Favorite Lyric:
Editor’s Note: I have strong feelings about immigration though I don’t speak much about it. That’s why I read this book; I want to know more before I speak with others. Luiselli is a young Mexican/South African immigrant to the USA. Her time as a volunteer translator in NYC’s immigration courts adds to her own experience and that of her husband, two children and niece who also went through the process. This brief and moving “essay in 40 questions” taught me a lot about what children, specifically from central America go through to get here and then stay. Did you know “La Beastia” is how most undocumented immigrants get here? It’s the freight trains that children climb on and ride through Mexico to reach our borders. Did you know they seek to be arrested rather than flee from Border Police? Right, me neither. The best part of “Tell Me How It Ends” is that it is fact-based yet moving without being a screeching rage against the machine. It’s instead a documentation of the reality of our broken system.
Editor’s note: That Samuel Clemens was a genius writer and humorist is without a doubt. That he was also cantankerous, narcistic and opinionated is proven more clearly than ever in this his own authorized and self-written biography. I now understand why he waited 100 years from his death (published in 2010) to release these notes (and I mean stream of conscious notes – rather blog-like, actually) since few are left unjudged, including himself. But the things he experienced and the times he lived in took me to a far-away place. And watching for it, as I knew to do, his hyperbolic humor often overtook me, as in my favorite excerpt below.
"The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
Editor’s Notes: I’ve signed up for www.gatesnotes.com which is Bill Gates reading blog. After reading a couple books recommended I’m reminded how much smarter he and Melinda must be than I am. Some are very tough reads, such as “Better Angels” which attempts a comprehensive history of violence in society. I’m grinding through it though because it answers a long time question I’ve had: Is our perception that violence is increasing a truth or a growth in our awareness and sensitivity to violence. Pinker argues rather forcefully that it is the latter. In fact, he presents facts that indicate that violence has decreased pretty consistently since our ancestors crawled out of the ocean. More importantly, after sharing his research, he share his study of the reasons why we are continually less violent, including organized states and justice systems, commerce, feminization, cosmopolitanism and the escalator of reason. After history lessons and the broad reasons why, he then dives into psychological factors (positive and negative) and influences and psychology. (Damn thing is over 1,000 pages.) But it was well worth forcing myself through it because while one act of violence is too many, it is good to know we are in a virtuous cycle.
The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed – it is a process of elimination.
