Tuesday, May 13, 2008 | by nathan

Things I Learned About My Dad (in therapy), edited by Heather Armstrong

I’ve been reading dooce for almost four years now. When I first discovered Heather Armstrong’s blog I’d already pitched a couple attempts at blogging onto the internet and found myself stymied, not only by the general malaise that tends to come with blogging over a long period of time, but with a general lack of community, role models, or the feeling that I wasn’t just shouting into the void. I started this blog when I started finding more excellent sites like Heather’s, written by people with great perspectives and crazy talent.

I was justifiably excited, then, when I found out that Heather was coming out with an anthology of essays about fatherhood, cobbled together from some of the web’s best writers. Though Heather is often unfairly shunted into the "Mommy Blogger" category, her website - and this book - are so much more than the typical mommy blogger fare.

Oh, and how much more. (Click the photo to order).

For me what’s rewarding about having read this book - I finished it in just a few days because of how compelling it was - is realizing the transitions we go through in life in how we think about our parents. In one essay Heather calls herself out for once immaturely trying to blame all her emotional shortcomings on her parents - who hasn’t been there? With age that attitude seems more and more wrongheaded and useless, and we grow out of it.

The book also features a whole host of men writing about their experiences as fathers, which had me feeling heavy and hot with baby fever there for about half an hour while I was reading it. That is, until I got out the bourbon and was able to stay up until whatever time I wanted without being really responsible for the life and welfare of another human being. Until that. But it did get me thinking about the possibilities of parenthood.

A particular favorite moment in the book, for me, was the essay by Sarah Brown in which she extolls her father’s virtues to the highest heavens. I loved it not only because Sarah’s an Okie and an occasional visitor to this website (hi Sarah!) but because what she says about her dad is almost exactly what I’d say about mine, only I didn’t know it until I read her piece.

I think my favorite thing about this book is that it totally defied my expectations. Other than Heather, Sarah, and a handful of others, I hadn’t read much by the authors included in this book. Despite the fact that I am a blogger and a writer, I sometimes find that the internet is filled with needless posturing by people whose main emotional need seems to be the need to appear cool, and so when I see books written by bloggers I’m skeptical: how is this guy going to tell this story so I’ll think he’s the awesomest person ever and want nothing more in life than to have a beer with him?

What we get here is a bunch of people talking without affectation, without pretense about fatherhood - about their own fathers, about their experiences as fathers and how one informs the other. The essays are occasionally hilarious and always heartfelt, and each one of them made me want to call my dad up and tell him I love him. So - I think I will. Excuse me.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008 | by nathan

The Party Faithful by Amy Sullivan

In the fall of 2004, about a month before the presidential election, a dear friend from college told me he was voting for George W. Bush because, "I just think it’s wise to vote for someone who’s a believer."

Never in my life have I wanted so badly to kick another human being in the balls.

Amy Sullivan’s book The Party Faithful examines the origins of the idea that we have in America that the Republican party is the party that Jesus would join, that good Christian people should always cast their lot with the GOP. It examines how the Democratic party became - largely due to its own efforts or lack thereof - to be regarded as the party of out-of-touch elites and secularists.

This distinction, argues Sullivan, is inaccurate and harmful, not only to the Democratic party but to American politics in general. The truth is that a majority of Democratic voters - myself included - describe themselves as "religious" and attend church regularly. Our votes, in fact, reflect our religious background and beliefs, and to the extent that Republicans have been able to capture a majority of religious votes is just as much due to efforts to scare ordinary Americans over abortion and gay marriage as it is due to the refusal on the part of Democratic Party leaders to engage churchgoing voters.

All this is changing, Sullivan says, pointing to the disastrous showing of John Kerry among Catholics in the 2004 election and the failure on the part of his campaign to answer questions from voters on the subject of religion and public policy. Sullivan points out that the major Democratic contenders are all engaging these issues head-on and changing the dialogue in this country around issues of religion and politics.

For example, instead of constantly going on the defensive about abortion, Democratic candidates and consultants are actively engaging evangelical and Catholic constituents about "pro-life" issues, attempting to expand the definition of what "pro-life" means. It means not only making abortions rare - through safe-sex education and help for mothers who fear they will not be able to provide for a child - to eliminating life-destroying problems like poverty, global warming, pollution, the death penalty and war. They point out that Republicans who march blindly and ardently toward war, toward the death penalty, and away from providing assistance for people that will help prevent abortions, cannot be called truly pro-life. They’re changing the dialogue because the dialogue needs to be changed, and in the process they’re opening the eyes of the electorate to the fact that there are more pressing matters in America than abortion and gay marriage.

The book is a fascinating look at why religion does matter to all voters, and why it should. Sullivan herself is an evangelical Democrat whose work is inspired by a deep, personal faith both in Christ and in Democratic party principles. This sets it apart from other books on the subject, many of which are written from a detached religious perspective. For Sullivan (and for me) this stuff is personal and vital; it’s the question, largely, of what it means to be a Christian in America.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 | by nathan

The New Seed Starter’s Handbook by Nancy Bubel

I wanted something to help me get started again, to help me to believe in gardening after Sam ate all my plants. This book was, in a lot of ways, exactly what I needed; full of helpful, practical advice that was really easy to follow.

The problem, however, with buying any kind of hobbyist volume - even one that professes to be for beginners - is that it’s written by expert hobbyists. In this case, Nancy Bubel is an excellent gardener, but she is an excellent gardener in part because she owns a large tract of land and because she makes a living from doing this. Hence, she has almost unlimited funds and free time to care for a garden, and the book almost seems to be written for people who have the same kind of time to invest.

Fact is, I don’t have time to try eighteen different types of compost, and I really don’t have the money or yard space to do some of the more elaborate setups she describes. As with many gardening books, she offers a lot of advice that should perhaps come with a disclaimer, something like, "Plants want to grow. That’s why they exist - to grow, to flower, to produce fruit, and, finally, to produce seeds." Instead, by supplying a lot of really elaborate ways of caring for plants, from very specific, circuitous ways of layering the soil in one’s garden to how to build drip-irrigation systems, she seems to imply that anything you put in the ground will rot and die if you don’t follow her advice.

Still, overall I’d absolutely have to recommend the guide. It definitely helped me as I restarted all my seeds, and while I’m sitting here decrying her occasionally overly-elaborate growing methods, I did take her advice almost word-for-word when I built a growing shelf complete with grow lights. I never would’ve thought to do so in the exact way she described, so for the most part, I have to say I’m incredibly grateful to and for this book, as I think I may have a really good harvest once I start putting everything in the ground.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 | by nathan

The World is Flat 3.0 by Thomas L. Friedman

I’ve been behind on book reviews lately, mostly because this book has really tripped me up. I get really super irritated every time I pick it up and have a hard time reading even a few sentences before I’m alternately bored, offended, and frightened by its entire premise.

Basically Friedman’s whole idea here is that through the magic of technology, the playing field is level for workers all over the world. So - when a company outsources a whole bunch of jobs to India, that’s great! It helps India’s economy! It helps companies!

Also - he sort of skates right over the fact that those workers in India are being paid a fraction of what the same workers would be paid in America. He doesn’t seem bothered at all by the fact that hundreds of hardworking Americans are losing jobs because we have a pesky minimum wage, and one that’s not even a living wage at that! Instead, he spends the entire book praising technology for making this utopia possible; it’s a world in which now, thanks to the internet, thanks to work-flow software, thanks to outsourcing, Americans will be free to enjoy our "creative" society without having to do pesky things like work in call centers.

I find these arguments so patently offensive that I’m not even completely sure how to counter them. I think what gets my goat the most about this is this stupid argument, which has basically been around since the advent of the Internet, that just because we are now able to do certain things - telecommuting, online shopping, controlling the bollocky temperature in our bloody houses when we’re not even there - means that, oh, we absolutely should do them.

It drives me nuts because it devalues the idea that human interaction and connection is important, and it drives a way of thinking that tells us that reading a book online is just every bit as good as actually reading a book. It gets to me because Friedman goes on and on about how wonderful all this outsourcing and telecommuting is for companies, but says very little about how it affects individuals, or communities, who’ve lost their jobs or factories or economies because of outsourcing.

I find it offensive because it implies that because now someone in India or China or Bangladesh can do call-center work, that must mean the playing field is level for everyone, everywhere. It’s an overly simplistic argument that essentially lets exploitive companies off easy while simultaneously repeating the great palace lie that the internet is somehow going to be the great savior of human culture.

I have nothing against the internet - clearly, I have a website. But to hear Thomas L. Friedman talk, you’d think that it was the single greatest thing to happen to humanity in its entire history, and I’m just not sure I buy that argument. I mean - if it wasn’t for the internet, you wouldn’t have to listen to some wannabe-luddite Ivy League dropout yammer on and on about a book he couldn’t stand in large part because of how interminably boring it is.

Thursday, March 6, 2008 | by nathan

John Hedgecoe’s Photography Basics

In the summers my dad taught at a science and math camp for high school students. One of the things he offered his students was a weekly class in photography, including how to take and develop one’s own photographs. He retired when I was 15 and I grabbed John Hedgecoe’s Photography Basics from his office, hoping to become some creative, excellent black and white photographer a la Natalie Merchant in that video for "Carnival." Yeah, oh I was the epitome of awesome.

Anyway, fast forward twelve years and some odd, and I finally pick up this book. Digital photography hasn’t quite been the revolution people think it is - at the end of the day one still needs to know what constitutes a good photo and what doesn’t, and Hedgecoe’s book does a good job both of describing the rules for taking good pictures and for including enough good photographs so that one can see what a good photograph looks like.

What he doesn’t explain, and what I think bears repeating here, is that if you want to be good at photography - and this rule applies to pretty much anything you want to be good at - you have to take a whole lot of photographs. You have to take photographs almost every day, and you have to take tons of them, because if you’re lucky, maybe five percent of your pictures will be good.

The good news about this is that in this age of digital photography you pretty much get instant feedback. You can see the photos the instant you take them and don’t have to waste time and money getting bad images developed. It’s easier to get good at taking pictures more quickly now, but you still have to invest the time. All the awesome camera equipment in the world won’t do you a bit of good if all you’re doing is sort of vaguely aiming the lens at something and pressing the button.

Still, even if you’re just doing that, it can’t hurt to give Hedgecoe’s book a quick peruse just to see what you might be missing by not investing an extra 10-15 seconds every time you set up a shot. Some of this stuff seems horribly obvious, though if you flip through random photos over at Flickr, I think you’ll agree that a few more people could stand to bone up on their basics. This includes me; that’s why I picked it up, and that’s also why I found it helpful.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008 | by nathan

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

I’ve gotten behind on my book reviews for this year, so please forgive me for throwing so many at you so quickly.

Just after he was elected to the U.S. Senate, I listened to Barack Obama’s personal memoir, Dreams From My Father. I’d been electrified by his speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention and figured it was only a matter of time before he set his sights higher and ran for president. I thought - pardon me - that it would be a bit audacious of him to go for it in 2008, or, if he did, to actually think he had a chance at the nomination. Hillary, said the conventional wisdom, was a sure bet, and perhaps, I told myself, Obama was hoping to become her running mate, a la John Edwards in 2004.

This may even have been the case at that time, and early in this race. I’ve elucidated my reasons for voting for Obama wildly on this website. The main one, of course, is that while I love and support and agree with Hillary Clinton, while I think she’s brilliant, I don’t believe that the section of this country who hate her would allow her to lead. I think they would dig and dig, Swift Boat and Swift Boat and Lewinsky her into another national nightmare. It’s not her; it’s them, the Newt Gingriches and Ken Starrs and Karl Roves who have no problem dragging this country through baseless scandal after baseless scandal just to make up for their tiny, tiny penises.

But I digress. This is a book review.

Here’s the deal: Dreams From My Father was fascinating because it was written before Obama’s star had even begun to rise. The Audacity of Hope is excellent as it outlines the reasoning behind liberal politics more clearly and eloquently than almost any book I’ve ever read (or, in this case, listened to). But don’t get confused about what it is: in this day and age, any politician hoping to rise beyond a certain level pretty much has to release this type of book. George W. Bush even has one. The P.R. and money are just too good to resist making this type of move. As political memoirs go, The Audacity of Hope is excellent, filled with wonderful anecdotes both from Obama’s life and from the lives of people he’s met on the campaign trail. Also, as an audiobook, well - he deserved the Grammy, for sure, if for no other reason than for his spot-on impersonation of George W. Bush.

Still, if you want to know more about the man, about the mind behind the phenomenon, I’d go for Dreams From My Father. It’s less guarded, less political, more personal and interesting, less philosophical, and yet, more insightful.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008 | by nathan

The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg

I finished reading Marcus J. Borg’s The Heart of Christianity awhile ago. I’d read the first three or so chapters in 2004, and then I started grad school, and in a rare bit of procrastination, I never picked the book back up.

I read Borg’s Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time for a college class in 1999. The class was titled "The Search for Jesus" and dealt with what is known in religious-academic circles as the "historical Jesus" quest. Most of the scholarship in this field is a bit silly - I won’t get into the reasons, but the "Jesus Seminar" in particular leaves me feeling pretty irritable, despite the fact that my pastor is a member of it - but in the midst of all the ridiculousness I found Borg’s book to be fascinating and compassionate.

Marcus J. Borg is a man who wrestles with what he calls a "traditional paradigm" of Christianity versus an "emerging paradigm." The traditional is what you’d expect, and his problem with it is nothing in the faith itself but rather its tendency to ignore or write off the people who, for whatever reason, find themselves unable to sign on to it. This book is an exploration of this struggle.

I experienced this schism myself when I came out. Through a long, personal quest I’ve realized, among other things, that I am not an evangelical Christian. I understand and appreciate evangelical belief in a way that many who’ve come out of it do not, but I cannot be a part of the evangelical community.

This book is for people whose story and struggle are like mine. Unlike other books which describe a different perspective on Christianity, however, it is compassionate, kind, and not dismissive of traditional or evangelical Christianity, and it does not covertly embrace a necessarily secular-humanist agenda. It encourages an active faith, one that engages God and the Bible, one that requires prayer and community and social action, one that fundamentally changes the believer. Where Borg occasionally lapses into liberal-political rhetoric he can be forgiven; his faith, after all, has implications for his political beliefs and he makes no apologies for this, nor does he imply that anyone else should, whether or not they reach the same conclusions that he does.

This is going to take a place of honor on my shelf along with the work of Brennan Manning, C.S. Lewis, Anne Lamott, et al.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 | by nathan

Tagged! The 123 Meme

D’oh!

The Palinode tagged me to do this meme. Normally I’m vociferously against these things, but what’s there to be done? I’ve been tagged. Also, with the crap-trolic week I’m having, it may be nice to have something to take my mind off everything that’s been going on. And to be honest, I kinda wanted to be tagged for this meme as soon as Schmutzie, the Palinode’s Awesome Wife, did it, because it sounds fun and fascinating. I’ve learned a lot since reading people’s entries.

So here we go:

THE RULES:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Like Palinode, I don’t really understand why rules 3 & 4 aren’t combined, but as I believe that you mess with the rules at your own peril, I’m leaving it like it is.

Aside from the AP Style Guide (snooze!), the book nearest me is Marcus J. Borg’s The Heart of Christianity, which I am currently reading. OH! But when I turn to page 123, it’s nothing but footnotes. So, I’ll go to the next page? Which is also footnotes? And the one after that? And the next one isn’t footnotes but has only 7 sentences.

Finally, on page 127 we escape all this ridiculousness, and here are sentences 6-8:

"It began with the Roman Emperor Constantine’s embrace of Christianity and lasted until recently. During these centuries, the "powers that be" were Christian. So long as the wedding of Christianity and dominant culture continued, Christians seldom engaged in radical criticism of the social order."

Okay! I haven’t even read that far, so this complete lack of context is kinda fun. Here are 5 people I’d like to drag in:

1. CGHill from Dustbury

2. Kathleen from Unsettled

3. Helena from Sanctimony

4. J-Money from The Typing Makes Me Sound Busy, as long as she remembers that THIS IS NOT IDOL.

5. Sarah from Que Sera Sera

I’m sure all 5 of you have better things to be doing, but jump in with us and enjoy.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008 | by nathan

Since You Asked

Last week I arrived home to find an overlarge envelope crammed into our mail slot; the return address was Salon.com in San Francisco. Turned out, as a thank-you gift for renewing my premium membership (as if I wouldn’t), they’d sent me a copy of Since You Asked by Cary Tennis.

Since You Asked is an anthology of Tennis’ best columns for Salon. He took over writing their advice column for Garrison Keillor in 2001, and I almost immediately took a shine to him. A recovering alcoholic, Cary brings a sense of narrative and depth to advising people on everything from the near-impossible - "I Forgot To Tell My Wife I Have A Twelve-Year-Old Daughter" - to the almost-laughable - "Why Am I Obsessed With Celebrity Gossip?"

Cary never forgets that there are real-life consequences to our actions, that sometimes doing what seems right can lead to disastrous effects. A recovering alcoholic, he knows the rough edges of life all too well and brings a kind of compassion and grace to the table that few advice columnists are able to muster. The book is completely addicting, and because it is a collection of columns, reads easily and quickly. I was in the bathtub way past my bedtime reading it last night, and was able to get through a whole bunch more this morning like a flash.

You can read Cary’s column at Salon here.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008 | by nathan

The Abs Diet Audiobook

I really, really, really hate diet books. I do. I hate them so much that I’m not even sure why I gave this one a chance, except that I subscribe to Men’s Health magazine, which I love, and I’ve been frustrated with my efforts at the gym of late.

The science makes a lot of sense here, I suppose, but here’s what bugged me, what bugs me about all this kind of stuff: we all grew up knowing what was healthy, what was good for us, etc. I can’t stand it when "experts" try to tell us that the things we’ve known all along are wrong, are lies, are actually THE THINGS THAT ARE KILLING US. This book engages in less of that than most diet and health books, which is good, but it did just enough that when I was listening to it - usually at the gym, oddly enough - that I’d occasionally have to grit my teeth and try not to scream. Still, I guess I won’t be able to post a real review of it until six weeks from now, will I?