Our Expanding Universe by Alex Robinson

    I won’t mince words, I find this book to be a major disappointment. It’s about a bunch of 40-year-old men who can’t seem to grow up and act their age, and there’s nothing funny about it. They gather in a playground to play boxball, which in my view is the equivalent of grown men playing Candyland. Keep in mind, one of them has children, and another is expecting one. It’s one thing for men to have hobbies that aren’t traditionally male (some men like to do needlepoint), but for these guys to play a kid’s game in a kid’s playground, that’s just plain stupid and immature. There’s a scene where a parent insists that they leave, which makes sense because playground signs clearly say “no adults except those accompanying children.” Some arguing is involved, but I couldn’t help thinking “good for her, and while you’re at it, make them sit in the corner!” It’s not fun to see grown men who play a game meant for five year old children.

    The next problem for these defeated Generation-X boys is the job thing. One of the guys is the manager of a dog grooming (or doggy day care) franchise, which he doesn’t like much, and isn’t even sure if he wants the child his wife is about to have. Then there’s the guy with the well-paid teaching job, having an affair with a sexy blonde teacher at his school. He has a wife who’s overweight, overbearing, and suspicious, but you can tell she’s not going to leave him. She’s just given birth to kid #2, and you get the vibe that this is the best she can get.

    Maybe the real problem with this book is the author Alex Robinson? I’m a big fan of his, and I loved his previous works Box Office Poison, Tricked, and Too Cool to Be Forgotten. Based on his previous efforts, Our Expanding Universe lacks any of the depth of those books. BOP was all about Generation X trying to find their way in life, and in the process, reconcile the lessons of their parents. Then came TCTBF, in which Generation X is getting older and coming to terms with adult responsibility. Now take the protagonist of TCTBF; he’s 37, losing his hair, working in IT, has a pre-teen stepdaughter, and wants to quit smoking so he won’t die on his family like his father did. Furthermore, you wonder if maybe this guy has ALWAYs been a bald 37-year-old, because you never imagine that he was once a kid. When he travels back in time to when he was 17, he finds the era to be a silly waste of time. But in OEU, the men want to keep on being kids. It’s like having dinner with an adult male who only eats fish sticks and tater tots. I wonder if this book, in contrast to Robinson’s earlier pieces, could be a study in the lack of adult responsibility in today’s men? Even the artwork is no good, compared to the others. A lot of it is filler, with none of the hilarious montages of his previous works.

    After finishing this book (which took a long time because it was so boring) I came to one conclusion; these people deserve their misery! And if Robinson’s work doesn’t improve soon, he’ll be in the same position as the characters.

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea

I’m a little conflicted about this book. On one hand, it’s boring, but on the other hand, it’s about the most boring country on earth. North Korea has sterile buildings, no casual socialization, no casual music or arts, and no food. So why does the author bother to draw it? There isn’t really anything to draw.

    Delise is a Quebec-born artist and animator, now living in the south of France, and travels to Pyongyang to visit the state animation studios. There are other foreigners in Pyongyang – French, Italian, and Arab – mostly doing engineering projects. There are things to entertain them – discos, cafes, and a bowling alley – all of which lack essential parts. Worse, they’re only open to foreigners, so there won’t be a lot of people there to talk to. That’s fine with Kim, because the foreigners can’t speak or understand Korean and therefore they can’t corrupt the locals with their fascinating stories of Western capitalism. On more than one occasion, the author says he’d rather be nuked.

    High rise hotels have only three occupied floors. The 1,000 foot tall pyramid-shaped hotel is a concrete shell (covered with glass by the time of this writing) and admired by only three tourists. There’s a club for tourists, situated inside an ugly Soviet-style lobby that used to be the Romanian embassy. I have to wonder why Romania needed an embassy in North Korea, when the two countries had almost no relationship. Neither country had anything to contribute to the other.

     I wasn’t surprised by the guitar-playing kids who do a performance for the tourists. I saw it on youtube, where the kids in Soviet-style outfits play an old Russian melody. The kids look like they’re less than eight years old, and they play huge guitars. I wonder how their tiny fingers can handle the massive frets. Maybe those “kids” are actually dwarves? What surprises me is that the leaders of North Korea can’t see that nobody’s fooled. They have to be aware of how foreigners are laughing at them. I also wonder how a country that hasn’t had a war in years can need to conscript men for over ten years at a time. With so many people forced into the army, it’s a wonder there’s anyone to grow the food.

   Maybe their “Dear Leader” is fully aware how the foreigners see him, but doesn’t care. The Kim family spent decades being obeyed, so maybe they’re happy as long as their own people are kept in line. One thing however, is certain; the North Koreans are brainwashed, and if the doors of North Korea ever open up, they’re going to need to bring in psychiatrists.

The Nordic Theory of Everything

From the start, the author judges the Americans as over-anxious, and blames the anxiety on parents who micromanage their children’s lives. The anxious-parent micromanagement stresses the parents, and teaches the kids nothing about taking care of themselves. They’ll spend fortunes on tutors (and even do their kids’ homework) to get them into top colleges, stress themselves to pay for it, and four years later they have less money and some kids who can’t support themselves. But in Scandinavia, things are a wee bit different; college is free, kids are expected to move out at age 18, and the parents don’t stress.

    The author quotes a US-educated Swedish academic named Lars Tradaigh on several issues. The first one is financial aid for college – which in the USA requires you to state your parents’ income – and that is alien to Scandinavia. In Sweden, your parents are no longer obligated to support you after age 18, so the idea of your parents’ income being an issue is ridiculous. The second issue is elder care, which looks bleak, since the average American can’t afford it. Look at it in terms of economics; parents today are supporting their grown children (the sandwich generation) so they can’t possibly support an aged relative as well. In Sweden, the state pays for the health care and nursing, and that’s it. The children are expected to take their elders for walks, talk to them, do stuff with them. Social workers can’t do that.

    It’s the same thing with childcare in Finland. The government provides free maternity leave and daycare, so the parents are not stressed about taking care of the children. But this would be impossible here in the USA, for a million reasons. First, the USA has a teenage pregnancy problem, which Scandinavia does not. Not only that, but all over the country you find women with lots of kids by different men, and they’re on welfare their whole lives. Scandinavia has a low birthrate and no teen pregnancy, so they’re not swamped with the bills. Then there’s another great American problem to deal with; crack babies, and the kids with FAS. Few kids in Scandinavia are born addicted to drugs, so all those Nordic teachers aren’t struggling to retarded students. Lastly, the USA has a titanic defense budget, and that cuts into what we can spend on daycare. As for the government providing free housing so 18 year old kids can live on their own, forget it. You’d have nonstop partying and trips to the ER.

   There is one Nordic practice that can work, and that’s a school curriculum involving hikes. In Sweden, the children are taken into the woods, given a compass, and told to find their way back. They’ll do this in all weathers, rain or shine, and their motto is “there is no bad weather, only inadequate clothing.” The kids learn to be self-reliant, solve problems on their own, and get along without their parents. Maybe the US problem is that we’re desperate for the kids to achieve what does not exist? Look at the schools, with their uniforms (the kids look sloppy anyway) and the dress codes (that lead to conflicts.) Do truckers have dress codes? What about cab drivers? Do electricians wear neckties? Do most NYC teachers wear neckties? The answer is usually no. So why make kids dress up for school? It’s part of the spectrum, of Americans forcing useless things on their kids, and it’s all because of paranoia.

   Unfortunately, the majority of Scandinavia’s ways can’t work in the USA because…..well I guess everything here is different. Finland has  a high number of percentage of women legislators, and we have few. Norway has a tiny defense budget, ours is astronomical. Denmark has no teenage pregnancy, but we certainly do, and it’s a drain on our nation. Scandinavia has an anything-goes attitude towards sexuality, no censorship, and they’re racially homogenous. True, they have free college, but it’s only for kids that qualify, and they do have vocational training (which most US schools have gotten rid of.) The reason they can afford to have free college is that you don’t attend if your grades are no good. Here in the USA, any idiot can go to community college, even if they can barely read.

    I’d love to see the forest hikes in US schools. Maybe if we’re less paranoid about lawsuits, we might see it in this lifetime.

My Friend Dahmer

    Back in 2000, actor Noah Taylor caused a a stir by playing the young Adolf Hitler. Nobody complained about the performance; everyone agreed that he nailed it perfectly. What bothered the audience was the subject matter, and that it made the monster look, for lack of a better term, less monstrous. I remember watching the film and saying “you know, I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard,” which is essentially what the character is – a lonely man with no family and no friends – wandering a world he doesn’t recognize. Maybe the problem is that we’re used to stories about monsters, but they’re easy to recognize. Human monsters, the kind that inhabit the prisons, aren’t like the trolls and dragons in fairy tales. They aren’t born with fangs, claws, and a terrible appetite. We know that at some point they were just kids, and we wonder what those kids were like.

    Backderf’s memoir of his friend (more like acquaintance) Jeffrey Dahmer is not a horror show, but a dark comedy. I wonder if Todd Solondz – creator of dark comedies set in America’s suburbs – would’ve been better suited to direct the film version? The author draws and writes of Dahmer as a freakish outcast in a 1970’s suburban school, not fitting in with any of the cliques. He’s fascinated by dead animals, but he’s not part of the group that loves science. He’s built like a football player, but has no attraction to sports. He’s weird, but doesn’t hang out with the weird kids. Dahmer spends his time alone, drinking too much, in his shed with dead specimens. Then the awkward teen starts making bizarre noises and gestures in the hallway, amusing and puzzling everyone at the same time. Backderf doesn’t draw much of the dead animal collection because he didn’t see much of it. The problem is that Dahmer kept so much hidden from everyone; the dead animals, the drinking, the problems with his family. When Dahmer’s father Lionel wrote his own memoir to try and make sense of it all, he claimed 100% ignorance. The author of this graphic memoir agrees, there was extreme ignorance on part of the adults.

    In terms of Backderf’s drawing style, I can only say that it’s perfect. His realistic drawing is necessary in the story, because the facial features, clothes, and period décor are an essential influence on the characters. Art Spiegelman’s mouthless mice wouldn’t have worked, neither would Marjane Satrapi’s block figures. The author gives us a full-on frontal assault of the 1970’s – the sterility of the school, the kitschy home décor, the foliage of the woods – and how it all influences the events. A recurring character in the story is Lloyd Figg (the school’s emotionally disturbed kid) and he’s drawn as fat and curly-haired, which helps establish the boy’s awkwardness. In fact the awkwardness is a recurring theme in My Friend Dahmer, not just social, but physical as well. Dahmer’s posture is drawn as stiff, his walk is stiff, and he doesn’t seem sure of what to do with his arms. As for his face, he’s portrayed as a wall-faced kid hiding behind long hair and glasses.

   There is no lesson to be learned from My Friend Dahmer. Like the Vegas Shooter, Dahmer showed few obvious signs that he was going to go on a killing spree. In the epilogue, the author hears that a former classmate was arrested for mass murder, and he’s certain it was Lloyd Figg. He figures is has to be, Lloyd Figg is well known to the local police. Then he hears it was Dahmer, and stares in disbelief. How could it be Jeffrey Dahmer, he wonders, if that boy showed no signs? When it comes to spotting a future serial killer, the fact is that very often you can’t.

Seeking New York: The Stories Behind Historic Architecture of Manhattan

   Tom Miller dives into the history of select buildings in Manhattan, starting with Water Street. It’s no surprise that the area was horrible in the 1800’s, because few in the city called waterfront living “upscale” until recently. What is surprising, however, is that the area was once prosperous, and 273 Water Street was once a very upscale home. The brick building was owned by the Rose family – fine lumber importers – but was later bought by a criminal who used the first floor for dog fights, then rat-versus-dog fights, then rat-versus-rat fights, hence the building’s nickname “the rat pit.”

    Miller brings forth long-forgotten firsthand accounts of the city, including well-known, yet rarely-read texts from the 19^th century. One house on his list, which I often wondered about, is 139 Green Street in Soho. It’s a small brick house, out of place among the Soho lofts, and has been boarded up for as long as I can remember. According to the author’s research, it belonged to a clothing merchant until the 1860’s (when the area got lousy) then became a brothel, and then became home to one of the many textile businesses in the area. It was also home to the French immigrants (never hear much about those) and unlike the other buildings, it was not industrial and didn’t become an artist colony. Thanks to a city preservation order, it can’t be torn down, and thanks to all the gutting done in the 1900’s there’s nothing inside. Fixing it up would be unprofitable.

   I don’t want to give too much away, because this is a very entertaining book. The author is a great writer, and he does extensive research. This book would be great material for a walking tour.

Python for Biologists by Dr. Martin Jones

    Let me begin by saying that Dr. Jones is a biologist who found computers to be essential in his work.  If you’re wondering how computers can possibly help you in the study of cells and diseases, then the answer lies in something that cells do; they duplicate!

    In biology, the same problems recur over and over again. This is where a computer language is needed. There are many applications for the use of Python in the study of biology, because of the repetitive nature of results. As opposed to C and Javascript, Python is more predictable, and widely used by scientists. It makes it easier for scientists to string together numbers and characters, the kind that you would need to do in DNA sequencing. 

    Dr. Jones uses the first chapter to do a brief intro, along with the difference between Perl and Python. For the second chapter, we get a fundamental lesson on manipulating texts, so that the computer can integrate who the text is for. Take for instance a command that is meant to be read by a person, rather than the computer. He shows how certain symbols can tell the computer to ignore the text.

   

My Soul Looks Back

    The author, a longtime professor at Queens College, lived in the West Village in the 1970’s. There were dinner parties with Maya Angelou and James Baldwin, restaurants that are now forgotten, and a circle of writers and intellectuals, many of whom I’d never heard of. She often mentions a husband-wife team of restauranteurs, both of whom are dead now and forgotten. Then there’s Maya Angelou, a central character in this book, described as being very tall with a commanding presence, though she was also extremely egocentric and seemed to live in her own world. Trips to Europe were commonplace in the author’s life, but she left the West Village in the 1980’s and remained in Brooklyn afterwards.

    She begins with her childhood, which was unusual in that it was somewhat “international.” Her parents were involved with the UN, and they sent her to a school that was geographically diverse, where she felt out of place. Not from color, but because she was American! In a class of kids who spoke multiple languages, ate exotic foods, spent summers in Europe and Asia, all she had to offer was her banal American life. Her family eventually spent a summer in Martha’s Vinyard and took a boat trip to Europe, and though she doesn’t say much about it, I wonder how the locals of the time took to having a Black family in their midst. It would be great material for a book.

    Interspersed throughout the book are recipes she picked up along the way, and lots of European ones because she’s an obvious Francophile. She mentions a 1970’s PBS show called Soul (also unknown to me) which was hosted by and featured notable Black Americans. Then there was the Upper West Side, home at the time to a sizeable number of Black intellectuals, plus Harry Belefonte, Morgan Freeman (before he got famous) and Marcia Ann Gillespie, living in luxurious apartments like Park West Village, and they all hung out at the Only Child restaurant at 226 West 79^th.  There were other restaurants, like The Cellar, Under the Stairs, and Mikell’s, for Black professionals, and they weren’t soul food joints. On the contrary, these were Black Americans with money, and they wanted fancy European menus.

    Most of the people she mentions are the ones I’d never heard of. Restauranteurs Mary Painter and George Garin have been dead for years and the restaurant gone too. By the 1980’s, AIDS was killing off a lot of these people, which may be one of the reasons she moved to Brooklyn. I wonder if she missed it? Was there another great circle of luminaries for her to hang out with? It might make a good sequel to this book. I also learn here that Maya Angelou, aside from her eccentricity and strange taste in men, was allergic to fish.

  

Lots of discussion about food, but a little too much nostalgia.