2011-2012 reading omnibus

January 27, 2012

So I’m working on this well-read thing, with the reading and so forth. The goal this year is 30 books. I’m already behind and reading Anna Karenina; expect failure. Also, I’m only about 150 pages in, but I really think it’s going to work out for Anna and Vronsky! It seems promising!

But I thought I would account for the stuff I read last year — one of my favorite bloggers ever, 50 Books (now retired), used to post capsule reviews of books she’d read, and even now, years later, when I finish a classic or a book written before that blog ended, I’ll go over and see what she said and what people said in the comments. This is sort of born of that. Onwards:

Appendix A: Recommendations. A few weeks ago, I posted a best of 2011 lineup of links and follows, which seemed to go over well, so here’s most of that (in no particular order):

  1. Ace of Spades reviews Bad Teacher
  2. Joe Posnanski of SI on Jeff Francoeur: French and Hope
  3. “Many people, such as me, have the burden of coming back, and fading away, forgotten. Your son will never be lost this way, he will live forever.”
  4. Michael Chabon on reading Huck Finn to his kids and dealing with the word “nigger”: The Unspeakable in Its Jammies
  5. Sarah Miller at the Awl: Why Emma Watson Really Left Brown
  6. Megan McArdle on the worst inequality: The Tyranny of the Meritocracy
  7. Leon Wolf on the terrifying reality of American politics: Free Ponies Will be the Death of America
  8. A journalist on 25 years of knowing George W. Bush: Dubya and Me
  9. Interview: Justin Timberlake in Playboy

Appendix B: Recriminations. These are the books I finished in 2011:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Let’s be real: The Fountainhead’s appeal is entirely a hot relationship. Outside of Dominique and Roark (and it is a hot relationship, she did pull that off), the entire book is about modern architecture, weirdly expository monologues sometimes about architecture, and trials about architecture. While I actually have a lot of fondness for that topic, in the same way that despite its cherished status, Pride & Prejudice is actually about a pretty nerd and a rich elitist falling in love, modern architecture isn’t exactly a national sweet spot of nostalgia. Nevertheless, critics who question the central premise of it all — a selfish to thine ownself the 1% and the 1% in spirit — should rewind on that Steve Jobs Stanford speech everyone so loves to quote. It’s kind of terrible advice, but for a few people. Anyway, in general: The dialogue’s not very well written! Very awkward and a touch removed from reality. Especially Ellsworth Toohey’s endless monologues. A+ for Dominique/Roark, though.

Contine reading…

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The Fairness Wizards: Gen Y

January 24, 2012

I’m deploying all my Google Fu to try and find the original study here, but MTV Networks apparently hides their studies in a special, special box only accessible if you’re a fair person, which I am not. Anyway, in this piece by Patrick Evans at Media Post on the social media accessibility of Gen Y, there’s an interesting slice:

According to a recent MTV Networks study, 70% of Gen Y consumers said they’d figure out how to make things fair if they feel a company is being unfair with them. The network found that the group as a whole demands fairness, transparency and clear, consistent rules from brands. This often means brands get bombarded with negative Facebook posts or tweets when it increases shipping charges or makes a decision a majority of its consumers doesn’t like.

Can’t figure out how to do a Google search, but IT’S LATTER-DAY ROBIN HOOD TIME B when Netflix changes their pricing model. I wish I could find the study, actually, because I’d like to investigate the phrasing. This passage, when you give a good hard look, offers a terrifying possibility: “makes a decision a majority of its consumers doesn’t like.” Is that what unfairness is now? When a change is made that people don’t like?

And let’s double-down. Here is your intro post for Gen Y, this sentence: “The network found that the group as a whole demands fairness, transparency and clear, consistent rules from brands”? Fairness, transparency, and rules! I know I love to reference this Don Peck Atlantic piece, but the echoes are there:

Ron Alsop, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and the author of The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace, says a combination of entitlement and highly structured childhood has resulted in a lack of independence and entrepreneurialism in many 20-somethings. They’re used to checklists, he says, and “don’t excel at leadership or independent problem solving.” Alsop interviewed dozens of employers for his book, and concluded that unlike previous generations, Millennials, as a group, “need almost constant direction” in the workplace. “Many flounder without precise guidelines but thrive in structured situations that provide clearly defined rules.”

BUT THESE ARE THE RULES. It’s not that these are bad things, of course. Transparency, fairness, and clear expectations are good qualities in a business. But if one of the three tenets is built on something so ephemeral as mass good feelings, the structural integrity of the whole thing seems questionable.

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Obviously, this is not a cooking blog, nor will it become one, because my evening palette more or less consists of a lean piece of broiled chicken or fish, a steamed vegetable, and possibly some rice. Eat Boring: A Primer, etc. But, per the fine people at Fine Cooking, I’ve learned how to make awesome sweet potato fries.

The trick is egg whites. The protein crisps the fry. All right, so you need:

  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3 egg whites (crack the shells in half, then move the yoke from shell to shell over a bowl to catch the whites)
  • Cooking spray
  • A sweet potato (no kidding)

Preheat the oven to 425. Peel and chop up yo’ potato into fries — the shortcut for this is to cut the potato into a rectangular block of potato, then into slices, then to fries. I like a thinner fry myself, so I go about 1/4-inch by 1/4-inch. So you’ve got your fries.

Whisk the cumin, paprika, and salt into the egg whites. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Dunk the fries in the mixture and then line them up on the baking sheet, like so:

Put the fries in the oven for eight to ten minutes. Take them out, flip them with a spatula, sprinkle some kosher salt while they’re hot. Put them back in the oven for another, like, six to ten minutes. And you’re ready to go!

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From the Lisa Frank ‘Equus’ line, this pattern is “Natty, Faded Ghost of Seabiscuit.”

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