What I Read -- Nickel and Dimed

I was in a cultural studies phase of my life when I bought Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich.  I fell out of that phase and never ended up reading it, though I did acquire it on audio somewhere along the way.

In light of the recent election (y'all heard about that, didn't you?), I figured I'd dust this one off and see what there is to say about it - which is that it's exactly what you'd expect. 

Ms. Ehrenreich gives up her privileged life for four months to try her hand at low-wage jobs in four different cities, one month each.  And, no surprise, it's hard!

First is the business of applying for jobs, which was a little complicated for her, since she was lying (at least by omission) about her background.  Nevertheless, she managed to score jobs in each city without too much trouble.  Next on the agenda: either finding low-cost housing near work or figuring out how to pay for transportation from more distant housing.  After all, low-wage jobs are called that for a reason: because they don't pay much.  Third, figure out how to live on what you have left.  The cost of everything is a concern.

But in a funny way, budgeting is the easy part.  Once you get a job, you know how much you'll be taking home each week and roughly what your expenses are. You can plan.  It's the unplanned costs, and there are potentially many, that are the problem.  Ms. Ehrenreich didn't continue her experiment long enough to deal with any major medical issues or car trouble, but on such a tight budget they obviously would've been a problem.

Then there are the physical, emotional, and psychological issues, about which I won't go into too much detail, because frankly, they're obvious.  Often low-wage work is physically demanding.  Lots of ibuprofen probably needs to go into the budget.  And, while it isn't mentally taxing in the way deep, extended periods of intense thought are, it's emotionally draining to take other people's crap all day.  But there's also a camaraderie that develops between the employees at her various jobs - a "we're all in this together" attitude.  So even if it sucks, at least you're not alone.  Misery loves company.

Aside from making the point that minimum wage really isn't a living wage, this book is largely free of political commentary. (Yes, I realize that sounds weird because this whole book basically is political commentary.  What I mean is that you don't get beaten over the head with it.)  The fact that it's a story rather than a manifesto makes it almost enjoyable - certainly more interesting.

Random Links

The Atlantic's 2012 Ideas List - scroll to the next idea at the bottom of the text.

How to escape Middle Earth in case of emergency.

Let's hear it for the dogs.

Magic on the subways.

I want to be her - no one would suspect ever suspect 'lil old me of being deadly in hand-to-hand combat.

Jean-Paul Sartre's blog.

Gassed.

Goal #46

Goal #46: see a movie.

So many movies to see right now.  SLIFF started late last week, and I really want to see Argo and Skyfall, the new James Bond movie. 

Recap of Goal #45: progress, but I still have a long way to go.  Things are slowly coming together though!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I'm planning on bringing your gift when I see you.  Don't worry, it's small!

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox -- Take 2

I finished up listening to The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox while I was opening mystery boxes this week - there were many, many hours of that.  And I have to say, I didn't love it. 

It has a number of things in common with The Thirteenth Tale, which I listened to a few months ago.  It's a book about sisters.  There is a third party in the mix.  That third party is on the trail of some long-hidden mystery.

I thought this one lacked the moral complexity of The Thirteenth Tale, plus, it was not a great book to listen to on audio.  It changes point of view throughout, and more and more frequently the closer to the climax you get.  But there's no indication of the change except a pause or break.  Sometimes it's in the middle of the sentence, but it still takes a little bit to realize that it's a new character, not just that the current character was interrupted mid-thought by someone else.  I'm not sure how it's handled in the book, or if it's any clearer.

Anyway, it was decent-enough entertainment for unpacking, but not destined to become a classic.

The Song I'm Loving Today

Little Brother (The Tallest Man On Earth)

When I was in New York in September, I stopped in at Rizzoli's Bookstore on West 57th Street.  I was minding my own business and perusing books when the background music caught my ear.  It was this guy, and this song in particular.  I got the last copy of the CD that they had - in fact it was the in-store play copy!  I've listened to it a dozen times since and just love it.

His name is Kristian Matsson and he's Swedish, but reminds me of a younger and more audiologically understandable Bob Dylan, though not necessarily a less cryptic one.  I can totally see his music being played in the background of a thoughtful but angsty show like Scrubs, John Cale-style.

For your listening enjoyment, you can hear the entire album, There's No Leaving Now, here.



Why are you thinking again little brother
When you know there's a story for every wrong?
Well I won't be around in the morning,
Can only pray there's no harm in me moving on
To my trials and your unknowns.

Now there's a legion of wolves in the forest
And what might've been lost, it is there I know.
The crazy old names, loving owners,
I feel useless when I have to face alone
All your trials and my unknowns.

If you could just walk on by
With signs just flying around,
And if this storm was just the motion
Of your kid just trying out
If you could only lose these miles.

Now there's a terrible light on the shading
Where you threw your insanities on a wall.
I can see where the dog hits the summer,
I said "I believe you forever" but you said "don't."
It's a trial for all that grows.

If you could just walk on by
With signs just flying around,
And if this storm was just the motion
Of your kid just trying out
If he could only lose these miles.

Why are you drinking again little brother
When your rambling's the hard part of loving you?
You say the creek and fog's gonna drown you
But there are deeper wells where we're going to
There's no drowning this unknown.

If you could just walk on by
With signs just flying around,
And if this storm was just the motion
Of your kid just trying out
If we could only lose these miles.

And with your memories lost on a hillside
The wind takes you further and forward now.
Your world is a kite in the weather
Gently tied to your hand that is pointing out
There's a sky in this unknown.

If you could just walk on by
With signs just flying around,
And if this storm was just the motion
Of your kid just trying out
If you could only lose these miles.

Born To Run -- Take 2

"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle--when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."
  -- Roger Bannister

I have to divide Born to Run into four parts.  The first includes some background on running as a sport and ultramarathons in particular.  This is where we get our introduction to the Tarahumara people - a rare Mexican tribe famous for their running ability.  We hear loads of amazing stories of people running 100 miles in the mountains like 100 miles is a walk in the park! McDougall specifically discusses the Leadville 100, a race beginning and ending in the highest incorporated city in the US.  (Remember when I went to Leadville a couple of years ago? It's not far from Breck.)

The second portion is basically a diatribe against running shoes, which I totally could have done without.  "Running seemed to be the fitness version of drunk driving.  You could get away with it for a while, you might even have some fun.  But catastrophe was waiting right around the corner."  McDougall himself had lots of injuries and problems with his running, which is where the Tarahumara come in.  They run either barefoot or in very simple sandals to protect their soles.  They run their whole lives and for long distances, largely without serious injury.  McDougall blames Nike, probably not entirely wrongly, but he's pretty didactic about it.

Third is a biological and anthropological analysis of the reasons we, as humans, became upright distance runners.  At first glance, we don't seem well-suited for it.  Four legs and feet give more thrust than two.  We have no tail to balance us as we're trotting along.  We don't have the flexible spines and elastic lungs of cheetahs and jackrabbits (which can reach speeds of 45 miles per hour!).  We have a big, heavy, relatively unstable head up high on our frame.  Really, we should be terrible runners.  Everything is all wrong.  So why, then, did we evolve to be this way?  Why did we come down out of the trees and start walking on two feet instead of four?

Distance is the answer (or so McDougall thinks).  Along with walking on two feet, we also shed our fur.  True, we don't have elastic lungs for major capacity, but we can sweat, which allows us to cool ourselves and run for a long time.  Those jackrabbits who can go 45 mph?  They can only do it for about half a mile.  Then they start to overheat and have to stop.  We can run for miles and miles and miles because we're more efficient at cooling ourselves.  Those unsteady heads on top of our necks?  Turns out they act like roof weights on skyscrapers, which keep them from swaying too far from side to side in a strong wind. Our head, working with our swinging arms as counterbalances, is basically a tuned mass damper keeping our upright bodies stabilized while we move.

The theory as to why all this matters?  For the Tarahumara and other distance runners, animals were prey.  They were food.  The hunters couldn't out-race the four-leggeds, but they could outrun them.  Working in groups, they would follow a prey animal, just keeping it in sight until they literally ran it to death.  Let the feast begin.

For the last portion of the book, we return to the Tarahumara racers in Mexico.  An eccentric expat from Colorado name Micah True (probably better known in Mexico as Caballo Blanco) organized the Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon, a race of about 50 miles designed to support the Tarahumara and their way of life.  Caballo Blanco brought some of the best American ultramarathoners down to participate as well.  Want to knwo who won?  Read the book!

What I'm Reading Now -- The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

I bought this book a while ago and just never got around to reading it.  Then I was poking through the audiobooks section at the library and there it was: The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox.  Since I seem to be having better luck with audiobooks lately, I decided to give it a shot.

I'm actually pretty far into it already, what with all the packing and moving that happened this weekend, although I made no attempt to rediscover the plot before I started listening, so I'm not sure where we're going with the story yet.

Goal #45

Goal #45: This is an easy one: unpack.

So many boxes. Everywhere.

Recap of Goal #44: Obviously - I moved!  Today, not yesterday, but still!  Of course there are lots of little things to deal with still, but the big furniture is in place!

Brooklyn, U.S.A. -- Meet Sandy

Due to the impending hurricane, plans changed a little bit for Saturday.  E and I met D for brunch at Miriam, this cute little Israeli spot in Park Slope.  (First I went running, so I could feel especially satisfied when I cleaned my plate.)  E and I did a bit of wandering around Brooklyn after that, and stopped off at the Grand Army farmers' market, then the Brooklyn Public Library to see their exhibit on fashion illustration.  Then it was time for E to pack her things and head home for good!  (Shed a tear.)

After she left, I met my friend L and some others (I actually met someone who works in costume design - she had been busy all day working on Christmas outfits for the Rockettes!) for drinks and dinner.  We went high class with the drinks at a place in Chinatown called Apotheke.  Then we went low class with the food at Great N.Y. Noodletown.  Typical - kinda shady-looking dive with delicious food.

Sunday, things went haywire.  As far as I knew, I was still on a flight out on Monday, so I had breakfast at home and headed off to the Frick - my favorite NYC museum and one of the things I had yet to do this time!   After that, my plan was to go to yoga in Tribeca, then home to pack.

[As an aside, The Economist has a quarterly journal they call Intelligent Life, which recently had an ode to the Frick.  Great read.]

I was on the way to the Frick when I got word that the city was going to begin a system-wide shut-down of all public transit beginning at 7:00 that night.  Okay, that doesn't mess me up too much.  I was about two thirds of the way through the galleries when I got a text message that my flight had been cancelled.  Ruh roh.  Let the craziness commence.

Turns out, it was a good thing that E and I ended up eating out so much, because we still had a fridge full of food!

When my Monday morning flight got cancelled, I got moved to a flight Tuesday afternoon.  There was really never any hope of that flight actually leaving.  When that one was cancelled, I was on a flight Wednesday morning.  Then that one got cancelled, and now we're looking at Friday - if, that is, La Guardia can dry itself out.

So, about Hurricane Sandy.  The good news (though it makes for boring reading), is that I really don't have much to tell you.  Where I am it got awfully windy but hardly rained at all.  My power didn't go out.  I still have water.  Aside from the inability to go anywhere due to the subway closures, it's oddly underwhelming.  I'm just watching a lot of TV (Homeland? Check.) and reading the news constantly.  As B (who lives a few blocks from E's place) said when I texted to ask if he was okay: "Yep. Almost perversely so.  Feels weird to have power and water when Manhattan is basically floating away."  Couldn't have said it better myself.

If you want to look at some pretty amazing pictures of the storm though, The Atlantic has a couple of galleries on their website that are a good compilation of the early and later stages of the disaster.  (Remember when L and I went to Cape May in early September.  This is what it looks like now.)

I did venture out Tuesday afternoon to see what I could see, and I got a few shots, but nothing too spectacular:

 

I could say that I wish I had more interesting things to share, but really I don't.