One shape at a time

March 31, 2009


You take seven simple shapes. And you make a bird.

Or a horse. Add some more, and you have a castle. Spend an hour working hard, you might end up with a battleship.

I have never been an artist. But when I was younger, I could feel like one for a few hours at a time. All thanks to Ed Emberley.

The design was perfect. You start with a basic shape and you add smaller shapes as you go. The style was minimal, perfect for aspiring artists, yet it wasn’t sloppy.

Ed Emberley and his Big Books of drawing made creation simple. The most basic shapes could become something fun, each serving as the building block to something more grand.

Art was accessible, and from there creativity seemed accessible. You learned to move away from the standard instructions and start adding on your own changes. It taught me the basics of drawing, and in doing so taught me the basics of creativity.

Ed Emberley didn’t make me who I am today – just as it didn’t make most people. But I bet if you ask around to those friends who write, or design, or direct, or do anything in any creative field, they’ll know who Ed Emberley is.

They’ll say, “I loved those books!”

And they’ll start reminiscing like I just did.

Tags: Books |

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What I’ve Been Reading: McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #30

March 27, 2009


What I’ve read:
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #30 - Dave Eggers (editor)

And here we are, just one day later, with another What I’ve Been Reading book report.

The reason behind the suddenness of this one has a lot to do with why I had given up on the WIBR format as it was. I had finished both Liar’s Poker and Outliers a few weeks ago. But rounding up the energy to write the entire seventeen page diatribe was difficult, especially when I’m – you know – busy.

So I made the decision to do these one book at a time. With that in my head, I put off writing about the two books even longer – long enough for me to finish yet another book in the meantime.

Thankfully, this book was just another McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, a short story vice I have subscribed to for a few years (and talked about on this site for as long).

With short story collections like these, it’s difficult to summarize, mainly because it’s a grab bag of authors and styles and stories. This one, with it’s Obama-centric cover of relief, is no different. It does, however, feature a Story by a Famous Person. Two or three issues ago, it was Stephen King (Ah! A Truly Famous Person in the hallowed pages of McSweeneys! What a Treat!). This time, it’s Michael Cera.

Yeah. Juno Michael Cera. Big Fancy Movie Star Michael Cera. The one guy who was poised to derail the entire idea of an Arrested Development feature film. That Michael Cera.

I thought to myself, “What does THIS guy think he’s doing? Where does he get off, trying to be an alternacool indie actor AND a thoughtful super independent writer?”

“You can’t be both Casey Affleck and David Foster Wallace, my friend. You can’t have your cake and shit where you eat, too.”

I may have gotten the idioms messed up. I dunno. All I do know is that I wanted to hate the Michael Cera story, “Pinecone.” I really did.

But I didn’t. It was good. Not fantastic – it wouldn’t go into my fictional list of great short stories, a list I have been planning to create for several years – but good.

Funny enough, a story earlier in the collection came to mind. By Kevin Moffett (a McSweeney’s regular), “Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events” is about a son who struggles to write a great story, only to find that his father, who is not classically trained, who is just dabbling in the art of storytelling, has taken up writing as a hobby and blown his son out of the water. It’s a fantastic story, and it hit me hard – the writers block, the thoughts of insufficiency, all of it.

The son wants to hate his father’s stories – he doesn’t want to admit that his father has talent. But he does. And that’s how I felt with Michael Cera. I wanted to hate the story, but I couldn’t.

Ugh. Can you believe that? Where’s the passion?

Tags: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading |

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What I’ve Been Reading: Outliers/Liar’s Poker

March 26, 2009


What I’ve Read:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis

There are two ways to move ahead in life: work with privilege, or work with luck.

In the case of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, it’s privilege. In the case of Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker, it’s luck.

Well, maybe that’s being too general. No, it is being too general.

But first, let me tell you what I’m doing here.

For over three years, I’ve written a monthly column about what I’ve been reading, cleverly titled “What I’ve Been Reading.” They were long, winding rambles that touched on everything from the reasons I chose the book to the tangents I found myself trailing off to while reading it. It touched upon everything I read and purchased over the past month.

It was a tome, and no one read it.

After a while – especially recently – I became less concerned with the Web version of “What I’ve Been Reading.” (It started as a pitched book column for Prime Magazine, which was eventually picked up and run for a year.) It kept getting longer and longer, and after writing it I’d be so exhausted I wouldn’t bother editing it, and – like I said – no one read it anyway.

So last year, I went a month without it. On accident: the book I had read literally took me two months, and what was I going to write about after the first month – how I had made it halfway through a book? No. Instead, I just skipped the column.

No one noticed. Which set the plan to do away with the column in motion.

The reason I started it – and the reason I keep writing about books – is because, while I loved books, I had lost the discipline it took to be an avid reader. I simply purchased without making time to read, and the idea of writing about what I wrote about gave me an incentive to get back on track.

I did. And, despite a child and new hobbies, I still am.

Which brings us to now. “What I’ve Been Reading” isn’t going away. It’s just not going to be a month-by-month laundry list of books I’ve read. Instead, it’s going to be on a book-by-book basis. Sometimes they’ll be mashed together, if they’re similar. Sometimes they’ll be on their own. They’ll be short. Shorter, at least, but at times short.

Getting to this point in my writing career has been more Outliers than Liar’s Poker. In Gladwell’s book, the most successful people aren’t lucky – they’re privileged. At least, they’re privileged in that they found themselves with opportunities that gave them a slight advantage over others.

Bill Gates received lucky chances in learning computers that others did not – and he took advantage of them. Hockey players born in an early part of the year take advantage of being the oldest in an age (and, therefore, bigger and stronger) and, in the major leagues, this is shown by a higher number of early-year birthdates.

But it’s not just the advantages. It’s the time spent as well. You don’t just get something because you lucked into some opportunities. You also need to work hard at it. Asians can read numbers faster (due to the words they use in their language), but it’s a culture of hard work that makes them better at math. Hockey players who are born earlier in the year are more often moved up into advanced classes, but they still have to practice harder when they get to that level.

I started writing my column because I liked books. I had an interest. A new magazine started and I offered to write for it. I was proactive. I wrote when I could. The article became well liked. I gained confidence. I practiced, became better, and when a job opportunity arose I went after it, despite having no formal experience. I got the job because of a lack of competition, but I did so also because I had practiced and worked and proven myself at the right times. It’s all very Gladwellian.

Liar’s Poker shows the opposite side. Set in the mid 80s, when mortgage bonds and junk bonds came into being, Michael Lewis recounts his time at Solomon Brothers, a trading firm on Wall Street. Here, luck seemed to outplay hard work, though, just as in Outliers, both were needed.

I’ve loved Michael Lewis’s sports books (Moneyball and The Blind Side), and enjoyed Liar’s Poker as well. For two reasons, really. First, it gave me an understanding as to the complete awfulness of the financial markets – both in their unpredictability and in the boy’s club mentality that pervades the system. Second, it was funny. Michael Lewis doesn’t take himself too seriously. He knows he was great at what he did. But he also realizes the utter stupidity of what he did. He can laugh at himself because he was too good to be in there in the first place.

Liar’s Poker had emotion, while Outliers had head-scratching aha moments. Liar’s Poker had luck, while Outliers had privilege. Liar’s Poker was at times tedious, or at least it seemed that way to someone just learning complicated markets, without being boring. Outliers was always fast but at times coincidental.

Either way, both showed the value of chance and the value of persistence. Which made them equally interesting – and perfectly paired.

Oops. So much for a short review, huh?

Tags: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading |

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Where the Wild Things Are

March 25, 2009


Over the past year or so, a lot of back and forth has surfaced about the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. It’s being made, it’s not being made, it’s got Spike Jonez and Dave Eggers, it’s too weird for kids, it’s too weird for adults, it’s too weird, it’s not going to be made, etc.

And then this poster was released.

And then the trailer was released. (Click to see it. Seriously. I couldn’t embed it, but you need to stop right now and watch it.)

The idea of this film being as awesome as the trailer, as creative and brilliant as we could have ever wished for, nearly brings a tear to my eye.

And I’m not being hyperbolic.

Tags: Books, Movies |

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School spirit

March 23, 2009


I didn’t give a damn about school sports when I was in high school.

There wasn’t much of a reason to in the first place. I went to Lincoln High School here in Sioux Falls. We were a smart kid school. We won debate tournaments, not football championships. We slaughtered in band, not basketball.

In fact, we seemed to only one game per year in football, and aside from a blip in 1995 we were pretty mediocre in basketball.

But now, whether it’s through some force of aging or a reminiscence for easier days or some other rah rah alma mater bullshit, I find myself caring again. I don’t follow the sports - I mean, come on, I have no connection outside of a diploma; it’s not like Sierra’s on the team or anything - but I find myself genuinely excited when the school does well.

Call it a common thread that we all have - all of us that graduated from Lincoln High, whether we were connected at the time or mortal enemies - but it’s as if we feel the same rush of electricity when our high school is mentioned. Not because of anything important, but just because it’s an item of identity. It’s part of who we are, regardless of whether we liked it at the time. It helps define us.

Part of me is there in that school. Even still today.

What I’m trying to say is that, against all odds, with the claws of irony threatening to tear away my genuine joy, I’m proud of Lincoln High School - my high school, my alma mater, my identifiable location for 9-12 grades - for doing something we all thought impossible.

On top of the sports world - not once, but twice. 2008 State 11AA Football Champions. And now, undefeated 2009 State AA Basketball Champions.

Congrats, guys. From all of us who still feel a part of it somehow.

Tags: Basketball, Football, Sioux Falls, Sports, Vilhauer |

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A not-so-brief aside on the value of the humanities as seen by someone involved with the humanities

March 21, 2009


When I was young, I fell in love with books. It might have been Sterling North’s Rascal, or it might have been before that. I don’t know the exact point, but I know it started early.

Despite my love – despite the urge to read and collect and plan – I often let my reading lapse. I wanted it, but I didn’t pursue it. Whether it was a busyness or simple apathy, books were collected but weren’t read. My intentions were perfect, but my actions were failing.

It took a concerted effort for me to get my reading back up. I had to look at myself. Make time for reading. Reallocate the precious resource of time.

When I get together with the board of the South Dakota Humanities Council, I’m reminded of this lesson. Not because it’s about reading, but because it’s an example of humanities support as a larger picture.

Humanities, by definition, is the documentation of cultural memories – history, and literature, and archives. Fiction, non-fiction, anything that falls under archiving ideas. It’s an educated group of ideals, and it’s often offered up for free.

But the documentation – the writing and research and creativity – takes time.

It takes resources.

And that’s often the disconnect.

Like I did with my books, we as a society want to squirrel away the humanities. We want to collect and offer and create more and more. It strengthens the fabric of our communities and it adds to our quality of life. But it’s often difficult for us to reallocate resources to make it work. For my books it was time. For the humanities, it’s both time and funds.

Human nature is such that we can’t imagine life without words and history, but we don’t necessarily want to go forward in protecting it. It’s always there, naturally. It’s just something that we take for granted.

History never changes. But it disappears.

Literature is never forgotten. But it is neglected.

It’s why, when I get together with this group of people – the South Dakota Humanities Council, none of which are like me, none of which share an identical world view but share one common love for the documentation of ideas and history, in archiving old worlds and creating new ones – I swell with pride.

I realize that, though I can’t directly fund the humanities, I at least have an opportunity to protect them. And as a young male, I stand as my generation’s representative for the humanities – an idea that is wrongly perceived as an old dusty group of history books and boring tomes.

I can’t offer the funds, but I can offer my time. Hoping that those who can help on a financial level will. And hoping that those who have the love for the humanities and understand the value – hopefully every one of us – can at least give their time as well.

The pitch is as easy as making the reallocation on your own. Attend and support programs. Buy books and support authors. Give to your library, or volunteer. Throw a few bucks in the donation box at the museum.

And if you’re in love with words and history and books and all that the humanities encompasses as much as I am, do what your heart leads you to. No matter your age. No matter your gender.

Help me prove to the world that the humanities isn’t as negligible as we’re led to believe.

Tags: Books, On..., Writing |

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Stuff

March 17, 2009


A globe. A paper weight. Two aged books I’ve never opened.

A drum. A travel alarm c lock from the 50s. Three different dictionaries. A yellow highlighter.

Our shelves and desks and cupboards fill up with things we never use. We stare at them, sure. But we don’t use them. We don’t interact with them. They’re part of the scenery; an extension of the wallpaper, like that sticker you still haven’t taken off of your pocket calculator.

I’ve thought about these things a lot recently. As I look around my office, or our bookshelves, or any part of our home, I take inventory. We’re planning a move as soon as our house sells, and every item in this house must be moved with us. Even the things we rarely pay attention to – items as trivial, yet as seemingly necessary, as a series of Super Bowl rushing statistics must be to an NFL fan.

They collect in our homes and our offices because each item, in some small way, shows others who we are. We love the world, we love antiques, we love books and words and are serious about their use. But they still take up space. Useful space. Calming space.

Imagine how easy things would be if our stuff was measured by use, not by mass. Our decorative items and our knick knacks and our seventh set of coasters and our stacks of unread books would be weightless, easy to transport. The things that really mattered would weigh the most, and that would be okay because they really mattered. We really need them.

Unfortunately, things weigh the same whether they’re used or not.

And that space? That calming space? I often can’t handle it. I’m no minimalist, though I’d like to portray one on T.V. I’m a cluttered packrat. An organized, yet cluttered pack rat. I collect. I aim for completeness. I prepare for anything. I need highlighters because someday I may highlight. I need those two extra dictionaries because someday I may need a second and third opinion.

Space was made to be filled, whether it’s usefully or not. Sure, if these things were gone, I might not miss them at all.

But they’re not gone. They’re still here. And regardless of whether they’ll find a use someday, I love them all the same.

The travel clock that doesn’t run. The paperweight that doesn’t touch paper. The faded antiques that I salvaged, much to the chagrin of the Gods of Simple.

It’s all just useless stuff. But it’s our useless stuff.

Tags: On..., Vilhauer |

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