Reading

M.F. herself had a haughty toughness about her. Indeed, she had embarked on this solo expedition to Arles as a kind of challenge to herself. To travel alone, to see Provence as it really was rather than as she imagined it to be, to compare her fond, nostalgic recollections of the place with its immediate, cold reality. And more than that: to make sense of her life, and what the future held. Her children were grown. She could feel the past slipping away. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted of the future.

-- from Luke Barr's Provence, 1970

I'm still at the beginning, but it's an interesting book so far. And it's giving me some ideas with regard to what I might like to do with this blog in 2014...

Speaking of which... Happy New Year!

Shark Attack

Smithsonian published an article a few days ago about the worst shark attack in history, and it reminded me of this particularly brilliant performance by the consistently awesome and shockingly chameleon-like Robert Shaw (who also edited the speech down to what we saw in the movie), telling the story of the USS Indianapolis, which in the movie, explains why Shaw's character, Quinn, has such an Ahab-like devotion to finding the shark.

Pretty words

"Food is about hunger. We eat what we miss and what we want to become, the foods of our childhoods and the symbols of the lives we hope to lead." -- Robin Shulman in Eat the City

"I'd taken Ayrs's bible, Also sprach Zarathustra, to the stone slab bridge over the lake to the willow-tree island. A scorching hot afternoon; even in the shade I was sweating like a pig. After ten pages I felt Nietzsche was reading me, not I him, so I watched the water boatmen and newts while my mind-orchestra performed Fred Delius's Air and Dance. Syrupy florentine of a piece, but its drowsy flute is rather successful." -- David Mitchell in Cloud Atlas

Chance Encounters

Emmie turned me onto this interview with Kazuo Ishiguro yesterday, which proved to be wonderful lunch hour reading. In it, I ran across the following tidbit:

In many ways, children grow up in a bubble. We try to maintain that bubble—quite properly, I think. We shield them from unpleasant news. We do this so thoroughly that if you walk around with a small child, strangers you meet enter into the conspiracy.

... which reminded me of an exchange I had with some people at the Costo the other day, right before lunch. I was cruising down the dairy aisle, trying to find a wholesale-sized log of cream cheese (I was about to make a couple of cheesecakes for Emmie's birthday). In that same aisle was a man with two little kids in his cart, and I heard him say to them, as part of a longer narrative I did not catch, that I ("that woman over there") wanted to "eat them."

I didn't respond, but I was amused. My own kid (who, shockingly enough, no longer rides in my grocery cart), lived a rich fantasy life when she was little, and constantly demanded/provided a narrative to her days.

...but back to the present, at the Costco... the older kid, a little girl who was maybe 4-ish, was arguing with her father, not believing him. She turned and (yay for bold kids!) asked me, "do you want to eat children?" And I answered, even as her father was steering his cart away, "well, I am pretty hungry!"

I could hear that the conversation was continuing as we parted ways.

Books

This quote from John Waters has been making the rounds lately, but I can't find its origin (interview? standup? essay? art?). Words to live by, though.  ;-)  Keera, do you think this qualifies as a continuation of our paper vs. pixel debate?  ;-D

Ngrams + lots of books

This is so cool. An n-gram is a sequence of n items. Google Labs applied the ngram to their colossal book database (15 million!), and has given us access to the results. It allows for a fascinating glimpse at our cultural history via the trends found in the data. If you want to dig right in, you can go to the Google Labs Ngram viewer. Or you can get a better sense of how it works here, or with this video from TED Talks:

Here are a few samples I ran through the gears: liberal, conservative; religion, science; evolution, creation; compassion, responsibility; jesus, santa -- but oops! be careful... this thing is case sensitive... try that one again: Jesus, Santa; Beethoven, Beatles; jazz, blues; football, baseball, basketball, soccer, cricket, hockey, rugby

VDT vs. Vellum Redux

Over the summer, Keera and I have been talking about books and how we read them. The discussion started with Do We Need Dead Trees?, then popped over to Paper or Pixel? -- and continued in comments that brought up such issues as shelf space, dictionaries, sharing books, device varieties, the need for electricity, reading on the beach, in bed & on airplanes, notes & highlights, instant purchasing, the weight of books, sustainability, distractions, and text size.

You'd think that we've pretty much plumbed the depths of the subject -- but you'd be wrong! Jack Shafer at Slate.com, who has alternated between print and online when reading his New York Times, has discovered that media matters when it comes to the retention of information:

The researchers found that the print folks "remember significantly more news stories than online news readers"; that print readers "remembered significantly more topics than online newsreaders"; and that print readers remembered "more main points of news stories." When it came to recalling headlines, print and online readers finished in a draw.

I recognize the inevitability of the electronic word. In fact, in some ways, I've already given into it. I hardly ever write letters anymore. And I no longer have a subscription to a daily newspaper, but rather get my news from a number of online sources. There are things I still miss about having that paper delivered to my porch every morning, and Shafer's article reminded me that I do suffer from anemic retention and attention when it comes to the news. This was something I already knew -- for whatever reason, it's harder for me to peruse the morning news when it's on a screen.

I do still subscribe to a number of magazines and with one exception,* I can't really imagine reading any of them on a computer, reading device or phone. I like flipping through the pages of my cooking magazines (Cooking Light and Saveur) and tearing out recipes and tidbits for later. Vanity Fair has extended articles that are more satisfying to read in print, and even though they sometimes make me sneeze, I think I'd miss that smell of a magazine full of those perfume sample pages. And, of course, Smithsonian and National Geographic always feature amazing images that pop out of the page, which just wouldn't be the same on a small screen.

As far as books go, while I still cling to the paper versions, it's not out of stubbornness so much as inertia and thrift. I have a house full of books (have I mentioned that my spouse reads for a living?). I like the way they feel and smell and behave. I have books that I like to revisit, and many others that I haven't yet read. I don't particularly want to have to pay, again, for something I already possess.

But I do have a few books loaded on my phone's book app for occasions when I'm stuck waiting somewhere and need something to read -- they're old classics (Dickens, Austen) from the public domain that didn't cost me anything. It's nice to be able to keep what used to be heavy tomes in a little pocket of my purse, and I have to admit to occasional frustration that my old books have not yet sprouted CTRL+F buttons.

But my experience bears out that which Shafer discusses. Perhaps it's just that I'm old and my brain was hardwired too early for the onscreen reading experience to be as satisfying as reading on a page. For me, a glowing screen prompts me to scan, whereas paper makes me want to slow down and read. I wonder if younger readers feel that distinction. And I wonder if I will evolve...


ps. How would you ebook readers feel about getting one with a soundtrack tossed in the mix?

pps. Forget the books. What about the writers?


*it was in my print copy of The Week that I first ran across Shafer's article, but since it's such a short-format, linky kind of thing, it's the one magazine I get that I could probably just as easily read online. But I still like it better on paper.

Sadly, spot on...

The only way you can get Americans to notice anything is to tax them or draft them or kill them. If you abolish the draft, most Americans will simply stop caring about what we're doing in other parts of the world.

-- Owen Meany

Do we need dead trees?

The last time I was on an airplane, I took a look around to see how many people were, like me, lugging around huge stacks of bound paper so that we'd have something to read during the flight, and how many people had convenient little devices tucked into their pockets or bags. I felt vastly outnumbered. Thank goodness G-Dog was nearby or I might have felt almost alone.

I'll stick with the minority, though, since I'm not ready yet to trade in my books for a nook, kindle, ipad, or phone app. I'll never say never -- I can certainly see the appeal: all those books on that one little device! Wow! The screens and preference options are dazzling (since I switched to trifocals, I've given up trying to read an actual book in bed, but I bet I could manage with a kindle). And the tree-hugger in me loves the thought of all those paperless books!

But right now, I still need the actual book. I read with a pencil in my hand. I underline, I circle, I put notes in the margins. I keep a character list in on the back page of the book. I like being able to share a book (is it possible to loan or pass along a digital book?).

I do have a few books loaded on my phone. They're old favorites that I like to read time and time again. I have them so I'll have something to read if I forget to take a book to the doctor's office or get unexpectedly stuck waiting somewhere. But I don't like reading that way. The screen is small and my phone is cold and hard. It tends to beep and vibrate at random moments, demanding my attention. I can't handle it. As Johann Hari points out, a good book should only do one thing:

The object needs to remain dull so the words – offering you the most electric sensation of all: insight into another person's internal life – can sing.

A book does not get in my way when I'm trying to read. I'm afraid a device would. I already spend too much time sitting at a glowing screen. My fondest goal these days is to get away from the computer, so that I can actually do things like hiking, biking and yes... reading books.

Via Emmie, this is awesome...

Lots of links you might have missed!

It's been a while and these things do pile up...

• How The Average U.S. Consumer Spends Their Paycheck -- this is an interesting chart. We're by no means average (we've never carried a car loan, for one thing, and we probably spend more on food and alcohol, even though we don't eat out much), but the proportions seem to be generally true.

• Have you tried goofram yet? It's a combination of google and wolfram|alpha.

• Think you're a geek? Have you mastered the essential skills?

• The Young Republicans have elected an Aryan as their leader.

• Barney Frank visited the Daily Show last week.

• Just how rich is Fitzwilliam Darcy? (Here's an interesting bit of trivia: Pride and Prejudice is not only my favorite novel, it's also the first book I ever read aloud to Emmie -- starting when she was about a week old.) And speaking of Jane Austen, today is the anniversary of her death.

• How's your sense of pitch? (I scored a 26 out of 26 -- which, if you've ever heard me sing, you know must mean that I hear pitch perfectly -- I just can't produce it that way.)

• White Men Can't Judge.

• Local coverage of Zach Wamp's psooper psekret christian adultery cult (read about yet another C Street philanderer here -- and here!).

• You Suck at Craig's List is pretty funny (via Joe. My. God.).

• Badass of the Week, featuring Blenda, the Viking Heroine!

• Rick Perry is apparently rethinking that whole Texas-as-a-country thing (seriously -- who voted for this guy?).

• If you want to see the Great Barrier Reef, you better go soon.

• Can someone find Glenn Beck a nice small room with soft walls and a good therapist?

• ... and speaking of health care (that's what set Beck off)... Glenn doesn't have it quite right when it comes to France's system. The current American system is fine until you get sick, but will the next one be any better?

• This can't be said enough times: the only thing abstinence-only "education" produces is unbelievably stupid kids.

• I loves me some Usain Bolt footage. He makes all the other best runners in the world look like my grandma.

• Understanding our economy.

• Drunk people doing yoga.

• And finally, Pat Buchanan: he really stepped in it this week -- even more than usual!

Movies That Will Never Be Made

I have very mixed feelings about books being made into movies. If I'm going to see a movie that's based on a book, I usually try to read the book first, because I've found that having seen the movie can often disrupt the experience of reading the book, while reading the book first rarely ruins the viewing of the movie.

I can only think of one movie that was actually better than the book, and that was The Shawshank Redemption -- since it was based on a short story, there wasn't so much to lose in the translation to film, and with Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman and the splendid perfomances of the film's supporting cast, the story really comes to life in a way that pleases my imagination. Mr. Freeman's Red Redding is embodied with much more depth than the character has in the book. And his voice always adds to whatever role his is playing -- I would happily listen to the man reading a phone book.

I can think of wonderful movies that are based on books, but most adaptations never reach quite as far as the tomes from which they rose. Gregory Peck gave us a beautiful Atticus Finch, but if I really want to wallow in that delightful story set in Maycomb, Alabama, I can't do it without pulling out out our well-worn copy of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. And while I am fond of all of the amusing attempts to bring Pride and Prejudice to the big screen (despite its rather obvious shortcomings, my favorite is the 1940 Garson/Olivier version, because Olivier is wonderful in every way), who could ever really prefer any of them to Jane Austen's beautiful novel?

Anyway, that's a long way around to saying that I think it's a good thing that for one reason or another, these books might never make it to the multiplex. I'm rather attached to the wacky casts of characters that have populated my imagination since savoring 100 Years of Solitude and A Confederacy of Dunces and would rather not have my versions replaced with someone else's. And who could possibly be so arrogant as to think he (or she) can bring life to Holden Caufield or Gregor Samsa in a way that would do the characters justice? And so on...

I think I'm glad these books have, so far, stayed safe from those would Disnify them. I hope it lasts.

(And I brace myself for what the film industry is going do to Phillip Pullman's wonderful trilogy, His Dark Materials, when it hits the theaters this fall.)

Random Links

These are links I've promised miscellaneous people I'd share today...

Bob Dylan to host XM satellite radio show

Author Annie Proulx discusses the origins of her 'Brokeback Mountain'

... and the short story that inspired the movie (buy the book!).