Category: Literature & Books

David Eggers

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I got a little shot of inspiration today by listening to Dave Eggers’ TEDTalk where he tells his story about how he took his desire to give kids more academic attention and formed a movement.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3QbzvT6vko]

Eggers is an inspirational guy and here’s a link to a good quote i found from him last year.

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Mad Men and Literature

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I just finished the first season of Mad Men and thought it was great. One thing i wasn’t expecting is how culturally literate it is (NY Times article).

During the season premier this year (just watched it) the main character, Don Draper, is reading a book by Frank O’Hara (Meditations in an Emergency).  At the end of the episode there’ s voice over of one of O’Hara’s poems.  The episode is about the coming of Fall (mid-year), the need to hire younger writers at the office, being middle-aged in the middle of the century.  It’s a great episode but I think the poem at the end more than encapsulates it. It reads:

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

"Reading at lunch. Makes you feel like you're getting something done." "Yeah, it's all about getting things done"

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Welcome to the Jungle….

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As Axl Rose purportedly makes final preparations to put out Chinese Democracy any minute now (we hope!), Stephen Davis, the rock biographer behind 1985’s classic Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga, is releasing his long-awaited Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N’ Roses. In it, Davis traces GN’R’s illustrious history all the way back to Rose’s origins as a disaffected Indiana kid named Bill Bailey. Here’s an excerpt from the book’s introduction:

Some think the legend of Guns N’ Roses began in the nighttime Los Angeles of 1985, a distant echo of West Hollywood’s neon-lit Sunset Strip. Others think it should begin ten years earlier, at the confluence of two Indiana rivers, the Wabash and the Tippecanoe, in the 1970s. But in this telling, the GN’R saga begins in gritty New York, in upper Manhattan, on a sweltering, run-down street in the late afternoon of a summer day in 1980

Continue reading “Welcome to the Jungle….” →

World Peace? We're Closer than we think

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During my trip to Maui, i brought along the book “The Post-American World” by Fareed Zakaria. It’s a good read (not done yet). One part i really liked at the begging was when he was talking about how war and organized violence have declined substantially over the past 60 years – and dramatically over the last two decades. This was news to me. He writes:
The general magnitude of global warfare has decreased by over 60% [since the mid-1980’s], falling by the end of 2004 to its lowest level since the late 1950’s. Violence increased steadily throughout the Cold War – increasing sixfold between the 1950’s and early 1990’s – but the trend peaked just before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the extent of warfare among and within states lessened by nearly half in the first decade after the Cold War.
To that Harvard’s professor Steven Pinker argues, “That today we are probably living int he most peaceful time in our species’ existence.”
This seems so contrary to what i feel everyday due to the constant news of terrorism, bombings, airline accidents, etc. Zakaria addresses this saying:
One reason for the mismatch between reality and our sense of it might be that, over these same decades, we have experienced a revolution in information technology that now brings us news from around the world instantly, vividly, and continuiously…. Every weather disturbance is “the story of the century”. Every bomb that explodes is BREAKING NEWS. It is difficult to put this all in context because the information revolution is so new. We didn’t get daily footage on the ~2 million who died in the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1970’s or the million who perished in teh sands of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1908’s
But now the deaths of ten, because they are seen up close, make the world seem more and more dangerous. When, in fact, the opposite is true.

On The Road

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I’m on the road quite a bit these days and meeting lots of new people. It’s fun and exciting. Because of it, i thought i’d give one of my favorite quotes from Kerouac’s book On The Road:

They danced down the streets like dangledodies, and i shambled after as i’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awwww!”

Generation Me

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I just finished reading a fascinating book called Generation Me. It’s a non-fiction book about the youngest generation. The book dives into all aspects of this generation. It’s major parts are worth repeating:

Generation Me doesn’t need you approval. They don’t care what anyone thinks. For them social rules are out the window. It’s all about individual needs and desires. Because of this many changes in society occur from increased swearing, more self-expression, lack of respect for other individuals and social conventions. The book states right in the beginning:

July 2005, when about half the members of the Northwestern University women’s lacrosse team wore flip-flops during the White House visit

It’s all about self-esteem. Generation Me is raised to have very high self-esteem. By giving a gold star to everyone and removing the goals from the soccer field, kids are raised to think they are great – and they believe it. Because of this lots of Generation Me are narcissists. Narcissism is the darker side of the focus on the self, and is often confused with self-esteem. Self-esteem is often based on solid relationships with others, whereas narcissism comes from believing that you are special and more important than other people which is what happens when someone’s been told their entire life that they are great.

You can be anything you want to be. This is also shoved down their throats in movies, books and society. Because of this most of Generation Me thinks they’ll be famous. They all believe they’ll be an actor, artist or at least on TV.

Most people are not going to realize their dreams because most people do not dream of becoming accountants, social workers, or trash collectors…..In 2004 a national survey found that more college freshman said they wanted to be an “actor or entertainer” than wanted to be a veterinarian, a dentist, a member of the clergy, a social worker, an architect, or work in the sales department of a business

Because of this belief there is an advanced focus on appearance and materialism. However, achieving success is becoming harder and harder which leads to increase in anxiety and depression. More and more people have serious emotional problems. This is due to:

  • Economics: housing, education, health care and day care costs have far outstripped inflation. Most people spend over 40% of their income on housing instead of the typical 25%. The average home costs 37% of an average person’s pre-tax income.
  • Person-to-person interactions are at an all-time low. We’re malnourished from eating a junk-food diet of instant messages, email and phone calls instead of actually interacting. Relationships aren’t valued as highly. Increasingly, there’s a belief that there’s a fine line between love – and a waste of time
  • Higher expectations. As Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) says in Fight Club, “We were raised on TV to believe that we’d all be millionaires, movie gods, rock stars, but we won’t. And we’re starting to figure that out. And we’re very, very, pissed off.” All of society’s entertainment pieces show role models (read: celebrities) who are much more successful than the average person. From Cribs, Super Sweet 16 to Friends, to US Weekly.
  • Because of the focus on the self, when people are fiercely independent and self-sufficient, disappointment looms large because there is nothing else to focus on when it occurs.
  • Mobility stress. College admissions and jobs. They are both increasingly more selective and it’s harder and harder to standout in society as the number of people finishing both high school and college increase

After reading through the entire book, I found myself nodding my head again and again as things I see everyday start to make more and more sense. Similar to The Long Tail, Generation Me better articulates everyday patterns I’ve noticed and gives it some structure and theory. A good read – i recommend it.

When you are old

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I read this passage on the plane this morning and it got me thinking…

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars
– William Butler Yeats

Here’s a woman looking back on her life thinking of herself and past loved ones. Did the woman reject love at one point or has it just passed her by?  I love the thought of Love fleeing and hiding its face amid a crowd of stars.  To me this is either because its a perfect love in an absolute sense or because its gone and now out of reach.  I like the former thought but i tend to think its written as the latter.  Anyone else with me?

In Defense of Boredom

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In the latest copy of The Week, i read a great article about boredom. My favorite lines:

To be bored is to stop reacting to the external world, and to explore the internal one. It is in reflection that people often discover something new, whether it is an epiphany about a relationship or a new theory about the way the universe works. Granted many people emerge from boredom feeling that they have accomplished nothing. But is accomplishment really the point of life? There is a strong argument that boredom – so often parodied as a glassy-eyed drooling state of nothingness – is an essential human emotion that underlies art, literature, philosophy, science, and even love.

If you think of boredom as the prelude to creativity, and loneliness as the prelude to engagement of the imagination, then they are good things. They are doorways to something better, as opposed to something to be abhorred and eradicated immediately

I agree – solitary time whether hiking or running or just thinking is a great thing. With my cell phone, Tivo, iPod, work, and busy schedule, it doesn’t happen as often but i do think it’s important. You agree?

To further illustrate this last point. Check out this quote from JK Rowling talking about her experience sitting board on a train:

It was extraordinary, because i had never planned to write for children. Harry came to me immediately, as did the school and a few of the other characters such as Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost whose head is not quite cut off. The train was delayed, and for hours i sat there thinkig and thinking and thinking… The irony is I almost always have pen and paper; I write all the time. And on this one occassion when i had the idea of my life, I didn’t have a pen. For hour hours my head was buzzing. It was probably the best thing, because I ended up working the whole thinking out before i got off the train

America: a maximum-security prison with walls of Radio Shack, Burger King and MTV episodes

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For today a poem titled “America” by my favorite poet Tony Hoagland…

America

Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud
Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison

Whose walls are made of RadioShacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes
Where you can’t tell the show from the commercials,

And as I consider how to express how full of shit I think he is,
He says that even when he’s driving to the mall in his Isuzu Trooper with a gang of his friends,

letting rap music pour over them
Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers,

even then he feels Buried alive,
captured and suffocated in the folds Of the thick satin quilt of America

And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain,
or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade,

And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night,
It was not blood but money That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills

Spilling from his wounds, and—this is the weird part—,
He gasped “Thank god—those Ben Franklins were Clogging up my heart—
And so I perish happily, Freed from that which kept me from my liberty”— .

Which was when I knew it was a dream,
since my dad Would never speak in rhymed couplets,

And I look at the student with his acne and cell phone and phony ghetto clothes
And I think, “I am asleep in America too, And I don’t know how to wake myself either,”

And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life:
“I was listening to the cries of the past,
When I should have been listening to the cries of the future.”

But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24-hour cable
Or what kind of nightmare it might be

When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise run past you
And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river .

Even while others are drowning underneath you
And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters

And yet it seems to be your own hand
Which turns the volume higher?

Coen Bros. and Michael Chabon

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As everyone knows i’m a HUGE Coen Bros. fan and i just heard that their next project will be adapting Michael Chabon’s book The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.

I haven’t read this particular Chabon book, but i have read Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay which are both really good. You can bet your ass i’ll be reading Policeman’s Union very soon though.

The Coen brothers who are the forerunner for taking home another Best Picture Oscar this year with another adaptation in No Country For Old Men certainly have some good material here. Here’s a blurb about the book where you can definitely see the insanity:

“Chabon sets up a contemporary scenario where Jewish settlers are about to be displaced by U.S. government’s plans to turn the frozen locale of Sitka, Alaska, over to Alaskan natives. Against this backdrop is a noir-style murder mystery in which a rogue cop investigates the killing of a heroin-addicted chess prodigy who might be the messiah.”