Haruki Murakami

My book group has the really cool idea of picking an author and then reading books by this author. (rather than picking one specific book)

I chose Murakami's recent memoir, "What I talk about when I talk about running." I had been wanting to read something by him for awhile now; ever since I skipped out on reading one of his books for my book group in Seattle last year. The Memoir is only 180 pages, and I read it in four sittings at Powell's books (which means that I basically paid for the book in latte fees :)

Murakami, a marathon runner, discusses his running habits, specific races that he has run in, and the relationship that running has to his writing and to life in general. He says that runners run in order to cope with the conflict that they feel in life. Murakami believes that “most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day.” He also says that he wrote his first novel when he was 30; he had spent about 10 years working (owning) a bar in Japan, and gradually evolved into writing in general.

This guy has done some serious running. I think he's run somewhere around 24 marathons, and one time actually ran 62 miles in one day! Egad.

He's inspired me to get out my jogging shoes, although I don't know that I will see the day when I will run another marathon ;)

I'm nobody

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Emily Dickenson

Museum of Contemporary Craft

I just visited the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland. It is a free museum, located in downtown Portland.

Currently, they have exhibits with Mandy Greer and Daniel Morris. Mandy Greer works with beads and fabric and has made some beautiful chandelier-like pieces. She says that she gets her inspiration from mythological stories.

Daniel Morris' pieces deal with issues of poverty and class. For example, one of his pieces; hand woven on a piece of fabric; is of a funeral, and the title is "Who will mourn when who has died?" Maybe he is using his artwork as a therapeutic process.

This museum also has a very gallery for local craft artists, with beautiful quilts, scarves and jewelry, and pottery. It was a very inspiring experience.

Remains of the Day

The Remains of the Day is very good, if sad, story. It is the story of Stevens, a butler on his way to visit his former housekeeper Miss Kensington, and the flashbacks that he has of their life together serving at Darlington Hall.

Kasuo Ishiguro, the author, says that he starts a book by writing about themes, and with this book wanted to write about someone who has dedicated himself solely to his work, and at the end of his life only to find that his life has been a total waste. “Remains of the Day” means both that Stephens is reflecting back on his life at the end of it, and also ‘remains’ in terms of a wreck; meaning that his life has been a waste.

Stevens is the butler at Darlington Hall in the years leading up to WWII. Lord Darlington is a right-wing extremist; he at one point tells Stephens that he must fire two Jewish women who are working on the staff. Stephens has a strong sense of duty to his Lord and of the dignity of serving as a butler, and so makes no objection to Lord Darlington’s request.

Stephens also developed a warm relationship with his housekeeper Miss Kensington, but the relationship never becomes anything more than professional—thought they both act as though they might have wanted something more—due to Stevens’ strong sense of professional duty.

“Stephens has a very parochial vision, which is why he gets things wrong in his life. He is quite myopic,” Kasuo says.

Stephens is quite out of touch with his feelings, to the point that he is delusional. In the course of his drive to see Miss Kensington, Stephens references the letter that Miss Kensington has sent to him, and he has read between the lines to think that she is terribly unhappy in her marriage and that she hopes to return again to Darlington Hall to work as the housekeeper.

When they meet, we realize that these are really only the hopes that Stevens harbors for Miss Kensington. She is actually fairly happy in her marriage and also has no intention of returning to Darlington Hall.

The movie gets some of these details different. In the movie, Miss Kensington is separated from her husband, and truly did intend to return to Darlington Hall, until she discovers that her daughter is going to have a baby. It’s a pretty good movie, with a great caste; Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Reeve, and Emma Thompson; but the book is better since it is told from Stephens point of view, and so we get a really good glimpse into his mind.

Kasuo says that when he writes, he is more interested in the character’s interpretation of events than in the events themselves. Stephens is so dedicated to his duty as a butler that even when his father dies, he thinks that it is not appropriate for to mourn or even visit his father on his deathbed since it would be interrupting a great party that he is working hard to orchestrate.

It is a story of lost dreams and lost causes, and in some of the closing scenes we get an idea of how much Stephens and Miss Kensington (now Mrs. Benton) enjoyed one another’s company, though the possibility of a relationship no longer exists.

The Goal

I just finished reading (most of) The Goal, a business book that I first read in college, but have revisited due to my renewed interest in business.

The Goal reduces business down to common sense principles; since the goal of a business is to make money, everything that a business does must stem from this goal. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, the author, saves his plant from closure when he applies this principle. Due to some tip-offs from a mysterious character Jonah, he identifies where the bottlenecks are in the production chain and in doing so creates and efficient production chain.

This book also has an interesting sub-plot; Goldratt and his wife are having some serious marital issues. This is really what kept us all reading in our operations class. We wanted to find out if Goldratt would manage to patch things up with his neglected wife of if she would leave him for good. Man, they used every trick in the book to get us to read our material for class.

The book also makes us wonder whether or not we are ever goint to read about someone having a normal relationship with a Jew. Jonah, the character who gives all of the expert business advice, is an ultra-bright, cerebral physicicst who is only available to chat via telephone in the wee hours of the night, or early in the morning for coffee since he has important engagements in places like Singapore, New York City, and Israel. Ahh, me.

Coffeeshops in Portland

I have already had the chance to waste away many hours in several coffeeshops in Portland! Here are some of my favorites!!!


Vivaces -- 23rd and Pettygrove
This place has REALLY REALLY good crepes. My friend told me about it several years ago, and we would go there after we had cruised ultra-trendy 23rd avenue. Some of my favorite crepes are the ice cream and banana crepe (you really need two people to finish this) and the nutella/strawberry and whip cream crepe!!! I have never been a fan of healthy crepes, although people tell me that they are quite good.



CoffeeTime -- 712 NW 21st
A friend recommended this place to me, and I can see why! If you are planning to spend a LOT of time in a coffeeshop (ie taking a nap, spending the night :), or just have some work to get done on the computer, then this is a great place to go. (Although the service actually is really lazy). It's a HUGE coffeeshop, and the rooms just keep going back further and further. It also has really long hours, even opening around 6:00 am on Sundays. I heard that it used to be open 24-7, and offered free coffee to college students in the evening, but apparently those days are over.



Rimsky-Korsakoffeehouse -- 12th and Alder, SE
My book group just met here and it really has a lot of character! The table that we sat at REVOLVED really really slowly so that we didn't realize it until all of a sudden we saw that our things were on the other side of the table!!!! Apparently it also has a table that moves up and down very slowly and another that shocks people! And the bathroom has a fake dead corpse! And the waiter was HILARIOUS, joining in on our book group discussion, and even sitting down with us to offer his own insights.

Joe the Plumber

In the third presidential debate, John McCain mentioned Joe the Plumber, aka Samuel Joseph
Wurzelbacher, in a desperate last-minute attempt to win the election. He said, "Joe, I want to tell you, I'll not only help you buy that business that you worked your whole life for and I'll keep your taxes low and I'll provide available and affordable health care for you and your employees. And I will not stand for a tax increase on small-business income." This prompted a response from Obama, and a lengthy debate ensued which, perhaps inadvertently, rose from obscurity a middle class Holland, Ohio resident to something approaching an icon for middle-class Americans.

"It's pretty surreal, man," Joe said of his mention in the presidential debate. And although as of October 15th, he claimed to be undecided about who he would be getting his vote, by the end of the month Joe was campaigning for the Republican party, had a team of advisors, had written a book, and intended to go into the music business. Currently, Joe is in the Middle East as a war correspondent for Pajamas TV, apparently having left his dream of ever owning a plumbing business behind him.

Truly, this guy has us scratching our heads and asking ourselves "what the hell?" In terms of nobodies exerting political leverage, Joe ranks right up there with Tim Eyman. However, Eyman has actually launched and passed several state initiatives.

Joe is a nobody who has done absolutely nothing, and who now possesses a fair amount of clout and media attention. Ahhh, life in the United States.

Out With the Old, In With the New

An estimated one million people will attend the Historical Inaguation of Barack Hussein Obama, in a ceremony that will include Bono, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, John Legend and Sheryl Crow!!! Wow. The ceremony will also have the highest level of security of any presidential election. (Speaking of assisination attempts on a president; have you seen the movie Taxi Driver with Robert Deniro and Jodie Foster? Woah, creepy movie.)

Yesterday Bush delivered a farewell address, saying he had "followed my conscience and done what I thought was right." His negative image due to The War In Iraq and his mishandling of Hurrican Katrina earned him the lowest rating of any president, and perhaps overshadowed some of his more positive contributions, including implementing the "No Child Left Behind" program, and most significantly his appointment of two Justices to the Supreme Court.

With Obama, our nation has elected perhaps the strongest advocate of abortion of any US president. Fortunately, his time in office will not exceed eight years; Roberts and Alido will likely serve as Justices for much longer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa-4E8ZDj9s

Three Little Pigs

When I was four or five, our neighbor Susan Zell had the idea that my sister Monica and I and her two children Katie and David would perform "The Three Little Pigs" in the Summer Bible School Talent Show. Katie and David were some of our best friends, and we had spent hours in the sweltering Florida summer heat picking flowers in thier yard and playing in thier treehouse and I can remember late at night begging my mother to let me go back to thier house to play.
Susan set up a carboard box on her driveway, and put a brick at one end and some sticks at another; and had us rehearse. I was going to be the pig in the brick house, becasue I was the oldest, or maybe I thought, Katie the big bad wolf, and Monica and David the lesser roles of being in the straw house and house of sticks.
Susan fixed the box up nice and pretty for the performance. It went smoothly. The story was so intuitive that none of use really needed a script.
Afterwards, the costumes somehow eneded up at our house, and our friend Pat McLaughlin saw the opportunity in them. We put the pig noses onto our faces and wore the pink shirts and stood at the end of the driveway and jumped out at the passing cars. I laughed and laughed until my stomach hurt. I wondered how he could be so funny and I wanted to be just like him.

Yellow Raft in Blue Water

Yellow Raft in Blue Water is a really really really good book. I first read it in high school, but revisited it again when I was 25, and have since then read it several times, including listening to book on CD while I was in Tajikistan.

This book is good because it emphasizes the differences in perspective people have on the same experience. It starts out telling the story of Rayona, a teenage girl born to divorced parents. Then it tells the story of Rayona's mother, Christine, and finally of Christine's mother, Ida. Many of the same experiences are re-told in each story, but from a different character's perspective.

Probably I like this book because it takes the experiences of several broken women and dramatizes it, offering explanations for why they ended up where they did, and what motivated their decisions. Also it takes place in Montana and Seattle, and has a strong emphasis on Native American Spirituality.

Michael Dorris outdid himself with this book, and the untimely end that he made for himself was rather tragic.