I get through at least two books a summer. I know some people pound through them but I also spend summer time doing all the house maintenance that I have ignored for the other ten months. This summer I have stepped it up and put myself out there with three books. It is a bit of a cheat, I have already two before. But having finished one and half way through the other two I can recommend them all. With out further ado:
This is one of my favorite books having read it for at least the third time. Thompson’s journey through the colon of America in a search for the American Dream is a mind fuck of a drug trip. It details the myth and true promise of the drug counter-culture, open minds versus wrecked minds. Often passed off as a comedic genius this is really a rip into the fabric of society that permeated America coming out of the free love, free drug Sixties.
Screaming through Sin City on mescaline, coke, booze and even human hormone pulled from a living adrenal gland, the duo (Raol Duke and his attorney) expose the out of touch authorities and the broken dream of the decade before.Iidentifying Nixon as the start of America’s bad trip he stumbles through the rest in a haze that is now merely trying to avoid the inevitable collapse. Starting on search he ends on a run from the horrors of what he finds.
I tried hard to have my own reenactment in college. Fear and Loathing could never be truer in totally nailing the “free mind” drugs give you. It also gives good insight to those friends that could not realize the bad news and walk out of the trip. Assailed by the imaginary bats and and almost real dragons of the casino, I wanted to stay myself.
Checking Amazon, the first item was the movie. Dude, the book is so much better than the movie, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Criterion Collection” (Terry Gilliam), could ever be. It might be tempting to short cut this one for the movie but the rambling mess of story is easy to follow in the book but makes a mess of a visual story. The best deal is to read the book and just browse the movie, checking out the scenes that are the most interesting. I do have to admit the opening scenes in the car on the road to Las Vegas made me laugh my ass off.
“Trouble Is My Business” (Raymond Chandler)
I love Chandler. The hard-boiled PI maybe isn’t his invention and it is hard pressed to figure anyone else out that can do it better. Maybe a bit of Dashiel Hammett, Complete Novels, whose Red Harvest puts the violent films of today to miserable shame. Trouble is a collection of shorts featuring the beloved Philip Marlowe, who always seems to find himself tangled in a mess that is a mile deeper than it ever started out. The language is sparse and drove American literature a bit to the edge it became in later novels. Partly because of Chandler being a Brit and not really knowing the American dialect, he sort of made it up.
The best part of are the continuously flawed characters Chandler creates. Hollywood actors, Las Vegas gamblers, tycoons and misfits of all types swirl together in mayhem that is understated and portrays what America felt about Los Angeles and its participants of the 30’s and 40’s. It is timeless though. Many situations could very well happen in the Hollywood Hills of 2007. And you end up liking them all somehow. He is sympathetic but still manages to give every one a dose of the medicine they deserve. Marlowe is the morals the story and also the amoral example, in it for himself at many times.
I I had to picked this one up after Christina made funny of me for picking up the The Long Goodbye for the twentieth time.
“Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” (David Allen)
I know the GTD crowd is about to achieve cult status but the problem is that the stuff works. I began digging in because of the mountain of email I had been getting between personal and my Colonialtown stuff. Add in the fact that the spam engines had ensnared me, I ended up getting 200 to 300 emails per day. I began looking for nifty ways, smart folders and rules etc., to handle them and to weed through the 90% spam rate. GTD sites kept coming up. I realized that my time management was part of the problem and began delegating the email sorting and the such to certain times.
Well, work has also been an issue. Sites like 43folders and lifehacker highlight the tips from Allen to use in the workday. I have fought for a method to the madness at work. They have downsized my department from two to one. I need something to handle the issues that tend to pore in. It is a squeaky wheel culture. I decided to pick up GTD and give a read. I am half way through and dig it.
First, it deals with the inflow of request that bely you daily. The idea of setting time a side to respond to email, phone calls and such is tremendous. Since that is how my issues come in I was at the mercy of the most recent and scatter logical order. It is all common sense and flexible to an extent. Also the time management seems counter to what we have been taught but it focuses on giving the most time to productivity and continuous work rather than the weird lists we tend to work from.
Second, and the best part is that it maintains principles rather that methods to work through the system. This means you can modify it to fit how things have to be done. It focuses on working down to the simplest solution or process to get through the project. It also lays out the common sense questions you ask yourself when the junk flows in, is this something I need to do, when and how, etc. Plus the best rule is the two-minute rule, if it can be done in two minutes, doit right away. Just trying hard to implement that has been a boost.
The focus is off of adding more junk like technology and sticking to the framework you establish. The hipster PDA and old school concepts like an inbox seem common sensical and like duh moments but it is refreshing from all the complex crap we throw at things to work better.
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