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Facebook etiquette

August 27, 2013 / Stephanie / 4 Comments

The other day, someone I know posted this blog post on her Facebook page, exhorting her Facebook friends to keep in mind seven basic rules of Facebook etiquette. The post’s title, “7 Ways To Be Insufferable On Facebook,” initially grabbed me, because, hey, I hate seeing updates on So-and-So’s progress in Farmville as much as the next person. In fact, I’ve spent a not insignificant chunk of time over the years building a mental list of some of the most obnoxious behaviors on Facebook, including, but not limited to, “liking” every “Happy Birthday” post on one’s wall; inviting one’s Facebook friends to join one’s inane online game of choice; whining about one’s job incessantly; starting any post with the word “Dear,” and then writing a hackneyed “open letter” addressed to, for example, the weather; writing status updates in the third person; posting “chain statuses,” especially ones that contain inaccuracies, misquotes, and/or urban legends; and, my personal least-favorite, spreading the news of a death before family members have had a chance to receive the news via non-Facebook means (this happened to me, by the way: this is how I found out my grandfather passed away. Not kidding, unfortunately).

Let’s face it: there are a lot of ways to be inconsiderate, boring, and/or irritating on Facebook. So I went into this post, from the blog wait but why, anticipating that I’d be totally on board with whatever behaviors this blogger (who I’ll refer to as WBW, since I don’t know his real name) was calling out. The post started off strong, ridiculing a horrifically self-aggrandizing status update that WBW had run across. I’ll reproduce the status update below; hopefully we can all agree that it is, in a word, ghastly.

2012 was a biggg year for me. I left my amazing job at NBC to move back to Chicago. I started dating my angel, Jaime Holland. I started yoga (thanks Jake Fisher & Jonah Perlstein!). I wrote an album with Matthew Johannson. Wrote another album I’m proud of. I got to hang with Owen Wilson, and worked with Will Ferrell on an amazing project. Had a conversation about Barack Obama with David Gregory. Danced. Joined a kickball team. Won a couple awards. Helped my sister plan her summer trip. Swam a lot. Golfed a little. Cried more than you would think. Read The World According to Garp. Saw Apocolypse Now. Went to Miami for the NBA Finals. Drank the best orange juice I’ve ever had with Davey Welch. Tweeted. Went to amazing weddings in Upstate New York. Drank a ridiculous amount of milk. Learned how to make sand art. Saw a great light show. Saw the Angels and Lakers. Fell in love with Jawbone Up. Cooked with Jaime. Gardened with Jaime. Watched Homeland with Jaime. Wrestled with Jaime. Laughed for hours with Jaime. Fell in love with Jaime’s family. Worked on a play. Played World of Warcraft. Did some improv. Played a ton of the guitar. Really just had a wild, amazing year. What a world.

So, yeah, this is bad. It’s really bad, and on so many levels. The humble bragging. The non-humble bragging. The name dropping. The misspellings. The inanities and mundanities. The repeated use of the word “amazing.” The casual references to guitar playing. I mean, there’s a lot to hate here. So I was on board with WBW for calling this out, because surely, everyone in the world except the author of this terrible status update should be able to agree that this type of unabashed self-promotion-disguised-as-gratitude should be illegal and potentially carry a prison sentence.

But then, WBW lost me when he started listing his seven rules that we all should adhere to on Facebook.

WBW’s basic message is that one should not post anything on Facebook that “primarily serves the author and does nothing positive for anyone reading it.” Okay. This seems like a reasonable framework to start from. After all, who wants to wade through a bunch of self-involved, uninteresting Facebook statuses on one’s Newsfeed? Not I. But when WBW went on to elaborate all of the behaviors he finds unacceptable on Facebook, I balked. In most cases, the rules he sets out are based on some general principle that I might agree with (for instance: don’t brag), but the rules as he states them are far too broad to be workable or even desirable. Indeed, the guidelines WBW lays out are so sweeping as to ban most behavior on Facebook.

First, WBW says that one shouldn’t boast on Facebook. Fair enough: no one likes an online braggart. But WBW defines bragging as the sharing of any positive news about one’s life. He writes that if something exciting happens in your life, “the only people it’s okay to brag to in life are your close friends, significant other, and family members—and that’s what email, texting, phone calls, and live talking are for. Your moment of self-satisfaction is profoundly annoying to people you’re not that close with, and they make up the vast majority of people who will be subjected to the status.” So if you get married, don’t mention it. You just got into med school? Keep it to yourself. First-born child? Shush. Don’t annoy others with your joy. Maybe WBW finds other people’s happy news “profoundly annoying,” but I’d venture a guess that most people on social media don’t feel that way; otherwise, they probably wouldn’t be on social media. I enjoy seeing wedding pictures, even if I haven’t spoken to the bride or groom since high school. I also don’t mind when someone shares excited or happy news about school or a job. It’s a natural human reaction to want to shout it from the rooftops when something exciting or wonderful happens. Why quash that?

I also disagree with the basic premise that the sharing of all positive news is necessarily bragging. Anyone who’s read a truly braggy, self-promoting Facebook status can tell the difference between that (“I got to hang out with Owen Wilson”) and a genuinely heartfelt sharing of personal news (“Yay, I finally got accepted to law school”). It’s all about intent. Sharing happy news because you’re excited about said news is a different beast than “image crafting,” “attention craving,” or “jealousy inducing” posts, but WBW seems to lump these together. Any sharing of positive news must have an ulterior motive, in his eyes; and even if it doesn’t, it still shouldn’t be allowed because it might make someone else feel bad. He thus outlaws all statuses referring to vacations, social events, and loved ones, because these might induce feelings of envy in the reader. Also: no photos. Don’t ever post photos. So, according to WBW’s first rule alone, most Facebook statuses would be deemed “annoying” and therefore unacceptable. (Anyone else getting kind of a Taliban-y vibe from this?)

But WBW’s not done. One must also never post about what one is actually doing that day (Rule 3); write on anyone else’s wall (Rule 4); tag anyone else in a status or photo (Rule 4); express gratitude (Rule 5); express an opinion on a current event (Rule 6); or quote a great thinker or anyone else (Rule 7). The only one of WBW’s seven rules that I unequivocally agree with is Rule 2, which bans “cliffhanger” statuses, also known as “vaguebooking,” where one posts a cryptic status that invites curiosity from readers but then plays coy and refuses to provide further detail. That’s super annoying and needs to stop. But the rest of these rules go too far; they suck the fun and life out of Facebook.

All of this begs the question: what would be okay to post on Facebook, according to WBW? I am wracking my brain trying to craft a hypothetical status that would not run afoul of any of these rules, and it’s tough. WBW says in the beginning that jokes that uplift the reader are acceptable; so unless you treat Facebook as a Twitter feed exclusively for fun jokes, you’re going to break one of WBW’s rules at some point.

My Facebook page today: undoubtedly super annoying to WBW – look at all the photos! The horror!

These rules are bunk and should be rejected for two reasons. First, if you outlaw the expression of all human emotion on Facebook, you deprive Facebook of its purpose. People use the service to interact with people they know, care about, and/or are interested in. If the only allowable use of Facebook is to share jokes, then you might as well shut down your account and switch to Twitter, which is a much more streamlined vehicle for writing and reading jokes. Second, WBW has basic Facebook etiquette backwards. If you’re irritated by someone’s postings on Facebook, the burden is on you, the reader, to filter that person’s posts out. We all have different sensitivities and proclivities. As someone posting on Facebook, I cannot tailor my status updates or photos to suit the individual needs of all several hundred people who might be seeing them; I might as well not post at all. The only workable system is for users of Facebook to decide what they want to see and what they want to be hidden; this is easily accomplished through Facebook’s Newsfeed controls. If someone always posts annoying statuses, hide him. Or even unfriend him, if it’s that bad. But you must not demand that everyone in your social media universe conforms to your individual and highly specific sensitivities.

With that, go forth and post on Facebook!*

*(For actual guidance on what’s obnoxious, please refer to my first paragraph, above.)

Edinburgh

August 26, 2013 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

We spent this weekend in Edinburgh, one of my favorite places in Scotland, visiting family and attending some shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I hadn’t been to Edinburgh (or the Festival) since 2008, so it was fun to be back in such a beautiful, charming city and to hang out with Al’s family, some of whom I hadn’t met yet.

Edinburgh sunset

Al and I took the train from London on Thursday evening, got in quite late, and then spent Friday working; playing with Sweeney, the dog owned by our hosts, Steve and Alan; walking around Leith, their neighborhood; and attending a show at the Festival.

I managed to snag us two tickets to see David Sedaris speak on Friday evening. Sedaris is one of my favorite authors and I love his speaking voice. I had actually seen him speak years ago in San Francisco, back when I was in college, but it was at a big venue (The Warfield, I think) and I was in the nosebleed seats. This time, the venue was much more intimate and, to my delight, Sedaris did a book signing after and Al and I got to meet him! This was terribly exciting for me. I was a bit nervous when I approached, clutching my new copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day, but Sedaris is utterly charming and immediately put me at ease. We talked about TV and he recommended that I check out two shows (Inside Amy Schumer and Please Like Me). He also expressed his fondness for Tim Gunn, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and Tabitha’s Salon Takeover. All the more reason to adore this man. And, of course, he signed my book (and drew a little owl). I was on a high for the rest of the weekend, post-Sedaris encounter.

Recommendations on TV shows

I would like to note that David Sedaris’ handwriting looks a LOT like mine. Just saying.

On Saturday, while Al was working, I went for a run along the Water of Leith. Everything was going great: the sun was shining (through sprinkles of rain), birds were chirping, the world was in harmony — and then I fell. Hard. I fell so hard that I managed to scrape both knees, both hands, and my left thigh. I also seemed to have sprained the little finger on my right hand (did I do a full-body roll? I can’t remember! It’s all a blur). But the worst part, beside the fact that my tumble was witnessed by several kindly (read: pitying) Scottish people, was that I shattered my iPhone screen. Here’s the thing: skin will heal. Bones will knit. But a shattered iPhone screen is forever. The last time I shattered my iPhone screen, four years ago, I was in Boston and took it to the Apple store. They glanced at it and told me that my phone had clearly suffered from “customer abuse” and was therefore not under warranty, and I was forced to pay $180 for a new screen. The outrage! But in the UK, if your iPhone screen breaks, you just bring it to a phone repair store — not an official Apple store — and they’ll fix it for you in an hour, charge you 50 GBP, and be done with it. So I got my screen fixed at a kiosk in the mall, and all is right in the world again. Except for that sprained finger. But whatever.

After recovering from the excitement of my fall, I headed into town with Al, his cousin Kathryn, and her boyfriend James, to attend our next show at the Festival, The Ginge, The Geordie, and The Geek, a three-man sketch comedy team. I enjoyed it, especially the last sketch, which was a reenactment of the final dance scene from Dirty Dancing featuring a man on a diet and a giant slice of pizza. After that, we met up with Steve and Alan and went to see Tig Notaro, an American comedian who I love. I had never heard or seen her standup before, but I listen to her podcast, Professor Blastoff, and I’ve heard her perform on This American Life, so I was expecting good things, and she did not disappoint. I was laughing my face off — almost crying, I was laughing so hard — so when it was over, I was pretty shocked that Steve and Alan didn’t like it. They thought her style was “awkward.” Um, yeah, I thought. That’s the point. It got me thinking about the differences between American comedy and UK comedy, and the fact that some American comedians play on timing (especially long pauses) to make their jokes funnier. I think awkwardness, done well, can be hilarious — and I wonder if I think that way because I’m American and we’re more used to that style of comedy. Steve and Alan told me that in Britain, comedy is more straightforward and fast-paced, which is fine, I guess, but it surprised me that they didn’t appreciate Tig’s style, which was unscripted and involved a lot of audience interaction and improvisation. Then again, I’m sort of a comedy nerd, so maybe I’m just accustomed to the weirdness. But to be fair, reviewers seemed to love the show, so it’s not just me (see, for example, this review from The Telegraph). In any case, I had a blast and came away from the Festival feeling satisfied with everything I saw (although, to be honest, I could have just gone home after meeting David Sedaris and called it a day).

We spent the rest of our time in Edinburgh visiting with Al’s family, playing with dogs, eating good food, and hanging out. It was a great weekend.

Breakfast at the beach in Portobello with Steve, Alan, and Sweeney

Kathryn, James, and me at the Festival

Gratuitous selfie

See you soon, Edinburgh!

Book review Monday: My Education, by Susan Choi

August 19, 2013 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

Susan Choi’s My Education is an enjoyable but often frustrating read. It’s enjoyable because Choi is a great writer with a keen understanding of complex human relationships, especially those relationships in which power dynamics are irredeemably skewed, but frustrating because of the maddeningly insecure and irritating main character, which, I suspect, was Choi’s intent. The book is about the frustration of loving someone more than he or she can love you back; so I suppose it makes sense that the reader should experience a similar sense of frustration while reading.

The book takes place at an unnamed Northeastern liberal arts college — there are references to gorges, so I’m guessing Cornell or its fictional clone — in which the main character, twenty-one year-old Regina Gottlieb, a grad student in English literature, becomes a teaching assistant to Nicholas Brodeur, a brilliant, enigmatic professor with a reputation for inappropriate contact with his undergraduate students. While working with Nicholas and his other teaching assistant at Nicholas’s grand house one afternoon, Regina comes into contact with Nicholas’s wife, Martha, a professor at the same university. Martha, who has just had a baby and is on maternity leave, instantly fascinates Regina, and soon after their first meeting, the two of them kiss at a dinner party. What happens from there is unexpected and quite dramatic: Regina and Martha embark upon a torrid affair, Regina becomes obsessed with Martha, things do not go as Regina had hoped, and Regina begins to throw her life away, piece by piece. Along the way, other people get involved, feelings are hurt, and several melodramatic gestures are made. I will keep my descriptions of the love triangles (and quadrangles) intentionally vague so as not to spoil the plot, but really, the main pairing the novel is concerned with is that between Martha and Regina.

What seems clear to the reader from the start is that this love affair between Martha and Regina is not going to work out. For one thing, Martha is still married to Nicholas. She has a baby, and a house, and a career. But more importantly, she is over a decade older than Regina and in a completely different stage of life. She has responsibilities. She understands what is realistic and what is not. Regina, on the other hand, is blindsided by her love for Martha, and will do nearly anything to keep her. Regina’s desperate longing for Martha reads as grasping, naive, and immature. We, as readers with some remove on the situation, can see how farfetched it would be for Martha, a married professor with a child to raise, to run off, permanently, with a twenty-one year-old girl, but Regina can’t see this. Choi does a fantastic job of conveying Regina’s frustration with Martha’s inability to return Regina’s feelings of uncomplicated love and loyalty. Regina thinks that she and Martha are fated to be together; Martha thinks of Regina as a thrilling — but ultimately short lived — sexual fling. This disconnect, this failure to see the relationship in the same terms, becomes the central tension of the novel.

Any amount of time later I’d far better understand what at that time I barely understood at all, though Martha might have approved of my incorrect, seafaring view of our progress: sometimes against the wind, sometimes with it, but always forward. She might have approved, in her maritime way, but she would have been equally wrong. We weren’t zigzagging forward but wildly seesawing, the ups ever higher, the downs ever lower, our fulcrum nailed smartly in place. Martha’s flights of hedonism — Martha’s brooding resolutions and remorse. Martha’s desire — Martha’s duty. I’d like to say I defied gravity just as often as feeling its snare, but my efforts were more likely spent clinging on with white knuckles to not be dislodged. Still, that was my heroism — my tenacious fidelity to her, though it was based on a grave misperception. I thought desire was duty. No trial could not be endured nor impediment smashed in desire’s holy service, or so I believed, with naive righteousness. I didn’t grasp that desire and duty could rival each other, least of all that they most often do.

Regina wants Martha to acquiesce, to say out loud that they will be together, that they are the loves of each other’s lives, but Martha can’t do this. Martha constantly reminds Regina of her responsibilities, especially as a mother. Regina, meanwhile, feels as if Martha uses her duties as a mother and wife as a weapon to make Regina feel unimportant, to convey to her that her opinions or desires do not count as much because she is young and unencumbered. Regina can’t understand why Martha can’t throw everything away for the sake of pursuing love.

Years later, of course, Regina gains some perspective on her relationship with Martha. She narrates the story when she herself is a married mother, and now understands intimately the demands that were on Martha back when they undertook their affair:

Again I thought of Martha, and her very imperfect example of motherhood. And, though I might have expected to judge her more harshly, I found myself forgiving her instead, for those countless superiorities of hers, by which I’d felt crushed, which she turned out to have never possessed. She had not been infallible. The realization was melancholy instead of triumphant, and I remembered my confusion, a few years before, when I’d found myself having lunch in Manhattan at the same restaurant where amid untold glamour she’d treated me to my first oysters. The intervening decade alone could not have accounted for how small and out of style and even shabby it had somehow become.

One can be fooled into thinking the grown-up Regina has matured completely and left her old, desperate self behind; however, in the very last scenes of the book, Regina does something that made me question whether she learned anything from her disastrous affair with Martha, at all. Overall, My Education was a satisfying read, despite the ending, which felt pat, unrealistic, and deeply unsatisfying. I was frustrated that the character made the choices she made; but really, I was frustrated with Regina’s decision-making throughout the novel, so perhaps the ending is merely in keeping with who Regina fundamentally is, as a person.

I would recommend this novel for fans of university-based fiction and those who enjoy quiet, emotion-driven drama. There are no big twists, turns, or surprises here, but it is packed with emotionally resonant storytelling.

Corsica

August 13, 2013 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

We were lucky enough to spend our vacation in Corsica this past week, staying at the lovely villa owned by the family of Al’s cousin’s wife, Camille. She’s French and her grandfather bought the property decades ago (before it was cool, in other words). Not a bad investment!

View of town, from villa

Another view from balcony of villa

The villa is located in Morsiglia, in Cap Corse, the northern tip of Corsica. This part of the island is known for being rugged, with sweeping views, winding roads, steep hills, and rocky beaches.

Cows on the beach, Barcaggio

Wind farm

Corsica is an interesting place. It’s a territory of France, even though geographically, it’s closer to the Italian mainland. France has been in charge since 1769 (before that, Corsica was briefly independent, and before that, it was ruled by the Genoese). Although everyone speaks French (seeing as Corsica is, technically, part of France), the island also retains Corsu as its native language, although not many people (i.e., perhaps only 10% of Corsicans) speak Corsu natively anymore, and it is a “potentially endangered language,” according to UNESCO. Corsu, as far as we could tell, is basically Italian with lots of u’s and j’s and h’s. According to our Lonely Planet guide, though, you should never even hint that Corsu sounds pretty much exactly like Italian, because the Corsican people will become deeply offended. The Corsican people, according to our Lonely Planet guide, get deeply offended by many things, including foreigners attempting to speak Corsu to them. (By the way, I’d be willing to hazard a guess that the author of the Lonely Planet guide might have tried to speak Corsu to people and received a blank stare back either because he was butchering the language or because not a lot of people actually speak it.) Anyway, almost everyone we encountered on the island seemed quite friendly and not prickly (although we didn’t attempt any Corsu, just to be safe). Most road signs are in French and Corsu, although we did see a few signs with the French spray-painted over and/or crossed out, which I suppose is some sort of Corsu nationalist statement, although I’m not sure.

Signs in Corsu, with smaller French sign

We spent most of our time in Corsica eating, hiking, sleeping, and lazing on the beach. Pretty great. I especially enjoyed local Corsican cured meat (they’re known for their charcuterie, especially coppa) and sheep’s milk cheese. We also sampled some Corsican wine, some of which is quite good, especially the Muscat. I realized later that drinking three glasses of Muscat a night is probably the equivalent of injecting sugar crystals directly into my blood, which explains why my jeans were tight when I got back to London, but dang, it was tasty.

Domaine Pietri vineyards

As with any vacation, there were a couple of wrinkles in the trip, including the fact that we were redirected to Milan on the way there because our plane had a crack in its windshield (good job, EasyJet) and the fact that I suffered from a mysterious stomach ailment for half of the trip (but once I recovered, things were great). Overall, though, we had a great time and I’m happy we got to see this beautiful little corner of the world. À vedeci, Corsica!

Book review Monday: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra

August 12, 2013 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

I’ve read several enjoyable, thought provoking, stick-in-your-craw-in-a-good-way books recently, including Stephen King’s The Stand, Susan Choi’s My Education, and Monica Ali’s In The Kitchen. Perhaps I will review some or all of these in the coming weeks. But today, I want to talk about a book that I can’t stop thinking about, even a week after finishing it: Anthony Marra’s spectacular novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena.

ACOVP (as I will abbreviate it) did not immediately suck me in. In fact, I started it a month ago, read ten pages or so, and then put it down, because I couldn’t engage with the story. In the meantime, I read several other books (see above) and then picked up ACOVP again, and this time, something clicked. After getting over an initial hump of confusion in the opening pages, I became completely lost in this book and its fascinating, sad, weird cast of characters, all of whom are trying, imperfectly, to navigate their way through a hellish and inescapable situation.

The story begins in 2004, in and around the city of Volchansk, Chechnya. In the opening scenes, a man, Akhmed, is helping a young girl, Havaa, escape from “the Feds,” the government forces who have kidnapped her father — believing him to have been colluding with Chechen separatist rebels — and are now looking for her, as well. Akhmed and Havaa were neighbors, and Akhmed is now the only adult left in the village who Havaa can rely upon. Not seeing any other options, Akhmed brings Havaa to Hospital No. 6, a bombed out wasteland with few supplies, which is staffed by one nurse, the ill-tempered Deshi, and one doctor, the bitter and haughty Sonja, an ethnic Russian who returned to her native Chechnya from London in 1996 to try to find her missing sister, and never left again. Akhmed, who trained as a doctor but was spectacularly unsuccessful — he is renowned as the worst doctor in Chechnya — offers his services in return for Sonja’s allowing Havaa to stay at the hospital, hidden away from the Feds. Sonja reluctantly agrees, given the hospital’s desperate need for extra hands, and so the story begins.

As we learn about the characters and how they are all connected through messy webs of birth and death, the novel flashes back in time to paint a startling, chilling picture of war-torn Chechnya. I was not familiar with Chechen history before reading this book, but Marra makes Chechnya’s troubled past vivid by showing how individual characters’ lives are shaped — and often stunted — by their homeland’s constant unrest. The primary narrative of the novel takes place in 2004, during the second Chechen War, which began in 1999 when Russian troops invaded Chechnya in response to the invasion of Dagestan by a Chechnya-based Islamist militant group. The war between Russian forces and Chechen separatists continued into 2009. The novel also looks back to the first Chechen War, which lasted from 1994 to 1996, also between Russian forces and Chechen separatists, and Marra looks back even further to Chechnya’s long, turbulent history of subjugation and war, including the mass deportation of Chechens to Central Asia during World War II. One of the characters, Khassan, is a historian who has written a long and painstakingly detailed history of Chechnya, beginning in prehistoric times. The novel describes Khassan’s difficulty in keeping his book up to date as Chechnya rapidly changed with the fall of the Soviet Union:

Everything did change, faster than his fingers could type. What he had been too cautious to hope for was pulled from his dreams and made real on the television screen. At that momentous hour on December 26, 1991, as he watched the red flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — the empire extending eleven time zones, from the Sea of Japan to the Baltic coast, encompassing more than a hundred ethnicities and two hundred languages; the collective whose security demanded the sacrifice of millions, whose Slavic stupidity had demanded the deportation of Khassan’s entire homeland; that utopian mirage cooked up by cruel young men who gave their mustaches more care than their morality; that whole horrid system that told him what he could be and do and think and say and believe and love and desire and hate, the system captained by Lenin and Zinoviev and Stalin and Malenkov and Beria and Molotov and Khrushchev and Kosygin and Mikoyan and Podgorny and Brezhnev and Andropov and Chernenko and Gorbachev, all of whom but Gorbachev he hated with a scorn no author should have for his subject, a scorn genetically encoded in his blood, inherited from his ancestors with their black hair and dark skin — as he watched that flag sink down the Kremlin flagpole for the final time, left limp by the windless sky, as if even the weather wanted to impart on communism this final disgrace, he looped his arms around his wife and son and he held them as the state that had denied him his life quietly died.

What I loved about this book, apart from Marra’s skill in bringing human context to the horrors of war in Chechnya, was the beautiful, evocative descriptions of places. Marra’s writing allows the reader to picture, perfectly clearly, places where the reader has never been or even dreamed of going. For instance, I loved this description of a nightclub in Chechnya where one of the characters, an ethnic Russian named Natasha, used to frequent:

She spent her Fridays at a nightclub called Nightclub, situated in what had been an aviation assembly plant. The floor spread across the eight-story hangar, wide enough to contain the gyrations of half of Chechnya. Nightclub had never reached, and never would reach, capacity. After downing drinks at the bar, Natasha and her friends shimmied their way to the center of the hangar. There, red velvet ropes created a ten-square-meter dance floor where the young, well-dressed, and secular could press against each other, shrieking and shaking in epileptic spasms of floodlight, freedom found in the ruins of empire.

Finally, this book is remarkable for its ability to meld humor with tragedy. The characters’ lives, in many ways, are hopeless, because they are in an impossible situation with no conceivable escape. But there are still moments of levity, and even joy. One of my favorite conversations in the book takes place between Sonja, the foreign-educated surgeon, and Akhmed, an unskilled doctor from the village. Akhmed, who is not stupid but who is rather unsophisticated, reveals to Sonja that he thinks the President of the United States is named Ronald McDonald. Sonja heaps scorn upon him, but later, feels badly and tries to apologize.

“I’m sorry I called you an idiot.”

“You only implied it. Do you want to make it up to me?”

“Not really,” she said.

“Then tell me who Ronald McDonald is.”

“Very soon I’ll have to apologize for calling you an idiot again.”

“Imply,” he reminded.

“No, this time I’ll likely come out and say it.”

“I already know he isn’t the American president.”

“I think you’ll be disappointed.”

“I almost always am.”

“He’s a clown.”

“A clown?”

“A clown who sells hamburgers.”

“Does he cook the hamburgers?”

“Does it matter?”

“I may be an idiot,” he said gravely, “but I would never eat a hamburger cooked by a clown.”

There are plenty of other instances of dialogues that crackle with dry wit, despite the horrifying backdrop to the conversations. These moments of lightness are part of what makes this book, which otherwise might be bogged down in doom and gloom, readable, enjoyable, and lovable.

Highly recommended for one and all. Here is what the NYT had to say, in case you’re interested.

On sewing, knitting, and the impulse to make things

August 2, 2013 / Stephanie / 1 Comment

I’ve always loved making things. As a kid, I did latch-hook; I made beads; I wove hemp necklaces; I painted; I sketched; I sculpted. I was always making something. I can’t remember a time in my childhood where I didn’t have several projects, of various sorts, going. As an adult, I never lost my desire to be constantly creating things, but there were long years during which I figured making things just wasn’t something I got to do anymore. There was never enough time. Or energy. Working at a law firm, I found that I was so unhappy with my work life, I had little energy after work to devote to being creative. Instead, I’d come home from work and watch TV, or read, but I wouldn’t create anything more elaborate than dinner because I just didn’t have the energy. Consequently, my creativity languished for a long time. Then, I quit my job and rediscovered unstructured free time, which has been an absolute joy. I am now an adult who gets to make things during my day. In fact, my job now requires me to be creative: I get to tell stories for a living. Best job ever, right? (Well, best job ever for me, anyway).

Me and one of my early masterpieces

As I mentioned a while ago when I talked about knitting, I love to do activities in my downtime in which I am creating something — that is, in which I am making a product of some sort, whether it’s a hat or a casserole, that I did not have to invent from scratch. I like following a knitting pattern or a recipe and ending up with something I can be proud of, but which I did not have to pull out of thin air. I love knitting, especially, because in the end, you have a product — something you can wear or use — and, best of all, the knowledge that you made that product with your own two hands. So satisfying.

There’s something nice about seeing your husband wear a hat you made.

So, I decided, given my love of knitting, to seek out sewing classes in London. I’ve wanted to learn how to sew for years but never got around to it (see: law firm job), and I figured there’s no time like the present. Thus, early last week I reported for a four-day, twelve-hour Intro to Sewing class at the lovely Sew Over It in Clapham North. And I loved it! I came back from my first day of class, completed pillow cushion proudly in hand, and told Al that I was “pretty sure” I could “master” sewing. Yes, I used the word “master.” No one ever accused me of hedging my bets. I was encouraged, you see, by my early success at creating things made entirely up of square pieces of fabric sewn together in straight lines. To give you an idea, here are the projects I completed in my intro class:

Cushion cover with buttons

Tote bag

Makeup bag with lining and zipper

Feeling on top of the sewing world, I immediately signed up for an Intro to Dressmaking course, figuring that after another twelve hours of instruction, I’d basically be able to start a side business as a seamstress and/or make all my own clothes from here on out. But oh!, dressmaking brought me low. My first day of class was intensely humbling. We made a circle skirt, which is so named because when you hold it up, it’s in the shape of a large circle with the waistband in the middle. It sounds simple — and the pattern looked simple — but that circle skirt nearly broke me. I messed up the hem line, the waistband was bumpy, and, when the dratted thing was finally done, I found that I had made the waist just a tad too small, so that the back would not stay closed if I so much as breathed. Ugh.

I was convinced, the entire first two days of dressmaking class, that I was the dolt of the classroom. I had trouble visualizing what the teacher was telling us to do. “Stitch here,” she’d say, and I’d wonder, “But why?” I didn’t understand the why of any of it. Why do those stitches go there? What will happen if I put them somewhere else? What larger purpose are these stitches serving? This inability to visualize my final product, it seems to me, is the biggest difference between my experience with knitting and my experience with sewing. For whatever reason, perhaps because knitting is necessarily a much slower process of construction and one has time to wrap one’s mind around the contours of what one is making, knitting is just not as confusing as sewing. Sure, while knitting I may have trouble executing certain tricky maneuvers or I may accidentally mess up the measurement of a piece of work, but I generally understand why I have to do a certain thing when I see it on a pattern. With sewing, though, the patterns are just big pieces of paper, and I don’t think my spatial visualization skills are quite finely tuned enough to picture said pieces of paper arranged into items of clothing. Folds, in particular, confuse me. There are no folds in knitting.

Long story short, my first two days of dressmaking class were stressful. My Type-A, detail-oriented inner lawyer (who, let’s face it, is probably always going to be with me) was freaking out at every mistake and berating me for not understanding the instructions. I was dismayed that other people in the class seemed to zip right along, with no signs of nervous sweating. This made me even more nervous (and sweaty). I left class that day feeling discouraged, with my misshapen, ill-fitting skirt stuffed into a plastic bag.

The next day, though, we started on a simple shift dress, and things began to make a little more sense. I understood a little more clearly why I was doing things. Yes, there were certain parts of the pattern that I found confounding, but mostly, things made sense. And, in the end, my dress came out really well. It actually, believe it or not, fits me. I’ve sewn my first piece of wearable clothing. Huzzah!

Summer shift dress

So, what have I learned from the experience of learning to sew? One, I can’t expect everything to come easily to me right away. Not to brag, but I was a bit of an (idiot) savant at knitting. I was good at it right away, and could master new skills easily by looking at a book or watching a YouTube video. No teacher required. Sewing is not like that for me, and that’s okay. It is going to take a bit more practice and patience on my part to get good at it. Second, it’s good to learn a new skill, even — and perhaps especially — if you’re not good at it right away. Keeps you on your toes. Life gets boring if you don’t have to stretch now and then, after all. On her blog The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin writes about the three levels of fun: challenging, accommodating, and relaxing fun. Learning to sew is challenging fun. It’s hard and frustrating at first, but as you get better at it, it gets more fun — and that’s more rewarding than coasting at something you’re already good at.

Here’s to more challenging fun, then, and to always making time for making things.

Cambridge

July 29, 2013 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

Note: No Book Review Monday today, folks. Just finishing up a good novel, which I’ll write about soon. In the meantime, let’s talk about Cambridge, the cutest little English town there ever was.

Punters, Cambridge

This past weekend, Al and I took the train from London to Cambridge. Way back in 2005-2006, while I was galavanting around Brazil and overdoing it on mangos, Al was in Cambridge doing a graduate program in economic development. Different strokes for different folks, right? Anyway, I had wanted to see Cambridge, my husband’s old stomping grounds, for a long time, and so I was delighted to spend a beautiful summer weekend there with him.

We stayed at the slightly saggy Lensfield Hotel, in a room that was so tiny the door hit the bed when we opened it. The extreme tininess of the room wasn’t a problem, though, because we didn’t really spend much time there; we were too busy walking the utterly charming streets of Cambridge. First stop was Al’s old college, Pembroke, which is known for its beautiful gardens.

Pembroke

We also checked out King’s College, St. John’s, Caius, Queen’s, and Clare. One of my favorites was St. John’s, because we got to sit outside the chapel and listen to the St. John’s choir practice. Turns out the St. John’s choir dates back to the 17th century and is now “one of the finest collegiate choirs in the world.” Here’s a little video about the choir, if you want to hear a bit of the music. I can personally attest to the utter beauty of the choral music; I was so transfixed by it, I actually bought one of the choir’s CDs for five GBP. What can I say, I’m a sucker for boys’ choirs.

We spent most of the day walking around and gawping at how cute and old everything is in Cambridge. Then, that evening, we went on a mini pub crawl, stopping first at the Granta Pub, where we looked out over the river and watched a couple of dudes in their underwear punt boats in the rain. Then we moved on to the unfortunately named The Bathhouse, where Al used to bartend. And then… we went home. I guess now that we’re thirty, a two-pub pub-crawl is sufficient for our appetites.

The Granta Pub

The next day, we went for a run to go visit the cottage where Al used to live. Then, as is mandatory in Cambridge, we went punting on the river. Well, technically, Al did the punting, while I allowed myself to be punted. It was a pretty chaotic scene out on the river, but we managed to stay afloat, thanks to Al’s excellent punting skills.

View from the river

Punter

Puntee

After that, we walked along some beautiful, peaceful back garden paths until it was time to catch our train back to London. Overall, it was a perfect, pretty, relaxing weekend in Cambridge. I’m so glad I got to see it in all its idyllic glory.

Bye, Cambridge. I liked you.

Royal Baby gawking

July 24, 2013 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

On Tuesday, after escaping from the sweltering heat of the Kensington Central Library, I decided, since I had a couple hours to kill before meeting up with Al and nothing better to do, to go check out the scene outside of St. Mary’s Hospital, where the Duchess of Cambridge was giving birth to the Royal Baby. Let’s be clear: I found the media coverage of this particular event bordering on the absurd. All of the media’s breathless speculation about the birth, while providing zero new information, was ridiculous, and, as I heard someone put it today, the media acted “as if Kate were the first woman to give birth, ever, in the world.” Nonetheless, I found all of the hubbub kind of intriguing, and, again, I don’t have a job, so why not join the crowds of weirdos standing outside of the hospital?

The Lindo Wing

I took the Tube to Paddington and walked to St. Mary’s from there. Since it’s a working hospital, they didn’t shut down access to it, but police officers – or, should I say, bobbies – were working to keep the entrances to the hospital clear, since, you know, it’s a hospital.

The press had gotten there in the wee hours of the morning to stake out the “good” spots (i.e., those directly facing the Lindo Wing, where Kate was giving birth), but the rest of the place was pretty much fair game for average Janes like me to wander around and take in the scene. And the scene was pretty weird. I got there at around 5:30 PM, so a full twelve hours or so after Kate herself had gotten there, but there were people who had been camped out near the Lindo Wing all day and all night, waiting for – what, exactly? It was actually unclear what we were all waiting for. I think the hive mind had decided that we were all standing outside the hospital in case an announcement of the birth was made, but some of the more misguided/simpleminded people in the crowd seemed to think that Kate and Wills themselves would make an appearance, mere hours after the birth of their child. Needless to say, that did not happen. Nor did a whole lot else. There were a few false alarms, including when another thin, brown-haired lady exited the Lindo Wing. Everyone gasped and then sighed in disappointment, and I felt pretty bad for that lady, since she had probably just had a baby herself and didn’t deserve all the glares of disappointment she got upon emerging from the hospital and not being Duchess Kate.

Assorted nuts

Anyway, I saw a lot of Royal fanatics milling around, many of whom were draped in Union Jacks and other crazy getups. Some people had gone to great lengths to get on TV, or so it seemed. For example: there was a girl who had baked and decorated a cake, presumably for Kate and Will, although no one had eaten it, and by the time I got there, it was sad and melted and she was walking around holding it rather forlornly. There were a lot of foreigners in the crowd, too, probably because tourists, like me, don’t have anything better to do than stand still in the heat and watch the front of a building. I stayed in the scrum for a little over an hour, and then decided to throw in the towel. As I left, I caught sight of Natalie Morales, of Today Show fame, and she is so pretty, you guys. Then, with my Natalie Morales sighting accomplished, I left the premises, feeling satisfied.

Natalie Morales

And that, my friends, was my experience with The Royal Birth. Hear ye, hear ye.

In case you missed it, here are the Royal Parents unveiling the Royal Baby. Pretty adorable! And here’s an article about why it’s cool that Kate didn’t try to hide her postpartum body in a sack (a la Princess Diana in 1982). Go Kate!

Hot hot heat

July 22, 2013 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

Guys, it is hot in London. I told my parents this the other day and they scoffed at me when I reported the temperature (high 80s Fahrenheit), and then I reminded them that, unlike in cushy America, air conditioning DOES NOT EXIST here. Which means there’s no escaping the heat. Plus, Al and I finally put our (sweating, North American) finger on another thing that makes London feel so hot: there’s NO WIND. Honestly, this is the opposite of the windy city. It’s eerily windless. A rare breeze feels like a tiny breath of heaven on my sweating brow. And today is the hottest day of the summer so far: 90 degrees Fahrenheit. (Which, according to my iPhone, is 32 degrees Celcius, for those of you who aren’t familiar with our antiquated American system for keeping track of the temperature).

This also happens to be the day that the much anticipated Royal Baby is being born, although no one in my immediate vicinity seems too fussed about the current state of Duchess Kate’s labor. Hard to tell, though, since everyone is being all quiet and British. I am currently sitting in the sweltering Kensington Central Library, by the way. I came here with the idea that, since the place has free wifi, perhaps I’d be able to work here tomorrow when writing my weekly post for Previously.TV, but, turns out, I can’t access TV shows on the public network here, so I guess I walked here with my laptop in the blistering heat for nothing. But, since I’m here, I guess I’ll make a comment about the biggest noticeable difference between a public library in London and a public library in DC: this one doesn’t smell like pee. Unlike in the US, this library does not appear to be a place for vagrants, drunks, and weirdos to hang out, and the air, while hot, is remarkably urine-scent-free. This is a lot like the difference I’ve noticed between London buses and big city American buses: people behave pretty appropriately on the buses here. I haven’t seen one person clip their nails on the bus, or spit on the floor of the bus, or loudly talk to themselves on the bus. It’s incredible. I know London must have its fair share of weirdos and scary drunks and people who think it’s appropriate to bring smelly bags of seafood onto public transportation, but I haven’t seen them yet (fingers crossed).

Back to this whole Royal Baby thing: I’m sort of hoping that when the RB is born, everyone in the library will spontaneously break into song (perhaps “Rule Brittania?”). It’ll be a little uncomfortable, sure, but I expect a minimum level of pomp, if not circumstance, from ordinary British citizens at a time like this. Spontaneous song (and/or dance) seems appropriate. Or maybe the government will shoot off canons? Fireworks? RAF flyover? They have to do something besides post a notice on the gates of Buckingham Palace — I mean, talk about anticlimactic. The thing I’m not sure about, though, is whether anyone, except for the media, old ladies, and Americans, actually cares about this birth. I mean, sure, it’s interesting, in that Britain is choosing to continue this weird, quaint system of titles and tiaras and bloodlines and castles and stuff, and we’re getting to see that happen in real time, but really, it’s just a baby. This baby has no idea how famous it is, or what its title means, or that its parents’ every moves are followed obsessively by media, or that people are pinning all sorts of weird, creepy hopes and dreams onto its tiny, bald head. I get the sense most Britons are aware of this, and yet the media is freaking the eff out and swarming the hospital where the RB is being born and speculating wildly about names and Kate’s labor and so on. I suppose it’s too much to ask for the media to just play it cool around this whole royal birth thing, huh?

Well, I’ve written a bunch of words about not a whole lot, partly to kill time to see if the RB would be born as I was typing, but no dice. Back to sweating quietly among other quietly sweating people.

My first week in London

July 19, 2013 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

It’s been almost a full week since I’ve arrived in London and I’ve been trying to pack each of my days to bursting. So far, so good, except that it’s really hot here (who knew that could happen?) and there’s no AC, thus no respite from the heat. Walking around sweating and getting a mild sunburn is all fine and dandy if you can dip into deliciously cool restaurants, bars, or even public transportation once in a while, but AC is not a given here, anywhere. To wit: for the first time in my life last night, I was hot in a movie theater. It was like topsy-turvy world! Movie theaters are supposed to be frozen tundras so cold that your extremities lose feeling, Britain. Get with the program. Sheesh.

Before I tell you about my adventures this week, here is a short list of things I’ve learned and/or noticed over the last few days walking around London: 1) always carry your own water, unless you want to fork over the equivalent of your hypothetical child’s first year of college for a bottle of it; 2) don’t shop at Whole Foods — just don’t even go in — the prices are too traumatic; 3) don’t shop at the cute Italian coffee place around the corner, unless you are prepared to pay the equivalent of US $20 for one sandwich’s worth of Parma ham; 4) walk if possible; bus if you can’t walk; Tube if you can’t bus; 5) wear sunscreen (this advice applies outside of London, as well, FYI); 6) Italians are annoying in every context outside of Italy (sorry, Italians — real talk); 7) Brazilians and Americans are everywhere you look (or listen), and they/we are loud. But not as loud as Italians. Again, sorry, Italians. I love your food, your wine, and your country. But going forward, you guys have got to master spatial awareness and volume control.

British Museum

So, where have I gone this week? Oh, lots of places. On Wednesday I walked around Covent Gardens and also spent a few hours at the British Museum, where I saw mummies, Assyrian stuff, Iranian stuff, Greek stuff, European stuff, a cool walrus tusk chess set, and the Rosetta Stone (overrated). On Thursday, I made my way to the Tate Modern art museum. Camille, one of Al’s lovely cousins who we’re staying with, was kind enough to give me her Tate member card, so I got to see all of the private exhibitions, featuring art by Ellen Gallagher, Ibrahim El Salahi, Saloua Raouda Choucair, and Meschac Gaba. Kind of interesting that two out of the four exhibitions were African artists. My favorite exhibition was Ellen Gallagher AxME. Gallagher is an American artist who does a lot of really cool, whimsical collages with photos from old African-American lifestyle magazines, over which she superimposes bright yellow wigs and googly eyes and other things. Sounds kinda crazy, and it kinda is. The permanent collections at the Tate were very good, as well, but less fun to walk around in, since they were all flooded by shrieking schoolchildren. When one is trying to enjoy art by looking contemplatively (or at least quietly) at it, one does not really appreciate the sounds of other human beings shouting next to one’s ear. Or maybe that’s just me?

Cy Twombly (at the Tate Modern)

Actually, I noticed some interesting behaviors while I was strolling through the Ellen Gallagher exhibit, from which I am prepared to draw broad cultural conclusions, because anthropologists always make sweeping statements based on tiny bits of anecdotal evidence, right? So, after observing both British and American patrons at the museum, I noticed that British people are more likely to give each other pedantic notes on pieces of art in a stage whisper (e.g., “You see how the googly eyes are an ironic statement about the underlying dehumanization of the dominant corporatist culture of the era?”), while Americans are more likely to ask their whining three year old toddler what her opinion is of the art (“Do you see that, Madison? It’s a jellyfish. Can you say jellyfish? What do you like about this painting, Madison? Madison, please sit in your stroller correctly.”). Both behaviors are highly annoying, although to be honest, I found the show-offy whispering easier to stomach. To give more detail, there was a pregnant woman (American) pushing her squirming three year-old in a stroller through the private exhibit. This woman insisted on asking, in a loud voice, for said three year-old’s informed opinion about each and every piece of art. As a fellow American, I wondered if I could perform some sort of international citizen’s arrest on behalf of my countrymen, but instead, I just made a silent note to self never to be That Person who assumes that everyone else in the modern art gallery is as charmed as I am by my toddler’s awareness of shapes and colors. Also, that poor kid, right? What three year-old wants to be dragged to a non-interactive art museum? There are probably a million other places that lady could have brought that child that day, none of which involved rooms full of surrealist art. Just saying.

Exhibition brochures

Anyway, I got through most of the Tate Modern but I still need to go back to the Tate Britain, which I will do perhaps next week. I haven’t decided what adventures I am going to get up to today, but the world is my oyster. There is so much to see and do in this city, I could do five different things every day and not exhaust the possibilities. Glorious!

Happy Friday to one and all.

Stephanie Early Green