A few gems and some others that were just filler for my polyunsaturated cupcake of a brain.
"The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss started with an old man trying to make sure that he was noticed every day so that he wouldn't be one of those people that they say "I didn't even know he lived here" and then flashed back and forth through the last 60 years fleshing out his life and the lives of the ones he loved. At times funny and heartbreaking.
"Man Walks Into A Room" by Nicole Krauss the same author as the book above (once I read the first one it was good enough to pique my interest in her writing). Rumination on memory and the holes that are left when it fails. She's a good writer and this was a small story done well.
"The Diviners" by Rick Moody is by the same guy who wrote "The Ice Storm." The book is a "Player" style send-up of the entertainment industry. Readable but no big shakes. Save your money and go buy...
"Sacred Games" by Vikram Chandra is the best book I've read in a while. A fun, deep, telling biography of the city of Bombay (Mumbai) and its surroundings in the form of a crime thriller. The two main characters (aside from the city itself) are a mob kingpin thought to be out of the country who builds a nuclear bunker in the middle of the city (unbeknownst to anyone until the day he's found there locked inside and about to take his life rather than give up to the police) and a police detective tasked with figuring out why the kingpin was back in Bombay, in a bunker, and soon enough, dead. My sense while reading this book was that I was getting a backstage pass to the drama, passion, dysfunction, and ultimate humanity of the indian culture in all of its glory. One of those books you really wish would keep going for just a bit more.
"Lullabies for Little Criminals" by Heather O'Neill captures life on the streets for a young girl raised by her childlike drug addicted father. A rapid descent into all of the things we are warned about while growing up as told by a woman (girl) who knows what its really like. No pity, no bathos, just matter of fact, moment to moment, gut-wrenching storytelling.
"No God But God" by Reza Aslan is the only non-fiction in the group. It dissects (in an attempt to explain to the western world) the rise of Islam from early Meccan pilgrimages at the altar of gods through the life of the prophet (with his jewish, christian, and moslem wives) to the current struggle being fought within the community between extremists and moderates. It draws quite a few parallels to the internal struggles that beset the christian community during the reformation. Fascinating perspective on the evolution of a religion (and its mutations to fit the desires or whims of its leaders after Muhammad's death).
Heavy Rotation...
"Wincing the Night Away" by the Shins
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Monday, December 25, 2006
Books 'n' stuff December 06
I'm kinda failing at finishing books lately, not sure why... possibly I'm sleeping instead.
I did finish a few though, so here goes...
"Thunderstruck" by Erik Larson chronicles both the period in G. Marconi's life when he single handedly pushed through the idea of using wireless transmissions to reach across the ocean and the detective story and chase of a murderer across the ocean waves as wireless transmissions effectively made the world a much smaller (and more transparent) place. It wasn't as good as his previous book about the devil and the white city (hmm, he has a penchant for murder and invention) but it was worth reading if only for the historical context regarding the hard parts of innovation (hint it has very little to do with the technology sometimes).
"A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines" by Janna Levin is a little bit of fiction about two of the giants of math from the 20th century. Kurt Godel and Alan Turing had very different views and contributed to the shape of our current understanding about math and thinking. In other books I've caught a glimpse of Alan (cryptonomicon for one) but in this one you get a pretty good sense of his perspective on the world. He was a major code breaker during world war 2. This book gives you a taste of his private life and his motivations and thoughts. Kurt gave us the notion that math could be incomplete (not solvable) which turned quite a bit of thinking on its head. Janna is a scientist and this book is her first novel. She's written other books though, so I'm off to find them (yes that means this was good).
"Autograph Man" by Zadie Smith was one that I picked up a while ago, she's pretty good and this was a solidly entertaining read about a boy who grows up obsessed with collecting autographs and ultimately tries to track down one of the people that is represented (questionably) as one of his prized possessions. A glimpse into English life and this particular subculture.
"The Zero" by Jess Walters is set on September 12th 2001 and is a tragicomic take (from the point of view of a cop who is slowly losing his eyesight and possibly his mind) on the social aspects of 9/11. In particular it deals with the blunting of emotions, the marketing of tragedy, and the inflated and misguided hunt for enemies within. A tight book.
Heavy Rotation?
Red Hot Chili Pepper's new 2 cd set is not "new" music in that it sounds just like the last RHCP album but if you like the sound, its more of the same.
"The Inside Man" soundtrack. Great indian/hip hop song and some really nice and moody arrangements by Spike Lee's longtime musical collaborator.
"Love" by the Beatles. A new remix by the Beatle survivors of some of their classics. Octopuses (pi?) garden is my favorite on this one...
Sean Lennon has a new album and I like it. The first track is my favorite thus far. He's got a bit of his dad in there somewhere and it is starting to come out.
I did finish a few though, so here goes...
"Thunderstruck" by Erik Larson chronicles both the period in G. Marconi's life when he single handedly pushed through the idea of using wireless transmissions to reach across the ocean and the detective story and chase of a murderer across the ocean waves as wireless transmissions effectively made the world a much smaller (and more transparent) place. It wasn't as good as his previous book about the devil and the white city (hmm, he has a penchant for murder and invention) but it was worth reading if only for the historical context regarding the hard parts of innovation (hint it has very little to do with the technology sometimes).
"A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines" by Janna Levin is a little bit of fiction about two of the giants of math from the 20th century. Kurt Godel and Alan Turing had very different views and contributed to the shape of our current understanding about math and thinking. In other books I've caught a glimpse of Alan (cryptonomicon for one) but in this one you get a pretty good sense of his perspective on the world. He was a major code breaker during world war 2. This book gives you a taste of his private life and his motivations and thoughts. Kurt gave us the notion that math could be incomplete (not solvable) which turned quite a bit of thinking on its head. Janna is a scientist and this book is her first novel. She's written other books though, so I'm off to find them (yes that means this was good).
"Autograph Man" by Zadie Smith was one that I picked up a while ago, she's pretty good and this was a solidly entertaining read about a boy who grows up obsessed with collecting autographs and ultimately tries to track down one of the people that is represented (questionably) as one of his prized possessions. A glimpse into English life and this particular subculture.
"The Zero" by Jess Walters is set on September 12th 2001 and is a tragicomic take (from the point of view of a cop who is slowly losing his eyesight and possibly his mind) on the social aspects of 9/11. In particular it deals with the blunting of emotions, the marketing of tragedy, and the inflated and misguided hunt for enemies within. A tight book.
Heavy Rotation?
Red Hot Chili Pepper's new 2 cd set is not "new" music in that it sounds just like the last RHCP album but if you like the sound, its more of the same.
"The Inside Man" soundtrack. Great indian/hip hop song and some really nice and moody arrangements by Spike Lee's longtime musical collaborator.
"Love" by the Beatles. A new remix by the Beatle survivors of some of their classics. Octopuses (pi?) garden is my favorite on this one...
Sean Lennon has a new album and I like it. The first track is my favorite thus far. He's got a bit of his dad in there somewhere and it is starting to come out.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Books n stuff November 2006
Hmm, its been a while.
Lessee... books I've read (and actually remember) and other stuff of note mediawise.
The "Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards was a heavy read (not a big book but an emotional one about giving away a child during the 60's when kids with down's syndrome where thrown away like defective goods.)
"The Ghost Map" by Steven Johnson is a great detective-style historical story (true story) about the cholera epidemics that swept through london in the 16-1800s. In particular it focuses on the worst one and how the people who solved the problem used visualization to understand and later communicate the real source of the epidemic to a world that did not want to acknowledge that they were stuck in their own orthodoxy (they all thought up to this point that you got cholera either because you weren't of strong moral fiber or because you were living at a low altitude... animacules where not really widely understood yet). What is really scary is that today there are still cholera outbreaks in india and the developing world. Secret solution back then? Well lets just say that the brewery workers where paid in beer and didn't get sick. Read it.
"What is the what" a new book by David Eggers (of "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" fame... if you didn't read that one read it). In "WITW" Dave does another kind of autobiography, this time for one of the lost boys of sudan. He and Valentino Achak Deng (one of the lost boys) carried on a multiyear conversation and then David wrote the book. Its called a novel but most of the stuff that happens actually happened to Deng or one of the other boys. Its a book worth reading. At times sad and funny, stark and oddly hopeful. It spans Valentino's early childhood in an idyllic dinka village and his long and grueling, unexpected, lucky, unlucky journey to America, and being tied up and robbed while minding his own business in his own apartment in Atlanta by not so friendly Americans. I'm not done with the book yet but I'm already enjoying the read.
David is also the creator of the best super hero supply company in brooklyn and a fine pirate supply shop in san franscisco and if you read a bunch you've also probably seen his McSweeney's Quarterly. He has also started up a creativity/writing program for kids aged 6-18 in New York (and now a few other cities) that is making me think that maybe I should try to get one started up in my town.
"Beasts of No Nation," by a 23 year old named Uzodinma Iweala who is a young american of african decent. Although he grew up in washington DC he captures the life of a child turned child soldier amazingly well. Its not explicitly set in the sudan or africa at all but reading both this book and "What is the What" together is probably about all I can read on this subject for a while. Its pretty good for a debut novel with a unique voice and a heartbreaking message. Maybe a bit overhyped.
"The Town that Forgot How to Breath" by Kenneth J. Harvey is a ghost story about electromagnetic disturbances, a sleepy newfoundland port town and the people who have lost their lives to the water. Its a fun little book to read around halloween.
"This I Believe" was produced back in the mid century by Edward R. Murrow and has been brought back by NPR with a companion book that is a must read. He started the project as a daily series of 5 minute radio segments by famous people about what they believed. Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert Heinlein and hundreds of other participants took a brief moment out of their lives to talk, in a positive way, about what they believed. After listeners complained that they didn't hear from any regular joes the series expanded to include teachers, dockworkers, and other people from all walks of life. The series took off and became an international phenomenon. I think whats wonderful about this idea is that it was very simple and yet it revealed a great deal about the psyche of the time. Its interesting that the new book includes both 1950 and current essays and that it is very hard to tell the difference between the two. There is the same feeling of hopelessness about the current state of the world and the same sense of hope about what is good and right in the world. The website has all of the essays in a searchable database. Go. Now. Read one. Listen to NPR. Write one. They provide a nice respite from the day. I'd recommend one a day or at least one a week for the rest of our lives. It was originally started to become an antidote to the cycle of bad, horrible, unthinkable news that was then flooding the airwaves. its good that this antidote has been rediscovered.
A (rather long) clip from Edward R. Murrow's own essay/intro gives you a taste...
"We hardly need to be reminded that we are living in an age of confusion. A lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism, or a for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria. Opinions can be picked up cheap in the marketplace, while such commodities as courage and fortitude and faith are in alarmingly short supply. Around us all—now high like a distant thunderhead, now close upon us with the wet choking intimacy of a London fog—there is an enveloping cloud of fear....We don’t pretend to make this time a spiritual or psychological patent medicine chest where one can come and get a pill of wisdom to be swallowed like an aspirin, to banish the headaches of our time. This reporter’s beliefs are in a state of flux. It would be easier to enumerate the items I do not believe in, than the other way around. And yet, in talking to people, in listening to them, I have come to realize that I don’t have a monopoly on the world’s problems; others have their share, often far, far bigger than mine. This has helped me to see my own problems in truer perspective. And in learning how others have faced their problems, this has given me fresh ideas about how to tackle mine."
Heavy Rotation?
Idlewild by Outkast (from their new movie... which I haven't seen yet... uneven but worth listening to)
Til the Sun Turns Black Ray Lamontagne (kinda joe cocker meets jack johnson... really good, gotta go buy his older stuff)
Every Waking Moment... new Citizen Cope (maybe not quite as good as his first one but damn good)
Eraser by Thom Yorke (from Radiohead... basically sounds like radiohead)
Lemonade (nice G. Love mix with a bunch of songs with guest performers)
Game Theory by the Roots (Dave Chappelle's house band kills me)
Exit Music (covers of Radiohead songs by others... really good)
Just went and saw English Beat on Friday. Lets just say that if you need a little pick me up you should go read Edward R. Murrow's complete essay while listening to "mirror in the bathroom" and think about how lucky you are to be alive (well, that's what I'm gonna do).
Lessee... books I've read (and actually remember) and other stuff of note mediawise.
The "Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards was a heavy read (not a big book but an emotional one about giving away a child during the 60's when kids with down's syndrome where thrown away like defective goods.)
"The Ghost Map" by Steven Johnson is a great detective-style historical story (true story) about the cholera epidemics that swept through london in the 16-1800s. In particular it focuses on the worst one and how the people who solved the problem used visualization to understand and later communicate the real source of the epidemic to a world that did not want to acknowledge that they were stuck in their own orthodoxy (they all thought up to this point that you got cholera either because you weren't of strong moral fiber or because you were living at a low altitude... animacules where not really widely understood yet). What is really scary is that today there are still cholera outbreaks in india and the developing world. Secret solution back then? Well lets just say that the brewery workers where paid in beer and didn't get sick. Read it.
"What is the what" a new book by David Eggers (of "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" fame... if you didn't read that one read it). In "WITW" Dave does another kind of autobiography, this time for one of the lost boys of sudan. He and Valentino Achak Deng (one of the lost boys) carried on a multiyear conversation and then David wrote the book. Its called a novel but most of the stuff that happens actually happened to Deng or one of the other boys. Its a book worth reading. At times sad and funny, stark and oddly hopeful. It spans Valentino's early childhood in an idyllic dinka village and his long and grueling, unexpected, lucky, unlucky journey to America, and being tied up and robbed while minding his own business in his own apartment in Atlanta by not so friendly Americans. I'm not done with the book yet but I'm already enjoying the read.
David is also the creator of the best super hero supply company in brooklyn and a fine pirate supply shop in san franscisco and if you read a bunch you've also probably seen his McSweeney's Quarterly. He has also started up a creativity/writing program for kids aged 6-18 in New York (and now a few other cities) that is making me think that maybe I should try to get one started up in my town.
"Beasts of No Nation," by a 23 year old named Uzodinma Iweala who is a young american of african decent. Although he grew up in washington DC he captures the life of a child turned child soldier amazingly well. Its not explicitly set in the sudan or africa at all but reading both this book and "What is the What" together is probably about all I can read on this subject for a while. Its pretty good for a debut novel with a unique voice and a heartbreaking message. Maybe a bit overhyped.
"The Town that Forgot How to Breath" by Kenneth J. Harvey is a ghost story about electromagnetic disturbances, a sleepy newfoundland port town and the people who have lost their lives to the water. Its a fun little book to read around halloween.
"This I Believe" was produced back in the mid century by Edward R. Murrow and has been brought back by NPR with a companion book that is a must read. He started the project as a daily series of 5 minute radio segments by famous people about what they believed. Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert Heinlein and hundreds of other participants took a brief moment out of their lives to talk, in a positive way, about what they believed. After listeners complained that they didn't hear from any regular joes the series expanded to include teachers, dockworkers, and other people from all walks of life. The series took off and became an international phenomenon. I think whats wonderful about this idea is that it was very simple and yet it revealed a great deal about the psyche of the time. Its interesting that the new book includes both 1950 and current essays and that it is very hard to tell the difference between the two. There is the same feeling of hopelessness about the current state of the world and the same sense of hope about what is good and right in the world. The website has all of the essays in a searchable database. Go. Now. Read one. Listen to NPR. Write one. They provide a nice respite from the day. I'd recommend one a day or at least one a week for the rest of our lives. It was originally started to become an antidote to the cycle of bad, horrible, unthinkable news that was then flooding the airwaves. its good that this antidote has been rediscovered.
A (rather long) clip from Edward R. Murrow's own essay/intro gives you a taste...
"We hardly need to be reminded that we are living in an age of confusion. A lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism, or a for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria. Opinions can be picked up cheap in the marketplace, while such commodities as courage and fortitude and faith are in alarmingly short supply. Around us all—now high like a distant thunderhead, now close upon us with the wet choking intimacy of a London fog—there is an enveloping cloud of fear....We don’t pretend to make this time a spiritual or psychological patent medicine chest where one can come and get a pill of wisdom to be swallowed like an aspirin, to banish the headaches of our time. This reporter’s beliefs are in a state of flux. It would be easier to enumerate the items I do not believe in, than the other way around. And yet, in talking to people, in listening to them, I have come to realize that I don’t have a monopoly on the world’s problems; others have their share, often far, far bigger than mine. This has helped me to see my own problems in truer perspective. And in learning how others have faced their problems, this has given me fresh ideas about how to tackle mine."
Heavy Rotation?
Idlewild by Outkast (from their new movie... which I haven't seen yet... uneven but worth listening to)
Til the Sun Turns Black Ray Lamontagne (kinda joe cocker meets jack johnson... really good, gotta go buy his older stuff)
Every Waking Moment... new Citizen Cope (maybe not quite as good as his first one but damn good)
Eraser by Thom Yorke (from Radiohead... basically sounds like radiohead)
Lemonade (nice G. Love mix with a bunch of songs with guest performers)
Game Theory by the Roots (Dave Chappelle's house band kills me)
Exit Music (covers of Radiohead songs by others... really good)
Just went and saw English Beat on Friday. Lets just say that if you need a little pick me up you should go read Edward R. Murrow's complete essay while listening to "mirror in the bathroom" and think about how lucky you are to be alive (well, that's what I'm gonna do).
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Road Trip 1: Be Prepared.
He was the whitest, purest, most naive, kindest hearted person I had ever met. We discovered friendship on a shared ride to Wisconsin thrown together by fate. He would later become a police officer driving a one horse-power, four legged coupe through the streets of chicagoland.
Tonight we would embark on our ultimate trip across the eastern United States in the first Beetle I ever owned (a 1971 two-toned beast that would soon leave us drifting into the mountains of Kentucky). We left at midnight (mistake number 1) bound for Atlanta with a full tank of gas, two weeks of freedom, matching "Mr. Bubble" t-shirts (mistake number 2), and of course the requisite new wave bleached, razor-slot-cut sided, spikey topped sting wannabe hairstyles (mistake number 3). We were college room mates who had spent the last year getting to know each other by driving (through snowstorms, tollbooths, heatwaves, and beer swilling toga cloaked fratboys to visit our girlfriends 3 hours away in madcity). I had devised a simple plan and Paul was all for it. A. Drive down to Atlanta and pick up my childhood chum; B. continue on to Hilton Head Island for a week of lazy sunburned days on the beaches; C. collect the run off girls (mistake number 4... ok, really more like hopeless fantasy number 1) that dripped from Paul's charisma; D. drive back to chicagoland and resume our meek and humble college lives.
Around 4 am (remember mistake number 1?), Paul at the wheel (this became a pattern), Indiana ablating the paint from our ride, "Tainte Love" spilling from our tape deck, things started to go slightly awry. For background it's useful to have memorized and have at your fingertips a copy of John Muir's classic "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" and in particular the section of the book that describes the large hole at the bottom of a beetle engine where a drain plug is supposed to reside in the hopes that oil will resist spilling out onto the highway, killing your engine, and slowing your southerly directionality. We didn't hear the engine die. Paul (budding detective) noted the glowing red light and rapidly descending speedometer though and we pulled off the road for a looksee. After retracing our journey (on foot, eyes scanning the road, crickets serenading us) in search of the mythic oil drain plug we decided to push the car to Atlanta (noting a glow on the horizon that looked promising). We were soon gliding downhill towards an oasis of gas and truckstop love. We found no drain plugs at the rest stop, no german engineered parts at all for that matter. They laughed at us when we asked (remember mistake number 2?) for help. However we would not be diverted so easily. Paul began to buy up bottles of 10w-40 while I slipped under the car to drop the entire oil pan. We fashioned gaskets using a swiss army knife and spare oil containers. We sandwiched the makeshift parts in place over the gaping oil plug hole with degenerate american nuts and bolts. We were soon pinging down the roadways in search of our american dream again, refilling the engine with gas and oil every hour on the hour as it dribbled across the border between north and south, laughing in the face of Mr Murphy and his law.
Paul was driving again when we entered Kentucky's mountain range and he noticed that we were slowing down even though we heard the engine winding up, even though we were in fourth gear, even though we had the gas pedal embedded in the floor even though Joe Strummer and his crew were calling us towards London. "Bonnieville 1 mile" is where the Volkswagen finally came to rest. Once again Mr. Muir's book is useful for reference, and in particular the section that illustrates the one large nut holding the wheel to the axle, the one large blurred, spinning when it clearly shouldn't have been spinning since we were sitting by the side of the road wondering why revving through the gears was doing nothing but spinning the, axle with that one large nut doing nothing useful. We would not Rube Goldberg our way out of this (years before macgyvering was all the rage Rube would guide our journeys). We had met our roadtrip match. Who designed this car? Who thought one screw should hold in the life blood, one nut should hold on the wheels, four bolts the entire engine? More importantly who would fix it in Bonnieville Kentucky, a town with no stop lights, slow moving gapers looking at mistakes number 2 & 3, a town with a single gas station with dirt floors and a shotgun leaning up against the door, strains of Deliverance lilting in the breeze, who?
Toad (or was it Newt?) of course but he'd have to tow it to his shop, he assured us he could fix it in a week for 200 bucks no ups and no extras, Newt (Toad?) would save us. As we rode in the back of his pickup truck to the next town down the greyhound line (Lizbethtown?) we were looking on the bright side, we'd never been on a bus ride of such epic proportion before, we'd never had to hail a bus who's driver didn't usually stop in that particular hamlet so may not even slow down for those two sorry oil stained Mr. Bubble apparitions, we'd never felt so out of place (well maybe the time that our accelerator cable broke and we slowly drifted to a stop in the heart of the Cabrini Green housing project, bullets zinging off the roof, cops laughing at us as they carted us away for our own protection). Our first real taste of southern hospitality came 4 hours later when the bus pulled into a local town and stopped so we could all buy dinner from the local po' folks (the actual unfortunate name of a chain of restaurants in the south).
Two weeks later, our skin glowing blindingly red from the sun and our minds still reeling from the effects (or lack thereof) of fantasy number 1, we tooled along the highways and byways of Kentucky in a metallic blue 240z saying our goodbyes to my atlanta friend, in debt to him for more than we could say. Newt handed us the keys milked us for the dough (now it was 250 bucks and he retarded the engine timing so that we'd spend the rest of the drive overheating and stalling) and we headed home.
Paul and I grew up together that summer, stumbled towards manhood, fumbled through relationships, opened our souls, tested most limits (the first and last time I ever almost threw up from too much beer, he in fact did throw up... after both too much beer and 10 white castle hamburgers... across my parent's bathroom).
I learned that he was a fat little crippled boy scout raised by the commander of police of a small suburb, suddenly rejuvinated, maraculously cured and suddenly growing into his looks, winning gymnastic competitions, just learning to live his own life (getting an earring in his family was cause for permanent expulsion from his parent's home for, apparently, ever). He found me to be, oddly enough, the bad influence, the dangerous friend, the city kid raised to know that we'd all be blown off the face of the earth by 22 (this was just a few years after Three Mile Island and the cold war was mutually assuring plenty of destruction), hoping to invent his way out of it.
I was going to be a scientist (mad of course) and he an airforce pilot.
Paul was driving later that summer when he talked me into taking a detour into my first art class in college. The wheels fell off my theoretical scientific future at that moment but all we thought at the time was that it would be a nice way to make some easy credits, the wind whistling past our faces as we began to slide uncontrollably out of man-childhood. That decision changed our direction and prepared us for life in startling new ways. In fact that one push, that single conversation, his singular idea to take a blow-off art class when neither of us was particularly interested in art (I had last engaged in drawing on an Atari 400 in high school, replacing pencil for pixels but ultimately assumed it was no way to make a living and wandered slowly away) set us on very different roads from that moment on.
A year later he was a bouncer at a punk bar (he fell in with our art teacher and her alternative crowd... did I mention that no woman could resist his baby face and boyscout glow?), we had both broke up with our girls and become engaged in new lives. Somehow we had also lost the map to our friendship.
The next (and last) time I saw him I would have a child, a career in something called design, and a soulmate. He would gallop off into the sunset, girls spilling from his fitted uniform, back on the straight and narrow, following in his father's tracks, fighting crime, his ride no longer in need of a book about misfit automotive engineering and the 101 uses for a pencap, super glue, chewing gum and toothpicks.
Tonight we would embark on our ultimate trip across the eastern United States in the first Beetle I ever owned (a 1971 two-toned beast that would soon leave us drifting into the mountains of Kentucky). We left at midnight (mistake number 1) bound for Atlanta with a full tank of gas, two weeks of freedom, matching "Mr. Bubble" t-shirts (mistake number 2), and of course the requisite new wave bleached, razor-slot-cut sided, spikey topped sting wannabe hairstyles (mistake number 3). We were college room mates who had spent the last year getting to know each other by driving (through snowstorms, tollbooths, heatwaves, and beer swilling toga cloaked fratboys to visit our girlfriends 3 hours away in madcity). I had devised a simple plan and Paul was all for it. A. Drive down to Atlanta and pick up my childhood chum; B. continue on to Hilton Head Island for a week of lazy sunburned days on the beaches; C. collect the run off girls (mistake number 4... ok, really more like hopeless fantasy number 1) that dripped from Paul's charisma; D. drive back to chicagoland and resume our meek and humble college lives.
Around 4 am (remember mistake number 1?), Paul at the wheel (this became a pattern), Indiana ablating the paint from our ride, "Tainte Love" spilling from our tape deck, things started to go slightly awry. For background it's useful to have memorized and have at your fingertips a copy of John Muir's classic "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" and in particular the section of the book that describes the large hole at the bottom of a beetle engine where a drain plug is supposed to reside in the hopes that oil will resist spilling out onto the highway, killing your engine, and slowing your southerly directionality. We didn't hear the engine die. Paul (budding detective) noted the glowing red light and rapidly descending speedometer though and we pulled off the road for a looksee. After retracing our journey (on foot, eyes scanning the road, crickets serenading us) in search of the mythic oil drain plug we decided to push the car to Atlanta (noting a glow on the horizon that looked promising). We were soon gliding downhill towards an oasis of gas and truckstop love. We found no drain plugs at the rest stop, no german engineered parts at all for that matter. They laughed at us when we asked (remember mistake number 2?) for help. However we would not be diverted so easily. Paul began to buy up bottles of 10w-40 while I slipped under the car to drop the entire oil pan. We fashioned gaskets using a swiss army knife and spare oil containers. We sandwiched the makeshift parts in place over the gaping oil plug hole with degenerate american nuts and bolts. We were soon pinging down the roadways in search of our american dream again, refilling the engine with gas and oil every hour on the hour as it dribbled across the border between north and south, laughing in the face of Mr Murphy and his law.
Paul was driving again when we entered Kentucky's mountain range and he noticed that we were slowing down even though we heard the engine winding up, even though we were in fourth gear, even though we had the gas pedal embedded in the floor even though Joe Strummer and his crew were calling us towards London. "Bonnieville 1 mile" is where the Volkswagen finally came to rest. Once again Mr. Muir's book is useful for reference, and in particular the section that illustrates the one large nut holding the wheel to the axle, the one large blurred, spinning when it clearly shouldn't have been spinning since we were sitting by the side of the road wondering why revving through the gears was doing nothing but spinning the, axle with that one large nut doing nothing useful. We would not Rube Goldberg our way out of this (years before macgyvering was all the rage Rube would guide our journeys). We had met our roadtrip match. Who designed this car? Who thought one screw should hold in the life blood, one nut should hold on the wheels, four bolts the entire engine? More importantly who would fix it in Bonnieville Kentucky, a town with no stop lights, slow moving gapers looking at mistakes number 2 & 3, a town with a single gas station with dirt floors and a shotgun leaning up against the door, strains of Deliverance lilting in the breeze, who?
Toad (or was it Newt?) of course but he'd have to tow it to his shop, he assured us he could fix it in a week for 200 bucks no ups and no extras, Newt (Toad?) would save us. As we rode in the back of his pickup truck to the next town down the greyhound line (Lizbethtown?) we were looking on the bright side, we'd never been on a bus ride of such epic proportion before, we'd never had to hail a bus who's driver didn't usually stop in that particular hamlet so may not even slow down for those two sorry oil stained Mr. Bubble apparitions, we'd never felt so out of place (well maybe the time that our accelerator cable broke and we slowly drifted to a stop in the heart of the Cabrini Green housing project, bullets zinging off the roof, cops laughing at us as they carted us away for our own protection). Our first real taste of southern hospitality came 4 hours later when the bus pulled into a local town and stopped so we could all buy dinner from the local po' folks (the actual unfortunate name of a chain of restaurants in the south).
Two weeks later, our skin glowing blindingly red from the sun and our minds still reeling from the effects (or lack thereof) of fantasy number 1, we tooled along the highways and byways of Kentucky in a metallic blue 240z saying our goodbyes to my atlanta friend, in debt to him for more than we could say. Newt handed us the keys milked us for the dough (now it was 250 bucks and he retarded the engine timing so that we'd spend the rest of the drive overheating and stalling) and we headed home.
Paul and I grew up together that summer, stumbled towards manhood, fumbled through relationships, opened our souls, tested most limits (the first and last time I ever almost threw up from too much beer, he in fact did throw up... after both too much beer and 10 white castle hamburgers... across my parent's bathroom).
I learned that he was a fat little crippled boy scout raised by the commander of police of a small suburb, suddenly rejuvinated, maraculously cured and suddenly growing into his looks, winning gymnastic competitions, just learning to live his own life (getting an earring in his family was cause for permanent expulsion from his parent's home for, apparently, ever). He found me to be, oddly enough, the bad influence, the dangerous friend, the city kid raised to know that we'd all be blown off the face of the earth by 22 (this was just a few years after Three Mile Island and the cold war was mutually assuring plenty of destruction), hoping to invent his way out of it.
I was going to be a scientist (mad of course) and he an airforce pilot.
Paul was driving later that summer when he talked me into taking a detour into my first art class in college. The wheels fell off my theoretical scientific future at that moment but all we thought at the time was that it would be a nice way to make some easy credits, the wind whistling past our faces as we began to slide uncontrollably out of man-childhood. That decision changed our direction and prepared us for life in startling new ways. In fact that one push, that single conversation, his singular idea to take a blow-off art class when neither of us was particularly interested in art (I had last engaged in drawing on an Atari 400 in high school, replacing pencil for pixels but ultimately assumed it was no way to make a living and wandered slowly away) set us on very different roads from that moment on.
A year later he was a bouncer at a punk bar (he fell in with our art teacher and her alternative crowd... did I mention that no woman could resist his baby face and boyscout glow?), we had both broke up with our girls and become engaged in new lives. Somehow we had also lost the map to our friendship.
The next (and last) time I saw him I would have a child, a career in something called design, and a soulmate. He would gallop off into the sunset, girls spilling from his fitted uniform, back on the straight and narrow, following in his father's tracks, fighting crime, his ride no longer in need of a book about misfit automotive engineering and the 101 uses for a pencap, super glue, chewing gum and toothpicks.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
books 'n' stuff for May 06
It's been a long dry spell for insanely great books and I figured I should at least catalog the blobs of paper I've slogged through in the last 2 or three months... read on if you can't stop reading books (the first thing you have to do is admit you have a problem).
First a bright spot. I reread Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky." He is good. It's basically the story of a civilization that lives life briskly while the sun shines and then hides deep underground and hibernates when the sun suddenly turns off (every 200 years). Its also about 2 warring space civilizations that decide to visit this odd star and exploit the poor natives. The best part about the whole book (and it is a really good book) is Vinge's take on how to build a galaxy spanning civilization (hint governments would fail or become degenerate but he's got an alternative that just might work).
Vernor Vinge's new book, "Rainbow's End" held such promise. First if you've never read his books, read them all. Find his short stories, essays, anything he's written is worth reading. He hasn't had a book out in a while so I bought this one with glee (yes actual glee... though it was sugar free). I'm not saying its bad, in fact the first chapter is worth buying the book for, but it just left me wanting (if you're a newbie to really good futuretelling you'll probably love it).
Set in the near future, it extrapolates in some not so obvious (well obvious once he does it) ways the tech trends of today into a believable world (his "True Names" is a classic in this sense). An old timer gets gene therapy and enters a second childhood. All the books of the world are being fed into shredders (to better scan them and put them online for those poor children who don't understand paper), people routinely shadow others via augmented reality and most social networks detect outbreaks and cures far sooner than the slow and structured government organizations that used to protect us (of course the converse is true as well... the world is full of asymetric threats). Trouble ensues and the old timer gets involved, maybe the world almost ends or becomes sentient... I won't say.
I get the sense that the book might have gone an entirely different way or that it was laying the groundwork for a sequel that would knock our socks off (and given his track record I'll give him the benefit of the doubt).
"Fluke" by Christopher Moore is a little gem. Never heard of this guy before but he writes a good book. Nothing groundbreaking just a little story about the real reason whales sing. Mildly sci-fi (and he knows his marine biology).
Fluffy mindless sci-fi body shifting detective fun. Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon" is a pretty gripping run through the classic "who-done-it" (which in this case is complicated by the fact that the victim seems to have committed suicide, isn't actually dead due to spinal backup archives and is a rich bastard who can't imagine why he'd kill himself and so ends up being the person that hired the detective in the first place). A bit brutal, but fun.
"Broken Angels" is a sequel of sorts to "Altered Carbon" though not on earth and with a far different tone. This time the main character (a detective in the first one but now a mercenary fighting an unwinnable war... remember I said people can have themselves backed up... so he gets to die alot and come back...) has been contracted to track down an alien artifact. Another fun read with little substance.
"Market Forces" is one more by Richard Morgan (ok I was on a run). This time it is the near future and pimping and racing cars ala fast and furious has emerged as the best way to get ahead in the corporate world. Deathcarmatch meets mergers and acquisitions meets global corporations that run wars for despots. I didn't really get into this one but if you like dystopia.... well... uh...
"Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell (he wrote "Cloud Atlas" which was kinda trippy but a bit overwrought) is the best book he's done so far. It feels autobiographical or at least very lovingly detailed (maybe it's just that I remember the era that he writes about well). Each chapter is another month in the life of a 13 year old english kid in the 1980's. A compelling portrait of a painful age (thatcher is PM and the falklands are under siege... which I can't recall being a big deal here but it was clearly a blow to the empire over there).
"The Pleasure of My Company" by Steve Martin (the comedian) is a little book in the mode of "the curious incident of the dog in the night time." A man who's mentally challenged (augsbergers? autism? low IQ? OCD? or maybe some combination... you can't tell until the story gets rolling) tells of his adventures trying to cross the street, meet girls, stay out of a murder investigation, join Mensa, and learn about life and love. A sweet and amusing set piece.
Oh yeah, I read one more by Salman Rushdie called "The Ground Beneath Her Feet." Not a little book, nor the kind that you just slip through in a moment. If you like to read though it's a fun ride. He's got a way with words and ideas and legends and musical lyrics and slightly alternate worlds and tragedy and love and the brutality of life. It's the story of a girl (kinda like Madonna) who meets a boy (who's sorta like a cross between John Lennon and Elvis), they fall in love and become mega super rock stars. Rushdie sets it in many locales as the pop stars explode upon the world but the main characters grow up in Bombay (later Mumbai) in the 50s and 60s and Bombay alone is quite a story all by itself (and feels like a character in its own right). There are murders, families explode, Carly Simon and Genevere Garfunkel sing about a bridge over some water and there is a touch of sci-fi/magical realism throughout his words.
First a bright spot. I reread Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky." He is good. It's basically the story of a civilization that lives life briskly while the sun shines and then hides deep underground and hibernates when the sun suddenly turns off (every 200 years). Its also about 2 warring space civilizations that decide to visit this odd star and exploit the poor natives. The best part about the whole book (and it is a really good book) is Vinge's take on how to build a galaxy spanning civilization (hint governments would fail or become degenerate but he's got an alternative that just might work).
Vernor Vinge's new book, "Rainbow's End" held such promise. First if you've never read his books, read them all. Find his short stories, essays, anything he's written is worth reading. He hasn't had a book out in a while so I bought this one with glee (yes actual glee... though it was sugar free). I'm not saying its bad, in fact the first chapter is worth buying the book for, but it just left me wanting (if you're a newbie to really good futuretelling you'll probably love it).
Set in the near future, it extrapolates in some not so obvious (well obvious once he does it) ways the tech trends of today into a believable world (his "True Names" is a classic in this sense). An old timer gets gene therapy and enters a second childhood. All the books of the world are being fed into shredders (to better scan them and put them online for those poor children who don't understand paper), people routinely shadow others via augmented reality and most social networks detect outbreaks and cures far sooner than the slow and structured government organizations that used to protect us (of course the converse is true as well... the world is full of asymetric threats). Trouble ensues and the old timer gets involved, maybe the world almost ends or becomes sentient... I won't say.
I get the sense that the book might have gone an entirely different way or that it was laying the groundwork for a sequel that would knock our socks off (and given his track record I'll give him the benefit of the doubt).
"Fluke" by Christopher Moore is a little gem. Never heard of this guy before but he writes a good book. Nothing groundbreaking just a little story about the real reason whales sing. Mildly sci-fi (and he knows his marine biology).
Fluffy mindless sci-fi body shifting detective fun. Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon" is a pretty gripping run through the classic "who-done-it" (which in this case is complicated by the fact that the victim seems to have committed suicide, isn't actually dead due to spinal backup archives and is a rich bastard who can't imagine why he'd kill himself and so ends up being the person that hired the detective in the first place). A bit brutal, but fun.
"Broken Angels" is a sequel of sorts to "Altered Carbon" though not on earth and with a far different tone. This time the main character (a detective in the first one but now a mercenary fighting an unwinnable war... remember I said people can have themselves backed up... so he gets to die alot and come back...) has been contracted to track down an alien artifact. Another fun read with little substance.
"Market Forces" is one more by Richard Morgan (ok I was on a run). This time it is the near future and pimping and racing cars ala fast and furious has emerged as the best way to get ahead in the corporate world. Deathcarmatch meets mergers and acquisitions meets global corporations that run wars for despots. I didn't really get into this one but if you like dystopia.... well... uh...
"Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell (he wrote "Cloud Atlas" which was kinda trippy but a bit overwrought) is the best book he's done so far. It feels autobiographical or at least very lovingly detailed (maybe it's just that I remember the era that he writes about well). Each chapter is another month in the life of a 13 year old english kid in the 1980's. A compelling portrait of a painful age (thatcher is PM and the falklands are under siege... which I can't recall being a big deal here but it was clearly a blow to the empire over there).
"The Pleasure of My Company" by Steve Martin (the comedian) is a little book in the mode of "the curious incident of the dog in the night time." A man who's mentally challenged (augsbergers? autism? low IQ? OCD? or maybe some combination... you can't tell until the story gets rolling) tells of his adventures trying to cross the street, meet girls, stay out of a murder investigation, join Mensa, and learn about life and love. A sweet and amusing set piece.
Oh yeah, I read one more by Salman Rushdie called "The Ground Beneath Her Feet." Not a little book, nor the kind that you just slip through in a moment. If you like to read though it's a fun ride. He's got a way with words and ideas and legends and musical lyrics and slightly alternate worlds and tragedy and love and the brutality of life. It's the story of a girl (kinda like Madonna) who meets a boy (who's sorta like a cross between John Lennon and Elvis), they fall in love and become mega super rock stars. Rushdie sets it in many locales as the pop stars explode upon the world but the main characters grow up in Bombay (later Mumbai) in the 50s and 60s and Bombay alone is quite a story all by itself (and feels like a character in its own right). There are murders, families explode, Carly Simon and Genevere Garfunkel sing about a bridge over some water and there is a touch of sci-fi/magical realism throughout his words.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
backstory part 5: Mom's day
I thought mother's day would be a nice time to take a breath and capture a little bit of the eulogy I gave at my mom's passing.
My father and brothers read from the bible.
The priest spoke of Jesus and his leadership by serving others. Simple things that echo through my mind at quiet moments. He noted that my mom had spent most of her life teaching an ecumenical worldview (I had to look that one up and it was a good word for the way she lived).
My sister and brothers did their part, suggesting bits of history and family lore, reminding me of moments in her life and then they wished me luck, too choked up to speak themselves, knowing that I was after all, the big mouth.
I compiled my list and entitled it: "The 10 secrets of being Mary"
I thought I'd make it just about up to the introduction and break down. I could feel my body rebelling against me, legs shaking, chest heaving for air as I walked to the front of the chapel. As I looked down on her casket, out on our family and friends (some I had not seen since childhood), up at the light streaming through the stained glass, over at her little brother. I knew I'd be fine. She deserved a good word in honor of her shining life and love.
I took a deep breath and told the world about growing up with Mary Margaret McManus as my mom.
The 10 secrets of being Mary
1 that light in her eyes.
She had a playful intelligence that couldn't be dimmed. She would laugh and smile and play word games and when we'd sit around the dinner table we'd always learn new words, my dad would write them down and puzzle over them (he acting the naive blue collar mechanic, she the patient teacher). She loved sharing her knowledge. Even when her body was more burden than fortress her mind was alight, her eyes would shine.
2 the scientific method (the family as experimental medium)
My mom was a scientist, a researcher and later a school teacher. We were her most ambitious experiment. We drank tang, mixed powdered milk, ate moon bars used by astronauts, invented meatzas. She was doing something right, each child grew to be bigger and more strapping than the last (oldest was 5'10", second was 5'11", third... well, fourth was 6'5" and fifth was 6'5" and some change). We were a red headed culture that grew far past our petri dish. We learned from her that science was power, that knowledge held the key, and that the world was open to us.
3 keys to the kingdom
It was a little thing, I didn't even remember it until my sister brought it up. My mom had the keys to everyone's house in the neighborhood and they hung on the wall in our kitchen. Even when the kid down the street that I was currently in a heated war with over some world shaking childhood slight, even when he would come to our door, locked out of his home, perfect moment for revenge... no words were said... I gave him the keys under the universal sign of neutrality and peace that was my mother's will. I learned that the community was just a bigger part of the family (I wish I could be just a bit more like my mom, I fear that I channel her mother more than her sometimes with a fiery glare and desire to spit steel bits of caustic humor when I should just chill... I'm working on it though).
4 mi casa es su casa or the six degrees of Mary McManus
We were wealthy beyond imagination because we had a place to call our own, a house, a home. She loved to meet new people, she invited them home and if they needed a place to stay for a night to lay there weary heads or a week or a year, they could stay. We didn't lock the doors until everyone was home and safe for the night. She opened her arms wide (and she had long arms, which you'd know if you ever cracked wise or punched your little brother in the back seat of the car when she was driving).
5 wealth without bounds
I thought the powdered milk was just a part of the experiment, the straining of clumps between our teeth a little game my mom would play on us to test our courage. I thought everyone walked the alleys to find furniture for the porch, parts for the cars. I just assumed we were rich without bounds. We had encyclopedias, books covered every open space on walls from floor to ceiling, we had tools and irons and garbage bags and things that could cut things and things that could put them back together in new and odd ways, and a basement full of wonders that brimmed with adventure (when it wasn't blazing from some mishap... firemen not far behind).
I think with the engine parts in the living room and the rocket powered skateboards and VWs with no bodies (or physical means of support for such things as steering wheels and seats) cruising the streets as we dreamed of sand dunes, we were actually more like the poor white trash black sheep of the neighborhood. We never knew it, we never doubted for a moment that this was what it was to be rich without bounds. (My dad approached me after my eulogy and said I had hit a bit close to home, shyly embarassed by my comments about our wealth or lack thereof, proud man, mechanic at heart. But he knew, as she did, that riches were measured in conversations, inventions and the playful interchange of the mind with friends and family. He just gave me a hug and whispered "just a bit close, mick.")
6 a glass of water and a little reverse psychology
When I was about four I threw a temper tantrum and would not, could not, stop. My mom grabbed a big glass of water and said "stop now or you will be very wet my friend," and I kicked and screamed and cried and she threw that water in my face and I stopped. She had a way of raising children that said everything was alright. You could do no wrong, but if you stepped over the line you would get wet. I laughed a bit when my son was three and a half years old and throwing a tantrum and without thinking I grabbed a giant glass of water and said "Stop now or you will be very wet my friend." I have now proven that it works in two successive experiments in which the subjects have never exhibited tantrums of that sort again. If you're tracking this of course it is all part of number 2, the scientific method.
7 fire and brimstone and indestructable women
Raising a child is pretty complicated stuff. My mom was raised by someone who really knew how to light up the fire and brimstone. My grandmother was a piece of work. I mean that in a wonderfully Irish way. She raised an amazing woman and all her children were wonders to behold from scientists to engineers to captains of industry. My grandmother set the tone and was the template for spit and vinegar, carried a pearl handled .22 and ran a business as a single mom in the male/mob dominated stockyards of chicago in the 30s. I said before I think I channel my grandmother more than my mom sometimes when dealing with my own child (minus the .22).
I often try to think of how my mom would deal with things. In the same situation that I might just rail at the moon with much gnashing of teeth, she would come up close and say "well friend, what are we going to do about this one," as if she were a co-conspirator. But she was an indestructible woman and I don't think she passed away at all as long as we channel her occasionally as our better nature.
8 unconditional love
I saw for forty seven odd years how my mom and dad lived together and there was never a question that they were in love, that we were loved. I never heard an argument, never stumbled upon a fight simmering below the surface. It was us against the world and the world wasn't such a bad place.
I remember saying to my mom at 18 that "I don't think I want to go to college, I'm going to Atlanta become a roadey for the Police, become a film maker for those newfangled things on that channel called Mtv that had just been born" and I remember sitting on the porch swing telling her this, knowing that in our family of course you went to college, got a Masters or PhD you must become a scientist and she said "ok, we'll be here, the house will be here. Good luck."
That was how she raised us, she gave us a little room to grow (and knew all about how to exercise catholic guilt). Sure enough 6 months later I was back, hungry for school, not quite ready to face the music of real life, ready to fail at anything in college rather than have to live the life I had just left in Georgia. Unconditional love was just a part of being Mary, she would always hold you, no matter what crazy scheme you got up to. A hug would pull you back.
9 the grand adventure and that light in her eyes
Everything was a grand adventure to my mom. When my new wife and my son and I were embarking on a trip to Arizona (from Chicago) and only made it to Springfield, Illinois before the oil rushed out of the engine in a glorious midnight burst of black smoke. I called my mom and dad and 12 hours later there was another car sitting in Springfield (they enlisted my brother and his wife to drive the spare car and of course never left home without a VW towbar kit in the trunk) and they would go see a movie and maybe catch a bite to eat, tow the VW back and we would continued on our way. No big deal. Just another weekend adventure.
About a year or two ago I had a chance to spend another adventure with her. We spent some time in a road trip across the country. We had to spring her from some evil doctors in a SWAT operation to save her from a slow decline towards death at the hands of a well meaning but decidedly barbaric hospital establishment on the shores of the atlantic sea. We carried her across the country. She couldn't walk or even sit up in the car, I had to carry her like a child from car to wheelchair to hotel bedroom and back. It was just another grand adventure that she cracked wise about and we had a wonderful time. I struggled with embarrassment and guilt and shame at not coming sooner, not doing more, not beating the doctors to within an inch of their lives for such a sham bit of witch doctoring and I finally got to show her that I was big enough to hold her up for once. That I wasn't at all embarrassed to carry her and make up for all the times that she had carried me.
10 shut up and hold tight (squeeze til they squeak)
Now I should just shut up and hold someone, because that was her most basic and profound answer. Just hold them as tight as you can, until they squeak. That's what she would do (did I mention that she was a big woman and had long, strong arms?)
I think she held the world, her family, her friends together in her arms more times than I could ever have imagined.
After the burial my mom's little brother (only child left now) came up to me and gave me a hug and thanked me for my words, for the small glimpse into what it was like to be raised by Mary. For sharing what he was too choked up to put into words.
I came back home adrift. Who would I impress now? What did it matter? I was loose in the world as if the last ropes that had moored me to the surface had been cut free. It would have been easy to just lose it at that point. To walk away from the buzzing noise of a long lifetime stretching out ahead of me with no anchor. I couldn't work up the energy to care about much of anything for months.
Of course if I told my mom about such small self-centered and pitiable thoughts she'd have just smiled and given me a hug. She'd say "well friend..."
My father and brothers read from the bible.
The priest spoke of Jesus and his leadership by serving others. Simple things that echo through my mind at quiet moments. He noted that my mom had spent most of her life teaching an ecumenical worldview (I had to look that one up and it was a good word for the way she lived).
My sister and brothers did their part, suggesting bits of history and family lore, reminding me of moments in her life and then they wished me luck, too choked up to speak themselves, knowing that I was after all, the big mouth.
I compiled my list and entitled it: "The 10 secrets of being Mary"
I thought I'd make it just about up to the introduction and break down. I could feel my body rebelling against me, legs shaking, chest heaving for air as I walked to the front of the chapel. As I looked down on her casket, out on our family and friends (some I had not seen since childhood), up at the light streaming through the stained glass, over at her little brother. I knew I'd be fine. She deserved a good word in honor of her shining life and love.
I took a deep breath and told the world about growing up with Mary Margaret McManus as my mom.
The 10 secrets of being Mary
1 that light in her eyes.
She had a playful intelligence that couldn't be dimmed. She would laugh and smile and play word games and when we'd sit around the dinner table we'd always learn new words, my dad would write them down and puzzle over them (he acting the naive blue collar mechanic, she the patient teacher). She loved sharing her knowledge. Even when her body was more burden than fortress her mind was alight, her eyes would shine.
2 the scientific method (the family as experimental medium)
My mom was a scientist, a researcher and later a school teacher. We were her most ambitious experiment. We drank tang, mixed powdered milk, ate moon bars used by astronauts, invented meatzas. She was doing something right, each child grew to be bigger and more strapping than the last (oldest was 5'10", second was 5'11", third... well, fourth was 6'5" and fifth was 6'5" and some change). We were a red headed culture that grew far past our petri dish. We learned from her that science was power, that knowledge held the key, and that the world was open to us.
3 keys to the kingdom
It was a little thing, I didn't even remember it until my sister brought it up. My mom had the keys to everyone's house in the neighborhood and they hung on the wall in our kitchen. Even when the kid down the street that I was currently in a heated war with over some world shaking childhood slight, even when he would come to our door, locked out of his home, perfect moment for revenge... no words were said... I gave him the keys under the universal sign of neutrality and peace that was my mother's will. I learned that the community was just a bigger part of the family (I wish I could be just a bit more like my mom, I fear that I channel her mother more than her sometimes with a fiery glare and desire to spit steel bits of caustic humor when I should just chill... I'm working on it though).
4 mi casa es su casa or the six degrees of Mary McManus
We were wealthy beyond imagination because we had a place to call our own, a house, a home. She loved to meet new people, she invited them home and if they needed a place to stay for a night to lay there weary heads or a week or a year, they could stay. We didn't lock the doors until everyone was home and safe for the night. She opened her arms wide (and she had long arms, which you'd know if you ever cracked wise or punched your little brother in the back seat of the car when she was driving).
5 wealth without bounds
I thought the powdered milk was just a part of the experiment, the straining of clumps between our teeth a little game my mom would play on us to test our courage. I thought everyone walked the alleys to find furniture for the porch, parts for the cars. I just assumed we were rich without bounds. We had encyclopedias, books covered every open space on walls from floor to ceiling, we had tools and irons and garbage bags and things that could cut things and things that could put them back together in new and odd ways, and a basement full of wonders that brimmed with adventure (when it wasn't blazing from some mishap... firemen not far behind).
I think with the engine parts in the living room and the rocket powered skateboards and VWs with no bodies (or physical means of support for such things as steering wheels and seats) cruising the streets as we dreamed of sand dunes, we were actually more like the poor white trash black sheep of the neighborhood. We never knew it, we never doubted for a moment that this was what it was to be rich without bounds. (My dad approached me after my eulogy and said I had hit a bit close to home, shyly embarassed by my comments about our wealth or lack thereof, proud man, mechanic at heart. But he knew, as she did, that riches were measured in conversations, inventions and the playful interchange of the mind with friends and family. He just gave me a hug and whispered "just a bit close, mick.")
6 a glass of water and a little reverse psychology
When I was about four I threw a temper tantrum and would not, could not, stop. My mom grabbed a big glass of water and said "stop now or you will be very wet my friend," and I kicked and screamed and cried and she threw that water in my face and I stopped. She had a way of raising children that said everything was alright. You could do no wrong, but if you stepped over the line you would get wet. I laughed a bit when my son was three and a half years old and throwing a tantrum and without thinking I grabbed a giant glass of water and said "Stop now or you will be very wet my friend." I have now proven that it works in two successive experiments in which the subjects have never exhibited tantrums of that sort again. If you're tracking this of course it is all part of number 2, the scientific method.
7 fire and brimstone and indestructable women
Raising a child is pretty complicated stuff. My mom was raised by someone who really knew how to light up the fire and brimstone. My grandmother was a piece of work. I mean that in a wonderfully Irish way. She raised an amazing woman and all her children were wonders to behold from scientists to engineers to captains of industry. My grandmother set the tone and was the template for spit and vinegar, carried a pearl handled .22 and ran a business as a single mom in the male/mob dominated stockyards of chicago in the 30s. I said before I think I channel my grandmother more than my mom sometimes when dealing with my own child (minus the .22).
I often try to think of how my mom would deal with things. In the same situation that I might just rail at the moon with much gnashing of teeth, she would come up close and say "well friend, what are we going to do about this one," as if she were a co-conspirator. But she was an indestructible woman and I don't think she passed away at all as long as we channel her occasionally as our better nature.
8 unconditional love
I saw for forty seven odd years how my mom and dad lived together and there was never a question that they were in love, that we were loved. I never heard an argument, never stumbled upon a fight simmering below the surface. It was us against the world and the world wasn't such a bad place.
I remember saying to my mom at 18 that "I don't think I want to go to college, I'm going to Atlanta become a roadey for the Police, become a film maker for those newfangled things on that channel called Mtv that had just been born" and I remember sitting on the porch swing telling her this, knowing that in our family of course you went to college, got a Masters or PhD you must become a scientist and she said "ok, we'll be here, the house will be here. Good luck."
That was how she raised us, she gave us a little room to grow (and knew all about how to exercise catholic guilt). Sure enough 6 months later I was back, hungry for school, not quite ready to face the music of real life, ready to fail at anything in college rather than have to live the life I had just left in Georgia. Unconditional love was just a part of being Mary, she would always hold you, no matter what crazy scheme you got up to. A hug would pull you back.
9 the grand adventure and that light in her eyes
Everything was a grand adventure to my mom. When my new wife and my son and I were embarking on a trip to Arizona (from Chicago) and only made it to Springfield, Illinois before the oil rushed out of the engine in a glorious midnight burst of black smoke. I called my mom and dad and 12 hours later there was another car sitting in Springfield (they enlisted my brother and his wife to drive the spare car and of course never left home without a VW towbar kit in the trunk) and they would go see a movie and maybe catch a bite to eat, tow the VW back and we would continued on our way. No big deal. Just another weekend adventure.
About a year or two ago I had a chance to spend another adventure with her. We spent some time in a road trip across the country. We had to spring her from some evil doctors in a SWAT operation to save her from a slow decline towards death at the hands of a well meaning but decidedly barbaric hospital establishment on the shores of the atlantic sea. We carried her across the country. She couldn't walk or even sit up in the car, I had to carry her like a child from car to wheelchair to hotel bedroom and back. It was just another grand adventure that she cracked wise about and we had a wonderful time. I struggled with embarrassment and guilt and shame at not coming sooner, not doing more, not beating the doctors to within an inch of their lives for such a sham bit of witch doctoring and I finally got to show her that I was big enough to hold her up for once. That I wasn't at all embarrassed to carry her and make up for all the times that she had carried me.
10 shut up and hold tight (squeeze til they squeak)
Now I should just shut up and hold someone, because that was her most basic and profound answer. Just hold them as tight as you can, until they squeak. That's what she would do (did I mention that she was a big woman and had long, strong arms?)
I think she held the world, her family, her friends together in her arms more times than I could ever have imagined.
After the burial my mom's little brother (only child left now) came up to me and gave me a hug and thanked me for my words, for the small glimpse into what it was like to be raised by Mary. For sharing what he was too choked up to put into words.
I came back home adrift. Who would I impress now? What did it matter? I was loose in the world as if the last ropes that had moored me to the surface had been cut free. It would have been easy to just lose it at that point. To walk away from the buzzing noise of a long lifetime stretching out ahead of me with no anchor. I couldn't work up the energy to care about much of anything for months.
Of course if I told my mom about such small self-centered and pitiable thoughts she'd have just smiled and given me a hug. She'd say "well friend..."
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Backstory part 4: child, hood.
During the holidays this year he asked me if my sister had told me anything.
"Anything about what?"
You see, he sometimes gets into trouble and doesn't like to tell us.
When he finally does spill the beans, the story is typical (boy goes off on adventure, boy pulls death defying stunt, boy lives to tell tale).
If you didn't know him, you'd just figure he had a vivid imagination (he does, but the stories are generally true, though they get better with each telling).
Turns out he had recently messed up his bike something awful while cruising on a daytrip with a gang of fellow players of hooky. He was going pretty fast (he likes speed) down a country road, hit a patch of gravel, aimed (somehow) towards the high grass and jumped off a moment before the bike flipped 4-5 times into an Iowan field. The bike was a total loss.
He made it home in one piece though (tame story by his standards). He jumped on the back of one of his friend's rides without any further incident (aside from a bruised tailbone, thumb, and ego).
Why couldn't he just play with his radio control model planes, take apart his toy cars, and battle orcs on his pc?
I worry, but his stories always end with a bright side.
Another boy, hood example to illustrate a typical day in this boy's life?
He recently told me about the time that a bomb didn't quite leave the B-29 bomber he was flying and how it spent its time poking, prodding, nudging the small of his back while he sat tangled in the parachute that had just misfired, shoehorned into the tailgunner's bubble and listening to the pilot describe a malfunction so serious that the crew was contemplating ditching the plane (which is a good time to have a parachute that's not covering the inside of your compartment).
They decided to land the plane instead of swimming in the sea of japan.
Sounds like a very immersive video game... god help us when he grows up...
It won't happen anytime soon certainly not now that he's single (my mom passed away a few years ago) and rolls with a motorcycle gang through the streets of the windy city. He's young at only a bit over 70 so there is still plenty of time to become an adult.
His most recent adventure with a bike turned out to have a bright side, the goldwing (his bike, which is about the size of a small car) was totaled and his insurance replaced it with an even more tricked out ride (now with 6 CD changer and antilock brakes).
"The old one always seemed kinda squirrely anyway."
When I was young there were far more kids in our family than adults and I fear that the ratio has slowly changed for the worse. I lose sight of childhood as I struggle to handle the stress of acting grown up. I lose the sensation that the whole world is our playground, that we are as rich as kings and as free as pirates on the high seas and that every day, every moment can reveal dazzling horizons if we'd only stop to breath.
I just spent the weekend with my dad and one evening listening to his old and even very recent adventures (see motobike death match above) reminds me that childhood is a state of mind that I could easily return to.
Dad reminds me how to breath.
My pop still lives most days in the playground, he's just a bit more achy and a bit more aware of the possibility of childhood's end. He has only recently been able to go out for recess a little more often now. A scraped knee and a bruised ego seems a small price to pay for the smiles he steals and the stories he weaves.
"Anything about what?"
You see, he sometimes gets into trouble and doesn't like to tell us.
When he finally does spill the beans, the story is typical (boy goes off on adventure, boy pulls death defying stunt, boy lives to tell tale).
If you didn't know him, you'd just figure he had a vivid imagination (he does, but the stories are generally true, though they get better with each telling).
Turns out he had recently messed up his bike something awful while cruising on a daytrip with a gang of fellow players of hooky. He was going pretty fast (he likes speed) down a country road, hit a patch of gravel, aimed (somehow) towards the high grass and jumped off a moment before the bike flipped 4-5 times into an Iowan field. The bike was a total loss.
He made it home in one piece though (tame story by his standards). He jumped on the back of one of his friend's rides without any further incident (aside from a bruised tailbone, thumb, and ego).
Why couldn't he just play with his radio control model planes, take apart his toy cars, and battle orcs on his pc?
I worry, but his stories always end with a bright side.
Another boy, hood example to illustrate a typical day in this boy's life?
He recently told me about the time that a bomb didn't quite leave the B-29 bomber he was flying and how it spent its time poking, prodding, nudging the small of his back while he sat tangled in the parachute that had just misfired, shoehorned into the tailgunner's bubble and listening to the pilot describe a malfunction so serious that the crew was contemplating ditching the plane (which is a good time to have a parachute that's not covering the inside of your compartment).
They decided to land the plane instead of swimming in the sea of japan.
Sounds like a very immersive video game... god help us when he grows up...
It won't happen anytime soon certainly not now that he's single (my mom passed away a few years ago) and rolls with a motorcycle gang through the streets of the windy city. He's young at only a bit over 70 so there is still plenty of time to become an adult.
His most recent adventure with a bike turned out to have a bright side, the goldwing (his bike, which is about the size of a small car) was totaled and his insurance replaced it with an even more tricked out ride (now with 6 CD changer and antilock brakes).
"The old one always seemed kinda squirrely anyway."
When I was young there were far more kids in our family than adults and I fear that the ratio has slowly changed for the worse. I lose sight of childhood as I struggle to handle the stress of acting grown up. I lose the sensation that the whole world is our playground, that we are as rich as kings and as free as pirates on the high seas and that every day, every moment can reveal dazzling horizons if we'd only stop to breath.
I just spent the weekend with my dad and one evening listening to his old and even very recent adventures (see motobike death match above) reminds me that childhood is a state of mind that I could easily return to.
Dad reminds me how to breath.
My pop still lives most days in the playground, he's just a bit more achy and a bit more aware of the possibility of childhood's end. He has only recently been able to go out for recess a little more often now. A scraped knee and a bruised ego seems a small price to pay for the smiles he steals and the stories he weaves.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
before my eyes
I... uh.... mmmm....
huh.
Damn I can barely string sentences together this week (last week was worse when it came to continuously comprehensible streams of thought.)
My neck clicks now, my head is full of cotton candy and I've got a slight whistling sound coming out of my right lung (I won't even mention the high pitched keening sound coming from my knees and left wrist or the shaky legs as I walk up the stairs or the last week of either sleeping all the time or staring at the ceiling replaying last saturday night wondering why I couldn't just stay home, read an old book, watch the damn olympics its cold outside, baby its cold outside.
If only is hollow and stupid and doesn't quite work unless you really buy the whole multiple infinite worlds thing.
So quiet. So peaceful. So calm. Ben Harper and Jack Johnson floated in the background with their simple plan to change the world with their own two hands right about the time I lost my breath. Right about the time I realized that any sort of "control" that we have over our trajectory is no more than a coincidence, a bit of luck, an illusion, why can't I, what the hell, are my feet even touching the peddles, was that my head hitting the roof, is that tree in his own lane? By the time I figured out that nobody else drove on that little curving, hilly, forested, backroad, I was seeing stars, snowflakes, wisps of smoke and realizing that I had a thing that could help me contact my wife, if I could only figure out where it was, where I was, what I was (maybe if I put these legs out onto the road someone will run over them and realize they should stop, damn its cold).
She must have been close to hysteria when I finally made the connection, when I couldn't tell her where I was or rasp out much more than that I was really, deeply scared, cold, and confused, numb, when the ambulance driver finally talked to my son, when through some terrible bit of miscommunication theater they told him it was a fatal accident, when he called her to demand an explanation, to find damnit "my dad mom what the hell is going on where is he what did he do this time, he's alone out there somewhere, move", when the hospital couldn't tell her where the hospital was, when she was 5 blocks away and miles from home, when they took my cellphone away when she finally got it to ring, when she got within 30 feet of the twisted bit of metal and couldn't figure out what she was exactly looking at, when she played forward all the past memories of my silly mistakes, near misses and fumbling misteps with large fast moving vehicles over the past 20 odd years and god knows how many cars.
God knows.
He probably does know and she probably hasn't forgotten either, they keep a list of these things for me since my long term memory is not so long term, they tell me that I started with a 60's era bug for training, a vega stationwagon to teach my friends, a 65 bonneville convertible to take my girl to the prom, a 66 tempest which is not quite a goat, a 59 corvair conference room and a 60 dodge pioneer stationwagon rocketship, a 66 coronet, a 71 karmann convertible, a thing, a cadillac grandmamobile sedan deville... hmm they remind me that that was the last one that involved me and a totalled car... and my highschool sweetheart, the blues festival, a family of 16 in a car made for 4, a sunny day on lake shore drive, a crumble zone... well not in the 70's era cadillacs now that I think of it, a tow truck, and billy goats tavern until 11pm... yeah uh, back to the list... a rabbit, a honda civic, a saab, a bug, a bug, a chevy pickup, a subaru baja... a subaru baja so I could make it up my driveway and finally feel safe in these way too bumpy way too slick, way too vertical roads, a baja... isn't that some kinda new age brat?... yes it is, I am, we were, but now, yes god, yes lynn, I am, I am, I think, which is pretty great, alive yes, safe yes, warm yes, loved even when they want to kill me no?, but a bit worse for wear yes?.
I'm blessed (call it luck, karma, whatever makes you more comfortable in an overly politically correct world) with a few aches and pains, a little bit slower brain maybe for a while (I hope just for a while) and a whole bunch of new days ahead of me (which isn't such a bad deal when you weigh the options).
huh.
Damn I can barely string sentences together this week (last week was worse when it came to continuously comprehensible streams of thought.)
My neck clicks now, my head is full of cotton candy and I've got a slight whistling sound coming out of my right lung (I won't even mention the high pitched keening sound coming from my knees and left wrist or the shaky legs as I walk up the stairs or the last week of either sleeping all the time or staring at the ceiling replaying last saturday night wondering why I couldn't just stay home, read an old book, watch the damn olympics its cold outside, baby its cold outside.
If only is hollow and stupid and doesn't quite work unless you really buy the whole multiple infinite worlds thing.
So quiet. So peaceful. So calm. Ben Harper and Jack Johnson floated in the background with their simple plan to change the world with their own two hands right about the time I lost my breath. Right about the time I realized that any sort of "control" that we have over our trajectory is no more than a coincidence, a bit of luck, an illusion, why can't I, what the hell, are my feet even touching the peddles, was that my head hitting the roof, is that tree in his own lane? By the time I figured out that nobody else drove on that little curving, hilly, forested, backroad, I was seeing stars, snowflakes, wisps of smoke and realizing that I had a thing that could help me contact my wife, if I could only figure out where it was, where I was, what I was (maybe if I put these legs out onto the road someone will run over them and realize they should stop, damn its cold).
She must have been close to hysteria when I finally made the connection, when I couldn't tell her where I was or rasp out much more than that I was really, deeply scared, cold, and confused, numb, when the ambulance driver finally talked to my son, when through some terrible bit of miscommunication theater they told him it was a fatal accident, when he called her to demand an explanation, to find damnit "my dad mom what the hell is going on where is he what did he do this time, he's alone out there somewhere, move", when the hospital couldn't tell her where the hospital was, when she was 5 blocks away and miles from home, when they took my cellphone away when she finally got it to ring, when she got within 30 feet of the twisted bit of metal and couldn't figure out what she was exactly looking at, when she played forward all the past memories of my silly mistakes, near misses and fumbling misteps with large fast moving vehicles over the past 20 odd years and god knows how many cars.
God knows.
He probably does know and she probably hasn't forgotten either, they keep a list of these things for me since my long term memory is not so long term, they tell me that I started with a 60's era bug for training, a vega stationwagon to teach my friends, a 65 bonneville convertible to take my girl to the prom, a 66 tempest which is not quite a goat, a 59 corvair conference room and a 60 dodge pioneer stationwagon rocketship, a 66 coronet, a 71 karmann convertible, a thing, a cadillac grandmamobile sedan deville... hmm they remind me that that was the last one that involved me and a totalled car... and my highschool sweetheart, the blues festival, a family of 16 in a car made for 4, a sunny day on lake shore drive, a crumble zone... well not in the 70's era cadillacs now that I think of it, a tow truck, and billy goats tavern until 11pm... yeah uh, back to the list... a rabbit, a honda civic, a saab, a bug, a bug, a chevy pickup, a subaru baja... a subaru baja so I could make it up my driveway and finally feel safe in these way too bumpy way too slick, way too vertical roads, a baja... isn't that some kinda new age brat?... yes it is, I am, we were, but now, yes god, yes lynn, I am, I am, I think, which is pretty great, alive yes, safe yes, warm yes, loved even when they want to kill me no?, but a bit worse for wear yes?.
I'm blessed (call it luck, karma, whatever makes you more comfortable in an overly politically correct world) with a few aches and pains, a little bit slower brain maybe for a while (I hope just for a while) and a whole bunch of new days ahead of me (which isn't such a bad deal when you weigh the options).
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Consumer Electronic Show 2006
CES was a pretty big let down this year, but for those of you who missed it... here I present my random list of things I saw at CES:
-These guys with that thing
-something stupid called Babble
-logitech's $99 webcam had the best free software (eyebrow/mouth/eye/head position tracking so you could paste parts on your face for your next webmeeting... or just be a different character)
-Finally a use for those segways... a mickshaw!
-Philips and Sony had e-ink based things (think super low battery life... because its like a sheet of plastic paper with lots of microscopic ping pong balls that are each painted white on one side and black on the other that can be flipped over with a little electrostatic charge...)
Philips had a lab demo of flexing display (refresh is 1 frame a second at best and sorta looks like a polaroid developing)
-Lego had a next-gen mindstorm (coming this fall I think), that was pretty impressive
For more commentary, see here (and thanks to jeremy for the pictures)
-These guys with that thing
-something stupid called Babble
-logitech's $99 webcam had the best free software (eyebrow/mouth/eye/head position tracking so you could paste parts on your face for your next webmeeting... or just be a different character)
-Finally a use for those segways... a mickshaw!
-Philips and Sony had e-ink based things (think super low battery life... because its like a sheet of plastic paper with lots of microscopic ping pong balls that are each painted white on one side and black on the other that can be flipped over with a little electrostatic charge...)
Philips had a lab demo of flexing display (refresh is 1 frame a second at best and sorta looks like a polaroid developing)
-Lego had a next-gen mindstorm (coming this fall I think), that was pretty impressive
For more commentary, see here (and thanks to jeremy for the pictures)
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Books 'n' stuff for December (proly part 1)
I'll start with films, George Clooney is not just a pretty face.
Syriana by the writer of the movie "Traffic" (and by the production company clooney and friends have built) is made to give you nightmares. Not for the faint of heart (it has some graphic brutality) but gripping, enlightening, and chilling. Very very good.
Good night and good luck (another one of clooney's films) is quite good as well. A black and white historical recreation of the McCarthy era in America and Edward R. Murrow's role in bringing intellect and patriotism together into reasoned discourse. Almost hard to follow sometimes just because the newsmen were actually erudite on TV. I think the closest we have today to someone of Murrow's ilk is John Stewart.
I also just recently saw a show on pbs that looks to have been produced by a company set up by Murrow's sidekick, Fred Friendly (clooney in the movie). The show was called "In the Balance," it was the best example I've seen of a true "gaming" of a serious issue by the participants that would actually have to cope with disruptions in public life. I wish public servants were required to watch this, and take part in this sort of simulation as a pre-requisite for being elected. Fred Friendly noted that these seminars were... "not to make up anybody's mind, but to open minds and to make the agony of decision making so intense that you can escape only by thinking."
While I'm on a clooney-fest, rent "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" it's about the host of The Gong Show, who of course was also an assassin for the CIA. Sam Rockwell is perfect and the film never quite tells you if this is a true story or not, but its a fun flashback for those of us who stayed home sick and watched Gene Gene the Dancing Machine do his stuff.
Ok, Sam Rockwell reminds me of "Three Kings," another "worth renting" movie (this one about the first Gulf War). Marky Mark can act and this one is a gritty behind the scenes take on what the soldiers really did over there (of course it seems tame and childlike when compared to Syriana).
Ok, so I'll end with a book about the disputed area between Pakistan and India (called Kashmir) to round out my tour of world events in media. "Shalimar the Clown" by Salman Rushdie is a rich immersion into the dreamland that was the inspiration for the stories about shangri-la, heaven on earth, and is now a charred blast furnace of nationalism, extremism, and futilism (at least it all seems futile and bleak). This is the first book I've read by the author and it rings with flowery language and vivid details. It is essentially the story of a small village of people who lived for many years in peace (and the village was made up of christians, jews, muslims, and hindus), plying their trade as entertainers and were then caught up in the nationalistic disputes of their neighbors (who of course each claimed Kashmir as its own, killing it to save it apparently) and their neighbor's friends (America, Europe, etc.). A nice companion piece to "The Wind Runner," if you're finally waking to the impact the middle east has (and will have) on our world.
Syriana by the writer of the movie "Traffic" (and by the production company clooney and friends have built) is made to give you nightmares. Not for the faint of heart (it has some graphic brutality) but gripping, enlightening, and chilling. Very very good.
Good night and good luck (another one of clooney's films) is quite good as well. A black and white historical recreation of the McCarthy era in America and Edward R. Murrow's role in bringing intellect and patriotism together into reasoned discourse. Almost hard to follow sometimes just because the newsmen were actually erudite on TV. I think the closest we have today to someone of Murrow's ilk is John Stewart.
I also just recently saw a show on pbs that looks to have been produced by a company set up by Murrow's sidekick, Fred Friendly (clooney in the movie). The show was called "In the Balance," it was the best example I've seen of a true "gaming" of a serious issue by the participants that would actually have to cope with disruptions in public life. I wish public servants were required to watch this, and take part in this sort of simulation as a pre-requisite for being elected. Fred Friendly noted that these seminars were... "not to make up anybody's mind, but to open minds and to make the agony of decision making so intense that you can escape only by thinking."
While I'm on a clooney-fest, rent "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" it's about the host of The Gong Show, who of course was also an assassin for the CIA. Sam Rockwell is perfect and the film never quite tells you if this is a true story or not, but its a fun flashback for those of us who stayed home sick and watched Gene Gene the Dancing Machine do his stuff.
Ok, Sam Rockwell reminds me of "Three Kings," another "worth renting" movie (this one about the first Gulf War). Marky Mark can act and this one is a gritty behind the scenes take on what the soldiers really did over there (of course it seems tame and childlike when compared to Syriana).
Ok, so I'll end with a book about the disputed area between Pakistan and India (called Kashmir) to round out my tour of world events in media. "Shalimar the Clown" by Salman Rushdie is a rich immersion into the dreamland that was the inspiration for the stories about shangri-la, heaven on earth, and is now a charred blast furnace of nationalism, extremism, and futilism (at least it all seems futile and bleak). This is the first book I've read by the author and it rings with flowery language and vivid details. It is essentially the story of a small village of people who lived for many years in peace (and the village was made up of christians, jews, muslims, and hindus), plying their trade as entertainers and were then caught up in the nationalistic disputes of their neighbors (who of course each claimed Kashmir as its own, killing it to save it apparently) and their neighbor's friends (America, Europe, etc.). A nice companion piece to "The Wind Runner," if you're finally waking to the impact the middle east has (and will have) on our world.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
books 'o' the month
Non-fiction
"A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey is brutal, blunt, and refreshing (I'm reading Rushdi's "Shalimar the Clown" right now and the comparison in writing styles is jarring... Rushdi is flowery and poetic, Frey doesn't even bother with sentences sometimes... much more stream of consciousness). James wakes up on a plane with a hole in his cheek and missing his four front teeth. His true story climb out of a lifetime of addiction (to just about everything--he's only 23 at the time that he's checked into rehab but he's been drinking, smoking, doing crack, heroin, meth, or some sort of drug since he was a preteen) is tragic. I'm pretty sure I've got the right kind of personality/genetics/whatever to fall into the life he had and only didn't by the grace of god and more than a bit of luck. Scary stuff that is so immersive that I finished the book feeling like I had just awoken from a fever dream of addiction and rehab myself. Reminded me of "Requiem for a Dream," in some ways (a cautionary film I can't say I enjoyed but I can say should be required viewing in high school). Read it.
Fiction
"The Atrocity Archives" by Charles Stross is a totally fun spy-nazi-mathematical holes in the universe-geek-meets-girl-saves-universe-while-maintaining-company-servers-secret-british intelligence-arm-demons-beware-fantasy. This one would be a great movie.
On the subject of Charles Stross I finally got around to reading one of Joe Hughe's suggested readings, "Accelerando," it was serious brain-upload singularity stuff. Enjoyable read and totally different than the atrocity stuff.
A good example of the writing in "Accelerando?"
"Opposite the bench is a wall occupied from floor to ceiling by bookcases: Manfred looks at the ancient, low-density medium and sneezes, momentarily bemused by the sight of data density measured in kilograms per megabyte rather than vice versa."
It starts with a guy who has an idea a second and gives them away to help other people become rich (post-dot-com-style), includes the requisite uploaded lobster brains in space and ends with his great great grandkids fleeing the solar system in the hopes of surviving economy 2.0 (somewhere in there people become currency, people upload so they are immortal, and the solar system is converted from raw matter into a matrioshski layered--think russian nesting dolls/dyson spheres--brain of computronium, the better to dream bigger dreams I suppose).
Its downloadable for free here if you like that whole digital thing. Worth the read (I think I read much of it before in short story form so I wasn't totally blown away by it, but if you're interested in the social aspects of this sorta future society you'll eat it up).
"A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey is brutal, blunt, and refreshing (I'm reading Rushdi's "Shalimar the Clown" right now and the comparison in writing styles is jarring... Rushdi is flowery and poetic, Frey doesn't even bother with sentences sometimes... much more stream of consciousness). James wakes up on a plane with a hole in his cheek and missing his four front teeth. His true story climb out of a lifetime of addiction (to just about everything--he's only 23 at the time that he's checked into rehab but he's been drinking, smoking, doing crack, heroin, meth, or some sort of drug since he was a preteen) is tragic. I'm pretty sure I've got the right kind of personality/genetics/whatever to fall into the life he had and only didn't by the grace of god and more than a bit of luck. Scary stuff that is so immersive that I finished the book feeling like I had just awoken from a fever dream of addiction and rehab myself. Reminded me of "Requiem for a Dream," in some ways (a cautionary film I can't say I enjoyed but I can say should be required viewing in high school). Read it.
Fiction
"The Atrocity Archives" by Charles Stross is a totally fun spy-nazi-mathematical holes in the universe-geek-meets-girl-saves-universe-while-maintaining-company-servers-secret-british intelligence-arm-demons-beware-fantasy. This one would be a great movie.
On the subject of Charles Stross I finally got around to reading one of Joe Hughe's suggested readings, "Accelerando," it was serious brain-upload singularity stuff. Enjoyable read and totally different than the atrocity stuff.
A good example of the writing in "Accelerando?"
"Opposite the bench is a wall occupied from floor to ceiling by bookcases: Manfred looks at the ancient, low-density medium and sneezes, momentarily bemused by the sight of data density measured in kilograms per megabyte rather than vice versa."
It starts with a guy who has an idea a second and gives them away to help other people become rich (post-dot-com-style), includes the requisite uploaded lobster brains in space and ends with his great great grandkids fleeing the solar system in the hopes of surviving economy 2.0 (somewhere in there people become currency, people upload so they are immortal, and the solar system is converted from raw matter into a matrioshski layered--think russian nesting dolls/dyson spheres--brain of computronium, the better to dream bigger dreams I suppose).
Its downloadable for free here if you like that whole digital thing. Worth the read (I think I read much of it before in short story form so I wasn't totally blown away by it, but if you're interested in the social aspects of this sorta future society you'll eat it up).
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Backstory: Race Riot
He had funny hair. His mom said he said the same about me when I hugged her at his funeral. It was 1977 or 1978 when we first really began hanging out, Rose Royce was the heavy rotation favorite or maybe the Bee Gees with their Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, certainly the ever popular Sir Nose Devoid of Funk was making the rounds. He was the resident music and dance expert and he was on a mission to teach me to dance. We (known to each other as nip, wetback, and potato farmer) and he (kunta was the current favorite) would roam to his one-bedroom apartment after school (his mom raised him alone, having moved them to our neighborhood in a quest to escape the daily shootings of the west side) and shuffle through the steps in anticipation of the next party, the next get together, the next chance to look cool and make our moves with the ladies. When all else failed (I was not the most rhythmic) the secret of course became waiting for the slow dance (even white kids could handle the slow dance). "Reasons" by Earth Wind and Fire was 9 minutes long and by far the best slow dancing, move making, song around. During the spring he played the matchmaker as we wandered through the school yard, our female associates and we a safe 3 or 4 paces apart during the negotiations over mickey and his interest in a certain girl (and are you interested in him?). Of course as schoolyard romances go, it only lasted a short time. The summer was filled with nights of "reasons," "wishing on a star," and "more than a woman" and lazy days of walking the alleys, and biking along the waterfront. Our gang was inseparable. Near the end of the summer, while I was away at scout camp, I lost my first love to an older man (he was 14 and apparently a don juan who had swept her off her feet with his sexy accent and smooth basketball moves). That was also the summer Majdi (another kid in our class) was shot in the head for walking down the wrong alley and flashing the wrong gang sign; Jerrill's mom was undoubtably having second thoughts about their flight from the west side to the north. Oddly that was how life seemed to go, wonders of the world one minute and tragedy the next.
High school came and Jerrill (now called Bucky after another famous Dent) became a beloved athletic star, brainiac, and counselor to one and all. We learned how to drive together, we held our friend's head when he retched his guts out over a lost girl and too much tequila. When one of our other friends (the aforementioned nip named Bri) and I spotted him at the end of our high school hallway during room change (a year after our school entered the desgregation era by bussing in all the kids from the west side) we almost started our very own race riot. Bri had greeted Buck by shouting "Hey! Kunta!" innocently enough, or so we thought... apparently other people took race seriously. Having grown up as a smartass group of token irish (potato farmer/whitebread), black (kunta), mexican (wetback), japanese (nip), vietnamese (ho-chi min city), spanish (spic) kids, it was lost on us (still is).
Bucky and I went our own ways for college (he to the University of Chicago, me to the University of Illinois). We both married our college sweethearts and he decided to become not only a financial futures broker for Stanley Morgan but also a lay minister for his church. He had three children and a beautiful wife. He hosted monthly "how to be married" classes at his home (teaching my wife and I the odd and wondrous differences between men and women and the power of washing people's feet, of leading by serving).
Twenty years (though it seems like only a few short moments ago) after showing me the hustle and the truth about people with funny hair, as Jerrill related bouts with his now constant companion (he called it "Tumy" but we all knew it to be a rare terminal cancer at the base of his spine), he paused for a moment... and smiled... the light in his eyes lit up the entire room.
His funeral service a few weeks later was the most joyous and profound celebration of a life I have ever experienced. We were all sad beyond words at the senseless loss of our friend at such a young age, but more than that we were the luckiest people in the world to have shared his life.
That's the way of the world.
High school came and Jerrill (now called Bucky after another famous Dent) became a beloved athletic star, brainiac, and counselor to one and all. We learned how to drive together, we held our friend's head when he retched his guts out over a lost girl and too much tequila. When one of our other friends (the aforementioned nip named Bri) and I spotted him at the end of our high school hallway during room change (a year after our school entered the desgregation era by bussing in all the kids from the west side) we almost started our very own race riot. Bri had greeted Buck by shouting "Hey! Kunta!" innocently enough, or so we thought... apparently other people took race seriously. Having grown up as a smartass group of token irish (potato farmer/whitebread), black (kunta), mexican (wetback), japanese (nip), vietnamese (ho-chi min city), spanish (spic) kids, it was lost on us (still is).
Bucky and I went our own ways for college (he to the University of Chicago, me to the University of Illinois). We both married our college sweethearts and he decided to become not only a financial futures broker for Stanley Morgan but also a lay minister for his church. He had three children and a beautiful wife. He hosted monthly "how to be married" classes at his home (teaching my wife and I the odd and wondrous differences between men and women and the power of washing people's feet, of leading by serving).
Twenty years (though it seems like only a few short moments ago) after showing me the hustle and the truth about people with funny hair, as Jerrill related bouts with his now constant companion (he called it "Tumy" but we all knew it to be a rare terminal cancer at the base of his spine), he paused for a moment... and smiled... the light in his eyes lit up the entire room.
His funeral service a few weeks later was the most joyous and profound celebration of a life I have ever experienced. We were all sad beyond words at the senseless loss of our friend at such a young age, but more than that we were the luckiest people in the world to have shared his life.
That's the way of the world.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
A meal and some munchies (ok more books)
File "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini under "brutal and beautiful" maybe under "glass impregnated kite fighting in the streets of kabul," either way, read it. It made me wonder what other rich cultures have been blown apart lately and turned into poster children for the warhol five minutes of fame rule of trivialization. Sad but ultimately optimistic.
"Forty Signs of Rain" by Kim Stanley Robinson. Yes topical since its about impending global warming and the flooding and politics that come along for the ride. A bit hollow though (I get through the whole book and think... ok... so.)
"Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman (yup he's got a movie out this weekend too called MirrorMask) is about two brothers who have to cope with having a trickster god as a father. Fun, light superhero/origins sorta read set in present day london.
"Camouflage" a new book by Joe Haldeman was one of those read it in a day or two, alien(s) living among us, character studies.
What the hell am I gonna read now?
"Forty Signs of Rain" by Kim Stanley Robinson. Yes topical since its about impending global warming and the flooding and politics that come along for the ride. A bit hollow though (I get through the whole book and think... ok... so.)
"Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman (yup he's got a movie out this weekend too called MirrorMask) is about two brothers who have to cope with having a trickster god as a father. Fun, light superhero/origins sorta read set in present day london.
"Camouflage" a new book by Joe Haldeman was one of those read it in a day or two, alien(s) living among us, character studies.
What the hell am I gonna read now?
Sunday, September 18, 2005
2005 aiga design conference last day
Saturday was a full day at the conference. Highlights?
1. Paula Scher, Pentagram; and Ben Karlin (writer), The Daily Show with Jon Stewart talked about the labor of love that was the 2.5 million selling America: The Book. They showed quite a bit of the process from initial sketches to literally hundreds of comps (for things like the cover, which Warner Books pushed them to make the type much larger and the picture of John far more dominant than they ever imagined AND where they had John S. posing with a gold headed eagle--later photoshopped to white--- because bald eagles are banned from use in photography as endangered species). The spread of the supreme court justices naked (actually nudists from a colony with photoshopped heads) got them banned at Walmart and a spot at the top of the best sellers list for 49 weeks. If they could combine this sort of humor and visualization of ideas with Sarah Vowell's true (and hysterical) historic journalism about our country it would change the face of history education in our country, seriously.
2. Ze Frank (who helped out with our Experience Design Conference a few years back) claimed to have been selected as the lead designer for the homeland security administration (he wasn't) and basically did a schtick on crappy design and in particular safety cards in airplane (why doens't the card ever show you what happens AFTER you've deployed the rafts and the sun goes down?... that's a whole other card...
3. Bill Strickland (My wife Lynn was a resident artist at Bill's Manchester Craftsmens Guild for a number of years when we first moved to the city so I've heard about him and attended some amazing openings and performances there but never seen him speak) not only choked up the entire 2000+ crowd with his autobiographical story of hope in the inner city facilitated by hands on education in the arts coupled with respect (his point was that art is a portal for poor, disenfranchised members of our society to find relevance, value and success) but also effective shamed the bellyaching "gee no one ever listens to designers, we want a seat at the table, how can we possibly help effect positive change in the world" defeatist element of the design community into understanding that the hard parts are easy (when asked by a visiting school teacher how Bill was able to get fresh flowers into his school he replied "I grab my truck and go to the store and buy them" and the easy parts are sometimes the hardest (ex. he planned on convincing senator heinz into funding a little bit of his carpenter/workman training center, John asked him if he could build a chefs school so Heinz could cover their equal opportunity requirements by having some black chefs to hire... Bill said "well, we don't really know anything about cooking," John said "what if I gave you a million dollars...." to which Bill replied, "looks like we're going into the cooking business," at which point they invited world class chefs to teach cooking, insisted that all students get to eat the gourmet cooking for lunch everyday and then he invited someone from Bayer (of asprin fame) to stop by for some salmon at his chef's school and by impressing the guy from Bayer so much with the cooking steamrolled it into a pharmaceutical training school and later a computer school, care of HP's lunch visit for salmon not to mention x number of jazz emmys after dizzy gillespie heard about the place... being agile enough to not only make the opportunities happen but to follow through and roll with the flow to actually get something done takes work). This was only a small part of the sorta unbelievable story of a poor boy who at 16 learned how to throw clay while listening to jazz greats in the classroom of a teacher who actually gave a shit, went on to pull kids off the streets to teach them and as of this writing is on the verge of launching art/technology centers in a number of cities based on his learning. 22 years being open, no vandalism, no security systems, world class facilities (they record their jazz records in a space designed by Paul Simon's sound engineer for free), tons of kids through college on full ride scholarships and a few earning advanced awards, a few block from where the same kids go to school amidst iron bars, armed security guards and grafitti laden school houses, can the rest of us please get off our a--es? His secrets included expecting people to act civilized in a civilized environment, expecting art and leading edge topics to unite disparate cultures rather than divide them, and blatantly asking for help from rich people and in a way exploiting their need to assage their guilt and their hope to find a way to spend money on something that actually could be effective. He has created a shadow local government from the ground up, while everyone stood around hoping that those poor people would just go away. I can't do his talk justice so I'll stop now and end with two quotes:
A. "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -George Bernard Shaw
B. "Never doubt that a small group of committed individuals can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
4. During the conference main session each day there were short interstitial presentations about design techniques (like collage, camera absentia, etc.) and today's best one was the idea of using a polaroid camera to create a film by shooting a hell of a lot of still shots and then stacking them up... (great if you have stock in polaroid)... I'm not convinced that the sample shown was actually done this way but it was so well done that I'm not sure if I care (each one of these interstitials culminated with a "Its been done before" example, I think this was both to celebrate some of the amazing work being done out there and to remind people that these sorts of experimentations have been around for quite a while so stop being so precious with your theoretically groundbreaking "big idea" for technique... someone already did it... like most conceptual stuff plenty of people have thought of just about any thought, its what you do with it once you think it that counts....) in this case it was a music video for Breath Me by Sia and directed by Daniel Askill (the song used at the end of Six Feet Under's Show finale)... see it here (small) or or here (large).
5. Colin Drummond of Crispin Porter + Bogusky (350 person ad agency in florida who do all the fighting chicken/fiberglass burger king and minicooper brand things) talked us through the process they used to research and define the differentiating factors of a minicooper and how they exploited media in non-traditional ways to drive the launch of the mini in the US (with a budget that was 15 percent of the budget that VW used for the beetle launch). Examples? they mounted minicoopers in malls as if it were coin operated rides (you could really get in them)... of course the price for a "ride" was $16k in quarters. They also did the fake robot builder website (robots built out of mini's are spotted in the english countryside ala the yetti), the CCC (the counter counterfeit commission to stop people from buying fake minis) and my favorite one, they negotiated (for 30k which is a pittance in Ad land) with the Weekly World News to use BatBoy (their best "property") in a promotion in their newspapers across the country (Batboy was on the cover along with a speeding mini crossing state lines and being chased by cops... apparently when he was spotted he grabbed one and ran... poor kid). Their point was to make the mini an icon rather than a fad. His icon building list?
A - Defining look (think absolut bottle). Mini has a contrasting roof so use it.
B - Unique ability to elicit an emotional response "Show them the car."
C - Take on and transcend characteristics from outside their catagory. imac=candy. (Associate the mini with a bulldog)
E - Icons have a unique "defining" differentiator in their catagory. The MINI is ranked among porsches for handling and exhileration BUT they're super cost effective (16k), so play up the fun/cheap angle.
F - An ability to connect with and reflect the values of a broad user base (so not a small demographic based on age, but rather based on attitude).
6. Sagmeister preached happiness which sounds so lame when I type it now, but he has always been inspiring and coupling Bill Strickland's bootstrap life improvement with Stefan's often simple but deviously clever (it is hard not to smile when you see the work he does and inspires in his students) design work and manifesto on creating things that bring a smile was the culmination of a powerful day (his list to himself of "lessons learned" in seeking happiness included something along the lines of "stop complaining and act or just forget it," and "being bold has worked for me.") To give you a sense of the sorts of things he's been doing with his students, he asked them to design something that would make someone close to them happy, design something else that will make a small group happy and design something that will make a large audience of people they didn't know happy. One team put a small viewmaster style thingy out on the street across the way from a major downtown building and when people looked into the viewfinder their blinking eyes where video'd and played back as a giant pair of eyes looking out through windows and blinking near the top of the building for the city to see (I suspect that the view was out into the city from the top of same building). Another designer did a day planner that was thick enough (enough days) to cover your entire life from birth to death (87 years geing the current average), with a handy bookmark strip to help you see how much more life you had ahead, or how little time you had left... the book had a spine that was about a foot thick.
6. The last part of the conference was the gala party at the Museum of Science. Yes I finally got to see Mathmatica by Charles and Ray Eames (can someone please stop telling people that "experience design" started when the dot.com boom began?) if you get to Boston, go to this place. There is more to say about the party but until I get the pictures from the camera loaded up I'll suffice it to say that we spent the evening as an entourage/pr/comedy troupe (well, in our own minds we were amusing) for a conference celebrity. More to come.
1. Paula Scher, Pentagram; and Ben Karlin (writer), The Daily Show with Jon Stewart talked about the labor of love that was the 2.5 million selling America: The Book. They showed quite a bit of the process from initial sketches to literally hundreds of comps (for things like the cover, which Warner Books pushed them to make the type much larger and the picture of John far more dominant than they ever imagined AND where they had John S. posing with a gold headed eagle--later photoshopped to white--- because bald eagles are banned from use in photography as endangered species). The spread of the supreme court justices naked (actually nudists from a colony with photoshopped heads) got them banned at Walmart and a spot at the top of the best sellers list for 49 weeks. If they could combine this sort of humor and visualization of ideas with Sarah Vowell's true (and hysterical) historic journalism about our country it would change the face of history education in our country, seriously.
2. Ze Frank (who helped out with our Experience Design Conference a few years back) claimed to have been selected as the lead designer for the homeland security administration (he wasn't) and basically did a schtick on crappy design and in particular safety cards in airplane (why doens't the card ever show you what happens AFTER you've deployed the rafts and the sun goes down?... that's a whole other card...
3. Bill Strickland (My wife Lynn was a resident artist at Bill's Manchester Craftsmens Guild for a number of years when we first moved to the city so I've heard about him and attended some amazing openings and performances there but never seen him speak) not only choked up the entire 2000+ crowd with his autobiographical story of hope in the inner city facilitated by hands on education in the arts coupled with respect (his point was that art is a portal for poor, disenfranchised members of our society to find relevance, value and success) but also effective shamed the bellyaching "gee no one ever listens to designers, we want a seat at the table, how can we possibly help effect positive change in the world" defeatist element of the design community into understanding that the hard parts are easy (when asked by a visiting school teacher how Bill was able to get fresh flowers into his school he replied "I grab my truck and go to the store and buy them" and the easy parts are sometimes the hardest (ex. he planned on convincing senator heinz into funding a little bit of his carpenter/workman training center, John asked him if he could build a chefs school so Heinz could cover their equal opportunity requirements by having some black chefs to hire... Bill said "well, we don't really know anything about cooking," John said "what if I gave you a million dollars...." to which Bill replied, "looks like we're going into the cooking business," at which point they invited world class chefs to teach cooking, insisted that all students get to eat the gourmet cooking for lunch everyday and then he invited someone from Bayer (of asprin fame) to stop by for some salmon at his chef's school and by impressing the guy from Bayer so much with the cooking steamrolled it into a pharmaceutical training school and later a computer school, care of HP's lunch visit for salmon not to mention x number of jazz emmys after dizzy gillespie heard about the place... being agile enough to not only make the opportunities happen but to follow through and roll with the flow to actually get something done takes work). This was only a small part of the sorta unbelievable story of a poor boy who at 16 learned how to throw clay while listening to jazz greats in the classroom of a teacher who actually gave a shit, went on to pull kids off the streets to teach them and as of this writing is on the verge of launching art/technology centers in a number of cities based on his learning. 22 years being open, no vandalism, no security systems, world class facilities (they record their jazz records in a space designed by Paul Simon's sound engineer for free), tons of kids through college on full ride scholarships and a few earning advanced awards, a few block from where the same kids go to school amidst iron bars, armed security guards and grafitti laden school houses, can the rest of us please get off our a--es? His secrets included expecting people to act civilized in a civilized environment, expecting art and leading edge topics to unite disparate cultures rather than divide them, and blatantly asking for help from rich people and in a way exploiting their need to assage their guilt and their hope to find a way to spend money on something that actually could be effective. He has created a shadow local government from the ground up, while everyone stood around hoping that those poor people would just go away. I can't do his talk justice so I'll stop now and end with two quotes:
A. "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -George Bernard Shaw
B. "Never doubt that a small group of committed individuals can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
4. During the conference main session each day there were short interstitial presentations about design techniques (like collage, camera absentia, etc.) and today's best one was the idea of using a polaroid camera to create a film by shooting a hell of a lot of still shots and then stacking them up... (great if you have stock in polaroid)... I'm not convinced that the sample shown was actually done this way but it was so well done that I'm not sure if I care (each one of these interstitials culminated with a "Its been done before" example, I think this was both to celebrate some of the amazing work being done out there and to remind people that these sorts of experimentations have been around for quite a while so stop being so precious with your theoretically groundbreaking "big idea" for technique... someone already did it... like most conceptual stuff plenty of people have thought of just about any thought, its what you do with it once you think it that counts....) in this case it was a music video for Breath Me by Sia and directed by Daniel Askill (the song used at the end of Six Feet Under's Show finale)... see it here (small) or or here (large).
5. Colin Drummond of Crispin Porter + Bogusky (350 person ad agency in florida who do all the fighting chicken/fiberglass burger king and minicooper brand things) talked us through the process they used to research and define the differentiating factors of a minicooper and how they exploited media in non-traditional ways to drive the launch of the mini in the US (with a budget that was 15 percent of the budget that VW used for the beetle launch). Examples? they mounted minicoopers in malls as if it were coin operated rides (you could really get in them)... of course the price for a "ride" was $16k in quarters. They also did the fake robot builder website (robots built out of mini's are spotted in the english countryside ala the yetti), the CCC (the counter counterfeit commission to stop people from buying fake minis) and my favorite one, they negotiated (for 30k which is a pittance in Ad land) with the Weekly World News to use BatBoy (their best "property") in a promotion in their newspapers across the country (Batboy was on the cover along with a speeding mini crossing state lines and being chased by cops... apparently when he was spotted he grabbed one and ran... poor kid). Their point was to make the mini an icon rather than a fad. His icon building list?
A - Defining look (think absolut bottle). Mini has a contrasting roof so use it.
B - Unique ability to elicit an emotional response "Show them the car."
C - Take on and transcend characteristics from outside their catagory. imac=candy. (Associate the mini with a bulldog)
E - Icons have a unique "defining" differentiator in their catagory. The MINI is ranked among porsches for handling and exhileration BUT they're super cost effective (16k), so play up the fun/cheap angle.
F - An ability to connect with and reflect the values of a broad user base (so not a small demographic based on age, but rather based on attitude).
6. Sagmeister preached happiness which sounds so lame when I type it now, but he has always been inspiring and coupling Bill Strickland's bootstrap life improvement with Stefan's often simple but deviously clever (it is hard not to smile when you see the work he does and inspires in his students) design work and manifesto on creating things that bring a smile was the culmination of a powerful day (his list to himself of "lessons learned" in seeking happiness included something along the lines of "stop complaining and act or just forget it," and "being bold has worked for me.") To give you a sense of the sorts of things he's been doing with his students, he asked them to design something that would make someone close to them happy, design something else that will make a small group happy and design something that will make a large audience of people they didn't know happy. One team put a small viewmaster style thingy out on the street across the way from a major downtown building and when people looked into the viewfinder their blinking eyes where video'd and played back as a giant pair of eyes looking out through windows and blinking near the top of the building for the city to see (I suspect that the view was out into the city from the top of same building). Another designer did a day planner that was thick enough (enough days) to cover your entire life from birth to death (87 years geing the current average), with a handy bookmark strip to help you see how much more life you had ahead, or how little time you had left... the book had a spine that was about a foot thick.
6. The last part of the conference was the gala party at the Museum of Science. Yes I finally got to see Mathmatica by Charles and Ray Eames (can someone please stop telling people that "experience design" started when the dot.com boom began?) if you get to Boston, go to this place. There is more to say about the party but until I get the pictures from the camera loaded up I'll suffice it to say that we spent the evening as an entourage/pr/comedy troupe (well, in our own minds we were amusing) for a conference celebrity. More to come.
Friday, September 16, 2005
2005 aiga design conference day 1 (for me)
Just finished day one of the AIGA design conference,
no doubt the five best parts of today's general session were:
1.Barney Frank (a congressman) talked about the role government should (and shouldn't play) in our lives and how designers could make a difference, he was later joined by John Hockenberry (Dateline/NBC guy, very good MC for the event)for a bit of debate.
2.Design for Democracy designer Dori Tunsdall, Hockenberry, David Gibson (Two Twelve Associates... these guys had a chunk of plane land on their conference table across the street from the world trade center on 9/11), and Lori Ann Reed (head of AIGA/New Orleans... days after Katrina) talked about what designers could do to shore up the flagging social capital of our country... which made me think that we need to invent a special design forces corp that could sweep into a disaster area in a hummer outfitted with a giant banner making digital printer (ala the bookmobile that prints books on the fly) to post useful directional and informational signage (big print'm out banners that flack jacket wearing commandos could tear off and slap on the sides of whatever is left standing) for the evacuees and survivors so they can find safety (Lori Ann Reed noted that during Katrina there was really no way for her to tell if it was safe to go certain directions in town or what was truth and what was sensationalizm)... Hockenberry noted the old Civil Defense (CD) signage that used to instill a sense of assurance on us when we grew up... that there was a plan...he also wondered why cnn could have a graphic designer whip up a"katrina news" graphic so fast yet getting clear directions out of a disaster strewn town (that wallmart could get stuff to by the way even when the mayor/gov/et al. couldn't) was impossible...(though note to self, buy cans of spray paint for home just in case global warming makes my house into beachfront property and I have to write messages to the sky)
3. 2020... at key points during the session 1 minute was given to select designers to do whatever they wanted onstage in front of 2000 people... mixed results but great idea.
4. the point where DJ spooky showed this clip by Hexstatic (ft. Juice Aleem).
5. Michel Gondry's music video ("La Tour De Pise" BY JEAN FRANCOIS COEN) was shown as a short interlude... it was a stunning collage of words and letters "found" around a bustling country (france) that combined to visually spell out all of the words to the song. A great collection of his work is here (just buy it)... you know him, he did eternal sunshine, and a bunch of commercials and video for people like radiohead, chemical brothers, foo fighter, and bjork (human behavior was their first collaboration). See the trailer for the collection (unfortunately the trailer doesn't have the aforementioned video) here.
In the afternoon there were portfolio reviews (of student work) and smaller breakout sessions. I went to Horoshi Ishii's
tangible bits session, not surprising if you follow tangible computing (or are a practioner) but sooooo well articulated and fun.
Then we saw Christopher Walkens and Philippe Starck fighting over some free beer tickets at the evening happy hour (they knocked over John Maeda's wine glass just before tripping on rudy's distended ego), visited Adobe's booth which was covered with these things called Versa Tiles and ate dinner on the champs elysees (uh, no, boston right? hmmm,) ok... we pissed in the alley on a lexus and dined on hummus and fondue (eschewing the crab meat due to my delicate sensibilities).
no doubt the five best parts of today's general session were:
1.Barney Frank (a congressman) talked about the role government should (and shouldn't play) in our lives and how designers could make a difference, he was later joined by John Hockenberry (Dateline/NBC guy, very good MC for the event)for a bit of debate.
2.Design for Democracy designer Dori Tunsdall, Hockenberry, David Gibson (Two Twelve Associates... these guys had a chunk of plane land on their conference table across the street from the world trade center on 9/11), and Lori Ann Reed (head of AIGA/New Orleans... days after Katrina) talked about what designers could do to shore up the flagging social capital of our country... which made me think that we need to invent a special design forces corp that could sweep into a disaster area in a hummer outfitted with a giant banner making digital printer (ala the bookmobile that prints books on the fly) to post useful directional and informational signage (big print'm out banners that flack jacket wearing commandos could tear off and slap on the sides of whatever is left standing) for the evacuees and survivors so they can find safety (Lori Ann Reed noted that during Katrina there was really no way for her to tell if it was safe to go certain directions in town or what was truth and what was sensationalizm)... Hockenberry noted the old Civil Defense (CD) signage that used to instill a sense of assurance on us when we grew up... that there was a plan...he also wondered why cnn could have a graphic designer whip up a"katrina news" graphic so fast yet getting clear directions out of a disaster strewn town (that wallmart could get stuff to by the way even when the mayor/gov/et al. couldn't) was impossible...(though note to self, buy cans of spray paint for home just in case global warming makes my house into beachfront property and I have to write messages to the sky)
3. 2020... at key points during the session 1 minute was given to select designers to do whatever they wanted onstage in front of 2000 people... mixed results but great idea.
4. the point where DJ spooky showed this clip by Hexstatic (ft. Juice Aleem).
5. Michel Gondry's music video ("La Tour De Pise" BY JEAN FRANCOIS COEN) was shown as a short interlude... it was a stunning collage of words and letters "found" around a bustling country (france) that combined to visually spell out all of the words to the song. A great collection of his work is here (just buy it)... you know him, he did eternal sunshine, and a bunch of commercials and video for people like radiohead, chemical brothers, foo fighter, and bjork (human behavior was their first collaboration). See the trailer for the collection (unfortunately the trailer doesn't have the aforementioned video) here.
In the afternoon there were portfolio reviews (of student work) and smaller breakout sessions. I went to Horoshi Ishii's
tangible bits session, not surprising if you follow tangible computing (or are a practioner) but sooooo well articulated and fun.
Then we saw Christopher Walkens and Philippe Starck fighting over some free beer tickets at the evening happy hour (they knocked over John Maeda's wine glass just before tripping on rudy's distended ego), visited Adobe's booth which was covered with these things called Versa Tiles and ate dinner on the champs elysees (uh, no, boston right? hmmm,) ok... we pissed in the alley on a lexus and dined on hummus and fondue (eschewing the crab meat due to my delicate sensibilities).
Monday, September 05, 2005
Big Crunch
Well anyway, that was how I ended up holding the bottle that held the liquid that ended life as we knew it at 5:45pm on a Sunday morning in the year of our lord 2005. Looking back I realize that waking up that day, getting out of bed, was my one fatal mistake. Really it was the breakfast, I needed Cap' n' Crunch to scour away my palette and found none. I guess it was the choice of grocery bots. Or the coupon, yes, that had quite a bit to do with our current stateless state.
Although the new brand, the next thing in crunch had tempted me with its seductive concept. I didn't fall until the price, the coupon, the hunger, the morning of the beginning of the month, all conspired to lend a hand. Actually, the crunch alone -- the new, improved, I finally fell for it, no milk needed, self-soggying, self-repairing, self-refilling, practically self-chewing Cap' n of tomorrow's bowl of love -- didn't really do it.
It was me, not reading, too early, just need me some of that new crunch, counter-indications be damned, gen-gineered milk buying, mixer of things best left unmixed, me.
Although, in hindsight, I think Microsoft, Genentech, Kelloggs, and Farmer Brown at the dairy, even the damn fool Cap' n himself could have thought a little harder about the costs and benefits of this new synergistic 2%.
I still think that if I could find my spoon, and mobilize my buddy list, we could overcome my runaway breakfast before it reaches the earth's crust. I only wish the self-repairing roof of my self-despairing mouth could keep up with my accelerated need for speed. But I'm no friend of Von Neumann Bucky-ball-viral-Cap' n' Crunch, and Microsoft-Genentech Skim. THE THING IS, THEY DON'T MIX. I only wish the warning label was a little bigger, or my bottle of self-fulfilling moo a little smaller, or the supply of carbon atoms in the solar system a little more unlimited, or a little less appealing to all those tin-pot despots of the spoon and bowl.
Although the new brand, the next thing in crunch had tempted me with its seductive concept. I didn't fall until the price, the coupon, the hunger, the morning of the beginning of the month, all conspired to lend a hand. Actually, the crunch alone -- the new, improved, I finally fell for it, no milk needed, self-soggying, self-repairing, self-refilling, practically self-chewing Cap' n of tomorrow's bowl of love -- didn't really do it.
It was me, not reading, too early, just need me some of that new crunch, counter-indications be damned, gen-gineered milk buying, mixer of things best left unmixed, me.
Although, in hindsight, I think Microsoft, Genentech, Kelloggs, and Farmer Brown at the dairy, even the damn fool Cap' n himself could have thought a little harder about the costs and benefits of this new synergistic 2%.
I still think that if I could find my spoon, and mobilize my buddy list, we could overcome my runaway breakfast before it reaches the earth's crust. I only wish the self-repairing roof of my self-despairing mouth could keep up with my accelerated need for speed. But I'm no friend of Von Neumann Bucky-ball-viral-Cap' n' Crunch, and Microsoft-Genentech Skim. THE THING IS, THEY DON'T MIX. I only wish the warning label was a little bigger, or my bottle of self-fulfilling moo a little smaller, or the supply of carbon atoms in the solar system a little more unlimited, or a little less appealing to all those tin-pot despots of the spoon and bowl.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Backstory part 2: My seester
It began innocently enough, we had walked out onto the porch and discussed the characteristics and properties of a jump to wisconsin, the headwind, drag and associated gravitational effects seemed minimal from our hacienda on the shores (or not too far away from the shores) of lake michigan in the idle county of cook on a summer in the city of chicago. She said she could do it in one jump and proceeded to climb the railing to take flight and as she departed for points west (having little understanding of the directionality or position of our porch with regard to the land of cheese and beer) in a graceful but ultimately ankle breakingly tragic arc we all decided that flying maybe WAS for the birds. How we were later blamed for pushing her off the porch and onto the waiting brick border of our garden (a garden in name only since dirt was the only flower our family could grow) we will never fathom, we few noble men, we 3 brothers in crime where innocent... innocent I tell yah. She was tall and we called her "bossman" and taunted her when she wasn't protecting us from the bullies and roustabouts and 2 bit irish catholic parochial school bastards that hunted us poor public school saints. We had our own harrowing adventures (she and I) with our tank/baby-sitter/gram who smoked 500 packs of cigarettes a day, and liked us to nap so she could get a break from our experiments in creative house destruction. To this day I haven't smoked anything (more than tires on one of our legion of vintage automobiles) because of a promise Alanna extracted out of me during one of our gramtastic adventures. It seemed that at the age of 8 or 9 our grams smoking was the most interesting thing in the world and we didn't let up in our questioning of the activity until said tankgirl of the aughts dragged us into the kitchen, tossed two cigarettes onto the burners of the stove to light them and shoved them into our (now humble please get us outta here dear god don't not that yikes) mouths. "There!" gram grunted as fire shot from her eyes, "Smoke." Huddling in our room afterwards my sister made us each tearfully swear to never, ever touch the cancersticks (it was fairly obvious that smoking would lead to thick pseudo irish accents, shelalee clubbings, and fire shooting out of your eyes while you accosted small children and snored the shingles off of fine victorian homes of distinction and we wanted nothing to do with it). Our promise seemed to work until I broke both arms in a fateful revisiting of the porch railing (this time atop an 8' unicycle of my own design, but that's another story) was rushed to the emergency room, doped up on painkillers and dragged out, arms in casts to my first "explorer" party by said sister bossman confidant teen rebel trying to cheer up the numb 16 year old on his second day off for summer vacation. She smoked? She drank (so did I as my casts became canvases for duct taped beer cans and hastily scrawled "get wells" from the neighborhood scouts of distinction)! But.... we.... made a promise. The teen years were enlightening and growing up was a joy... but smoking? Luckily it didn't last long (youthful rebellion was writ small in our family because there was little to rebel against as we were mcmani against the world more than anything else). She was ultimately my secret weapon against becoming a complete social outcast, she still surprises me (I'm the one who could climb mountains as a youth, the monkeyboy of rogers park, and she's the one who now runs marathons while I make epic movements of bits and bytes as I exercise my fingers and fain health in the downward spiral of a body well past any sort of expected expiration date). I don't see Alanna much anymore, in our family where there was never really a goodbye or a hello, never a stranger that didn't become a friend/freeloader/dinner guest, never a need to call because life just happened and you were together when you were and love was a birthright and a waiting hug in our mother's arms (even when she was too weak to walk and we were gargantuan ogres of early middle gauge), but I know she's somewhere out there, the new center of gravity of the bombastic clan mcmani (because all the boys are so blind and callous that we'd be hardpressed to care for anyone but our own damn selves), bossman lives.
books for the end of summer
More books? Yes, I don't sleep and I just started a little vacation.
Bidness?
"The World is Flat" - A short history of the 21st century (just buy the damn book and read it, its fast and has real case studies into why the 21st century is going to be a wild ride)...
"Freakonomics"... fun collision of statistical analysis and politically incorrect questions (does naming your kid a funny name change his life? did Roe V Wade make the crime spree of the 90's plummet? why do crack dealers live with their moms?) ... the world's leading young economist collaborates with a number of researchers to ask how the world really works (versus how we'd like it to work).
Recreation?
I probably mentioned this somewhere else but if you haven't read Neil Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" or "Cryptonomicon" you're missing out (this is only for those people who actually enjoy reading, alot...) he likes to write and digresses and cross cuts and does all sorts of flourishes along the way. Learn about where the word assassin comes from, how money became money, the dangers of being a woman in 15th and 16th century europe, the birth life and death and rebirth of Isaac Newton, the beginnings of computing and various wars carnage and wordplay.
Speaking of assassins... "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" and "Assassination Vacation" both by Sarah Vowel were just plain fun ramblings about our own sordid american history. Who knew that if abraham lincoln's son showed up in town, a president would die (3 did including lincoln himself). Or that the people who brought us fine cookware today started as a sex cult in the northeast devoted to town-wide sex (a sacrament of God) but sadly not love.
"Middlesex" by the guy who wrote the Virgin Suicides is absorbing and quixotic. About a couple coming to America from Greece at the turn of the last century (and doing not so smart things with their homegrown genetic laboratory of a family) and the outcome of such tinkering in a small suburb of life called middlesex.
"Fortress of Solitude" by Jonathan Lethem is a bittersweet (oops sounds like a book review) snapshot of growing up in NYC in the 70's. Any of Jon's books are delectable (he does absurd ones too). Damaged and broken characters (I just described us all) try hard to grow up amidst the "brickhouses" and gangland hijinks of the inner city. I note "brickhouse" a classic song from the times because the main character has an ear and a love for music. The main character is also a superhero after a drunk falls from the sky and gives him his ring (did I mention that part yet?)
"Motherless Brooklyn" also by JL is a detective thriller with a twist. The main character has tourette's syndrome and he and his brothers (all homeless boys who grew up in a home for unwanted children) are on a quest to solve a murder. Funny and sad and beautiful.
"The Men Who Stare at Goats" by Jon Ronson (the guy who wrote the most prescient and comically tragic book about extremists... pre 9/11... and who they think are after them... called "Them: Adventures with Extremists"). This time he looks into the true story of a covert part of the government that stare at goats (trying to burst their hearts), walk into walls, dress like flower power commandos and generally try to do things telekinetic and odd for their country.
Speaking of Jons, "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" is a pretty impressive tale of almost true history about magicians in the early times (maybe 1600s or 1700s?) of england. I don't generally like fantasy but this one is compelling.
"The Dante Club"... a fun "who done it" based on dante's inferno and the real life characters that tried to bring it to america back in the early 1900s... murder mystery for people who like litter ahh chew uh.
"Never Let Me Go"... by the guy who wrote "Remains of the Day".... about kids raised in a private academy for some sort of shadowy purpose. I didn't really get into this one too much and kept waiting for something more to happen... but you with your smaller brain and prehensile tail may find it compelling.
"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" was good. Autistic sleuth tries to figure out who killed a neighborhood dog. Really well done with an intriguing taste of what its like to be autistic in a world where everyone else can filter out the noise.
Sci-Fi Fluff (obviously this list is drifting that way by this point so...)?
Charles Stross has some pretty hard sci-fi stuff going on (kinda ian banks english dry wit)... "Iron Sunrise" and "Singularity Sky." Good read if you're looking for escape.
L.E. Modesitt Jr.'s "Flash" is also pretty good fluff, its set in a world where product placement is king and politicians have figured out how to manipulate minds with it (no surprises) and there is the requisite exmarine do gooder caught in the middle of a conspiracy, modified by a shadowy "Q" like AI and on the run...
Just got Kim Stanley Robinson's "Forty Signs of Rain" but haven't started it yet...
(I'd say "stay tuned" but I just don't post stuff very often.... so go grab a snack).
Bidness?
"The World is Flat" - A short history of the 21st century (just buy the damn book and read it, its fast and has real case studies into why the 21st century is going to be a wild ride)...
"Freakonomics"... fun collision of statistical analysis and politically incorrect questions (does naming your kid a funny name change his life? did Roe V Wade make the crime spree of the 90's plummet? why do crack dealers live with their moms?) ... the world's leading young economist collaborates with a number of researchers to ask how the world really works (versus how we'd like it to work).
Recreation?
I probably mentioned this somewhere else but if you haven't read Neil Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" or "Cryptonomicon" you're missing out (this is only for those people who actually enjoy reading, alot...) he likes to write and digresses and cross cuts and does all sorts of flourishes along the way. Learn about where the word assassin comes from, how money became money, the dangers of being a woman in 15th and 16th century europe, the birth life and death and rebirth of Isaac Newton, the beginnings of computing and various wars carnage and wordplay.
Speaking of assassins... "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" and "Assassination Vacation" both by Sarah Vowel were just plain fun ramblings about our own sordid american history. Who knew that if abraham lincoln's son showed up in town, a president would die (3 did including lincoln himself). Or that the people who brought us fine cookware today started as a sex cult in the northeast devoted to town-wide sex (a sacrament of God) but sadly not love.
"Middlesex" by the guy who wrote the Virgin Suicides is absorbing and quixotic. About a couple coming to America from Greece at the turn of the last century (and doing not so smart things with their homegrown genetic laboratory of a family) and the outcome of such tinkering in a small suburb of life called middlesex.
"Fortress of Solitude" by Jonathan Lethem is a bittersweet (oops sounds like a book review) snapshot of growing up in NYC in the 70's. Any of Jon's books are delectable (he does absurd ones too). Damaged and broken characters (I just described us all) try hard to grow up amidst the "brickhouses" and gangland hijinks of the inner city. I note "brickhouse" a classic song from the times because the main character has an ear and a love for music. The main character is also a superhero after a drunk falls from the sky and gives him his ring (did I mention that part yet?)
"Motherless Brooklyn" also by JL is a detective thriller with a twist. The main character has tourette's syndrome and he and his brothers (all homeless boys who grew up in a home for unwanted children) are on a quest to solve a murder. Funny and sad and beautiful.
"The Men Who Stare at Goats" by Jon Ronson (the guy who wrote the most prescient and comically tragic book about extremists... pre 9/11... and who they think are after them... called "Them: Adventures with Extremists"). This time he looks into the true story of a covert part of the government that stare at goats (trying to burst their hearts), walk into walls, dress like flower power commandos and generally try to do things telekinetic and odd for their country.
Speaking of Jons, "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" is a pretty impressive tale of almost true history about magicians in the early times (maybe 1600s or 1700s?) of england. I don't generally like fantasy but this one is compelling.
"The Dante Club"... a fun "who done it" based on dante's inferno and the real life characters that tried to bring it to america back in the early 1900s... murder mystery for people who like litter ahh chew uh.
"Never Let Me Go"... by the guy who wrote "Remains of the Day".... about kids raised in a private academy for some sort of shadowy purpose. I didn't really get into this one too much and kept waiting for something more to happen... but you with your smaller brain and prehensile tail may find it compelling.
"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" was good. Autistic sleuth tries to figure out who killed a neighborhood dog. Really well done with an intriguing taste of what its like to be autistic in a world where everyone else can filter out the noise.
Sci-Fi Fluff (obviously this list is drifting that way by this point so...)?
Charles Stross has some pretty hard sci-fi stuff going on (kinda ian banks english dry wit)... "Iron Sunrise" and "Singularity Sky." Good read if you're looking for escape.
L.E. Modesitt Jr.'s "Flash" is also pretty good fluff, its set in a world where product placement is king and politicians have figured out how to manipulate minds with it (no surprises) and there is the requisite exmarine do gooder caught in the middle of a conspiracy, modified by a shadowy "Q" like AI and on the run...
Just got Kim Stanley Robinson's "Forty Signs of Rain" but haven't started it yet...
(I'd say "stay tuned" but I just don't post stuff very often.... so go grab a snack).
Monday, May 09, 2005
Reading I've been doing over the last 6-9 months...
Books I've recently finished...
"Unbelievably Loud and Incredibly Close".... best book of the year so far. Heartbreaking and bittersweet, funny and endlessly inventive 9 year old new yorker who loses his father in the twin towers tragedy spends the novel trying to figure out if his father (who loved to lead his son on wild treasure hunts with obscure clues) left some sort of message for him. The book also intercuts the story of his grandparents as world war 2 survivors coming to america....
Good example of kid's clever mind? he invents a birdseed shirt so that people who work in high rises could jump out the window and pigeons would attach themselves to the shirt to eat and fly the person to safety... giant LED ticker tape displays on the top of ambulances so that as they pass below you (manhattan apartment dweller) it could sense that you're looking and if a friend is inside the ambulance it could say "don't worry, I'll be ok" or "I love you, give julie a hug", etc.
I also read his first book (Jonathan Safran Foer) "Everything is Illuminated".... its going to be a movie this summer. Not as captivating so if you read it and stopped... go buy Incredibly close...
"Naked Pictures of Famous People" jon stewart's book of absurd short stories of him visiting and hanging out with various famous people (when hanging out with kennedy and his family kennedy's mom has 3-05 more kids and tosses the rejects.. those without dashing looks... under the stairs)... it was ok, but America the Book is better.
"The Wisdom of Crowds"... a fascinating book about the four main elements of successful group decision making with real world studies across a variety of decision-making types of things... (best real world example.. a sub was lost, the guy looking for it gave 5 different types of people, oceanographer, sub captain, weatherman, etc.... all the info he had... fuel consumption, last known heading, etc. then averaged the results and when the found the sub it was 30 meters from the answer)...
good companion to a fluffier book called "Blink"... pretty pop psych kinda thing about how people make nearly instant decisions and how/when they make "good" ones... fun if you don't know the state of this sort of art... good example? it turns out that the first rule of improvization is "go with it" if someone comes up to you during improv and says something like "oh, I see you lost your leg" the immediate reaction is to deny it... if you go with it, it usually turns out to be funny (because unexpected and often absurd)...
"Time Travelers Wife" (worth reading, fun with meeting yourself and teaching you how to steal stuff.... since time travelers can't bring their clothes or wallets with them). Very engaging, my baby loved it too, so that's gotta mean something.
David Sedaris's new book of stories (he just kills me). If you want to read about screwed up families you can do no better than reading this book (too lazy to walk 5 feet to see the name of the book tho.... just google it, uhh, wait I could google it.....must....slide mouse...reach open new window....button and type amazon.com... ). Its called "Dress your family in Corduroy and Denim" and then there is this aref plus some kind of incredibly overused punctuation thingy and http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316143464/qid=1093698692/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-2253528-5735300?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 and then another something something.
ok, I'm just saying that blogger could make my life a little easier by not punishing me for using a mac(ignore this if you don't get it).
David's best known as a contributor to this american life. My favorite book of his is "Me Talk Pretty One Day"
Devil in the White City is amazing history. All true, fine testament to what humans can accomplish (both evil and wonderful). Set in my hometown circa 1890 when they built the world's fair (right after paris did the whole... oui, we have built a big tower and eeet eeez an eyefull.)
Iron Council by China Mieville. I don't like fantasy as a rule, but this guy can write good stuff (gritty london circa 3000 years in the future after some sort of bad thing happened). Everything I've read by him is really fun. his unofficial homepage here
Dune: The battle for Corrin. Ok, I've been rereading all of frank herbert's stuff, and all of his son's prequels and I think I'm just about done. This one is a bit formulaic and might have been generated by a computer somewhere inside of google (you know that new "sets" thing that will write a book for you if you list three or four books that kinda are like the book you want).... but if you have neurons to waste go for it.
I also reread a bunch of Ian Banks stuff (Consider Phlebas, The State of the Art), he's got such a dry evil brit wit. If you're a reader, try to find Feersum Endjinn. About a generation ship that has been sailing for a very long time (hint the title is an example of the entire warped language that you'll have to read throughout the book, since english doesn't stay the same over a very long period of time).
"I thought my Father was God"... a great collection of "true" stories collected by NPR for their national stories project (actually a great idea, they asked listeners to send in short true life stories and then each week read them out loud).
Also I just bought my son "stranger in a strange land".... should I have done that? I seem to remember thinking that this was a good book for someone once they where an adult (I think I read it in my teeens). At least he'll learn how to grok.
"Unbelievably Loud and Incredibly Close".... best book of the year so far. Heartbreaking and bittersweet, funny and endlessly inventive 9 year old new yorker who loses his father in the twin towers tragedy spends the novel trying to figure out if his father (who loved to lead his son on wild treasure hunts with obscure clues) left some sort of message for him. The book also intercuts the story of his grandparents as world war 2 survivors coming to america....
Good example of kid's clever mind? he invents a birdseed shirt so that people who work in high rises could jump out the window and pigeons would attach themselves to the shirt to eat and fly the person to safety... giant LED ticker tape displays on the top of ambulances so that as they pass below you (manhattan apartment dweller) it could sense that you're looking and if a friend is inside the ambulance it could say "don't worry, I'll be ok" or "I love you, give julie a hug", etc.
I also read his first book (Jonathan Safran Foer) "Everything is Illuminated".... its going to be a movie this summer. Not as captivating so if you read it and stopped... go buy Incredibly close...
"Naked Pictures of Famous People" jon stewart's book of absurd short stories of him visiting and hanging out with various famous people (when hanging out with kennedy and his family kennedy's mom has 3-05 more kids and tosses the rejects.. those without dashing looks... under the stairs)... it was ok, but America the Book is better.
"The Wisdom of Crowds"... a fascinating book about the four main elements of successful group decision making with real world studies across a variety of decision-making types of things... (best real world example.. a sub was lost, the guy looking for it gave 5 different types of people, oceanographer, sub captain, weatherman, etc.... all the info he had... fuel consumption, last known heading, etc. then averaged the results and when the found the sub it was 30 meters from the answer)...
good companion to a fluffier book called "Blink"... pretty pop psych kinda thing about how people make nearly instant decisions and how/when they make "good" ones... fun if you don't know the state of this sort of art... good example? it turns out that the first rule of improvization is "go with it" if someone comes up to you during improv and says something like "oh, I see you lost your leg" the immediate reaction is to deny it... if you go with it, it usually turns out to be funny (because unexpected and often absurd)...
"Time Travelers Wife" (worth reading, fun with meeting yourself and teaching you how to steal stuff.... since time travelers can't bring their clothes or wallets with them). Very engaging, my baby loved it too, so that's gotta mean something.
David Sedaris's new book of stories (he just kills me). If you want to read about screwed up families you can do no better than reading this book (too lazy to walk 5 feet to see the name of the book tho.... just google it, uhh, wait I could google it.....must....slide mouse...reach open new window....button and type amazon.com... ). Its called "Dress your family in Corduroy and Denim" and then there is this aref plus some kind of incredibly overused punctuation thingy and http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316143464/qid=1093698692/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-2253528-5735300?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 and then another something something.
ok, I'm just saying that blogger could make my life a little easier by not punishing me for using a mac(ignore this if you don't get it).
David's best known as a contributor to this american life. My favorite book of his is "Me Talk Pretty One Day"
Devil in the White City is amazing history. All true, fine testament to what humans can accomplish (both evil and wonderful). Set in my hometown circa 1890 when they built the world's fair (right after paris did the whole... oui, we have built a big tower and eeet eeez an eyefull.)
Iron Council by China Mieville. I don't like fantasy as a rule, but this guy can write good stuff (gritty london circa 3000 years in the future after some sort of bad thing happened). Everything I've read by him is really fun. his unofficial homepage here
Dune: The battle for Corrin. Ok, I've been rereading all of frank herbert's stuff, and all of his son's prequels and I think I'm just about done. This one is a bit formulaic and might have been generated by a computer somewhere inside of google (you know that new "sets" thing that will write a book for you if you list three or four books that kinda are like the book you want).... but if you have neurons to waste go for it.
I also reread a bunch of Ian Banks stuff (Consider Phlebas, The State of the Art), he's got such a dry evil brit wit. If you're a reader, try to find Feersum Endjinn. About a generation ship that has been sailing for a very long time (hint the title is an example of the entire warped language that you'll have to read throughout the book, since english doesn't stay the same over a very long period of time).
"I thought my Father was God"... a great collection of "true" stories collected by NPR for their national stories project (actually a great idea, they asked listeners to send in short true life stories and then each week read them out loud).
Also I just bought my son "stranger in a strange land".... should I have done that? I seem to remember thinking that this was a good book for someone once they where an adult (I think I read it in my teeens). At least he'll learn how to grok.
Thursday, August 19, 2004
killing me softly
Julie Childs is dead. Another hero gone. Joel Stein does an adequate job noting some of her grace in last week's Time.
Jon Stewart and Pentagram are coming out with a book about democracy inaction, called America (the book)... an educational textbook that just sounds stunning. America is still alive and kicking.
Jon Stewart and Pentagram are coming out with a book about democracy inaction, called America (the book)... an educational textbook that just sounds stunning. America is still alive and kicking.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
backstory?
hmm, (insert self-deprecating, self-conscious comment about finally trying out this thing called blogger and wondering why I think I could have the time to log my thoughts daily when I can barely entertain them) now what.
Ok.
Fast summary of my life as of today (so I don't have to go backward and log my preweb life in any sort of detail....) or at least part 1 of summary
Lesee...
Born in chicago with a bit of jaundice (my first rejection) on good friday, right around the middle of a fabulous year for american cars and american dreams as the 4th child (they should have stopped after me, but no they had to have a red headed 6'5" monster baby who would later propel me about 6 feet headlong into a circa 1910 sewing machine with his proud strong 12 year old legs leading to a swirl of stars and an early and intimate understanding of edges and how they may intersect with users nay projectile children of users of products) in a family that would ultimately have four children (a heartbreak for my parents that I'm sure led them to cherish us all the more), a dog named (at one point aptly and later very much not aptly) Pretty (though it could be used as a modifier, "pretty ugly," which would serve to aptify the situation nicely), a succession of birds and fish and robot servants fashioned out of brake calipers and bicycle wheels and drunken uncles, and visiting dominican brothers of the cloth, and grumpy gaelic spouting perenially dying with six months to live as told to her by her doctor 20 years ago grandmas and just about any stray friend in need of a room and some food and little verbal reparte (my mom and dad had a very open "our house is your house, share the wealth" policy... if your wealth is measured in open arms and tight warm hugs and witty jibs and jabs, and a stumble down tumble down hundred year old victorian home a few blocks from the inland fresh water sea of michigan) with a mother/scientist/teacher/denmother/matriarch/oldest polio-stricken daughter left fatherless at the age of 12 who had to grow up fast to help around the stockyard cafe run by my (heretofor mentioned tank of a pearl handled gun toting) grandma/electronmicroscopist and a father/motorcycle racer/tinkerer/horse trader/pack leader/mechanic/teacher/rube goldberger/life is a grand adventurer/war veteran from the wrong side of the tracks.
Ok.
Fast summary of my life as of today (so I don't have to go backward and log my preweb life in any sort of detail....) or at least part 1 of summary
Lesee...
Born in chicago with a bit of jaundice (my first rejection) on good friday, right around the middle of a fabulous year for american cars and american dreams as the 4th child (they should have stopped after me, but no they had to have a red headed 6'5" monster baby who would later propel me about 6 feet headlong into a circa 1910 sewing machine with his proud strong 12 year old legs leading to a swirl of stars and an early and intimate understanding of edges and how they may intersect with users nay projectile children of users of products) in a family that would ultimately have four children (a heartbreak for my parents that I'm sure led them to cherish us all the more), a dog named (at one point aptly and later very much not aptly) Pretty (though it could be used as a modifier, "pretty ugly," which would serve to aptify the situation nicely), a succession of birds and fish and robot servants fashioned out of brake calipers and bicycle wheels and drunken uncles, and visiting dominican brothers of the cloth, and grumpy gaelic spouting perenially dying with six months to live as told to her by her doctor 20 years ago grandmas and just about any stray friend in need of a room and some food and little verbal reparte (my mom and dad had a very open "our house is your house, share the wealth" policy... if your wealth is measured in open arms and tight warm hugs and witty jibs and jabs, and a stumble down tumble down hundred year old victorian home a few blocks from the inland fresh water sea of michigan) with a mother/scientist/teacher/denmother/matriarch/oldest polio-stricken daughter left fatherless at the age of 12 who had to grow up fast to help around the stockyard cafe run by my (heretofor mentioned tank of a pearl handled gun toting) grandma/electronmicroscopist and a father/motorcycle racer/tinkerer/horse trader/pack leader/mechanic/teacher/rube goldberger/life is a grand adventurer/war veteran from the wrong side of the tracks.
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