It Seems To Me » General

Books Are Back, Baby

hhollick — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:17:35 +0000

When I was growing up, there were very few books in our house. I read the monthly Reader’s Digest from cover to cover but that was about it. (I think I can still recite a half-dozen “Humor in Uniform” anecdotes.) My parent just weren’t the reading kind.

Then, somewhere after college, I got the reading bug. I devoured books — fiction, non-fiction, classics, contemporary — I read them all. I had so much lost ground to make up for. There was one year in my late twenties in which I read fifty books! While I have yet to exceed that high water mark of almost a book a week I continued to read extensively for years.

That is, until Internet came along. My pace of reading dropped to a trickle in the last few years. Between 2004 and 2008 I read less than three books per year, and one year I read only one book. Ouch!

I am proud to report that in 2009 I got my reading mojo back. I read a dozen books this year. I don’t think it is a coincidence that 2009 was also the year that I got a Kindle (even though only half of the books I read were available in Kindle format). In the age of gadgets and electronics, the Kindle has made reading fun again. After almost a decade of wandering aimlessly in the Internet wasteland of too many RSS subscriptions I have rediscovered the depth and quality of well-written books.

Here are the books I read in 2009:

The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
Flawless Consulting, Peter Block
Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz
Million Dollar Consulting, Alan Weiss
Co-Active Coaching, Laura Whitworth, et. al.
The Bigger Game, Rick Tamlyn, et. al.
Paranoia, Joseph Finder
Escape from Cubicle Nation, Pamela Slim
The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
Back Sense, Siegel, Urgang, Johnson
Leadership and Self-Deception, The Arbinger Institute

With the exception of The Lost Symbol, I would highly recommend each book on the list. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Outliers. Wow! The the ideas in that book turned my head inside out. An excellent read.

I am already three-fourths of the way into two books and it is only January 04. If all goes well, 2010 promises to be a rich year for reading as well.

You know you’re old when . . .

hhollick — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:05:40 +0000

You know you’re old when you hear a music critic say, “Beyonce is important in the way that Madonna was important to music in the 90’s.”

Huh? Madonna was important? That was music?

Julian Schnabel

itseemst — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:16:36 +0000

In a recent episode of The Treatment, Elvis Mitchel interviews artist and director Julian Schnable. Elvis is struck by the idea that all of Julian’s movies are about artists whose view of the world is not understood by other people and so they are constantly trying to communicate with the world. Elvis says that the movies are ostensibly about art, but they are also movies about communications. They portray figures, who for some reason, can’t get an essential part of themselves communicated through any other means but their art. Julian replies:

That is true about all art. The conflict is to try and take what is inside of you and put it inside somebody else.

This is such a wonderful idea. It has made my day.

I am reminded of a wonderful story of a modern dancer who gave a very expressive, very moving performance. When she had finished, a member of the audience approached her, asking what she was trying to communicate with her dance.

She replied, “Well sir, if I could explain it, I would not have needed to dance.”

The Demise of Lofts

hhollick — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 23:46:40 +0000

I fell in love with the idea of living in a loft in the early 80’s. I was just about to graduate from college and Jennifer Beals was dancing across the screen in Flashdance in a beautiful, industrial-strength loft. It was a beautiful living space — about 2,000 square feet with no walls and no rooms. Ever since then I have dreamed of living in a completely open floor plan. Bed at one end, kitchen at the other, living and dining and working in between.

We are in the process of relocating to North Carolina and have entertained the idea of living in a loft. Unfortunately, today’s brain-dead developers have co-opted the term “loft” in their attempt to be hip. The marketing people have not been talking to the architects and builders.

For example, consider the Lofts at Lakeview in Durham. Download their brochure. Take a look at the floor plans. Granted the living room is open all the way to the kitchen. But the bedrooms and closets are crammed behind ugly and unnecessary walls.

These are not lofts by any definition of the word. They are urban apartments with an over abundance of LCD TVs in the common areas. Some day I will live in a loft. But it looks like it will not be offered by any of today’s urban developers.