October 2020
Books read:
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
- The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
- The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
- The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
Trails walked:
- Two-Bit Peak in Phoenix (October 26th)
- Gateway Loop in Scottsdale (October 27th)
- Circumference Trail, aka Freedom Trail in Phoenix (October 28th)
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Song of the month:
- Step Inside this House by Lyle Lovett (written by Guy Clark)
Scientist Spotlight:
- George Washington Carver
Well, our move to Colorado is taking shape. We’re under contract for a home in Longmont which is 37 miles from Denver, 16 miles from Boulder, 30 miles from Rocky Mountain National Park and most importantly 20 miles from our first grandchild (which is approximately 980 miles closer than he is now)! The next step is to sell our house in Phoenix in which we’ve stored 40 years’ worth of our life's “stuff”. Most of October has been spent paring that stuff down to a manageable level and making the house NOT look like it’s been lived in for all those years. Here is the typical dialogue between my wife and I this month:
"What is it?"
"I have no idea."
"Throw it out."
This decluttering is my main excuse for the severe lack of big hiking trips this month. But it hasn’t stopped the reading part of Reading and Rambling as I’ve read 4 terrific books this month. I did manage to get out on some short, local hikes that I enjoy and will miss.
NOTE: I'll refrain from any political discussion this close to the election, but I predict that by the end of November half of America will be relieved that their long national nightmare is over and the other half will believe that their long national nightmare is just beginning. So we'll still be divided no matter what happens.
- Be clean both inside and out.
- Neither look up to the rich nor down on the poor.
- Lose, if need be, without squealing.
- Win without bragging.
- Always be considerate of women, children, and older people.
- Be too brave to lie.
- Be too generous to cheat.
- Take your share of the world and let others take theirs.
The author maintains that modern Western culture misunderstands and undervalues introverted people (She delves into Eastern culture which always has and generally continues to value introverted people over extroverts). She believes this Western devaluation of introversion started in the late 1800s as big business, urbanization and mass immigration changed America into what historian Warren Susman called a culture of personality, in which perception trumps truth. The high character personality of the gentleman farmer was being replaced by the snake oil “salesman” and Dale Carnegie helped to propel the idea that you have to “put yourself out there” in order to succeed in the good ol’ USA. The author visited Harvard Business School, a Tony Robbins self-help seminar, and a Megachurch. It each of these settings she found introverts struggling to keep up in a world that sees their tranquility as a flaw that keeps them from success or spreading the word.
There are well known successful introverts and she discusses them (Rosa Parks, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Warren Buffet) and how they’ve had to overcome their temperament in order to deal with the social aspects of their fame. There is so much in this book that was fascinating, like studies on introverts and extroverts in business and in love. There are many situations where the combination of the two temperaments are crucial to success (if there had been more introverts in charge of financial institutions prior to the 2008 great recession, it may have been prevented and there are many stories of people who tried to stop it, but they weren’t the loudest voices in the room).
The author calls for changes in teaching which is currently geared towards extroverted personalities. She calls for changes in the workplace (ie open office plans don’t suit the introverts who are designing computers and rockets). She calls for parents to educate themselves on raising children who may be of a different temperament than they are (extroverted parents raising an introverted child can be a huge challenge for both the child and the parents).
Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:
Introverts felt “just right” with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo.
Extroverts tend to tackle assignments quickly. They make fast (sometimes rash) decisions and are comfortable multitasking and risk-taking. They enjoy “the thrill of the chase” for rewards like money and status. Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately. They like to focus on one task at a time and can have mighty powers of concentration. They’re relatively immune to the lures of wealth and fame.
Extroverts are the people who will add life to your dinner party and laugh generously at your jokes. They tend to be assertive, dominant, and in great need of company. Extroverts think out loud and on their feet; they prefer talking to listening, rarely find themselves at a loss for words, and occasionally blurt out things they never meant to say. They’re comfortable with conflict, but not with solitude. Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.
Finland is a famously introverted nation. Finnish joke: How can you tell if a Finn likes you? He’s staring at your shoes instead of his own.
E.O. Wilson theorizes that our fear of speaking to large audiences is because when our ancestors lived on the savannah, being watched intently meant only one thing: a wild animal was stalking us. …hundreds of thousands of years of evolution urge us to get the hell off the stage, where we can mistake the gaze of the spectators for the glint in a predator’s eye.
The “orchid hypothesis” by David Dobbs holds that many children are like dandelions, able to thrive in just about any environment. But others, including the high-reactive introverts are more like orchids: they wilt easily, but under the right conditions can grow strong and magnificent.
When you go to a football game and someone offers you a beer, says the personality psychologist Brian Little, “they’re really saying hi, have a glass of extroversion.”
Introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly.
People flourish when, in the words of psychologist Brian Little, they’re “engaged in occupations, roles or settings that are concordant with their personalities.”
The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some it’s a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk.
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| Views to the Northwest |
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| Piestewa Peak from Two-Bit Peak |
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| Camelback Mountain from Two-Bit Peak |
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| Black and White of Camelback |
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| Views to the Northeast |
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| Views to the North from the ridgeline |
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| Rock fort on the ridgeline |
Time magazine included The Crying of Lot 49 in their 2005 list of best English language novels since 1923 (the year Time began…). If you like your books to have clear and concise boundaries, plots, and characters then this book is not for you. You just start reading and the writing takes you through these dreamy landscapes where you can feel fascinating things occurring but it’s hard to grasp them fully. There are actions taking place that are interesting but trying to fit them into the overall story is a puzzling challenge. You must work for your reading pleasure, but the work is rewarding, and the writing is fun to read.
So here’s the basic summary of this novel so that you can decide for yourself whether to tackle it: A woman, Oedipa Maas, is caught in a conspiracy involving a centuries old dispute between private and government-owned mail distribution companies (some of them based on actual historical disputes). Oedipa is appointed executor of her ex-lovers’ estate which includes an eclectic stamp collection with strange symbols that represent these historical private mail companies. She starts to notice these symbols appearing everywhere she goes, and in following the signs, encounters a teenaged punk band, engineers at a bar from a local technology company, playwrights and authors of stories that parallel her investigation of this mail carrier dispute, a psychologist prescribing LSD and holing up in his office with a rifle, the mafia, and a plot to use the bones of long dead US World War II soldiers as bone-charcoal for a cigarette company. Whew! And there are more bizarre subplots and characters, like Genghis Cohen, a famous philatelist (stamp collector/expert); and K. da Chingado, a publishing company; and Mike Fallopian, the right-wing conspiracy nut; and of course Oedipa’s husband was a DJ at KCUF (of course). So, like I said, not for everyone. But I enjoyed it. Here are some lines from the book that I enjoyed:
Like many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts – census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to its own freeway.
She looked down a slope, needing to squint for the sunlight, onto a vast sprawl of houses which had grown up all together, like a well-tended crop, from the dull brown earth…
Meanwhile, back in the torture room, the cardinal is now being forced to bleed into a chalice and consecrate his own blood, not to God, but to Satan. They also cut off his big toe, and he is made to hold it up like a Host and say, “this is my body,” the keen-witted Angelo observing that it’s the first time he’s told anything like the truth in fifty years of systematic lying.
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| Gateway Loop with Thompson Peak looming |
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| Saguaro Sun |
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| Palo Verde trees framing the view |
The story is narrated by Private John Bartle and moves back and forth in time between basic training, deployment, and the attempt to return to society. It addresses everything from the camaraderie of the troops, to the horrors of war, to the difficulties in returning to everyday life, to Americans’ overly simplified views about war. I really enjoyed the beauty of his writing and the fascinating story being told about Bartle and his buddy Murph. It’s funny, sad, and most of all thought provoking. The entire chapter describing his return home is incredible. I highly recommend it. Don’t base it on the terrible movie adaptation which got killed in most reviews.
Here are some of my favorite lines:
While I slept that summer, the war came to me in my dreams and showed me its sole purpose: to go on, only to go on. And I knew the war would have its way.
We hardly noticed a change when September came. But I know now that everything that will ever matter in my life began then.
But I remember being told that the truth does not depend on being believed.
I had this idea once that you had to grow old before you died.
The Atlantic Ocean was our last obstacle to home, the land of the free, of reality television, outlet malls and deep vein thrombosis.
I had thought the same thing, how glad I was not to be shot, how much it would have hurt to be there dying, watching all of us watch him die. And I too, though sad now, had said to myself, Thank God he died and I did not. Thank God.
Because how can you measure deviation if you don’t know the mean? There was no center in the world. The curves of all our bells were cracked.
They might in their passing talk say, “What a shame he couldn’t get it back together.” And one might answer, “I know, so tragic.” But I would not embrace their pity. I might be numb with cold, but I would not ask for understanding. No, I would only sit muttering with envy for their broad umbrellas, their dryness, and the sweet, unwounded banality of their lives.
Two boys, one twenty-four, the other twenty-one, would decide what should happen to the body of a boy who had died and been butchered in the service of his country in an unknown corner of the world.
America forgot her little story, moving as it does so quickly on to other agonies….
It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said.
The trail is a roller coaster that circles the base of Piestewa (Squaw) Peak. I like hiking the trail clockwise, starting from the Piestewa summit trail. It climbs the first half of the summit trail and then drops off the north edge of the halfway saddle into the quiet valley between Piestewa and Dreamy Draw Park. After dropping a few hundred feet in elevation it turns east and hugs the northern base of Piestewa, climbing in and out of arroyos. There are many trails you can access from here towards Dreamy Draw and I've hiked most of them. I love this little peaceful valley in the middle of the 5th largest city in the US. I always stop and lounge on Coyote Rock for a few minutes and on this day I had a lot to think about as we juggle selling one home and buying another while leaving the place we've lived in for 40 years. I felt rejuvenated after lounging and finished off the hike with an uplifted feeling. There is a lot of construction going on near the trailhead as the city works to improve the facilities. Up to now they've done a great job and it looks really good. Kudos to the Parks and Rec department.
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| Southern edge of the valley between Piestewa and Dreamy Draw Park |
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| Coyote Rock |
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| Me lounging on Coyote Rock |
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| Looking West |
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| Heading back up to the eastern saddle |
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| Nice views from the saddle |
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| Heading back towards the parking lot among the teddy bear cholla |
The narrator, Don Tillman, is a genetics professor at a
prestigious Australian university. He
organizes his life down to the minute and it becomes clear early on that he is
on the autism spectrum (although he doesn’t seem to realize that himself). He’s mostly satisfied with the efficiency of
his life and the work he does in genetics; however, he would like to have a
life partner to share this with. His
social skills, especially when dating, are not good which has resulted in many
embarrassing (and hilarious) moments and a belief that randomly finding a
partner will never work. So, he starts The Wife Project where he develops a
scientifically sound questionnaire to be filled out by women in order to sort
for his perfect match. While in the
middle of his Wife Project he meets Rosie, who would fail in all aspects of his
questionnaire and would be completely unsuitable for his life partner. But he can’t reconcile that with the fact
that he enjoys her company and has some of the best days of his entire life
with her (almost as good as the entire days he’s spent in the American Museum
of Natural History).
It’s a great read and the story of Rosie’s and Don’s trip to
New York City in search of Rosie’s real father is terrific. If this ever gets made into a movie, I hope
they find the correct director because it could be a great one.
Here are some of my favorite lines:
Gene invited me to dinner at his house and performed other
friendship rituals, resulting in a social relationship.
His wife, Claudia, who is a clinical psychologist, is now
also a friend. Making a total of two.
Before I met Gene and Claudia I had two other friends. The first was my older sister.
“Relax,” she said.
“We never start before seven fifteen.
Would you like a coffee?” Why do
people value others’ time so little? Now
we would have the inevitable small talk.
I could have spent fifteen minutes at home practicing aikido.
“Stay still,” said Claudia.
“I’ll get a cloth.” A cloth was
not going to clean my shirt properly.
Laundering a shirt requires a machine, detergent, fabric softener, and
considerable time.
“Wow,” she said, again. This reaction was becoming predictable. I wondered what her response to DNA or evolution would be.
Fortunately I am accustomed to creating amusement inadvertently.
Alcohol seems to both calm me down and elevate my mood, a
paradoxical but pleasant combination.
And it reduces my discomfort in social situations.
My mother is a good person but very focused on sharing
personal information.
“Seems irrational,” I said, “wanting virgins. Surely a woman with sexual experience would
be preferable to a novice.”
I explained in some detail about The Wife Project…I finished
as we consumed the final slices of pizza.
Rosie had not really asked any questions except to make exclamations
such as “Jesus” and "F@#k."
Throughout my life I have been criticized for a perceived
lack of emotion, as if this were some absolute fault.
People began laughing.
I am an expert at being laughed at and, as Bianca pulled away from me, I
scanned the audience to see who was not laughing, an excellent means of
identifying friends. Gene and Rosie and,
surprisingly, the Dean and her partner were my friends tonight.
“You want to share a taxi?” asked Rosie. It seemed a sensible use of fossil fuel.
For The Wife Project I included questions on dancing,
racquet sports, and bridge to eliminate candidates who would require me to gain
competence in useless activities….
I opened the sunroof and turned up the CD player volume to
combat fatigue, and at 7:19am on Saturday, with the caffeine still running all
around my brain, Jackson Browne and I pulled into Moree.
We survived US Immigration.
Previous experience had taught me not to offer observations or
suggestions….
Was I really like my father, who had insisted on sitting in
the same chair every night? I had my own special chair too….
So, to add to a momentous day, I corrected a misconception
that my family had held for at least fifteen years and came out to them as
straight.
I began the second half of my life by making coffee.
Rosie and I were on our way to New York, where being weird
is acceptable.
We are considering reproducing (or, as I would say in a
social encounter, “having children”).
Until next time, Happy Reading and Rambling!