I heart Roald Dahl

When I was little (& even now) Roald Dahl was one of my favorite authors. In honor of his birthday on September 13, Google made a special logo, how cute is that? If you haven't had the pleasure of acquaintance with his books you should go read them now. They're still awesome to me, 20 years later.

It's lonely being a skeptical empiricist

They like to play the lottery at my work, because we hate it here so much. Almost everyone puts in $2 or $5. The jackpot is currently ~$250 million but today I thought of The Black Swan (great, go read it & his first book) & didn't waste my meager lunch money. It's so seductive though. I can't help thinking how much I could use $10 million & how wonderful it'd be if I won, despite knowing perfectly well that I have 30 times more chance of being struck by lightning than winning. Of course, Taleb's discussion is of the black swans that do happen, but this is the flip side of people's wishful belief that crazy stuff won't occur. I liked the idea he champions of being a skeptical empiricist - it's just hard to fight human nature, which wants to find patterns & reasons in random things. Anyway, I hope as a nice person that my colleagues win, but I also hope like hell that they don't because I'll feel like the biggest fool.

A Farewell to Palms

I finally gave up on my Treo. I cannot stand it freezing or randomly restarting any more. I've had a Palm for 12 years, so it was quite a wrench. In 1995 my parents got me an m505 (the most basic kind) for xmas. I upgraded over the years, culminating in a Treo 600 2 years ago & a 700 this year, & have loved & hated them ever since. The design has gotten better & better; Treos are great to keep things organized, but the software problems with Verizon were awful. I've had to replace the Treo probably 5 or 6 times in 2 years, none of which was ever because I lost it, was robbed or damaged it. I don't know what Verizon's problem is. It's unacceptable for a PDA to freeze if I send a couple texts in rapid succession, or if someone texts me while I'm typing. I understand that many of these problems are supposed to be a result of insufficient memory, flash or something. Whatever. Before you sell a phone you should make sure it works under normal usage, otherwise your job is not done.

All that said, I loved the user-friendly format & well-thought-out little details Palm excels at. A couple things the Treo does better than the BlackBerry: calendar events compress the hours. The BB continues to show a line for every hour regardless, which sometimes makes it annoying to see what I have for a whole day. E.g., when I work at Giant Multinational Corporation, 8:30-6 should be one line, not 10. & if I have a recurring event, I can't change one & make the future ones reflect that change, I can only change all or one. I sorely miss the categories in my to-do list. I miss dedicated buttons for calendar, memo, texts, tasks, phone & keyboard lock. The 'Berry only has 1. At the moment I can't get the Treo-'Berry sync wizard to work, but assuming that gets sorted out, the BlackBerry is great & everyone I know who got the same 8830 loves it. But I miss my faithful (if not always able) buddy. *sniffle*

Update: it does have categories. You hit the BB key, go to Filters, & if you've got your stuff sorted like I do, from the Treo, you can pick a category you want to view & voilà! Really glad I fiddled around & discovered that.

books update

Just finished Cheat & Charmer, by Elizabeth Frank. Apparently she won a Pulitzer for a previous biography, but this novel was not good at all. It's set in Hollywood during the McCarthy era & describes one woman's troubles after she testifies. Her philandering asshole of a husband is a successful screenwriter/director/producer, & she doesn't want to get him blacklisted, so she testifies, naming her sister & some other people as ex-Communists. Lots of trouble ensues. Some of the story is actually not bad, it's just the writing & the author's sense of reality that bothers me. I was constantly confused about whether Frank was describing the present or events that had happened before, & the main character's stutter was really annoying & distracting. Also, I know it was the 1950s, but I have trouble believing that every single husband in the world considered it indispensable, almost his god-given right, to have girls on the side. & the characters act so improbably that it's hard to stay in the story. This was 550 pages' worth of timewasting.

On a brighter note, my new author crush is Philippa Gregory, for her historical novels about Tudor England. I've read The Other Boleyn Girl, The Queen's Fool & The Virgin's Lover this month. They're fantastic! I've always loved reading English history, especially biographies of Henry VIII & Elizabeth I & Alison Weir's books, & these are detailed views of what may have happened. I get so drawn into the books that I can't even put them down until they're done. Good thing I read really fast (~500 pages each).

Eric Hansen is wonderful. I read The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer & Orchid Fever and I can't wait to read more of his work. He's got a great sense of humor & his subjects are certainly off the beaten path. Val McDermid is wonderful as well - she's a British crime novelist & tends to write about serial killers, whom are endlessly fascinating to me. Jonathan Haidt's Happiness Hypothesis was a very thoughtful examination of what ancient philosophies & religions have said about happiness, compared to today's scientific findings.

Oh, you thought this would be another post about dating & partying? I'm trying to be a less superficial woman this year. :)

Aruba: 6/10

I have returned safely... Aruba's too hot & humid though. The mosquitos bit me unmercifully, & the whole place looks like a ghetto. On the plus side, the beaches are gorgeous white sand, the cliffs overlooking the water are made of fascinatingly eroded rock, & the ocean is a very lovely shade of blue. I don't see why people make such a big fuss about it, although I think my opinion might be colored by my family's constant sniping at each other & complaining about everything. The best part was hanging out with my siblings. They're a little more grown-up now, so I can connect with them about more stuff, & I got to play tennis with them every day that my ankle didn't hurt. (It started giving me trouble in dance class a week before I left & only healed after 2 weeks of total rest.) I also finished 7.5 books. So I guess I had an ok time. But I'm very glad to be back.

Jon Fasman - The Geographer's Library

Not much time & many errands - was so caught up in what would happen next that I had to finish this book, & I highly recommend it. It's an enthralling story & though a bit confusing at the beginning with so many different strands of story, it rewards persistence. Basically it alternates between the present day, where a journalist investigates the slightly suspicious death of an engimatic small-town professor, & the past where several characters collect interesting objects in cold-blooded, frightening ways. The young journalist is a bit dense from the omnipotent reader's point of view, but that actually made it more realistic for me. If he'd caught on too quickly I would find it glib. I'm off to the library now for more booty. Let's hope I'll have enough reading material to get through nearly a week with my family.

The Gift of Fear

Just finished this book by Gavin de Becker. It's about how fear & our intuition tell us things, but we've forgotten how to listen. It's not as foofy as that sounds. He starts with examples where people had a bad feeling & ignored it & awful things really did happen, like a woman who reluctantly let a guy help her carry groceries into her apartment & ended up assaulted & almost murdered, because she didn't realize what her intuition was telling her at first. De Becker moves on to show how people's behavior gives clear indications of what they're going to do, & it's a matter of whether we choose to pay attention. He discusses ever-increasing levels of danger, from creepy dates through domestic violence to assassination attempts. The last chapter talks about when we should listen to our fears. There certainly is such a thing as worrying needlessly, & once we understand what it is we're really afraid of we can evaluate those fears & live much more calmly.

My favorite chapter was about people (men especially) who won't take no for an answer. I love that he laid it out clearly. "Stalking... is a crime of power, control, and intimidation very similar to date rape. In fact, many cases of date stalking could be described as extended rapes; they take away freedom, and they honor the desires of the man and disregard the wishes of the woman." We are allowed to simply say no! I can't believe something so fundamental has escaped me for so long. From what my girl friends have said, I think a lot of women think this way - we feel we must be nice & let guys down easy & give them excuses for why we don't want to see them. That is actually counterproductive, according to de Becker. Anything except "No, I am not interested & I will never be" just gives that kind of persistent guy the wrong idea. It's so simple & yet so foreign to American society. I am incredibly glad I read this book before it was too late.

Halloween costume

I decided to be the Goddess of Perversity this year. I was just going to be a dominatrix (without telling people I actually am) but I thought this sounded more original. I also recently finished Bram Dijkstra's Idols of Perversity, which was a real eye-opener. Since I'll basically be wearing my domme outfit with more accessories, I'm not sure how to "perversify" it... I think the title will just be for conversational purposes. After an extensive Google search the only name I can come up with is Eris but she's the goddess of discord. So I suppose I will create my own mythology. Ideas, anyone?

Dawkins interview

Just found this thought-provoking interview with scientist Richard Dawkins in Salon through Pharyngula. He discusses why he is an atheist & how it is the logical, intelligent position to take. He is the author of The Selfish Gene & The Blind Watchmaker, among other books about evolution. It's nice to know that there are still thinking, questioning people out there.

Margot Fonteyn

I've almost finished this book about Margot Fonteyn, which is a good thing because I desperately need sleep. (I do most of my reading in bed, in an attempt to fall asleep.) I am currently obsessed with ballerinas & ballet, so much so that I just stay awake reading even when it's 5am & I have to get up in 2 hours. I'm also obsessed with going to hip-hop dance classes at Equinox but that's another subject.

Meredith Daneman has written a meticulously-researched biography of the great ballerina. She's an engaging writer & frequently quotes Margot's friends & contemporaries in a way that makes me feel like I'm right there with her. I was really enjoying myself, following Margot's career & all her triumphs, until she married Tito Arias. The more I read the more upset I get. Did Margot really think her marriage to a philandering, unsupportive, political bumbler was working? I almost can't believe that she watched him run around seducing tons of young women while she was dancing her heart out making money for his ill-conceived revolution. He couldn't even be bothered to care about her performances. Right when she finally starts considering divorce, one of his political rivals shoots him. He becomes quadriplegic & instead of taking her leave, Margot chooses to become a martyr. She continues dancing to pay their bills despite being in her fifties & takes care of her lousy husband like a saint.

I wish I could say I don't understand why she stayed, but I do. I stayed with my ex-boyfriend way too long as well, & though he didn't abuse me quite as much as Tito, it was transparent to everyone but me that he was a terrible choice. I guess it's a lot harder to be objective about a situation when you're in it. Anyway, the book is upsetting me, but it's well-written & makes me love dance even more, if that's possible. I wish my mother had made me take ballet class when I was little - I'd be a lot better at it now. Well, that's why we have hip-hop & jazz & all those other less stringent styles. :)

blog books

I am exhausted today - possibly from drinking all night with Morgan Stanley Ex-Boyfriend - but I just finished Wonkette's book. She's a very interesting, funny writer. I never read her blog, since I don't care about politics (no, I will not listen to nasty or scolding comments about that); I just heard the book was great. It's certainly well-written, but towards the end I stopped liking it so much. Melanie Thornton is a junior aide in the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign who's having an affair with a married TV guy. Her best friend Julie is a savvy, capable consultant. When rumors start going around about Melanie & the married guy, Julie & Melanie start a blog pretending to be a Beltway call girl to deflect attention. I won't give away the rest of the plot, so I'll just say it's a little disappointing.

More importantly, Melanie pissed me off more & more as I watched her flounder around. She was so Midwestern & sad & square, despite sleeping with a married man. I wanted to read more about Julie, who was an inspiration, the way she thought everything through, kept her head on straight, & didn't get sidetracked by how things should be, instead concentrating on what to do with how they were. I guess I just don't identify with "the little guy." I like the ones who are rational & accept whatever needs to be done without pretending to feel bad about it, probably because that's how I want to be.

The other blogger book I read recently was Anonymous Lawyer. That was much more satisfying. Anonymous Lawyer is hilariously cruel to everyone but I think it's really just an exaggeration of his frustration with incompetence. I wasn't as enamored of the ending but overall it was great & you should definitely read it.

Jonathan Franzen book-slapped

Today in the Times, Michiko Kakutani published a scathing review of Jonathan Franzen's new memoir. I didn't read The Corrections because I thought it'd be awful, so I can't comment on him as a writer, but it was so much fun to watch him get smacked around in print. He seems like a giant asshole from what I've heard, anyway. Vilifying someone in well-written prose is an art we should definitely bring back.

The House of Mirth

I just finished this book today. It was very good, but also frightening. The heroine, Lily Bart, is a well-bred young lady trying to stay in early 1900s New York high society though she doesn't have enough money. She needs to marry well, but every time a man looks all set to propose, she can't follow through. She doesn't really know why, just that it feels vaguely distasteful & she shrinks away at the last minute, despite working hard to line up all the ducks initially. As she gets older, it's harder & harder to maintain her position without money & a husband. I identified with her so much, the way she knew she was better than all that but it was the only world she knew, & she was forced to compromise - not her morals exactly, maybe her honor & independence. I don't have to marry or sleep with money, but like everyone else I've thought about how much easier my life would be if I could. We are so lucky to live in a time when women can work & be independent. Though we still don't get paid equal to men, at least we have options.

I also finished Cyteen over the weekend. The ending was a bit abrupt, & in general it was a little difficult, but it's an engrossing story with a lot of insights into how people react to different behavior. I definitely recommend both books.

thank god the Adderall kicked in...

because the program we use at work to review docs is half-frozen & therefore we have very little to do. I think I'll take advantage of the enforced break to rave about a book I'm reading: Cyteen, by C.J. Cherryh. When I started it I found it difficult & kind of slow but it's such a sci-fi classic I gave it 50 pages to get good, & boy did it. These are my impressions after reading about 1/3 of the book.

It's about humanity a few hundred years from now, when we've colonized a couple other planets. We understand so much about humans that we can play with their genes, keep them alive an extra 50-100 years, & fix psychological issues by directly instructing the mind, among other advances. Now the woman, Ariane, who pioneered many of the psychological developments & pretty much rules the planet Cyteen where she lives, starts a project to clone herself, which will essentially give her a daughter since she's 132 years old. Before it gets going, she's murdered. Her successors change the plan & decide to make the clone exactly like her, so they have to replicate her childhood exactly. It's fascinating to watch this poor girl grow up completely in the dark while everyone else knows why such bewildering things happen (e.g., several people died in Ariane's childhood so people keep disappearing from the new Ari's life). Also, Ariane was so feared & powerful & brilliant that I can already see the maneuverings & emotions swirling around little Ari. The best part is that she is so smart & perceptive, she can see it as well. When she manipulates a roomful of adults into having fun at her 7th birthday party instead of concentrating on their political intrigues I was blown away.

The other book I'm reading is House of Morgan, by Ron Chernow. The subject is interesting but he needs a good editor. The book is over 700 pages long! There is too much extraneous information, considering how much on-point material there is to cover. Also, I've never seen anyone use the word spike so many times. He uses it to mean nix, which is a new definition to me, & every time he means that he says spike & it's distracting. FDR spiked this project. Jack Morgan spiked that loan. I keep thinking these guys are having some stiff drinks & then I remember no, Chernow's just weird about that word. Fortunately I'm almost done with it.

This has been your bookaholic broadcast of the day. Please tune in tomorrow for more exciting developments in Cyteen!