2022 Pirates Win Predictions

 Well, this is a shame.  I failed last year to return to the blog to gloat that I had nailed the Pirates win prediction exactly at 61 games.  At least somebody in Pittsburgh won.

 Close readers will know that last year's result continued a pattern where the most pessimistic Forster most often ends up closest to the real Pirates win total.

 This year, the optimism spectrum ranges widely as the Pirates prepare to field a young team with lots of question marks.

 

Monday Chart: Parental Fiscal Motivation

 In case you thought having teenagers with phones is a way to save money:

Tuesday Haiku: A Walking Thought While Passing By

 Or is it a passing thought while walking by?

Why didn't they say

hello? Asked the sad man who

didn't say hello

I Love You No Matter What

 My family makes fun of me for a sentence I've just now started to cultivate saying to my sons: I love you, no matter what.

I probably deserve the ribbing for attempting to adopt a dad tag line well into their teenage years, but it comes form a good place.  They should know that they areunconditionally loved by me and their mom, and this is the simplest, most straightforward way I can think of to express it.

Do our kids know the things we hope they will know if we don't make them explicit?  The rule in marketing is that a consumer has to hear a message seven times before they'll act on it.  As the African or Chinese (depending on your Google result) proverb says "The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.  The next best time is now."  I've decided not to let my wish that I'd thought to say this to them from when they were tiny enough to accept it more easily stop me from saying it now in the rich complexity of our father/adolescent relationships.

A Reading Resolution

The serious readers that I know contend with a common problem: the stack.

The stack of unread books, typically on or under a nightstand, that represents our best intentions of reading.  Mine has grown during the pandemic for two reasons: First, our library system has allowed renewals up to six months as long as no other patron requests the volume.  On top of that, they are not collecting fines, even for books kept beyond that six-month mark.  Second, pandemmy walks take me past a lot of Little, Free Libraries.  While many of those bear the same promise-fulfillment ratio as a high school dance, I have scored some worthwhile titles here and there.  And here. And there.

Long story, short, I entered 2022 with an untenable stack.  Two stacks, to be precise, for structural integrity reasons.  I honestly don't know if one stack would have fit between the floor and the bottom of my spindly nightstand.

A few weeks into the new year, I resolved to read what was there before bringing any new books into my life, by big library, little library, bookstore, or friend-lend.  It seemed like the right thing to do.  In part, it was a response to a sobering realization late in 2021 about just how little I will be able to read in my remaining lifetime (NBD) relative to the number of books that get published every week, let alone the span of published human history. There are so. Many. Books. Who's to say that the books under my nightstand aren't the best ones to read now?

the stack, partially reduced

Resolutions do often go awry or get forgotten, but here's a happy early status report: the stack is dwindling.  That desire for freedom to hunt up new titles again is motivating me to make more time to read.  As the first quarter of 2022 draws to a close, I have read more books YTD than in any year since 2000, when I started tracking with my current system.  That, of course, puts me on pace to break my annual record.  I'll not jinx that by saying more than that I am on pace.

The books I've finished since my resolution are a mixed bag of genres and came from a variety of recommendations/sources.  Those remaining in the stack bear a certain resemblance, which may become a problem.

Success before problems: what I've been reading to get out from under:

Shadow Divers; The True Adventure of Two Americans who Risked Everything to Solve one of the Last Mysteries of WW II, Robert Kurson, 2004

Highly readable history lent by a coworker.  I was pretty steamed when he gave me this book because it wouldn't help with my bloated to-read list (a whole separate magilla.) Teddy liked this one too before I gave it back.

Self-Compassion; Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, Kristin Neff, 2011

Decent.  I didn't love this as much as did the podcast host who recommended it, but it did allow me to check off a book that had occupied my to-read list for over a year.

Running the Light, Sam Tallent, 2020

Another podcast recommendation, this when the author appeared on Marc Maron's WTF. (Free podcast recs for readers who a) follow links from blog posts and b) will not hate me for adding to their to-listen list). Tallent's tale of his self-published novel during the pandemic when he couldn't book shows pulled at my heartstrings. I ordered a copy as a patron of the arts.  Marc liked the book, and I can see why. It's amazingly good for a self-published novel; especially the first half before the editing declines  A memorable if often difficult read about a road comic in full blown drug and alcohol addiction mostly bashing his way to self destruction amidst fleeting glimmers of hope.

Everything in its Place; First Loves and Last Tales, Oliver Sacks, 2019

Another coworker rec (different coworker - nice to work with smart, interesting people) that I really enjoyed.  Sacks's final essay collection, published posthumously.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie, 1920

Agatha Christie's first novel, consumed via the podcast Phoebe Reads a Mystery, which I say as a high compliment is the thing that helps me fall asleep when nothing else does.  A soothing voice reading at a measured pace a story that's just involving enough to quiet my monkey brain.

Dusk, Night, Dawn; on Recovery and Courage, Anne Lamott, 2021

Randomly picked up at the library (this is how I get myself into this stacktuation) that turned out just as I'd hoped.  Lamott is a prophet endowed with a talent for the right, unexpected turn of phrase.

That's what my momentum looks like.  My barrier is a shrinking stack dominated by memoir and biography.  That's a symptom and a problem all in one.  I'm seriously under-noveled this year and will remain so until I complete my resolution. Apparently, these books have been stack marooned because I have my doubts about them.  These genres are crap shoot categories.  I hope the highs buoy me, and the lows motivate me.  It's my only hope to get to summer novel reading.

What's your reading resolution?

Books of 2021: Fiction

Each year at this time, a good friend (whom I will not out here) and I share our complete reading lists from the year before.  We like and read many kinds of books that overlap and many that don't, which makes the list-sharing exercise fertile and interesting.  She reads a fair amount of romance novels and always notes on the list or in her cover letter (which might be the best part of the exercise, a hand-written letter!) "no judgment!"  

I beg the same of you, dear reader: much of the fiction I read in this escape-worthy year falls into the cop, spy, and noir genres.  To be fair (to me), the cop novels are set in Oxford, England, the spy novels are about MI5 rejects, and the noir is by an emerging author.  Although I will not call them my best of the year, readers who want to escape like I do may be interested in Colin Dexter's "Inspector Morse" novels, Mick Herron's Slough House/slow horses books, and the noir of S.A. Cosby.

The novel typically rules my reading roost, but this year, I have to give my top fiction props to a short story collection.  Among everything I read, no writing was better than Steve Wiegenstein's exquisite gem of a collection.

Best of the Year: Short Stories 

Scattered Lights, Steve Wiegenstein, 2020, PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist 2021

We learned about Steve Wiegenstein's (i before e except after t) collection of short stories,Scattered Lights, when we watched online the ceremony presenting the PEN/Faulkner Award to our neighbor and acquaintance Deesha Philyaw for Secret Lives of Church Ladies.  Each of the finalists read excerpts from their books, and Wiegenstein intrigued me the most among the runners-up.  This slim volume of short stories set in the rural south (Wiegenstein is an Ozarks native) stands up well against The Secret Lives.  It's clear why it would also be a finalist.  With efficient descriptions of characters and setting and plots that marry high stakes with day-to-day action, the stories are highly readable, cinematic, and memorable.  As is my practice with collections of stories and essays, I used Scattered Lights as a palate cleanser between other books, savoring each story on its own.  My only hesitation in recommending this book to others is the obscurity of the little press that put it out.  Fortunately, my neighborhood indie bookstore was able to order it.

Best of the Year: Novel

Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead, 2021

The concept of a Colson Whitehead novel unburdened by his "heavier" themes intrigued me.  Whitehead has written important literary novels with an urgency to show the injustice baked into America.  What might he do with a heist book?  In Harlem Shuffle, we meet Ray Carney, a guy with a foot in the "straight" world and another in the "crooked" world, trying to make a go of it as a Black businessman in 1950/60s Harlem.  As I read this, I thought back to August Wilson's plays, one theme of which is how hard it is to live the American dream as a Black man and how offerings of a crooked path might appeal to a Black man that would seem crazy to someone with different advantages.  Harlem Shuffle is an intricate yarn masterfully set in its period and place.  In an interview I heard before reading the book, Whitehead described walking around present-day Harlem and looking mostly above street level to see the remains of earlier eras.  First floors of commercial or mixed-use buildings get tweaked and updated far more than even the second floor.  Seeing ghost signs on the sides of buildings or in windows above the street provided the author with a sense of what had gone before. On the one hand, Whitehead's vivid descriptions of characters and Harlem made me think this book would be ripe for development as a TV series.  On the other hand, the plot is intricate enough that I wonder if people could follow it.  Particularly in the latter half of the book, the layers of power structures show themselves multiplying the deeper one looks.  A great read; I think I understood the ending.

Runners-up: 

Goodbye, Vitamin, Rachel Khong, 2017

Tomorrow Will Be Better, Betty Smith, 1948

Books of 2021: Best Regular Ol' Non-fiction

In a good year for non-fiction, a few titles to enthusiastically recommend.  One was actually published this year.  The other is from a while back.  That one from a while back gets my if you read nothing else I recommend this year, read this book endorsement.

The Unthinkable; Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why, Amanda Ripley, 2008

If you read nothing else that I recommend this year, read this book.  Paige came across this book, and we started reading it aloud in the car on our long drive to and from the Outer Banks in the summer (our sons are so lucky).  Ripley pulls together an impressive amount of research and stories in a highly readable fashion a la the Heath brothers or Malcolm Gladwell.  She explains the natural human reactions (and some non-human animal responses) to disasters - major threats to survival - natural and otherwise.  Like the stages of grief, there is a predictable set of responses to unexpected circumstances including denial, deliberation, and "gathering."  People in the World Trade Center on September 11 and in 1993 when one of the towers was truck-bombed have shown a surprising fog of denial and a tendency to pick up and pack up things that their brain or gut tells them they need to gather before they get out safely.  Some people deny, deliberate, and gather so long that they don't get out.  The books is scary and bracing and empowering.  I came back from vacation and did something I've never done: walked down the stairs in my office building to make sure I know where the stairs near my office let out and how long it takes (~3 minutes from the tenth floor with no one in front of me.)  Ripley writes clearly and tells her example stories grippingly.  A book everyone should read and that goes down more easily than some "medicine" titles.

Dopamine Nation; Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, Anna Lembke, 2021

My standard joke about Dopamine Nation is that I had to request it at the library and then wait for it to come in, which was a big bummer because I wanted the immediate gratification of reading it.  Dr. Lembke briskly chronicles how a human species that evolved to survive scarcity now faces a possibly-worse threat: abundance.  She uses a pleasure/pain balance as her central metaphor and explores how when pleasure can be accessed super easily at almost all times, those with addictive tendencies tend to pursue pleasure to their ruin.  Whatever the "drug" that people reach for, they follow its empty promise until all good things in their life are stripped away.  Although this is rather familiar terrain by now, Lembke weaves her observations of addiction culture together with stories of her patients and the confession of her own addiction.  Possibly the most unexpected pieces here are that pursuing pain can be a way to restore a see saw that has been imbalanced toward pleasure and the healthy value of prosocial shame.  For the former, intermittent fasting and subjection to cold water (even ice water) are her most potent examples.  Re: the latter, Lembke breaks down shame and guilt and the reinforcing effects of destructive shame - pursue pleasure with abandon, feel shame, pursue pleasure to cover the pain of the shame.  She then offers an alternative with examples from 12-step groups and sports teams about how being honest about failure in a nurturing environment can help people grow, rather than shrivel.  Not quite as amazing as I expected after hearing Lembke interviewed, but a helpful read.