June 29, 2010: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

Finally, the release date for David Mitchell's next book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, has been announced.

I found a description on an English website, http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails-Deshima+-9780340921579.html ,:

'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet' Description


In 1799, Jacob de Zoet disembarks on the tiny island of Dejima, the Dutch East India Company's remotest trading post in a Japan otherwise closed to the outside world. A junior clerk, his task is to uncover evidence of the previous Chief Resident's corruption. Cold-shouldered by his compatriots, Jacob earns the trust of a local interpreter and, more dangerously, becomes intrigued by a rare woman -- a midwife permitted to study on Dejima under the company physician. He cannot foresee how disastrously each will be betrayed by someone they trust, nor how intertwined and far-reaching the consequences. Duplicity and integrity, love and lust, guilt and faith, cold murder and strange immortality stalk the stage in this enthralling novel, which brings to vivid life the ordinary -- and extraordinary -- people caught up in a tectonic shift between East and West.

I just noticed that the UK release date is April15th, 2010.  Amazon.uk... so tempting...

Lolchair Is My Friend

I am fascinated by anthropomorphism and simulacra, and the mysteriously whimsical workings of the human brain that engenders them.  Lolchair is the perfect example of the way the mind "humanizes" the nonhuman.  For more "object-oriented" fun, visit the Lolchair website at http://www.lolchair.com.

I am still dipping my toes in Stewart Elliott Guthrie's deep tome, Faces In the Clouds:  A New Theory of Religion, which covers this subject as it relates to religion. This book puts forth the theory that early humans with anthropomorphic tendencies had a better chance of surviving.  Simple example of this theory:  If you see a shape and you think it looks like a bear or some other threatening creature, then your survival chances are better than if you think it is just a rock.  If it is indeed a rock and not a bear, no harm done.  However, if it is indeed a bear and you don't interpret it as a potential threat, then your chances of survival go down. 

I have also been sampling a variety of other thought-provoking books on evolving scientific perceptions of human mind and consciousness.

When They Severed Earth From Sky:  How the Human Mind Shapes Myth by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber - Dr. Barber, one of my favorite authors, who co-authored this book with her husband, also a professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles, explores the way myths preserve historical truths.

Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett - Computers, brains, and more!  Older book, with lots of geeky, mathematical goodness.

Proust and the Squid:  The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf - Questions the notion that humans are really "born to read".

Outliers and other books by Malcolm Gladwell - Gladwell makes interesting assumptions and turns common perceptions of reality inside out in an interesting way.

Quirky Roadtrips for Armchair Travelers

Here are a few of my favorite nonfiction travel books with a focus on the humorous and/or meditative by some great writers.

Travels With Charley:  In Search of America - John Steinbeck
The classic of this genre, which debuted in 1962, Steinbeck and Charley, Steinbecks's standard poodle, lead the way.

Blue Highways:  A Journey Into America - William Least Heat-Moon
Another classic published in 1982, chronicles the author's atmospheric travels down two-lane, back roads in an old van.

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches From the Unfinished Civil War - Tony Horwitz
Horwitz explores the physical and cultural landscape of the Civil War with lots of weirdly funny sidetrips, which include the consumption of raw bacon and an interlude with a master Scarlett O'Hara impersonator.  Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is also the author several other literary travelogues including Blue Latitudes:  Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before.

Notes From a Small Island - Bill Bryson
Bryson, a master raconteur, recounts his humorously poignant, final tour of Britain, mostly by foot and by rail, just prior to returning Stateside after living in England for a number of years.  Bryson is a prolific writer with great comic wit whose booklist includes the wonderful A Walk in the Woods:  Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.

Candy Freak:  A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America - Steve Almond
A slightly edgy, humorous memoir-travelogue of the author's quest for elusive sweeties.
Click to visit Steve Almond's website.

Assassination Vacation - Sarah Vowell
Vowell, an NPR This American Life contributor's, comic/noir take on pilgrimages to the sites of presidental assassinations.

Keep on Tech Trekkin': Yammer On

In the year since I participated in Tech Trek, Web 2.0 technologies have exploded.  Barack Obama's amazing electorial success was due in part to the use of a MySpace-clone website, which helped build an extremely dynamic ground campaign.  This landmark use of technology in American politics underscores the way that web applications have become customizable conduits between individuals and/or organizations that allow for rapid communication and response. 

The latest app that I'm playing with is Yammer.  Yammer is basically a microblogging service (like Twitter) with a business app.  I heard about Yammer on NPR's tech segment, signed up, and coaxed a couple of co-workers into signing up, who coaxed some other coworkers into signing up.  It is fun and easy to use (IMHO) and useful, according to the NPR segment, because it cuts down on email by letting people in the business or organization that uses it know what other folks within the org are doing in real time (like Twitter does with friends). 

You sign onto Yammer with your work email and it connects everyone whose work emails have the same ending.  Unlike Facebook and other public social-networking web apps, only your co-workers can see your Yammer posts.  This cuts down on exposure to distracting, non-work related posts and keeps everyone focused on company business while staying connected.  Very cool.

Santa's Little Helpers

Happy St. Nicholas Day (December 6th)!

Here he is in la belle France avec Pere Fouettard, a mad butcher/priest dude who will get you if you are naughty.  (Click link to see the French website where I found this cool picture.)

In Switzerland, St. Nick hangs with Schmutzli, a sooty, nasty dude who will carry you off in his sack if you don't watch out. (Click link to see Flickr with this great pic).

The devilish Krampus is part of Austrian (and other eastern European nations') winter holiday traditions that have merged with St. Nicholas Day and Christmas.  Krampus, which means "claw", is another bogeyman to make sure that the kiddies don't get out of line. Click here for more about Krampus.

In the Netherlands, Santa, known as Sinter Klaas, is accompanied by Schwartz Piet, an African helper in Renaissance style clothes.  Schwartz Piet is more of a friendly helper than a threat to kids.  (Click here for more on Sinter Klaas).

Have these kids been naughty?  Only Krampus knows.

Have a cool Yule!

Big Sticks: Pink Saris and The White Tiger

Serendipitously, a day or so after finishing Aravind Adiga's wonderful, Man Booker Prize-winning novel about a down-trodden young man's path to becoming a successful entrepreneur through dubious means in contemporary India , The White Tiger, I heard a fascinating story on NPR about a group of vigilante Indian women called "The Pink Saris".

The Pink (Gulabi) Gang or Pink Saris, are led by Sampat Pal Devi  and wear, what else, bright pink saris, and carry a leki stick, the weapon of choice for Indian police.  The Gulabi Gang goes around and attacks dishonest and bad folks who avoid punishment by the Indian criminal justice system through the payment of bribes and influence.  The average target of  Pink Sari attention is a male who has victimized someone poorer and less powerful, often a woman.  

I find this interesting because the term "thug" originally comes from India, derived from the term "thugee", which is a kind of organized crime, Kali-worshipping cult, who were feared bandits and thieves. The idea of this women-only group, who wear such distinctivly feminine clothing, banding together, getting thuggish for justice like a band of Wild West vigilantes, and openly taking on an unresponsive, male-dominated justice system is pretty interesting stuff.

The White Tiger has a similar theme of the weak against the strong, but Balram, the protagonist, takes on the system in a covert, murderous way rather than through direct action like the Gulabi Gang. Balram, a  Dickensian anti-hero, is a young man working in the Indian capital of New Delhi as the personal driver of Ashok, the soft, Westernized son of the family that has Balram's rural village and entire family locked in a merciless, feudal grip. Balram, the white tiger, seeks to survive the corrupt, injust world he has been locked into from birth by striking out at his employer. 

Balram is a true, old school Indian Thug, which comes from the Sanscrit word for "conceal", "sthag".  Balram hides his true feelings beneath a submissive exterior, bowing and scraping and obediently performing all the menial tasks set for him by Mr. Ashok and his family, who Balram calls animals, no matter how horrible or degrading.  Balram's spiritual link to the Thuggees is underscored by the presence of a Kali magnet on the dashboard of the car that Balram drives for Mr. Ashok.

Picture from http://www.shivani.com.au/Media/picture-galleries/Trip-to-India.aspx?imagepath=%2FMedia%2Fpicture-galleries%2FTrip-to-India%2FIndia-and-Diwali-07-080 .  Accessed 12/8/08

Arviga's novel combines an amoral protagonist a' la Camus with elements of Poe ("The Casque of Amontillado" first comes to mind) and a touch of Shakespearean tragedy (I seem to recall a reference to bloody hand-washing).  The upstairs/downstairs contrasts of Indian life in the rural "Darkness" versus the "bright lights, big city" of Delhi are sharp and startling.  T

his novel smoothly transitions from the first world, high-rise apartment where Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam, Ashok's overly-sexy, spoiled American wife, reside in air-conditioned comfort to the third world, bug-infested, squalor where Balram and his fellow drivers spend their nights without missing a beat.  This clear and shocking dichotomy is as strong a call for social justice as anything Charles Dickens ever wrote or any picture Jacob Riis ever took.  The novel's gruesomeness and the author's use the first-person frame tale of a series of letters to a Chinese bureaucrat, among other things, also echo the building, Gothic horror of Poe's, "The Tell-Tale Heart".

Ms. Sampat Pal Devi's autobiography has been published in France.

DIY Book Bag

Cool idea from Boing Boing:  a book purse made from Reader's Digest Condensed Books.  Nice to find a use for them other than decorating chain restaurants and bars.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/25/howto-make-a-puse-ou.html

Reader's Digest Condensed Books are fairly useless to most readers mainly because the idea of "condensing" literature is somewhat unsavory and anathemic to real readers (think Cliff notes).  If you look at reading as a pleasure to be savored, why would you want to snip away at tasty bits and pieces of a good book just so you could plow through it more quickly to the "main idea".  Condensing periodical articles is cool.  I totally dig Utne Reader and Reader's Digest, but forget condensing novels.  If it is worth reading, it is worth reading in its entirety, IMHO.