O
The Guardian excerpts O: The Intimate History of the Orgasm. How do you excerpt an orgasm? Seems to defeat the point, if you ask me. At any rate, orgasms appear to be good for creativity.
"Both men and women may laugh or cry, or become uncommonly ticklish, although all these reactions are less common for men on the basis that they tend to show their feelings less anyway. Both sexes may experience a burst of creative thought since orgasm produces a near lightning storm in the right, creative-thinking side of the brain. Biological duty fulfilled, there normally follows a lengthy period of exhaustion, rest, and -- frequently -- sleep."

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Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Food
The Guardian is running excerpts from Not on the Label, which looks like it should be required reading alongside Fast Food Nation.
"A team of researchers and volunteers at the Rome Institute of Food and Nutrition had conducted an experiment. They took lettuce grown by a cooperative and gave it to volunteers to eat on the day it was harvested; lettuce from the same source was then given to volunteers to eat after it had been packed in Map and stored for three days. Blood samples of the two groups were analysed after they had eaten the salad. The researchers noted that several anti-oxidant nutrients -- which protect against ageing, degenerative disease and cancer -- such as vitamins C and E, polyphenols and other micronutrients, seemed to be lost in the Map process. The volunteers who had eaten the fresh lettuce showed an increase in antioxidant levels in their blood, but those who had eaten lettuce stored for three days in Map showed no increase. The researchers noted that nutrient levels fell at a similar rate in lettuce stored in normal atmospheric conditions, the difference being that a lettuce stored normally showed signs of limpness after a few days, whereas with Map the illusion of freshness is preserved."

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Fritzy, Fritzy Dumb Ass
Moorish Girl's mini-review of Funny in Farsi really makes me want to check this book out.
"In Berkeley, people were either thrilled or horrified to meet an Iranian. Reactions included, 'So what do you think of the fascist American CIA pigs who supported the Shah's dictatorship only to use him as a puppet in their endless thirst for power in the Middle East and other areas like Nicaragua.' Sometimes, mentioning that I was from Iran completely ended the conversation. I never knew why but I assume some feared that I might really be yet another female terrorist masquerading as a history of art major at UC-Berkeley."

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Call for Definition Between Fact and Fiction

Personally, I'm tired of fish stories: I don't want to get to the end of a book and learn that the marlin was actually a tuna and the breast implants were saline not silicone, and that the boat actually never left the dock.

Better to write a novel. And then, why not make the marlin a liopleurodon, a freak survivor from the Jurassic oceans. The woman could be saved by a Janet Jackson-style sunburst nipple ring. And the experience can transform her profoundly - from heedless game fisherman's accessory to ardent animal rights activist and ground-breaking marine biologist.

Come on... you know you want to read it now.



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Carpets and Carpet Bombs
Ninja regular Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer has a fascinating article on Maisonneuve about the way Afghanistan's wars have affected its carpet industry.

War imagery in tribal Afghan carpets began appearing around 1980, shortly after the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Early pictorial, or aksi, war carpets are a fascinating hybrid of traditional abstract motifs slowly transforming into military objects. Where one might expect to find a boteh symbol (an ancient precursor to our paisley), one finds instead a woman in a burka beside a tiny Kalashnikov rifle -- or a view from the ground of a B-52 unloading its deadly cargo. Such images meld into the overall formality of traditional patterns, however, so it is all the more shocking to find a Hummer or a fragmentation grenade on what is, at first glance, an exotic, nostalgic rug.

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Damn You, Jane Austen!
The New Yorker has an interesting article about the state of gay marriage in the U.S., as well as an overview of the history of marriage itself. Fascinating stuff for a recently engaged gent like myself.


In Gay Marriage (Times Books; $22), the journalist Jonathan Rauch means to persuade such people that same-sex marriage will be good not only for gay people but for marriage in general. Rauch is a conservative -- how many books garner blurbs from both George Will and Barney Frank? -- and his argument for the benefits to gay people is based largely on the social discipline he thinks it would impose: once gay men and lesbians are allowed to wed, society can begin expecting them to do so, as it does straight people. "The gay rights era will be over and the gay responsibility era will begin," he writes. This soft coercion is a civilizing force, because "no other institution has the power to turn narcissism into partnership, lust into devotion, strangers into kin." We shouldn't expect results too soon, however: "As with the coming of capitalism to the Soviet empire, so with the coming of marriage to gay culture. Freedom and responsibility take time to learn." With analogies as inviting as this, one wonders whether snuggling gay lovers ought to take a bus tour of Putin's Russia before heading to the altar. Though clearly a true believer in matrimony, Rauch doesn't make it sound like much fun.

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Edited by author 06-09-2004 06:39 PM
Captain America is Dead! Long Live Captain America!
It's good to hear some dissenting voices in all the Reaganmania white noise.


He should have died alone--a long, long time ago. But oh, no, not him: outliving his century by four years, his presidency by 16, and his own mind by a decade, Hollywood legend Ronald Reagan was 93 when he went to rejoin his makers--Thomas Jefferson, Louis B. Mayer, Lew Wasserman, and Barry Goldwater, in that order--on Saturday. A noted fantasist, Reagan is perhaps best remembered for the eight years he spent believing he ruled an entirely fictional United States. To the old trouper's delight, this was a delusion shared by most of his compatriots, which is why his imaginary nation still subsumes ours to this day.


And don't forget to check out the Zombie Reagan website:


The Constitution offers no specific prohibition against zombies serving their country. In fact, the majority of the Administration is already composed of the undead. It is a little known fact that Secretary of State Colin Powell is the only cabinet-level member that still has a beating heart.

Zombie Regan, however, cannot become President, because he has already served two terms in that office. If George W. Bush were to die during his second term (say, by being eaten by Zombie Reagan), three options exist: the Speaker of the House would be elevated to the Presidency, Congress would convene to elect a new President or the President would undergo the zombification process and complete his term.

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Espionage, Murder and... Vanilla?
Who knew vanilla had such a colourful history?


This is a robust foundation for a superstructure of globalised trade in a very valuable commodity. People die, people cheat, fortunes are made and lost, companies have interesting history: all this happens and Tim Ecott is there to tease out its meaning -- with a ready writing style, energetic research and wide reading. He needed energy and determination because dealing in vanilla seems much akin to international espionage and/or gun running. Quiet Americans in sharp suits wander the globe with infinite amounts of cash in hand striking deals with shadowy suppliers, middlemen and fixers. Their movements are kept secret, for fear of upsetting the price or attracting rivals intent on spoiling the bargain. Stocks are guarded in bombproof sheds by private armies of heavies (at $400 a kilo, a shedload means riches). And all this in a region of decidedly shaky politics.

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Googlewhacked

Some guys have all the luck.

"I'm the luckiest man alive," Gorman said last week, in Toronto en route to Montreal for his 16-gig performance at JFL. "I ended up with a best-selling book about my inability to write the book I was supposed to be writing."

I bleed envy - from self-inflicted wounds.



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The European Dream
I keep wishing aloud that Canada would leave NAFTA and join the EU. Can you blame me?


Europeans often remark that Americans "live to work," while Europeans "work to live." The average paid vacation time in Europe is now six weeks a year. By contrast, Americans, on average, receive only two weeks. Most Americans would also be shocked to learn that the average commute to work in Europe is less than 19 minutes. When one considers what makes a people great and what constitutes a better way of life, Europe is beginning to surpass America.

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But is it Art?
Umberto Eco ponders the aesthetics of the 20th century.


But when pop art took over and began to turn out provocative experimental works based on images from the worlds of commerce, industry and the mass media, and when the Beatles skilfully reworked certain traditional musical forms, the gap between the art of provocation and the art of consumption grew narrower. What's more, while it seems that there is still a gap between "cultivated" and "popular" art, in the climate of the so-called postmodern period, cultivated art offers new experimental work that goes beyond visual art and revivals of visual art at one and the same time, as the tradition is continually reassessed.

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Edited by author 10-03-2004 05:11 PM
Surely this doesn't include Halliburton
For those of you who haven't read The Corporation, which claims corporations exhibit the typical characteristics of psychopaths, the Guardian has an excerpt:


In the report, Ivey multiplied the 500 fuel-fed fire fatalities that occurred each year in GM vehicles by $200,000, his estimate of the cost to GM in legal damages for each potential fatality, and then divided that figure by 41m, the number of GM vehicles operating on US highways at the time. He concluded that each fuel-fed fatality cost GM $2.40 per automobile ... The cost to General Motors of ensuring that fuel tanks did not explode in crashes, estimated by the company to be $8.59 per automobile, meant the company could save $6.19 ($8.59 minus $2.40) per automobile if it allowed people to die in fuel-fed fires rather than alter the design of vehicles to avoid such fires.

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"You need pscyhos like us"
The New York Review of Books takes a look at two books -- Generation Kill and The Fall of Baghdad -- about Operation What Plan B? over in Iraq.

Those who carry out this killing will pay a terrible price. As the unit approaches Baghdad they become weary with the indiscriminate shooting of unarmed Iraqis, including families that drive too close to roadblocks. Wright notes that "...the enlisted Marines, tired of shooting unarmed civilians, fought to be allowed to use smoke grenades." Many of these young men will never sleep well for the rest of their lives. Most will harbor within themselves corrosive feelings of self-loathing and regret. They will struggle with an unbridgeable alienation when they return home, something Evans sees glimpses of in the final pages of the book.

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Great Canadian Speeches
Quick, quote a line from one! Can't do it? Then you'd best get this book.

But although the book has been called "a history of Canada from the podium," the speeches aren't all historically or politically motivated: Pierre's not the only Trudeau in the book, for instance: Justin's teary eulogy to his father, "Je t'aime, papa," makes it in, as does an entry from David Suzuki about the environment, as well as a speech by Stephen Lewis on the HIV pandemic in Africa.

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"What do you believe even though you cannot prove it?"
Edge.org posed this question to science writers such as Richard Dawkins. Great stuff.

I believe, but I cannot prove, that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all "design" anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection. It follows that design comes late in the universe, after a period of Darwinian evolution. Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.

If you like this feature, take a look around Edge. It's a pretty fascinating site for science nerds.

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C'mon, fight already!
Authors Malcolm Gladwell and James Surowiecki debate the fine points of each other's books over at Slate.

Malcolm, I spent a lot of time trying to come up with an appropriately inventive way to start this unusual version of a "Book Club" (unusual because we wrote the books we're going to be talking about). I failed, so instead I'm just going to jump right in. (Requisite disclaimer: You and I are friends, you blurbed my book, and I think Blink is a terrific book. Now let's argue about it.)

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Our school is studying American wars. I teach American History on the Navajo Indian Reservation. We don't have many books on the subject and would appreciate any book or video contribution. I appreciate hearing from you.
Thank you for your help.

Mark L. Marquez
Navajo Nation Teacher
PO Box 413
Farmington, NM 87402

Size does matter
Relax, poets, I'm talking about nonfiction.

Today's publishers and authors tend to prefer it either enormous -- or tiny. At one extreme, historians and critics have taken to worshipping the god of small things. A cluster of current titles turn their literary microscopes on decisive crossroads and turning-points -- whether in Bob Dylan's release of "Like a Rolling Stone" (Greil Marcus), the hand-gun assassination of William the Silent (Lisa Jardine), or that epoch-shifting year, 1603 (Leanda de Lisle). At the other end of the scale, a variety of high-powered telescopes have offered panoramic overviews of whole galaxies of ideas and events.

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Edited by author 05-30-2005 10:45 AM
Lindbergh's dirty little secret

A dame in every port? Well, not exactly.

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I always wondered what non-fiction from Mark Leyner would look like

Apparently, it's exactly the kind of manual I need to properly run this site: Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini. Could someone buy this for me?


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The Chelsea Revolution
Canuck writer Timothy Taylor heads over to England for an in-depth article on soccer culture. I don't know what any of it means, but it's probably of interest to our more athletically minded readers. All two of you.

The hairs on the nape of my neck are standing up. A strange feeling sweeping through. Hyperreality: an experience inexplicable without reference to the television version known previously. Because I've heard football songs before. I've joined the Chelsea crowds many times via broadcast signals ghosted off satellites in geostationary orbit in the exosphere overhead. I've felt the connection. At least I thought I had until I entered this narrow surge channel passing from the West Stand up onto Fulham Road and encountered the passionate, on-the-ground reality of team devotion.

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Edited by author 09-23-2005 11:04 AM
Diet for God

Now you can read The DaVinci Code and lose weight at the same time; just don't be eating loaves and fishes.

Warner announced this week that the book, "The Diet Code: Revolutionary Weight-Loss Secrets from Da Vinci and The Golden Ratio," will be the first in its new line of books called Warner Wellness, which will focus on health, fitness, relationships and similar topics. The book is scheduled for release in April 2006, with an announced first printing of 150,000 copies.

The diet is based on the Golden Ratio or Phi, a mathematical value that was used to built the pyramids and has since been found to exist most everywhere in nature. Da Vinci is said to have used the Golden Ratio to proportion the human figures in his paintings -- which is how it found its way into Dan Brown's best-selling book.

A diet based on the fibonnacci sequence, hmm. It'll work like this: you eat dimishing amounts of food, gradually losing wieght. Now, how'd he spin a book outa that?

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Hope I'm posting this in the right place...

Just had a chat with an author after she'd left her email address in her new book. Amazing woman. You'll never guess the book (blushing)...
"The Stripper's Guide to Making More Money" by Helena Lustig.
Okay, so it was an impulse buy (and I knew nothing about that whole world then). Anyway, I thought I'd recommend it.
http://www.lulu.com/helena_lustig

If anything, it's one hell of a funny read...

Why aren't we going green

Where are the books on climate change? I'd add a bunch of other topics to that "where are" question, but this is a good start.


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Collapsing Jared Diamond
Someone really has issues with Diamond's views of history.

He would like us to believe that the decline and fall of the Maya was a tragic loss, and a sadly overgrown sculpture in the jungle ornaments the cover of his book Collapse.
But I don’t care if the Maya civilization did collapse. I don’t think we should shed a single retrospective tear. It might be interesting to know how or why it fell—whether from war or drought or disease or soil exhaustion—but I don’t much care about that either. Because quite frankly, as civilizations go, the Mayan civilization in Mexico didn’t amount to much.

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A Truss fuss about manners

Deborah Solomon interviews Lynn Truss for an article in the NYTM. The real revelation here is that Michael Cunningham needs more fiber in his diet.


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Edited by author 11-22-2005 11:22 AM
Toe fungus book

Now there's a niche market.

Mr. Thomas decided against a nail-salon book tour, perhaps wisely. At Sassy Nails in downtown Savannah, June Dang was shown a copy of his toenail book while she was manicuring Tammy Woods's fingernails one morning.

"Would you read a whole book on toe fungus?" asked Ms. Dang.

"Probably not," Ms. Woods replied. "I'd only purchase it if it had other-parts-of-the-body funguses as well."

Wise girl.

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Edited by author 12-08-2005 03:34 PM
Shaken not stirred

Finally, we'll get to see the real inner workings of MI6. The SIS is letting Irish academic Keith Jeffery into the files:

In the latest in a series of moves to make it seem more accessible, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) -- the agency's official name -- selected Keith Jeffery, professor of British history at Queen's University Belfast, to write the book and granted him access to its archive.

"I feel like a child in a sweetie shop," Jeffery said on Wednesday, adding he believed he was the first outsider to be granted permission to look at the archive.

I went to a party once in Ottawa with my sister and she pointed out this couple she claimed were spies. They looked like jocks to me but that was the disguise, I guess. Spies as jocks. If I was a spy, I'd go as a frazzled mum. Hey,wait...

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King Kong roundup
The Globe's Martin Levin looks at the latest ape books.

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Edited by author 12-15-2005 12:09 PM
Sex sells

An uneducated, illiterate Kerala prostitute, who orally (sic) transmitted her story to a social activist has become a best selling author in India; Indian feminists are not best pleased but:

For her part, Jameela intends to continue with sex work as long as she stays healthy, saying she has had more freedom as a sex worker than she has ever had as a wife. "Looking back, I find life as a sex worker more enjoyable. As a wife one has to listen, to always be dominated by someone," Jameela said. "I like being a sex worker. Some become lawyers, doctors. It was my choice to become to a sex worker."

One has to listen. Oh god, how I know.

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