cloud atlas & can social media make you happier? {currently reading}

I was approached by the originators of a new app, to test it out and presumably write about my experiences with it. This happens to bloggers, I guess... although it is my first.

This new app encourages users to take a photo of the exact moment they feel happy and save it for future reference. It also allows users to share what makes them happy with a group of people they have presumably never met.

I do not know why this set me off in a stream of expletives against such programs. It is pretty much what social media already does: allows people to share what they like with total strangers. I guess what bothers me about this particular app is that it claims to be therapy, that it can pin point the moment you are happiest and allow you to relive that moment over and over, through photography. Unfortunately happiness doesn't work like that and the app is basically another platform for product endorsement. It brings the whole idea of social media to a new insidious level, calling it therapy, or does it? Are we happier when we are on Facebook? Twitter? Are we happier as consumers?

And this offer brings to mind the novel I am currently reading, Cloud Atlas. A story, made up of many smaller stories, which predict the fall of our current society, a society that culminates in a completely consumer based world of values and laws. Each story is set in a different time and place  all connected by certain moments, dreams, and oddly, birth marks. I have not finished it yet, but it is an interesting read so far. Most difficult to follow are the dialects, some imagined, some real, that the author uses to set apart each time frame.

random shot of happiness

let the great world spin: a novel {currently reading}

I was born in NYC. I lived a lot of what is described in this novel: the crime, graffiti, grit, and decay of the city. As I read I became more and more depressed. All I was seeing was the bad side. Then somewhere along the way this novel turned around. Maybe it was that the characters began to connect to one another in unexpected ways, symbolic of a city that is so diverse and yet holds together. By the end I was loving the story, the characters, I didn't want it to end.

I read the afterward where the author reveals that he too was feeling depressed about the country and where it was heading, until Obama was elected and he decided that there could be a hopeful ending. It shows in his prose.

And the winner is of my Ina Garten book giveaway is...

Zoe Lou. I'll send it along.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in. 

the marriage plot {currently reading}

Turning the theme of Victorian marriage on its ear, Jeffrey Eugenides, writes about what marriage is for people living in the 21st Century, and how it has not changed that much from much earlier times.  It also tells the story of what marriage can mean for a woman who has her life career planned out. He shows that marriage remains a financial decision.

I enjoyed the way Eugenides retells many parts of the plot from each of the three main characters' perspectives, in the manner of Kurasawa's Roshomon, even if these perspectives are not all that different. I especially liked recognizing various flaws in the male characters, flaws I have been intimately familiar with while growing up myself.

positive discipline {currently reading}

Don't you hate it when you plan for an event, diligently preparing all that needs to be done, only to completely forget to go?

My book club read Positive Discipline, by Jane Nelson, this month. I read the entire book. I was ready to discuss. But these days getting out of the house has become a bit difficult. Be it the inclement weather, or just plain inertial, but getting myself out and about has become difficult.

The basic premise of this book is moderation. Do not be too strict and do not be too lenient. I would think that most parents fall somewhere in the middle, so reading this book may not be all that useful. Also, many of the techniques proposed to get children doing things for themselves does not apply to the less-than-four set, leaving me wondering how to deal with our son's current brand of obstinace. The author has written Positive Discipline for Preschoolers, which is probably what I should have bought, and if it were not for the book club I would have.

There are some useful concepts. Having weekly family meetings, where everyone decides unanimously how to handle problems, appeals to me. Scheduling fun time also appeals to me. Teaching my son how to dress himself so that he can feel in charge of a small part of his life, and simultaneously relieving me of this task, which is not an easy one, sounds great. Otherwise I'll check out the preschooler edition for more ideas about how to empower and control my son at his current age of three.

blood, bones and butter and the devil in the kitchen {currently reading}

It seems as though all great chefs have terrible upbringings. Some how what leads a person to the hectic, dangerous, exhilarating life of cooking is a hectic, dangerous, and exhilarating life of being left unattended while young.

These two books are autobiographies of chefs. They both start on hard times and end up in fancy kitchens serving artistic fare to the well-heeled. Both offer a fun behind-the-scenes look at the war zone that is the restaurant kitchen. I've been reading a lot of these books lately. They intrigue me.

Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton, the founder of the restaurant Prune in the East Village, is about growing up in and around New York City, doing drugs, being a disaster while working the high paying, fast paced job of caterer. Her prose is tight and the book reads fast, probably due to her stint at grad school for a masters in writing.

The Devil in the Kitchen by Marco Pierre White the founder of Harvey's in London and youngest chef to win three Michelin stars in England, is about a man who began as the son of a cook in East England and had an equally unattended childhood after his mother died. Unfortunately, he doesn't write all that much about the food he made along the way to stardom, but the details about kitchen life and how he got where he is are interesting enough to make up the gap.

The life of the cook is so attractive. The raw energy, real tasks needed done quickly, the efficiency  and discipline all entice. It is way late in my life to give a whirl, but after reading Heat by Bill Buford, where he describes getting the chance to join Mario Batali's kitchen, it would be so nice to be given the opportunity to live in that underworld for a time.

Both books are worth a read.

dacha idylls {currently reading}

I read this book because I am in love with our bungalow in the Catskills. I read it to see what a anthropologists have to say about living in such a community, the benefits and draw backs. I read it to extend my summer into winter. And in these respects it did not disappoint.

Dacha Idylls by Melissa L. Caldwell is an anthropological study of country house communities that have been popular in Russia for over a century. It studies the quality of life in these summer communities and how the inhabitants utilize them as a supplement to their normal urban lives.

In a lot of ways it resembled the ways we use our summer community. As a respite from the concrete and smog, as a place to work on things and not be idle, as a place of summer friendships and communing with nature. Especially in these dark, cold months, I miss it immensely.

There are really no words to describe the horrible incident in Connecticut. No words of consolation for the families. No way to make this okay. It is unimaginable and yet it happened.

simplicity parenting {currently reading}

Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne takes a hard look at how we've cluttered our homes and lives with distractions. As a therapist he has encountered many over-stressed children who have had trouble in school or at home, dealing with their emotions. As a result, he has devised a clear and stark path to getting rid of these distractions in order to create a more harmonious life for these families.

He begins with toys and books, prescribing that only the bare essentials be left accessible for children. Then he tackles the over scheduled lives of children, suggesting less classes and more continuity. Media is next. He thinks all televisions and monitors should be relegated to secluded places in the home, or optimally, eliminated completely, and not made the central focus of the central family rooms.

We read this for my education bookclub this past month and everyone seemed to take it to heart. Who doesn't have more toys in their home than they would like? It left us worrying about the huge quantities of toys we already own and how Christmas is only weeks away, bringing more. It spurred me to throw out broken and plastic toys, which was very needed. But looking closer at the book it becomes apparent that Payne is talking about families with serious problems, mostly emotional and disruptive.

So, while his ideas have validity I do not think that need to be adhered to if no other problems are brewing. I particularly did not agree with his idea of creating a consistent schedule for the household, where dinner is always served at the same time and naps are scheduled. I think being rigid in your home life, not allowing for the ebb and flow of life, can create other problems. But then he is speaking about families that cannot manage to eat dinner together on a regular basis, so it is hard to relate it to my own life.

All in all, I think this book allows for a new perspective on how life can get out of hand and the little ways we can make it a simpler, less stressful one.