Bott's Book of the Week: The Stranger by Albert Camus

This is not a new book; however, anyone who wants a story that is more off the beaten path, give The Stranger a go.  

Written by Albert Camus and originally published in 1942, The Stranger tells the story of Meursault, an Algerian who is more than a little disconnected with life. We begin at his mother's funeral. For most of us, this is a somber moment that will often lead to reflection (at the very least). Meursault on the other hand doesn't care. Not even a bit. His actions are more aligned with a sociopathic egotist than a grieving son. He refuses to see the body and decides to smoke and have a cup of coffee right in front of the coffin. Why not, right? It's only your mom's funeral.

To boot, he runs into Marie, an old friend and former co-worker and he decides to leave and well...have some fun. Turns out he really doesn't care about her much either! So at this point we can paint Meursault with an apathetic brush- he's listless at best and has little to no sense of altruistic behavior. AAANNNDDD it only gets worse...

His buddy Raymond wants revenge. Meursault helps him. Meursault's lady friend wants love. He doesn't reciprocate. His moral compass isn't pointed north or south, but I doubt its existence at all. This leads to the watershed moment- a murder. Meursault kills a character, "The Arab" who is trailing Raymond and plotting his own revenge for what Raymond did to his sister. The Arab's run in with Meursault is tragic for both characters. Meursault shoots him and although the first bullet would have been enough, he fires again and again. 

This, of course, lands him in jail and although his lawyer assures him of a quick and easy trial. The judge finds Meursault as a cold, lifeless, emotionless human who shows no regard for the sanctity of human life. He is sentenced to death....

Throughout his conversations with the priest that visits him, we see Meursault descend deeper into the nihilistic vision he has perpetuated throughout the novel. Here's the thing, we're all Meursault. At some point we encounter a hardship that makes us want to just sip coffee in front of a coffin...ok bad analogy, but it's true. The great part about Camus' writing is he takes us into a world that we might not recognized ourselves as inhabiting until we see Meursault's actions and live through his antics. Not that we take it as far as he did, but Meursault's assault on God and the paradox of the meaningless universe at the very least makes us think (even if we disagree).

The Stranger can be depressing to some and absurd to others. There's nothing wrong with either so long as the you attempt to expand the character's purpose.

Bott's Review of the Week - Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Ok so it's not a book....well it kind of is. You see, back in the day there was an astronomer named Carl Sagan. He was an author as well as a champion of inquiry and wonder. His book Cosmos was published in 1980 and was a 13 chapter tour into the workings of the universe. It accompanied the miniseries whose 13 episode arc had me hooked from the first time I saw it on the terribly rendered VHS tapes I found laying around my aunt's house.

Even in fuzzy, poor audio, 1970's style hair, Carl Sagan delivered speeches on the origins of life, the vastness of space, and beauty of dying stars that were so eloquent I couldn't help but want to read more. I was thrilled when I heard Cosmos was coming back to TV and even more elated when I read that Neil deGrasse Tyson would be hosting it. Tyson himself is the author of many books and is probably best known now for hosting NOVA Science NOW on PBS and his guest roles on The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Anyone that has had Mrs. Pollack this year knows that I am a huge fan of NDT as I delivered a riveting speech in Mr. Tyson's voice during a debate.

Needless to say....I was not disappointed! For me, it was nostalgic and new all at once. This episode was more of an introduction entitled "Standing Up in the Milky Way" but it gave a bit of a snapshot into what's to come. It was a blend of visual elegance and animated shorts. This episode's animated feature centered around Giordano Bruno and his quest for the infinite. Bruno is quite well known and a bit of a hero in the world of cosmology in that his idea of an infinite universe was panned by the church who, in Bruno's time, was the authority on creation.

The most powerful part of the show was the cosmic calendar. Now, this has been told and done before, but I can't stress enough how much I love this comparison. The idea is to take the entire existence of the universe, all 13.8 billion years, and compress it into a calendar. I won't go through each month, but it makes the point that humans show up at 12:53 on December 31st. Our first writings, at 12:59:47- What does this mean? We are young, we are new. The universe has existed and will continue to exist without us. And while that may seem like a depressing idea, Cosmos will take us through a tour of the galaxy that will make question everything, including why we are here and what we should do with time we have. I can't wait for next week!

#geek

The Power of "I Don't Know"

I am slightly information obsessed. I suppose that's appropriate as an information scientist. I want to know and learn as much as I absolutely can, but this wasn't always the case. My patience and understanding have evolved over the years to the point where I am completely comfortable admitting that I may not know something. This wasn't an easy transition and is complicated by the fact that I want others to know or at the very least perceive me as an intelligent person. This commenced in high school and now, 14 years later, I feel like I can finally say "I don't know" without fear.

This partially stems from the notion that "I don't know" means something completely different to me now than it did 5 or 10 or 15 years ago. Recently, I had a conversation with one our seniors at GHS and he (who shall remain nameless) told me that he liked to argue almost for the sake of arguing and, moreover, had a real problem with admitting defeat whilst engaging in debate. He, like myself in high school, is under this odd 21st century perception that freely admitting ignorance about a topic removes himself from further discussion of that topic. I get it, I really do. When discussing politics or religion or history or science, it's tough to say those words- but I'm here to tell you IT'S OKAY! Why? Because here's what "I don't know" really means...

It means "I haven't discovered that yet."

It doesn't remove you from the conversation, it gives you an opportunity to discover something new. I know that everything is immediate today. If a response isn't given in 30 seconds and it's over 140 characters, it might as well never happen. We move on. We're done. What's the next topic? It's almost as if that when no response is given, those that last spoke win. There's no time to say, "You know, I don't know. Can I get back to you?" They're done with you. And let me assure you, that's okay.

The conversations, the true conversations that you have now will not only lay the foundation for further debates, but they will give more to talk about in the future. You don't know everything. You never will. But using "I don't know" as a springboard to further research and understanding will open your mind. And I can almost guarantee that if you do revisit a conversation with someone after the fact (and after you've learned more on the topic), it will benefit you both.

We are born not inherently good or evil, but inherently ignorant. It's human nature to yearn for knowledge as well as acceptance. But you are not validated by "likes" and retweets. In the end, validation comes from your own sense of self worth and discovery. Whether it's said out loud or a simple thought in your head, "I don't know" should not be the end of the conversation, but rather the starting point.

Bott's Book of the Week: The Future of the Mind...It's about your brain (that thing inside your head)

Michio Kaku is one of my favorite theoretical physicists. The fact that I have a list of favorite theoretical physicists is either a.) sad or b.) awesome. I'll go with the latter. This book discusses the most powerful thing in the known universe: Your brain. 

The book is broken into three sections and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that as a reader. Kaku is known for his research based analysis and most of this book centers on the what the future may hold for brain research. But the first portion lays the foundation in that it presents what is happening now in the field. It also gives a very pedestrian and quite thorough overview of how the brain itself works. 

Then we get weird...... 

Part 2 of the book discusses telepathy, telekinesis, and the coolest part- memories. This is of particular note because of the topic of Alzheimer's. Implanting memories is something that you might read about in a dystopian novel, but Kaku argues (and the research is out there), that uploading memories could be something that is very real in the shockingly near future. I love this idea, especially when applied to information. I was (and still am) terrible at math. If you put a check on the table at a restaurant, it will take me an inordinate amount of time to calculate the tip. I try my best to understand the complicated math whilst reading about physics and quantum theory, but I missed the boat on the numbers game. Now imagine if you're struggling in a subject like I was with math. Wouldn't it be great to simply upload whatever you needed to learn? Ancient Greek philosophy? Biology? Any language?

HOWEVER, the idea that intrigues me is I could upload any information to my brain and have it stick as a memory. This could be applicable to any information in any subject. What does that mean for the future, though? Are we talking about turning the human mind into a computer? In a sense, it already is. The brain has, that we know of, a limitless amount of space and can store massive amounts of memory. 

On the third and final front, Kaku blends the human mind with the universe. How might everything that he spoke to in parts 1 & 2 coalesce to alter our destiny. Could we use our mind to reach across the universe? What does the altered state of consciousness mean to the definition of reality as we see it? This book is a great read, but just a warning- you may have to devote some major time to it. It took me a while because of the subject matter and terminology. 

So many questions....so much information....so many possibilities....so much suave hair

  

Look at that hair....LOOK AT IT!

Bott's Book of the Week: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

Ahh humans...We're pretty awesome, right? We make cool stuff, we drive cool cars and, most of all, we kill things. Elizabeth Kolbert's book The Sixth Extinction is an incredible read that sets the stage for our ultimate downfall at our very own hands. 

There have been five mass extinctions throughout the history of life on earth. These extinctions are considered "mass" as they wipe out nearly all life on the planet. The first may have been caused by rapid temperature changes that led to glaciation. Others also had to do with climate change as well, as rising temperature changed the chemistry of ocean waters, thus leading to what we now call "the great dying." The extinction we're most familiar with happened at the end of the Cretaceous period roughly 65 million years ago. This killed three quarters of all life on earth including our friends, the dinosaurs.

Today, we're in a bit of pickle. It's not an asteroid coming at us (yet), but the enemy is within the walls; us. Kolbert's book details the drivers for climate change and the effect of having and sustaining our massive global population. It's scary.

And then there's the ocean. Our wondrous water that covers 70% of the earth...and is turning into ACID! Ok well, not really. But the rate at which it's going downhill for our oceans is alarming. Our oceans are 30% more acidic now than in 1800 and expected to be 150% more by the end of the century. Great news isn't it? Oceans are teeming with life and slight changes in water temperature or variations in chemistry have terrifying consequences for our ocean life. This might not sound significant, but Kolbert's book has a greater underlying thesis: We are all connected.

 That said, we are the masters of our own demise and we kind of don't care- I suppose that's the sad and hilarious part about it and Kolbert handles it with mastery. She's very funny, sarcastic, sardonic, and writes with some wonderful irony. 

She writes that she's not "anti-human," but there's a edge to her writing that makes me feel guilty. Don't get me wrong, I love that. I love that a book, especially a non-fiction book, can elicit such emotion. It makes me want to learn more, read more about ocean acidification, global warming, pollution, disease. Any book that can accomplish that is well worth the read. In a nutshell, be worried- Maybe not today, but your children and grandchildren are going to an uphill battle. Might as well face it with a sense of humor. 

Bott's Book of the Week: Her: A Memoir

Woah....Ok so the last memoir I read was a graphic novel and I really missed some of the more detailed imagery that a well written "book" provides. Not that graphic novels don't take the writing seriously (See Maus), but the images are provided for you and that leaves a little less to the imagination. I can conjure up some incredible images in my own mind from a really well written novel or, in this case, memoir. Her does not disappoint. 

I stumbled upon this story while listening to the radio on a drive to Pennsylvania and immediately grabbed a copy when I returned. The interview was with the author Christa Parravani, a Guilderland High alum if I'm correct, and it was heart wrenching. The book evokes every emotion imaginable. It tells a tragic story of identical twins who, despite obstacles and borderline poverty growing up, emerge as budding writers and artists until the unthinkable happens. Cara, Christa's twin is raped. As you can understand, there isn't a ton of good things that follow. Cara cannot come back from this traumatic event and ultimately turns to drugs. When Cara dies, Christa is sitting in traffic in NYC and learns from their estranged mother over the phone. Despite the fact that since the rape they've grown apart, Parravani paints the picture that twins, no matter how distant, are never really that far apart. 

Christa becomes increasingly depressed. She starves herself and becomes addicted to pills. She writes that she's nearly schizophrenic, seeing her sister when she looks in the mirror instead of herself. Before pushing herself to the brink (through a divorce as well), Christa re-emerges as a confident writer and pushes herself through words to tell this powerful story. I love memoirs, especially about people...real people and I am a sucker for tragedy. I'm not sure what that says about me as a person, but books like this make me think I'm onto something nonetheless. Read this book.

  

Bott's Book of the Week - Lying by Sam Harris

I'm reviewing a non-fiction book this week...WAIT, don't hit the little red X in the corner yet...It's about a very person topic. Lying. We all do it. Some do it everyday. But is it all that bad? I mean, what if you tell your significant other they look great with that new haircut when they really look hideous/terrifying? Sam Harris argues that even these little white lies have an affect and erode our moral fiber.

Harris is a brilliant writer. The book is only 108 pages which make it a quick and thought provoking read. My favorite part is that  I went into this book feeling like a semi-honest person and came out feeling a little betrayed by my own sense of morality. That alone made it a great book for me. Harris kindly offers "advice" as to how to become a more honest person as well. He helps to define the fuzzy area of what constitutes a lie or just simply avoiding the truth (a type of lie he argues). 

I'm trying really hard to think of a lie I told that wouldn't be too embarrassing, but for some reason my mind is only going to places would compromise what most of you think of me. Anyway, I strongly suggest going to YouTube and watching a Sam Harris debate as he is a phenomenal off-the-cuff speaker and one of my idols when it comes to debates. He makes a great case in this book for never lying again and although I can't say that's going to happen, I'm certainly going to think twice before I say, "You look great in that dress." or "I love your hair, get it cut like that forever!" After all, when you lie, you have to remember that lie which makes a false memory within the framework of your own mind...Who has time for that?