Blah Blah Blog: March 2012

One good thing about our weather - you sure can get a lot of reading done. For Valentines day Ben got me a book holder for the tub, which was ever so thoughtful and potentially useful, but although I shook out everything that was in the box, I never could find that nanny in there to help make it work. Nevertheless, here's what we got done anyhow:

What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets: Peter Menzel & Faith D'Aluisio

I fell in love with this book at Barnes and Noble when I had a few minutes to flip through it. I was stoked to stumble upon in at the library so that I could spend more time with it. Brilliant pictures, fascinating topic. It is a glimpse of a typical day's meal for folks around the world and around our own country. The disparity in caloric intake is amazing...and doesn't always seem congruous with the physical outcome. This large book (think coffee table) provides serious food for thought. The website gives you 'a taste'.

Thinking, Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahneman

Surprisingly to me, this book is the one that I took the most notes on and one I really enjoyed. What makes this book better than those on similar topics (logic, behavioral decision making, psychology) is that it is not just some flash in the pan idea that someone turns into a book, that should have just been an article. This book draws on a lifetime of personal study, heuristics, research (much with his colleague Amos Tversky who died in 1996) and experimentation. Instead of drawing primarily from the work of others, this book seems very much a project all his own. I won't re-write all of my notes but some of the topics I found most interesting include: ego-depletion and glucose demand; cognitive strain and it's affect on temptation, superficial judgement and choices; narrative fallacy and how flawed stories of the past shape our view of the world and expectation of the future; halo effect; WYSTATI = what you see is all there is; rewriting our history to make sense of the present; intuition, premonition and the inability to reconstruct former beliefs after you have changed your mind; remembering self vs. experiencing self; and tidbits here and there on marital stability, goals, happiness and well-being. I didn't tire of this book at all and feel like I know more about myself in the process.

Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism. John Updike

I don't recall ever having read an Updike novel. I'm fairly certain that they would not be permitted in high-school English, but I feel that I may have encountered him in college literature classes via a short story or two. But never mind, this 700+ page book (I did not read all of it) gives plenty of exposure. I like reading peoples view on things, and so I liked his memories of his family, his cars, his reflection on the game of poker. I also enjoyed learning more about other writers through his biographical selections. My favorite thing is his writing style. It feels like a brain massage.

Fooled by Randomness; The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Summary - It's not the survival of the fittest, it's more the lucky fool that is in the right place at the right time. How often do we see this scenario play out. I think frequently it is the case, though not an absolute. In this book Taleb, an expert on risk, analyzes and gives examples of success and loss, specifically on Wall Street. The take away - life, and the stock market, is unpredictable. I couldn't derive any method for insulating yourself from "randomness", and because I didn't get any real world application, I wish that this had been an article instead. Then I would have some time back that I could then invest in trying to get in the right place at the right time. I also checked out his book, The Bed of Procrustes, which is a collection of aphorisms the author has conjured up. A small book, but too heavy and not entertaining enough for me at this point in my life. I found it to be on the self-indulgent side. But I did enjoy getting my Greek mythology lesson for the day and learning a little more about the story of Procrustes.

Note: After finishing Thinking, Fast and Slow, there were enough references to Taleb's book Black Swan that I might give it a chance.

The Emporer of All Maladies: Siddartha Mukherjee

Knowing first-hand the time demands of a physician, I am astounded by the amount of research Dr. Mukherjee had to do to write this book, and the elegance with which he presents it. He is only 8 years older than me and in addition to attending Stanford, Oxford and Harvard, completing a residency and fellowship, and having great hair, he has already won a Pulitzer prize! Definitely not a case of just right place at right time for this guy. (I'd like to chat with his wife and see if he is also an attentive husband and father to boot) (One thing he can't do is keep his blog up to date...so he is human after all!) Mostly I listened to this in the car, some books are easier for me to listen to, some are more enjoyable to read, I found this to be the former. I can't possibly touch on the depth of information on the topic in here - but I found it fascinating some of the ancient and historical records we have of this malady. There is even papyri that indicate that they were performing surgery on breast cancer as old as 1600 B.C. or prior. The accounts of the disease and it's treatment through the ages is nothing short of fascinating. And although science has made great breakthroughs, there is no happy ending to this book yet. Which is devastating, considering how pervasive and close to home it hits these days. When introducing Dr. Mukherjee and his book on his show, Stephen Colbert said, "and in the end, cancer gets hit by a bus". Funny. But don't we all wish.

Arguably. Essays by: Christopher Hitchens

I love this cover. It's just seems to capture Hitchens' persona precisely. A few years ago, I read his article Why Women Aren't Funny (...actually I first read, Why Women Still Aren't Funny and then read it's prequel ), enjoyed it, agreed with much of it but never sought out any more of his writings. When I came across this compilation at the library I picked it up. This book is equal in size to Updike's (and actually reflects on the American author in more than one essay), and makes me feel equally as uninformed. But that's why I read I guess. I didn't read every single essay, but I enjoyed the ones I did and think that his assessment on issues and people is refreshingly fair and fearless.

Flunking Sainthood: Jana Reiss

I had recently heard an interview with this author and thought that her religious experience reflected my own, but I gave no thought to tracking down her book. But at the library a few days later, there it was on a shelf when I walked in the door. So this book is along the lines of 'Year of Living Biblically' by A.J. Jacobs, and the "stunt journalism" phenomenon. The author, whose religious denomination she never discloses, (but I knew from the interview is LDS), spends each month in a year trying to perfect herself through a specific spiritual practice, such as - fasting, prayer, charity, sabbath-day observance, gratitude, vegetarianism... She draws heavily from strong tradition based religions and their texts, saints, etc. She is pretty funny most of the time. One of my favorite lines is: “These days Jesus and I are like old marrieds – sometimes I’m a nag, and sometimes he is emotionally distant. Maybe the extremes I’m contemplating with a year of bizarre faith practices are the spiritual equivalent of greeting Jesus at the door wrapped only in cellophane. I’m trying to pop a little zing in our relationship.” I can relate to that. I enjoyed the book, I didn't feel rushed to get through it though.

The Whole Brain Child: Daniel J. Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson

This book touts 12 revolutionary strategies to nurture your child's developing mind...I can only readily recall one - using movement and physical activity to change their emotional state. So if you see my kid doing jumping jacks or running laps, I may be trying to shake the naughty out of them. I liked that this book gave me insight as to how kids brains actually work - or how the upstairs brain gets hijacked by the downstairs brain..or left by right or vice versa? I guess it doesn't matter which is which - the emotional side always trumps the logical side and this book helps give you tools to re-route it. It gave me more compassion and patience for the war going on in their tiny, cute, little (or in Cruz's case, large) heads. Now someone needs to write an illustrated board book to help them understand my physiological processes...'Why is Mommy Crazy Sometimes?: Female Hormones for Tots'

An Introduction to Kierkegaard: Peter Vardy

I remember a sister-in-law of mine mentioned once that Soren Kierkegaard was her favorite (or one of) philosopher. Having only taken one philosophy class in college - while studying abroad in Australia - my knowledge of philosophers and their works is limited and I thought that I should change that to some extent. I got this along with Kierkegaard for Beginners by Donald Palmer, which is a heavily illustrated, sometimes amusing take on the philosopher, but Vardy's distillation was more informative. Famous thinkers, artists etc. always seem to have such tragic lives, but often in their torment they can provide peace and clarity to others, so of this I am appreciative.

The Mind: Leading Scientists Explore the Brain, Memory, Personality and Happiness - Edited by John Brockman

Enjoyable essays by disparate authors on a range of topics in the realm of psychology and neuroscience. I appreciate that the authors presented their research for the average person. Topics ranged from innate differences between boys and girls (by Simon Baron-Cohen (who, yes, is related to Ali-G (cousins)), environment and personality; emotion and morality; how the brain works etc. One bit of insight that I found to be of particular interest was in an essay by Geoffrey Miller, who said "the more you understand about genetics, the more you can just relax and love your kids for who they are and who they turn out to be, and the interests that they show, and you can abandon this idea that the kids are born as formless blobs and you have to shape all of their desires and their capacities yourself. It removes some of the burden and anxiety from parents." And he goes on furthermore and explains why if you go to private school or Banning High, it may not make such a difference down the road...and that the reason the private schools are scoring higher on exams and such, is because they are taking in brighter kids to begin with. But what the essay is really about is sexual selection. I also liked the one by Jonathan Haidt, despite my disagreeing on many ideas he purports. You can read most of the stuff in this compilation, and then some, on the website Edge.org.

The New Evolution Diet: Arthur DeVany

One of my favorite things to read about is health- exercise science and nutrition. Of the books on this topic I read in the last few months this was my favorite and the exercise advice really resonates with me - random, explosive, all-out kind of workouts that "shock the body" are the best kinds. The great thing about this philosophy is that it takes way less time...and I think it's more fun. But I have always been more of a fast than slow-twitcher anyway so it's what works for me. His eating advice is along the paleo lines, together with intermittent fasting. If I lived by myself I would probably naturally gravitate toward this type of diet, but I have family members who demand bread, sugar, etc. The author himself is interesting and worth checking out - he and his wife are 73 and look amazing....so as they say, the proof is in the (sugar-free) pudding. Surprisingly this book is how I stumbled upon Nassim Taleb and his book above - he wrote an afterword.

Along this vein I also read 4-hr Body - Timothy Ferris (large volume, distilled information - science blended with research and trial, not a huge fan of the author's lifestyle) and Eat to Live -Joel Fuhrman (a veggie only book, which I can't do but can incorporate. The author says that broccoli has more protein than steak calorie for calorie. Which I didn't know, and which sounds like a LOT of broccoli.

Virus of the Mind: Richard Brodie

This is an introduction to memetics, or memes [meem]- term coined by Richard Dawkins in the 70's that is essentially an idea or belief set that we obtain from society, culture, media, upbringing etc. At first I found the book to be compelling, but tired of it quickly. I think the word meme was used too often for me. Many of his examples and arguments are valid and give insight into why we as individuals or groups hold to the beliefs we do. We are being attacked and invaded by memes all the time. One example I thought of while reading this is the 'gluten-free' craze. The campaign for this lifestyle is so rampant and sophisticated that I myself have stood in a grocery aisle contemplating whether or not I should go gluten-free, even though everything I had previously known, or recently researched indicates that it would do nothing for me except drain my pocketbook and disappoint my taste buds. So I liked that reading this book allowed me to recognize memes around me and I feel freer in being able to do so. Bottom line though, there are probably better books on the topic out there.

Catching Fire & Mockingjay: Suzanne Collins

Finished these in rapid succession to the Hunger Games. Loved the second one and the third was fine. I wouldn't have known how to end the series and I think it ended appropriately. I think that the movies will be a raging success.

For our last two days we headed West to the city of San Ignacio. We were on the hunt for Howler monkeys (which we saw en masse), temple ruins and toucans in the wild (which we never saw, and are not sure exist). There are lots of ruins in Belize but in the interest of time we saw the ones which we most accessible. The temple site at Xunantunich is small compared to nearby Tikal, but stunning nonetheless. It only took us 30 minutes to check out the ruins and then we were on our way to the jungle. Here is Ben and our taxi driver/best friend in Belize, Indian, looking out towards Guatemala:

On the bus to San Ignacio:

Ben cranking our car over the river:

We stayed at the Inn @ Cha'a Creek. Kind of. The actual Inn costs $400 a night. We actually stayed at the Macal River Camp which is the ghetto of Chaa Creek, but is only $55/night! Again, we had multiple beds in our room - 4 twins to be exact, but no facilities and no electricity, which is quaint and fine, until you need to use the common bathroom in the middle of the night and the Howlers are out in full force. Our lodging included simple, community served meals and access to all of the amenities of the resort: Canoes, infinity pools, nature center/butterfly farm, nature trails, etc., so great.

After our one night there we had to head back toward the airport and were picked up by our trusty friend Indian, taken to the Belize zoo...where we finally did see toucans, as well as tapirs and jaguars (I was not interested in seeing these in the wild). Indian also brought us lunch...a freshly caught and cooked iguana, iguana eggs and a fresh salad :). He told us he was going to catch an iguana we saw and cook it for us and he sure did!

Here is Ben trying to choke down the iguana egg. I have eaten a lot of things in my lifetime, but I couldn't quite get over the texture myself. But the iguana was good.