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12 March 2011

Book Review: The Yiddish Policemen's Union

The Yiddish Policemen's UnionThe Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While I know I've read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay I don't really remember reading it.  I remember the feel of the book in my hand and the act of reading it. It still sits on my bookshelf, an accomplishment when one regards the fact that said bookshelf has been through several major purges.  And when I look through the shelf for things to read, I see its spine and I smile.  But I don't remember anything about it except that I liked it; nothing of its style or its prose or even its plot.

So when I was wandering the library shelves in the Mystery section looking at random spines of Agatha Christie books, searching for one I'd not yet read, the name "Michael Chabon" hopped out at me like a kid playing peek-a-boo.  "Ooh!" I thought.  "I like him!"   Though if anyone asked my why I liked him, I would be at a loss.  "Um.  That comic book novel.  That was really good ..."   Brilliant.  Anyway, the cover and title of this book intrigued me, as well as the fact that it was shelved in the Mystery section of the library.  So I picked it up, along with Christie's A Carribbean Mystery.

I read Christie first.  A regular old Miss Marple tale, filled with the regular characters in a rather irregular setting (for Christie).  Entertaining, not thought-provoking.  Standard cozy mystery fare.  Then I started Chabon.

I hated it for the first, oh, thirteen chapters.  It took me a long time to find footholds in this crazy world of Chabon's imagination, based on a trivial what-if in history;  Jews without Jerusalem but with a non-permanent foothold in the wilds of Alaska.  A current world stuck in the 1940s world of noir, hats and cigarettes.  Yiddish thrown in without explanation or definition.  I was buffaloed.

But then the story took me in.  An outrageous story but fitting with its outrageous premise and its outrageous characters.

And, yes, Chabon overwrites.  Sometimes in a major way.  But I love that.  It makes me think and stop to consider.  Describing two propane tanks as a "scrotal pair" brings so much more color and texture to the idea.  And also more grit.   Lines like "The lady has been in and out of the hospital lately, dying in chapters, a cliffhanger at the end of every one" makes those little moments that make up life so much bigger.  He could have just written,  "She was dying."   But he didn't.

At an abandoned big box store;  "Its doors are chained and along its windowless flank where Yiddish and Roman characters once spelled out the name of the store, there is only a cryptic series of holes, domino pips, a braille of failure."  A whole new level and texture to something we see everyday in urban settings.  Something I'll think of from now on, I'm sure.

Then there were lines like "In a gray, wet place, Mendele gave off light and warmth.  You wanted to stand close to him.  To warm your hands, to melt the ice on your beard.  To banish the darkness for a minute or two.  But then when you left Mendele, you stayed warm, and it seemed like there was a little more light, maybe one candle's worth, in the world.  And that was when you realized the fire was inside of you all the time.  And that was the miracle.  Just that."   I had to stop reading and think.

"An awful place, this sea, this gulf between the Intention and the Act, that people call 'the world.'"  Hmmmm.  Yes.

And that is what makes a book worth reading to me.  One that makes you think.  And this book also pleasantly diverted me with not-quite believable or lovable, but still somehow believable and lovable characters, as well as an an entertaining, if over-active, plot.  Bonus.


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06 March 2011

Book Review: Seeds of America (Chains and Forge)

Chains (Seeds of America, #1)Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Laurie Halse Anderson came to our local children's bookstore and I went to hear her speak.  She was an unassuming personage, more like a gal you'd run into at the Target than a highly-acclaimed author.  But her passion for this era of our history was palpable; her inner brilliance showed in her eyes and her voice as she talked about how her whole life changed when she discovered that Benjamin Franklin owned slaves. And she wanted to write about it.  For kids.  Because kids need to know about our spotted history; to learn the story that they don't learn in school.  And, also, she hates Johnny Tremain.


The result is the Seeds of America series, a complex but age-appropriate set of young adult books that looks at the Revolutionary War through the eyes of a Loyalist’s slave (Chains), as well as a male slave conscripted into the army on his owner's behalf (Forge).


As Anderson says in her Author’s Note at the end of Chains, “you really can’t look at this through good guy/bad guy glasses" and, truly, there are no characters that are pure; all the good guys have bad instincts sometimes and some of the bad guys have good instincts.  Sometimes.


Anderson writes with aplomb and, though the books suffer a bit from plots that force characters to be in the shadow of documented history, the story is so compelling, the writing so masterful, that this reader didn't really care.


One of the blurbs on the back of Chains says it "knocks on the conscience of a nation."   Indeed.


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11 February 2011

Responsible Consumerism

This type of winter weather brings out the worst in climate change skeptics.  I firmly believe in the impact of man's habits on climate change but even I love to go out in 1 degree temperatures and yell, "Global Warming, my ass!"

I will not pretend to understand the science of the earth's warming causing blizzards.  Nor will I spend this blog post convincing you that climate change is a real and dangerous threat.

I will spend this post convincing you to make changes in the way you run your life.  But not to help the environment.  I want you to change because the way we are encouraged to purchase and consume is just plain dumb.   We are idiots.  All of us.

Case and point;  we adopted a dog a couple of months ago.  He is big and beautiful and has the kind of fur with which polar fleece loves to cuddle.  As previously mentioned, we're having a very cold winter and my daily outfit of choice is always topped off with a polar fleece jacket, which I wear inside, too, but I digress.   This warm and comfy black polar fleece jacket often looks beige because of the dog fur that is attached to it via the joy and magic of static electricity.  Again, I won't try to understand the science, but suffice it to say if my dog scratches his ear, the fur he detaches from his head immediately ends up on my jacket. Even if I'm 20 feet away.  Or in a different room.

So off I went in search of a lint brush.  I remember the lint brush we had when I was a kid;  a wooden-handled thing with some sort of red fabric on both sides.  We used it the whole time I was growing up and I would hazard a guess that my folks still use it.    You cleaned it by wiping it with your wet hand, transferring the lint from brush to hand.  Then you washed your hands.  Simple.

But it's not easy to find a lint brush these days.  The stores only stock those sticky roller things;  you roll it over your clothes, peel off a layer of sticky to reveal a new layer of sticky and then throw the old layer of sticky away.  When you are done with the roll of sticky, you throw the whole thing away;  a big plastic handle and a plastic roll.  In removing lint, you've created a pile of trash.

And you could have just used a freaking lint brush and then wiped it off with your wet hand.

I went all over town looking for a lint brush.  (Yes, one can lampoon the fact that I used fossil fuels to wander all over the metro, venturing into the vast parking lots and the glut of product that demarcate the big box store.  But let's not go there.)  In my big box spelunking I found ideas based on the old-fashioned lint brush but even these required one to change the fabric attached every month; refill packages were helpfully stocked nearby.  I found sticky rollers galore.  I found one lint brush.  One.  It was made of plastic but had the red fabric I remembered.  I picked it up to test it on my polar fleece.  The handle broke.  I grimaced and took it to customer service.  They shrugged and told me these things often broke and they weren't going to stock them anymore.  They refused my offer of pay and tossed the broken lint brush in the trash.

This lint brush was made by a company that also made the sticky rollers;  I went back to the lint roller aisle and compared the two handles;  the sticky roller, designed to be disposable, had a substantially sturdier handle.  Try as I might, I couldn't break it (I did succeed in catching the attention of the store security guard, but that is another blog post entirely).   The lint brush, ostensibly designed to be fairly permanent, was made as cheaply as possible; designed to break so we would either buy another one or throw up our hands at the uselessness of the old-fashioned lint brush and move our alliance to the disposable sticky roller.

There are so many products like the sticky roller;  the Swiffer instead of a mop.  Lunchables.  Individually packaged small yogurts.  Those tiny bottles of water.  Disinfecting wipes.  Disposable razors.  Products that create convenience.   But these convenience products also create trash.  Lots and lots of trash (yes, I know I said I wasn't going to talk about the environment, but indulge me).

Have you heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?  It's a huge pile of trash, roughly the size of Texas, in the central North Pacific Ocean.  Estimates put the amount at 3.5 million tons of trash. Shoes, toys, bags, pacifiers, wrappers, and bottles too numerous to count are only part of what can be found in this accidental dump floating midway between Hawaii and San Francisco.



How many sticky-roller handles are in this pile?  How many water bottles?  How many disposable razors?

But if this picture doesn't make you gag and swear off disposable products entirely, let's talk about your money.  Disposable products ensure that you spend much more money than you would otherwise.  We used one sticky roller in two months.  That's $27 a year.  If you buy a Swiffer, you have to keep buying refills and  then you eventually have to buy a whole new Swiffer because the plastic broke and the sheets  won't stay on anymore.  You just made a mint for the Swiffer people.  And you'll keep making that mint for them as long as you buy into their product line.   Like their dusters.  You could buy an old-fashioned feather duster but wouldn't it be better to buy a package of disposable ones?  Then you can wipe the dust off of your furniture and throw it away immediately!  A clean slate every time you dust!  How wonderful!

Can you hear the "cha-ching" from the company boardroom?

See?  We're sooooo dumb.

I finally found a permanent lint brush product, by the way.  Something called a Furbegone;  a brush with soft rubber bristles that grab pet hair and lint like a magnet and then rinse clean.   It was on an aisle at a pet store, surrounded by sticky rollers.  I've used it quite a bit and it works very well.  Perhaps a little more labor-intensive than the sticky roller but more effective in the end.  It can also be used directly on your pet, as well as on carpets and upholstery.

A 100 sheet sticky roller costs $4.59.  A Furbegone costs $6.99.  The dumb consumer in us buys the sticky roller because it's less expensive.  But the rubber brush we only have to buy once.  We spend more at the outset but save over time.

So how come the rubber brush is so hard to find?

Because we're dumb.  Duh.  It's easier to find the sticky roller so we buy it.  We don't think.  We just buy.  Dumb.

I could go on and on and on and on.  But I won't because I doubt you made it this far.  I really should include entertaining illustrations in these blog posts.  

So let me close with this;  you may hate environmentalists.   You may want to shoot tree-huggers with a BB gun.  You may have Al Gore's face on your basement dart board.

But putting the brakes on disposable consumerism makes financial sense.  For you and your family.   And if the Great Pacific Garbage patch disappears too?  All the better.


17 January 2011

Book Review: The Light Thickens

Light ThickensLight Thickens by Ngaio Marsh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This Marsh cozy made me want to read Macbeth.  Then read the cozy again.  If nothing else, that makes this a mystery worth reading.

Marsh's last mystery.  Brings back some characters from Killer Dolphin (Death at the Dolphin in the UK).  The murder itself doesn't happen until the final 50 or so pages.  But, as I say again and again, who the hell cares?  Excellent writing, intriguing characterization and, bonus, makes one feel more literate about that Scottish play.


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Book Review: Killer Dolphin

Killer Dolphin (A Roderick Alleyn Mystery)Killer Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are two books that feature the fictional Dolphin Theater; this is the first one.  I read them in the wrong order so some of the plot points were already old hat to me.

Not one of Marsh's strongest mysteries but still a wonderful beach read.  Or sick bed read.  Her characterizations of professional actors are always a hoot and the prim attitude of Alleyn always makes me half-smile.


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Book Review: Black As He's Painted

Black as He's PaintedBlack as He's Painted by Ngaio Marsh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My least favorite Marsh book so far.  Very dated and rather offensive to modern sensibilities.  That said, please don't rewrite it and remove all allusions to the negro race as Marsh describes them; that would be silly.  The exploration of prejudice itself is very instructive, even if the mystery wanders over into sensationalism in a very un-Marsh-like way.

As a secondary note, I read the Jove paperback, published in the 70s.  Very, very obvious what was selling then;  the back cover blurb talks about a murder that might start World War Three when there's not even a hint of something of that within the text of the book.  Marsh's name is written in a font that my son said looked "bloody and full of terror."  Marketed as a slasher novel.  Yet still a cozy;  a cozy set outside the typical confines of most books of this nature but still featuring the type of persnickety-yet-likeable main character more often found in St. Mary Meade.


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Book Review: George's Secret Key to the Universe

George's Secret Key to the UniverseGeorge's Secret Key to the Universe by Lucy Hawking
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The adventures of George as he explores the universe with an unlikely computer named Cosmos;  science lessons included.


I'm on the fence about this book.  Plainly, it is meant to clothe the miracle of physics into language that children can understand but the laws of physics themselves are blown off at almost every plot point.


Then there's the part where a person gets sucked into a black hole but the super-computer speeds up time and sucks him back out again, putting him back together, particle by particle, messing up only his eyeglasses.


I am not a physicist so I cannot speak to the accuracy of the science contained herein.  There were a few typos but I read a first edition and assume those mistakes were corrected in subsequent releases.


The story is engaging.  The hero brave.  The villain evil.   The enormity of space well-described (and, thusly, the ridiculousness of just about everything I'll ever do in my little life reiterated which made the book, in a sense, a little too scary for an adult to read ;)


I'll add to this review when my kid has read it.  We'll see what he thinks.


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