Author: Bukkhead

I'm the writer here.
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I Am SO Good at Tapering

Posted at The Loop, the blogs at Runner’sWorld.com

I’ve mentioned before that the Ragnar Relay is my number one all-time favorite run, and it’s coming up in two weeks. And I want to be ready. And I do not use italics lightly. I want to get the most out of this year’s running, and for me, that means only one thing: running injury free.

I am prone to blowing out my calf, one or the other (not sure what the technical term is). I even went to see a foot doctor about it, since it was happening all the time. He told me my bones were too long for my muscles, and so I was putting too much stress on them. My options were surgery, or stretching. I chose stretching. I should tell you that this is the same doctor who told me I was running wrong, that I am supposed to hit heel first. I don’t mean to insult ducks, but what a quack.

One year, I blew out my calf about two weeks before Ragnar. Ran it anyway. Back then, I was normally able to hold about a nine minute per mile average for up to ten miles. But having a bum calf meant I was lucky to manage 10’30” per mile. Here’s an irony: I was only to run at all by using a very exaggerated heel strike. Turns out it prolonged my recovery by about a month.

I know a little bit better now. I saw a physical therapist, who helped me loosen up my ankles and hips, which keeps from pronating so much that my mid-foot strike moves way up closer to my toes. And I know better than to train at race paces, which has also reduced the frequency of injuries.

So, last Wednesday was my final “hard run” and this week I’m cutting back from 5 times a week to just three. Next week I’m going run just twice, two short very slow 5k. I don’t want to brag, but this is not a problem for me. I know some people get really antsy when they can’t run. Mentally, they know one week off won’t diminish their abilities, but emotionally it eats away at them. Not me!

I mean, some people are good at training. Some people thrive under the pressure of performance. Some people are wizards with nutrition, with knowing their own bodies, with finding super-awesome shoe sales and getting kick-ass socks at 90% off. My personal running gift is being a taper diva. It’s like I was made to rest before races. (Hey, Christopher McDougall, I have great idea for a sequal: Born to Rest. Come interview me any time you want, man).

Sure, I might get a little depressed, especially since the weather finally turned nice here, and will only stay like this for maybe another week or so. But I can handle it, mostly thanks to beer. Beer is a great excuse to run, on those days when you might not otherwise manage it. And, it turns out, it’s a great way to survive not running as well.

Indeed, as I write this, I am actually tapering with a Guinness Black Lager. After I post, I may go taper with a pilsner, and this weekend I plan on tapering in more than a few fine bars here in Seattle.

Come to think of it, tapering is pretty great!

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The End of Mr. Y– review on Goodreads

The End of Mr. YThe End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

One of the great things about Goodreads is the variety of opinions given about a book. I didn’t care much for The End of Mr. Y, and there are plenty of reviews that say what I want to say; but there are also plenty of folks who liked the book just fine. On the one hand, this is not very helpful, in that you might not know whether to read the book or not. On the other, it’s great because the onus is no longer on the reviewer to recommend as much as to share an experience. That’s what I want to do. I want to tell you why I didn’t like the book, even though I might not be able to tell you it wasn’t any good.

The first half of the novel is just a mystery about the discovery and provenance of a strange book, and satisfies in that sense. The small college town in a cold England winter is atmospheric, edging on haunting. Her main character, Ariel, is interesting enough, though secondary characters are sort of glossed over, sounding boards for Ariel to bounces theories against.

But then it goes all “fantasy” in the second half, which I didn’t expect, and since I didn’t know I was supposed to ramp up my willing suspension of disbelief, I found myself scowling much of the time. Maybe that’s my fault. But fantasy requires a very rigid consistency, lest we feel the writer is just, literally, creating conflict (and resolution) out of nothing. Lost, utterly, was all that atmosphere. There’s plenty of mystery, but it’s of the “wtf” variety, with no hope of explanation or justification.

Scarlett Thomas takes the “what if” of post-structural linguistics and applies it to the “what if” of quantum mechanics. That’s fine, and for an idle browser of both subjects such as myself, her exploration has potential. But it’s a potential ramrodded in the last eight of the book into a conclusion that’s a little too inevitable—instead of opening up a world of possibility, paradoxes of time travel are used to justify a lack of free will, a numbing experience for the reader, peppered with, in my opinion, ridiculous sex scenes.

Honestly, it was the sex scenes throughout that really bored me. I just don’t see how they were required—one character is nothing more than an ATM for cash and shame, except the shame is utterly unconvincing, doesn’t develop Ariel’s character all, and has no impact on the plot whatsoever.

I’m giving this two stars, begrudgingly. At least Thomas knows how to handle a sentence, and like I said, there was all of that wonderful atmosphere in the first half of the book. And it did remind me that I want to go read up on Baudrillard, not to mention my having read The End of Mr. Y right around the time the CERN folks were revealing their evidence for the existence of the Higgs Boson.

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Race Report: Seattle Firecracker 5k

(posted at The Loop, the blogs over at RunnersWorld.com)

I sort of decided to run this one last-minute, meaning I signed up only a few days before and I didn’t “train” for it, as such. Not that I “train” for runs in particular, or even “train” at all. I just like to run. Although, lately, I have been more purposeful in how I run, specifically, trying to run more often and more slowly. So that’s a kind of training, right? And since I’ve been trying to run more slowly, I decided, again, last minute, to go all-out in this 5k.

But I needed a plan, because I know from experience “all out” lasts about 2 minutes, and then it’s just trying to survive after that. So here’s what I did: I made a play list of songs lasting for a total of about 26 minutes. I ordered them by changes in speed, and my goal was to run at an 8 minute/mile pace during the fast parts, and at 8:30/mile pace during the slow parts.

I have no science to back up this rationale. And honestly, I am nowhere near able to tell how fast I’m running at any given moment. I do have a GPS watch, but at a glance it can be “off” by as much as 2 minutes/mile in either direction. But, for the most part, for me, 8:00/mile is pushing myself nearly to max, and 8:30/mile is pushing harder than my preferred “training” pace. And of course, this was not a flat route, and I didn’t really map the expected paces to the elevation changes, so running by effort was not going to really, accurately, reflect my actual pace.

But who cares. I had a plan and making the plan was kind of fun. There’s world-class runners, elites, and competitors. I am running hobbyist. “Preparing” like this was just another way to enjoy the whole thing.

So the idea was: start off “slow,” and when the music changes, go fast, then “rest,” and then push again. I even made a spreadsheet of all of the times when the songs change. According to my calculations, if all went well, I’d finish somewhere be 25 and 26 minutes, which was just fine with me.

I finished in 24’01”.

According to my chart, I was supposed to finish the first mile in 8’17”. According to my GPS watch, I finished the first mile in 8’11”. I’m sure, for elites, a six second discrepancy can speak volumes. But for a chubby running hobbyist, this was a triumph!

I was supposed to finish the second mile by 16’27”, and my actual time was 15’56”. So this is where I, conveniently, shift from being proud of my number crunching to being proud of my running. Those 25 seconds were gained going up a 100 foot climb over about half a mile.

Finally, that last mile, was supposed to be 24’41”, but was actually 23’25”. Another 51 seconds gained.

Now, like I said, this is not at all scientific, nor even very rigorous, using a GPS watch and a spreadsheet, not accounting for elevation changes, and dodging people at the crowded beginning, and a list of other mitigating factors I’m sure you can come up with. Honestly, this could all be a sort of coincidence—if I crunch enough numbers, I bet I could justify almost any kind of prediction and result.

But as I said above, just doing the planning beforehand was fun, and added an extra dimension to the whole experience.

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What a Terribly Written Article

Logged into the internet today (i.e. turned on my monitor) and went to Google News, like you do. Boom, right there, an article from Forbes titled “Facebook’s Email System Does *What* Now?” So I clicked on it with alacrity. (Alacrity™ brand clicking, brought to you today by 5-Hour Energy Drink).

What I read was, to put it plainly, difficult to read. I mean, short of giving you a word-by-word scan of each sentence, it was just hard to parse. Please. Go read it yourself and then hope along with me this man is not a successful novelist.

Not to mention the content he was trying to put across. Did you not bother torturing yourself with his cumbersome use of syntax? I’ll sum up: he claims Facebook is changing e-mail addresses in your cell phone. Balderdash.

I didn’t believe it for a second, so I searched for other, hopefully better written articles. Sure enough, I found another, which said that if you’ve given Facebook permission to sync your contact list with your phone, and if one of your contacts on Facebook did not list an email address on Facebook itself, and was therefore given an @facebook.com address by Facebook, then a bug in the API will indeed have Facebook sync with your phone and change the email address of some of your Facebook contacts.

In other words, that Forbes writer lied by omission. Now, go ahead, call me a fanboi, a Facebook white knight. I know it’s cool to hate on the ‘book and it’s nerdy to say how great the damn thing is. But come on, Forbes, I thought you were about rich people. And rich people are supposed to be smart and educated and stuff. This is not just bad writing, it’s bad journalism.

Or, hey, maybe it is me. Maybe I am too stupid to read Forbes, and what I am calling bad writing is just my own inability to read it. And to read between the lines and glean the truth that the writer left out. Maybe I’m the pot calling the kettle stupid, maybe my own writing is inefficient and misleading.

Whatever the case, the plain truth for us plain folks is: your phone is fine, unless you gave Facebook permission to mess around with it. And if you did that, and you’re rich enough to read Forbes, I don’t know what to tell you. Or how. But I bet you’ll survive this. Go get a 5-Hour Energy Drink, soldier.

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The Twin– review on Goodreads

The TwinThe Twin by Gerbrand Bakker

Just finished The Twin, literally minutes ago, and want to get my thoughts down as quickly as possible. Not because I’m so very excited. It’s just that I know I have a problem doing a proper review after a few days have passed, and the truth is I don’t even know what I think of this book right now. Maybe I should let it marinate, but just in case, here goes.

The original title in Dutch is Boven Is Het Stil, which translates roughly to “Above Is Quiet.” I would have liked to have known that, as the novel begins with the main character, Helmer, swapping rooms with his dying father, moving the old man into a room upstairs in the house they share. And then there’s the metaphor for heaven that “Above” suggests… not the heaven of paradise, but the heaven of where dead people go. Helmer is a man who, now in his fifties, is largely defined by the dead—his mother, his twin brother, his soon to be dead father. Not to mention a surfeit of dead animals throughout, which has only now occurred to me, upon reflection. If Helmer is defined by these deaths, and the dead are quiet, then Helmer is quiet too.

Quiet in the sense of silent, and Bakker repeatedly mentions sounds: a buzzing electric clock, a small radio playing jazz… but I don’t recall his making much of barnyard animals sounds, the sheep and chickens and cows. Helmer has no voice, can’t express his desires, doesn’t even know what his desires may be. His best hoping at finding desire at all is in putting a map on the wall of his bedroom.

And quiet in the sense of still, in that Helmer is unmoving, frozen by the deaths of those around him. At the moment when he would have become his own person, going off into the world to make himself into whatever he could, his brother dies, forcing him to return to the farm and take up the role his brother would have taken. Not exactly a square peg in a round hole, but nevertheless not the life he might have led, and certainly not the son his father would have chosen.

But this is not a maudlin story, a tale of tragedy and bitterness and regret. It’s sad, yes, the kind of sad you accept because that’s the way of life. Bakker, in Colmer’s translation, is gentle, simple, contemplative, without being barren or terse or merely laconic. Dutch winters are cold without being harsh, and spring is just another season, without being lush or refreshing. Sheep give birth to lambs, and some of them are stillborn—that’s the way of things.

This is a book that is rich with symbols and images, and plenty of opportunity for any given reader to bring as much as he or she wants to a reading. What do you make of the two donkeys, the television set, the binoculars, the broken bicycle, the windmill… I could go on. I mean this as only high praise, that this is a book that will be read and taught and examined and cherished.

Or, take it as it stands—a simple story about a sad man.

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Machine Man– review on Goodreads

Machine Man (online serial)Machine Man by Max Barry

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In my reviews of Barry’s Jennifer Government and Company, I called his style “a bit stark, a bit plain, matter-of-fact.” Here in Machine Man, the narration is in first person, so this same style comes across as slightly autistic (or as if the narrator has Asperger’s, for those who insist on term for the popular understanding of socially functional autism). Perhaps a bit of a stereotype for lab engineer, but then Barry doesn’t seem interested in bogging down his novel in superfluous details, so why should his narrator. And that’s not just a quip on my part—at one point, his character stops even going home, choosing to live at work instead. This doesn’t have much to do with the story; it’s as much a convenience for the author and the reader as it is for the character.

What we have here is Flowers for Algernon by way of Frankenstein by way of Robocop. And while my personal critical point of view has never been of the historical variety, I can’t help but think how Barry’s novel changes how I see each of those other texts. Or even a story like that laughable movie Limitless (which I just found out was based on a book, so maybe I’ll add it my to-read list, if only for yet another perspective on this type of tale). Combine the basic Greek tragedy, with its heroes and hubris and falls from grace, but attach a good-old-fashioned self-made man story at the beginning. That the main character in Machine Man is literally self-made is even more compelling.

Again, I’m drawn to a more historical analysis than anything else. The self-made-man story is very much an American ideal, and thus it begs the question if Machine Man (or Flowers or Frank or Robo) is a cautionary tale about where the United States is heading. Certainly in these times of economic struggle, it’s looking more and more like “The Great Experiment” has run its course and we’re all doomed to become Canadians. But then I can’t think of a time when we didn’t say we were struggling with a difficult economy, so this is, like those Greek tragedies, a timeless story.

That’s reading way too much into it, of course, and this is supposed to be a review, not a sophomore essay. Fine. I thought Jennifer Government was clever and Company exploited a sense of irony, but here in Machine Man Barry trades in those forces to instead write something a little more human, which itself is ironic given what the main character goes through, not mention clever. And he achieves it, as I said above, within a very matter-of-fact style of narration, holding us emotionally at arm’s length which nevertheless makes us feel even more for the main character. His flaws are our own.

A magnum opus, then? Not quite. I think Barry’s got chops, and I think his greatest work is still to come. And if nothing else, reading Machine Man will lend that much more perspective to his other work. Max Barry is still building himself, and I’m looking forward to the results.

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YOU Are the Experiment

fiction by Jason Edwards

Chemistry 1-A at Dunmaru High is buzzing with the usual student chatter. Jenni Olmack’s wearing that jacket everyone saw at Oldsen’s, the one that cost like a gajillion dollars. Greg Tarkley and Michel Inbay are punching each other in the shoulder. Everyone’s ignoring Lisa Besson because everyone always ignores Lisa Besson.

Mr. Kilsome walks into the room, chanting “All right, all right, quiet down.” Jenni glances over in time to see Greg mouthing exactly the same words, a big smile on his face. Nevertheless, the room quiets down. A few chairs squeak as students sit on their stools at their lab stations. Pots of powders, Bunsen burners, sinks, tongs, flasks and beakers. A school in a county that pays its taxes.

“All right everyone, here’s what we’re going to do today,” Mr. Kilsome says “We’re going to synthesize a very strange chemical, one of the least understood chemicals in the world. For this one, though, you’re going to need the heavy aprons.” Mr. Kilsome takes off his coat and reaches for his own heavy leather apron. Half the students file to the closets in the back—they’d learned chem-lab protocol on day one, so no need for everyone to clump up around the closets.

Lisa brings back an apron for Jenni, who takes it but otherwise ignores her. Greg brings one and throws it in Michael’s face. It’s heavy enough to smack him in the head. But Michael plays football, so there’s no way an apron, of all things, is going to injure him. He puts on the apron, and remains standing—the thing’s too heavy to allow for sitting on the lab stools at all.

“Goggles, everyone,” Mr, Kilsome says. The class obliges. “Gloves…” and everyone in the class pulls gloves from cubby holes at the lab tables. These are stiff, thick, heavy gloves. Soon the class, with the heavy gloves, thick aprons, and goggles, look like something from one of those weird 1950s German medical-horror movies.

“Alright. We’ll start with mystery pot one. Open that, and measure out 35 ccs of the white powder into a flask. Be very very careful—try not to inhale too close to the flask when you pour it in.

A few students glance around, a bit nervous. Greg and Michael fight for a second over who holds the flask and who holds the measuring spoons. Jenni stands back, arms folded awkwardly in the gloves, while Lisa does all the work.

“Good, excellent. Now, close mystery pot one—tightly! And open number two. Measure out 15 ccs into the flask. And whatever you do, do NOT shake the flask. Please, class, be careful.”

Lisa proceeds, hands shaking slightly. Murmurs from some in the classroom, but not as many as usual, a nervous silence. Greg and Michael, big stupid grins on their faces, are nevertheless a little more exacting in their measurements and cooperation.

Everyone sets their flasks down, and stand absolutely still, looking at Mr. Kilsome.

“Okay. Now, pour some water into a beaker, and make sure it’s cold, you’ll want exactly 25 ccs…”

“How do we know it’s cold with these gloves on?” Michael says, his voice cracking slightly.

“Use a thermometer, Mr. Inbay. The taps should run less than 68 degrees… if we’re lucky.” His face is grave as he glares at Michael.

Michael swallows, reaches for a thermometer. Greg turns on the taps. Lisa is still doing all of the work, but Jenni’s taken a few steps back, not realizing she’s now just that much closer to the students—and flasks—behind her.

“Once you’ve gotten 25 ccs of cold water, gently, and I do mean gently, pour that into the flask.” The students begin to pour. “Mr. Inbay! Gently!” Michael’s eye go wide and he stops pouring. “And you, Gregory, don’t hover over the top like that.” Greg steps back.

“By now your flask should have the powder mixture on the bottom, with the water on top.” He pauses for effect, and says in a lower tone, “uh, does anyone, uh have debris… floating in their water?”

“Oh my god,” Jenni says, backing up and pointing. “Hers does! Hers does!”

“Okay everyone. Start to stir the mixture, vigorously.”

“But you said not to agitate it!” says Gregory, a large frown distorting his face. Agitate is probably the biggest word he’s ever said.

“That was before you had the dihydrogen monoxide. Now stir! Stir!”

The students begin to stir. Lisa is holding her flask at arm’s length, head twisted to the side. Other students are following suit. Everyone’s eyes are huge behind their goggles.

“Once you have a uniform texture and consistency, set the flask down.” There are few thumps as students, eager to the get the flask out of their hands, set them down quickly.” Gently!” Mr. Kilsome shouts.

Greg and Michael set theirs down, jaws agape, staring. Lisa sets her down, eyes shifting back and forth from Mr. Kilsome to the flask.

The room is utterly still.

In a quiet voice, Mr. Kilsome says. “Now I will reveal to you the nature of this truly remarkable chemical. Are you ready?”

Nobody moves.

“Peel back the label on pot number one.”

Arms out stiff to keep from approaching the lab tables too close, the students pick up pot number one, the sound of labels peeling off like whispers in the silence.

Greg says, out loud, “Flour baking powder salt.”

“Yes.” Mr. Kilsome says, an evil grin on his face. “And now pot number 2.”

The students peel off the sticker on pot #2. “Powdered milk powdered eggs sugar”, Michael reads.

Mr. Kilsome says “The chemical we’ve just created… is fear.”

No one moves.

“We’re making pancakes?” Lisa suddenly shouts, and starts laughing. Other students follow her and start laughing as well. It’s the happiest day of her life.

Mr. Kilmore is laughing too. “And now we’ve created another fine chemical—relief!” The students laugh louder. “Go ahead and turn on your Bunsen burners. You should find wire frames, small frying pans and spatulas in the cabinets below your lab tables.”

The students continue to laugh and shout as they turn on the burners and pull out their pans. That Mr. Kilsome… what a crazy teacher. Greg socks Michael in the arm for being such a fraidy cat. Jenni steps close enough that Lisa can smell her shampoo, and they make eye contact for the first time, ever.

Mr. Kilsome smiles, and picks up another pot, making sure the false label on it hides the words “rat poison. “I’ve got the powdered sugar!” he shouts.

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Sharing (the Important Parts of) My Ragnar Plans

Another one posted on the blogs on Runner’s World.com

I have run a marathon in Zurich, a 5k around the Roman Coliseum, and a few half-marathons along the Las Vegas Strip (both in the daytime and night). Those were all fantastic runs, but my favorite year-in and year-out is the Ragnar Northwest Passage. On this adventure, a team of 12 people take turns running between 3 and 8 miles at a time, covering 187 miles nonstop.

This will by my fifth running, and this year I am runner #6. I have been planning assiduously for my legs, and I’d like to share my plan for my first sortie, a 6.5 miler outside of Bellingham.

7:30 am Our first runner begins in Blaine, Washington, right at the US/Canada border. I was given this leg the very first year my friends and I ever ran the Ragnar, so you could say I’ve been doing this long longer than anyone I know.

12:00 (noon) According to some very rough estimates based on average paces, altitude changes, ambient temperature, relative humidity, playlist selection, shoe selection, hydration, and the position of Mars in Sagittarius, I expect runner #5 to be about 14 minutes and 19 seconds away from our exchange. I’ll put on my shoes (Nike Free 3.0 with about 150 miles on ‘em), my cool 70’s-style bandana, my Nike+ GPS watch on one wrist, my iPod Nano in a wrist-band holder on the other, and don a pair of supremely choice sunglasses even if it is raining.

12:02 I’ll head to one of the Honeybuckets.

12:04 I’ll slather my hands with Purell, and down a 5-Hour Energy Drink.

12:06 Another visit to a Honeybucket.

12:08 More Purell, and begin stretching.

12:10 One more Honeybucket visit.

12:12 Purell. More stretching, start the GPS watch and put it on pause so it’s not still searching for a satellite while I’ve already started running.

12:13 Cue up the playlist. John Petrucci, Daikaiju, Tool, Jethro Tull.

12:14:19 Runner 5 comes at me. I take the baton/slap-bracelet. Off I go!

1:12:49 Slap runner 7 with the bracelet, begin earnest search for beer.

A perfect 9 minute/mile average! Way to pace yourself over the elevation gains and frequent busy street-crossings, me!

Now you maybe be wondering about the specifics during the running itself, but let’s face it: running is extremely personal (and the truth is I did type it up but it spans some 15,000 words, taking more time to write than it literally takes me to run 6.5 miles. This is a blog post, not a book by Cheever).

But at least I shared the beer part with you.

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So I Read The Back of a Book about Marxism…

Dusk; another wonderful day ends in corporate America. The sky is on fire with reds yellows and purples, or golds and royal plums if you like. The chemicals dumped into the sky by the industries that bring you everything you love make the sunset as glorious as the amazing life you live on the backs of peasants. Your masters in the oligarchs are pleased with your contentedness…

But lo, what is this? Across the twilight sky arcs a brilliant flash of light. What is it? You have no idea, maybe an airplane, maybe a meteor, a bolide, maybe an alien in a spacecraft. You don’t know what it is, so it is an unidentified flying object. The irony here is that you’ve given it a name, even though you don’t know what it is, so you can return to the task of removing your workshop pajamas, to put on your nightclub pajamas, in the hopes of meeting someone and eventually waking up next to them in your birthday pajamas.

A UFO, then, is just a way to explain something away. A lightning bolt kills your favorite sheep, you need to believe it happened for a reason, lest you becoming bogged down in an existential depression. So you invent and blame gods. A light flashes in the sky, and you need to make sure it’s not a hallucination, lest that good looking sex-companion in the designer pajamas turns out just to be a figment of your imagination as well. So it is a UFO.

The thing is, you are Ugly, Fat, and Old. You are a UFO as well.

I happen to know, for fact, that you’re not really ugly. You may not be on the cover of magazines, you may not star in movies, but you are not ugly. The lack of prettiness that you think you possess is not your sole identifying feature. When people think of you, you are not filed, in the network of memories their brains maintain, under connotations of ugly. I know this for a fact.

Same for how fat you are. Maybe you don’t have an athlete’s body. You’re not appearing on a box of Wheaties any time soon. According to that work of fiction called “BMI,” you are technically “overweight.” But again, the sum total of your being, in the hearts and minds if your friends and family and even the people who don’t like you, cannot be captured in the word “fat.” Maybe you think you could lose a few pounds. But you do not personify Platonic “fatness.”

And then there’s your age. Sorry, you’re not “old,” either. Age is relative—a mayfly is “old” after only 20 hours. A tortoise is not “old” even after 75 years. If you think you’re “old” it’s because of context, and trust me, there are much “older” people in the same contexts. You’re maybe not the youngest, but you certainly don’t represent all of the negatives attributes associated with “old.”

But you still consider yourself a UFO—why? Because that’s how you explain things, how you explain why you’re so unhappy, why you can’t have the things you think you want. You see what corporate America feeds you: visions of success from hard work, and the rewards are pretty, slender youths. Again with the irony—nobody who works as hard as we’re expected to work stays pretty, fit, or young. Nobody.

What am I asking you to do, here, is to quite calling yourself ugly, fat, and/or old, because every time you do, you are accepting the gestalt that your slave owners are foisting on you. The problem is, you’re a slaveowner too—you too benefit from the hard work that the unrewarded poor contribute to our gross national product. If you justify your misery by calling yourself a UFO, you also justify the crimes you commit against the poor. Stop making excuses. Accept how gorgeous you are. Own it, and let it motivate you to go get the things you deserve. The final irony: if you do, you’ll be stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. That flash in the night sky was just your imagination, internal inspiration, a spark urging you to recontextualize your existence.

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Jennifer Government– review on Goodreads

Jennifer GovernmentJennifer Government by Max Barry

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finished up Max Barry’s Company and decided I’d go back in time and re-read JG as well. I called Company “corporate cubicle fiction” so I guess JG is “corporate overthrow fiction,” for want of a better term. Barry takes the idea of the corporation as a world-changing force of nature and pursues it to a logical (and therefore, ironically, absurd) conclusion, where governments are pushed to the side as corporations and the countries they represent start to merge. Capitalism as nightmare, without any of that silly communism as an antidote.

You’ll want to take a few willing-suspension-of-disbelief vitamins before diving in, but you won’t be disappointed if you do. Barry’s economic structures take a little getting used to, but they’re just props for him to explore corporate partnerships run amuck, the dangerously pervasive nature of advertising, global-mob psychology, and a dog-eat-dog world. Is that too much for you to swallow? Never fear—it’s all part of an action-adventure. Murder! Violence! Guns! Guerilla Marketing!

And a twisted story line that will having you hopping around the globe from character to character, trying to keep track, although they all come together at the end for the final showdown. Allow me to repeat what I said about Company, which is even more true in JG: Barry’s style is a bit stark, a bit plain, matter-of-fact. He gives you just enough description to keep things straight, letting you fill in the rest. But, whereas in Company that forced the reader to paint with her own experiences, in JG it’s just stark—existentialism as advertised by Nike.

Another fast read; and what review would be complete with mentioning Nationstates.net, nation simulation game and a tie-in to the book that’s been online now since JG‘s publication in 2003.

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