On Optimism

Apparently, I have now become one of those women who, upon reaching "a certain age", turns to self-help books.  

This is a bit of a joke, of course: while I've always eschewed that section of the book store, I recently picked up Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman, a professor at my alma mater.  I thought that one of the more interesting chapters discussed the biological argument for optimism:

In his acute, speculative book Optimism: The Biology of Hope Lionel Tiger argues that the human species has been selected by evolution because of its optimistic illusions about reality.  How else could a species have evolved that plants seeds in April and holds on through drought and famine until October, that stands up alone before charging mastodons and waves small sticks, that commences to build cathedrals that will take several lifetimes to complete?  The capacity to act on the hope that reality will turn out better than it usually does is behind such courageous, or foolhardy, behavior.

Kindred Spirits

I had lunch with a friend from London today:  it was the perfect antidote to the grey, gloomy weather that's pervaded New York of late, a lunch full of laughter and good conversation.  We were teasing one another about our respective OCD-like tendencies, when he brought up the subject of 'kindred spirits.'  It's been years since I've thought of the phrase, but it's been etched in my memory ever since reading Anne of Green Gables as a young child.  

It's impossible to describe what makes someone a kindred spirit.  The dictionary describes it as "a person who shares beliefs, attitudes, feelings, or features with another," but it's more than that.  Perhaps it's easiest to just say that you know one when you see one.  Still, on the eve of my third decade, I consider myself lucky to have so many kindred spirits in my life:

"Miss Barry was a kindred spirit, after all," Anne confided to Marilla. "You wouldn't think so to look at her, but she is. You don't find it right out at first, as in Matthew's case, but after a while you come to see it. Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."

A Visit from the Goon Squad

Anyone who was there that day will tell you the concert really started when Scotty stood up.  That's when he began singing the songs he'd been writing for years underground, songs no one had ever heard, or anything like them — "Eyes in my Head," "X's and O's," "Who's Watching Hardest" — ballads of paranoia and disconnection ripped from the chest of a man you knew just by looking had never had a page or a profile or a handle or a handset, who was part of no one's data, a guy who had lived in the cracks all these years, forgotten and full of a range, in a way that now registered as pure.  Untouched.

More Reasons to Read

When I first started this blog, I wrote an entry on why I read.  Here are two more reasons to read:

First, in an eloquent editorial in The New York Times, Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto, explains that:  

"Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings." 

Apparently, science backs it up:

"Dr. Oatley and Dr. Mar, in collaboration with several other scientists, reported in two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective." 

And a second reason to read, from The Marriage Plot:

"It wasn't only that this writing seemed beautiful to Madeleine.  It wasn't only that these opening sentences of Barthes' made immediate sense.  It wasn't only the relief at recognizing that here, finally, was a book she might write her final paper on.  What made Madeleine sit up in bed was something closer to the reason she read books in the first place and had always loved them.  Here was a sign that she wasn't alone.  Here was an articulation of what she had been so far mutely feeling."

(As an aside, Bel Canto is highly recommended.)

Look at the Books

From The Marriage Plot, on being judged by your book collection:

There was, in short,  this mid-size but still portable library representing pretty much everything Madeleine had read in college, a collection of texts, seemingly chosen at random, whose focus slowly narrowed, like a personality test, a sophisticated one you couldn't trick by anticipating the implications of its questions and finally got so lost in that your only recourse was to answer the simple truth.  And then you waited for the result, hoping for "Artistic," or "Passionate," thinking you could live with "Sensitive," secretly fearing "Narcissistic" and "Domestic," but finally being presented with an outcome that cut both ways and made you feel different depending on the day, the hour, or the guy you happened to be dating: "Incurably Romantic."

Dear Tina Fey

I have a new girl crush.  Thanks for Bossypants.

On playing SNL's sketch about the Vice Presidential debates in 2008:

... I thought the speeches that Jim Downey wrote for Jason Sudeikis as Joe Biden were brilliant.  Especially the stuff where Biden is trying to prove that he's not some Washington elite by talking about how he's from Scranton, Pennsylvania, "the most godforsaken place on earth."  I thought that was ingenious, because not only was the ad hominen attack on Scranton a hilarious comedy left turn, it also exemplified what the election had become.  Instead of talking about issues, everybody was trying to prove how "down-home" they were.  "I'm just like you" was the subtext of every speech. 

Politics and prostitution have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue.  In what other profession would you brag about not knowing stuff?  "I'm not one of those fancy Harvard heart surgeons.  I'm just an unlicensed plumber with a dream and I'd like to cut your chest open."  The crowd cheers.

The Jane Austen Book Club

I didn't like the book, but I did like this passage:

Sylvia thought how all parents wanted an impossible life for their children -- happy beginning, happy middle, happy ending.  No plot of any kind.  What uninteresting people would result if parents got their way.