Chances are if you're watching HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher" or reading one of his books, you're aware there's a good chance the political talk show host Bill Maher is going to offend you. He's an equal opportunity offender, but he's also a comedian and that's why his newest book, "The New New Rules," works.
Considération
Pot-pourri
saveur du mois
Imagine: How Creativity Works [REVIEW]
cirque médiatique
arts du spectacle
Janeane Garofalo Comes Russian In
The multi-talented actress discusses her new role in the New Group's production of Russian Transport.
Janeane Garofalo has had an eclectic career, shining in everything from films such as The Truth About Cats and Dogs to television series such as The West Wing, to her many successful gigs as a stand-up comedian. But her current role as the tough-talking Russian-emigre Diana in The New Group's production of Erika Sheffer's bracing drama Russian Transport, now at the Acorn Theatre, is definitely a change of pace for this versatile performer. TheaterMania recently spoke to Garofalo about the role, taking on a thick Russian accent, and her childhood memories of New York.
JG: I feel like I'm sucking terribly! We went over the dialect with coaches. At first, I thought the accent was coming easily, until I was told by the coach that I was making a lot of mistakes. Then I became increasingly self-conscious, and therefore less accessible. The Russian itself was initially very difficult because there are so few similarities between Russian and English. It's much easier now. But when I hear myself with my own ears, I sound like I'm doing a crazy character! I actually do the accent constantly around the house, and my boyfriend Pete is irritated to no end. He rolls his eyes and leaves the room immediately.
cinématographie
l'art culinaire
To remind us of his limitless creativity and child-like cheekiness, Blumenthal draws on childhood heavily with recipes for Cheese Toasties (Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwiches on this side of the pond) where a sponge is inserted between the bread for pre-grilling to set the shape of the bread and prevent that annoying and unpleasant sensation of scalding hot cheese squishing out the far side of an over-stuffed sandwich and into one’s hands and/or lap.
Modern cook books are a puzzle, some of them are excellent, while others, or more accurately, most, are very very poor. Cook books aren’t about cooking or learning skills, they’re about life style, selling the gastro dream of perfect manicured food every time you eat. These books are recipe after recipe, with accompanying perfectly lit glossy photographs, and on the whole they are completely useless. In the words of Michael Booth “Don’t worry, it’s not you. Recipes don’t work” there are so many permutations to a simple recipe, type of pan, heat of oven, quality of produce, age of produces etc etc, that no real recipe will ever work without a fundamental range of skills to back them up. So, as I’ve written before, I look for cook books that talk about technique and skills rather than recipes; my final list of favourite books is quite short.
One chef who, for me, focusses totally on technique and understanding, is Heston Blumenthal. I do feel obliged to say I’m a Heston fanboi, I own his books, I’ve eaten at The Fat Duck and I read his newspaper columns. I feel he actually knows what is going on, and having a vague science background myself, I really appreciate his approach to cooking. His Fat Duck Cook Book, is fascinating and I thoroughly enjoy scouring it for tips that may help my home cooking, however I’ve never made a recipe from that book, and probably never will. It’s far too complicated and really not designed for that purpose, it’s more of an autobiography than a cook book, a treatise on his life’s works.
You can imagine my excitement, when hearing via the world of twitter, that Heston had just released a book more focused on home cooking, rather than the brilliant but mostly unobtainable dishes he serves in The Fat Duck. I immediately found myself on Amazon and a few clicks later was happily awaiting delivery of ‘Heston Blumenthal At Home’. The next few days wait was tinged with excitement, much like a child a week before his birthday, the delivery couldn’t come soon enough. What arrived was a heavy dense book, 2.135kg for those with precision digital scales, I must have for any Heston fan. More of an encyclopaedia than a book, it was large enough to easily beat someone to death with. Thus if any would be burglar breaks into to my kitchen while I’m there, between this, my Mrs Beeton and the Larousse Gastronomique they’re in for a dam good pummeling.
I’ll cut to the chase, this book is brilliant, I don’t mean that in a kind of modern way where the word amazing seems to be interchangeable with OK or average. It really is brilliant, in fact I would have been quite happy paying the money just for the chapter on meat. This week, I’m going to slow roast a chicken at 90°c, a concept I never would have considered before, I’ve already made shortbread with olive oil as well as butter. However, it’s not the recipes that make it great, this book is full of recipes, and ones with elegant and luxurious photos. What is so more important in this book is the information, the skills and techniques, knowing what happens when you fry a steak, wash some salad or make your own mayonnaise.
Will I make most of the recipes from this book? Certainly not, there will be plenty I probably never make, but will it change the way I cook? Yes. The way I make stock, roast meat, poach fish and bake biscuits has already been reconsidered. I’ve spent the hour prior to writing the article researching vacuum pack machines and water baths on the internet, due to the sous vide chapter. This isn’t a cook book or a recipe book, it’s a technical cooking manual, stuffed full of the kind of info that will make you a better cook. It is already a favourite of mine, and is clearly better than all the other celebrity offerings that will adorn our shelves this year.
corps et l'esprit
What would you say to an attorney who loved her work on Wall Street but hated face to face meetings and found her self as the lead attorney on a negotiation team charged with solving a serious problem for a client as she sat across the table from a team of intimidating lawyers from the other side?
politiques conneries
"Please allow me to introduce myself
While it’s great to see more and more Paleo/Primal cookbooks hitting the shelves these days, one of my biggest complaints is that the food inside just isn’t very interesting. Melissa Joulwan’s new cookbook, Well Fed, just plain obliterates that complaint. In fact, it’s become my new favorite cookbook (and since my boyfriend is my “test kitchen,” I think it’s fair to say it’s his new favorite, as well).
From the start Melissa’s book is different in that she
approaches food as a real chef would. Melissa was born into a restaurant family and raised knowing how to prepare foods and meals for quick cooking. As a result there is an entire section in the book dedicated to the “Weekly Cookup” where she walks you through preparing different foods to have on hand for an entire week’s worth of easy meals. She utilizes spices and sauces to maintain variety. She also gives you a math equation to figure out exactly how many pounds of meat to buy each week.
The main recipes, of which there are over 100 are then broken into:
- Sauces & Seasonings
- Protein
- Veggies & Salads
- Fruits
In addition to recipes, the book includes:
- Rules of Paleo nutrition
- Necessary kitchen tools
- Spices and staples to keep in your pantry
- Sample grocery lists
- Online resources for spices & meats
- Online resources for information on Paleo eating
If you are looking for Paleo brownies and the like, this is not the cookbook for you. The food in this book is actually healthy for you.
If you are looking for recipes with international flair, that are a step above beginner cooking skills, and are far more rewarding in eating experience than the bison burgers, broccoli, and sweet potato you’ve been eating for months, this IS the book for you.
Every single recipe I tried from this book – and I’ve tried quite a few now – was wonderful. Melissa’s mixed ethnic background of Lebanese and Italian has given her a love of spices and textures that comes through loud-and-clear in her recipes – Moroccan meatballs, Char Siu, Citrus Carnitas, and Bora Bora Fireballs are just some examples of the proteins. The vegetable recipes, like Jicama “Potato” Salad and Cauliflower Rice Pilaf, do an excellent job of mimicking non-Paleo foods in a flavorful, healthy fashion.
Melissa’s sassy and fun attitude also comes through in the design and text of the book. I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed out loud reading a cookbook before.
Well Fed is available both as a soft-cover book for $29.95 and a PDF file for $14.95. Knowing full well the irony that cookbooks are often in danger in the kitchen, Melissa offers a free download of the PDF file with the purchase of the softcover edition. For every PDF download one dollar is donated to Common Threads, a charity that educates underprivileged kids in cooking and nutrition. You can purchase either edition of the cookbook on Melissa’s website, theclothesmakethegirl.com.
While the recipes in this book might be a little challenging for the beginner cook, for those of us who love being healthy and at the same time truly love food, this is the cookbook for you.
~ Becca Borawski, 2020
Imagine: How Creativity Works [REVIEW]
February 16, 2018
That spark of creativity, the moment of clarity – isn’t it what we all want? Unfortunately, it usually comes at the most unexpected moment and we can never really pin down where that spark came from, how to capture it again.
Jonah Lehrer’s “Imagine: How Creativity Works” is a stunning piece of journalism that takes the abstract concept of creativity head on. Delving into the complex world of neuroscience and sociology, Lehrer endeavors to explain the mystery behind the spark.
There’s good news and bad news here. The bad news is that creativity takes work. The good news? It isn’t something that some people have and others don’t. We are all creative. The trick is learning how to access it and Lehrer manages to provide a roadmap to success.
In Lehrer’s own words, this book is the “story of how we imagine.” That is one of the greatest successes of this book: it is a story.
He presents a fascinating and diverse range of examples of creativity throughout history; from Bob Dylan’s songwriting crisis and the evolution of a German sex doll (viewed by an unaware tourist) into the Barbie doll and how centrally located bathrooms lead to the creative success of Pixar and more. Divided into two main parts, “Alone” and “Together”, the book presents strategies for creativity in individual settings and for group dynamics.
Lehrer is in absolute control of the narrative. Just when the technical descriptions of the brain start to bog down the writing and the reader, he switches back to the stories – to the characters and their experiences that are so varied that any reader will be able to relate to at least one – and off we go again.
He keeps the language simple and straightforward, only using the technical neuroscience terms when absolutely necessary. There are examples of word problems designed for experiments to measure creativity (the answers are included so you don’t go insane from curiosity) and diagrams of brain sections and graphs of company productivity.
The book is not without its faults, of course. There is no doubt that Lehrer has done his research. It is evident through every anecdote in the book, some of which feature the writer himself as he interacts with the various people he interviewed.
The trouble is that because Lehrer demonstrates a mastery of writing and an ability to explain neuroscience in an understandable way, we accept him as an expert on all of the information in his book. Unfortunately, he fails to list sources for his data, which adds a certain degree of doubt to the information presented.
There is also a tendency toward contradiction in his writing from one chapter to the next. In one chapter, Lehrer recommends taking a hot shower, walking away from a problem for a time and waiting for the flash of creative insight. In the next, he claims the solution is “forcing oneself to pay attention … the answer won’t arrive suddenly, in a flash of light.”
He almost seems to be saying that creativity comes from everything: from being alone and from collaborating with others, in moments of distractions and from hours of focused work, from focusing inward and outward.
And maybe that’s the great mystery: science can track the bursts of gamma rays in the anterior superior temporal gyrus just before an insight and record alpha waves when we daydream, but there’s still something about creativity that just can’t be pinned down despite all the research. As Lehrer says, “It’s almost like magic.”
~ Amy Desselle, 2020
Jonah Lehrer is a Contributing Editor at Wired and
the author of "How We Decide" and "Proust Was a Neuroscientist." He graduated from Columbia University and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He's written for The New Yorker, Nature, Seed, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. He's also a Contributing Editor at Scientific American Mind and National Public Radio's Radio Lab.
cirque médiatique
Maher is an equal opportunity offender and a comedian, which is what makes his newest book, 'The New New Rules,' work.
arts du spectacle
Janeane Garofalo Comes Russian In
Article courtesy of Theater Mania
The multi-talented actress discusses her new role in the New Group's production of Russian Transport.
Janeane Garofallo
(© Steven Dewall)
(© Steven Dewall)
THEATER MANIA: What made you want to do this play now?
JANEANE GAROFALO: This idea came strictly from Scott Elliott, the director. I don't know why or how. I'm eternally grateful, but I don't know why he contacted me. I had never worked with him before. I originally passed because I thought, "I'm going to suck, I can't do this." He made it seem so easy, so by the end of a one-hour conversation, I was doing it. He is the best director I have ever worked with and now I feel like I don't want to work with anyone else, ever.
TM: How do you see Diana?
JG: I know she is supposed to be sort of the architect in the downfall of the family, and a person that people could come to dislike, but I don't see her that way. I see her as a person that is a pragmatist more than anything, and her main concern is the financial stability of her family because they are struggling right now. I definitely wouldn't talk to my kids the way she does, though.
TM: You have turned down screen roles due to their violent content or their inappropriate nature. Did you have any reservations about taking this part?
JG: Diana is not like me, a middle-class kid from the suburbs. She is a poor person from pre-Perestroika Russia. So it's hard to judge someone whose environment is so compromised in a way that I can't relate to. Back when mainstream scripts would come my way and there was no reason for attractive women to be killed or harassed in their underwear -- things that have nothing to do with the plot --I'd turn them down. ButRussian Transport is well-written and everything in it has everything to do with the plot.
JG: I feel like I'm sucking terribly! We went over the dialect with coaches. At first, I thought the accent was coming easily, until I was told by the coach that I was making a lot of mistakes. Then I became increasingly self-conscious, and therefore less accessible. The Russian itself was initially very difficult because there are so few similarities between Russian and English. It's much easier now. But when I hear myself with my own ears, I sound like I'm doing a crazy character! I actually do the accent constantly around the house, and my boyfriend Pete is irritated to no end. He rolls his eyes and leaves the room immediately.
TM: You're originally from New Jersey. What are some of your favorite New York memories from when you were a kid?
JG: As a little kid, I was terrified of New York, because on the Lower East Side at that time it could be quite intimidating. But I always knew I would one day live here. That was the plan -- especially after I saw the movie Desperately Seeking Susan. I just loved that movie, but that really sealed the deal.
TM: Have you and Ben Stiller ever considered turning your book, Feel This Book into a play?
JG: No, we sure haven't! I don't know how you would turn that into a play. I'm sure Ben would laugh in my face if I even brought anything like that up.
~ Iris Wiener • 2020
cinématographie
Gorgeous Book Celebrates the Accomplishments of Industrial Light & Magic
In terms of movie magic, there is one company that has done more to help directors suspend reality and create the fantasy lands, unique creatures, and action scenes that simply cannot exist in this world. From the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars to the incredibly complex attack that the Driller makes on Chicago in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, so many truly jaw-dropping cinematic moments have come fromIndustrial Light & Magic.
For the past three decades, the Lucasfilm-owned company has fooled filmgoers and created the impossible in more than three hundred movies. Now, the book, Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Innovation celebrates the many accomplishments of ILM, while peeling back the curtain and showing readers exactly how many of the most mind-blowing effects were accomplished.
The book begins by quickly reviewing the first two decades of ILM. Many of these films and their effects have been deconstructed elsewhere, so films like E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park get a brief consideration of a paragraph or two before moving on to the industry-changing accomplishments in the period from 1995 to the company’s first feature-length animation, Rango, in 2011.
Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Innovation is really an oral history of the company’s accomplishments, with the narrative almost exclusively coming from quotations from the directors, artists, and engineers at ILM. For example, during the filming of the 1996 movie Twister there was an outbreak of nice weather. The crew never saw a tornado. In the words of ILM visual effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier:
With a movie like this, you’re completely tied to the weather and have no control over it. But with visual effects, we were able to create the atmosphere we needed in the film. So where there were blue skies, we would replace them with gray, and when they were just gray but not stormy enough, we would hang huge storm clouds in there and let the tornadoes come from that.
It is fascinating to read about the challenges that ILM faced during certain scenes, the tools they use, and where the artists turned to for inspiration. However, you should be warned: on more than one occasion, I turned the page to see a photograph of a movie scene that I would have sworn was real, only to learn it was a model or computer generated.
The book collects the memories and inside dirt on 43 different movies, including Titanic, Minority Report,Star Trek, and some technological marvel called Avatar. It’s packed full of truly amazing information like the fact that the Transformers in the first movie collectively contained more than 12 million polygons, leading associate visual effects supervisor, Russel Earl, to recall:
In the original photography, we shot the truck by chasing behind it in a camera car … We knew we had to transform from the live vehicle to the CG truck, because the CG truck would then need to transform into Optimus Prime. So we decided to just paint out the real truck and use an all CG truck. We figured we could match the look of the real truck more easily than trying to blend from the real truck to the CG truck to the CG robot. But Michael [Bay] saw the CG truck, and he was instantly on it: ‘That’s not my truck!’… Sure enough, our tire was maybe an inch wider, or the trailer hitch was slightly off, or the window was slightly rounder – all of these really small details that you wouldn’t notice, but Michael was right on it … It’s great because you have the opportunity to make the change and put the best image up there.
But the book isn’t just war stories from popular films; ILM also detail how they simulate fluid, one of the most difficult movie elements to animate, how they utilize motion capture systems, and there are also bios of a number of artists and supervisors, which explain how they got into the movies and made their way to ILM.
The oversized 360-page book retails for $50, which is a lot, but it is absolutely worth every penny. With more than 500 drool-worthy color photos and fascinating text that will have you turning pages almost faster than you can read them. For movie geeks, Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Innovation is a must-have addition to your coffee table or bookshelf.
l'art culinaire
BOOK REVIEW: HESTON BLUMENTHAL AT HOME by Heston Blumenthal
The Big Fat Duck Cookbook reigns as one of the most impressive and intimidating cookbooks of all time. Cooks would turn the pages in awe and envy over the recipes and technical prowess of Chef Heston Blumenthal’s food, the likes of which earned him the distinction of #1 on San Pellegrino’s list of the Top 50 Restaurants in the World in 2005. Since the release of The Big Fat Duck Cookbook in 2008, chefs the world over have been infatuated with what was essentially 3 books in one; Blumenthal’s telling autobiography, the recipes from The Fat Duck and numerous essays and primers describing the unending research and theories that are constantly circulating through the remarkably small kitchen in Bray, UK. Unfortunately the culinary ambitions of the home cook seemed to fall to the way side; most weren’t equipped with the likes of immersion circulators, liquid nitrogen and pantries of hydrocolloids, all of which are required possessions when attempting most, if not all, of Blumenthal’s recipes.
Well wait no longer, home cooks. Your patience has not been in vain. Not by a long shot.
When word dropped at The Cookbook Store that Heston Blumenthal was writing a cookbook titled Heston Blumenthal at Home, skepticism abounded with visions of Blumenthal’s home being more like the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise and less like the humble fridge/sink/stove setup us mere mortals possess. It seems the folks in Bray anticipated this and designed the cover of the book featuring a pajama-clad Blumenthal mid-way through his nighttime refrigerator raid in a cheeky parody of Nigella Lawson’s notorious habit of slinking downstairs in her nightgown to drag a spoon through cold, refrigerated food for midnight snacking.
Moving past the cover, one discovers that, once again, Blumenthal has exceeded the expectations of the average cookbook. In addition to recipes (we’ll get to those later), chapters are preceded by comprehensive sections explaining cooking principles from the role of each ingredient in a classic stock to the most detailed walkthrough of risotto preparation I’ve ever read. Of course, to please the ambitious students, a short chapter on sous-vide cookery is included, accompanied by a brief, yet concise notation on the benefits of the technique and its proper utilization.
Closer inspection of recipes reveals the use of grams as opposed to the more common (and inaccurate) cups, tablespoons and the like. Followers of my reviews know my position on these matters, so a cookbook that works in weights already falls under my good graces (consequentially, cooking temperatures are listed in Celsius, and thus require a simple conversion to understand). Where the Fat Duck Cookbook offered recipes for Snail Porridge and Flaming Sorbet, Heston Blumenthal at Home is noticeably tuned down with dishes such as Roast Leg of Lamb with Anchovy, Rosemary and Garlic; and Liquid Centre Chocolate Pudding filling the pages. Blumenthal also “recycles” recipes from his first book by removing excess technical procedure in favour of simplified execution. The iconic Scrambled Egg Ice Cream with Bacon and Pain Perdu is one such participant.
To remind us of his limitless creativity and child-like cheekiness, Blumenthal draws on childhood heavily with recipes for Cheese Toasties (Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwiches on this side of the pond) where a sponge is inserted between the bread for pre-grilling to set the shape of the bread and prevent that annoying and unpleasant sensation of scalding hot cheese squishing out the far side of an over-stuffed sandwich and into one’s hands and/or lap.
For those turned off by the inherent simplicity of the latest Blumenthal book, I encourage you to at least consider the information provided on cooking principles, where culinary experts such as Harold McGee are referenced. They are impressively prolific with short notes on technique that are sure to enrich even the most experienced of professionals. The pastry chapter alone outlines the proper procedure for using dry ice at home and explains the scientific side of gelatine’s usage. Whether at home or the restaurant, it’s impossible to suppress Blumenthal’s thirst for knowledge, and as a result even seasoned cooks are sure to turn the last page smarter and more informed than when they first opened the cover.
In a year where many of the world’s greatest chefs have written homey, simplified cookbooks to appease the non-professional masses,Heston at Home stands out as the most ambitious of them all. Not pleased with just offering short recipes, Blumenthal pushes the reader to embrace the natural curiosity of the human mind and engage themselves with each recipe. Ideally, the reader gains the confidence to deviate slightly from instruction, and perhaps insert a favorite ingredient here or there to appease their unique palates, thereby expanding their culinary horizons one taste at a time. Once again, Blumenthal overachieves with his work; where The Big Fat Duck Cookbook stood as an icon of innovation, ambition and finesse, Heston at Homeexemplifies simplicity, purity and technical foundation in cuisine.
Modern cook books are a puzzle, some of them are excellent, while others, or more accurately, most, are very very poor. Cook books aren’t about cooking or learning skills, they’re about life style, selling the gastro dream of perfect manicured food every time you eat. These books are recipe after recipe, with accompanying perfectly lit glossy photographs, and on the whole they are completely useless. In the words of Michael Booth “Don’t worry, it’s not you. Recipes don’t work” there are so many permutations to a simple recipe, type of pan, heat of oven, quality of produce, age of produces etc etc, that no real recipe will ever work without a fundamental range of skills to back them up. So, as I’ve written before, I look for cook books that talk about technique and skills rather than recipes; my final list of favourite books is quite short.
One chef who, for me, focusses totally on technique and understanding, is Heston Blumenthal. I do feel obliged to say I’m a Heston fanboi, I own his books, I’ve eaten at The Fat Duck and I read his newspaper columns. I feel he actually knows what is going on, and having a vague science background myself, I really appreciate his approach to cooking. His Fat Duck Cook Book, is fascinating and I thoroughly enjoy scouring it for tips that may help my home cooking, however I’ve never made a recipe from that book, and probably never will. It’s far too complicated and really not designed for that purpose, it’s more of an autobiography than a cook book, a treatise on his life’s works.
You can imagine my excitement, when hearing via the world of twitter, that Heston had just released a book more focused on home cooking, rather than the brilliant but mostly unobtainable dishes he serves in The Fat Duck. I immediately found myself on Amazon and a few clicks later was happily awaiting delivery of ‘Heston Blumenthal At Home’. The next few days wait was tinged with excitement, much like a child a week before his birthday, the delivery couldn’t come soon enough. What arrived was a heavy dense book, 2.135kg for those with precision digital scales, I must have for any Heston fan. More of an encyclopaedia than a book, it was large enough to easily beat someone to death with. Thus if any would be burglar breaks into to my kitchen while I’m there, between this, my Mrs Beeton and the Larousse Gastronomique they’re in for a dam good pummeling.
I’ll cut to the chase, this book is brilliant, I don’t mean that in a kind of modern way where the word amazing seems to be interchangeable with OK or average. It really is brilliant, in fact I would have been quite happy paying the money just for the chapter on meat. This week, I’m going to slow roast a chicken at 90°c, a concept I never would have considered before, I’ve already made shortbread with olive oil as well as butter. However, it’s not the recipes that make it great, this book is full of recipes, and ones with elegant and luxurious photos. What is so more important in this book is the information, the skills and techniques, knowing what happens when you fry a steak, wash some salad or make your own mayonnaise.
Will I make most of the recipes from this book? Certainly not, there will be plenty I probably never make, but will it change the way I cook? Yes. The way I make stock, roast meat, poach fish and bake biscuits has already been reconsidered. I’ve spent the hour prior to writing the article researching vacuum pack machines and water baths on the internet, due to the sous vide chapter. This isn’t a cook book or a recipe book, it’s a technical cooking manual, stuffed full of the kind of info that will make you a better cook. It is already a favourite of mine, and is clearly better than all the other celebrity offerings that will adorn our shelves this year.
corps et l'esprit
What would you say to an attorney who loved her work on Wall Street but hated face to face meetings and found her self as the lead attorney on a negotiation team charged with solving a serious problem for a client as she sat across the table from a team of intimidating lawyers from the other side?
What would you say to a frustrated and concerned parent who wanted her child to fit in and have friends but who instead preferred to read at home?
How about a university student who found the “discussions” of their classes disgusting and a waste of time?
With the premise in her introduction (that parallels Stephen Covey’s similar views in his introduction to his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) that a shift from a Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality has “unleashed in ordinary people-introverts and extraverts-a nagging sense of personal inferiority that plagues them to this day” Susan Cain, a self-professed introvert, begins leading us on a journey of visits to quiet people such as university and high school students, parents of “quiet” but gifted and articulate children, a well-known mega church (Saddleback Community in Southern California), and through a number of signifcant studies of introversion and extroversion as she seeks to encourage all of us to “be true to yourself.”Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, is a thoroughly researched book in which Cain argues for a greater understanding and acceptance of those who are often thought shy, bookish, backward, and even anti-social – introverts. Basing her views of introversion on the views and study of Carl Jung, Cain suggests that there is a place, a much needed place at times, for introverts in our society as a companion, and in some cases, a check, against the predominate extroversion of our time.
Along the way, Cain, takes us into
… the workplace and challenges the current preoccupation with groupthink and argues that working alone is still a viable and necessary activity for both productivity and business success.
… the modern American classroom and the need to help both school systems as well as the classroom affirm and encourage the introverted student to thrive as much as the extroverted student
… the financial world and how “introverts and extroverts think (and process dopamine) differently” as she contrasts the ‘Wizard of Omaha” Warren Buffett who has made money in a tough economy with those whose risk taking caused financial loss for themselves and others as well
… parents, and students, who struggle with a ‘shy’ label that creates both personal and academic problems instead of seeing how the richness of their inner world is an asset
"How much of it is nurture and how much of it is nature? Where does free will come into play?"In this midst of this journey she focuses her study on what I have often thought about on this discussion on personality as a whole and this particular aspect of personality.
Her significant use of studies done on identified introvert and extroverted students using MRI scans is a strength of this book as it reveals that there is a biological and chemical aspect to personality that must be considered. But in doing so she acknowledges that there is a grey area into which we must take account in the dynamic of human personality.
In short, Quiet affirms the place and importance of introversion in society and Cain challenges our current extroverted society with bringing the deep and necessary gifts of those who are more introverted into play.
~ A 2020
politiques conneries
"Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste"
~ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
When New York Times columnist Joe Nocera told me that he was taking an extended leave to write a book (with Bethany McLean) about the financial crisis, I wished my friend well.
In the back of my mind I was really thinking that the last thing the world needs now is another book about the financial crisis.
I was wrong.
We needed this book. All the Devils Are Here is the best business book of 2010. Gary Rivlin's Broke USA is a close second.
McLean and Nocera have the same skill set. They know how to tell a story. In Devils, they put numbers and nuances into a human drama and wrote a business book that is as riveting as an adventure novel.
After reading such books as Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big To Fail, Michael Lewis's The Big Short, Gregory Zuckerman's The Greatest Trade Ever and Roger Lowenstein's The End of Wall Street, I thought the financial crisis had been completely covered with great books by great writers and there wasn't anything else left to say.
McLean and Nocera were able to build on the story and trace the crisis back, 30 years ago, to its roots.
I had expected the book to be well-written.
Bethany McLean was the co-author of the monster best seller, The Smartest Guys in the Room. Her work at Vanity Fair and Fortune has always been first rate.
It's rare for me to agree with CNBC commentator Jim Cramer about anything, but he is correct when he calls Joe Nocera, "The best business writer alive." Nocera's 1994 book, A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class, is considered one of the best business history pieces ever written.
What makes All the Devils Are Here my top pick is noted in its subtitle: it truly is "The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis."
It's easy for us in the media to vilify key players in the financial crisis. Goldman Sachs and Hank Paulson are particular punching bags of mine. McLean and Nocera give a straight down the middle view of all the players. It seemed to me that the authors viewed Paulson as a well- intentioned and, possibly, heroic figure with some fatal flaws. I'm not buying a kinder, gentler Hank Paulson, but McLean and Nocera don't argue a viewpoint. They tell a story and give the readers something to think about.
Some of us want to tie the financial crisis to Wall Street and Washington. Others want to blame greedy and ill-informed consumers, rouge traders and brokers, out-of-control lenders and people with a Pollyanna view of the world.
McLean and Nocera make a convincing argument that it's all of the above. And more.
The authors do an excellent job of taking us to the roots of the financial crisis. Businesses were too concerned with immediate profits and with lapdog regulators and friends in Washington. Greed led to stupidity at every level, be it a 25 year-old mortgage broker making six figures or the heads of Wall Street firms such as AIG and Goldman Sachs.
The authors show how efforts to goose the housing market at Fannie Mae and the Federal Reserve Board lead to tons of unintended consequences.
McLean and Nocera have ferretted out the root causes and given us something to think about as we move toward the future.
The unique view of history, research, and detail alone would make this a great book. It is the writing style and flow that make it a masterpiece. Once I received the book, I could not put it down until I hit the ending, 380 pages later.
Like The Smartest Guys in the Room or A Piece of the Action, I suspect this book will have an impact far beyond the literary world.
Although they don't tell us an idea where to look for angels, I feel certain that all the devils are here.
~ A, 2020
