Collecting thoughts. Please add yours.
books
It’s a Sprawl World After All. – Douglas E. Morris
Jun 9th
It’s a Sprawl World After All. The Human Cost of Unplanned Growth – and Visions of a Better Future.
This was certainly a timely read, as many of the same themes have been running through my head lately. The book has a little bit for everyone – those who hate sprawl, those who live in the suburbs (often they are one-in-the-same), those who enjoy suburban life, and those who enjoyed Freakonomics. Conspiracy theorists will definitely want to read this book too — especially the Appendix! I had no idea that big oil and bus companies bought and dismantled many functioning urban electric rail companies in the late 1930’s.
Morris takes a few pages to addresses the Farmers’ Market Phenomenon with some research on the growth of local markets throughout the USA. Kudos.
Here in Ottawa I have many friends who are currently looking for a house. Some base their search on a price, some on their desired lifestyle, others on the materials used in building the kitchen countertop. For first-time homebuyers (especially singles) often step one is finding something affordable – buy were you can and adapt accordingly.
After reading this book I realized that I don’t want a house. I want a place to live. A community of neighbours who won’t be afraid to ask for a bit of extra help when they need it or share their time or talents when they have an opportunity to do so. If I can find that, a roof over my head will simply be a bonus.
Maybe I’m crazy, but a house with a few neighbours who spend a bit of free time raising money for a park or organizing a small community program sounds like a FAR more relaxing/stress-free place to live than a house with a few neighbours who spend their free time lobbying a condo board to change the rules so one resident has to re-paint their front door.
Edible: An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Food Plants
May 1st
Edible - Book Cover
An interesting picture book, it added to my ever-growing list of travel to try foods:
- Peanut Butter Fruit (South America)
- Ice-cream Bean (Central & South America)
- Sapodilla (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize)
- Fresh Dragonfruit (Subtropical areas of the Americas, Vietnam, Israel, Australia)
Ah, and posting this just reminded me to add “The Fruit Hunters” to my reading list.
The Rebel Sell
Apr 6th
Page 101 of The Rebel Sell:
How is it that we can produce so much more wealth and yet fail to secure any measurable improvement in satisfaction? We constantly hear about how, as a society, we can no longer “afford” health care or public education. But if we can’t afford them now, how could we afford them thirty years ago, when the country produced only half as much wealth? Where did all the money go?… the money is being spent on private consumption of goods. Yet if this pattern of expenditure is not making us happier, why are we doing it? … Are we just like kids at a birthday party, eating too much cake even though it will give us a tummy-ache later on?
Page 112 of The Rebel Sell:
Adbusters magazine, for example, has attracted worldwide attention with its campaign to institute an annual Buy Nothing Day. This ignores the fact that, one way or another, your total income gets spent. If you don’t spend it, you put it in the bank and someone else spends it. The only way you can reduce consumption is by reducing your contribution to production. Yet somehow an annual Earn Nothing Day doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Page 1 of Re: appoggiatura (the email I just wrote):
Hey Double L,
Because I am not a level two-thousand piano player, I had to use a dictionary to figure out what the subject of your email was about…I never did buy the new chrome lamp. too big to carry home via Via. :( It would have been the best $30 I’d have spend in a long time thou…
It’s great to hear that your interviews are getting better and better! Hurry up and schedule three more while you’re on a roll!
Sorry to hear about your parent situation… I guess I’m spoiled that my folks have been able to work through any of their problems, although I bet that will be a disadvantage if I ever end up with a woman who thinks that divorce is an easy way out of a disagreement. Since I have very little real-life “duking it out with the Mrs.” experience I’m afraid I would probably end up heartbroken on the curb with .75 of our 1.5 children.
So what’s the lure of Tokyo? It’s distance or is there something more? Saw some of Lost in Translation last night… I wonder if I would handle a visit to Tokyo as well as Bill Murray did? I’m almost interested enough to fly over for a week just to find out.
Back to the USSR,
JG.
