Emergency by Neil Strauss

Neil Strauss, probably most famous for his Motley Crue book the Dirt and his book about Pick-Up Artists, the Game, gets a little freaked out about the state of the world. Then he looks into it a little more and gets a lot freaked out, especially when he has to admit to himself that after a life lived in the city where a rolling blackout was the closest thing to the apocalypse so far, he is unprepared to survive any sort of calamity. So, throwing himself into his subject as usual, he decides to do whatever it takes to prepare himself.

The writing style is good. Neil Strauss has a way of writing that pulls you through just about whatever he’s covering. However, if you’re looking for a good book about survivalists, becoming a survivalist, or some kind of survivalist manual, look somewhere else.

A lot of the book is devoted to his attempts to get dual citizenship so that he has somewhere to go WTSHTF (When the Shit Hits the Fan). These parts are not very exciting. They mostly serve to make you understand that it’s tough to get citizenship somewhere else, which is a little scary, but the ultimate answer is that you can get a second citizenship just about anywhere, the only factor being how much you are willing to spend. Fucked up, yes, but not terribly surprising.

Because I don’t have a couple hundred thousand to spend (and I suspect most people don’t) I found those parts of the books pretty much worthless. It’s sort of like reading a book about a beginning chef who spends a shitload on ingredients that are way out of your price range. Other sections are more entertaining. It’s not so much that I was looking for survivalist tips, but reading about him going to a tracking school or spending a week without power and water is way more engaging than reading about how it sucks that shit is expensive and that the burecratic process in small island nations is very slow.

Other reviews say that he spends a good amount of time explaining the Why behind his wanting to learn survivalism. I would half agree with that. He does a good job highlighting events and policy changes that might make a person a little worried about living in the United States, explaining why he’s scared and why he thinks something bad might happen. What he doesn’t do (except for a brief section near the end) is explain the point of surviving in a wasteland.

When you read an apocalyptic book, like the Road, it has to occur to you that the main characters could just lay down and die. It does to me, anyway. But I never get to ask these fictional characters what keeps them moving, so the author has to make some attempt to explain it. In Emergency, I wanted to hear why someone would want to survive in an existence that most people, himself included towards the beginning, would consider hellish. Strauss was preparing himself to survive in the woods in a shelter made of sticks and leaves, but I don’t know why or what the point of that life might be. That was something I was looking for and didn’t get.

An unusual part of the book is that there is an armchair treasure hunt incorporated into it. There are short sections written in comic book form, and each of these sections includes a clue that is supposed to reveal the location of a cache that Strauss buried at one point in the book. Because I’m a dork, I spent a good hour trying to find the clues, figure out what they meant, and then figure out where the cache is. After that, I have no idea still. Okay, that’s not totally true. I have some idea, but nothing of confidence, so I’ll let you all know when I find the damn thing because now it’s an obsession. I bet my girlfriend will appreciate taking a vacation to some woods to unbury a box, especially when I don’t have the right spot and we spend three days digging holes.

The first thing I’d heard of like this was buried in David Blaine’s book. Supposedly there were clues hidden throughout that would lead you to $100,000 worth of treasure. And supposedly some lady found it. You can see the solution here: http://www.thefoolsparadise.com/db/solution.htm

To be honest, the whole thing is way too involved for me to even consider the possibility, and I question whether someone actually solved it or not. There’s a photo blog by the person who solved it, which seems pretty convenient as well, especially the part where she gives up when she’s almost there and then sees something on her drive home that gives her a Eureka! moment straight out of some Sherlock Holmes bullshit. Call me crazy, but I don’t trust someone who stands around in a block of ice and spends way too much time maintaining his beard and not nearly enough on those eyebrows.

On a similar books/treasure hunt path, there was and still is a circulating rumor that there is a secret ending to Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor which is embedded in the hardback back cover of some first edition copies.

The rumor has never proven true, from what I can tell. Maybe it’s a ploy by someone with a few first editions to try and rarify it and drive up the value. Although I can’t personally prove it either way, I have to believe that someone who found it wouldn’t be against providing photographic or textual evidence. But it’s kind of a cool rumor anyway.

So, pick up Emergency if you’re looking for an entertaining read and that’s about it. If you get through the first couple sections with no problems, then you’ll only build up speed from there.

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

After I finished this book, someone asked me whether it’s a good book for non-runners. Honestly, I have no idea.

Running has been a big part of my life for some time now. For the last ten years I’ve run. So it’s hard to say. When you put enough time into something, it’s pretty hard to separate yourself from it.

I can’t write a review from a non-runner’s perspective because that would be total speculation on my part.

What I can do is tell you that this is a fantastic book. If you are a runner, this is a must-read, easily the best book about running out there, and I’ve read a ton. You won’t find anything this in-depth, in touch, and you’ll never read anything else that gives you the vicarious thrills of superathletes and scientists alike.

The story is about the greatest endurance race of all time, but really that’s only a small part. It’s about a man who is feeling his body age and trying to figure what he can do about it. It’s about Caballo Blanco, a living legend whose story, a tall tale, is only more incredible because it is 100% true. The story of the Leadville 100 and the Tarahumara racing against Ann Trason is one of the best sports stories on the planet, expertly told by McDougall, and as any great sports story, it brings about greater truths about who we are and why we run.

More than anything, this books sets out to prove its title. Through science, through example, and through story after story of one incredible athlete after another, this book will leave no doubt in your mind that the greatest athletes in the world still like to get their drink on, that a group of humans can run down a deer, and that you and I were born to do it too.

It’s motivated me to try some new things. I don’t know if chia seeds are making me faster or stronger. And I can’t say for sure that barefoot running has unchained my feet and transformed them into running machines. But I can say that the spirit of the runners, Barefoot Ted, Scott Jurek, Billy “Bonehead” and Jen, the Lunas, and the dozens of characters in this book, each one more incredible than the last, the spirit of these runners is infectious and fuck this review I’m hitting the road.

City of Thieves by David Benioff

I try to avoid WWII stories most of the time. I just feel a little over it. So when my book club picked City of Thieves I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was a WWII drama. On the other hand, it was written by David Benioff, the same guy who brought us the 25th Hour, so there was reason to think that it might not be the kind of schmaltzy, life-affiriming thing we've come to expect from WWII fiction. And on the other, third(?) hand, a Russian library regular told me that he had read the book and that it seemed better researched than most of the American books about Russia.

The thing that makes City of Thieves different is that it doesn't feel like a book trying to force emotion on you by being set in WWII. It's a better-told story than that, putting the plot and the strong dialogue out there and letting the reader decide how to feel. There were moments of levity, and there were moments of darkness. But the reason it works is because the book doesn't ask us to do what so many others do, which is to erase all previous joy because of the new suffering. Just because things are bad on page 78, the book doesn't expect readers to forget they were laughing on page 68. It also has a very extemporaneous feel, less planned and plotted out, more characters thrown into the grinder and ending up one place or another. It surprises readers without going for the big twist.
It's written almost exactly the way we like our war stories. There is viloence, danger, broadly drawn heroes The story is almost a little too fantastic in spots, but that's exactly what makes it a pitch-perfect war story as opposed to a war novel.

The Internet Is a Playground by David Thorne

This book brings up the old question of Why Not Just Read It on the Internets?

What a great question, you jerk.

The success of David Thorne’s web site, www.27bslash6.com, got him a book deal. A complete book deal with pages, inks, cover, and so on. But part of the site’s success is that, working in graphic design, the web site is nicely formatted for computer viewing. Really it’s like reading an e-book where the intended format was a tiny screen. So why would one then take that e-book format and timewarp it into an analog book?

Well, because I don’t have the damn internet at home. Hence the above “jerk” comment.

The book is at its best in the email strings between David and his coworkers, local Blockbuster, and his son’s teacher. Like a sort of email Jerky Boy, he strings them along and the joke becomes the fact that someone would continue to correspond as long as they do. How much does someone have to tell you about the motion picture Water World before you, as a Blockbuster employee, feel that you’ve done your due diligence and let the dude rot in bad credit land? Apparently about one shitload.

The other postings vary. Some pretty great. Some great. Some pretty. Some none of those things.

You can probably just read it for free. Hell, you’re reading this on the internet right now, right? Try out this article: http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html and see if you like it.

Where We Going, Daddy? by Jean-Louis Fournier

This is a book that deserves more attention than it’s getting. It’s a quick read, no more than an afternoon of time.

Before going any further, here’s letting you know that I’m going to refer to the children in the book as handicapped. I don’t know that this is the most sensitive term, though I am certain it’s not the most insensitive. I am a believer in the power of words, but part of that power is their ability to shift. Yesterday’s retard is today’s differently-abled person. That’s fine, except don’t forget that today’s acceptable term is tomorrow’s slur. So just understand that I am using “handicapped” today with no malice or agenda.

Jean-Louis Fouriner is a French humorist who fathered two severely handicapped sons. He doesn’t go into great detail about just what we’re talking about, but that’s what makes the book so excellent. He’s not trying to convince anyone out there to treat handicapped people one way or another. The book isn't about how hard it is to be handicapped, how the other kids make fun of his boys and that sort of thing. It's about being the father of two boys who have, as the phrase he adopted goes, "heads full of straw."

If you are looking for an uplifting tale of humanity and all its different forms, you will be disappointed by this book. He mocks them at times, almost seeming cruel when he asks idly, “How is the trigonometry coming?” Or when he tells his son, “Close your mouth. You look retarded.” He also spends a lot of time speculating what his life might have been like if his sons were different. How would they spend their days? What would they enjoy? However, it's clear that he truly cares for the boys. He has spent so much time speculating on their shuttered inner lives that it would be impossible to say otherwise.

The truth is that the humanity explored here is Fournier’s, not that of his boys. As he puts it,

Aren't you ashamed, Jean-Louis, you of all people, their own father, making fun of two little kids who can't even defend themselves?

No. It doesn't mean I don't have any feelings.

I think maybe this book is missing the broader audience for a few reasons. I think to some it seems too precious, to likely to fall into the category where all life is a miracle and handicapped children happily fingerpaint and never really grow old. I assure you this is not the case. In fact, it is far less so than most baby books and growing up memoirs.

Clearly this is not a comfortable topic for many people, which must also have something to do with it. But this is not a book written for parents of the handicapped. Fournier gives the reader a gut check every here and there, but not the kind designed to make the reader feel guilty. Not the kind that says, "You'll never understand." Like any good artist, he tries to help the reader understand something without trying to point out how little they already grasp.

If I can make a sort of analogy here, I don't read a lot of books related to the Holocaust. Sure, it was horrible and fascinating in its own way. There's a lot of material to cover there. But often you'll find that books that use the Holocaust as the center are using it to up the emotional ante. They aren't really telling me much about the topic, and they are counting on our history classes to fill in the characters. It's a way of creating a sort of artificial high, a tension and emotion that is implanted into the book by force of history. Going in, that was my fear with Fournier's book as well, that this was going to be a day-in, day-out drag of life that's a little off course, but that the tension would be raised by the very existence of handicapped children.

It's not.

Just like any good book that deals with the tragedy, you get the sense that if things had been different, this book never would have been written. And just like any good author dealing with hard times, you get the sense that the author would have preferred to forgo living the material.

Cheesemonger by Gordon Edgar

I’m not what you’d call a foodie. I do like to cook, and I’m working on getting better at it, but at the same time knowing the ins and outs of foods isn’t a passion of mine. To put it simply, I love me an Oatmeal Cream Pie that’s been sitting in the glovebox (aka Dessert Cart) for a couple days.

That said, this book is pretty entertaining for someone who isn’t already interested in cheese.

What separates this book from other food books is that Edgar, though passionate about cheese, doesn’t try to foist his passion on everyone else. Edgar’s cheese vocabulary is helpful. He doesn’t use a bunch of bullshit terms that have no meaning. Edgar’s realistic, unapologetic for growing up on cheap-ass cheese, and he must have taken half a dozen opportunities in this book to say that you shouldn’t waste your money on the best cheese if you’re putting it on a plate for a big gathering or preparing a meal for a large group. The strengths of the book are the writing and Edgar’s honesty. In other words, he is not interested in making cheese the new wine.

The book also has some pretty decent sections on running co-ops and the harsh reality of agribusiness as well. Definitely worthwhile if you’re any sort of manager, but also if you’re interested in the world of work in general. One could draw parallels to books like Waiter Rant in terms of dealing with some difficult people and the ways in which retail economics play into food.

The rougher sections, for me at least, were the larger geo-political portions. I think he may have some decent points about Reaganomics and our reasons for fearing French cuisine, but I was a lot more interested in the ins and outs of the cheese.

The biggest success of the book is in its desire to introduce noobs to the cheese world. Every chapter ends with specific cheese recommendations and the book ends with a brief guide on how to buy cheese. This isn’t a book for food snobs or people that think certain foods are only for people who know all about them already. Edgar can’t say it (though, without putting words in his mouth, he seems to dance around it) because these people are his bread and butter, or at least the spreadable cheese, but food insiders can be really goddamn annoying. They’re kind of like people who like a band only up to the moment in which they become popular in that they seem to like the actual product less than what the product says about them. To them, a food becoming popular is a bad thing. A club just isn’t a club if you can’t turn people away at the door.

After reading this book I was motivated to try a couple cheeses he recommended. I should point out that I don’t live anywhere near a cheese shop or even a Whole Foods, so these were purchased at the tiny salad-bar-cheese-counter-conversion thing at King Soopers. To recap: a know-nothing purchasing cheese from a place that probably spends more time deciding what goes in the Halloween aisle than the cheese case. So take it all with a grain of salt. The size of a meteor.

The first was Parmigiano Reggiano. This cheese comes up over and over in the book because it’s reasonably priced, hard to mess up, and because there is honestly a world of difference between the wedge of cheese I bought and the dust that comes in the green can. Don’t get me wrong, this is not me swearing off the green can. But the cheese is pretty damn good plain, and maybe it’s not the best use of good cheese, but try it as the cheese for your next Alfredo sauce. I wasn’t an Alfredo fan until I tried it with Parmigiano Reggiano. The flavor of the cheese is tempered a little by the cooking, I think, but the Alfredo has an actual taste besides salty milk, and the sauce had some stick to it instead of being so watery.

The second cheese I tried was Taleggio. The book said that it’s somewhat of a beginner in terms of stinky cheese. And stinky it was. The smell was…unpleasant. Biological. Foot-y. But I cut a piece off and ate it anyway. This is one of the few food experiences I can think of where the smell of the food was somewhat distant from the taste. It was like a horror movie where the trailer is scary as hell, but then you sit down and the overall feeling is much milder.

Taleggio, I’m afraid, won’t be finding its way into my regular rotation. The softness combined with the stink was a little, um, advanced for my liking. The texture was a little like a rubbery cream cheese. I know, really appetizing. But hey, as an adult you really never have to eat new things. When you’re a kid, you’re eating new crap all the time. You hate it half the time, maybe because it’s infused with the bitterness you feel towards your parents for making you eat it, but there’s something to be said for trying a new food variety once in a while, no?
If you are interested in food, or at least want to take a second look at that cheese case when you go to the grocery store, give Cheesemonger a shot. Hell, it’s a good read either way.

Tips on Banning Books

This gem of a human you see to my left recently tried to have manga (Japanese comics) banned from the library.

Why?

She says of the books, "My son lost his mind when he found this...Now he's in a home for extensive therapy."

I don't want to attack the victim too much here, but if a Japanese comic from the public library sent you spiraling into a loony bin, maybe you didn't have a super tight grasp on reality to begin with.

Could that dude in the middle of the picture look any more bored? He doesn't look like he gives one damn.

So why do people try to ban books? Really, what's the point, especially when most attempts to ban a book only result in a dramatic sales increase?

However, that sales increase is what I'm banking on should I ever crank out some shit book, so I would like to present a little advice on getting a book ban done right.

Tip 1: Try your best to come off as some sort of sane person. If you appear in front of some board or city council at some point, don't wear your loudest blue floral dress. I know you really want to draw attention to yourself, but you're taking it a little too far. Museum guides don't use those glowing orange popsicle things that the guys on the airport runway use, so let's calm it down a couple notches. Broadcast your sanity and people might take you a little more seriously.

Tip 2: Maybe be a little more realistic about your claim of a book's effects. For example, rather than trying to convince me that a teenager's psyche was destroyed by a scantily clad woman or someone with a sword slicing through his abdomen, you explain the realistic consequences. For example, in this case these books have the negative effect of you bothering everyone at this stupid meeting where they probably don't get anything done anyway, so they can reduce this effect by pulling the books.

Tip 3: Leave god out of it. I know you're really tempted to get god-y, but hold on a sec. What you really want to do is call someone out, not bring someone in. Tango Makes Three is challenged a lot because the penguins are gay(?), but let the others bring in the part where god's not cool with that. Call out the gays, the people who speak Spanish, or whoever, but let god be implied. Hell, he's everywhere, right? He doesn't need your help.

Tip 4: Actually read some of the material. The first questions a library or school are going to ask you will concern the specifics of what you found offensive. That means page numbers. That means passages. Luckily for you, when my shit book comes out it'll have a little card in the back that tells you where all the absolute worst shit is. That will help you speed up the process.

Tip 5: Don't hold a book burning or try to hoard all the copies or some such shit. And there's a damn good reason for this: Where are you getting the copies? Unless you're robbing an author of copies in his garage, the author is putting coin in his pocket when you bring one to toss on the fire. A book sells for the same money regardless of whether you take it home and read it a hundred times or use it to steady a wobbly table. Even if you steal it, the store absorbs that cost, not the publisher, definitely not the author. And they will order more. So again, don't waste your time trying to take away the copies from anybody else, except in the case of my book. In that case, you're lucky because I'm doing an extra print run of cheaply bound copies meant to be burned. Please buy enough to make an impressive fire and keep me in sunglasses.

In conclusion, stop wasting your time. More importantly, stop wasting everyone else's time. I'm a fan of a lost cause, but don't push it, freedom fighter.