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Staggering Genius

English teachers are great. But sometimes the “rules” have to be broken and writers who realize that right have a special place in my literary heart.

Take Dave Eggers. His ability to completely ignore a hold handful of common rules makes “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” a nice constant stream of consciousness flow from his brain straight to mine. Need to express the chaotic and quick-paced sense of a moment? Write a sentence with 200 words, 32 commas, three em-dashes and don’t even bother ending it with a period. That’s heroic.

The book itself is one that takes an ability to ignore the gross in the first few pages to unlock a story of siblings dealing with life after the quick deaths of their parents. The main string follows the narrator as he describes being in his young 20s and caring for his little brother.

If you have one of these “little brother” types in your life, it’s fascinating to watch as they try to adapt their brotherly relationship to one in which the older is now fully in charge of the younger “Toph.” That’s short for Christopher, and surely a name I shall never be utilizing for myself.

That relationship evolves into a “Big Daddy”-like situation where almost anything goes for Toph as long as he goes to school and does his homework. They describe the complete lack of cleaning in their household by saying that they like to eat at the kitchen table, but if that’s covered in crap they’ll go to the coffee table in the living room…and often end up just eating on the floor next to the dishes from some unknown previous meal. They argue about who should be responsible for cleaning the mess, and ultimately the older sibling puts on his guardian cap and makes Toph do it.

As much as the pair struggles to figure out their identity and relationship, the public has no clue what to make of it. That turns into the most entertaining portions of the story where Eggers sometimes describes feeling like people think he’s a pedophile stalking this young boy. He takes on the guardian role well, strategizing with his sister on how they can best protect and nurture their younger brother to have the most normal life possible given the circumstances.

After baseball practice, Eggers writes about asking Toph a very tough question:

“So why do you suck so much at hitting?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you need a lighter bat.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, maybe we’ll get a new bat.”
“Can we?”
“Yeah, we’ll look for a new bat or something.”
Then I push him into a bush.

If that’s not brotherly love, I don’t know what is. I know I’ve written before about this process where I dog-ear pages as I read and look back at them know to figure out what exactly I wanted to touch on. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out where I am in the story and thus the context of some point I wanted to make. Other times I get two words in and know exactly why I reached up and bent that corner.

In this passage, Eggers writes about being on a bus with Toph. He sees a young woman and starts to piece together details of her life just by looking. He wishes she could be in his life, helping to provide stability for Toph. But then comes up with a story of a boyfriend, including his occupation, nationality and a detail of being drafted into the Peruvian army. He decides that would make the arrangement OK, just young people living with each other for a happy household. But there’s an issue in his entirely made-up story:

“How would we decorate? That would be a problem. But I would defer. Yes, defer. To have a happy easy house with help from this woman and to have her and Toph content in their room with their stomachs on the carpet and sharing some book I would defer.”

A while back (a great expression for “some time in the past but really I haven’t the foggiest clue when this happened except it was kind of chilly since I remember wearing a jacket) I did a similar bit of backstory creation on public transit. I went into Washington, D.C. on the metro and wrote about a guy I saw on the train. I didn’t know him, but I was sure of so many things about him. Read it and two other similar accounts on chris.areyouert.com.

“Heartbreaking Work” is indeed heartbreaking at some points but the interactions and the way this family deals with its tragedy is ultimately heartwarming. There are parts that will make you really question their sanity, but when you step back and think about all the ways you can live your life and help raise another it’s hard to fault them at the end of the day. But more than anything, you’ll laugh at the interactions and inner workings of Eggers’ story, since you absolutely positively without question need these 437 pages in your reading history.

November 6, 2008 books Uncategorized
Committed to the Cause

The weather today was rainy and a bit dismal, so much so that I didn’t even want to go outside for a run. But that didn’t stop at least one Obama supporter from manning a corner down the street from my house.

On my way to dinner I stopped for gas where I saw this. Her sign said “Make Democracy Count: Vote Obama.” I’m sure there were McCain poster holders on some other corners that I didn’t see, but I definitely didn’t witness that kind of rain-defying enthusiasm four years ago…

November 5, 2008 Uncategorized
The Future of America

I know you’re thinking that November 4 is a big day in deciding the future of America. There’s this whole presidential election that will either put Sen. John McCain or Sen. Barack Obama in the White House come January. But I’m afraid that no matter what happens in Decision ’08, the next generation’s fate is already sealed.

I have observed many different people during my time running in Northern Virginia (the kind with the shoes and shorts, not the political kind). There’s a park about a mile from my parents’ house that is a frequent location for these excursions, and it was there that today I caught a glimpse of what is in store.

And it’s not good.

After darting across a not-so-busy street, I swung into the park and ran past a horse ring. Nearby there is a playground that had maybe a dozen youngsters partaking in childlike fun while their parents watched from a short distance. But next to the horse ring, away from the group, there was a single child sitting in the grass by himself. He gave little notice to me as I passed, which is probably a good thing since I was intently focused on exactly what he was doing.

That of course was eating grass. This particular park is a model 1930s working farm, and having grown up just down the road I assure you that I know the difference between the cows that graze in the fields and children who now apparently graze there as well.

Maybe an Obama administration will help fund better education, focus on fighting hunger and perhaps an increase in biofuels that could put that grass in a gastank far from that child’s reach. Or we could just elect the Libertarian candidate and let the kid just do what he wants. The grass a few feet from a pen that has horses running around all day is probably delicious.

Later I got an email from the McCain-Palin campaign letting me know I should vote tomorrow and informing me of my polling place. I scrolled to the bottom to go for the “unsubscribe me” type button, which at first seemed like a waste of time given there’s only a day left until the election. But it was the principle of the thing.

At the unsubscribe page, there were options for saying why you wanted to be taken off the list. They ranged from “Support McCain, but emails are too frequent,” “Support McCain, but don’t want to receive mail,” to “I am no longer a McCain supporter and want to be taken off the list.”

Fortunately there was a comment box, since I at no point supported McCain and certainly did not sign up for emails from said campaign. I wonder how many “For the record, I never supported John McCain and hope Senator Barack Obama has a resounding victory on election day!!!!” responses they get.

November 4, 2008 kids running Uncategorized
The Game of Life

The Game of Life is one of the greatest and most flawed games of my childhood. While it was fun to play, including little cars with little people you got to add along the way, the “spinner” was infuriating. Maybe they’ve changed the design so you can roll a pair of dice, or just randomly decide how many spaces you want to move. But back in the day, you had to struggle with the spinner that didn’t quite spin, or made you look like an idiot when it flew off the board.

But there’s an even better version of The Game of Life. It’s called, well, life. Last summer ABC ran a series exploring how people work together to achieve common goals. The basis for the exploration was the tenets of game theory.

Groups were given challenges like finding each other in Washington, D.C. The catch was they couldn’t communicate with one another, and hadn’t even met. How do you find someone when the only piece of information you have is that they are looking for you? You have to think like them. Where would they go if they were trying to find you. The only way you are successful is if that ends up being the same place.

It was interesting to watch the different groups decide on different monuments and landmarks. If you arrive at the White House, and no one is there, do you wait? Or do you try someplace else? What if you wait there, another group is waiting at the capitol and another is waiting at the Washington Monument? Most of the groups eventually met up at the latter, while the worst of them gave up and went to a bar in Georgetown. Humans.

It was from that show that I went out looking for a book on Game Theory. “The Survival Game” by David Barash was my choice, and I finally cracked it open this week.

It turns out that in a lot of situations there isn’t one “right” way to approach things. In many instances, you can minimize your losses with a particular strategy but at the expense of losing out on your ultimate payoff. And in many cases our brains get in the way by injecting feelings into the decision-making process.

One interesting example involves a simple game where two people are given $100. The first person gets to decide how to divide the money and the second decides whether to accept the deal. If they reject the deal, both get nothing. So the first person should propose $50/$50 right? Nope. They should try $99/$1. The second person is better off with $1 than with $0, so they should take the deal no matter how unfair it seems. Yet studies show people would rather walk away with nothing, and stick it to the person trying to get $99 out of the deal.

If you’ve never had any experience with game theory, and don’t like math, this is definitely a good introduction to the topic without making you want to slam your face into a wall. Barash definitely uses plain language in the discussion. In breaking down why species tend to have roughly 50/50 splits in males and females, he talks about the advantages for those wanting to mate. If there are too many males, the species is likely to produce more females who will have many mates to choose from. When things swing back the other way (too many females), more males come into play until everything eventually comes into balance. But if given the choice many families may choose a male to carry on the family name, even if it is ultimately detrimental to the species as a whole. “You could just as well try explaining to a mallard drake why he should be a gentleman instead of a rapist.” Oh, I also learned that mallard ducks are apparently prone to gang raping females. Who knew?

Maybe the most interesting example is the Game of Chicken. Two cars barrel at one another until one swerves, both swerve, or of course neither swerves. Barash argues that the best strategy is to thoroughly convince the other person you are completely unwilling or unable to swerve, thus making their choice obvious to get out of the way. He recommends raving like a lunatic and running around screaming before the race. Then once you are hurtling at a high speed, throw the steering wheel out the window. You’d swerve if you saw that right?

Next up: “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch.

September 9, 2008 books math Uncategorized
The First Penguin

Two in one day? I know you’re asking yourself how you could possibly be so amazingly lucky. Well, thanks to some vacation days from The Local Station, I have been able to sleep like a normal person for several nights in a row. Somnia=productivity. Check that. Slumber=productivity. Apparently “somnia” means “a sick man’s dreams,” not the opposite of insomnia. I definitely don’t have that.

When I was in grad school we watched a fair number of movies in our grand apartment on Tulane Drive. Since I was in control of the Netflix account, I could definitely field the blame or credit for the choice of discs that ended up in the DVD player. That’s the period where I became aware of a tendency to end up with a string of not-so-uplifting entertainment choices. I’m not sure of the exact lineup of movies we went through, but I do remember one of them being the poignant yet utterly depressing “Elephant.” (If you haven’t seen it, there’s a Columbine quality to the storyline).

After this string of movies one of my roommates, Jason, said something like, “Wow, another extremely happy tale.” While they were all good movies, I definitely saw his point. I don’t intend to string together “downer” tales, but sometimes it just ends up happening.

Such is the case with the reading project. I just went from Machiavellian words of do whatever is necessary to achieve what you want, to a discussion of game theory where in many cases the altruistic and benevolent end up being “suckers” in the outcome. Whenever I catch on to these trends, I do my best to add some more comedies to the Netflix list or grab a happier volume from my bookshelf.

Which brings me to “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. Granted, it isn’t exactly a “happy” set of circumstances, but that’s exactly the point.

If you’ve been living with dial-up in a DSL world, Pausch recently died of pancreatic cancer. He was a computer science professor at Carnegie-Mellon University. Pausch was asked to give a “last lecture,” a chance for professors to really focus on a talk as if it were the last they would ever give. But Pausch was told he had just months to live shortly before he was going to give his lecture. It became a widespread hit on the Internet, and he eventually expanded upon the idea with this book. More at TheLastLecture.com.

Pausch is a man who certainly wasn’t wallowing in the dire nature of his diagnosis. He really wanted to go out the way he had lived his life, as a fun-loving person who demanded a lot from himself and those around him. But at all times, he writes, he wanted to have a sense of what was really important.

One of the best illustrations comes from late in his cancer battle. He writes that he went to the grocery store and used the self-checkout. By mistake, he swiped his credit card twice, racking up a double charge for the $16 worth of goods. He says he could have spent time tracking down the manager and waiting for the extra transaction to be reversed. But then it hit him, “Is this really how I’d like to spend this 15 minutes? Is 15 minutes worth $16 to me right now?” The answer was no, and he just left the store. Think about that the next time you ask for a Coke and get a Dr. Pepper, or you get italian dressing instead of the balsamic vinagrette you ordered. Is that really how you’d like to spend that time?

I expected 200 pages of poignant messages about living your life to the fullest and achieving your dreams. What I didn’t foresee was the absolute carefree attitude in Pausch’s writing that is really humorous at times. He gives tips for making sure you waste as little time on the phone as possible. These include standing up while you talk and having something you want to get to next sitting in front of you as a reminder you need to hurry up. The best is when you need to call someone, do it just a few minutes before lunch. “They’ll talk fast,” he writes. “You may think you are interesting, but you are not more interesting than lunch.”

He’s also a man after my own heart. I hate being asked a question, or thinking about something to which I don’t know the answer. Thankfully we live in an age where most of the time that information is just a few keystrokes away. Paush says that his family was integral in instilling those same traits in him. “‘If you have a question,’ my folks would say, ‘then find the answer.’ The instinct at our house was never to sit around like slobs and wonder. We knew a better way: Open the encyclopedia. Open the dictionary. Open your mind.”

One of my favorite of Pausch’s message is to let kids be kids. He rails against the notion that we should be protecting kids from everything and holding them all up as “gifted.” Kids should be able to make mistakes, strike out in Little League, get a B- on a test and scribble on their bedroom walls. In fact, that’s just what Pausch’s parents allowed.

He asked his parents if he could paint things that mattered to him on his walls. They said OK. His mother may not have been totally for the project–Pausch writes that she hovered out in the hallway during the process, while dad sat in the living room–but they came to show off his work proudly.

When I was about 12 I was allowed to paint my own room, including a giant replica of the Major League Baseball logo on one wall. That was one of the coolest parts of my childhood.

But Pausch put my creative work to shame. He had the quadratic formula and a rocket ship. There was his version of Pandora’s box. A submarine lurked around his bed with a periscope sticking up above the headboard. And the best item: A replica of elevator doors complete with up and down arrows, and the lights over top with floors numbered one through six. “The number ‘three’ was illuminated,” he writes. “We lived in a ranch house–it was just one level–so I was doing a bit of fantasizing to imagine six floors. But looking back, why didn’t I paint eighty or ninety floors?”

What parents would allow that type of freedom today? I picture the mother from the show “Jon & Kate Plus 8”–she’d have a simultaneous massive heart attack and stroke.

When Pausch was teaching, he brought that same “try and it’s OK if you fail” attitude to his students. After all, that’s when we learn a lot. At the end of the semester, he says he would give “The First Penguin Award” to the group that failed the most while taking the biggest chance. He says he named it as he did after the first penguin to dive in the water in the wild, who is taking the chance that a predator could be waiting for lunch. Of course, after he dives in, the rest of the penguins can make a more informed decision. But that’s exactly the point–if nobody is the first penguin, we all stand on the shore forever.

“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted…Failure is not just acceptable, it’s often essential.” — Randy Pausch.

September 9, 2008 books Netflix Uncategorized
Do I Know You from Somewhere?

“You look like someone in a movie.” A quote from a conversation with a friend today.

Fortunately, after a while there was at least some recollection of the movie she had in mind and we were able to put a name to the mysterious face. But look-alikes aren’t exactly universally accepted. You may think someone bears no resemblance, while others think you are a dead ringer.

Similarity is in the eye of the beholder.

I’ve heard several different ones during my illustrious time on this Earth. We’ll start with today’s, since it is both the most recent and has the most elements. Well, only two elements, but that’s still more than the others.

I give you, “Jason Statham mixed with David Beckham…if that’s possible…”

Apparently movies are a popular source for me. In addition to appearing in such films as Snatch and The Transporter, I’ve also done solid work in Clerks.

Of course the people who know you best are probably a better judge of this kind of thing. From my lovely cousin, my gold-medal-winning self.

Judge for yourself.

August 12, 2008 Uncategorized
Short and Princely

I marked a number of pages in The Prince as points I was going to discuss in this posting.

Unfortunately, I re-read the pages and nothing noteworthy came to mind. I blame the abundant sunshine raining down on my head at the time for the false dog-ears.

BUT there is one nugget that really saves the entire experience: “For fortune is a woman and in order to be mastered she must be jogged and beaten.” Machiavelli was certainly ahead of his time in male-female relations. “Therefore, like a woman, she always favors young men because they are so much inclined to caution as to aggressiveness and daring in mastering her.” Maybe he was just a bitter old man.

Next up: “The Survival Game” by David Barash.

August 11, 2008 books Uncategorized
Unconventionally Awesome

I read somewhere that Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Everything is Illuminated” was a slaughtering of the English language that made for an amazing book. I thought it was written on the cover, or elsewhere in the reviews inside, but of course now I can’t find it.

I love authors who break away from “the rules.” Your high school English teacher would have a heart attack marking up this book. But it’s done so purposefully and so beautifully, you are sucked into the story that much more.

The story itself is at times hilarious and moments later heartbreaking. I told a friend it’s like having your iTunes on shuffle. One minute you’re bopping along to something fun, then it’s a piano-driven elegy to a fallen loved one.

The story follows Jonathan’s quest to learn more about his family, who fled part of the Ukraine during the Holocaust. He’s an American, who enlists the help of a driver and translator for his fact-finding mission. The humor comes from the translator, who narrates a good portion of the book. The format itself is unique, following a pattern that hands the story back and forth to different voices.

The Jonathan character is writing a history of his family in Ukraine. Alex, the translator, is giving the account of the actual trip. He’s also writing letters to Jonathan, telling him about his work translating Jonathan’s story. Alex doesn’t have the strongest handle on the language, but does have a great sense of humor about it.

Alex’s family is also involved in the story, though they are a bit off the deep end. The great part is that Alex doesn’t really get bogged down by their dysfunction. At one point, he gets in an argument with his father: “Father removed three pieces of ice from the refrigerator, closed the refrigerator, and punched me. ‘Put these on your face’….I should have been smarter.”

His female dog is also named “Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior.” As someone who plans to name his first pet “Captain Awesome,” I was instantly endeared to Alex.

I always dog-ear pages in these books so I can go back and recount things that stick out, like the punch in the face scene. Sometimes though, I spend a few minutes reading a page over and over again trying to remember what on Earth I was marking for later. Something happens on page 114. Don’t know quite what to make of it. Sorry.

I can however tell you about page 142. Alex is writing one of his letters to Jonathan, saying the American is way too high-strung and needs to chill out. A man of my own heart, Alex says: “This is difficult to achieve, because in truth you are a person with very much anxiety. Perhaps you should be a drug user.” For those of you who may fit the Jonathan mold, and who have heard the drug suggestion from me, I stand by my suggestion.

As someone who gets paid to write for a living, I understand that even when it’s your job, the words don’t always come easily. In Jonathan’s history, he’s recounting the work of those writing “The Book of Antecedents.” The book is a collection of history, anecdotes and bizarre things the town is recording for future posterity. Some days the words don’t come very easily, but in an effort to record what’s happening, even the writers record their actions: “We are writing…We are writing…We are writing…We are writing…We are writing…We are writing…We are writing…We are writing…We are writing…We are writing…” That’s beautiful work. And keeping with Foer’s style, they’re declaration “We are writing” goes on for a page and a half.

I am done writing…I am done writing…I am done writing…

Next Up: “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli

July 24, 2008 books Uncategorized
Cow in the Road!!!

In my driving career, I haven’t run over many animals. However, I have seen many beings who are just asking for their lives to be ended.

Usually these animals are the obvious ones. You have squirrels darting inexplicably across traffic just at that moment when you drive by. They know you’re the only car and they could either go easily before you get there, or just wait a second until you pass. But no, they try to dash in between your tires.

You have the lesser-seen rabbits and frogs that end up smashed on the highway. Raccoons and skunks join the flattened squad as well. And of course there are deer.

But an armadillo? That’s what I was treated to on my way to work this morning. I briefly considered that it was before 4 a.m. and I may have been delirious. But after some further reflection, I definitely had to swerve around an armadillo. I say swerve because they are apparently the only animal that makes zero attempt to get out of the way. Maybe it thought it’s armor-looking shell was going to protect it from a Nissan at 50 mph.

The beast just slowly walked across the lane, and in the rear-view mirror I saw him go into the next lane. The car there actually came to a complete stop. That’s only lucky armadillo.

July 23, 2008 animals Uncategorized
Responsibility is Overrated

She says she has a problem with shopping, and has run up more than $10,000 in credit card debt. But this girl doesn’t even have her own credit card.

Instead she’s been using her parents’ card since she was barely a teenager, since her mom has multiple sclerosis and couldn’t take the girl to the mall herself.

I saw this story on MTV’s “True Life” today on an episode about compulsive shopping. Sure, the girl has a problem and needs to address her overspending. But how on Earth do you allow someone to run up that kind of debt on your card? Surely there’s a point at which you STOP handing over the plastic.

Her parents become exasperated trying to get the girl into a therapy program. Yet at the same time, she’s taking the credit card and racking up $800 shopping sprees. It’s like having an intervention for a coke addict, then giving them a ride to visit their dealer.

On the personal responsibility front, there’s another ridiculous story that came out today. Disgraced sprinter Marion Jones is asking President Bush to commute her 6-month prison sentence. That’s definitely the message we need to send. Now that people are actually seeing repercussions related to doping sports, let’s go ahead and let one of them off.

She was convicted of lying to federal agents about her steroids involvement and her role in a check-fraud scheme.

According to the Associated Press, “The judge in Jones’ case said the check-fraud scheme was a major crime, and the wide use of steroids “affects the integrity of athletic competition.”

Oh, and she’s also already served 4 months. Then again, President Bush is just smart enough to let her go.

July 21, 2008 Uncategorized