2011: Movies

by wil — Jan 23, 2012

As a follow-up to my annual book review, I thought it would be fun to look back at some of my favorite movies from 2011 as well (technically-speaking, the majority of these are from late-2010, but I didn’t get around to watching them till 2011).

Quirky romance. Funny. Cute.

Survival adventure. Franco’s best.

Drama. Great performances.

Drama. Intense. Freaky intense.

Quirky comedy-drama. Different.

Great little comedy-drama.

Quirky. Funny. Welsh.

Pure action adventure.

So that’s a look back at 2011…and I’m super excited about 2012′s offerings: Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, and of course, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. Woohoo!

2011: Books

by wil — Jan 20, 2012

New Year’s blew past, but it’s not yet Chinese New Year, so I figure I still have time for my annual book summary (nb, part of this post is a regurgitation of a May post, so if it seems familiar, that’s why).

meatMeat: A Benign Extravagance: An in-depth, heavy-duty, and sometimes dry investigation of meat-eating from an environmental/sustainability (and British) perspective.  A much longer review (Part 1 of 3) »

The TerrorThe Terror: An engrossing historical novel with a supernatural twist: 1840s, the Franklin Expedition searches in vain for the Northwest Passage and encounters an ancient arctic evil. I enjoyed it, but there are several spots where the story really starts to drag. I think it would’ve been stronger if it had been a bit shorter.

Faery TaleFaery Tale: One Woman’s Search for Enchantment in a Modern World: Signe Pike travels from NYC to Mexico, the UK, and Ireland in a heartfelt search for magic, belief, and a deeper sense of connection.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction UniverseHow to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe: A humorous, touching ride through Minor Universe 31, time loops, story space, memory, and family relationships.

Fight ClubFight Club: This is one of those rare instances where I think the movie is actually quite a bit better than the book. I felt like the novel was dark-and-disturbing just to be dark-and-disturbing. I had hoped for more, something deeper.

Foucault For BeginnersFoucault for Beginners: A quick overview of Michel Foucault’s thoughts on knowledge, truth, power, justice, etc. My impression: Foucault is highly influential, yet difficult to summarize/synthesize. I think I might try another, longer introduction to Foucault.

RumoRumo: And His Miraculous Adventures: Part Grimm’s fairy tale, part Princess Bride — a humorous, imaginative, delightful fantasy adventure. I will definitely be reading more Walter Moers.

The History of LoveThe History of Love: Warm, often-funny prose, but a story that feels disjointed. Halfway through, I set it aside for several weeks, but eventually picked it up again and finished it.

ConsciousnessConsciousness: A Very Short Introduction: An interesting but annoying introduction to the scientific study of the “hard problem” of consciousness. Susan Blackmore covers a lot of fascinating research, but for an introductory, presumably objective overview, I felt like she was a bit too free with her own subjective opinions.

If on a Winter's Night a TravelerIf on a Winter's Night a Traveler: The opposite of a flowing narrative, but interesting nonetheless. Calvino has lots of fun with conspiracies, obfuscation, and metafiction, popping in and out of the story/stories to write about writing/reading. Reminiscent of Borges and Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

The novel begins in a railway station, a locomotive huffs, steam from a piston covers the opening of the chapter, a cloud of smoke hides part of the first paragraph.

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, “No, I don’t want to watch TV!” Raise your voice—they won’t hear you otherwise—”I’m reading! I don’t want to be disturbed!” Maybe they haven’t heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: “I’m beginning to read Italo Calvino’s new novel!” Or if you prefer, don’t say anything; just hope they’ll leave you alone.

Alone Together: A really interesting critique of social robots and the hyper-connected individual by a psychologist/MIT professor. Technology offers alluring “solutions” to many our problems — But what do these “solutions” say about us as a society? What are the downsides?  A longer review »

Hogfather: My first Terry Pratchett novel. The Hogfather (Discworld’s version of Father Christmas) is missing, so Death assumes the Hogfather’s duties while Death’s granddaughter, Susan, investigates the Hogfather’s disappearance. — Some laugh-out-loud bits, but all-in-all, too disjointed…too higgledy-piggledy for my taste.

The Hidden Brain: An interesting pop-science book on unconscious bias. Vedantam explores the often-unrecognized conflict between our conscious thoughts and the heuristic activities of our unconscious minds. One interesting, yet morbid bit: the (USA) suicide rate is twice the murder rate, but as a society, we tend to focus on murder. Why?

13 Things That Don’t Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time: Science writer Michael Brooks explores the boundaries of current scientific knowledge: dark matter & energy, cold fusion, the placebo effect, the Pioneer gravity anomaly, free will, homeopathy, etc. Engaging and intriguing.

An End to Suffering: A rambling history of Buddha/Buddhism + travelogue + memoir + primer of Indian politics/history. I particularly enjoyed the section on the discovery/rediscovery of Buddhism by early-19th-century European explorers. A longer review »

Daemon: I picked this up because I’m a sci-fi/cyberpunk fan and it got some rave reviews, but I was ultimately disappointed. It’s a fluffy, beach read, and I found myself chuckling at the ridiculous nature of the “this-could-really-happen” storyline.

Embassytown (audio): I read China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station a couple of years ago, and was less than impressed. But I thought I’d give him another try…and…I still feel like he has talent, but falls short in the character development department. The plot was quite interesting, but I need characters I care about. I just didn’t care.

The Raw Shark Texts: A re-read. One of my all-time favorites. Funny. Surreal. Beautiful. Steven Hall’s first and (to-date) only novel. I’m thrilled to hear he’s working on a second, codenamed “Hula Hoop”.

Exploring Happiness: Ponderously dry philosophy.* This is not a “how to be happy” book. Instead, it asks questions such as: How do we define “happiness”? Can one be delusional or morally repugnant and happy at the same time? And the answers come largely from (to my mind) often tedious Enlightenment thinkers and Ancient Greek philosophers.

Making Supper Safe: Food politics/saftey. Ben Hewitt covers dumpster-diving, Monsanto, the FDA, the CDC, the Rawsome raid, etc. — interviewing Bob Marler, prominent foodborne-illness attorney; Mark McAfee, founder of Organic Pastures Dairy; Justin Sonnenburg, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, etc. A longer review »

Total: 20
Fiction: 10 (including 1 audio)
Non-fiction: 10

FAVORITES

Fiction:

  • Rumo: A charming, imaginative fairy tale.
  • The Raw Shark Texts: Technically a re-read, so I’m not sure it counts, but it’s so freaking good.

Non-fiction:

  • Faery Tale: A sweet story of one woman’s search for magic and meaning in the modern world.
  • Alone Together: An MIT professor critiques social-robots and the always-connected individual from a psychological/sociological perspective.

* “Ponderously dry philosophy” — You might be thinking to yourself, is there any other kind? And the answer is, Yes!

New Year, New Beginnings

by wil — Jan 16, 2012

The Icy Claw of Christmas

by wil — Dec 25, 2011

Merry Christmas!

Remember the War

by wil — Dec 22, 2011

I came across Remember the War recently, and was impressed — both as a web designer and history buff — ~30 screens of powerful, large-scale, black-and-white war photos, quotes, videos, and statistics. Beautiful*.

* Beautiful, but a little buggy. I repeatedly had trouble navigating between the intro/first screen. But it worked eventually, and was worth a few tries.

Snow

by wil — Dec 14, 2011

Yesterday it rained. Today it snowed.

Mathematical Proof

by wil — Dec 8, 2011

Everything exists simultaneously

by wil — Dec 6, 2011

Everything exists simultaneously. Communism isn’t some imaginary society…communism is just one way of people interacting in all societies. The same can be said of exchange, the same can be said of patronage. All these different ways of giving gifts or making exchanges always exist. The question is how they come together, which are favored, and most of all, which we fix on when we try to imagine what people are really like.Anthropologist David Graeber via Giving It Away (TTBOOK)

Making Supper Safe

by wil — Dec 5, 2011

I recently finished Making Supper Safe, Ben Hewitt’s critique of food safety/regulation/politics. I enjoyed it — it’s a topic I’m interested in and he’s got a casual, engaging style (no angry screeds).

Basically it’s a critique of the industrial food system and the largely-pro-industrial policies of the USDA/FDA. And then a look at smaller-scale, regional alternatives.

I’ve cobbled together this Hewitt food-safety summary/manifesto (which I agree with wholeheartedly):

  • As long as we choose to eat, we choose to accept a certain degree of risk.
  • I know that the risk of contracting pathogenic bacteria from my food is small but real.
  • My food is teeming with bacteria because the world is teeming with bacteria.

What I have chosen, therefore, is a style of eating that affords me as much transparency as possible. To the extent that I am able, I purchase my family’s nourishment from producers operating on a scale or with an ethos that provides a clear view of the where, how, and why of production and processing methods.

I also believe that the widespread antibacterial/antimicrobial movement is good-intentioned, but wrong-minded. I’m not talking about life-saving antibiotics, but general antibiotic overuse*, antibacterial soap/wipes, food irradiation, etc. — and the notion that you can, or would want to, get rid of all bacteria/microbes.

It’s commonly estimated that the number of bacteria in and on our bodies outnumber the number of human cells by 10 to 1. We are bacterial hosts/symbionts. We need bacteria for vitamin synthesis, carbohydrate metabolism, nitrogen metabolism, fat metabolism, etc. And we regularly harbor pathogenic and/or potentially-pathogenic bacteria while maintaining overall good health.

There is a lot of evidence to support the idea that we are a victim of hyperhygenitization. The evidence is increasingly strong that when our intestinal microbiota is in a normal, healthy state, we’re more resistant to disease. In fact, one of the top predictors for salmonella poisoning is antibiotic use within the past 30 days.Justin Sonnenburg
Asst. Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford

The way I see it, you can maintain a strong and healthy gut and immune system or you can get by with a weakened gut and immune system and try to kill off the “bad” microbes (a losing battle). I’ll grant you, it’s not a scientific study, but my wife and I hardly ever get sick. As kids and into our twenties, we got sick a few times a year, we got colds, the flu, etc. and we just accepted it as normal. But nowadays we very rarely get sick, and for what it’s worth, we attribute the change to our change in diet (from a pretty conventional, standard American diet to one heavy in home-prepared, minimally-processed, organic, farm-to-market foods).

* Why we feed antibiotics to healthy animals to hasten weight-gain — thereby promoting antibiotic-resistant microbia — is beyond me. Incredibly shortsighted.

The Return

by wil — Dec 3, 2011

I’ve taken some time off from this blog and experimented with another (with more of a web-design focus), but I think what I want to do is import some of the relevant posts from my other blog, consolidate, and return to writing here.

So…yeah…if/when a bunch of new posts show up out of the blue, that’s what’s going on.