Book Lists - a Mandatory Blog Posting

This seems to be an obligatory topic in any blog, so here goes - these are the last 5 books I've read, blah, blah blah.

1. In Cold Blood - by Truman Capote. Frankly, I saw the movie and had to read the book. I'm a student of the creative process, and the movie is about how Capote insinuated himself into a small Kansas town and into the story. The book is the product of the movie and taken together with the movie is a fascinating study of Holcombe, Kansas and Capote himself.
2. The Commitment - by Dan Savage. Savage is the author of Savage Love, as graphic and honest a sex column as there is. It is published nationally in "alternative" newspapers like The Onion. He is gay but that is not the limit of his sexual expertise. Anyway, this book is about the process he and his partner (and their son) went through in deciding whether they should "marry". I have to put "marry" in quotes because same sex partners aren't allowed to "marry" in their state of residence. Long story short (too late for that now, eh?) this book will make you think not only about same-sex partnerships/marriage, but also opposite sex partnerships/marriage. A great book. I highly recommend it.
3. Freakonomics - by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. And I thought a degree in Economics would be worthless. Boy was I wrong. It does help that Levitt (the economist) is one of the 10 smartest people in the U.S. (my opinion), and that Dubner (the New Yorker writer) is a brilliant storyteller. In this book you'll learn how a group of Chicago teachers cheated on No Child Left Behind tests, why swimming pools are more dangerous than guns, the history of the KKK, and how come, if drug dealers make all that money, why they still live in their mothers' basements. I guarantee you won't want to put it down. It is the only book I've ever read that I didn't want to end.
4. Lamb (the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal) - by Christopher Moore. How can you not love a fictional account, told from the point of view of Christ's childhood buddy, of Christ's "missing" years from age 13 to 32? I laughed out loud, which is saying a lot because I'm not a big laugh-out-loud person. This is fun fiction that won't fill you up.
5. The Tipping Point - by Malcolm Gladwell. I heard a podcast of Gladwell speaking at a geek's convention and thought he had some interesting points. There is much in this book that is interesting, but I didn't find it nearly as compelling a read as Freakonomics. Good, but not great.

What might be more interesting, I suppose, is the books I'm about to read, or am currently reading. My list includes:

1. Wish List - by Eoin Colfer. Too early to judge - I'm about 12 pages into it (and yet I'm still not hooked). Technically it's children's literature. Katie recommended it - she reads voraciously but rarely recommends books for me, and when she does it's always worth my time.
2. The World is Flat - by Thomas Friedman. Received it as a present, not sure what it's about, but it's #2 on the NY Times Nonfiction best seller list, so there must be something good in there.
3. A Dirty Job - by Christopher Moore. What can I say? I like the author.

The last list is my all time favorite book list. These are books that are my all time favorites and reading them, I believe, provides a little insight into me. They are not necessarily in any particular order - the first one isn't better than the next one, it's just the one I thought of first.

* The Catcher in the Rye - by J.D. Salinger. I am Holden Caulfield (or at least I was when I was 17), and that's all I have to say on that subject.
* A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - by Dave Eggers. I laughed out loud and cried, and that was before I finished the first chapter. Stylistically challenging, difficult to read at times (he warns you in the preface) not because of how it's written but because of what's written. I read everything Dave Eggers writes. If he scribbled a sentence on a sheet of toilet paper then wiped and flushed, I'd try to catch it before it spiraled into oblivion. That's how much I recommend this author and in particular this book.
* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - by Mark Haddon. The story of a 15 year old autistic boy's investigation of the murder of the neighbor's dog. Written in first person from the boy's perspective. Having 2 boys "on the spectrum" it helped me better understand them. I wanted to cry a lot when I read this. Our lives are so easy, we have nothing to complain about. If you know someone who's "on the spectrum" (and you probably do) you should read this book.
* The Princess Bride - by William Goldman. Yes, the book the movie is based on. As wonderful as that movie is, the book is better.
* Road Swing - by Steve Rushin. Columnist for Sports Illustrated drives around the country in search of interesting sports stories. Another laugh out loud book. He is almost exactly the same age as me, and I live vicariously through him. I still religiously read his column weekly in SI.
* Isaac's Storm and The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. There is nothing more interesting that American history, and these two stories are fascinating because they are true.

There you have it. Me, and the books I love.

My Youngest Memory

At my job, among my many duties, I am the webmaster of our Intranet site, niftily branded by my predecessor as "HIP". So one of the goals of HIP is to connect people, since our firm is spread across 6 locations in 3 states. On a lark I created "Question of the Week". QOTW is a web bulletin board where anyone in the firm can post an answer to such queries as "Describe a brush with celebrity" or "Tell us about your first car". It's been a pretty big success, at least as measured by participation and the amount of chatter I hear in the hallway ("Did you see that so-and-so used to arrange funerals for famous people in Hollywood?")

This week's question is "Share your youngest memory". I wrote:

"Pain. One of my siblings dropping some sharp-edged metal object on my bare foot. Lots of blood and tears. I think I was 3."

Not Pulitzer material, but hey, I'm limited to 255 characters. Anyway, I've been thinking about this memory (I'm not sure why) and, well, I think I may have it wrong. Here goes.

I remember a bunch of us kids in the basement - the basement on the farm. At least that's what I think. I also remember a bunch of gray metal shelves (which I have no recollection of in the basement except for this particular memory). And, for some odd reason, I remember an anvil - like cartoon characters drop on the heads of other cartoon characters. "Did we ever own an anvil?" I think. That thing must have weighed 20 or 30 pounds.

For some reason my brain is telling me that someone dropped the anvil on my foot. In my brain I have this image of my foot similar to this (though not exactly this picture - I downloaded this picture from the Internet.) This picture most closely represents the image of my foot that I hold as a memory. Except in my memory my foot is covered with blood.

So here's where I think my memory - this memory - is wrong. First, this image of my bleeding foot cannot be an image of my foot. If it was my foot, it would be a top view - like this. This is the view of your own feet. My memory is a view of other people's feet.

Second, if I was about 3, I would be, according to family legend, about 20 pounds. After all, like my Mom used to love to tell me, I was only 27 pounds when I started kindergarten. If that's true, I was probably under 20 pounds at the age of 3. So if that anvil had been dropped on my foot, it would likely have broken several bones - on top of the whole bleeding thing. And it's highly likely that I would remember several weeks in a cast at the age of 3. And I don't remember ever being in a cast.

So far I must conclude that a)someone else's foot was injured and b)it definitely wasn't an anvil that landed on my foot.

What really happened? I now think that I there are a bunch of disjointed memories that my mind has forged into a single coherent memory. Except it's just not possible. What probably happened is that I dropped the anvil on someone else's foot. And the pain that I associate with the memory is the pain of guilt, remorse, and punishment that I don't understand (because I'm 3).

Why did I write this post? To be honest, I didn't really piece together the part about me dropping the anvil on someone else's foot until I typed it. But now I feel better.

If anyone remembers this event, please help me out. And if it was your foot that absorbed that anvil - I'm really sorry. I'm pretty sure I didn't do it on purpose, if that makes you feel any better.

Something Fun When You're Bored at Work

Every once in a while, perhaps as some kind of subversive challenge to myself, I will pick some obscure word and set a goal to use that word at work that day.

"Gosh," I think to myself, "I haven't heard the word 'excrement' used in a work environment in I don't remember how long. As God or some other higher being is my witness, I WILL use the word 'excrement' today. At work."

Later I'll find myself in a meeting saying something like, "If we don't do this in increments, it'll end up excrement", and everyone laughs.

So, would someone please suggest a word...

Reunions and Cashducks

The 10 surviving Gonzalez kids assembled last Friday to pay our respects to our oldest brother Jim. Here are the 9 that made it to the reception after. Ted left early to take care of Terri, otherwise we'd all have been in this photo.

It was a sad day. And a happy one, for my memories of Jim are of his laughter. His roaring laughter. His contagious, roaring laughter.

His son Chris told a great story, which I won't attempt to capture here. I will, however, remind you of the punchline - "Don't bite a cashduck in the butt."

Sadly, my family only gets together for funerals and weddings; funerals moreso. Perhaps this blog can get us talking again.

Post a comment (share a memory) and sign your name to it.

Scary Halloween Photos

Here are Gandalf the Grey and Frodo Baggins.



Here is Farrah Fawcet-Minor.