Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. If you've never heard of either one of those, I assure you that you've heard their songs before, but perhaps not by them directly.
Here's a link to one of the most famous Frankie Valli Song. Go ahead, Click on it. =)
Most people probably have heard of that song from one source or the other...at least I hope. With that background information, this story tells you the story of the group. How it came to be, the rise to stardom, the problems they faced, and the eventual split of the group into just Frankie Valli. It is a most poignant tale and the directorship of the story was simply amazing.
If you watch the link on the header, one of the talking points of the director was that they wanted to tell the story first and foremost, and then retrofit the songs in the places within the story where it best fit. This is quite different from most musicals of this sort, like say, Mama Mia, where the music is selected first, and a story written around it.
As it turns out, this style of direction gives you the best of everything. The songs are shown more or less in chronological order, the story is first rate, and the choreography and stage work is most excellent as is expected from Broadway productions nowadays.
The story is presented in seasons, with Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter representing one each of the Four Seasons. Each of the Four Seasons also represent an epoch in the timeline of the band, and their individual perspectives drives and perhaps even steals the show! This is one musical where the story actually is as good as or even better than the music!
All in all, I highly recommend this show and its well worth an Orchestra level seat as you can see the nuances of the actors even better. As I said, this is one musical where the dancing is kept to a minimum, and the emphasis is on the story and songs. Not all the songs are presented in full, as its not a concert, but its always more than enough to get you grooving to the tunes.
The Four Seasons never quite gathered the attention of the media the way the Beatles or other more glamarous bands did, and this story serves very nicely their story, and what a compelling story it is!
A must see!
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Michael Pollan on Nutritionism
I frequently like to write off the New York Times (especially since their science articles are overly simplistic, and in many cases simply wrong), but Michael Pollan's book was exceptionally good, and this article is worth reading.
For those who don't have time, here's the quick summary:
For those who don't have time, here's the quick summary:
- Eat food.
- Avoid food products bearing health claims
- Avoid food with too many ingredients or contain high fructose corn syrup.
- Get out of the supermarket
- Pay more, eat less
- Eat mostly plants
- Eat ethnic foods
- Cook
- Eat like an omnivore
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Review: Pan's Labyrinth
Run, don't walk to see this movie. There is nothing that I am going to say here that will give you a better understanding or any higher urgings than what I said in the first sentence of this review.
Billed as a fairy tale for adults, it really is the best way to describe this movie. It is a fairy tale in the mood of what fairy tales are really supposed to be, or what they were before fairy tales were disneyfied. When fairy tales were about cautionary warnings about what happens to bad children if they disobeyed, when consequences were more real, fairy tales were dark, cruel, and very often did not have a happy ending.
That in a nutshell is the best way to describe this movie. If you've ever read any of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, when he turns a fairy tale into something much more than you assume, this movie comes very close to that sentiment, and surpasses it in many ways. It has great warmth for a very dark movie, glimpses of hope in a hopeless situation, and an ending that has so many interpretations for it that no two conversations about the ending will be quite the same.
In other words, run, don't wait, to see the movie. It is gorgeous.
I'll stop here before I start gushing more praise for the movie.
Billed as a fairy tale for adults, it really is the best way to describe this movie. It is a fairy tale in the mood of what fairy tales are really supposed to be, or what they were before fairy tales were disneyfied. When fairy tales were about cautionary warnings about what happens to bad children if they disobeyed, when consequences were more real, fairy tales were dark, cruel, and very often did not have a happy ending.
That in a nutshell is the best way to describe this movie. If you've ever read any of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, when he turns a fairy tale into something much more than you assume, this movie comes very close to that sentiment, and surpasses it in many ways. It has great warmth for a very dark movie, glimpses of hope in a hopeless situation, and an ending that has so many interpretations for it that no two conversations about the ending will be quite the same.
In other words, run, don't wait, to see the movie. It is gorgeous.
I'll stop here before I start gushing more praise for the movie.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Scott Burns: Americans not that badly off
There's a lot of doom and gloom usually about how little Americans save, so it's nice to see a bit of good news (especially from Scott Burns, who's usually a pessimist).
One household in four owns its home mortgage-free. An impressive 61 percent of households age 65 and over have no mortgage.
What's amusing is that he's mystified by apparel expenditure:
The survey shows that spending on apparel and services is only $1,509 a year for middle income households, rising to only $3,704 for top quintile households. I know we’ve got the most efficient distribution system in the world, but if that’s what we spend, what’s supporting all those Wal-Marts, Kmarts and Targets — not to mention a zillion other clothing retailers?
A quick search finds that there are about 100 million households in the US. If each of them spends $1500 a year, then apparel is a $150 billion market. The Gap only had 16 billion in revenues, so the US market can support 10 companies of approximately that size, plus or minus a couple to account for Wal-Mart.
$1500 a year still sounds like a lot of clothing to me, but I guess that's only 10 sets of cycling jerseys + shorts at full retail. I guess if you have to buy suits for work, that $1500 goes really quickly.
One household in four owns its home mortgage-free. An impressive 61 percent of households age 65 and over have no mortgage.
What's amusing is that he's mystified by apparel expenditure:
The survey shows that spending on apparel and services is only $1,509 a year for middle income households, rising to only $3,704 for top quintile households. I know we’ve got the most efficient distribution system in the world, but if that’s what we spend, what’s supporting all those Wal-Marts, Kmarts and Targets — not to mention a zillion other clothing retailers?
A quick search finds that there are about 100 million households in the US. If each of them spends $1500 a year, then apparel is a $150 billion market. The Gap only had 16 billion in revenues, so the US market can support 10 companies of approximately that size, plus or minus a couple to account for Wal-Mart.
$1500 a year still sounds like a lot of clothing to me, but I guess that's only 10 sets of cycling jerseys + shorts at full retail. I guess if you have to buy suits for work, that $1500 goes really quickly.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
China's Capitalistic Healthcare System
(Link good for 7 days only)
Ironically, it's China that's first to suffer from the ravages of a capitalistic healthcare system. This doesn't happen here (yet), but one gets the feeling that the Republicans would love to have this kind of scenario:
Resentment over health care is increasing. In November, some 2,000 people mobbed a hospital in southwest China after a boy died there. The boy was rushed in by his grandfather after swallowing pesticides, according to a report by the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. Doctors sent the old man away to fetch more cash, according to the report, but by the time he returned, the boy -- 3 or 4 years old -- was dead. There are conflicting accounts about what treatment the boy received. But angry crowds were convinced that doctors let him die while they waited for money. They smashed hospital windows and equipment and clashed with police. At least 10 people were injured.
Of course, most of the Republican Base of "have-mores" wouldn't even notice, since they are presumably already on one of the concierge type healthplans.
Ironically, it's China that's first to suffer from the ravages of a capitalistic healthcare system. This doesn't happen here (yet), but one gets the feeling that the Republicans would love to have this kind of scenario:
Resentment over health care is increasing. In November, some 2,000 people mobbed a hospital in southwest China after a boy died there. The boy was rushed in by his grandfather after swallowing pesticides, according to a report by the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. Doctors sent the old man away to fetch more cash, according to the report, but by the time he returned, the boy -- 3 or 4 years old -- was dead. There are conflicting accounts about what treatment the boy received. But angry crowds were convinced that doctors let him die while they waited for money. They smashed hospital windows and equipment and clashed with police. At least 10 people were injured.
Of course, most of the Republican Base of "have-mores" wouldn't even notice, since they are presumably already on one of the concierge type healthplans.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Review: Ship of Fools
Richard Paul Russo came to my attention several years ago for his delightful twin thrillers set in San Francisco, Destroying Angel, Carliucci's Edge, and Carliucci's Heart, hard-hitting, realistic science fiction which is highly recommended.
Ship of Fools combines two frequently encountered devices in Science Fiction, the Generation Ship, and the first encounter with an Alien object. Unlike other Generation ships, however, the ship in question, the Argonos isn't a generation ship intended for one destination, but is actually an FTL-capable ship whose mission has been lost in time.
The narrator, a deformed person with prosthetics starts the story as a confidant of the ship's Captain, the last of his line of hereditary captains, with political jockeying for his position already happening. The ship discovers a signal, and finds the ruins of a civilization. The landing party discovers some horrors, and a signal is sent from the ruins to an object elsewhere. Following the signal finds an alien ship, and the story proceeds apace from there.
There are several subplots, including a mutiny by members of the underclass, a love interest (which does not turn out the way you might expect, and is extremely effective that way), so as a reader your mind is occupied by a lot of distractions. Unfortunately, this doesn't quite make the mystery of the alien ship a surprise, which is disappointing since Russo's previous books did quite well in surprising me.
This book was worth reading, but I'll be having a very bad year for reading if it made even the top three books this year.
Time. There wasn't much of it left to Nikos because the ship was in crisis---we had not made landfall in all these years, and we had no unified mission. We were travelling almost at random through the galaxy, had been for decades, if not centuries, and there was no consensus of purpose or goal. This had always been the case, at least during my lifetime...
Ship of Fools combines two frequently encountered devices in Science Fiction, the Generation Ship, and the first encounter with an Alien object. Unlike other Generation ships, however, the ship in question, the Argonos isn't a generation ship intended for one destination, but is actually an FTL-capable ship whose mission has been lost in time.
The narrator, a deformed person with prosthetics starts the story as a confidant of the ship's Captain, the last of his line of hereditary captains, with political jockeying for his position already happening. The ship discovers a signal, and finds the ruins of a civilization. The landing party discovers some horrors, and a signal is sent from the ruins to an object elsewhere. Following the signal finds an alien ship, and the story proceeds apace from there.
There are several subplots, including a mutiny by members of the underclass, a love interest (which does not turn out the way you might expect, and is extremely effective that way), so as a reader your mind is occupied by a lot of distractions. Unfortunately, this doesn't quite make the mystery of the alien ship a surprise, which is disappointing since Russo's previous books did quite well in surprising me.
This book was worth reading, but I'll be having a very bad year for reading if it made even the top three books this year.
Time. There wasn't much of it left to Nikos because the ship was in crisis---we had not made landfall in all these years, and we had no unified mission. We were travelling almost at random through the galaxy, had been for decades, if not centuries, and there was no consensus of purpose or goal. This had always been the case, at least during my lifetime...
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Review: The Perfect Thing
Steve Levy's latest book is yet another example supporting my thesis the English majors/journalists are no longer capable of explaining the complex world we live in. The Perfect Thing is a love paean to the ipod, about how cool it is, how nice one is to use. In imitation of the ipod's shuffle function, Levy even has different copies of the book with the chapters out of order, so each person would read the chapters in a different order. The cute little device works, but that's all it is, cute.
I read the book hoping for an insight about the design and the development of the ipod. Levy has proved himself in the past capable of understanding the people dynamics of software, but in this case he was so caught up with love for the ipod, that he skimmed over the development process in 1 short chapter that was mostly about how good Apple was at UI design. From anyone else, I might understand an excuse saying that he was not given sufficient access, but Levy makes a point of bragging about how many meetings he had with Steve Jobs. And of course, any question of journalistic integrity was long gone when he bragged about being one of the first recipients of the first review products from Apple (presumably he gets all his ipods for free for writing such positive articles about Apple, the ipod, and Steve Jobs).
The last straw for this book came when he spent an entire chapter on the shuffle feature, on how it wasn't really random for him, but his personal ipod liked Steely Dan anyway. Anyone with even a slight understanding of probability theory should be insulted by this chapter.
All in all, the 3 hours spent reading this book is time wasted. This book does not deserve shelf-space in any thinking person's home, not even if you're a fan of the ipod.
I read the book hoping for an insight about the design and the development of the ipod. Levy has proved himself in the past capable of understanding the people dynamics of software, but in this case he was so caught up with love for the ipod, that he skimmed over the development process in 1 short chapter that was mostly about how good Apple was at UI design. From anyone else, I might understand an excuse saying that he was not given sufficient access, but Levy makes a point of bragging about how many meetings he had with Steve Jobs. And of course, any question of journalistic integrity was long gone when he bragged about being one of the first recipients of the first review products from Apple (presumably he gets all his ipods for free for writing such positive articles about Apple, the ipod, and Steve Jobs).
The last straw for this book came when he spent an entire chapter on the shuffle feature, on how it wasn't really random for him, but his personal ipod liked Steely Dan anyway. Anyone with even a slight understanding of probability theory should be insulted by this chapter.
All in all, the 3 hours spent reading this book is time wasted. This book does not deserve shelf-space in any thinking person's home, not even if you're a fan of the ipod.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Review: Battlestar Galactica Mini-Series and Season One
As a note to people who buy DVDs, do not buy the original mini-series DVD. Buy the Season One DVDs because that includes the mini-series in the first disk.
I did originally watch quite a few episodes of the first season (as well as the entire mini-series) last year. However, because of some snafus, I missed the last few episodes until recently, when I managed to borrow them from a friend. So now I can review the entire series with a complete picture.
I can't emphasize how important it is that you watch the mini-series before starting on the series. When I first saw the first episode of the series (the Hugo-award winning 33) out of context, I was impressed mostly by how boring the series was. Watching it in context, after seeing the entire mini-series, on the DVD without ads and with a good sound system, I was blown away. The soundtrack, the tension, and the characters already made sense, and the pacing, which I've already commented on before, was spot on.
I was not a fan of the old Battlestar Galactica show . It was one of those shows that I'd watch as a kid and promptly forgot. This version starts with the Cylons infiltrating the defense systems of the Humans, and then launching an attack by complete surprise on the Human fleet. The only surviving military ship was the Battlestar Galactica, by virtue of its equipment being so old and un-networked that old-style AT&T type phone units were still the major means of communications throughout the ship. The Galactica was about to be mothballed, and the surviving President of the Colonies is the former Minister of Education, who was 33rd in succession to the President.
The remaining civilian fleet, along with Battlestar Galactica head for Earth, a mystical place lost in the past, and concocted up by the heads of state just to keep hopes up amongst the survivors. Unknown to the crew, the Cylons have already infiltrated the Galactica, with human-lookalikes that are programmed as sleeper agents...
As if the plot wasn't complicated enough, the relationships between the characters are also tangled. Captain Lee Adama, the son of the Galactica commander Adama, has a complicated relationship with Starbuck and his father. The second in command of the Galactica is a perpetual drunk, and the civilian and military leaders do not always get along. Laura Roslin, the President of the colonies, has terminal breast cancer, and takes drugs that give her visions that may or may not be true. The casting is excellent: Edward James Olmos as Commander Adama steals every scene he's in. Mary McDonnell plays President Roslin as a serious woman contemplating her fate, but her delight at certain events (such as a baby being born in the fleet) lights up her face in ways words cannot express. Katee Sackhoff plays a very tomboyish Starbuck, whose self-confidence and brashness has you wondering when she's going to be taken down, but in the grand tradition of mavericks, she always gets away with it.
This is a dark show, with serious themes, though not as serious as the ones that will come up in season two . If you look for happy endings all the time and a lot of comedy, this is not the show for you. But for serious drama, intelligent writing, first class acting, and a science fiction show that takes all of science fiction's possibilities and runs with them, this is the show to watch.
I did originally watch quite a few episodes of the first season (as well as the entire mini-series) last year. However, because of some snafus, I missed the last few episodes until recently, when I managed to borrow them from a friend. So now I can review the entire series with a complete picture.
I can't emphasize how important it is that you watch the mini-series before starting on the series. When I first saw the first episode of the series (the Hugo-award winning 33) out of context, I was impressed mostly by how boring the series was. Watching it in context, after seeing the entire mini-series, on the DVD without ads and with a good sound system, I was blown away. The soundtrack, the tension, and the characters already made sense, and the pacing, which I've already commented on before, was spot on.
I was not a fan of the old Battlestar Galactica show . It was one of those shows that I'd watch as a kid and promptly forgot. This version starts with the Cylons infiltrating the defense systems of the Humans, and then launching an attack by complete surprise on the Human fleet. The only surviving military ship was the Battlestar Galactica, by virtue of its equipment being so old and un-networked that old-style AT&T type phone units were still the major means of communications throughout the ship. The Galactica was about to be mothballed, and the surviving President of the Colonies is the former Minister of Education, who was 33rd in succession to the President.
The remaining civilian fleet, along with Battlestar Galactica head for Earth, a mystical place lost in the past, and concocted up by the heads of state just to keep hopes up amongst the survivors. Unknown to the crew, the Cylons have already infiltrated the Galactica, with human-lookalikes that are programmed as sleeper agents...
As if the plot wasn't complicated enough, the relationships between the characters are also tangled. Captain Lee Adama, the son of the Galactica commander Adama, has a complicated relationship with Starbuck and his father. The second in command of the Galactica is a perpetual drunk, and the civilian and military leaders do not always get along. Laura Roslin, the President of the colonies, has terminal breast cancer, and takes drugs that give her visions that may or may not be true. The casting is excellent: Edward James Olmos as Commander Adama steals every scene he's in. Mary McDonnell plays President Roslin as a serious woman contemplating her fate, but her delight at certain events (such as a baby being born in the fleet) lights up her face in ways words cannot express. Katee Sackhoff plays a very tomboyish Starbuck, whose self-confidence and brashness has you wondering when she's going to be taken down, but in the grand tradition of mavericks, she always gets away with it.
This is a dark show, with serious themes, though not as serious as the ones that will come up in season two . If you look for happy endings all the time and a lot of comedy, this is not the show for you. But for serious drama, intelligent writing, first class acting, and a science fiction show that takes all of science fiction's possibilities and runs with them, this is the show to watch.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Nike+ Resolution
Not sure how this will turn out, but I figure I'll give it a shot. =) So Nike+ is letting you do resolutions, and here I am, deciding to do another easy one, just for fun. So here it is!
Review: Battlestar Galactica Season Two
If I had to vote for a show that I think is the modern successor to Buffy, it would be Battlestar Galactica. The show is incredibly well-written, the actors excellent, the plot (up to season two anyway) believable and interesting, and above all, the pacing is nothing short of astounding.
Ron Moore, the producer/director is I believe the best modern user of negative spaces on TV. The show is filled with silences. Characters stare and look at each other for long moments, allowing your mind to fill in the details in the thoughts and the interactions between the characters. The soundtrack is moody, slow, percussion heavy, and heavy with foreboding. The tension builds until it's unbearable, and the release when it comes is a complete relief.
But the show is by no means plodding! When plot is revealed, the revelation is real, uncontrived. When you learn something new about a character (such as the Cylon agent in Season One), it really causes you to think, "Oh yeah. That's why he behaved like this previously!" There are frantic battle sequences which punctuated the story, but the battles are always meaningful, as though the producer said, "Here's the budget we've got. Better make every special effect count!" And indeed it does.
I never expected the modern remake of the extremely cheesy original Battlestar Galactica to be excellent, but I think this show beats recent shows I've seen, even Veronica Mars and Smallville. To make things even better, the writers do not shy away from possibly controversial themes, including terrorism, the trade off between security and freedom, when brutality towards the enemy ultimately robs us of our own humanity, and ultimately whether survival is sufficient, or whether we need more justification for that for the human race. The themes are not hammered home with obvious morals, and each episode is written with care and respect for the theme as well as the milleu.
Characters are complex and realistic --- even good people do bad things, and sympathetic characters can turn out to be extremely cold-blooded and willing to do harsh things to enemies. There is but one obvious villain --- Gaius Baltur, a scientist who betrays humanity to the Cylons but nevertheless manages to insinuate himself into high office. Yet even he does pull miracles out of a hat sometimes and does something unexpected.
In any case, this show (the mini-series, seasons one and two) are very much worth watching, and highly recommended. Worth paying full price at the DVD shop for.
Ron Moore, the producer/director is I believe the best modern user of negative spaces on TV. The show is filled with silences. Characters stare and look at each other for long moments, allowing your mind to fill in the details in the thoughts and the interactions between the characters. The soundtrack is moody, slow, percussion heavy, and heavy with foreboding. The tension builds until it's unbearable, and the release when it comes is a complete relief.
But the show is by no means plodding! When plot is revealed, the revelation is real, uncontrived. When you learn something new about a character (such as the Cylon agent in Season One), it really causes you to think, "Oh yeah. That's why he behaved like this previously!" There are frantic battle sequences which punctuated the story, but the battles are always meaningful, as though the producer said, "Here's the budget we've got. Better make every special effect count!" And indeed it does.
I never expected the modern remake of the extremely cheesy original Battlestar Galactica to be excellent, but I think this show beats recent shows I've seen, even Veronica Mars and Smallville. To make things even better, the writers do not shy away from possibly controversial themes, including terrorism, the trade off between security and freedom, when brutality towards the enemy ultimately robs us of our own humanity, and ultimately whether survival is sufficient, or whether we need more justification for that for the human race. The themes are not hammered home with obvious morals, and each episode is written with care and respect for the theme as well as the milleu.
Characters are complex and realistic --- even good people do bad things, and sympathetic characters can turn out to be extremely cold-blooded and willing to do harsh things to enemies. There is but one obvious villain --- Gaius Baltur, a scientist who betrays humanity to the Cylons but nevertheless manages to insinuate himself into high office. Yet even he does pull miracles out of a hat sometimes and does something unexpected.
In any case, this show (the mini-series, seasons one and two) are very much worth watching, and highly recommended. Worth paying full price at the DVD shop for.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Little Asia on the Hill - New York Times
The New York Times has an article lamenting the number of Asian students in school, especially top Universities like Berkeley, which is apparently is apparently now 41 percent Asian.
Even at that apparently high percentage, Asian students apparently do so well that the schools still turn away more qualified Asian candidates than they should. And of course, there's the usual complaint that Asian students are nerds, uncreative, and don't ask questions in class.
As someone who grew up in Singapore, where we had 40 students per classroom, and only half-day classes and an incredibly uncreative teaching curriculum, I have to say that the excuses of poor high schools for other minority groups are just bunk. If there's a culture of learning and education, the students will do well and become great students. If not, then it doesn't matter how much creativity the school tries to give them, without a mastery of the fundamentals, all the creativity in the world just produces junk.
As someone who grew up in a much tougher academic environment than most Americans can imagine, all I can say is that if we continue to place value on ridiculous unimportant measures of quality and ignore the important ones, our living standards will drop. The argument should be about why our Math and Science education is so poor, not why there are so many Asians in America's best colleges.
Even at that apparently high percentage, Asian students apparently do so well that the schools still turn away more qualified Asian candidates than they should. And of course, there's the usual complaint that Asian students are nerds, uncreative, and don't ask questions in class.
As someone who grew up in Singapore, where we had 40 students per classroom, and only half-day classes and an incredibly uncreative teaching curriculum, I have to say that the excuses of poor high schools for other minority groups are just bunk. If there's a culture of learning and education, the students will do well and become great students. If not, then it doesn't matter how much creativity the school tries to give them, without a mastery of the fundamentals, all the creativity in the world just produces junk.
As someone who grew up in a much tougher academic environment than most Americans can imagine, all I can say is that if we continue to place value on ridiculous unimportant measures of quality and ignore the important ones, our living standards will drop. The argument should be about why our Math and Science education is so poor, not why there are so many Asians in America's best colleges.
2007 Book Reviews
A new year, another book review Index.
Update: The books of the year for 2007 have been announced!
Fiction
Update: The books of the year for 2007 have been announced!
Fiction
- Magic for Beginners
- Ship of Fools
- The Last Colony
- The Ghost Brigades
- Bardic Voices: Lark and Wren
- Glasshouse
- Old Man's War
- The Privilege of the Sword
- The Fall of Kings
- The Other Boleyn Girl
- Acacia: The War Against The Mein
- The Android's Dream
- Agent to the Stars
- The Accidental Time Machine
- While I was Gone
- The Perfect Thing
- Whistling Past Dixie
- Dreaming in Code
- The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual
- The No Asshole Rule
- Plan B 2.0
- Raising The Bar
- Positively False
- James Tiptree Jr: The Double Life of Alice B Sheldon
- The Cyclist's Training Bible
- The Bottom Billion
- Making Comics
- The Dynamic Path
- The Blind Side
- The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
- The Birth of Plenty
- Take a Nap! Change your life.
- The Age of Turbulence
- Bicycling & The Law: Your Rights as a Cyclist
- Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography
- The Trouble with Islam Today
- iWoz
- One Economics, Many Recipes
- The Conscience of a Liberal
Review: Magic for Beginners
When Kelly Link and Karen Joy Fowler visited Google, I asked them questions about the demise of short fiction magazines (their circulation is dwindling, especially amongst science fiction and fantasy readers). They claimed that it was tougher to compete against non-fiction, which has really taken off in recent years.
Having read Kelly Link's book, if it was representative of modern fiction, I disagree. One reads Science Fiction for ideas, and even as lackluster as Vernor Vinge's lastest book was, it was full of ideas worth thinking about and contemplating. One reads fantasy for world-building, or exploration of a character in a consistent world.
Link's book is entirely in the mode of magical realism (the classic book of the genre is One Hundred Years of Solitude). I don't know what one reads magical realism for. As far as I'm concerned, it's an entirely bankrupt mode of fiction. The world has no rules to speak of, since anything can happen (and frequently anything does), so it can't be about world building. It might be a character study, except that if the kind of random things that happened in a magical realism world happened to me, I'm pretty sure my character wouldn't be worth studying --- insanity isn't pretty.
But for some reason people who like magical realism think that because I enjoy science fiction and fantasy, I would like magical realism. Link's book has two stories that are interesting: The Faery Handbag, about a tribe of folks who live in a handbag, and Magic for Beginners, a story about an intriguing TV show that comes alive. Neither stories have resolution, but the language is well done and at least the ideas are interesting. I also found Catskin worth reading, a twist on the usual story of the heir of a dying monarch.
Fox is a television character, and she isn't dead yet. But she will be, soon. She's a character on a television show called The Library. You've never seen The Library on TV, but I bet you wish you had.
Having read Kelly Link's book, if it was representative of modern fiction, I disagree. One reads Science Fiction for ideas, and even as lackluster as Vernor Vinge's lastest book was, it was full of ideas worth thinking about and contemplating. One reads fantasy for world-building, or exploration of a character in a consistent world.
Link's book is entirely in the mode of magical realism (the classic book of the genre is One Hundred Years of Solitude). I don't know what one reads magical realism for. As far as I'm concerned, it's an entirely bankrupt mode of fiction. The world has no rules to speak of, since anything can happen (and frequently anything does), so it can't be about world building. It might be a character study, except that if the kind of random things that happened in a magical realism world happened to me, I'm pretty sure my character wouldn't be worth studying --- insanity isn't pretty.
But for some reason people who like magical realism think that because I enjoy science fiction and fantasy, I would like magical realism. Link's book has two stories that are interesting: The Faery Handbag, about a tribe of folks who live in a handbag, and Magic for Beginners, a story about an intriguing TV show that comes alive. Neither stories have resolution, but the language is well done and at least the ideas are interesting. I also found Catskin worth reading, a twist on the usual story of the heir of a dying monarch.
Fox is a television character, and she isn't dead yet. But she will be, soon. She's a character on a television show called The Library. You've never seen The Library on TV, but I bet you wish you had.
Ramen Inventor Dies!
I usually won't do a news post, but I thought this was...rather significant. Inventor of the Ramen, Momofuku Ando, has passed away. As someone who lived through quite a lot of college years on not much more than Ramen and an egg, I thought I would post a little ditty about it here.
A personal anecdote, I remember when I was growing up, my parents would refuse to allow us to eat ramen on the grounds that it was unhealthy. Well, it turns out that they were right and msg and salt and fried fatty noodles are really not good for you. But still, it was a significant part of my chlidhood and college adulthood, and it never occured to me that there was someone who invented it, and now I know. =)
Rest in Peace, Momofuku san, and rest assured, your legacy will likely outlive the human race. =)
A personal anecdote, I remember when I was growing up, my parents would refuse to allow us to eat ramen on the grounds that it was unhealthy. Well, it turns out that they were right and msg and salt and fried fatty noodles are really not good for you. But still, it was a significant part of my chlidhood and college adulthood, and it never occured to me that there was someone who invented it, and now I know. =)
Rest in Peace, Momofuku san, and rest assured, your legacy will likely outlive the human race. =)
The Queen's Classroom or JuuOu no Kyoushitsu Review
So over the Holidays a friend recommended that I take a look at this not-so-new TV series that came out in Japan. The link in the title links to the first episode of it at YouTube, the quality is not great, the sound is a bit stuttered, but you should be able to follow the show and hopefully, it'll rope you in as it did me.
The basic premise of it is simple, a 6th grade classroom gets a new homeroom teacher, and she is basically a tyrant. She decides to take the fun out of schooling, and makes the entire class a meritocracy. The show chronicles how the class reacts to it, and the subsequent consequences suffered by both the teacher, and the class itself.
At the heart of the show, is a very raw and basic social commentary about the state of schooling as it is in many 1st world countries, and the failures of the conventional schooling methodology. A lot of the commentary is incredibly valid and succinct, and surprisingly is perhaps even more valid about the state of schooling in the US than it really does in Japan. Japan has its problems to be sure, but it is still nowhere as poor as the schooling seems to be becoming in the US.
Certainly the show has caused controversies of its own and you can see this as sponsors dwindle on an episode by episode basis. Fortunately, the show in and of itself is very short, only 11 episodes, with two specials that are really optional. Each episode runs about 45 minutes and going through the entire show takes less than 10 hours.
All in all, I highly recommend you watch the first episode and judge if the show is for you. It broaches on topics that I believe every parent of children should be concerned about, and never stoops to condescension or derision to get its point across. When the show aired in Japan, it was broadcasted on a Saturday night so that both parents and children could watch it at the same time.
You can find more that has been said about this show here and if you follow the commentary, can find higher quality downloads of the entire series for your perusal.
Very recommended, one of the most thoughtful and entertaining TV shows I've watched in the last 10 years. =) Given that I don't watch much TV that probably doesn't say much!
The basic premise of it is simple, a 6th grade classroom gets a new homeroom teacher, and she is basically a tyrant. She decides to take the fun out of schooling, and makes the entire class a meritocracy. The show chronicles how the class reacts to it, and the subsequent consequences suffered by both the teacher, and the class itself.
At the heart of the show, is a very raw and basic social commentary about the state of schooling as it is in many 1st world countries, and the failures of the conventional schooling methodology. A lot of the commentary is incredibly valid and succinct, and surprisingly is perhaps even more valid about the state of schooling in the US than it really does in Japan. Japan has its problems to be sure, but it is still nowhere as poor as the schooling seems to be becoming in the US.
Certainly the show has caused controversies of its own and you can see this as sponsors dwindle on an episode by episode basis. Fortunately, the show in and of itself is very short, only 11 episodes, with two specials that are really optional. Each episode runs about 45 minutes and going through the entire show takes less than 10 hours.
All in all, I highly recommend you watch the first episode and judge if the show is for you. It broaches on topics that I believe every parent of children should be concerned about, and never stoops to condescension or derision to get its point across. When the show aired in Japan, it was broadcasted on a Saturday night so that both parents and children could watch it at the same time.
You can find more that has been said about this show here and if you follow the commentary, can find higher quality downloads of the entire series for your perusal.
Very recommended, one of the most thoughtful and entertaining TV shows I've watched in the last 10 years. =) Given that I don't watch much TV that probably doesn't say much!
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Books of the Year
There were a few articles recently in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times about the new face of Philantropy: in an age of global information, new philantrophists are now finding it hard to justify giving money to the arts (such as Opera, or Ballet) where there are so many more important initiatives that need funding (such as poverty, global warming, and disease).
Similarly, when contemplating the books of the past year, I find it difficult to rank the Fiction highly when compared to non-fiction. How could one compare even the most well-written piece of fiction to books that teach you how to manage assets, change your mind about the causes of poverty, or unveil why the politics of the country is the way it is? Kelly Link and Karen Joy Fowler when they visited this year at Google said that the biggest challenge of a fiction author is to be a more compelling read than the latest non-fiction, in an increasingly science-fictional world where the web by itself would serve up article after article of interesting stories about MIT students making money on blackjack, or fascinating economic commentary from Berkeley professors.
Having said that, I'd feel like I am chickening out if I didn't make fast and hard decisions, so here they are.
The book of the year is Joseph Stiglitz's Making Globalization Work. Scarlet will tell you about the arguments we've had over the years about globalization. For me, there was never a doubt that free trade was a universal good. The mathematics of Comparative Advantage was undenial, and perhaps I was even a bit too smug about understanding it. Stiglitz changed my mind about all that. The brilliance of a man who not only understood the theory, but also understood the assumptions that don't apply in the real world behind it, coupled with his experience at the world bank makes this book easily the most important book of the year, and a rare book in that it will change your mind about what important problems are most critical to tackle. It even seemed to open up the minds of a few rabid libertarians at my workplace, which I think is a first. Libertarians seem to me to be no different than fundamentalist devotees of middle-eastern religions (of which Islam is only one) in that their minds are already made up and their attitude is, "don't confuse me with facts!" Well, this book has a lot of facts, all put together well, and very much worth reading.
A close runner up was The Way To Win, an expose about our modern political system, which I find interesting. I had an argument 13 years ago with Reed Hastings (CEO of Netflix) that I felt modern elections were too much about character and not enough about issues. After 8 years of Bush politics, I feel vindicated in that assessment. A book explaining how all the dirty and not-so-dirty tricks that go into running for the presidency (an important topic, especially in the upcoming years, which will determine whether or not we will ignore global warming or start to do something about it) is definitely something worth reading.
The best fiction I read this year was a toss up between Iain Bank's excellent The Algebraist, or Lois Bujold's The Curse of Chalion. I find myself tipped towards Bujold's book for many of the reasons why she's won so many Hugo awards: she's got a lovely flowing prose style that's extremely easy to read and drags you along the story. When she doesn't have a good story to tell, it feels a lot like drinking a lot of empty calories, but in this case it's a great story and you feel like you got a lot out of it. I also must say the Neil Gaiman in Anansi Boys had the first non-graphic novel of his that I could read all the way through and find it enjoyable.
Even though he didn't make any of the best books of the year, Charles Stross was a great find for me this year. This versatile writer hasn't found any fiction that he can't write. The style is quite kinetic and can sometimes be a chore to read, but it never fails to entertain.
Similarly, when contemplating the books of the past year, I find it difficult to rank the Fiction highly when compared to non-fiction. How could one compare even the most well-written piece of fiction to books that teach you how to manage assets, change your mind about the causes of poverty, or unveil why the politics of the country is the way it is? Kelly Link and Karen Joy Fowler when they visited this year at Google said that the biggest challenge of a fiction author is to be a more compelling read than the latest non-fiction, in an increasingly science-fictional world where the web by itself would serve up article after article of interesting stories about MIT students making money on blackjack, or fascinating economic commentary from Berkeley professors.
Having said that, I'd feel like I am chickening out if I didn't make fast and hard decisions, so here they are.
The book of the year is Joseph Stiglitz's Making Globalization Work. Scarlet will tell you about the arguments we've had over the years about globalization. For me, there was never a doubt that free trade was a universal good. The mathematics of Comparative Advantage was undenial, and perhaps I was even a bit too smug about understanding it. Stiglitz changed my mind about all that. The brilliance of a man who not only understood the theory, but also understood the assumptions that don't apply in the real world behind it, coupled with his experience at the world bank makes this book easily the most important book of the year, and a rare book in that it will change your mind about what important problems are most critical to tackle. It even seemed to open up the minds of a few rabid libertarians at my workplace, which I think is a first. Libertarians seem to me to be no different than fundamentalist devotees of middle-eastern religions (of which Islam is only one) in that their minds are already made up and their attitude is, "don't confuse me with facts!" Well, this book has a lot of facts, all put together well, and very much worth reading.
A close runner up was The Way To Win, an expose about our modern political system, which I find interesting. I had an argument 13 years ago with Reed Hastings (CEO of Netflix) that I felt modern elections were too much about character and not enough about issues. After 8 years of Bush politics, I feel vindicated in that assessment. A book explaining how all the dirty and not-so-dirty tricks that go into running for the presidency (an important topic, especially in the upcoming years, which will determine whether or not we will ignore global warming or start to do something about it) is definitely something worth reading.
The best fiction I read this year was a toss up between Iain Bank's excellent The Algebraist, or Lois Bujold's The Curse of Chalion. I find myself tipped towards Bujold's book for many of the reasons why she's won so many Hugo awards: she's got a lovely flowing prose style that's extremely easy to read and drags you along the story. When she doesn't have a good story to tell, it feels a lot like drinking a lot of empty calories, but in this case it's a great story and you feel like you got a lot out of it. I also must say the Neil Gaiman in Anansi Boys had the first non-graphic novel of his that I could read all the way through and find it enjoyable.
Even though he didn't make any of the best books of the year, Charles Stross was a great find for me this year. This versatile writer hasn't found any fiction that he can't write. The style is quite kinetic and can sometimes be a chore to read, but it never fails to entertain.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Review: Veronica Mars Season 2
Last year's viewing of Veronica Mars Season 1 left Lisa & I blown away by how smart, how intelligently written, and well constructed the TV series was. So when the local library had a copy sitting around we grabbed it.
Unlike last year's DVDs, this year's DVDs had extras like deleted scenes, director's commentaries, and other goodies. The in-box presentation is also unique and holds the DVD more firmly.
This season's story arc revolves around an explosion that kills several of Veronica's schoolmates. As a season arc, it's done very well, with clues scattered around that in retrospect points to who did and why, but the ending manages to be a surprise. The cast changes slightly, with a few additions that I thought was interesting, and also brings back some unresolved stories from last season's plot.
Season Two doesn't have any really obvious plot holes in most of its stories, though a few sub-plots have me wondering if the characters live in the same world as I do. For instance a huge subplot revolves around Veronica Mar's wishes to attend Stanford University, which is apparently gated by her ability to win a scholarship to pay her way. It's as though financial aid doesn't exist in this universe. Stanford, like many other schools, awards financial aid based on need, not academics, so it's doubtful that an acceptance for Veronica would not have left her at least some way to pay for it.
Veronica is slightly less perfect this season, though again, one wonders how she manages to get nearly straight As, and still do everything she does --- there can't be that many hours in the day, even for someone who apparently does not sleep, as she does.
The season ends with a hook for the next season, and I'll look forward to it. Recommended.
Unlike last year's DVDs, this year's DVDs had extras like deleted scenes, director's commentaries, and other goodies. The in-box presentation is also unique and holds the DVD more firmly.
This season's story arc revolves around an explosion that kills several of Veronica's schoolmates. As a season arc, it's done very well, with clues scattered around that in retrospect points to who did and why, but the ending manages to be a surprise. The cast changes slightly, with a few additions that I thought was interesting, and also brings back some unresolved stories from last season's plot.
Season Two doesn't have any really obvious plot holes in most of its stories, though a few sub-plots have me wondering if the characters live in the same world as I do. For instance a huge subplot revolves around Veronica Mar's wishes to attend Stanford University, which is apparently gated by her ability to win a scholarship to pay her way. It's as though financial aid doesn't exist in this universe. Stanford, like many other schools, awards financial aid based on need, not academics, so it's doubtful that an acceptance for Veronica would not have left her at least some way to pay for it.
Veronica is slightly less perfect this season, though again, one wonders how she manages to get nearly straight As, and still do everything she does --- there can't be that many hours in the day, even for someone who apparently does not sleep, as she does.
The season ends with a hook for the next season, and I'll look forward to it. Recommended.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Gapminder's Video on Global Poverty
While debating with Scarlet over on her blog about poverty and what to do about it, I remembered the Gapminder presentation at Google, which was an outstanding and incredibly illuminating lecture on global poverty, global inequality, and what has been done to lift people out of poverty.
It also highlights how poorly the USA does in metrics compared to other developing countries. We have some of the worst infant mortality rates, and among the lowest life expectancies, despite our immense wealth. Most of that, naturally, can be attributed to the fact that we are the only major developing country not to have a universal, single payer healthcare system. So while we spend 16.75% of our GDP on healthcare (according to today's Wall Street Journal article), we have worse outcomes than any other developed country.
Is it surprising, then, that Americans are beginning to turn against trade? The world's most open economy has the least safety net for its citizens. If you're displaced by globalization or technology, you lose your health insurance at exactly the time when you're most likely to need it. All the middle class webmasters, accountants, and soon, radiologists who are displaced by outsourcing will start feeling that pinch soon, and unlike poorer unskilled workers these are people who will actually vote. Things will change, and my hope is that they will change sooner rather than later.
It also highlights how poorly the USA does in metrics compared to other developing countries. We have some of the worst infant mortality rates, and among the lowest life expectancies, despite our immense wealth. Most of that, naturally, can be attributed to the fact that we are the only major developing country not to have a universal, single payer healthcare system. So while we spend 16.75% of our GDP on healthcare (according to today's Wall Street Journal article), we have worse outcomes than any other developed country.
Is it surprising, then, that Americans are beginning to turn against trade? The world's most open economy has the least safety net for its citizens. If you're displaced by globalization or technology, you lose your health insurance at exactly the time when you're most likely to need it. All the middle class webmasters, accountants, and soon, radiologists who are displaced by outsourcing will start feeling that pinch soon, and unlike poorer unskilled workers these are people who will actually vote. Things will change, and my hope is that they will change sooner rather than later.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Review: MacTech magazine
I got this magazine because MacTech was running a special offer on their magazine. Since I'd just acquired a MacMini, I thought that this would be interesting --- maybe I'd learn a little bit. To my horror, MacTech is an absolutely horrible magazine with no redeeming features whatsoever for technical people.
Here's an example from November 2006: A whole article on Virtual Computing with Parallels Desktop. For any other technical journal, this would be an article about virtualization technology, how Intel's new instructions make software like Parallels possible, easier to write, or run faster. If you guessed that about this article, you would be wrong. This article steps you through how to create a virtual machine, in a dialog-box by dialog-box expose. If you'd never seen a computer before you might need this sort of exposition, but for a technical person? The article is a joke!
The December issue featured an article about vi! This would be like Microsoft Systems Journal having an article about TextEdit and how to use it.
In case it isn't obvious: MacTech is a waste of time, a waste of money, and you are far better reading a for dummies book or any of the classics in Computer Science instead.
Here's an example from November 2006: A whole article on Virtual Computing with Parallels Desktop. For any other technical journal, this would be an article about virtualization technology, how Intel's new instructions make software like Parallels possible, easier to write, or run faster. If you guessed that about this article, you would be wrong. This article steps you through how to create a virtual machine, in a dialog-box by dialog-box expose. If you'd never seen a computer before you might need this sort of exposition, but for a technical person? The article is a joke!
The December issue featured an article about vi! This would be like Microsoft Systems Journal having an article about TextEdit and how to use it.
In case it isn't obvious: MacTech is a waste of time, a waste of money, and you are far better reading a for dummies book or any of the classics in Computer Science instead.
Review: The Way to Win
While I'm an economics and public policy junkie, I am not a political junkie, and don't enjoy politics, especially not modern politics. Nevetheless, as I've complained before, all the best public policy you have at your disposal falls apart if you can't win the election, so reading this book was my way of educating myself as to how successful politicians win elections, and what does it take to be one.
This book covers Bill Clinton's elections, Karl Rove's two successful campaigns for Bush, as well as Hilary Clinton's rehabilitation of her public image. It identifies the peculiar brand of modern politics, as epitomized by Matt Drudge, as the Freak Show, which emphasizes partisanism and anything goes, which drives the media cycle, since the Old Media has no choice but to follow the New.
Sprinkled all throughout is various bits of advice to future politicians as to what to do and how to go about doing it. Surprisingly enough, the authors have plenty of emphasis about a mastery of policies:
Truly knowing your stuff allows a candidate to avoid awkward mistakes, but that is not the most important advantage. When Clinton was preparing for a debate or a major news conference, his staff did not have to waste time testing him on substantive answers. The preparation instead was devoted to figuring out how best to present the correct response... This is a luxury not enjoyed by most campaigns, who know that they are always one wrong answer.
The corresponding Bush campaign tactic was to ignore any policy questions they did not care about by answering with generalities but then respond substantively about issues they did care about. As the authors point out, it's quite unlikely that future politicians will be as willing or capable of mastering the policy side of the campaign as Clinton was.
By far the best part of the book has to do with its analysis of Karl Rove. While he's been much demonized by many, this book will leave you with a new found respect for how smart and hard working Rove is. Not only was he the political strategist, he was also the policy analyst, the chief of information technology, and the marketing coordinator. He is the equivalent of a master architect who doesn't hesistate to dive down and write assembly code to optimize an inner loop. I suspect that someone that smart doesn't come along very often, and the fact that he's on the Republican camp means that future Democratic candidates are going to have a really tough time.
The book does point out a few things that are depressing for a staunch progressive:
Finally, there's an analysis of Hilary Clinton as a potential future presidential candidate, covering her senatorial elections which have demonstrated her ability as a politician and her mastery of freak show politics.
All in all, I learnt a lot in this book. It seems that while Abraham Lincoln was right in that one cannot fool all of the people all of the time, fooling all of the people just twice (for two election cycles) is all that's necessary to squander a budget surplus, involve the country in an extremely bad war with no good outcomes, while at the same time eliminating traditional political freedoms. I can only hope that the American public has had enough bad policy to step away from freak show politics some time in the future. Not that I'm betting on such an outcome any time soon!
In any case, this book is highly recommended, especially if you don't watch TV, don't read political blogs, and in general is always surprised by how the other 50% of the country always votes against you.
For those readers who think she cannot win, get over your delusion.
If Hilary Clinton chooses to run for president in 2008, she can win. That is not the same as saying she will win, or even that she is favored to win. But if she decides to run, she will be a formidable candidate, with significant advantages over every other plausible Democratic candidate...
This book covers Bill Clinton's elections, Karl Rove's two successful campaigns for Bush, as well as Hilary Clinton's rehabilitation of her public image. It identifies the peculiar brand of modern politics, as epitomized by Matt Drudge, as the Freak Show, which emphasizes partisanism and anything goes, which drives the media cycle, since the Old Media has no choice but to follow the New.
Sprinkled all throughout is various bits of advice to future politicians as to what to do and how to go about doing it. Surprisingly enough, the authors have plenty of emphasis about a mastery of policies:
Truly knowing your stuff allows a candidate to avoid awkward mistakes, but that is not the most important advantage. When Clinton was preparing for a debate or a major news conference, his staff did not have to waste time testing him on substantive answers. The preparation instead was devoted to figuring out how best to present the correct response... This is a luxury not enjoyed by most campaigns, who know that they are always one wrong answer.
The corresponding Bush campaign tactic was to ignore any policy questions they did not care about by answering with generalities but then respond substantively about issues they did care about. As the authors point out, it's quite unlikely that future politicians will be as willing or capable of mastering the policy side of the campaign as Clinton was.
By far the best part of the book has to do with its analysis of Karl Rove. While he's been much demonized by many, this book will leave you with a new found respect for how smart and hard working Rove is. Not only was he the political strategist, he was also the policy analyst, the chief of information technology, and the marketing coordinator. He is the equivalent of a master architect who doesn't hesistate to dive down and write assembly code to optimize an inner loop. I suspect that someone that smart doesn't come along very often, and the fact that he's on the Republican camp means that future Democratic candidates are going to have a really tough time.
The book does point out a few things that are depressing for a staunch progressive:
- The inherent nature of freak show politics is more beneficial to Republican candidates than it is for Democratic candidates
- Maintaining your Image is everything. This is going to make future presidential campaigns even more vicious than ever.
- All future candidates are likely to opt out of the federal financing system, ensuring that wealthy people will have a lot more say about politics than normal people.
Finally, there's an analysis of Hilary Clinton as a potential future presidential candidate, covering her senatorial elections which have demonstrated her ability as a politician and her mastery of freak show politics.
All in all, I learnt a lot in this book. It seems that while Abraham Lincoln was right in that one cannot fool all of the people all of the time, fooling all of the people just twice (for two election cycles) is all that's necessary to squander a budget surplus, involve the country in an extremely bad war with no good outcomes, while at the same time eliminating traditional political freedoms. I can only hope that the American public has had enough bad policy to step away from freak show politics some time in the future. Not that I'm betting on such an outcome any time soon!
In any case, this book is highly recommended, especially if you don't watch TV, don't read political blogs, and in general is always surprised by how the other 50% of the country always votes against you.
For those readers who think she cannot win, get over your delusion.
If Hilary Clinton chooses to run for president in 2008, she can win. That is not the same as saying she will win, or even that she is favored to win. But if she decides to run, she will be a formidable candidate, with significant advantages over every other plausible Democratic candidate...
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