Dancing Apart To the Beat By Myself

Does An Archive of Flavors Make Sense?

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:56:30 -0500

This is a paper I presented at a conference a couple weeks age.

Abandoned Books - MWF Seeking BFF

Wed, 08 May 2013 21:00:00 -0500

This is such a chick book I am sheepish for even starting it; I feel like I need to explain myself. The author lived in Chicago, was married, and was looking for friends. I, too, was living in Chicago, married, and woefully lacking in friends. I thought maybe I would relate. Sadly, the gulf between the sexes is too large. A woman’s quest for friends looks nothing like my own quest. Or maybe I just couldn’t relate to her because we have nothing in common (other than friend deficit). You tell me.

Reading List - I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:12:35 -0500

Richard Hell is a very good writer. He was not much of a musician, or much of a decent person. If he hadn’t chosen such an excellent name (he was born Richard Meyers), I doubt he would have ever been famous. His notoriety stems from being part of the CBGB scene, where he became a fashion icon and interacted with some genuinely talented musicians.

This biography moves along at a good clip, helped mostly by the fact that he was schoolboy friends with Tom Verlaine, one of the true geniuses of the punk moment. Hell was a high school dropout and aspiring poet who decided to become a musician, joining Verlaine in the earliest version of the revolutionary band Television. It’s at this point that the narrative starts to lose steam. The sex and drugs become monotonous and sad, and Hell doesn’t offer much hope or meaning or understanding.

Hell is notable for who he knew and where he was, not who he was. He’s really kind of pathetic. The early chapters offer hope that he could have been something, but he ends up mostly as a caricature. The book is still valuable as a document of the New York punk scene and its characters, notably the enigmatic Verlaine.

Reading List - Wild

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 17:47:33 -0500

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is a pretty dramatic thing to do. And pretty amazing. I can’t describe this book with either of those words. The book is overwritten in parts, and the dialogue, written years and years after the event, doesn’t ring true. I appreciate that the author never comes out with a trite summary explaining what the experience taught her. But it’s not really clear how the experience changed her, other than the obvious “overcoming the odds” and “finding self-reliance.”

Abandoned Books - Tenth of December

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:34:17 -0500

I made it to page 11 - INSUFFERABLE! “I AM A WRITER” emanates from every syllable. This guy is considered a genius? Maybe I’m just not sophisticated enough to appreciate him.

Reading List - The Last Policeman

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 22:27:45 -0500

An interesting premise: a loyal detective fights to solve a murder against the backdrop of an impending cataclysmic asteroid strike. Nobody else really cares about solving crimes when civilization is about to be wiped out. I didn’t really buy the portrait of a pre-apocalyptic collapse, and the mystery itself is not too compelling. Even worse, the sub-plot involving plans to build secret bases on the moon is just a distraction—actually, it’s the set-up for a sequel. It would have been nice if the two threads had come together at some point but they never do.

Abandoned Books - Lean In

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:44:18 -0500

Sheryl Sandberg’s book of advice to women in business has been in the news a lot lately so I figured I should read it to have an informed opinion. Also, I have two daughters and I want them to be successful and to be treated as equals by their coworkers. I was thinking maybe this book would have some advice for them.

I read a fair bit of the book before giving up and I have a few impressions. The first is that Sandberg gives some good, although fairly obvious, advice. Ya gotta work hard. Ya gotta be confident. Ya gotta keep improving. Blah Blah Blah.

My second impression is that I absolutely hate books about business management. I actually read a lot of business books, mostly finance, but I think management theory is mostly a crock of shit. And full of the most banal writing you will ever read. Take this example:

When I first joined Facebook, I was working with a team to answer the critical question of how best to grow our business. The conversations were getting heated, with many people arguing their own positions strongly. We ended the week without consensus. Dan Rose, leader of our deal team, spent the weekend gathering market data that allowed us to reframe the conversation in analytics. His effort broke the logjam. I then expanded Dan’s responsibilities to include product marketing. Taking initiative pays off. It is hard to visualize someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.

I would rather read a hundred L. Ron Hubbard novels than have to read another paragraph like this one. It just makes my skin crawl. And if you try to reframe my conversation in analytics I’m going to break your logjam.

My third impression is that I don’t want my daughters to be anything like Sheryl Sandberg. There’s really nothing about her I admire. My kids are incredibly talented and will be successful in any career they choose. I’ll support them no matter what they do—but deep down I’d prefer they not aim for the C-suite. (And for the record, I’d have the same hopes if my kids were boys. And dislike her just as much if she were a man.)

Abandoned Books - Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:44:23 -0500

There’s really nothing wrong with this book, the writing is fine and the story well told. It’s just that it doesn’t come close to another recent book with a similar title - The Long Walk. If you want to read a book about how bad war fucks you up then read that one first. But if you prefer wistfulness and nostalgia along with killing and horror you might like this one more.

Reading List - Gone Girl

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 09:49:39 -0600

If you’ve ever wondered what’s more important in making a book worthwhile reading—the author’s storytelling skill or the story itself—then you will be intrigued by this book. I raced through the first third of it completely enthralled before it begin to dawn on me that the story was absurd, the plot twists unconvincing, and the characters shallow stereotypes. But the writing is so good! The pacing is spot-on. There’s some social satire that’s insightful. I thoroughly enjoyed the reading experience even if at the end I thought it was about the stupidest mystery I’ve ever read.

Reading List - Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:52:49 -0600

Don’t be fooled by the Erma Bombeckian title: this is a harrowing read. Jeanette Winterson is a difficult individual, her prose is knotty, and her story is unpleasant. But the book is rewarding. You may not completely buy into Winterston’s claims about the life-affirming (life-saving actually) powers of English literature and poetry, but it’s refreshing to hear the argument made so forcefully.

Reading List - Going Clear

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:29:32 -0600

This one definitely goes in the “truth is stranger than fiction” file. Page after page is filled with such utter nonsense that you marvel at the sheer spectacle of it all. If the Scientologists are one hundredth as bad as Lawrence Wright portrays them (and I fear they are), then he is a brave man indeed for writing this book.

Reading List - The Thief

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:01:26 -0600

You know things are going to end up badly for the titular pickpocket from page one, and in fact they do. The pleasure of this book lies in embracing the darkness of Fuminori Nakamura’s Japanese underworld. As Lemony Snicket would say, “The world is a very scary place.” Loneliness and dread have seldom been more enjoyable.

Reading List - The Long Walk

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:14:00 -0600

It’s a given: war is a terrible thing that takes a tremendous toll on everyone involved. And here we have a memoir that tells us what we already know. So why is it so extraordinary? Brian Castner tells his story beautifully, without a hint of sentimentality or self-pity. He is a survivor, yet he tells us he died in Iraq. The man who returned from the war was not the man who left—enthusiastically—to fight in it.

The story jumps back and forth between the war and its aftermath in a way that makes the story that much more powerful. Even though I’ve never experienced war, and honestly don’t think I would be mentally and physically strong enough to survive, I feel like I know something about what it must be like thanks to this outstanding book.

Abandoned Books: Fresh Off the Boat

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:24:33 -0600

This book is proof of the old saying, “A book needs more than mouth-watering descriptions of delicious food to be good reading.”

OK, it’s not an old saying, I just made it up. But it applies in this case. I love reading about the food but I didn’t find Eddie Huang’s story very interesting and I never developed any sympathy for him as a person.

Reading List: Notes From No Man's Land

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:11:00 -0600

This book came with a lot of hype attached so I was expecting (maybe even hoping) it wouldn’t be that good. But it is that good. In fact, I can’t remember reading a book of essays that I enjoyed more or made me think as much.

I’ve never written a fan letter to an author but this book made me want to write one to Eula Biss.

Reading List - Guts

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 22:45:20 -0600

I randomly picked this up on my last trip to the library, not even knowing who Kristen Johnston was. Turns out she is the actress famous for her role in 3rd Rock From The Sun.

After a bit of a rocky beginning (a bit too cute for me) the book picks up steam and turns out to be quite moving. It’s not your typical Hollywood drug addict memoir. Johnston displays absolutely no self-pity and describes her addiction, and the medical catastrophe that ultimately led to her recovery, in stark, unrelenting terms. I ended up liking her quite a bit (Let’s grab coffee, I’m close to NYC!).

I have a soft spot for addicts. They seem to understand the absurdities of the human condition better than just about everyone else. After reading this memoir, I understand it a little better myself.

Reading List - Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 22:27:00 -0600

I’ve always wanted to be a good chess player. Something about the game appeals to my way of thinking. Sadly, I’m terrible at it. My two daughters, who learned to play within the last year, will be able to beat me soundly in the near future. I just don’t have the imagination, or the memory, to be good at it.

It’s not often that a person gets the perfect biographer, but in this case it appears to have happened. Frank Brady is a great writer, knew his subject personally, and understands the world of chess. This is simply a great biography.

Bobby Fischer is the perfect case of genius and madness simultaneously inhabiting the same person. He’s a perfectly despicable human being, yet an oddly sympathetic character. I enjoyed this book immensely and learned something about the human condition reading it.

Reading List: Light & Shade - Conversations With Jimmy Page

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:14:45 -0600

Sometimes you just want a reverential interviewer to lob softball questions to a rock music idol. The resulting guilty pleasure may be slight, but reading it makes you feel good. Like all rock bios, skipping the last couple chapters featuring irrelevant late-career comebacks is a must, but there’s enough meat in the first part of the book to make for worthwhile reading (if you were a big Zeppelin fan, as I was). This book won’t rock your world, but it still rocks.

Abandoned Books: Watergate - A Novel

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 09:12:00 -0600

A novelization of the Watergate saga sounded like an interesting concept, but after less than twenty pages I realized I had absolutely no interest in an imaginary version of Pat Nixon’s inner thoughts. If you were personally involved in the events described here, or if you are a crazy hardcore political junkie, you might enjoy this. Otherwise stick to the most entertaining and outrageous book ever written about Watergate, G. Gordon Liddy’s Will. It’s a hoot.

Reading List: People Who Eat Darkness

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 13:17:36 -0600

I wanted this to be a great book but it turned out to be a little bit disappointing, merely “interesting” when I expected “gripping.” Still, the story was thoroughly reported and the writing was clear.

The big problem for me was the story itself. I didn’t find the case especially compelling. I did learn some interesting things about the Japanese criminal justice system though.