Books: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu (2010)

I am not going to say I completely understand what this book was about, though it’s safe to say had I not read some Jasper Fforde or Kurt Vonnegut, I would be completely confused. Still, the novel is clever, and funny and filled with a lot of 20^th Century ideals about science fiction.

Every day in Minor Universe 31 people get into time machines and try to change the past. That's where Charles Yu, time travel technician, steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he's not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. The key to locating his father may be found in a book. It's called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and somewhere inside it is information that will help him. It may even save his life.

The novel is not linear, nor is really plotted out. But, I think, that’s the point. Charles spends most of the book hiding in his time machine, not really working, and dwelling on his childhood relationship with his father. And that is about as far as the plot goes, but by adding a sort philosophical conversations about time travel, about life, about the choices we make and don’t make, author Yu gives us a glimpse into the soul of how we see our past. Thus we have an often razor-sharp, at times hilarious, and very touching novel about a son searching for his father .

Roadway

Honest Anderson

Great point on why Anderson Cooper should finally come out publicly.

The 180

This guy attempts -pretty clearly - to demonstrate why some critics (I'm guessing real film students as well) why The Dark Knight's best action sequence makes little sense.

In the Cut, Part I: Shots in the Dark (Knight) from Jim Emerson on Vimeo.

Books: One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde (2011)

In most ongoing series, if the author does not change things enough, the series has a tendency to become bogged down in too much ennui, Piers Anthony Xanth novels as an example. On the other hand, too much change can lead to fans abandoning the series, like Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series which introduced too many character’s that took over for the main ones of the earlier books.

Japer Fforde, it appears, is trying to keep his ideas from getting too boring by shuffling the deck from time to time. In the fourth book of the Thursday Next series, he jumped ahead two years, from alternate 1985 to 1987. In the fifth book, Thursday Next: First Among Sequels, he moves even further in time, to 2002. Now in the sixth novel, One of Our Thursdays is Missing, he shifts from the first person narration of our hero to the “written” version of our hero.

The BookWorld has undergone a transformation from Great Library format to a Geographic format. Sounding like a theoretical version of a Dyson Sphere, the BookWorld now has all the forms of writing organized into clusters of islands that are divided into genres. Related genres are located near to each other and trade text, plot devices, metaphors and so on. All is not well, however, with a genre war about to erupt. Jurisfiction agent Thursday Next is due to chair peace talks in a week’s time only she has vanished in suspicious circumstances. Worried about the consequences of the impending battle Jurisfiction turns to the written Thursday Next who is living in a small corner of speculative fiction, maintaining her five book series and trying to keep her readers and fellow characters happy. She is asked to investigate the mysterious break-up of a vanity book that was being transported across BookWorld, leaving a trail of narrative debris in its wake. Soon the Men in Plaid, agents of the Council of Genres, are trailing after her, her understudy is upstaging her, and her Designated Love Interest is revealed to have a murderous back story. Written Thursday has to live up to the reputation of her real world counterpart and save the day or risk being erased from the BookWorld.

What Fforde has done, by changing the personality of Thursday, yet still have Thursday narrate the tale, thus not changing the perspective of the series, is rather brilliant. It’s the same Thursday, really, but very different one at that. In some ways, this Thursday is like how Doctor Who changes the Doctor, different actor, but still the same Doctor. Confusing I know.

Fforde explains it better: “Oddly, I preferred Thursday when she was still unsure and afraid of the BookWorld. Where everything was dangerous and perplexing and death, disaster, danger and mayhem lurked at every corner. The Thursday we saw in First Among Sequels felt a bit too superhuman and a bit world-weary so I wanted to get back to a Thursday who had more problems than experience. The written Thursday fits the bill perfectly.”

The series continues its puns (a hotel called Inn Uendo), its take on all the genres of the written word (poking fun at Photography, where B&W and Color remain bitterly divided and others) and what it means to live in a world where everything has a purpose, where nothing’s meaningless. Fforde also gives the written Thursday a chance to visit the RealWorld and gives the reader a new way to look at our lives.

The only issue I have, is perhaps small, but shows while Ffords creativeness appears to have no boundaries, he has a tendency to get bogged down it as well, which effectively makes the novel less I-need-to-turn-the-page-to-find-out-what-happens-next. But your still astounded at his cleverness, how me makes reading, its concepts as such, more enjoyable. As a matter of fact, I would say that anyone who wants to study literature, but does not understand those concepts, might actually learn something.

Slowly, then all at once

Ernest Hemingway said that about a man going broke.

In an article on CNN about Borders Book demise, it uses that quote to sort of tale where a once great book company petered out after 40 years. After 14 years of working with them, being part of the system that began falling apart as soon as I joined them, you hear things, you learn things.

The first part of the article talks history of the company, the love of its devoted staff and how being purchased by Kmart helped the company expand by giving it a financial flow. But it's demise was sown when that company spun Borders and Waldenbooks (which it already had) off into their own company and went public.

"When you become a public company, you have certain obligations, and in my opinion, when those responsibilities and obligations are not managed correctly, (they) lead to what we have now," said Robert Teicher, who was the chain's longtime fiction buyer.

"When Borders expanded, they brought in executives from supermarkets and department stores (all of whom insisted they were readers), and the result was a shuffle of titles and more downsizing against a backdrop of financial engineering, which only seemed to make matters worse," Public Affairs founder Peter Osnos wrote in The Atlantic.

The company spent millions launching a website in 1998 only to hand over the shipping to rival Amazon.com three years later, which is sort of like giving your house keys to thieves. By the time the company wrestled Borders.com back in 2008, the damage was irreversible. They also spent untold amounts of money renovating stores and then decided to create a model for the "store of the future," with different fixtures and carpeting -- none of which, according to long-time Borders Store 1 GM Joe Gable, could be retrofitted to Borders' 500 stores.

"They spend millions developing this stupid ('store of the future') and then six months later they pull the plug on it," he said. "So picture the money just pouring out. Then they get a new guy in. I say, 'What do we need?' (He says,) 'We need a new idea for a store.' 'Well, what could that possibly be?' 'Let's call it "the concept store." ' Let's have more consultants, and let's develop totally different fixtures -- metal fixtures -- and let's have a different layout, this time instead of a racetrack, people will find things by bumping into them!"

The revolving door that took over Ann Arbor - 4 CEOs in just the last five years alone - was another sign the company was loosing its direction. Longtime staff members were jumping ship mainly, it seemed, because no one wanted to listen, to understand that what Borders needed was not glitter balls or gardening tools, but books.

So, as Teicher noted, you began to see a "devolution" of customer service and selection. Gable added "Not only did they not pay attention to the selection,they continued to downgrade the selection by emphasizing in its place things that were nonbook items. The point was that Borders was completely indistinguishable from B&N and the competition. The books that you could buy at Borders you could buy at Costco -- cheaper."

In the end, Gable concluded "The problem with the new guys is they tried to take the book business, which is complex and boring, and make it simple and sexy."

But beyond the financial blunders -the over expansion, the devotion to CD and then DVDs when it was becoming very obvious it was time to retire them, and the huge turnover within Ann Arbor and even its older stores - the huge, near glacial reaction to the e-readers is very telling. When Amazon introduced the Kindle in 2005, it was the only thing on the market. B&N joined the digital devices by introducing The Nook, a little over two years later. Borders waited until 2010, and partnered with the Canadian company Kobo instead of creating their own reader (even though we did carry the Sony e-reader starting in 2008, but that device was just way over priced).

Last Christmas, Borders offered seven versions of e-readers/tablets. Only problem with that -beyond giving the customers too much choice - was they were all dubious devices that worked a few weeks and died, or did not work at all. It was an embarrassment and forced staff members to hawk products they knew were crap.

So since the liquidation began in mid July, the words of why we where closing were on the lips of many. And no, it was not because of the e-readers or even Amazon. While they certainly play a role in this near Greek Tragedy, the seeds of its death were planted back in the late 1990s. It was a slow to start, but it accelerated in the last few years due a lot to ineptitude on the part of the leaders of this company. They could not, or would not, try to understand what their customers wanted.

Raping the company was the only thing some within Ann Arbor understood. And now, it is done.

Say goodnight, Gracie.

Remembered

A nation was brought together as one, but after 10 years we've divided our selves again, along an ideology line this time. We've proven we can come together against a common foe, but we still can't overcome our dislike for individuality -even though we say we want it.

So Long and Thanks for all the Books

On Tuesday, September 13, my 14 year stay with Borders comes to an end.

While I'm bitter, angry and worried about where I'll go from here, I'm not sure I can just pack these feelings away like an old suit, and go out into our troubled economy and find a new job. Borders was comfortable, safe and I was complacent. My sister put it best by saying I was in an abusive relationship with the company, sort of like a battered wife.

Everyday I would go in, complain about the lack of support from upper management, shake my head at the latest policy change that was going to save the company, knowing that the people in Ann Arbor had no idea what they were doing. Well, beyond trying to plug a gasping slash in its bow with a cork from a wine bottle. I was abused verbally, though never directly -it was the frontline workers fault for not selling a Make Title. And I was told that as a single person, I could not change anything. But I still worked my ass off for them, cleaned their store, sorted the product, shelved it and kept it in order so customers and staff could find what the computer said was here.

I would leave, tired, feeling dejected and wishing I could leave (or get fired) from Borders. And the next day, I would start the cycle again.

For 14 years, 5 locations in two states.

Now, on Monday, my abuser dies (though I'll be back on Tuesday to clean up its mess one last time) and I have find a new job. I realize I need to remain upbeat, positive and a go-getter to show a prospective company that I'm the right person for the position. I have to ignore the fact that there could be 20 or more people vying for the same job (most who are over qualified for it as well), and hope that I have the thing, the right sort of energy that puts me over everyone else.

Borders failures are moot in the end. I know that, but I can't help but think we never needed to get here, to have this company end after 40 years. But it is what is is, I guess.

The best part is I have friends who are willing to help me achieve a new goal -even if at this late juncture, I don't know what it is.

And for that, I'm blessed.

Low

Random

Books: The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall (2010)

In The Lonely Polygamist, we meet Golden Richards, a man with four wives and the father to twenty-eight children. Unfortunately, he is also having the mother of all midlife crises. First off, his construction business failing, and then adding on that his family has grown into an overpopulated kingdom, one that is coming apart at the seams, with sibling rivalry haunting every corner and with the faint air of insurrection ready to boil over like a volcano, Golden still feels the loss of two of his children, the accidental death of a daughter and the stillbirth of a son. And he has begun to feel the doubt of his heart. So when he takes a construction job 200 miles from home (building a brothel none the less) to figure out just what he should do, Golden finds redemption of sorts with the common law wife of the man who hired him.

Author Udall, himself from a large Mormon family in Arizona, does not seem to have a real opinion on polygamy itself, though through 11 year-old Rusty, the “family terrorist” and the only child given individual thought, he paints a vivid picture of what polygamy does to the children. Through Rusty’s interior monologue, we learn how painful this life can be on a child who can’t fully understand why he can never be the center of attention, even on his “special day,” his birthday.

The novel is often outright funny, and reminded me much of John Irving –which, as I read up on Udall, he is often compared too – with the goofy, often off center hero, wrapped up in events beyond his control. Still, Golden is aware of his faults, but appears either unwilling or (probably) incapable of solving his problems, because in the end, he was never taught how to solve them.

The book is a rare gem and I highly recommend it.

Books: The Brothers Sisters by Patrick de Witt (2011)

For generations, the Western genre has been portrayed in pretty much the same way, with its black hats and white hats, the sense of right and wrong and glory of the hero ending the reign of terror of some evil man. It was predictable, safe and (from the Hollywood point of view) extremely successful. But while there has always been a sort of casual violence to the genre, it never was portrayed as brutal –well, with the exception of Sam Pekinpah films maybe.

These books, films and TV shows never examined the heart of where the violence of these men came from. Clint Eastwood’s 1992 Oscar winning film Unforgiven attempted to look at the moral ambiguities the genre presented, and tried to paint it in a more realistic life.

In the novel The Brothers Sisters, we meet Eli and Charlie Sisters, infamous assassins who are sent on an errand to kill one Hermann Kermit Warm, an ingenious (and, as it turns out, extremely likable) man, who is accused of stealing from their boss, a fearsome figure named the Commodore.

Yet, as they set out, we understand that younger brother Eli (and narrator of the book) has grown weary of the killing, and wants to settle down (and seems to be developing a puppy-love to almost any women that crosses his path from Oregon City to San Francisco), while Charlie seems indifferent on the whole subject. Their conversations are, in the end, mundane and often hilarious. Sure there is plenty of Western tropes –saloons, prostitutes, sneak attacks and gun play - but de Witt shows these only to be small aspects of the Sisters lives, because the story is filled with petty squabbles, misunderstandings and a lot of hangovers.

Through the eyes and voice of Eli, we see what a reluctant murderer he is, and how truly different (yet the same) he is from his older brother. He sees violence begets violence, but is unsure, or incapable, of changing the course of his life. There is a generous man buried under Eli’s rage, one who is kind to women and animals –his devotion to his injured horse sparks a retort from Charlie, who calls his brother “The Protector of Moronic Beasts.”

The Sisters Brothers is often funny, dark and lyrical, especially when the novel seamlessly moves from causal murder to thoughtful opinions. It’s not so much a commentary on the Western genre that say Unforgiven was, but like that iconic movie, we see that while the Sisters brothers are assassins, are at times unlikable, they’re always more evil men than them stalking the old west.

Books: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (2007)

According to what I read, author Jasper Fforde finished his first series involving Literary Detective Thursday Next with the fourth title, Something Rotten. Now, with First Among Sequels, he begins another four volume series. And in there, lays a problem, insomuch as this one is a sort of sequel to the previous four volumes, and its plot wanders around like a drunk trying to cross a busy street while trying to pretend he’s not drunk.

The series jumps 14 years from the last, and is still set in an alternate universe of 2002. After the events of Something Rotten, the Special Operations Network has been disbanded. But you can’t keep a good detective down, and using Swindon’s Acme Carpets as a front, Thursday and her colleagues Bowden, Stig and Spike continue their same professions, only illegally. But Acme is a front for a front, as Thursday is still working for Jurisfiction and is now grappling with a new apprentice; as well as an inter-genre war is brewing and her sixteen-year-old emo son , Friday, who rather sleep than save the world from the dreaded End of Time.

There are a lot of subplots that go nowhere, and we revisit many areas of the World Building that Fforde created for the first book, which I found distracting. Fforde, though, puts to rest the whole time travel aspect of the series, as he noted that he found it interfering with his plot. Still, as always, Fforde gives us plenty of puns, more literary references to shake a stick at and takes a swipe at reality TV series, which I fond inspired (Pride and Prejudice now becomes The Bennets, with the five sisters doing inane things to hopefully not be voted out). There is also plenty of social commentary within the government of the Thursday Next universe - a dangerously high stupidity surplus, as he puts it – that could be any democratically elected government.

And since this is the first volume of four, Fforde leaves its readers with a major cliffhanger. While this was released in 2007, the next book was promised for 2009. One of Our Thursdays Is Missing, however, would not be released until spring of this year. Major bummer for the fans in 2007, but since this is 2011, it will only be a few weeks (as I'm waiting for the price to drop during our Borders liquidation).