pure gold. It is set in the 1930's in the midwest during a time of fast cars, bank robbers, and the newly emerging FBI. The story revolves around the oddly magical ability of two swashbuckling brothers to evade (mostly) death while they try to stay one step ahead of the law and maybe a half a step away from the breadlines.

"Six Suspects" by Vikas Swarup (author of the book that was made into the Slumdog Millionaire movie) is ok, but not great. Basically it starts with the murder of a playboy millionaire spoiled brat and then explores the six people who were all at the party who may have reason to kill him. It isn't a bad conceit but it didn't really feel like there was much mystery or tension.

"Galileo's Dream" wasn’t bad, a mish mash of history (pretty vivid depiction of Galileo’s place and time) and world spanning future hopping many dimensional time traveling trouble making. Kinda confused and anticlimactic but Kim Stanley Robinson is always a good writer and this might have just been a bit of the “reach exceeds grasp” sorta experiment that all good authors have to try. If you like history and sci-fi and ruminations on the nature of human nature, you’ll probably enjoy it. If you want something much deeper in the “history of scientific thinking with a touch of swashbuckling adventure genre” and something that is a bit more finely wrought (though wacky at times because of the author’s playful anachronisms), read the The Baroque Cycle.

If you’ve never read Jess Walters, now would be a good time to start. His new book, The Financial Lives of the Poets is a compact little story about one man’s descent into hell during the financial meltdown. It is funny, sad and hopeful.

Non-Fiction

"A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller is a short exploration of the elements of a good story and how you can think about your life as a story (and how to edit it along the way to guide it to be a better one). There is one particular story about a family who, among other things, decides to invite world leaders over to their house for a sleepover and the richness that springs from that one inciting incident (oh yeah, a good story has a character who wants something (even better if its something good for his life, his family, his community, or the world) and has to overcome obstacles (if you don't fail you aren't really aiming high enough and the best characters know there will be stumbles and falls along the way) to get it, but usually the character is comfortable and like most of us does not want to rock the boat... (so they need an inciting incident to get them moving). Read the book.

"Whatever it Takes" by Paul Tough is a book about Geoffrey Canada's efforts to build the Harlem Children's Zone. If you care at all about education read this book. If you like reading about doing the impossible, read this book. It has heartbreaking passages and inspirational ideas. I saw Geoffrey speak not that long ago and was pleasantly shocked by some of the things he said.

While we don’t burn scientists at the stake quite as often anymore there still is a surplus of Denialism. This book is an interesting screed on the widespread distrust of science and fact. It’s not a perfect book and seems a bit too arrogant at times (the people who should read it would never get past the first chapter), but overall it has some startling and disturbing examples of denial in the face of overwhelming evidence. While finding the link for this book I found another book about truthiness that sounds intriguing. True Enough.

"Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea" by Gary Kinder is the true story of the recovery of a ship filled with gold and other historic artifacts dating back to the American gold rush. Great story of the perils of going to sea, the origins of the gold rush, the amazing efforts of one man and his team to establish a working scientific presence 8-10,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, and the ensuing legal wrangling that followed when they discovered the most gold ever found in a shipwreck. A completely wonderful adventure even more fun because it really happened. One of the best elements of the book (and really the core of the story) is the main character. Tommy (Harvey) Thompson is a template for the idea of creativity, invention, perseverance, and the scientific method. This is a story about doing what all the experts thought was impossible. A must read.

Movies...
"ZombieLand" rocks.

Music...
Massive Attack's new album is deep and wonderful. Buy Heligoland now.

Backstory: What is design, my first lesson

I built a 24 foot long polka dotted tie. He built a giant iron anvil that weighed almost nothing. Damn. Who is this guy? Why is his stuff so much better than mine? I hate him. I won't miss him when he's gone.

That summer I was trying to figure out what design was.

I had changed majors from Physics to Design due to a casual tour of some place called "The School of Art and Architecture" given by a ravishingly beautiful artist who would later spend her life paying for that one hour, paying for that spring day when I barely paid attention to the school, only just enough to change my life, but barely.

I was playing catch up with the students who actually knew what they wanted to do in life (wonder how many of them are actually designers today?) Taking summer classes so that I could get out of college before I was dead.

The classes were called foundational and were based on the teachings of the Bauhaus, a school that was legendary for teaching the merging of art, craft and technology and later disbanded under the threat of Nazi destruction (modernism was un-German).

Later I learned that most of my mentors were actually trained in design by a fellow named Laszlo Moholy Nagy, one of the famous teachers from said Weimar school. But when I was taking those first classes, trying to figure out if they would really award a degree for tinkering in the shop and critiquing other artists like they were lambs to the slaughter, I had no idea I had stumbled into history.

We worked with our hands, we built things every day, the challenges were odd but trivial compared to solving fermat's theorem and figuring out quantum mechanics (things I clearly couldn't really hack but that had been giving me nightmares for 2 years).

I'm not competitive by nature.

I was so destroying everyone else in the class.

Art is not supposed to be about competition it would be like saying we should always compare apples and oranges.

Art is about internal expression. No?

Well there is still technique, still creativity, still provocation, still taboo. Not everyone seemed to understand that art is only interesting to others if its universal (rather than self-absorbed).

Why am I talking about art now instead of design?

This is but one example of my lack of comprehension. I later learned the difference and the ways that each complement the other but at the time I was all raw, spewing, holy crap I can't believe I'm paying for this, can't believe there are jobs to be had in this, is anybody watching, can anyone tell I'm having way too much fun, energy.

I slayed them (or at least myself and convinced myself I was slaying them). Except for that one over there. My nemesis.

He appeared out of nowhere waltzing into my consciousness the day he came wandering into the shop carrying a massive anvil as if it weighed nothing.

We were learning about one of the methods that you can use to spark creativity (change the scale).

For context I was a full paying member of the new wave at this point in my life. Flock of Seagull meets Wham! hair, preppy/trashed layering of yellow cardigan and torn parachute pants complete with requisite tie. Rector riot gloves, five o'clock shadow. Duran duran (who I didn't really like) would have been proud. Music? Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Cure, Howard Jones, The Police, Yaz.

So I decided to build a monster new-wave tie. Bright yellow, 24' long made of chicken wire, fabric and plaster. it would look like it had stepped off of someone's neck and was walking down the catwalk (right said, fred?)

He, on the other hand, knew what he was doing. Seemed to be born to design. Stunning stuff. Humbling. In fact I think it was at that moment that I began to understand that having a massive crushing ego is fine to help you convince yourself that you should continue with some hair-brained scheme, fine so that you could fail without falling apart, as long as you could also have no ego when you saw something wonderful. As long as you could appreciate the creative thinking, factor in the viewpoint, celebrate the cleverness, and learn most importantly learn from everyone, from everything. Get out of yourself.

I'm not sure how it happened exactly but I think he hated me as much as I hated him. I stewed all summer long. If that was the game I was going to have to start practicing for real.

When we finally actually talked (we were forced together during a road trip to a design conference in southern Illinois), we became fast, life-long friends.

I had to learn to get over myself. It turned out he was a mirror image of my insecurities and my creativity (I'm not ashamed to say that yes I am creative, its often so not the thing that matters though and usually gets you into more trouble than its worth).

Together we nearly destroyed, and ultimately (I hope) saved, our mentors' faith in the next generation.

We built a La Z Boy chair constructed entirely of one dollar appliances from the local salvation army store. Painted the white of graffiti killing white, all the cords woven into a decorative tail, waffle iron headrest, vacuum cleaner lumbar support, iron armrests. It was assembled using the famous paper-spike style of construction (drill a hole straight through the entire appliance with a very nasty drill bit and spike all the resulting components on a long shaft). We installed it in the central hall of the Architecture building halfway up the stairway on a landing. It lasted for over 5 years before some enterprising architectural professor assigned his class a model making exercise that involved found objects.

We invented and edited a student design magazine to wake up the sheep. We built an outpost/cafe that cantilevered out over the poor two-dimensional graphic design students haplessly struggling to make sense of Rubilith and Bodoni below.

We grew to a small horde of smart-ass design tyros. Punched human-shaped holes in the walls of the art school (or at least lets just say that someone who looked very much like us perhaps), designed inflatable televisions, body-blasting bass instruments, roamed the Italian countryside scavenging design artifacts from bombed out hospitals and poking fun at pompous design gods (was that Philippe with the food stains all over his t-shirt?).

We authored a collection of dangerous appliances and furnishings and left a swath of dazed and confused art professors in our wake.

I think I turned out to be the one who went to the dark side.

He walked toward the light, one part Banksy before Banksy was out of diapers (leaving his mark on the streets and buildings of Europe as I slept off the wine and cheese), and one part Mother Teresa.

Whenever I needed inspiration, needed a break from the adult life I had carved out of solidified corporate effluvia, I'd talk to him.

He was off to Sierra Leone to help teach the local villagers how to make furniture for their hospital, living in 100 degree, 100% humid weather with no running water and monkey brains on the menu. Later, when one of the many coups rippled through the land he was evacuated only to sneak back over the border to make sure that the locals had been paid for their goods.

I was designing marketing materials to help sell flavoring (packed with hormone and antibiotic goodness) for cardboard (how do you think chicken's stay so healthy that they can donate all those McNuggets to the common good?). Yes it was one more reason that I stopped eating meat.

He was building his own apartment building in one of the least safe places in our hometown, helping a community bootstrap back from the edge.

I was breathing in rooms full of benzene as I glued and cut my fingers to fit the models I was proposing as saviors for this or that commercial product, corporate showroom, or "important" event.

He was teaching underemployed and unemployed citizens how to work with their hands, placing every one of them in a job. Fighting the odd bureaucracies that crop up even among the best of intentions.

I was nearly killing people as they were blown off of perches I designed (four stories above crowds of 500 or more), foolishly thinking I could create memorable experiences from photoshopped fever dreams.

He was planting edible gardens, working within his community to make things better. Reminding me why I became a designer (or what I should do with my newfound skills).

I was exorcising my demons yes. I was learning yes. I was working towards redemption. But only slowly. How close creativity can come to fiasco. Be careful what you dream for.

I'm slowly learning how to hack the culture of a corporation, how to bend the collective mediocrity of large organizations towards a better path. Its my secret ode to my mirror image and the mentors that taught us that we could change the world if we committed our lives to be designers of good.

I don't see him that much anymore due to distance and time. At times I get the impression that just as before we are both watching the other. Silently wishing we had done this or that. Silently enjoying the simple acts of creativity that the other one makes.

Lesson 1: Design is not about the lone creative genius.

I look back and realize that I stumbled on more than just a career when I changed majors that day. I like to think that when we aren't just making ends we are both working slowly but surely towards the goal of a better world. A lifetime of silly experiments and big ideas, of public service and corporate hacking, of setbacks and failures, of designing the method as well as the madness.