All Consuming : Calton

A story about "Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:55 GMT

Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain

by Chris Stewart

Ex-rock drummer and professional sheep shearer pulls up stakes in England and heads for a new life in rural Spain. Colorful (and hunger-inducing) without being precious.

A story about "Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen : Reflections on Sixty and Beyond"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:55 GMT

Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen : Reflections on Sixty and Beyond

by Larry McMurtry

As close as Larry McMurtry (author of “Lonesome Dove” and “The Last Picture Show”) is probably going to come to an autobiography.

A long essay that starts from pondering German literary critic Walter Benjamin’s essay on storytelling, being read at the Archer City, Texas, Dairy Queen, and spinning out to include his early life on a small Texas ranch, the realities of pioneer and cowboy life; and including along the way McMurty’s beginnings as a reader, book collector, bookseller, and writer. Food for thought for the voracious reader and/or book collector. Recommended.

A story about "The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen: Inspired New Tastes"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:48 GMT

The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen: Inspired New Tastes

by Eric Gower

Colorful, almost food porn, cookbook that showcases recipes combining Japanese and Western elements. Essentially uses Japanese staples in Western ways, in ways that are not, for the most part, too complicated to prepare and yet seem to embody some pretty interesting taste combinations. Ingredients like edamame (soybeans), miso, ginger, konbu (kelp), shiitake mushrooms, umeboshi (pickled, salty plums—which I have never liked), and (yes) tofu are used to make dishes like Edamame Mint and Shiitake Pestos, Rice Vinegar Chicken Breasts, and Littleneck Clams with Umeboshi Broth. The book is available in Japan now, but not until October in the US.

A story about "Mattanza: Love and Death in the Sea of Sicily"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:47 GMT

Mattanza: Love and Death in the Sea of Sicily

by Theresa Maggio

A book about the fishermen and people of a small Sicilian island called Favignana and their centuries-old ritual of bluefin tuna slaughter called mattanza.

It’s more romance than reportage, as Maggio tries to capture the life, rhythm, rituals, myths, and, yes, romance of life on the island, centering her story on the fishermen who deploy the nets and traps that gather hundreds of the giant bluefins for slaughter. The tuna once made the island prosperous, but declining numbers of fish and competition from long-line trawlers has taken its toll (the island’s cannery closed in 1981, throwing a thousand people out of work), and soon the ritual of the mattanza will probably disappear from Favignana, leaving pretty much nothing but tourism behind.

There is a Japan connection, BTW: it’s Japan’s voracious appetite for sashimi that’s helping keep the mattanza going: when the bluefin tuna are slaughtered, the Japanese are waiting to send them off to the tuna auction at giant Tsukiji Wholesale Market in Tokyo. Maggio includes a rather over-the-top chapter about Japanese sushi, exaggerating (in my opinion) the ritual and price of sushi: she quotes 10-year-old Bubble-Era prices for tuna (in 1992, she says, a 715-pound bluefin was sold for $83,500, or about $117 a pound) and extrapolates from that, despite the fact that the average price is a very small fraction of that peak.

The kind of highly stylized sushi places she describes, where they sell toro for $75 a plate, are places I’ve never set foot in and probably never will: I go to the far more common, far more plebian kaiten zushi (conveyor belt sushi) restaurants, where I can snarf down maguro and toro for about $1 to 2 a plate. Sure, the fish isn’t the highest quality, the atmosphere is utilitarian, and the wasabi is reconstituted from powder, but it’s still tasty and, I think, a more usual experience than the romantic and ritualistic kind Maggio describes.

I like the book, I must say. Maybe I’ll tackle the Lawrence Durell book on my shelf next.

A story about "The Darwin Wars: The Scientific Battle for the Soul of Man"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:46 GMT

The Darwin Wars: The Scientific Battle for the Soul of Man

by Andrew Brown

A particularly educational overview of the battlefield between nature vs. nuture camps in evolutionary biology.

A story about "Hard Rain"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:46 GMT

Hard Rain

by Barry Eisler

Autographed by the author, at one of his Tokyo book tour appearances.

A story about "The Fracture Zone: My Return to the Balkans"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:45 GMT

The Fracture Zone: My Return to the Balkans

by Simon Winchester

A journey through the fractured remnants of Yugoslavia by veteran journalist Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman.

In 1977, he and his family drove across what was the unified country of Yugoslavia on their way to his latest posting. Twenty-two years later, he accompanies a NATO refugee rescue mission trying to save the victims of a Serbian “ethnic cleansing” sweep, and Winchester realizes with a sudden shock that he’s been to this place before; what was once a peaceful valley where his family stopped for a picnic is now a squalid and desperate refugee gathering that the British NATO forces are scrambling to help.

So now he wants to know: how the hell did this happen in just twenty years?

His journey, from Vienna to Istanbul, across the old Ottoman Empire, is his attempt to figure it out.

A story about "God Is a Bullet"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:42 GMT

God Is a Bullet

by Boston Teran

Notes from James Ellroy Country, or what an Andrew Vachss novel could be if populated by recognizable humans instead of comic-book superhero riffs.

A story about "The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:42 GMT

The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science

by Paul R. Krugman

Given the recent hoo-ha over currency exchange rates (a bit of economics that affects me directly), I’ve started rereading this book, hoping to get a better handle on the whole issue, which involves, among other things, the US current account deficit, the Bank of Japan’s interventions to keep the yen weaker, the question of whether the dollar needs to be weaker (or, really, how soon the dollar should be weaker), and if 80’s-style trade protectionism will make a comeback. The Economist magazine devoted much of its recent Survey on the World Economy to this (last week’s issue, still at your local library if you’re interested), and so did Bloomberg News columnist William Pesek in a recent column.

Much of this stuff, is, admittedly, over my head, but I know enough to be bothered by some neo-protectionist rhetoric I’m hearing from folks back in the States. Give me some time, I might even be able to articulate my concerns.

A story about "Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun' (New Sun)"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:40 GMT

Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun' (New Sun)

by Gene Wolfe

Rereading a classic work of dark fantasy.

A story about "Riding the Black Ship: Japan and Tokyo Disneyland (Harvard East Asian Monographs)"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:40 GMT

Riding the Black Ship: Japan and Tokyo Disneyland (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

by Aviad E. Raz

An interesting approach to comparative sociology, using the vehicle of Tokyo Disneyland to compare and contrast how Japan consumes-~~and alters~~-the cultural exports from the USA.

A story about "Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of 'The Book of the New Sun' (New Sun)"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:39 GMT

Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of 'The Book of the New Sun' (New Sun)

by Gene Wolfe

Rereading a classic work of dark fantasy.

A story about "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:39 GMT

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right

by Al Franken

Finally got around to reading this book, which I picked up in the States when I couldn’t seem to find it in the foreign bookstores in Tokyo (it turns out that it WAS available here but in the British export edition with a cover I didn’t recognize and hence overlooked).

Funny, depressing, and mean-spirited (in good way) so far. Kinda makes me glad I live outside of the right-wing mediasphere, so I’m not exposed to their toxic-sludge-disguised-as-news directly.

A story about "Beyond the Blue Horizon: On the Track of Imperial Airways"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:39 GMT

Beyond the Blue Horizon: On the Track of Imperial Airways

by Alexander Frater

Observer writer Frater follows along the track of a boyhood obsession, retracing the old Imperial Airways flying boat route from England to Australia, through the Mediterranean, Arabia, India, and Indonesia, looking for the remnants of desert outposts, colonial grand hotels, and even a Rajah’s palace.

A story about "To Say Nothing of the Dog"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:38 GMT

To Say Nothing of the Dog

by Connie Willis

Breezy, funny, time-travel mystery & Victorian pastiche. One-hundred-eighty degrees apart in tone from Willis’s earlier Doomsday Book, even though they start from the same setting (the time-traveling history section of Oxford).

A story about "Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:38 GMT

Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure

by Michael Palin

A lavishly illustrated (photos by Basil Pao) companion volume to somewhat disorganized BBC TV series, following in the sometimes-literal footsteps of Ernest Hemingway. Not exactly a biography and not exactly a travel narrative, but a bit of both. More than Palin’s previous stuff, this is more than a stunt or a journey taken for its own sake: here, he seems to be trying to understand the environments influenced Hemingway and what he wrote, as well as Palin’s own reaction to the work and the places (and, of course, how the places have changed owing to the ordinary course of things and the bright light of Hemingway’s fame).

Better than the TV show, because the book (essentially) follows the chronology of Hemingway’s life, giving it a structure I though was lacking from the series.

A story about "Single Sourcing : Building Modular Documentation"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:37 GMT

Single Sourcing : Building Modular Documentation

by Kurt Ament

Related to work (not for pleasure: I’m not THAT much of a geek).

Essentially, Ament seems to be saying that tech writers should create their user docs in modular form for easy repurposing in different media (manuals, on-line, HTML, etc). Or maybe I should just say “Write own, read everywhere”.

Organized almost to the point of self-parody, it’s still informative reading.

A story about "Before the Wind : The Memoir of an American Sea Captain, 1808-1833"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:34 GMT

Before the Wind : The Memoir of an American Sea Captain, 1808-1833

by Charles Tyng

A gift from Diane Brown, Patrick O’Brian fan.

A story about "A Sea of Words, Third Edition: A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O'Brian"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:34 GMT

A Sea of Words, Third Edition: A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O'Brian

by Dean King

A gift from Diane Brown, Patrick O’Brian fan.

A story about "The Years of Rice and Salt"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:33 GMT

The Years of Rice and Salt

by Kim Stanley Robinson

A gift from Diane Brown.

A story about "Going to Extremes: Mud, Sweat and Frozen Tears"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Calton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:44:33 GMT

Going to Extremes: Mud, Sweat and Frozen Tears

by Nick Middleton

Oxford geographer Nick Middleton’s companion volume to his four-part Channel 4 series, about the most extreme examples of human habitation on Earth.

While the four individual sections (Coldest, Driest, Hottest, and Wettest) are enjoyable, I was disappointed that Middleton makes no effort to connect the sections or even come to any overall conclusions about why people live in such extreme realms.

In addition, the sections themselves seemed occasionally padded. The Driest section is the worst offender, with a lengthy section on living at extreme Andean altitudes, which, while fascinating, isn’t related to the main topic (this is ironic to me since it’s the main reason I bought the book, having visited ~~- for twenty minutes -~~ the airport at Arica, Chile, enroute to La Paz, and being curious about this desert beachfront place).

The best section is the first, being a rather vivid look at the peculiar adaptions the people in that Siberian town make to live with (as well as some fascinating descriptions of the phenomena associated with) extreme cold.

Perhaps the TV series is more enlightening, but since it’s not out on DVD yet, I can’t find out.