Jennifer Toth is a British journalist and writer. She graduated with an MA in journalism from Colombia University.
The Mole People was published in 1993
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(This post is a review, not a summary)
Strangely enough, this book has been sitting on my shelf for years unread, but it seems that only recently has it captured my interest, probably because I've ventured into my personal challenge of reading a book a week for a year. Given that I'm in the fourth month of the year, I have already passed the checkpoint of making this constant reading (and obsession to spend all my money on books) a solidified habit. By virtue of this, my curiosity has expanded to new horizons I would have never thought I'd reach willingly. But looking back in hindsight, I wonder why I've never had the urge to pick this up. I've never lived in New York City, but I certainly lived near it, and spent more weekends than I can count in the midst of its presence, so surely it must have had some meaning to me. In any case, it has meaning to me now, and I suppose that's all that matters.
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It first struck me as a surprise that there was an underground society of homeless people that lived underground one of the busiest cities on the planet. One, in their ignorance, unconsciously paints a list of pre-conceived notions in regards to homeless people. Some may be a bit simple-minded, such as the common line of thought that depicts homeless people as inherent failures who've never tried or care to try to climb up the ladder of the supposed meritocracy this country boasts. Some others may be a bit more advanced or thought about, such as the line of reasoning that acknowledges that our economic system is not perfect, and nor are people perfect, which may result in people with even technical college degrees out of luck in finding themselves a job, which eventually leads to landlord evictions and such, and ultimately to men without homes.
However, this book makes sure to make the distinction between homeless people that roam around the streets, and homeless people that live underground in the tunnels. There is a whole culture that has been crafted by the people who live underground in the tunnels. Similar to a Palahniukian Fight Club, it features its own set of unspoken rules, the first of which is implied, namely that one shall not speak of its presence willingly and blatantly, especially to people from "up there" who live above ground. The second rule is one that serves as an illustration of tunnel life being divorced from the law, namely that a homeless man shall not inform authorities on matters that involve other homeless people, for doing so risks the integrity of some major tunnels, and submits the tunnel life to being under the scope of the law. One doing so can also land himself in some life-endangering trouble if caught by other tunnel dwellers, which is what is thought to have supposedly happened involving Toth, and a victim of a murder by a tunnel dweller named Blade, Near the end of the book, Jennifer Toth describes her frightening experience with Blade, who was a friend in many respects for a grand majority of time spent with him, as he accused her of contacting the authorities after he thought she witnessed a man being murdered by his hand. This was speculation on Blade's part however, for it was based upon her not picking up the phone when she was called by Blade over a weekend where she was out of the city and unable to pick up.
A grand majority of the homeless tunnel dweller stories did have a few elements in common. The first is that they almost all come from really dysfunctional families. Fathers beating mothers, fathers and/or mothers absent, foster home jumping, the parturition of crack-addicted babies and the like, drug addicted parents, little to no education, rape cases, and the list goes on. The second thing I found was a common denominator in these stories was the passionate hate for society above ground. They truly believe society failed them in every respect, and the only way to truly live life is to live underground. They convince themselves that it is objectively better to live like this, because it entails an ultimate freedom.
The conditions are rough. The average life span for a homeless man living in New York City is around 45. Through Blade's account, some homeless people will kill other homeless people for anything without mental burden, whether it be for a place to sleep or for $5. Since it unanimously claims to be divorced from the law, it's a society that is riddled in anarchy.
The variety of homeless people was surprising to me. Some interviewed held degrees in biology and chemistry. Many studied literature and philosophy. In the end however, most of them seemed to revert to a scope of the world that viewed society as a system that would ultimately fail you in every respect. Of course, this is not the case. In reference to the types of people that live in the tunnels, children raised in the tunnels go to school, and people who are called "runners" are responsible for obtaining food, clothing, newspapers etc. for the rest of the community. Women who live in the tunnels have almost no freedoms of their own. They must seek protection from other men in order to survive, otherwise they would be hurt and raped.
Ironically, tunnel life is a lot safer for the homeless than the shelters built for them. Homeless shelters in New York City are notorious for the violence that ensues inside them. Some homeless men are beaten almost to death by other homeless men while they're asleep, just so they can obtain a piece of clothing or a pair of shoes. It's kill or get killed, which is why many prefer the tunnels as a potential safe haven both from society, and from outside violence.
This book gave me powerful insight on how homelessness not just affects your views on how economic insecurity can cripple anyone, but also how it changes your views on society, and maybe ultimately the fundamental principles that tether the deepest parts of your psychology. So much so that you start to become both incredibly keen with reality in some situations, and absolutely delusional in others. There are several quotes that stuck out to me in the book, but the one I got a nudge from was: "The thing about being homeless in New York City is, you'll never go hungry. There's just too much food around!"
A blog dedicated to organizing all the types of things that capture my interest into one convenient location. Although it's not used with the intention of obtaining a loyal readership, if you feel that you're interested in the same thing, feel free to peruse at your disposal, and/or to contact me so we can be friends and learn from each other.
Friday, April 8, 2016
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
A Modest Proposal, & Other Satirical Works by Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pampleteer, poet and cleric who became dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. He's also known for writing Gulliver's Travels.
A Modest Proposal was published in 1729.
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(This post is a review, and not a summary)
This is probably the most hilarious piece of writing I've ever read in my life. Reading this takes me back to when I first discovered Mad Libs as a kid. The approach to humor between Swift's work and Mad Libs is not the same, but what is the same is its inherent level of silliness. It's so silly that it becomes laughable. The style in which it's written is what makes it downright absolutely hysterical. It's written in the language of how one would write in the 18th century, but on top of that it's written very eloquently. It's this eloquence combined with the insane subject matter that gives this work its unique magic. Swift titles his work as a "modest proposal", which is the literary equivalent of a racist starting his sentence with "I'm not a racist, but. . . ."
The proposal is discovered to be a potential solution to the economic turmoil that infects Ireland at the time. The brilliant solution Swift proposes as a way to go about easing the tension plaguing the economy is to sell the children of the poor and impoverished to the rich as food. This way, the poor have more money to invest on themselves as opposed to their children that would otherwise be there if they weren't served as food, while the rich get to enjoy a novel delicious cuisine made up of unwanted babies. It's a win-win. Plus, the poor would get even extra money in their selling of their offspring.
The explanation towards the proposal is amusing in it of itself, with generous 'guesstimations' and an argument that includes the attempt to persuade the readers in the savoriness of what are dead babies, by his "very knowing American of my acquaintance in London", who is implied to have tried the novel cuisine for himself, providing him with a particularly choice satisfactory dining experience.
It is of my opinion, and I am absolutely convinced, only by my sheer ignorance and only by hunch, that these are the origins of what is known today as deadpan comedy. The wiki definition seems to have it in a form that I cannot better express:
"Deadpan is an adjective, describing a deliberately emotionless and otherwise impassive, matter-of-fact manner. It is also a form of comic delivery in which humor is presented without a change in emotion or body language. It is usually spoken in a casual, monotone, or cantankerous voice, and expresses a calm, sincere, or grave demeanor, often in spite of the ridiculousness of the subject matter. This delivery is also called dry humor or dry wit, when the intent, but not the presentation, is humorous, blunt, oblique,sarcastic, laconic, or apparently unintentional."
As it was funny 300 years ago, it's still as hell of a lot funny today. Modern prominent deadpan comics include people like Steven Wright, Bill Murray, and Nathan Fielder.
The comedy's type is very closely related to anti-humor, where it "is a type of indirect humor that involves the joke-teller delivering something which is deliberately not funny, or lacking in intrinsic meaning. The practice relies on the expectation on the part of the audience of something humorous, and when this does not happen, the irony itself is of comedic value."
Everybody should read this before they die. They say that laughter is the best medicine, but given the state of medicine in 1729, laughter was probably literally the best medicine they had at their disposal, and this work does absolute justice to that proposition.
Monday, April 4, 2016
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian novelist who bears the title of the all-time best selling Portuguese language author. He boasts an over 200 million copies sold which includes, his most famous work, being reviewed here.
The Alchemist was published in Portuguese in 1988, and published in English in 1993
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(This post is a review, and not a summary)
Ever since its publication in English and other various languages since the early 90's, this book has slowly climbed its way to the top in being one of the most known stories of international best-sellers. For whatever it means, it has also been on the "most loved" section of books in Barnes & Noble.
In my opinion, as much love and praise as this book gets, I didn't find it too terribly exciting. However, I did like it more than I disliked it. The story begins with the protagonist, an Andalusian boy named Santiago who's a shepherd. I did not get a sense of the time period in which this story takes place, but since it has to do with the practice of alchemy around places like Egypt, it can be anywhere from 3500 b.c. to 1720, which is the time that would give birth to the first remnants of what's known today as chemistry. More precisely, the appearance of characters in the story that practiced Islam and belief in Allah would hint to the time period of the story being at least after 632 CE, which is the date of Muhammad's death.
I can't put any blame on the author for writing a book that's based on chemistry's ancestor, because during the times when alchemy was prominent, so were strange beliefs in all types of numinous phenomena. Perhaps this is why this book doesn't strike me as "too terribly exciting", because the characters are only as intelligent and insightful as can be their intellectuals at the time. This means that we're talking about a pre-enlightenment, or even pre-renaissance period. Now this wouldn't really matter if the book wasn't obviously trying to instill a lesson or moral precept onto you. This is the hint I was getting from The Alchemist, and the lessons the characters were attempting to teach Santiago were paradoxically both powerful and boring.
What do I mean by that? Well, one of the key proposals (and I think I can say with confidence, the main lesson) that kept being repeated throughout the entire book, was to follow "your personal legend", or so to say your dreams. Quite literally actually, because Santiago's personal legend was to make a pilgrimage to Egypt and find a treasure near the pyramids, which he acknowledged (with the help of a gypsy woman) from a recurring dream he had. It is important to give the distinction that the book refers to childhood dreams in specific, and not adult aspirations. This is powerful in the sense that one does not regularly give serious time and thought into what one used to fantasize about as a child, even with the advantage of hindsight as an adult. The book in fact (the character Melchizedek) suggests that it is through some "mysterious powerful force" that we in fact lose sight of our childhood fantasies and dreams when we become adults, so the very becoming of an adult works to one's disadvantage in remembering the kinds of dreams one used to think about as a child. The lesson is also boring in the sense that "go and follow your dreams" cannot be anymore cliche`.
Around the middle of the book, I had found that the constant heavy personification of the heart started to become too cheesy for my taste. There's an infamous fine line between poetic and cheesy, and it's easy to cross that barrier, especially when you're having a full length conversation in the middle of a desert with a guy who claims to be a 200 year old practicing alchemist about how you should listen to your heart.
Like all interesting books, the main character manages to find love throughout the way. She's a girl named Fatima who lives in an oasis, which seems lovely, except that Santiago ends up falling in love with Fatima almost immediately after he meets her. With all the best of intentions the author has in mind to establish a cute spark of love inside the protagonist, I cannot help but think how borderline obsessive that kind of behavior is. He even tells Fatima that he loves her and wants to be with her just shortly after he meets her. It actually made me laugh at how silly the timing was.
However, Fatima was not just some girl put in the story as a means of adding another tested-and-proven ingredient of what makes a popular novel. She provides with an unexpected internal conflict in the protagonist that's integral to the plot. Bad novels put the ingredients in the pot without any care for concentration and quantity, but good novels like The Alchemist tie the ingredients together in a way that make them crucial to the integrity of the plot. Fatima, of course, has a hold on Santiago, which makes him confused on what his heart genuinely wants. I personally loved the conversation he had about her with the alchemist. In a sentence or two, the alchemist told him that if he stays with Fatima and doesn't venture out to obtain the treasure and complete his personal legend, he will regret it, and Fatima will eventually feel guilty for making that happen. However, if he leaves Fatima, ventures out to obtain the treasure, and comes back to Fatima, he'll have the treasure, and he'll know whether Fatima's love was worth it or not based on whether she waited for him or decided to forget about him. The subtext there is that the alchemist told Santiago not to think with his penis. In fact, that should be the title of the book: "Follow your dreams and don't think with your penis."
But aside from all of the things I found cheesy or void of excitement, the rest of the book struck me as a pleasure. The classic adventure story where the boy ventures out to find some treasure is always nostalgic to read. Needless to say, the whole time I was reading I thought that the treasure was going to be a metaphor, but Santiago actually ends up finding an actual physical treasure, which was a nice unexpected surprise. Overall, because of the nostalgia factor of the plot, compounded with the popularity of the book, I found the book worth it to read, and I definitely didn't finish the book with a frown on my face, which is always a good thing.
The Alchemist was published in Portuguese in 1988, and published in English in 1993
________________________________________________________________________________________
(This post is a review, and not a summary)
Ever since its publication in English and other various languages since the early 90's, this book has slowly climbed its way to the top in being one of the most known stories of international best-sellers. For whatever it means, it has also been on the "most loved" section of books in Barnes & Noble.
In my opinion, as much love and praise as this book gets, I didn't find it too terribly exciting. However, I did like it more than I disliked it. The story begins with the protagonist, an Andalusian boy named Santiago who's a shepherd. I did not get a sense of the time period in which this story takes place, but since it has to do with the practice of alchemy around places like Egypt, it can be anywhere from 3500 b.c. to 1720, which is the time that would give birth to the first remnants of what's known today as chemistry. More precisely, the appearance of characters in the story that practiced Islam and belief in Allah would hint to the time period of the story being at least after 632 CE, which is the date of Muhammad's death.
I can't put any blame on the author for writing a book that's based on chemistry's ancestor, because during the times when alchemy was prominent, so were strange beliefs in all types of numinous phenomena. Perhaps this is why this book doesn't strike me as "too terribly exciting", because the characters are only as intelligent and insightful as can be their intellectuals at the time. This means that we're talking about a pre-enlightenment, or even pre-renaissance period. Now this wouldn't really matter if the book wasn't obviously trying to instill a lesson or moral precept onto you. This is the hint I was getting from The Alchemist, and the lessons the characters were attempting to teach Santiago were paradoxically both powerful and boring.
What do I mean by that? Well, one of the key proposals (and I think I can say with confidence, the main lesson) that kept being repeated throughout the entire book, was to follow "your personal legend", or so to say your dreams. Quite literally actually, because Santiago's personal legend was to make a pilgrimage to Egypt and find a treasure near the pyramids, which he acknowledged (with the help of a gypsy woman) from a recurring dream he had. It is important to give the distinction that the book refers to childhood dreams in specific, and not adult aspirations. This is powerful in the sense that one does not regularly give serious time and thought into what one used to fantasize about as a child, even with the advantage of hindsight as an adult. The book in fact (the character Melchizedek) suggests that it is through some "mysterious powerful force" that we in fact lose sight of our childhood fantasies and dreams when we become adults, so the very becoming of an adult works to one's disadvantage in remembering the kinds of dreams one used to think about as a child. The lesson is also boring in the sense that "go and follow your dreams" cannot be anymore cliche`.
Around the middle of the book, I had found that the constant heavy personification of the heart started to become too cheesy for my taste. There's an infamous fine line between poetic and cheesy, and it's easy to cross that barrier, especially when you're having a full length conversation in the middle of a desert with a guy who claims to be a 200 year old practicing alchemist about how you should listen to your heart.
Like all interesting books, the main character manages to find love throughout the way. She's a girl named Fatima who lives in an oasis, which seems lovely, except that Santiago ends up falling in love with Fatima almost immediately after he meets her. With all the best of intentions the author has in mind to establish a cute spark of love inside the protagonist, I cannot help but think how borderline obsessive that kind of behavior is. He even tells Fatima that he loves her and wants to be with her just shortly after he meets her. It actually made me laugh at how silly the timing was.
However, Fatima was not just some girl put in the story as a means of adding another tested-and-proven ingredient of what makes a popular novel. She provides with an unexpected internal conflict in the protagonist that's integral to the plot. Bad novels put the ingredients in the pot without any care for concentration and quantity, but good novels like The Alchemist tie the ingredients together in a way that make them crucial to the integrity of the plot. Fatima, of course, has a hold on Santiago, which makes him confused on what his heart genuinely wants. I personally loved the conversation he had about her with the alchemist. In a sentence or two, the alchemist told him that if he stays with Fatima and doesn't venture out to obtain the treasure and complete his personal legend, he will regret it, and Fatima will eventually feel guilty for making that happen. However, if he leaves Fatima, ventures out to obtain the treasure, and comes back to Fatima, he'll have the treasure, and he'll know whether Fatima's love was worth it or not based on whether she waited for him or decided to forget about him. The subtext there is that the alchemist told Santiago not to think with his penis. In fact, that should be the title of the book: "Follow your dreams and don't think with your penis."
But aside from all of the things I found cheesy or void of excitement, the rest of the book struck me as a pleasure. The classic adventure story where the boy ventures out to find some treasure is always nostalgic to read. Needless to say, the whole time I was reading I thought that the treasure was going to be a metaphor, but Santiago actually ends up finding an actual physical treasure, which was a nice unexpected surprise. Overall, because of the nostalgia factor of the plot, compounded with the popularity of the book, I found the book worth it to read, and I definitely didn't finish the book with a frown on my face, which is always a good thing.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Characterization to Create an Attractive Appeal
Photography and realist portrait art is what Ronald Barthes, in his book, Mythologies, describes wrestling as, “a spectacle”, because it captures the very essence of a person. It’s grand, above life, and profound. Pictures really do tell a thousand words, because one comes to notice that a setting, perhaps with some context, perhaps not, is presented, and the rest is left to the imagination of the viewer. Maybe he’s had a rough past; maybe she hides many secrets; maybe he spends many of his nights on his personal projects; maybe she’s into past-century practices such as letter writing; and etc.
It’s a matter of giving a person a character, and to characterize someone is to give someone value. To give someone value is to give the admission that said person is interesting. Feelings of interest, of course, can vary widely. Even ‘interesting hate’ can spur. A great example of this would have to be Donald Trump. Someone who is not a Donald Trump supporter would probably subconsciously be thinking: “What a disgusting, hateful, morally bankrupt person! I can’t stand snobs like him. I must keep watching him!” The idea is that the character riles someone up so much that they become fascinated with the character even more, and so interest builds. This is in line with Zizek’s view on how Gangnam Style became popular. Dumb video. Almost abrasive in its making fun of the Asian race. Can’t understand anything. I hate it. I hate it so much that I must keep watching. To not stray off the path, this is exactly the type of hold photography and art have on us. To drive the point home, and to give a different illustration, we shall look no further than Hollywood.
The way Hollywood helps viewers connect with characters (especially on TV shows) is the same effect that photography and art aim to materialize, with a small variation (namely of course that TV characters have much more scripted personalities). This effect is so strong that in some cases it leaves some impressionable people into thinking that the actors are the actual characters they play.
So this kind of value-placing, this almost at times obsessive ways of projecting value, are done through these exact avenues. The difference is that one needs not Hollywood to experience a taste of this. Of course, once you think about it for a bit, you can come up with several ways why people develop these values on people other than Hollywood characters. For example, people fall in and out of love constantly, sometimes randomly too. It can be so that Person A fell in love with Person B because Person B projected value, or that Person A gave value to Person B, and then subsequently fell in love with Person B as a result. Friendship is another way. Long lasting friendships are the ones that have a lasting value, and hence some sort of lasting interest. Practically all close human relationships have this characteristic.
Photography and art hence, gives one a chance to project an image that potentially gives birth to people’s investment in giving their value to the person in the photograph or portrait. From high definition cameras and instagram filters, to photoshopping and upscaling images, these give any “normal” person the confirmation to characterize themselves in the ways they see themselves in their mind’s eye.
It’s a matter of giving a person a character, and to characterize someone is to give someone value. To give someone value is to give the admission that said person is interesting. Feelings of interest, of course, can vary widely. Even ‘interesting hate’ can spur. A great example of this would have to be Donald Trump. Someone who is not a Donald Trump supporter would probably subconsciously be thinking: “What a disgusting, hateful, morally bankrupt person! I can’t stand snobs like him. I must keep watching him!” The idea is that the character riles someone up so much that they become fascinated with the character even more, and so interest builds. This is in line with Zizek’s view on how Gangnam Style became popular. Dumb video. Almost abrasive in its making fun of the Asian race. Can’t understand anything. I hate it. I hate it so much that I must keep watching. To not stray off the path, this is exactly the type of hold photography and art have on us. To drive the point home, and to give a different illustration, we shall look no further than Hollywood.
The way Hollywood helps viewers connect with characters (especially on TV shows) is the same effect that photography and art aim to materialize, with a small variation (namely of course that TV characters have much more scripted personalities). This effect is so strong that in some cases it leaves some impressionable people into thinking that the actors are the actual characters they play.
So this kind of value-placing, this almost at times obsessive ways of projecting value, are done through these exact avenues. The difference is that one needs not Hollywood to experience a taste of this. Of course, once you think about it for a bit, you can come up with several ways why people develop these values on people other than Hollywood characters. For example, people fall in and out of love constantly, sometimes randomly too. It can be so that Person A fell in love with Person B because Person B projected value, or that Person A gave value to Person B, and then subsequently fell in love with Person B as a result. Friendship is another way. Long lasting friendships are the ones that have a lasting value, and hence some sort of lasting interest. Practically all close human relationships have this characteristic.
Photography and art hence, gives one a chance to project an image that potentially gives birth to people’s investment in giving their value to the person in the photograph or portrait. From high definition cameras and instagram filters, to photoshopping and upscaling images, these give any “normal” person the confirmation to characterize themselves in the ways they see themselves in their mind’s eye.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Health Effects of Salty Diets Still Uncertain
An analysis of studies, narrative reviews, meta-analyses, letters, comments, clinical guidelines and consensus statements between 1974-2014 yielded no conclusive result on the effects of salt on health. 54% support the hypothesis that lower salt intake is associated with better health, 33% are against the hypothesis, and 13% are inconclusive.
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Using Nitric Oxide to Combat Acne
Researcher Adam Friedman from George Washington School of Medicine found that, using nanotechnology, the release of nitric oxide was effective in killing P. acnes while at the same time inhibiting inflammation that comes with acne lesions. This study focused on a new pathway that involves an inflammasome, which activates the inflammatory process in acne.
Dopamine and Social Interaction
This study explored an area of the brain (that of which for the most part is unknown) called the Dorsal Raphe Nucleus. This study done on mice (using optogenetics) showed that social isolation led the dopamine neurons to become "primed" or "sensitized", so as to suggest that the mice ought to interact with others. Stimulation of dopamine neurons resulted in animals interacting more with others, while inhibition of the neurons resulted in less interaction. This makes sense in light of the fact that illnesses like depression are linked to dopamine dysfunction.
Another thing to note is that dominant mice were more sensitive to these neural changes, simply because dominance and social rank requires a high(er) amount of social interaction.
Another thing to note is that dominant mice were more sensitive to these neural changes, simply because dominance and social rank requires a high(er) amount of social interaction.
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