April Favorites : Podcasts, books, quotes, and shtuff!

April was a great month for morning fires with my Campfire Buddy!

I turned 39! Thanks to those who reached out. It always means a lot.

Here are a few favorites from the month!

Podcast:

The Power of Regret, with Dan Pink.

“Regrets,” Scott Erickson writes in “Say Yes: Discovering the Surprising Life Beyond the Death of a Dream, “are defined as a sense of loss, a disappointment in some kind of action or lack of action. The reason regrets are so poignant is that they point to our deepest longings - the path of desire that has been put in us to walk, the path we stopped walking because of fear, disappointment, unworthiness, or brokenheartedness.”

This podcast unpackages a great deal of how regret shapes our lives and impacts our decisions.

And after his World Regret Survey (19,000 responses over 109 countries), Daniel Pink found that there are four core things people all over the world regret, over and over again:

1. Foundation Regrets: If only I’d done the work - small decisions made early that accumulated into bigger consequences later, such as spending too much and saving too little.

2. Boldness Regrets: If only I’d taken the chance on asking that person out, started that new business, spoke up instead of staying silent, and travelled more.

3. Moral Regrets: If only I’d done the right thing.

4. Connection Regrets: If only I’d reached out to old friends and families who have drifted apart over the years, because of a disagreement or strife, and nothing was done to repair them.

Quote:

“Just as fire blows out candles, good deeds for the benefit of others destroy a selfish life.”

Book:

One of my favorites from the month, from April 23rd, reads, “Every great thing is done in a quiet, humble, simple way; to plow the land, to build houses, to breed cattle, even to think - you cannot do such things when there are thunder and lightning around you. Great and true things are always simple and humble.”

I love that.

Shows:

Just started Under the Banner of Heaven. I read the book years ago and was nervous about the show. As of episode 1, it seems to be a pretty fantastic, albeit difficult watch.

Audio Book:

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family
”The book examines the history of the Sackler family, including the founding of Purdue Pharma, their role in the marketing of pharmaceuticals, and the family's central role in the opioid epidemic” (via).

Terrifying, gripping, and deeply concerning. How can humans do such a thing? And how can big pharma and government agencies allow them to?

Story:

This one came to my from my friend Kevin Manno and his podcast, First Thing. In it he references Tuskegee Airman Victor W. Butler - the last surviving airman from the infamous Red Tails - and that he is turning 100 on May 21st! And all all he wants for his birthday are cards. He has also promised to read them all!

So my staff and I and the entire school of Chief Joseph Elementary will be sending him some. And I just love it.

Kevin even gave me a little shout-out on the following episode and my daughter’s face, as she heard him say my name, was pretty great - thanks Kevin! Keep doing great things, old friend.

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#doGREATthings

Give. Relate. Explore. Analyze. Try.

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-n- Stuff : Favorite Podcasts : Favorite Books

March Favorites : Podcasts, Movie, Quotes, and Shtuff!

March was a blur! But here are a few things that stick out as some of my favorites.

Movie: CODA

Gifted with a voice that her parents can’t hear, seventeen-year-old Ruby, is the sole hearing member of a deaf family—a CODA, Child of Deaf Adults. Her life revolves around acting as interpreter for her parents and working on the family’s struggling fishing boat every day before school with her father and older brother (Daniel Durant). But when Ruby joins her high school’s choir club, she discovers a gift for singing and finds herself drawn to her duet partner Miles. Encouraged by her enthusiastic, tough-love choirmaster to apply to a prestigious music school, Ruby finds herself torn between the obligations she feels to her family and the pursuit of her own dreams.

Book: Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich

Ehrenreich attempts to eke out a living while working as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart associate. Her insight and experience of living like many of Americans do is not only enlightening, its convicting. We should all be doing more to be mindful and supportive of those scrapping by at the poverty level.

Podcast: Don’t Worry, Be Tacky by Freakonomics. Partial inspiration for the Friday Thought : Its a dangerous world out there. Bring a club, this podcast encourages us to, “despite sneers from the Establishment . . . be more willing to embrace the déclassé.”

Song: It isn’t new, but damn. I can’t stop listening to Surefire by Wilderado. And neither can my kids.

Instagramer: Menwiththepot These videos are comforting, mouthwatering, and somehow inspiring. Their website is pretty rad, too.

Quote:



If you have any favorites - of anything - that you’d like to share, please pass it along! I’m a sucker for it all.

Also you would like weekly emails of Friday Thoughts, occasional posts of things that inspire, and other such things, PLEASE BE SURE TO SCROLL DOWN AND SUBSCRIBE - THANKS FOR READING!

#doGREATthings!

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-n- Stuff : Favorite Podcasts

Reading Log, 2020 : Best of

As always, my goal for the year was 30 books. I finished this year with 29 . . . rats!!!.

My Top Five Recommendations from the Year, in no particular order:

5.  Personal and Authentic, by Thomas C. Murray

4.  Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman

3.  My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok

2.  The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah

1.  Leading with a Limp, by Dan B. Allender

Honorable Mentions:

• Dare to Lead, by Brene Brown

• Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell

• Shifting the Monkey, by Todd Whitaker

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff : Books : Reading Log

The Impact of a Book : by Jorge Méndez Blake

In his work, literature becomes a tool that articulates situations, places and objects where each piece is full of theoretical meanings related to one another.

“Jorge Méndez Blake is a Mexican born artist that draws connections between literature and the visual arts through assemblage, drawing, and environmental interventions” (via).

He is also a man who would rather quote another than create something new, which I find truly intriguing.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Art

Stephen King's stories exist in the same universe

I've never been a huge Stephen King fan - I've only read a small handful of his novels, but I am a huge fan of his memoir, On Writing. It might even be in my top five of all time . . . including all genres. 

Non the less, I admire him immensely. His skill, his approach and dedication to the craft, and his imagination are, in many ways, unmatched. This short video only hints at the complexity of his mind, and the vast universe he has been able to create.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Stephen King  :  Maps of favorite fictional worlds

Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I once recommended the book, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy because it was such a powerful story and I wanted someone to help me process through it. I was told the book was too harsh, to graphic, and not a "good Christian book." I remember being so frustrated because I loved it and felt it an extremely important book. And I just couldn't figure out why.

In later years it became clear that the reason I love that book was because it showed an element of life, a side of life, I had never known, experienced, or seen portrayed. It was raw and authentic, it was real, and it captivated me. 

Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is much the same. This is my second novel by Adichie and, like her other work, Half of a Yellow Sun, I couldn't put it down. Not only are Adichie's character extremely relatable (even when they aren't), they are beautiful and flawed. They hope and dream, they're destructive, and they portray a reality that many white authors fail to capture. And I just simply love it.

One of the main components of the novel is hair. It's a powerful symbol in the book - just as it is for life as well - that embodies and highlights the differences of race. Throughout the novel, whenever the distinction of hair is raised, I thought of this documentary by Chris Rock.

When Chris Rocks daughter, Lola, came up to him crying and asked, Daddy, how come I don't have good hair? the bewildered comic committed himself to search the ends of the earth and the depths of black culture to find out who had put that question into his little girl's head!

I haven't recommended this book to anyone in my family, but I have shared and gifted it to many of my friends, telling them all that, "It is one of my favorite books of the year!" Because it is.

For more on . . .

Reading Log 2017  :  Reading Log 2018

Notable (and forgotten notable) Books of 2017

If you're like me - or like other people, if you don't want to be like me - there is never enough time as you'd like to read. But that doesn't stop you from scouring thrift stores and garage sales, drooling in used books stores, and buying more books than one could ever read in an entire lifetime. But you're okay with that because just buying books, rearranging them on your shelf, or knowing that if you ever did want to read them, you could. Because it's there, on the shelf, surrounded by other possible early morning companions. 

Here are a few more possibles to add to your list of must reads or sometime, someday reads:

"The NY Times whittled down their long list of 100 Notable Books to just The 10 Best Books of 2017, including The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — and Us by Richard Prum and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (which Roxane Gay declared her favorite book of 2017)" (via).

Lee’s stunning novel, her second, chronicles four generations of an ethnic Korean family, first in Japanese-occupied Korea in the early 20th century, then in Japan itself from the years before World War II to the late 1980s. Exploring central concerns of identity, homeland and belonging, the book announces its ambitions right from the opening sentence: “History has failed us, but no matter.” Lee suggests that behind the facades of wildly different people lie countless private desires, hopes and miseries, if we have the patience and compassion to look and listen (via).

Amazon’s editors picked their top 100 books of the year and then narrowed that list down to 20. Some titles include You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie, which I read and found not only extremely enjoyable, but deeply moving, Beartown by Fredrik Backman whom I've read before and thoroughly enjoyed, Sourdough, and Ariel Levy’s The Rules Do Not Apply, which, alongside Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Harari, might be my next Amazon book purchase - I've heard both of them recommended now by several people.

Lithub also included a list of some baffling omissions from the NY Times' 100 notable books list. Some notables include Richard Lloyd Parry's, Ghosts of the Tsunami, and Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War. 

And for those non-reader out there (you know who you are. And yes, I judge you), here is a list of the top 25 films of 2017.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Other Recommended Books  :  My 2017 Reading Log

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100 Great Works of Dystopian Fiction: Tales About A World Gone Wrong

We may or may not be living in a dystopian age, but we are certainly living in an age of dystopias.

Vulture has compiled a list of 100 Great Works of Dystopian Fiction. Within the list you’ll "find the classics — your Orwells, Huxleys, and Atwoods — but you’ll also find a rising crop of new entries into the dystopian canon, from younger authors with fresher concerns about what, precisely, could spell our doom. 

You’ll find literary fiction (like Lord of the Flies - one my all-time favorites), young-adult works, graphic novels, realist tomes, some books written long ago, and others published in just the last few years

Dystopian literature, as described by Jenny C. Mann, is “The creation of alternate societies through the negation of despised aspects of the real world, the use of social engineering to make people ‘good,’ the difficulty of distinguishing between the civilized and the barbarous, the use of frame stories that pretend as if the document you are reading ‘really happened,’ the confusion of reality/fiction and truth/lies, the purpose of technology in a perfect society, and the question of who counts as ‘human.’” These books are all part of the same wary family and, taken as a whole, they provide a look not just at the power of a literary mode, but what we fear we are capable of."

Apparently, we capable of some pretty terrifying shit.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Other Recommended Books  :  Stories that hold the Thread

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Not forgiveness, empathy

I've loved Sherman Alexie for several years now. His book, The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is one of my all-time favorites, and the favorite of most all of my students. Even kids who hate reading will bring it back after reading it all night and say, "If more books were like this, I'd read more."

And I agree.

Sherman Alexie is not only a brilliant writer - in the conventional sense - he is also a brilliant writer - in the emotional and humanity sense. Which, perhaps more than anything, makes him an exceptional writer that can connect with kids and adults of all ages, from all around the world.

This article, which first appeared in the June 2017 issue of BookPage, is a beautiful example. I don't know many people, if any, who do not struggle in some way with forgiveness. I know I do. And I think we can all agree that, in the midst of these difficult relationships, there is the "constant funeral" feeling Alexie describes.

We may not experience the same depth of pain and "crimes" that Sherman Alexie did, but we can for sure appreciate his response and attempt at reconciliation. Then, maybe, just maybe, we can find a similar sort of peace.

And hopefully, before it's too late.

Sherman Alexie doesn’t yet know if writing a fierce, wrenching memoir about his deeply troubled relationship with his beautiful and abusive mother, Lillian, has been cathartic.

“I performed the audiobook a couple of weeks ago over the course of five days, and it was hard. Hard,” Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian and award-winning author of 26 books of poetry and fiction, says during a call to his home in Seattle. He lives there with his wife, an administrator at Seattle University who was born on Turtle Mountain Reservation, and their two sons, ages 19 and 15. Usually he works out of an office he describes as “a studio apartment that looks like a bookstore exploded.” But today he is at home, anticipating the publication of You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.

“What I’m realizing now,” he says, “is that the writing of the book was just the first half of the ceremony. Now I’m entering into the second half of the ceremony, bringing it to the public, starting to talk about my mother, and hearing the stories of other people’s mothers.”

Lillian Alexie died at the age of 78 in 2015. For the previous 20 or so years, whenever possible, Sherman avoided visiting her at the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington, where he and his witty twin sisters grew up in poverty. He believes he inherited his bipolar disorder, diagnosed in 2010, from her. She was a complicated woman—generous to many, withholding or worse to Sherman, loved or despised by family members and neighbors. She was a brilliant quilt maker who wouldn’t sleep under her own quilts (“Quilting was her philosophy,” Alexie writes)—or teach her native language to her children. In a heartrending chapter Alexie decided to include only at the last moment, he writes that he has not worn a pair of moccasins in 40 years because of her behavior at a powwow in Arlee, Montana.

“That was an incredibly traumatic experience,” Alexie says with some anguish. “I find myself wondering, what do I do as an Indian when some of our most sacred moments—like a powwow—aggravate my PTSD?”

Lillian’s death unleashed a torrent of poems. “They came first without bidding and without structure. They just came. I would just write and write and write,” he says. He thought the resulting work would be a book of poetry. “Then I realized that I had more stories to tell, stories that needed to be told in nonfiction form. I thought the structure of the book was going to be framed by the first chapter of her being diagnosed and the last chapter of her dying. I just assumed it was going to be a much more traditional structure. But as I started writing the nonfiction, it started arriving in much more improvisational fashion. And I realized that the way my mother and I lived our lives, and the way our tribal culture works, and my mother’s cosmology and our own mental illnesses, shared and separate, that the very construction of the book—this back-and-forth in time, back-and-forth in emotion—was going to match the way it felt to be her son.”

Alexie’s approach to the structure of the book results in an emotionally powerful read. His skills as a poet may go unacknowledged by some, but they are evident here.

“One of the things that I’ve always enjoyed is that the forms that use repeated lines, repeated phrases, sound tribal. They very much sound like our traditional songs and ceremonies. And in grief ceremonies in all cultures, repetition is omnipresent.”

Alexie’s improvisational approach also allows him to write meaningfully about the context of his and his mother’s lives. Reaching back into the history of his tribe, for example, he writes about the impact of the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam, which cut off his people’s access to wild salmon, an essential element of the culture. “The loss of wild salmon for us, the environmental destruction for us, directly affected our souls. Often this doesn’t get addressed.” Alexie also writes that on the reservation, loneliness is a natural cause of death, endemic to reservation life. “I think we live in a constant funeral,” he says.

And yet, You Don’t Have to Say You Loved Me and the reservation life it portrays bubble with humor. In conversation and on the page, Alexie is often quite funny, disproving the stereotypcial view of Native Americans as being closed-mouthed stoics. “I think my whole life has been based on people being shocked by my personality, what they expected to see versus who I am,” Alexie says. “To this day, people often think that I am an anomaly—the way in which I’m loud and emotional and funny and profane and dirty and unabashed. But that’s the culture I grew up in. The stoic part about Indians? That’s our armor. I always tell white folks if you’re around Indians and they’re not making fun of you, then they don’t like you. In our culture, we are incredibly verbose and funny. And constant storytellers.”

Returning to the subject of his mother, Alexie says, “I don’t know that I forgive my mother for her crimes against me. But I think I’ve come to a place where I understand them. I can’t forget what she did to me as an individual. But in terms of the lives of Native American women of her generation, I can completely understand why it happened the way it did. So if not forgiveness, I certainly have empathy. And for me to be empathetic toward my mother might be the bigger thing.”

He adds, “As I say in the book, even though the book is negative, very negative about her in parts, she would have loved being the subject of this. Oh gosh, she would have sat right beside me and signed the book."  (via)

You can read this open letter about his mother which is . . . so. friggen. good. And hard. I love it.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Chris Paul forgives the men who killed his grandfather  :  Pablo Escobar's son is building peace

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Books Recommended by TED 2017 Speakers

ParrotRead has compiled a list of books recommended on Twitter by the speakers at the recently concluded TED 2017 conference in Vancouver. Some highlights:

Success Through Stillness: Meditation Made Simple by Def Jam cofounder Russell Simmons. “Simmons shares the most fundamental key to success — meditation — and guides readers to use stillness as a powerful tool to access their potential.” Recommended by Serena Williams, who also recommended Eat Yourself Sexy.

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel. Recommended by Atul Gawande.

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. Classic sci-fi about humans living underground with all their needs being met by machines. Recommended by Elon Musk, who kinda wants to do that for realsies?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Lacks’ cells were taken without her knowledge and used to develop medical breakthroughs worth billions of dollars. Now an HBO movie starring Oprah Winfrey. Recommended by Lisa Genova.

SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully by Jane McGonigal. “She explains how we can cultivate new powers of recovery and resilience in everyday life simply by adopting a more ‘gameful’ mind-set.” Recommended by Tim Ferriss (via).

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  TED Talks  :  Book Recommendations

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What is Literature for?

Kottke wrote this, and I like it better than what I was thinking:

"The School of Life on four uses of literature. I especially liked this bit:

We’re weirder than we’re allowed to admit. We often can’t say what’s really on our minds, but in books, we find descriptions of who we genuinely are and what events are actually like described with an honesty quite different from what ordinary conversation allows for. In the best books, it’s as if the writer knows us better than we know ourselves. They find the words to describe the fragile and weird special experiences of our inner lives: the light on a summer morning, the anxiety we felt at a gathering, the sensations of a first kiss, the envy when a friend told us of their new business, the longing we experienced on the train looking at the profile of another passenger we never dare to speak to. Writers open our hearts and minds and give us maps to our own selves, so that we can travel in them more reliably and with less of a feeling of paranoia and persecution. As the writer Emerson remarked, “In the works of great writers, we find our own neglected thoughts.”

I would argue these points also apply, in one degree or another, to not just literature but to any artful endeavor: film, TV, comics, theater, painting, etc" (via).

But I'll add this, "Literature is a tool that will help us live and die with a little bit more goodness, wisdom, and sanity."

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-N- Stuff  :  On Stories  :  Books

PLAYLIST FOR A CLASSIC NOVEL: TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

10 SONGS FOR VIRGINIA WOOLF'S CLASSIC (THE FIRST IN A SERIES)

By Emily Temple

“I think of all my books as music before I write them,” Virginia Woolf once said. It shows—her work isn’t necessarily what I’d call musical, but it is rhythmic, both formally and thematically, indicative of an internal melody. Woolf was an avid music fan, of course, and I won’t venture to guess what she was actually listening to—in her head in her room—when she was writing her masterpiece To the Lighthouse. But below, I have given my impressions of the novel in musical, or rather playlist, form—a sort of reverse-engineering of Woolf’s own process.

The thing I always say about To the Lighthouse to those who haven’t read it is that it’s the closest a novel has ever come to feeling like direct experience for me. That is, it feels like a reflection of consciousness as opposed to something external to it, which also seems to me to be a quality of (good) music. E.M. Forster called To the Lighthouse “a novel in sonata form”—as it is split up into three sections—movements, as it were—so shall this playlist be.

The Window

In the first section of To the Lighthouse, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay and their various friends have gathered at the Ramsays’ summer home, and embark on various amorous, artistic, and philosophical pursuits. Thematically, this is the happiest part of the novel, abuzz with the busy loudness of life, the push and pull, the will we go to the lighthouse tomorrow, the dinner, the boeuf-en-daube, the society of others—all of this conflicted but essentially joyous.

1. “Summertime Clothes,” Animal Collective
In the novel, Woolf moves in and out of her characters’ minds indiscriminately, sometimes changing perspectives in the middle of a sentence. Animal Collective’s fuzzy, messy music always puts me in mind of this er, collective manner of representation—and this song in particular is evocative of the frantic energy and frazzled joy of a summer vacation.

2. “Bloom,” Chymes
Speaking of Woolf’s fluid perspectives, the lyrics to the chorus of this moodier track are pretty apt:  “I’ve wrapped you around my mind/All your words, they flow into mine.” Tonally, it’s a good reflection of some of Mrs. Ramsay’s quieter moments—or perhaps Lily’s, looking at her.

3. “The Hissing of Summer Lawns,” Joni Mitchell
I’ve always found this song to be weird, but also perfectly evocative of summer evenings. I feel like Lily would totally jam out to this while working on her painting.

4. “It’s Only Life,” The Shins
All of the messy confusion of the first section culminates in a dinner party (enter the boeuf-en-daube). Things seem to fall into place, but even this only serves to remind Mrs. Ramsay of the transience of life. The easy melody and uplifting message—but ultimate melancholy—of this song seems to me to suit, rather.

Time Passes

Ten years, in fact. The house that once held so much life stands empty, and decays. So do some of the people we’ve met, including Mrs. Ramsay, who departs this life between parentheses. The narrator is now time, perhaps, or the house, perhaps, or something else:

So loveliness reigned and stillness, and together made the shape of loveliness itself, a form from which life had parted; solitary like a pool at evening, far distant, seen from a train window, vanishing so quickly that the pool, pale in the evening, is scarcely robbed of its solitude, though once seen. Loveliness and stillness clasped hands in the bedroom, and among the shrouded jugs and sheeted chairs even the prying of the wind, and the soft nose of the clammy sea airs, rubbing, snuffling, iterating, and reiterating their questions—“Will you fade? Will you perish?”—scarcely disturbed the peace, the indifference, the air of pure integrity, as if the question they asked scarcely needed that they should answer: we remain.

By the end of this short section, however, all this lament and dissolution is interrupted: the cottage comes to life again, as Mrs. McNab begins to prepare it, as best she can, for the return of Mr. Ramsay and his guests.

5. “The Moonlight Sonata,” Beethoven
No pop music for Time Passes, sorry. Only the best for this devastating section—and I can’t really think of a better soundtrack to a house on the beach going forgotten.

6. “Path 19 (yet frailest),” Max Richter
Another sad one, and almost minimalist. I actually discovered Max Richter through his album Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works (the works in question are Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and The Waves, which really doesn’t help me for this particular project, Max), so perhaps there’s some cross-pollination going on here. But I still think this song is an empty dream, perfect for this section.

The Lighthouse

Well, in The Lighthouse they go to the lighthouse—at long last. Not, of course, without almost everything of import having changed, though several of the living characters are back, filling roles and spaces that may fit them yet, or may do so oddly. The loss of Mrs. Ramsay is deeply felt by all. There’s a sense of a journey being completed in this section, but the joy to be found is only a pale reflection of the previous joy. Much has been lost, not only Mrs. Ramsay, and not all of it comprehensible to those that once held it.

7. “Unravel,” Björk
I hear Lily’s longing for Mrs. Ramsay in this song. I also have a sneaking suspicion that Virginia Woolf would have been best friends with Björk.

8. “8 (circle),” Bon Iver
The cacophony of melancholy at the end of this watery, midnight song clinches it.

9. “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” Sampha
The piano in Mrs. Ramsay’s house plays a significant metaphorical role in this novel—on Mr. Ramsay: “It was a splendid mind. For if thought is like the keyboard of a piano, divided into so many notes, or like the alphabet is ranged in twenty-six letters all in order, then his splendid mind had no sort of difficulty in running over those letters one by one, firmly and accurately, until it had reached, say, the letter Q.”—and the lyrics to this melancholy-yet-hopeful song make me think of James at the end—missing his mother, on a boat with his father and sister, finally going to the lighthouse, profoundly lonely but perhaps in a position to reconnect to what family he has left.

10. “Swim Good,” Frank Ocean
Okay, so the details aren’t exactly right, but there’s something about this song—and the (problematic) idea of the ocean as a place of redemption and renewal that reminds me of James, and even Mr. Ramsay.

You can listen to them all here.

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-N- Stuff  :  Music  :  Books

Dr. Seuss' Stories - N - Stuff

Theodor Seuss Geisel's works include several of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death (via). He's perhaps one of the most recognized authors of all time. Here are a few, possible, unknowns of Mr. Theodor Geisel:

 

1. The pen name “Dr. Seuss” began as a way to escape punishment in college.

In 1925, in the midst of the Prohibition Era, Seuss and his friends were caught drinking gin in his Dartmouth dormitory dorm, Nel said. As punishment, Seuss was stripped of his editorship at the college’s humor magazine, Jack-O-Lantern. However, he continued to publish work under a variety of pseudonyms, including “T. Seuss.” Several other varying monikers, such as “Dr. Theophrastus Seuss,” appeared over the years, which he eventually shortened to “Dr. Seuss” as his go-to professional pen name.

In 1961, with his book “Ten Apples Up on Top!,” Seuss began collaborating with illustrators for books he wrote. For these, he used the pseudonym “Theo. LeSieg,” which is “Geisel” spelled backward. He also published one book, 1975’s “Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!!”, under the pen name “Rosetta Stone.” And although there’s no known evidence to support the claim, Nel said that Seuss meant to save his real name for the Great American Novel that he would one day write.

Instead, Seuss debuted the Cat and the Grinch the same year in 1957, two of his most famous characters. The Cat and the Grinch were also facets of the man, Nel said. The rule-breaking, mischievous Cat spoke to the author’s sense of play, while the Grinch represented the cantankerous part of Seuss’ personality.

He had a vanity license plate that read, “GRINCH,” Nel said (via).

2. He joined the war effort.

Beginning in 1941, Seuss produced political cartoons for the left-wing newspaper PM in New York. In those pages, he criticized the U.S. policy of isolationism, urging the country to enter World War II. He also lambasted anti-Semitism and racism, although his depictions of Japanese people with exaggerated racial features proved problematic (via).

By 1942, Seuss was keen on joining the navy, but was instead asked to make war propaganda films with Oscar-winning director Frank Capra. Joined by P.D. Eastman of “Go, Dog. Go!” fame, Mel Blanc and Chuck Jones among others, Seuss co-created Private Snafu (“Situation Normal, All Fouled Up”), a cartoon dolt in a military uniform meant to teach new recruits how to be a good soldier.

The black-and-white cartoon series was also off-color — and a hit with soldiers.

“It’s so cold, it would freeze the nuts off a jeep,” one cartoon begins.

3. His all-time best-selling book was created on a bet.

Dr. Seuss’ editor Bennett Cerf bet him he couldn’t write a book using 50 or fewer words. The result is 1960’s “Green Eggs and Ham.” Although the Cat and the Grinch are among Seuss’ most iconic characters, the story of Sam-I-Am trying to convince an unknown character to eat green eggs and ham has sold more than eight million copies since publication, according to a 2011 Publishers Weekly list.

Can you craft a best-seller with these 50 words?

a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you

4. He battled Shakespeare

One of my favorite stories is Sneetches. Because it's timeless.

THE SNEETCHES

by Theodor Geisel (1961)

Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches Had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly Sneetches Had none upon thars.

Those stars weren't so big. They were really so small
You might think such a thing wouldn't matter at all.
But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches Would brag, "We're the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches." With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they'd snort “We'll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!"

And whenever they met some, when they were out walking, They'd hike right on past them without even talking.

When the Star-Belly children went out to play ball, Could a Plain-Belly get in the game...? Not at all. You could only play if your bellies had stars
And the Plain-Belly children had none upon thars.

When the Star-Belly Sneetches had frankfurter roasts Or picnics or parties or marshmallow toasts,
They never invited the Plain-Belly Sneetches.
They left them out cold, in the dark of the beaches. They kept them away. Never let them come near. And that's how they treated them year after year.

Then ONE day, it seems...while the Plain-Belly Sneetches Were moping and doping alone on the beaches,
Just sitting there wishing their bellies had stars...
A stranger zipped up in the strangest of cars!

"My friends," he announced in a voice clear and keen,
"My name is Sylvester McMonkey McBean.
And I've heard of your troubles. I've heard you're unhappy. But I can fix that. I'm the Fix-it-Up Chappie.

I've come here to help you. I have what you need. And my prices are low. And I work at great speed. And my work is one hundred per cent guaranteed!"

Then, quickly, Sylvester McMonkey McBean
Put together a very peculiar machine.
And he said, "You want stars like a Star-Belly Sneetch...? My friends, you can have them for three dollars each!”

“Just pay me your money and hop right aboard!"
So they clambered inside. Then the big machine roared
And it clonked. And it bonked. And it jerked. And it berked And it bopped them about. But the thing really worked! When the Plain-Belly Sneetches popped out, they had stars! They actually did. They had stars upon thars!

Then they yelled at the ones who had stars from the start, "We're exactly like you! You can't tell us apart.
We're all just the same, now, you snooty old smarties! And now we can go to your frankfurter parties."

"Good grief!" groaned the ones who had stars at the first. "We're still the best Sneetches and they are the worst. But, now, how in the world will we know," they all frowned, "If which kind is what, or the other way round?"

Then up came McBean with a very sly wink
And he said, "Things are not quite as bad as you think. So you don't know who's who. That’s perfectly true. But come with me, friends. Do you know what I'll do? I'll make you, again, the best Sneetches on beaches And all it will cost you is ten dollars eaches.”

Belly stars are no longer in style," said McBean.
"What you need is a trip through my Star-Off machine.
This wondrous contraption will take off your stars
So you won't look like Sneetches who have them on thars." And that handy machine
Working very precisely
Removed all the stars from their tummies quite nicely.

Then, with snoots in the air, they paraded about
And they opened their beaks and they let out a shout, "We know who is who! Now there isn't a doubt.
The best kind of Sneetches are Sneetches without!"

Then, of course, those with stars all got frightfully mad. To be wearing a star now was frightfully bad.
Then, of course, old Sylvester McMonkey McBean Invited them into his Star-Off Machine.

Then, of course from then on, as you probably guess, Things really got into a horrible mess.

All the rest of that day, on those wild screaming beaches, The Fix-it-Up Chappie kept fixing up Sneetches.
Off again! On again!

In again! Out again!
Through the machines they raced round and about again, Changing their stars every minute or two.
They kept paying money. They kept running through
Until neither the Plain nor the Star-Bellies knew
Whether this one was that one...or that one was this one Or which one was what one...or what one was who.

Then, when every last cent
Of their money was spent,
The Fix-it-Up Chappie packed up And he went.

And he laughed as he drove
In his car up the beach,
"They never will learn.
No. You can't teach a Sneetch!"

But McBean was quite wrong. I'm quite happy to say The Sneetches got really quite smart on that day, The day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches. That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars

And whether they had one, or not, upon thars. The end. 

The Butter Battle Books is another of my favorites, and equally timely. 

37 Nonfiction Books Every Artist Should Read

Creativity

• Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils and Rewards of Artmaking, David Bayles and Ted Orland
• Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert
• Steal Like An Artist, Austin Kleon
• What It Is, Lynda Barry
• In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs, Grace Bonney
• The Cheese Monkeys, Chip Kidd

Drawing

• Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures, Walt Stanchfield
• Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter, James Gurney
• Creative Illustration, Andrew Loomis
• Picture This: How Pictures Work, Molly Bang

Writing

• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott
• The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
• Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution, by Derrick Jensen

Typography

• Thinking with Type, Ellen Lupton
• Hand Job: A Catalog of Type, Michael Perry
• The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst

Picture Books

• Writing Picture Books, Ann Whitford Paul
• Caldecott and Co.: Notes on Books and Pictures, Maurice Sendak
• Writing with Pictures, Uri Shulevitz
• Words and Pictures, Quentin Blake
• Illustrating Children’s Books, Martin Salisbury

Comics

• Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
• Making Comics, Scott McCloud
• Comics and Sequential Art, Will Eisner
• Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, Will Eisner
• Drawing Words and Writing Pictures: Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden

Storytelling

• The New Kings of Nonfiction, Short stories collected and edited by Ira Glass
• Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion

Business

• The 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss (I don’t agree with everything he says, but there are some real gems here.)
• The Freelancer’s Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Have the Career of Your Dreams — On Your Terms, Sara Horowitz
• My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire, Michelle Goodman

Psychology

• When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Pema Chödrön
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain
• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, Stephen R. Covey

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” 

— W.B. Yeats

From Christine Nishiyama

7 Best Books That Will Radically Shift The Way You See The World

by Mindvalley Authors

I’m often asked what my favorite books are — which ones impacted me the most and which ones I would recommend. And sure, I do have a list of personal growth books at the top of my head that shaped my view of the world.

But beyond the personal growth field, there are a several of books in science, sociology, and philosophy that have had an equally profound impact on me.

And today, I just wanted to share my top seven books in these fields that will help you better understand our role on this giant space-rock we call earth.

The books won’t just blow your mind — they will expand your mind to whole new levels and make you see the world in a very different way from politics, to ecology, to sex and religion.

Enjoy this list. I loved and enjoyed every single one of these books.

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything

By Bill Bryson

Do you recall your boring science textbooks in school?

Not likely. This book will change that for you. Bryson has taken his background in travelogue writing and merged it with science. His genuine curiosity for science includes an investigation of known and unknown scientific pioneers. And the best part: You’ll finally understand complex scientific subjects — from gravitational constants to the calculation of the Earth’s mass.

And you wouldn’t believe how brilliant minds across the ages came up with inventive ways to push science forward.

Key Insight: We are capable of doing and achieving many things, especially when we apply our minds to solve problems that are seemingly impossible.

Favorite Excerpt and “Why on Earth did I not learn this in School?” moment:

“Some scientists now think that there could be as much as 100 trillion tons of bacteria living beneath our feet in what are known as subsurface lithoautotrophic microbial ecosystems — SLiME for short. Thomas Gold of Cornell has estimated that if you took all the bacteria out of the Earth’s interior and dumped it on the surface, it would cover the planet to a depth of five feet. If the estimates are correct, there could be more life under the Earth than on top of it.”

2. Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire

By Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa

How do you explain biology? Two words: Evolutionary Psychology.

This book presents disturbing, yet fascinating insights on how evolution ensures our survival. One example: Evolution has leveled the playing field for men and women when it comes to mating. As the title suggests if you’re a beautiful couple, you’ve been hard wired through evolution to have a greater chance of producing daughters than sons. As a result, as evolution marches on, women are evolving to be more and more beautiful. And men more and more ambitious. You’ll have to read the excerpt below from the book to understand why.

Key Insight: Some facts are debatable. But these hypotheses could help you understand your life choices so far.

Favorite Excerpt:

“So physical attractiveness, while a universally positive quality, contributes even more to women’s reproductive success than to men’s. The new hypothesis would therefore predict that physically attractive parents should have more daughters than sons. Once again, this is indeed the case. Young Americans who are rated “very attractive” have a 44 percent chance of having a son for their first child (and thus a 56 percent chance of having a daughter). In contrast, everyone else has a 52 percent chance of having a son (and thus a 48 percent chance of having a daughter) for their first child. 21 Being “very attractive” increases the odds of having a daughter by 36 percent!”

3. Sapiens

By Yuval Noah Harari

This book is eye-opening and one of the singular best books I have ever read on ANY subject.

There was a time when at least six different species of humans co-existed on earth. Every other species, except Homo Sapiens (our species of humans) became extinct. Learn how our Savannah-dwelling primate ancestors dominated the planet and paved the way to who we are today.

Key Insight: Regardless of color, ethnicity, and background, we have more commonalities than differences. But sadly, we’re also predictable apes governed by certain laws.

Favorite Excerpt: On the Religion of Consumerism.

“The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’ The capitalist–consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another respect.”

“Most previous ethical systems presented people with a pretty tough deal. They were promised paradise, but only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame craving and anger, and restrained their selfish interests. This was too tough for most. The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum.

In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and that the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do. How though do we know that we’ll really get paradise in return? We’ve seen it on television.”

4. The True Believer

By Eric Hoffer

Read this and you’ll understand how Brexit and Trumpism happened.

There are two historians to read to understand why Americans voted Trump. Plato and Eric Hoffer. Hoffer wrote this book in the early 1950s. He was a legend in his field and was even awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Hoffer’s writing style is daring and observant. He is straightforward even when discussing sensitive topics. His insights are scary but with Trump, they came true.

Key Insight: We often make fun of the common denominators of countries. While they don’t represent the whole, they do represent the future as the excerpt below reveals.

Favorite Excerpts:

“There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its least worthy members. Though manifestly unfair, this tendency has some justification. For the character and destiny of a group are often determined by its inferior elements.”

“The inert mass of a nation, for instance, is in its middle section. The decent, average people who do the nation’s work in cities and on the land are worked upon and shaped by minorities at both ends — the best and the worst.”

“The superior individual, whether in politics, literature, science, commerce or industry, plays a large role in shaping a nation, but so do individuals at the other extreme — the failures, misfits, outcasts, criminals, and all those who have lost their footing, or never had one, in the ranks of respectable humanity. The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.”

“The reason that the inferior elements of a nation can exert a marked influence on its course is that they are wholly without reverence toward the present.”

“They see their lives and the present as spoiled beyond remedy and they are ready to waste and wreck both: hence their recklessness and their will to chaos and anarchy. They also crave to dissolve their spoiled, meaningless selves in some soul-stirring spectacular communal undertaking — hence their proclivity for united action. Thus they are among the early recruits of revolutions, mass migrations and of religious, racial and chauvinist movements, and they imprint their mark upon these upheavals and movements which shape a nation’s character and history.”

5. Abundance

By Peter Diamandis & Steven Kotler

The world is improving at an accelerated rate — and it’s getting better and better.

Look past the depressing world headlines, and focus more on the successful trend lines. It’ll remind you of the positive human potential we have going forward. The media is mostly negative because our reptilian brains evolved to pay more attention to danger than happiness. So if you only read the newspapers, you’re likely to be more afraid and make dumb choices based on fear (especially in voting for politicians). But in reality, the world is getting safer and better at an exponential rate.

Key Insight: We need to teach our young ones, and our pessimistic selves, to not give up on the future.

Favorite Excerpts:

“The twentieth century, for example, witnessed both incredible advancement and unspeakable tragedy. The 1918 influenza epidemic killed fifty million people, World War II killed another sixty million. There were tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, floods, even plagues of locust. Despite such unrest, this period also saw infant mortality decrease by 90 percent, maternal mortality decreased by 99 percent, and, overall, human lifespan increase by more than 100 percent.”

“In the past two decades, the United States has experienced tremendous economic upheaval. Yet today, even the poorest Americans have access to a telephone, television, and a flush toiletthree luxuries that even the wealthiest couldn’t imagine at the turn of the last century. In fact, as will soon be clear, using almost any metric currently available, quality of life has improved more in the past century than ever before. So while there are likely to be plenty of rude, heartbreaking interruptions along the way, as this book will demonstrate, global living standards will continue to improve regardless of the horrors that dominate the headlines.”

6. The Book On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

By Alan Watts

More philosophical than science, you’ll want to read this if you want to add a good dose of funny into your life.

The subject is almost unwritable but Watts successfully presents alternative views to the common problem of connecting to a personal identity. The book questions the hoax of the temporary roles we play in our lives and why we struggle to attain self-fulfillment.

Key Insight: We need new experiences instead of a new religion.

Favorite Excerpt:

“Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness — an act of trust in the unknown.”

“An ardent Jehovah’s Witness once tried to convince me that if there were a God of love, he would certainly provide mankind with a reliable and infallible textbook for the guidance of conduct. I replied that no considerate God would destroy the human mind by making it so rigid and unadaptable as to depend upon one book, the Bible, for all the answers. For the use of words, and thus of a book, is to point beyond themselves to a world of life and experience that is not mere words or even ideas. Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.”

“Therefore The Book that I would like to slip to my children would itself be slippery. It would slip them into a new domain, not of ideas alone, but of experience and feeling. It would be a temporary medicine, not a diet; a point of departure, not a perpetual point of reference. They would read it and be done with it, for if it were well and clearly written they would not have to go back to it again and again for hidden meanings or for clarification of obscure doctrines.

We do not need a new religion or a new bible. We need a new experience — a new feeling of what it is to be ‘I.’”

7. Death By Black Hole

By Neil deGrasse Tyson

This book acts as a portal to everything that enlightens and terrifies us about the universe.

Try reading it in the great outdoors. You’ll be able to see that much clearly where your space is in the universe.

Key Insight: The journey of the mind teaches us how humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos.

Favorite Excerpts:

“We register the world’s stimuli in logarithmic rather than linear increments. For example, if you increase the energy of a sound’s volume by a factor of 10, your ears will judge this change to be rather small. Increase it by a factor of 2 and you will barely take notice.”

“The same holds for our capacity to measure light. If you have ever viewed a total solar eclipse you may have noticed that the Sun’s disk must be at least 90 percent covered by the Moon before anybody comments that the sky has darkened. The stellar magnitude scale of brightness, the well-known acoustic decibel scale and the seismic scale for earthquake severity are each logarithmic, in part because of our biological propensity to see, hear, and feel the world that way.”

Possible reading lists for 2017

Around the world in 80 books - Take a trip around the globe with these books from the eighty most populated countries in the world. 

A well rounded 2017 - A list of 12 books on three different tracks: Modern Classics, YA Novels for Adults too, and Genre Sampler Pack.

18 Books to fuel your wanderlust - both fiction and nonfiction, these books will inspire you to get off the couch and travel! But don't forget to bring a good book. 

37 books with mind-blowing plot twists - if you're into that sort of thing.

10 best selling (e)books from 2016 - if your feeling left out.

18 short classics you can read in one sitting - including publisher's descriptions, these books are 200 pages or less.

Or the book challenge, either a 26-book version or 56-book version (it's not too late to start).

One Book Which Changed My Life Forever

Sorry, I couldn’t come up with “50 GREAT READS TO SUPERCHARGE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY.”

Instead, here is the first book which changed my life forever. There have been others, of course, but you never forget the first time.

The book which had the most change on my life was The Bridge to Terabithia.

Picture this — I am a young, nerdy 5th grader walking into a class full of rowdy kids. (Yes, even at age 11, I thought they were rowdy). They stampeded through the hallways. I sat and read.

Our teacher tasked us with a wonderful book about woods and magical creatures. I soaked in the world. I traveled with the two main characters (no, I don’t remember their names, and I’m not going to google them to sound smarter).

This book pulled me in. I can’t remember an earlier experience which so engaged my heart, soul, and mind.

I didn’t just read the book, I was IN the book.

Pure nirvana.

AND THEN.

I read ahead of the chapters for the day. This was not a new thing. I remember flipping over the pages happily, wondering what mischief would happen next.

Here’s what happened next:

The girl died.

SHE DIED.

She crushed her head on a stupid rock, and she died. A needless, pointless, useless tragedy. Later, the boy character ate pancakes or something.

I couldn’t understand — how could she have died? Kids my age don’t die, even in books. They are invincible. If she died, would I die? Would everyone in my classroom die?

I finished the book in a daze. I walked across the room, trying to get to the bathroom.

The teacher grabbed my arm before I could make it out the door.

“Todd, are you okay?”

I wrenched my eyes shut and nodded my head, trying to prevent the inevitable. Then, I dropped my head to my chin and released the raw emotion which had been clawing its way out of my ribs and up my throat for the last hour. There, in front of all my friends and classmates, I squalled like a baby.

A book made me feel this way.

On that day, I learned words have the ability to change the way you think. I learned stories are more powerful, sometimes, than actual experiences. I learned reading ahead is not always the best idea.

Most importantly, I learned art can make you feel. It can make you think. It can create an emotion — not the fleeting emotion of a thought, but one deep enough and strong enough to change a life forever. One so powerful you tell strangers on the Internet about it 16 years later.

Words matter. Stories matter.

And they always will.

— TB

Repost from Todd Brison