Nickle & Dimed

Sometimes I think that I am too frugal.  I could just buy the thing I don’t need, take the trip beyond what I can afford, and stay out late with friends at spendy night joints.  Instead I cook my meals in, pay my bills every month, and take lots of walks for entertainment.  Still, this is nothing like trying to support myself on minimum wage.  Barbara Ehrenreich wrote the, now rather old, journalistic book Nickel and Dimed in 2001, which I’ve only just read.

Ehrenreich goes undercover and works as a waitress, maid, and store clerk in a variety of US cities.  She is a middle-aged, doctorate-holding career woman.  Nobody blinks as she enters each town and job.  Nobody gives her a break as she tries to get a meal from food banks or find affordable housing.  In fact, she fits in just a little too well for comfort.  Every day Ehrenreich works hard at her tasks and comes away realizing that she can’t do this work and be the same woman as before.  She has entered the realm of those whose work is unvalued.  She has felt the correlation of discovering herself to be unvalued.

So would you or I. 

Ten years later, I believe that the only real difference in American life is the lack of easily acquired work.  Unskilled workers, which Ehrenreich correctly defines as workers skilled in physical capacities, perhaps learned while working, may still find jobs.  Should they exist, I do not believe that the jobs are better paid, better hours, or even sufficiently houred. 

Doubtless, Ehrenreich could have lived her study differently.  She made finite forays into cities, not the country-side.  She had few ideas or connections in the areas she chose.  She stumbled into a couple of unexpected drawbacks.  She didn’t use any government programs.  Maybe certain changes would have completely transformed her experience.  For example, maybe she could earn a living by applying to higher level jobs with her actual resume.

Reading this social documentary a decade later and finding no particular ease on the subject, even though the piece is still one that gets mentioned and noticed, is unsettling.  Although we can see many issues that have arrived in the last half century, this particular issue has existed during prior eras in America.  Is it in fact, universally present? 

What Ehrenreich hasn’t discovered, and I really want to know, is why has America allowed unlivable wages for work?  How do we resolve the situation of the woman working every day whose aspiration is to be able to take a day off work, if she had to, and still be able to buy groceries for the next day?

Although Ehrenreich and I have lived different lives, in different times, and with different values, on this issue we are united.  There is hard work to be done, and many people have more things piled against them than they know, but when one person’s sweat doesn’t even buy enough bread, how well has our affluent society exercised the ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Place

I finished The Power of Place while drinking a glass of German Riesling and sitting outside on Seattle’s sunniest spring afternoon of 2011.  I could smell my neighbor’s lilacs and watch the baby ferns’ tops trying to uncurl.  The place was spectacular.  It was chilly, though, so I’m back inside remembering the places I’ve read this fascinating treatise on geography.  Stuffy airplane, eating pretzels.  Living room chair with my feet up.  In bed prying my eyes open.  On the floor while stretching after my bike ride.  Local bar waiting for my dinner.

Harm de Blij did a fantastic job taking in the angles on place.  De Blij denies that the world is flat.  Depending upon what hemisphere, what continent, what country, what city, what family, what gender, de Blij can outline some of the terrain you’ll encounter.  It isn’t flat.  De Blij does think that globalization could smooth some of the rough edges, though.  That’s an interesting point of view.

There are a lot of prejudices that de Blij brings to his work.  The one I found most problematic was that of religion.  De Blij does not value religion at all; he essentially views them all as wholly similar and detrimental.  The second most troubling aspect is his position on natural disasters.  His book was written after the world shocking 2004 tsunami in Thailand and areas bordering the Indian Ocean but long before the earthquake in Haiti and this year’s earthquake, tsunami, nuclear disaster in Japan.  He faults human behavior.  I have a more challenged view.  Thirdly, de Blij is a political activist, who has no qualms in giving his reader points of action, which, were they aligned with my worldview, I would appreciate so much more.

What I can agree with is that being born and raised in de Blij’s “core” has given me more than I have in fact been able to absorb.  I cannot take in all the information to which I have access.  What I realize is that I also cannot enter the “periphery” without my expectations and reality reflecting more of the “core” than it does the “periphery.”  It is with certain awe that I examine the statement so often, weekly, monthly, by Jesus telling me that “to whom much is given much is expected.”  I understand that much of my geography.

Beyond the easy parts of geography, “I look out my window and see ____” (mountains, water, plains, desert, skyscrapers, huts, etc) de Blij looks at things that are more challenging (industrial plants, warzones).  In Seattle we’ve had our fourth or fifth sunny day of the year.  Other places haven’t had so many days of rain in 2011.  But, as far as how many cases of malaria, typhoid, dengue flu, I’d say there is good fortune in Seattle.  We grow more moss than we do mosquitoes.  We import more mangos than we receive asylum seekers from the countries who grow the mangos.  We largely practice religion similarly, speak the same language, have ancestral ties to our neighbors and enough food even so.

With all the hills I bike every day between my home and downtown, Seattle has a pretty flat landscape according to de Blij.  Should an earthquake come and wipe this slate clean, as de Blij expects to happen, may my neighbors show me the grace of God, and may my hands work diligently and with skill as I examine The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape.

Date, date, date

30 May 2011 – remiss in not having posted this on the correct date.

So, I blogged not too long ago about a dating book I read, mentioning that that would be it for quite some time.  Yet, at the recommendation of a friend, I decided to go ahead and read another book on dating.  Apparently this is the definitive book on the subject.

Henry Cloud’s How to Get a Date Worth Keeping: Be Dating in Six Months or Your Money Back is the very confident title of a very basic book.  Very basic does not mean anything but that it is straight-forward and essentially absolutely a no-brainer.  The fact that I’ve made nearly every dating mistake in the book and keep readjusting my strategy merely means that I could have written it.  Not with the proven track record of Cloud, but at the least with all the anecdotes!

All that to say, if you’ve also made every mistake possible, you might get a kick out of seeing them listed on paper in front of you.  If laughing at yourself isn’t much of a past-time, you don’t want a better date, or, bless you, are already married, then don’t bother with this.  If you have any singleton friends, though, make their Christmas or birthday really fun for them.  Or tell them to check it out of the library, which is what I did.

Ten Years Later

The forward-thinking librarian who heads the Montlake reading group selected Colum McCann’s Let The Great World Spin right as the world was remembering all the pain and trauma of September 11^th, 2001.  We were to have read it and discussed it weeks prior to the actual date, but I was a little behind schedule, only really finishing as news media and journalists set the time up for renewed attention. 

For quite some time I read Let the Great World Spin as a story.  It was New York.  It was Ireland.  It was brothers.  It was family.  It was a monk.   It was race and Vietnam.  It was street life.  It was the 60’s.  Then we met the tight-rope walker, dancer, performer, master.  The towers come into view and the pieces are all coming together quickly, finally, clearly.

There were no favorites for me.  Every character had a pretty unique story which could have stood alone in New York as a valid point of view and way of life.  Timing was so crucial to the life and death of each person McCann creates on his way that as a reader I begin to wonder whether the next move of any character will throw them under the rails of love or tragedy.

New York is one city in one time and place, but seems to be everything and all its own, too.  The people in New York City have a story, but McCann really makes a case for the city having a story that the people participate in.  The buildings are part of New York, and New York is part of its buildings, but even they are not the determiner of the city, but only some part.  New York is still whole when men and women grieve, yet when they lose too much all of New York is not enough.

Little Bee

Seattle Reads month again! Of course Seattle Reads coordinators have chosen another African immigration story. I really have decided that I don’t mind the single theme. I believe at least once a year I should read, with everyone else, a hard story of life on and off the African continent. But I wonder why it isn’t part of the title more, like, say, Seattle Reads About African Immigration month. That’s a longer title, but absolutely descriptive.

What I really like about this novel is that the immigration is to Europe. I think that is an important reality to consider as NATO bombs Libya at the behest of France and Britain. My blog isn’t about politics, so I won’t describe the lives of asylum seekers I’ve met in Europe. If you read this book you wouldn’t need me to. I’m curious about the importance in Seattle of African politics, as there really are a lot of African immigrants, yet not so many obvious asylum seekers. Perhaps I’m naïve or Seattle hides this issue considerably better than other cities.

Chris Cleave writes Little Bee with a two character first person narrative that I think is excellent. There’s nothing like reading two worlds collide from both perspectives. Of course both characters, Sarah and Ohno, are in a state of confusion and decisiveness, like many women. Maybe that is what makes them so completely compelling. Maybe their stories do. Maybe the storyteller does. Whoever holds the magic, obviously Cleave, the stories of terribly many Africans, and how it awakens compassion in the least likely, it is certain that this story carries power.

This story is about a young girl who suffers such trauma that her ability to even function is staggering. She is Nigerian, from a jungle village. She is about 14 years old. She has an older sister. Well, or so she was and had when she met Sarah. This story is about a professional woman whose life is so idyllic that she cannot imagine true difficulty. She is English, from Surrey. She is about 30. She has a husband. Well, or so she was and had when she met Ohno.

Little Bee is a haunting story and I believe that Cleave treated it beautifully. The fact that both characters are complex, have grave faults and absolute moments of heroism are truly important. Beyond that, the slight repetitions were what I found most calming and jarring, the way they returned to places and ideas – oh, the juxtapositions! – and I never could guess which one would act, or how. This is not a book to look forward to; it is a story not to dismiss.

Bel Canto

Rob Forman Dew of Washington Post Book World wrote, “Bel Canto is its own universe.” I agree completely. Ann Patchett created a world that is both surreal and plausible with Bel Canto.

A respected and uncommonly successful Japanese businessman celebrates his 50^th birthday. Against his better judgment he agrees to go to the developing world because the host country promises his favorite opera star will come sing for him. The unnamed country hopes in return that he will invest there. He knows he won’t. It’s just too big of a risk.

A rogue terrorist group of men and children break up the party. The guests all respond with proper shock. But before long there is deep love, impressive sacrifice, and unearthed talents.

Patchett’s novel makes one of the best cases for grace and the need to share knowledge I have read. Bravo! Encore!

Tinkers

Tinkers was full of tingles. The imagery of a man dying and reliving aspects of his life, while the reader learns about areas he never knew, was captivating. No sentimentality, no gore, just sweet endings to a sometimes bitter history. Renal failure, clocks, hallucinations, epilepsy, harsh winters, moonshine and excerpts from The Reasonable Horologist are all pretty new topics for the novels I’ve read. That Paul Harding intertwines them all so well that I look forward to each bit of the story, never knowing what will come next, is exceptional.

More about Harding’s writing style is that it was full of beautiful imagery. These were snippets of ideas and a day here or a day there in the lives of a father and son. Very little came in a straight line, allowing me to read as disjointedly as I did without feeling any loss of continuity. That I read this book for my new Montlake reading group (which is the biggest and oldest so far that I’ve attended in Seattle) means that I also got to be part of a great conversation about the book.

Overall, Tinkers received some extremely high praise in this circle. Those who’d attended the death of a parent were able to identify with the physical and mental changes described. Those who’d lived in cold weather or overcome adversity or experienced sufficient closure understood many of the novel’s themes. Only questions of all the unmentioned years still perplex. But this was not a memoir, and our principal character, George, was not interested, on his deathbed, in how his mother managed, and he did not dwell on how he got through school. No, George wanted to think about his father, and about all the money he’d stashed in his tool shed.

Each character of Harding’s novel has a particular set of impressions of life. Each is insightful. Each is limited. The novel felt true, and that is novel indeed.

Death Comes for the Archbishop

My parents’ library doesn’t carry Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop. This is at once tragic and fortuitous. The fine city of Anacortes is not offering its public “a very rare piece of literature” (The New York Times). The lucky break is that, when I checked it out for them at the Seattle Public Library, I became intrigued and read it before passing it along.

Published in 1927, the story covers the life and ministry of Father Jean Marie Latour, the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico from 1851 to his death.

The language that Cather uses is absolutely gorgeous. Her ability to tell a story is splendid, and her descriptions inspiring. I never really appreciated the beauty and mystery of the Southwest until I saw it through Cather’s writing. The most touching aspect is how Cather describes the lifelong friendship between Father Latour and Father Joseph Valliant, whom Latour brings to New Mexico with him.

At Father Joseph’s funeral, Cather writes, Father Latour “could see Joseph as clearly as he could see Bernard (who accompanied Latour), but always as he was when they first came to New Mexico. It was not sentiment; that was the picture of Father Joseph his memory produced for him, and it did not produce any other.”

This is not the only description of the way Father Latour viewed his best friend and each time Cather treats their relationship is heart-warming and strikingly familiar. I, too, see a person I love even after years of life have wrought unasked for changes in a way that resonates with Latour’s statement, “I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you.”

Like and Marriage

I picked up a book that I’m hot-potato-ing right away. The last time I had a dating book laying around the hottest date I ever had came over while it was on my coffee table. Mortification only fully set in once he’d left! Lori Gottlieb’s book “Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough” would probably end up mortifying a date, but I found it downright fascinating.

Gottlieb, nearing 40, finally discovers her main hang-ups as to why she hasn’t married. She hasn’t been dating marriageable men. She has impossible standards. She isn’t attracted to what in a man is most valuable in marriage. She’s been holding out for ‘better’ than the present. She’s looking for romance over friendship and partnership.

Truthfully, I think I understand. She doesn’t like men with bow ties and names like ‘Sheldon’; I don’t enjoy men with poor grammar who chew with their mouth open. These peripherals shouldn’t be non-negotiable, yet are highly distracting when trying to establish a relationship.

The real kicker is that there is a mathematics to relationships. I figured that my living abroad during the majority of my 20’s meant that I have an interesting resume, not that I’d come back to find all the men I ever knew married! Well, except the ones who don’t plan to marry. Still plenty of those.

But I have to admit it was the writing style, organization and story-telling of Gottlieb that mainly interested me. Her sentences were unsentimental (phew) and her examples true. I could read a book on bird-watching if it were so well-written.

Overall, Gottlieb expresses the need to be open-minded in dating, which, when paired with realism and a sense of what is necessary in a relationship, not merely dreamy, convinces me it’s probably possible to find Mr. Good Enough, even in Seattle.

Oh, and her section quotes are good. Three Germans and a Frenchman’s words are used to set the stage.

“It is not lack of love but lack of friendship that makes for unhappy marriages.” Friedrich Nietzche

“Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.” Goethe

“Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.” Sigmund Freud

“The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Voltaire

Prayer

I’ve often admitted that holding onto a book awhile before reading it only intensifies my curiosity. Checking books out of the library is easy. Getting them read within a couple weeks and returned is not. After renewing my hold on The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of THE LORD’s PRAYER the maximum amount, I finally read it this week, past due.

Surely something that John Dominic Crossan writes was bound to be as revolutionary as the prayer itself. Having only really prayed the Lord’s Prayer in earnest in recent years, I knew there was more to it than I ever heard in Sunday school. To say that it was given as little credence as possible in my ‘the only rule is no rule’ childhood church is light. But, I knew it was important. I knew I didn’t know why.

Although I never opened the book, I carried it around enough for my brother-in-law to comment on the author, mentioning that he didn’t think I’d appreciate the theology. Of all the things I’ve discussed with my brother-in-law, it’s seldom theology, so I thought Crossan must be a process theologian. However, in just about his opening lines, he decisively rejects that theology. Hmm, my interest is more greatly piqued.

Crossan instead dives into the historical and biblical relevance of the poetic phrasing and wording of this universal, great prayer. Although some aspects of this prayer have always been more difficult than others to understand (a modern Americans’ understanding of kingdom, for example), I found that on every single level I had much to learn.

My primary question of God is will. I understand the elements: love, kindness, peace, humility. I never understood Jesus’ acceptance of ‘God’s will’ and praying for the same will, always having naturally combined the Lord’s Prayer and Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane. I never could align how Jesus dying could possibly be God’s will. (Jesus acting out righteousness causing him to be killed I get.) I can understand immediately how Jesus resurrecting is God’s will. In the discussion of this prayer, Crossan gave me a new viewpoint by which to consider God’s will.

Through the reading of the Lord’s Prayer in historical context and theological detail my future praying will be infused with greater enthusiasm, and hopefully inspiration for my part in this household of God’s.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is

You must lose things,

Feel the future dissolve in a moment

Like salt in a weakened broth

Naomi Shihah Nye “Kindness”

Chris Bohjalian has, in the preface to his book, Before You Know Kindness, this quote, as well as one from The Secret Garden. As much as the title and quote perplexed me the entirety of the novel, and through my reading discussion group, the story was quite straight-forward.

I enjoyed the writing style, I enjoyed the characters, and even enjoyed the treatment of their issues. And what a smorgasbord of issues! Sex, money, power, love, and jealousy spring immediately to my mind, followed by neglect, misguided loyalties, non-disclosure, self-harm, fear of death, and guilt.

You’d think from a list like that Bohjalian would have needed a few more characters! The matriarch, Nan Seton, as vigorous as she was, was very much the weak broth. I was disappointed not to discover more about her purpose, as she was set up so well. Her two children, John and Catherine, and their spouses, Sara and Spencer, rounded out the adults. Each couple had one daughter. John and Sara also had a newborn son. He had no speaking lines.

However, it is the use of gardens that will most likely be the keeper. Spencer is vegan. Spencer also grows a garden and gets his arm nearly shot off by Charlotte, his 12-year-old daughter. The idea of Eden continues to emerge, then reemerge. There are so many big ideas that continually point to Christian teaching that it was nearly surprising. How a garden can bring healing for one and destruction for another is a powerful contrast. One person in my reading group flat out asked, “What is kindness?” then, while we were there, threw in “And what is forgiveness?” Before long we’d gone over grace, Jesus, Adam and Eve, light on a hill, and salt, too.

Finally, one of many difficult statements Jesus made is being given some serious and fascinating treatment. It is better for a man to cut off his hand than to keep it if it causes him to sin. Alright, I know that Spencer’s shoulder did not cause him to sin. Getting it blown apart did make him have to start listening, though. Spencer had to pause and look to those around him; his sudden insufficiency made him whole. Better to lose an arm than the wife and child you love more than anything.

Truth and Hijacking

Directly following my reading of Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face I read Ann Patchett’s non-fiction book Truth and Beauty: A Friendship where she writes about how she and Lucy were friends, writers, and as close as sisters. Directly following that, I read Suellen Grealy’s article Hijacked by Grief where she talks about her sister, Lucy, and Ann’s capitalizing on their friendship.

Two things. One, I believe Ann Patchett’s story. Two, I believe that Suellen Grealy hit it on the nose by saying that Ann is nothing like the writer Lucy was. If I had read Suellen Grealy’s article before I read Patchett’s book, I might have felt too guilty to read the book. However, I had an insatiable curiosity about Lucy Grealy after reading her book and was all too happy to read more about her.

Patchett describes the women’s lives on the road to ‘writer-dom’ with steadiness. It’s the same story I’ve heard from many authors. Somehow, although Patchett is being so true to her story, describing herself as the dull ant doing her work, and Grealy as the vibrant grasshopper bringing life to every situation, I found her patronizing, and even at a couple points, defensive. I know people who can be entirely loving and still rub me the wrong way. So, although I got to read what it meant for Grealy to survive the cancer and the subsequent reconstructive surgeries through the eyes of a friend, I had to acknowledge that their relationship was not my ideal. (However, I have spent more time valuing the friendships I hold dear since reading this.) When Grealy revealed her life’s struggles I felt her to be very much ‘like’ me, when Patchett took over Lucy became entirely ‘other.’

I understand that Ann and Lucy loved one another. I believe they used one another as much as they could stand, which for both of them would not be too much. And I am genuinely convinced that their need for one another was entirely deep and inscrutable. However, I feel very much for Suellen Grealy who has come away from the untimely death of her sister to discover this growth, this off-shoot on Lucy’s life. Tragedy is the world’s, and Lucy was in it. And, although they may at times be complimentary, as often Truth and Beauty are at odds.

Lucy's Face

Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face was not a story about cancer. It was a story about a girl eventually becoming a woman who wanted love yet wasn’t being fulfilled to her satisfaction. Her disfigured face seemed to her the culprit. However, like many people, Lucy’s loneliness and initial understanding of the world left her with the wrong answer.

Lucy was loved and Lucy was learning to love. The simple love of an animal or toy was her easy love. Her childhood friendships were a second love. Mature adult love became elusive. But Lucy found substitutes. She discovered “being good” love and “bravery” love and “medical” love and “sex” love and finally “knowledge” love. Ultimately Lucy is convincingly lovable and unlovable. It’s easy to believe that her face was an obstacle to romantic love, and perhaps a venue towards gracious love.

But Lucy did have cancer at the age of nine. She lived. She had life-long pain. She went home after surgery and then back to school with a large part of her lower jaw missing. Growing up in hospitals almost as much as at home certainly lends itself to another entire realm of development of self view, and world view. The amount that Lucy scrutinizes her own ideas and then the ways she copes with them is formidable.

The ability Lucy had to express herself was a wonderful gift. Her decision to write a story about her story was bold. It’s Lucy’s perception of luck and relativity and hypocrisy that seals her life’s most extraordinary work. The only justice that I can do is to refer back to her own writing. I am thankful to have read what she extracted from her life experiences and although the creation is hers, somehow I feel that Lucy and I might understand one another just a little. But, even if we wouldn’t, I appreciate my own needs in a new light and will consider others’ differently, as well.

Are You Somebody

I bought Are You Somebody: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman on the sale rack at a Barnes and Noble store in Bellingham for absolutely no explicable reason. Then I left it on my shelf for over a decade without reading it, again for no reason whatsoever. If third time’s a charm, then I ought to know why I picked it up the other night and read it. But I don’t.

Much like Nuala O’Faolain herself in writing the memoir, I stumbled into it and found it absolutely moving. As O’Faolain describes moving along in life without strategy, I felt that creepy sensation of someone reading my diary, but, actually it was me reading hers. I picked the book up the evening I discovered that I had not had a real conversation in a week. As disconcerting as that is, I’m young, go to social group things, work, have a housemate, etc, so it’s not as though I’m at risk of having some disaster befall me and not be found for a week. O’Faolain, however, has that grim possibility presented to her even as she recalls the people she knew for whom it was reality.

There are many tracks that O’Faolain’s memoir takes which entranced me. She can put so many specific pieces of information into each story, to the point where the details almost overtake the actual event, making them more solid, whereas for many authors they would instead become tedious. She lists her relationships in a mesmerizing way for they were at once the part of her life she most obsessed about and was most detached from. She cites her strokes of luck and her irresponsibility and continual subscription to faith and ignorance without any chagrin or shame or uncertainty or defensiveness. She gives another context for the budding women’s movement of the mid-late 20^th Century, sharing freshly and intelligently.

I love her matter-of-factness. I love her ability to say plainly terrible things without sensationalism. I love that she understands something of the plight of humanity and that she isn’t scared or unusually brave, either. I don’t know if everyone needs to read this story, this memoir of a Dublin woman. But I needed to read it. I also need to have another good conversation!

Flights

If you have any latent romantic heartstrings that can be pulled, then James Collins’ Beginners Greek is your ticket. This is the kind of story that may even inspire frequent flights cross-country. Personally I’m about ready to hop a flight to LA. And that’s not solely because I have heaps of family and friends down there I’d really like to visit.

So, the premise is that two young people fall in love. Setting: airplane. Distance: NYC to LA. Focal point: the woman is reading The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (I still remember who I was in love with when I read that book! – and, as wonderful as second breakfast sounded, it was the rest cures that captured my imagination… and which have appeared in my lifestyle…..). Tragedy: the guy loses the girl’s phone number. Resolution: ahem, well, really, you’re literate, read it yourself.

I do, in fact, feel that it is worth reading – major caveat: unless you’re like my sister; I can’t imagine her liking it one bit, or my roommate’s boyfriend, either. It’s a little less intellectual than, say, Thomas Mann, but it isn’t trite. It moves with the intrigue of Gone With the Wind but was compared by critics to something by Jane Austen. The ‘hero’ seems a little bit too wussy and perfect to be believed – what investment banker do you know who’s able to recite an entire poem by an little-known American, who lived in Greece, at a dinner party just off the cuff, and yet not tell a girl he’s been in love with for nearly a decade that he fancies her? Perhaps I’m too judgmental. He sounds a little absurd. He sounds like someone I might know but don’t get….

At times I felt that the book could have been written by someone a bit like the character Charlotte – someone who tries so very hard. Incidentally, Charlotte felt like the absolute most authentic person, followed, but not very closely, by the heroine, Holly. The author wrote about women so well; I wonder if his mother died when he was young and now he’s just trying to earn the love of women…. A joke, once you’ve read the book you’ll get it.

The one string left hanging was the only one I saw from a fair distance the easiest resolution. In other words, one character’s presence in the story was purely to be a catalyst. Sort of the same role as the apothecary in Romeo & Juliet. Funny, her name was Julia…. I ended up respecting her a tiny bit and not minding overly much at all that it looks like she suffered a completely renewed spirit over the course of the book and would choose the right path from here on out.

The setting being New York City, with brief flights to LA, Paris, etc, was alright. I often wondered while reading why two such good people ended up there, but I shouldn’t. I know some lovely people, whose stories don’t even remotely resemble this one, living in NYC. But I’ll readily admit that finding love there and the description of the lifestyle enjoyed did not entice me. This realization surfaced into my consciousness multiple times while reading the book. Usually as a scene is created I get entirely caught up in it. This was a disconcerting break from my suspension of disbelief, and I have no ready explanation.

Pickled Herring

It’s not very often that I am given jars of pickled herring. This fine day did occur very recently and was quickly followed by a meeting with Rene Redzepi, the chef of Noma, which was recognized this year with the S Pellegrino award as the Best Restaurant in the World, and is located in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Prior to consulting Redzepi’s cookbook to see if pickled herring was indeed part of Nordic Cuisine, I fashioned a pickled herring salsa. I used the tomatoes I had processed at the end of summer (which I cooked very little and added to caramelized onions, thyme, and oregano – not super typical of salsa, I realize). Just some herring and cooked wheat berries didn’t quite make the salsa swing. However, I heated the combination, which ended up being too strong, but the following day when I tried it cold again – delicious.

Now that I have looked through NOMA: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine, as well as searched the Index for herring, I find that indeed, the only herring dish is pickled! In fact, the herring is marinated – with salt and vinegar, whereas mine also has sugar. The herring is paired with pumpkin and walnut, both ingredients I often employ in the more moderate Northwest. I’m looking forward to experimenting with the rest of my herring!

As for the other recipes, I can understand why I was told that it really isn’t the sort of cooking one does on a day to day basis. And yet, the combinations feel entirely familiar and reasonable. Well, maybe not potato, anise, and chocolate…. But, as interesting as the food sounds, I’ll admit that the greater delight for me is in the photographs. Each section follows from raw ingredients and landscapes to plated dishes in a mesmerizing flow. I look forward to trying more combinations and techniques this fall and winter, when thoughts of the Nordic are closer than ever.

Evelyn Waugh in short

I just finished reading The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh. It was a book with short shorts, long shorts, and incomplete shorts. The New York Times review stated “It is never too late to read or reread Evelyn Waugh.” I would have to agree wholeheartedly. This statement does beg the question, however, whether it is ever too early.

Considering that I groaned audibly at the end of more than one of these stories, causing my roommate’s dog, Canyon, to come check on me as he does when my nieces cry when falling off the swing in the back yard, I imagine it might be at least PG13 reading. I know kids read JK Rowlings’ Harry Potter series which is full of suspense and drama. Somehow Waugh’s stories aren’t enough of that genre, but more the gut-wrenching ironic twist for a finish that will make one gag a bit and realize that the story has hit much harder than one quite wishes for an evening in with a book.

Having said that, needing to set the book aside from time to time as certain stories keep me from sitting comfortably in the overstuffed leather chair with the ottoman didn’t keep me from it long, as the stories were so well-told that the occasionally humorous and light ones enticed me back again and again. So, I will likely reread Evelyn Waugh, long before it’s too late.

The Age of Persuasion

Everyone who sees my book, The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture has a comment or question or both. This is a fantastic ice breaker if you’re pretty much anywhere. I’ve traveled most of the West coast of the United States with it while on a road trip. This does lessen the punch somewhat. I find that reading over long periods of time and long distances usually weakens the message. But with the message coming from award-winning ad-men, Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant, I guess that’s an apt description of their point. Who can contemplate massive redwood forests and guerrilla marketing simultaneously? (Not to mention keeping one’s eyes on the road in order to catch all the Hwy 101 signs.)

I think that there is a lot about marketing that I really admire and enjoy. The authors, O’Reilly and Tennant, agree and even elucidate for me what those areas are. I now understand the ‘implicit contract’ between advertiser and advertisee. There are also innumerable annoying things about ads, which the authors not only identify, but tear apart thread by thread the way I used to go at mozzarella sticks as a kid. Covering the age from snake oils to product placements in entertainment, it is quite a big cheese stick.

I’d like to quote at some length what this implicit contract really is, as it’s such an easy way to determine the quality of ads. “While much of the work is highly creative, it (speaking here of billboards), like many other media, must figure out a way to honor an implicit contract between advertisers and consumers which, simply put, promises that advertisers must give you something in exchange for their imposition on your time, attention, and space…. The key is that it offers some tangible benefit.” (Age of Persuasion, p29)

Since I avoid most forms of marketing (don’t watch TV, listen to public radio, avoid clothes with insignias on them, etc) billboards are by far the most typical thing I see. In the city I commute past a number of them and historically they stand out since their message is so big and bold. They sometimes make me blush. Apparently that is not altogether certainly good or bad. Hmm.

If you’re interested in how our culture was consumed, then this book may be of interest. I got a kick out of the style: corny, engaging, informed, opinionated, anecdotal, with pleasant cartoon boxes full of extraneous information. Good, fun reading! The implicit contract was met –and that with a phenomenal cover design to boot.

‘Ad giant Phil Dusenberry put it: “I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes.”’ (Age of Persuasion, pxxiv)

No's the Answer

A number of evenings ago I read an enjoyable account of Beth Wareham, a woman who learned to say ‘no’. She says no in every imaginable arena and over every possible situation. And her point is that she’s happier and more productive than ever.

Glorious. I essentially told the Seattle Public Library ‘no’ in order to keep The Power of No; How to Keep Blowhards and Bozos at Bay in my possession long enough to read it (about a month past return date). It didn’t take long to read, it was just finding the time to sit with a book, which I find incredibly challenging in the height of summer. Of course, now it’s no longer the height and saying no to other exploits kept me home reading just long enough to learn how it’s done.

Wareham broke saying ‘no’ into various entertaining chapters. How to say ‘no’ to a boyfriend, a colleague, a boss, a friend, a stranger, a parent, a spouse, and a sibling are all just different enough to necessitate varied tactics. They might even require altogether different vocabulary. I myself remember a certain boss who yelled at me, “Don’t tell me ‘no’!” which I will admit having done…. I laughed then, and the situation was ludicrous enough that I still laugh about it now. Wareham doesn’t recommend my approach. Even I haven’t used it much since then. J

I was super surprised that she did recommend what I consider ‘playing games’ in relationships. Don’t answer phone calls, wait to return texts, etc. I hate that. Of course, I’m not in a relationship…. Oh well, apparently what I call considerate, Wareham calls too yessy.

Finally, after all outside influences have been slayed and silenced, Wareham focuses on how to say ‘no’ to oneself. It appears a straight-forward, you’re-not-fooling-anyone-here routine is the correct style. You don’t need peanut M&M’s or a new sun-dress were her clever and ubiquitous examples which, on my own level (ice cream and shoes), I rather understand.

When all is said and done it appears I have a handy familiarity with saying ‘no,’ and even though I employ many of the varied methods of communicating ‘no’ I’m not sure they’re at all equal. Wareham’s discussion has definitely brought choice new ways to say ‘no’ to my attention. Wonderful!

Good to be Great

I picked up The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence for three reasons: perfect cover design, excellent ‘advance praise’ on the back cover, and the author, Rachel Simmons, started what looked like an interesting program for girls and writes about her passion. There really is a fourth reason. I have nieces and teach girls in Sunday School, and I want to be prepared to give my girls the best possible encouragement.

The introduction, I realized was the author explaining in her own words the importance of the French phrase, etre bien dans sa peaux, which I have grown to love. Literally it means ‘to be well in your skin’ but what you want to get from it is a sense of ‘it’s my own self in my own body, and I like it.’ Simmons doesn’t go into French idioms, but she certainly supports the idea!

Now that I’ve read the book, however, I realize that Simmons’ main objective for someone who teaches girls or leads girls or mothers girls is that said woman herself est bien dans sa peaux. Yes, Simmons thinks the healthiest way for girls to become great, rather than just ‘good,’ is to be around people who are modeling how to be oneself. This reminds me of the Jewish rabbi who discovered that God was not asking him to be Moses, but to be himself. What a beautiful way of life to embrace.

Using an immense number of girls’ interactions that she documents from her summer programs, Simmons illustrates many essential communication rituals among girls which assure them that they are being good. Of course, with every example, she explains that it is impossible to actually be good, therefore the girls incessantly set themselves up for failure. And that is not good.

Good Girls don’t fight, so if a girl is in a fight with a friend, she’s not good. Good Girls don’t promote themselves, so if a girl asserts her abilities, she’s not good. Good Girls don’t make mistakes, so if a girl gets negative feedback from a coach, teacher, etc, she’s not good. These end up being strangle holds on girls, keeping them from really learning how to grow all the way up.

Simmons rightly differentiates between girls being social together and girls in relation to authority. She also identifies that girls themselves do not always properly draw that line between the girls and the adults. I have seen this particular issue with older girls who are about to be adults, but aren’t actually there yet.

Ultimately, Simmons’ goal is to encourage girls to become great, and leave good alone. The only way to be great is to discover who you are, to take risks, to have courage. Raise your hand even if you’re not sure about the answer. Be challenged and mobilized by change, not defeated. Be honest about your feelings. Pursue risk and adventure, for these, not the worry of failure, may “yield exhilarating leaps in growth.” (p90) Sounds good to me.