Christian Lander

I loved the Christian Lander book reading the other night. It was definitely one of the most entertaining and least pretentious readings I've ever experienced. Lander was so chill, cool, and humble. He just kept repeating, I seriously can't believe this happened, and came across as a totally approachable every-day kind of guy. Which made me, and probably others, proud and happy for his recent and great success.

He spent most of the reading explaining where his idea for the blog Stuff White People Like originated, and the amazingly quick timeline of events that followed. Essentially, he started the blog in February, inspired by the TV series The Wire, and sent to 20 of his "only friends." By the end of the month the site was experiencing 30,000 hits a day and he had a book deal two months later. Since then, he's been on Conan, his book became a New York Times bestseller, and his site now experiences 300,000 hits a day. Not bad.

Lander did a few readings from the book that he figured were most appropriate for Madison. They were hilarious. Then Q&A, which was very interesting. He talked about how past generations competed in terms of material goods--who had the best cars, house, etc.--and how our generation has generally shunned capitalism, and instead of competing in material goods, we compete in terms of who has stayed in the most hostels, who has the best taste in indie music, etc. His ideas were so interesting and funny, probably because they were so true.

I will definitely be purchasing a copy of this book, and sharing it with my brother. Because I know he would find the entries hilarious, too. The book is just full of self-deprecating humor. My favorite entries are about the New Yorker Magazine and Marathons, both of which felt like they were written for me. I think my brother would most enjoy the entry on NPR's This American Life, which has been his recent obsession. Kelly explained to me the other day how he oftentimes weaves episodes into conversations with friends. Which is exactly what the entry in Stuff White People Like explains. Essentially you can have a conversation about anything (at a dinner party, with your boss, etc.), even those topics that are generally included on the list of unspeakables, such as STDs, and as long as you mention that you heard about it on an episode of This American Life, it's totally acceptable and you might even receive a raise in the morning.

Scared of Santa

I just read about a great new book released this week. It’s called Scared of Santa: Scenes of Terror in Toyland. As the name suggests, it’s a collection of more than 250 Chicago Tribune reader-submitted photographs of panicked and crying children on Santa’s lap. In the article that I read yesterday, the writer talks about a remark he overheard to a room full of Santas at a Santa convention a few years ago–“We tell our kids to stay away from guys who look like you most of the year. Then once a year, we say, ‘Hey, get up there on his lap and smile!’” How true and funny is that?

Stuff White People Like

Tonight I’m going to Borders to see provocative liberal blogger Christian Lander discuss his popular blog and bestselling book, Stuff White People Like: A Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions. Lander is a 29-year old Toronto-born Internet copywriter living in Los Angeles who, on a whim earlier this year, decided to write about fundamental stereotypes by compiling a list of “stuff that white people like”, such as:

They love nothing better than sipping free-trade gourmet coffee, leafing through the Sunday New York Times, and listening to David Sedaris on NPR (ideally all at the same time). Apple products, indie music, food co-ops, and vintage T-shirts make them weak in the knees.

Furthermore,

They pretend to be unique, yet somehow they’re all exactly the same, talking abut how they “get” Sarah Silverman’s “subversive” comedy and Wes Anderson’s “droll” films. They are also down with diversity and up on all the best microbrews, breakfast spots, foreign cinema, and authentic sushi. They’re organic, ironic, and do not own TVs.

Umm…yes. So true. On many accounts, I am one of those white people.

According to Lander, "We have a generation of white people who want nothing more than to distance themselves from being white. They need to believe that the earth is being destroyed by evil white people, culture is ruined by the wrong kind of white people, and that history's sins were committed by distant relatives. And so by eating at ethnic restaurants, travelling, trying to save the world, you can say that 'I'm part of the solution, if everyone were like me, the world would be so much better.' I think that attitude lends itself to pretty easy satire."

It’s pretty humorous stuff. And certainly meant to be taken as satire. In a nut shell, Lander “essentializes” complex identities and “pokes fun at the many progressive, educated, self-conscious, upper-middle-class whites who think they are beyond ethnicity or collectively shared tastes, styles or outlook. He's essentially reminding them that they too are part of a group.”

Sounds interesting enough...

Abraham Lincoln's Head on a Turtle's Body

My evening with David Sedaris was almost everything I had hoped for. He did several great readings, many of which left the huge audience at the three-tiered Overture auditorium roaring with laughter. His quick wit and extraordinarly funny analogies coupled with his sqeaky voice and short stature are a match made in comedic heaven.

Many of the readings he performed were ones I had not read previously. Although I wish he would have talked a bit more extemporaneously, he was clearly in his element when reading his work. The short Q&A session at the end, although brief, was also very interesting and humorous.

The biggest downer of the evening was that I had to go alone to the show and cancel dinner reservations at Fresco because Karen came down with a stomach flu of sorts about an hour before the show. I tried calling other friends to see if they might like to use the extra ticket, but after the first person I called replied, Who's David Sedaris?, I kind of gave up.

Albeit a little lonely, I enjoyed the show and many laughs with myself. Afterwards, trudging my freshly read copy of Sedaris' newest collection of short stories, When You're Engulfed in Flames, I tried to appear confident as I took a place in line to meet him and request that he sign my book. Unlike many other authors, Sedaris claims to love book tours and talking to the many people who stand in line to meet him. I can't say that I'd have the same outlook if I were in his shoes.

Anyhow, I eventually made my way to the front of the line, where I was rewarded with a quick caricature of Abraham Lincoln's head on a turtle's body, as well as a rather unotable exchange of words with David Sedaris. I very much enjoyed observing Sedaris interact with the people in front of me in line. There was a woman, probably my age, with her boyfriend. Sedaris asked her what she did for a living and she replied that she was a waitress. He took one look at her chest and replied, you could get a job at Hooters anytime. Wow, some people can get away with anything that comes out of their mouth.

An Evening With David Sedaris

Tonight I have tickets to see David Sedaris speak at the Overture Center in Madison. David Sedaris is a bestselling author and frequent NRP contributor. He’s definitely one of my favorite writers. Many of his essays and short stories are autobiographical and self-deprecating, often focusing on the themes of family, jobs, education, drugs, homosexuality, and travel.

In anticipation of the event, the last few days I’ve been devouring his sixth and newest book, an essay collection entitled When You Are Engulfed in Flames, which was released in June. It’s very good, and like his other pieces—hilarious, poignant, witty, unconventional, bruisingly honest, and completely unpretentious.

Although I saw a stage reenactment of his Santa Land Diaries essay last year in Chicago, this will be my first time experiencing David Sedaris in the flesh. It should be a an exciting evening of great entertainment and unbelievable stories. I can't wait.

Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies

From the kitchen of Jackie McGillivray (Dave's Mom)

"A recipe for the very cookies that both sustained me during and after long runs and rewarded me (immediate gratification) for each effort. Mom’s “CCCs” were my “energy bars” back in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. Mom was known by many far and wide for her chocolate-chip cookies. No matter how many journeys I took, the smell of the brown sugar and the melted chocolate always meant home was not very far away."

1 cup shortening
2 eggs
½ tsp. vanilla extract
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
2 ¼ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 bag (12 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream together the shortening, eggs, vanilla, and sugars. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Form into balls and place on a cookie sheet. Flatten wit the palm of your hand. If batter is sticky, add more flour.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 9 minutes, or until golden brown.

Love the 70's 'Stash, Dave

Just before heading to the Boston Marathon this past April, I eagerly tore through an autobiography written by the current race director, Dave McGillivray. Titled The Last Pick: The Boston Marathon Race Director’s Road to success, it gave me a much better sense of the extraordinary man behind the world-renowned race.

Dave McGillivray is one of the world’s premier race directors. He manages and oversees all operational and logistical aspects of the famed Boston Marathon, and countless other races. He’s also a well-known endurance athlete, having completed a 3,452 mile 80-day run across the country at the tender age of 24 (that’s 43 miles per day), several ocean swims, a 24-hour bike, swim, and run, as well as an annual birthday run (one mile for every year, starting at age 12 and continuing through his most recent 51st birthday). Most of Dave’s athletic pursuits are focused on raising money for charity, most notably the Jimmy Fund, which supports the fight against cancer in children and adults at Boston’s Dana-Faber Cancer Institute.

The book is mostly about Dave’s unwavering determination and upbeat approach to life. He truly makes you feel like you can accomplish anything. He spends a significant part of the book sharing his powerful memories as a vertically challenged teenager who was cut from both his high school’s basketball and baseball teams, which was obviously crushing (“Dave, if you were 5 inches taller, you’d be my starting guard.”) The experience, however, changed the course of Dave’s life forever and gave him the motivation to pursue greatness in endurance sports and race coordination.

One of my favorite parts of the book is how Dave continually references his mom’s famously delicious chocolate chip cookies (aka “CCC’s), the little energy morsels that sustained Dave through many of his athletic pursuits. During his 24- hour swim, for example, he describes how he popped 10 or so every hour. Definitely my kind of guy.

I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone, even if you're not an endurance sports junkie. I was hoping to run into Dave at the Boston expo so I could tell him I made his mother’s chocolate chip cookies (the recipe was included at the end of the book) the weekend before. No such luck, but maybe next year.

Jodi Picolut Book Reading

Yesterday evening after work, I went to a Jodi Picoult book reading/signing at Border's on University Avenue with my friends, Karen and Kim. I saw Jodi speak a few years ago at Barnes and Nobles in Madison, and I very much appreciate her energy, passion, articulateness, and writing style. She's currently touring the country promoting her latest book release, Change of Heart, which "looks at the nature of organized religion and belief, and takes the reader behind the closely drawn curtains of America's death penalty." Border's was packed last night with hundreds of fans.

I'm currently reading one of Jodi's most popular books, My Sister's Keeper (2004), which is a novel about a 13-year old girl named Anna who was born by in vitro fertilization to be a genetic match for her older sister Kate, who was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 2-years old. Anna sues her parents for the right to make her own decisions about her body, after undergoing several procedures to save her sisters life.

My Sister's Keeper is definitely a page turner, and Jodi spoke a bit last night about how the book is currently being turned into a film, which should be released sometime this year. Jodi is extremely upset that the producer has changed her ending (she said it "breaks her heart"), and has been campaigning endlessly to have the producer film two endings and release both to a test market. Wow, seems like if you write a book and sell the film rights to a producer, it's sort of not in your hands anymore. Gotta let go and realize that your book will always be on the shelf. While I don't know the book's ending quite yet myself, Karen was snickering in back saying "good" because she said that she hated the book's ending anways...I know many of you have probably read this book. What do you think?

Water for Elephants

I recently finished reading Water for Elephants, a novel by Sara Gruen, which I eagerly tore through in a few short days. While it’s definitely a quick read—the perfect summer beach fling—the plot and storyline are expertly researched and crafted. The novel weaves back and forth between the present and past—Jacob now, a 93-year old nursing home dweller with undying determination and spunk. And Jacob then, an Ivy League-educated, soon-to-be graduate, who is forced into an unexpected, and ultimately lifelong journey, of life on the road as a circus veterinarian for a shady circus outfit during the 1930’s depression era.

One of the most fascinating parts of the book was reading the “Author’s Notes,” which comprised the last few pages. In these, Gruen details how she initially came to be fascinated with the concept of old-time circus life, her research for the book, and some of the “real life” circus stories that she expertly incorporated into the novel. Fittingly, each of the book’s 24 chapters begins with a vintage circus photograph, which together provide a colorful tapestry of the emotions, fashions, settings, personalities, and day-to-day activities of a circus troupe in the early 1900’s.

And per usual, I will end with my favorite line from the book. It is as follows: Lucinda’s death leaves us with a serious deficiency in the freak lineup. And it must be filled—all the big shows have fat ladies, and therefore so must we” (pg. 205).

Love In The Time of Cholera

Over the New Year’s weekend, I finished reading the novel, Love in the time of Chlorea, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which is a story about the 50-year love triangle between Fermina Daza, Florentino Ariza and Doctor Juvenal Urbino set in the late 19th century.While, unlike my mother, I did enjoy the book, I can see how she found it to be painfully slow paced, and the main character, Floretino, extraordinarily whiney and pathetic. My mom stopped reading the book three-quarters though. Being very cognizant of my own obsession compulsion with finishing books I’ve begun, I asked how she could have possibly stopped, especially so close to the end, to which she simply replied, “life is too short.” And you really can’t argue with that.

I’ve always been interested in reading Love In the Time of Cholera, and those of you familiar with my favorite movie, Serendipity, will remember that the book itself is integral to the romantic fate of the film’s protagonists, Jonathan Trager and Sara Thomas. My interest for the book was piqued once again when I recently discovered that the novel had been adapted into a film. There seemed like no better time to finally pick up a copy and start reading.

I thought the plot was interesting, as I generally find non-Danielle Steel romance novels to be, but was overwhelmingly troubled by Florentino’s notion of love, and absolutely repulsed by his behavior, particularly his constant “whoa is me” sexual diversions. The man literally sleeps with half of the southern hemisphere (622 love affairs in all), all in the name of love, before declaring his steadfast love to an elderly widower, Fermina, his long-lost teenage love, to whom he falsely sings that he has always been true to her. I mean, puleease. I completely agreed with my mom that he is a whiney, pathetic, and a very sad little man. Some think this novel is a heart-warming story about the enduring power of true love. I say bullshit. Please do excuse my language. And don't get my wrong, I did like the novel, but despised Florentino with a passion.

Then We Came to the End

Last night I finally finished reading a really great novel called Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris. I say finally because I was to have finished the novel for a book club party that Karen and I hosted in October. Since I've always been on top of these sorts of things, obviously circumstances completely out of my control hindered a more timely completion of this novel. Anyways, it's a hilarious debut novel about several copywriters and designers at a Chicago ad agency who face layoffs at the end of the '90s Internet boom. I was hooked from the very beginning. The novel's prologue is especially funny. Here's an excerpt:

We were fractious and overpaid. . . It was the era of take-ones and tchotchkes. The world was flush with Internet cash and we got our fair share of it. It was our position that logo design was every bit as important as product performance and distribution systems. 'Wicked cool' were the words we used to describe our logo designs. 'Bush league' were the words we used to describe the logo designs of other agencies -- unless it was a really well-designed logo, in which case we bowed down before it, much like the ancient Mayans did their pagan gods. We, too, thought it would never end.

I found that I enjoyed the novel as the plot thickened, and things got a little more serious with Lynn's illness and layoffs (appropriately referred to in the novel as "walking Spanish"--a euphemism for being fired, inspired by Spanish pirates walking toward execution). I also loved the "collective We" that Ferris employs in the novel, in which mere surface descriptions are given of the seemingly petty and eccentric copywriters, contrasted with the vivid, deep, and descriptive portrayal provided for Lynn (which, I must say, effectively broke my heart). Ferris=literary genius.

Although I've never actually watched an episode of The Office, the popular NBC sit-com, I would assume the same sort of office humor applies here. I really think anybody involved in advertising, design, or any sort of office culture would really enjoy this book. I was thinking that my brother and high school friend Katy might enjoy it most.

Here's another enjoyable exerpt:

It reminded Carl of when an ad got watered down by a client, and watered down, until everything interesting about the ad disappeared. Carl still had to write the copy for it. The art director still had to put the drop shadow where the drop shadow belonged and the logo in its proper place. That was the process known as 'polishing the turd'. All over America, in fact, people were up and out of their beds today in a continuing effort to polish turds. Sure, for the sake of survival, but more immediately, for the sake of some sadistic manager or shit-brained client whose small imagination and numbingly dumb ideas were bleaching the world of all relevancy and hope.

This one really made me think of my brother and the life of a designer. Just that feeling of frustration that nobody gets it. And they never will. And so, I will leave you with that. This book is a gem. It will leave you laughing out loud. But not in an annoying You Shall Know Our Velocity (Dave Eggers) sort of way, but more of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (also Dave Eggers) sort of way. You see?