Rave: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Although Marilynne Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for her novel Gilead, it took Nick Hornby to bring the novel to my attention in his collection of The Believer book reviews Housekeeping vs. The Dirt (which is an OK-at-best collection). Although I'm not a huge Hornby fan, in general, I'm certainly glad I took up his recommendation in adding Gilead to my stack of spring reading.

Gilead is one of those rare novels that can broach deeply profound themes in its subject matter (specifically, an exploration of what it means to be Christian in the context of over a hundred years of racism in the United States) while still being a well-paced and engaging read. Taking the form of a letter written by an elderly pastors with a terminal heart condition to his young son, the novel relates the story of a family of pastors in the small town of Gilead, Iowa. The novel explores religious conviction and Christian faith, conflicts between fathers and sons, questions of forgiveness, and the historical legacy of slavery and the abolitionist movement, particularly in Kansas, and particularly tied to the radical actions of the Reverend John Brown, all woven gracefully into the autobiographical narrative of the fictional Reverend John Ames, and the lives of his father and grandfather. Gilead is also a deeply relevant novel, in that it explicitly tackles, both spiritually and practically, questions of faith, of the choices a person makes in raising a young family, of forgiveness, and of the racial tensions that still exist in this country. I hope its just not the latent country in preacher in me that responds to this book, because I whole-heartedly recommend it.

It All Adds Up In The End

Have just returned from a fun and productive week in the Bay Area, crashing with my favorite West Coast couple, the Ms, catching up with both CC (of soon to be CC 4 President fame) and CC (of taking too many classes and stressing out fame), the cousins, the feuding cousins, taking in a Giants game (4-2 over the Astros) with the Ms, JT,and WS, and playing sparring partner to MM on his new video gaming system (Madden 2007). Fell asleep during Shrek 3 at the Capitol drive-in down in the Jose, grabbed a nice meal with RW at Weird Fish, crashed the "Dress Sexy" graduate school party at EV on Stanford Campus, later than night crashed the extremely depressing Karaoke night at the Acapulco in San Jose, and forced Chicago CC down to the W hotel bar for a drink among the suits, prior to catching up with VG and MK. Also, crashed a corporate retreat at Zott's for an afternoon beer and caught up with MF to discuss adventures in Africa. Oh, and the TIE Conference. That mostly sums it up, minus the interviews.

With that behind me, and kid sis graduating Wesleyan this weekend, I leave you with the mish-mash:

- Professor ND sends me this interesting link to artist Chris Jordan's composite photos commenting on consumption in America (photos above and below). Definitely worth a look. Very cool stuff.
- The blog Daily Film Dose has an awesome post on notable long tracking shots in films. Many you have seen before, others you have probably never heard of. Most are worth a look, and the folks over there have gone to the trouble of digging up YouTube clips for almost everything. Definitely worth wasting thirty minutes of your time.
- "Yesterday in downtown Boston, the sun was shining and the sky seemed especially blue. Dad and I walked through the park in Boston Common on our way to lunch and I remember saying, 'What a nice day, something good is going to happen.'" Classic Simmons, documenting his reaction to (and possible causing of?) the next ten years of futility for the Boston Celtics.
- GB forwards this NYT article on how to make a good burger. Pretty simple, so people get your grills ready.
- Finally, New York Magazine on Miranda July's new collection of stories.

Enjoy the long weekend, folks.

Rave: The Stanford Quad

I first visited the campus of Stanford University in late June of 1995. The northern California summer had settled in, and the campus was all flax and brown, dusty and dried out, and emptied of students. Walking around campus, heat radiated off the asphalt and stone, and only under the cool archways of Old Union or the main Quad could you find any respite. The place felt like a ghost town, and I planned on not attending.

In the spring of 1996, I made a return visit to campus, this time with admittance letter in hand. Partly due to legitimate conflict, partly due to my contrarian ways, I turned up on a Thursday night, a full week before admit weekend, and spent a quiet couple of days wandering around campus, mostly on my own, mostly not meeting anybody, students or professors.

During this visit, a funny thing happened, and that funny thing was that I fell in love with the campus. The grounds themselves - the gardens, the secluded patios, the abstract sculptures, and the strange and compelling post-modern buildings scattered on the outskirts of the Spanish colonial center of campus. It struck me as a wonderful place to be thoughtful.
In my years on campus, the grounds were equal part playground and muse, providing the setting for many mornings, afternoons, and nights of architectural exploration, the backdrop for much of our more lucid forays into short film-making, and generally, a beautiful place in which to mess around.

Now, anytime I return to northern California after an absence, and with a few days on my hands, I drive down to campus and spend a couple of hours walking around. While the campus has many beautiful secrets scattered throughout, the most stunning is still the most prominent - the original Stanford Quad.
Built in the Mission Revival style in the 1890s, based on plans by Frederik Law Olmsted, the sandstone arcades, red-tiled roofs, and the pink-tile latticed ground stones create an atmosphere of sturdy calm from which to absorb the rich textures of light and shadow. The perfect geometries of the Quad, which stretch from University Avenue to 101 in the East, through Memorial Church and into the foothills, and further, the Pacific and the setting sun in the West, and currently, bisect Green library to the south and the prows of the ship-like face of the technology park, laid on the same axis, to the North, lend a sense of precision and mathematical formality - establishing a baseline of order and intention to the place. And the gem in the crown, Memorial Church itself, with its gilt mosaic face, cool, wooden interior, awash in rich light from the stained glass-lined nave, with its graceful and contemplative organ emoting its quiet plaints most days and some nights, provides an aura of holiness to an otherwise secular campus.

Walking around now is less an act of nostalgia then a momentary pause to reconnect with a truly special place - a testament to how buildings and architecture can really enrich our daily lives.

Photos of Providence Downcity

Spent an afternoon taking photos in downtown Providence a few weeks ago, just finally got around to posting them. Downtown Providence has undergone an absolute transformation in the twenty five years that I have lived in and kept ties with Rhode Island - rescuing itself from the bleak gray doldrums of industrial recession into a fairly vibrant, artist-friendly downtown with a wonderful heritage of early and mid-century brick and stone buildings in the center of downtown. Worth a visit if you are every passing through on 95.

Prophet, Shaman, Sage - Happy 60th

PS - Hey, Bob Dylan, if you read this, Happy Birthday. I think you are awesome.

Continued Laziness: Wired Digest

Two cross country flights in the last ten days finally bought me the time to leaf through the May issue of Wired magazine. Wired continues to be one of my favorite magazines, even as it reinforces my general sense of uncertainty and unease (and confusion?) about what the future will bring. It is the moments of brilliance that shine through. Here are four:

- the Miami "art collective" Friends With You. Their website is a little twee, their aesthetic hops between too-cute Japanimation whatever and glorious moments of effervescing psychotic joy, and their Rainbow Valley playground is awesome. Kids know when their worlds are rocking, right?
- Photographer Mark Richards has some super cool photos of old computers as part of his new book Core Memory:

- The m-ch project builds modular "micro-compact homes" which embody a minimalist cool while still providing functional living accommodations:

Dogfighting

I am sure all of my four readers are aware of the current plight of Michael Vick, the supremely talented superstar quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons. If not, the short story is that police in Atlanta raided Vick's crib, suspecting his cousin of some drug-related activity, and instead, found some thirty scarred and angry dogs. See here.

Now, in the wisdom of the professional athlete, two Washington Redskins players decided to come to his defense, and the defense of backyard dogfighting. I don't really have an opinion on dogfighting - it seems inhumane, but I could be convinced of its place in the backwater cultural heritage of America, somewhere alongside bear-baiting. So this isn't about that. What I did enjoy was this tiny bit of sports reporting, including Clinton Portis' embrace of liberatarianism, Samuels' giggling, and their apparent secret knowledge of the sporting habits of prominent politicians. It does seem like they know something, right?

In an interview with WAVY-TV, Portis said that if the Atlanta Falcons quarterback is charged and convicted of being involved in a dog fighting operation, then authorities would be "putting him behind bars for no reason."

"I don't know if he was fighting dogs or not," Portis said. "But it's his property; it's his dogs. If that's what he wants to do, do it."

Portis said dog fighting is a "prevalent" part of life.

Portis, a native of Laurel, Mississippi, added: "I know a lot of back roads that got a dog fight if you want to go see it. But they're not bothering those people because those people are not big names. I'm sure there's some police got some dogs that are fighting them, some judges got dogs and everything else."

"Politicians," added Samuels, who found it hard to keep from giggling while Portis was talking.

"Presidents," added Portis with a laugh.

And on a different note, RM forwards me this excellent interview of Billy Graham by Woody Allen. Courtesy of mentalfloss magazine.