GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Books

  • Baron in the Trees, Calvino (1957), The Jerusalem Windows, Chagall (1962), Genie’s Banquet, Eifuku & Takada (2016) Dorfromantik, Palm & Zach (2023)

    Baron in the Trees, only took me forever to read this.

    • Like many foreign films, the novel is fun and quirky until but the real world intrudes.
    • Indeed, this impending sense of doom is why it took me months to finish.
    • But it was edifying. A brilliant display of sparse deep storytelling.

    Jerusalem Windows, a killer $2 find at the library.

    • As with many mid-century monographs, it comes with a hagiography of the great artist. I kind of enjoy it, in a nostalgic way.
    • The colors are stunning, and it’s awesome to watch the process from sketches to finished window and detail.
    • But the allegory in the images are hard to grok, even for a kid who grew up as a hardcore Christian. I need to reread this book. Slower.

    Genie’s Banquet, a filler with the kids.

    • A fine example of a sharp little Japanese card game, common in the 2010’s.
    • As a cooperative game, this it’s a perfect fit at this moment.
    • There are some translation glitches in the rules, but the joy of boardgaming is that you can make up the rules when you’re unsure. We made it work.

    Dorfromantik, for my wife’s fake birthday, but really for the boy.

    • Charming and idyllic is exactly correct in describing this game. Normally I want a game to have an edge, but it’s the lack such an edge that makes this game. The SDJ is well earned.
    • This board game successfully imports the ubiquitous constant-unlock dynamic of the mobile gaming. However, I appreciate that this is non-destructive process (unlike the Legacy series). Most importantly, thank god, there’s no pay to win model with this thing.
    • I wonder if I should toughen the boy up by playing competitive games (winning, losing, manhood, and all that). In the meantime I’ll enjoy these team games with him. Who knows when he will phase out—they change so fast!

    ,

    Having finished my calligraphy notebook last week, I started on our girl’s composition book from first grade. Might as well use up all the paper we got. It’s fun to add my practice with her old studies, and this means I’ll finish another notebook sooner rather than later!

    (and yes…that should have been “hungry”, but sometimes you just roll with it.)

    .

  • Book Notes, April, May 2024

    Now that we’ve finally put our books up on shelves after a decade in the garage, I pull random old books to enjoy before bedtime. The bedroom is getting crowded with a pile that needs to go back downstairs.

    Here are some notes before sending them back into the stacks.

    Staying by the bed

    Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino—I’m still slowly working through this book. I paused to read Cosmicomics and might get distracted by T-zero but I want to finish it sooner rather than later.

    Letter on Ethics, Seneca—I enjoyed listening to the selected letters audiobook by Penguin so I picked up the complete letters translated by Margaret Graver last year. I finally started reading them; I’m enchanted by their brevity even though (spoiler warning) the later letters seem to run long.

    The Unbroken Web, Richard Adams—This collection of stories has that pan-religious vibe from the 70/80’s. I most likely would have sent this back onto the shelves but I wrapped it up as a self-birthday present so I might as well give it a solid try in June.

    Carlo Scarpa, The Complete Works—I borrowed this volum many times in college so I finally bought it as a birthday treat. In the past, I only looked at the images, but after spending 100 euros, I’m for damn sure reading the essays. Good lord, that’s some turgid writing. Architecture criticism at its finest.

    Going back up

    Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino—I’ve tried reading this many times over the years and finally broke through. It’s a tender collection of short stories based on scientific principles. I wonder if aging and kids have given me an appreciation for love stories.

    Zhuangzi (Burton) & Lieh-tzu (Graham)—Always good to revisit two of the key texts of Daoism.

    Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess—The boy was curious about chess so we played a few times. I pulled this book of the shelves because I find chess utterly impenetrable. I’ve never been good at with spatial games, much less a perfect information abstract. I slogged through a couple exercises before giving up even though I’m still enchanted by the structure of this book.

    The 26 Letters, Oscar Ogg—Delightfully of its time though I wonder how it holds up with the historical scholarship over the past sixty years.

    40 days dans le desert B, Moebius—Absolute classic. Trippy as fuck.

    The Ode Less Travelled, Stephen Fry—I borrowed this book from the library when I thought I’d take my poetry experiments more seriously. Instead, work took over my life. In stressful times, the pursuit of quality may have the paradoxical side effect of stifling production. Time to send it back to the public library.

    Under the Jaguar Sun, Italo Calvino—I was searching for something to calm the mind, but this was a bit too intense. Turned out that my subconscious was close, since the correct answer was Cosmicomics.

    Journey to the West (Yu)—Always good for a romp Great Sage Under Heaven. Plus a little poetry.

    Charles M. Russell—Nice overview of the artist’s work. Holy hell, the wild west was indeed wild. Life of all types was cheap back then.

    Signal to Noise, Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean—The art holds up. The writing is what you’d expect from a 30 year old writing about a protagonist twice his age. I loved Gaiman, but I’ve soured over the past few years. One day I’ll revisit Sandman, but I’m dreading the potential realization that I’ve outgrown this as well.

    Giovanni Battista Piranesi—A collection of his prints. If drawn accurately, the scale of the ruins are unimaginable, towering over the inglorious lives conducted under these decaying edifices. Quite unsafe to stay in those shadows, though I guess you’ll take what you can get in the heat of summer. Beyond antiquity though, his renderings are sick. Beyond rad.

    Carlo Scarpa—In college, I picked up this Taschen survey on the (relative) cheap. It’s a passable intro to his work, though with the obnoxious style repeating text with multiple languages on each page. Then again, it reminded me of the greatness of Scarpa which lead to my big birthday purchase (noted above).
     

  • Money Multiplication Matters

    Tangents from a few books about money. I heartily recommend the one by Harry Browne; the rest are OK.

    ,

    Fail Safe Investing, Lifelong Financial Security in 30 minutes, Harry Browne, 1999

    If you’re a wimp (like me) this is the best book on investing. And if you get interested in Risk Parity style portfolios, check out Frank Vasquez’s “Risk Parity Radio” for up to date opinions and advice on this style of portfolio construction.

    • If you want to speculate, look elsewhere. Harry Browne advises that your profession will be your primary source of wealth and warns against taking risks like investing on margin.
    • Clean, clear advice. Some specifics are outdated (such as how to purchase investments) but his conservative concepts are solid.
    • I plan on revisiting this book every year. I’ve taken a more aggressive approach than his “Permanent Portfolio” (more stocks, less gold and bonds). Still, I thank him for introducing me to Gold. It’s a controversial asset but a game changer for me. It added a third uncorrelated asset class to ballast the portfolio, which made me more comfortable with investing heavier in stocks.

    ,

    Explore TIPS, Harry Sit, 2010

    Gotta start somewhere and I was curious about Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities when I started my investment journey in 2022. I’ve gone with a different investing strategy.

    • TIPS are bonds with inflation insurance. Harry is a fan of going heavy on TIPS relative to nominal bonds. (I believe a properly diversified portfolio will compensate for inflation with the other asset classes, so I don’t like the extra cost of the inflation insurance).
    • Purchase them at auction, the secondary market or via ETF’s. Harry Sit is open to all investment avenues.
    • I-bonds are more like CD’s since they can’t be sold on the secondary market. Harry Sit is not a fan.

    ,

    Value Averaging, The Safe and Easy Strategy for Higher Investment Returns, Michael E. Edleson, 1993

    An optimized way to pour cash into the investment market.

    • “Value Averaging” is setting a goal for how much you want an investment to increase over time and purchasing accordingly. Unlike “Dollar Cost Averaging”, Value Averaging pushes you to buy more when the markets are down and less when they’re up.
    • If you want to be awesome, the book gives a bunch of math to optimize the investment curve.
    • As a retail investor playing with small sums, I believe optimization is a waste. After learning the basics, the smallest edge requires a ton of study. Any such such bet will be overwhelmed by the capricious whims of the gods. Better to enjoy the finer parts of life.

    ,

    Die Broke, Stephen M. Pollen and Mark Levine, 1997

    I found the book in a random giveaway pile in Berkeley, maybe in lower Sproul Plaza. Two cities (and decades) later, I finally read it.

    • Great title and interesting provocation to reevaluate our relationship to money, work, and retirement.
    • I love books with unique structures. Part 1 is a short self help mindset manual. Part 2 is an alphabetical list of chapters with practical advice. (Since this book is almost thirty years old, I lightly skimmed the second part since I presume most of it is out of date.)
    • I enjoyed Part 1, partly because I already agree with their four key maxims. I view employment as a transaction not fulfillment, believe in avoiding debt, and doubt the positive good of leaving a large bequest. I’m not totally sold on the maxim of “Don’t Retire” but I appreciate their skepticism of the modern retirement paradigm.

    ,
     

    make
    money
    grow
    invest
    digits
    on a
    screen

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  • Pen and Ink, James Hobbs, 2016

    This is a great little survey of what’s possible with this medium. Hobbs picked a variety of artists and provided thoughtful commentary on each of his picks.

    As I get deeper into sketching, this book is a definite keeper. It’s nice to have an overview of all the different approaches in a single volume. Seeing the multiplicity of technical skills makes the practice less intimidating than studying the work of a single master.

    I got mine for $14, but prices fluctuate because it’s out of print. While you fish for a good price, I’ve included the list of artists in the photos below.

    Please note that this book is a bit smaller than I expected, so I included a Lamy Safari for scale on a couple photos.

    Now go and fly that pen!

  • OPM.55 (notes on) Small is the New Big, Seth Godin, 2006

    Stop making products and start making magic.

    This has been Seth’s mantra over the years. This book is no exception.

    It’s a fun read, delightfully nostalgic for someone that live through the internet revolution. Even though this book was about the World Wide Web before social media inhaled the information superhighway, Seth’s encouragement is still as powerful as ever.

    Go out there, let it all hang out, and do something.

    This book emphasizes “zooming” — acclimating to the difficult art of change. He posits that zooming is a powerfully motivating way to view the world.

    This book comes from that short lived genera of collected blog-posts volumes. The world has changed a bit since publication, but it still rhymes with the 00’s, even if things feel a little gloomier.

    Seth has been telling the same story for the past three decades.

    So if you dig him, check it out. If you don’t, this book won’t change your mind.

    With AI, change is coming (again!). What would you do if you knew for certain that what your work today won’t survive the next two decades of disruption? How will you embrace the change that is coming? Are you gonna zoom?

    ~

    One of my favorite riffs is when Godin embarks on an extended discussion about “maybe-proofing” the company. One of the best ways to kill a project flow is to dawdle. Sometimes we should pause and let things develop, but that should be a deliberate choice. As OPM’s, we have to maybe-proof ourselves. Our job is to make choices.

    ~

    In the two years after reading this book, I’ve realized that I’m on the back half of my career. So I’ve lost interest in self-help and Seth has been a casualty of this shift. He’s correct that one needs to embrace change in your career, but I’m not focused on my career anymore.

    I will always work hard and dabble with process improvements, but when I’m not at work, I focus on other joys. I no longer feel an urge to to maximize my output or lead the charge to make things better in the office.

    ~

    Some Links

    At the end of each month, I often need to use up my quota at Hoopla (a library streaming service). I invariably return to these albums. Two of them are absolute classics. The third is lesser known, though by perennial request by our kids. The fourth is a nod to my weakness for EDM.

    Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert. It’s the best selling solo jazz album of all time, but I’ll switch it up and borrow his Paris Concert which forays into baroque counterpoint.

    The Awakening is one of the most sampled albums in hip hop. Recorded in February 1970, it feels like a distinct evolution by the Ahmad Jamal Trio from the bebop of past decades. If I’ve had too much piano lately, I’ll get Way Out West with a unique trio of bass, drums, and saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins.

    My kids are obsessed with the “Ballad of Pancho Villa” (which they call “cafe music”) so they always insist on borrowing From All Sides, a collaboration between guitarist Bolo Sete and the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

    I recently mentioned Klangphonics for their quirky YouTube shorts. Driving feels better with Songs to Try on the speakers (but it’s not so aggressive to become dangerous).

    ~

    Park Shade, 2022

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • The 3 Gaps, Hyrum Smith, 2016

    To excel in life we need to address three gaps — Belief, Value, and Time.

    Belief gaps are the deep cause of your underperformance. It’s hard to change ingrained beliefs. Hyrum recommends that you test drive new beliefs by acting “as if” to see if the alternate reality will ultimately change your situation.

    Value gaps are your own personal constitution. What matters? So much that they govern your life? How will you prioritize them, to reorient your life?

    Hyrum uses the I-Beam thought experiment to test how important something is in your life. What’s worth crossing the Grand Canyon on a little slippery I-beam?

    • Family
    • Integrity
    • Health
    • Mind
    • Work / Finances
    • Making a Difference

    Time gaps are where the practical world collies with Belief and Value gaps. His primary recommendation is to start the day with daily “Magic 15 Minutes” exercise.

    1. Quiet Focus
    2. Seek Inspiration
    3. Review Values
    4. Integrate Long Term Goals
    5. List Appointments
    6. List Tasks
    7. Prioritize

    That’s it. It’s a two-hour audiobook that took an hour at 2x speed.

    I was inclined to like this book since I have a weakness for self help fare and I appreciated that he didn’t bloat the book like many others in this genre.

    However, I could argue that his advice is too simplistic. This book is for someone who is already in a good spot and wants an extra edge. Someone in a tough spot has bigger emergencies at hand.

    For someone in such a difficult situation, I wonder if such bootstrap advice is comes off insulting. Ultimately, this is generic advice, packaged tightly.

    When I wrote the first draft I thought this might be a good book to return to regularly, like John Miller’s QBQ. In reality, I haven’t given it a second thought over the past two years.

  • OPM.53 (notes on) A Sense of Style, Steven Pinker, 2015

    I often write about the grand challenges aspects of this work — eliminating and preserving slack in the system, juggling budget and schedule, fostering a decisive culture, executing a careful process, developing relationships.

    But in this world of digital communication, much of my time on the job is trying to write good. A well turned email can make a difference, and it’s amazing when a carefully crafted memo gets the needed response.

    This book stands out from prescriptive manuals (like Strunk and White) because Pinker carefully explains the why behind the rules. This book’s strength is also reflection upon what I do as an OPM.

    Yes we must follow our agency standards. And we all got personal preferences. But we’re at our best when we can explain the logic behind our decisions. It’s important for our team to know why, especially if the institutional logic results in weird choices.

    At least that’s what I hope. Maybe I just bore my consultants to tears with extended explanations of bureaucratic esoterica.

    That’s one of the perks and dangers of being a client — no one will tell you to shut up.

    ~

    Listening is not the best way to consume this book, but a little is better than none. There are diagrams and complex analyses that warrant a visual reading (either physical or electronic). But I haven’t bothered in the past couple of years, so I guess it’s not going to happen.

    ~

    Some Links

    Live performances of electronic music sounds like a contradiction, but they have a spark that is sometimes missing from their albums. Here are a few examples.

    I’ve haven’t gotten into his studio albums, but I often play Oupio’s concert at Red Rocks with the SYZYGY Orchestra when I’m cranking on work.

    Admittedly Caravan Palace’s animated music video is wildly vivid, but there’s a great vibe in this live performance of Lone Digger.

    I used to listen to Moon Safari album on a little blue MP3 player while walking to studio. This video of La Femme d’Argent in a recording studio materializes the music and the memories.

    ~

    Ferrero Rocher, 2022

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • foreword to Monkey King by Gene Luen Yang, (Julia Lovell Translation), 2021

    When reading classic literature, I often stumble at the introduction and never make it to the text itself. So I have mixed feelings towards introductory materials.

    However, Gene Luen Yang wrote an amazing foreword. It was concise but heartfelt. He spoke of himself, but captured a moment that included me.

    He nailed the rootlessness that I sensed as an Asian kid growing up in America. My mom also read the Journey to the West to me and my sister. Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy were integral parts parts of our childhood in a universe where they didn’t exist outside our home.

    Unlike Gene, I never fell in love with comic books. I never thought I had a favorite superhero, until I realized I did all along. This ridiculous monkey had settled deep into my psyche and never left.

    Like us, Sun Wukong was an outsider navigating a strange land. I never had his brashness, but I wish I did! (If I ever get a tattoo it would be 齊天大聖 , Great Sage Heaven’s Equal)

    One of the best introductions I’ve ever read. But I’m biased since Gene wrote it just for me.

    ~

    I drafted this note two years ago, before reading the book. I will always be in debt to the Lovell abridgement because it lead me to read the full translation by Anthony C. Yu, which I prefer. The story is a classic but the experience is incomplete without the poetic interludes in the novel.

  • Mythologies, Roland Barthes, 1957

    I bought this book for freshman rhetoric (or art history?) to fulfill one of my English requirements at Berkeley. I kept the book because loved his essay about professional wrestling and I finally read it over the pandemic.

    The book has a surprisingly contemporary feel, since it’s a series of short essays with a deep analysis at the end of the book. In our contemporary era, this would be a collection of posts with an extended coda.

    Then again Barthes was French so the essays are deeper than your typical tweet-storm and the closing discussion on semiology was an absolute ass whupping since I haven’t tussled with high theory since 2006.

    I’m fortunate to have taken those grad school theory courses before reading that last essay. I don’t remember much from Houston, but I knew just enough to roughly grok his game.

    Wikipedia

    Barthe posits that “mythology” is a second order semiological effect. The “full” Sign of language becomes the “empty” Signifier for myth which is paired with an unspoken Signified to create a new Sign.

    The main effect of myth is to distort knowledge in the service of power by making dominant values invisible. Myth makes ideology natural.

    In contemporary parlance, mythology hides privilege.

    The duty of the mythologist to untangle the web of obfuscation and expose such rhetoric for analysis.

    I might be 23 years late to the game, but it was totally worth lugging across the continent and back again.

    ~

    Two years later, my current reading obsession is “ancient wisdom”. Editing this draft reminds me that I need to re-read of this book — the ancients were no less susceptible to corruption than we are today. And if I’m gonna keep writing these notes, I should grab his baton to question today’s mythologies.

  • OPM.50 (notes on myself, from) Icarus Deception, Seth Godin, 2012

    I wrote this near the start of this OPM Letter. I started strong in 2021 but then went on a long hiatus before deciding to give this project proper closure. Even so, I thought I’d share as a way to celebrate the half century mark.

    ~

    This book hit me at the perfect time. Seth’s encouragement to step out into the void really hit after having started this OPM Letter project.

    Every few years I feel an urge to level up. After my first gig in a firm, I went to grad school. After Rice, I jumped from a small shop to work to try a corporate firm. Jumped from CAD to BIM. Took some (a lot) time remodeling our house. Slid over over to owner side.

    As discussed in Bob Buford’s Half Time, the best time to start the next thing is before the current thing has run out of steam.

    Maybe that’s the role of this newsletter.
    (2023 note: Doesn’t seem like it. I still enjoy my work, but I’ve moved my focus away from advancing my career.)

    I’m sticking myself out there, as if I’m an expert or something. I’m not. But maybe this project will help me contemplate my work.

    Maybe it results in something worth sharing. Otherwise why share?

    And if it doesn’t go anywhere? At least I’ll remain anonymous. Fame is overrated!

    ~

    Interestingly, I wrote almost nothing about the book in my first draft draft twenty four months ago. And now I can’t remember a single thing from the Icarus Deception aside from the green cover. I bet it had some inspiring moments about putting yourself out there in the new connection economy, but that’s just guessing. But I copied quote back then still resonates.

    Grit is the attitude of someone who realizes she has the power to care and is intent on doing something with it.

    An agency client just sent me a kind note before she retired. Maybe she was just being nice, but if I actually did anything special to earn her compliments, it was only because I cared and did something with it.

    ~

    Some Links

    Mark Starlin writes a fun newsletter every Monday with three quick fictions, a witty sentence, a flash fiction, and a short story. It’s a great start to the week.

    Carolyn Yoo explores the creative practice every week. I dig her warm embrace of the world at large. A great start is this newsletter sharing how she published a zine about finding her wedding dress.

    A few weeks ago I thought I becoming a Glitch-hop aficionado, but I’ve realized it’s too close to big-time EDM. Instead, I’ve been playing this Chiptune playlist on repeat. It reminds me of the days of downloading mods from BBSs.

    X-15 Crash (Pilot Jack McKay survived but was forced to retire early), Mud Lake, Nevada, 1962

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA