Only 49 hours left! Watch the video – back it on kickstarter.

$1 will get you a pdf and a part in a completely brilliant plan. More will get you art,  robots and jewelery oh my!

Watch the video, really, to see why they’re doing this.

Beat the Reaper: A Novel by Josh Bazell – Super quick read, set in NYC which gives me the warm fuzzies when it’s done well ever since I’ve moved away, involves mafia and medicine with awesome  footnotes. A great first novel – can’t wait for the next one.

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff – Story set amid polygamy in the US, intense to read.

Juliet, Naked: A Novel by Nick Hornby – Nick Hornby back to writing about relationships and fandom – yay!

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova – Vampire novel for bibliophiles with action taking place in beautiful libraries.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows – Tells the story of WWII occupation of Guernsey via letters. Each character has a unique voice – it works and also involves love of books.

Ten Storey Love Song: a Novel by Richard Milward – Set in the north east of England, saw him do a reading from this and you can too. (Not the reading I was at but enjoy!)

I’ve also included Her Fearful Symmetry: a Novel by Audrey Niffenegger. I haven’t read it yet. It is waiting on my bookshelf. I am including it based on how much I loved The Time Traveller’s Wife.

Stuff White People Like

Someone left a newspaper on the train I took this morning (the Daily Mail) and I had a flip through it and came across this article…the content seemed familiar. The end of the article points out that Stuff White People Like: The Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions is now available in the UK.

This is a book based on the popular website.

Interesting difference is it talks about “middle class people” instead of White people. Class as opposed to race.

Possibly because over 90% of the UK population is White (according to the 2001 census) vs. 74% in the US (according to 2006 American Community Survey)…people just aren’t faced with race as an issue so much outside of London.

According to the 2001 census 45% of all ethnic minority people live in the London area, where they form nearly one-third of the population (29%).

The only reason I knew these stats exist is from studying random statistics for the Life in the UK test.

I passed by the way  : )

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Twilight-style Wuthering Heights Book

Saw this at Tesco tonight. Wuthering Heights being marketed to teens on the basis that their fave fictional characters like the book.

The red seal/sticker/stamp reads “Bella & Edward’s Favourite Book” and the cover design is similar to the Twilight series covers.

Marketing reading as sexy is good. Ugly visions of cynical marketers trying to make a few bucks off the back catalog also maybe not bad if it allows them to keep publishing in tough economic times.

I have one question – Is this actually working?

Buy it on amazon.co.uk if you want it to match your set of Twilight books from here »

Similar to PBS / NPR funding drives there are donation levels and rewards, decided on by the creative people.

Many post videos to peak interest that are fantastic and status updates can be really creative too.

I found out about kickstarter via Ken Jennings (highly recommend his book) when he linked to Eric Berlin’s crossword puzzles.

Eric Berlin creates crossword puzzles. He wanted to create a suite of puzzles that interlink. To generate interest he linked to a pdf of a previous suite of puzzles on Brooklyn as a theme. They’re quite good. Just donating$1 gave you access to the puzzles and helped them to get made. For $5 people could participate in a competition. Reward levels above that included copies of his book.

Recommended books for 2008:

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver – One of my favourite authors. One moment, one choice in a person’s life – this book explores two parallel timelines in alternating chapters and does it well!

Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human by Elizabeth Hess – Really interesting non-fiction book about a 70s experiment to have a chimp raised in a human family and be taught to communicate.

The Host: A Novel by Stephenie Meyer – Enjoyed it but she is wordy and that doesn’t change here.

Apples: A Novel by Richard Milward – First novel set in Middlesbrough in the North east of England. Depiction of teen life is harsh but engrossing and funny at times too.

Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea – Experience novel, but well-written and funny.

Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan – Graphic novel. Sent to me by a secret santa on librarything.

Plus 3 internet memes turned books + 1 book based on TV:

Pop Charts by Paul Copperwaite
Indexed by Jessica Hagy
Sleeveface by John Rostron, Carl Morris
Mock the Week: Scenes We’d Like to See by Dan Patterson

These are fun books to have laying around when people are over.

We got to the office of Live Smart Homes at 2:05. We had made an appointment. We were left to sit and wait in their overly warm office entrance while crappy music played.

We overheard a young woman listen to a complaint about a leak in one of the buildings while we waited.

After about 15 minutes, which felt much longer, a woman came out from the back to take us to view a one-bedroom flat.

We enter the building entrance to the right of their office. There are workmen making a huge racket, apparently refurbishing some flats.

We enter the flat.

To the left there are two closets. One is mostly taken up by a hot water heater. One is mostly taken up with a clothes dryer.

To the right there is a serviceable bathroom. One of the marketing highlights is that new tenants get a fresh shower curtain.

There is a shoebox of a kitchen – with a washing machine [clothing], microwave, half size fridge built in. Only one person would be able to fit at a time, and with no place to sit, I guess you’re not really meant to eat at home.

The bedroom is completely taken up by a double bed. The room is so small you can’t really stand at the foot of the bed. You can stand to the side of the bed, across from which is the built-in closets, covered with mirror doors. Ugly, but serviceable, and your only clothing storage space.

The living room is almost completely taken up by a not-too-comfortable two-seat sofa covered in cheap blue fabric. Across from it is a “fireplace”, with electric heater. In the corner is another marketing highlight, you get a small TV over a VCR (VIDEO Machine) in the corner of the room. Is this 1990? Does anyone still have videos, that they use?!

The best part of the living room is the hideous wallpaper. Flowers on the bottom half of the walls, split by a wallpaper border and intense stripes on the top half. It is ugly and makes the room look even smaller.

I think it would be psychologically damaging to assaulted by this aesthetic every day. I might become the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper, completely insane, minus the post-partum depression.

Are they worried people will make the walls dirty? [Dirt would probably get lost in the busy design of it.] Kevin’s theory is that they bought it cheaply in bulk. The aesthetic is of an anonymous, ugly hotel, that you don’t mind staying in for a night because it’s cheap and you’re surprised by how clean it is.

Here’s the problem…it’s not cheap…Non-refundable credit checks at £75 each [£150 total] which include a change of locks. £500 security deposit. £425 Rent per month [Slightly larger one-bedrooms are £435, 2 bedrooms start at £465.].

The water bill is included, as is a membership for 2 to the nearby Springs gym [£60-£100 value]. Any home repairs are done by the management company. Council Tax is not included and is an additional £95 a month nor is the Electric Bill.

This is a lot of money for a shoe box, even one that is centrally located. As described above the one bedroom we looked at was really one medium-sized room divided into the different areas with walls. Two people could not live in it.

The sad thing is it would be much better as a studio without the wall separating the bedroom and living room. And, it would look larger if you painted the walls a light color and/or added a mirror. I am not a decorator…even I know this stuff!

I could really only see it as an option for a single person without a lot of stuff, who is almost never home, possibly blind.

Thankfully, we have another option. There is a small three-bedroom house we can rent for less money that is less central. No contest.

Free download of The Yellow Wallpaper or purchase from amazon below.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America’s Favorite Addiction

Fame Junkies by Jake Halpern subtitled “The Hidden Truths Behind America’s Favorite Addiction” is really interesting.

You can read about fame school, the expensive conventions precocious children go to be discovered and industries that have sprouted up to support this, celebrity assistants who subordinate their own lives for someone else (they have a support group!), a celebrity home mapmaker, obsessive Rod Stewart fans, police officers on stalker patrol, a retirement home for celebrities and more.

It also explores interesting theories and research.

Efforts to boost self-esteem in the classroom and in the home may have increased young people’s (already greater) tendency toward self-importance and narcissism. And in the age of reality television the perceived availability of fame means many young people do not have to face reality at all.

Belongingness theory – About craving social acceptance, social relations create happy chemicals in the brain and para-social relations with celebrities or characters on a show can induce the same thing.

Studies on Birging – basking in reflected glory (an example being college students wearing a school team jersey – when team wins vs. when they lose; also the language that gets used – “We won” vs. “They Won” or “They Lost” vs. “We Lost”)

A study with monkeys : ) on decision theory. Using a juice currency, monkeys were willing to pay to see frontal shots of dominant males or closeups of female hindquarters; and had to be paid [extra juice] to watch frontal female or subordinate males. It seems that acquiring this social information is useful for survival. Human obsession with celebrity may work the same way.

There’s lots of great stuff in here. Though I do think some of the studies created for the book could use some work. The research seems to reflect the commonsense idea that people who are secure in themselves and have stuff going on may need celebrity less in their lives. In healthy people, healthy doses can still be fun.

Catch A Mate

Catch a Mate by Gena Showalter is fun chic lit, a super quick, sexy read. Suspicious wives can go to the Catch a Mate agency to hire someone to tempt their boyfriends or husbands and confirm their suspicions. The women who work there as bait, especially Jillian Greene, have a very jaded and simple view of men – they are pigs – oink oink. Her opinion will of course change when explosive sparks fly with Marcus Brody – the male version of her.

While I enjoy historical romance (Johanna Lindsey) I do like well-done modern chic lit that reflects now. The business referenced in this book exists in our modern age (talk shows tell me so, it must be true). The one weird thing about the book – the female protagonist is involved in a sexual business, it is 2007, and her fantasy during a wild, anything goes romp is having the male protagonist go down on her. She has never had this experience and is surprised that he is an excited willing participant. Is that truly reflective of women’s experience in 2007? That makes me sad.

To Air Is Human by Bjorn Turoque / Dan Crane (inventor of aireoke) is about the international Air Guitar scene. It is funny and well-written, a quick read.

The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness (Book) Authors:Steven Levy Manufacturer:Simon & Schuster Released:24 October, 2006

Neat things in the chapters:

Perfect has an amusing description of Bill Gates seeing an iPod for the first time.

Identity discusses the intimate nature of exchanging iPods with someone – you may be revealing more than you wish.

Origin discusses the people who were building digital music players and stores before Apple but couldn’t do what Apple has done.

In Cool he talks with Jonathan Ive the designer responsible for the iPod’s look.

In Personal he discusses amateur inventor Andreas Pavel – inventor of the first portable music player in 1972 and the social issues that have concerned people regarding personal music players.

Download has some interesting insights into the politics of getting labels on board with iTunes.

Apple on the impact of Steve Jobs and the turnaround at the company. At the time he rejoined Michael Dell [Dell computers] said “I’d shut [Apple] down,” he said,”and give the money back to the shareholders.”On Jan 13, 2006 Apple’s market capitaliztion became greater than Dell’s.

Podcast finds the roots in CB radio.

It’s a quick read. It talks about what Apple does right. Does not really get into the wrong. It is enjoyable especially the bits I mentioned above.

And how cute is the new shuffle? (maybe it is just for fanboys/fangirls)

Apple 1 GB iPod Shuffle Metal (2nd Generation) (Electronics) Manufacturer:Apple Computer Released:

Media and the Politics of Food

When it comes to food, what you don’t know can hurt you, and it can be hard to keep up with each new healthy way to eat. Join the experts in a discussion of new trends and old facts, what to believe and why. With Nina Planck (creator and manager of farmers markets; author, Real Food), Mary Cleaver (Chef, the Green Table) Jay Weinstein, (chef; author, The Ethical Gourmet) Peter Pringle (author, Food, Inc.) and Ed Levine (author, New York Eats; New York Eats (More); co-author, Pizza: A slice of Heaven).” From the Housing Works Used Book Cafe Website

This really is not how it went but some interesting issues were raised during the evening. Each person started by explaining a bit about what they write about.

Journalist, author Peter Pringle began by explaining he tries to take a middle path – take everything with a grain of salt whether it is Monsanto or Greenpeace. His book is Food, Inc.: Mendel to Monsanto — The Promises and Perils of the Biotech Harvest. Some people call them genetically modified foods and some people call them Frankenfoods. Do research like a journalist. He mentions the 355 Promoter Gene gotten from Cauliflower Mosaic Virus as an example. Anti-gm foods sites list this as very scary – he calls this a myth of green people. It is used in many gm-foods. [Site claiming it's scary, PDF claiming it's not scary, Falling in the middle - it's probably not scary.]

Nina Planck has written a book called Real Food. Real Food are old foods, traditional foods like wild salmon, raw milk, eggs, butter (she mentions butter a lot – must be a favorite). These are foods prepared in the same way they were many years ago and are not tampered with in some industrial fashion. She posed a question – why are people on seemingly healthy diets (according to the media) getting sick? What is responsible for obesity, diabetes, heart disease? Her conclusion is that it is industrial foods as opposed to real foods that are responsible for these ills. Nutritional advice given is politically correct but not nutritionally correct. The Food Pyramid is fattening America.

Mary Cleaver is a caterer known for using local food. She begins the evening mentioning how in 1977 you could not buy local produce if you wanted to. It is about that time that Green Markets started – making it a lot easier.

Jay Weinstein has written The Ethical Gourmet. He talks about how everyday choices we make about food have an impact. Fish can be endangered by fertilizer run-off – choose a non-endangered fish over an endangered one. Coffee and chocolate bought can be fair trade or produced by slaves in Africa. Social and environmental ills are connected to food. Everyday choices like should you buy an organic apple from New Zealand or a regular one that is local (from NY). [He would vote for the local one because of the environmental cost of transporting the organic apple. At the same time he would choose organic milk because the animals are treated better. Ideally, you should get local, organic products.] It is about environmentally sound choices for him.

Ed Levine the moderator at this point raises the question of price as some of these choices are more expensive. Jay Weinstein’s response is that you should do what you can. Nina Planck responds too that price is but one attribute of food. There is also nutrition, flavor, provenance. Jay Weinstein brings up the problem of petroleum in transport. This made me think of ecological footprint calculators.]

Peter Pringle mentions Texmati rice at this point as an example where you should look a second time. The genes for the rice crop were taken from Indian Basmati Rice Farmers and recreated in the U.S. This has destroyed the economy of the farmers from far away. Again a question of impact.

Nina Planck adds that one should use their dollars to affect change in a capitalist marketplace. And Peter’s comment relates to Regional Foods as a subsection of Real Foods.

Back to Jay Weinstein who talks about bottled water. In a place where it is unecessary (NY and other major U.S. cities have good tap water) it is the fastest growing beverage industry. Mentions a ridiculous example of bottled water being shipped to Arkansas from Minnesota and also from Minnesota to Arkansas – all the while causing air pollution along the route and pollution runoff from shipping is polluting water, destroying waterways.

Jay Weinstein again brings up non-endangered vs. endangered fish such as eating non-endangered Arctic char vs. salmon. Cream Cheese and Arctic Char Lox anyone?

At this point I commented to Jocelyn that the evening wasn’t what I thought it would be…

Next Nina Planck asserts that journalists are not doing their jobs when it comes to these issues. And that there are issues for family farmers regarding organic certification. (Her background is that growing up her family ran a farm.) Many family farmers can’t afford certification. She talks about the importance of farmers at farmer’s markets making positive statements about their food – explaining what they do and don’t do to the customers directly.

The conversation goes back to genetically modified foods and biotechnology. Genetic modification of foods can be about environmental, health, human goals. Some crops require fewer pesticides because of GM at the same time these solutions are tied to big companies. Sometimes useful research is shelved for lack of profit in using it. Biotech is not all bad – especially if you have ever used vegetable rennet (in cheeses) or insulin.

At this point Nina Planck mentions that she is taliban on truth in advertising – here in the context of what is in food and whether it is GM or not. But it seems to me like a strange metaphor to use ever.

At this point the audience asks questions:

The first question is about Raw Milk and the link to TB addressed to Nina since she is a proponent of drinking raw milk.

She responds that is a complex answer (check her website for a more complete answer) but in short pasteurization was a response to unhealthy cows and unhygenic dairys historically. There is now testing and better conditions.

Someone asks about vegetarianism as an ethical choice.

Jay Weinstein fields this question by stating it can be an ethical choice and also you should source your meat. If you can, find out where it is coming from, how is the animal treated, how far away is it coming from. Nina Planck mentions http://www.paleodiet.com/ Jay Weinstein continues with the point that we are overfed in the U.S…We can eat less and pay the same (making ethical choices.) The percentage we spend as Americans on our food out of our total budgets is much smaller than Europeans or Chinese. Maybe we should be spending a higher percentage making ethical choices. (YEs, not really related to the question but vaguely on the ethical choice part.)

The next question is about soy and the controversy over plant estrogen, thyroid disruption, how it is banned in some places – that it has anti-nutrients that don’t allow you to take in calcium and Magnesium – how it is not a good source of protein

Nina Planck responds that the amino acids are not in the right ratio. It is not a first class protein like meat, dairy, eggs, fish. She recommends reading The Whole Soy Story and looking up information from the Weston Price Foundation.This question is a big deal to me – I will have to do the research – I definitely use soy as a protein source as a vegetarian.

The conversation then turned to the importance of patent reform. This includes issues like biotheft from the third world (like with the rice strain.) Foods can be stolen and patented and then the original communities cannot sell their own products. An example given at this point is canary beans. Greed can be a problem. Interesting how this returns to the issue of free culture too. Around the time of this panel discussion blogs were commenting on Yahoo!’s application for a patent for Flickr’s interestingness feature. (boingboing, technorati search)

The panel talks about Hunger is an issue of politics and distribution not an issue of production. Some of the solutions to food scarcity have come from genetic modification of food. At the same time it raises some dilemmas. At one point African nations with starving populations refused GM crops from the U.S. [My comment on media coverage at the time: To begin with it seemed like an unsophisticated choice and that they were refusing it because of a GM Food bogeyman they were afraid of.] Peter Pringle points out that they did not want to accept the crops because their main exports of their crops are to the EU. The EU refuses to import GM foods. They were actually afraid of contaminating their crops so that they could no longer provide exports to the EU. They were weighing future costs of accepting the food. [Some cynically accused the U.S. of offering these crops to them as a way of getting GM foods in to the EU on the backs of starving nations.]

Nina Planck goes on to talk about how important it is to demand labeling of food. For example the current labeling of trans-fat in foods. This is important as the National Academy of Sciences has declared there is no safe level of trans-fat. [Saturated fat is also bad for you so don't get too excited if a food you're looking at has no trans-fat but tons of saturated fat.] New York City has become the first U.S. city to ban trans-fat in restaurants. Restaurants won’t be able to use most frying oils with artificial trans fats by July, and will have to get rid of the artificial trans fats from all foods by July, 2008.

Jay Weinstein then explains the differences in the UPC numbers on fruit stickers. A four-digit number means it is conventional fruit. A five-digit number starting in 9 means it is organic fruit. A five-digit number starting in 8 means it is genetically modified. He points out it is a great way to check if your local stores are labeling/pricing their fruit correctly. This was cool – I never knew this.

An audience member asks for the panel to recommend sources of information:

They don’t really answer the question. They tell the crowd to do a lot of research – to check studies to see who is funding them. They explain that most newspapers do not have staff dedicated to food issues. Even the NY Times only has three people on staff – which may explain the dearth of useful information. Someone recommend food writer “Pete Wells,” a google search reveals he is a Brooklyn -based writer who has written for Food & Wine, New York, Time Out NY and Salon.com.

Jay Weinstein brings up Wallet Cards put out by the Blue Ocean Institute, The Audobon Society and Monterey Bay Aquarium that advise on sustainable seafood eating choices.

The next audience member goes on for a long time about how she is a documentary filmmaker, anthropologist, foreigner about knowing your body about quality of food as a false issue about how snacks are an American concept about Community Supported Agriculture about going to the Amazon in Brazil and talking to indigenous people about the effects of the soy industry about (soy?) corporations clearing land and infiltrating communities. She went on for a long time and made it sound like evil corporate farmers were murdering indigenous community farmer babies in their sleep….

The end note of the panel was that you don’t need to sacrifice pleasure, choices you make have an impact and do as much research as you can.

Mary Cleaver didn’t say very much throughtout the whole evening.

Peter Pringle was definitely a character who threw in random comments when he felt like it – maybe I just like him because he’s British.

Nina Planck had a lot of opinions that seemed informed – I definitely would want to read her stuff on her website. It seemed like she had a lot to say – and she tried to get a lot out. But, it was a bit grim – though she did just give birth (mom was holding the baby in the back of the crowd) maybe it wasn’t grim just tiredness.

Jay Weinstein raised some interesting points about choices we make. Specifically enjoyed the comment about mine al water, the trick with fruit UPC codes and the resource of seafood lists (though they’re not relevant in my life). It was funny he seemed to have preconceived notions of what the members of the panel would support so at some point when he was trying to raise positive points about GM foods he turned to Peter for back-up. Nina was right next to him and saying how she had actually worked as a spokesperson for GM foods and did not have an issue with them on principle. He didn’t hear her and was physically turning away to get support from one of the men. She was literally in the spot right next to him it was a bit weird.

Ed Levine was a bit worthless as a moderator. He made random comments on somewhat food-related subjects and didn’t do much moderating. At times it seemed like the Nina and Jay Show with a sprinkling of Peter Pringle.

Conclusion: Would invite Peter to a dinner party. Would invite Mary and seat her next to someone extroverted or have her cater yum! Probably would not invite the rest.

Latest book

Going to see Bill Bryson tonight at Symphony Space. He will read from his new book about growing up in 1950s America. There is a great video for it at VidLit. I’ve been a huge fan ever since I read and listened to “A Walk in the Woods” about hiking the Appalachian Trail.

I may also just like that he is an American in England.

Sadly, it means I can’t go to tonight’s Forgotten-NY book signing and walking tour.

Related videos shown at the event: