Book Review

Book Review: The Tipping Point By Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is an author whose books I totally love. “Blink” and “Outliers” were both so awesome, I couldn’t help but give “The Tipping Point” a whirl.

Besides being a Malcolm Gladwell book (read: awesome from the start) this book cleared up a mystery for me. Not a stay up late at night mystery, but along simmering Emily mystery: Why was Paul Revere’s ride so successful and whatever happened to the other guy that rode out that same night? I mean, if old Paul had knocked on my door late at night, I probably would have thought it was a burglar. But New Englanders sometimes do weird things (witch hunts, fluff sandwiches, wearing pink and green together, I can go on, but this is about Gladwell’s book) and it was to their credit that they did muster and face the British. But I could never quite envision in my head exactly how this went down. What did Paul say to these people?

Apparently Paul’s ride had all the elements in place to start a chain of events – it met his criteria for a tipping point. First, the people involved usually fall into the category of connectors, mavens and salesmen. Second, the information or object needs to have a stickiness factor. Finally, the overall message has to be in the right context.

Paul Revere was apparently a major connector and information maven, and the other guy who rode out that night, while being nice enough and a good citizen was not. So when Paul gave out the message they took it seriously. “If Paul’s telling me to muster, other people will be mustering too.” He also had the right information and knew enough people to go right to the salesmen in each town – the people that could get other people to muster in that town. The other guy probably told people who went back to bed, or who didn’t have enough pull to get the others to muster.

The second point is that the idea has to be “sticky”. Stickiness is something that MBA types – especially marketing MBA types- give a lot of thought to and it’s hard to pin down. What makes a piece of information actionable or distraction proof? Here he goes into a fascinating description of some of the research on children’s television, namely Sesame Street and its successor Blue’s Clues. The portion on stickiness was probably the weakest section of the book, but it’s a hard concept to pin down.

The third point is the importance of context. Here he makes the claim that the reduction in crime in NYC was a result of a crackdown on petty crimes, like vandalism and turnstile jumping. Gladwell writes that if the subway car is clean of graffiti and you know if you jump the turnstile you will be prosecuted, then you are less likely to engage in opportunistic crime. He states that people commit crime when they are in a context where crime pays, and will think twice otherwise. This was fascinating to me, since it is such a simple concept that has so obviously paid off in a big way for NYC. It also makes me want to go tear down all the abandoned factories in North Philadelphia.

All in all, this was very powerful book. Malcolm Gladwell deserves his reputation. For me personally, two things came out of the book. First, was that I was so happy when he quoted the David Hackett Fischer book, “Paul Revere’s Ride” and I was able to go to the bookshelf and flip through it. One of my bucket list dreams is to have a truly awesome personal library and I was so happy I was able to link these two seemingly random books. I’ve wondered lately about going all digital with books, but it was really nice to go to the shelves on the porch and scan through the titles till I found it. The second main point was that I will totally pay more attention to the little things that set the context in life. That is why this week I got these flowers at work.

They were just a few dollars from the flower lady outside, but besides being pretty I figured I’d work a little bit on setting a more positive context.

A spring weekend in April…

This weekend I took Matt to his first soccer practice. Matt was very shy of course, and so we ended up mostly watching the other kids. A few times he did get in there to kick the ball and the coach told him he did a good job. Matt totally has the concept of soccer down, or rather I should say, futbol. He should, kicking the ball was something we started very early (like when he could walk).

Today was a rainy Sunday, so we spent most of the days indoors. Ger was post overnight, so it was definitely a PJ’s day.

When you are in the house on a weekend in PJs and it’s raining, that means baking.

Matt was a very good helper, he helped measure out the ingredients including counting the eggs. These were bran and flax muffins with apples and carrots so it had a lot of ingredients.

Post- Easter

This weekend, I took Matt to the Zoo along with our neighbors, Adam and Marta and their two kids. Matt was most mesmerized by the puma.

And here is where the I-phone camera reaches its limits. The puma was right by the glass and Matt was right up close, but  I just couldn’t get a close enough shot. I think it may be time to research cameras, or at least practice having the other digital camera around more. That would have been an awesome shot. (In fact there were so many good shots, but I wasn’t lucky that day.)

 

Matt and Emmett also enjoyed seeing the snake exhibit.

Meanwhile, I’ve been crushed, CRUSHED that Au Bon Pain changed their sandwiches. If  ever there was a sign of inflation this it. It is all the same price, but they are smaller, less pesto and they had some strange processed may spread. So I’m resorting to making one of my favorites and packing it.

Mozzarella, Pesto and Tomato with Spinach. What is the world coming to when Au Bon Pain changes the sandwiches? The end is near folks.

Meanwhile this week, the rosemary is looking pretty wild, so I put some into a marinade for grilled shrimp…

 

Rosemary can also be used in the base for a cottage pie…

 

but no not in brownies. We had a brownie craving but I couldn’t find the box. We normally have several on hand so I attempted from scratch. The Joy of Cooking recipe didn’t disappoint, but for time mgmt. purposes, the box is still faster.

Of course ultimate organization would have meant that I would have found one of the four boxes we had on hand, but Rome wasn’t built in a day…

Easter Week

Last week started off with the ritual egg coloring…

I think we’ll hold on trying marbled eggs again till Matt’s a little older. Adding olive oil to the coloring definitely makes a big mess.

Ger and Matt had some fun listening to heart beats. Vax made a good patient.

We also renewed our membership to the Morris Arboretum. With some coaxing, I got Matt out on the “Out on a Limb” installment.

What he did remember was the fishes at the fernery. I was very impressed he remembered them, as it had been over six months since we were last at the arboretum.

It really is a secret gem in Philadelphia.

We also took Matt to see the dinosaurs at the Franklin Institute. It was the last week of the exhibit and Ger is about to start a Trauma rotation, so we had a family outing.

They have a two story heart you can walk through. I have been doing some work on number crunching for TAVR patients at work, and so I asked Ger to point out where the valve would go in this procedure.

It struck me how twisty the aortic valve can be, I can really see how plaque could build up in there. Matt really enjoyed walking through the heart, I think he understood it was what he was listening too with his dad the night before.

Checkin’ out the fountain in Franklin Square…

I have some more recipe stuff coming. This is not the same banana bread as last week. I’ve been playing with different versions. Last week was from the ‘Joy of Cooking’ – generous with butter, sugar and eggs. This one is with canola oil, whole wheat bread, brown sugar and egg whites…

…and so the pendulum swings the other way. We’ve been so into getting as many calories as possible into Matt, that I’ve ignored all I learned living in NH/VT. (Somewhere in the middle is probably the place to be).

End of March

Where can the Carroll boys be found as we enter spring?
The usual: Matthew loves to play, and Ger has resumed his position at the grill.
:-)



So it's been about two weeks since I took a look what was on my Iphone. I need to be better about taking pictures as we are out and about. Jenny came to visit (yay!) and I didn't take any pictures, we went to Dan and Anna's birthday party for Alex (2 years) and I didn't take any pictures. Eugene came to visit and we made steak dinner and I didn't take any pictures. So we do do stuff and we do leave the house, I'm just a terrible at remembering to take pictures. Which like so many things, I'm working on!



I do have a handful of some that aren't terrible. Ger and I went our for sushi for anniversary and these oysters where just delish. The weather was unseasonably warm, so we were able to sit outside and people watch. Just sitting still for an hour was a true treat.



I did try and remember to take some pictures out and about, here's Matt trying to decide which apples to get at the co-op. We met Marta and Adam and Ricky at big blue marble, then got some supplies for an impromptu picnic.

Last week I also made a banana bread, another standard Emily recipe.



I have a new basic recipe that I've added into rotation. A tofu, red cabbage and squash stir fry that is filling and light and easy at the same time. It just feels right to eat this time of year. I'm making it again tonight for the week.




and finally we are back to soups. It's been a rich couple of days, cake at work to celebrate birthdays, Ralph's with Steven and then steak dinner with Eugene. So I decided to make a brothy asparagus soup for Sunday and the rest of the week.



Ger ate some too, with crusty french bread.

Book Review

All Things At Once by Mika Brezinski

Recommended and a supposedly a best seller, “All Things At Once” is Mika Breziniski’s memoir of her life up until she began hosting “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. In full disclosure, I don’t have cable, so I have never seen her show and didn’t really know anything about her prior to reading this memoir.

Those of you reading this blog know the utter contempt that I have for “investigative journalism,” and this book did nothing to improve my opinion of that field. If this book was not primarily about her working mom struggles, I probably would not have bothered with it. Americans hold their journalists in higher regard than most of the world, but I’ve always subscribed to the British view of journalists, namely that of tolerance tinged with contempt. An example of how easily they can be played is when Kate Middleton made her first speech and wore her mother’s dress, which sent the press into a tailspin about how the Middletons swap clothes. The move was semi-genius on Kate’s part, because it sent so-called journalists scouring the photo archives looking for more evidence of clothes swapping rather than focusing on criticizing her speech. I say semi-genius, because leading journalists is sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, and Kate may just be the proverbial one-eyed giant in a land of blind giants. So while I can grant journalism may be a physically exhausting job with terrible hours, that’s about all I am willing to concede.

So, I didn’t really have a lot of sympathy for Mika going into the book, which may be my own beef. A lot of Mika’s complaining about how exhausted and tired she was just fell on deaf ears to me. Now, Simone de Beauvoir once wrote something about a woman’s class and socioeconomic status over ruling gender in terms of solidarity. Her point was that a man and a woman with these things in common would band together more easily than two women from disparate classes or cultures. This came to mind reading about Mika because she is privileged – no doubt about that. She grew up in the shadow of the White House and her last name opened doors. She is a working woman of the 1%, but I did try to forgive her that for Beauvoir’s sake, even if I couldn’t quite get over her career choice.

The upshot is, for all her privilege, you would think she would have more time with her kids. Mika’s book needs to have a chat with Maria Shriver’s book. Maria had a once-in-a-lifetime interview with Fidel Castro moved so she could go to her kid’s first day of school. Mika writes extensively of how her work has interfered with her child raising, and even writes about how she is missing her daughter’s recital to write the book. This struck me as sad and kind of made me feel guilty about reading the book. In general, the more successful and privileged you are, the more you should be able to bend things to suit you. Gwyneth Paltrow caused a stir about a year ago releasing a newsletter about “tips” for working mom’s – and had a typical day in the life of a private equity investor, Stella McCartney and herself. What struck me the most about her newsletter is how much time these women spend with their kids. I added it up -hour for hour, they are home more than I am – since they have more control over their schedules and can make people come to them. Even my group’s VP at Penn has flexibility on this. Everyday last summer, her two daughters came with her the office in the morning, left around 8:30 to go to their summer programs, than came back to the office in the afternoon and hung around to do their reading and assignments before they all took the train home. (The VP of the group is basically the only person who can get away with this.) Mika on the other hand spends no time with her children, is completely candid about it and even had a replacement mom pose for her in her family Christmas card!

Now, to be fair to Mika, there might be more under the surface at play. Mika repeatedly alludes to what she thinks was her mother’s biggest mistake, giving up her art to be a supportive housewife, so her husband could be the National Security Advisor to the Carter White House. Mika’s mother did not go quietly into that good night of being a housewife; she complained repeatedly about her sacrifice and, in one anecdote in the book, her mother feeds roadkill to a visiting dignitary. Mika defends her mother by saying that she was being true to her personality by doing so. If that personality is passive-aggressive then yes, I would agree she was being true to her personality. But in trying to avoid her mother’s mistake Mika may have swung the pendulum too much the other way. (Not only should she read Maria Shriver’s books, but maybe “The Weird Sisters” to learn about the dangers in defining yourself in relation to other people – even family members).

All in all it is always interesting to read about other people’s choices but I can’t quite recommend this book, mostly because it is too much complaining and she is outclassed by Maria Shriver, who has had many of the exact same experiences but just handled everything “all at once” better.

Book Review

Book Review: The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

“The Weird Sisters” is one of those serendipitous reads that happens when you are in between books, are about to get on the train home and stop into a newsstand to see the new magazine covers. You see a book that looks interesting, read a few pages and are instantly hooked. Before you know it, you are deep into a book that really had no right jumping to the top of the reading queue. (My reading queue is years long. If you’ve recommended a book to me, it’s on a list, I just might die before I get to it. But I do have every intention of getting to it. )

Eleanor Brown’s debut novel is a lot like the Joy of Cooking’s chocolate chip cookie recipe. If you follow the recipe exactly and are careful and diligent you will be rewarded with very tasty, perfectly chewy, always reliable chocolate chip cookies. There are no surprises, you know exactly what you are getting and it’s a pretty fool-proof operation. The Weird Sisters pretty much follows a set formula- I could have predicted the ending for you just from reading the back cover. All of the elements of a fabulous light read are in place. The author makes you care about the characters, even though there are strong archetypes at play. There is a clear voice in the narrator. She draws a tight circle to explore – sisterly relationships – and doesn’t stray outside it.

In this novel, three sisters, named after Shakespearean characters by their professor father, return to their childhood home in a college town in Ohio after being burned by the harshness of the modern world. The main cautionary tale here is the danger in defining yourself in relation to other people. The sisters are on the innocent’s journey, showing that the power to change was really inside themselves all along. It is a story that rings true. There was a research article, read not too long ago, that the influence of siblings is perhaps the most underrated aspect of an individual’s development. The journeys that the Andreas sisters go through are so universally understood it’s no wonder the book is a success. The message underneath rings true enough despite the somewhat formulaic treatment. All in all, it was an extremely enjoyable book, even if it does have the stamp of “light read”. Light, airy, just sweet enough –but was not controversial, extremely educational or groundbreaking. It was a book I enjoyed, no more and no less.