things i heard at the library: an occasional series: # 38

I was covering the desk while staff was on break. A customer asked where he could find books on sex.

I asked whether this was for a young person or an adult. He said an adult.

I asked if was he looking for anything specific, such as safer sex, sexual health...?

He said he was looking for instructions and explanations. Basic information on what happens during sex.

I took his library card and put several books on hold. Most of the titles are aimed at young adults, but I think they will be appropriate for his needs.

The customer wasn't clear on the holds process, so I explained how he will be notified when the holds come in, where he'll find them, how he can check them out. 

He thanked me and was on his way.

I was impressed that this dude came to the library and was able to ask for help. Of course no one should be embarrassed about wanting books about sex, but many people would be, especially in a small community where anonymity is almost impossible.

I was also extremely glad I happened to be at the desk, rather than any of the frontline staff. I think they would have been all right, but I was able to give the customer privacy and to assess the titles quickly and likely more accurately. 

I don't do a lot of direct customer service anymore, but when I do, I get a great buzz.

things i heard at the library: an occasional series: # 37

I have an update on R, the customer who was the subject of the previous two TIHATL posts: #35, a customer who refuses to be helped, and #36, a customer who needs so much more than a library can provide. As a friend said on Facebook, librarians, like teachers, are left to deal with the results of failed social and economic policies.

Staff and I were all worried about R. The December holiday season was days away, which meant social services and health care would be more difficult to access. Many people living marginal existences die during that time of year. 

I visited an agency in town, one that serves as an umbrella organization for many services. They were very sympathetic and supportive, and directed me to the general mental health services for our region.

The mental health worker gave me two important suggestions. 

One, I learned that the local mental health centre has a two-hour drop-in time every day. They said the slots fill up quickly, so folks are advised to get there early. I confirmed the (unmarked) location and noted the times. 

Two, I learned that we can call the RCMP (i.e. the local police) and request an assessment. They will escort the person to the hospital, and speak to hospital staff to ensure that an appropriate assessment is done.

I don't know why I wasn't already aware of these options, but I was happy to add these new tools to my toolkit. My staff were so relieved, they were in tears. We agreed that one of us would walk R to mental health services (it's very nearby) and we would explain about the RCMP call.

I also learned that a doctor's prescription is required for the hospital or another agency to provide free adult diapers. One of our staff happened to have some that were purchased for a relative, but the wrong size, and they were happy to donate them. We put the package in a plain brown bag and determined that we would give it to R the next time we saw him.

Then we didn't see R again. 

Days and then weeks passed, and he didn't come in. We speculated that the workers in the Salvation Army, who runs the overnight shelter, connected R with help. But we couldn't know, and we couldn't ask (confidentiality). So we kept an eye out for him, and we worried.

Then, in mid-February, R appeared. He was clean, clean-shaven, and had gained some weight. He told us he had spent a month in the hospital in the neighbouring town. One of our staff discreetly gave him the brown bag containing the adult diapers and he was grateful and appreciative. 

Another customer brought in a warm winter jacket that he found in the thrift shop to give to R. 

R is still without housing. He still lacks a hearing aid. He is still frustrated and upset by technology. But he's alive. He's eating, he's bathing, he has medication. He says hello to us, and to other people he knows who are also in the library. I think he has hope.

what i'm reading: shuggie bain, brilliant and devastating fiction by douglas stuart

Any novel that wins the Booker Prize will be worth reading. Not all literary prizes reflect quality, but the Booker Prize carries a lot of weight. So when a debut novel wins a Booker, that is a singular achievement.

Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart, was the recipient of the 2020 Booker Prize, and it is indeed a stunning debut. It's a devastating story of addiction and love, with characters and stories that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.

Shuggie Bain is the story of a boy who is bullied for being prissy and effeminate, and his mother, who is an alcoholic. It's about what extreme addiction, and the poverty that comes with it, does to a family. Above all, it's about the fierce, protective love of a child for their parent, a child trying to keep his own world afloat, to somehow love but still survive.

While I was devouring this book -- I couldn't put it down -- I kept thinking: this is Roddy Doyle meets Irvine Welsh. I mean that in the best possible way.

Stuart shares Doyle's razor-sharp understanding of human motivation, and his unerring eye for the details that bring the reader right inside the characters. His writing is cinematic and richly detailed, but never bogged down. The language, the pacing, and the tone all remind me of Roddy Doyle, who (as longtime wmtc readers may remember) is one of my very favourite authors.

But Doyle has never been this dark. An honest, unflinching look at addiction in the depths of the Glasgow underclass must owe a debt to Irvine Welsh. Welsh brought you fully and utterly into the world of the heroin addict, and Stuart does the same for the world of an advanced alcoholic.

I'm grateful that Stuart didn't adopt Welsh's vernacular style. I understand why Welsh and his cohorts wrote in their own dialect, but it made for difficult reading. Stuart uses some Glaswegian working-class slang without explanation, but it's easy enough to pick up the meaning through context.

In 2022, Stuart published Young Mungo, which follows a gay teen coming of age on the tough streets of Glasgow. I will definitely read it.

When Shuggie Bain was published, Stuart gave many interviews in which he disavowed the autobiographical nature of these novels. Later on, he embraced the truth that they are largely based on his own young life. I'm grateful he survived to tell the story. This interview in The Guardian is particularly good.

new email list manager: apologies if you receive duplicates as i switch from mailchimp to zoho

Mailchimp recently announced that it is changing its free plan, reducing the number of contacts and sends that can be managed for free. Because of this, wmtc will no longer qualify for the free level.

As I said when I switched to Mailchimp two years ago:

I also don't want to pay for a service. I have many paid subscriptions; I don't expect to get everything for free. But since I do not (and never will) have ads on this blog, it doesn't generate income. I write for free and you read for free. All good. But I'm not going to pay so that people can read a free blog!

I did some research in my usual scattershot manner, and found Zoho. Zoho's free level can accommodate wmtc's subscriber list and has a good reputation for reliability.

It's possible that there may be some duplicate emails, as I end the Mailchimp sends and set up Zoho. Apologies in advance.

Pro tip: Forbes' listicles are proving to be very useful. I've used them for several things lately and they've been very good.

"you guys" revisited: further thoughts on the language police

If you know, you know.

In October 2020, I wrote a post about the expression you guys, and whether or not using guys as a gender-neutral term excludes transgender people:  "you guys": change language, do no harm, but can we please leave space for learning and growing?

In that post, I concluded that, although I didn't understand or agree with this language prohibition, being inclusive and sensitive to other people was more important than whether or not I agreed with the view. 

Now, more than two years later, I have a different take. I've returned to my first reaction: this is too much. This is not necessary. There is no need for this.

However, in some contexts, I continue to subsitute folks (which I hate) for guys. But not because I believe it's the right thing to do.

I see no uptake

In the time since I wrote that post, I've been listening carefully to language on series and movies I watch, in public settings, on social media -- everywhere that I can. I have observed that an overwhelming majority of people use you guys as gender-neutral and inclusive. 

In fact, everyone I've heard uses you guys this way -- except my work colleagues, who purposely do not use the word. This "everyone" most definitely includes LGBTQ+ people. People of all colours and from all communities use you guys to refer to groups of people of mixed genders.

The claim that you guys refers only to men just doesn't track. Of course the words guy or guys does refer to men in some contexts. But our understanding of language is always context dependent. We understand that we bake with flour and give a flower, even though to our ears, the words are identical. We know that we can book an appointment, read a book, or cook the books. That I can chair a meeting and sit on a chair. I could give hundreds of examples. We use identical and identical-sounding words with different meanings all the time. 

People also claim that you guys excludes transgender people, but I see no appreciable uptake of this concept, including from trans people that I know. Since you guys is gender neutral, there's no reason to assume it excludes people who are gender-queer, nonbinary, or expressing any manner of gender identity. Neutral is neutral. 

Some of my peers have said that they find the word age-inappropriate, for example, a server in a restaurant calling two older women you guys. I don't share this view, and I don't know why we would want more people to make judgements based on age. There's enough ageism in this world without asking for more. But the people who shared this preference with me do not hear you guys as sexist -- and most importantly, they are not asking others not to use the expression.

But here's the catch

However, in a work setting, I don't use you guys -- because it would be considered old and outdated language. Using you guys would signal that I am either ignorant, stubborn, or worse, transphobic. So I've taught myself not to use you guys. All this means is that I've capitulated to the language police. I haven't changed my view. I've merely conformed. 

I have found articles dating as far back as 2015 that argue for dropping you guys because it is sexist or excluding. These stories usually quote a transgender person saying they feel the expression excludes them. Since this idea hasn't gotten any appreciable uptake in eight years, I'm wondering how the writer got that quote -- how many people they went through before they found someone to confirm their view.

Someone somewhere is always offended by something. But who speaks for others? Whose point of view represents a population or a community? 

And is there no limit on the policing of language? Must we all follow every new rule with equal fervor, as if every language choice carries the same import? As if you guys is the N-word? Because here's the thing. If there is no limit, there is only blind adherence. There is no critical thinking. There is just this: a self-appointed arbiter of our language speaks, and everyone must follow. 

If there is no limit, there is only blind loyalty

In the past few months, I've had some in-depth conversations with two very close friends. We are all the same age (within two years), are all progressive, and all believe strongly in inclusion. We are all white, two of us are Jewish, and we are not all heterosexual. We have all, at times, been on the receiving end of sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and/or ageism. And we all recognize our privilege in all its forms.

We also recognize the importance of inclusive language, and of using the term for a group or a peoples that does not cause offense. We are not people who insist on using outdated and offensive terms. We are people who understand the importance of language.

All three of us are at times frustrated or horrified by the use of language policing as a weapon, and have the persistent sense that language policing can go too far. 

I'm a big fan of linguist John McWhorter and his views on language. I've enjoyed several of his books (reviews here and here), and read his New York Times column sporadically (the way I read all columnists that I like). I don't agree with all of McWhorter's politics, and that shouldn't contradict or undermine anything I'm writing here. Also, McWhorter is Black.

I always appreciate McWhorter's nuanced view. Here's an example: 'BIPOC' Is Jargon. That's OK, and Normal People Don't Have to Say It. He's not saying the expression BIPOC is silly, nor is he saying we shouldn't use it, if it fits within our context. He explains why the word also can be seen as problematic, and believes that using it should not be a requirement. He cites Latinx as a similar expression.

Punishments are supposed to fit crimes

Last year, McWhorter wrote an excellent column about the over-reaction of the language police: One Graceless Tweet Does Not Warrant Cancellation. He wrote about a (formerly distinguished) professor of psychiatry who tweeted something he meant as a compliment but in fact was a racist remark. The professor apologized without reservation, and demonstrated that he learned from the experience. Even so, his livelihood was destroyed and his career was ruined.

McWhorter writes:

But must Lieberman's career be destroyed because of a tweet that pretty clearly reflects an ignorance of that history but that was, also, clearly well intended? We're often told in such cases that what matters is not the intent of the perpetrator but the impact on the recipient of the message. But impact has degrees, and we have to consider whether some are claiming vaster impact in certain cases than plausibility would suggest. Because we've reached the point that there's no room left to respond to Lieberman with nuance and prudence. To say: "We know you meant it as a compliment, but you should know that there are offensive connotations to using that word in reference to Black women, and an apology is owed." And then — crucially — to accept a sincere and full-throated apology when it is given, as it was here.

For someone to instead, almost instantly, be suspended from one job, dismissed from another and resign from a third because of such a thing is a disproportion of punishment to crime. It is extreme and unnecessary and ultimately lacks reason. There's something amiss if we're now at the point that someone's career is to be permanently tarnished and perhaps ended based on a passing error, which started as a misguided attempt at praise and which has been profusely apologized for. We must assess what the actual purpose of this kind of language policing is. We must ask: What, in terms of combating racism, is accomplished? Will it result in better and more available psychiatric care — or medical care in general — for Black people? Will it make Columbia University, where I am a faculty member, a more open-minded place?

The question that I always get back to is: what purpose does this serve? Are we trying to educate? Are we trying to not cause offense? Or are we just trying to win? To assert power. To punish.

If the goal is education, I suggest that punitive education is never effective. Children who are punished for using "bad" language learn not to use it front of parents and teachers.

If we are seeking to punish, the punishment should fit the crime. 

Are we seeking redress for past crimes, perpetrated by a group to which this person belongs? Meaning: this professor is a white man, and white men have historically harmed Black women, so this white man must be severely punished for this ill-advised tweet? 

This is called scapegoating, and it is always wrong.

Too much policing tends to backfire

For many of us, there is cultural pressure to buy whatever the language police are selling. I will never forget the disgusted expressions directed at me when I mistakenly said "Bradley Manning," very shortly after the war resister changed their name to Chelsea. I had been saying "Bradley Manning" for years -- and although I knew Manning had come out as trans, my speech patterns hadn't fully caught up. 

When people are fired based on one remark, even after they have sincerely and profusely apologized, the right-wingers -- who howl about being cancelled (while broadcasting to an audience of millions), who claim to be persecuted (while stripping rights from those who disagree with them), who persecute a minority people simply for living their lives -- are strengthened. The unyielding and indiscriminate use of language policing only stregthens their cause.

It pains me when progressives mirror the right-wing. When we figurately kill everyone who doesn't speak the way we believe they should, we are behaving like the ignorant bigots do. It doesn't matter how pure our motives are.

rip russell banks: a belated tribute

I was very sorry to hear that Russell Banks, one of my favourite contemporary writers, died on January 7 of this year. 

There's a very short list of authors that are must-reads for me; I'll read anything they publish. Banks was on that list. 

Banks wrote about very ordinary people, always working-class, often marginalized and powerless. Although his egalitarian worldview was always obvious to me, he never used his characters as billboards or soapboxes. This excerpt from Banks' obituary in The New York Times is very apt.

In much of Mr. Banks’s writing, his concerns about race, class and power repeatedly surfaced, with particular attention given to the powerless and the overlooked, especially his outwardly unremarkable blue-collar characters.

“There’s an important tradition in American writing, going back to Mark Twain and forward to Raymond Carver and Grace Paley, whose work is generated by love of people who are scorned and derided,” Mr. Banks told The Guardian in 2000. “I have an almost simple-minded affection for them. My readers are not the same as my characters, as I’m very aware. So I’m glad when they feel that affection too.”

I was turned on to Russell Banks by one of my nephews, back in the 1990s: he told me about Rule of the Bone, Banks' take on the classic theme of a personal struggle between two father figures. I loved the authentic voice of the teenage narrator, and the pointed echoes to the ultimate alternative-father story, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I read Rule of the Bone decades ago and can still recall scenes and images from it.

Banks' masterpiece is Cloudsplitter, his massive and powerful novel about the radical abolitionist John Brown. This book, along with the PBS "American Experience" documentary, in which Banks was featured, gave me an enduring fascination with Brown. (I was always sorry that I didn't know about the John Brown historic site, all the many times we drove upstate New York and to Vermont.) 

I also loved these books by Banks: Continental Drift (1985), Affliction (1989), and especially Lost Memory of Skin (2011). I haven't read all of Banks' novels, and haven't read any of his nonfiction, but I think I will eventually fill in the gaps. I'm sorry we won't have anything new from Banks. I hope he knew how much his readers loved him.

something new: labour book club

Through my union, I've started a labour book club. This is something I've wanted to do for years, and now it's gotten off the ground. I'm very pleased! 

Everything requires persistence, even quitting

I first thought of doing this pre-covid, and imagined that I might gather members of my union in my own area. Not members of my bargaining unit, who are all librarians -- and I'm the only member of the unit in my region -- but BCGEU members in any field.

I asked my bargaining unit chair how I might go about this, and she recommended suggesting to a committee that plans events for all the different locals representing workers in different industries. 

Then came covid, and suddenly we were all seeing other all the time on Zoom and Teams. I realized this made the labour book club idea much more attractive and much easier: offer it to everyone, and host it on Zoom.

The next time I asked about it, I learned that I would need to be on this committee. (I'll call it ccc.) And in order to be on ccc, I needed to be on my local executive. So I was elected Member At Large for the local, and became the local's representative on ccc.

Then, when I attended my first ccc meeting, I somehow let myself get elected chair! This was a big mistake. Not only was chairing ccc way more work than I wanted, but now I wouldn't have time for the book club -- the reason I did all this in the first place!

What followed was a lot of maneuvering and apologizing, some very supportive union people, some selfish and unsupportive union people, a few knots to untie, and several hoops to jump through. And now... ta-da! Someone else is chairing ccc and I am leading the book club. Yay!

But will anyone attend?

When I brought this idea to ccc, there was a very enthusiastic response. But still, you never know if an idea will actually work. A notice went out to all BCGEU members in our official area, which is all of Vancouver Island north of Victoria. I truly had no idea if anyone would sign up. I was hoping for five or six people.

To my astonishment, 21 people signed up, and 14 people attended the first meeting!

We've had our first meeting -- just informational, to meet and talk about how things will work. Members ranged from avid readers with a lot of book club experience, to one member who would like to start reading and thought this might be a path towards her new goal. A few librarians from my local joined, including two currently on maternity leave, but the majority were from other fields.

What we're reading

I have only two guidelines for this book club:

• Fiction only, which most people find more more accessible
• No pressure!

Our first title is The Cold Millions, by Jess Walter, which I wrote about here. 

Other potential titles include:

In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck

For the Win, Cory Doctorow

In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje

The Last Ballad, Wiley Cash

Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey

Gilded Mountain, Kate Manning

Work Song, Ivan Doig

Storming Heaven, Denise Giardina

Sea Glass, Anita Shreve

Damnation Spring, Ash Davidson

Know any other appropriate titles? Leave them in comments! 

Will people enjoy this? Will they continue to attend? We shall see!

in which i buy eyeglasses online and am super excited about it: zenni optical

I recently bought new eyeglasses: price tag: $165.00. This is 80% less than my previous pair of glasses cost. I can see well and the frames are great. I'm going to buy a second pair -- and maybe a third. Buying glasses online: hallelujah!

At the end of this post, there's a step-by-step account of my experience ordering glasses from Zenni.

The ordeal of new glasses

Buying eyeglasses had become such an ordeal. 

I wear both progressives (distance, middle, and reading in one lens) and transitions (photochromic; automatically darken in the sun). I also like to have great-looking frames. To me, frames are the accessory I wear every day. They must be awesome. 

Taken together, this can easily cost close to $800 per pair.

We are fortunate that both our jobs include extended health benefits, so we do get some of that back. But it's still a major expense.

Now, living in a remote region, it's even worse: the nearest optometrist is 2.5 hours away. If we're ordering new glasses, that's two round trips -- an additional expense, plus time off from work. 

And there's a huge wait! This time around, I called in April to book an eye exam, and the first appointment I could get was at end of October! Welcome to the resource shortage.

I don't know how she does it

Some months ago, I saw a colleague and union sister wearing strikingly beautiful frames. The following day, I saw her again -- with different frames! How on earth can she afford to have multiple pairs of glasses??

The answer: Zenni Optical. 

I have known for some time that buying glasses online is A Thing, but I had only seen very simple, basic frames purchased online. I assumed that's what was available, and I never dug any deeper.

Once I saw my colleague with multiple pairs of beautiful frames -- and with an eye exam appointment coming up -- I decided to give it a try.

Why do frames cost so much?

This experience makes me wonder why buying glasses from a retail store costs so much. 

Either way, the frames are made in China. 

Either way, the glasses are not made onsite; prescriptions are sent elsewhere for lens grinding and assembly. 

Obviously there are costs involved with retaining a retail store. But can that account for such a dramatic price difference -- or is most of it markup?

Zenni has an page on this question: The Hidden Costs You Pay for Glasses.

I have wondered a bit about the ethics of this transaction. When the price difference is so great, retail stores are bound to lose a lot of business. But I'm not going to pay $800 for a pair of glasses that I can buy for $165 from the comfort of my own computer. The price difference  is too great, and the convenience is amazing.

Frames as accessories

One of the reasons I'm so excited about Zenni is suddenly I can afford more than one pair of glasses. When frames cost $800, I have to find one pair that will work in all situations -- as my Zenni-using friend said, the little black dress of frames. Now I can wear different frames with different clothes. I love accessories, and suddenly I have new options.

Another friend of mine needs to purchase glasses for four children. The expense is mind-boggling. I'm hoping Zenni will help her too.

My experience using Zenni, a step-by-step account

Here are details of my experience buying glasses online through Zenni.

Get your prescription elsewhere

First, you'll need your prescription. 

Check the prescription to see if it includes the pupillary distance (PD). That's the thing the optometrist measures when you buy glasses. 

If your prescription doesn't include the PD, Zenni has detailed instructions on how to measure it. It doesn't sound that difficult, and of course you can take multiple measurements to ensure accuracy. I was a bit wary of this, but the PD was included on our prescriptions.

Create a Zenni account

This is easy and painless.

Browse frames

Whether or not you have your prescription yet, you can scroll through a huge number of frames, and favourite the ones you like. You can sort by shape, colour, face shape,  frame shape, prescription type, price, and several other parameters. 

I definitely recommend scanning through all the links and seeing what applies best. I found frames Ioved under a "new arrivals" link. There are also amazing budget options.

I looked at dozens of frames and favourited the ones I was considering. I always try on lots of frames in the store, and I was glad to do this without using anyone else's time.

Create a Try On

You can virtually try on the frames one of two ways: uploading a photo or creating a "Try On". 

I was unable to get an uploaded photo to work. No matter what I did, the photo I uploaded was too small and needed to be rotated -- but I found no way to fix it. Because of this, I used the Try On. I learned that even if the photo had uploaded correctly, using a Try On is preferred -- because you can see both frontal and side (partial profile) views.

I did not find creating a Try On to be simple or easy, although that wasn't Zenni's fault. It took a few tries, each one getting a bit better, until I felt I had a halfway decent video to work with.

Once I created the Try On, it was very easy to virtually try on any pair of frames. 

You can also see what the frames look like on various models with various skin tones, hair colours, and face shapes. This was surprisingly helpful.

Input your prescription

Next, check the numbers on your prescription and type them in the corresponding boxes online. Check and re-check. 

If categories don't matchup -- for example, does "plano" mean no change? -- a quick google search will clarify. (Answer: it does.)

You can save multiple prescriptions through your Zenni account, sign up for reminders for eye exams, and so on.

Order

Once you've input your prescription and chosen frames, it's time to order your lenses.

There are many options available at different prices -- which kind of photochromic lenses, which kind of anti-glare coating, and so on. This is similar to my experience in any retail outlet.

I always find this part confusing. What is truly helpful, and what is a useless expense? The internet can help with that, but in the end, it's only an educated guess.

I liked doing this part without a salesperson, as I am susceptible to over-buying. I found reading online more conducive to good decision-making.

Order fulfillment

I placed my first order on December 24 and received the notice the glasses had shipped on January 5. That's very fast, especially considering the time of year. 

The glasses arrived in small padded mailer that fit in our post office box, with a hard-plastic Zenni case (pictured above), along with a cleaning cloth and a small PD ruler. 

The finished product

My glasses are great. The prescription is obviously correct, the fit is excellent, and they are exactly what I ordered. Five stars!

Had the glasses needed a fit adjustment, it would have been problematic. Most people could pop in to a nearby optometrist for an adjustment. (As far as I can tell, this is the last free, courtesy service on earth.) I would not be able to do that. This is a drawback for us, but not worth hundreds of dollars and two five-hour drives!

Other Zenni services I haven't used

Zenni has information on how to adjust and repair your glasses, and they sell a frame-repair kit. 

There's information on how to replace lenses in frames you already own. 

You can also book a frame-fit consultation with a person.

While researching this post, I discovered Zenni's celebrity endorsement pages. One features none other than Big Papi! While I won't be buying any frames worn by David Ortiz, I had a nice chuckle over this and was happy, thinking about our man Ortiz. I also enjoyed seeing the one and only Iris Apfel modeling her look. 

Good luck and enjoy!

update: strength training without a trainer

I recently blogged about my experience working with a personal trainer. I really enjoyed it, and I was considering how to continue strength training on my own. I'm not new to the concept, but this time, I'm determined to avoid injury and to make it a non-negotiable habit.

Trainer-created workouts

Initially, I'm using the workouts that the trainer created. I have 12 workouts altogether, and I'm  cycling through them with a goal of doing one per week, replacing one day of cardio. If I forget how to do something, or need to check on form, a quick search turns up plenty of examples. 

This is not helpful for readers who may want to start strength training at home -- except to say that I'm very glad I finally worked with a trainer (covid silver lining: virtual options). I highly recommend doing this for a little while if you can afford it. I thought of it as an investment in my health, as I did when I bought my treadmill, similar to joining a gym.

The winning app: Nike Training Club

When I want more or a different challenge, I'm going to use Nike Training Club. I chose it because:

** It's simple and direct, not larded up with unnecessary features.

** It's focused on exercise only. That's all I wanted, and that's what NTC is.

** Workouts are clearly divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced. 

** There are programs grouped according to goals -- many of them, for a wide variety of goals -- or you can find a bunch of exercises that work for you and save them to create your own programs.

** You can also choose "whiteboard workouts" that combine exercises for a full workout on the level you choose.

** If you choose a whiteboard workout, each exercise includes a short optional video that demonstrates proper form. 

** Most workouts require no or minimal equipment.

** Nike Training Club also happens to be free. I was willing to pay a reasonable amount for a workout subscription if necessary, but my first choice is free -- a nice bonus.

Other fitness apps

There are zillions of fitness apps. I used these articles to narrow them down: Forbes Health's Best Fitness Apps (recently updated) and Healthline's A Trainer's Picks of the 12 Best Fitness and Exercise Apps. Most of the other lists I saw are copies of these. 

For me, most of these were easily eliminated, as they focus on needs that aren't relevant to me. 

Many of the apps aim to be all-in-one health hubs -- diet tracking, exercise, lifestyle changes, coaching. I can see the appeal, but I can also see that easily overwhelming a beginner. In any case, I have those pieces under control, and I don't want to subscribe to something knowing that I'll ignore three-quarters of what it offers. 

There are also many fitness apps for body builders, and for specific needs such as pregnancy. Many are designed for use with a wearable device (Fitbit, Apple, etc.) which I don't want and will never do.

All in all, Nike Training Club was an easy choice.

How often is enough

Many people believe that strength training must be done a minimum of three times per week in order to see results, but that's either a myth, or at best, not relevant to my goals.

My goals are the typical ones for older people -- google "why strength training is important for older adults" -- and are all about health and well-being. My long-term motivation is improving my chances of a healthy, independent old age. My shorter-term motivation is improving the ease of everyday movements and tasks. Strength training also feels good and, unlike cardio fitness, you can feel the benefits almost immediately.

Everything I've read about this kind of exercise says once or twice weekly is a solid goal. I found this article very helpful: A Low-Pressure Guide to Make Strength Training a Habit.

a reading plan for 2023

This year's reading plan is more open-ended -- designed to give me focus but not overwhelm. I've created what most people seem to call a reading challenge, but that term doesn't work for me. So here's the plan.

** Five current (within 3 years) nonfiction

** Five older nonfiction from The List

** Ten fiction, including five (total) from this list of authors I have not read: Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Naguib Mahfouz, Margaret Laurence, Helen Oyeyemi, Donna Tartt

** Advance one ongoing goal, choose from: one Dickens (four to finish), one Orwell (three to finish), finish King Trilogy (two-thirds of final book remaining)

** Continue weekly NYC history installments

I will also be leading a labour book club with my union. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and it's taken quite a bit of maneuvering to make it happen. If anyone actually signs up, I’ll be reading for this as well. 

we movie to canada: best of "what i'm watching" 2022

Here are the best movies and series I watched in 2022. They're not in order -- it's not a countdown -- just a list of all the really good stuff.

Five stars: the best of the best

BoJack Horseman re-watch
My favourite show of all time. I'm trying not to call it "the greatest show of all time," but I believe it is.

Reservation Dogs S1-2, full series so far.
Hilarious, heartbreaking, and meaningful, Rez Dogs is the first show on mainstream TV to be completely Indigenous-created, and using all Indigenous actors. The writing and acting are incredible, and the way Indigenous realities are worked into the stories is perfect. I hope everyone will watch this!

The Expanse S6
The final season of this stellar show did not disappoint. Although I am not a science fiction fan by any means, I'm glad I don't reject a show based on genre. This series is as good as it gets: gripping, moving, surprising, with complex characters and deep political and social resonance. I'll probably watch it again.

We Need to Talk About Cosby, 4-part documentary series
This deeply disturbing documentary series is a must-see. I'm grateful to Kamau Bell for making the film, to every woman who agreed to speak with him, and to all who didn't, just for surviving.  

The Power of the Dog (2021)
This is Jane Campion's version of a western: a quietly intense psychological thriller set in an isolated Montana homestead. Utterly riveting and not at all predictable. I had to watch the ending twice. 

Slow Horses S1-S2, full series so far
This is a top-notch spy thriller, full of paranoia and corruption, with great writing and great characters -- but everything pales beside Gary Oldman's incredible performance. We re-watched S1 right before S2 dropped on AppleTV+, and are eagerly awaiting S3.

The Capture S2
This thriller takes you on a wild, twisty, breathless ride into the outlandish but utterly plausible world of government surveillence and corporate media manipulation. The Capture may be the greatest show you've never heard of.

Unforgotten S4
The final season of this cold-case forensic show left us a little heartbroken and wanting more. Unforgotten is especially notable for the emotional resonance of each case. In most detective shows, the corpse is just a premise -- a prop. Unforgotten shows you the web of loss that radiates from every violent death. Nicola Walker is brilliant.

The Handmaid's Tale S5
This show continues to be one of the very best, with everything clicking -- writing, acting, character development, and of course, politics. Elisabeth Moss is surely one of the great actors of this or any generation. 

Shining Girls S1, full series
This genre-blending thriller/mystery/sci-fi series is mind-blowing, and features yet another insanely good performance by Elisabeth Moss. I'm planning on re-watching: now that I know the outcome, I can concentrate on clues and how it all fits together. 

In the Heat of the Night (1967)
The death of the great Sidney Poitier led me to re-watch several of his movies (with more to come). In this one, Poitier's understated performance and Rod Steiger's subtle character development create something truly brilliant. One of the best American films of any era.

The Janes
This documentary about the underground (and illegal) abortion network in 1970s Chicago was beautifully done. Importantly, the story is told by the women themselves. I'm grateful to Tia Lessen and Emma Pildes for capturing and preserving our history.

To Sir With Love (1967)

More from Sir Sidney. I wondered if this would hold up. It does, and then some.

Four stars: worth every minute, highly recommended

Bad Sisters S1, full series
Comedy, drama, mystery, revenge, and sisterhood -- plus Irish accents! What more do you need? Don't miss this. It's both intense and fun.

Yellowstone S4
The fourth season of Yellowstone was the best yet, packed with everything that makes this show great. 

Black Butterflies S1, full series
This French thriller is super suspenseful, twisty, and exciting. Stories are revealed in multiple timelines that force you to rethink what you thought you knew -- again and again. It lost the 5-star rating only because I found the ending unsatisfying, but it was still amazing. Not for the violence-averse.

How to Change Your Mind, 4-part documentary series
Michael Pollan's exploration of the potential for clinical use of psychedelics was truly eye-opening. The series was fascinating and sometimes deeply moving. Having seen this, I now want to read the book -- and I want to get in a clinical trial for PTSD. (Allan feels the same way.) This lost the 5-star rating only for its treatment of the CIA's LSD experiments: too short, and too neutral. Another sentence or two would have been more accurate and appropriate.

Summer of Soul
This documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival is packed with astounding footage of so much great music. It's worth watching for Mahalia Jackson alone; her performance makes all the other superstars appear as mere humans.

Perry Mason S1, series so far
This stylish neo-noir prequel has all the makings of a classic. I've just learned it will be back for S2 next year, a great excuse to rewatch S1. If you like noir-ish mysteries and hardboiled detective stories, you'll enjoy this.

Never Have I Ever S3
This series was everything I love in a young-adult show: honest, funny, affirming, authentic, with just the right amount of angst. 

Sex Education S1-S3, full series so far
What a beautiful surprise this was! If some of it was a bit far-fetched, it more than compensated with laughs and tears. 

Atypical S2-4
This show grew both funnier and more meaningful as time went on. Along with the two series listed above, this was a trifecta year for young people's comedy/drama/coming-of-age. 

Nomadland
Dramatizing a nonfiction book is tricky, but the sparse, quiet production and Frances McDormand's brilliant (as usual) performance made it appropriately heartbreaking. I came to feel that using a fictional story to illustrate these issues was a smart move.

No Time to Die
Did you know I love James Bond movies? This just might be my all-time favourite. Lucky for me, I don't see spoilers.

The Laundromat
This 2019 social satire was a great surprise. What starts out as a simple family story turns into an exploration of the grievous harm done by legal corporate tax evasion. It's on this list because I want everyone to see it.

Leave No Trace
This somber story of a father and daughter living on their own in the woods gradually reveals its political heart. A sad and meaningful film.

The Blacklist S9
How can this show still be so good?? The death of a central character refreshed and renewed the series. James Spader continues to amaze me.

Louis Armstrong's Black and Blues
I know quite a bit about Louis Armstrong, but this documentary includes newly discovered footage and archival recordings of Satchmo talking to friends. Armstrong bios always try to explain away his Uncle Tom tendencies and his refusal to utter one single word of support for the civil rights movement, while he was the most famous Black man on the planet. This show is no different, and it inadvertently strengthens my disappointment in this.

Colin in Black and White S1, full series
Ava DuVernay and Colin Kaepernick's genre-blending (part documentary, part dramatization) film really hits the mark. Parts may seem obvious to more informed viewers, but I can hope a less enlightened audience found it eye-opening.

M*A*S*H S1-S11, full series
I started re-watching MASH years ago, then lost access. In 2022 I re-started and watched it end-to-end. Without a doubt, this is one of the best TV shows of all time. For almost the entire 11 seasons, it was funny, poignant, sometimes heartbreaking, and always unapologetically political. The show lost a lot when Gary Burghoff left, but MASH at its worst was still miles above most shows at their best. By the way, the often-repeated claim that Alan Alda demanded that his character be shown in the operating room in every episode is obviously untrue. Alda also wrote, co-wrote, or directed many episodes. Even with the solid esemble cast, Alda was MASH.

Honourable mentions: worth seeing

Kids in the Hall (2022)
The Dig (2021)
Ozark S4
Hacks S2
Derry Girls S3
Island of the Sea Wolves (Vancouver Island nature show)
The Worst Person in the World
Dead to Me
Wayne (Thank you to the wmtc reader who suggested this!)

Recap of previous years

- Canadian musicians and comedians (2006-07 and 2007-08)
- my beverage of choice (2008-09)
- famous people who died during the past year (2009-10)
- where I'd like to be (2010-11)
- vegetables (2011-12)
- big life events in a year full of Big Life Changes (2012-13)
- cheese (2013-14)
- types of travels (2014-15)
- famous people who died plus famous people who died, part 2 (2015-16)
- the picket line (2016-17)
- movies (2017-18)
2018-19: 1-5 ☮s
2019-20: 1-5 💉s
2020-21: 1-5 😷s (without the tear!)
2021: best of 2021 april to december

happy new year from wmtc

 

View this card on Greetings Island

what i'm reading: 2022 wrap-up

The results of my 2022 reading plan were completely predictable. I created an overly long list, and that created pressure, and that ruined the point and the enjoyment of the plan. I knew that would happen, and it did: I wrote about that here. 

I started feeling this self-inflicted pressure in May. In August, I released myself from the plan. 

Yes, I had to give myself permission to not follow an arbitrary rule that I invented. Good to know I'm still me. Ha! But also good to know I've learned a few things: I did eventually drop the plan. Take that, old self! 

Big win: serializing the doorstoppers

My biggest win this year was my New York City history project. In 2018, I started reading weekly chapters of the mammoth Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, intending to read both that title and the equally humongous follow-up, Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919 in weekly installments. When we started preparing to move to BC, I let that go, but I very much wanted to return to it. And this year, I did! 

I discovered that my first go-round went further than I thought; I had read a good 8 or 10 chapters. But for continuity and enjoyment, I re-started from the beginning, and read one chapter (or occasionally, a half-chapter) every week, unless I was away. (1,400-page books don't travel well.) 

I am thoroughly enjoying it, and will definitely read both books, and will write about them eventually. I may attack two other titles the same way: London: The Biography (2000) and Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion (2001). Both are somewhat intimidating to me, and coincidentally, both are by Peter Ackroyd. (How the hell can anyone be so prolific?)

Still reading, still planning

I did enjoy having a reading plan in 2019, 2020, and 2021: something to focus and guide me, but not a to-read list, which feels mandatory. I'm thinking about how to create a workable reading plan for 2023.

One thing is certain: I read a shit-ton this year. And these lists don't even count all the feature-length articles that I save through Chrome's Reading List feature and actually read later, plus countless book reviews. Reading more -- deep reading, as opposed to scrolling through headlines or reading the first paragraph of a story -- has been an ongoing life goal of mine, and I'm very pleased that I'm always working on it.

Here's what I read in 2022, both from the plan and off-plan.

Important note: I didn't necessarily finish every book listed below. I have no problem sampling a title, realizing it's not for me, and moving on. This is especially true with fiction. 

If you're curious about a title that I didn't review, please ask me in comments.

From the 2022 reading plan

Nonfiction

Men Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions, Rebecca Solnit essay collections (ongoing)

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells (review)

A Primate's Memoir, Robert Sapolsky

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, Annalee Newitz (review)

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe (review)

The Turning Point: A Year That Changed Dickens and the World, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst (review)

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann (review)

Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal, Mark Bittman (review)

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Always, John McWhorter (review)

Four Fish: the Future of the Last Wild Food, Paul Greenberg (review)

The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine, Janice P. Nimura

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century, Charles King (review)

Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, Barbara Ehrenreich

Fiction

Charlie Savage, Roddy Doyle

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo

Razorblade Tears, S. A. Cosby

The Electric Hotel, Dominic Smith

Marley, Jon Clinch

Christine Falls, John Banville as Benjamin Black

Gods with a Little G, Tupelo Hassmann

Simon the Fiddler, Paulette Jiles

The Weight of Ink, Rachel Kadish

The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich (review)

Children's

Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood, Gary Paulsen (review)

The Leak, Kate Reed Perry (review)

Kaleidoscope, Brian Selznick

Pumpkinheads, Rainbow Rowell 

Series 

As I started the next book in each of these, I remembered why I don't enjoy series, and stopped reading both.

Harlem Detective series, Chester Himes

John le Carré re-reads

Long-term goal

I am doing this!!

Weekly chapters of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 and Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919.

Off-plan

Here's what I read after I ditched the plan. The same caveat applies: I didn't finish all of these.

Nonfiction

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality, Bob Joseph (Will review; should be mandatory for all Canadians.)

Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality, Bob Joseph with Cynthia F. Joseph (in progress; reading for work)

The Noble Hustle, Colson Whitehead

It’s Time for Socialism, Thomas Piketty (I read very little of this. It wasn't what I was looking for.)

Rin Tin Tin, Susan Orlean

Krakatoa: the Day the World Exploded, Simon Winchester (review)

Fiction

The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner

Celestial Bodies, Jokha Alharthi

The Sentence, Louise Erdrich

The Violin Conspiracy, Brendan Slocum (really enjoyed this; review to follow)

YA

A Year to the Day, Robin Benway

Like Other Girls, Britta Lundin (review)

Important bonus

This beautiful book was a birthday present from my partner. I'm reading it off and on, in random sections.  

what i'm reading: nine nasty words by john mcwhorter

If you enjoy language, and history, and humour, you will probably enjoy Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter -- Then, Now, and Forever by John McWhorter. A slim book written in a breezy style, Nine Nasty Words is an absolute delight. 

McWhorter takes the reader through a history of English words that have been considered profane in different eras, breaks down their many uses and meanings, and in the process, guides the reader on a whirlwind tour of the incredibly versatile, ever-changing, gloriously inconsistent English language. 

McWhorter shows how the types of words that are taboo -- not the words themselves, but what they refer to -- changes over time. 

In the earliest years of English, "dirty" words referred to religion, thus the multitude of polite substitutions for damn and hell. So people could be named Simon Fuckbutter and George Fuckbythenavel (seriously, those were people's actual names) but neither Simon nor George would have dared to say goddamn in public.

During and after the Victorian era, unsurprisingly, taboo words were those that refer to sex and genitalia. So folks began to loosen up about hell and damn, but started to use expressions like "the male member" and "unmentionables".

In our present time, the once truly taboo fuck is used casually in dozens of ways. In our current world, the only truly taboo words are slurs that refer to groups of people: witness the phenomenon known as the N-word. (I was disappointed that McWhorter missed "NP", a memorable and hilarious character in Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor.)

Nine Nasty Words also debunks various popular claims about word origins, which further serves to illustrate how language is always changing. (See my earlier review of McWhorter's Words on the Move.)

One thing that makes this book so entertaining and enjoyable is the author's wide-ranging references. Wide-ranging is a understatement: more like universe-ranging. Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Dante are joined by Broadway musicals, Looney Tunes cartoons, movies from every era of filmmaking (including silent film), sitcoms from "I Love Lucy" to "The Jeffersons" to "Seinfeld", Dr. Seuss, blues lyrics, and more. Plenty more! The author references Russian, Mandarin, Igbo, German, French, Hebrew, all forms of English, and likely several languages I'm forgetting. In another episode of Laura's Worlds Collide, there is a reference to the Melville Herskovitz, an anthropologist I first heard of when reading Gods of the Upper Air, only weeks earlier.

McWhorter's love and appreciation of language in all its messy glory is warm, generous, egalitarian, democratic, and for me, utterly infectious. 

things i heard (and smelled) at the library: an occasional series: # 36

The subject of this TIHATL is R, the same man I wrote about in the previous TIHATL post. Things have gone from bad to worse. He is pale, unshaven, and unsteady on his feet. And he is incontinent. When he stands up, the seat he's been sitting on is soaked. Yesterday the whole library smelled of urine. Other customers commented on it and left.

I need to speak with R. But it's complicated: how do you have a private conversation on an extremely sensitive topic with someone who is severely hearing impaired, and doesn't use a hearing aid? To speak with him, you have to shout. Clearly I can't shout about this.

Further complicating the situation, it is very cold here, and many people are coming into the library to keep warm. We've heard R tell other customers that he lost all his belongings in a fire. So clearly he is experiencing homelessness.

I collected some tips from other library managers. I didn't learn anything too surprising, but their experiences and support helped me feel capable of doing what needs to be done. My staff have watched all the relevant training videos, especially the ones created by Ryan Dowd. Dowd is a social worker-turned-educator who has made a name for himself on this topic. 

Yesterday I sat down facing R and asked how he is doing. He said he has been to the hospital but was not admitted. I asked if anyone is working with him, like a caseworker. I looked directly at him, in case he can lip-read. But I didn't shout, as there were other customers in the branch. I don't know whether he understood me or not.

R said, "Last night I nearly froze to death," and wanted to wait in the library until the shelter opens. At least the shelter is opening two hours early, at 3:00 pm, because of the frigid weather. We called a taxi for R and made sure he got in. 

Then staff and I put on gloves, found some disinfectant and odor neutralizer in the janitor's closet, and got to work. (Then, predictably, I had a coughing fit, triggered by the cleaning spray.) We also left a note for the janitor to disinfect all seating surfaces.

Today I'm going to the social service agency to see if anyone can connect with R and get him some help. He needs a shower, some clean clothes, and adult diapers. He needs a place to live, but that's probably out of the question. But like so many of our customers, he needs so much more than the library can give him. 

what i'm reading: krakatoa: the day the world exploded: august 27, 1883 by simon winchester

The 1883 volcanic eruption known as Krakatoa was the largest, loudest, and most destructive natural event in human history. The explosions (there were many) were heard almost 3,000 miles away. The eruption produced shock waves that travelled around Earth seven times.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 has been on my Books Universe List* since it was published in 2003. I found a used copy at Powell's, when we visited Portland in 2021.

Simon Winchester, a master of narrative nonfiction, unpacks the entire event. What are these distant islands where this astonishing event took place? How were they formed? Who were the original inhabitants, what empires colonized them, and what were the colonies like in the 1880s? What kind of eruption was Krakatoa? Why was it so immense? What was the aftermath of the explosion? How and where did scientists study it? And so on. 

Communications technology at the time was both fast enough and widespread enough that people around the globe heard about Krakatoa while the event was still playing out. Winchester sees the eruption as the first "global" event in history -- the first time that people living everywhere on Earth experienced an event together, and could reflect on themselves as connected to all of humanity. I don't know if the theory holds up -- I wonder if other historians could refute it -- but Winchester paints an intriguing picture. 

Some of the science in this book was a bit high-level for me, and I can't say I needed as much detail on plate tectonics and the colonization of Indonesia. But if parts were too detailed for my tastes, Krakatoa more than compensated with riveting survivor accounts, and fascinating shards of evidence attesting to the power and immensity of this event. It's difficult to comprehend a force of this magnitude, but Winchester's vivid, accessible writing gets you as close as science and imagination will allow.

Footnote: to an entire generation that associates the word Krakatoa with a booming voice intoning, "Krakatoa. East of Java": the movie was not only ludicrous, the title was incorrect. Krakatoa was west of Java. The Krakatoa eruption would make a great short documentary, the kind PBS produces for the American Experience series, but this shlocky disaster movie is a must to avoid.

* Formerly called the Master List, or just The List. Not a to-read list. A list to consult when looking for something to read.

worlds collide: more notes on "gods of the upper air"

Gods of the Upper Air, by Charles King, which I recently wrote about, highlights several books that were highly influential in their time, for good and for ill.

In The Passing of a Great Race, published in 1916, a man named Madison Grant foretold the extinction of the "Nordic" race and their descendants. Drawing from the pseudoscience of the day and bolstered by (as King puts it) "the steely assurance of a New York patrician with something to say," Grant warned how "subspecies" of humans would populate the United States and drive out the civilized classes. These subspecies included Irish, Italians, Greeks -- any non-Nordics, and of course, Jews. In those days, there was no race called white -- further proof that the concept is a social fiction. 

The Passing of a Great Race was hailed as a milestone in the application of scientific ideas to history and public policy. It inspired an entire generation of acolytes who would go on to write their own treatises, advise policy makers, and push through new legislation. Three-quarters of American universities, from Harvard to the University of California, introduced courses on eugenics, many of them using Grant as a primary text. Lothrop Stoddard -- a young, well educated New Englander who was frequently grouped with Grant among America's most reliable racial scientists -- went on to write the best-selling The Rising Tide of Color (1920), which warned of racial inundation by the dark-skinned, and The New World of Islam (1921), which surveyed the threat to the West of a "Mohammedan revival" among Arabs, Turks, and Persians.

Later, on the other side of the spectrum, Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa also became a best-seller. Mead's groundbreaking book demonstrated that culture exerts a strong influence on psychological, social, and sexual development. The book revealed to an astonished public that different cultures with different values also produce healthy children and adults -- and introduced the idea that many issues prevalent in American society were neither genetic nor inevitable, but instead were products of culture. Although Coming of Age, first published in 1928, is now outdated and reflects many of the failings of its time, it is still considered a landmark work of social science.

As famous as Mead's book is, its influence was eclipsed by that of Patterns of Culture, published by anthropologist Ruth Benedict in 1934. Using her fieldwork studying societies in the South Pacific, southwest United States, and the west coast of Canada, Benedict illustrated how any culture represents just a small sample of the vast spectrum of human behaviour. Patterns of Culture is a foundational text for the very concept of diversity.

So here's where the worlds collide. 

In 1943, Benedict and her colleague Gene Weltfish published a pamphlet that created controversy among bigots and made the case for a shared humanity: The Races of Mankind. 

The pocket-sized publication was a full-on attack on common misconceptions. "Some people have shouted that if we got into our veins the blood of someone with a different head shape, eye color, hair texture, or skin color, we should get some of that person's physical and mental characteristics. . . . Modern science has revealed this to be pure superstition."

The response was massive and unexpected. Hate mail oozed into her departmental postbox. . . . The FBI dispatched interviewers to check up on the Columbia [University] department. . . The public controversy spurred sales. Churches and civic groups would eventually place orders for as many as three-quarters of a million copies of The Races of Mankind, which became one of the most widely distributed texts on the subject of its time.

I read that last bit -- "churches and civic groups would eventually place orders" -- and a little bell dinged in my mind. Hang on... That sounds familiar. Was that...?? 

Yes, it was! In the summer of 2021, during a family reunion, I wrote about a book that my siblings and I remember from our childhood, called In Henry's Backyard. I saw a copy of this ancient text at my brother and sister-in-law's house, and learned that the United Autoworkers -- the most progressive union of its time -- was involved in adapting the book into a movie. And both book and movie were based on Benedict's pamphlet! 

The post is here: a childhood book and a dream for humanity.

An amazing coincidence. Plus some evidence that my memory occasionally still functions.

One day I will write about parts of my worlds that are always colliding. It's called All Roads Lead to Allen Ginsberg.

this leftist yellowstone fan rejects the claim that's it a right-wing show

Season 5 of "Yellowstone" is streaming now. I love this show, and I'm waiting for the full season to post on Prime before I bingeing this latest installment.

I was surprised to learn that the current take on Yellowstone describes it as right-wing -- that people claim the show espouses right-wing beliefs and values. 

Taylor Sheridan, the show's creator, disagrees. So do I. 

And I wrote this, below, before I read Sheridan's response.

* * * *

I frankly don't understand how this show can be seen as representing so-called red-state values. It makes me wonder if the folks writing these pieces have actually seen the show. Could it be they've seen the cast and the setting, and read a few bullet points, and assumed they know the show? It wouldn't be the first time that cultural critics have made that mistake, and unfortunately right-wingers aren't the only ones guilty of it. 

Yellowstone, at bottom, is about land. Who owns the land, how did they come to own it? Is their claim to the land legitimate -- is it based on economic right, or settler's laws, or stewardship? How will the land be used -- for profit, for preservation, for community? 

Indigenous issues are front and centre, and the portrayal of Native issues is not only sympathetic, but nuanced, complex, and seemingly authentic. How can a show that highlights and sympathizes with Native American issues be said to be (politically) conservative? 

Women's perspectives are always present in Yellowstone, including those of Native women. The women of Yellowstone are fully realized people. They're not: window-dressing, or only reacting to men, or stereotyped, or stock characters. 

Yellowstone is also about trauma, and how trauma plays out in the lives of individuals, families, and entire communities. This is also a progressive take on the human condition.

And most importantly, Yellowstone is anti-capitalist. The root cause of every trauma is profit. The bad guys are the ones who care only about the bottom line, stock dividends, wringing profit out of every acre. Cowboys and ranchers have conflict with the Rez and with the tribal police, but (in this show) they are both coming from a place of honesty and love. The developers are coming from Wall Street.

Like all quality series, Yellowstone is complex and multi-layered: family saga, romances, coming-of-age, culture clashes, history, and politics are all rolled together. Every hero is also an anti-hero; no one (except perhaps the land developers) is purely good or evil. All these parts play out against a backdrop of gorgeous scenery, with the pace and violence of an action-adventure movie. Yellowstone is very violent, sometimes a little over-the-top, so if that's not your thing, don't even try it.

* * * * 

I wrote this post before reading this interview with Taylor Sheridan in The Atlantic, so I'm pleased to see the show's creator confirm my point of view. I'm also a big fan of the modern western genre, so it was great to read Sheridan credit The Unforgiven, the movie that began the new, progressive re-imagining of the western.

Sheridan insists that Yellowstone is not a “red-state show.” “They refer to it as ‘the conservative show’ or ‘the Republican show’ or ‘the red-state Game of Thrones,’ ” he told me. “And I just sit back laughing. I’m like, ‘Really?’ The show’s talking about the displacement of Native Americans and the way Native American women were treated and about corporate greed and the gentrification of the West, and land-grabbing. That’s a red-state show?”

Sheridan is right that the show’s politics are not easy to pin down. Yes, its red-state milieu—all those guns and horses and big, open vistas—along with its veneration of honest toil, cowboy masculinity, violence, and characters who have a general resistance to change may have drawn rural dads who fear, like John Dutton, the end of their own ways of life in a changing America.

But Yellowstone doesn’t have an explicit ideology that maps onto a traditional red–blue spectrum. It’s a mishmash of generally anti-capitalist, anti-modernist populism; pro-rancher libertarianism; conservative environmentalism (I know, today that sounds like an oxymoron, but it has sturdy Teddy Rooseveltian roots); and a sympathetic, pro–Native American revolt of the oppressed. The series isn’t a sop to conservative values, or at least it’s not only that. What Sheridan is up to is slyer, or maybe just more muddled.

Sheridan told me he aims to do “responsible storytelling,” to depict the moral consequences of certain behaviors and decisions. He says he was strongly influenced by Clint Eastwood’s 1992 film, Unforgiven, which “upended” the black-hat/white-hat conventions of the traditional Western. Eastwood “let the sheriff be a bully and the hero be this drunken, vicious killer.” He “shattered the myth of the American Western,” Sheridan said. “So when I stepped into that world, I wanted there to be real consequences. I wanted to never, ever shy away from, This was the price.”

The biggest price—and this theme runs through much of Sheridan’s work—is the one exacted by capitalism and the gentrifiers and financiers who snooker the good people who still work with their hands. Despite his professed admiration for Eastwood’s revisionist Western, Sheridan subscribes artistically to something that looks like the old cowboy way. If his work has a higher moral plane, it’s one governed by cowboy virtues: honor, bravery, physical labor, respect for tradition, and a willingness to die—and kill—in defense of your family and your land.

Noel Murray, writer of this Atlantic piece, seems to be setting up a dichotomy that doesn't exist. Sheridan's admiration for The Unforgiven is not in opposition to Yellowstone's values. The modern western is simply a more honest telling. It brings to the foreground stories that were entirely absent from Hollywood-style mythmaking of the Old West. Stories of women, enslaved people, immigrants. Stories told through a working-class and often anti-capitalist lens. And an often heartbreaking honesty about the systematic destruction of Indigenous land and culture. What Murray calls "cowboy virtues" are the same values and virtues found on the Rez -- setting up often unresolvable conflicts.

So excited to watch Season 5!

what i'm reading: gods of the upper air, outstanding nonfiction by charles king

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King is a compelling, fascinating, impeccably researched, and thoroughly readable work of narrative nonfiction. 

It is one of the very best nonfiction books I've read. I borrowed it from the library, but ended up buying it for my bookshelf, and my copy is bristling with sticky notes marking passages I found especially illuminating. 

Despite all this, I've been finding writing about Gods of the Upper Air extremely challenging. 

Rather than continuing to think myself in circles, I'm taking an easier route: sharing snips from some published reviews (with repetitive facts snipped out), plus a brief note about why I picked up the book in the first place.

Snips from reviews

This is from the publisher, but I find it an accurate assessment.

A dazzling group portrait of Franz Boas, the founder of cultural anthropology, and his circle of women scientists, who upended American notions of race, gender, and sexuality in the 1920s and 1930s--a sweeping chronicle of how our society began to question the basic ways we understand other cultures and ourselves.

At the end of the 19th century, everyone knew that people were defined by their race and sex and were fated by birth and biology to be more or less intelligent, able, nurturing, or warlike. But one rogue researcher looked at the data and decided everyone was wrong. Franz Boas was the very image of a mad scientist: a wild-haired immigrant with a thick German accent. By the 1920s he was also the foundational thinker and public face of a new school of thought at Columbia University called cultural anthropology. He proposed that cultures did not exist on a continuum from primitive to advanced. Instead, every society solves the same basic problems--from childrearing to how to live well--with its own set of rules, beliefs, and taboos.

Boas' students were some of the century's intellectual stars: Margaret Mead, the outspoken field researcher whose Coming of Age in Samoa is one of the most widely read works of social science of all time; Ruth Benedict, the great love of Mead's life, whose research shaped post-Second World War Japan; Ella Deloria, the Dakota Sioux activist who preserved the traditions of Native Americans of the Great Plains; and Zora Neale Hurston, whose studies under Boas fed directly into her now-classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Together, they mapped vanishing civilizations from the Arctic to the South Pacific and overturned the relationship between biology and behavior. Their work reshaped how we think of women and men, normalcy and deviance, and re-created our place in a world of many cultures and value systems.

Gods of the Upper Air is a page-turning narrative of radical ideas and adventurous lives, a history rich in scandal, romance, and rivalry, and a genesis story of the fluid conceptions of identity that define our present moment. 

New York Times:

How a Group of Heretical Thinkers Chipped Away at the Idea of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’

By Jennifer Szalai

During the 1930s, the New York-based anthropologist Franz Boas grew increasingly worried about events in his native Germany. He was in his 70s, and close to retiring from Columbia University, where he taught his students to reject the junk science underpinning the country’s restrictive immigration laws, colonial expansion and Jim Crow. Born into a Jewish burgher family, Boas was horrified to see how the Nazis took inspiration from Americans’ pathbreaking work in eugenics and state-sanctioned bigotry. He started to put the word “race” in scare quotes, calling it a “dangerous fiction.”

Boas is at the center of Charles King’s “Gods of the Upper Air,” a group portrait of the anthropologist and his circle, who collectively attempted to chip away at entrenched notions of “us” and “them.” “This book is about women and men who found themselves on the front lines of the greatest moral battle of our time,” King writes, “the struggle to prove that — despite differences of skin color, gender, ability or custom — humanity is one undivided thing.”

A century ago, the prospect of a common humanity seemed radical to an American public that had been schooled in the inherent superiority of Western civilization. Boas and his disciples argued for pluralism and tolerance at a time when cross-cultural empathy was deemed not just threatening but almost unfathomable.

. . . His ideas were particularly appealing to women who chafed at the patriarchal order. Men were constantly spouting specious and self-serving theories of what was natural; here was a man suggesting that those things might not be so natural after all.

. . . The then-dominant school of anthropology propped up a narrative tracing “the stages of human culture,” from “savagery” through to “barbarism” and finally to “civilization.” Mainstream scholars insisted that white supremacy was justified by head measurements and heel length.

. . . This looks to be the perfect moment for King’s resolutely humane book, even if the United States of the early 20th century isn’t quite the perfect mirror. Boas and his circle confronted a bigotry that was scientifically endorsed at the time, and they dismantled it by showing it wasn’t scientific at all; today’s nativists and racists generally don’t even pretend to a scientific respectability, resorting instead to a warped version of cultural relativism for fuel in their culture war. 

Kirkus:

In this deeply engaging group biography, King . . . recounts the lives and work of a handful of American scholars and intellectuals who studied other cultures in the 1920s and ’30s, fighting the “great moral evils: scientific racism, the subjugation of women, genocidal fascism, the treatment of gay people as willfully deranged.”  . . . .

King offers captivating, exquisitely detailed portraits of these remarkable individuals—the first cultural relativists—who helped demonstrate that humanity is “one undivided thing,” that race is “a social reality, not a biological one,” and that things had to be “proven” before they could shape law, government, and public policy.

. . . King’s smoothly readable story of the stubborn, impatient Boas and his acolytes emphasizes how their pioneering exploration of disparate cultures contradicts the notion that “our ways are the only commonsensical, moral ones.” Rich in ideas, the book also abounds in absorbing accounts of friendships, animosities, and rivalries among these early anthropologists.

This superb narrative of debunking scientists provides timely reading for our “great-again” era.

Why I originally picked up this book

On a visit to the U'mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay (something we do whenever we have out-of-town guests), we saw an exhibit about the work done by Boas, with his local ethnographer, George Hunt. Boas and Hunt studied the cultures of the coastal peoples on whose traditional territories I live and work.

George Hunt's descendants form a huge clan, with many famous artists and other notables among them, including the Cranmers, whose life works keep their culture alive in so many ways.

Boas and Hunt knew these Nations as the Kwatiul (pronounced kwa-gi-youth). Port Hardy is built on the traditional territory of the Kwakiutl. All the Nations who are originally from this area are referred to as  Kwakwaka'wakw (pronounced kwak-wok-yuh-wak), which means Kwak'wala-speaking people. 

When I saw George Hunt and the Kwakiutl mentioned in a review, I immediately put the book on hold. I'm so glad I did!

A note about a word

I have known for a very long time that racial theory is pseudoscience, that there is no biological basis of race, that it is a purely social construct. I make it a point to never use the word race when describing anyone, and to never refer to someone's race. I have done this for decades.

Instead I use the words color, or racialized, or ethnic background, or heritage, and so on, depending on what is appropriate. 

I hope more people will join me to move the needle that little bit.

Also I hope people will read this book.