Down the telephonic rabbit hole

When I was younger, I longed to book passage to Oz or Narnia or any of the other magical worlds that seemed all-too accessible to my favorite literary characters.  My California beach town was sorely lacking in, say, mystical wardrobes or handy tornadoes.  Flying boys and large white rabbits were also in short supply, along with elfin spells, wizard staffs and fairy dust.  Why did all the enchanting stuff happen in books and not on my street?  It just wasn't fair!

Of course, like many kids, I wanted an escape from my daily life of school and chores and siblings. Not that I had much to complain about, but let's face it, battling evil and making friends with talking lions is a lot more fun than homework or even sleepovers.  I devoured stories about worlds my favorite authors created for me, and even learned to recognize and appreciate the most magical aspects of our physical reality: the solar system! Secret codes!  Venice!

Whose childhood phone looked like this?

Little did I know that throughout my childhood there was a gateway to a magical world sitting right on the desk in the kitchen.  Or, later, on my bedside table.  I didn't need a wardrobe or a wizard.  I just needed to pick up the phone.

If I had--and if I had been a little more techy or possessed of that tinkering spirit that has made so many young men rich in the past 30 years--I would have heard more than a dial tone on the end of the line.  I would have heard a siren song, beckoning me into a playground of musical tones, hidden operators and fantastical hardware.

Alas, I wasn't beckoned.  I, like you, just drummed my fingers on the desk waiting for the rotary dial to swing round or the long-distance call to go through.  But some people heard more than beeps, clicks and thunks. Like the lucky children who stepped into Narnia rather than touching the back of the wardrobe, some people found a way to enter that secret world and make themselves at home.  

They called themselves phone phreaks, and they are the subject of a wonderful new book by Phil Lapsley called Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell.  In addition to delighting the reader with an endless cast of brilliant eccentrics and oddball geniuses, Lapsley gives us a close look at the Telephone System That Was, a truly fascinating alternate universe that existed under our very noses.

Until the mid-1980s, the telephone system was a giant analog web of wires that were physically connected to each other.  It was developed by AT&T, that government-sanctioned monopoly, and its research arm Bell Labs.  It costs billions of dollars to build, spanned the nation and connected us to the world.  Before transistors and microchips, before wireless networks and fiber optics, the geeks of that time still managed to connect millions of calls across thousands of miles every single day for more than 60 years.

A map of the long-distance phone system, 1961

When the phone phreaks figured out how they did it, the telephone network became their playground.  The key was learning how a call to your grandma got from your house to hers.  Remember, the connection was physical, in the sense that your wires talked to other wires who were connected to larger wires called trunk lines that connected cities to each other then tapered back down into smaller, local systems.  The phone phreaks figured out the secret language of the phones, the frequencies of the tones that allowed the telephone wires talk to each other.  They then figured out ways to mimic those tones to disconnect a call and then re-connect all over the system for free.  Some used high-tech frequency generators called blue boxes.  Others used musical instruments like recorders.  A few talented phreaks, many of them blind, just whistled to copy the tones.

The book is full of stories about how the phone phreaks discovered the mysteries of the system (a lot of trial and errors and sore dialing fingers) and what AT &T did to fight back.  But what fascinated me most was the sheer scale and wonder of the secret telephone world.  Bell Labs, in a rare fit of poetic extravagance, wrote that their switching stations "sang" to each other.  It wasn't too far from the truth.  Anyone who made a call from a landline in the 1980s knows what I'm talking about.  You dialed a number and then could hear similar (but not exact) tones playing down the wire.  Sometimes, you could hear what sounded like clicks or ker-chunks.  (If you made calls in the 1960s and 70s, you definitely heard these ker-chunks).  What was happening, as I learned from Lapsley, was that your number (in the form of tones) was being routed to a huge switching station the size of a city block called a crossbar switch.  There, the dialed digits actually changed the position on the switch and connected it other parts of the switching matrix (ker-chunk!)  This would serve to transfer your number to another trunk line. Your call might be routed through several of these huge switches before it got to its destination, necessarily making the connection fainter with each step.  Later, metal punch cards and light-detecting photo cells were used instead of moving switches.  Who remembers shouting into a long-distance line?  Well, now you know why. 

Just one small part of a crossbar switch

Imagine a telephone switching station the size of a city block!  Imagine bending this switching station to your will, speaking its language to tell it to connect you to Seattle or Duluth or Nova Scotia.  Imagine figuring out which tone disconnected the line but left it open (2,600 hertz, actually) and which numbers would get you to an internal operator who would know how to route the calls that big switches weren't smart enough to do.  Many phone phreaks were simply interested in exploring the system, using their knowledge to call unlisted phone company numbers like test lines.  Some tried to see how far they could get (Spain? India? Timbuktu?) or how complicated a routing they could generate based on what they knew.  Some discovered early "conference" lines on open circuits that those in the know could dial into.  Plenty of others (including Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak) profited by charging their friends a flat fee for a free long-distance call or by selling the blue boxes.

Regardless of their motives, the phone phreaks were explorers of a magical world that existed right alongside our daily life.  You may find little appeal in this wiry, auditory landscape, but reading about it in Lapsley's book makes it seem as vast and mysterious as Middle Earth--and populated with almost as many mysterious artifacts, astounding journeys and otherworldy characters.  

Dog is (now) my co-pilot

As a person approaches 40, it's not unusual to observe some shifts in behavior or attitudes that previously seemed fixed but are suddenly fluid.  This can take the form of the stereotypical yearning for a Harley Davidson, or can include subtler changes, like embracing meditation, weight-lifting or Twitter. 

Much to my surprise, I have become a dog person. After years of sporadic and dubious (on my part) interaction with animals (several cats excepted), I find myself admiring every dog on the street, relishing trips to dog-related stores and enthusiastically dedicating whole weekends to dog-centered activities. 

The change happened gradually and involved many people with many kinds of dogs, but culminated in falling in love, not only with my girlfriend Allison, but also her standard poodle Dixie. It wasn't that I hated dogs before; I just didn't see what all the fuss was about.  Why did so many people find slobber, constant shedding and begging at the table appealing? Sure, dogs love their owners unconditionally, but they also love almost everyone else unconditionally.  They are evolutionarily programmed to love people.  Which meant the only difference between dogs and robots, in my mind, was that you don't have to clean up after a robot or worry about it keeping the neighbors awake at night.

I didn't know it at the time, but what I needed were ambassador dogs to show me the way toward canine acceptance that involved more than putting their cold nose on my leg (ewwww!) or breathing heavily at face level during a nap on the couch (uuugh!) or, in a story that is now legendary in my family, plucking my latte from where it sat in the middle of the large, square coffee table, drinking it all, then replacing the cup on the table precisely in its previous location.  In case you don't think Labs can execute a plot worthy of 007, yes they can.  And aaaaargh! 

Interestingly, though, it was that latte-drinking devil dog, Cali, who taught me one of the key lessons of  acceptance: dogs can change.  In a way I've never witnessed in other animals, dogs do grow; they mature.  They even get, dare I say, more refined. This makes them not only more interesting than I'd imagined, but also more satisfying to relate to. Cali went from a huge, clumsy mess to a good-natured, limits-respecting dog (for the most part).  Even I could see that, despite my ongoing latte grudge. I hope she is romping in dog heaven with an endless supply of food to steal, doors to open, and bare legs to nose.

If Cali taught me about doggie growth, Bedford (another (mostly) Lab) taught me the joy of dog walking.  Ella, the first poodle I met, taught me about how smart dogs play.  Last year at the school where I worked, four teachers got puppies in the same month.  Since faculty dogs were allowed on campus, the halls were transformed into romping grounds for a rainbow array of chubby, big-pawed cuteness.  There's a reason those adorable animal pics are all over Facebook, no matter how cynically one tries to avoid hitting "like." Having a constant parade of Youtube-worthy puppies scampering by my room every day was almost more than I could take.  But I had never lived with a dog for any length of time.  I needed an introduction to the doggie lifestyle.

Enter Allison, the girlfriend, and Dixie, the poodle.  Since meeting them, I have experienced almost  every aspect of dog ownership except a visit to the vet--and I'm sure that'll come soon.  I've seen a lot of sunrises I wouldn't have ever seen during early morning visits to the patch of grass outside; I've joined the daily routine of fetch with an inside toy.  I have a dog blanket in the back seat of my car, and a Chuck-It, spare tennis balls and even a dog seat belt in my trunk.  I know how to feed Dixie and what to do to avoid getting soaked while bathing her. I'm learning about gentle leaders, biodegradable poop bags, favorite treats and the combo heart worm/flea pill.  But most of all, I have experienced dog parks.

Dixie at Pt. Isabel dog park

Dog parks are like taking a flight to Hawaii every day.  Unfortunately, dog parks are not tropical paradises full of palm trees and beautiful beaches. What I mean is dog parks are imbued with an air of celebration, of joyous holiday-esque spirit that reminds me of the feeling of going on vacation.  It's not a shock to discover that doctors have uncovered healthy benefits of being around dogs.  The sense of relaxation I feel walking around an area full of off-leash dogs and owners is palpable.  Happy dogs are contagious: that unconditional love they offer also comes with an uncomplicated sense of fun. Dixie can jump so high in anticipation of a game of fetch that all four legs spring off the ground. Other dogs waddle around the park, or amble, or dash.  Owners are congenial; generous with compliments, magnanimous if an apology has to be offered .  Almost everyone is smiling, dogs included. What's not to love?

As a new dog person, I now can't pass a dog on the street without my heart melting a little, much like my friend Kris, whose example was instrumental is adapting to the doggie lifestyle.  Kris and her husband rescued a Turkish street dog named Ruby, fostered her seven puppies in their tiny faculty apartment near Istanbul, found them all homes (not easy in a dog-hostile culture), then transported Ruby (now fixed) back to Denver.  With such a paragon of dog devotion for a friend, there is nothing Allison does with Dixie that seems the least bit excessive. Because nothing is.  I'm fully converted to fetch and treats--not to mention counting each minute until we can go to Pt. Isabel again. 

Can a Youtube-worthy puppy be far behind? 

Dixie and me, February 2013

Book sip #1: A hard look at origin stories

(This is the first in an occasional series that will pair books with beverages: a literary-libation pairing, if you will, much like a food-wine pairing.  This doesn't mean I drank the particular selection while reading the book.  It simply means, as you will see, that the refreshment in question pairs well with the themes of the text.  I'm experimenting with this form because I think it has potential to make book reviews even more enticing than they already are. We'll see how it goes...)

Book: A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook,  W.W. Norton, March 2013
Drink: Hangar One vodka, straight up with a twist of lemon

Origin stories are to cultures as advertising is to products. Origin stories provide a foundational identity that shapes a place and its people, reaching back into the mists of time to offer reasons why our world looks like it does today.  Like advertising, origin stories rarely do more than tip their hats to the truth, yet their sticking power is awesome to behold.  As the years pass, it becomes impossible to separate fact from fiction.  Or maybe not impossible but irrelevant.  The fiction has become fact simply because so many people believe it to be true.

Daniel Brook's highly readable and fascinating new book A History of Future Cities delves into the factual origins of four cities: St. Petersberg, Mumbai/Bombay, Shanghai and Dubai and incisively teases apart myth from reality, self-perception from statistics and data.  What unites these cities in history is their intentional creation as showpieces of modernity and freedom by autocractic regimes or colonial overlords with something to prove.  What points the way to their roles in the "future" mentioned in the title is the way these cities have grown and stretched (as well as retracted) in ways their creators could never have imagined or desired.  As such, they point the way to one possible future for urbanity, one mired in deep economic and political disparities and supported by a vast, unstable workforce of rural transplants. It's a recipe for revolution, and it's happened before.  One only need to look back 300 years at the creation of St. Petersberg, Tsar Peter the Great's "instant" city on the banks of the Neva, backward Russia's "window to the West."  Peter wanted a city like Amsterdam: beautiful, sophisticated and worldly.  He just didn't want any of the pesky democratic ideas and freedoms that came with it.  His successor Catherine continued the tradition, even to the point of requiring her nobility to hold French-style salons  where any topic of discussion was officially allowed (*though only for that evening).  It worked for awhile but, as Brook points out again and again, people can be exposed to openness and liberal thought only so long before they want to try it out themselves.  Catherine's successors, the Romanovs, know best how the story could end, in a pillaged dacha just outside of Peter's "window" to modernity.  As someone who spent two years living in the shadow of Dubai, just the latest "instant" global city built by autocrats by impoverished workers, I have seen this future in action and didn't pass a bus (non-air conditioned even in the heat of summer) full of workers, or a building site bristling with construction cranes without wondering how long any of it could last. 

Russia is where it started, which is where the vodka comes in, but only a little.  Hangar One vodka made by St. George's Spirits, is a Bay Area success story.  It was founded (and still operates partially) in an old airplane hangar on the decommisioned Alameda Naval Air Station.  The company makes vodka and a variety of other spirits, including whiskey and absinthe.  The Hangar One website includes multiple testimonies to the company's small-batch, handcrafted philosophy.  What it doesn't mention remotely as prominently is that the brand has been acquired by Proximo Spirits, a multinational importer based in New Jersey.

I cast no aspersions on Hangar One vodka as a beverage (it's delicious) or St. George's as a distillery, which still makes an array of truly local spirits. But there is a striking contrast between Hangar One's marketing slant (grounded in its origin story) and the reality of its place as a small piece of a larger corporate pie.  This seems to pair quite well with Brook's in-depth examination of the issues
that lurk behind appealingly marketed facades, whether they be brand names or global showpieces.

Which is why, paired with this book, I recommend Hangar One vodka straight up with a twist of lemon, but with nothing to truly disguise what you are getting.  For some, a refined beverage with a quick payoff.  For others, a bitter--and potent- drink to swallow.

If you build it...

I would challenge even the most curmudgeonly conservative to find anything wrong with a farmers' market. Although they attract latte-drinking, well-heeled urbanites like flies to raw organic honey, they are manned by those close to the land and positively reek of self-sufficiency and honest labor.  The fact that mini versions of these markets are setting up in front of public schools all over Oakland should set hearts racing across the political spectrum.
Healthy food for all kids! Healthy food taxes don't have to pay for!  Healthy food where moms and dads can't miss it! Healthy food miles from the nearest latte-drinking urbanite!

But, if you build it, will kids really come?  Will they really ignore the jingle of the ice cream man's handcart?  Will they walk by the mama-preneurs hawking deep fried dough, self-bagged chips and bright lime suckers dusted in chili powder?  Will they really choose baby carrots over hot chips at the corner store?  Really? 

I was dubious, having confiscated a 7-11's worth of chips and candy in class through the years.  With a corner store down the street, would Doritos-loving kids really gravitate toward health food? I watched carefully as farmers' markets set up shop outside four of the schools where I work. At one school, they put the little white tents right on the yard. Unlike the Saturday version in a middle-class neighborhood near you, these are modest markets with a few tables.  One day each week, they offer nuts, fresh veggies, a limited selection of seasonal fruit, jars of honey, fresh eggs (in one location) and a few bars of local soap.  Nothing fancy.  But the stalls are usually packed three parents deep at dismissal time, doing a brisk business.  

But what about the kids?

The answer came, as many answers do, in the form of an 8-year-old struggling reader I'll call Z.  Z is whip thin and vibrates with energy.  Often that energy is excitement and enthusiasm.  Just as often, it's pouting and eye rolling.  Sometimes it's fear, as when he didn't want to come with me to read because his older brother was outside playing basketball and might see him needing "special help." This mood turned to jubilance when we then took the little known "secret agent" route to the reading center.  (We cut through the cafeteria kitchen, went out the side door, cut through the school garden and hugged the classroom's side wall all the way to the open door. Safe and sound.)  Z has had lots of volunteer tutors, most of whom can hang with his energy, but some of whom cannot.  As the reading specialist at his center, I'm often asked to step in during tougher weeks.  Thanks to the "secret agent" trick and others, I'm just as often able to give his mom a glowing report at the end of the session.  The surprised look on her face speaks volumes of her typical check-ins with teacherly figures.

Recently the exchange went something like this:

Me: Z had an excellent session today!  I wanted to let you know how focused he was.

Z's mom: You should know he's--wait--really? For real?  Really?

Z (vibrating with excitement): Really!  Really!

Me: Really!

Z's mom:  Well. Well!  You know what this means...(if possible, Z vibrates every more)...you get some (Z is practically levitating)...farmers' market!

Z's mom takes $2 out of her bag and hands it to Z, who bolts for the white tents.  Yes, the white tents.  Not the ice cream man, not the corner store--the white tents.  For the record, I have no problem with parents surprising their kids with treats following awesome behavior (though I'm not a fan of bribing kids, before the fact, to encourage expected behavior).  I'm definitely a fan of rewarding kids with a trip to the farmers' market that happens to be set up right in front of their school.  It could be that Z's mom would have driven him to the nearest supermarket for a healthy snack.  But we can all agree how unlikely that is.  What's much more likely is that healthy snacks are now more a part of the family routine since it is a convenient option.  And a kid handed $2 to spend is excited to spend it. Period.  The white tents don't represent organic goodness as much as tables laden with stuff they can now buy.

The next week, I worked with Z again, and I couldn't wait to ask him what he bought. The market does, after all, sells kettle corn and honey sticks. "It starts with P and ends with achios," he crowed, skipping down the stairs (no older brother today, so we could walk openly to the center).  Pistachios for good behavior.  Farmers' markets in front of our schools.  It's hard to argue with that.

This Train's Year in Books 2012

I've been suffering from writer's laryngitis lately.  While outwardly be-bopping along in typical fashion, my blogging soul has gone temporarily voiceless for reasons that are hard to pinpoint and have been even harder to cure.  Like laryngitis, I haven't exactly been sick (with writer's block or anything nearly as dramatic.)  Just a little weary, a little wavering and more or less voiceless.

That is going to change in 2013.

Why? Well, to start,  I have a whole list of book recommendations, an injection of hot tea and lemon for the ailing literary nerd's soul.  2012 has been a humdinger of a year for books, with delightful new additions to genres far and wide.  I've also been far and wide in 2012, landing back in the Bay Area after four years of nomadic wandering.  As my 94-year-old grandmother says every time she sees me, "You are back where you belong." If both travel and teaching have taught me anything, it is that there are many ways to belong, and that life works a lot better when you can find as many of those ways as possible.

So, in honor of my grandmother, who has seen more of life than anyone I know, I'm hereby declaring 2013 "The Year of Belonging In More Ways Than One."  As the new year dawns, may you find yourself ever rooted in belonging. I, for one, am grateful beyond measure for the sense of belonging you bring me by reading these words and (with any luck!) discovering profound enjoyment from the following books. (As always, this annual odyssey recounts the month I read the book, not when it was released.)    

January--Cleopatra, a Life by Stacy Stiff

Cleopatra VII of Egypt is someone we've all heard of and know nothing about.  Was she really a snake-wielding femme fatale, lover of Julius Caeser, downfall of Mark Antony, who sold the independence of her kingdom for misguided passion?  Not surprisingly, the historical record, putty in Schiff's masterful hands, tells quite a different story, both about Cleopatra's physical appearance (she was much more charismatic than hot) and the way she led Egypt through the sad inevitability of Roman rule.  What stayed with me throughout 2012 was the lasting sense of how brightly historical inaccuracy can shine through the dim fog of time and how aptly Schiff shifted my perspective.  So much of what we think we know about Cleopatra is wrong (and it's not exclusively Shakespeare's fault), yet the truth is equally dysfunctional and captivating.

February--The King's Gold (and all the Captain Alatriste books, starting with Captain Alatriste) by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Run--don't walk--to your book vendor of choice and check out this wonderful series by Arturo Perez-Reverte.  The author's name may ring a bell.  He won some fame about 10 years ago for his intricate literary thriller The Club Dumas.  While ably done, The Club Dumas doesn't hold a candle to Reverte's swashbuckling tales featuring Captain Alatriste, a rough-hewn Spanish soldier with a heart of gold, and his faithful sidekick/surrogate son Inigo.  The adventure novel is falling out of favor (oh, but why?), yet Reverte keeps it alive and kicking in these sparkling gems of the genre. There are villains, beautiful, faithless ladies, crooked clerics, bold thieves, innocent pawns and, of course, the Spanish Inquisition.  Set in the fading days of 17th century Iberian glory, Captain Alatriste holds honor dearer than fame or gold, and so will you after just a few chapters.

March--Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach (along with Spook: Science Takes on the Afterlife and anything else you can find by Mary Roach)

Dedicate your body to science these days, and you could end up in a lot more places than a medical school lab table.  Mary Roach traces the 2,000-year history of how we've put human cadavers to work, from testing seat belts and weapons to solving crimes. With a perfect mix of humor and respect, her expert reporting also spotlights the people through the ages who have defied taboo to learn from the dead.  Roach, known for her quirky subjects, is laugh-out-loud funny but never glib.  I was most moved by a chapter about an anatomy course at UCSF medical school where students hold a memorial service to celebrate the lives of those whose bodies aid in the training of future healers.

April--The Outlaw Sea: a World of Freedom, Chaos and Crime by William Langewieche (Also highly recommended by this author: Sahara Unveiled)

Anarchy reigns on the open seas, and anyone who wants a peek into the darkest corner of lawless commerce on the planet need look no further than Langewieche's book.  The huge container ships we see docked at ports near home are likely floating death traps, sold down the supply chain from sparsely regulated European and American companies to never-regulated operations registered in nations where a few thousand dollars can buy any safety inspector's stamp.  In addition to the hazard to human life and the environment (these ships, huge as they are, can literally break apart and disappear without a trace in a northern Pacific storm), container vessels shuttle cargo from port to port at a volume that is impossible for even the most vigilant country to oversee.  It is estimated that only 2% of all containers are even opened for inspection worldwide, and most for just a cursory glance.  Langeweiche's reporting tracks ships from the building yard to the polluted beaches of southeast Asia where they are finally run aground and dismantled by hand by some of the world's most impoverished workers.  This stark investigation of the reality--and freedom--of the open seas will change the way you look at those tankers bobbing picturesquely in the Bay.

May--Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language by Seth Lerer

Books about the English language always get my literary nerd's heart pumping.  Lerer's masterpiece on the evolution of our fascinating tongue has been out for awhile but was recently released on Kindle.  Needless to say, I gobbled it right up, and it proved the best book I've read (and I've read more than my share) to explain why English spelling is so screwy (blame Old Norse!) and how the Great Vowel Shift  means that modern Americans sound more like Shakespeare than any current resident of Stratford-upon-Avon.  Long on fun facts and short on esoteric explanations of consonant clusters (though there are a few of those too), Inventing English is an excellent starter book for anyone who wants to learn more about the world's lingua franca.

June--Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by Jon Scalzi

This year's science fiction offering is not for everyone.  But it should be! A send-up of television space dramas (Star Trek in particular), it features denizens of a starship where ordinary crew members (uniformed in red) have noticed a disturbing trend: anyone who goes on a mission with a ranking officer is inevitably killed in the most grizzly way possible while the officer survives regardless of the odds. In an effort to save his skin, Ensign Andrew Dahl and a group of  fellow "red shirts" go in search of a legendary crew member who, it is rumored, holds the key to unlocking the mystery and stopping the carnage.  This story contains both "meta" and "physics" but never together.  Instead, Scalzi's writing is accessible and highly entertaining, even as he sends his characters on a inter-dimensional adventure through time, space and Burbank, California.  I maintain that anyone will appreciate both the fast-paced prose and sardonic, well-written characters who would be more at home on an episode of Seinfeld than Deep Space Nine.  But don't take my word for it: check it out for yourself.

July--The Violinist's Thumb and Other Tales of Love, War and Genius as Written in Our Genetic Code by Sam Kean

Sam Kean wrote The Disappearing Spoon, surely the best book ever written about the periodic table of elements.  He's back with a similarly far-ranging and readable look at the history of DNA and our search to understand why we look and act the way we do.  Kean starts the journey with a personal, ethical and practical discussion about DNA testing, then takes us on a romp through the history of DNA discovery and various genetic mutations, both amusing (ever wonder why some people seem a little too attached to their cats?) and grim. Kean is never one to pull his punches when commenting on historic events, and his quick-witted take on scientific personalities is a highlight of this book.  Those  put off by flashbacks of high school chemistry brought on by The Disappearing Spoon may find this book less intimidating but no less entertaining.

August--The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

If novelists mine the undercurrents of our culture, bringing to light truths that are hidden within the seams of daily life, then there are a lot of people out there with Armageddon on their minds.  The Dog Stars is the latest entry in the booming sub genre of literary post-apocalyptic fiction, following the likes of The Road and The Age of Miracles up the bestseller list.  While Heller's first novel is less grim than some, early reviews that hailed it as an "uplifting" view of the End of Days were taking things a little far.  True, Earth is not a wasteland: farming and fishing are still possible; resource gathering, while difficult and violent, has not devolved into a daily pitched battle.  But when we join our protagonist Hig 10 years after a plague wiped out 99% of the population, humanity is spread thin and lonely.  Heller writes lyrically of loss of life in every sense, not just of people dying but of the homes, communities and sense of belonging that is gone forever. The solitude is echoed brilliantly in the syntax, with periods cutting off thoughts mid-stream, and two-word sentences trying (and failing) to shore up the desolation.  In this apocalypse, Hig and his dog Jasper live in an old municipal airport, converted into a fortress and a convenient place to park Hig's Cessna, which he uses for supply runs and reconnaissance. With them is Bagley, a volatile survivalist who stands in contrast to Hig's more introspective (read: depressive) mien. The men and dog do just fine until another death and a faint signal picked up on the Cessna's radio set a series of events into motion that lead to new connections in a world where most connections have dissolved in disease and distrust.  This is surely what reviewers meant by "uplifting."

This was my favorite work of fiction this year.  In fact, after finishing The Dog Stars, I spend at least 90 minutes curled under my bedcovers.  Heller's spare prose painted such a stark picture of the fallen world that I could almost see the San Francisco skyline replaced by smoldering hulks; the cranes of the Port of Oakland bent and broken; the abandoned rumble of the Cal campus a few blocks away.  Hig cannot escape what humanity had wrought. None of us can, if it comes to that.  The sliver of hope offered at the end of the book just throw this possible truth into even sharper relief.  It's a powerful technique, one that Heller and other writers of the literary apocalypse use to great effect, in a world that may or may not be slipping ever closer to the edge.

September--How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough

Who should develop the parts of our personalities that make up our character?  Traditionally, 'character' has fallen under the purview of families, communities and religious institutions.  But the near-universal consensus these days is that it should be something taught in school.  While touching briefly on character education's sparse history (which never moved far from consistent enforcement of the Golden Rule), Tough spends much of the book making a case for why developing character is crucial, especially for children of poverty.  He shows again and again how school achievement, college completion and other indicators of adult success have more to do with tenacity and teamwork than raw IQ or early exposure to math or reading. Much of the book focuses on two experienced educators and the different ways they approach character development with their students.  One of the educators, Dave Levin, is a founder of the KIPP charter network, who just stepped down as superintendent of the 11 KIPP schools in New York City.  The other, Dominic Randolph, is the headmaster of Riverside School, one of the city's most elite private schools.  Through a  series of conversations, Levin and Randolph developed two different approaches to developing character in their students, focusing particular on self-control, perseverance, optimism, curiosity and how to work successfully with others.  Levin developed a detailed rubric that lists behaviors students display when they are mastering each trait.  Randolph's version is less exacting, based on push-back he got from his staff.  Most teachers believed kids who go to Riverside don't "need" the kind of explicit character development that disadvantaged students do. This, for me, was when the book got most interesting--and a bit frustrating.  Tough stops short of offering a critical class analysis of who "needs" character development and who doesn't, but (to his credit), he makes it crystal clear that all children--regardless of background--will benefit from character education that teaches them how to press through difficult situations and pick themselves up when they fail. Tough also offers an astute and welcome critique of the ways education reform has replaced a broader spectrum of social welfare programs designed to get low-income families on their feet.  Helping students build the character tools they need to succeed in life starts in early childhood with interventions geared to reducing stressful family relationships. Poverty, Tough reminds us, cannot be eradicated by schools alone.

October--A Plague of Lies by Judith Rock,
The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny, 
The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken by Tarquin Hall

October is mystery month, and what a month it was!  From 17th century France to modern day New Delhi, the genre had something for everyone in 2012.  The month began with the third Charles du Luc mystery from Judith Rock (aka: my godmother)!  This time, Charles must navigate the intrigue of Versailles, complete with poisonings, vicious rumors and a rebellious princess of the blood royal.  Rock has hit her stride as a novelist, and this is her best one yet.  As always, the story is full of finely researched details and features some real historical figures, even as Rock crafts masterful fictional plots for them to play in. The map detail at the front of the book was drawn by my godfather, Jay!

The characters in Louise Penny's books are so vividly written that my literary nerd's soul aches every time she beautifully details their every mistake. While the mystery at the center of this latest book stands alone, as all of her novels do, the relationships between the characters span the whole series.  In A Beautiful Mystery, the hubris of the murderer mirrors that of several regulars, resulting in plot twists that will leave you both satisfied, grief-stricken and longing for the next installment.  (Read Louise Penny's novels in order, starting with Still Life.)

I've recommended Tarquin Hall's mysteries set in modern New Delhi before, and this year's offering is no different.  Punjai detective Vish Puri might write earnest letters to the Times of India and wear a deer stalker hat (a la Sherlock Holmes), but his knowledge of New Delhi's underbelly and savvy use of a stable of creatively nicknamed sidekicks makes him (and Hall's plots) more cagey and sophisticated than they first appear.  The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken features the familiar cast of characters, though several are granted more depth, especially the ever-enigmatic Mama-ji, Vish's aged mother and an expert at teasing out complex family relationships, Indian-Pakistani politics and what it means to truly go home.

November--The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver

We all need more gay quants in our lives.  I mention Nate Silver's sexual orientation because I think it's important to point out how this author personifies the primary aspect of his "quant-ness" (i.e.: the ability to make a noticeably higher percentage of accurate predications.)  Silver promotes the theory of "probabilistic" prediction making, meaning that a prediction can and should change as circumstances change.  A situation that may appear likely from one angle proves ridiculous from another.  And often forecasters will make predictions based on personal biases they are not willing to even acknowledge, much less incorporate consciously into the prognosis at hand.  So, for example, many people might say the likelihood of the guy who designed a system for forecasting a professional baseball player's performance and made a quasi-living playing online poker before starting a political forecasting blog named after the number of votes in the Electoral College being gay would be slim to none.  And they would be wrong.  Nate Silver as a writer and statistician defies stereotypes, societal pigeonholes and any attempt to shove him into a single category, which would please him greatly, I think, since he devotes so much time in The Signal and the Noise exhorting us to avoid these very blunders.

For the record, Nate Silver doesn't talk about being gay explicitly even once in the book's 544 pages. What you will discover instead is Silver's self-deprecating humor, engaging writing style and insightful critique of the systems that perpetuate our addiction to inaccurate forecasting in all its forms.  It's one of the few books I read this year that I want to read again soon--not just because it was fun, but because it contains crucial information that all of us should know.

December--Hell-bent: Obsession, Pain and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga by Benjamin Lorr

We began this year with a biography, so we'll end with a memoir.  I rarely read either genre, but am enthusiastically recommending Lorr's story of his experience as a competitive practitioner and teacher of Bikram yoga.  And not just because I, too, practice Bikram yoga and will gladly talk your ear off about it if given the opportunity.  Not that I'm at Lorr's level or want to be. And while I appreciated learning some fascinating medical facts about the effect of exercising in 105 degree heat (perfectly fine as long as we stay hydrated), I most enjoyed hearing about Lorr's journey to better health and the way his example rubbed off on his friends (not always in the way you'd think). Lorr has something many memoir writers lack: an awareness of which parts of his story will be interesting to an audience.  So, he is able to step out of the spotlight when necessary and let other subjects take center stage, including the ever-controversial Bikram himself, and Bikram's yogic opposite, a former disciple turned guru in his own right.  It is this guru who ends the book on the note of transcendence mentioned in the title, and a moving reminder that yoga is an ancient, compelling, surreal, non-Western practice that means something different to everyone.

And, as always, this book list will mean something different to everyone, too.  Please feel free to add your own comments/recommendations below.  When I mentioned that 2013 will be different in terms of blogging what I meant was this: you can expect at least one blog post per month (if not more!) this year, a resolution I have now stated publicly and plan to keep.

Let the Year of Belonging in More Ways Than One begin!

The meaning of service

In honor of the Independence Day, I'd like to dedicate this post to the Americorps program, which you may have heard of but am betting know almost nothing about.  Over the past few weeks, I've discovered every single thing I thought I knew about Americorps was wrong.  Every single thing.  Now in place of all that misinformation, I'm armed with facts that have left me blown away by the depth of commitment, dedication and grit displayed by the over 80,000 Americans (many of them college age or recent college grads) who are serving our country in this way.

Before we get into the particulars, please know this: Americorps, like public libraries and national parks, is one of those 100% good things your tax dollars pay for; something that costs a paltry $550 million per year and pays big dividends in places many of us would rather ignore.  The reading intervention nonprofit I now work for employs Americorps members to staff reading centers in public schools nationwide.  It will be part of my job to train and manage a group of them, something I'm now bursting with excitement about doing.  Keep reading to see why...

Unlike, say, the Peace Corps or Teach for America, Americorps is not an organization that people apply and are accepted to as such.  Instead, a person applies for an Americorps position at nonprofit organization.  Once hired, members are trained on the job and receive health insurance, the promise of an education grant at the end of their service and a living allowance that is almost no money. Seriously.  No money. Unlike the Peace Corps, Americorps members are not living in the developing world (where you can live pretty well on almost no money).  Unlike Teach for America, which is a wonderful organization but not a service program, Americorps members don't earn a full-time professional salary.  Instead Americorps members do full-time, often professional-level work essentially for free. By choice.  They qualify for (and definitely use) food stamps. By choice. In the Bay Area, the stipend is well under $20,000.  I'm still not sure how they live, but they do because service is what they are about in every sense of the word.  I served in the Peace Corps, but it was different than the Americorps process I just described.  For one thing, I was taken care of every step of the way.  Sure, I lived and worked in a small village in Africa for two years, but I didn't have to find my own job or figure out how to pay rent.  Now, I'm not saying Peace Corps service isn't worthy or challenging.  It is. But Americorps, though it's often called "the domestic Peace Corps," demands an added level of social consciousness worth mentioning, since Americorps members choose a life below the poverty line along with their year(s) of service.  In Cameroon, the $200/month living allowance made me downright well off, especially since I only had to support myself.  I could enjoy all the country had to offer, not to mention the inherent privilege of being an American overseas.  Americorps members serve without those perks, even as they collectively log over 65 million hours every year for organizations like the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity and the Boys & Girls Club.

So this 4th of July, raise a sparkler, a glass and an American flag to a government-sponsored program we can all be proud of, and the members throughout the country who are dedicating a year or more of their lives to helping make this land (from California to the New York islands, from the redwood forest to the Gulfstream waters) a better place.

Let's end with the Americorps pledge. Check it out!

I will get things done for America -
to make our people safer,
smarter, and healthier.

I will bring Americans together
to strengthen our communities.

Faced with apathy,
I will take action.

Faced with conflict,
I will seek common ground.

Faced with adversity,
I will persevere.

I will carry this commitment
with me this year and beyond.

I am an AmeriCorps member,
and I will get things done.

Now Voyager

The Voyager 1 probe is about to leave the solar system, according to a recent spate of publicity.  It will be the first human-made object to do so on its own power with the ability to transmit data back to Earth.  No one knows how long the Voyager crafts will continue to function after they clear the heliopause, that invisible boundary where the solar wind finally dies down and the final frontier begins.  Both Voyager 1 and 2 with their 1970s-era technology and now-primitive radio transmitters have exceeded their shelf life by decades as they've hurtled through the outer solar system, snapping pictures of Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings.  I love the thought all that analog technology lasting so long--its staying power flying in the face of NASA's perpetual critics.  In my perfect world, well-informed curmudgeons from America's heartland would straighten their John Deere caps reverently at the news of the Voyagers' mechanical prowess rather than roll their eyes at operating budgets and taxpayer dollars. 'Yep,' one would say to the assembled crew, leaning in for effect. 'They sure don't make interstellar spaceships like they used to.'

I've re-developed a minor obsession with Voyager recently, ever since hearing about its upcoming break out of the solar system on NPR's Radiolab program (Find a link to the potentially life-changing podcast here) I say re-developed because as a young astronomy buff growing up in the 80s, I followed the Voyager mission as closely as a school kid could in the days before the Internet.  My mom even took my sister, friend and me down to the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena (Voyager mission control to this day) where we toured their small museum, viewed ethereal color snapshots of the gas giants that revolutionized space science and saw a replica of Voyager 1, complete with its golden record (more on that later).

While my sister gawked appreciatively, and my friend (a math prodigy) quizzed the scientist on call in the museum, I wandered around in a poetic daze, my head full of the half-formed musings of a literary nerd-in-training. Primed by the lush language of kid-friendly astronomy books and countless Star Trek re-runs, I embraced outer space for its metaphors: the mystery, possibility and triumph of the human spirit.  The Voyager mission was a beeping, spinning embodiment of hope and optimism (humans reaching ever outward!) along with the melancholy of our loneliness (two little probes so far from home)

Turns out, my feelings haven't changed much in 26 years...

I listened to the Radiolab program while driving a U-Haul truck from Austin to Berkeley and re-entered that 12-year-old daze of awe and admiration.  The world has changed so much since the Voyagers set off in 1977, but in a way, everything that's happened almost doesn't matter.  In astronomical terms, these 35 years have been a mere blink of an eye as Voyager has spanned the tiniest fraction of the immensity surrounding us.  As I thought about my own life--the transitions, triumphs, failures and mundane day-to-day--I added another metaphor to Voyager's list: perspective.  The poets of space science, the late-great Carl Sagan among them, write about our place in the cosmos in a way that makes, say, the end of a relationship, an interstate move and the start of a new career trajectory (all in just three weeks) seem a little less significant.  As I drove through the Arizona high desert listening to Voyager's rendering of the whoosh of solar wind 9 billion miles from home, I found my transition angst lifting somewhat.  When I heard about "The Pale Blue Dot," it lifted almost entirely.

"The Pale Blue Dot" is the last photograph (to date) that Voyager 1 has taken.  It is also a book by Carl Sagan, who was the main advocate for the picture in the first place.  The Voyagers' cameras are no longer on to save power.  But before NASA turned them off in 1990, scientists turned Voyager 1 around and pointed its camera back at Earth.  The resulting photo is called "The Pale Blue Dot" because it shows Earth as a tiny half-pixel of blue light, captured in the slanted light of the distant Sun against a black field of outer space.

Then Carl Sagan wrote, as only Carl Sagan could: 

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." 

Yeah...that kind of puts my little problems into a lot of perspective.

But for those of you tempted to resort to nihilistic shrugging, the Voyagers also offer hope, ridiculous, wonderful, galaxy-sized hope.  That's where the golden record comes in.  Each Voyager probe has a gold record attached to its side--you may have heard of them.  These records encapsulate the very best of the human spirit, and not just because they contain greetings in 55 different languages and 116 sounds and images from our planet, including music by Mozart and Chuck Berry.  Etched on the records are pictures of human beings and an interstellar map to Earth, using big astronomical landmarks like pulsars to guide the way.  It didn't matter to the people who made the golden record that it will take Voyager 1 about 40,000 years to reach the next star.  It didn't matter that the chances of an alien race 1) encountering a tiny craft in the vast expanse of space and 2) being able to play a record, for the love of Pete, are beyond miniscule.  We humans slapped those messages into our spaceship bottles and tossed them into the largest sea in existence because that's how we roll here on Earth.  We screw up all the time.  We're petty and self-important.  We poison our oceans and trash our forests.  We're mean to each other based on all sorts of nonsensical prejudices and assumptions.  Yet when it comes down to it, we have this hope in a future that spans all time, and we'd like to believe we're not alone out here on our pale blue dot.  We don't mean much, but we mean something, and we reach out--to each other and to the universe.  As long as we keep reaching out, I think we'll be OK.  We might even be here in 40,000 years when our new alien friends come calling, even if by then absolutely no one knows what a 'record' is.