Story Lover

by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell

I had to stop halfway through this because I started getting desensitized by all the stories of sorrow and overcoming adversity. And I didn’t want to start feeling disconnected. There’s a lot of power behind the 142 stories. The 142 people who experienced such massive change. In the long run though, what struck me was that all these people are my age, exactly, my age. I graduated in 1998 and I can’t imagine having to go through some of the things that they have gone through.

by Lynne Cox

When I read the final pages of this book, when Grayson finds his mother, I felt such strong emotions that my eyes teared up, right on the subway! I was pretty amazed, that something that had been written so simply and in such a spiritual, hippy fashion, had culminated to such an emotional ending. I think that was the power of her book. To make a reader feel small in the midst of the grand energy of life.

I also loved the graphics for this book. Such care and thought was put into the cover, printed on lovely textured paper and embossed title. Also, the inside pages were so cleanly and beautifully laid out, I just again felt small in the midst of something extraordinary.

by Shel Perkins

For all those newly graduated designers trying to understand the real world of design, this might be a good place to start. I enjoyed my professional practice course during my final year as an industrial design student, but without having real life context, most of the course went right over my head. And despite feeling somewhat prepared, it wasn’t nearly enough.

Now that I’m out in the wild kingdom, I find this book to be insightful on tasks like writing a proposal and calculating freelance rates. The chapters are manageable, concise and flexible so that the knowledge can be easily adapted to whatever context you find yourself in. I’m going to wait though to buy the blue covered 2nd edition that comes out in 2010.

by Seth Godin

I think the art of metaphor is what makes Godin so good at conveying his message. Purple cows, the underdog and the concept of faith vs. religion, illustrates the different aspects of leadership in colorful and relevant terms. This was a quick read, but it resonated. He makes business leadership understandable by illustrating it in relation to life.

But overall, I feel that his message was too repetitive. How can I make a book out of the simple principle that leaders take chances and don’t adhere to the status quo? How can we say the same thing over and over, but make it seem fresh? Step 1: Make the pages as small as possible, for instance 4.5″ by 7″. Step 2: Repeat until you have enough pages to be deemed a book, say 147. But to be honest, the repitition does help make the message stick.

However, I have to question some of what Godin claims. He seems to be in praise of the search for the ‘new and change’. While I agree that new things attract attention, cause, hey, they’re new, after awhile, I think we get sick of companies and organizations who are constantly new-happy. Like, for instance, I’m sick of Apple and their determination to always have something new. It creates a tribe of waste. It creates a tribe of constant desire and dissatisfaction with the now. And so, I believe that change for change’s sake can be detrimental to us all.

I like the part where Godin is talking about fear. That sometimes we follow all the directions, follow the case studies that have preceded us, but for some reason we never get anywhere. I have had that feeling about education. I always feel safe in school. I succeed because I know the rules and can be creative in how I follow them. I even rewrite most of them to meet my goals. But out there in the ‘real world’ I always feel out of place, lost. I can’t figure out the rules. And because I can’t find that rule book, I’m never able to thrive and rise above them. This needs to change. I need to change.

“They switched for the journey.”

“If you are a student in my class and you don’t learn what I’m teaching, I’ve let you down.”

by David B. Berman

I’m kind of tired of all the cynical preachers. They really only end up affecting the choir. And while Berman has many good, strategic points, his ranting becomes a bit tiring. He uses the first two-thirds of the book to rant about all the bad advertisements out there in the world. And finally at page 105 he states, “If you’re still reading…” and goes into a very shallow exemplar of how to positively promote good through design. His three part vehicle for change does not justify, in my opinion, an entire book. And I finished this book out of pure stubbornness. I can’t have an opinion if I never finished it.

Berman doesn’t really enlighten his readers on how to do good design. He merely ends up tearing down everything around him, while not so subtly complementing himself on his good citizenship. Thank god I didn’t actually spend good money on this tirade! God bless the library system! And while talking about good design, you’d think a graphic designer would try and layout his book a bit better. It’s scrappy, his content jumps around and the images are overly dark.

Should it be rather, Done Good Design? Or Good Design Done? Or since most of the book was ripping down bad ads, Bad Design Done? Where is the proactive, progressive leadership? How about facilitating change and not hating! The most helpful and informative pieces of the book were located along the sides with examples of people paving the road in social and environmental responsibility.

“Designing for the extremes results in benefits for all.”

“Yes, it means more time spent on strategy. No problem: I’ve yet to see a single design project that suffered from too much time spent on strategy. Such time always more than pays for itself in saved time later in the process, and of course it yields better results. If the client thinks that the strategy is set, and that you were simply hired to execute, then push back and engage them in the strategic discussion. Show what you have to offer. When the dust clears, you’ll be more useful to the client than if you had just blindly said, ‘Sure, we’re happy to play the role you’ve defined for us in your game.’ Instead of saying no, you can provide a better version of yes.”

Reading from their book, The Age of Persuasion, Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant spoke of today’s advertising and the work that goes on behind the scenes. And although I didn’t really care much for the actual book reading, I really liked the Q&A session that followed. One of the things they pointed out a few times was this notion that advertising has this agreement that they might take time away from the viewer, but they also give something back. And while this may be true for TV programming or magazines, I wonder what we’re getting back when we walk down the street or have to sit through a commercial before our movie.

One of the questions asked was something along the lines of, Does advertising shape our society or reflect it? And both O’Reilly and Tennant felt that society will only accept what it already embraces. That our society is only this way because we let it be this way. Fair enough, but after consideration, I believe it’s a gross over-simplification. Kind of like which came first the chicken or the egg?

And wow, is Mike Tennant really that big of an O’Reilly fan or does he have a bit of an inferiority complex? It seemed like he was always bowing down to O’Reilly, but something about it seemed fake, edgy and almost desparate for something in return. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I kind of feel like over-flattery is a form of self-deprecation.

Edited by Dave Eggers

I love love love this series. I think it was one of the best things that happened to me living in Moline back in 2002-3. I buy it every year and every year I’m amazed and captivated by these worlds that I never would have known existed. I hope that in 50 years from now, I’ll have a span of the best thoughts, ideas, imaginations that dictated my times. I hope this series spans my lifetime and provides a peek into the reality of my culture and my life. That it will be the prized possession in my will. My favorite essays are always the non-fiction cultural commentaries. So far, there’s 8 volumes to this series. Long live the Best American Nonrequired Reading!

Relations by Eula Biss || This essay was pretty amazing and while it focused on the differences between white and black, I feel like the insights it makes can be umbrella-ed over all the races. I feel like on a spectrum of color with white being at one end and black at the other, I feel like all the other races, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, can all kind of choose their location between these two extremes. Asians in particular. When I was younger, I used to think that race was a state of mind. If I thought and acted like I was white or rather that I wasn’t Asian, then I’d be treated accordingly. Ha. Life is a context sport, not an individual one. And no matter how much I may think I am something, doesn’t mean that anyone else will believe me. And the following quote really resonated with me. Because I feel that who I am, as a race, depends on what context I am in. I want a word that defines me for who I am, an American part of a white family, who has been expected to be Asian because that’s what she looks like, who unfortunately has no idea how to be Asian, other than the horrible stereotypes that have been dictated by movies and other mainstream media.

“‘I feel like an unknown quantity,’ my cousin remarked at some point during the year that we lived together. She was referring to the algebraic term, the unknown quantity x, which must be solved for, or defined, by the numbers in the equation around it.”

Everything I Know About My Family on My Mother’s Side by Nathan Englander || Maybe nothing we know about our families is true. In the best efforts of making each other look the least foolish, the most gallant and the most respectable as possible, how much of our truths remain? Is there any truth to history? Our own and the world’s?

“51. The woman I love, the Bosnian, she is not Jewish. All the years I am with her, to my family, it’s as if she is not. My family so good at it now. My family so masterful. It’s not only the past that can be altered and forgotten and lost to the world. It’s real time now. It’s streaming. The present can be undone, too.”

The Ticking is the Bomb by Nick Flynn || I find this concept of becoming lost really interesting. I feel like here, trapped in this country, based in this house, I feel lost. I’ve never wanted to go and leave so much as I do now, when I know I can’t. I blame it on immigration. But if I did have the chance to leave, to do as I please, would I even know what that was?

“Here’s a secret. Everyone, if they live long enough, will lose their way at some point. … When it does, when one day you look around and nothing is recognizable, when you find yourself alone in a dark wood having lost the way, you may find it easier to blame it on someone else – an errant lover, a missing father, a bad childhood – or it may be easier to blame the map you were given – folded too many times, out-of-date, tiny print – but mostly, if you are honest, you will only be able to blame yourself.”

“I’m making this all up now from memory. I have the book on my bookshelf but I’m afraid to open it, in case I find out that the power it held over me proves to be thin, silly, superficial.”

“I tried to imagine what might happen if each of them knew how important their lives were.”

Wild Berry Blue by Rivka Galchen || I feel that sometimes I hang on way too long to things. Years later I’ll find my mind has wandered into an embarrassing memory and I’ll have to mini-scream it away. I hang on to things for too long. I’ll crimson at something that I’m sure no one else remembers. Yet the weight of it never eases. Time does not heal it. And I find myself constantly caught in the wonder of ‘what if’. All the past crushes, the past friendships, the past tensions visit me and I find myself pondering a completely different past. One that always manages to find this real present, but that has absolved me of all my past shames or regrets.

“They slip out from under their own control.”

“I never got over him. I never get over anyone.”

A Product of This Town by J. Malcolm Garcia || I like the idea of going somewhere where everyone is starting. Either starting anew or starting over. I think that’s the power of college. Or of moving into a newly developed neighborhood. Everyone is converging at once. We’re all open to possibilities. We’re all fresh and excited about what lay ahead. Those were always the times when I made friends easily. When people were open to things they might have already considered having enough of. Because when you just move into something already established, you’re lucky if they even make room for you.

“White kid: …My momma says I should go to New Orleans. Black kid: Yeah, start over in a place where everyone’s starting over.”

Your Exhausted Heart by Anne Gisleson

“disaster tourists”

Further Notes on My Unfortunate Condition by Nick St. John || I really enjoyed his illustrations. I’m finding that comics and illustration has become edgier, more mature, away from the childish assumptions. There are so many memories I wish were stronger. Life fades so quickly. Something that was so important, isn’t frozen in a moment of time, but rather it thaws, it melts as you progress into the future. To a point where, I guess, nothing but the empty spot remains. And sometimes you’re lucky to have the void to remind you.

If I had to trace back my life to a single point in time that altered my life. I think it’d have to be deciding to go on Semester at Sea. Looking back, it feels like I made that decision in a heartbeat. I heard about it, I applied, I sent in my deposit and I went. I can thank that former self for what has become my life.

“But it’s the memory I wish had been stronger than any other.”

“This event to which I trace all of the best parts of myself.”

I’m very glad I went to the round table versus a reading. It was a lot more fulfilling to hear what Sherman Alexie had to say and what he thought than reading what he’s already said. I have to admit I wasn’t as impressed with him afterwards, but I got really interested in what Mark Sinnett and Colson Whitehead had to say.

This idea of identity and the need to be labeled as something is so interesting to me. Being adopted. I’m neither Korean nor even Korean-American. And I have to come to terms with the notion that what people see and who I am don’t align. And perhaps that’s true for everyone. And I wonder if there will ever be a day when the two, the internal image and the external one, will ever align themselves. So that we don’t have to act.

“We’re all sort of acting.” – Colson Whitehead

“Still trapped in the reservation of our minds.” -Sherman Alexie