Monthly Bookpost, March 2015
Geometry, by Rene Descartes
Any problem in geometry can easily be reduced to such terms that a knowledge of the lengths of certain straight lines is sufficient for its construction. Just as arithmetic consists of only four or five operations, namely addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and the extraction of roots, which may be considered a form of division, so in geometry, to find required lines it is merely necessary to add or subtract other lines, or else, taking one line which I shall call unity in order to relate it as closely as possible to numbers, and which can in general be chosen arbitrarily, and having given two other lines, to find a fourth line which shall be to one of the given lines as the other is to unity (which is the same as multiplication); or again, to find a fourth line which is to one of the given lines as unity is to the other (which is equivalent to division), or finally, to find one, two, or several mean proportionals between unity and some other line (which is the same as extracting the square root, cube root, etc., of the given line). And I shall not hesitate to introduce these arithmetical terms into geometry, for the sake of greater clearness.
I frequently have moments where my alleged qualifications to be a member of MENSA, the society of geniuses in the top 2% of human intelligence, makes me feel utter despair, not pride. All it means is that 98% of the people are supposedly even stupider than I am. Attempting to read Descartes on analytic geometry was one of those moments.
I might as well not have read it, for all I got out of it. I have vague memories of a fairly easy "Cartesian geometry" in high school, where we solved for x using x-y graphs and vectors. Descartes' actual Geometry, which was apparently originally an appendix to a philosophy book, meant to illustrate how simple the Cartesian "method" is, has none of that. It has three sections: On straight lines, curved lines, and solids, full of equations with square roots and symbols I hadn't even seen before, showing how "the method" can be used to, e.g., construct several lines that both pass through a given point and a straight line. Some of the equations take up an entire page of just lines, numbers and symbols. And it doesn't help that both Descartes and Mortimer Adler (editor of the "great books" series designed to make a liberal education available to the layman, which includes this) continually remind us how these equations are simple enough for anyone to understand.
I feel stupid. I have failed my readers, and inspired math nerds to put kick-me signs on my back. I apologize.
The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
All at once, Sherman was aware of a figure approaching him on the sidewalk, in the wet black shadows of the town houses and the trees. Even from fifty feet away, in the darkness, he could tell. It was that deep worry that lives in the base of the skull of every resident of Park Avenue south of Ninety-sixth street--a black youth, tall, rangy, wearing white sneakers. Now he was forty feet away, thirty five. Sherman stared at him. Well, let him come! I'm not budging! It's my territory! I'm not giving way for any street punks!
The black youth suddenly made a ninety degree turn and cut straight across the street to the sidewalk on the other side. The feeble yellow of a sodium vapor streetlight reflected for an instant on his face as he checked Sherman out.
He had crossed over! What a stroke of luck!
Not once did it dawn on Sherman McCoy that what the boy had seen was a thirty eight year old white man, soaking wet, dressed in some sort of military looking raincoat full of straps and buckles, holding a violently lurching animal in his arms, staring, bug-eyed, and talking to himself.
Wolfe's racially charged book where the wealthy elite of Park Avenue are contrasted with the down and out of The Bronx, came out in 1987--I checked, and was surprised to find that it could not have been influenced by Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing movie, nor a true incident in which Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders made a political football out of a black woman's discredited claim to have been gang-raped, nor yet another true incident in Crown Heights where a limo in a Jewish motorcade allegedly hit and run a black kid, with ensuing riots that stoked the paranoia of both communities. All of those things came after The Bonfire of the Vanities and were eerily foreshadowed by it.
The book comes as close to old fashioned Epic as you'll find in 20th century fiction set in the 20th century. That said, it suffers badly from the lack of any likable characters. The wealthy are insulated, amoral, narcissistic snobs; the advocates for the poor are cynical self-serving manipulators, and the poor themselves are an unthinking, undereducated mob of violent criminals. The main antihero, Sherman McCoy, is a racist, adulterous Wall Street shark who likes to think of himself as "Master of the Universe", because he's so rich; uncultured, unable to relate to anyone, partly redeemed only by his sincere love for his daughter. His wife is an ice queen; his mistress a gold-digging horror.
The pivotal event involves McCoy and the mistress in the Bronx, at night, terrified of Those Black People, knocking down a pedestrian while speeding away from what they assume (correctly, but still too quickly) is a carjacking attempt and not reporting it, because adultery. The Bronx criminal "justice" system, which colloquially refers to the crowd of People Of Color arraigned every court day as "the chow", is disinclined to put their insufficient resources to work on an iffy case with no evidence and no leads, until a status seeking reporter and a thinly disguised Al Sharptongue caricature of a civil rights advocate decide to make the comatose victim (who they call an "honor student" by neighborhood school standards, in that he showed up and didn't get in much trouble) their poster boy for Black Lives Matter. At which point, all the racist elected officials in the borough decide to court minority votes and show how not-racist they are by investigating and prosecuting the living shit out of this case. The tone of the book ranges from deliciously cynical to depressingly cynical, and it never lets the reader forget how black, or Wasp, or Jewish, or Irish, or Puerto Rican, any given character is.
I was expecting a tense courtroom drama, but very little of the story takes place in court, although there are pontificating lawyers, especially District Attorneys, everywhere. More than half of the 600 pages involve McCoy indulging in Raskolnikov-ish guilt/angst while elsewhere the cops bitch about having to investigate such a nothing crime and the reporter and civil rights advocate enrich themselves fanning the flames. Prosecutors fake evidence to make McCoy look guilty; McCoy's lawyer fakes evidence to make him look innocent.
Two scenes stand out especially. In one scene, right after the press has savaged McCoy for being such a horrible person as to leave the scene of an accident without stopping to offer assistance, the reporter dines at a fancy five star restaurant where an old man has a heart attack. Not only does nobody offer assistance, but customers trample the dying man while rushing to leave, pausing to say "eww" as they look down to see what they've stepped on, and the maitre d' doesn't want to let the paramedics into the restaurant where they might further disturb people eating. The other scene is the long chapter in which McCoy, in a single day between arrest and release on bail, is transformed from a well-dressed, well-groomed man into a hot mess from a long perp walk in the rain through a long booking process and several hours in filthy holding pens with the rest of "the chow." His defenders are appalled by his appearance and speak of police brutality against a man presumed innocent; his prosecutors pride themselves on treating him "just like everyone else, with no special privileges. Equal justice." It occurs to no one, except maybe the reader, that maybe the big problem is that anyone is treated like this, and that it shouldn't just be an issue when it happens to the rich.
The Bonfire of the Vanities is ugly, full of racial stereotypes, problematical, suspenseful, epic, and unfortunately as relevant today as it was in the 1980s. Very highly recommended.
The Doublet Affair; Queen's Ransom; To Ruin a Queen, by Fiona Buckley. The Concubine's Tattoo; The Samurai's Wife, by Laurah Joh Rowland; The Mad Courtesan, by Edward Marston
Wincing and gagging, reiko applied layer after layer of dye to her teeth. Finally, she rinsed, spat, then held the mirror to her face. She viewed her reflection with dismay. The dead, black teeth contrasted sharply with the white face powder and red lip rouge, highlighting her skin's every imperfection. With the tip of her tongue, Reijko touched her chipped incisor, a habit in times of strong emotion. At age twenty, she looked ancient--and ugly. her days of study and martial arts practice were over; hope of romance withered. How could her husband want her for anything besides obedient servitude now?
---from The Concubine's Tattoo
"You were mad to venture here! If you've sent for help, you should have waited for it to come, and kept away, yourself! How on earth did you get in?"
"The way I suppose you did. Over the back fence, through the window and down the stairs."
"Alone? In the dark?"
"Yes.
Brockley had always treated me with respect, even when he was criticising me, but always, there had been in it a tinge of patronage: age to youth, worldly wisdom to innocence, man to that natural inferior, woman. Now in the lantern light, I saw in his eyes another kind of respect: that of comrade to equal comrade. It was warming.
--from The Doublet Affair
It was in this mood of suffering, with his sensibilities tingling and his faculties heightened, with his pain and his poetry fusing in perfect harmony, that he penned a long valedictory speech to king, queen and every woman he had ever worshipped. Words came easily but beautifully and the result was a minor miracle. Reading the verse quietly to himself, he knew that he had brought "Love's Sacrifice" to a most poignant and affecting conclusion. What he did not realize was that a speech of twenty lines would have a significance that went far beyond the boundaries of his play to put the whole company in mortal danger.
--from The Mad Courtesan
"On this journey, Ursula, I have got to know you for the first time. I think you already understand that my opinion of you has changed. Once, I thought that you did harm to Gerald when you ran off with him but for quite a long time now, I have thought that he chose better than I had first believed. I just want to say that now---I think he chose very well."
--from Queen's Ransom
The scream's middle notes churned his bowels into liquid fire. The wail resonated in his heart, which beat faster and faster, swelling inside his chest. As his lungs ballooned, he breathed with harsh gasps. He fell, writhing in agony. The scream's shrillness arced along his nerves; convulsions wracked him. In the final moment before pain devoured reason, he knew that he would never make his rendezvous. Nor would his dreams ever come to pass. Now the left minister's insides erupted. Hot blood surged into his throat, filled his ears, choked off his breath and blinded him. The scream's vibrations escalated until his brain exploded in a cataclysm of white-hot light.
Then death extinguished terror, pain and consciousness.
--from The Samurai's Wife
I sometimes felt as though I had spent my whole life trying to get things done without having the authority to do them. At Blanchepierre, I hadn't even had the authority to tell the physician to save my life; Matthew had done it for me. As for my work, it was in the nature of my peculiar career that I generally had to stay in the shadows, pretending to be a harmless guest or bystander, devoid of power and largely without protection. If I had companions, I usually felt responsible for their safety rather than the other way about.
--from To Ruin a Queen
I really should have read Fiona Buckley's Ursula Blanchard books last year--I've moved from Elizabeth to James I and Charles I by now--but, as I've said before, there's very little historical mystery set in the actual 17th Century. besides, these books, while not really satisfying whodunnits, are great adventures with a lot of information about Elizabeth's times, and with a decent girlpower heroine who illustrates awesomeness as well as the hurdles facing a female detective that, say, Marston's Nick Bracewell does not have. The Doublet Affair, Queen's RansomTo Ruin a Queen take Blanchard from rural England to France and Holland to Wales, and always, friend and enemy alike treat her as less than a person worthy of respect, and are continually surprised to find her clever and resourceful. In all three books--trigger warnings--there are men who feel entitled to force themselves on her, and who scold her for daring to resist them, falsely claiming to understand her as a woman of easy virtue and therefore with no rights to say no. They pull "social rank' in a way hard to understand in the modern world, and there's even an attempt to stone a woman to death for witchcraft. There are also references to actual and potential scandals that reflect the precarious position of Elizabeth herself.
Meanwhile, in feudal Japan, Laura Joh Rowland's lengthy series involving Sano Ichiro is settling into a set of stock characters and taking off as such. By the fourth and fifth volumes, Sano has an established sidekick, a determined recurring enemy, and best of all, gets married to a woman who, even in yet another woman-oppressing society, proves to be his true equal while Sano to his credit accepts her as such (eventually) and makes her part of his formidable array of crime-solving resources. In fact, by the end of The Samurai's Wife, which touches on the Emperor himself and supernatural ninja skills, he is sitting so pretty that one wonders what will make the next dozen or so books still waiting for me challenging. Very high recommendations.
I only got one Edward Marston book in this month. Unlike Buckley, his crime-infested Elizabethan players take their moment at the END of Queen Bess's reign, not the beginning, and The Mad Courtesan has her already near death, with the players' patron Lord Westfield wisely backing James of Scotland as heir to the throne while their evil rival company and their patron Lord Banbury backing Arabella Stuart and staging a play called The Spanish Jew to sway public opinion (did you know Elizabethan theater companies took sides in battles for the crown, with their own existences as companies on the line? They did! I read it in a novel, so you know it's true!). There's an evil plot by Banbury's company, a crime story where the killer is revealed in chapter one and the story lies in how they catch her...and then there's Nimbus the horse, who steals the show. Not much of a mystery, but a lot of history and a lot of fun.
Scientific treatises, by Blaise Pascal
Nothing is more common than good things; the only question is how to discern them; it is certain that all of them are natural and within our reach and even known by every one. But we do not know how to distinguish them. This is universal. It is not in things extraordinary and strange that excellence of any kind is found. We reach up for it, and we are further away, more often than not we must stoop. The best books are those whose readers think they could have written them. Nature, which alone is good, is familiar and common throughout.
A further example of the sudden prevalence of science in the philosophers of the 17th century, Blaise Pascal, though he only lived to be 40 and spent his last decade as a religious recluse, managed to delve quite nicely into the sciences in his youth. The treatises included in the Great Books volume of Pascal include New Experiments concerning the vacuum; Account of the Great Experiment concerning the equilibrium of fluids; Treatises on the equilibrium of fluids and on the weight of the mass of the air; On geometrical demonstration; Treatise on the arithmetical triangle; and Correspondence with Fermat on the theory of probabilities..
These seem to me like just the sort of scientific writing appropriate for a Great Books series. My general impression of the Science volumes in Great Books is that they stand out like sore, green thumbs. Mortimer Adler insists that they are intelligible to the layman, and I agree that science should not be ignored by lay people--but the books not only require a much more intense level of study--I am not a stupid man, and yet much of, for example, Descartes' Geometry went right over my head, even after several attempts--but are centuries out of date, and are useful primarily as historical interest or as examples of how thought can lead someone like Ptolemy (six hundred damn pages of Fail; see February 2013 Bookpost) to be wrong for the write reasons. Pascal, in contrast, is mostly intelligible on a high school level and his vacuum experiment and probability demonstrations can be used today.
Additionally, the ideas segue into one another, starting with the demonstration that it is possible to create a vacuum, transitioning to fluids seeking their own level, to the weight of air as calculated by doing the same experiments at ground level and on a high mountain, to some geometrical proofs, to the use of the arithmetical triangle in such proofs, to use of said triangle to compute probabilities, to more about probabilities.
One of the more confusing concepts--Pascal sure had a thing for wagers--involved situations where people bet on such things as rolling at least one "six" in eight throws of a d6, and then withdraw from the bet without actually throwing. In my world, that means the bet is off and no one wins or loses anything; in Pascal's world, you lose your stake immediately upon betting, and what you get back if you withdraw without throwing is based on the probability that you would have won. Granted, Pascal probably just brought this up as a hypothetical to illustrate how many times eight throws could include one or more sixes, but it got me sidetracked as to what fool would bet and then withdraw under those circumstances. O tempora, o mores, and all that.
Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell
You have strayed into a respectable quarter, and you see a prosperous friend coming. To avoid him you dodge into the nearest cafe. Once in the cafe you must buy something, so you spend your last fifty centimes on a glass of black coffee with a dead fly in it. One could multiply these disasters by the hundred. They are part of the process of being hard up.
You discover what it is like to be hungry. With bread and margarine in your belly, you go out and look into the shop windows. Everywhere there is food insulting you in huge, wasteful piles; whole dead pigs, baskets of hot loaves, great yellow blocks of butter, strings of sausages, mountains of potatoes, vast Gruyere cheeses like grindstones. A snivelling self-pity comes over you at the sight of so much food. You plan to grab a loaf and run, swallowing it before they catch you; and you refrain, from pure funk.
Orwell's probably autobiographical novel Is pretty much what the title says: Orwell (or the narrator) spends several months scrounging for bare subsistence in Paris, and then in London, keeping company with several sad sacks, oppressed proletariats, wastrels and rogues, and the employers, landlords and pawnbrokers who prey on them.
We see the underclass made to pay most of what they own, by the week or month, for shelter in filthy rooming houses where the fleas eat for free. We see a French restaurant that makes me gag at the thought of ever eating in Paris--never mind whether you tip the waitstaff; their bodily secretions are all over what you eat as a matter of course, the kitchen is a running sewer, and the pecking order from the maitre d to the cooks to the plongeurs (busboys) makes the armed services look like a socialist paradise. And guess which position Orwell and his friend Boris had...
There are day jobs. there is petty crime. There are chapters about the street buskers, sidewalk chalk artists, petty peddlers and con artists all trying to get enough to eat for the day. There is the Salvation Army, presented as a bunch of cruelly judgmental brutes who never let their victims forget that they are receiving charity from their betters. There are many examples of ways the desperate manage to stretch a franc or a shilling. And a whole lot of editorials about "what to do about the poor" that read much differently to an actual poor person than to a bourgeoise reader of the Times.
Must reading for anyone who thinks the poor are drunken, addicted scoundrels who get that way by making poor choices; a brief but gripping read for anyone else. And a good look into the mind of one of those "shiftless good for nothing wastrels" who went on to write Animal Farm and 1984.
Dwellers in the Mirage, by A. Merritt
A woman came riding down the blue sward. She was astride a great black mare. She wore, like a hood, the head of a white wolf. Its pelt covered her shoulders and back. Over that silvery pelt her hair fell in two thick braids of flaming red. Her high, round breasts were bare, and beneath them the paws of the white wolf were clasped like a girdle. Her eyes were blue as the cornflower and set wide apart under a broad, low forehead. Her skin was milky-white flushed with soft rose. Her mouth was full-lipped, crimson, and both amorous and cruel.
She was a strong woman, tall almost as I. She was like a Valkyrie, and like those messengers of Odin she carried on her saddle before her, held by one arm, a body. But it was no soul of a slain warrior snatched up for flight to Valhalla. It was a girl. A girl whose arms were bound to her sides by stout thongs, with head bent hopelessly on her breast. I could not see her face; it was hidden under the veil of her hair. But the hair was russet red and her skin as fair as that of the woman who held her.
This was on a list of "great classic SF books. After reading it, I can't imagine why anyone would put it there. It's not even good classic pulpy SF.
The characters, including Lief the narrator, might as well be claymation. There's officially war and love, but not so's you would notice from any character description. Lief finds his way, first in the Gobi desert and then in Alaska, to one of those hidden societies run by "others" (in this case, Amazons and yellow pygmies), and therefore in need of a strapping can-do American white guy to lead them. Instead of "avatars", we have him recover his memory of being a God named Dwayne Dwayanu, who was either evil or good depending on who you listen to. And the buff, hot chycks all want his attention. The battles are dull. The sex is dull. The human sacrifices are dull. Occasionally there's a killer flower or an innovative weapon or something, but describing THINGS, not people or feelings or rationales, is all that Merritt does.
If I was a horny 13 year old who wanted to write myself doing hero shit so the buff hot chycks would swoon for me, I'd do something like this. And it would have about as much quality.
Hadrian the Seventh, by Frederick Rolfe
So died Hadrian VII, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, and (some say) martyr). So died Peter in the arms of Caesar.
The world sobbed, sighed, wiped its mouth, and experienced extreme relief.
The college of Cardinals summed Him up in the brilliant epigram of Tacitus: "Carpax imperii nisi imperasset." He would have been an ideal ruler if He had not ruled.
Religious people said that He was an incomprehensible creature. And the man on the motor said that the pace certainly had been rather rapid.
Pray for the repose of His soul. He was so tired.
Stories in which Everyman protagonists, or even low simpletons, get elevated to positions of power where they either fail humorously or prove more wise and capable than the actual high and mighty, have always been popular, from governor Sancho Panza and the prologue to Taming of the Shrew to the Beverly Hillbillies and that movie where a belching John Goodman becomes King of England. Rolfe's variation has a bookish, English liberal humanist chosen via quirky circumstances to be the Pope.
As usual in stories of this kind, the tone meanders from silly to wise, with George the Pope starting out capricious (for example, titling himself Hadrian the Seventh when his predecessor had been Hadrian the Fourth. Because His Eminence Says So) to serious efforts to reform the church, violently and underhandedly opposed by the conservatives of the Vatican, manufactured scandal attempts, and ultimately, of course, assassination by a "lone fanatic who has never ever been exposed to right wing propaganda, probably even a liberal plant trying to make the conservatives look bad".
I found it whimsical. I probably would have liked it more if it had been about a philosopher king than a philosopher Pope, and hadn't needed the endless religious dogma discussions. On the other hand, it got me thinking about the current Pope Francis, who I can't help admiring warts and all, and wondering how safe a partial liberal can be in a religious city.
Harvard Classics "Voyages and Travels" volume
Immediately tokens were given unto the Delight, to cast about to seaward, which, being the greater ship, and of burthen 120 tons, was yet foremost upon the breach, keeping so ill watch, that they knew not the danger, before they felt the same, too late to recover it; for presently the Admiral struck aground, and had soon after her stern and hinder parts beaten in pieces; whereupon the rest (that is to say, the frigate, in which was the General, and the Golden Hind) cast about east-south-east, bearing to the south, even for our lives, into the wind’s eye, because that way carried us to the seaward. Making out from this danger, we sounded one while seven fathom, then five fathom, then four fathom and less, again deeper, immediately four fathom, then but three fathom, the sea going mightily and high. At last we recovered, God be thanked, in some despair, to sea room enough.
The Harvard Classics is a weird sort of "liberal education". Most of the works; I'm reading individually, according to their time period. Some volumes, however, have enough short works that it's easier to look at the volume as a whole. The "voyages and travels" volume pretty much advances my theory that the "Doctor Elliott" who compiled the set, was an arbitrary eccentric. Either that, or Harvard people study the set so that they can identify their fellow snoots by quoting from works no one else reads.
"Voyages and Travels" includes the "Egypt" chapter from Herodotus (See Bookpost, January 2011) and the Germania from Tacitus (Bookpost, September 2012)--the only representation of these two great ancient historians in the set, and both of them anthropological descriptions of a culture foreign to the author--not a work of travel among the people of that area.
The rest of the volume--the part I read this month--consists of some Elizabethan-era voyages: three by Sir Francis Drake, including one about the "Great Armada", which is not the Spanish Armada but a flotilla of ships that Drake took to raid the Sapnish settlements in the Caribbean; sir Humphrey Gilbert's trip to Newfoundland; and Sir Walter Raleigh's trip to Giunea, where he claims to have discovered El Dorado, the legendary city of gold.
Curse Sir Walter Raleigh. He was such a stupid git.
These accounts are among the most boring travel writing I've ever seen. The quoted paragraph above is about a motherfucking SHIPWRECK, and it makes me want to nod off. The accounts were written by midshipmen on board, who were more interested in (or were just following the command to) praise the mighty, blessed-of-God captain on every page, keep count of the provisions aboard, and, if there's space left after that, write a paragraph or two about what happened while traveling where no European had gone before. Everyone they encounter, Spaniard and Indigenous alike, is considered less than human. Everything the Captain does is considered a stroke of genius. There are dull fights at sea, dull storms, and dull loss of life. As a first impression of a new continent, it leaves much to be desired.
Into the Heart of Borneo, by Redmond O'Hanlon
"This is the big one," I announced. "This is the day we conquer Everest."
James stirred. There was a heart-rending groan.
"Oh no it isn't," he said, unexpectedly. He clambered half out of the mosquito net, sat on the side of the pole hammock, and held his head. "This is the day YOU conquer Everest. You see, Redmond, I don't have to prove my manhood. In fact, this is the day on which I enjoy my own personal space, miles, but MILES from anywhere. I shall potter about. I shall see something MARVELLOUS. I shall read Swift and Hugo and Vaughan."
"Vaughan?"
"All right, so you think he's a baroque shit? As a special concession to you, as a mark of the profound respect in which I hold your opinions, I shall not read Vaughan. Okay? Can I go now?"
"You must do exactly what you want to do. And if you get a blowpipe-dart in the bum, give us a shout."
Ghost of Doctor Elliott, take note. THIS is what good travel writing is. It's funny. it's suspenseful. It's educational. It's everything that Raleigh and Drake's chroniclers are not.
Three 80s-era Englishmen explore Malaysian Borneo, sharing Monty Python quotes, challenging one another to stick their dicks in the river to catch pirhana, and describing with stoic dry with the probability of being eaten by pythons. Wonderful descriptions of history (by which they mean, the history of Englishmen like James Brooke coming to rescue the native peoples and enabling them to make something of themselves, wot-wot? I didn't say it was perfect); wonderful descriptions of the various highly dangerous wildlife they find sharing their cots in the morning; wonderful descriptions of post-English natives sadly and prophetically warning of the consequences of Mrs. Thatcher suddenly excluding them from access to English education and driving them to take their commerce to Japan. Very high recommendations.
Money--Mastering the Game, by Tony Robbins
What if money didn't matter?
How would you feel if you didn't have to worry about going into an office every morning, or paying the bills, or funding your retirement? What would it be like to live your life on your own terms? What would it mean to know you had the opportunity to start your own business, or that you could afford to buy a home for your parents, and send your kids to college, or have the freedom to travel the world?
How would you live your life if you could wake up each day knowing there was enough money coming in to cover not only your basic needs but also your goals and dreams?
There is considerable good and bad about Tony Robbins. The good part is that he really does have useful things to say and really has made a difference in the lives of many people, including myself, if you define success as doing the things you already know you should be doing while ceasing to do the things you already know you should not be doing. Robbins has psychological tools to get you to change your behavior that way, and to improve your state of mind while you're at it. his book Awaken the Giant Within is on my list of "100 books that rocked my world".
The bad part is that he is a master manipulator and a "rich salesman" (and as wise people know, you should never buy from a rich salesman, though you probably should hire a rich lawyer). Everything he says and how he says it sets off, and should set off, red warning flags, especially when it comes to telling you what you should do with your money. Also, he has an unfortunate tendency to hold up role models of success, like John DeLorean and OJ Simpson, who fall spectacularly some time after the book is published. I was waiting for a shout out to Bill Cosby in this, his newest, but it never came.
Awaken the Giant within was printed over 20 years ago. It featured a young TR in a fancy suit and tie, smiling from the cover of the book out at you, all 32 teeth showing, and pointing straight out at you. This new one is calculated to make him look "earthy", posed before what looks like the back of a cave, hair wet and tousled, six-day Brad Pitt stubble on his face, eyes half shut in Buddha-like serenity. He still has all 32 teeth showing, and they look like they glow in the dark.
More than half of Mastering the Game is devoted to putting you in a certain frame of mind for swallowing what he has, and acting impulsively. Of his "seven steps to wealth mastery", only the middle three are worthwhile. The others can be summarized as:
1. Make the DECISION to be an investor and not just a consumer.
2. Everything you know about investments is wrong, and any existing broker you have is stealing from you.
6. Here are some short interviews with some name-drop-worthy billionaires Tony likes to schmooze with, from Warren Buffett (good) to Mary Callahan Erdoes (very untrustworthy; my bet to be the one who falls spectacularly post publication), mostly talking about how rich and philanthropical and what wonderful people they are).
7. Now that you're rich, don't forget to enjoy it and share with the less fortunate, possibly by donating to this handy list of Tony Robbins charities.
Now here is the real meat and potatoes of the book:
3. Some numbers to help you figure out what it would take for you to become financially free.
The basic equation is, compute what you are spending NOW per month to keep you in the lifestyle you have now. Multiply that amount by 12, and then by 20, and that's the amount you need to have in order to live that lifestyle without bringing in new income (called "independence"). There are lower numbers you can compute (just add your rent/mortgage, utilities, insurance, basic food, and transportation costs per month times 12 times 20 to get "security"; or add the monthly cost of some extra luxuries to the "independence" figure to get "freedom."
To save that money, you should consider moving to Bumblefuck, Iowa, where the cost of living is lower. Otherwise, SAVE more (spend less), EARN more money, and/or get a HIGHER RATE OF RETURN on what you invest, and those are the ways to make a fortune. Also, when the tax collector contacts you, just say "I forgot".
4. ASSET ALLOCATION: You should have 60% of your assets in SAFE investments that have low rates of return but that don't lose money--cash, bonds, CDs, your own residence (which you should not mortgage like those fools did who lost it all in 2008), Social Security, your pension, annuities, life insurance. you should have 40% in RISKIER investments with potentially higher returns--equities, real estate, junk bonds, commodities, currencies, collectibles.
A billionaire fund manager named David Swensen recommends 20% domestic stock, 20% international stock, 10% emerging markets, 20% REITs, 15% long term US treasury notes and 15% TIPS notes. Note that this is 30% SAFE and 70% RISKY, but just turn the page.
5. INCOME FOR LIFE: Another billionaire fund manager, Ray Dalio, recommends 40% long term US bonds, 15% intermediate US bonds, 30% stocks, 7.5% gold and 7.5% commodities. (this is 55% SAFE and 45% RISKY).
You might also consider an annuity, which will give you a guaranteed income stream for life; private placement life insurance, which you can borrow from tax free; and a living trust so when you're a billionaire you can leave money to your loved ones tax free.
And that's the meat of the book. My experience and observations to the contrary are that at the moment, bonds, CDs and the other "safe" vehicles return almost no income and tie up your money. Might as well just keep it under the mattress.
Commodities, currencies, collectibles, options, futures--those are things that only professionals who speculate in those things for a living should touch. They make their money by taking it from people who dabble. Seems to me, the only things that should go in an average person's "risky" bucket are stocks, index funds (American, international or emerging markets), REITs and if you're really rich, maybe some gold as the rich man's inflation hedge.
Robbins includes a link to a FREE evaluation of your existing portfolio by his friends at Stronghold dot com. If you go there, it will recommend the portfolio described at the start of #5 above, and will then make it frighteningly easy for you, by clicking "ok", to have all of your existing brokerage assets transferred to the Stronghold company for them to manage.
And yes--for most Americans today, the information here is worthless. The billionaires in section six have taken all the wealth for themselves and won't let you earn or save enough to put anything aside. The first step--in this book and all the other financial planning books--is to set aside an emergency fund so that when your car dies or you have a medical expense or you lose your job, you've got the money there, accessible without regard to whether the market is up or down right then. And, for more than 60% of us, just covering THAT part is going to be the challenge of a decade.
But if you have a nest egg, you can go for it, and Creepy Uncle Tony will see you at the top. Just--be careful where his own bottom line is at stake.
Find all of my previous Bookposts here: http://admnaismith.livejournal.com/tag/bookposts
Any problem in geometry can easily be reduced to such terms that a knowledge of the lengths of certain straight lines is sufficient for its construction. Just as arithmetic consists of only four or five operations, namely addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and the extraction of roots, which may be considered a form of division, so in geometry, to find required lines it is merely necessary to add or subtract other lines, or else, taking one line which I shall call unity in order to relate it as closely as possible to numbers, and which can in general be chosen arbitrarily, and having given two other lines, to find a fourth line which shall be to one of the given lines as the other is to unity (which is the same as multiplication); or again, to find a fourth line which is to one of the given lines as unity is to the other (which is equivalent to division), or finally, to find one, two, or several mean proportionals between unity and some other line (which is the same as extracting the square root, cube root, etc., of the given line). And I shall not hesitate to introduce these arithmetical terms into geometry, for the sake of greater clearness.
I frequently have moments where my alleged qualifications to be a member of MENSA, the society of geniuses in the top 2% of human intelligence, makes me feel utter despair, not pride. All it means is that 98% of the people are supposedly even stupider than I am. Attempting to read Descartes on analytic geometry was one of those moments.
I might as well not have read it, for all I got out of it. I have vague memories of a fairly easy "Cartesian geometry" in high school, where we solved for x using x-y graphs and vectors. Descartes' actual Geometry, which was apparently originally an appendix to a philosophy book, meant to illustrate how simple the Cartesian "method" is, has none of that. It has three sections: On straight lines, curved lines, and solids, full of equations with square roots and symbols I hadn't even seen before, showing how "the method" can be used to, e.g., construct several lines that both pass through a given point and a straight line. Some of the equations take up an entire page of just lines, numbers and symbols. And it doesn't help that both Descartes and Mortimer Adler (editor of the "great books" series designed to make a liberal education available to the layman, which includes this) continually remind us how these equations are simple enough for anyone to understand.
I feel stupid. I have failed my readers, and inspired math nerds to put kick-me signs on my back. I apologize.
The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
All at once, Sherman was aware of a figure approaching him on the sidewalk, in the wet black shadows of the town houses and the trees. Even from fifty feet away, in the darkness, he could tell. It was that deep worry that lives in the base of the skull of every resident of Park Avenue south of Ninety-sixth street--a black youth, tall, rangy, wearing white sneakers. Now he was forty feet away, thirty five. Sherman stared at him. Well, let him come! I'm not budging! It's my territory! I'm not giving way for any street punks!
The black youth suddenly made a ninety degree turn and cut straight across the street to the sidewalk on the other side. The feeble yellow of a sodium vapor streetlight reflected for an instant on his face as he checked Sherman out.
He had crossed over! What a stroke of luck!
Not once did it dawn on Sherman McCoy that what the boy had seen was a thirty eight year old white man, soaking wet, dressed in some sort of military looking raincoat full of straps and buckles, holding a violently lurching animal in his arms, staring, bug-eyed, and talking to himself.
Wolfe's racially charged book where the wealthy elite of Park Avenue are contrasted with the down and out of The Bronx, came out in 1987--I checked, and was surprised to find that it could not have been influenced by Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing movie, nor a true incident in which Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders made a political football out of a black woman's discredited claim to have been gang-raped, nor yet another true incident in Crown Heights where a limo in a Jewish motorcade allegedly hit and run a black kid, with ensuing riots that stoked the paranoia of both communities. All of those things came after The Bonfire of the Vanities and were eerily foreshadowed by it.
The book comes as close to old fashioned Epic as you'll find in 20th century fiction set in the 20th century. That said, it suffers badly from the lack of any likable characters. The wealthy are insulated, amoral, narcissistic snobs; the advocates for the poor are cynical self-serving manipulators, and the poor themselves are an unthinking, undereducated mob of violent criminals. The main antihero, Sherman McCoy, is a racist, adulterous Wall Street shark who likes to think of himself as "Master of the Universe", because he's so rich; uncultured, unable to relate to anyone, partly redeemed only by his sincere love for his daughter. His wife is an ice queen; his mistress a gold-digging horror.
The pivotal event involves McCoy and the mistress in the Bronx, at night, terrified of Those Black People, knocking down a pedestrian while speeding away from what they assume (correctly, but still too quickly) is a carjacking attempt and not reporting it, because adultery. The Bronx criminal "justice" system, which colloquially refers to the crowd of People Of Color arraigned every court day as "the chow", is disinclined to put their insufficient resources to work on an iffy case with no evidence and no leads, until a status seeking reporter and a thinly disguised Al Sharptongue caricature of a civil rights advocate decide to make the comatose victim (who they call an "honor student" by neighborhood school standards, in that he showed up and didn't get in much trouble) their poster boy for Black Lives Matter. At which point, all the racist elected officials in the borough decide to court minority votes and show how not-racist they are by investigating and prosecuting the living shit out of this case. The tone of the book ranges from deliciously cynical to depressingly cynical, and it never lets the reader forget how black, or Wasp, or Jewish, or Irish, or Puerto Rican, any given character is.
I was expecting a tense courtroom drama, but very little of the story takes place in court, although there are pontificating lawyers, especially District Attorneys, everywhere. More than half of the 600 pages involve McCoy indulging in Raskolnikov-ish guilt/angst while elsewhere the cops bitch about having to investigate such a nothing crime and the reporter and civil rights advocate enrich themselves fanning the flames. Prosecutors fake evidence to make McCoy look guilty; McCoy's lawyer fakes evidence to make him look innocent.
Two scenes stand out especially. In one scene, right after the press has savaged McCoy for being such a horrible person as to leave the scene of an accident without stopping to offer assistance, the reporter dines at a fancy five star restaurant where an old man has a heart attack. Not only does nobody offer assistance, but customers trample the dying man while rushing to leave, pausing to say "eww" as they look down to see what they've stepped on, and the maitre d' doesn't want to let the paramedics into the restaurant where they might further disturb people eating. The other scene is the long chapter in which McCoy, in a single day between arrest and release on bail, is transformed from a well-dressed, well-groomed man into a hot mess from a long perp walk in the rain through a long booking process and several hours in filthy holding pens with the rest of "the chow." His defenders are appalled by his appearance and speak of police brutality against a man presumed innocent; his prosecutors pride themselves on treating him "just like everyone else, with no special privileges. Equal justice." It occurs to no one, except maybe the reader, that maybe the big problem is that anyone is treated like this, and that it shouldn't just be an issue when it happens to the rich.
The Bonfire of the Vanities is ugly, full of racial stereotypes, problematical, suspenseful, epic, and unfortunately as relevant today as it was in the 1980s. Very highly recommended.
The Doublet Affair; Queen's Ransom; To Ruin a Queen, by Fiona Buckley. The Concubine's Tattoo; The Samurai's Wife, by Laurah Joh Rowland; The Mad Courtesan, by Edward Marston
Wincing and gagging, reiko applied layer after layer of dye to her teeth. Finally, she rinsed, spat, then held the mirror to her face. She viewed her reflection with dismay. The dead, black teeth contrasted sharply with the white face powder and red lip rouge, highlighting her skin's every imperfection. With the tip of her tongue, Reijko touched her chipped incisor, a habit in times of strong emotion. At age twenty, she looked ancient--and ugly. her days of study and martial arts practice were over; hope of romance withered. How could her husband want her for anything besides obedient servitude now?
---from The Concubine's Tattoo
"You were mad to venture here! If you've sent for help, you should have waited for it to come, and kept away, yourself! How on earth did you get in?"
"The way I suppose you did. Over the back fence, through the window and down the stairs."
"Alone? In the dark?"
"Yes.
Brockley had always treated me with respect, even when he was criticising me, but always, there had been in it a tinge of patronage: age to youth, worldly wisdom to innocence, man to that natural inferior, woman. Now in the lantern light, I saw in his eyes another kind of respect: that of comrade to equal comrade. It was warming.
--from The Doublet Affair
It was in this mood of suffering, with his sensibilities tingling and his faculties heightened, with his pain and his poetry fusing in perfect harmony, that he penned a long valedictory speech to king, queen and every woman he had ever worshipped. Words came easily but beautifully and the result was a minor miracle. Reading the verse quietly to himself, he knew that he had brought "Love's Sacrifice" to a most poignant and affecting conclusion. What he did not realize was that a speech of twenty lines would have a significance that went far beyond the boundaries of his play to put the whole company in mortal danger.
--from The Mad Courtesan
"On this journey, Ursula, I have got to know you for the first time. I think you already understand that my opinion of you has changed. Once, I thought that you did harm to Gerald when you ran off with him but for quite a long time now, I have thought that he chose better than I had first believed. I just want to say that now---I think he chose very well."
--from Queen's Ransom
The scream's middle notes churned his bowels into liquid fire. The wail resonated in his heart, which beat faster and faster, swelling inside his chest. As his lungs ballooned, he breathed with harsh gasps. He fell, writhing in agony. The scream's shrillness arced along his nerves; convulsions wracked him. In the final moment before pain devoured reason, he knew that he would never make his rendezvous. Nor would his dreams ever come to pass. Now the left minister's insides erupted. Hot blood surged into his throat, filled his ears, choked off his breath and blinded him. The scream's vibrations escalated until his brain exploded in a cataclysm of white-hot light.
Then death extinguished terror, pain and consciousness.
--from The Samurai's Wife
I sometimes felt as though I had spent my whole life trying to get things done without having the authority to do them. At Blanchepierre, I hadn't even had the authority to tell the physician to save my life; Matthew had done it for me. As for my work, it was in the nature of my peculiar career that I generally had to stay in the shadows, pretending to be a harmless guest or bystander, devoid of power and largely without protection. If I had companions, I usually felt responsible for their safety rather than the other way about.
--from To Ruin a Queen
I really should have read Fiona Buckley's Ursula Blanchard books last year--I've moved from Elizabeth to James I and Charles I by now--but, as I've said before, there's very little historical mystery set in the actual 17th Century. besides, these books, while not really satisfying whodunnits, are great adventures with a lot of information about Elizabeth's times, and with a decent girlpower heroine who illustrates awesomeness as well as the hurdles facing a female detective that, say, Marston's Nick Bracewell does not have. The Doublet Affair, Queen's RansomTo Ruin a Queen take Blanchard from rural England to France and Holland to Wales, and always, friend and enemy alike treat her as less than a person worthy of respect, and are continually surprised to find her clever and resourceful. In all three books--trigger warnings--there are men who feel entitled to force themselves on her, and who scold her for daring to resist them, falsely claiming to understand her as a woman of easy virtue and therefore with no rights to say no. They pull "social rank' in a way hard to understand in the modern world, and there's even an attempt to stone a woman to death for witchcraft. There are also references to actual and potential scandals that reflect the precarious position of Elizabeth herself.
Meanwhile, in feudal Japan, Laura Joh Rowland's lengthy series involving Sano Ichiro is settling into a set of stock characters and taking off as such. By the fourth and fifth volumes, Sano has an established sidekick, a determined recurring enemy, and best of all, gets married to a woman who, even in yet another woman-oppressing society, proves to be his true equal while Sano to his credit accepts her as such (eventually) and makes her part of his formidable array of crime-solving resources. In fact, by the end of The Samurai's Wife, which touches on the Emperor himself and supernatural ninja skills, he is sitting so pretty that one wonders what will make the next dozen or so books still waiting for me challenging. Very high recommendations.
I only got one Edward Marston book in this month. Unlike Buckley, his crime-infested Elizabethan players take their moment at the END of Queen Bess's reign, not the beginning, and The Mad Courtesan has her already near death, with the players' patron Lord Westfield wisely backing James of Scotland as heir to the throne while their evil rival company and their patron Lord Banbury backing Arabella Stuart and staging a play called The Spanish Jew to sway public opinion (did you know Elizabethan theater companies took sides in battles for the crown, with their own existences as companies on the line? They did! I read it in a novel, so you know it's true!). There's an evil plot by Banbury's company, a crime story where the killer is revealed in chapter one and the story lies in how they catch her...and then there's Nimbus the horse, who steals the show. Not much of a mystery, but a lot of history and a lot of fun.
Scientific treatises, by Blaise Pascal
Nothing is more common than good things; the only question is how to discern them; it is certain that all of them are natural and within our reach and even known by every one. But we do not know how to distinguish them. This is universal. It is not in things extraordinary and strange that excellence of any kind is found. We reach up for it, and we are further away, more often than not we must stoop. The best books are those whose readers think they could have written them. Nature, which alone is good, is familiar and common throughout.
A further example of the sudden prevalence of science in the philosophers of the 17th century, Blaise Pascal, though he only lived to be 40 and spent his last decade as a religious recluse, managed to delve quite nicely into the sciences in his youth. The treatises included in the Great Books volume of Pascal include New Experiments concerning the vacuum; Account of the Great Experiment concerning the equilibrium of fluids; Treatises on the equilibrium of fluids and on the weight of the mass of the air; On geometrical demonstration; Treatise on the arithmetical triangle; and Correspondence with Fermat on the theory of probabilities..
These seem to me like just the sort of scientific writing appropriate for a Great Books series. My general impression of the Science volumes in Great Books is that they stand out like sore, green thumbs. Mortimer Adler insists that they are intelligible to the layman, and I agree that science should not be ignored by lay people--but the books not only require a much more intense level of study--I am not a stupid man, and yet much of, for example, Descartes' Geometry went right over my head, even after several attempts--but are centuries out of date, and are useful primarily as historical interest or as examples of how thought can lead someone like Ptolemy (six hundred damn pages of Fail; see February 2013 Bookpost) to be wrong for the write reasons. Pascal, in contrast, is mostly intelligible on a high school level and his vacuum experiment and probability demonstrations can be used today.
Additionally, the ideas segue into one another, starting with the demonstration that it is possible to create a vacuum, transitioning to fluids seeking their own level, to the weight of air as calculated by doing the same experiments at ground level and on a high mountain, to some geometrical proofs, to the use of the arithmetical triangle in such proofs, to use of said triangle to compute probabilities, to more about probabilities.
One of the more confusing concepts--Pascal sure had a thing for wagers--involved situations where people bet on such things as rolling at least one "six" in eight throws of a d6, and then withdraw from the bet without actually throwing. In my world, that means the bet is off and no one wins or loses anything; in Pascal's world, you lose your stake immediately upon betting, and what you get back if you withdraw without throwing is based on the probability that you would have won. Granted, Pascal probably just brought this up as a hypothetical to illustrate how many times eight throws could include one or more sixes, but it got me sidetracked as to what fool would bet and then withdraw under those circumstances. O tempora, o mores, and all that.
Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell
You have strayed into a respectable quarter, and you see a prosperous friend coming. To avoid him you dodge into the nearest cafe. Once in the cafe you must buy something, so you spend your last fifty centimes on a glass of black coffee with a dead fly in it. One could multiply these disasters by the hundred. They are part of the process of being hard up.
You discover what it is like to be hungry. With bread and margarine in your belly, you go out and look into the shop windows. Everywhere there is food insulting you in huge, wasteful piles; whole dead pigs, baskets of hot loaves, great yellow blocks of butter, strings of sausages, mountains of potatoes, vast Gruyere cheeses like grindstones. A snivelling self-pity comes over you at the sight of so much food. You plan to grab a loaf and run, swallowing it before they catch you; and you refrain, from pure funk.
Orwell's probably autobiographical novel Is pretty much what the title says: Orwell (or the narrator) spends several months scrounging for bare subsistence in Paris, and then in London, keeping company with several sad sacks, oppressed proletariats, wastrels and rogues, and the employers, landlords and pawnbrokers who prey on them.
We see the underclass made to pay most of what they own, by the week or month, for shelter in filthy rooming houses where the fleas eat for free. We see a French restaurant that makes me gag at the thought of ever eating in Paris--never mind whether you tip the waitstaff; their bodily secretions are all over what you eat as a matter of course, the kitchen is a running sewer, and the pecking order from the maitre d to the cooks to the plongeurs (busboys) makes the armed services look like a socialist paradise. And guess which position Orwell and his friend Boris had...
There are day jobs. there is petty crime. There are chapters about the street buskers, sidewalk chalk artists, petty peddlers and con artists all trying to get enough to eat for the day. There is the Salvation Army, presented as a bunch of cruelly judgmental brutes who never let their victims forget that they are receiving charity from their betters. There are many examples of ways the desperate manage to stretch a franc or a shilling. And a whole lot of editorials about "what to do about the poor" that read much differently to an actual poor person than to a bourgeoise reader of the Times.
Must reading for anyone who thinks the poor are drunken, addicted scoundrels who get that way by making poor choices; a brief but gripping read for anyone else. And a good look into the mind of one of those "shiftless good for nothing wastrels" who went on to write Animal Farm and 1984.
Dwellers in the Mirage, by A. Merritt
A woman came riding down the blue sward. She was astride a great black mare. She wore, like a hood, the head of a white wolf. Its pelt covered her shoulders and back. Over that silvery pelt her hair fell in two thick braids of flaming red. Her high, round breasts were bare, and beneath them the paws of the white wolf were clasped like a girdle. Her eyes were blue as the cornflower and set wide apart under a broad, low forehead. Her skin was milky-white flushed with soft rose. Her mouth was full-lipped, crimson, and both amorous and cruel.
She was a strong woman, tall almost as I. She was like a Valkyrie, and like those messengers of Odin she carried on her saddle before her, held by one arm, a body. But it was no soul of a slain warrior snatched up for flight to Valhalla. It was a girl. A girl whose arms were bound to her sides by stout thongs, with head bent hopelessly on her breast. I could not see her face; it was hidden under the veil of her hair. But the hair was russet red and her skin as fair as that of the woman who held her.
This was on a list of "great classic SF books. After reading it, I can't imagine why anyone would put it there. It's not even good classic pulpy SF.
The characters, including Lief the narrator, might as well be claymation. There's officially war and love, but not so's you would notice from any character description. Lief finds his way, first in the Gobi desert and then in Alaska, to one of those hidden societies run by "others" (in this case, Amazons and yellow pygmies), and therefore in need of a strapping can-do American white guy to lead them. Instead of "avatars", we have him recover his memory of being a God named Dwayne Dwayanu, who was either evil or good depending on who you listen to. And the buff, hot chycks all want his attention. The battles are dull. The sex is dull. The human sacrifices are dull. Occasionally there's a killer flower or an innovative weapon or something, but describing THINGS, not people or feelings or rationales, is all that Merritt does.
If I was a horny 13 year old who wanted to write myself doing hero shit so the buff hot chycks would swoon for me, I'd do something like this. And it would have about as much quality.
Hadrian the Seventh, by Frederick Rolfe
So died Hadrian VII, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, and (some say) martyr). So died Peter in the arms of Caesar.
The world sobbed, sighed, wiped its mouth, and experienced extreme relief.
The college of Cardinals summed Him up in the brilliant epigram of Tacitus: "Carpax imperii nisi imperasset." He would have been an ideal ruler if He had not ruled.
Religious people said that He was an incomprehensible creature. And the man on the motor said that the pace certainly had been rather rapid.
Pray for the repose of His soul. He was so tired.
Stories in which Everyman protagonists, or even low simpletons, get elevated to positions of power where they either fail humorously or prove more wise and capable than the actual high and mighty, have always been popular, from governor Sancho Panza and the prologue to Taming of the Shrew to the Beverly Hillbillies and that movie where a belching John Goodman becomes King of England. Rolfe's variation has a bookish, English liberal humanist chosen via quirky circumstances to be the Pope.
As usual in stories of this kind, the tone meanders from silly to wise, with George the Pope starting out capricious (for example, titling himself Hadrian the Seventh when his predecessor had been Hadrian the Fourth. Because His Eminence Says So) to serious efforts to reform the church, violently and underhandedly opposed by the conservatives of the Vatican, manufactured scandal attempts, and ultimately, of course, assassination by a "lone fanatic who has never ever been exposed to right wing propaganda, probably even a liberal plant trying to make the conservatives look bad".
I found it whimsical. I probably would have liked it more if it had been about a philosopher king than a philosopher Pope, and hadn't needed the endless religious dogma discussions. On the other hand, it got me thinking about the current Pope Francis, who I can't help admiring warts and all, and wondering how safe a partial liberal can be in a religious city.
Harvard Classics "Voyages and Travels" volume
Immediately tokens were given unto the Delight, to cast about to seaward, which, being the greater ship, and of burthen 120 tons, was yet foremost upon the breach, keeping so ill watch, that they knew not the danger, before they felt the same, too late to recover it; for presently the Admiral struck aground, and had soon after her stern and hinder parts beaten in pieces; whereupon the rest (that is to say, the frigate, in which was the General, and the Golden Hind) cast about east-south-east, bearing to the south, even for our lives, into the wind’s eye, because that way carried us to the seaward. Making out from this danger, we sounded one while seven fathom, then five fathom, then four fathom and less, again deeper, immediately four fathom, then but three fathom, the sea going mightily and high. At last we recovered, God be thanked, in some despair, to sea room enough.
The Harvard Classics is a weird sort of "liberal education". Most of the works; I'm reading individually, according to their time period. Some volumes, however, have enough short works that it's easier to look at the volume as a whole. The "voyages and travels" volume pretty much advances my theory that the "Doctor Elliott" who compiled the set, was an arbitrary eccentric. Either that, or Harvard people study the set so that they can identify their fellow snoots by quoting from works no one else reads.
"Voyages and Travels" includes the "Egypt" chapter from Herodotus (See Bookpost, January 2011) and the Germania from Tacitus (Bookpost, September 2012)--the only representation of these two great ancient historians in the set, and both of them anthropological descriptions of a culture foreign to the author--not a work of travel among the people of that area.
The rest of the volume--the part I read this month--consists of some Elizabethan-era voyages: three by Sir Francis Drake, including one about the "Great Armada", which is not the Spanish Armada but a flotilla of ships that Drake took to raid the Sapnish settlements in the Caribbean; sir Humphrey Gilbert's trip to Newfoundland; and Sir Walter Raleigh's trip to Giunea, where he claims to have discovered El Dorado, the legendary city of gold.
Curse Sir Walter Raleigh. He was such a stupid git.
These accounts are among the most boring travel writing I've ever seen. The quoted paragraph above is about a motherfucking SHIPWRECK, and it makes me want to nod off. The accounts were written by midshipmen on board, who were more interested in (or were just following the command to) praise the mighty, blessed-of-God captain on every page, keep count of the provisions aboard, and, if there's space left after that, write a paragraph or two about what happened while traveling where no European had gone before. Everyone they encounter, Spaniard and Indigenous alike, is considered less than human. Everything the Captain does is considered a stroke of genius. There are dull fights at sea, dull storms, and dull loss of life. As a first impression of a new continent, it leaves much to be desired.
Into the Heart of Borneo, by Redmond O'Hanlon
"This is the big one," I announced. "This is the day we conquer Everest."
James stirred. There was a heart-rending groan.
"Oh no it isn't," he said, unexpectedly. He clambered half out of the mosquito net, sat on the side of the pole hammock, and held his head. "This is the day YOU conquer Everest. You see, Redmond, I don't have to prove my manhood. In fact, this is the day on which I enjoy my own personal space, miles, but MILES from anywhere. I shall potter about. I shall see something MARVELLOUS. I shall read Swift and Hugo and Vaughan."
"Vaughan?"
"All right, so you think he's a baroque shit? As a special concession to you, as a mark of the profound respect in which I hold your opinions, I shall not read Vaughan. Okay? Can I go now?"
"You must do exactly what you want to do. And if you get a blowpipe-dart in the bum, give us a shout."
Ghost of Doctor Elliott, take note. THIS is what good travel writing is. It's funny. it's suspenseful. It's educational. It's everything that Raleigh and Drake's chroniclers are not.
Three 80s-era Englishmen explore Malaysian Borneo, sharing Monty Python quotes, challenging one another to stick their dicks in the river to catch pirhana, and describing with stoic dry with the probability of being eaten by pythons. Wonderful descriptions of history (by which they mean, the history of Englishmen like James Brooke coming to rescue the native peoples and enabling them to make something of themselves, wot-wot? I didn't say it was perfect); wonderful descriptions of the various highly dangerous wildlife they find sharing their cots in the morning; wonderful descriptions of post-English natives sadly and prophetically warning of the consequences of Mrs. Thatcher suddenly excluding them from access to English education and driving them to take their commerce to Japan. Very high recommendations.
Money--Mastering the Game, by Tony Robbins
What if money didn't matter?
How would you feel if you didn't have to worry about going into an office every morning, or paying the bills, or funding your retirement? What would it be like to live your life on your own terms? What would it mean to know you had the opportunity to start your own business, or that you could afford to buy a home for your parents, and send your kids to college, or have the freedom to travel the world?
How would you live your life if you could wake up each day knowing there was enough money coming in to cover not only your basic needs but also your goals and dreams?
There is considerable good and bad about Tony Robbins. The good part is that he really does have useful things to say and really has made a difference in the lives of many people, including myself, if you define success as doing the things you already know you should be doing while ceasing to do the things you already know you should not be doing. Robbins has psychological tools to get you to change your behavior that way, and to improve your state of mind while you're at it. his book Awaken the Giant Within is on my list of "100 books that rocked my world".
The bad part is that he is a master manipulator and a "rich salesman" (and as wise people know, you should never buy from a rich salesman, though you probably should hire a rich lawyer). Everything he says and how he says it sets off, and should set off, red warning flags, especially when it comes to telling you what you should do with your money. Also, he has an unfortunate tendency to hold up role models of success, like John DeLorean and OJ Simpson, who fall spectacularly some time after the book is published. I was waiting for a shout out to Bill Cosby in this, his newest, but it never came.
Awaken the Giant within was printed over 20 years ago. It featured a young TR in a fancy suit and tie, smiling from the cover of the book out at you, all 32 teeth showing, and pointing straight out at you. This new one is calculated to make him look "earthy", posed before what looks like the back of a cave, hair wet and tousled, six-day Brad Pitt stubble on his face, eyes half shut in Buddha-like serenity. He still has all 32 teeth showing, and they look like they glow in the dark.
More than half of Mastering the Game is devoted to putting you in a certain frame of mind for swallowing what he has, and acting impulsively. Of his "seven steps to wealth mastery", only the middle three are worthwhile. The others can be summarized as:
1. Make the DECISION to be an investor and not just a consumer.
2. Everything you know about investments is wrong, and any existing broker you have is stealing from you.
6. Here are some short interviews with some name-drop-worthy billionaires Tony likes to schmooze with, from Warren Buffett (good) to Mary Callahan Erdoes (very untrustworthy; my bet to be the one who falls spectacularly post publication), mostly talking about how rich and philanthropical and what wonderful people they are).
7. Now that you're rich, don't forget to enjoy it and share with the less fortunate, possibly by donating to this handy list of Tony Robbins charities.
Now here is the real meat and potatoes of the book:
3. Some numbers to help you figure out what it would take for you to become financially free.
The basic equation is, compute what you are spending NOW per month to keep you in the lifestyle you have now. Multiply that amount by 12, and then by 20, and that's the amount you need to have in order to live that lifestyle without bringing in new income (called "independence"). There are lower numbers you can compute (just add your rent/mortgage, utilities, insurance, basic food, and transportation costs per month times 12 times 20 to get "security"; or add the monthly cost of some extra luxuries to the "independence" figure to get "freedom."
To save that money, you should consider moving to Bumblefuck, Iowa, where the cost of living is lower. Otherwise, SAVE more (spend less), EARN more money, and/or get a HIGHER RATE OF RETURN on what you invest, and those are the ways to make a fortune. Also, when the tax collector contacts you, just say "I forgot".
4. ASSET ALLOCATION: You should have 60% of your assets in SAFE investments that have low rates of return but that don't lose money--cash, bonds, CDs, your own residence (which you should not mortgage like those fools did who lost it all in 2008), Social Security, your pension, annuities, life insurance. you should have 40% in RISKIER investments with potentially higher returns--equities, real estate, junk bonds, commodities, currencies, collectibles.
A billionaire fund manager named David Swensen recommends 20% domestic stock, 20% international stock, 10% emerging markets, 20% REITs, 15% long term US treasury notes and 15% TIPS notes. Note that this is 30% SAFE and 70% RISKY, but just turn the page.
5. INCOME FOR LIFE: Another billionaire fund manager, Ray Dalio, recommends 40% long term US bonds, 15% intermediate US bonds, 30% stocks, 7.5% gold and 7.5% commodities. (this is 55% SAFE and 45% RISKY).
You might also consider an annuity, which will give you a guaranteed income stream for life; private placement life insurance, which you can borrow from tax free; and a living trust so when you're a billionaire you can leave money to your loved ones tax free.
And that's the meat of the book. My experience and observations to the contrary are that at the moment, bonds, CDs and the other "safe" vehicles return almost no income and tie up your money. Might as well just keep it under the mattress.
Commodities, currencies, collectibles, options, futures--those are things that only professionals who speculate in those things for a living should touch. They make their money by taking it from people who dabble. Seems to me, the only things that should go in an average person's "risky" bucket are stocks, index funds (American, international or emerging markets), REITs and if you're really rich, maybe some gold as the rich man's inflation hedge.
Robbins includes a link to a FREE evaluation of your existing portfolio by his friends at Stronghold dot com. If you go there, it will recommend the portfolio described at the start of #5 above, and will then make it frighteningly easy for you, by clicking "ok", to have all of your existing brokerage assets transferred to the Stronghold company for them to manage.
And yes--for most Americans today, the information here is worthless. The billionaires in section six have taken all the wealth for themselves and won't let you earn or save enough to put anything aside. The first step--in this book and all the other financial planning books--is to set aside an emergency fund so that when your car dies or you have a medical expense or you lose your job, you've got the money there, accessible without regard to whether the market is up or down right then. And, for more than 60% of us, just covering THAT part is going to be the challenge of a decade.
But if you have a nest egg, you can go for it, and Creepy Uncle Tony will see you at the top. Just--be careful where his own bottom line is at stake.
Find all of my previous Bookposts here: http://admnaismith.livejournal.com/tag/bookposts