Adventures in Onionism

I'll get around to my Black Canyons 100K/60K Double race report eventually. Instead, here are some reviews. I'm going to go running and check out the flow on the Truckee River. Anybody want to packraft it with me? Books: Destiny of the Republic, Candice Millard: A- Millard writes popular history books about lesser-known aspects of popular figures--Teddy Roosevelt's post-presidency trip down the second-longest river in the Amazon, Winston Churchill's early life in the Boer War, or this: the brief presidency and assassination of James Garfield. Either Garfield was a badass anti-racism anti-corruption math-whiz devoted scholar surprise battle-winning Union general philosopher-king who had the Republican nomination forced upon him, or the book is a bit hagiographic. Either way, the book is an inspiring read/listen. A bit of post-listen googling seems to indicate he mostly was an awesome guy. The downside to the book is vivid description of the two months of Garfield's s...

I worked from Florida for a week. One day of that wasn't exactly my work, but rather Amy's, as we had to go to the field and count mangrove seedlings. Mostly I sat in the canoe reading The Cartel , which I guess was exciting, but wasn't that good. I don't think I read enough to read entertaining stuff that isn't good literature. Or maybe it's just that the trash I prefer reading is travel narratives instead of crime novels. Yes, that's probably it. Daytrip to the field Gatorade should sponsor Amy's research Lots of weird flavorings, like the PB+J Amber. Not exactly my favorite. But they've improved the seating and space since last time.  We did some tubing down the Santa Fe river, stopped at a small state park on the way home, and saw four baby armadillos. We also saw Jason Bourne , which was somewhere between average and terrible. Spy movies should focus on one specific spy threat, not the larger issue of whether ...

The GZA and I saw Wild . It was pretty not-good. Not terribly bad, but also not good. There were only a few awful lines of dialogue that reeked of trite Oprah-esque 'live your best life' platitudes, so I wasn't exactly repulsed by anything, but I didn't get drawn in by anything either. Visually, the movie wasn't terribly impressive--it was largely filmed in central/eastern Oregon instead of on the actual PCT, and I could tell. The CGI fox also sucked. How hard is it to train a fox to stand there and stare at you for 20 seconds before running away? That's what every fox I've ever seen did without any training, so I can't imagine training one would be that much more expensive than crappy CGI. Anyway, you shouldn't visually expect Brokeback , or Sweetgrass , or Into the Wild. Story-wise, I actually like the book more than the movie. You got to know more characters, and became more invested in their story. Both the book and the movie are told non-l...

It's sappy beyond belief, ham-fistedly religious at times, the gear product placement is obnoxious, the hikers all wear jeans, and I have no desire to do a long roadwalk through Western Europe where there is no wilderness, but still, it's a movie about hiking (and the lifestyle that accompanies it), and I cried like a little girl. In "The Way," Martin Sheen goes to France to pick up his estranged son's ashes and ends up carrying them on El camino de Santiago. Obviously he meets "zany characters" (quirky, if you prefer) and "learns valuable life lessons" along the way. He probably also learns that "it's not the destination, it's the journey that matters" and a bunch of other annoying crap that, although annoying and crappy, happens to be true. Shut up, I am not crying! How I got this movie, since it apparently hasn't come out yet in the States, I don't know. ( http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_way_2011/ )

I figure I'm obligated to watch (and blog about) any movie remotely related to long-distance backpacking, so I went and saw The Way Back , based on Slavomir Rawicz's The Long Walk , today. I didn't like the book, and based on all the reviews I'd read, I didn't expect the movie to be good. I was not disappointed. And by that I mean the reviews were correct; the movie was not good. Coming from Peter Weir, director of Master and Commander , The Truman Show , Dead Poets Society , The Mosquito Coast , and Witness , this was a pretty big misstep. Basically everything about the movie was ham-handed: the dialogue, the characters' relations with one another, even the anti-communist message (the characters escape from a Siberian labor camp and walk across Siberia, Mongolia, and Tibet to their freedom in India.) I was pretty much bored out of my mind and kept watching it just for the scenery, which was good, but not amazing (watch any Zhang Yimou or Ang Lee for better mou...

NYT article on pushing your physical limits. The Town was a great movie. So was The Ghost Writer . The Arcade Fire show at the beginning of the month was good, but I didn't think great. Conveniently it was at the Greek Theater 100 yards from my office so I had time for it, but I thought the jumbotron behind the band that showed live distorted video of what they were doing on stage was very distracting. You're standing right here in front of me, can't I just watch you jump around in real life? Is it just me or are Dem's chances looking a little better lately? All the Poisson regressions, county trends, and population weights are starting to work. Good times. Electronic music is good to listen to at work as it's less distracting than my normal indie/folk. Thank you, Ratatat. That's all for now.

Well, it's been a fascinating few weeks. When research is going well I actually sort of enjoy insanely long days in the office every single day of the week with no time to even do my laundry or buy groceries. Or cook. Or eat. Today I have a minute to breathe, but only because I'm all the sudden really worried that my data are too good to be true in that they might exhibit evidence of time travel. (You see how I made "data" plural there? I hate that. Next I'll be speaking only in passive voice or talking about myself with the the royal we.) Obviously this means I've goofed or my model is mis-specified or something. Anyway, my birthday was a while back so I ran a fun midnight 15-miler up to Inspiration Point with Gazelle. I also caught a free sneak preview of the financial collapse documentary Inside Job . It's worth seeing, but if you already dislike investment bankers and have listened to the This American Life episode called The Giant Pool of Money , the...

I just watched The Call of the Wild , a documentary about Chris McCandless, AKA Alexander Supertramp. I also re-watched Into the Wild for comparison. The latter I assume you've all seen and don't need to hear anything about; I liked it just as much the third time as the first. Pretty much the only thing I don't like is the font of the opening titles. Thanks for not blowing it, Spicoli. The Call of the Wild on the other hand is a low-budget independent documentary by film-maker Ron Lamothe who re-traced McCandless' steps. Lamothe was born in 1968, the same year as McCandless, and was obsessed with the story even before Krakauer made it huge. For the movie he went to Emory during graduation, Lake Mead, Slab City, hitch-hiked to Carthage, South Dakota, drove up to Alaska, and hiked to the Magic Bus, getting swept downstream by the Teklanika River and temporarily ruining his camera. There's a fair amount of thoughtful introspection--he interviewed random Emory grads, ...

I just watched 180° South . Basically, some dudes take a trip to Patagonia, surf, climb mountains, and talk about conservation, and the meaning of life with Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins (the founders of Patagonia and North Face, respectively). It's sort of a re-creation of a trip Chouinard and Tompkins took in 1968 in which they drove south from California to climb Fitz Roy, then made a movie about it called Mountain of Storms (which now I guess I'll have to track down and see). 180° South was good, but I wouldn't say amazing. The surfing and climbing shots are of course beautiful. The soundtrack is very good, but a little too heavy on the Jack Johnson for my tastes. The discussion of dropping out/the meaning of life is fairly simplistic when it's from the point of view of the main narrator, but I think that Chouinard and Tompkins, given their impressive experience as both businessmen, dirtbags, and philanthropic conservationists, had more interesting and nuanced ...

Alright Mr. Hope-to-go-on-the-job-market-this-fall, you can make me buy a stupid suit, but you can't make me like it. And you can't make me pay more than $15 for it. And no, unfortunately I'm not running the Headlands Hundred right now. My friend couldn't get off work to pace me and it would have prevented me from accomplishing anything for the better part of four days and possibly weakened to the point where I caught a cold. So instead I got the cold before the race and am spending the better part of four days sick on the couch watching movies: Breathless : sharp, but that's all it's got going for it. Infernal Affairs : I'll take Marty's version with Marky Mark in hospital booties over the original. My Dinner with Andre : One of the better two-hour long conversations about new-agey bulls--t that I've seen. The Straight Story : Heartwarming and beautifully shot (Iowa cornfields). Sometimes the main character either had poor line delivery or acted lik...

One of my favorite memories from college was watching Seven Samurai and Magnificent Seven projected on our living room wall and remarking how similar Toshiro Mifune's samurai character was to my buddy Nielsen, just by the goofy look on his face and how he strutted around and was always scratching himself and laughing, but occasionally morphing into alpha male badass when necessary. Tonight and a week ago I watched Yojimbo and Sanjuro , which are absolutely brilliant. Mifune doesn't play the same character--less goofy, more grumpy, but still badass--but the resemblance is still there, and the movies are absolutely must-see. In case you're wondering, I've seen 10.5 Kurosawa films this summer: Rashomon --brilliant Drunken Angel --slow but good Throne of Blood --very good, and the final scene is fantastic, but I didn't quite like it as much as many people do I Live in Fear --slow The Lower Depths --unwatchable (and yet I watched it?) I'm sorry, but I require a pl...

Two REI Presentations: Pretty good reviews, with the inevitable exception from someone who clearly does not get my sense of humor. Three more this coming week. Inception: I almost always disagree with David Edelstein, and thus I loved this movie. Yojimbo: Badass Capturing the Friedmans: Interesting. American Splendor: Did I mention Harvey Pekar makes me happy? Our Cancer Year: I really dislike the art, but the story is great. An Unreasonable Man: Ralph Nader is cool. I wish I believed in something like he does. Dead Weather live at the Warfield: Even from the nosebleeds, Jack White and his giant eyeball backdrop are phenomenal. The Human Condition: Got disc 1 (of 4), haven't started yet. Ran several times but wasn't really feeling it, gave my bike a decent post-trip cleaning, picked 12 pounds or so of wild blackberries, made two pectin boxes worth of freezer jam, baked fresh honey whole wheat bread, and will make a pie tomorrow.

How about the next time around, James Cameron produce and direct, and someone else write the dialogue? One "saddle up" speech of Independence Day quality was enough for the world. If someone makes a bootleg of the movie by removing all the dialogue and leaving the score and visuals, that movie would be one of the best ever. Surely entertaining as is, however.

School starts in earnest tomorrow. That means two days a week I have to actually be ready to teach by 8:00 AM. I know, I know, normal people have to be at work that early all the time. But I think grad school more than makes up for the easy schedule with its crippling depression. Not that I've had to deal with that lately--had a pretty good last couple weeks hanging out with all sorts of friends. Also watched Gran Torino (A-), Brodre (Brothers) (B; Haven't seen the remake yet, most critics think the original is better. Great acting but low production value), Fantastic Mr. Fox (C; I don't like much Wes Anderson), Elephant Man (B+), The Road (C), On the Waterfront (A if you ignore the history/politics), Deathproof (A; just a great action movie), and Duplicity (C+ I can't believe they tried for any serious emotion in this movie, it could have been great if they just went for 100% Ocean's 11-style sexy wit), with one more on tap right now.

I don't buy it . But then again, I pretty much believe in nothing, so the fact that I'm skeptical should be a foregone conclusion. Also, I enjoyed District 9 . It had decent direction from a technical perspective with an enjoyable schlub as the unwitting hero and obvious but not too blunt parallels to important issues.

I finished reading Eric Ryback's The High Adventures of Eric Ryback . Ryback thru-hiked the PCT as an eighteen year-old in 1971. It's a crazy experience to be trudging across an endless high-altitude snowfield, getting cold and wet from postholing up to your hips every third step, cursing the day you were born and screaming angry expletives at the top of your lungs until your voice is gone, and yet, at the end of they day, loving it all and thinking there's nowhere you'd rather be and nothing you'd rather be doing, and Ryback does the best job of capturing that beautiful dichotomy of any hiking book I've read. Man on Wire is a great happiness-inducing live-life-to-the-fullest movie. Season four of The Wire is good, but I think there are too many characters at this point, so we spend all our time just keeping up with everyone 30 seconds at a time instead of seeing characters in-depth. Freaks and Geeks is amazing, and makes me wish I hadn't waited till grad...

I just finished the documentary film Surfwise , and I must say, it's probably a good thing I don't surf, because it's hard enough to fight the urge to drop out of society when I do one sport that encourages me to do so; two might be impossible. Also, I learned that if you're going to raise your kids like a pack of wolves/gorillas/hippies, some of your kids will resent you if you don't at least educate them. The film is about the Paskowitz family, the father of which, Dorian Paskowitz, is a Stanford educated doctor who for a while led a successful normal life, becoming the president of the Hawaiian chapter of the AMA and almost running for governor. But he hit a rough patch and eventually decided to drop out. (Amusingly, after first dropping out, Dorian moved to Israel, came to believe that his first two marriages had failed because he was a lousy lover, decided to sleep with 100 women and rank them on performance, but stopped when he found Juliette, who he thought...

I just watched Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing for the first time (the AFI released a new top 100 list, so I guess I have to watch all the ones that weren't on the original list now, and Right Thing is #96). I remember Spike Lee being pretty controversial when I was a kid growing up in a mostly white suburb, but I hadn't seen many of his films and mostly just thought of him as a big Knicks fan, so it was interesting to go back and see what all the talk was about. I've previously only seen Malcolm X (amazing job by Denzel Washington, but the long extraneous dance scenes wore on me) and Inside Man (good, if just a regular bank heist movie) and I thought Right Thing was very uneven. It's a scorching hot day, so everybody's supposed to be upset, but it all just comes across as caricatured and jokey (maybe that's partly because of the colorful way the film was lit and the awful 80's neon spandex everyone is wearing, but one character's name is ...

It's Saturday and I'm in Nairobi, flying out late Monday. Thursday the fuel-tanker line at the border was easily over a mile long so I again shot some video from the back of a boda. (Every drop of petroleum that Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi use gets driven right by my front door all the way from Mombasa, more details on that when I edit the video back home, set it to Bloc Party's "The Price of Gas," and post it on my website.) Friday I finished up in Busia and took my FO's out to dinner, where the team-member that's a part-time preacher amused us with his appreciation for chapatis after downing an entire plateload by saying, "It's Jesus first, then chapatis." I also got them happily discussing who's going to be the next President of Kenya. I think they all support ODM-K (the main opposition to Kibaki's ruling party, formed in opposition to the government-backed constitutional referendum that failed in '05. Voting for it was "b...