Alternate Reality

Philip Roth’s ‘The Counterlife’ is the best book I have read on the Jewish diaspora, the conflict in Israel and the identity of Jews; plus their lives in Judea, New Jersey and England. It is also about identity and Roth’s claim that living in a great country like the United States removes one’s ethnic heritage, coming into a wider more generic identity, adapting to a new world where old baggage is left behind. The book re-affirms Walt Whitman in his poetic epic ‘Leaves of Grass’, celebrating the diversity of New York, its bustling alleys with new immigrants unloaded from ships from the old world. I am starting to believe that Roth is possibly the best American writer around, aside from Cormac McCarthy; ‘The Counterlife’ is inventive and post-modern, if I can use that term, with ghosts as characters like in Macbeth, or characters from a book coming alive, counter scenarios thrive like alternate realities, all tackling the question of Jewish identity, with depictions of ultra-conservative settlers in Judea, or the West Bank as the media would describe it. More people should read Roth, aside from Thomas Friedman to understand the inner motivation of the diaspora.

In fact, Roth’s book is more a celebration of the American experiment, to leave the past and start new, the effort of re-invention. There are second acts in one’s life, contrary to F. Scott Fitzgerald. I watched the original movie last weekend starring Robert Redford, which I thought was inferior but in fact much better than Baz Luhrmann’s version, though Baz did a better job visually explaining the book. Jay Gatzby is an example of counter life, a new person created for love, though tragically lost, as forces of fate realign along a Greek tragedy. Roth’s book is a sly meditation, an elegant discussion of identity, both as an American and as a Jew, weaving stories that compare and contrast various points of view, attacking the militant ultra-orthodox people shaping Israel today, and perhaps preventing peace in the Middle East. Recently Secretary of State John Kerry used ‘apartheid’ to describe the situation, a view started by former President Jimmy Carter, perhaps a view that’s gaining mainstream acceptance and, unfortunately, may result in a return to anti-Semitism. All these strands come together: from the works of Roth, Fitzgerald, Whitman in trying to celebrate the best of the American experiment, of re-creating a new identity as a way forward, away from age old prejudice.

For the past several nights I watched the English mini-series ‘Edward VII’, an excellent but dated production about the eldest son of Queen Victoria, a series that won several awards with good performances. It was a good program with excellent insight on European royalty, especially politics and history, perhaps the start of a successful attempt to institutionalize a monarchy as others lost theirs during a turbulent period; for instance, the brutal killing of the Russian royal family by the Bolsheviks, the fall of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany after the end of World War I. Linking the books I read, with scenes of Arthur Balfour, the Prime Minister who authored the Balfour Declaration, promised a Jewish homeland in answer to Zionism; the show depicted the forces that led to the world wars (i.e. rise of Germany), resulting in the Holocaust, the creation of Israel and troubles in the Middle East.  A young Winston Churchill was present, who played a prominent role as colonial secretary in carving out the fallen Ottoman Empire in the Hejaz.  Edward VII acted as peace maker and his death may have assured the occurrence of the world wars.

In both conflicts, America played a prominent part, rescuing the old powers from destroying themselves, watching the excellent HBO series ‘Band of Brothers’ and ‘The Pacific’, understanding the rise of a new global state as the old world receded from stage. The rise of the new order, plus the experiment in a different humanity as written by Fitzgerald and Roth; that it’s possible to solve an intractable old conflict with a fresh ‘can do’ spirit but also results in illusion like Jay Gatzby (an officer in World War I) trying to re-claim a lost dream. It’s the new Turks that threaten the current order, plus the lack of wise men like Edward VII, who hold things together with his influence and prestige (like an English version of Secretary of State). One recalls a scene in Barbara Tuchman’s ‘The Guns of August’ where the royalty of Europe gathered for Edward VII’s funeral, walking the streets in their resplendent uniforms, as the funeral procession made their way; onlookers felt the end of an era, where a deadly evil was just around the corner. Disparate strands of thoughts come into synthesis; finding links and relationships, perhaps like Eastern philosophy where everything is connected; a holistic view of totality that make sense when scribbling thoughts in a page.  

Writer’s Identity

There is a clear link between the writer’s identity and his creative fiction. The authors, who spoke in the literary upcountry series, write proudly of their uniqueness; confirm their roots as Hispanic writers, or African American or Southern writers who live in the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains; their unique voice punctuating their works and, thereby, achieving a certain individuality and power, enriching their prose. I missed this aspect, mixing all those creative voices in a swirl, neglecting to pay notice to the ‘identity’ of the writer. For instance, Graham Greene is the consummate Englishman; this identity gives his work a unique voice, the perspective of the erudite European. I am reading Salman Rushdie who comes out as an Englishman with his facility in the English language but one hears the voice of the sophisticated Indian from the Asian subcontinent. Similarly, echoes of the Texas outback in Cormac McCarthy or upper class New York WASP in J.D. Salinger or the Brooklyn Jew in Philip Roth. I did not realize how empowering one’s identity brings to the creative writer.

For my part, in a culture mixed by Spanish Catholic colonialism and American progressive re-engineering, one is often confused; thinking he is influenced by both European old worldliness and Yankee new world naiveté and ‘can do spirit’, neglecting the buried Malay or Chinese heritage, in a country adrift in the crossroads of oceanic travel. Perhaps Indian writers did not have this problem, strengthened by an ancient civilization albeit with a strong layer of English colonial imperialism. The question of identity is not as prevalent in India as in the Philippines, though both occupied by foreign powers but the islands plagued more by differing foreign winds; cut-off from the great Asian mainland, thereby foregoing the great influence of Buddhism, Chinese culture (but with sprinklings of Chinatown), Malay and Islamic thought (with pockets in the Muslim South) and instead transplanting the Western Christian ideal (more Catholic than Protestant) in these dispersed Pacific islands. In some ways, the country is more culturally aligned to Latin America (albeit without the Spanish language) than any country in Asia.

Therefore, the problem of writing is a problem of identity; one does not have a voice that could enrich his prose. This is the lesson one learns when reading Junot Diaz, whose prose echoes his Latin American roots or Ha Jin with his Chinese background. This is the fundamental problem, not a question of writing craft but in developing one’s voice; one cannot write without a foundation of identity. But there are writers who can transcend their identity like Kazuo Ishiguro, who foregoes his Japanese identity to write a classic of English life in his book ‘Remains of the Day,’ but he is an exception. If one does not know his identity, the resulting prose is weak and inauthentic. Jose Rizal wrote long ago that one will become like the wind, forever floating about if one does not have the anchor of his identity. Perhaps this is the root of the problem, one’s voracious curiosity, forever borrowing books or watching movies in an attempt to assimilate into a Western consciousness; perhaps ashamed to acknowledge one’s roots as one tries to assimilate in the great melting pot. In a sense, my generation grew up in American culture with the steady diet of Hollywood movies and television.

Hence, this is the final puzzle, where one finally admits his identity, focuses on developing his voice (also an inevitable consequence of public speaking in Toastmaster). It is no longer the learning of the writing craft though still important but the cultivation of one’s story. And what is the story of my generation? Living abroad, travelling for work around the world, living in different cultures, ashamed of our country’s hardship and troubles, perhaps for some, living illegally in foreign lands. Perhaps it is also a modern story, the expatriate in a global society with the English language as the passport for assimilation in distant countries, a representative of a colonized race, forcibly fed salvation via the lord Jesus Christ, or democracy via Governor Generals, the Guardia Civil and the Army of Occupation. Perhaps it’s also a story of heroism as one tries to find his identity against the colonial rule of memory, where the descendants of a conquered race rise up today and trying to forget the humiliation of the past.

Being Alone

Jonathan Franzen is as good an essayist as he is a novelist. ‘How to be alone?’ is a wonderful collection of his articles reprinted from various magazine publications. The most famous of his articles is the so-called Harper’s essay where he decried the decline of reading and the challenges of writing in the face of today’s incessant technology. The essay is entitled ‘Why Bother’ – alluding to the problem faced by today’s authors. Why bother writing a novel when readership is declining, when television and movies are better mediums to tell a story than a ‘social novel’, when distractions abound with the latest digital technology and the rise of today ‘visual’ thinkers who prefer visual cues to process information as compared to yester years symbolic readers. It’s as if the digital age has no place for the serious reader or the serious writer. The world has shifted to a new visual medium with iPad or tablets and graphical user interfaces that offer unending distractions and menu driven thinking.

Is there a place for a serious writer in a digital age? Fortunately, Franzen does provide some answers. He is aware of the issues and quotes Nicolas Negroponte and his book ‘Being Digital.’ Interestingly, Negroponte is dyslexic and hates to read. Franzen cites other writers who attack the incessant onslaught of the digital age. He cites a writer who attacked the nerd bible ‘Wired’ magazine as a symbol of the new priesthood of technologists. It’s a priesthood of nerds who thrive in complexity and the use of the latest technology. Now everyone is a nerd, tweaking his iPod or smart phone or iPad or tablet to access the Internet like it was another country to explore. Everyone seems to have a fascination with cyberspace with its own eco system of Facebook, Google and social networking. Want to know about reality – one can find it in videos uploaded in Youtube or the various reality sites or blogs posted in the Internet. It beats reading a novel as everything is real time with amazing videos and pictures. In cyberspace everyone is his own publisher, writer and reader.

The great social novel accepted in the mainstream cannot be written anymore. The world has fragmented into small tribes. There is no universal novel that will be relevant for everybody so niche markets now exist. One must write with his own tribal milieu in mind. The writer is an isolated individual who has no choice but to write.  He is a nerd who is trying to make sense of the outer world with his inner world by using a symbolic language to express himself. Writing is a distinct activity open to only a few who have this predilection. Writers are readers in the first place and reading is part and parcel to one becoming a writer. So the writer starts as a reader and he is in contrast to today’s ‘information processors’  who are not necessarily readers but someone who look for patterns in diverse input like computer graphics, the written word, video and photos. Information processors thrive in the digital world because of the multimedia variety of the incoming information. He is not stuck in the linear world of books.

 Serious reading has become a specialized activity akin to meditation as one writer suggests. It requires quiet time, focus and attention similar to meditation. Like meditation it requires some effort which is not sometimes possible in today’s attention deficit and multiple distraction worlds. But the serious reader is also answering his own inner urge in trying to find himself or his so-called identity. So the reader is also in some sort of inner quest himself. He becomes a writer when he has transcended reading as an act of self-discovery into writing as an act of self-actualization. He assumes another role in this journey of self-discovery in order to answer another transcendent urge for fulfillment. Most people are readers but few transcend into writers. This journey is all the more difficult in today’s digital environment plus the rise of visual mediums like television, movies and photos. Perhaps an analogy is the rise of photography that caused the decline of realistic painting. The result is a shift into the impressionist and abstract painting of the modern age. Perhaps the visual medium of television and movies is disrupting the social novel although the medium is entirely different. Visual products perhaps may start with the written form as most movies are adaptations of novels or short stories.

Franzen is aware of these challenges which require a sophisticated understanding of technology. He is an interesting combination of the serious writer and the computer geek who is possessed of the philosophical distance required to dispassionately analyze the situation. It is intriguing that he has found a formula to succeed and has put to good use with the subsequent publishing of two novels that were both critical and commercial success. There is life after the digital age after all. His works are dense and overly long but seem to find an audience. He belongs to the tactical intellectual writers like Don Dellilo – a writer which he seems to correspond with often. But his work seems to be grand drama which does not strike at the heart of the matter the way writers like Cormac McCarthy do. McCarthy chooses his novels well – simple and straightforward but containing the essential problems of today. I would think that most readers today will have difficulty reading Franzen as compared to reading McCarthy.

Swirling Mind

Yesterday I felt dizzy. It was a day that started with some issues in the warehouse, an impromptu meeting with the business project leader, a Toastmaster meeting at noon, more issues in the warehouse, an hour meeting with the boss in the afternoon, read some interesting e-mails and, finally, phone calls to the warehouse staff to resolve the day’s issues. Somehow I still managed to go to the gym after work to exercise despite my spells of dizziness. It did not help that I slept late the previous night; about 1 am after attending a stock investing seminar online for 2 hours.  I had always thought that I am good at multi-tasking but realized that age does catch up with you. The mind gets sluggish and confused when faced with constant demands from different directions. Sometimes writing a journal is what brings everything back into focus. It is probably the one significant act that keeps me sane.

The meeting yesterday was good and made me realize the coming workload ahead. With the success of the pilot, the work will ramp up to the other warehouses. The load is complimented with additional work in other projects I am involved in. Extra curricular tasks increase the burden to the mind and spirit: Toastmaster duties, classes on creative writing and investing, parental duties and other miscellaneous activities like reading books, surfing the Internet and watching movies. I am glad for the coming memorial weekend that would give me some rest time. There are just so many things that I want to do that I often sleep late. It’s watching movies, surfing the Internet or working with the new gadgets or software. Somehow writing a journal will pull my mind into a focus where I can concentrate on the needed tasks at work.

Without journaling, distraction occurs as the mind is unable to focus on work. Too many demands will make you dizzy as what happened to me yesterday. But a more sinister impact lie in the future if one persists in multi-tasking. According to recent studies, cognitive decline via diseases like Alzheimer’s will result. There is indeed a slowdown in mental capacity which is more attributable to age than misuse of the brain. I guess exercising, Tai Chi, meditation and journal writing are keeping the mind normal. But the pace of work, the availability of distractions and ‘addiction to know’ take their toll. It is not only the mind that’s affected as there’s a resulting impact in the body as well such as obesity and raggedness due to insomnia or lack of sleep. One’s metabolism is no longer youthful so the pounds are piling up especially in the abdomen.

Recently, I watched a documentary called ‘Ultra-Marathon Man’. It gave me an idea to start jogging again. This will improve my metabolism, keep my mind sharp and keep me healthy enough to succeed in the new demanding environment. In the past year, I go to the gym 3 times a week for about 45 minutes to run the treadmill, swim and do the cross trainer. I also use the sauna and steam bath to have a healthy sweat and remove toxic waste from my body. I think I can ramp up my exercise by doing a morning jog in the days when I don’t go to the gym. I think it’s the only way to remain fit and successful in an environment of abundant food and distraction. With my temperament, where I indulge in good food and drink, living an austere life will not work.  But one still has to focus and avoid multi-tasking so prioritization and meditation via Tai Chi and journal writing still need to continue.

During the haze of work yesterday, I googled the writers Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace and Cormac McCarthy. Both Franzen and Wallace are highly intelligent and well educated – attending many universities in their youth.  Their works are brilliant intellectual exercises. Their analysis of the modern writer’s plight against the onslaught of television and technology is a good guide for would be authors. On the other hand, McCarthy is not an intellectual like Franzen or Wallace. He did not complete a college degree or spent a lot of time in a university. He strove to just be a writer - churning out works until he built a significant body of literature. His work has an immediacy and authenticity that one does not experience in Franzen or Wallace. Reading McCarthy is like being in the presence of a great writer like reading Hemingway. His preference for short declarative sentences is similar to Hemingway.

Don DeLillo is another writer who writes with short declarative sentences. His scope, ideas and tone seems like ‘high art’ when compared to other writers. Michael Chabon is another entertaining author who creates well structured, imaginative and entertaining novels – similar to the intellectual virtuosity of Franzen and Wallace. Thomas Pynchon on the other hand is a blend of McCarthy and Franzen. An intellectual but with the earthiness of McCarthy. His work is plugged into the same authenticity that McCarthy draws from. The atmosphere of his novels captures the milieu of the locale better than most writers. His themes are large and tackles the relevant questions similar to McCarthy who famously disdains writers who don’t tackle the grand themes of life and death - writers like Marcel Proust and Henry James.  It’s a wonder to read current American writers as I seemed to have stopped at Hemingway preferring instead Asian, European and South American writers. There is life after Hemingway after all.

Not so Bad

The project is moving along fine. It was not as bad as I thought. That goes to show that one’s churning thoughts often result in paranoia. The go live date has been set for next week. Now the only thing left to do is have the systems ready for go live. Not everything is bright and shiny with a primrose path ahead. There are still lots to do and need to hang on and support production. I would think that the whole thing will stabilize after a few weeks. The challenge now is to get everybody ready to support the application. In other words, the stage has been set and the actors need to perform their roles. My immediate concern is to make sure that everyone knows his function. Actually this should be the concern of the director, but sometimes one wonders if the director knows what to do. In fact, I have been overstepping my job which is really the source of stress and anxiety.

But the situation has dramatically changed from defeatism last week to sunny optimism. We met these past days discussing the next steps and the directors are finally getting their act together. More planning, new worksheets and meetings with all concerned were undertaken. There is better direction and steering now. I guess they realized that one can only do so much. We are finally working as a team than ever before. There are a few concerns especially the main actors of the major systems. But communication is ongoing to keep everyone in the loop. I am doing more testing and hope all the other actors are ready for their coming responsibility. Stepping back from pressure and depression is the real trick to survive. One just needs to keep going despite the many obstacles that one faces. An important lesson for one’s kids.

Last Tuesday, my fiction writing class had a field trip at the city park. It was a nice sunny day and a few of us where lost so we wandered around looking for the others. But it was a nice walk in the grounds beside the stream and waterfalls as the river made its way through the park. Finally, we called our professor and met with the rest in a café near the park entrance. We talked about our topic for the day and got to our writing assignment. The professor had to leave at 6pm but we continued writing and one of the student’s husbands, also an aspiring writer and former student in a previous class, continued to lead. We read our work and exchanged feedback. It was a good day all in all and I read the assigned chapter when I got home. The field trip brought my spirits up especially with the turn around in the project’s fortunes.

I have been trying to catch up in my paper work now that I finished filing my income tax return. I review my pending papers, try to resolve them, pay the bills and check my paper mail. I try to do these tasks in the evening or during some free time at work. I spend too much time enjoying myself by reading and watching movies that I neglect my paper work. There’s just too much paper floating around that one needs an efficient system to keep track. This coming weekend there’s a Toastmaster conference nearby and I am debating whether I should attend. I guess I should because it’s a rare time that the division conference is held in the upstate. I have been doing a lot for Toastmasters recently. We just had our weekly meeting last Wednesday. So I had to find time to organize and arrange the gathering since that’s my role in the club. Though I often have doubts, these activities actually help me grow and I should be more appreciative.

I am listening to ‘No Country for Old Men’ which is a great novel. It captures one’s attention unlike the usual books one finds. It’s a good view on the drug problems in the Border States such as Texas. But it’s a classic tale of good and evil, greed and ambition and modern life with great depictions of its characters. Cormac McCarthy has a gift in portraying evil men – the Judge in ‘Blood Meridian’, Anton Shigur in ‘No Country for Old Men’ and the various cannibals in ‘The Road.’ A lot of his books were made into movies which go to show that Hollywood does pay attention to great America writers. Cormac’s work is often filled with dark, senseless and brutal violence as well as disillusion (see ‘Sunset Unlimited’). This dark vision is in contrast to Thomas Pynchon whose works possess an intense zany hilarity that seems to celebrate life.

These are great books worth reading. I am also watching Season Three of the HBO crime series ‘The Wire’. I consider it the best television series I have ever seen. It’s like watching a Shakespearian play mixed with Greek tragedy, filmed in gritty realism by a great Italian director but paced out into a Mexican tele-novella serial. It’s both realistic and imaginative with a great ensemble cast showing a city in its coarse microcosm. Reading Cormac’s work and watching ‘The Wire’, one realizes that it’s a whole new world out there. A world that’s more brutal and senseless than one can ever imagine; more sophisticated and organized in terms of its criminal elements. One wonders if decent life or civil society can ever survive. Except perhaps with the ruthless chauvinism of a fascist right wing where justice is dealt with the rule of a gun than from legislated laws.

Limbo

The project is in temporary limbo. Last week, the plan was to do a pilot test and go live but that did not happen. It didn’t happen because of a software bug and a delay in pushing an important component to production. Originally the plan was to test on Friday afternoon. But the folks at the business wanted an earlier date - on Wednesday and eventually on Thursday. But a patch was delivered on Wednesday and a bug was found which took a day to fix. Thursday afternoon came but the component was not installed yet. It took some back room negotiations to get the remote team to implement the move. All these work via network chat with folks in India. Meanwhile I conducted more tests after frantic phone calls to our Ohio support, having phone conferences and last minute dealings to get tasks done. I particularly like these behind the scenes action when time is of the essence – it’s like clutch play in basketball with the opponent leading and 2 minutes left in the game.

But the damage was done as the deadline was not met. It was Friday afternoon and we could have proceeded if the original schedule was followed. The schedule was changed because the business and other team members cannot leave a proposal as is. Everyone had to venture out an opinion. My mistake was agreeing to the early date. I should have been the voice of caution and restraint but instead followed the crowd. Strangely it became my decision, passed on by the project manager. A resolution I should have rejected. I should have requested a joint judgment so everyone has skin in the game – by being jointly responsible in agreeing to an early date. We were all eager to get off the ground. So the decision just steamrolled ahead with me as the unwitting fall guy.

The situation became worse even with being only a day late. After so many false starts, it gave the impression that we were not ready and the team was not doing thorough testing. I felt particularly guilty because of my missteps in agreeing towards an early deadline and foolishly accepting responsibility. Hence, it can be seen as my fault entirely. But the project is a team effort and everyone is responsible for rushing the decision. We met again on Friday before noon to re-group but the momentum was gone. By noon, although we were finally ready, having fixed the bugs and moved the component to production, the business avoided us. I guess they had eggs on their faces after working directly with the end users. So more testing is advised and we’re floating in limbo, waiting for some spark or new idea to get things moving again.

The blame game is subtly moving along. Some say the software is unstable, or that testing was not extensively done or the developers are not good or responsive. The bottom line: the project is not managed properly. About 3 pilot runs were conducted in the remote site and despite some blocker issues, the tests were successful. The test proved the software works. Like a proof of concept but late in the game as proof of concept are normally done at the start. Anyway tests have shown that it works and one just needs to iron out the blockers and get things moving again. At the end of the day, poor management is the largely due to recent changes in team’s leadership. Significant alteration in the key roles involving the top people, changes in the pilot site and departures of team members have taken their toll. In fact it’s a miracle that the project has reached this stage at all.

It’s a good thing that the pilot runs were completed. Otherwise, the business folks can use this setback as a reason to kill the project. It’s not personal – it’s just that these folks prefer the existing obsolete solution. Change will only bring aggravation and grief before stabilizing. It’s also a good thing that the pilot runs have allowed us to get approval from the big guns to go live. Now it’s too late and there is no turning back because every one has skin in the game. It would look like these folks are incompetent if the decision is reversed. Unfortunately, I am the newest member of the team and maybe the first to go if heads need to roll. But after looking at one’s chances, one can make calculations that the policy of diversity, employee respect and all around good humor will save the day. One just needs to show up for work each day.

The past weekend was another hectic one. The deadline for tax filing is mid-April. So one had to gather all the documents, make sense of the tax software, enter all the information and file the document electronically. But I had to clear my paper clutter, dig in and search for documents needed in the filing. I woke up early on Sunday morning and started sorting the clutter, throwing out spam mail, shredding documents to prevent identity theft, filing folders and putting aside the important ones needing attention. I still need to look for an efficient way to organize myself and de-clutter my life. The paper sorting was tolerable because I listened to the remaining chapters of Thomas Pynchon’s great novel ‘Inherent Vice’. A noir thriller about a dope smoking private eye in late 70’s Los Angeles, during Richard Nixon’s term - a thoroughly enjoyable work.

I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening working on the tax filing, watching a Japanese movie while working, fighting a virus that attacked my laptop (and forced me to worked on another computer while the protection software waged war on the invader), scrambling to back up my files, eventually settling on Dropbox and doing a backup of important files into the ’cloud’. It’s a good thing that I choose the online option instead of installing the software locally. It would have delayed me for a day. During that hectic weekend, I managed to read 5 magazines that I had to return to the library and watched 2 movies. So despite the debacle at work, I managed to get things done. I also started a new book - Cormac McCarthy’s ‘No Country for Old Men’. Despite having seen the movie, I always enjoy his work as he is probably the greatest American writer of this age, followed closely by Thomas Pynchon.

An Object of Beauty

I finished reading Steve Martin’s new book during the weekend. It just took a couple of hours to finish. It seems a trivial work compared to Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Blood Meridian’ which I finished last Friday after listening to the audio book for several weeks. McCarthy is the successor to great American writers like Hemingway and Mark Twain. His work has a brutal and honest subtlety which is not found in contemporary writers who strive for gimmick and novelty. One immediately knows when reading the book that it’s a significant and mature work. Others pale by comparison. The subject matter is relevant with the recent upheavals in the Middle East. It strikes at the heart of the American conception of Manifest Destiny – a policy well known to affected peoples like Filipinos, Cubans, Vietnamese, American Indians and Mexicans. It’s a tough book to read but profoundly satisfactory.

‘An Object of Beauty’ by comparison is light reading. Martin does not have great prose style but he is a competent writer; able to focus on the right moment. I think it’s more a ‘technical’ book if one wants to understand the contemporary art scene or investing in art. One understands about the art business in general. Although it lacks the dense erudition of scholars, the book possesses the brilliant insights of a savant or synthesizer. Only one who is not an art scholar can write this book –someone like Steve Martin who is an artist of multiple disciplines (acting, screenwriting, musician and author). It’s a more effective book because it strips away the scholarly and academic tone that confuses rather than educates people. After reading the book I watched the Internet channel KQED which features art galleries and artists in San Francisco – a good complement. I also watched the documentary ‘Exit through the Gift Shop’ – a sardonic tale about street art.

Later I read a more scholarly tome called ‘Sacred and the Profane’ about the Italian renaissance. Part history book - part art - part critical commentary - part book review, it had the confusing dense prose that’s difficult to read. I just skimmed through the book as it took a lot of effort to understand. Simplicity is a requirement due perhaps to the information overload and increasing complexity in life. Outsized characters exists in the recent books or films I watched or read such as the Judge in ‘Blood Meridian’, the heroine in Martin’s book, Mr. Brain Wash in ‘Exit through the Gift Shop’ and the Japanese extremist in the documentary ‘The Emperors Naked Army Marches on’ – another documentary I saw in the weekend together with ‘The Cove’ about the slaughter of dolphins in Japan. Perhaps the complexity of life and the desire to succeed results in eccentric characters. A simple life of quiet and contemplation is sorely needed today.

Unfortunately, one did not have silent serenity and rest in the weekend. Still a mad rush to read as many books as one can or as many films or magazines as one can. Is there a secret to master the complexities of modern life? Perhaps Google has a way. One speed reads the book ‘Google Apps – the Missing Manual’ in an attempt to master the new lifestyle. Moving one’s data to the ‘cloud’ like calendars, tasks and to do list plus using multiple tools and mobile devices maybe one way to survive. There is a perceptible shift towards the Internet driven by Google technology and one has to master that landscape. Being a writer is no exception unless one would like to end up a nutcase like Mr. Brain Wash. One can see great things happening in the Internet especially watching films via Netflix, browsing channels using Boxee or Google Television. I think I am ahead of the curve in having this set –up at home which is just a laptop connected via HDMI cable to a flat screen television, and controlled by a small wireless keyboard and iPod Touch. Together with voice recognition and tablet computers, one is living in a future household.

Also documentaries and You Tube videos capture everyone’s attention today. Is this a significant shift or just a momentary fad together with the mobile tools just mentioned? Appropriately, Ken Auletta’s book on Google is subtitled ‘The End of the World as we Know It.’ The key maybe is understanding the moves of Google, Face book and Microsoft. Last night I tried a new Microsoft application called ‘Montage’ as well as explore Google Apps for small business. Both are interesting software that requires a change in mindset. It’s clear that old ways of doings things don’t work. Closer to home, my current project is a mess and one is trying different techniques similar to agile methods to keep going. But like the country at large, most people are not prepared for change. Appreciating art and design perhaps helps one cultivate a creative mindset (hence ones’ interest in art) but one has to apply creativity in one’s finances, writing life and work life to survive the new world.

 Links:

http://montage.cloudapp.net/montage/whatsmontage