People You Should Know About: George Saunders

George Saunders / American / 1958-

I am taking a nonfiction writing class at the University of Washington; it started in early January and goes through June. It's been great so far -- good teachers, interesting classmates and lots of stimulation.

Last week we were assigned two essays by George Saunders. I had heard of him vaguely as he is an occasional contributor to The New Yorker (most often in "Shouts and Murmurs," the short humor piece in most issues.)

Eventually we will write our own story based on one of the two extended essays we read, which I expect to be quite challenging. For now, here is the short piece I wrote about Saunders's work, which I thought was great and worth anyone's time.

Though very different in style, the two George Saunders essays “The Braindead Megaphone” and “Buddha Boy” both reveal a writer with an eye for detail, a hunger for truth and a rich inner life.

Written in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, “The Braindead Megaphone” is a logical, hilarious and terrifying indictment of public debate, especially that part of it manifested in the media. One notable and brief paragraph reveals what is at stake: “A culture’s ability to understand the world and itself is critical to its survival. But today we are led into the arena of public debate by seers whose main gift is their ability to compel people to continue to watch them.”

Whether one favors O’Reilly or Olbermann, it’s hard to deny one of the central assertions of Saunders’s essay, which is that much of what passes for discourse in just commerce. And the result in not pretty or helpful.

Saunders uses a mixture of logic and humor, along with an almost sneaky building-block approach. The essay opens with a brief meditation about “a guy standing in a field in the year 1200.” At first we think this may be nothing more than a humorous piece about our crazy-making high-tech lifestyle. Then, by the end of the second numbered section, some of us are thinking about George W. Bush. By the end of the third section, it’s a full-on “holy crap” moment: we’ve been sucked in.

“Buddha Boy” is twice as long as “Megaphone” and rather than tackling an issue, is an almost entirely chronological narrative of a reporting trip Saunders took to Nepal to see a boy sitting still and meditating, which he had apparently been doing for seven months. As in “Megaphone,” Saunders lulls the reader into thinking the piece is about something less significant than it turns out to be. The first several pages chronicle Saunders’s decision to accept the assignment and the trip to Nepal. Complaints about air travel and the inconveniences of visiting the developing world are not new, but Saunders uses humor, details and creative imagery (“…a button on the overhead console marked Minty Water.”)

As the journey to see Buddha Boy unfolds, Saunders treats us to great descriptions of the sights and sounds (along with the wonder and squalor) of Nepal. Along the way, we get several looks at Saunders’s inner life, and we learn that he’s significantly more open-minded and curious – even eager to believe -- than we expected.

Among the more interesting things about this essay is the juxtaposition of a deep and mysterious subject with the very linear narrative the author uses. Profoundly effective, this approach allows the reader to relax and easily follow the time-arc of the story, leaving the mind and heart open to the fun surprises tucked neatly into the meaning-arc.

73 days...really?

I'm no stranger to profound, extended periods characterized by low productivity. Long gaps between blog posts are somewhat reflective of my overall productivity, but in this case, seventy- three days of blog silence (or 'postilence' as I like to call it) isn't all bad.

For starters, I have begun some posts that have potential to be interesting, but they each require additional research and time, and it's been a buy time, making that process challenging to complete. Posts in this category include:

• a writeup of Ballard's "Gourmet Ghetto," located on NW 70th Street just east of 15th Avenue NW. Packed into one little block are the Honore Artisan Bakery (fabulous, charming French baker) Delancey (cool new pizza place) and A Caprice Kitchen (great, interesting website.) And there's an umbrella store, of all things, where you can buy umbrellas, rent umbrellas and buy a couple of patented umbrella innovations directly from the inventor!
• observations from a wine tasting trip to Walla Walla, which we took in October to celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary. It was a great trip...we learned a lot about wine, met some winemakers, bought lots of wine and had some great food. Really fun.
• Starbucks Via update...I finally got my first shipment of Via in early December. Some of it became a Christmas gift, but I still have enough packets left to do a modest craft project...any suggestions?

In addition, I've picked up some interesting coffee-related work at Sodcutter Communications, which has been very interesting and just time consuming enough to make finding writing time a bit more difficult.

There are also many issues of the New Yorker to catch up on, and I had a great time reading Carl Hiaasen's "Skinny Dip" and have several books I'm working through now -- Matt Miller's Dead Ideas book I mentioned in a previous post, "Manhood for Amateurs" by Michael Chabon and a very interesting biography of Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame.

Beginning in early January, I'll be a student in a nonfiction writing certificate program offered by the UW Extension program. So I'll have to write, and I'm optimistic that I will be able to "repurpose" work between the blog and class.

Happy New Year!

Sodcutter's influence grows: Steven Colbert weighs in on Mayo v. Miracle Whip

Last week on the Colbert Report, Steven, having no doubt read my post on Miracle Whip, defended Mayo's honor with so many puns it made my head spin. See it here.

People You Should Know About: Matt Miller

Matt Miller / American / 1961-

For several months now, I’ve been part of a group of former Starbucks employees who gather weekly for coffee, conversation and encouragement. I’m happy to report that the group has begun to shrink, as several have now found jobs. A couple weeks ago, it was just Kristin Anderson and I. We met at Herkimer Coffee up on Phinney Ridge – a local coffeehouse I’ve been enjoying fairly regularly recently. Good coffee, nice people, and a fun little roasting operation right in the cafe.

When we were finished with coffee, Kristin, who lives in the neighborhood, suggested we visit the local bookseller, Santoro’s Books . I’m a sucker for bookstores, and I do my best to buy local whenever possible, even if it costs a bit more. (And many local bookstores, Santoro’s included, have discount programs that reward you after a certain number of purchases – the discounts aren’t as deep as Amazon or Barnes and Noble, but you essentially get the eleventh book free once you’ve purchased ten.)

When I visit a bookstore for the first time, I like to focus on the feature tables and newer releases, which gives me a sense of how the bookseller perceives their clientele and what books they deem worthy of their customers’ attention. (If I see too many Glenn Beck “books,” for example, I’ve learned that it’s best to slowly head for the door, keeping my eye on the help and my fellow shoppers.) I’m happy to report that Santoro’s has a great selection, with lots of local interest titles, as well as a helpful, knowledgeable staff.

One of the titles that caught my eye was Matt Miller’s “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity.” The title sounded a little cutesy, especially the whole “unleash a new prosperity” bit – it seemed like it might be another happy talk business book. Then I glanced at the dead ideas Miller chose to write about, and the book suddenly had my attention. The dead ideas are:

1. The Kids Will Earn More Than We Do
2. Free Trade Is "Good" (No Matter How Many People Get Hurt)
3. Your Company Should Take Care of You
4. Taxes Hurt the Economy (and They're Always Too High)
5. Schools Are a Local Matter
6. Money Follows Merit

If it were up to me, “Journey was a great band” would also get a chapter, but I think that might distract and offend a few readers. I’m only about sixty pages into the book, but have found it riveting and occasionally alarming. My concern about the future -- given the state of the global economy, the seeming impossibility of our leaders to act, and the odd insistence on the part of so many that “American dominance” is a viable starting point from which to engage the world – is growing weekly. The structure of the book, which lays out the problems associated with all six dead ideas before the whole unleashing of prosperity thing happens will no doubt heighten my anxiety in the weeks ahead. (I’ve thought about skipping ahead after each chapter, but I’ve pretty much decided to trust that Miller wrote it this way for a reason.)

In the introduction to the book, which you can read in its entirety here, Miller lays out three steps for “breaking free of dead ideas,” which we would all do well to apply in many areas of our lives. They are:

1. Identify the dead ideas that matter. We all believe some pretty wacky things; some of them just help us get through the day, while others probably retard progress, making us less effective. We need some disciplined thought and a little courage to identify the dead ideas that impede progress.
2. Understand each dead idea’s “story.” It is useful to understand why we believe certain things, where the idea came from, what has changed since the idea was broadly adopted? And whose interest does the dead idea serve?
3. Reach for new (and paradoxical) ways of thinking. This often involves asking questions people don’t want to answer and proposing solutions (higher taxes!!) people don’t want to consider. But it’s often the only way to fight through a dead idea and make changes.

I’ll devote a few brief posts in the weeks ahead to some of the ideas in the book. Please leave a comment or email me if any of the six dead ideas are of particular interest.

Matt Miller is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (one of those lefty outfits) and the host of “Left, Right and Center” on NPR. He worked as an aide in the Clinton White House.

To shill, or not to shill

I was surprised nine days ago to see an email in my inbox from someone called “Starbucks VIA Moderator.” I knew that the big national launch of Starbucks’s instant coffee product, called VIA, was imminent. I also recalled that I had written a little review of the product in my blog back in February. And I recalled that what I had written was pretty reasonable – my honest opinion, with little editorializing and only few snide asides.

The subject line on the email read “Love that blog!” so I was confident that Starbucks VIA Moderator was not someone in the legal department. Starbucks has a bunch of lawyers, and while I always enjoyed working with them, there is little chance that an email from them concerning something I had written about Starbucks would contain good news. It turns out that they were looking for “user-generated content” about VIA to use on the VIA website. Well, all right, I thought, this could be my big break. The world is full of people whose blogs or tweets or videos are discovered and “go viral,” and the result is often a sort of modern variation on fame and fortune. (For the lucky, this amounts to a brief period of relatively painless notoriety and excruciatingly small additions to bank accounts. The unlucky somehow end up embarrassed and broke, but with at least two lawyers on retainer – one criminal and one to negotiate the book deal, or more likely, a reality show. It’s sort of a choice between “what might have been” and “if I’d known then what I know now.”)

The email promised that my material would be used in such a way that visitors to the Starbucks VIA site who chose to read it would see what I wrote and actually see it on the Sodcutter blog. I thought this seemed pretty cool – the last thing I wanted was for someone to cherry-pick the very best things I said about VIA. So I was leaning towards saying yes.

But wait! There’s more! In addition to the potential for tens of new visitors to my blog, the email also promised me a three-month “subscription” to VIA from the Starbucks Store.com. The definition of a three month supply seemed shockingly generous: three twelve packs per month beginning “by the first of November.” This struck me as lavish, because even acquaintances who’ve said positive things about VIA to me nearly always qualify their praise with comments like “it’s great for backpacking” or “it sure beats bad hotel coffee.” And the truth is, I have not purchased or consumed a single serving of VIA since I had written about the samples I received in February. And not only am I not a backpacker, one of the great joys of our annual family camping trip is hauling out the old Melitta cones and one-cup coffee filters and making coffee each morning.

So after re-reading my original comments about VIA and getting some input from a few friends and having my ex-lawyer wife (she’s an ex-lawyer, not an ex-wife) read the two-page legal document that allows Starbucks to use the material anywhere in the universe and in any media already or yet to be invented (really, that’s in the document), I decided to give the go-ahead.

And oh! What a whirlwind it has been! For about two hours on “launch day,” the first few lines of my article and a link to my blog, though not front and center, were somewhat easy to find. Now, after four days and thousands and thousands of people tasting VIA and “generating content”, my moment has passed, my content buried behind page upon page of headlines like these:

“Livin la VIA loca”

“Via – pretty good”

“SUPRISINGLY WAY BETTER THAN PIKE PLACE.” (not good news for last year’s big breakthrough product!)

“Versatile Means More Options” (also under consideration for inclusion at dictionary.com)

“Haven’t tried it, but I love it.” (what is this, foxnews.com?)

Would I do it all again? Sure I would. Any regrets? None.

But now I either need to take up backpacking, spend some nights in lousy hotels, or figure out what to do with all the VIA coming my way, because I still prefer fresh-brewed coffee. And unlike many of my fellow content generators, I can taste the difference, just as much now as I could in February.

Project Cluck / Part II: Chicken School

The Hamburg: a fine looking bird

A few weeks ago we headed to the city of Seatac to go to chicken school. Seatac is the “city” that is home to our major airport. I say “city” not to be snide – it’s just that Seatac has only been a city for a dozen or so years and it just seems kind of funny to me. The class was held at City Hall. In the city council chamber. Which is funny in itself, because it’s not like Seatac is a rural community – it’s mostly runways, hotels, parking lots and fast food places. To end all the Seatac talk in this opening paragraph, here’s all you need to know: We spent a night in one of the motels near the airport a couple years ago when we had an early flight the next morning – parking and airport transfers included. In the elevator is a sign. It says “No refunds 10 minutes after check-in.” Peculiar wording aside, two things immediately became clear: 1) the room’s not gonna be very nice and 2) best not to think about this too much.

The class was offered by King County Extension, essentially an outreach by our state’s land grant school, Washington State University. Here is some information about what land grant schools are – it’s pretty cool – basically a law signed by President Lincoln made it possible for the Federal government to grant land to the states; said land was to be used by the states to teach people how to do really useful things, like growing crops and making stuff. Not a bad idea.

I knew I was going to have a good evening after I texted our 14-year old daughter to let her know where would be, when we’d be home (like she cares!) and all that. I told her we were headed to a chicken seminar near the airport. Her response:

You guys are so awesome. CHICKEN SEMINAR.

How could I not be enthused after a response like that?

The Leghorn: a classic chicken

About sixty other people showed up, and it was pretty informative. We’d learned quite a bit on our chicken coop tour and not to boast, but we have become pretty poultry-savvy in a relatively short period of time. One thing about chickens though: there’s nothing really very intrinsically attractive or interesting about them. If you’re not into them, this whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense. So I’ll dispense with lots of chicken facts and just throw out a few highlights from the class, all of which stuck with me because of their strangely euphemistic quality:

• There are lots of resources out there, my favorite one being Backyard Chickens.com. (Before you look, guess how they represent the “o” in “com” on their home page!!) From the website comes a chart with over 40 varieties of chickens. Information is provided about their size (two only, standard and bantam); egg size, type and color; comb type (mostly pea or V-shaped, but also single, walnut and buttercup – you’re on your own here); climate hardiness (hot, cold, all); broodiness (frequent, average, seldom –this has to do with the breed’s tendency to sit on the egg and hope it hatches vs. its desire to give it up so you can go inside and make an omelet); and temperament (one to avoid may be the Buckeye – her temperament is described like this: aggressive, friendly, wild, restless. noisy.) Please email me if you’d like to make a smart remark about that descriptor. Anonymity is guaranteed.

The euphemistic high point of the chart, however, comes under the heading labeled “Purpose.” There are three possibilities: egg layer, ornamental and dual purpose. It turns out that “dual purpose” doesn’t mean ornamental / egg layer; it actually means egg layer / meat.

• The program included a lot of good information, much of it focused on getting us to really think about the nature of the commitment involved in owning backyard chickens. One slide dealt with the issue of “The geriatric chicken.” As hens age, they lay fewer eggs – though one woman in the crowd who, based on her experience must have thought this was an upper division class, proudly shared that she has a 12-year old hen that laid 80 eggs last year -- still over one per week but nowhere near the 4-5 eggs younger hens produce each week. The bullet point that dealt with this issue, in its entirety:

o Keep for life-span or ?

Here’s a slightly creepy bit of wisdom someone shared: Craig’s List is a good way to find someone willing to pick up your no longer productive hen. I would suggest having them drop by the house while the kids are at school, however.

• Finally, this little item on another page of the presentation dealing with day-to-day care and chores, tucked neatly between “Food and water” and “Play time”:

o Cleaning the Vent

Perhaps the capitalized V should have been a tipoff…but this has nothing to do with airflow in and around your coop. It involves a Q-Tip, warm water, and one end of the chicken: the end opposite the one the food goes in. Kids thus far have shown heavy interest in certain aspects of this project, but the Cleaning of the Vent, not so much .

Following the class, we did make on significant decision: where to put the coop. Due to a strange building that was on our patio when we moved in, and I suspect something unpleasant having to do with drainage, there is a nice sized patch of dirt (where we’ve grown some great tomatoes this summer) surrounded by concrete on the patio, in view of the living room. We’re going to put the coop on the concrete, with the dirt area making up the “run” where the hens can spend some outside time. (They’ll also get time in the yard when they can be supervised.) Added bonus: the coop will be just a few feet from the Weber – not that we’re planning to eat the hens, but its ominous black lid and occasional smoke emanating from it may help the training process move along a bit faster.

The Plymouth: A classic dual purpose bird

People You Should Know About: Piet Hein

Volume II: Piet Hein / Danish / 1905-1996

Discerning the difference between a simple but valuable nugget of wisdom and a horribly tired cliché can be tricky. The context and the medium can sometimes be good clues. Business meetings are of course an opportunity to practice wariness – you never know when you might be handed a “Reach for the Stars Positive Pal Starfish,” offered by the good people at Successories.com, with this explanation:

Let these Positive Pals plush toys work for you - no training necessary! Gifts, incentives, giveaways…these are just a few ideas for using our affordable Positive Pals stuffed animals. Use Positive Pals plush toys wherever a smile is needed!

And affordable they are – just $4.99 in quantities of 250 and up. It’s pretty tempting, really: I believe the “no training necessary” promise, and it’d be nice to forego smiles for a while and just chuck plush at all the overachievers I meet.

I’m happy to report that Piet Hein has nothing to do with Positive Pals. But I did become aware of him in a context that had potential to devolve into cheesy motivational tools. Several years ago, I did some coffee presentations and participated in workshops in Palm Springs as part of Starbucks’s launch of new training programs. The meetings were held at a very cool and authentic mid-century resort; its best days were long in the past, but it was nearly empty and I’m sure the price was right.

At the opening of one of the workshops each participant was given a small, rectangular card, perforated so it could be opened like a greeting card. Breaking the seal revealed a pithy saying; once we read them we were directed to discuss them with our tablemates. Here’s what I saw when I opened mine:

Problems worthy of attack

prove their worth

by hitting back

--Piet Hein

Now this wasn’t life-changing, but in a world where “There’s no ‘I’ in team” passes for wisdom, my little card struck me as pretty meaningful. This was probably in the mid- to late-nineties, which was, as was pretty much always the case, a period of rapid growth and change at Starbucks. I suppose what I like about this little verse (I would soon learn that they were called “Grooks” and that there are hundreds of them.) was that it brought another dimension to the old idea that “if was easy anyone could do it.” For me, it helped crystallize the notion that change, newness, risk – all the things we say are necessary for success – are hard in part because there is always something – a person, an idea, a structure –that would rather see things stay the same. And they hit back. If the problem isn’t big or serious enough to do so, it may not be a problem worthy of our efforts.

So it stayed with me. I kept that little card on my desk for years. And when I got back to the office, I did a little research on Piet Hein – the name seemed a little unusual, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t a motivational speaker from Newport Beach. Turns out he was Danish, and he invented a shape, was a designer, writer, philosopher and more. And internationally, he is considered the third best known Dane of the 20^th century. Can you name either of the other two? (Answers are at the end of this post.)

He invented a shape. That alone seems pretty cool to me. Here’s the story, straight from www.piethein.com :

Harmonic forming in mathematics: The superellipse
Parallel to his poetic work, Piet Hein decided to find an absolutely harmonic physical design. With mathematical intuition he first found the form and then explained it afterwards. His superellipse was to solve the double contrast between the circle and the square and that of the ellipse and the rectangle. By means of mathematics he found a harmonic geometrical figure which was first used on a large scale in connection with the solution to a town planning problem in Stockholm. In a rectangular square, 200 metres long, in Stockholm's centre two motorways were to meet in a gigantic roundabout. The solution was the application of the superellipse to both square and roundabout at the new Sergels Torg. Later on the superellipse has been used in Canada, France, Japan, the US and Mexico in connection with the solution of as different constructions as residential areas and sports centres for example the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City:

Within furniture design the superellipse also became the solution to various problems -especially in relation to Piet Hein's design of tabletops the superellipse became popular. In a three-dimensional version the superellipse became the superegg which has been used for metal versions of various board games, superegg drink coolers and the anti-stress ball. Especially the latter reached an enormous distribution in the 1970s. In addition to his work with the development of the superellipse Piet Hein has executed a great many other design commissions, from board games in wood to the elegant Sinus lamp

If you spend just a few minutes on the website, you’ll likely find something familiar – a design sensibility you may have taken for granted, or even a toy from childhood. Give it a look.

Because I am much more verbal than spatial, it’s the little bits of verse that I find most intriguing about Hein. In 1940, the Danish newspaper Polotiken began publishing Hein’s little poems, which were known as “Gruks” – “Grooks” in English. It’s not clear where the name came from – apparently Hein said it “just came to him.” Others believe it is combination of the Danish words “grin” and “suk” (laugh and sigh). I’d like to think that this is the origin, because so many of them prompt in me those two reactions. So I’m just going to end this with a few of my favorites.

Here’s one about patience:

T. T. T.

Put up in a place

where it's easy to see

the cryptic admonishment

T. T. T.

When you feel how depressingly

slowly you climb,

it's well to remember that

Things Take Time

This one’s just fun:

SOCIAL MECHANISM

When people always

try to take

the very smallest

piece of cake

how can it also

always be

that that's the one

that's left for me?

On being one’s own worst enemy:

ON PROBLEMS

Our choicest plans

have fallen through,

our airiest castles

tumbled over,

because of lines

we neatly drew

and later neatly

stumbled over

And finally, something familiar:

A MAXIM FOR VIKINGS 

Here is a fact

   that should help you fight

      a bit longer:

Things that don't actually 

      kill you outright

      make you stronger.

To read a whole lot more of these, visit http://tiny.cc/ULoGp

Oh yes: the two 20^th century Danes with more international fame than Piet Hein: physicist Neils Bohr and author Karen Blixen