I'm tired of the same old words. They are like ash on my tongue, dishwater on my fingertips. To write "regarding," "please note," or "it is requested" till the end of time could very well bring on a premature death--perhaps not literal, but every other kind of death that is referred to in the literary realm.
The past few days I've been looking through a book of vocabulary. Call me ridiculous, but I've been making flashcards for words I only half-know, or don't know at all. I'll flip through them, maybe at stoplights on my way to work, or during commercials when I watch TV on Sunday night, or at the kitchen table after a long day.
Studying is like slipping on an old, worn, but friendly t-shirt. It's familiar and comfortable. It reassures me that things aren't so bad, that they'll get better.
The real challenge, I suppose, won't be thumbing through the definitions on a semi-regular basis, but actually making use of the words I'm studying. There's no modest way to insert "bellicose" in the middle of an e-mail. It's pretentious, no two ways about it. It's like wearing a siren red suit while working in a grey cubicle under dim artificial lighting. You can't help but notice. And who do you think you are anyway, throwing around "desultory" and "edacious"? What's the occasion for that suit? Trying to show you're more than just common. Warding off an identity that is already upon you--might as well give in. In fact, it is requested that you do.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
reprints
Throughout all four years of college I made intermittent entries in e-journals I affectionately named in honor of each year. These titles aren't especially ingenious and could actually be a source of embarrassment to me if I publicize them. Perhaps on another day when I am feeling more bold...
Still, not all of the material contained within the journals is rotten. Much of it should be picked up again and developed further. Now, I'm not at all interested in telling you any sordid and intimate tales of love and loneliness. As I so clearly stated when I began this blog, unreserved self-disclosure simply isn't my style. I like to keep some cards up my sleeve when writing, going on first dates, or socializing at work. Therefore, any of my journal entries reprinted on this blog will be carefully selected and edited, if necessary. And I may not always tell you when I've done the latter. All of that being said, here's a little something from a night at the library junior year:
November 28, 2006
Call me crazy, but sometimes I really enjoy working. Adam's curse does not always pan out in life, thank goodness. I had this epiphany as I was working on ideas for my senior paper and taking notes for an upcoming Romantic Literature paper. Any time I try to develop ideas and logic for papers it takes a long time. I must sit quietly, not writing, just thinking. Then I must re-read works, often taking painstaking notes (but not always, mind you). In regard to productivity, it must be likened to watching paint dry. Yet, when I get an idea, when my brain is in fire, and I scrawl down some beautifully profound connection, it's total euphoria. There is this satisfying feeling that usually causes me to sigh with pleasure, and shuffle my papers vigorously, setting them back neatly to signify that similar order has now come to my thoughts.
As of now, I'm unsure that this evening's work is worth that satisfaction. My senior paper idea has not been approved, and I have not officially started writing my paper for Romantic Lit. Perhaps when I do the real work of writing I will kick myself for feeling mildly happy about the work completed tonight: Stupid, stupid...that wasn't even close to insightful. You were just taking up time doing mindless drivel so that you could pretend to work.....Oh gosh, I hope that is not the case. And now it is too late anyway. This journal entry has just interposed doubt into pleasurable feeling and it has subsequently turned it into a sickening feeling. In writing about a hypothetical future I have made it my present. Yuck.
It's funny how little journal entries, so disheveled in their organization and feeble in their offerings, influence when I only intend them for reflection. All I wanted to say initially was: I feel good about the work I did tonight. What I ended up doing was second-guessing myself and souring any sense of accomplishment. In five minutes, in two hundred and fifty words, you can end up falling back into cynical patterns and convince yourself that things are really worthless after all.
Still, not all of the material contained within the journals is rotten. Much of it should be picked up again and developed further. Now, I'm not at all interested in telling you any sordid and intimate tales of love and loneliness. As I so clearly stated when I began this blog, unreserved self-disclosure simply isn't my style. I like to keep some cards up my sleeve when writing, going on first dates, or socializing at work. Therefore, any of my journal entries reprinted on this blog will be carefully selected and edited, if necessary. And I may not always tell you when I've done the latter. All of that being said, here's a little something from a night at the library junior year:
November 28, 2006
Call me crazy, but sometimes I really enjoy working. Adam's curse does not always pan out in life, thank goodness. I had this epiphany as I was working on ideas for my senior paper and taking notes for an upcoming Romantic Literature paper. Any time I try to develop ideas and logic for papers it takes a long time. I must sit quietly, not writing, just thinking. Then I must re-read works, often taking painstaking notes (but not always, mind you). In regard to productivity, it must be likened to watching paint dry. Yet, when I get an idea, when my brain is in fire, and I scrawl down some beautifully profound connection, it's total euphoria. There is this satisfying feeling that usually causes me to sigh with pleasure, and shuffle my papers vigorously, setting them back neatly to signify that similar order has now come to my thoughts.
As of now, I'm unsure that this evening's work is worth that satisfaction. My senior paper idea has not been approved, and I have not officially started writing my paper for Romantic Lit. Perhaps when I do the real work of writing I will kick myself for feeling mildly happy about the work completed tonight: Stupid, stupid...that wasn't even close to insightful. You were just taking up time doing mindless drivel so that you could pretend to work.....Oh gosh, I hope that is not the case. And now it is too late anyway. This journal entry has just interposed doubt into pleasurable feeling and it has subsequently turned it into a sickening feeling. In writing about a hypothetical future I have made it my present. Yuck.
It's funny how little journal entries, so disheveled in their organization and feeble in their offerings, influence when I only intend them for reflection. All I wanted to say initially was: I feel good about the work I did tonight. What I ended up doing was second-guessing myself and souring any sense of accomplishment. In five minutes, in two hundred and fifty words, you can end up falling back into cynical patterns and convince yourself that things are really worthless after all.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
sunday afternoons
In general I dislike Sundays. It has probably been that way for the past four or five years. If I actually kept the Sabbath, I'm sure I would enjoy enjoy it more. But Sunday always seems to take the brunt of the consequences for my procrastination during the week and weekend. Cleaning and bills and emails and grocery-shopping and laundry and getting-a-hair-cut and scheduling and cooking and calls home and paperwork are perpetually shuffled off to that block of time called the weekend, which appears during the frenzy of the week as a vast, empty piece of real-estate burgeoning with opportunities for productivity. May your to-do list be writ 20 items long--a Saturday will always do to complete it! Now, either I am simply undisciplined or the weekend is a cheating little son-of-a-gun--promising acres of time and only providing about 10 square feet once you actually arrive on the property. Either way, I rarely accomplish over the weekend what I set out to when I pull into my parking spot on Friday evening after my commute home from work.
Of course I can't do anything on Friday night. Grocery shopping on Friday nights is for single losers and married people. I may very well be a single loser, but I would rather not advertise that fact to my fellow Evanstonians by taking part in those kinds of activities on a Friday night.
And then Saturday...gosh, it's nice to sleep in a bit, make breakfast, listen to talk radio, read Dostoyevsky on the couch. Errands are for the afternoon, tasks that require the most time, the least brain, and offer the most satisfaction when you press pen to paper and cross them off of your list. Evening arrives, and I've got plans and all day Sunday.
So it comes to pass: around 12:30 p.m. on Sunday I walk into my kitchen after church and I gripe about all that I must do. I want the couch and a novel; a nap or a movie; a walk or an afternoon concert; an hour on the piano; a glass of wine and a conversation. I don't want to write a check and send it away; I don't want to fill out tax forms; I don't want to renew my stupid parking sticker. Monday cometh, and such banal tasks only seem to speed its arrival. The only respite, the only mercy, is Sunday afternoon NPR. At least I can listen to Tavis Smiley while I wash dishes, or to BBC News while I compose message #43 in a thread of e-mails about something that really shouldn't have gotten that complicated...
Really I should be more diligent on Saturdays. I used to be when I was in college. It wasn't unusual for me to wake up at 8:30, pack up my laptop and book it to the library to stay until 3 or 4 p.m. Perhaps I just need to commit--really commit--to a schedule on the weekend. Maybe then I wouldn't hate my life on Sundays...
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Even though they are decontextualized...
I find the following quotes positively enchanting. Last night around 12 a.m. I was sitting on the floor in my room and began to page through a small leatherbound volume where I occasionally record particularly delicious quotes from books I'm reading. As I sat there, I thought, to hell with sharing recipes on my blog, I'll post these. Ok, ok, the language is a bit strong. And I still may provide you with instructions for making savory meals--that's just not especially high on my priority list at the moment. The mind and spirit before the body: I have Jesus himself to back that up, per his forty days in the desert. But I'm really taking this too far. All I want to do is allow you to enjoy the following:
"I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody that wants to make some kind of splash."
-Franny in J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey
"Like so many Americans, she [Billy's mother] was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops."
-Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five
"We are not slaves bound to suffer incessantly unrecorded petty blows on our bent backs. We are not sheep either, following a master. We are creators. We too have made something that will join the innumerable congregations of past time. We too, as we put on our hats and push open the door, stride not into chaos, but into a world that our own force can subjugate and make part of the illumined and everlasting road."
-Virginia Woolf The Waves
"Thou from the first/ was present, and, with mighty wings outspread/ Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss/ And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark/ Illumine, what is low raise and support;/ that, to the heighth of this great argument/ I may assert Eternal Providence/ and justify the ways of God to men."
-John Milton Paradise Lost
"We've got ninety-nine percent the same genes as any other person. We've got ninety percent the same as a chimpanzee. We've got thirty percent the same as a lettuce. Does that cheer you up at all? I love about the lettuce. It makes me feel I belong."
-Caryl Churchill A Number
"Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or to understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your five senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to consciousness, even though the same result is attained, you can at least flog yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up."
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky Notes from the Underground
"Leonato: Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
Beatrice: Not till God make man of some other mettle than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valient dust?"
-William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing
"Nick went into his room, undressed, and got into bed. He heard his father moving around in the living room. Nick lay in the bed with his face in the pillow. 'My heart's broken,' he thought. 'If I feel this way my heart must be broken.'"
-Ernest Hemingway "The Northern Woods" from The Nick Adams Stories
"The hands of the King are hands of healing, dear friends..."
-Gandalf in J.R.R. Tolkien's Return of the King
"I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody that wants to make some kind of splash."
-Franny in J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey
"Like so many Americans, she [Billy's mother] was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops."
-Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five
"We are not slaves bound to suffer incessantly unrecorded petty blows on our bent backs. We are not sheep either, following a master. We are creators. We too have made something that will join the innumerable congregations of past time. We too, as we put on our hats and push open the door, stride not into chaos, but into a world that our own force can subjugate and make part of the illumined and everlasting road."
-Virginia Woolf The Waves
"Thou from the first/ was present, and, with mighty wings outspread/ Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss/ And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark/ Illumine, what is low raise and support;/ that, to the heighth of this great argument/ I may assert Eternal Providence/ and justify the ways of God to men."
-John Milton Paradise Lost
"We've got ninety-nine percent the same genes as any other person. We've got ninety percent the same as a chimpanzee. We've got thirty percent the same as a lettuce. Does that cheer you up at all? I love about the lettuce. It makes me feel I belong."
-Caryl Churchill A Number
"Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or to understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your five senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to consciousness, even though the same result is attained, you can at least flog yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up."
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky Notes from the Underground
"Leonato: Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
Beatrice: Not till God make man of some other mettle than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valient dust?"
-William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing
"Nick went into his room, undressed, and got into bed. He heard his father moving around in the living room. Nick lay in the bed with his face in the pillow. 'My heart's broken,' he thought. 'If I feel this way my heart must be broken.'"
-Ernest Hemingway "The Northern Woods" from The Nick Adams Stories
"The hands of the King are hands of healing, dear friends..."
-Gandalf in J.R.R. Tolkien's Return of the King
Saturday, February 7, 2009
i'm trying to be back
It's impossible to make reparations for a four months' absence from my blog. Not that an apology is particularly necessary--life has been busy and I highly doubt anyone is pining away for me to make new entries. The issue is that now I would like to begin writing here again, and I'm not so sure that anyone is still visiting my little site. I guess it's no matter. To everyone or to no one, here are five recent happenings in my life:
1. I went to South Korea for two weeks over Christmas and New Year's to visit my dear friend, April Hope.
2. Starting on January 1st, I began making a new recipe each week. Highlights? Korean bibimbap and Chicken Mexican stew. Tonight I'm making Vegetarian Mediterranean Stew.
3. I went to Hawaii for one week (see picture).
4. I started a new job at the beginning of December.
5. Super Bowl Sunday marked the conclusion of my first year in Chicago. Much has happened over the past 12 months, and I'm grateful for the place in which I find myself.
Stories, pictures, and possibly recipes upcoming...
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Palindrone
Although he may be labeled as out-of-touch in other areas, John McCain was no fool when he picked Sarah Palin as his VP. McCain's campaign was in some serious need of energy when compared with Obama's just prior to the Democratic and Republican conventions, and the selection of Palin was a total boon for the GOP. I think almost everyone can agree with that statement, whether you're now buying Palin glasses or sporting a "Women for Obama" sticker on the back of your gas-efficient Prius. Palin energized McCain's conservative base, generated headlines, further substantiated McCain's reputation as an unpredictable maverick, and made the Republican party look progressive. Those are pretty significant accomplishments that have to do with more things than her gender. Not just any Republican female politician could have been Palin to McCain, if that makes sense.
As with most other things in politics, opinions about Palin are extremely polarized. To many Democrats, Palin's appointment as VP candidate was almost laughable--McCain was essentially pulling a publicity stunt by selecting an attractive, articulate, but inexperienced female to manipulate vulnerable and disgruntled Hillary voters. To many Republicans, putting Palin on the ticket was invigorating proof that McCain is sufficiently conservative and innovative enough to lead and reform the many woes of the 30% approval George Bush party--in other words, they could not be more thrilled.
But, in accordance with my usual manner of thinking, I don't really agree with either side wholeheartedly. I don't dislike Sarah Palin. Categorizing her as nothing but a down-home mother of five who got lucky politically in Alaska is to deny her the attribution of intelligence, raw talent, and political skill that she deserves. However, I think McCain selected her because she had the potential to be a campaign and public relations gold mine--not because she was the best candidate for the position. She gave McCain the bump in the polls he needed; deal with the practical ramifications later.
Disregarding her experience, Palin is, to me, the perfect female politician. She's tough, smart, and confident, all the while maintaining valuable female characteristics. In other words, unlike Hillary Clinton, she is not a "bone shrinker." Somehow, she's managed to acquire the male qualities necessary to succeed in the political world without compromising her femininity. She is the sought-after supermom--cradling her children one moment and leading the office (or state or nation) the next. The pitbull-with-lipstick joke may have been more apt than she realized.
Yet her experience is the sticking point. Being a mayor and governor in Alaska provides limited experience, even when compared with governors of other states with larger budgets, larger and more diverse populations, and with the complex concerns associated with the continental United States. There are some crucial issues upon which Sarah Palin hasn't even a sliver of knowledge. That isn't meant to be an attack on her person; it's simply the truth about what she knows and what she has done. She doesn't know the Bush doctrine, yet emphatically delivers heavily scripted words about Iran's nuclear program? That is problematic. If McCain was interested in gaining a political edge that would be beneficial to him before and after the campaign, should he be elected, he should have selected another female Republican, one with more broad and lengthy political experience. Considering the overwhelming number of problems the next president will inherent from George W., I simply wouldn't feel comfortable with potential that Palin could take the helm.
And honestly, as a woman, her selection feels like an attempt at manipulation of the "weak" female mind (Hillary supporters were not just hungry for a female president) and affirmative action. It would be one thing if Palin hoofed it on her own. Her riding into the White House on 72 year old McCain's coat tails doesn't really look like the glass ceiling shattering to me.
The question is, I suppose, if McCain felt it was politically gainful to select a female VP, why Sarah Palin above other, more experienced female politicians? I said at the beginning of the post that not just any female Republican could have been Palin to McCain. That statement makes complete sense to me on an intuitive level, but it seems to be difficult to substantiate. McCain met her once prior to vetting. Alaska is not exactly a place many of us think about or hear of often. A pro-life woman with a large family and lifetime NRA membership from a rural, backwater town sounds more disaster on a Dan Quayle scale than diamond in the rough. Still, whether or not you like her or think she's truly capable, most everyone admits they underestimated her.
As with most other things in politics, opinions about Palin are extremely polarized. To many Democrats, Palin's appointment as VP candidate was almost laughable--McCain was essentially pulling a publicity stunt by selecting an attractive, articulate, but inexperienced female to manipulate vulnerable and disgruntled Hillary voters. To many Republicans, putting Palin on the ticket was invigorating proof that McCain is sufficiently conservative and innovative enough to lead and reform the many woes of the 30% approval George Bush party--in other words, they could not be more thrilled.
But, in accordance with my usual manner of thinking, I don't really agree with either side wholeheartedly. I don't dislike Sarah Palin. Categorizing her as nothing but a down-home mother of five who got lucky politically in Alaska is to deny her the attribution of intelligence, raw talent, and political skill that she deserves. However, I think McCain selected her because she had the potential to be a campaign and public relations gold mine--not because she was the best candidate for the position. She gave McCain the bump in the polls he needed; deal with the practical ramifications later.
Disregarding her experience, Palin is, to me, the perfect female politician. She's tough, smart, and confident, all the while maintaining valuable female characteristics. In other words, unlike Hillary Clinton, she is not a "bone shrinker." Somehow, she's managed to acquire the male qualities necessary to succeed in the political world without compromising her femininity. She is the sought-after supermom--cradling her children one moment and leading the office (or state or nation) the next. The pitbull-with-lipstick joke may have been more apt than she realized.
Yet her experience is the sticking point. Being a mayor and governor in Alaska provides limited experience, even when compared with governors of other states with larger budgets, larger and more diverse populations, and with the complex concerns associated with the continental United States. There are some crucial issues upon which Sarah Palin hasn't even a sliver of knowledge. That isn't meant to be an attack on her person; it's simply the truth about what she knows and what she has done. She doesn't know the Bush doctrine, yet emphatically delivers heavily scripted words about Iran's nuclear program? That is problematic. If McCain was interested in gaining a political edge that would be beneficial to him before and after the campaign, should he be elected, he should have selected another female Republican, one with more broad and lengthy political experience. Considering the overwhelming number of problems the next president will inherent from George W., I simply wouldn't feel comfortable with potential that Palin could take the helm.
And honestly, as a woman, her selection feels like an attempt at manipulation of the "weak" female mind (Hillary supporters were not just hungry for a female president) and affirmative action. It would be one thing if Palin hoofed it on her own. Her riding into the White House on 72 year old McCain's coat tails doesn't really look like the glass ceiling shattering to me.
The question is, I suppose, if McCain felt it was politically gainful to select a female VP, why Sarah Palin above other, more experienced female politicians? I said at the beginning of the post that not just any female Republican could have been Palin to McCain. That statement makes complete sense to me on an intuitive level, but it seems to be difficult to substantiate. McCain met her once prior to vetting. Alaska is not exactly a place many of us think about or hear of often. A pro-life woman with a large family and lifetime NRA membership from a rural, backwater town sounds more disaster on a Dan Quayle scale than diamond in the rough. Still, whether or not you like her or think she's truly capable, most everyone admits they underestimated her.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
part 2
As promised, I'm providing small reviews of five more books that you may enjoy. However, despite my lengthy justification for it, I'm scrapping my efforts to describe the mood or style of each book after giving the genre. The descriptions weren't really all that useful, now that I look back on them.
6. The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman (Current events, Globalization): There are an awful lot of uninformed generalizations readily proferred in many lay discussions about globalization, outsourcing, computers, and the internet in relation to the economy. Friedman's voluminous work provides a comprehensive, but accessible, explanation of the development and operation of the leveled playing field of 21st century business. Although Friedman's commentary on the current and future merits of this hyper-connected world may not be unassailable, he certainly gives structure to all of the disconnected talk about closing American factories, Indian Dell Help-Line Operators, and the powers of workflow software. Case studies are the main way Friedman presents sometimes complex, abstract concepts of business; some of my favorites were: the development of Apache open-source software, Indian telemarketers, and a start-up data entry business in Cambodia. According to an MBA friend of mine, Friedman's work is required reading for most upper-level business classes. So if nothing else, you'll feel kinda sorta smart reading it.
7. Shake Hands with the Devil by General Romeo Dallaire (Non-fiction): I decided to pick up this book after watching a film by the same name which followed General Dallaire on his return to Rwanda, 10 years after the genocide. While the film is primarily an examination of Dallaire and Rwanda after the genocide, the book is a detailed, day-by-day account of the operations of the U.N. prior to and throughout the genocide. A Canadian commander, Dallaire was in charge of the UNAMIR peacekeeping force, which, unfortunately, failed in its mission due to the inefficiency of the U.N. and apathy of the international community. The book is difficult to read, not because of graphic accounts of genocide--Dallaire mercifully spares us from numerous descriptions of atrocities--but because of the infuriating truth that the mass slaughter could have been prevented. The complacency, and even complicity, of Western nations was criminal.
8. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Social Science): By systematically studying intuition, Gladwell manages to incorporate modern and postmodern ideals into his examination of the human ability to know certain things quite confidently with very little information. In some situations, Gladwell proposes, more and more information only confuses the initial and correct suggestion of our instinct. Intuition enables us to make necessarily rapid decisions in everything from war to marriage to art--a few arenas in which he finds case studies. But in other situations, subconscious bias influences intuition in a manner that is destructive and even dangerous. Through understanding the dynamics of our instinct, Gladwell believes that societies and individuals can appropriately impede or release the power of intuition for personal and social betterment.
9. Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown (Autobiography): There are plenty of autobiographies out there whose authors experienced pasts filled with dysfunction, addiction, and crime. I'm not sure that Cupcake Brown has produced the best of the bunch, but her story is surely one of the most dramatic and fascinating to read. (And, as far as I know, Oprah hasn't called her onto the carpet for any false details either.) Severely abused as a child in a foster care home and on the streets, Cupcake began drinking, using drugs, and prostituting herself before her
12th birthday. Of course, it only got worse from there. Her intelligence and tenacity eventually enabled her to become sober and successful, but most true stories about people with backgrounds like hers--I wish there were no such thing as a background like hers--don't have such pleasant endings.
10. Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh (Sociology, Social Science): The only reason I decided to pick up a book with such a sensational title was because, well, Stephen Levitt mentioned Venkatesh in his excellent book, Freakonomics (also something you should consider picking up). As a graduate student of sociology at University of Chicago, Venkatesh naively wandered into a dangerous housing project on the South side to survey poor young black men. He had an extended run-in with gang members upon his arrival, but he repeatedly returned to the community and ended up befriending one of the gang's leaders. I found that the most interesting story in the book was not the naive grad. student in the ghetto, but rather the organizational structure of the gang and of life in the Robert Taylor community. Though certainly unpredictable, Venkatesh reveals that survival in the projects is not random, but determined by an alternative infrastructure and code of behavior, rather than the normative systems of mainstream culture.
6. The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman (Current events, Globalization): There are an awful lot of uninformed generalizations readily proferred in many lay discussions about globalization, outsourcing, computers, and the internet in relation to the economy. Friedman's voluminous work provides a comprehensive, but accessible, explanation of the development and operation of the leveled playing field of 21st century business. Although Friedman's commentary on the current and future merits of this hyper-connected world may not be unassailable, he certainly gives structure to all of the disconnected talk about closing American factories, Indian Dell Help-Line Operators, and the powers of workflow software. Case studies are the main way Friedman presents sometimes complex, abstract concepts of business; some of my favorites were: the development of Apache open-source software, Indian telemarketers, and a start-up data entry business in Cambodia. According to an MBA friend of mine, Friedman's work is required reading for most upper-level business classes. So if nothing else, you'll feel kinda sorta smart reading it.
7. Shake Hands with the Devil by General Romeo Dallaire (Non-fiction): I decided to pick up this book after watching a film by the same name which followed General Dallaire on his return to Rwanda, 10 years after the genocide. While the film is primarily an examination of Dallaire and Rwanda after the genocide, the book is a detailed, day-by-day account of the operations of the U.N. prior to and throughout the genocide. A Canadian commander, Dallaire was in charge of the UNAMIR peacekeeping force, which, unfortunately, failed in its mission due to the inefficiency of the U.N. and apathy of the international community. The book is difficult to read, not because of graphic accounts of genocide--Dallaire mercifully spares us from numerous descriptions of atrocities--but because of the infuriating truth that the mass slaughter could have been prevented. The complacency, and even complicity, of Western nations was criminal.
8. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Social Science): By systematically studying intuition, Gladwell manages to incorporate modern and postmodern ideals into his examination of the human ability to know certain things quite confidently with very little information. In some situations, Gladwell proposes, more and more information only confuses the initial and correct suggestion of our instinct. Intuition enables us to make necessarily rapid decisions in everything from war to marriage to art--a few arenas in which he finds case studies. But in other situations, subconscious bias influences intuition in a manner that is destructive and even dangerous. Through understanding the dynamics of our instinct, Gladwell believes that societies and individuals can appropriately impede or release the power of intuition for personal and social betterment.
9. Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown (Autobiography): There are plenty of autobiographies out there whose authors experienced pasts filled with dysfunction, addiction, and crime. I'm not sure that Cupcake Brown has produced the best of the bunch, but her story is surely one of the most dramatic and fascinating to read. (And, as far as I know, Oprah hasn't called her onto the carpet for any false details either.) Severely abused as a child in a foster care home and on the streets, Cupcake began drinking, using drugs, and prostituting herself before her
12th birthday. Of course, it only got worse from there. Her intelligence and tenacity eventually enabled her to become sober and successful, but most true stories about people with backgrounds like hers--I wish there were no such thing as a background like hers--don't have such pleasant endings.
10. Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh (Sociology, Social Science): The only reason I decided to pick up a book with such a sensational title was because, well, Stephen Levitt mentioned Venkatesh in his excellent book, Freakonomics (also something you should consider picking up). As a graduate student of sociology at University of Chicago, Venkatesh naively wandered into a dangerous housing project on the South side to survey poor young black men. He had an extended run-in with gang members upon his arrival, but he repeatedly returned to the community and ended up befriending one of the gang's leaders. I found that the most interesting story in the book was not the naive grad. student in the ghetto, but rather the organizational structure of the gang and of life in the Robert Taylor community. Though certainly unpredictable, Venkatesh reveals that survival in the projects is not random, but determined by an alternative infrastructure and code of behavior, rather than the normative systems of mainstream culture.
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