Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr

Book review: Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr As the title perfectly implies, this is the narrative of a year spent living in Rome. What gives this memoir a twist is that the author and his wife go to Rome with their two small twin boys. He is on a year fellowship in Rome, so has some help in getting set up with housing etc, however, navigating a country where you don’t speak the language while trying to take care of two small children bring unique challenges to say the least. This is a nice story of how you can do something that at first seems impossible, and provides insight into living in Rome and its day to day trials.

Shadows in the Vineyard by Maximillian Potter

Book reivew: Shadows in the Vineyard by Maximillian Potter A specific story about wine culture. This is the story of how a person tried to hold for ransom a vineyard in France, threatening to ruin the vineyard if a ransom was not paid. The vineyard in question is one that produces very exclusive high quality wine that is only available to a select few on the planet. Of particular interest in this book is the history of the French wine industry after World War II. The industry was pretty much in a shambles after the war, and a creative group of people managed to completely rebuild this industry to what some consider to be an even superior industry than before the war. While promoted as a mystery/detective story, it is really the background story of the wine culture of France that makes this worth reading.

The Stranger In the Woods by Michael Finkel

Book review: The Stranger In the Woods by Michael Finkel This is the fascinating story of a man who lived in the woods in Maine alone for 27 years. The person lived off the grid, in a secluded area of Maine near vacation homes. Labeled a ‘hermit’ by local people, this allowed him to have a legendary quality about him, and he developed a strong following and also a strong hatred among people. It is an interesting aspect of many public lives, that when you don’t provide a lot of information about yourself, you are given an aura or personality that in some cases has no bases in reality. As a hermit, he ‘lived off the land’ for 27 years by raiding local businesses and vacation homes for food and clothing and anything else he needed. This lead to many people living in fear of him, not knowing when he would show up, if he was in there homes at night when they slept or when he would steal again. When finally caught he was charged with multiple burglary accounts, and left with probation and counseling as his punishment. What I find most fascinating about this story is when the author speculates on whether this person was autistic or some similar condition. This idea is pursued in relation to how someone could have almost zero contact with any other human being for 27 years, and basically like it that way. This brings up many aspects of what it is to be in society, what are the evolutionary traits that allow this to happen, and if this is a genetic trait, how this would not persist as there would not be conditions for people with this trait to reproduce, as that would involve interacting with other people.

The Outrun by Any Liptrot

Book review The Outrun by Any Liptrot This was a very enjoyable memoir written by a women who grew up in the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland. It is the story of her growing up, not leading a very great life with troubled parents, not liking the rural life she was born into and then finding the means to escape by going to college and moving to London. In London she was adrift, getting into various kinds of trouble and ending up in rehab. After rehab she returned to the islands north of Scotland for a ‘visit’ and ended up staying. The island life, the starkness, the geology and the wildlife, which she had zero interest in as a person growing up there, turned out to fascinate her as a sober adult. She became an expert on the flora and fauna of the islands, working for conservations groups, becoming a part of the community that she never could as an unhappy child growing up there. Among her other ruminations, she speculates on the nature of addiction, family, heredity, connection to the land and other themes that are present in other books that are listed here. In particular she talks about the aspects of being alone and in silence, or at least in nature and what this means to people’s lives and well being.

One Summer by Bill Bryson

Book review. A good summer read, and not just because that's in the title. Bryson takes the summer of 1927 and puts forth all the happenings of that summer as a lens to the past and a preview to the future. Babe Ruth and the Yankees, Charles Lindbergh and the flight of the Atlantic, Sacco and Vanzetti and the anarchist movement, Al Capone and prohibition, Coolidge and Harding and American politics, and many social movements and the aspects of them are covered. For each of the subjects, which for the most part focus on an individual like Ruth or Lindbergh, they are used as a vehicle to both provide a history of their area, baseball and aviation, and as a precursor of what is to come. The author outlines how the birth of the modern celebrity kicked into high gear in 1927 with the explosion of interest, worldwide, in Charles Lindbergh. He outlines how before this their were sensational murder trials with people who were previously unknown, but they tended to be short lived sensationalized stories designed to sell newspapers. With Lindbergh, his celebrity was overnight and lasted the rest of his life. The way that celebrity came about hit a zenith in the year of 1927. Newspapers were of course widely established and the major way that people received information, but radio had become ubiquitous right at this time, and television was "invented" in 1927, according to the author. Of course, looking at all the events of 1927 knowing what is coming with the stock market crash in 1929 and the events that will lead eventually to WWII we have the luxury of hindsight. Entertaining and thought provoking, very worth the time to read this one.

Modern Streetcar the Game Changer

June 11, 2014 Tucson's Modern Streetcar, I call it the Trolley, goes into service July 25,2014. Its been an interesting process watching it evolve as a service, and watching it transform neighborhoods. When we first moved to Tucson, there barely was a downtown Tucson. There was the Hotel Congress and the Screening Room on Congress Street. And that was about it. Of course there were other bars and some places to eat, but they basically catered to a select group of people who lived and hung out in downtown. But slowly over the past 15 years things began to change. The biggest one to start things changing was the reopening of the Fox Theater in 2005. Then slowly things began happening. More events and shows took place at the Railto Theater, after that underwent some transformation. The train depot was refurbished as a drinks and eatery venue. One North Fifth was rehabbed as an urban apartment building. As residences came to be available so that people could live downtown, more services moved in. Coffee houses, upscale restaurants, more entertainment venues, the University created a presence downtown with a building on Stone Avenue. The final piece of the puzzle is the Modern Streetcar. The initial start of construction of the Streetcar was disruptive. Many streets were torn up for a long period of time, traffic was interfered with. However, once the tracks were laid and the first cars started to roll on them for testing, the excitement started growing. It will be very interesting to see how this all evolves, its so exciting to feel like we are at the beginning of a new era.

Prank Calls

Prank Calls File this under observation. My nephew found an old Prince Albert tobacco can in a junk store, bought for me. I brought it to work, and it got a pretty good laugh, from people of a certain age. So everyone who remembered the old joke that people would call up and ask "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" and when you said yes, "then you better let him out." A real knee slapper. So this brought me to the thought that prank calling is a thing of the past. With the proliferation of cell phones, and people getting rid of land lines, pranksters don't have access to phone numbers. So with prank phone calling gone, all we have left is email spam.