Review: The Kuřim Case: A Terrifying True Story of Child Abuse, Cults & Cannibalism

The Kuřim Case: A Terrifying True Story of Child Abuse, Cults & Cannibalism by Ryan Green
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A brief account of truly awful child abuse - sort of on par with the crimes covered in The Basement: A True Story of Violence in an American Family. These crimes are more wholly adult-on-child and have the unusual true crime flavors of being in the Czech Republic, multiple dysfunctional family members and shady persons, international connections, years of activity. The connections to Christian sect The Grail Movement are really only a distraction it seems and this particular audiobook suffers from lack of detail and mediocre narration.

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Review: Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1

Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1 by Mark Twain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Twain never authored and ordered a complete and organized autobiography. He allowed himself to be distracted from the project periodically and when he did engage, he was often purposefully discursive and tangential. The scholarship and detective work that went into volume one of this monumental presentation is a welcome part of the work - discursions upon discursions. Along the way I become gladly become re-acquainted w/Twain's wit, humor, and cynicism and understand better the world he lived in and where was at in life during this writing.

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Review: The Use and Misuse of Language

The Use and Misuse of Language by S.I. Hayakawa
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a sometimes interesting anthology of articles and talked from a journal on General Semantics and the body's meetings. Especially the talks seem to have lost sparkle in the transcription. Maybe a quality issue to be explained by a general semanticist?

Editor Hayakawa has said, "My deepest debt [[book:Language in Action|15792683]] is to the General Semantics ('non-Aristotelian system') of Alfred Korzybski. I have also drawn heavily upon the works of other contributors to semantic thought..." Comments and criticisms on Korzybski are interesting here, but are only a seasoning. "SEMANTIC DIFFICULTIES IN. INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION" by Edmund S. Glenn is very interesting for parsing an actual day in the life of the UN Security Council and the subtleties of meaning transformed after passage through the admittedly highly effective UN translators. Hayakawa himself provides, for me, and probably as a music enthusiast, the most engaging piece, "Popular Songs vs. The Facts of Life". He concluded that "The blues tend to be extensionally oriented, while. Popular songs tend to exhibit grave, even pathological intensional orientations." OK, I am still trying to understand that. What will stick with me is the application of speech pathologist Wendell Johnson IFD cycle: I, unrealistic expectations and ideals, lead to F, frustrations, which discourage us, and may delude us with even less realistic expectations or ideal; the IFD can quickly become viciously circular. Probably the IFD cycle affects almost everyone to some degree and Hayakawa uses this to analyze blues songs from W. C. Handy, Bessie Smith, etc.

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Review: The Race for the Triple Crown: Horses, High Stakes, and Eternal Hope

The Race for the Triple Crown: Horses, High Stakes, and Eternal Hope by Joe Drape
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Written largely in bright, engaging prose this is a fascinating and detail looked into thoroughbred horse racing desirous of the rare triple crown. This story largely winds it was from recent history to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000 Kentucky Derby and the victory there of winning horse Fusaichi Pegasus, the first betting favorite to win the Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979. Pegasus represented the buying one's way into winning and short of the triple crown - as is also Godolphin Racing covered here - and was indeed out of trying the time of the 2000 Belmont Stakes where Commendable won the day thanks to the training of D. Wayne Lukas, representing the traditional and more purist side of the sport. Lukas is practically treated as a career biography subject here.

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Review: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

NIcely narrated by Martin himself, this is a very good artist's biography. I was especially impressed with the progressive and even confrontational nature of his earliest stage comedy - refusing to let the audience have a punchline and release the tension built up.

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Review: Growing Up Digital

Growing Up Digital by Don Tapscott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have never read about about the sociological impact of technology of such vintage that still seems so prescient, considered, and relevant. Built around interaction with actual 11 - 15 year-olds (mostly), there is a lot of first-hand "N-gen" experience here, as the author labels the generation born and growing up digital. Admittedly as a non-parent much of this is not targeted at me directly, but I find the many situations presented and observations made entertaining and even enlightening. For me, judging such a book come inevitably from grading its predictions. This one has a good list toward the end of Chapter 9:


Real Estate: I find much of this book's insight demographic, centered around the bump up in youth numbers in the Baby Boom Echo. Still, these N-Geners I find want mobility not ownership and needing "wired" homes, etc.? Well, the author missed the wireless transformation...
"telework centers": I wish...
Community gardens and whatnot ...I see that. Missed the whole Whole Foods thing where this gets sold back to the N-Geners
"They'll want the car to be a place for entertainment" Yup.
"Clothing. This is a generation with a strong sense of style." I see that.
"cyberbank" Check.
"N-Geners love to play" They sure do!
"Education... delivered to them on the Net" Yes
..and more accuracy, like the growth in UPS etc. for Net-ordered goods. Totally missed all that pirated digital media, though...


In this postTo Catch a Predator times it really seems the dark corners of the Net are downplayed: "pornographic images represent less than one half of one percent of images on the Net." More recent data suggests that "30 percent of Internet content is porn" and that "90 percent of boys and 60 percent of girls are exposed to Internet porn by age 18."

The author does warn about "dataveillance" with foresight and accuracy in regarding the privacy debates and commodification of identity that happens today.

As a footnote, the author recommends Virtuous Reality.

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Review: Uruguay: Portrait of a Democracy

Uruguay: Portrait of a Democracy by Russell Humke Fitzgibbon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Subtitled "An Informal Survey of the Switzerland of Latin America", this review of the country wedged betwixt Argentina and Brazil is based on the author's visit there, basically for a year around 1951. The travelogue aspects of the country's sights read like that of someone that experienced them firsthand. The author also examines the country structurally for its regional role, the heavily populated capital Montevideo vis-a-vis the largely herding interview ("Capital versus campo"), and the country's role in conflicts "The Great War"( the Paraguayan War), and World Wars I & II.

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Review: Mathematical Modelling

Mathematical Modelling by Matti Heilio
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

...This book provides some thorough material that stands out as ready lectures. Standing out by itself in this way are chapters on dimensional analysis around Bridgman, a Bayesian approach to forestry data leading the cover image, and an extensive study of balloon motion in the context of laws of conservation: mass, energy, momentum, etc. The book concludes with over thirty paragraph-length project ideas. For example, “A common spring mass combination makes up an oscillator with the well-known physical model. Now assume that the spring constant as well as the matter that causes the dampening are known only vaguely, i.e. as fuzzy numbers. What can be said about the oscillator’s movement?”

[Look for my entire review up at MAA Reviews.]


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Review: The Chitlin' Circuit: And the Road to Rock 'n' Roll: And the Road to Rock 'n' Roll

The Chitlin' Circuit: And the Road to Rock 'n' Roll: And the Road to Rock 'n' Roll by Preston Lauterbach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Louis Jordan died on February 4, 1975, not long after telling writer Arnold Shaw that “as a black artist, I’d like to say one thing…. Rock-n-roll was not a marriage of rhythm and blues [to] country and western. That’s white publicity. Rock-n-roll was just a white imitation, a white adaptation of Negro rhythm and blues.” As a music enthusiast, I am fascinated by considering the roots of rock 'n' roll. When I consider the Sun Records influential musicians such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash I see a line of country performers streaming into those legendary studios and rock 'n' roll coming out. Indeed, the Country -> Rockabilly -> Rock 'n' Roll transformation explains more the rock combo instrumentation and verse-chorus-verse structure than a derivation from blues and jazz. Still, Jordan strikes at the heart of the incestuous nature of evolution in popular music.

This excellent history explores the decline of touring big bands where the black-operated "Chitlin' Circuit" kept alive the shrinking ensembles to server their burgeoning audiences and forming a late 40s to early 50s laboratory for performers like Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris, and Little Richard to formulate the rhythms and styles of rock 'n' roll from the pieces left over.

While this book makes a strong case for the birth of rock 'n' roll in the post-Big Band R&B movement and its touring journeymen, there is an important final act here. The book marks the rise of the vinyl era and AM radio with a jukebox mafia and payola DJs as a transformation that changed the economics of the tour-dependent Chitlin' Circuit stars and marked an end to the period. It seems to me with the Internet and digital technologies, the role of the recorded artifact is also sunsetting and we are returning to an era where the live performance is more central to fiscal realities of being a career musician. Pushing the artists back to an ad hoc venue reality... Could it lead to the birth of something as brave as rock 'n' roll, and if so, who will be the pioneers this time?

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Review: Fatal Extraction

Fatal Extraction by Mark C. Rom
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is an in-depth retelling of the government investigation and bureaucratic response to several patients of dentist Dr. Acer being infected with AIDS by that doctor. Exactly how this happened, or if it was even willful, may never be known. Uncovering from 2000+ patients 10 or so HIV+ persons, how does one know the infection came from the dentist? This not a straightforward answer, although on a genetic level similarity in infections makes a case strong enough to stand up in court. This makes for some interesting statistics arguments. What is the z-score of this 10 out of 2000 for that community at that time? How unexpected was it? That raw data is not here, but the set up for how the CDC determined chance infection to be 0.00038% is (pp. 107-8), which was the basis for the Dr. being at fault. Some of the few that were infected chanced to visit the clinic on the same day - stats say that was a 60% chance so not unusual. Another good potential classroom capsule there. Maybe I drift to the black/white mathematics as it is so uncomfortable Kimberly Bergalis confronted with AIDS unexpectedly in her early 20s and considering the potential gray areas of legal controls and strictures around this issue. Some history of how these issues were raised decades ago with tuberculosis are also here in this detailed if dry work.

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Review: The Man Who Walked Through Time

The Man Who Walked Through Time by Colin Fletcher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A fascinating read about a serious walker's jaunt from one end of the Grand Canyon, as part of the Park, to the other. It can be "seen" in three acts: Act I with camera, Act II abandoning camera and including naked hiking, Act III with new camera. But, not pictures in the book! The only illustration is a grey-on-dark grey map being very hard to review. The author uses lengthy footnotes that should be part of the text. The several ruminations on the nature of time - time itself as well as considering the span of 200 million years - are though-provoking. The author's experience provoked him to be part of the successful public opposition to the Bridgre Canyon Dam.

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Review: Walk Through Walls: Becoming Marina Abramovic

Walk Through Walls: Becoming Marina Abramovic by Marina Abramović
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really an amazing, directed, triumphant, and singular life here. Also, to hear Abramović narrate the work herself, including her ESL grammar and pronunciation, makes it another personal and memorable performance. I find this artists life story in four parts here: growing up in Tito's Yugoslavia, works with Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen), independence and personal prominence (Seven Easy Pieces, 2005; The Artist Is Present 2010), and finally building a legacy for her immaterial art / amplified art.

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Review: The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

With only months to live from terminal cancer, the author distill's life's lessons into a final lecture / presentation and this book. Much about that is meritorious and must still be appreciated by family, friends, and hordes of readers. That being said, I find no great insight here in the fortune cookie philosophy and the must useful advice is office etiquette which doesn't really compete with other business efficiency books. I am sure many would be irked by my dismissing this in that way. Still, this can be a great guidebook for someone terminally ill, and with a family. I hope I never need it for that or have occasion to buy it as a practical gift. For wisdom gleaned from meeting Death, I recommend Man's Search for Meaning.

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Review: Been There, Done That

Been There, Done That by Eddie Fisher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a fascinating read for Eddie's plain, open discussion of his descent into meth and cocaine addiction starting with the shots from Max Jacobson. Eddie names many fellow client with Dr. Feelgood and names the many women (and only women, he stresses) he had assignations with from his several wives to Ann-Margret, German-born model Renata Boeck, etc. Other than placing himself at the pinnacle from of the transition from golden throat and big band era (Sinatra, etc.) to group era (Beatles, etc.), not so much is about his artistic career. This is part of Eddie's honesty, he marks his many hits as confection lacking in longevity and bemoans that he didn't build a catalog of songs with more credibility. Each chapter is about 30 pages long with repetitions, chronological inconsistencies and a lack of content grouping. It rather has the fell of an unedited, brisk rant from a meth addict, which I guess it is.

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Review: Death Benefit: A Lawyer Uncovers a 20-year Pattern of Seduction, Arson and Murder

Death Benefit: A Lawyer Uncovers a 20-year Pattern of Seduction, Arson and Murder by David Heilbroner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A well-paced and detailed story of a business lawyer that ends up devoting more and more time to uncovering the decades-long murderous acts of Virginia Rearden Mcginnis, now dead at 74. Among serial killers I have read of, VRM is unusual for: being a woman, killing friends and family, enlisting various accomplices. Kudos to attorney Steven Keeney for such selfless acts of legal sleuthing.

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Review: Cellar of Horror: The Story of Gary Heidnik

Cellar of Horror: The Story of Gary Heidnik by Ken Englade
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A sickening fiend who imprisoned women a basement whole, ala Buffalo Bill, what really made this book fascinating for me was the legal wrangling. Heidnik's defense lawyer thought he was insane legally and this could not be sentenced on the first degree murder charges, for which he was ultimately executed. This book goes through sentencing, but not any appeals or the 1999 execution.) I can't go that far; there too much history of what I felt was malingering and manipulation of the system for me to be convinced he was too crazy to be guilty. However, I don't think murder one was even the appropriate charge as meant for imprisonment and rape, etc. and two deaths were incidental to these evil deeds, meaning it was second degree murder IMO. The feeling from the book is that the judge and jury got carried away with the heinous nature of the deeds and set such legal niceties aside choosing vengeance over justice. Oh well, the planet is better off without him.

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Review: Some Applications of Geometric Thinking

Some Applications of Geometric Thinking by Bowen Kerins
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

...brevity is consistent through the first collection of problem sets. Naturally, this still works as a source for lecture content and assignments. Chapter 2 is much more complete in pedagogical suggestion. This chapter is the Facilitator Guide, clearly stating goals and directing approaches to the problem sets of Chapter 1. It is not clear why the chapters are ordered in this fashion. Exercise 5.6 is here explained as designed to have complex plane analogies to triangles placed in the coordinate plane in Problem Set 2. Combing through the Facilitator Guide first is the key to ascertaining the value and even intent of this resource. Many geometric concepts configured for pre-college presentation target gaps in understanding I routinely see in first-year college students, such as knowledge of the complex plane, modeling area or perimeter problems with conic sections, and a motivation for least-squares approaches...

[See my full review on on MAA Reviews.]

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Review: The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam

The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam by Omar Khayyám
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A nice little volume with illustrations by Jeff Hill. Lots of drinking, I get that. I think the next time I read these two-part verses I would like an annotated version that explains all the proper nouns.

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Review: A Girl from Yamhill

A Girl from Yamhill by Beverly Cleary
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was an easy read, since it seems the author of Beezus and Ramona was writing this autobiography to her core audience, making a YA-like read. This is really about the "girl" Cleary; from he early WW I memories to growing up in Depression-era Oregon (lots of Portland), and terminating when she takes off for junior college. There is only the occasional aside about her craft and literary career. Still, a fascinating period biography. How much has changed (school officials could punish pranking boys by forcing them to consume large quantities of garlic), and how much has not changed; one of her successful school essays was on the evil of chain stores (her grandfather was a country store proprietor).

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Review: Little Women

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My next music plan is the "Little Women" opera at MOT. I like the idea of having Christina Ricci narrate the Alcott novel to me in an audio book.

While I appreciate the scope and accomplishment of the story of four "little women" from girlhood to adulthood (well, three of them, at least) with the ever-present mother hen. However, I found it tedious treacle - a moralistic and sentimental 19th Century novel of the type I really don't like.

The opera's been staged for like 20 years, I hope it's good.

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Review: Probability and Expectation

Probability and Expectation by Zun Shan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), the oldest of the International Science Olympiads, is an annual contest for pre-college students. China, source of the longest continuous history of any country in the world, has taken first place most of the last ten years. The author is one of the “senior coaches of China's IMO National Team” and this text is nominally a training tool. The reader does not require an IMO future to find this book useful. It is an introductory probability text, adjunct to a more detailed text, or collection of classroom capsules also touching on algebra, number theory, combinatorics, graph theory, and geometry...

[See my entire review at MAA Reviews]

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