Beth's Contradictory Brain

Where Does The Time Go?

I can't believe we're already 3 weeks into this new year. Guess I'd have to say it's been a pretty good year so far. We've mostly been taking things easy, having lazy weekends, meeting up with friends for lunch or dinner sometimes. It's good. Life should be mostly boring.

Nerdstar's also having a fantastically boring pregnancy so far - knock wood. No morning sickness, no weight gain yet, a little more tired than usual. Her taste buds might be beginning to change just a little, she no longer likes beef as much. I asked last night if her taste buds were becoming more asian. She's not sure yet.

I've been trying to do some reading. A couple of months ago I was bored enough to try to tackle Moby-Dick. Nope, never read it. While I can appreciate that it's some really amazing writing, I got about half way through and it started putting me to sleep. Reading never puts me to sleep. So, I gave up. I've never given up on reading a book. Oh well.

I just finished Audrey Niffenegger's (The Time Traveler's Wife) new book, Her Fearful Symmetry. It was a pretty good book, but I wasn't surprised by it at all.

I also checked out Pink Brain/Blue Brain about how boys and girls develop from conception on and how they do and don't differ. It's a pretty scientific book, but it's not hard to read. It does get a little repetitious. I'm about half way done and probably won't read the second half as closely as the first. I'd recommend it, even though I can't articulate at all what I've learned from it.

Today I picked up Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy. We'll both try to read it this weekend.

I've got a couple of other books checked out - all of this reading is courtesy of our local library - that I'll write about once I've read them.

My other ongoing project is my blog archive. I exported the whole thing into a txt file, then copy and pasted that into a word doc, so I've got to go through the whole thing and edit out all the extraneous stuff like extra lines and such. I think it started out of 2500 pages. I'm now on 1071 of 1600. I think it'll end up being about 1300 pages. One of these days maybe we'll buy a printer and I'll print it all up. It's been cool to go back and read about the past 8 years of life. Boy has a lot happened.

Hope your new year is off to a great start as well!

Recent Reads

One of the best things about flying vs driving is the time to read good books. Reading is still my preferred way to kill time during flights.

I think I mentioned that seeing Inglorious Basterds made me more curious about the occupation of France. As I've been reading about various parts of WWII for over a year now, I've been amazed at just how little I knew about any of it. So I've been putting my local libraries to good use and checking out a few books at a time. The latest was Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940-1944. I didn't realize just how much Britain and France hated each other before the war. I didn't know just how quickly France surrendered, or that Hitler didn't really know what to do with France - other than drain it dry of resources - once it was occupied. I understand better why everyone makes so much fun of the French for being surrender monkeys. But I also can't imagine what it does to a country's psyche to be occupied.

I'll also never cease to be amazed at how quickly neighbors turn against neighbors in such situations. Something the movie The Lives of Others really made me think about.

To lighten things up a bit, I read David Sedaris' new book When You Are Engulfed in Flames. I've read some of his other collections of stories, and this was my favorite.

I also decided to read Clarence Thomas' My Grandfather's Son. Wow. I cannot tell you how impressed I am with this man. To go from true poverty in the rural south to a member of the Supreme Court - good for him.

I checked out three books by George Pelecanos, one of the writers for The Wire, but so far have only read The Sweet Forever. Now that we live in the DC area, it's really cool to watch movies, tv shows, and read books set here and kinda know where they're talking about.

I'm thinking of trying to tackle Churchill's six volume set on WWII, we'll see how far I get into them.

The Forsaken

Over the past months, maybe almost a year now, I've ended up reading several books related to WWII.

It's taken me a few weeks, but I've finally finished reading The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia by Tim Tzoulidis.

It's something I had never heard anything about. During the Depression, Russia was just starting it's Five Year Plan and there were thousands of Americans who believed the propaganda and immigrated to Russia to find jobs. Almost none of them survived The Terror.

The world knows so much about Hitler and the millions he killed. Stalin was so much worse. The Terror and gulag systems lasted from the 30s to at least the late 50s.

But the saddest part of this story to read was how the media and our own government were so complicit in abandoning up to hundreds of thousands of Americans over in Russia.

I've got two more books about the Gulag system to read.

I can't explain my interest in these topics. My whole adult life I've pondered if such things could happen in this country. And even now my answer is while it's technically possible - I don't believe it ever will.

Agent Zigzag

I finished reading Agent Zigzag the other day. Another book in my readings about WWII this year. Zigzag was a double agent for Britain against the Germans. He was a total crook, con and liar, but something about the war made him to extraordinarily heroic actions for his home country, in spite of the Germans treating him and paying him much better. It was a good read.

Pets

We're cracking up around here at our poor little cats. The temps are in the 60s and I've had the windows open and you would think we'd thrown the cats into the artic the way they're all curled up with their tails over the noses. Or the way they're now all in our laps trying to steal our body heat.

I decided to lighten up my reading for a little while. I read about 2/3s of A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living with Dogs yesterday. If you have a dog or ever intend to get a dog, I can't recommend it enough. It's a really easy read and not at all technical.

I've also got The Dogs of Bedlam Farm and A Good Dog.

Mistakes on Both Sides

I continued my trend of history reading and finished up Pearl Harbor yesterday.

It amazes and frustrates me to read how similar the attacks on Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are. In both instances there were low level experts out there warning the events were about to happen. And they did.

But we're not the only ones to make the same mistakes. Terrorists of 9/11 made the same mistake Japan did by underestimating the true resolve of the American people.

It also makes me wonder what we'll be overlooking in another fifty years and who will attack us then.

Above My Pay Grade

I've taken a short break from all of my history reading and have delved into time and space. I'm reading Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos. A long time ago I read Feynman, and what I loved about him was how he said up front, we can tell you what is happening, we can't get anywhere near telling you why it happens. Mr. Greene is really good at trying to walk a layman through all of the issues of time and space, and I can read the words and sentences and understand them, but the concepts are just a little beyond me.

It's fascinating to read that our perception of reality has almost nothing to do with actual, scientifically proven reality.

Recent Reads

I read Mr. Scalzi's fourth book in his Old Man's War series, Zoe's Tale. It's interesting in that it's a retelling of the third book from the perspective of a different character. I liked it, but it wasn't my favorite in the series.

Since I saw the trailer for the new Watchmen movie, that might or might not ever be in theaters, I thought I'd go back and re-read the graphic novel. I bought it several years ago, and just couldn't get into it. Apparently, I still can't. It's taken me two or three weeks go get about halfway through. I'll finish it eventually. The movie does look cool though.

In keeping with my World War II theme, I'm reading a book about Station X, the code breaking station in England. It's a follow up for me from Cryptonomicon. I think it's all fascinating. The work these people did lead to the building of the first computers and understanding of binary. I don't think there's ever been an assembling of a group of people more smart of eccentric.

Reading Democracy

Howdy Folks. Not too bad a day here today. I was even more productive that I intended. Not only did I go to WalMart, I got my car's safety inspection done. It's due next month, but we're not back until the 3rd or so and I really don't trust The Man in this area to not ticket my car sitting in the airport parking lot.

My biggest accomplishment is making it to page 65 of Democracy.

Nerdstar thinks I should go back to school and seriously study history. I have no real interest in that. I'm not sure who would annoy me more, the liberal professors or the other students. I wouldn't like having a set reading list. And it's not like there's a job at the end of that course of study I'm looking for. Yes, it would be cool to be a part of a think tank like AEI or something. But I really don't think I'm that kind of smart.

I like my scattered approach, reading books about topics that interest me. And what I'm finding is, as everyone knows, the more I learn - the more I realize how little I know about just about everything. I also sort of understand why PhD papers are always on such narrow topics. It wouldn't be that hard to imagine studying colonial New England death penalty issues. As opposed to the broader topic of colonial New England in general, or even colonial New England laws altogether.

One thing I found interesting in my 65 pages today; it was the colonists who were the most zealously religious who began the precedent of the most political freedom. He also talks a lot about townships and how democracy flowed up from them to the counties, states, and then eventually the nation.

It's a very hard book to summarize. I'm more getting impressions from it than coherent ideas.

One thing it made me wonder about is why is Australia different from America. Maybe it has to do with the first settlers being convicts. I don't know. But they never (as far as I know) had the Revolution we did.

I'm getting a better understanding of American History, but it's humbling to realize I know almost nothing about the history of other nations.

And I keep wondering about the causation/correlation between Democracy and Capitalism. Does one require the other? Does one always lead to the other? There's no pure form of either, so I don't know.

Half Way

Well, we're at the halfway point until I see my Nerdstar again. I think this is the least depressed I've been of all the times she's been away from home. I'm doing a decent job of getting some things done on my days off, and keeping myself entertained. We've also gotten to talk a lot more this time, which also helps tremendously!

She's not having any fun at all and finds the whole thing pretty frustrating. I'm proud of her for stepping up when things need to be done, and for not going postal as I probably would.

Not much planned for the rest of the weekend. I finished up the John Adams series the other night. I didn't know he and Abigale were married for over 50 years. Wow.

I decided to try to tackle Democracy In America by Alexis DeTocqueville. I think I got a good translation of both volumes. We'll see how much of it I get read, but I think it's worth trying.

Other than that I'm still finishing up season 6 of Buffy. I'm going to start at the beginning of Doctor Who and see how far I get.

More Reads

One day last week I read Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle. It was a really interesting book. It's a memoir about growing up poor and on the move with an artist mother and drunk genius father, and how children survive and escape and thrive.

The info on Amazon is much better than I could write - and watch the short video of the author.

Last week I also read Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima by Stephen Walker. It chronicles the events from the first test of the atomic bomb in New Mexico to the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima three weeks later. It's incredibly well researched and written and I learned a lot.

I'm not intentionally reading all this stuff about World War II, but it certainly seems to be a theme lately.

On one trip to the library I didn't have any books in particular to pick up, so I was just browsing through the biography isle. I picked up two diaries/memoirs by Cecil Beaton - no I had no idea who he was when I picked them up. He's a photographer and fashion artist. The first one covers the 40's, and that's the one I'm trying to finish up today or tomorrow. World War II is certainly part of the background, and it's interesting to read it's different effects on the artists in London and Paris. He was actually at a dinner party with Churchill one evening. And was outside the Palace on V-Day. He also had a long term close friendship with Greta Garbo that's fun to read about. The next book covers the 60s.

Recent Reads

I think I heard about Stephen Pressfield on Instapundit. I picked up two of his books at the library a few weeks ago - Killing Romel and The Afghan Campaign. They're historical fiction. Killing Romel was about the British desert special forces who were tasked with (obviously) killing Romel. I really enjoyed the book. He didn't glorify the military or make it seem overly glorious - quite the opposite. Then there was the aspect of writing about trying to do anything in the desert. As much as I love to travel, I've never had a real desire to see the great deserts of the world. I asked Nerdstar if she got a sense of the desert in her travels to and in Iraq, but she said not really. Although she did become at least a little familiar with sand everywhere.

While reading The Afghan Campaign, which is about Alexander's conquest of Afghanistan, I also read The Places in Between that Nerdstar had picked up on one of her travels. The Places In Between is Scotsman Rory Stewarts tale of walking through Afghanistan in the winter of 2002/2003. It was really cool reading about the same country thousands of years apart. Mostly, it hasn't changed much. And they both had sad endings.

All three books are really good reads. Learning about different places/times by reading is second only to actual travel, and sometimes it's even better.

Better

I'm finally feeling better today. I'm trying not to overdo it too much, but I'm getting the laundry done and made a trip to the library.

One good thing about the flights last weekend was I was able to finish reading John Scalzi's Old Man's War triology (well I think there's a fourth coming out soon). They're really fun, easy reads that have some fantastic ideas in them.

Old Man's War has lots of ideas about aging and dying that really appealed to me. I can never state enough how much getting old an dying pisses me off. Offer me a life of 1000 years and I'll take it. Because no matter what you believe about what comes after this life, whatever it is makes this tiny amount of time we call life way, way too short.

In the books the soldiers also have what are called Brain Pals - like the internet and GPS and ultimate iPod and probably more all integrated into your brain. Oh yeah, you can also communicate telepathically through them. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted a Brain Pal since I started reading the books!! He also writes about what happens when you become too dependent on it and then it ceases to function - but I'd take my chances.

Anyway. I'm always the worst at describing what I've read. It's a great series and I even got my Mom interested in them.

Recent Readings

I'm still really trying to put my library card to good use.

I read Covert about the mob in New Jersey in the 70s and 80s and a man who was undercover and then when all that was over he ended up an NBA ref. It wasn't the best writing, but it was such a good story it was fun to read. I actually learned about the book on the only morning radio show I've ever liked - Elliot In The Morning. He had the author on for an interview one day.

I think I first heard of John Scalzi over on Instapundit and then saw a link to his blog, which is a really good read. (On my short little blogroll I've got 3 authors. I guess it makes sense they've got good blogs.)

I picked up the first and third books in Old Man's War and put the second on reserve. I also picked up Android's Dream which ended up being a really fun read.

I'm not the best at retelling plots or summarizing stories - so check out the links to get good synopsis of the books.

Little Update and Reading About Stalin

Not much going on really. We had a totally lazy weekend, which was just fine after all the ickiness of the previous one.

I got my car back from repairs today. I must say Progressive rocks. The car looks new - they cleaned it inside and out and everything. Nice.

I finally finished reading a really long book about Stalin. In spite of having a college education, I've learned a lot more about fascism and the "mood" of the world in the 30s and 40s. I'll never understand why it seems to be ok for leaders to kill millions of their own people, as long as they don't start killing people in other countries.

Too bad my library doesn't carry this book of letters between Stalin and Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Churchill had to have known Stalin was killing millions of his own people through starvation, and so many other through relocation and camps, and mass shootings - yet they worked with him against Hitler. What a mess it all was.

Along those lines, let me say something I'm sure is totally not PC. But why don't South Koreans do more to free their friends and family members in North Korea? It's a sincere question. Has so much time passed since the country was cut in half that now "it's just the way it is"? I know so many people were suddenly cut off from family members caught on the wrong side... wouldn't it be worth the effort to free North Korea?

Eventually I'll do some reading on Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao.

Poor Nerdstar has had to listen to me try to come to any understanding of all that history.

Other than that I'm worn out by the news and politics and really should pay less attention to it all.

Readings

I love the library for the same reason I love Netflix - they allow you to read/watch things you wouldn't normally invest in.

I only got three books yesterday, but as a result I'm building a new reading list. Things I'm kinda interested in, but wouldn't buy.

Also, yesterday I did something I haven't done in a long time - I read a book in one day. A long ago friend of mine was/is a Martin Amis fan. I never could get into his stuff. But one of his caught my eye yesterday, so I checked it out - House of Meetings. It was really good. And I guess having seen The Lives of Others recently, helped it resonate with me. So now I've got three books about Russia on my new reading list.

The other two books I got were a bio of Nixon and Reagan's letters.

One book I did buy a little while back is the complete works of Flannery O'Connor. Man are they hard reading. None of them have anything happy happen in them. A few of them I don't even begin to understand. I've never been big on deep analysis of written works. I tend to think that an author wants you to know what the point is and therefore doesn't hide it too deeply. But her stuff... man...

Re-Reading

This quote from Poppy Z Brite really says what I've discovered about re-reading books lately...

I've been doing a lot of rereading of fiction...

Tomorrow, of course, is the in-store date of Stephen King's new novel Duma Key, and I'm falling on my knee praying that it will actually be in local stores. A reviewer friend kindly (if, I suspect, quite illegally) sent me an e-file of the novel months ago, but I manfully resisted printing it out and reading it. I want a book, not a bunch of words on a screen, not a pile of manuscript pages, but a gorgeous hardbound new-smelling book I can crack open and smooth back the pages and know that, no matter how many times I come back to it in the future, this will be the only chance I get to read it for the first time ... though I sometimes think I actually prefer rereads to first reads; on the first read, I tend to rush, to get grabbed and dragged along by "the gotta." Rereading frees one from the tyranny of plot and allows for a more luxurious pace, closer attention to the details and the language and the sheer pleasure of the author's voice.

For a while now I've taken some favorite books to work with me to re-read at a very slow pace - usually twenty or so minutes at lunch every day, and maybe another twenty or so if I've ran out of everything else to do at work the last slow hour.

These slow reads allow me to not only enjoy a lot more plot details, but it's also given me a chance to really "get" the author's voice and how it compares to other authors.

Of course, for me it also helps that it's been a few years since I've read the books and have therefore forgotten even some of the bigger events in them.

I also feel the same way about reading an actual book as opposed to a print out or something on a screen.

Disasters

I think a while back I mentioned that I'm taking books to work to read during lunch - it helps me get my brain really off of work.

The past couple of weeks or so I've been reading The Johnstown Flood
by David McCullough. Having lived there last winter made me pick up the book (having heard about the flood) - but man, this book is a great read.

Reading about what happened in the hours, days, and weeks after the flood is really interesting. It seems nothing has changed since 1889.

Just like after all of our natural/unnatural disasters, including the current one with the fires in CA, there are the same types of things that happen - people are devastated, people are heroes, people from all over the nation rally to help those who need help, and those who can get things done - get them done.

And even then there were terrible, untrue stories of evil human acts - which even when thoroughly proved to be untrue lived on. Reading about the false dark stories of mobs and rapes and thievery reminded me so much of the dark stories that came out of New Orleans and the Super Dome, which later were said to be mostly untrue.

The press back then was just about the same as well, most filing any story they could before checking the facts, but a few taking the time and effort to report the truth. Within months there were several books about the flood for sale in Johnstown.

Over 2000 people died in that flood. I'm not sure how many homes and buildings were destroyed - but a couple of entire small towns were completely obliterated. But you rarely hear about it when we talk of American disasters.

Anyway. It's definitely worth the time to read.

Good Reads

I'm feeling mostly better.

Not much really going on. I could blog about all the celebrity bullshit going on in the world - but why?

I've been meaning to write about some books I've read lately. I've finally gotten back into reading books, after not reading them for quite a while. I started taking them to work with me to read during lunch. It helps me to really get away from the hectic work day.

Probably two months or more ago I read that our internet friends Jeff and Eric in Asheville, NC sent us - Kafka on the Shore. It's set in Japan and that made it really fun to read after spending a way too short time there last summer. It's definitely an interesting read.

Then I read Crashing Through - it's about a man who was blinded in a chemical accident in his garage when he was 3 and when he was 45 or so a procedure was being developed that enabled him to regain his sight - although not in it's entirety. The most interesting part of the book deals with how vision is as much in our brains as in our eyes and how we learn to "see'.

On our trip to Texas I finally finished Riding the Iron Rooster. I loved it. Paul Theroux spends a year or more riding trains all over China back in the mid to late 80s, maybe early 90s. And I mean all over China.

That got me on a little China reading endeavor. I mean, my girl is Chinese after all.

One book he mentioned reading while in China was Chinese Lives - an series of oral histories conducted by to Chinese men. I'm about halfway through with this one.

It's interesting to see how they all dealt with the Cultural Revolution, to get a glimpse into any sort of "Chinese mentality."

I'd love to see how things have changed even more in the past ten years.

Another book Paul read while over there is one of China's oldest erotica books - although it's supposed to be more of a morality tale - The Prayer Mat. Nerdstar comes from a long lineage of perverts! I got a hardcover edition that even has illustrations.

He also mentioned one other very old Chinese book that's erotic - we can't remember the exact title, but when I told Nerdstar about it, she said her grandpa has a copy - even though it has always been banned in China. Unfortunatley - it's in classical Chinese text that she can't read. (Which is like me not being able to read Beawolf in it's original texts.)

Books I'm currently reading

Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman

My War: Killing Time in Iraq - Colby Buzzell

Spring Forward - Michael Downing

Founding Mothers - Cokie Roberts

History

Because Nerdstar made me sick Friday, we had a quiet weekend full of snot. Yes, it was very exciting.

Sometime while Nerdstar was in Iraq, I read most of Stephen Ambrose's biography of Lewis and Clark. I don't think any other event in history (aside from the life of Christ) grabs my imagination the way their story does. I've always said if I could go back in time I'd give anything to be on that trip, to see all the things they saw. Nerdstar bought me the PBS documentary on dvd for Christmas and we finally got around to watching it last week. I had no idea Lewis killed himself after they returned home. And it took Clark five years after they came home to give York his freedom. I can't imagine how hard it would have been to have taken that amazing journey and then come home to try to live a normal life. Most of them couldn't and didn't. It's amazing that only one of the over forty people on the expedition died.

Watching it also made me wonder more about the Indians. I've got Indians as ancestors on both sides of my family, but have never really studied their history. Nerdstar and I got to talking during the show and I realized I didn't even know how long Indians were in this part of the contitent before the settlers came. I didn't know where they came here from. I had assumed they came up from Central America, she told me they came down thru Alaska and had been here since the time of the Mayans and such. Huh. I got to wondering why all the Indian nations didn't come together and become a dominant force in world like the settlers who came here ended up doing. There's always talk about the abundance of natural resources here, and the Indians had access to them for hundred of years.

I find history fascinating, but I constantly find there's so much I don't know. Even about American history. Part of that is because I so distrust history books. And biographies can be tedious to read.

There's a great PBS documantary about New York city I put in our Netflix que. I watched parts of it about eight years ago and Nerdstar hasn't seen it. It'll be cool to see it again. I think I also added a PBS documentary about The West.

When I was driving up from Austin to Ft. Lewis I saw some historical site marks for the Oregon Trail. Maybe I'll do some reading on that.

Then, just to round off the weekend, we caught part of an author's talk last night about daylight savings time. I had no idea how much time zones and daylight savings time has changed in the country, and world, and why. At first when I saw the title of the book on the screen I thought, how dorky, who would spend time writing about that. But it ended up being interesting enough I'll look for the book at the library.

Yep, evidently I'm a big nerd.

State of Fear

I'm just about finished reading Michael Crichton's State of Fear. No, it's not the next great American novel. It doesn't even have well developed characters. But, that doesn't matter.

It's interesting to me that he took the approach he did. Instead of trying to get his message out thru journals or academic articles or whatever means is available, he choose to put it in novel form. Good for him. The novel is just a form he's using to try his best to de-bunk the common mythology of the current environmental movement. It's also risky. It leaves people who disagree with his views open to dismissing them more easily because it is in novel form and not acamdemic form. But I have to assume that's intentional. He choose his audience well.

I certainly don't want to get into a debate about environmental issues. But if you believe global warming and other theories, check the book out.

The state of fear he refers to is how in spite of living in what is arguably the safest nation on earth, we're all in fear of so many things. Another interesting theme. I've written before that I wonder if people tuned out most media if they would be happier, less fearful. And then you have all the accusations that Bush's administration is using fear to get it's agenda done. I'm not up to speed on that argument, but I'm not dismissing it out of hand.

Again, it's not fantastic writing, but it's certainly a thought provoking book.

Big World

I finished reading Jim Rogers' Adventure Capitalist early last week when the devastation of the tsunami was just beginning to be realized. Jim spent 1999 thru 2001 driving literally around the world with his wife. It was broader than Dark Star Safari that I really loved reading. And it was as much fun as watching Long Way Round where Ewan McGregor and his best friend ride their motocycles from Scotland to New York City across Europe, Mongolia, Russia, Alaksa and the northern US.

One interesting sidenote to both Long Way Round and Adventure Capitalist is that it certainly requires a stunning amount of money to undertake such ventures, and that celebrity status doesn't hurt either. Just the cash needed to bribe all the officials at all the border crossing is staggering.

It's fascinating to me to read about all the different countries and their economies. I'm not sure how much we really understand that it is all a global economy. Second only to my longing to really understand the in's and out's of the history of mankind would be my longing to understand global economics and politics.

It's stunning to see the outpouring of money to the areas affected by the tsunami. I can only wonder (not even imagine) how this will affect the economies of all those places, and therefore the world.

I do believe that the next five to ten years will bring changes we're just beginning to imagine. Even though parts of Adventure Capitalist were written as late is 2003 (I'm pretty sure) he wasn't aware of blogs and the huge impact they're having not only on the small scale, but also on the international scale. And if that was in doubt, the stunning amounts of information about the tsunami on hundreds of blogs this past week erased it.

One of the biggest decisions I see the U.S. having to make is if we're going to fully embrace freedom and personal responsibility or if we're going to give in and be a socialist nation. The current states of Social Security and health care alone will force our hands.

Anyway, check out the book, it's a very easy educational read.

Antidote

I picked up a new Chuck Palahniuk book today - Diary. I love his stuff because it's so dark and deep, but find it hard to read for the same reason. My brain has been totally obsessed with two things for too long, poker and business. I figure if Chuck can't distract me, no one can. The bonus prize is that his work will make a great antidote to all this damn good holiday cheer!

Great Minds

Think alike ... I guess.

In the Entertain Me post below ya'll left some good suggestions - except that I'd already read several of them! Nerdstar had How To Be Good a couple of years ago, I couldn't get into it. Pillars of the Earth is one of my all-time favorite books. I've read 1, 2, and 4 of the Harry Potter series, then I lost interest. I got The Time Travelers's Wife from the library a few months ago because Wendy had raved about it. I'd recommend it, too. The other weekend I picked up the new David Sedaris, the first story was amazingly well written, but the rest didn't impress me. Could have been my mood. And I bought and read Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman several years ago when I had a fascination with math and read up on different aspects of it.

But I really do appreciate all the suggestions!

History

Continuing my interest in history, I'm reading Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the opening of the American West. It's interesting, but not as thrilling as I had hoped.

When pondering time travel, other than going back to see Jesus live and in person, I've always thought it would have been absolutely thrilling to have been with Lewis and Clark on their journey across the country. I've always longed to see what this country looked like before roads and concrete.

I'm always surprised at how much everything has changed in such a short amount of time really. Two hundred years isn't really that long, but to read such thorough descriptions of life in 1800 stuns me.

I was telling Nerdstar in an email last night that I think I view history like a lot of people view philosophy - if I could just wrap my brain around everything that's ever happened, it would all somehow make sense.

Ponderings

I finished reading Dark Star Safari early this morning so I could include it in my package to Nerdstar today.

It wasn't an easy read and probably contributed to my down in the dumps mood the past few days. Theroux writes a lot about the contrast between Africa when he was there 40 years ago and now. In those 40 years there have been untold billions in aid given, hundreds of thousands of people have given years of their lives - or in some cases, their actual lives - to volunteer and teach and build and give and give and give. Yet there really isn't anything to show for any of it. He writes stories illustrating the corruption, but more importantly, how it's the aid itself that leads to, for lack of a better word, a complete laziness and void of motivation on the part of Africans.

He promotes the simple solution of ending all aid thereby causing the Africans to have to choose between staying in abject poverty or doing for themselves. He writes several times about how there are so many native doctors and teachers and so on trained in Africa every year, and yet at the first chance they abandon their country to go anywhere that will pay them more money, leaving behind aid workers to fill those positions. If Africans don't care enough to stay and work in and help their own country, why should those countries be proped up by aid?

I have no idea how many elections, coups, overthrows, etc. that have happened on that continent in my lifetime. I have even less understanding of all the issues that make it all such a failure.

Reading the book has led me to ponder to comparisons, America and Africa, and Iraq and Africa. Theroux's book could/should serve as a stark warning of some major mistakes that could be made in trying to promote a democracy in Iraq. What it comes down to more than anything else is do the Iraqi's want a true democracy? And if they do, are they willing to go thru the struggle, take the responsibility, and resist those who would hinder the outcome?

Theroux often talks about how he would be content to live a very simple, removed life teaching, or now even just writing, in a small village. I can understand the draw of that kind of life - although I'd prefer it to be in some small mountain town in the Northwest. I can understand people who are content to live simple, self sufficient lives. I can not understand people who feel entitled to be handed things they are unwilling to work for.

More than anything, I take from this book an absolute wonder that this outrageous ideal of democracy works in America. No, it hasn't been a perfect storyline, there are many dark spots in our history. But, as a whole we've gone thru them and come out even more democratic.

If you have any illusions that America has become a fascist state - read Theroux's books about what one really looks like.

Dark Star Safari

I'm right in the middle of reading Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux and am totally captivated by it. He travels over land catching any ride he can from Cairo to Cape Town not only telling us stories of the people he meets and places he stays, but giving us a detailed picture of life in Africa that might as well be another planet.

As a kid I would lay in bed at night and think about all of the people in the world. I would try to imagine the people on my block, then in my city, then all the other people in their beds in the US and then people who were starting their day on the other side of the world. I used to watch planes out of the classroom windows and wonder where the people were going. As I've mentioned in my writings about why I blog, I'm a total voyeur at heart. I love to eavesdrop on conversations, watch people who aren't aware they're being watched. So I find it utterly fascinating to read accounts of lives that really couldn't be more different than mine.

Even though being born in this time and place is something I'm always thankful for and don't understand in that big picture sort of way, this book really reinforces that gratitude in me.

If you have any interest in Africa and all the various countries there and the lives of the people there, or if you're tempted to be a relief worker, or if you just think America sucks - read this book.

Here are more formal reviews of this book than mine.

Hitting bottom is not a weekend retreat

On what could end up being the coldest day this winter here in Austin, I finally got around to watching Fight Club again. I haven't watched it since it was first released on dvd. While you can never watch it with virgin eyes again, it's brilliance is more evident with every watching. And I guess I'm surprised that I still enjoy it so much after 9/11.

In the time since I last watched it I've also read several other books by Chuck Palahniuk, so his voice was much clearer this watching. Sometimes reading his books is a lot like watching multiple car wrecks, you want to shield your eyes but you can't look away. Oddly enough, his books are right next to my David Sedaris collection on my book shelves. Can you imagine if those two ever collaborated?

What was so cool about Fight Club was that it came out at a time in my life I was going thru a very minor version of some of the same realizations when it came to personal finances and other general obligations. My mantra became "I am not obligated to anyone for anything". I had spent so many years being so damn nice and decided it was time to be selfish. Naturally I loved the way the movie was so completely radical. I can only hope I never get to old and settled to not appreciate those ideas.

The Sandman - Endless Nights

I picked up Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Endless Nights on the way home from work today. It's simply a stunning work - of ideas, writing, and art. In reading all ten books in the Sandman series this summer, I've fallen in love with the Endless. To be given a better glimpse into each of them in Endless Nights is a treasure. The only hard part of reading Neil's works (in every form) is knowing there are so many layers I'm not getting to. Then again, that's the beauty of books - you can come back to them time and time and time again, finding ever more layers.

It is a good thing there are only 15 portraits of Despair - just those were enough to have that little black cloud hovering around. 13 would be the hardest philosophy final ever given. Yikes. The very first question is "If you can't be happy where you are, you can't be happy anywhere. Discuss, with examples from your own life." That's one of the hardest lessons to learn. My senior year in college I lived alone. And yet, there were so many nights I wanted to run away. That was a pretty big clue it wasn't circumstance I was running from - it was me. Even know, in this sucky time of being alone, with Nerdstar gone - running away is a constant theme in my thoughts. I struggle all the time with being happy where I am. The other questions you'll have to get your own copy to read.

If Despair is a black cloud, Delirium is a magic carpet ride. It reminded me of the Emperor of American in an earlier Sandman - he was kept sane by his insanity. And it reminded me of the stupid movie KPax, where it's quite possible we have one crazy person bringing sanity to other crazy people. It's obviously the strangest (and yet beautiful) artwork in the book, yet it's a comforting story, hopeful even. Maybe it is our delusions and insanity that keep us sane.

Who else could it end with other than Destiny - a blind man with a book that tells the story of everything ever. Who wouldn't give their soul for a peek in that book? Hell, I'd be tempted to give the souls of my unborn children to read my days in that book.

All I can really say is go buy this book. It's one of those rare books that really can touch you.

More Neil

I love Amazon.com. Yesterday I finally got my order of Wolves in the Walls, Coraline, and Sandman Season of Mists by Mr. Gaiman.

I loved Season of Mists. It's another one of his that I'll be reading many times over to get the full scope and impact. What I got out of it the first time thru is that hell is really something we create for ourselves and punish ourselves with. In it once again Lucifer is God's advisary, but states he has no interest or involvement in the lives of men or the fate of their souls - why would he?

"They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. The Devil made me do it. I have never made one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them. And then they come here (having transgressed against what they believe to be right) and expect us to fulfill their desire for pain and retribution. I don't make them come here. They talk of me going around and buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No. They belong to themselves... they just hate to have to face up to it."

I love that in this book in the series he gives us a better look at Dream's family - Death, Desire, Delirium, Destiny, and Despair. Fantastic characters.

I love that Lucifer shuts down hell and hands the key to Dream, who then has all these wonderful characters come to him who think they should have it, only for it to end up in the hands of two angels God more or less pushes out of heaven.

You really, really should be reading this man's writings.

Suicide Girls has a neat interview with Neil here.

Contradictory Brain

I'm still not finished reading American Gods, but should finish it tonight or tomorrow. I have no idea why it's taking me so long. But I am enjoying it immensly. The following is just one small part of why:

“I,” she told him, “can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe.”

“Really?”

I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true… Listen, I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems commuicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative.

I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe…that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it, it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things, too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” She stopped out of breath.

If that doesn't sum up a contradictory brain, I have no idea what would!!!

Sleep and Immortality

Sleep good, barking dogs bad. I fell asleep about 6:30 last night and finally got up again about two hours later. All the while my neighbors stupid little weenie dog was barking. That stupid little dog is a menace. It had gotten out of the back yard the other day and actually had the nerve to bite me when I got home from work! I almost kicked it over the fence back into it's yard, but didn't. My neighbor is a nice enough lady, she just has a stupid little dog!

I got back to sleep before 11 pm, which was good.

I finally picked up Neil Gaiman's American Gods in Seattle to read while traveling Sunday. I'm not quite halfway thru with it. I'm taking it nice and slow. Which it really lends itself to, because the plot is moving along nice and slow.

Can anyone tell me where the idea that Gods aren't immortal, that they only exist as long as people believe in them comes from? I'm curious as to where Neil and Tom got the idea. I read a lot, but I'm not necessarily well read in philosphy and such.

While waiting for the plane Sunday, Nerdstar and I were sitting in the airport talking, stalling me leaving as long as we could. I told her that if I were just slightly crazier, I'd believe that thru all of my readings God was telling me I get to be immortal :-)

Current Reading

I love when I find new authors! I judge a lot of books by their covers and titles. When wandering around a store like Barnes and Noble with no title or author in mind, it's as good a way as any to find something good to read. I couldn't have gotten luckier when I picked up Good Omens. I love Neil Gaiman's writing. I just finished Stardust the other night and it was one of those books that actually made my week better. It made me more light hearted and optimistic. How often does a book do that? I'll probably pick up American Gods this weekend and then look into getting the Sandman series.

I haven't gotten the new Harry Potter because I find it just doesn't interest me. I'd probably be just as happy if someone told me the basic plot line. All those pages don't seem worth my time.

Michele does a much better job of Gaiman vs. Rowlings today.

And because the phones are so slow in the mornings when I have to cover the front desk, I'm rereading Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. I first read it about four years ago, just enough time has passed for me to have forgotten enough details to make the rereading interesting without having to want to rush thru it to see what happens next.

Hehehe

I'm slowly reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Slowly is a nice change for me. I used to read books in a day, now I'm trying to slow down and enjoy them more.

While working in Oral History at Baylor, I worked with some fun people. I also learned, and still remember, two extremely silly jokes from that time. One has to do with a kid without a body getting his wish granted. The other is the silly joke about three ropes walking into a bar. (If you've never heard them, leave me a comment with your email address and I'll type them out.)

In Neverwhere, this odd character, whom the author has just told us can't tell a decent joke, proceeds to tell the three ropes joke.

That kinda thing cracks me up.

Friday hodgepodge

Like everybody, I'm very happy it's Friday and that I can sleep late tomorrow. It's all of 34 degrees here, but no snow - way unfair! There's a chance of snow tonight, but it would only last until mid morning anyway. It's funny how some people really hate cold weather and some really hate warm weather, but we don't necessarily live in the climates we love. If and when we move out of Austin, Nerdstar and I both insist it be to cooler climates. If my body is never in temps over 85 again I'd be perfectly happy!!

It was cool on ER last night to see them Googling the blind date guy after writing about that the other day!

I'm still reading Atlas Shrugged, maybe I'll finish it this weekend. But it's tuning my brain in to all the subtle ways people are anti personal achievement, anti rich etc. So it got me to thinking over dinner last night about lottery winners. It would be cool to do a documentary of people who have won over $10 million (in my mind more than enough to buy a couple of houses, a couple of cars and not have to work). What were their views of "the rich" before winning? Do they now consider themselves part of "the rich"? Do the lottery winners contribute as much to charity as "the rich"? Things like that. I think it would be very telling. I think sometimes athletes are kinda like lottery winners - they still carry the image of growing up poor and being poor long after signing multi-million dollar contracts.

Tonight is going to be a snuggle by the fire kind of night! Nerdstar has drill this weekend and has to get up early - yuck!

More on MKL, Jr.

I finished reading Stride Toward Freedom last night. A couple of things really struck me.

The first being that this is a book that should be required reading in every high school. The probable reasons it isn't are rediculous. The first I can think of is that King refers to "african-americans" as Negros throughout the book. We certainly can't have that word used in any context in the public schools. (I'll save my tales of trying to teach Huck Finn in high school for later.) The second is that his whole philosophy, and therefore actions, are based on his deep faith in God and his desire to bring about social change thru Christian love. Another topic we absolutely can't have in our public schools. It's absurd beyond belief.

The second thing that really struck me was how long and hard a struggle it was to simply enforce the Supreme Courts rulings on desegregation. King himself talks about how the federal courts were really the only part of the government to try to do and enforce the right thing. The president and congress, not to mention governors and local courts, were pathetic.

Not knowing my history, I wondered who was president during all this mess in the 1950s. This morning I looked up that it was Dwight Eisenhower. How sad that a war hero president didn't speak out more often and more strongly about the process of desegragation.

Now I'm curious as to how we as a country went from the amazingly noble civil rights movement to a welfare/entitlements/affirmative action era.

Anyway, Stride Toward Freedom is a short, easy read that everyone should take the time for.

Ayn Rand and Martin Luther King, Jr

My last day in Sacramento we had a fantastic breakfast at this little diner and then headed across the street to a rare and used book store. Since I started reading The Light of Reason, I have been wanting to read Ayn Rand’s non-fiction works, but wasn’t really planning on reading any of her fiction. I was under the false impression that they would be boring and hard to read. Last Friday I purchased three books, We The Living by Ayn Rand, Stride Toward Freedom and Why We Can’t Wait both by Martin Luther King, Jr.

I read We The Living Friday and Saturday. In the preface she describes it saying, It is a story about Dictatorship, any dictatorship, anywhere at any time, whether it be Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, or - which this novel might do it's share in helping to prevent - a socialist America. What the rule of brute force does to men and how it destroys the best, will be the same in 1925, in 1955, or in 1975 - whether the secret police is called G.P.U. or N.K.V.D., whether men eat millet or bread, whether they live in hovels or housing projects, whether the rulers wear red shirts or brown ones, whether the head butcher kisses a Cambodian witch doctor or an American pianist.

She states, When, at the age of twelve, at the time of the Russian revolution, I first heard the Communist principle that Man must exist for the sake of the State, I perceived that this was the essential issue, that this principle was evil, adn that it could lead to nothing but evil, regardless of any methods, details, decrees, policies, promises and pious platitudes.

I then started Stride Toward Freedom yesterday while driving. I could never have imagined how much these two books have in common!!

Even just reading the first fifty or so pages of Stride Toward Freedom I began to see the comparison between the affects the oppression of communism and the affects of the oppression of blacks post slavery/pre civil rights. How they wear down the soul and break the spirit. (What a fantastic college paper that would make if I were still in college, except that I can’t imagine what class that topic would be found in.)

So, tonight I’m reading Martin Luther King, Jr.’s thoughts on communism/Marxism. He gives three reasons for rejecting the ideas of Marx and Lenin:

First, I rejected their materialistic interpretation of history. Communism, avowedly securalistic and materialistic, has no place for God. This I could never accept, for as a Christian I believe that there is a creative personal power in this universe who is the ground and essence of all reality - a power that cannot be explained in materialistic terms. History is ultimately guided by spirit, not matter. Second, I strongly disagree with communism’s ethical relativism. Since for the communist there is no divine government, no absolute moral order, there are no fixed, immutable principles; consequently, almost anything - force, violence, murder, lying - is a justifiable means to the “millennial” end. This type of relativism was abhorrent to me. Constructive ends can never give absolute moral justification to destructive means, because in the final analysis the end is pre-existent in the mean. Third, I oppose communism’s political totalitarianism. In communism the individual ends up in subjection to the state. True, the Marxist will argue that the state is an “interim” reality which is to be eliminated when the classless society emerges; but the state is the end while it lasts, and man only a means to that end. And if any man’s so called rights or liberties stand in the way of that end, they are simply swept aside. His liberties of expression, his freedom to vote, his freedom to listen to what news he likes or to choose his books are all restricted. Man becomes hardly more, in communism, than a depersonalized cog in the turning wheel of the state. This deprecation of individual freedom was objectionable to me. I am convinced now, as I was then, that man is an end because he is a child of God. Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as the means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself.

I was going to say that it’s fascinating that two people as different as Ayn Rand and Martin Luther King, Jr. can reach the same conclusions from such different paths. But really, oppression is oppression, and those who fight it and rise above and beyond it have much more in common than not.

Sorry this is such a long entry. I didn't know of a way to break it up into smaller ones.

I don't know what brought these books to my attention, or why now, at the beginning of a year that holds such potential for good and evil. And I'm sure in all of this my thoughts are also influenced by having seen "Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers" and having it reinforce the ideals of loyalty and dedication and friendship and sacrifice and yes, good versus evil. (Yes, I cried thru the second one just like I did the first. The only reason my heart won't stop while watching the third film in the series is I know how it ends!)