The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
How Many Books Do You Read at a Time?
Julia Keller, the literary critic at the Chicago Tribune, wrote a piece about reading more than one book at a time. She says that she has about a half dozen “active” books at a time. There is some debate, of course, over whether “serious readers” have this habit. I like what she has to say:
Serial reading — the act of plowing through a single book without pausing to read anything else — seems quaint these days, and maybe impossible. We exist amid an extraordinary cultural cornucopia. We live in a world of joyful multitasking. There is more great literature being produced in the world today than at any other moment in history.
Generally, I am reading two books at any given time. One is on my desk at home and the other is in my bag. Because I haven’t found a clean way to post more than one on my blog, I put whichever I expect to finish next in my “What I’m Reading Now”. Obviously, I am having a problem with Dostoevsky.
However, I also have several other unfinished books lying around my house. Bill Clinton’s autobiography has been sitting in my bookcase for about ever. You might remember that I read up to the day he met Hillary and had to put it down. I will get back to it. I also have Oswald’s Tale, by Norman Mailer, sitting up here. I will probably finish that, too. Eventually. Oh, and Memories of John Lennon. It is a book of vignettes that I read while I was on school – it didn’t require any commitment. So I didn’t give it much.
The ones downstairs are less likely. There is a history book – documenting the death of Queen Victoria. It was ok, just not a page turner. And the book from the professor of that non-violence class at Berkeley that I found on Academic Earth. Stalled out on that while I was still watching 24.
The thing is, there are so, so many books to read. Some that I should read and some that I want to read and some that is just brain candy. No kidding, I find it easier to find books to buy than to choose, among all of the books in my house, what I should read next.
Maybe I should get the heck off the Internet and go do that.
A Nice Shout Out
The Chicago Tribune ran an article about day trips that the cityfolk can take out to the suburbs on Metra. North Glenview made the list, thank you very much. We were called out for trips with kids, citing the childrens museum and the kiddie art studio. Please note: I have never been to Make a Messterpiece before, but there is another paint-a-ceramic-thing studio a block or so up from there called Color Me Mine. It isn’t cheap, but Alex and I have made a couple of Christmas gifts there that turned out well. Also, if you wanted to make a really long day of it, there is a movie theatre. And a bookstore and a Von Maur. And on any given Saturday you are likely to find me at the Noodles & Company.
End of advertisement.
Unfortunately for me, North Glenview was the only stop noted on my train line.
Crate Training
I may have mentioned that my dog, Shadow, has a storm phobia. Like many dogs, it has gotten worse as he has aged. Since his illness (we are waiting for some labs to see if he needs more treatment for Cushing’s Disease and I expect that he does), he has developed a rather major fear of being alone. Locks himself in the bathroom, tears up the walls, that kind of thing. There hasn’t been much damage (it is to the paint, rather than the actual walls), but there was blood on the floor the last time he locked himself in my bathroom.
My friend Karen (Volunteer Director at the Refuge) is a vet tech and she told me to crate him. “Can you crate train a 12-year old dog?!” was my response. “Absolutely.” Well. I had visions of him locked in a crate and thrashing around and destroying the TV or something.
I went to Fosters and Smith and ordered the biggest hard plastic crate they had. It arrived on Tuesday and I built it in the family room, leaving off the door. My thought was to see if he uses it as a den without locking him up. Well.
That took less than 48 hours. Of course, we don’t know whether he will use it during the day and it hasn’t been crisis tested and we haven’t locked him in. But that is a start.
The Literary Brouhaha
I’ve been perusing The Chicago Reader lately and a book review by Noah Berlatsky jumped out at me as interesting. He was reviewing Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture, by Jim Collins. It is a decent article and in the unlikely event that I stumble across that title at a book sale in the near future, I am sure to pick it up. But this was the part that messed me up:
“One of the book’s most entertaining set pieces is his description of a class discussion he led on the brouhaha that broke out in 2001 when Oprah Winfrey chose Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections for her book club and Franzen responded by explaining, basically, that he was too cool for the room. Collins asked his grad students to watch an Oprah’s Book Club segment, read Franzen’s novel and some of his essays, and decide what they thought. “
I just had a great big moment of, “They didn’t have toys like that when I was a kid!”
I would have loved an assignment like that when I was in school. This is a great debate. While I haven’t read the book (there is a copy in my house somewhere, I just haven’t gotten to it), I sure followed the drama. On one hand, I think Oprah has done a great thing here – she is getting people to read books. (You might remember a poll from a few years ago that showed one in four Americans had not read a book in the past year. And the average American read four books in that period.) On the other hand, I find her picks to be extremely hit-or-miss, thematically very similar (although admittedly, I haven’t read a lot of them), and I cannot sit through her actual discussions. I get why Franzen doesn’t want to be known as an “Oprah Author”. However, he behaved like an ungrateful ass.
Incidentally, when I was googling for a link to that study, I found another one in the NY Post:
A study of 1,200 e-reader owners by Marketing and Research Resources found that 40 percent said they now read more than they did with print books.
Of course, that is theoretically a segment of the population that is pre-disposed to read alot. But the study said “e-reader owners”, not “people that have purchased e-readers”. So it might be a reason to gift it!
The Year She Left, by Kerry Kelly
I found The Year She Left, by Kerry Kelly, in that awesome used book store next to The World’s Biggest Book Store in Toronto. Local author, souvenir book. And it was pretty good.
Each chapter is a month that follows two people. Stu was left by his girlfriend in a bad way. Kate left Mr. Awesome, who was very nice about it. So you read their stories and start to figure they are going to end up together, but you keep reading anyway. And pleasantly enough, it doesn’t go quite the way you think. The game-changing twist was genuinely shocking to me. But in the end, the back of the book actually gives it away by saying, “Is it a happy ending? Define happy.”
Kelly has a few moments of interesting language. One that I remember hovering over was:
“that he had given his heart to a woman, and while it was something that she made clear she didn’t want, she hadn’t been able to return it. It was still there, with her, beating quietly, unwanted, apologizing and trying not to cause offence.”
Oh, hell.
The characters have an annoying way of referring to people with whom they are impressed as “rock ‘n roll”. Is that a Canadian thing?
I rather enjoyed this book and would read Kelly again. If I should ever come across another of her books, I mean. And now, it is just me and Dostoevsky. No kidding. I shall not pick up one more thing until I have conquered that bastard.
I Miss College
Craig Wilson was waxing nostalgic about college in a usatoday.com article. He starts with the old “college is wasted on the young”. Which is, of course, true. I remember our revered English teacher, Mr. Mullaly, telling us in highschool, “They say that high school is the best years of your lives. That’s B.S. It is college. College is the best thing going. Trust me.” And I did. And he was right. My only regret is that I spent my last semester thinking about the next thing – going home, getting a job, whatever with the boyfriend – instead of enjoying every last minute of it. Anyway, the punchline was this:
I propose every 60-year-old in America gets sent back to college. Maybe not for four years. I’d take one. We’d appreciate the second chance, perhaps even learn something this time around.
I am often telling people that whenever you go to college, it is a good thing. If you go at 18, you get it done and get the letters behind your name. If you go at 40, you appreciate it more. And study more, learn more and probably get better grades.
Wilson started thinking about it during farewell parties for the college-bound freshmen. I think about it every year when the campus gear hits Bed Bath & Beyond. Who cares about the kids when there are so many new space-saving ways to store your shoes?
Except that when I was in college, I had maybe three pairs.
The point is, kids, every part of the college experience is a privilege and if Wilson’s Bill passed, I would absolutely go back. But I might skip the dorms next time.
A Funeral, a Really Long Meeting and Checking in
This morning, I left work to attend the funeral of a retired colleague. Lori was 90 years old, and by the time I met her she was only working two days a week as a receptionist. However, once she retired for real, (and sadly, began to forget things) I got to know her daughter.
I had sent an e-mail around the office and to some retirees last week. I made sure that the company sent flowers. But this morning, I realized that I didn’t know anyone else at the church. There were plenty of people, but they were mostly those that knew the family. I realized that Lori had outlived her contemporaries. It reminded me that another retired friend, Carol, once told me about the sad realization that one is attending more funerals than weddings. And then finding oneself looking at the obituaries for real.
I have more retired friends than is normal for a person my age. It must be an occupational hazard.
In the end, I was glad that I was alone, because I was more sad than I thought I would be. I stopped for lunch on my way back to the office and was most grateful to be able to read a book and not talk to anyone.
Enough.
Then I spent the entire afternoon talking about retirement plans. With actuaries and accountants.
So I came home a little fried and I called my brother to find out how Alex’s first day of Kindergarten went. Technically, I asked: “So how did the boy do?”
He started telling me all about the flag football game on Sunday. Alex punted and returned a kick and made good blocks… Kid seems to get it. Because we raised him on football games.
“I bet Alex knows what a long snapper is,” I said. My brother agreed that he probably did.
(At this point, she realizes that her monologue is just boring and that if she hurries, she can take a shower, get some ice cream, watch some Daria and still go to bed early. Because tomorrow is going to be a better day, anyway.)
Is it Fall Yet?
Weekend Assignment #332: Back To School
In just a couple weeks, students will be heading back to school. Share with us what that means in your life. Are you currently shopping for school supplies for the students in your life? Are you planning on going back to school? Maybe everyone around you is rushing to get ready for the new school year, but you can sit back and relax. Tell us what that’s like.
Extra Credit: Tell us what you liked the most and disliked the most about the first day of school!
I don’t have kids and I finished what I expect was my final degree program last January. I am sitting for a certification exam in December, though. So perhaps I should get moving. I have already bought my books and a new notebook.
I love new notebooks.
Back to School also means new clothes – which I have been buying. And Pumpkin Spice and Apple Cider. And football. Football! And being able to get a table at Noodle’s at lunchtime.
At work, it means things are gearing up. Every year, Tuesday after Labor Day, a whole bunch of us fly to our next convention location for a pre-conference planning meeting. It is funny that for some people, the Labor Day vacation is the end of summer and for me it is the trip after the holiday weekend that does it.
My nephew is starting kindergarten on Monday. He doesn’t seem to see the milestone. He’s “been to school before”. He doesn’t understand that every year is a fresh start and every class is different. He thinks a clique is the noise that tells him his seat belt is buckled. I am not one of those people that wants a do-over. I feel like I did my time, thank you very much. But still. There is just the smallest little piece of my soul that envies him.
Excuse me while I go kill it.
Niagara: A History of the Falls, by Pierre Berton
So I was wandering the Big Box book store in Toronto, looking for my little souvenir book, when I found Niagara: A History of the Falls, by Pierre Berton. It seems Berton is one of the better, or at least more popular, Canadian historians.
The book has a pretty good balance of the “discovery” and development of the Falls. The inevitable exploitation and battles of the preservationists. The tourists and those that prey on them. The adventurers and the even crazier people. To my shame, I have no great interest in the science of harnessing the power of electricity. But even in those parts, Berton makes the characters interesting.
It was, however, a really slow read. Bad time for it, too. I’ve been spending too much time in the bookstores and then was forced to bring an entire bag home from the Arlington Heights Library Book Sale. Excuse me while I find something lighter now.
I Told You to Be Nice
The Trib just ran an article called “Revenge of the Hotel Clerk: 5 Things They’ll Do to Difficult Guests”. You’d better believe I was interested. A couple were obvious – making you wait or giving you a less-desirable room. Goofy charges showing up on your bill wasn’t terribly surprising. Obscene phone calls after you check out? Someone’s got time on their hands, and the maturity of a 12-year old. Then it got a bit sociopathic:
“If the guest were particularly annoying, the clerk could place a huge hold on the card, rendering it unusable for any other purchases,” says David Chen, a hotel executive in Hawaii.
So, because a desk clerk doesn’t like me, they are going to screw up my credit card so that I can’t use it for the rest of my trip. Seriously? If some jerk, even at Marriott, did that to me, I would be taking my Silver Elite Whatever someplace else.
Having said that, people are barely more pleasant to the hotel staff than they are to the staff at the airlines. I remember in Hawaii last February, I was standing in line at the front desk when I heard a woman complaining about her room. I couldn’t believe it – the view wasn’t good enough for her and she demanded a change. Even after the clerk said that she would move them to a new room, the woman kept complaining. I had to put on my iPod and think happy thoughts. I was actually embarassed by the time I got to the front of the line. “Um. I am perfectly happy with my room. Can you break this into singles, please? I’d like to leave something for housekeeping.”
I have twice requested a room change. The first time was in a Best Western in Oklahoma where I stopped for the night in the middle of a horrid rainstorm on a roadtrip to Texas. They were pretty full and I obviously didn’t have a reservation. I got to the room and it hadn’t been cleaned after the previous guests had checked out. The second was a ground floor room that had bugs everywhere. Big bugs. In both cases, the front desk was perfectly pleasant and took care of me right away.
I can only remember once being overtly snotty to a hotel employee. It was the shipping department of Caesar’s Palace and they had lost my meeting materials box. I regret being short with the staff, and I apologized for it to the Manager that was finally called. Incidentally, he didn’t accept that the hotel was responsible for the loss and wouldn’t even comp us for the copies we made in trying to recreate the contents.
The point here is that we seem to have fallen into a pattern of mentally dehumanizing service employees. Retail, restaurant and hospitality staff have exhausting gigs and while I don’t approve of passive-aggressive behavior, I certainly don’t think they need to be doing any favors for customers that don’t appreciate them. So personally, I will be slapping a smile on my face and saying “Please” and “Thank you” to everyone I see behind a counter. And saving my glares for the jerks that bogart the overhead bins.
The Next Dark Age 