Continuing my 2009 theme of Gulf War/South Asia books: Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars (recommended by my Poli Sci professor neighbor) and David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers - both outstanding, both exhilirating, both depressing.
Though I didn’t read the book (and I didn’t count it towards my total), the HBO series based on Generation Kill was incredible. Best line of dialogue: the tough, brilliant Marine, Sgt. Colbert, riding in his Humvee as part of the American invasion of Mesopotamia, says to a just “liberated” local, “You’re welcome. Vote Republican.” And I’ve never voted Republican.
One of my favorite periods in history is Europe immediately before and after WWI, especially since this is the time covered in Remembrance of Things Past. So, Ruth Harris’ Dreyfus: Politics, Emotions, and the Scandal of the Century, filled in the blanks for me about the Dreyfus affair. I learned about our prior economic disaster in Ahamed Liaquat’s Lords of Finance and I learned that it’s not so good when the most powerful financier in the world crumbles under the pressure of worldwide financial collapse and goes on an open-ended cruise.
Alex Beam’s Gracefully Insane tells the tale of McLean Hospital, Boston’s original asylum for the well-to-do, and temporary home of Sylvia Plath, among others. Erika Janik, author of the Odd Wisconsin series, taught me about my adopted home in A Short History of Wisconsin. Finally, David Lindberg’s The Beginnings of Western Science was an impressively readable academic treatise on, er, the beginnings of Western science.
Cars
A new category for me. The Fall of Detroit inspired me to read Robert Dewar’s The Savage Factory, an insider’s account of the inanity of American carbuilding in the 1970s, and Paul Ingrassia’s Crash Course, a reporter’s account of the inanity of American carbuilding since the 1960s. And that’s about enough.
Sci-fi and Fantasy
Once a staple of my reading list - now, not so much. Only two entries: G.R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones (a really good book, but apparently the rest of the series gets progressively more convoluted and unpleasant) and Terry Pratchett’s The Light Fantastic, which reminded me why I don’t read in this category much any more.
Smorgasbord
Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto and Better, both excellent primers about quality improvement in medicine. Too bad he charges $70,000 in speaking fees (thus, no Grand Rounds at UW).
Dan Siegel’s Mindsight is a surprisingly approachable take on the intersection of neuroscience and mindfulness.
David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is a wonderful collection of essays. Too bad that Infinite Jest is unreadable (sitting on the bedside stand permanently).
I consume a lot of photography books and articles, and David duChemin’s Within the Frame is one of the best.
My only memoir of the year: Andre Agassi’s Open. His portrait of his domineering fathering is incredible; the rest of the book - not so good.
Finally, an homage to my favorite book, Moby-Dick: Philip Hoare’s Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea, read during our delightful vacation on the North Shore of Lake Superior.
Each year, I set a goal of reading 25 books above and beyond my usual medical reading. In 2010, I was very hungry - my reading caught fire - and I made a mockery of the goal of 25. Here are the 38 books I read (or listened to), loosely categorized:
Crime & mystery
Easily my biggest category of the year, and my guiltiest pleasure. My favorite was Arnaldur Indridason’s Hypothermia, wherein our Icelandic anti-hero, Erlendur, tries to unravel the mystery of suicide and remains haunted by the death of his brother in a snowstorm. I checked out another Scandinavian, Jo Nesbo, and his war/espionage/racism thriller, The Redbreast. It was quite good, though the translation of his book Nemesis was unreadable and I couldn’t finish it. Some Swedes round out my Scandinavian reading list, with the classics, Minds’ Eye (Hakan Nesser) and The Laughing Policeman (Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall). All are highly recommended to my mystery-reading friends.
I very much enjoyed listening to the audio rendition of Walter Mosley’s The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, wherein the title character, who is suffering from dementia, gets a miracle drug that gives a few weeks of lucidity - and the chance to avenge the murder of his nephew and former caregiver. A geriatric revenge fantasy!
Also enjoyable were Rennie Airth’s River of Darkness (shell-shocked WWI vet tracks another shell-shocked WWI vet committing gruesome crimes) and Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (frankly, I’ve forgotten the plot, but the 11-year old heroine was delightful).
Less successful entries: Holmes on the Range, a Sherlock Holmes/cowboy Western mash-up, that was quirky up to a point, then just too long; Far Cry, an overwrought lost-child drama; A Simple Act of Violence, a Guardian recommendation I shouldn’t have followed.
Classics
On a recommendation from a colleague, I re-read Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, in the new Volokhonsky/Pevear translation. Incredible. The story is magnificent, of course, and the translation really makes it come alive. Actually, after a year of Republican political upset, Master and Margarita was a welcome antacid.
Every Man Dies Alone was the most heart wrenching book I read this year. Hans Fallada’s resurrected masterpiece fictionalizes the story of a working class couple who protest the Nazis by littering Berlin with post cards questioning the regime. It has a perversely light, almost picaresque, quality … as one is lead to its inevitable conclusion.
Jane Gardam is a godsend. Another geriatric novel: Old Filth tells the story of a British lawyer who Failed In London and Tried Hong Kong (FILTH), including his upbringing in Malaysia and Wales, his harrowing boat ride from the UK to Africa to (nearly) Singapore (then being bombarded by the Japanese) and back to the UK (sick with a severe infection), his annoying neighbor/competitor and his relationship with his patient wife, Betty. She gets her own book (The Man in the Wooden Hat), which I haven’t read yet.
Finally, I conquered a book that had been on my bedside stand for years - Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. Mann is one of my favorite authors (Magic Mountain being the best, Death in Venice one of the best novellas ever), and it’s amazing that Mann wrote this masterpiece in his 20s.
Kids & YA
I tore through Suzanne Collins’ series about dystopian heroine Katniss Everdeen: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and The Mockingjay. We can all quibble about some of the plotting, character development and dialogue - but, at the end of the day, these are very enjoyable books, and Katniss rocks.
Usually I read a lot of kids’ books, but the only other one this year was Stuart Little, which I finished in one sitting at the Morrison (IL) Public Library.
Maddy has been listening to opera since we introduced her to the “Ride of the Valkyries” when she was 3 years old. For her birthday last year, we took her to “Carmen,” and she has been humming its melodies ever since. Maddy combined her love of Carmen with her sewing skills to produce costumes for a Barbie version of Carmen. Add two point-and-shoot cameras shooting video, and you get Madeline’s Barbie Opera’s first recorded performance of “The Toreador Song.”
Maddy did the set design, costumes and choreography - and, of course, the original idea. Lucy helped with directing and photograpy. Art set up his Canon S90 and Canon SD1000 to shoot the performance from left and right, and used iMovie to edit the video and mix in the audio. All the work was done on July 3, 2010.
Madeline’s Barbie Opera company will next perform other hits from “Carmen,” and will eventually move on to some of Maddy’s other favorite operas. Stay tuned!
Having just finished reading David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers, I feel I can make recommendations about what to read regarding the war in Iraq, including the events leading up to it and the sequelae. In chronological order:
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright. A detailed account of the rise of Osama bin Laden and his minions, culminating in 9/11. Given that the Bush administration used 9/11 and the fight against Al Qaeda as pretexts to invading Iraq, this seems like a good place to start.
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, by Samantha Powers, specifically Chapter 8, which covers Iraq. There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s regime was brutal and living in Iraq, especially if you were a Kurd or Shiite or not a Baathist, was horrifying. This is the only work of non-fiction ever to give me nightmares.
Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor. This is the definitive account of the preparation for and execution of the invasion of Iraq. It’s an inside-baseball account of military tactics (and some politics), and it sets the stage for the disaster to follow …
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005, by Thomas Ricks. This may be my favorite book on this list. The first word of the title says it all.
Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. This book amplifies some of the material covered in Fiasco, specifically the incredible incompetence among the U.S. authorities administering Iraq after the invasion.
Finally, the books that may have the most lasting impact, both written by reporters with extensive experience within Iraq: The Forever War by Dexter Filkin is an account of all hell breaking loose after the invasion, including the terrible toll on Iraqis and on American soldiers. David Finkel follows up with The Good Soldiers, about life as a soldier in an Army infantry brigade posted during the surge (January 2007 to April 2008) in the hot spot of Sadr City, Baghdad. Filkin’s account is more personal and more ironic; Finkel’s is straight-up, raw, intense and emotional.
Let’s pretend for a moment that one really needs a camera. Now, let us consider the implications. One needs the gear necessary to fulfill one’s artistic vision. That, of course, means a dSLR with good glass. However, said gear is large, unwieldy and expensive - you can’t bring it everywhere, nor would you want to.
What does go with you everywhere? A phone - and likely it has a camera inside. Its properties are the opposite of a dSLR: small, portable, light, easy-to-use, inexpensive, convenient and always available. Alas, while some have created incredible art with cameraphones, the image quality is usually poor.
What logically follows? Obviously, a niche (a veritable chasm) exists between dSLR and cameraphone. The cameras in this space are:
Panasonic Lumix LX3
Micro Four-Thirds (Panasonic GF1 and Olympus EP-1 or 2)
Canon S90 and G11
This is a review of the Canon S90, which I recently bought. Last month, I went shopping for a P&S that would fill the niche between my iPhone and dSLR. I had read great reviews of the S90 and the G11, and so I tried both out at our local camera shop. For me, the S90 was easily superior to the G11.
S90 vs G11:
1. The image sensor is the same, so theoretically the image quality should be the same.
2. The S90 is fully manual, including selecting aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc. The external controls are customizable, with one control ring on the back and one on the front, so that I don’t have dig into menus.
3. I don’t find the lack of an optical viewfinder a problem - I just adapt by using only the screen, which is very bright and easily visible even in sunshine.
4. The S90 is very compact (much smaller than the G11) and feels sturdy as a brick (as opposed to the G11, which feels flimsier and plasticky).
5. The S90 is $50 cheaper. I bought it at our local camera shop when Canon had a $30 off sale, bringing the price down to $400, which is what the cost was on-line. Also, Canon has a loyalty program that’s getting me another $20 off since I am upgrading from another Canon P&S.
Performance so far:
1. I have been very impressed with high ISO performance: 400 is fine, 800 is usable and even 1600 can be used in a pinch.
2. JPEG’s out of the camera come out quite nicely, if that’s your preference. However, I shoot RAW, so this is irrelevant to me.
3. Shooting at f/2 is really nice - getting thin DOF and some bokeh on a P&S is a pleasant surprise (though see con #4 below).
4. Workflow: I shoot RAW with Adobe (Camera Raw & Photoshop) post-processing, and the results are OK. Canon’s own post-processing software (bundled for free with the camera) does a better job with noise reduction (making 800 and 1600 usable) and with correcting barrel distortion (see below).
Link to my S90 photos on Flickr
Cons:
1. The rear control ring is loose; when in Aperture priority mode, this ring controls exposure compensation - so it’s easy to change the exposure by accident.
2. The flash pops up using a cool servo motor mechanism, but it’s in a strange place: right where your left forefinger ought to be.
3. Crazy barrel distortion - again, Canon’s software fixes this, but if you use ACR & PS, you have to fix it yourself.
4. This is a variable aperture lens: it’s f/2 only on the wide end, and the minimum aperture shrinks considerably (4.9) at the telephoto end.
5. Alas, it’s only a P&S. It’s great for getting a shot when you don’t have your gear or when it’s inconvenient to have it (e.g., when I shot in 4-degree weather on ice), but it’s IQ is nowhwere near an SLR’s.
6. Video is SD, not HD. This doesn’t matter to me. You can’t change settings while shooting video - that’s a bummer.
Bottom line:
I very highly recommend the S90 as a photographer’s always-with-me camera. Its only competition in the same price range is the Panasonic Lumix LX3, which is over a year old and due for a re-fresh. You could get a micro-4/3 camera (e.g., Panasonic GF1 or Olympus PEN), but it will cost twice as much. The S90 is, needless to say, far superior to the iPhone camera.
I have for the last 10 years or so had the goal of reading at least 25 books per year that are not directly related to Medicine and Psychiatry. This helps maintain my link to my roots as a Creating Writing major in college and my humanities background. It makes me slightly more interesting in conversation, too. Since 2001, I’ve accomplished my goal every year but one. Here are some highlights and my recommendations from my 2009 list:
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. This is easily my favorite book of the year, and it has topped Coraline as my favorite Gaiman novel. I first listened to it in the car, and I hard time getting out of my car while it was playing. Then I read it out loud to Maddy and Lucy. I’m sure I’ll read it again and again. The story is novel and exciting, the characters are vivid and real (despite most of them being ghosts) and the meditation on life and death is deep.
The Forever War by Dexter Filkin documents life in pre-surge Iraq when all hell broke loose in 2004 and 2005. It is an extremely well-written and personal account of the war. I am now looking forward to reading The Good Soldiers by David Finkel, which covers the surge.
The Photographer’s Eye by Michael Freeman. I have been reading a lot of books about photography, and this is one of my favorites. It covers the topic of composition specifically, but also color, patterns, and so on. It has definitely made an impact on my photography, which is the ultimate value of such books.
On Writing Well by William Zinsser. I can’t believe I never read this in high school or college. For me, it served as a refresher course on writing succinctly and with meaning.
Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis. Terrific biography of the genius behind my favorite childhood (and probably even now) comic strip.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. I’ve been reading a fair amount of mystery writers during the last couple of years, and these are my favorite mysteries of the year. The former is a riff on a class locked-room puzzle, with one of the coolest characters in crime writing, Lisbeth Salander. The latter (which I’m half-way through) is more a police procedural - faster-paced but with the same terrific dialogue and characters.
Zeitoun by David Eggers. An incredible narrative of post-Katrina devastation and its toll on one family. I’ll leave the political interpretations to you.
The following quote from The Colbert Report got me thinking:
In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant. One motto on the show is, ‘Keep your facts, I’m going with the truth.’
I like this idea of “active ignorance,” as opposed to good ol’ “ain’t learned it yet ignorance.” The latter kind of ignorance is tinged with hope. “Johnny just hasn’t learned long division yet” or “Janey will know the capitals of all 50 states when she takes Civics in 6th grade.” It may evoke pity from the other party. (Or if the other party is in a bad mood, sneers.) The corollary of this view of ignorance is optimism: by learning something, we will become wiser and better and closer to the Truth. This optimism underlies public education, self-help books, insight-oriented psychotherapy, and subscribing to National Geographic.
But “active ignorance” is a thuggish, in-and-out-of-juvey kind of ignorance. It’s willful, mean-spirited and a liar. It’s a bad influence, and it spits when it yells. Active ignorance goes out of its way to avoid the truth. And it wants you to join its posse.
I suppose you could say active ignorance is the same thing as denial, but denial is the psyche’s stealthy way of protecting you from fear and disgust and anger. The truth is hidden, because its pain is too much to bear. Active ignorance has a different relationship with emotions. Demagogues, for example, flaunt emotions. An actively ignorant bureaucracy parodies emotions (”we’re happy you’ve chosen to do business with us.”) Emotions are the tools of active ignorance.
Obviously, I’m writing this because of the atmosphere of the health care debate over the last few weeks. “Government takeover” and “pulling the plug on grandma” are the right jab and the left hook of this street brawl. Why look for answers when you can shout them out?
Perhaps in a bit of denial myself, I think, in the end, the right thing will happen. But we have a lot of active ignorance to overcome.
70-300mm (Approximates the picture angle performance of a 105-450mm 35mm SLR). G-Type AF-S Zoom-Nikkor lens with built - in CPU and Nikon bayonet mount.
Pros: Quick Focus, Consistent Output, Strong Construction
Cons: Chromatic aberration, Not the sharpest, Average in low light
Best Uses: Sports/Action, Wildlife
Describe Yourself: Hobbyist/Enthusiast
The 70-300 has been perfectly acceptable as a telephoto zoom coupled with my D300. I do not shoot enough sports or wildlife to justify buying the 70-200 f/2.8, and I wasn’t convinced that the 80-400 or a prime like the 180 would meet my needs.
So far, I have used the 70-300 for wildlife shots (very good, though chromatic aberration is a bit of a problem), pictures of the moon (outstanding on a tripod), landscape shots where I want the perspective compressed, and indoor sports (not its strong suit).
The 70-300 has easily replaced the 18-200 as my telephoto zoom. I am quite happy with it, especially since it costs 1/3 of the 70-200.
P.S. Though I haven’t tried this combination, I suspect the 70-300 would work wonders on a D700, given the D700’s outstanding performance at high ISO’s, which would compensate for this not being fast glass.
A fast f/1.4 aperture makes this lens a standout for sports photography and photojournalism. With Nikon’s typical attention to details, its aperture has extra blades, enabling the diaphragm shape to be a near-perfect circle. This ensures crisper images and more flattering highlights in the out-…
This has become my dedicated portrait lens on the D300, replacing the 105mm VR for this purpose. It’s a very fast lens allowing for great available light portraits of my famly, though accurately focusing at f/1.4 or f/1.8 is pretty challenging. In brighter light, I stop down to f/2.8 and the results are simply amazing; also, no problems with focusing at this aperture, despite the thin depth of field. The amazing bokeh this lens produces has earned it the nickname, “The Cream Machine.”
I suppose the main downside is its cost, which just went up worldwide. A reasonable DX alternative for a casual photographer would be one of the 50mm lenses (classic f/1.8, new f/1.4 AF-S). I understand the 85mm f/1.8 is pretty good too, though I haven’t used it.
It is time for us to pull the plug on photos of our family at Flickr. Actually, we will be limiting our photos to be viewed by “friends” and “family” at Flickr. To get this status, you need an account on Flickr, and I need to designate you a friend or family member, which I am happy to do. Sorry for any inconvenience this will cause our friends & family who do not have Flickr accounts.
How did this happen? Put simply, I no longer feel safe with photos of Maddy and Lucy widely available. A few months ago, a couple of Flickr members favorited one or more of our family photos. Their profiles revealed that they were collecting photos of little kids via Flickr. This happened again this week with someone attempting to be our “friend.” The final straw was another “friend” with all sorts of pornographic references in his profile and friends list.
So, my landscape, travel and other non-kid photos will remain public on Flickr, while the kids’ photos will become private. I very much like Flickr as a community of people interested in photography, but the seedy elements (though not unexpected) are worrisome. I’m also considering Picasa as an alternative (now that it has a great Mac client), but I suspect the same issues could creep up there.
