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A Conspiracy of Paper
Aug
2008
I finished A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss a while ago and still haven’t been able to decide whether or not I liked it. It’s basically about the prelude to the first financial bubble in London, which is where the stock markets first began to develop back in the early 18th century.
As a novel, the book is part historical mystery and part Intro to Financial Markets for Morons (Wait!! You mean when you tell people the stock is going to go up they start to buy?!? Like that.) with a little romance thrown in for good measure. And while it doesn’t manage to present a particularly compelling mystery nor does it serve to educate at any level that would be useful (the romance is so poorly done, it’s not even worth mentioning again), a quick pace and eventful plot keeps the book from becoming mired in its (numerous) shortcomings. My instinct was to dislike the book, but somehow it managed to keep my interest and wasn’t unenjoyable.
So, yeah, the writing isn’t anything special. And no, the characters herein would never finangle their way into any Literary Hall of Fame. And yeah, you have to really strech reality to believe that this bumbling bully would ever really manage to unravel any sort of mystery without getting himself killed (the villians in the book just hand him information). But hey — it’s a good subway read and divides up neatly into 20-minute chunks. Three (maybe two-and-a-half if I’d had a bad morning) stars.
2 Comments » Love in the Time of Cholera
Jul
2008
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. Suffice to say, I didn’t like it. Not to come off as some sort of ardent feminist, but I think it grossly oversimplifies women (they’re either Madonnas or complete flat-out whores — some literally — who basically serve to service men), and it seems more like a parody of love than anything resembling an actual courtship. I think the biggest thing is that it seemed to show a lack of understanding or at least lack of depth about people (their desires, motives, etc.) so that the characters in it come off as flat and difficult to relate to. Basically, the book is summed up as: boy meets girl. Girl marries someone else. Boy waits for her husband to die and has a lot of sex. Over half a century later, boy and girl hook up.
I’ve always felt like I should like Gabriel García Márquez more because he’s supposed to be so wonderful, but it was pretty painstaking to get through this novel (though I have to admit I found the first few chapters well-written and engrossing) and I disliked Chronicle of a Death Foretold even more (summed up: blindly following traditions is bad). I read Chronicle for school, however, so I always assumed that I disliked it mostly due to my associating that book with classwork. Guess not.
Baring some use of symbolism that maybe some English majors would appreciate more than I do (I find that symbolism generally does not enhance the value of any book for me because it serves neither to educate or entertain), I failed to find any particularly notable literary value in this book. Also, it talks about the aging process a lot, which I guess I don’t appreciate, seeing as how I’m 22. Obviously, I didn’t enjoy it so reading it for pure entertainment value is out, too. I’d give it two-and-a-half stars.
The Curse
Jul
2008
The curse continues.
Every time I come to New York City, my glasses break not long thereafter: the first time was with my family in middle school, and my glasses snapped in half. I wore them with taped up along the middle, a la uber-geek style.
The second time was with my choir cohorts my junior year as part of the annual trip. That year, New York City was chosen, and — what I assumed to be a mild coincidence — the screw came out of right side of my glasses as I sat down for a production of La Boheme, directed by Baz Luhrmann. I held the glasses in place for the next three two hours, and we found a small optometrist’s office somewhere around 43rd and 5th the next day.
I finally realized that this was no mere accident during the summer of my sophomore year when Iris and I planned a trip to Manhattan. Like clockwork, one day before I departed for the trip, my glasses broke (right side, snapped) and had to be taped up once again. A summer later during my internship at Ogilvy, my lenses popped out and I spent the next three months popping them back in on a weekly basis until I got new glasses.
So, as I made my preparations for my viage to New York, I ordered an extra pair of glasses before I left. For a while, I kept the extra pair on hand, bracing for what I assumed would be an unavoidable occurrence. After almost a month, lulled into a false sense of security, I actually thought I was in the clear and suspended that practice (carrying an extra pair of glasses if annoying when you have a small handbag).
I’m sure you can guess what I’m going to say now. So, for the record, last friday, after our annual Legal Assistant Party in a club called No Malice Palace, the screws came out on the right side of my glasses as I was chatting with Patrick and Dave. Dave was nice enough to walk home with me so I didn’t get hit by car. And so it goes.
Back in NYC
Jun
2008
Once again, I’m in Manhattan, except this time for good. For the sake of my own records, I’m going to transcribe a needlessly detailed of the past three/four weeks here:
I came up on the 29th (of May) to start apartment hunting and managed to find an amazing apartment — that was within budget! — within the first 3 hours. Cool. However, because I was traveling with my mom, we ended up staying at the West Side YMCA for the next week until she left. Mostly we did a bunch of sightseeing, bought me a bed, scouted out some furniture, etc. The best part was that we did the cancellation line for Wicked and ended up with amazing seats! The show itself was wonderful, though I felt the first act was significantly better than the second, the latter seeming quite rushed actually. We tried our hand at the lotto for it, too, but didn’t win. A guy that we’d been talking to, Randy, DID win and that was good cause otherwise his friends wouldn’t have come with him. Long story, but he was a nice guy and we were happy for him.
Anyway, overall, it was a good start to my NYC trip, but by the time my mom left I still had three weeks left until my start-date for work…eeek. Okay, so my agenda was pretty simple: 1) Decide on first-day-of-work outfit and 2) Furnish apartment. Technically, I budgeted $1,000 to buy all furniture. Technically, I’ve stayed well within that budget. In actuality, however, I’ve had a lot of expenses that are not strictly furniture, but are for the room nonetheless. For example, buying a floor length mirror, over-the-door hooks, totes and cubbies, hangers, etc. Either way, the room looks great (if I may say so myself), but yes, I have overspent. I’m not all that upset, really. I’m waiting for my two most expensive furniture pieces to come in, and I’ll post pictures when they do.
So, moving on. After deciding on my furniture (and in-between checking the order status and tracking on everything constantly), I decided to focus on decorating, such as buying a Mint Potted Topiary from Crate and Barrel and buying my pièce de résistance…a painting!
I love my painting! It’s a wonderful 62” x 26” print on canvas (it’s a canvas transfer with some textured gloss overcoat) of Last View of Tuscany by Philip Craig. It matches perfectly with my comforters and bedding. In a somewhat amusing (ahem) story, I actually got it off Craigslist, except the first time I went to go get it — note that I had to take an hour-and-fifteen-minute subway ride — it started raining like crazy the second I got out of the subway. I ended up having to buy a Times from a Starbucks nearby and run over to the guy’s apartment being completely soaked and ridiculous with my drenched newspaper flopping over my head — only to reschedule for later. At any rate, the guy I bought it from was really cute and when I went the next day to transport the painting back home, the cab driver was, like, the nicest cabbie in the whole of New York. I feel the painting and I were kismet. I think I’m going to name it Bartholomew after my ex-car.
Also, my birthday has managed to pass rather uneventfully in comparison to last year. However, no one’s in town so that’s not really unexpected. I ended up hanging out with Marek, and we just caught up on the past semester, went to Pinkberry, etc. I’m also going out with my roommates tomorrow (it was supposed to be today, but both roommates had bad days at work so we just got dinner and drinks at Yukka and left it at that) to party it up, haha. Anyway, I’ll hold off on talking about the roommates (who are pretty great, by the way) because I need to get to bed soon…
So, now I’m roughly three days away from starting work (OMFG!!), and I’m both freaked out and completely excited as well. I’m restless to become a productive member of society, haha. At any rate, I love New York. I have yet to meet any unpleasant people, which I realize is an anomaly. I’d write more, but I’m quite sleepy. More tomorrow!
Summer Cleaning
May
2008
It’s that time of the year again … yes, that’s right, I spent yesterday reformatting my computer! Now it’s all happy and empty, ready to be filled with endless downloads. I also came up with a conclusion: I think I might actually like Windows Vista. Seeing as how I know a horde of Apple-crazed fanboys, I realize this is a somewhat dangerous thing to say. However, I think Vista is really being over-vilified at this point.
Alright, so, when I first got my new computer (the inverter on my previous Pavillion broke), I was really psyched until I found out that despite having nice specs, I was actually worse off in terms of what I could do. There was the file-transfer bug plus compatibility issues plus general unfamiliarity plus that POS user account control. I basically couldn’t play any of the games that I’d gotten this computer in order to play and three out of the seven programs I use most often weren’t compatible. Color me peeved.
Needless to say, being told it was “more secure” did not seem like much of a plus at all. Anyway, it took me at least a week to — begrudingly — configure everything to get to some point where I was able to do what I needed to do.
Flash forward a year: I haven’t noticed anymore bugs, though I won’t vouch for anyone else. Now, before, reformatting on XP was an incredibly arduous process requiring hours of your somewhat undivided attention. On Vista, it took about 20 minutes and I was up and running after about half an hour of installing drivers and updates. Now, I’m not suggesting that people should immediately pick up a copy of Vista because gee, at least it installs quickly, but I really think there’s a number of not insignificant improvements that genuinely make it easier to use. I was pleased to find that all my precious programs are now finally Vista-compatible. w00t. Additionally, when I’m not busy cussing out my computer for compatibility issues, I actually find the interface pretty attractive.
I can completely understand people who were pissed off when it was released and even six months after that. However, honestly, can anyone tell me what’s currently so terrible about Vista? (Preferably someone who has actually used it as opposed to a Mac fanatic that has never spent more that 5 minutes on Vista.) UAC can be turned off in about four clicks after the system is installed, so no that doesn’t count.
Anyway, maybe I just really dislike Apple, I dunno. I just think people are taking one look, saying OMG IT’S NOT THE SAME!! and deciding they hate it. Then again, I’m also the only person that likes Office 2007, haha. Change is good! Go with it, people!
