Just a reminder that today is a post-less day here at pagesofjulia as I’m off seeing Ireland. Posting resumes tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by!
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The Most Expensive Game in Town: The Rising Cost of Youth Sports and the Toll on Today’s Families by Mark Hyman
Posted on April 7, 2012 by pagesofjulia
An impassioned argument that the mass commercialization of youth sports is not healthy for kids.
Mark Hyman’s first book, Until It Hurts, dealt with our national obsession with youth sports and its negative consequences for our children. The Most Expensive Game in Town expands on that theme by following the money. His research includes interviews and discussions with parents and grandparents, coaches, corporate sponsors and entrepreneurs–all of them spending and making money from youth sports in the United States. His conclusion: money can have adverse effects on the kids that sports programs are supposed to benefit in the first place, even when many of the parties involved have only the best intentions.
Hyman’s case studies include visits with parents who became unintended entrepreneurs because they saw a way to improve their kids’ experience as well as parents disturbed by the costs of supporting their kids. He looks at the big business of marketing through children–such as youth tournament sponsorships–and the promises made that kids will have a heightened chances of playing college sports or landing an athletic scholarship.
It’s difficult to grasp the size of the ill-defined youth sports industry, but Hyman makes it clear that the amounts involved are shocking. Finally, he examines the plight of kids in inner cities (and others affected by poverty) whose access to the obvious benefits of sport, participation and competition is limited. Hyman’s arguments are well-researched yet very readable, bringing home an issue that is perhaps underexamined but of great importance to parents and concerned citizens.
This review originally ran in the March 27, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!
Rating: 5 soccer balls.
Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: nonfiction, Shelf Awareness, sports | Leave a comment »
book beginnings on Friday: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Posted on April 6, 2012 by pagesofjulia
Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.
I’m listening to Kingsolver’s The Lacuna on audio. I loved her The Bean Trees and I think I loved Animal Dreams, but it’s hazy; The Poisonwood Bible really didn’t work for me (which, from my reading of other book blogs, appears to be a common reaction). But The Lacuna comes recommended from my mother, so here we go. It begins:
In the beginning were the howlers. They always commenced their bellowing in the first hour of dawn, just as the hem of the sky began to whiten.
The hem of the sky. Lovely. And what are you reading this weekend?
Be advised: I’m out of town, so you’re viewing pre-scheduled posts until April 9. I love your comments and will respond when I return! But I’ll be out of touch for a bit. Thanks for stopping by!
Filed under: book beginnings | Tagged: audio, misc fiction | Leave a comment »
The Torrents of Spring by Ernest Hemingway
Posted on April 5, 2012 by pagesofjulia
The Torrents of Springs has an interesting place in the Hemingway canon. It’s under 100 pages, but couldn’t be more different than the similarly short The Old Man and the Sea; the latter was a masterpiece, cost the author great effort, and won him a Pulitzer Prize, towards the end of his career. The former was early in his career and took him a matter of days to complete; it’s a work of parody and was intended to break Hemingway’s contract with publisher Boni and Liveright. The contract stated that B&L would publish the young up-and-coming’s first three novels unless one were rejected; in the case of rejection, the contract would be broken. Thus tricky Hemingway, who wanted to sign with Scribner’s, submitted this brief and, Hadley Hemingway’s word, “nasty” novella, had his contract broken, and carried on. The Torrents of Spring has never received much critical attention. It is accepted as it was presented: a lark, and not a particularly good-natured one. In my Hemingway studies, though, I wanted to see what it was about – perhaps all the more so because it has such a prickly reputation. (F. Scott Fitzgerald, the dissenter, apparently found it impressive.)
So I picked up this slim little book and read it in a day. It reads like a parody. (But I knew this going in. Hm. An unbiased reader I was not.) It’s a little ridiculous, consciously skipping over character development and explanations in favor of repetitious sentences.
In some ways it was the happiest year of his life. In other ways it was a nightmare. A hideous nightmare. In the end he grew to like it. In other ways he hated it. Before he knew it, a year had passed. He was still collaring pistons. But what strange things had happened in that year. Often he wondered about them.
But these strange things are not explained to me, “the reader.”
The author addresses “the reader” and asks for allowances to be made:
It is very hard to write this way… the author hopes the reader will realize this… I don’t want to rush the reader any… I only wish the reader could help me.
There is definitely a note of less-than-seriousness. It’s also simple, and less than proper in its treatment of certain minority groups (which latter fact is pretty standard for the time period).
If you think you hear Hemingway’s famous “voice” here, you’re not alone. However, I think I hear Sherwood Anderson‘s “voice” here, too. Anderson is one of the writers being parodied; but he also appears in an article years after the publication of The Torrents of Spring as Hemingway’s recommended reading, which is a little odd. But then, Hemingway did make a habit of pushing-and-pulling at his literary friends and rivals, who were too often the same people.
Oh, did you want to know what it was about? Plot is not this book’s strong point, but I’ll tell you briefly. Scripps O’Neil was married to a woman in Mancelona (Michigan), but she left him; he then journeys towards Chicago but ends up in Petoskey (also Michigan, and one of Hemingway’s haunts). Here he works in a pump factory and marries an elderly waitress with whom he quickly becomes disenchanted. His coworker at the factory, Yogi Johnson, who was in the war, worries about losing his interest in women; drinks with some Indians whose luck runs out; and regains his interest in women upon encountering a nude squaw. The plot is not the point; the point is the funny style.
I have to agree with the critics this time; this is not an important literary creation on the scale of Hemingway’s great works (like The Sun Also Rises, which like Torrents was published in 1926). But it’s amusing, and stylistically interesting. I wouldn’t go about freely recommending this to just any reader. I think you would want to be especially interested in Hemingway, or Anderson, or literary playfulness of their era, to appreciate it. If that’s not you – if you’re interested in exploring Hemingway generally – I can recommend much better books, and much better examples of his craft. The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea are my favorite of his novels; A Farewell to Arms is well-respected as well; A Moveable Feast is a lovely memoir of Paris; and I find his short stories marvelous (and nice short entries to his style if you’re hesitant). The best I can say about The Torrents of Spring is that it will not take much of your time! And is mildly noteworthy as an anecdote of Hemingway’s career.
Rating: 3 underhanded compliments.
Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: Hemingway, misc fiction | 2 Comments »
Edward Abbey: a recipe
Posted on April 4, 2012 by pagesofjulia
Fragments of autobiography, journalistic battle debris, nightmares and daydreams, bits and butts of outdoors philosophizing, all stirred together in a blackened iron pot over a smoking fire of juniper, passionflower and thorny mesquite. Agitate. Redneck slumgullion, like any stew, makes a tasty, nutritious and coherent whole. And why not? Society too, human society, is like a stew – if you don’t keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on top.
–Edward Abbey, from the introduction to The Journey Home
Here Abbey describes what is to come in this essay collection, but we also get a nice quick punchy taste of his voice and his perspective on humanity.
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on mountain lions
Posted on April 2, 2012 by pagesofjulia
This is my memory of what happened.
In August of 1990 I was just past my 8th birthday, backpacking with my parents in the White River National Forest in Colorado. We made camp for the evening; it was still daylight. We were in a low, fairly clear area, with the land rising up around us; the grass was tall and golden-brown. I had wandered off by myself, I don’t remember why, and was wandering back toward camp when I looked up into the eyes of a creature I didn’t recognize. It was the size of our family dog, Eile, a Weimaraner. But its face was that of a cat. It was golden-brown, like the grass. It had paused mid-stride to gaze back at me. We were maybe 10-15 feet apart, and we both stopped and looked at each other for a few seconds. I wanted to make the moment last. I was always excited to see wildlife when we camped and backpacked; I remember being enchanted by marmots. Then the big cat walked off and I went back to camp. I told my father I had seen a new animal, and he asked me to describe it, and I told him the same description I’ve given here: the size of our dog, with the face of a cat, golden-brown. He was very excited and told me that I’d seen a mountain lion. I knew what a lion was and told him that wasn’t right, but later he found a picture of this different kind of lion, with no mane, and I recognized it. Yes, I’d seen a mountain lion. I remember my father being thrilled, but there was some note of alarm, too; I’d made it out of the experience fine, so there was no sense in being frightened (I think he told me that now that it knew we were there, it would stay away from us), but you might not send your eight-year-old off on such an encounter knowingly. I felt no fear, of course, not knowing anything but that this creature resembled my pets back home. Nothing scary about that. I’ve wondered if it simply wasn’t hungry, or if it recognized my innocence, my fearless curiosity, my lack of intention to do it any harm.
The above is my memory more than 20 years later, of course, and it may be faulty. It’s even possible that I remember the story as family lore rather than remembering the incident itself; but I don’t think that’s the case. I can picture the cat, and the dry grassy field.
Do my parents remember this experience the same way? It’s been a long time, and I was small. In fact, I had to look up the when-and-where using Pops’s travel log (thanks so much, Pops, for keeping one!). I was surprised at the date; I thought I was smaller than 8 when this happened. To which Pops says, “eight is still pretty small!”
They’ve shared their memories for us here.
Mom:
My memory is such that I doubt if I was there. I either remember the telling of the tale, or I remember telling the tale. The one thing that seems authentic is a flash of astonishment on your face. Maybe I saw you seeing something – and later heard what Hank actually saw, the mountain lion.
Dad:
I have a “clear” memory of it, which probably has a 50% chance of being accurate.
I don’t remember Karen being there so it will be interesting to see what she says. You and I were on a hike – who knows how far from our backpack-camp given your age. We were walking up over a slight rise when you made some exclamation – I don’t remember what. By the time I looked where you were looking, all I saw was a flash of tawny brown disappearing over the hill and/or into the brush. We were in relatively open, scrubby terrain – not in the woods. This was definitely mountain lion habitat – not bobcat or such.
I asked you to describe what you had seen, and it’s based on your description plus my furtive glimpse that I concluded it was a mountain lion. I remember not having any doubt, and emphasizing to you what a special observation it was. I have and would describe this to others as your sighting, not mine; without your description, I would not have been so sure. I might have reasoned that I probably just saw a deer (no tail flash tho’) or a coyote (no bushy tail tho’).
and then:
You thought you were ALONE?!!! Wow; that’s hutzpah – and how very irresponsible of your parents if true!
All of this came back to me recently in reading a few collections of Edward Abbey’s essays. In an essay entitled “Freedom and Wilderness, Wilderness and Freedom” (oft-quoted and reprinted; my version comes from The Journey Home), he describes his one encounter with a mountain lion. When he became aware of its presence, he was exhilarated, having wanted to meet a lion all his life (something I’d read in earlier essays). He felt fear, but also:
I felt what I always feel when I meet a large animal face to face in the wild: I felt a kind of affection and the crazy desire to communicate, to make some kind of emotional, even physical contact with the animal.
He tried to shake its hand. And if that sounds crazy, I ask you to go find a copy of this essay and read it all the way through. It’s only 11 pages long. And by the time he wants to shake this lion’s hand, I propose that you might be with him, searching for communion. I certainly was.
Abbey only had the one encounter, and in earlier essays I’ve read, he laments that fact; he waited for and sought that one encounter all his life. It makes me feel that much luckier that I got to see one, too.
Aside from the beauty and grace and rarity of the mountain lion, there’s a question growing out of this blog post about the nature of memory. That, too, reminds me of some recent reading: you may have noticed me raving lately about A Difficult Woman, the Lillian Hellman biography by Alice Kessler-Williams which – among many other things – examines the themes of memory and truth in Hellman’s life. I believe that our memories are fluid and unreliable. It may be that there is no absolutely true memory; it is my experience that people consistently share different memories of the same event. That being said, I think my father probably has it right; we were probably together. It seems more likely (because why would you let your 8-year-old wander around alone in mountain lion country), and I’m inclined to trust his memory which was then mature over mine which was then young… also, inflating my own role to a solo encounter feels like something a child’s memory might do. But it’s interesting to see these different memories, don’t you think?
Be advised: I’m out of town, so you’re viewing pre-scheduled posts until April 9. I love your comments and will respond when I return! But I’ll be out of touch for a bit. Thanks for stopping by!
Filed under: musings | Tagged: Edward Abbey, nature, personal, travel | Leave a comment »
Sunday Off
Posted on April 1, 2012 by pagesofjulia
Just a reminder that today is a post-less day here at pagesofjulia as I’m off seeing Ireland. Posting resumes tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by!
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A Walk (Ride) About Town: the convent with the barbed wire (Houston)
Posted on March 31, 2012 by pagesofjulia
A Walk About Town is hosted by Natalie over at Coffee and a Book Chick.
This past weekend (3/24-25) was a truly lovely one in Houston, and we have been starved for good weather recently: it almost didn’t rain at all in 2011, so we’ve been seeing drought, dead trees, and wildfires; and in the first few months of 2012 it has done almost nothing but rain. We skipped winter (it stayed above 60 degrees most of the time) and fear another hot summer. But! This past weekend was a dream: sunny, light breeze, upper 70’s. Okay, it got well into the 80’s, but I’m not complaining.
So of course on Saturday Husband and I were riding our bikes around town. It was a nice day for exploring, and we were on our usual route east of town. I normally do this ride in the dark, in the early morning or evening, and it’s always a treat to see it in daylight. This was finally the day to explore something I’d been curious about for some time. We ride by a large piece of property that is all overgrown vegetation and fenced with barbed wire at the top, angled inward, as if they’re trying to keep someone or something in rather than out. I’ve been told it’s a convent, which seems like an odd place to employ inward-facing barbed wire. We rode around until we found an open gate, and entered.
This turns out to be the Villa de Matel, run by the Sisters of Charity. It is even larger than I thought, and beautiful! We took some pictures with Husband’s iPhone; this magical device often takes the best pictures we get on our vacations and whatnot, but it didn’t do so well on this day in the sunshine. Maybe it’s better indoors? At any rate, I am sharing the pictures even though they’re not professional or ideal. What do you want, we were on our bicycles.
This was our view as we entered: big beautiful building, statues, fountains, and greenery. It was dreamy.
A lovely little grotto with trickling fountain, alter, seating, and a skylight above a statue of the Virgin so that presumably under ideal conditions she’s lit up from above. (That’s me in red.)
No plaque here, but I liked the statue. Three nuns. Acting as nurses? (The bag on the right looks like a medical bag.)
The grounds were really highlighted by the sunshine, and so green!
There was more. I wish we’d gotten more, and better pictures. There was a little neighborhood of residences; there was a swimming pool, and various buildings and facilities including a conference center. And the side that we normally ride by, all overgrown, is a natural area with a footpath. The sign entering the footpath was funny and I wish I’d gotten a picture of it: to paraphrase, “beware! uneven ground – water occasionally pools – watch out for wildlife including armadillos, possums, raccoons and snakes!” The entire grounds were beautiful, and as I said, at their best in the greenery and sunshine. The buildings were lovely. And it was – perhaps as you’d expect – peaceful and quiet, its own little world. I’m glad we took the time to explore.
Discovered anything new in your hometown lately?
Be advised: I’m out of town, so you’re viewing pre-scheduled posts until April 9. I love your comments and will respond when I return! But I’ll be out of touch for a bit. Thanks for stopping by!
Filed under: a walk about town | Tagged: bikes | Leave a comment »
book beginnings on Friday: La Roja: How Soccer Conquered Spain and How Spanish Soccer Conquered the World by Jimmy Burns
Posted on March 30, 2012 by pagesofjulia
Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.
I found us a funny teaser for today:
He briefly embarked on a new career as a referee but found the profession lacking excitement. He was saved from growing old and bitter by an early death.
Ha! That’s one way to look at it. Sort of a different approach than that old quip about aging: that it beats the alternative.
So far this book is more Spanish history than soccer, per se, but it’s early yet. And there’s nothing wrong with Spanish history, for that matter.
What are you reading this week?
This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.
Be advised: I’m out of town, so you’re viewing pre-scheduled posts until April 9. I love your comments and will respond when I return! But I’ll be out of touch for a bit. Thanks for stopping by!
Filed under: book beginnings | Tagged: nonfiction, sports | Leave a comment »
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