Baby, Book, and Banjo : Tim Westover's Blog

This is Baby, Book, and Banjo, and there hasn’t been a whole lot of the first one recently. Therefore, here is the baby, sitting in my library.

Among the books her library, her favorite book is Winnie-the-Pooh, which her mother is reading to her in English, and I am reading to her in Esperanto.

2011 was the Year of the Lime — the year that “Book and Banjo” became “Baby, Book, and Banjo.” I’d predicted that having a newborn in the house would cut into my reading time (and it was a tradeoff I’d gladly make). But, having a newborn seemed to give me more time for reading. The iPhone Kindle app helped turn time spent waiting in the doctor’s office into a few pages, as did listening to audiobooks in the car while lulling baby Limelette to sleep. (I consider listening to unabridged audiobooks to be the equivalent of reading the book.)

In 2011, I read the following 70 books. I’ve bolded the ones I especially enjoyed or recommend.

January 2011
Myths, History, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee

February 2011
The Great Gatsby
No Country for Old Men
The Turn of the Screw
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
Mile-High Fever
Wizard and Glass
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves

March 2011
The Dream of Perpetual Motion
The Kingdom of Ohio
At Home
Wise Blood
Roughing It
The Reivers

April 2011
Pym
Foxfire Book
American Gods
Gilead

May 2011
Deathless
Disappearing Spoon
Infinite Jest
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

June 2011
Strange Angel
The Possessed
The Spirit Thief
The Tiger’s Wife
Confederates in the Attic
A Visit from the Goon Squad

July 2011
American Lightning
From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore
Rich in Love
Georgia Odyssey
Charlatan
50 Favorite Houses by Frank Lloyd Wright
Children of Fire
Georgia Curiosities
Creating Black Americans
Woman of Color, Daughter of Privilege
Flowing Through Time

August 2011
Slavery in the American Mountain South
Their Eyes Were Watching God
That Half-Barbaric Twang
Every Tongue Got to Confess
Bel Canto
African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia
Drunkard’s Walk
The Souls of Black Folks
The Original of Laura

September 2011
Blacking Up
The Language of Science and Faith
Let’s Play White
Moby Dick
Tambo and Bones
Folks Visions & Voices
Musicophilia
Pale Fire
The Signifying Monkey

October 2011
Seal Skin
Swamplandia!
Mail-Order Mysteries
The City & The City
Folk-Songs from the Southern Highlands
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

November 2011
Wolves of the Calla
Bossypants
Pilgrim of the Sky

December 2011
Embassytown
Rise and Fall of the Bible
Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Gogol’s short story “The Nose” is one of my all-time favorites. When I was in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2004, we had to track down the house where the main character wakes up to find that his nose has disappeared from his face, and what’s more, it now outranks him. Sure enough, there was a monument to the nose at just the right place:

One of my favorite things is Yuriy Norshteyn’s Russian animated film Ёжик в тумане (Hedgehog in the Fog). It’s a stunningly beautiful piece of work: quiet, mysterious, profound, spooky. Hayao Miyazaki has called in an inspiration, and it won a 2003 Japanese award for the “Best Animated Film of All Time.” So, if that’s not enough to recommend it, I don’t know what would be.

Read more on Wikipedia or just watch it on YouTube (10 minutes long, with subtitles).

When carving our Halloween pumpkins, I thought that some of the images from the film might be appropriately rendered in the medium. Here’s the result:

Hedgehog in the Fog Pumpkin

Of all the pumpkins I’ve made, this may not be the best carving, but it is my favorite.

This was the scene that I was copying:

Hedgehog in the Fog

The City & The City

I just finished reading China Mieville’s The City and the City.  It’s a wonderful book, and I was enjoying the heck out of it – until I was about halfway through and looked up the reviews on Amazon.  Most were very positive, which corresponded with my experience. But there were a few recurring themes in the less positive reviews. First, that the central conceit (the mechanics and rules of mingled cities) was too frequently mentioned and too present. Second, that the ending fell flat. These weren’t spoilers in the traditional sense: I didn’t find out “whodunnit,” but they instantly colored my perception of the book.

As I kept reading, I started to find these elements. The divided nature of the two cities, the repeated descriptions of the mechanics of Breech and unseeing, did start to seem excessive, even though the plot revolves around them. And entering each plot twist, I wondered, “Is this the part where the book starts to fall flat?” And when I look back at the ending – yeah, it’s somehow disappointing.

Would I have experienced these same thoughts and disappointments if I hadn’t read the reviews? Maybe. But I wouldn’t have been awaiting them, hunting them. The reviews, in this case, spoiled the book without being spoilers.

Do you seek out and read Amazon reviews (or any reviews) of books before you read them? During? After? Do you frame your experience with the experience of others, or do you prefer to read with as little outside information as possible?

I find that the best books can’t be spoiled. Even if you know the twists and the foilbles, the book is strong enough to survive.  I can’t imagine that knowing the ending of Bel Canto would have made it any less powerful.

There was a third theme in negative reviews, one that I didn’t find to be a problem, but that many others did. They complained that The City and the City was neither fantasy nor science fiction. The central conceit of the novel, that a large population could so willfully ignore half of its sensory experience, is implausible, but it isn’t impossible.  Because the conceit isn’t magical or against the rules of nature, it isn’t fantasy; because it isn’t pendent on future technology, it isn’t science fiction. For me, learning that the conceit is based on psychology and metaphor, not something magical or technological, made it more powerful. It opens more thematic consequences. But a lot of reviews seemed to want to read science fiction—by-the-book science fiction—and they didn’t find it here.

The City and the City still feels like it belongs in the science fiction / fantasy section of the bookstore (and others must feel the same, since it won Locus and Hugo awards). It would be out of place as a mystery / suspense / thriller section. The City and the City is certainly speculative fiction, of the highest order: it hypothesizes an alternate reality and explores the consequence of that change (by comparison and contrast to our own).

These books were right next to each other at Barnes & Noble:

Of course, the easiest way to achieve that is for Steve Toltz to have a name that’s alphabetically adjacent to John Kennedy Toole, author of A Confederacy of Dunces.

I wonder if authors see a boost by being located physically near the stars. Does a horror writer surnamed Kings sell better than Zabrowski? Or are the best-selling writers so well-distributed alphabetically that there isn’t much effect?

Also, I’ve always thought the cover art for A Confederacy of Dunces was goofy and not very good. Is there a story behind it?

Our Sunday School class is reading Wesley for Armchair Theologians, which mentioned that John Wesley removed 15 of the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion to create his own version for the nascent Methodist denomination.  A member of our class asked the obvious question, “Which articles did he remove?”  A quick search on the Internet wasn’t able to answer the question, so I’ve done a little research.

Wesley apparently wrote these articles specifically for the American Methodist Church, as an entity distinct from the Church of England.  His 23rd article refers specifically to the government of the United States.

Note: I’m not a theologian, not even an armchair one.  This list is based on a simple comparison between the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1571) and the Methodist Articles of Religion.

Wesley made edited or deleted the following articles:

Deleted: Article 3 – The Descent of Christ into Hell

Edited: Article 6 – The sufficiency of the Holy Scripture for Salvation
Wesley retains the list of canonical Old Testament and New Testament books, but removes any mention of the Apocrypha (Esdras, Baruch, Maccabees, etc.)

Deleted: Article 8 – The Three Creeds

Edited: Article 9 – Original or Birth Sin
Wesley deletes several sentences reading “… so that the flesh lusts always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserves God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated, whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek phronema sarkos (which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire of the flesh), is not subject to the law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle confesses that concupiscence and lust has itself the nature of sin.”

Deleted: Article 13 – Works before Justification

Deleted: Article 15 – Christ alone without Sin

Edited: Article 16 – Sin after Baptism
Wesley changed the title to “Of Sin After Justification.”

Deleted: Article 17 – Predestination and Election

Deleted: Article 18 – Obtaining eternal salvation only by the name of Christ

Edited: Article XIII – Of the Church
Wesley deleted “As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of Rome has erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.”

Deleted: Article 20 – The Authority of the Church

Deleted: Article 21 – The authority of General Councils

Deleted: Article 23 – Ministering in the Congregation

Deleted: Article 26 – The unworthiness of Ministers does not hinder the effect of the Sacraments

Edited: Article 27 – Baptism
Wesley removes “…whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God, by the Holy Spirit are visibly signed and sealed; faith is confirmed, and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God.”

Deleted: Article 29 – The wicked which do not eat the body of Christ, in the use of the Lord’s Supper

Deleted: Article 33 – Excommunicated Persons, how they are to be avoided

Deleted: Article 35 – Of Homilies

Deleted: Article 36 – Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers

Edited: Article 37 – Of the Civil Magistrates
The original article asserts that Queen Elizabeth is the chief ruler of England and that Christians should submit to being governed.  The “Bishop of Rome” has no authority; the laws of the country may put Christians to death; Christians may be ordered to wear weapons and serve in wars.  The Methodist version of the article specifically refers to the United States government, with no mention of England, and asserts more simply the US is to be governed by its elected leaders according to the powers given to them in the Constitution, and that no foreign power should have jurisdiction over the states.  There is no reference to death penalties, conscription, or avowed loyalty to that government, though loyalty may be implied, and a 1939 “legislative enactment” added an unnumbered article that reads, “It is the duty of all Christians, and especially of all Christian ministers, to observe and obey the laws and commands of the governing or supreme authority of the country of which they are citizens or subjects or in which they reside, and to use all laudable means to encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be.”).

I’ve never really been a browser partisan, but today I found a very good reason to go with Firefox / Chrome over Internet Explorer.  When I tried to buy an upgrade to QuickBooks in IE, it cost $40 more than the exact same upgrade when purchased in Firefox.

I am a reluctant user of QuickBooks for my small-business accounts payable and receivable.  I’ve been using the 2006 edition because I didn’t need any of the features from the later versions.  However, the Online Banking support for QuickBooks 2006 expired yesterday.  I went to the Intuit website using Firefox to purchase my upgrade.  The price was $119.

However, the Intuit website doesn’t work very well in Firefox.  I was having trouble entering my current license code to upgrade.  I switched over to IE, thinking that would work better.   The website does work better, but the price for the upgrade is $159, $40 higher!

Screenshot showing that QuickBooks Pro 2009 costs $40 more in IE than Firefox

I know that companies engage in price discrimation, but I didn’t think that using one browser over another would entail a 33% price hike.  The price difference is also present for initial purchases, not just upgrades (actually, it looks like there’s no price advantage for upgrading). The price difference for multi-user licenses is even higher.  You’ll pay $110 more for a 3-user license in IE than in Firefox.

Price is $119 in Chrome.  I don’t have Safari on this computer, so I can’t check that.  Want to bet it’s higher than IE?

Here’s the product page in question:

http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/accounting-software/small-business-financial-software.jsp#Upgrade

And here’s my chat with “Ronald”, the customer-service robot:

Ronald: Hi!  Thank you for chatting with us.  May I have your name please?
you: My name is Tim.
Ronald: Hello Tim! Pleased to meet you online.
Ronald: How may I help you today?
you: When I visit your website in Firefox, QuickBooks Pro 2009 Upgrade costs $119.00
you: When I visit your website in IE, it costs $159.00. Why?
you: Any response?
Ronald: Currently we do have several offers on the website.
Ronald: Any of the offer that you select is good.
you: Yes, but why would I want to select the offer that is $40 more? Aren’t you ripping off people that use IE?
you: Your website doesn’t work very well in Firefox, the browser I usually use, and when I switched to IE to complete my order, I found that the price was $40 higher.
Ronald: No, as mentioned there are several offers available on the website.
Ronald: You can choose the $119 option.
Ronald: There wouldn’t be a problem with that.
you: Do you have an offer that will let me choose the $119 option in IE?
you: Perhaps a coupon code?
Ronald: I’m sorry. We don’t have access to coupon codes.
you: So, there’s no way someone using IE, which works better with your website, can get the Firefox price?
Ronald: I highly recommend that you contact the Customer Service Department for that need. We don’t have any control on the pricing offered on the website. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.

The new Bob Dylan Bootleg Series album, Tell-Tale Signs, is streaming over at NPR:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95047293

The songs are a mix of alternate versions (like Time Out of Mind – era versions of “Mississippi” and a freaky “Most of the Time”), live versions of “Love and Theft” and “Oh, Mercy” songs, a few unreleased songs, and released songs from movie soundtracks that haven’t made it to an album before.  As someone who bought the whole Gods & Generals soundtrack just to get “‘Cross the Green Mountain,” I appreciate this (no, it wasn’t on iTunes at the time).

Avid Bob collectors will likely have most of these songs already, but it’s nice to see some of the bootleg hits make it out to a larger audience, especially the more mournful cut of “Tell Ol’ Bill” that’s been circulating for awhile – I think it’s superior to the released, up-beat version.  I think there may be a few cuts on the new Bootleg series disc that are completely new to the world, though, and that’s fairly intriguing.

Two CD set comes out on October 7th.  (Pre)order from Amazon:

 Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol. 8

 Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 (Deluxe)

 Tell Tale Signs:The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 (vinyl)