DAILY PHOTO: Amboseli Cranes
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PROMPT: Underrated
Alfred Krupa, Bernard Sadow, and Robert Plath, men whose inventions over thirty-three years during the late twentieth-century ushered in a new epoch in human history — the era of the wheeled suitcase.
Now, the fact that we didn’t figure out putting wheels on a suitcase until the late 20th century (and that when we did it took several long-fought permutations before wheeled suitcases were worth a damn) is a chilling testimony to how quickly General Artificial Intelligence will leave our species in the dust.
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BOOK: “Lonesome Cities” by Rod McKuen
LONESOME CITIES LTD EDIT by Rod McKuenMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Google Books Page
Rod McKuen is the posterchild for poets who were loathed and brutalized by critics, yet who had massive popular followings. He is the Minecraft Movie of poets. McKuen was also a songwriter and recording artist. Poet and lyricist seem almost identical career fields (one makes money for being a simplified version of the other [the poor] one,) but I suspect in their differences one finds a big chunk of the resolution to the aforementioned disparity. At the end of this collection is a chapter entitled “13 Songs” that contains a baker’s dozen of poems that are pop lyric-esque. Until I got to these, I thought McKuen may have been getting an unfair wrap for being schmaltzy and pedestrian, but when I got to them, I could see the truth in the criticism.
This is not to say McKuen would have been as harshly judged today as he was in 1968 when this book came out. He was a bisexual man who is most famous for writing “Seasons in the Sun” (an unambiguously schmaltzy song made popular by Terry Jacks in a much more up-tempo version,) and in an era in which academics were “total squares.”
At any rate, this collection, which is largely organized by city, is a fun read.
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PROMPT: Minimalist
You own few things and nothing owns you.
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Prickly Pear [Haiku]
prickly pears bloom:
yellow offering bowls —
bees give & take.
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DAILY PHOTO: Valley, Boz-Salkyn
BOOK: “The Writing Life” by Annie Dillard
The Writing Life by Annie DillardMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher site – Harper
This essay lays out what it takes to write through discussion of Dillard’s first-hand experience writing. Issues discussed include the ability to not only hack away at one’s work but sometimes to wholly abandon it to restart from a blank page, the time it takes, and the need for a space of one’s own and solitude. The final chapter takes a twist, telling the story of a stunt pilot who lived in the same area as Dillard, a story that I took as an allegory for the writing life.
I’d highly recommend this book for writers, but also for those who like to read well-crafted writing.
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BOOK: “Food Rules” by Michael Pollan
Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael PollanMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Author’s booksite
This book consists of sixty-four rules for healthier eating / escaping modern quasi-food, most with a brief explanation or discussion of exceptions and pitfalls. It is arranged in three parts according to Pollan’s famous food haiku — i.e. “eat food // mostly plants // not too much.” While a lot of the rules are (by the author’s admission) redundant, the clever statement of varied rules keeps them from feeling stale.
Some of my favorites are:
2.) “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”
7.) “Avoid food products containing ingredients a third-grader cannot pronounce.”
13.) “Eat only foods that will eventually rot.”
18.) “Don’t ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap.”
31.) “Eat wild foods when you can.”
36.) “Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.”
39.) “Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.”
40.) “Be the kind of person who takes supplements — then skip the supplements.”
47.) “Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.”
52.) “Buy smaller plates and glasses.”
57.) “Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.”
I’d recommend everyone read this book. It’s a quick and amusing read with punchy statements of food wisdom that stick in the brain.
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BOOK: “Night Lights” by Molnár József & Péter Szilas
Night lights by Jozsef MolnarMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher – Atlantisz
Budapest was a city on the cutting edge in the 19th century. This fact is often lost to people who today see it as a city that’s doing okay getting to its feet in the wake of the Cold War, but it’s worth noting that it was a major world capital before that. This is exemplified by the fact that Budapest had the first subway train (Line No. 1., opened in May of 1896.) It’s also seen in the subject of this book, the development of streetlights and lighting of public spaces.
This pamphlet / book of 56 pages is put out by Budapest’s City Hall and includes a great many color photos of important structures, historic and modern, from around the city (all taken at night to display said lighting.) The text covers the history of Budapest’s public lighting from a 1777 decree by Maria Theresa (ruler of the Hapsburg monarchy, 1740-1780) that set the stage for the first street lighting to the post-World War II floodlighting of major sights (e.g. Parliament and the Vajdahunyad Palace.) So, the book covers the period from gaslighting (and oil lighting) through the modern electrical grid, as well as the transition between.
I’d recommend this little book for those interested in the development of cities. It’s fascinating considering what the world was like in the absence of infrastructure that we now take for granted.
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DAILY PHOTO: Dirt Road in the Laotian Countryside
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Tiger Riding for Beginners 