Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

Caster Semenya and the "Rules" of Gender

South African, middle-distance runner Caster Semenya has been embroiled in controversy these last few months. Last week Semenya withdrew from competition amid reports in the Australian media regarding leaked findings of a sex-determination test that implied Semenya, who had dominated the field running against women, has Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Indicators of AIS include elevated testosterone and the presence of undescended testes. Semenya's success as a runner brings to light surprising limitations in our culture's conception of gender but this is not the first time that an athlete has faced such scrutiny. Indian runner Santhi Soundararajan tested positive for possessing a Y chromosome and was stripped of her silver medal from the 2006 Doha Asian Games. Soundararajan attempted suicide the following year. The International Olympic Committee banned genetic testing in 1999 but during the 1996 games in Atlanta eight women athletes tested positive for having a Y chromosome. Of those eight, seven had AIS and all were allowed to compete.

Gender is, of course, a complicated issue and as a construct it is difficult to contextualize. Matt Ridley's The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature succeeds mightily in comparing/contrasting human expressions of gender and sexuality to those found elsewhere in the animal kingdom. The book's title refers to the Red Queen's race in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass during which the Queen remarks, "it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." Ridley uses this analogy in explaining the advantage of sexual reproduction for individuals within a species as well as the constant evolutionary arms race that exists between species competing for resources in their shared environment. By using frequent examples from throughout the animal kingdom Ridley illustrates that our cultural concepts of gender and sexual reproduction are frequently much narrower than those recognized by science and expands these insights into valuable reflections on the nature of our behavior as a species.

Then again, if professor of genetics at the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University Bryan Sykes is correct, humans may not have to worry about gender issues in the future. In Adam's Curse: a Future Without Men he posits that within 125,000 years (not really that long by evolutionary standards) Homo sapiens may lose the Y chromosome entirely. Sykes describes the deterioration of the Y chromosome in dramatic terms and proposes that its diminishing stability may be responsible for increasing rates of infertility among men. Though the author has impressive academic credentials, this story of conflict and cooperation between mitochondrial DNA (which we all inherent from our mothers) and the Y chromosome (which males inherent from their fathers) is written in concise and entertaining prose. The central thesis of Adam's Curse may not come to fruition until well beyond our days but the science that Sykes describes in exploring this intriguing possibility has many applications in the present.

As much as the parent's genes may battle for expression in their child's body, sexual reproduction is still an altruistic (and very successful) process. How Sex Works: Why We Look, Smell, Taste, Feel, and Act the Way We Do by Dr. Sharon Moalem explores human sex from a practical, scientific vantage point and the results are a fascinating and revealing look at what makes us human using our sexuality as a lens. Moalem presents up to date research about human sexuality in a compelling and informative way and doesn't shy away from difficult issues (can twins have different fathers?) Competing theories are included in an effort to be as informative and honest as possible about the complexities of the issues at hand. Although How Sex Works enthralls with its detailing of the unseen machinations of our bodies, such as the development of the secondary sexual characteristics that we commonly use to distinguish the sexes, its greater import is to suggest how flexible our society may need to be if we are to acknowledge the gap between our cultural constructs of gender/sexuality and science's interpretation how and why we behave the way we do.

Considering Charisma

Leonid Chernovetsky, embattled mayor of Ukraine's capitol Kiev, held a press conference this week to address suggestions that he should undergo psychiatric evaluation and that he may not be fit for office. Chernovetsky chose to face his detractors in his swimming trunks at a rec center having just proved his competence through a vigorous display that included jogging, pull-ups and swimming laps. "Look at my body, at how I express my thoughts. I am absolutely healthy. I think logically and philosophically." the man sometimes called Lenny Cosmos opined. A very successful and charismatic business man who rose to power in the wake of the Pro-West Orange Revolution, Chernovetsky is also an author (having written a book on how to become a millionaire) and claims to be the second best singer known to mankind. The blue-ribbon pipes, according to Chernovetsky, belong to none other than the man upstairs.

Chernovetsky claims that the future belongs to those who are "open and vulnerable" and in striking this pose he is similar to another charismatic leader who started his own orange revolution (which eventually led him to Eastern Oregon of all places). The rise and fall of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, referred to by his followers as Osho since his passing, is given careful consideration by author Tim Guest in his memoir My Life in Orange. Guest's personal account of living on the Bhagwan's communes details the effects of coming of age within a community outside the Western norms that attempt to balance the needs of the individual with the needs of the group. Instead, his experience speaks to the pressures of adjusting to life within a hierarchy in which charisma served as the mechanism for leadership and information took a back seat to mysticism.

But why choose between information and mysticism when you can have both and give your charisma a boost while you're at it? Certainly having a copy of John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise by your bedside could do well to help you on your way to becoming a leader through charm, whit and an exhaustive knowledge of trivia so amazing it must be true, right? Hodgman's tome is described as an almanac of complete world knowledge compiled with instructive annotation and includes portions with headings such as "Nine Presidents Who Had Hooks for Hands" and "Colonial Jobs Involving Eels". The knowledge compiled here creates endless possibilities! For example, using Expertise's comprehensive list of hobo names (700!) and illustrated dictionary of useful hobo signs, one could gain entry into hobo society and perhaps even scale the ladder of leadership in that shadowy world. This hilarious reimagining of reality makes the wildest fantasies possible. Hodgman's fanciful writing doesn't just prepare a reader for rigorous intellectual debate it completely redefines the rules of engagement and the terms for success by stretching reality and history to such an extreme that they are barely recognizable.

Of course, even when we've done everything we could to prepare for a difficult situation (e.g. entering the aforementioned shadowy underworld of hobo society) we still sometimes find ourselves grasping for just the right turn of phrase to help us out of a jam. Books like Cynthia MacGregor's I'm at a Loss for Words: What to Say When You Don't Know What to Say can help. Here MacGregor has assembled simple suggestions for how to approach innumerable, awkward situations. This is practical advice that is equally useful in everyday life or in those rare moments outside the norm such as dealing with cranky, bizarre people in a position of authority. Drafting a letter of apology for arriving at a social engagement with a contagious ailment? I'm at a Loss has got you covered! Unfortunately, we may have to wait for next year's edition to learn how to explain to a mayor that proclamations of sanity while wearing Speedos are just plain awkward.

Four Russians, a German and a Frenchman Walk Into a Hermetically Sealed Tube...

Tuesday July 14th marked the end of an important early stage in the ambitious Mars-5oo project. Six Europeans spent 105 days in a hermetically sealed tube in Moscow meant to simulate conditions that might be experienced by astronauts traveling to Mars. While sequestered they conducted experiments, tended to their garden and watched "Lord of the Rings". This 3 and 1/2 month "voyage" was a build up to longer simulations that will be used to gauge the best way to prepare future traveler for the physically, mentally and socially challenging journey to the red planet. To that end, the Mars-500 call for candidates listed "Personal or family history of psychological disturbance or disease, which could adversely affect data or increase risk to the subject during the study" as one possible reason for exclusion from the experiment. Nobody wants to see a "Silent Running"-esque meltdown when the actual Mars expedition takes place.

The idea that perfectly rational, level headed people are the stewards of space travel is put to the test in Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons by George Pendle. Here we learn about the enigmatic co-founder of Jet Propulsion Laboratories and Aerojet Corp who associated with Aleister Crowley and L. Ron Hubbard and participated in occultist activities as leader of the Agape Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis. The cutting edge science that Parsons engaged in as a member of Caltech's "Suicide Squad" was emblematic of a time when humanity's potential seemed to be growing exponentially and Parsons applied this fearless experimentation to cultural matters with rare passion. Strange Angel documents the success that his imagination and skill made possible and delves into the fascinating and bizarre personal life fueled by that same ambition and creativity.

John Whiteside Parsons was eventually killed in an explosion but his writings provide some insight into a life that defied social convention. His collection of essays Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword provides some insight with passages such as, "The truth, that is the truth about the immediate aspect of some culture, is always different from the accepted values and alleged truths of the culture. This truth is then irritating, annoying, upsetting, and highly dangerous." The truth is dangerous but so is messing with mercury fulminate in your home laboratory. Parsons' untimely death lends an air of intensity to Freedom but even without the mystery surrounding his demise this read sheds some light on an era in American history that typically is seen as rigid and conformist but must have necessarily contained the seeds for the social upheaval that occurred in following decades.

Certainly the six Mars-500 participants (the aforementioned four Russians, a German and a Frenchman) who spent fifteen weeks sharing 550 cubic meters experienced a greater test of personal freedom than most of us will face in our lifetimes but the experiment was equally about creating a self-reliant environment. Some might argue that those qualities, personal freedom and self-reliance, are inextricably inter-related. To that end I include here, The Big Book of Self-Reliant Living as edited and compiled by Walter Szykitka. In these 600+ pages the reader will find all the information necessary for living off the grid and/or seamlessly integrating effectively with society. Looking for tips on how to find a source of water in the desert? How about choosing between renting or buying a house? Either way The Big Book of Self-Reliant Living has you covered. Go forth and do what thou wilt!

Willamette Hosts the World

Last week our own Willamette River played host to The World, a floating condominium of profanity inducing proportions that just happens to be shaped like an ocean liner. Conceptualized by Norwegian cruise ship magnate Knut U. Kloster Jr., The World set sail from Oslo in 2002 and now roams the oceans of, well... the world with a cargo of presumably rich (2.3 million was the starting price for a studio at the time the ship first hit the water) seafarers. Having left Portland, where it spent three days crammed between the Morrison and Hawthorne bridges, World travelers will next visit Astoria before heading up the coast to Seattle, British Columbia and points further north. So if on a recent trip into downtown you didn't get chance to tap a friend on the shoulder, point and exclaim, "What in The World is that!?" I'm sorry. That ship has sailed.

Reflecting on what it might be like to live in a 290 sq ft studio-condo aboard The World reminded me of Stewart Brand's insightful and highly utilitarian How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built. Brand, best known as creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, discusses the virtues of efficient use of space and embraces the Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi which, architecturally speaking, calls for some space in new buildings to be left unfinished so that the buildings can better "learn" the best way to suit its tenants. Brand calls on numerous examples including his own home (a tugboat in dry-dock!!!) and his work space/studio (an over-sized, retro-fitted shipping container). How Buildings Learn is chock full of theories and case studies that can be applied to the spaces around you and will really inspire you to rethink the way you see and use space.

If one was looking for further practical advice for developing space in a humane fashion it'd be hard to imagine a better resource than A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction which is full of maxims such as: "Arrange houses to form very rough, but identifiable clusters of 8 to 12 households around some common land and paths. Arrange the clusters so that anyone can walk through them, without feeling like a trespasser." Author Christopher Alexander, et al, reverse engineer the most livable and enduring structures and complexes from around the world and distill rules and guidelines that could give life to columnist Thomas Friedman's sense that we Americans may need to "Europeanize" our lifestyle to in order to maintain our quality of life.

But I've gotten a little off topic, traveling the oceans of earth in a buoyant borough is one way to see the world but Thor Heyerdahl experienced life on the water at a much more intimate and graphic level while testing his theory of Polynesian diaspora in raft made of, mostly, primitive materials. He documented the 101 day voyage in Kon-Tiki (the library also has a documentary by that same name with footage from the original undertaking). Heyerdahl's incredible courage made a strong impression on me as a 12 year-old when I first read his descriptions of setting sail on a raft of balsa logs lashed together with hemp ropes. The voyage of the Kon-Tiki only seems more impressive today with advances in technology that make me wonder if anyone will ever chose to do something this difficult again. Setting aside Heyerdahl's anthropological theories, Kon-Tiki is a compelling tale of adventure and careful observation that leaves one with a strong respect for the power of the ocean and the creatures that live there. Though Heyerdah's ideas have since been discredited no one can discount the experience that he had traveling the Southern Pacific at sea level. That's something that money simply can not buy.

Altruism, Basketball and Competition

Jeremy Tyler, a talented basketball prospect from San Diego, CA has decided to forego his senior year of high school in order to play professional basketball in Europe. This is the latest development in a series of youth athlete's decisions that sidestep the NBA draft's age restrictions which call for players to be at least 19 and one year removed from high school at the time they are drafted. Some might see this as the latest assault on the innocence of youth by professional sport. Others might comment that Tyler's choice to play overseas is enabled by the economic power of his rare abilities and that if his dream is to play basketball professionally in the NBA, playing in the Euro-Leagues might be a better apprenticeship than playing college ball. Either way his choice says something about changes in our world as seen through the prism of sports.

Tyler's decision to play in Europe was guided by Sonny Vaccoro, the man who signed Michael Jordon to his first shoe contract with Nike, founded the Adidias ABDC basketball camp and a man who casts a long shadow over the Summer AAU basketball circuit that some blame for hastening the aforementioned loss of innocence in amateur basketball. Vaccoro's career provides the thread that Dan Wetzel and Don Yaeger follow in an effort to identify the major players in the growing corporate presence in amateur basketball in their book Sole Influence: Basketball, Corporate Greed, and the Corruption of America's Youth. Whether or not you agree with the premise of Influence, that the corporate race to find the next Michael Jordan has ruined youth basketball, Wetzel and Yaeger's book does a great job of illustrating the vicious competitive drive that has fueled profound changes in the world of amateur hoops.

Perhaps these ultra-competitive shoe company executives and AAU team coaches could perfect their craft with lessons learned from Richard Conniff's The Ape in the Corner Office: Understanding the Workplace Beast in All of Us. Conniff applies the questionable study of Evolutionary Psychology to the work place, a setting where many are looking for any edge that will help them get ahead. While animal driven metaphors are common place in the business environment (after all, it's better to be head of the pack than to be thrown to the dogs when they thin the herd) Conniff's witty and engaging style might make you reassess what you can do differently and/or better to get ahead or just not fall behind in these troubled economic times. Ape in the Corner is also set apart from other related books in that Conniff acknowledges the value of altruism, that is, the idea that helping others can be a way of helping yourself. This idea can be applied on any level of an organization, from individuals cooperating on a project to entire departments sharing resources. Come to think of it, this sort of cooperative competition might even be used to build better basketball teams!

Robert Wright takes the idea of examining and emphasizing the altruistic aspects of human nature to the extreme in his book Nonzero: the Logic of Human Destiny. The view he presents is that our increasingly interdependent global society is not just a positive expression of the benefits of an altruistic approach but is a more or less predictable result of the competitive advantages that altruism allows for participating parties. Further, Wright imagines that we may be soon arrive at a time when the complexities that intertwine our societies create an unprecedented moral stability. He proposes an unintentional but undeniable system of checks and balances that results in our collective experience of an unprecedented spiritual ballast. Nonzero's title is a reference to the game theory concept that not all exchanges can be characterized as one party losing while the other wins. For example, clearly Jeremy Tyler leaving the US to play professionally in Europe is a loss for college basketball here but if he has an enriching experience in Europe, represents his community well there and returns a better player and happier person then, in a sense, we all win.

"I Get So Emotion-Able, Baby"

While watching the most recent Oscars telecast a friend remarked on a particularly dramatic acceptance speech saying, "Actors are so emotionable!" And you know? They really are! I mean, they are so capable of signifying emotion. How can we believe in what they are expressing from behind that podium? The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that emotionable is synonymous with emotional but I think that "emotionable" has a much more active sense to it and that got me thinking about books that capture the act and the action of emoting.

 In Character: Actors Acting is full of famous faces doing what they do best, often with ridiculous results. Photographer Howard Schatz challenges his subjects to capture, in a single frame, a moment of his design. Where else might you see F. Murray Abraham as "a teenage girl chosen to go backstage at a Justin Timberlake concert" or Edie Falco doing "a little girl telling your mother that your twin brother said a dirty word." Copious sidebar comments from the actors regarding their craft provide useful context but the real joy here is the sheer over-the-top nature of every expression on every page of this book.

If you require a more serious (or more hilarious depending on how you look at it) set of emotionable images then check out Sam Taylor-Wood's Crying Men. When a friend first mentioned this book to me my first stammered, impatient question was, "But does it have Robin Williams in it!?" and indeed Mr. Williams does make an appearance. While his cheeks are dry, his wrinkled and worried brow rests upon those familiar, furry forearms in a way that can only suggest that the deepest and most intense of fake tragedies has just taken place. Does it count as schadenfreude if the object of your joy is feigning their misery? I'm not sure but I can say that while some of the subjects of this book inspired serious contemplation of the import of human emotion in our daily experience of reality, others made me laugh so hard I nearly dropped the book. Yes, Jude Law in the fetal position and Ed Harris with the trembling, lower lip, I'm looking at you.

If a person wanted to find themselves on the other side of the camera, as the puppet master pulling the strings, it'd be hard to find a better source of inspiration than Unsold Television Pilots: 1955-1988. Lee Goldberg's collection of descriptions of unsold pilots is outlandish and wild. Witness: Dr. Franken, a drama featuring a doctor who reanimates a dead accident victim with organs and limbs from a hospital medial bank. The resulting creature has the memories, convictions and emotions of the donors and goes about contacting the living associates of said patrons. Think of it as Frankenstein meets Highway to Heaven. Or, consider Clone Master which was to be a series in which a government scientist makes 13 clones of himself. Each clone is sent to battle evil and is the focus of his own episode. Presumably, each clone would meet a shadowy end and season two would have featured a fresh batch of 13 clones. Bad ideas? This book is chock-full of them. Ideas so bad that they're good? Yeah, there just might be a few of those in there too. Lots of opportunities here to draw out that perfectly emotionable performance!

Ok, Skate and Feel Free

Shamefully, I will admit that then when I saw a New York Times article earlier this week on skateboarding in Afghanistan I was a little skeptical. My expectation was that the piece would be overly sentimental and would examine false parallels between the U.S. and Afghani cultures in an attempt to create a kind of free-floating, improvised nostalgia. I was wrong. This simply written and insightful piece is embedded with honest and brutal observations about class and gender issues in Afghanistan. The Times hosts a short, related video for those who would like to see a bit of what skateboarding in Kabul looks like.

At the risk of playing into the same feeling of false nostalgia that I mentioned above, let me say that reading about Skatistan reminded me of local author Blake Nelson's Paranoid Park (a film based on this title and directed by Gus Van Sant was released in 2007). While I wouldn't directly compare the protagonist's psychological turmoil to the daily experience of skaters in Afghanistan, there is something familiar and dark in Nelson's depiction of a young skateboarder's attempt to make sense of their role in an act of extreme violence. Set in Portland (the park referenced is based on the world-renowned Burnside Skatepark) Paranoid Park is a powerful coming of age story that will ring true for both those who grew up in the Pacific Northwest and those who are growing up here now.

And if those PacNW readers happen to be young women who enjoy skateboarding, let me recommend Patty Segovia and Rebecca Heller's Skater Girl - A Girl's Guide to Skateboarding. Segovia and Heller's book is no academic treatise on gender studies, instead it is a straight forward introduction to the history and culture of skateboarding which just happens to be written by, and exclusively illustrated with photos of, women. Really, any youngster interested in skating could get a lot out of this book but its matter-of-fact presentation will appeal most to young women. Another useful resource in this regard is Skate Like A Girl which started in Seattle but is creeping down I-5 to Portland (imagine them as a Rock 'n' Roll Camp For Girls but with decks and trucks instead of strats and snares).

Published by Thrasher Magazine, Insane Terrain goes light on the text and heavy on the photo illustrations in documenting skateboarding's boundless search for new spots in the urban (and sometimes rural) topography. The ingenuity and dedication presented in these images is inspiring and speaks to a core essence of creativity and courage that sets skateboarding apart from more traditional past-times like organized sports. An updated edition of Insane Terrain might well include photos of the Uganda Skateboard Union. For those unfamiliar with this project here's a link to a short video introduction, as hosted by the park's resident superhero Board Master. His ability to turn workaday tools into skateboards is something that would come in handy here or in Skatistan and his proclamation, "Ok, Skate and Feel Free" makes for a motto any skater could agree with.

Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst...

If Russian academic Igor Panarin's newest theory is correct, in about 18 months Oregon will be part of China. This is part of a larger forecast Panarin made which predicts that the United States will dissolve into six spheres of influence under conditions most of us would liken to an apocalypse. Happy New Year! Thankfully, Panarin states that there is only a 45-55% chance of said event coming to fruition. Whew...

To be honest, Panarin's prognostication doesn't exactly fill me with dread. Call me an optimist but I'm not about to spend 2009 preparing for the end of the world as we know it. However, if that tingling, creepy, melancholy feeling is what you're looking (and as a fan of post-apocalyptic movies I could sympathize) try Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's a quick read compared to his many of his other works and, like No Country for Old Men, it has recently been adapted for film. In fact, some of The Road's bleak, weather-beaten, exterior sequences were filmed in Oregon. Considering that we've been at Nature's mercy for the past couple weeks it might be easy to identify with this novel's protagonist and his efforts to save his son in a cold world, nearly burned away by an unnamed ecological disaster of unimaginable scale.

And, if things do happen to get worse here, we can count on Joshua Piven's The Complete Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook to provide a plan for escape. Illustrated with easy-to-read diagrams and including even (or perhaps, only) the most outlandish predicaments, Piven's book makes imagining being attacked by a bear fun again. I recommend the audio-book version as read by Mr. Burt Reynolds. Clocking in at a little less than two hours, it is the perfect duration for a trip through the Cascades or out to the coast and it will keep you in stitches as it prepares you for anything that could, but almost certainly won't, go wrong.

As far as secession from the union goes, Panarin's a step slow. Folks around these parts have been dabbling with that idea for a while now. Hypothetical nation-states have included; the Republic of Cascadia, the State of Lincoln and the State of Jefferson. If one needed convincing of the longevity of this concept I'd point them in the direction of The State of Jefferson a terrific collection of prose and photos by Bernita Tickner and Gail Fiorini-Jenner. The State of Jefferson is a causal look at life in Southern Oregon/Northern California and includes many playful observations such as the re-emergence of Etna, the official beer of the State of Jefferson. The real fun in The State of Jefferson is looking over its many photographs. Their quality and abundance makes imagining living in this place, both mythical and real, a joy.

Eating in '09

For me, December means reflecting on the year behind me and preparing for the year ahead. News has been a bit bleak of late. In particular, I'm thinking of an article I read in The Boston Globe about what a depression in 2009 might look like. One of the piece's more bittersweet observations is that folks like me (not rolling in dough and having a fair amount of free time) might save money by spending more hours in the kitchen rather than eating out. The Globe also predicts that more people might turn to urban gardening and animal husbandry, a trend I've definitely noticed both amongst my friends/peers and here at the library where books on raising chickens and composting are more popular than ever. The impact of the economy on our eating habits is also born out in the top two eating trends of 2009 as predicted by Epicurious.com. Eating well is one of life's greatest pleasures and these two new items got me thinking about books that have changed the way we eat. As well, these books might help prepare us for changes in how and what we eat.

Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is quickly approaching the status of modern classic in the field of gastronomy. His work is well-informed, courageous and engaging. Omnivore's Dilemma examines the modern eating experience through several systemic prisms; industrial food, organic/alternative food and food we forage for ourselves. Through his descriptions of these food chains we learn how our eating habits are a product of our economy as much as our evolution and that what we eat is an expression of culture that merits a healthy dialog. For all his research Pollan's prose never comes across as pedantic. Instead, his writing is crystalline and inspiring in its insightfulness. Pollan's style of personal journalism is the perfect vehicle for a subject that affects us all and for which we all have an opportunity for personal expression.

Another author who is interested in issues of gastronomy and ecology is Taras Grescoe. Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood is Grescoe's indictment of the seafood industry in which he draws parallels between the over fished oceans of our world and our decisions as seafood consumers. Think of this book as the Fast Food Nation of the sea. At times stomach-churning, Bottomfeeder is a book that seeks to inspire positive change and a growth in awareness about where the seafood we eat comes from. It's clear that the author is up to the challenge of exploring his subject in depth (he even samples the pellets fed to farmed salmon) and though most of the text focuses on the perilous condition of our oceans and our current unhealthy relationship with sea life, the book does conclude with an appendix full of suggestions about how to eat seafood responsibly. [For more information consider the Marine Stewardship Council's website which maintains a list of sustainable seafood]

One of my long time favorites, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, maintains a special place on my book shelf. First published in 1984, Harold McGee's book is packed with scientific details of what gives food its foodie-ness. McGee includes plenty of historical context to compliment his discussion of chemistry and physics in the kitchen and his writing has a sense of curiosity to it that many will find appealing. For the more analytical cook, On Food and Cooking provides inspiration through explanation. Ever wonder why "mealy" and waxy" potatoes mash differently? Is there really any advantage to whipping egg whites in a copper bowl? Why and how does the application of heat (aka cooking) change the texture of meat? McGee's got answers and having that information means less waste, more creativity and better results in the kitchen.

Unspoken Rules in Uncertain Times

With the eyes of the world on the U.S. due to our recent historic election I find myself reflecting on how the world sees us as a country. Sometimes an outsider's perspective can reveal a lot about the ways that we choose to live our lives. Here are a few titles that examine the often unspoken rules (some unbending, others surprisingly flexible) that govern our cultural and physical landscape.

Local publisher Graphic Arts Books is partly responsible for the prolific Culture Shock! series. Titles cover countries from all over the world but you'd have to read Culture Shock!- USA to find out that, "Americans can form relationships very quickly, but they don't often go deep. We constantly encounter new people we will never see again. Therefore we don't need to worry that our familiarity will entice them to become burdens to us." Author Esther Wanning provides useful insights into generalized American society as well as tips for those adjusting to life in the U.S. that might equally provide an opportunity for introspection for people already steeped in our culture. She even includes a quiz and a list of DOs and DON'Ts which are particularly useful: DO Arrive 10-15 late for a dinner party! DON'T try to bribe police or other officials!

Portland author Chuck Thompson's Smile While You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer is part expose and part thriller. Thompson may have burned some bridges in writing this book but what he reveals about the inner machinations of the travel writing industry will make you think twice about the effects of globalization the world and on the casual traveler and how those experiences differ from what is depicted in our travel magazines. The stories that appear here are more gritty, visceral and sincere than anything he could have gotten published as a travel writer. They detail experiences of a human scale. These are stories of one man making sense of the constraints of his chosen profession and the world at large simultaneously. Humorous and touching, Thompson's writing says much about an important way that we take in information about the world around us and about what we might find if are willing to challenge ourselves to experience travel on a more intimate level.

Few would argue with the idea that these are uncertain times. With so much public dialog focused on politics and culture I sometimes turn to science as a source of assurance. Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory is great popular science writing because it takes very recent, very challenging scientific developments and presents them in an easy to understand, entertaining fashion. I'll admit that there is some irony in recommending this book as a source of certainty in uncertain times since the discoveries described within it build on theories that embrace chaos, unpredictability and concepts of physics which feel quite surreal when compared to our everyday life. However, Greene's descriptions of reality at its most essential, profoundly minute level fill me with a sense of awe and possibility that is invigorating. Truly, these are the rules we live by. Nova produced a two DVD set that serves as a fun companion piece.