BOOKS | 10 Books Carrie Brownstein Could't Live Without

The 10 Books Carrie Brownstein Couldn't Live Without

A curated listed, by Carrie Brownstein.

BOOKS | 10 Best Southern Gothic

Look: 10 Best Southern Gothic books. Or at least, a list of recommended Southern Gothic titles to read!

Looking forward to the Brownstein Memoir

Looking forward to Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl - Carrie Brownstein's memoir. Coming out Oct 2015.

Thoughts about Orange is the New Black Season 3

I binged watched season 3 of Orange is the New Black over the weekend. (This is going to be somewhat spoilery, so don't say I didn't warn you) It wasn't as fun as season 2, but there were a few surprises in character development that I look forward to. Not everyone is a fan of Piper Chapman, and neither was I - but I do like the twist towards the end. In many ways, her character development was always there - it's ironical to say she is fulfilling her potential. Prison has this way of stripping away all the lies we adorn ourselves with normal life. The real Piper Chapman is not an innocent. She's a stone cold bitch, and it's actually interesting.

But the most surprising character development for me this season would be Black Cindy's religious conversion. Black Cindy was fun as a character - carefree, irresponsible and unapologetically self-centred. Then the show took a left turn and she ends up with one of the most profound character evolution towards the end, when she had to explain to a rabbi why she wanted to be a Jew (and it's not just for the broccoli for meal times). This is where I continue to respect the writing team and the actresses on Orange is the New Black - they continue to shine light on how human beings are multi-faceted and oh, so complicated in our strengths, our cruelties and our capacity for something better. They gave depth to shallowness and it was beautiful.

I could just keep re-watching the scene where Black Cindy - now Tova, explained to the rabbi just why she wanted to convert to Judaism:

"Honestly … I think I found my people. I was raised in a church, where I was told to believe and pray. If I was bad, I go to Hell. If I was good, I go to Heaven. If I asked Jesus, he would forgive me - and that was that. And here y’all say there ain’t no Hell, ain’t sure about Heaven. And if you do something wrong you got to figure it out yourself. And as far as God is concerned, it’s your job to keep asking questions and to keep learning and to keep arguing. It’s like a verb. It’s like - you do God. And it’s a lot of work. But I think I’m in it. At least as far as I can see it. Maybe I’ll learn more. It’s a fuck whole thing. And I want to learn more. And I think I got to be in it - to do that. Does that make sense? Shit, did I just tell myself out of it?"

It was a genuinely beautiful speech. it says something about faith - although I would argue that real faith work regardless of religion, is about how you DO God. It's a verb. The writers got this part writer, and it gave this powerful understanding to this character, and this is why I can't quit this show. It's just really good writing.

SEA Games Swimming 2015: 'Gold' for the SG Singing Crowd

Our national anthem was playing as the winners of the 4 x200m Freestyle relay stood on the podium. Suddenly the speakers broken down - the hum of static, then silence. Then, from the silence, a growing chorus of our people singing the Majulah Singapura, our national anthem with gusto. Smiles broke across the faces of our gold medallists. At the end of the song, we cheered, and one of the swimmers, exclaimed, "Awesome!"

So it was. This is what it means to feels Singaporean. This is what sport is supposed to do - to unite us as one people, as Singaporeans. Money cannot buy this.

I've watched this clip many times over, and I have never felt more pride in my heart for my countrymen.

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Emily Dickinson | Go Above Your Nerve

If your Nerve, deny you—
Go above your Nerve—
He can lean against the Grave,
If he fear to swerve—

That's a steady posture—
Never any bend
Held of those Brass arms—
Best Giant made—

If your Soul seesaw—
Lift the Flesh door—
The Poltroon wants Oxygen—
Nothing more –

F329 (1862) 292
Emily Dickinson

Why Can't We Read Anymore?

I admit it - I have been having problems reading the last few years. I've been reading less - my attention span seems to shrink. I keep trying though, but there's always something to distract me.

Books, in ways that are different to visual art, to music, to radio, to love even, force us to walk through another’s thoughts, one word at a time, over hours and days. We share our minds for that time with the writer’s. There is a slowness, a forced reflection required by the medium that is unique. Books recreate someone else’s thoughts inside our own minds, and maybe it is this one-to-one mapping of someone else’s words, on their own, without external stimuli, that give books their power. Books force us to let someone else’s thoughts inhabit our minds completely.

Books are not just transferrers of knowledge and emotion, but a special kind of tool that flattens one self into another, that enable the trying-on of foreign ideas and emotions.

This suppressing of the self is a kind of meditation too — and while books have always been important to me on their own (pre-digital) merits, it started to occur to me that “learning how to read books again,” might also be a way to start weaning my mind away from this dopamine-soaked digital detritus, this meaningless wash of digital information, which would have a double benefit: I would be reading books again, and I would get my mind back.

- [full article]

Story of Lee Kuan Yew, from his Photographer

There has been many stories published about the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew. This one, is among my favourite. It's from his former photographer, George Gascon.

As they were preparing for the shoot, Mr Gascon caught a glimpse of Mrs Lee combing Mr Lee's hair.

It was a moment that Mr Gascon dearly wished to capture. So he took out his Leica, knowing the quiet shutter would not intrude into the tenderness.

Yet, even with her back to Mr Gascon, Mrs Lee heard the clicking of the camera.

She said: "George, I heard that."

History Books Reading

A couple of friends and I were looking at this list recently, 10 Book That Will Change How You See History. I always believe history is just narrative fighting for dominance. In many ways, history has a lot to do with literature. History should be interesting, and even fun, which was probably why this list catch our interest.

My friends and I are trying out something new. Each of us will pick up a book from the list, read the book and then pass it on to the next person. It's about book sharing, and also a group reading. We just started, and I chose to read The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio by Hubert Wolf first. It's about scandalous nuns, with some Papal politics thrown in. Why not, right?

WILD | How wild it as, to let it be

I finished re-reading Cheryl Strayed's Wild last night, and it was as beautiful as I remember. Towards the end of her hike, Strayed's narrative shifted, as an author in a distant present looking back at her hike through the PCT, how her life continued since then - her meeting the handsome man who would be her husband, her children, bringing her family to the place she sat and ate an ice cream cone, and all four of them having an ice cream there.

What was it that hiking the PCT has given her? It gave her something to move forward in her life, yet like all mysteries, it is an elusive and wondrous thing.

It was all unknown to me then, as I sat on that white bench on the day I finished my hike. Everything except the fact that I didn't have to know. That it was enough to trust that what I'd done was true. To understand its meaning without yet being able to say precisely what it was, like all those lines from The Dream of a Common Language that had run through my nights and days. To believe that I didn't need to reach with my bare hands anymore. To know that seeing the fish beneath the surface of the water was enough. That it was everything. It was my life--like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me.

How wild it as, to let it be.

How beautiful. How so very true.

The End of Cake

A certain realization dawned on him.

"Oh," he said.

YES, said Death.

"Not even time to finish my cake?"

NO. THERE IS NO MORE TIME, EVEN FOR CAKE. FOR YOU, THE CAKE IS OVER. YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF CAKE.”

― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

Sir Terry Pratchett is dead.

Author Terry Pratchett has passed away. [BBC obituary here] His books gave me great joy, his writings showed me how great insight and wisdom must be slathered with copious humour to make them go down easier - sort of like lubricant down an inconvenient orifice. There were so many characters in Discworld that I love, but of them all, I adored Granny Weatherwax and Tiffany Aching - two characters so wise to the world, and so they suffer the world even as they continue to work for everyone around them, knowing that they do not know better.

Pratchett was wiser than a lot of us, yet I believe he never stopped wanting us to be better. I will miss him.

He was so much cooler than your usual knight. His coat of arms had an ankh on it, and he threw in meteorite rocks to forge his own sword when he was knight. Another fun fact: His family motto on his coat of arms was Noli Timere Messorem (Don't fear the Reaper).

You have nothing to fear from the Reaper, Sir Terry.

[source]

PEMA CHODRON |You have to do it alone

“Taking refuge in the Buddha means that we are willing to spend our life reconnecting with the quality of being continually awake.

Every time we feel like taking refuge in a habitual means of escape, we take off more armor, undoing all the stuff that covers over our wisdom and our gentleness and our awake quality.

We’re not trying to be something we aren’t; rather, we’re reconnecting with who we are.

So when we say, “I take refuge in the Buddha,” that means I take refuge in the courage and the potential of fearlessness, of removing all the armor that covers this awakeness of mine.

I am awake; I will spend my life taking this armor off.

Nobody else can take it off because nobody else knows where all the little locks are, nobody else knows where it’s sewed up tight, where it’s going to take a lot of work to get that particular iron thread untied.

You have to do it alone.”

~ Pema Chodron

BOOKS | Neil Gaiman reviews Ishiguro's The Buried Giant

In case you missed it - Neil Gaiman reviews Kzauo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant. I'm reading it right now. It's a slow built up, but I will probably stick with it, to find out what's going on with the story.

Ishiguro is not afraid to tackle huge, personal themes, nor to use myths, history and the fantastic as the tools to do it. “The Buried Giant” is an exceptional novel, and I suspect my inability to fall in love with it, much as I wanted to, came from my conviction that there was an allegory waiting like an ogre in the mist, telling us that no matter how well we love, no matter how deeply, we will always be fallible and human, and that for every couple who are aging together, one or the other of them — of us — will always have to cross the water, and go on to the island ahead and alone.

SLEATER-KINNEY | This is the sound my heart would make if I could amplify it

I'm posting this Rolling Stones interview with Sleater-Kinney here. I was looking for a quote from Carrie Brownstein about the riot grrrl movement earlier:

Brownstein enrolled at Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Washington, the epicenter of the early-Nineties feminist-punk movement known as riot grrrl, where she started a band, Excuse 17, and saw shows by iconic Evergreen acts like Heavens to Betsy, who were fronted by Tucker, and Bikini Kill. The scene was revelatory: "I thought, 'This is the sound my heart would make if I could amplify it,' " Brownstein recalls. "Sometimes, with your family, you're like, 'How can you be so close to me and not see me?' And then, all of a sudden you see yourself portrayed in music, and it's like, 'On the other side of the telescope is someone that sees me.' "

I love it - 'This is the sound my heart would make if I could amplify it'.Sometimes, you come across music that echoes your heartbeat, and this is how it feels.

From "Wild"

Watched "Wild" the movie on Saturday. Towards the end, this passage, in Reese Witherspoon's voice, came up. Her voice, quiet, gentle, so precious:

“What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I'd done something I shouldn't have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I'd done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn't do anything differently than I had done? What if I'd actually wanted to fuck every one of those men? What if heroin taught me something? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?”

There's probably going to be quite a lot of "Wild" posts these days, in bite-size.

Some thoughts, and a Song from the "Wild" Movie Soundtrack

I'm re-reading this article from The Atlantic, about Annie Dillard and her writings - The Thoreau of the Suburb. I read the article while the afterthoughts of my recent readings was slushing around in my brain. Without quite being that conscious of it - although, perhaps being subconsciously aware of it - I have been picking up books related to the idea of women and retreat and journey. I recently read Rebecca Solnit's Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness, where she mentioned the bizarre controversy about Thoreau's laundry: did Thoreau's sister do his laundry? (She probably did. *gasp*) I'm re-reading Cheryl Strayed's Wild, and that has been interesting, including reading about the controversy that arose that some of Strayed's worse critics seem to object to her casualness with her sexuality in the book. (Why is it even an issue?)

Which amused me (and annoyed me a little) when I read that Annie Dillard had considered writing her book in a male's voice, because she had the idea that readers could not reconcile with the idea that a female would venture "into the wild".

“It’s impossible to imagine another situation where you can’t write a book ’cause you weren’t born with a penis,” wrote Dillard in her journal. “Except maybe Life With My Penis.”

Somehow, reading this, I thought, "She wields a pen". Sometimes I have no idea why I think the thoughts I do. But I do. The whole idea that one type of narrative is more gender-appropriate than another is sadly archaic, yet persistent. Even as Cheryl Strayed made her journey (and oh, how she suffered along the way) hiking along the Pacific Crest Trail, she's constantly behind reminded of how she was a woman, and how strange it was for a woman to do this. Perhaps this is why her book is so important, and it so speaks to me, for all the heartbreaking moments inside it. This is too, a woman's narrative.

Anyway, on an off-tangent note, I will end this post with First Aid Kit's cover of "Walk Unafraid" - taken from the "Wild" movie soundtrack. Catch it if you can. Reese Witherspoon is wonderful in the movie.

Sleater-Kinney Returns

The articles on Sleater-Kinney's return have been coming. This is one of the more recent ones, by Pitchfork. It's no secret that I am a fan. Sleater-Kinney is on my bucket list - "Bands to watch 'live' Before I Die". Yes, some people have Bucket Lists like that. Their music carried me through some bad times. The growls of their guitars, Carrie and Corin with their vocal intensity, the invigorating drumbeats - their music makes me feel more alive.

When they announced the band was on "indefinite hiatus" - it was heartbreaking. Then they came back, sneaking a new single onto the vinyl collection of their old records last year. I was so excited, promised myself I had to catch them when they tour.

Life right now is making it hard to travel, so I will wait. If it is meant to be, it will be.

Then they went and did something like this with their friends, and they remind me again why I totally adore them:

Let's not forget their appearance on David Letterman's. A heart melting moment.

QUOTE | From Tiny Beautiful Things

One of those quotes from Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things that stayed with me. There were many memorable quotes in that tiny little book that was full of heart and loss - and so much hope. This one though - lingered most powerfully. Well, perhaps because it was at the end, but most likely because of what it had to say about getting yourself screwed up in a bad, self-hating place - and yet that there is something within us still worthy, still beautiful, and deserving of grace. Grace in the shape of a purple balloon. Such a tiny beautiful thing.

Everyone should read that book.

“One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin, you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.”

― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Reading Goals for 2015:

#1: Finally Finish War and Peace

So it seems this month is sort of the 150 anniversary of the publication of War and Peace. Sort of.

According to Paris Review, the story was first serialized in 1805, and it was reworked later:

Well, sort of: the first installment of what was then titled 1805 was indeed published in the January 1865 issue of Russkiy Vestnik. It ran in serial form for the next two years. However, Tolstoy wasn’t happy with this version and reworked much of the book—which he called “not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle”—before publishing it as War and Peace in 1869.

Time to get to it. So, I declare, 2015 will be the year I finally finish reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

Records for 2014

Books Read for 2014

1. Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence • Daniel Goleman
2. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running • Haruki Murakami
3. The Hunger Games • Suzanne Collins
4. Catching Fire • Suzanne Collins
5. Mockingjay • Suzanne Collins
6. Nemesis • Jo Nesbø
   Translated from Norwegian by Don Bartlett
7. Cave in the Snow • Vicki Mackenzie
8. The Land Where Lemons Grow: The Story of Italy and its Citrus Fruit • Helena Attlee
9. Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar • Cheryl Strayed

Elizabeth Gilbert's Advice on Traveling Alone for Women

Wanderlust has been hitting me hard the last few years. Perhaps it's an awareness of time, and how little I have actually done with my life, how little of the world I have seen. It's an affliction that comes with having aging parents, I suppose. I look at my dad, who was such an independent spirit, strong and self-sufficient - and I see him these days a somewhat diminished man, angry at losing his vigour and power. He, too, is aware that he does not have much time left. I have no children. All I have is now. So, I desire to travel, to wander before the ultimate certainty (because death is more certain than taxes) takes me.

I was on Facebook earlier (okay, I am on Facebook everyday - shoot me). Someone posted a question to Elizabeth Gilbert, asking for travel advice. I liked her reply, although, the question is: can you really just travel with carry-on luggage only? Really? I feel like a pack-horse now.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR WOMEN TRAVELING ALONE? 

Dear Ones — 

This question popped up on the wall again this week, and I thought I should reprint this little essay I wrote about it on Facebook last year. And if you all have your own thoughts and advice on the matter, do yo you mind sharing? 

HERE GOES: 

I myself have always had great experiences traveling alone. While there are certainly dangers, I have found that the same factors that make you vulnerable as a woman also make you powerful. What I mean to say is, a woman on her own does not telegraph a threat to anyone—which means that strangers all over the world will welcome you and trust you. They will let you into their houses. They will let you play with their babies. They will tell you their stories. They will give you a place to sleep. They will offer you assistance, food, directions, affection. I feel that, as a female traveler, I have had much more intimate experiences with new people than any man could ever have. They know I'm not going to hurt them, and so they open up to me. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. 

That said, do be careful—or at least alert. There are places in the world I would not travel alone. There are places in my own state I would not travel alone, for that matter. If you don't see any local women walking around the streets at night, you probably shouldn't be walking there either. Other tips: 

DRESS MODESTLY. I keep this rule just about everywhere I go in the world that isn't Miami. In developing countries or more conservative countries, I am especially careful to wear long sleeves and loose clothing. It's more comfortable, for one thing. (Less sunburn!) It also tends to attract less male attention. But most of all, in places in the world where modesty still reigns, dressing carefully will win you the favor of local women—whose good graces you will always need. If you're walking around in what looks to a nice Indonesian woman like underwear (tank top and shorts) she will be too embarrassed to interact with you. Try not to make people of either gender feel either aroused or embarrassed. 

PACK LIGHTLY. I never travel with checked luggage...not anywhere, not for any amount of time. Carry-on only. Never bring more than you can comfortably carry. Being over-burdened makes you vulnerable in a thousand different ways. Stay light on your feet and you'll be safer and less conspicuous. Also, you don't really need it. Really, you don't! If you’re traveling from place to place and living among strangers, nobody will notice that you wore the same shirt today as yesterday. You will also be safer from people putting things in your luggage (drugs) or taking things out of your luggage (cameras) when you aren't looking. 

EYE-MASK, EAR PLUGS, PJ's, SLIPPERS. Bring good ones. Sleep is the most important thing. 

DON'T BE AFRAID TO LOOK STUPID. Try to speak some of the local language, even if it makes you sound like an idiot. People (except waiters in Paris) will usually be charmed, not appalled. Eat things you wouldn't normally eat. Ask questions. It's OK if you don't know what's going on — the whole point of being a visitor is not to know what's going on, and to be unafraid to learn. Good manners and friendliness trump sophistication any day. You can always apologize for mistakes later. 

DON'T ACT ENTITLED. I won't give any examples here. Just ask yourself constantly, "Am I acting entitled?" Then stop. Actually, this is kind of good advice for even when you aren't traveling. 

BE READY TO HAVE YOUR LIFE CHANGED. 

ONWARD!

Love, Liz

BOOKS | 100 Books to Read 2014

A new year is beginning, and it is time to get back to some tradition. I intend to read more in 2014. A long time ago, I started an annual list of 100 books that I would like to read in a year. While I have never actually completed all 100 books, I like how it directed my reading. I really do read more when I have an aspirational list.
So here is the 100 Books to Read List 2014 - it is still a work in progress - but past experience has taught me that the 100 titles will fill itself up in due course. As you start reading again, you will want to read more.
So here it is:

1. A History of the World in Twelve Maps • Jerry Brotton
2. Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence • Rick Hanson
3. Running and Being • Dr George Sheehan
4. Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom • Rick Hanson
5. The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living • Stephen Cope
6. The Sanity We Are Born With: A Buddhist Approach to Psychology • Chogyam Trungpa
7. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism • Chogyam Trungpa
8. Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery • Chogyam Trungpa
9. The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live--and How You Can Change Them • Richard J. Davidson & Sharon Begley
10. Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers • David Perlmutter & Kristin Loberg
11. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West • Dee Brown
12. Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites • Kate Christensen
13. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals • Michael Pollan
14. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto • Michael Pollan
15. Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation • Michael Pollan
16. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History • S. C. Gwynne
17. Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child • Bob Spitz
18. Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit & Be a Whole Lot Happier • Sharon Salzberg
19. Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste • Luke Barr
20. Running with the Buffaloes: A Season Inside with Mark Wetmore, Adam Goucher, and the University of Colorado Men's Cross Country Team • Chris Lear
21. The Round House: A Novel Paperback • Louise Erdrich
22. The Road of Lost Innocence • Somaly Mam
23. The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present • Eric Kandel
24. The Source of All Things: A Memoir • Tracy Ross
25. No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva •  Pema Chodron
26. Give and Take • Adam Grant
27. Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them • Joshua Greene
28. The Social Neuroscience of Education: Optimizing Attachment and Learning in the Classroom • Louis Cozolino
29. Quiet: The Power of Introverts • Susan Cain
30. The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot • Robert MacFarlane
31. A Tale for the Time Being • Ruth Ozeki
32. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants • Malcolm Gladwell
33. S. Rajaratnam on Singapore: From Ideas to Reality • edited by Kwa Chong Guan
34. When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice • Terry Tempest Williams
35. Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation • Sharon Salzberg
36. Hild • Nicola Griffith
38. Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
39. The Names of the Rose • Umberto Eco
40. Dune • Frank Herbert
41. The Stars My Destination • Alfred Bester
42. Jane Eyre • Charlotte Bronte
43. The Windup Girl • Paolo Bacigalupi
44. Regenesis • C.J. Cherryh
45. Among Others • Jo Walton
46. Ready Player One • Ernest Cline
47. The City & The City • China Miéville
55. Their Eyes Were Watching God • Zora Neale Hurston
56. A Fine Balance • Rohinton Mistry
57. The 1963 Operation Coldstore in Singapore • Edited by Poh Soo Kai, Tan Kok Fang & Hong Lysa
    [ 01/01/2014 ~
58. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith • Anne Lamott
    [ 15/10/2013 ~
59. How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind • Pema Chodron
    [ 27/01/2014 ~
60. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success • Carol Dweck
    [ 30/01/2014 ~
61. An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace • Tamar Adler
    [ 10/02/2014 ~
62. The Goldfinch • Donna Tartt
    [ 14/03/2014 ~
73. Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace • Anne Lamott
    [ 04/12/2014 ~
74. Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness• Rebecca Solnit
    [ 26/11/2014 ~
75. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption • Laura Hillenbrand
    [ 23/11/2014 ~ 
76. Station Eleven • Emily St. John Mandel
    [ 23/11/2014 ~
77. What Days Are For: A Memoir • Robert Dessaix
    [ 20/11/2014 ~
78. The Outsider • Albert Camus
    Translated from the French by Sandra Smith
    [ 01/10/2014 ~
79. The Trauma of Everyday Life • Mark Epstein
    [ 15/09/2014 ~
80. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage • Haruki Murakami
    Translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
    [ 12/08/2014 ~
82. The Devil's Star • Jo Nesbø
    Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett
    [ 28/07/2014 ~
91. Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence • Daniel Goleman
    [ 04/11/2013 ~ 01/01/2014 ]
92. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running • Haruki Murakami
    [ 02/01/2014 ~ 27/01/2014 ]
93. The Hunger Games • Suzanne Collins
    [ 31/01/2014 ~ 08/02/2014 ]
94. Catching Fire • Suzanne Collins
    [ 08/02/2014 ~ 09/02/2014 ]
95. Mockingjay • Suzanne Collins
    [ 09/02/2014 ~ 10/02/2014 ]
96. Nemesis • Jo Nesbø
    Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett
    [ 19/07/2014 ~ 28/07/2014 ]
97. Cave in the Snow • Vicki Mackenzie
    [ 18/10/2014 ~ 08/11/2014 ]
98. The Land Where Lemons Grow: The Story of Italy and its Citrus Fruit • Helena Attlee
    [ 13/09/2014 ~ 15/11/2014 ]
99. Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar • Cheryl Strayed
    [ 28/09/2014 ~ 2/11/2014 ]

Marathon Heroes: "These are the things that define you ..."

I was watching this press interview with Kara Goucher after the NYC Marathon, and it was heartbreaking for me. [ Source ]

Kara Goucher finished 14th at the NYC Marathon with a time of 2:37:03. It was her big return since the 2013 Boston Marathon, and fans like myself were all looking forward to her doing well. Things did not go as planned though. For the first time in her running career, she "hit a wall" - that painful, unspeakable moment when the brain and body shut down and you truly struggle to carry on. She admitted in this video this is the first time she "hit a wall" running. I watched her break down, emotions overwhelming her. I imagine the kind of doubts and anguish going through her head when so many people had their hopes on her making a triumphant return after injuries and changing coaches.

“I’m really sensitive so it hurts,” Goucher said, wiping away more tears. “I know I am in great shape and can do great things. It’s like, ‘Well that sucked.’ I’ve worked really hard and have a lot of people behind me and I’m like, ‘That’s what it was?’ But that’s what it was. It just wasn’t great. It was really sucky, actually.

“This is the most pain I have ever been in my entire life” she continued. “Both physically and emotionally. It’s taken so much for me to get back here and so many people have invested in me so I feel a responsibility for that and then physically I have never felt like that before where I literally couldn’t move. It was not a good experience."

It was a most human moment. She was an Olympian, an elite runner, but even heroes struggle. I think we often forget that. After finishing the race, Kara Goucher broke down and wept. Meb Keflezighi, approached her and comforted her. Meb finished 23rd last year, but came back strong this year to finish 4th in the NYC men's race, and he won the Boston Marathon earlier this year. This is a guy who fell and tasted the ashes, but found it inside him to pick him up. Kara said:

“I talked to Meb about it and he said, ‘These are the things that define you and the experiences that make you appreciate the good times and make you work even harder,’” Goucher said. “He came up to me and I started crying and he started crying. Then he said, ‘Look at where I was last year and look at where I am now. I believe and don’t let this sway you from what you know you’re capable of.’

Heroes struggle too. We forget that. What makes them heroes is precisely because they struggle, and continue to get back up and fight harder. What makes them heroes is because they understand the struggle, and they work to lift others up.

 Stay strong, Kara. We believe in you. Stay strong, Meb. Both of you are heroes.

[ Source: @Adam_Goucher ]

Murakami on sniffing books

“When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Curator - care of the souls or aqueducts?

Brief history of the word, "curator":

A very short history of the word 'curator' might run as follows. In Ancient Rome, curatores were senior civil servants in charge of various departments of public works, overseeing the Empire's aqueducts, bathhouses and sewers. Fast forward to the medieval period, and we encounter the curatus, a priest devoted to the care (or 'cura') of souls.

By the end of the 20th century, 'curator' came to describe a broad category of exhibition makers, from museum employees who spend years working on modest, scrupulously researched displays of Sumerian pottery, to freelancers who approach large scale Biennales of contemporary art as an opportunity to clear their auteurial throat.

Here in the third millennium, the word curator has undergone a further shift in usage. Appropriated by the marketing departments of businesses keen to imbue their products with an air of hard-won distinction and borrowed avant-garde cool, it is now used to describe anybody from the celebrity programmer of a pop festival to a fashion stylist who puts together a 'capsule collection' from a department store's fall/winter stock. A curator, here, is essentially a paid selector of stuff for sale, whether it be concert tickets or cuff links.

NaNoWriMo 2014

Signed up for NaNoWriMo. No one ever said it has to be deathless prose, right?

Hiatus No More! Sleater-Kinney's Coming Back!

They are coming back! Sleater-Kinney's coming back! Here's their new single, "Bury Our Friends". Their new album is scheduled to drop January next year! I'm stoked!

Nico and Patti Smith

I did not know that Patti Smith and Nico knew each other. Patti Smith did not speak much of her acquaintance with the tall blonde, hipster femme fatale.

Came across this excerpt from a book on Nico recently though, where she spoke about her impression of Patti Smith, and Smith's generosity to her. It's a small human piece, but so touching.

“I had met Patti in New York, when she was a young poet on the scene. She was a female Leonard Cohen, when she moved from writing to singing, and I liked her because she was thin but strong. John Cale produced her first album, which was about heroin (Horses, 1975). Then I met her in Paris, and got to know her better. I felt like she could be a sister, because anyway she was the double of Philippe Garrel, and I liked to be together with her...

“Patti was very kind to me. Early in 1978 my harmonium was stolen from me. I was without any money and now I couldn’t even earn a living playing without my organ. A friend of mine saw one with green bellows in an obscure shop, the only one in Paris. Patti bought it for me. I was so happy and ashamed. I said, “I’ll give you back the money when I get it”, but she insisted the organ was a present and I should forget about the money. I cried. I was ashamed she saw me without money.”

- Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon, Richard Witts

CAMUS | To Read

The absurdity of my life is not lost on me. I have began to wonder about my own sanity. Perhaps this is why I decided to start a reading list for myself yesterday. I have decided I will read the works of Albert Camus - works by him, works about him. I may not read everything, but as much as possible.

So here we go - for 1st October 2014, I read The Outsider, by Albert Camus. Translator: Sandra Smith.

Geoff Dyer, on Albert Camus

Geoff Dyer, on Albert Camus:

I was drawn to Albert Camus because he looked so cool in his trenchcoat, because the Cure wrote a song inspired by one of his books (The Outsider), because he and his pug-ugly friend Sartre were existentialists (which seemed related, somehow, to the trenchcoat).

Probably one of the most honest reason for reading Camus.

Thug Kitchen Cookbook Trailer (explicit)

This is probably one of the better book trailers I have seen in a while. I'm definitely going to get the Thug Kitchen Cookbook

Gaiman on Pratchett: "Terry Pratchett isn't jolly. He's Angry"

I promised myself to write more often, but truth is, these days I am just trying to find more time for sleep. So here's a piece from Neil Gaiman, on Terry Pratchett and the inner rage that drove his writings. They have been friends for a while now, even wrote a book together, which was hilarious. The worldknows about Pratchett's decline because of early on-set Alzheimer's. As a fan of his books, this saddens me, because it's a disease that will gradually strips one of their dignity before the end.

This essay by Gaiman shares something about Pratchett that I have always believed in - that there's something serious and earnest behind his books.

Terry looked at me. He said: “Do not underestimate this anger. This anger was the engine that powered Good Omens.” I thought of the driven way that Terry wrote, and of the way that he drove the rest of us with him, and I knew that he was right.

There is a fury to Terry Pratchett’s writing: it’s the fury that was the engine that powered Discworld

This rage that Gaiman describes, seems to me a symptom of a sense of injustice; things should be better, ought to be better. People should know better, ought to do better - but we often fail. I see it in the moments of sad acceptance in Granny Weatherwax and Tiffany Aching - characters who have enough wisdom and courage to see the truth about human nature, yet somehow found something precious within themselves to continue to care. I always believe that people gets truly angry because they care.

This is why I love Pratchett's writings: the moral outrage in his writings that's cleverly disguised as "low-brow" humour. The humanity and heart in them.

I also have a parent at home with early on-set Alzheimer's. I can't bring myself to wish that he gets better, because I know that's an empty hope at the moment. It will only get worse. We are losing one of our greatest mind. That is a tragedy.

My Own Magical Reading

It's a warm Sunday afternoon right now. I'm out at a local cafe with a book and a cup of teh cino (frothy milk tea). I picked up this title yesterday from the bookstore - Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading. It's a reading memoir, where Nina Sankovitch decided one day to stop running from the grief in her life, since her sister's death - and just read. Just stay still and read and let the books soothe her.

It felt like a good plan, something that I am dying for myself. The title itself reminded me of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking - and perhaps it was meant to allure to that, both books coping with loss and grief in their own way. 

We all come to books for our own reasons. Right now, I need my old friends for some comfort. Today I opened up a new Moleskine cahier (I have lots of them around the house). I wrote down the titles of the books that I still have in progress, wrote down the date I started on them, similar to this blog, and started my Reading Journal again. I can only write again when I start reading again. This much I know. For me to read again, my mind has to be at peace.

So, for now, some milk tea and a book. 

This is my own magical reading place.

Patti Smith - People Have the Power!

Patti Smith at Riot Fest, performing "People Have the Power". Around 6:30, she remind us, "We do have the power! Our governments, our corporations would like us to feel defeated, but we have it with our numbers if we use it. Don't forget it!" 

MURAKAMI | Feeling the Voice and the Music in Murakami

I'm reading Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. It has the Murakami signature "voice". I think about it, and his books are often a little depressing, quiet and understated - but I love the "voice". I once told a friend about how it feels reading a Murakami novel - it's like I'm sitting at a table, in a jazz bar. There's only him, and me, at the table. There's cigarette smoke in the air, and a couple of beer between us. Then he starts telling me a story, quietly, and I'm just there, listening. Just him and me.

I'm back on the groove and ease reading his most recent book. I like how he always ties in his other passions into his books, most of all music - which might be how he achieves the "voice" in his novels. If it doesn't "sound" right, it's not right. It's about the melody, the "feel" of the voice, rather than the plot that matters. In a way, he's writing a melody as a book.

I had this conversation with a friend a while back. She pays attention to the lyrics of the songs, while I tend to pay more attend to the melody and I often forget the lyrics. It's an odd thing, considering how I am a reader - yet I do not read the lyrics much. I tap into the rhythm, the melody, the sound and the mood of music. Just like how I tap into the "voice" in Murakami's novels and not the story as much, considering how I am a story person.

It is fascinating to think about how Murakami taps into music and channels them creatively into his writing. Perhaps he channels his writing into his running as well. I'm not the only one curious about it, as this Murakami Literary Playlist show.

For now, the playlist for Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is Liszt:

As they listened to one piano recording, Tsukuru realized that he'd heard the composition many times in the past. He didn't know the title, however, or the composer. It was a quiet, sorrowful piece that began with a slow, memorable theme that played out as single notes, then proceeded into a series of tranquil variations. Tsukuru looked up from the book he was reading and asked Haida what it was.
'"Franz Liszt's 'La mal du pays.' It's from his Years of Pilgrimage Suite 'Year One: Switzerland.'"
"'La mal du…'?"
"'La map du pays.' It's French. Usually it's translated as 'homesickness,' or 'melancholy.' If you put a finer point on it, it's more like 'a groundless sadness called forth in a person's heart by a pastoral landscape.' It's a hard expression to translate accurately." 

A song on pilgrimage. I get that.

My copy of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.
Might add more stickers to the cover as I progress with the story.

Simon Sinek: Why Leaders Eat Last

I was watching this TED talk by Simon Sinek on why leaders eat last. I like this definition of leadership - that you are given more, so that when it matters, you put yourself at risk for others. It made me reflect on myself, in my role at work, and also about the managers I have encountered through the years, and about those in positions of political power in my country.

The How many of those at the top fulfils the anthropological definition of leadership?

“The cost of leadership is self-interest. If you’re not willing to give up your perks when it matters, then you probably shouldn’t get promoted. You might be an authority, but you will not be a leader. Leadership comes at a cost. You don’t get to do less work when you get more senior, you have to do more work. And the more work you have to do is put yourself at risk to look after others. That is the anthropological definition of what a leader is. This the why we are so offended by these banker boys who pay themselves astronomical salaries. It has nothing to do with the number. It has to do with the fact that they have violated a deep-seated social contract.”

20 Odd Questions with Patti Smith

From Wall Street Journal

Patti Smith:

When I go on tour, I only pack a very small suitcase. The thing that takes me the longest to choose is the book I'm going to read. It is Dylan Thomas's 100th anniversary this year; I have Elizabeth Bishop's copy of "In Country Sleep," so I might bring that.

Alone, Lonely and Sadly

A colleague told me the story about her father-in-law and his family a while back. He was dying, and they took him home, so that the family could look after him. The sad truth is, the old man had left a legacy of irresponsible parenting. As my colleague told me - "He only knew how to make babies and go fishing. He doesn't know how to look after his kids." 

The old man had eight children - yet at the end of his days, it was his daughter-in-laws who bathed, him, fed him, took care of him. His own children were not available. This is the truth of a family with no bond. My colleague told me how her mother-in-law was angry as the man was dying - after all the years, she was still angry at the husband who wasn't around, and whom she thought ruined her life. 

When the man finally passed away, he was alone. His wife eventually went to check on him, and found that he was not breathing. So a man with a wife and eight children died alone, lonely and sadly.

ESSAY | Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers

Good article on the importance of liberal arts in our education. [ Full article ]

My answer is that we should strive to be a society of free people, not simply one of well-compensated managers and employees. Henry David Thoreau is as relevant as ever when he writes, “We seem to have forgotten that the expression ‘a liberal education’ originally meant among the Romans one worthy of free men; while the learning of trades and professions by which to get your livelihood merely, was considered worthy of slaves only.”

My Saturday Evening

It's been a while since I had time alone with a book. I am out at a Starbucks, people watching, drinking a hot cafe latte and reading. It's ironical that I am only able to find quiet solitude outside in public, surrounded by strangers and not at home with family. That's life, I guess.

I've just started on Katie Roiphe's In Praise of Messy Lives, and it's a hoot. "L'hypocrisie de la bourgeoisie" seems to be the overarching theme of her collection of essays. I'm on the first two essays, where she talked about the fact that she had to raise two children (from different fathers) as a single mother, and the reactions from those around her. She described the parallels between The Age of Innocence and when she was going through her divorce, and later The Scarlet Letter against when she was raising a child without the child's father. Her situation brought out some annoying (to me) reactions that reminds me how it's often not about you, but rather, it's about them - and people are most intolerant of the situations that they are unable to bear in their own lives. It helps that she is interestingly unrepentant about it all.

I did find her observation of the perception of single mothers interesting:

Part of what seems threatening or unsettling about the single mother's household is precisely that sense that the mother may be glimpsed as more of a person, that these children are witnessing a struggle they should not be seeing, that their mother is very early on a regular, complicated person, rather than simply an adult who is part of the opaque, semi-separate adult culture of the house.

I'm reminded of Desperate Housewives, especially the character Bree (the red head) with her perfectly constructed family life that underpinned a psychotic intensity that absolutely made it absolutely believable that she was capable of murder. What is it with the need for perfection?

Life is more interesting when we stop trying to be perfect and allow the messiness.

So here's to a messy life.

MURAKAMI | Run To Live Life to the Fullest

“People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they'll go to any length to live longer. But don't think that's the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life — and for me, for writing as whole. I believe many runners would agree”

― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

(Photo: Haruki Murakami, after finishing his first marathon from Athens to Marathon in the blistering summer heat - July 18th, 1983. [Source])

Donna Tartt wins Pulitzer Prize

So Donna Tartt won the Pulitzer this year for The Goldfinch - which I brought to Amsterdam as travel reading (Bad idea to bring thick books on a trip. When will I ever learn?) Some parts of it interested me - but the narrative fell flat midway. I will probably finish it eventually. I still can't quite decide if this book is overrated. I had better hopes for it, but it's not engaging me the way I had hoped.

That said, I am very taken with this picture of Donna Tartt, taken by Anne Leibovitz for Vanity Fair.

MUSIC | Nirvana, featuring Lorde covering "All Apologies"

Nirvana gets inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and they decided a all-female line-up is the way to go. So here's a fan's wet dream of Nirvana hits, with Lorde, Kim Gordon, Joan Jett and St Vincent all on stage. Lorde does the vocals on "All Apologies". I'm old enough to remember when Kurt Cobain sang it.

I heart this.

ELIZABETH GILBERT | "Take me with you in spirit ... Tell us what you find. I will follow you later"

I saw this Facebook entry by Elizabeth Gilbert today. Travels is on the top of my mind lately, since I came back from Amsterdam and Paris just a few weeks ago. The question of why we travel is, and how it changes us. I thought she but it rather well. But most of all, this lines, that a neighbour said to her before she embarked on the journey that would lead to Eat, Pray, Love:

"Take me with you in spirit. Take all of us with you, who dream of someday doing this but who right now staying home and taking care of the contracts we have signed with our lives. Tell us what you find. I will follow you later."

Travel well, and when you return, share.

WHY WE MUST SOMETIMES GO...

Right now I'm reading for the first time the great memoir TRACKS by Robyn Davidson — a classic of both women's and Australian literature. For those of you who aren't familiar with this book, it's wonderful — the chronicle of a woman who, back in the 1970s, rode 1,700 miles all alone across the Australian Outback with three camels.

Why did she do it? What I love about this story is that she does not ever really provide a why. She did it because she needed to do it.

A lot of people told her she was crazy to set out on such a dangerous journey, and that she would probably die during it. But, Davidson recounts, she had one conversation before she left with an older female friend who told her: "I really like what you're doing...Getting off your butt and actually doing something is important for all of us...It's important that we leave each other and the comfort of it, and circle away, even though it's hard sometimes, so that we can come back and swap information about what we've learned, even if what we do changes us, and we risk not recognizing each other when we return."

THAT IS WHY WE MUST SOMETIMES GO AWAY.

Not only for our own benefit, but for the benefit of each other. To model another way of being. To represent, out there in the wild world. To bring back the treasure of sharing what we have learned. I remember the week before I went traveling for EAT PRAY LOVE, a neighbor (a mother of two young children) gave me a long hug and said into my ear, "Take me with you in spirit. Take all of us with you, who dream of someday doing this but who right now staying home and taking care of the contracts we have signed with our lives. Tell us what you find. I will follow you later."

And she did — about ten years later. At which point, I gave her that same hug and said the same words into her ear. As I have said those exact same words to countless other people, as they are about to embark on their own journey. Go away now, but take us with you in spirit; tell us what you learned when you return.

If it's time for you to go, go NOW. But take notes. Think of your journey toward self-discovery and adventure as a community service.

You'll make us all better for it,

HEART,

LG

MATTHIESSEN | Life Will Never Be Simple

"I dream of simplicity, but I'm as far from it as ever. That is my practice, how to be in the world and remain simple. One day perhaps I'll accept the fact that I am never going to find the simple life. Maybe the first step toward simplicity will be to accept that my life will never be simple even if I go live in a cave and subsist on green nettles like Milarepa."
— Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen RIP

Peter Matthiessen passed away. Time to re-read The Snow Leopard. [Source]

"How do we live a creative life without cutting your ears off?"

How do we "live a creative life without cutting your ears off?" That's the question Elizabeth Gilbert talks about on the Radiolab: Me, Myself and Muse.

Talk to your muse. Make it follow you.

Elizabeth Gilbert & Janneke Siebelink at the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam

It's not a secret that I enjoy Elizabeth Gilbert's writings. I believe she has a curious passion about the subjects she writes about, which comes through in her writing. Her books always led me to want to learn more, to see more. For me, that is what good writing is about - it makes you open to new experiences, more open in your hearts and minds.

I read "The Signature of All Things" last year. I saw just one copy of the book in a bookstore in New York and I grabbed it. I didn't want a bag for the book, and the guy at the bookstore just remarked, "You're going to get into it straightaway?" He was right.

I was also paying attention to the publicity on the book at that time, and I knew it wasn't supposed to be available yet (which made me wonder how the bookstore acquired their ONE copy.) The book probably taught me more about botany than I ever needed to learn, but most of all, the "Dutch-ness" of many of the characters made me curious about Amsterdam, and I wanted to see the Hortus Botanicus, where the protagonist of the book eventually ended up.

So here I am, planning for a trip to Amsterdam in a few weeks time. Anyway, here's the video of Elizabeth Gilbert at the Hortus Botanicus. Thank you, Alma, and Elizabeth Gilbert. I will definitely make a trip down there when I am in Amsterdam.

BOOKS | The Hunger Games

I just finished the final book in The Hunger Games series. One of my friends commented a few days that she was surprised it took so long for me to hit these books, since these are the type of books one would expect me to read. Fair enough - just that I had been on something of a reading dry spell, and I haven't actually been reading much fiction the last few years. I had been reading for work, for knowledge - but I haven't actually been reading for fun. Perhaps the fact that I was so taken with the Hunger Games books is a good sign that I am at this place in my life when I finally am able to read for fun.

The books were definitely richer and darker than the movie - which always reminds me of how the cinema can be such a vulgar entertainment. The Hunger Games is a narrative on the idea of Panem et Circenses (Latin for "Bread and Circus") where politicians rule by material appeasement and entertainment. Cinema itself might qualify as our modern mode of Circenses. Then people are rich enough, and entertained enough, they forget things like civic duties, and ignore injustice within the political and social system, it seems.

Which feels so close to modern life - and I am as guilty of this as anyone.

I love the social consciousness in The Hunger Games books, and while I disliked the tedious journey the third book took to get to the conclusion - it was a fitting ending.

I just hate the love triangle in the book between Katniss, Gale and Peeta. Quit it - the story of Katniss is more interesting than the love triangle. Not every story with a female lead needs romance.

Stephen King and Carrie

I'm not really a big fan of Stephen King. I think some of his books are longer than necessary and he needs better editors. I do like some of his short stories though, and I believe the truth of why his writing is so compelling is because of his understanding of human psychology.

I was reading this essay on Mental Floss earlier about the story behind King's first bestseller, Carrie. Stephen King started his writing career sending his stories to men's magazines for tiny paychecks (if he's lucky). Someone accused him of not being able to write a female character convincingly. He decided to pick up the challenge, and the idea for Carrie emerged from his brain.

King modeled Carrie White after two of the loneliest girls he remembered from high school. One was a timid epileptic with a voice that always gurgled with phlegm. Her fundamentalist mother kept a life-size crucifix in the living room, and it was clear to King that the thought of it followed her down the halls. The second girl was a loner. She wore the same outfit every day, which drew cruel taunts. By the time King wrote Carrie, both of those girls were dead. The first died alone after a seizure. The second suffered from postpartum depression and, one day, aimed a rifle at her stomach and pulled the trigger. “Very rarely in my career have I explored more distasteful territory,” King wrote, reflecting on how both of them were treated.

It made me think about Stephen King's writings - the ones I have actually read: The Shawshank Redemption, Different Seasons and The Green Mile - his "non-horror" works. King as a writer, is an astute observer of human nature. But more than that, there is deep compassion in his stories.

Date a Girl Who Runs

"Date a girl who runs because she knows how to quietly, patiently work every week on a goal she set that’s half a year or a year away. She’ll be working on her time, her distance, but what she’s really working on, is herself."

~ From Elephant Journal: Date a Girl Who Runs

I am still not sure if I am a runner yet. Lately I seem to have hit a stump on running. The insomnia and old injuries did nor help. I'm not sure why it feels so difficult to wake up in the morning to get things done. Just feels tired. Real runners are not supposed to feel this way, right? Real runners just go out and get it done no matter what, right?

Pain

"Compared to them I'm pretty used to losing. There are plenty of things in this world that are way beyond me, plenty of opponents I can never beat. Not to brag, but these girls probably don't know as much as I do about pain. And, quite naturally, there might not be a need for them to know it."

- Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Starting 2014

It's now the fifth day of 2014 and I confess - things have not been going well.

Well, let's start with the insomnia that has been plaguing me. Okay, I am a chronic insomniac, so that's not a surprise. It is however, making some of my life-changing intentions a little difficult to implement. I want to run more in the morning, I want to write more, meditate regularly, and do more yoga. All of which is difficult when I get less than 2 hours of sleep every day. Yes, you read that right. Two bloody hours.

But one thing I can do right now is to blog.

I spent some time deciding the books to start 2014 with. I decided on The 1963 Operation Coldstore in Singapore - a title on a little discussed episode in my country's history. Maybe I am getting older. I yearn for the country I grew up in, except I look all around me these days, and I find myself in an alien, unfamiliar place. I feel like a child who grew up, and realized one day that her parents are not who she thought they were. I am questioning the things that were taught to me in school.

I also picked Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I have been doing a bit of running the past year. I finished a few 5Ks, 10Ks, and 2 Half-Marathons. But come 2014, I feel like I lost my mojo. Reading about Murakami's running and his life seems like a good way to think about my own journey.

Since we are on Haruki Murakami, is anyone else looking forward to the English translation of his new book in 2014? Finally, we will see Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

What other titles am I looking forward to in 2014?

Well, I heard Sarah Waters has a new book out. The Paying Guests, which seems to be a follow-up to The Little Stranger. I have to find my copy of The Little Stranger among my bookshelves. I seem to have lost that title when we moved to our current place a few years ago.

Geoff Dyer, it seems, also has a new book out - Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush. I totally expect the book to be meandering and off-tangent, and absolutely fun. Somehow he got himself on an American supercarrier for this book.

Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek will also be coming out. I came across Sinek's TED Talk a while back, where he talked about how leaders attract the people that share their passions. What does it take for a leader to transform distrust and cynicism to safety and trust? I guess I want to know what he has learned, and how I can apply that in my own life.

For a little light-hearted reading, I may pick up Karen Armstrong's Fields of Blood: A History of Religion and Violence.

Right. Lots of light reading for 2014.

Welcome 2014

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. 

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something. 

 So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.” 

 ~ Neil Gaiman

Books Read 2013

1. Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison • Piper Kerman
2. The Signature of All Things • Elizabeth Gilbert
3. Teach Us To Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing • Tim Parks
4. The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling • Stephen Cope
5. The Faraway Nearby • Rebecca Solnit
6. The God of the Hive • Laurie R. King
7. The Language of Bees: A Mary Russell Novel • Laurie R. King
8. Running with the Mind of Meditation: Lessons for Training Body and Mind • Sakyong Mipham
9. Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life • Brendan Brazier
10. True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart • Tara Brach, PhD
11. Running the Edge: Discover the Secrets to Better Running and a Better Life • Adam Goucher & Tim Catalano
12. Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row • Jarvis Jay Masters
13. Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers • Karyl McBride, PhD

Haruki Murakami's 2005 Marathon Time

Haruki Murakami's 2005 New York Marathon Time: 4:10:17

I'm slightly obsessed with celebrities marathon time lately.

The Top Five Regrets of the Dying

It's getting closer to Christmas. (Yes, I know it's only November - but the decorations are up at the stores. )

Christmas always put me in a strange mood. I get moody, more reflective, and sad. I get nostalgic, and I miss people. Right now I need to remind myself of this - and hope to live a life without these regrets. So I'm posting this here again, as a reminder to myself.

No regrets. 

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. "When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently," she says, "common themes surfaced again and again."

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

"This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it."

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

"Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."

What's your greatest regret so far, and what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?

Surrender is Not An Option

Great Eastern Women's Run 21.1 km Finisher medal

I earned this Finisher Medal for this year's Great Eastern Women's Run Half Marathon. 21.1 km, or 13.1 miles.

I started my journey as a runner last November. I went out one morning, ran for a while, and was defeated after less than 15 mins. I ended up walking home breathless, with the full awareness of how out of shape I was.

One year later, I find myself finishing my first half marathon. It was a humbling journey. Running is painful, and there were a few injuries along the way. I learnt so much, and yet there's still so much more to learn.

I am still limping a little from my shin splint and IT band sprain (suspected). When I showed up for my half marathon last Sunday, I just told myself to try my best - and finish. I asked myself, what can I do, if surrender is not an option?

I did think about not showing up. Sleep in and rest, I told myself. Rest.

I showed up anyway. I am glad I did.

I am not fast, but I managed to run and walk my way through a half marathon.

What am I capable of, if surrender is not an option?

A lot.

S. Rajaratnam, on Preserving History

I saw this on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sosbukitbrown

"A sense of history is what provides the links to hold together a people who came from the four corners of the earth. Because our history is short and because what is worth preserving from the past are not all that plentiful, we should try to save what is worthwhile from the past from the vandalism of the speculator and the developer, from a government and a bureaucracy which believes that anything that cannot be translated into cold cash is not worth investing in.”

- S. Rajaratnam, “The Uses and the Abuses of the Past”, Seminar on Adaptive Re-use: Integrating Traditional Areas into the Modern | Urban Fabric, (Singapore, April 1984)

S. Rajaratnam was the man who wrote our National Pledge. I wonder what he would say, to how blatantly we are destroying Bukit Brown.

POEM | Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert

Time and again, I am reminded of this poem, and what it has to say about our notion of failures. In particular, the heart-aching closing lines: "I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,/but just coming to the end of his triumph." Nothing lasts forever. Just because something ended, does not mean it was a failure or a mistake. Dare to try, and dare to risk falling. Or else, you risk failing by default, for never trying.

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

19 Lessons Running Teaches You About Life

One day I might be experienced enough to do my own list of lessons from running list. Until then, here's a list of 10 lessons from someone else who runs (I hope): 10 Lessons Running Teaches You About Life.

My favourites:

2. Consistency creates habit.
8. If you wait for the right conditions, you’ll never get anything done.

Really - just do it. Quit waiting for yourself to get fitter, or to lose weight before you do it.

Just Do It.

Yeah, I'm a big Nike fan.

Time to Look Ahead

I started the beginning of this year with the intention to write more on this blog. Well, it started off well, then I stopped for a while. This has been a pattern with me lately - getting sidetracked from where I had intended to go, intended to do.

The last few months have been busy. I have been running more this year, but not as much as I had wanted. My health took a toll this year. Been to the doctor's a few times, but nothing major.

Highlight of this year should be the trip to Seattle and later to New York. In Seattle I met up with some friends I met online, and have been chatting with for the last couple of years. It was fun, and I am glad for this chance. The internet is a great social space where we get to meet other people who we might never have come into contact within our usual social circles. Some of them are creepy, yes - and you should always take precautions when meeting the people you connect with online. But I was glad this one panned out.

After Seattle I made a trip to New York - alone. I was supposed to go with a friend last year, but it soon became obvious that my friend and I had different ideas about budget and what constitute as "essentials".

I am traveling again, and it feels like a sudden cool breeze in a hot summer. It reminds me how much I wandered away from myself the last few years. I didn't need anyone else to make me happy. Whatever I needed to be happy, I had to do for myself. I thought I was so full of wisdom and insight from the books I have read, from my practice. The last year or so have been uncomfortable - I am as capable of deception and self-deception as anyone else.

I am not sure how things will go from here. But it's time to start looking ahead. Someone asked me what's on my bucket list. I haven't really thought about the things I wanted to do. Maybe it's time to update the list again. The places I wanted to see, the things I want to do. In some places, they have started putting up the Christmas decorations. 2013 is ending soon.