Angela Ambroz
Somewhere between a 3 and 3.5. This is a solid empirical and philosophical exploration of how America's white supremacist institutions can, quietly, harm working class white Americans.
This is not a huge piece of news, but it was a relatively interesting entry into the literature about several things: the rise of (often self-defeating) populism/Trumpism, the decline and demonization of the welfare state, America's (often self-defeating) cultural obsession with individualism, and America's white supremacy. I consider myself a political liberal and used to think I was a “non-racist”; but the last few years have been an awakening (a wokening?!) in terms of just how much America's core institutions and culture are built on racism. Anyway, so I would file this book next to a bunch of others: Albion's Seed, The Unwinding, Rachel and Her Children, Evicted, Usual Cruelty, Between the World and Me... Oh, so many.
It also made me meditate on how capitalism/industrialization and racism grew up together in America, and how racism was used to drive a wedge between the white and black working classes to ensure classism/income inequality would never be addressed. Metzl, the author here, quotes W.E.B. DuBois's “wages of whiteness”.
It ALSO made me think of game theory - where experiments have demonstrated, numerous times, that people will choose to hurt themselves if it punishes a perceived opponent. This book is basically a long catalog of times lower-income white people have opposed policies which would, on the individual level, benefit them - but they've opposed those policies for fear that non-white bogeymen (“illegal immigrants, welfare queens, gang members”) would get them as well.
Specifically, Metzl covers three distinct policies which, in his argument, directly led to avoidable white deaths: (the lack of) gun control in Missouri, opposing Medicaid expansion and Obamacare in Tennessee, and the decimation of public school funding in Kansas. In all three cases, these policies are enacted by conservative, Republican politicians under a narrative of “wasteful” welfare spending or infringement of personal (white) liberties (e.g. to own a gun); and, in all three cases, Metzl links these to avoidable increases in mortality among white populations.
For guns in Missouri, Metzl (who is a psychiatry professor) notes that white men are (VERY) disproportionately represented in suicides by gun. He also advances the idea that suicide by gun is distinct from other forms of suicide - namely, because of its lethality (you almost always succeed if you use a gun to kill yourself, as opposed to e.g. pills), it goes through a different psychological process than other, “non-gun” suicides: it can be the result of an impulse, rather than a longer process of consideration, etc. For healthcare in Tennessee, the link between policy and death is even more obvious: Metzl interviews white men (mostly men, again) in very poor health who view Obamacare as “too costly” and a drain on public resources - even as they struggle to afford their medical bills. And, finally, education in Kansas: Metzl's final interview is with a white woman who lambasts the Kansas governor, Sam Brownback, for his starving of Kansas's previously-great public school system. After Metzl points out that Trump advocates many of the same austerity policies that Brownback does, the woman admits “you might be right, but at least [Trump] gives a voice to unheard white people” (I paraphrase, but she does explicitly say “white”).
In all these cases, Metzl mixes qualitative interviews with more quantitative work, along with some political philosophy musings. During the interviews, he often tries to gently prod people to acknowledge - or at least SEE - how contradictory their beliefs are. A couple times, people come right out and say it: whiteness is more important than everything else. (Indeed, he bookends with two interviews where the interviewee basically says that).
This book came out right before Covid, but the anti-vax movement is similarly tinged with racialized politics: e.g. black anti-vaxers who, remembering Tuskegee etc, are mistrustful; white anti-vaxers who believe their “rights” and “freedom” are infringed if they do something for the public good. And, indeed, white people are dying on this hill. Metzl's Twitter is very active in this regard!
So I thought the qualitative interviews were particularly interesting, and I learned a LOT about suicide and guns (I had no idea white men were so disproportionately represented). I didn't buy the quantitative work, mostly because it was largely descriptive stats and occasional correlations - Metzl didn't discuss causal inference enough to convince me. That said, he did hat-tip Deaton and Case's work on declining white working class longevity in the US, and I'm eager to read that - since I basically trust their empirical/statistical work more.
A fun, wide-ranging, and provocative non-fiction book about the ethics and possibilities of neurotech (aka brain-meddling!!).
So I spent most of this audiobook running and arguing with it in my head. I almost threw the headphones off in an angry huff during the “why ADHD meds are cognitive enhancers and totally fine ok” - I stuck with it, if only because I enjoyed the ethical debating. (Even though I do think the ADHD meds chapter was GOODNESS ME, really eliding some big, obvious downsides to ADHD meds (and steroids). Like, that shit can fuck you up.
The author, Farahany, is a law prof and was on Obama's bioethics committee. So I do defer to her authority. At the same time, I feel like I'm kinda not into the Singularity/transhumanist world anymore - and I did sense some techbro enthusiasm in Farahany's writing, which made me eye-roll. But I can't criticize her too much; she did a decent job of outlining the ethical debate.
Great resource! This could make a good weekend project for a hacker girls club, or a good badge for a scout meetup, or whatever. Probable best ages would be ~middle schoolers?
Basically:
- 4 very brief chapters, each with an intro of an illustrious woman of technology + coupled with a small-scale hands-on application of that woman's work
Naturally Ada Lovelace shows up - she is EVERYWHERE in “women in tech” world - so I appreciated that I hadn't heard of the other 3. And I especially appreciated the DEEP CUT CRAZINESS of Hildegard von Bingen, omg THAT WAS A WACKY BIO. She was locked in a cell for 30+ years with another nun cuz... cuz it was the 11th century and that seemed like a good idea???? She had visions and sent much unsolicited advice via mail to the leaders of her time????? The project for her chapter was “make up a secret language” but HAAAAHA why not “lock yourself in your room and hallucinate”?! Or actually why not “write your political representatives”, hey that's a good one.
Maria Telkes was a fun one too - and after the Katalin Kariko bio, I am feeling very warm towards Hungarian women scientists. Her chapter's project was also EXCELLENT: a solar-powered desalination thingie. Since I was and am still on my eco-warrior, Ministry for the Future high, that felt very apropos (and also very doable).
Oh man, this is like a 10/5. I mean, like, I'm not inflating ratings, this is just how good this is. This is 200% good. Okay, maybe I should dial it back. The art is just okay, sometimes I feel tense and cringey cuz the art is just OKAY and I'm like, agrh. Like, we are not in the strong, capable drawing arms of Saga's Fiona Staples or The Wicked + The Divine's Jamie McKelvie. Nor are we, for that matter, in the strong, capable, CRAZY arms of drawing crazy business like Brandon Graham's many insane choices on the Prophet series. No, no, the art in this is... just okay. Pedestrian? I don't wanna be mean. It's fine!
I'M TRYING TO FIND SOMETHING TO CRITIQUE
Because, honestly, the writing in this is just - PERFECT. I laughed out loud at almost every page. It was a consistently funny, smart portrayal of human sexuality and, of course, relationships and LAVVVV. In this volume, John the manfriend has some mental health troubles, and that too was handled with intelligence and grace and wit and charm.
Honestly, I can't recommend this enough. One of the best series out there right now! Also, very fun to ask for it in the bookstore, “Ex-squeeze me, but where may I find your latest issues of SEX CRIMINALS, hmmm??”
Less a comix in the usual style (there's no “plot”), more a biography with lots of drawings. Imagine a dense, voiceover narration.
That said, lots of humor and admiration in this piece about wonderful Charles “but I am very poorly today and very stupid”* Darwin.
Anyway. This whet my appetite something fierce for more biology and more Darwin. MORE MORE MORE
* One of my favorite quotes of all time - so inspirational. I remind myself of it every time I am taking an exhausted breather on the intellectual mountain.
Meh, this was fine.
I found the most valuable section to be the postpartum/”what to do with your new little blob” stuff - that is, what to expect in terms of the process of recovery from giving birth, the proper care and feeding of your newborn, and the logistics of pumping breastmilk. The labor and delivery section was also pretty helpful; quite detailed in, e.g., the stages of labor, how an epidural gets inserted, and so on. The pregnancy stuff was fine.
I didn't love the tone though, and I still WAAAY prefer Emily Oster's Expecting Better for a number of reasons:
- I have a small professional connection with Oster (I did some work for her and a co-author), but, more importantly:
- We come from the same domain (economics) and speak the same language about risk, uncertainty, statistical significance, and hypothesis testing.
One thing I did NOT realize before getting pregnant and visiting those godawful “fourth ring of Dante's Inferno” online pregnancy forums is that there (a) is such a thing as “Mommy Wars” and (b) there are deeply entrenched ideological camps - akin to the polarization in US politics - related to the topics of breastfeeding, labor + delivery, and (most notoriously and radicalized) vaccines. I missed the memo on all of this, and I STILL don't understand why I'm supposed to despise the C-section rate in America, value a natural (i.e. pain medication free) childbirth, or create a “birth plan”.
(A note about C-sections: the rate in the US is about 1 in 3, which is widely considered - on online forums, in blogs, in this book, at the midwife meetup I went to - to be very terribly bad. I'm not a physician, but I didn't understand why: do these C-sections result in bad outcomes? It was often implied, but - what bad things? How often? Why? I wanted to know, and it's been hard to get straight, statistical information about it. At the midwife meetup, they implied it was caused by a lack of widespread midwifery, and its effects were to increase maternal mortality (!). I looked it up: the C-section rate in Germany, where midwives deliver babies, epidurals are rarer than in the US, and OBs are only on hand in emergencies, the rate is 31% - while, in the US, it's 33%. In Italy, it's 36%. The US's maternal mortality is a lot higher than other developed countries (e.g. Germany and Italy) - 26.4 deaths per 100,000 live births, or 0.02%, as compared to all the other European countries, which are all under 9 per 100,000 live births (0.009%). But it sounds like some of the causes of the US's maternal mortality rates have to do with the way hospitals and staff react to complications (e.g. a hemorrhaging), rather than the prevalence of complications. I'm not a public health researcher or physician, but the way these issues are talked about is always in SCREAMING ALARM AND JUDGMENT, and it's been hard for me to get to the facts! Just the fax!)
Heennnyyway.
So yeah, this book was written from the point of view of a highly experienced nurse who has worked extensively with midwives and OBs, and also maintained an online blog answering pregnant women's questions, and thus the tone of the book is geared towards addressing the online pregnant woman anxiety phenomenon: slightly skeptical of the medical mainstream, but not super granola so, and with limited statistical evaluation of the research evidence. While the book states very often that it means no judgment of, e.g., NOT doing a natural childbirth, or choosing to bottle- instead of breastfeeding, I still felt that it had quite a bit of judgment, not enough science and not enough COLD HARD FACTS, MA'AM. Again, I preferred Oster for that reason. Like, Oster - and economics research! ahhh, cold, dismal economics! - ascribes no special moral weight to breastfeeding or bottle-feeding, epidural or not, delayed cord clamping or not. She just evaluates the medical literature, applies statistical know-how to evaluating the believability of the research claims, and then applies decision theory from economics to evaluating what to do with those claims. To me, that's all reassuringly rational, understandable, and clear.
I mean, I don't want to overly critique this book - because it really is basically fine, and I even recommended it to some pregnant friends - but some stuff just rubbed me the wrong way. OKAY, ONE EXAMPLE: in the section on group B strep (GBS) - a vaginal infection that can sometimes be a bit of a risk to the baby while it's on its way out - Faulkner writes about how it's normally treated with antibiotics via IV. Since some womens' birth plans forbid the use of IVs in the pursuit of as low-intervention a birth as possible, she reassures these readers that the IVs are minimally invasive, and you can still walk around/be mobile during your labor. She then notes that the American Pregnancy Association estimates that only 1 in 200 babies even get GBS anyway when the mom has it and doesn't take antibiotics. But, if she takes antibiotics, this risk is reduced to 1 in 4,000. Fine, fine. BUT THE THING THAT DRIVES ME CRAZY is that she then notes, in the next paragraph, that - for those that reeeeally wanna stay “all-natural” while ALSO addressing the GBS - Faulkner writes:
“Some midwives and homeopaths offer garlic, acidophilus, or herb-based or other nondrug therapies and report good outcomes.”
GOOD. Good. Actually, kind of a slog in the beginning. The first 50% of the book was a slog for me - I really struggled, ho jeez. 1-star start. But a 4-star end, really. I think I needed time to get into this: this is a DENSE book, it requires deep engagement, and that can be hard when you're trying to audiobook this on 2x speed while commuting to work and your USB-C cable keeps futzing out.
So, first recommendation: don't do this on audiobook, READ this instead.
Second recommendation: convert to Buddhism!
Third (and last) recommendation: But screw Buddhism, eh! Kill the Buddha! This was a very nice, it was deeply Buddhist in its meta (Stephen Batchelor spends the whole book dismantling common Buddhist interpretations from first principles/direct Pali sources, and criticizing established Buddhist authorities for their snobbery towards, e.g., mindfulness apps) and, of course, in its ultimate messages. (Just like Star Wars went from Zen Yoda in ESB to Shambhala-style “BURN IT DOWN!” Luke in The Last Jedi. GOOD!
So this dense book is an ambitious attempt by Stephen Batchelor to reinterpret Buddhism by going back to the earliest Pali texts about Prince Siddhartha. (If you don't know Siddhartha's life story - and the foundations of Buddhism - already, I recommend Keanu's interpretation (unironically!!!) for an easy, canonical, and fun (!) telling.) He focuses, specifically, on five “characters”/historical figures who surrounded Siddhartha, and he tries to parse out - using contextual clues and some historiography - what the true values of Siddhartha (and therefore Buddhism) would have been. Along the way, he addresses some of the bits of Buddhism that are most challenging to Westerners: reincarnation, institutional sexism, etc.
So I'm generally down with a dismantling and reconstruction of Buddhism for a modern (secular) age, since that does seem in keeping with the general spirit of Buddhism - especially irreverent and now-obsessed Zen! I liked the retelling of the “four noble truths” as more like pirate guidelines focused on contextual/relativist ethical pragmatism. Try not to be a slave to your knee-jerk reptile brain, basically!
That said, I ALSO think Batchelor may have been a little too optimistic about his reinterpretations - I recall his litmus test for “probably what Siddhartha actually said” as being anything that was NOT a cultural norm of the time. Sure, maybe? But maybe Siddhartha also agreed with some contextual goings-on.
(Side note but I loved the discussion of the catty competitiveness between Mahaveera (the founder of Jainism) and the early Buddhist community.)
The most interesting bits, actually, were about Buddhism finding its early legs during and immediately after the death of Siddhartha: there was an immediate split between conservative (who Batchelor says “won” and determined a lot of the Buddhist dogma that survives today) and liberal factions (who, Batchelor argues, reflected better the true spirit of Siddhartha's teachings). I thought this was interesting for MANY reasons:
- It mirrors the similar split in early Christianity, and its kidnapping by the charismatic dogmas of Paul versus the more mystical, squishy teachings of Jesus. (Side note: why did western Christianity never develop a mystical tradition? This was asked by Karen Armstrong and, indeed, why!)
- Batchelor's acknowledgment that maybe the conservative movement worked better at preserving Buddhism through tumultuous historical stuff rang true: e.g. behavioral economics/psych research talks a lot about how hard boundaries (“never eat meat”) are much easier to enforce than soft ones (“do what you think is right”). Siddhartha specifically said, on his death, to discard the “small rules” the monks had taken on during his life - “no big deal” was his basic vibe. But the conservatives insisted on hard lines - and Batchelor notes (and I can understand!) the comfort that there is there. A hard line is easy to enforce, easy to see, easy to use. Everything else is so damn relativist and squishy! How do you know what's what?!
I liked Batchelor's VERY interesting hinting of Mara (normally a personification of evil/temptation/worldly stuff) as our limbic system, and the evolutionary importance of our limbic system (i.e. jealousy/hatred/etc are evolutionarily important). Very interesting! I liked that! The idea that we had certain tools (e.g. being an asshole; punching people) that were useful during certain times (e.g. ye olde hunter/gatherer times), but we outgrow them - and we can choose to consciously move forward. Very nice! This removes a lot of the (Judeo-Christian) guilt we're meant to feel for NOT being already enlightened super-beings, the guilt that's meant to come pre-baked in (imperfect/fallible/crappy) human nature; it ALSO jibes with my recent theorizing about how mindfulness is about putting the brakes on our reptilian-brain tendency to find patterns everywhere. Where patterns -> useful for survival in primordial human times, but now patterns + structural injustice = a bunch of racist shit and people using their evolutioned-pattern-finding-machine (i.e. their brain) to obviously immoral ends. (And now the next step forward, of algorithms and AI - which are just dumber pattern recognition machines - perpetuating these systemic injustices. If we're all getting racist training data, our pattern-finders (brains/neural nets) are gonna lead to effed up results!)
HAAAANYWAY. This got me, as dharma always does, PUMPED about more dharma stuff. Specifically, I got all tender feelings about one of my olde favorite Favorite All-Time Books, Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light - which was a zany, far future take on a type of humanistic/secular Buddhism. And I must re-read!! And you must read!
Recommended if you're already kinda into Buddhism/have practiced for a while/NOT a good beginner's book cuz you'll be like “wtf who is Bimbisara etc i give up” honestly.
Joyous, full of panache, very French. This is an almost “silent film”-type comix about a young breast cancer survivor who faces life after a mastectomy. Body image - the rejection, adaptation, and embracing of our new bodies, and the diversity of bodies - is the central open-hearted message. There are occasional silent film-style text interludes, though it's even unclear where these snatches of dialogue or meditation fit into the images. Very light touch, and very beautiful.
I guess I read this author's Atlantic article, because I do remember getting swept away with sympathy for Joe Biden's surprise stutter back in 2019/2020? This book is a memoir by that same journalist, about his own lifelong struggle with the disease.
On the one hand, I enjoyed the specificity of the author's upbringing: he grows up Catholic, on the outskirts of DC, as an old Millennial. His mindset, his childhood, his music tastes - all were VERY comfortingly familiar. On the other hand, this is a memoir specifically of his stutter - and it was painful and moving to walk that mile with him.
Parts of it, I loved very much. Much of it, I found very dated. How amazing! But the world of gender has changed a LOT since this book's release date (2011): namely, we've had the 2013 Supreme Court decision, #MeToo, the 2016 election, and an explosion of gender diversity on the cultural consciousness (and transphobia becoming a political platform :vomit:). So, I found a lot of this book to be - maybe outdated and rendered moot?
Anyway,
The things I liked
Preschool girls are definitely obsessed with princesses. The blooming of gender consciousness among the preschool set is really a sight to behold (and annoying to deal with). Boy, this tiny gender police. So the book was great in framing that: framing how, for example, kids as old as 6 don't understand that their sex is (barring medical intervention) unchanging. So they reckon, yeah, if you cut my hair short, maybe I will become a boy. And so on. I found this very adorable, enlightening, and compassion-giving: ooooh, so that's why you can't wear the baggy shorts. Okay, fine, whatever.
I also appreciated the author's awareness of her own hang-ups, and the (colorful!) interaction between second wave (mostly white lady) feminism - which sounds lovely, tbh, I wish I was wearing overalls in 1977, full of women's lib hope, fighting for equal pay and so on - and early 2000s reactionary feminism. DID U KNOW that the number of stay-at-home-moms increased in the 2000s? (DID U ALSO KNOW that “parenting” was not a word until the 1970s, and, indeed, women out of the workforce were previously called housewives or spinsters (aka, it was marital status - not kid status - that labeled you)). Anyway, I found Orenstein's ability to also recognize her own ridiculousness - NO TULLE SKIRTS FOR U! - relatable and, again, compassion-giving.
Did you know that “tween”, as a word, was invented by marketers? AND “toddler”?!!
Anyway, I appreciated how much Orenstein focused on marketing - THE EVILS OF MAD MEN - and how insidious capitalism is in defining our culture, our childhoods, etc. The brand recognition stuff was, ugh, revolting.
The things that made me go, “oh, jeez”
I didn't necessarily dislike anything in the book, but I did find it quaint. First of all, one of Orenstein's big focuses is the sexualization of girls - and the way (American! corporate!) culture inundates girls with an emphasis on appearance and performance, at the expense of their own internal selves. Fine, okay. Yes. Toddlers and Tiaras is an aberration, as are Bratz. I had literally just read a research report (argh, which I can't find right now - I think by Pew), something that had surveyed teens, about their hopes and fears. Their TOP worry was mental health (top worry for parents too). Their top pressure was academic. Sex and sexuality was way down the list - something that makes Jean Twenge, e.g., get worried (the kids!! always glued to their screens!). Girls are also, on average, outperforming boys academically - at all levels (see Richard Reeves's book). Sooo I just couldn't really take seriously Orenstein's concerns (which go on for quite a while) about the early 2000s Mad Men/Disney Princess marketing machine/Britney Spears/Hannah Montana breeding a generation of empty-headed bimbos.
Another quaintness that I feel is no longer helpful was Orenstein's hand-wringing over social media (which included... MySpace!!!). In this regard, I found Richard Culatta's book a lot more down to Earth, reasonable, and helpful. Orenstein was basically like “these crazy kids with their thefacebook.com”. I mean, she's right about social media being intricately linked with advertising, social performance, and social-performance-as-free-advertising, but Facebook is ded now. :p And TikTok is just so very different.
How have I not reviewed this? This book DOMINATED my 2021. Also a good portion of 2020. “PleeeEEEeease, Mr. Panda?!” in a sing-song tone is a common refrain around my house.
I'm desperately seeking mathy books. I am having very strong Math Thoughts these days. Math Parenting. Math Culture. MATH THOUGHTS.
I read through this to see if it would be appropriate for a pre-literate, semi-numerate preschooler. I think I saw somewhere it was more for elementary kids. Anyway, no. I think it's fine for a preschooler. The basic teaching here is PI. Pi is a thing. It's a magical number. Sort of. It's the measure of the circumference of a circle - any circle - if you multiply it by that circle's diameter. OK, now I'm never going to forget that formula.
I was amused by the names - which, obv, my kid will not at all notice as amusing. But PLEASE, you must call me Lady Di of Ameter from now on. It's a bit wordy in the middle. It feels a bit jumbled. The riddle is as opaque as the Sphinx. But the page with the various pies, wagon wheels, and other circles was clear enough.
Overall: I'm impressed. This one's a keeper. Now to see if my kid likes it.
Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Public Health Threat
A long-ish, engaging intellectual screed against the marriage of conspiracy theorizing and New Age woo. This was written with a lot of color and brio, so it's a lot of fun and quite podcasty.
This is a history of 20th and 21st century wellness movements - yoga, Reiki, all that New Agey stuff - and their underlying politics, as well as their often close relationship with conspiracy theories and cults. The first two parts are a lively sociological and historical study of this stuff, and I learned a lot and filled in lots of gaps that I had had. This was basically what I wanted to learn from American Veda, a book I am too lazy to actually buy. So, it was a lot of fun! And cut very close to home, especially the Theosophists and Buddhism in the West stuff. [I look down at my Buddhist tattoo in some chagrin.]
I didn't care for Part 3, where the authors present a Wall of Shame of the worst “conspiritualists” in recent years. Oh yes - “conspirituality” is basically the tight coupling of alt-right Qanon craziness with New Age business, and how the Covid pandemic was like gas on that flame. The Part 3 Wall of Shame chapters profiled the most egregiously awful of these yoga-practicing, coffee-enema-ing, Covid/election denialist influencers. And honestly, I just don't have the patience to listen to complete and utter garbage for chapter upon chapter.
The final part zoomed in on more quotidian conspiritualists - the conspiritualist next door, if you will. This was, of course, much less outrage-inducing and much sadder. e.g. The breast cancer patient who refuses mainstream medicine and dies amidst her magical thinking and potions. Ugh. It's just awful. So the book, ultimately, preaches compassion for these benighted and confused people.
The book also discussed the tropes of conspiritual thinking: namely, I replace your reality with my own. A lot of this has to do with people's ignorance re: the scientific method - and their disappointments in it (i.e. they expect science to be infallible and - once a scientific question is “answered”, the answer never changes). This is a real problem, indeed, and is the problem of MY CAREER, I would say: how do you get people comfortable with uncertainty? How do you convey the epistemology of the scientific methods(and statistics, do not even get me started)? Without them just completely jumping ship and swimming to crazy island?
Unique, involving, granular, dazzling as ever. David Macaulay! Where have you been all my life?
This follows the very template-driven construction of an imaginary Roman city in the Po valley. Aka northeastern Italy, aka my ancestral hood. I couldn't believe how accurately and deeply he captured the landscape of that area - I was touched.
As with the other David Macaulay books I've now read (and I am loving EACH. AND EVERY. ONE OF THEM.), this one is a tour de force of architectural perspective and engineering drawings. This one is also very text-heavy, and quite involving. I read it and was moved to regularly look up certain details here and there (the hand-powered drill, for example), just to learn a bit more about how they worked. I learned LOADS in this. Did you know aqueducts were built so high to prevent people tampering with the water supply? Who knew! Damn barbarian hordes (aka Germans).
I presume it would be appropriate for older kids - tweens? - with an interest in engineering, the building of things. Cannot recommend this enough, however, for anyone and everyone who wants their mind and eyeballs expanded.
Very nice, feel-good memoir about a guy from southeast DC growing up through the crack epidemic and then finding his calling in a naturalist's life: conservation and falconry. I envied the serenity and connection he felt with those birds! Really, really lovely.
Terribly poignant. This is like getting punched in the heart. V good. Read it in one sitting.
Really interesting and unique novel (as is typical for Cory Doctorow, lol).
Preface/context: I've been an uber fan of Cory's for 15+ years. I feel I should mention this. I just checked and it seems I've read 7 of his books? I've seen 3 of his talks in-person, iirc. He's just great imo.
This book: So this is a novel following a young tech person, Masha, as she has, dare I say, a hacktivist's awakening. Many of Cory's books circle around hacktivism - that special, sparkly vortex of progressive activism and deep cut tech nerdery. This book is technically the third in a trilogy - after Little Brother (masterful) and Homeland (tbh I forgot most of this but prob enjoyed it decently well) - an alt present where a terrorist attack on the Bay Bridge in SF leads to a huge gov crackdown and curtailing of individual liberties. In the first two books, we followed Marcus Yallow, a young hacker nerd type, as he taught us (the reader) about Tor and Linux and op sec. Wonderful. In those books, I vaguely remember, Masha was something of a femme fatale villain?
Anyway, now we hear it all from Masha's side and - honestly - it was so much more interesting? First, Cory leans into feminism and privilege HARD - he made several comments, via Masha, about the broey power structures of tech, about male/white privilege in general, and I just appreciated that so much. I have been reflecting on Cory lately (in a non-creepy way, I promise) and I've realized that he's actually quite a special unicorn/snowflake, because he's a DEEEEP cut nerd (he presents at Defcon, e.g.) but he's also extremely pro-social and actually very kind? I don't know him personally but I remember, at one talk, when a mentally ill person started to hog the microphone during the Q&A session. Cory navigated that interaction with so much compassion and grace (and respect!) that, well, I remember it many years later!
Anyway, all that to say, Cory's heart is made of gold and his books are unanimously Good Values. So what I found really interesting about THIS book, in particular, that it was kind of like the “Judas's journey”. That is, the journey from being a pragmatist, someone just trying to get by in the world, to an idealist, someone trying to change it. Masha goes through a real dark night of the soul - she's tugged relentlessly by her mental “compartments” between an idealist self and a just-wanna-pay-the-bills-and-stay-safe self. Her day job is supplying all the spy tech to all those shady gov contractors; all that awful surveillance tech, etc. She's paid handsomely and lives a weird, Green Zone-type life. This book is about that tension - between living your ideals and living for the paycheck (which, again, NO SHADE on that - as someone said, there is no ethical labor in a capitalist system). For anyone that does, indeed, have internal debates about the value of idealistic activism vs. pragmatic “be the change from the inside” - this was a great story about that. And, again, pretty compassionate from all angles! (Well, except for Masha's scary monster bosses - they were pretty bad.)
Oh, and for my future reference: the Mashapedia (not by me)
Fine.
Pro: Anatomy/sex ed for preschoolers. Anatomically correct and factual info about vaginas, scrotums (scrota?), and so on. Lots of straightforward info. This is good. Preschoolers can be very literal!
Con: No idea how we're meant to address transgender stuff. Does anyone have a Judith Butler board book? “BABY'S GENDER... IS PERFORMANCE” etc.
Anyway, the book really met my kid where they're at. We had to read it three - THREE! - times, one after the other.
An inspiring, fun, pretty portrayal of Growth Mindset - as embodied in a cute little sprite called a Yet. The rhymes were good (yo, good flow), and the illustrations were gorgeous, and I found myself - the adult - inspired by the stuff that everyone was Growth Mindsetting their way through in the background of this book. Try try try again. God grant me the perseverance of a skateboarder.
A super-lush, atmospheric tale of the intense infatuation/love of a super intellectual bougie American-Italian teen and the summer guest at his parents' Italian house. NSFW. NSFA(irplanes) - seriously, shit gets kinky and I was very awkwardly trying to hide my Kindle out of sight from my seatmates.
Haaanyway, so Elio is Timothee Chalamet. Okay, it's impossible not to see Chalamet. I haven't actually seen the movie yet. But anyway, Elio is this gorgeous, uber-intellectual professor's son living in someplace, Italia. It's the summer, the cicadas are buzzing, the apricots and peaches are in full bloom, it's the 1980s, it's ITALY, BABY. And, every summer, Elio's professor dad (who is the American one, I believe?) invites a new grad student to their villa to do grad student things. I think the dad was a prof of art history? Or European philosophers? Something very very humanities.
Anyway, in comes Oliver, this year's grad student, and Elio's heart and loins are IMMEDIATELY AFLAME. What follows is a verrryyy wonderfully (and accurately!) portrayed love story, entirely from Elio's perspective, a real sexuality explosion. Elio's 17 (iirc?) and Oliver is 24 and super dashing, American, New Yorky. Elio didn't realize he was attracted to men (I guess?) but BOY IS HE ATTRACTED TO OLIVER. The bulk of this book is Elio's gloriously articulate pining for Oliver; and who among us has not pined like this, like a real crazy person. It's aww-inducing and eyeroll-inducing; Elio is both so over the top dramatic, and so sweetly in love.
Anonymous 1980s Italian summer, btw, is also portrayed beautifully - and with some authenticity. Grazie, grazie... Not guaranteed in non-Italian writing!
So I loved the first 2/3 of this book, and found the writing just pitch perfect. The atmosphere, the interior of Elio's adoration for Oliver, is just gorgeous, moving, and lovely. BUT! The spell broke for me when Oliver had to inevitably return to the US, and the two men take a Roman holiday weekend. I love Rome, and felt the city (and the bougie intelligentsia glitterati they party with) was accurately drawn, but - here - at least, I felt like Anciman's wry, loving, “isn't this kid crazy” distance - which worked so well in keeping us grounded in reality while Elio flew away on his flights of horndog amore - anyway, that all went out the window. At least, I thought the party people were totally lame, and I was disappointed Anciman's portrayal of Elio's adulation of them seemed so, bleh, uncritical? I was like, ugh, these people are just boring snobby Dolce Vita types. (They were like the party people in La Grande Bellezza - I mean, this whole “Roman upper class intellectual parties amidst general decay” is kind of a stereotype, and has been for millennia. But at least La Grande Bellezza - like La Dolce Vita, like Seneca - is somewhat satirical. It doesn't take these people and their parties seriously - and certainly doesn't worship at their feet, as Elio does!)
Similarly, I won't spoil anything, but the coda was also just bleeghhh, oh come on. The spell was TOTALLY broken for me, by that point. Maybe that was the point? But given the critical reviews of the sequel to this, maybe the wheels just came off?
Either way, I am very excited to watch the movie.
Phenomenal. Brutal! A memoir of a Millennial Indian-American woman as she reflects on her upbringing in the context of the Indian immigrant community in the US.
I was honestly in awe at the author's ability to be insightful on both the microcosm of her childhood situation (which was tbh brutal - with mental illness tearing at the fabric of everything) and the macrocosm of sociological/political narratives around immigration, Indianness, and American “meritocracy”.
A dated, but informative (and informed) look at the developmental stages. This is a short, inadvertently funny and overall reassuring read about the “terrible 2s”.
Some scattered thoughts.
- This was an interesting counterpoint to another academia-to-pop child dev book, The Emotional Life of the Toddler. This book was written by some folks from a Yale child dev lab; it was informed (as I presume Emotional Life was informed) by a lot of qualitative evidence and observation of toddlers doing their toddler lives. However, the two books diverge in the underlying theory (caveat: I have no academic training in child dev, I just find it interesting! so I might be missing the mark here, or mixing up jargon): whereas Emotional Life took a psychoanalytical (even Freudian!) approach to the toddler mind, this book takes a much more behaviorist approach. The basic thesis (and this might rub you, dear reader, the wrong way!) is that humans are basically robots in their development, and pass through a very clearly defined set of stages, mostly around more-or-less the same age. i.e. 2 year olds are fine, 2.5 year olds are hurricanes. So, DEEP IN THIS BOOK, the basic argument is the traditionalist “puppy training” argument of toddler management.
- There is a short tips and techniques for management section which is worth this book's weight in gold. For example, they have a bullet-pointed list of “Face saving techniques” which, OH BOY, could I have used over the last few months/weeks/days/hours. You basically have to assume you are dealing with a tiny contrarian full of whim and short-lived desires, and you have to psychologically jiu jitsu your way through the day. I already knew some of these, just implicitly/in my heart, e.g. NEVER EVER ask a yes/no question because the answer is NO. e.g. “Do you want to take a bath? Do you want to leave the playground?” But there was some nice reassurances as well: e.g. kids aren't really social so much as territorial and ego-centric - they are mostly worried about their possessions. This isn't cuz they're mean or unsocialized - they just growin' up, man!
- The book is definitely dated, it is basically specifically addressed to Mother, specifically the Stay At Home Mother of the 1970s. Indeed, I hope it was a balm to many SAHMs of yore! The authors' bottom line is: OUTSOURCE OUTSOURCE OUTSOURCE childcare as much as you can at this stage. I think this is TRUE, dudes! My general interested reader skimming of cultural anthro around child development is that this whole mom-attached-to-child thing is NOT some sort of cosmic, universal “Nature” truth, but rather is something that varies a lot by culture. And toddlers are tiring. Outsooooource. There are other forehead-slapping moments of “wow, 1970s!” such as: “for the hyperactive child: tranquilizers!” and “maybe consider putting them in the backseat instead of the front”. Ha!
SO GOOD.
This is a modern overview of modern waste: recycling, compost, e-waste, toxic waste, NUCLEAR waste, PLASTICS.
Much like tall ships, I apparently really love thinking about trash?? So this book was like semi-composted, plastic-encased catnip for me?? As I was reading, I was like, oh yeah, I wrote my master's thesis on the international dumping of hazardous waste. Oh yeah, I spent 5 years working at a circular economy software company. It's funny to be passionate about something without realizing you're actually really passionate about it. Now I am aware! I LOVE THINKING ABOUT TRASH, PEOPLE.
I highlighted maybe 50%-60% of it, and will need to go through all my highlights and dive deeper on soooo many things. The tldr is: WE SHOULD REALLY BE CONSUMING LESS. What do they say? There is no ethical consumption/labor/vibes in capitalism? Well, there is definitely no ethical waste handling solution either - they all basically suck. Compost is a bit less terrible. Recycling paper seemed sad but basically decent? Plastic recycling is a total myth. The recycling symbol and that number on the bottom are straight out lies. Americans are the worst consumers on the planet - can confirm, I saw how my own behaviors got nudged into a consumerist hamster wheel and all I ended up with is a pile of clutter. Anyway, we are 1000% hurtling towards Wall-E world. Sometimes I am just shocked at the way we live now (we would need 4-5 Earths to maintain an average American lifestyle), in passive denial about the wall of ecological reality that is bound to hit us this century. The Pacific plastic garbage patch!?!?! WAHT?!! Every time I hear about it, I want to scream.
Anyway. Great. GREAT. Do you love trash policy? Join me!
