HOW TO DO NOTHING- Resisting The Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

 Finished Su 2/20/22

I recently bought this hardback book on Amazon and received it on Fr 2/11/22. I heard about the book on 'Skeptic Tank', Ari Shaffir's podcast and he was reading the book and loved it.

I felt the book was full of interesting ideas, but I wasn't a fan of all the 'bird watching'.

The author is convinced that because of capitalism, productivity is worshipped above all else. This is why every moment must be questioned 'Is it worth it'? and if the activity doesn't 'produce' then it's not worth doing. I think that this is part of socialism, communism, totalitarianism, and every other political system. They just call it 'efficiency'. 

The author spent time discussing 'Walden 2' by B.F. Skinner and I ordered that book on Amazon. 

From a viewer review on Amazon:

"It seems like some of the negative reviews have an agenda to push, especially the one that only quotes from the first and last paragraphs of the book. I would guess that person did not even read the book. I enjoyed the thoughts from the author. It made me think of things differently. I appreciated the argument about valuing things that aren’t valued in money or measured in the economy. It argues that we need time to process our thoughts and not just thoughtlessly react to social media posts. It argues we need the ability to direct our conversations differently to different audiences rather than the one size fits all post of Facebook. It argues to get to know your neighborhood and local place. If you are sick of the continued outrage machines we have created in our national discussions, you may wish to read this. It is true the author is viewing life from inside a San Francisco cultural bubble but I still found resonance with main points while living in the Midwest U.S."

“Expression on social media so often feels like firecrackers setting off other firecrackers in a very small room that soon gets filled with smoke.” 

JEFF BECK- 'Crazy Fingers' by Annette Carson

 Finished Fr 2/18/22

I bought this on Amazon and received it on Sa 2/12/22.

Just about everything you need to know about Jeff Beck and his hardware and technique. Not much about his personal life, but I guess he really is a private man.

Since now I have Amazon Unlimited I was able to hear all of his music. In the book they mention the three disc set, 'BECKOLOGY' and this is available on Unlimited. 

The book (and the recordings) make it clear that although most remember The Yardbirds as a connection to Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page, but that was really Beck's band. His guitar is predominate on all of their hits. 

His first guitars were handmade by Beck and he constantly tinkers with guitars that he purchased throughout his life. I think this shows that he was a natural born mechanic and his love of hot rods is no surprise. 

STAR CHILD by Fred Mustard Stewart

 This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first finished "At work at the Quick and EZ on 11th and Stanton, We 11/18/92'. I wonder what I was doing at that area of town during work?

This time I completed the book on Su 2/13/22.

It was a trashy novel from the 70's and I really enjoyed it.

An academic couple in the northeast of America are experiencing troubling dreams. 'Star Child' and 'Raymond' are trying to contact them. Are they demons, angels, or extraterrestrial entities? No they are just a guy from the future.

By the mid 2000's the earth is crippled by pollution, so this man from the future is trying to give 'the present' the secret to 'cold fusion'. This will provide humans with a safe and cheap source of power that will save the planet. 

Lots of cruel murders and sexual situations. 

From a reader at 'GoodReads':

"So what is wrong with it? Characters are laughably shallow, with personalities changing to fit the plot. Explanation: mind control device. There is the over-use of the word "psychosexual". It flip-flops between sci-fi and actual horror with some graphic sex thrown in. Thankfully it's fairly short and moves at a brisk pace. Otherwise I wouldn't have stuck around until the conclusion."

I agree with the criticism, but maybe they should lighten up a bit. I thought it was a fun, enjoyable read. 

THE WHITE ALBUM by Joan Didion

 According to the flyleaf I first finished the book on the bike 6am. Mo 11/22/93.

Refinished Th 2/10/22 after the dentist for the 'deep cleaning' on the left side. 

A selection of essays by Joan Didion and she died a couple of weeks ago and I stumbled upon this book in the stacks downstairs. 

The link to the book's page on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Album_(book)

My favorite essay concerned the 'group lanes' on the Los Angeles highway system. To expedite traffic, the authorities made the far left passing lane only accessible by vehicles with more than one person in the car. But instead of reducing the volume, it created more problems because during the busiest times you only had two lanes instead of three. It cost a lot, but they continued this boondoggle. 

Also the paranoia in Hollywood over the Manson Murders. Didion had been to the Polanski home and Roman spilled a drink on her dress and ruined it. All 'the famous' felt that they were much too close to this evil that had infected 'the love generation'.

The review of the book at The Guardian: 

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/jan/09/joan-didions-the-white-album-review-kaleidoscopic-view-of-the-60s-brought-to-stage

Joan Didion was a true intellectual and the stories are well written and contain some very sharp insights. I will be on the lookout for more by this author. 

WE CAN BUILD YOU by Philip K. Dick

 Refinished Tu 2/8/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that according to the flyleaf I bought at 'Books On Belmont' on Fr 2/5/93. I think this was a bookstore in Chicago, but I'm not really sure. The note implies that I read the novel, but I have no recollection and this is one of my favorite PK Dick books.

A piano/mood organ/spinet company begins making simulacrum (robots). Who do they pick to replicate? Edwin M. Stanton, Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth.

Nine out of ten people are under treatment for serious mental health issues and many are in government sponsored mental health facilities. 

From the book's site on GoodReads:

"Louis Rosen and his partners sell people--ingeniously designed, historically authentic simulacra of personages such as Edwin M. Stanton and Abraham Lincoln. The problem is that the only prospective buyer is a rapacious billionaire whose plans for the simulacra could land Louis in jail. Then there's the added complication that someone--or something--like Abraham Lincoln may not want to be sold.

Is an electronic Lincoln any less alive than his creators? Is a machine that cares and suffers inferior to the woman Louis loves--a borderline psychopath who does neither? With irresistible momentum, intelligence, and wit, Philip K. Dick creates an arresting techno-thriller that suggests a marriage of Bladerunner and Barbarians at the Gate."

Customer Reviews:

"This is definitely one of the livelier and light PKD novels out there, focusing more on doomed relationships and fantasies than most. Kinda fitting, considering the theme. Are we just machines? Are we slaves to our passions, or are we making new slaves for our passions? Even funnier when you consider that LINCOLN himself has become a slave of sorts."

""We Can Build You" takes place in the distant future of the 1980's. Dick seldom bothered setting stories far enough into the future that any of the scientific marvels he works into his plots might be even vaguely possible.) Louis Rosen works for Maury Rock in a shady sales business. They run ads in small-town newspapers announcing the local repossession of a piano or electronic organ, and they are ready to make a deal if it saves shipping. They do pretty well, having survived one Better Business Bureau investigation, but business is drying up. Maury and his engineer have decided instead to go into the simulacra business, creating human simulacra so lifelike they easily pass as the real McCoy, or in this case the real Edwin M. Stanton, Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State. They have Lincoln himself in the works.

One quarter of the American population is schizophrenic and spends time in government-run facilities. A small number of citizens are radiation mutants -- Louis's younger brother has his face upside down on his head. Thomas C. Barrow is an entrepreneur who needs to unload some lunar real estate. Pris is a beautiful, recovering schizophrenic and Maury's daughter. Louis's love of Pris is driving him insane."

"Although Philip K. Dick's 28th sci-fi novel, "We Can Build You," was first published in book form as a 95-cent DAW paperback in July 1972, it had actually been written a good decade before, and first saw the light of day under the title "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum" in the November '69 and January '70 issues of "Amazing Stories." As revealed by Dick biographer Lawrence Sutin, the book was in part inspired by the centennial of the Civil War and by a simulation of Abraham Lincoln that Phil had recently seen in Disneyland. In the novel, we meet a pair of businessmen in Ontario, Oregon--Maury Frauenzimmer and (our narrator) Louis Rosen--who sell pianos and electric organs and who are about to branch out into a new line of endeavor: mechanical "simulacra" (think: robots) of various Civil War figures. When their Lincoln and Edwin M. Stanton creations come to the attention of Trump-like real estate developer Sam K. Barrows, a plot is hatched to start sending simulacra to the newly developed moon, as a lure for future settlers. But things get a tad complicated, when Louis falls for the dubious charms of Maury's mentally unstable daughter, Pris, and the mechanical creations start evincing more sanity and compassion than their creators....

To my great surprise, "We Can Build You" turns out to be a very sweet, sad, insightful and amusing Dick book; quite lovely, really. It is a comparative rarity in the Dick canon in that it is told in the first person, although Louis becomes an increasingly problematic source of information as the novel proceeds. The book FEELS different from many of Dick's others, perhaps for that reason, although many of the author's pet tropes--cigars, German words, classical music, drugs, the slippery nature of "reality," Cheyenne, Wyoming (of all places!), insanity, divorce and suicide--are again trotted out. The book has loads of excellent, naturalistic dialogue, and the relationship between the two Jewish partners is a touching one. The story, in truth, almost feels as if it could have been written by, oh, Robert Heinlein, with its near future (1982) setting and simply written style; almost, but not quite. The book grows increasingly strange and unsettling toward its conclusion (Phil Dickian, I believe the expression is), as the thrust of the plot veers away from the sci-fi elements and decidedly toward the realm of the mentally disturbed; "I, Robot" meets "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Phil's novel has some typically wonderful imaginative touches, such as Louis' mutant brother with his upside-down face, the U.S. president having been married 41 times (36 more than Phil would attain to!), and the intravenous birth-control injections. Pris, grating and obnoxious as she is, yet remains a marvelously complex character; Sutin calls her Dick's "most intense exploration of his 'dark-haired girl' obsession." An 18-year-old ex-schizophrenic, she is certainly an unusual object of adoration for the 33-year-old Rosen; still, they do make for a dynamic, feisty couple. And the discussion that the mechanical Lincoln has with Barrows, regarding what makes a man a man and a machine a machine...well, one might have to wait another 15 years, till the second-season "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "The Measure of a Man," to hear a more compelling argument regarding the rights of a mechanical construct.

"We Can Build You," likable as it is, is hardly a perfect Dick novel. Several plot threads just peter out, and even the central story line involving the simulacra is left hanging in midair. Phil makes a few slips in his book, too (Lincoln was 31 in 1840, not 29; Attis was a Phrygian god, not a goddess), although he seems to have taken especial care with his general prose here; it is more mature and well crafted than in many earlier books. In all, kind of a special addition to the Dick canon, and one that I actually found pretty moving. Way to go, Phil!" 

GONE FOR GOOD by Harlan Coben

 Finished Fr 2/4/22- During The February Blizzard of 2022

This is a hardback that I ordered from Amazon after watching the French Netflix series based on the book. The film version was very confusing and the book was only slightly better.

Basically it's about a guy who loses his girlfriend to violence and eleven years later loses another girlfriend and the murders are both connected.

Three friends were getting into trouble during high school and continue to excel as criminals as adults. 

From a customer review on Amazon. This hits most of the plot points:

"Will Klein is an earnest man still dealing with the disappearance of his older brother 11 years ago. It wasn’t that his brother Ken just vanished. He had been steadily distancing himself from his family. At the time, Ken was a former high school athlete who had squandered his potential when he fell in with an unlikely bad crowd. This crowd consisted of John Asselta, high school captain of the wrestling team, and Phil McGuane, former class president and budding psychopath. Ken’s life further spiraled out of control when he became mixed up with dealing drugs. When Ken was last seen at the murder of Will’s former girlfriend, Will and his family were devastated. Will has never fully recovered from his brother’s seeming act of murder and betrayal. He has, however, immersed himself in helping with a shelter for runaway and homeless youth. There Will has met someone special, whom he considers his soul mate, Sheila.

When Sheila fails to come home one day after work, Will sets off to find answers. Will enlists his best friend, Squares, a celebrity yoga instructor and former tough guy. Will becomes involved in a search that upends what he knew about Ken, Sheila, and the girl he loved so long ago.

As much as I love a twisty plot with plenty of surprises, I couldn’t completely suspend disbelief over some of the events in this thriller. Harlan Coban, the author, is a master at suspense, but his plot depends on perfectly synchronized actions that cause repercussions like dominoes falling. This is the sort of book that you’ll fly through because of the action. It will leave you dissatisfied, however, if you’re looking for a book that provides more than solving an entertaining puzzle. The story is filled with switchbacks, wild curves, and blind alleys. If an adrenaline rush or an escape is what you want, you’ll get it, but you may not remember the story in a couple of weeks."

I found that the convoluted plot wasn't worth the effort.