Slam - Hornby

I stumbled out of my local used book store with Nick Hornby's latest, "Slam" not knowing at all what to expect but excited for a first introduction to Hornby's writing.  Not knowing this book is perhaps more correctly classified as Young Adult I began to read.  It is about fifteen year old boy named Sam coming of age through one of life's greatest oops situations.  I was instantly intrigued -- perhaps because I was once an adolescent boy and Hornby's story telling connected immediately, or perhaps the god like presence of TH (or Tony Hawk or Thiery Henry for that matter, whatever) still appealed to what's left of the kid in me.  I liked it, I liked it a lot.  Perhaps not five stars but a strong four.  Perhaps not the greatest story ever told, but a very real and common story, with very real and very compelling characters.  We know or have known them all and Hornby brings them to life and us into their lives just as sure as we were at the kitchen table learning Sam's life altering news in real time.  We learn, or don't learn from the same mistakes, young and not so young.  Hornby uses a dream technique to flash forward and back in time so we can observe what Sam is observing as he reflects on his own actions before he acts and how he may act in the future.  While he does not use the technique to create twists and turns in his story, Hornby introduces true anxiety and perhaps a little fear in the reader, as we struggle with Sam to cope in very new and very real, true life situations.  Through this story we can reflect on our past and the futures of those we wish to shelter as they too, eventually must learn to fly on their own and hopefully not make too many big mistakes along the way.  This was a fun ride and although I do not have a teenage boy, I do have a daughter who in a few years will be exposed to the angst of the adolescence boy.  I do have teenage nephews to whom I'll will send this book.  If they sit still long enough to move past the first few pages, I suspect they will learn more than a few valuable lessons from Hornby.

Zero to One - Thiel

 

I work in an industry monopolized by the 1 to n.  Most of us do.  We are always talking about 1 to n lists as in how do we get more of each thing on the list and if funding fails, which things on the list get divested first.   Enter Peter Thiel and his book of notes on  getting from “Zero to One, Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future”.  I’ll admit I didn’t know what zero to one meant when a friend of mine first recommended the book.  But I didn’t have to wait long, in fact by reading this review you've waited longer.  On the very first page Thiel explains, “Doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar.  But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1.  The act of creation is singular, as in the moment of creation, and the result is something fresh and strange.”  If that doesn’t hook you, you don’t need to read any further.

With every turn of the page I harkened back to my days as an entrepreneur, and all the things I thought about, but could do nothing change.  It was scary enough starting a company and just staying alive in a competitive world. Just staying alive was success enough.  It was important to do the right things for the right reasons, but I dreamed, of more.   I dreamed of harnessing the secrets of huge success, that I knew existed, but couldn’t quite put my finger on.  Afterall, at the dot.com bubble was rising all around me.   I knew the secrets were out there, I could  find them in a number of important books, which didn’t change things for me, but had a huge impact on my thinking.  Books such as “The Battle for Investment Survival”, by Gerald Loeb, where I learned to put all your eggs, in one basket, then watch the basket.  The “Origin of Wealth”, by Eric D. Beinhocker where I learned about complexity economics, “Disturbing the Universe”, where Freeman Dyson tells us we can change the world with technology, and of course “The Black Swan”, by Nicholas Taleb, where I learned the world isn’t fair and run by the normal distribution.  I’ll throw in, “The Singularity is Near”, by Ray Kurzweil but that book isn’t in the same class as the others.

In each book I knew if I could only extract a simple formula for success, I could do something more, but in each case, the simple formula was just beyond my grasp...like the elusive green light of Gatsby fame...beckoning for us to reach out and catch it and then run faster....

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning ——”

Thiel has given us, in a series of simple lectures, all the secrets and the simple  formula that evaded me for so long.  Thiel has given us that fine morning...it’s now up to each of us to grab the green light and move onward as we build the future.  Five stars for Thiel’s recipe!

How Soccer Explains the World - Foer

Franklin Foer is definitely onto something.  Indeed soccer might ultimately explain the world.  Unfortunately the National Best Seller he has written, "Why Soccer Explains the World", does not.  Yet Foer is a good writer.  His chapters are nice introductory essays on culture of soccer and it's many forms throughout the world.  He stops well short of linking the many disparate aspects of multi-cultural supporter rivalry, prejudice, and greed into why the beautiful game is, in fact, such a phenomenon throughout the world.  Soccer fans will enjoy this book for the insight into leagues they do not follow and for some historical trivia.  Others might enjoy it just so that can laugh at the absolute freaks who show up to support their passion and sadly for the crimes against humanity committed in the name of the sport.  But he does not explain, to the uninitiated, why soccer is the world wide beautiful game.  Those of us who play or follow the sport, might think we know how soccer explains the world  because we live it, it's a part of our lives, we feel it everyday.  But the same is true for any other passionate human endeavor.  If you are passionate about it, it is the undisputed answer to the world and holds the key to the meaning of life -- serious stuff.  So a book claiming to actually know why, not just locally but globally, must stand up to it's title.  

There's a lot of competition out there and Foer fails to bring anything else to the table for a comparison -- but he could. Further, he does not link the fundamental building blocks of society into the game -- he touches on them, but does not link them into society -- I guess that's because he is an economist and not a sociologist or a theologist.  However as an economist he really misses the big business that is soccer.  Without a chapter devoted to the business of soccer he has ignored a very important link.  If soccer explains the world than FIFA must be running the world, for example.  There is no chapter on FIFA.  And if soccer is akin to religion, while he did write a chapter about the King,  he failed to mention God.  Where is Diego Maradonna? And if soccer is a social building block -- while he does mention yuppies in America, where soccer is the least stringent of a societal glue, he does not mention the societies where soccer is one of the very few but incredibly binding influences.  So to recap -- no elements of the beautiful game itself, no comparisons to other global influences, and no expansion into other phenomena directly attributable to a functioning society.  Foer wrote some nice essays after taking the opportunity to travel the world.  I am envious to say the least.  But he failed miserably to live up to the title of the book.  Perhaps he should write a sequel and call it -- "Why Soccer Really Explains the World".  For now we still must wait.

Greenlights - McConaughey

 

I had a 12 hour drive to Florida  ahead of me and I wanted to listen to a good book.  I couldn’t decide in my head but as soon as I brought up Audible, Matthew McConaughey's book, “Greenlights' ', was listed at the top of the biographies.  I’ve read a number of good biographies, and I like Matthew McConaughey, primarily since he appeared in the movie Contact with Jodie Foster, one of my favorite books.  His portrayal of the mysterious man of God, in that movie, was good and really launched his career.  Apart from his good looks, he really sold the “Man of the Cloth'' to the audience.  And maybe that’s because, after reading his book,  in his real life McConaughey is a man of great spirituality.  That said, you will not find his religion in any orthodox Church.  He is entirely unorthodox having created his spirituality in the Church of Life and penned his own belief system based upon the green light of a traffic signal.  It’s all about how we avoid the reds and yellows and optimize the green lights.  This is what he bases his premise of green lights…not disrupting the flow, but allowing what comes at you to continue.  Compare that to the philosophy of “The Art of Racing in the Rain”, a book of tragic circumstance--that you must see in advance, that what manifests before you-- so as not to lose your grip on the road of life. The analogy to driving, can’t be missed in either case, but in McConaughey's life, which is unlike most common people, after a few good turns and basket full of optimism,  set him up to avoid the red lights all together and thus blow though any yellows if it became necessary.  Not that that’s a bad thing.  It’s just uncommon.  Most of us get traffic tickets.

Despite  a well crafted read (or listen) I was disappointed that it appears McConaughey has never read “The Great Gatsby”.  Whereas Gatsby’s “Green Light” is different, in writing circles, to not make mention of the most famous green light in literary history,  in a book called Greenlights, is a tremendous faux pas and I will have to blame the publisher and not McConaughey.  Despite his talents he does not appear to be well read..   Had he known, he would have included it...or least explained why it doesn’t apply to  his life.  From my perspective, McConaughey deeply believes in the Green Light. “The orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter. Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.”  Come on!! This is exactly the optimism of McConaughey’s “Greenlights”.  And for fear of copyright infringement, it literally entered the public domain on 1 January of this year.  Perhaps they didn’t want to wait.  But the absence of reference is critical to me. 

Not to detract from McConaughey’s intellect.  I was surprised that he is indeed a keen observer of life.  He has enormous self awareness and introspection.  So much introspection that he has been compelled to trek the world in search of the source for inspiration he finds in his dreams.  Again, the common person does not have the means to go on these extended journeys of discovery on multiple continents. What’s amazing to me is he kept a journal and a scrap book.  Many journals, in fact, as he kept a deep record of his thoughts, feelings, and the inner workings of his soul.  Anyone who reads it will be better for it.  It makes me wish I had kept a journal.  And because I’ve always been fond of bumper stickers he had me early with his call out to the importance of these early memes.  We all have bumper stickers for our own lives...he just remembered to keep them...or write them down.

The other thing  I really like about McConaughey, apart from definitely being a man of letters, is that he is a poet.  Perhaps his profession has trained him to be a man of words, but I think, perhaps, his ability to use words, has aided him in his profession. And he has grown the role so fully that he is now a master.  So can there be any doubt that he’s written his own book?  What’s doubly appealing, that, as an actor, he narrates his audio-book.  I can tell you, the time I spent listening to his story while driving to Florida, in his words, through his voice and characterizations, was as entertaining as any of his movies or any, perhaps audiobook, I have listened to.  However, do miss his scrapbook of pictures in the audiobook version.  Had I had it to do over, I would listen and read the book in front of me.  Alas. it is doubtful I will give Greenlights a second read.  In today’s world, reading one book, and making it through, is a high complement, let alone, with so many classics to read and reread, this will not be one of them.

I’m a fan of McConaughey, this book is for his fans, and will no doubt win some new ones.  I will continue to be a fan and recommend this book to those who would like to see, feel, (and hear in the case of an audio-book) the life of a man’s life that has been well considered and well lived.  And he’s only 50.  I’m going to start with 4-stars for Matthew.  Deduct 1-star for missing the criticality of Gatsby's Green Light, and then add 1-star back for his narration of the audio-book.  Well done Matthew!

To Our Wives and Our Girlfriends May They Never Meet

Big news recently in the world of geographic exploration—the Endurance, famed sailing ship of Sir Earnest Shackleton, was found amazingly preserved laying 10,000 feet below the ice flows of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.  At the time of her loss, 1915, she had been frozen in the ice for over 10 months and had drifted in that icy embrace for hundreds of miles before being crushed, broken, and lost beneath the surface of the solid sea. Forced to abandon ship and flee onto the ice flow, all 28 members of her crew survived the tell the tale.  The 75 sled dogs they brought with them…not so much.  This recent discovery, however, has motivated yet another wave of interest in what transpired on that ill-fated expedition.  Perhaps the greatest story of endurance and resilience ever told.

Think of them and their resilience when you get trapped in a hail storm with your family on a springtime day in the park. Think of them as you wake up in the morning after a nice eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Think of them as you adjust your thermostat from 68° to a balmy 70° to take the chill out of the morning air.  Think of them as you enjoy your warm breakfast with eggs-over-easy, crispy bacon, with melted butter on soft toast.  Think of them when you take a warm shower and get dressed in clean clothes. Think of them--the explorers of the Endurance--trapped in the ice flows of an Antarctic winter having to endure the extreme deprivation found only in fictional stories—and remember—the story of the Endurance is anything but fiction.

It's hard to count the number of stories that have emerged during the retelling of this true-life adventure over the last 106 years.   One story, told in 1959 by the American journalist, Alfred Lansing, stands out as the very best. The book he wrote—Endurance—would become the definitive text on deprivation, survival, a stiff upper lip, leadership, team work, and of course resilience.  As with many retellings of this story, Shackleton, the leader of the expedition seemingly takes center stage.  As a seasoned and already famous Antarctic explorer looking to make an even bigger name for himself, so he could stand toe-to-toe with the other great South Pole explorers, Amundsen and Scott—he does seem to reach his goal.  The theme of the Shackleton legend has been, “For scientific discovery, give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when you are seeing no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton”. Yet this book, by Lansing, is called Endurance, for another reason beyond the obvious.  Yes, the ship is called Endurance, but for me, in Lansing’s mind, the word endurance is a tribute to the tale of the resilience in all of these men.  All of them.  Not just Shackleton. Just read it and you will understand why. 

What Lansing has done, through his writing, defies belief.  If this were a book of fiction, one would certainly be convinced, he made it all up.  No one can endure, let alone, survive these conditions—both bone-crushingly brutal and mind-numbingly boring at the same time.   But yet it is all true.  Painstakingly researched with the availability of the men’s journals, multiple interviews with them (as they were much older but still alive in the 50’s) as well as many photographs and drawings.  Every hour on the ice-pack and so much more.  Why are there photographs, you might ask?  As mentioned, Shackleton was quite proud of himself.  He definitely fancied himself a star. He certainly knew that taking pictures of his attempt at walking across Antarctica would come in handy for the publicity and lucrative nature of multiple speaking engagements upon his return.  He brought with him both a photographer and an artist…he also brought a poet.  In the darkest days of their survival, when they abandoned much of their equipment and were forced by necessity to destroy all of their sledge dogs, Shackleton allowed them to keep their personal journals. Somehow the photos, or at least the film made it back.  Strangely, multiple sextants for navigation, were lost.  The only remaining sextant, hung around Frank Worsley’s neck.  Worsley was the actual captain of the ship Endurance.  Shackleton was the leader of the expedition.  Shackleton hired Worsley to be the captain.  It was an excellent choice as some historians believe it was Worsley who is the true hero of this saga. But I digress, as compelling and nuanced as the adventure can be to tell to everyone, this is a review of the book not the adventure. 

With so much at his disposal, Lansing has done, what any really good writer would do.  He’s has written.  Not having to invent content, he was free to take the research material, think and rethink the conditions, timeline, the multiple stories of each man, with their perspectives, and in some cases, exactly what they were thinking—because he had their written journals with notes sometimes down to the hour of the day—and weave everything together in a fluid, seamless narrative, that has you believing you are along for the expedition.  Along with very bump, every sound, ever pain, every taste, and every hidden fear in their minds.

You feel the cold and dampness all around you.  You smell the smoke from the burning seal blubber in their stoves. You hear Endurance moan under the crushing grip of the ice. You taste the fatty and bloody seal meat. At one point sledge dog--a delicacy given what they were used to with their rationed diet including penguin. You sense the relentless boredom and creeping fear as days become weeks and weeks become months.  When the Antarctic winter fades completely into darkness and blizzards blow with gale force winds across a cracked and unstable ice pack—merely a 10 ft plate of flowing of living ice floating above the abyss of a 10,000 ft deep, dark, sea.  Ten months they lived on the ice pack moving with the currents and winds for several hundred miles, with Worsley pin pointing their position with incredible accuracy.  Lansing has you feel it all.  Including the arguments of the men, their frustrations, their hopefulness and hopelessness, and the retched nature of Shackleton’s decision to destroy their beloved animal workers and companions, all the dogs, and one lovely ship cat.  Over and over again, Lansing has you feel the repetitive nature of their routine.  Most of us would go insane.  Most of us would give up.  Most of us would die.  I died at least three times during this story.  Somehow, the men were driven to keep trying, and Lansing has you keep reading.  It’s a page turner.  I could not escape from its grasp.  The plight of the men remained with me through out each day, until I returned to read in the warmth of my bed.  I used a flash light to read at night and imagined, in the depth of the Antarctic winter without sunlight, how these men continued to read the few books that they had salvaged. They kept going so Lansing kept writing.  Had they all died early there would be nothing more to write about—but they did not.  Thus, beyond their 10 months of floating on the ice, there are the truly fearful days they spent in small life boats on open and fearful sea trying to make it to Elephant Island. As well as the months of lost hope for the 22 men who remained on Elephant Island as 6 men set sail for the 800-mile journey across fierce sea to the Island of South Georgia.  And then three of those men who hiked across the uncharted alpine glaciers on the interior of South Georgia to reach a whaling village finally signaling their ultimate rescue.  Every man survived.

As inspirational a story as there has ever been. Perseverance in the face of hunger, thirst, fatigue, bitter cold, and the chill of continuously being soaked to the bone, sleeping on the sea of ice, or rocks, or wet beach. Sleeping in wet bag of reindeer hide the natural animal skin disintegrating into hair and gunk literally in your face.  Their discomfort knows no parallel from which humans could emerge, alive.  And Lansing has you feel every hunger pain, every moan in the night, right down to the pain you feel as frostbite takes hold of your stiff wet hands pumping water out of the boat, for which, you cannot stop, because the boat is sinking. The descriptions of the daily rigors of life required discipline, endurance, and of course resilience.  And it’s not without humor, these men could still laugh at their fate.  I laughed in the face of imminent death as one of the survivors, trudged across the slushy ice pack, sinking down to his knees, as a one-thousand-pound leopard seal, able to move much faster than he could, closed in.  Only after a fellow survivor with a rifle—liberated him from the pursuit—and earned the crew, half-a-ton of seal meat and blubber.   This is key to the telling of the story and Lansing gets it right.  Since you feel the cold, you feel the pain, you no longer get to complain if your own home feels a bit chilling in the morning…screw you.  In fact, after reading this story you never get to complain again about the discomfort of hunger, thirst, fatigue, illness ever again.  One of the survivors suffered a heart attack on Elephant Island.  He made it.  Another, survivor had his toes amputated on that same beach, he also made it. Shackleton, with Worsley providing the map, brought them all home.  This is such a Five-Star book.  With the topic of resilience training in vouge these days, I can’t help but wonder if “Endurance” should simply be required reading in high school English.  As we debate political correctness and cancel culture in our schools, perhaps we can all agree, this book has no political agenda, makes no attempt to rewrite history, contains no statements of toxic masculinity, and there isn’t even a cuss word—although I can assure you these men cussed.  Perhaps the most politically incorrect statement uttered by the men, was their evening toast, as they waited out the Antarctic winter from inside the room, midship the Endurance, which they called the Ritz.  Pulling everyone together from out of their individual berths and into this hold, so they could all be together and preserve precious resources, like coal and heating oil.  They thought of their families and their loved ones back home and they hoisted a cup of drink.  “To our wives and our girlfriends, may they never meet”.  That’s resilience in the face of death…that’s endurance…

Ideas and Weapons - Holley

If you have ever watched the History channel you already know that in the evolution of weaponry first came the club followed by the sword followed by the pike followed by the long bow followed by the musket.  Throughout history the superior weapon smiled victory on those who adopted it’s lethal effects the earliest.  So too is true for the history of aerial weapons or air power as we refer to the doctrine of their use in polite society.  Hot on the heels of World War II and the creation of the United States Air Force as a separate service in 1947, a young reserve officer and intellectual named Irving Britton Holley, set about to capture some thoughts about the development and use of aerial weapons in a series of essays that would later form his PhD dissertation at Yale University.  Published in 1953, “Ideas and Weapons”, has become an entry point into the study of Air Power doctrine in the United States.

“Ideas and Weapons” is primarily concerned about US development of aerial weapons to support the three classes of aircraft used in the skies over Europe during World War I.  These classes aircraft included pursuit, observation, and bomber.  With the air forces in Europe hinged directly to the ground forces Holley traces the mindsets of those responsible for manufacturing and fielding operational aircraft in the US and how, when the US entered the conflict in 1917, these mindsets crippled our ability to successfully support the war effort with the aircraft so dearly desired by our allies.  In addition, at the end of the war these failing would not be recognized or appreciated causing a 20 year delay in fully appreciating the strategic implications of well formulated air power doctrine.

The historical record is full of examples of weapons and their uses on the ground and at sea, but in the aftermath of our first great modern conflict, the use of air power stands alone as a unique domain that requires the development of new technology which requires us to tactically develop the right ways to employ this new technology and forces us to strategically rethink the ways in which wars are to be fought. As we struggle, or as Holley likes to say, “grope”, for technologies and new ways to fight wars in new domains (space and cyberspace come to mind), these lessons about converting ideas to weapons are as pertinent as ever.

Fight Club - Palahniuk

It is 2012 and I’m enjoying a quiet week of reading at the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  Chuck Palahniuk published Fight Club in 1996.  I’ve seen the movie.  Fight Club was Palahniuk’s first novel.  It’s fiction.  It’s anarchy.  It’s schizophrenic.  It’s dark.  It’s gross.  It’s freeing.  It’s troubling.  It’s poetic.  It’s haunting.  It’s prophetic.  It’s alluring.  It’s dangerous.  It’s completely wrong.  It’s completely right.  I can’t think of a better way to spend time reading than bending the damp pages of this book in the safe cocoon of a beach house with the surf in the background and a cold beer within reach.  

Palahniuk didn’t write this book to be anything but pure entertainment...whatever label fans of this book (and movie) have given it over the years is a testament to the effect it has on it’s audience.  At it’s very core it is a love story as tragic as any love story ever written.  On the surface it’s a manifesto for the rebellion of the common man.  It fails as a love story because you are not moved to tears at its conclusion.  It fails as a revolutionary text because the recipe for rebellion it describes is completely inconsistent and a one way ticket to homelessness, prison, disfigurement, and/or death...not sacrifices one would readily make for a cause without understanding the higher purpose.

It achieves, however, a psychological pathology that turns Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on it’s head.  All of us share a common attribute with regard to our brains...we all have a left side and a right side.  In theory the level at which we are all schizophrenic is directly related to how closely the two sides of our brain communicate.  In Julian Jayne’s monumental, “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” one could attribute the residual evidence of split personality disorder to all of us as a leftover artifact of our brain’s evolution.  This could mean there’s a Tyler Durden hiding in all of us...regardless of whether our personal Tyler Durden looks like Brad Pitt.  I believe it’s this hidden side, the side from which Palahniuk blows us out of the water, that makes his novel, and this work, so important to us fans.  Five stars for Fight Club.