Department of Book Reports: An Ocean Between Us

An Ocean Between Us, by Evelyn Iritani (Morrow, 1994)
We all know that saying about History repeating itself, and this book from 1994 shows several examples. Evelyn Iritani uses 4 stories to explain Washington states' fascination with all things Japan, and it has really had some resonance for me. She starts out with a story from 1834, when three sailors are ship wrecked off Neah Bay. I had never heard this story before! They were on a cargo ship, the Hojun-maru, limited to Japanese waters when a storm damaged their ship and carried them across the Pacific on the Kuroshio current. Taken as slaves by the Makah tribe, they were rescued by Dr. John McLoughlin, only to have his dreams of bartering them to open trade with Japan denied by the Tokugawa shogunate. They are given 30 coins and left to finally find lives outside Japan.

Next, looking at the early Yellow scares, leads us into the WWII internment of West Coast Japanese. It is here the Fear of the Other is closely echoed in today's treatment of the Mexicans in Arizona and elsewhere. Little was known of the actual attempted attacks by the Japan Army, their successful balloon campaign that killed a woman and 3 children in Blye,OR. Across the ocean, the Ohkuno Island Toxic Gas Factory employed school girls to build elaborate paper mache balloons that could drift across the Pacific with bombs as their payload. Following up with these students, Iritani tells us of the 50 year later reunions of these school girls and the families in Oregon.

In 1990, a Chinese tanker collides with a Japanese fishing boat, the Tenyo-maru and seventy thousand gallons of crude oil are spilled off the Olympic Peninsula. The local folks volunteer to rake up tar balls on the beach and send oiled birds to Seattle for re-hab. The fines in this case were leveled against the Chinese government, not the polluting fishing company company, leading the Makah to distrust the Japanese.

In the final story, we look at the take over of Port Angeles paper mill by the Daishowa company, and the conflicts that occur in a small town during the craze of Japanese Management circles and a time when it seemed their powerful economy was allowing them to buy any old American thing they wanted. The contrasting stories of union activist Dave Hoglund who tries to balance the new company's work styles and Yutaka Mochizuki, who tries to balance bringing his family to this strange new land. In this case, the new management was able to put money into long neglected facilities, that ultimately benefitted the workers and the town. Ironically, the mill was powered by cheap electricity from the salmon-decimating dam on the Elwha, now scheduled to be removed.

Throughout this book, I kept seeing much of the hysteria that is too prevalent now. I hope we will move past today's angst, and our better sides will prevail. In today's Washington state, kids adore Japan and all its trappings. I saw kids in Seattle studying Japanese and dutifully practicing their kanji . Our own son went to Tokyo with 2 other students for a field trip. I always found Chinatown & Japantown to be the most vibrant shopping districts, with the best Fruit & Veg stands, anywhere. Far from being a feared, reviled part of the populace, Japan has conquered the kids hearts and minds. And that is a good thing.

UPDATE: I was afraid I may have engaged in a bit of hyperbole in writing this book report. And then I saw this.

Here's something you all may be able to help us with. I'd like to rent this storefront, and have a tiny little bookstore. Thing is, I need some opening moneys. Rent is cheap, and I do think it can be recouped. But what's most exciting is a chance to have a bookstore in our local community. Much as I love the internets, there is nothing that replaces putting a book into someone's hands. I'd really like it if you bought a bunch of books, but if you're able to, and so inclined, a donation to our paypal will get you our undying loyalty.

I'm trying to figure out a bookstore membership format, that will get you a discount on orders. I'm fully aware that bookselling is a dinosaur in our current society and job force. I'm just crazy enough to love and want to continue doing it.

Please order your books from Jackson Street Books.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: A History of Western Philosophy

A History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell, 1945, Simon & Schuster, NY, New York
A book report by jcricket

A good many years ago, an essay entitled "Why I Am Not a Christian" immediately got my attention. That was my introduction to the expressed thoughts of Bertrand Russell.

The same mind has produced many great works, including our selection for today, A History of Western Philosophy. Russell, a twentieth century philosopher, logician and social critic, gives us one of the best one-volume tomes ever produced of our reverence for the human mind. It's one of the best perhaps, because Russell, of all people, understood that blathering on and on in multiple volumes about how much he knows would bore a thinking person to tears. Or, at least into closing the book in exasperation and then using it as a conspicuous prop to impress visitors.

Instead Russell, as he does in all his work, uses that famous British sense of understatement and his dry wit to give us human insight to the Western Philosophical Greats and the institutions whose foundations were built by them. That he knows when to shut up and move on makes this an unusually entertaining history of ancient, catholic, and modern philosophy.

At the time of publication the book was panned by many of his contemporaries as being biased towards philosophers with whom he had an affinity, as being vulgar, and of being not historical enough. Russell himself said "I did my best but am not sure at all if I succeeded. I was sometimes accused by reviewers of not writing a true history, but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write about. But to my mind, a man without bias cannot write interesting history - if indeed, such a man exists."

And in the capable hands of Bertrand Russell, an interesting history it is:

Of Plato and Aristotle,
"Aristotle's metaphysics, roughly speaking, may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do not mix easily."

and of Gregory VII,
"After he became Pope, he believed himself to be the mouthpiece of St. Peter. This gave him a degree of self confidence which, on a mundane calculation, was not justified."

While it definitely qualifies as a scholarly work, A History of Western Philosophy cannot be accused of being "dry" reading. As a matter of fact, Russell's style is THE centerpiece of any of his works. If you can't lay your hands on a copy of AHoWP, then really anything written by Bertrand Russell would bring the same smile to your lips at the turn of a phrase or the candid humanity with which he interprets of the lives of history's Larger-Than-Life characters.

And of course, it is always recommended that you peruse your favorite Indie bookstore for your literary passions (in this case, the works of Bertrand Russell).

Order books from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: In which the nice book lady cusses

We've been living without a car since Rocky blew up our Cavalier last Thanksgiving. We had bought bikes for fun when we first moved out here, and those became our main mode of transportation for the last 10 months. Sure, it was unpleasant a few times this past winter, biking to the post office to ship out book packages. We were soaked to the bone and had to pedal against 45 mph winds. But we got home, dried off and had some soup to warm up. In more pleasant weather, biking has been a joy, you can stop at anytime to chat with folks walking their dog or stop by the river and watch herons and otters fish for their lunch. We would have missed all that in a car, even at our town's 30mph speed limit. And, I found it even easier and more urgent to talk to folks about getting out of their cars. Overwhelmingly, I'm told "but we have to drive here where I live! You can't get by without a car here!" Well, I'm calling Bullshit today. You can. Not only that, you must. I'm sorry that you're forced into a job that is 40 miles from your house. I'm sorry the nearest grocery is 5 miles away. We may not be able change that right away, but we can change how you get there.

When we hear of Greenland's ice floes breaking up, Russia's unrelenting wildfires, Mountain top removal "enhances the landscape" and that not even completely melted polar caps would convince the deniers, don't even try to tell me the ludicrous lie that the god-damned oil is all gone. 2015 is recognized as the tipping point, and that's less than 4 1/2 years away. Are we going to wait until then to do anything?

Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth (Macmillan, $24.00 ) is a hero of mine.

I wrote the first book for a general audience on global warming back in 1989, and I’ve spent the subsequent 21 years working on the issue. I’m a mild-mannered guy, a Methodist Sunday School teacher. Not quick to anger. So what I want to say is: this is fucked up. The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy.

And if he says it's fucked up, it is. But I find hope in the end there: Get Mad, then Get Busy. He has formed a global coalition, 350 (350 being the parts per million CO2 with which we can survive on this planet)

...Those demonstrations were just a start (one we should have made long ago). We’re following up in October -- on 10-10-10 -- with a Global Work Party. All around the country and the world people will be putting up solar panels and digging community gardens and laying out bike paths. Not because we can stop climate change one bike path at a time, but because we need to make a sharp political point to our leaders: we’re getting to work, what about you?

Oct 10, 2010. Will you join up? Sign in and add your name? Write letters? If you need help with crafting a letter, may I introduce you to Warren Senders, who has vowed to write an environmental letter every day, and asks you to steal his stuff and then reword it personally so you can contact your congress critters and senators. Warren reviewed Eaarth far better than I could:
While McKibben is constitutionally optimistic, he gives us some pretty strong medicine:

...no use underestimating the depth of change we'll need to deal with, especially since there's no end point in sight. As we lose the climatic stability that's marked all of human civilization, it's not as if we're going to land on some other firm plateau. The changes to our lives will be ongoing and large and will require uncommon nimbleness, physically and psychologically. Our focus will have to shift. As a culture and an economy, we've had the margin to afford a lot of abstractions. Abstractions in the supermarket aisle: Lunchables, and Cheetos, and the four thousand other incarnations of high fructose corn syrup. Abstractions in our relations with the rest of the planet : "the free world." Abstraction will grow harder; increasingly, we're going to have to focus on essentials: on actual food and on energy that comes from the wind and sun in our neck of the woods, not from that abstraction called "The Middle East."

"eaarth," p. 147-148

I've been inspired by the on-going series eKos over on dailykos.com

Get the eKos widget embed code!

One stop shopping for information and links in one handy place.

Last week, my cousin Larry gave us a car. A nice little '97 Saturn that will be fairly thrifty. Hoooo-ray!! right? Not really. I find myself kinda guilty and torn about being a car owner again. We have decided we will not become daily car drivers ever again. We are staying on the bikes. But, we will be able to drive to Oly or Seattle to join in the political things we've had to skip this past year. We'll be able to attend local events and meetings that run until after dark. And just maybe, the weather will be bad enough that we'll drive to the post office. But I can gaurantee it won't be very often.

I'll leave you with someone who always gives me hope: Pete Seeger.


Eaarth is available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Books on the Nightstand

So what do I do when I'm between books? Why, I pick up a couple of hefty tomes that will take me a month or so to read.

First up, H.L. Humes' 755 page opus, The Underground City (Random House $15.00). Originally published in 1958, this book was one of two novels that Humes wrote, the other being Men Die (Random House $13.95), which was came out a year later. The plot involves a cast of characters in post WW-2 France. An American, John Stone, is a former secret agent who's life intersects with the American Ambassador, and a mysterious man, Dujardin who has been sentenced to death for treason, among others. Alan Cheuse, the NPR book reviewer, provides the introduction,at describing his own encounters with Humes and his work. Cheuse implies Humes' style was sort-or Proto-Pynchonesque, with story threads of intrigue and paranoia.

Humes himself was an interesting man. He was, along with Peter Matthiessen, a founder of the literary journal, Paris Review, to which they soon invited George Plimpton to edit. He was also an early advocate of LSD, which apparently a large dose completely altered his mind. He also invented a "cure" for heroin addiction, that used medical marijuana.

The other book is Robin D.G. Kelley's Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (Free Press $30.00). It is long, critical look at that great Jazz master. Fortunately, although scholarly sound with notes and index, Kelley is a good writer and from what little of I've read, the text is fluent and without jargon. I'm an unabashed Monk fan; when I DJ in Second Life, you can pretty much be assured of there being a tune or two. Here's a tune for you:

What book is on your nightstand now?

These books and many more are available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

It's a Car! It's a Boat! It's the Swimarai!

Coming back from the grocery tonight, we saw the most amazing vehicle out in the river. At first I thought someone drove off the bank, but closer inspection showed this was a seaworthy craft.
He even got a chuckle out of the local fisherman, while he waited to come ashore.

The wheels are outfitted with these paddles for propulsion, although there was a small elvinrude engine on the back end.
Pumping out the bilge after landing. Most of the water was back splash from the front tires, not leakage.
And here's Cap'n Lee, who built the Swimarai in 2007.

Department of Book Reports: Blood's a Rover

I haven't quite finished the one massive book I'm reading, Blood's A Rover, by James Ellroy (Knopf $28.95) This is prime Ellroy, violent, twisted and so dazzlingly written. It's difficult to say I'm enjoying it, but it's certainly gripping and compelling. This is the third and final volume in Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy which began with American Tabloid, then The Cold Six Thousand and the election of JFK, and now we are in the Cold-War years just up to Watergate. There's plenty of hate crimes, racism, conspiracy plots, mafia, drugs and Haitian voodoo. The novel follows the three main characters Wayne Tedrow Jr the ex-Vegas cop from Cold Six Thousand who has gone on a murderous spree (which includes the MLK assasination) after his wife was killed by a black thug and is trying to redeem himself.
Dwight Holly, FBI agent and son of a KKK member whose dirty laundry has obligated him do "Gay Edgar" Hoover's top jobs. Donald Crutchfield is a low life working for Howard Hughes' interests in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Woven throughout these three exploits are their love interests and a mysterious woman with a gray streak in her hair.

I don't recommend this one for the faint of heart, but if you're an Ellroy fan this is a great read. Not as fast paced as the previous, it still has his trademark style using journal excepts, redacted FBI files and secret notes.

This weekend the dailykos convention, now known as Netroots Nation 2010, is taking place in Las Vegas this weekend. We'll be streaming some of the Keynote speeches into Second Life at Virtually Speaking Studios. If you can't run SL on your computer, you can still catch some of the streams via the intertubes. Montana's governor Swcheitzer's speech last night was great, Van Jones today was funny and wise. Hope we see you there!

Blood's a Rover is available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Eight Million Ways to Die

Ok, so I am late to this party. I love mysteries, of course. Among my favorite authors ever are Hammett, Chandler and MacDonald. But I've never read Lawrence Block. I don't know why, and I'm very sorry I've waited this long. So the other day, I was working on listing our books when I idly picked up Eight Million Ways to Die (Avon $7.50), and thought to myself, well, SeattleDan, you've never read Block, why not try this one. So I did. And I am very impressed.

Eight Million Ways to Die is the fifth in Block's Matthew Scudder series. Originally published in 1982, the plot revolves around Scudder, an ex-NYPD and now a unlicensed PI who is struggling with alcoholism, who is approached by a call-girl, Kim, who wants to get out of the life and leave her pimp, Chance. Reluctantly, Scudder takes the assignment. He tracks down the elusive pimp and succeeds. In fact, Chance tells him Kim could have saved herself the money and asked him herself. But several days later, Kim is found savagely murdered. Scudder immediately suspects Chance, but as it happens, Chance comes to Scudder and hires him to find the real killer.

Block writes vividly, unsentimentally but with sympathy towards his characters. Even Scudder, who acts as our narrator, is shown as a deeply flawed man, yet with a hidden reservoir of compassion. His struggles with drink and temptation are stark and frightening. The other characters seem as real as well, and not mere templates. Perhaps his best character is New York City itself. We see it through Scudder's eyes as he crossed Manhattan in subways and cabs, while he visits the bars and the apartments of other hookers.

In one scene, Scudder is talking to the police officer working on Kim's case. The cop is drunk and venting about life in the City.

"There are eight million stories in the naked city," he intoned. "You remember that program? Used to be on television some years back."
"I remember."
"They had that line at the end of every show. 'There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.'"
"I remember it."
"Eight million stories," he said. "You know what you got in this city, this fucked-up toilet of a naked city? You know what you got? You got eight million ways to die."

The book was adapted into a movie in 1986 and it bears little resemblance to the novel. Which is a shame, really. It was directed by Hal Ashby (his last film) with a screenplay by Oliver Stone, and it seems both were fired during the production. It also featured Jeff Bridges as Scudder, Roseanne Arquette and Andy Garcia. But as Block noted, it seemed that the movie was made up as it went along. For whatever reason, the movie was moved to Los Angeles, which is huge city, but there aren't eight million people there and never registers as a character itself. In any event, if you want to take a gander at it, the movie is on Youtubes.

Eight Million Ways to Die and other Lawrence Block titles are available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.