I just finished The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.
I wrote about his previous two books here and here. This book is more focused, and shorter, than both of his other ones. Instead of being built out of essays written for magazines, this one feels like one piece of work.
It focuses on how checklists can be used to manage important tasks, whether they are simple, complicated or complex. As a devout believer in checklists, it was a little preaching to the choir for me, but there were still some good sections. The parts on what makes a good checklist versus a bad one, and the thoughts on the different types and uses of checklists were interesting and might show up in my work life.
One possible issue - he uses three main areas for checklist discussion - medicine, aviation and construction. One thing he doesn't spend any time on is the fact that in two of those fields, time is often of the essence. The book would have been well served in having a discussion of how checklists differ in those circumstances from other activities, like construction, where time is not an issue but consistency over repeated action is.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Last night I finished Love Over Scotland, the third 44 Scotland Street book by Alexander McCall Smith.
I loved the first book in the series but didn't enjoy the second one anywhere near as much.
I'm not sure if the reason I didn't like the second one had to do with the book, and it's focus on a bunch of characters I didn't find very interesting, or my mood at the time. In either case, I like the third book nearly as much as the second. It focuses more on interesting characters - Pat, the girl with the thing for bad boys, Mathew, the rich gallery owner, Bertie, the 6 year old prodigy, and Angus Lorie and his dog, Cyril.
The events in this third book felt more consequential to the characters, while the second book felt more like a space filler between plot ideas. Another facet of these books that I'm coming to appreciate more and more is the use of poetry. A number of the characters refer regularly to poetry, usually Scottish, in a very reverential way.
Highly recommended.
I loved the first book in the series but didn't enjoy the second one anywhere near as much.
I'm not sure if the reason I didn't like the second one had to do with the book, and it's focus on a bunch of characters I didn't find very interesting, or my mood at the time. In either case, I like the third book nearly as much as the second. It focuses more on interesting characters - Pat, the girl with the thing for bad boys, Mathew, the rich gallery owner, Bertie, the 6 year old prodigy, and Angus Lorie and his dog, Cyril.
The events in this third book felt more consequential to the characters, while the second book felt more like a space filler between plot ideas. Another facet of these books that I'm coming to appreciate more and more is the use of poetry. A number of the characters refer regularly to poetry, usually Scottish, in a very reverential way.
Highly recommended.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
I finished The Master Executioner by Loren D. Estleman a few days ago.
Technically considered a "western", Estleman's books are more like historical fiction that happen to be set the Old West. They aren't stories of cowboys, gun fights and range wars but stories about characters who feel real. In this case, it's a carpenter who ends up an executioner, losing his family along the way.
Good book about a man who finds the perfect career for himself, whether or not it is good for him.
Technically considered a "western", Estleman's books are more like historical fiction that happen to be set the Old West. They aren't stories of cowboys, gun fights and range wars but stories about characters who feel real. In this case, it's a carpenter who ends up an executioner, losing his family along the way.
Good book about a man who finds the perfect career for himself, whether or not it is good for him.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Last night I finished Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right by Jennifer Burns.
This biography of Ayn Rand focuses on her relationship to the American right wing movements that started around the Great Depression, from her involvement with the presidential campaigns of Wendell Wilkie and Barry Goldwater to the inspiration she gave to libertarian/anarchists like Murray Rothbard.
In every other way, Heller's similarly timed book is better or the same. Heller's writing is better, her parts on the novels are stronger and she depends too heavily on the testimony of suspect witnesses. Burns may have a slight edge on the last item. A lot of her book has to do with Rand's relationships with other right wing figures, and therefore she can use not only Rand's correspondence but those of the other figures. This gives her a stronger base to work from. She also had extensive access to the Ayn Rand Archives.
The real weakness of Burn's book comes from the fact that she has a superficial, at best, understanding of Rand's ideas. This makes her descriptions of Rand's development of those ideas suspect, and leads to some odd comparisons or discussions that don't make sense to a more experienced reader.
This biography of Ayn Rand focuses on her relationship to the American right wing movements that started around the Great Depression, from her involvement with the presidential campaigns of Wendell Wilkie and Barry Goldwater to the inspiration she gave to libertarian/anarchists like Murray Rothbard.
In every other way, Heller's similarly timed book is better or the same. Heller's writing is better, her parts on the novels are stronger and she depends too heavily on the testimony of suspect witnesses. Burns may have a slight edge on the last item. A lot of her book has to do with Rand's relationships with other right wing figures, and therefore she can use not only Rand's correspondence but those of the other figures. This gives her a stronger base to work from. She also had extensive access to the Ayn Rand Archives.
The real weakness of Burn's book comes from the fact that she has a superficial, at best, understanding of Rand's ideas. This makes her descriptions of Rand's development of those ideas suspect, and leads to some odd comparisons or discussions that don't make sense to a more experienced reader.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
A few days ago, I finished Old School, a novel by Tobias Wolff.
Tobias Wolff is also the author of one of my favourite books, This Boy's Life. That book is an actual memoir and, while this book is not literal memoir, it feels like one. The protagonist has things in common with the author - being a poorer kid attending an elite prep school, leaving during senior year, and serving in Vietnam - but it is not actually Wolff's life.
The book feels very episodic, based around the visits of three authors: Robert Frost, Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway. The students at the prep school get a chance to meet privately with the authors if their stories are contest winners. The protagonist tries for all three prizes but gets foiled along the way.
An OK, but very slight book. Nowhere near as powerful as his actual memoir.
Tobias Wolff is also the author of one of my favourite books, This Boy's Life. That book is an actual memoir and, while this book is not literal memoir, it feels like one. The protagonist has things in common with the author - being a poorer kid attending an elite prep school, leaving during senior year, and serving in Vietnam - but it is not actually Wolff's life.
The book feels very episodic, based around the visits of three authors: Robert Frost, Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway. The students at the prep school get a chance to meet privately with the authors if their stories are contest winners. The protagonist tries for all three prizes but gets foiled along the way.
An OK, but very slight book. Nowhere near as powerful as his actual memoir.
Friday, February 12, 2010
I've been swamped at work, so I haven't had time to post, but last week I finished Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith.
This is the second of his 44 Scotland Street series, which I wrote about here.
The second book is not as strong as the first - it focuses almost exclusively on characters I'm less interested in, like the prodigy Bertie and his family, and the older conservative Ramsey Dunbarton, and some of the other characters, like Domenica, comes across less sympathetically.
It does continue some strong gags, like the Pollock's missing car, that are very amusing.
Hopefully the rest of the series will be more like the first than the second book.
This is the second of his 44 Scotland Street series, which I wrote about here.
The second book is not as strong as the first - it focuses almost exclusively on characters I'm less interested in, like the prodigy Bertie and his family, and the older conservative Ramsey Dunbarton, and some of the other characters, like Domenica, comes across less sympathetically.
It does continue some strong gags, like the Pollock's missing car, that are very amusing.
Hopefully the rest of the series will be more like the first than the second book.
Monday, February 01, 2010
I just finished Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (soon to be a major motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio).
In some ways a pretty standard genre thriller (US Marshals go to a mental hospital on an isolated island to investigate a disappearance, things are more complicated than they seem, they get trapped on the island, etc.) but it turns out to have a twist.
SPOILER ALERT
It turns out to use another genre cliche, the unreliable narrator. But Lehane has walked into a classic trap - this kind of cliche is only appreciated by readers when done in as minimal a fashion as possible. The larger an author makes this, and the cleverer they are in its implementation, the more the readers will hate them for it.
When the twist is revealed at the end, that the main protagonist is actually a mental patient and the events of the story have been a combination of the staff putting on an act to help him work through his psychosis, and actual hallucinated episodes, everything that comes before it is undermined. The reader has spent an entire novel sympathizing with, or rooting for, the protagonist and the rug is completely pulled out from under them. It can't but leave an unsettled and unsatisfied feeling in many readers.
In some ways a pretty standard genre thriller (US Marshals go to a mental hospital on an isolated island to investigate a disappearance, things are more complicated than they seem, they get trapped on the island, etc.) but it turns out to have a twist.
SPOILER ALERT
It turns out to use another genre cliche, the unreliable narrator. But Lehane has walked into a classic trap - this kind of cliche is only appreciated by readers when done in as minimal a fashion as possible. The larger an author makes this, and the cleverer they are in its implementation, the more the readers will hate them for it.
When the twist is revealed at the end, that the main protagonist is actually a mental patient and the events of the story have been a combination of the staff putting on an act to help him work through his psychosis, and actual hallucinated episodes, everything that comes before it is undermined. The reader has spent an entire novel sympathizing with, or rooting for, the protagonist and the rug is completely pulled out from under them. It can't but leave an unsettled and unsatisfied feeling in many readers.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Yesterday, I finished The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics by James Valliant.
This book has been out for a while, and I only had a slight interest in it. While reading Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made, I was bothered by how much she depended on inputs from Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, who seem to have a vested interest in misrepresenting Rand in certain ways. Since this is the topic of Valliant's book (called PARC for short), my interest was renewed and I tracked down a copy in order to confirm or disprove my suspicions.
Valliant's book does an excellent job of laying out the case against the Brandens. The first half deals mostly with the Branden's own statements, whether as part of the books they have published on Rand, or separate statements they have made over the years. This part does a masterful job of dismantling both Branden's claims. Valliant himself puts it perfectly:
The second half of the book uses Ayn Rand's private journals, preserved in the Ayn Rand Archives and only made available in recent years, to give the other side of the story of the last few years of the Branden/Rand relationship and its end. This section of the book is harder reading, partially because Ayn Rand's journals use Objectivist terms and short hand and partially due to Valliant's writing style, which is more suited to his job as a prosecutor rather than a historian at times. But the overall impact is to heighten the sense of exactly how deceptive the Brandens were, particularly Nathaniel Branden, and how they both exploited Rand to create opportunities for themselves.
Returning to the topic of Heller's book, reading them together is particularly damaging to Heller. She uses PARC in her end notes, so she must have read it, but she provides no counter argument or justification of why she took the Branden's inputs at face value. She may have just used PARC as a way to get access to the information quoted from Rand's journals, since she claims she was denied direct access (an odd claim in itself, since Jennifer Burns, another independent researched was given access and significant help from the archivist, in a similar time frame). The overall impression I am left with is that Heller chose to use the Branden's inputs because they made for a more dramatic story, rather than because they were most likely true.
This book has been out for a while, and I only had a slight interest in it. While reading Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made, I was bothered by how much she depended on inputs from Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, who seem to have a vested interest in misrepresenting Rand in certain ways. Since this is the topic of Valliant's book (called PARC for short), my interest was renewed and I tracked down a copy in order to confirm or disprove my suspicions.
Valliant's book does an excellent job of laying out the case against the Brandens. The first half deals mostly with the Branden's own statements, whether as part of the books they have published on Rand, or separate statements they have made over the years. This part does a masterful job of dismantling both Branden's claims. Valliant himself puts it perfectly:
Many of the claims made in the Branden's books are undoubtedly true. A good many of them are demonstrably false, misleading, one-sided and self-serving. Being unclear as to their sources -- often overtly suppressing their sources -- it is not generally possible to distinguish the true from the false and therein lies the problem for the usefulness of these works to historians.Valliant shows that the Brandens claims contradict other sources (compare their views of Rand and her moods with those of Charles and Mary Ann Sures in Facets of Ayn Rand), contradict external records (compare Barbara Branden's description of Ayn Rand's appearance on Donahue with the video recording of the actual show) and even contradict themselves extensively (too many cases to give just one).
The second half of the book uses Ayn Rand's private journals, preserved in the Ayn Rand Archives and only made available in recent years, to give the other side of the story of the last few years of the Branden/Rand relationship and its end. This section of the book is harder reading, partially because Ayn Rand's journals use Objectivist terms and short hand and partially due to Valliant's writing style, which is more suited to his job as a prosecutor rather than a historian at times. But the overall impact is to heighten the sense of exactly how deceptive the Brandens were, particularly Nathaniel Branden, and how they both exploited Rand to create opportunities for themselves.
Returning to the topic of Heller's book, reading them together is particularly damaging to Heller. She uses PARC in her end notes, so she must have read it, but she provides no counter argument or justification of why she took the Branden's inputs at face value. She may have just used PARC as a way to get access to the information quoted from Rand's journals, since she claims she was denied direct access (an odd claim in itself, since Jennifer Burns, another independent researched was given access and significant help from the archivist, in a similar time frame). The overall impression I am left with is that Heller chose to use the Branden's inputs because they made for a more dramatic story, rather than because they were most likely true.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
I just finished 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith.
Originally a daily serial in The Scotsman, this collects them all into a single novel with short chapters. The chapters hold together well enough that I don't think most people would even realize it was a serial if they weren't told beforehand.
I've read the first books in two of his other series, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and The Sunday Philosopher's Club, but this is my favourite of his works so far. Like the Ladies Detective Agency books, it is a slice of life novel, but without mysteries attached. It follows an interlocking group of characters in Edinburgh through a couple of weeks/months of their lives. It's well written and interesting, in a low key kind of way, similar to the books of Maeve Binchy.
The only thing that was a little off putting is that it has the wandering point of view problem that I noticed in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, where the text will be following one character, inside their head, and then abruptly switch to another character's thoughts/feelings to get their reaction. But this is a minor quibble in an otherwise very enjoyable book.
This was an excellent recommendation from a friend.
Originally a daily serial in The Scotsman, this collects them all into a single novel with short chapters. The chapters hold together well enough that I don't think most people would even realize it was a serial if they weren't told beforehand.
I've read the first books in two of his other series, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and The Sunday Philosopher's Club, but this is my favourite of his works so far. Like the Ladies Detective Agency books, it is a slice of life novel, but without mysteries attached. It follows an interlocking group of characters in Edinburgh through a couple of weeks/months of their lives. It's well written and interesting, in a low key kind of way, similar to the books of Maeve Binchy.
The only thing that was a little off putting is that it has the wandering point of view problem that I noticed in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, where the text will be following one character, inside their head, and then abruptly switch to another character's thoughts/feelings to get their reaction. But this is a minor quibble in an otherwise very enjoyable book.
This was an excellent recommendation from a friend.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Last night I finished Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh.
I don't know if this is set in the same universe as the other two books (Rimrunners and Heavy Time), since it starts with a starship going off course, getting lost and having to settle on an already occupied planet.
The feel of this book is completely different from the other two. It still uses a very limited first person perspective, but it isn't as frantic or claustrophobic feeling as the other two. After a few introductory settings, the main character acts as an interface between the humans and the aliens. The humans are isolated on an island to keep them from interacting with the aliens, a state of affairs that came about after misunderstandings between the two races led to a war.
In some ways, the aliens are very human-like, humanoid but larger. I think this is done to add emphasis to the narrators thoughts on how fundamentally different they are beneath the surface. The aliens do not have the same kind of emotions as humans, resulting in a very different political setup.
The book is a little frustrating to read, because during a lot of it the narrator is ignorant of what is really going on around him, and is very passive as well. He is spirited from place to place, and only has his speculations about why things are happening. Towards the end, as the part of the story about the human/alien differences develops, it gets more interesting. And by the end, we know the reasons for the other characters actions.
It looks like a long series, and I'm mixed about getting in to it, but I will probably try at least one more.
I don't know if this is set in the same universe as the other two books (Rimrunners and Heavy Time), since it starts with a starship going off course, getting lost and having to settle on an already occupied planet.
The feel of this book is completely different from the other two. It still uses a very limited first person perspective, but it isn't as frantic or claustrophobic feeling as the other two. After a few introductory settings, the main character acts as an interface between the humans and the aliens. The humans are isolated on an island to keep them from interacting with the aliens, a state of affairs that came about after misunderstandings between the two races led to a war.
In some ways, the aliens are very human-like, humanoid but larger. I think this is done to add emphasis to the narrators thoughts on how fundamentally different they are beneath the surface. The aliens do not have the same kind of emotions as humans, resulting in a very different political setup.
The book is a little frustrating to read, because during a lot of it the narrator is ignorant of what is really going on around him, and is very passive as well. He is spirited from place to place, and only has his speculations about why things are happening. Towards the end, as the part of the story about the human/alien differences develops, it gets more interesting. And by the end, we know the reasons for the other characters actions.
It looks like a long series, and I'm mixed about getting in to it, but I will probably try at least one more.
Friday, January 22, 2010
A few days ago, I finished Life Inc. by Douglas Rushkoff.
I felt so strongly about it, that it has taken me a few days to organize my thoughts, but at bottom they are this: ignore the glowing quotes on the back, this is an extremely stupid book.
The subtitle, "How the world became a corporation and how to take it back", is unexpected enough to make it sound intriguing but even a reading of the foreword should make readers who are paying attention take notice that of the author's shallow thought process. Early on, he compares a neigbourhood being gentrified to a country being colonized. That may seem like a trivial comparison, but the lack of understanding of the essentials on an issue exhibited there is typical of everything else in this book. Similarly, he compares loans from the World Bank/IMF with gunship diplomacy and loans from the mob. Again - the essential difference eludes him. If a country defaults on loans from the IMF, the worst that will happen is that they don't receive any more loans. If you default on loans to the mob, they will burn down your business and kill your family. Do those seem like they are essentially the same thing?
Early on he comments on chartered companies and how they were granted monopolies by the state. Throughout the book, he associates these with corporations even though modern corporations, outside of public utilities, are not granted monopolies.
Again, and again he misrepresents people, or things. He quotes John D. Rockefeller talking about how he believed God had given him his ability to make money, but prefaces it to say he is bragging about monopolies even though the quote doesn't mention them at all.
He talks about the Secret, the Oprah promoted New Age mumbo jumbo that believes positive thinking can literally shape your life. I can understand criticizing this junk, but he does it not because of its ridiculous magical thinking but because it is too egotistic!
His main thesis is that starting with the Renaissance, corporations have corrupted not only the business world but the way people look at themselves and everything else. The Renaissance is picked as a starting point mainly for the reason that this is a time that some places moved from using a mix of local and national currencies to using government fiat central currency. The role of government fiat central currency seems to be a major bee in his bonnet. Of course, a good clue to deciding if someone is a crank is if they are not an economist but want to tell you about their theories that society is messed up mainly because of monetary theory. If you think I'm exaggerating, notice that he blames changes in monetary policy for the plague that devastated Europe in the 14th century.
His confusion on political and economic points is astounding. Throughout the book he gives example after example of how corporations, working governments (or governments, working with corporations) collude against everyone else, but it never occurs to him that the problem is government having this kind of power in the first place, instead he thinks we should do away with corporations. He seems to have no understanding of the difference between actual free market policies and mercantilist ones (or "corporatist", as he calls it). He also states explicitly that the work of almost all economists is bunk, including free market advocates like Hayek, because they did their work in the context of a government fiat currency, ignoring history of comment on exactly that issue, and ignoring that Hayek's work on price as information would apply under local currencies as well as under fiat ones.
He talks about how corporations created a lot of the drive for individual, rather than community satisfaction and desires, including the desire for owning a house. He goes on to prove his point by quoting that noted corporate shill, Walt Whitman!
Page after page, he gives some ridiculous sounding fact or interpretation, and if you try to go to the end notes to find out where this comes from, you will mostly find nothing. The end notes are very short with gaps of multiple pages between notes in most cases. Most of his claims are totally undocumented in any way. For example, he claims that the Rand Corporations secretaries that were the original subjects of Prisoner's Dilemma experiments didn't act the way they were expected to and cooperated instead of betraying each other. Sounds like an interesting fact, if true. The end notes give no source, and no way of tracking down where it came from. Similarly, he claims that most medievalists agree that European quality of life between the 11th and 13th century was higher than even today, due to the use of local currencies. Again, no end notes or citations.
While reading this book, it felt somewhat familiar, though I was sure I had not read it before. Then I realized what it was - it reminded me of Behold A Pale Horse, by the confirmed nut bag William Cooper. From the misapplication of technical theories (monetary in this case, electrical in Cooper's book), to the habit of jumping from fact to fact on superficial resemblances and then tying them together into a grand theory, this book reveals itself as a modern example of conspiracy theory.
I felt so strongly about it, that it has taken me a few days to organize my thoughts, but at bottom they are this: ignore the glowing quotes on the back, this is an extremely stupid book.
The subtitle, "How the world became a corporation and how to take it back", is unexpected enough to make it sound intriguing but even a reading of the foreword should make readers who are paying attention take notice that of the author's shallow thought process. Early on, he compares a neigbourhood being gentrified to a country being colonized. That may seem like a trivial comparison, but the lack of understanding of the essentials on an issue exhibited there is typical of everything else in this book. Similarly, he compares loans from the World Bank/IMF with gunship diplomacy and loans from the mob. Again - the essential difference eludes him. If a country defaults on loans from the IMF, the worst that will happen is that they don't receive any more loans. If you default on loans to the mob, they will burn down your business and kill your family. Do those seem like they are essentially the same thing?
Early on he comments on chartered companies and how they were granted monopolies by the state. Throughout the book, he associates these with corporations even though modern corporations, outside of public utilities, are not granted monopolies.
Again, and again he misrepresents people, or things. He quotes John D. Rockefeller talking about how he believed God had given him his ability to make money, but prefaces it to say he is bragging about monopolies even though the quote doesn't mention them at all.
He talks about the Secret, the Oprah promoted New Age mumbo jumbo that believes positive thinking can literally shape your life. I can understand criticizing this junk, but he does it not because of its ridiculous magical thinking but because it is too egotistic!
His main thesis is that starting with the Renaissance, corporations have corrupted not only the business world but the way people look at themselves and everything else. The Renaissance is picked as a starting point mainly for the reason that this is a time that some places moved from using a mix of local and national currencies to using government fiat central currency. The role of government fiat central currency seems to be a major bee in his bonnet. Of course, a good clue to deciding if someone is a crank is if they are not an economist but want to tell you about their theories that society is messed up mainly because of monetary theory. If you think I'm exaggerating, notice that he blames changes in monetary policy for the plague that devastated Europe in the 14th century.
His confusion on political and economic points is astounding. Throughout the book he gives example after example of how corporations, working governments (or governments, working with corporations) collude against everyone else, but it never occurs to him that the problem is government having this kind of power in the first place, instead he thinks we should do away with corporations. He seems to have no understanding of the difference between actual free market policies and mercantilist ones (or "corporatist", as he calls it). He also states explicitly that the work of almost all economists is bunk, including free market advocates like Hayek, because they did their work in the context of a government fiat currency, ignoring history of comment on exactly that issue, and ignoring that Hayek's work on price as information would apply under local currencies as well as under fiat ones.
He talks about how corporations created a lot of the drive for individual, rather than community satisfaction and desires, including the desire for owning a house. He goes on to prove his point by quoting that noted corporate shill, Walt Whitman!
Page after page, he gives some ridiculous sounding fact or interpretation, and if you try to go to the end notes to find out where this comes from, you will mostly find nothing. The end notes are very short with gaps of multiple pages between notes in most cases. Most of his claims are totally undocumented in any way. For example, he claims that the Rand Corporations secretaries that were the original subjects of Prisoner's Dilemma experiments didn't act the way they were expected to and cooperated instead of betraying each other. Sounds like an interesting fact, if true. The end notes give no source, and no way of tracking down where it came from. Similarly, he claims that most medievalists agree that European quality of life between the 11th and 13th century was higher than even today, due to the use of local currencies. Again, no end notes or citations.
While reading this book, it felt somewhat familiar, though I was sure I had not read it before. Then I realized what it was - it reminded me of Behold A Pale Horse, by the confirmed nut bag William Cooper. From the misapplication of technical theories (monetary in this case, electrical in Cooper's book), to the habit of jumping from fact to fact on superficial resemblances and then tying them together into a grand theory, this book reveals itself as a modern example of conspiracy theory.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Last night we went to see The Threepenny Opera, put on by Berkeley's Shotgun Players.
I haven't seen The Threepenny Opera before, so some of my comments here are about the play itself, rather than this staging. The story is a strange and silly little adaptation of a story from the 18th century, with the antihero nature of Macheath, "Mack The Knife" amped up. The lyrics give forth a depressing and squalid view of life, but are married to memorable tunes in a way that makes them enjoyable and ironic. Macheath is described as viscous, a rapist and murderer, but he is portrayed as a sometimes gallant, sometimes weaselly free spirit since none of his more terrible acts are shown on stage. This allows the audience to cheer for him, rather than wanting to see him executed.
The production marries a punk ethos to Brecht's Marxist lyrics in a way that seems obvious in retrospect, but I can't find any online discussions of it being done before. The result is a brutal but vital looking play with more energy than is good for it at times. The opening rendition of "Mack The Knife" is sold so energetically and "punk" that it almost ruins the song itself. Other songs have the background singers/dancers pounding around in such chaos that a similar result ensues. Thankfully, this is not true of some of the other numbers, such as "Pirate Jenny", which is sung beautifully by Kelsey Venter, who plays Polly Peachum. In general, Venter's numbers were all highlights. She went for a more restrained approach, allowing her powerful voice and the lyrics/music to create the moment, instead of a punk schtick overselling the emotion.
The brutal look, with prostitute's having visible bruises on their face and limbs and beggars having exaggerated torn clothes and dirty faces, was distracting at times, acting against the story. At other times, it worked better, giving weight to lyrics that describe their brutal lives and underscoring descriptions of Macheath's brutality.
Overall, it's a good production with some strong standouts. I'd recommend you go see it, but even it's extended run is sold out. There are a few tickets that come up for sale just before show time, but from listening to others in the line/lobby, they seemed difficult to get.
I haven't seen The Threepenny Opera before, so some of my comments here are about the play itself, rather than this staging. The story is a strange and silly little adaptation of a story from the 18th century, with the antihero nature of Macheath, "Mack The Knife" amped up. The lyrics give forth a depressing and squalid view of life, but are married to memorable tunes in a way that makes them enjoyable and ironic. Macheath is described as viscous, a rapist and murderer, but he is portrayed as a sometimes gallant, sometimes weaselly free spirit since none of his more terrible acts are shown on stage. This allows the audience to cheer for him, rather than wanting to see him executed.
The production marries a punk ethos to Brecht's Marxist lyrics in a way that seems obvious in retrospect, but I can't find any online discussions of it being done before. The result is a brutal but vital looking play with more energy than is good for it at times. The opening rendition of "Mack The Knife" is sold so energetically and "punk" that it almost ruins the song itself. Other songs have the background singers/dancers pounding around in such chaos that a similar result ensues. Thankfully, this is not true of some of the other numbers, such as "Pirate Jenny", which is sung beautifully by Kelsey Venter, who plays Polly Peachum. In general, Venter's numbers were all highlights. She went for a more restrained approach, allowing her powerful voice and the lyrics/music to create the moment, instead of a punk schtick overselling the emotion.
The brutal look, with prostitute's having visible bruises on their face and limbs and beggars having exaggerated torn clothes and dirty faces, was distracting at times, acting against the story. At other times, it worked better, giving weight to lyrics that describe their brutal lives and underscoring descriptions of Macheath's brutality.
Overall, it's a good production with some strong standouts. I'd recommend you go see it, but even it's extended run is sold out. There are a few tickets that come up for sale just before show time, but from listening to others in the line/lobby, they seemed difficult to get.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
A few days ago I finished Heavy Time by C.J. Cherryh.
It's set in the same universe as Rimrunners, but in a very different time and place. This one is set in our solar system and involves miners working on asteroids. It starts with a distress call that two miners answer hoping for salvage and instead find one person still alive. That person is very damaged - not only physically, but mentally out of whack after having spent months trying to survive. The rest of the book follows the miners as they return to base, try to claim there salvage, and deal with the oppressive company that runs the mining operations and has secrets to protect.
It was more enjoyable than Rimrunners, though the point of view of the disturbed character gets old after a while. He slowly recovers, but the emphasis is on slowly.
Cherryh's approach is interesting, because she keeps things at a very low level and therefore her plots are more intimate and cover less ground than many SF works. I will probably keep reading these books, since they make good stand alone SF novels as well as contributing to a nicely varied and deep background universe.
It's set in the same universe as Rimrunners, but in a very different time and place. This one is set in our solar system and involves miners working on asteroids. It starts with a distress call that two miners answer hoping for salvage and instead find one person still alive. That person is very damaged - not only physically, but mentally out of whack after having spent months trying to survive. The rest of the book follows the miners as they return to base, try to claim there salvage, and deal with the oppressive company that runs the mining operations and has secrets to protect.
It was more enjoyable than Rimrunners, though the point of view of the disturbed character gets old after a while. He slowly recovers, but the emphasis is on slowly.
Cherryh's approach is interesting, because she keeps things at a very low level and therefore her plots are more intimate and cover less ground than many SF works. I will probably keep reading these books, since they make good stand alone SF novels as well as contributing to a nicely varied and deep background universe.
Monday, January 11, 2010
This morning I finished Personal Injuries by Scott Turow.
Another excellent book from Turow. While technically in the legal thriller genre, Turow's characters are so real that they elevate his works well beyond that genre. His plots are also a stand out, avoiding the cliches and action packed finales that show up in a lot of genre writing.
This one involves the efforts of a DA to bring down a number of crooked judges in Kindle County, the setting of all Turow's books. In an unexpected choice, the protagonist is actually the defense attorney of the lawyer who is pushed into being an informant. He is almost totally passive in the book, serving almost exclusively as a conduit to tell others story, mainly that of the informant and the FBI agent that has to shadow him as he tries to get the crooked judges and civil servants to expose themselves on tape.
In addition to being a great read with some wonderful, complex characters, it also serves as a procedural for how complex investigations can play out, with interesting but believable twists and turns along the way.
Another excellent book from Turow. While technically in the legal thriller genre, Turow's characters are so real that they elevate his works well beyond that genre. His plots are also a stand out, avoiding the cliches and action packed finales that show up in a lot of genre writing.
This one involves the efforts of a DA to bring down a number of crooked judges in Kindle County, the setting of all Turow's books. In an unexpected choice, the protagonist is actually the defense attorney of the lawyer who is pushed into being an informant. He is almost totally passive in the book, serving almost exclusively as a conduit to tell others story, mainly that of the informant and the FBI agent that has to shadow him as he tries to get the crooked judges and civil servants to expose themselves on tape.
In addition to being a great read with some wonderful, complex characters, it also serves as a procedural for how complex investigations can play out, with interesting but believable twists and turns along the way.
Friday, January 08, 2010
I just finished Man of Constant Sorrow by Ralph Stanley and Eddie Dean.
It's obvious from reading it that it is really Eddie Dean writing up and connecting together stories told to him by Dr. Stanley. At times, there are sentences or pieces of stories repeated in different chapters but 0ther than that, he does a very good job of weaving the stories together into a coherent narrative.
Like all autobiographies, this book can be a little too self serving. Ralph clearly sees himself as someone who says it the way he sees it, and he has a lot of regard for himself as a musician and a "living legend". It also has some holes that you wouldn't find in a more objective biography - there is only a single sentence mentioning his first marriage and his son, Ralph Stanley II, is only mentioned briefly in the last chapter.
I am a huge fan of the Stanley Brothers -- they are my favourite bluegrass band, by far -- so the earlier parts of the books were very interesting to me. Learning where some of their songs came from, and about the hard times they lived through, even up to and past Carter's death, as well as a lot of other facts about their lives, probably wouldn't suit some audiences but it was perfect for me.
Most of the other original bluegrass stars, like Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, and Jimmy Martin, are gone and it is a shame we don't have a record of their stories as told by them. It is a great thing for bluegrass that at least one of them went on the record and told it like they saw it.
Highly recommended for bluegrass fans.
It's obvious from reading it that it is really Eddie Dean writing up and connecting together stories told to him by Dr. Stanley. At times, there are sentences or pieces of stories repeated in different chapters but 0ther than that, he does a very good job of weaving the stories together into a coherent narrative.
Like all autobiographies, this book can be a little too self serving. Ralph clearly sees himself as someone who says it the way he sees it, and he has a lot of regard for himself as a musician and a "living legend". It also has some holes that you wouldn't find in a more objective biography - there is only a single sentence mentioning his first marriage and his son, Ralph Stanley II, is only mentioned briefly in the last chapter.
I am a huge fan of the Stanley Brothers -- they are my favourite bluegrass band, by far -- so the earlier parts of the books were very interesting to me. Learning where some of their songs came from, and about the hard times they lived through, even up to and past Carter's death, as well as a lot of other facts about their lives, probably wouldn't suit some audiences but it was perfect for me.
Most of the other original bluegrass stars, like Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, and Jimmy Martin, are gone and it is a shame we don't have a record of their stories as told by them. It is a great thing for bluegrass that at least one of them went on the record and told it like they saw it.
Highly recommended for bluegrass fans.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Yesterday I finished Rimrunners by C. J. Cherryh.
I haven't read any Cherryh in a long time, and didn't remember liking her all that much, but I enjoyed this book.
It follows Elizabeth "Bet" Yeager as she tries to get a job on a ship, not really caring where it goes, as long as it is away from the station she is trapped on with no prospects and no money. Eventually, she finds a birth on a ship, forms some friendships, gets into trouble and then helps fend off an attack. All this is made much more difficult because she is a former Marine with the opposing military, something she tries to conceal from her new crew mates.
The book starts off slowly, with her stuck on the station and dealing with other reprobates and getting more and more despondent. The situation only gets slightly less grim as she gets a job on a ship where there are massive crew problems, including violence. The grim tone is a little off putting as well. But the book picks up as it goes along and has a strong conclusion.
I haven't read any Cherryh in a long time, and didn't remember liking her all that much, but I enjoyed this book.
It follows Elizabeth "Bet" Yeager as she tries to get a job on a ship, not really caring where it goes, as long as it is away from the station she is trapped on with no prospects and no money. Eventually, she finds a birth on a ship, forms some friendships, gets into trouble and then helps fend off an attack. All this is made much more difficult because she is a former Marine with the opposing military, something she tries to conceal from her new crew mates.
The book starts off slowly, with her stuck on the station and dealing with other reprobates and getting more and more despondent. The situation only gets slightly less grim as she gets a job on a ship where there are massive crew problems, including violence. The grim tone is a little off putting as well. But the book picks up as it goes along and has a strong conclusion.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Last night I finished Revelation Space, the debut novel of Alastair Reynolds.
Revelation Space has a "space opera" feel, but with more of a hard science fiction background. For example, there is no faster than light travel here but there is aggressive nanotechnology and other exotic science ideas.
It's quite an enjoyable book, once it gets going, and a surprisingly good debut. At the beginning, the multiple story lines were a big bewildering, particularly because they moved around in time in unclear ways. Leaving things un-explained at the start is a common SF writing style, but if not done carefully, it can be very off putting. Once you get past that, and the stories start to flow individually, and then come together, the novel improves a lot. The end also has some flaws, as the amount of exposition increases almost exponentially, pulling away from the story/characters at times but necessary to explain what is going on.
The story itself is pretty complex, starting with an archaeological find, an assasin and a spaceship needing a crew replacement. Later there are coup's on colonies, clones revealed, battles between AIs for people's minds, aliens that turn out to be different than what they appear and a final decision that needs to be made.
Revelation Space has a "space opera" feel, but with more of a hard science fiction background. For example, there is no faster than light travel here but there is aggressive nanotechnology and other exotic science ideas.
It's quite an enjoyable book, once it gets going, and a surprisingly good debut. At the beginning, the multiple story lines were a big bewildering, particularly because they moved around in time in unclear ways. Leaving things un-explained at the start is a common SF writing style, but if not done carefully, it can be very off putting. Once you get past that, and the stories start to flow individually, and then come together, the novel improves a lot. The end also has some flaws, as the amount of exposition increases almost exponentially, pulling away from the story/characters at times but necessary to explain what is going on.
The story itself is pretty complex, starting with an archaeological find, an assasin and a spaceship needing a crew replacement. Later there are coup's on colonies, clones revealed, battles between AIs for people's minds, aliens that turn out to be different than what they appear and a final decision that needs to be made.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Last night we say the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience at the Freight & Salvage.
It was a great show, by a great group of local musicians - David Grisman, Keith Little, Jim Nunally, Chad Manning and Sam Grisman. They did two sets mixed between bluegrass standards and Grisman originals.
I've seen other shows of DGBX but this was the best one so far. In addition, it was good to see the new Freight full. I've seen two other shows there with very small crowds, but this one was sold out.
The new Freight is a great place to see music. I liked the old Freight because of the great acts they got, but I never liked the sound there. The new Freight is not only very nice to look at, but has excellent sound.
It was a great show, by a great group of local musicians - David Grisman, Keith Little, Jim Nunally, Chad Manning and Sam Grisman. They did two sets mixed between bluegrass standards and Grisman originals.
I've seen other shows of DGBX but this was the best one so far. In addition, it was good to see the new Freight full. I've seen two other shows there with very small crowds, but this one was sold out.
The new Freight is a great place to see music. I liked the old Freight because of the great acts they got, but I never liked the sound there. The new Freight is not only very nice to look at, but has excellent sound.
Friday, January 01, 2010
Year In Review - 2009
My favourite book I read this year:
My favourite concert I attended this year:
Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner. As I said at the time, "Well written, well researched, overall excellent".
My favourite concert I attended this year:
It was a year of great concerts with Devo, Hot Club of Cowtown, Audie Blaylock and Redline, Town Mountain and others, but there was one clear winner - Heaven and Hell, the Dio version of Black Sabbath, at the Warfield. Seeing musicians like this at a smaller venue, was simply amazing and exceeded my high expectations.My favourite movie I saw this year:
On the other hand, it was a weak year for movies. Nothing I saw this year really blew me away. I guess I would have to give the top spot to UP. It's not as strong as Pixar's other movies, but still better than most of the dreck Hollywood puts out these days. I guess I need to see more non-Hollywood films.My favourite place visited this year:
Another strong category, from the natural scenery of Jasper and Banff, to my first trip to the mega-city of London, but my favourite is easy - Edinburgh. I wrote about it here, here and here with pictures here. A wonderful, colourful and historic city with the nicest people I've met in my trips to Europe.Most unexpected experience this year:
Jury duty - I went into it expecting to be bored by the realities of a courtroom but I came out of it with a new respect and interest in the legal field. In many ways, it was more interesting than how it is portrayed on fiction.
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