I Am Very Tall

Totally different type of post today.

If you haven't done so already, I'd recommend checking out the "We Are the 99%" tumblr blog (wearethe99percent.tumblr.com). Say what you will about the Occupy Wall Street movement (and I'm a banker, so I certainly have had the opportunity to be critical), but there is some really sad/depressing content there. What's striking is that the postings have none of the sort of calls for revolution, or the political leanings of any of the protest movements of the '60s. Instead, people are really just posting about how helpless they feel. Having to choose between eating or paying the rent. Getting sick, not having healthcare, and then losing their jobs. Being scared. It's not about fighting for a huge change, it's about not feeling like being totally eff'd.

There is a very popular meme in American politics that says that the people without the work are lazy, spoiled, or entitled (e.g. Herman Cain). And that if these people just applied themselves a little bit more, then they wouldn't have these problems. If you believe that, then I would strongly recommend that you take a look at this blog, and let me know what you think about it afterwards.

I have a friend. She is without a doubt, one of my favorite friends in the world. I met her recently when I was still in school, and even though we only really knew each other for the space of a month or two, it was very clear to me that she was one of those rare people that you just know will be your friend forever. Or at least until the school year is over, but hopefully for longer than that.

In any case, on top of being fun, witty and charming, she is also one of the most thoughtful people I know. She sent me a card when I moved into my new apartment, and even sent me something for my birthday.  Or at least, she says she did, but is apparently having trouble figuring out how many stamps she needs to put on the damn thing.


One of the more amusing things about her is her undying affection for Taylor Swift. She knows every song, and even worked for Taylor's label (and now has a photo of herself standing and smiling with America's Amazonian Sweetheart).  And for some reason, of all the T. Swift songs that she knows, the one song that she sings at me all the time is, "Mean." Specifically, she likes to repeat the following stanza, in some abbreviated form:

"All you are is mean. And a liar. And pathetic. And alone in life, and mean. And mean. And mean."

I loved the first book, The Magicians. It was a great mixture of old fantasy tropes (primarily from Narnia) and more modern personalities. This book is mostly more of the same. Which is fine, but as I read through it, some of the stylistic flaws became more apparent.

For those of you unfamiliar with the first book, it is basically what would happen if the kids that went to Hogwarts were like today's Ivy-league set, as opposed to the more mythical types that inhabit the Harry Potter novels. There is something of an "It's all fun and games until someone gets eaten by a dragon" theme to these books, in which the main characters are basically like you and I, with fantasy-novel born pretensions of being heroes, but without any of the actual underlying strength of character to actually perform in the manner required.

So, as I said, this book is more of the same. The main strength that it relies on is the author's ability to drop in tongue-in-cheek comments, mostly via the protagonist's internal monologue, about all of the weird things happening around him. It does this quite well, and manages to be quite funny. The biggest issue that starts popping up is that in some ways, there is a legitimate bit of fantasy in here. And to be honest, that part just isn't that great. It's all very surface-y and can be a bit unsatisfying. But I still crushed through this book, and I still laughed. So, overall, worth a skim.

This was a great book. The first several hundred pages were awesome. I will, however, ding it a little bit for dragging on a bit towards the end.

It moves in three major arcs. The first major arc is treatment, spanning bloodletting, surgery, and chemotherapy. This arc kicks into second gear when it becomes intertwined with the history of the modern cancer movement, starting with Sidney Farber and Mary Lasker. The second arc is much briefer, and goes through the various prevention efforts, including the war on tobacco. The final arc is essentially the culmination, in which a genetic understanding of the cancer cell leads to what looks like the beginnings of the cure, via gene therapy. Intertwined through all of these arcs are Mukherjee's personal dealings with his own cancer patients, which gives the book a human element.

As a reminder, this book took forever for me to finish. It is not a short read. It drags towards the end. It begins to feel as if you're just going from one discovery to the next, one random doctor to another. But overall, it's very edifying.

A couple of key insights, outside of the random factoids. One. Medical progress comes in fits and starts. A lot of what we've discovered about cancer seems to have come through almost accidental discoveries that almost get overlooked. Two. Organization is key. The modern cancer movement didn't seem to really get its legs under it until Farber and Lasker basically built the American Cancer Society into a well-oiled machine. Three. Cancer is scary, I really would rather not ever get it.

That's about it. I wish I had a witty and insightful review of this book, but it's hard. This is not a particularly emotional book, despite the gravity of the subject. Mukherjee moves very quickly through the subject matter, and in so doing, makes the book feel oddly light. In the few places where he tries to tell a human story, you can tell that he is clearly not in his element, and is - if anything - trying to mimic the feel of something more serious. He is much more at home going through the annals of cancer's history, describing the import of this discovery or that discovery. If anything, this book is more interesting for its compact navigation of what would otherwise be an even longer and denser subject matter.

So, this Saturday, one of my new coworkers asked me to go out to dinner with him. He had an ulterior motive - he had a date and the date was bringing a friend, so he needed some guys to play wingman for him. Anyone who actually knows me will probably find this an utterly laughable thing to do. Unless your girl's friends are enthralled by short nerds, there is absolutely no reason to ever bring me along. Which is probably why he brought three other guys just in case.

The dinner was good, and I will not lie, the friends were ridiculously attractive. As in, I would happily stare at these women and feel like a love-struck 16 year old. And somehow, dinner ended, and three guys and three really, really ridiculously good-looking girls made their way over to the Rose Bar in Gramercy. And for some reason or another, I happened to be one of those three guys. I really have no idea how that happened.

Now, talking to random girls is not my forte. I usually don't know what to say to them. However, if there is one thing I can do, it's shuffle my feet around really quickly when music plays. And, if the occasion calls for it, grab a pretty girl's hand and spin her around in circles until she looks queasy with dizziness. And that is precisely what I did to the only one of those pretty girls that was shorter than me. And it was awesome.

Anyway, that's pretty much it. Just a really fun night, no illicit sexual behavior or anything like that. The one moment that stands out is when the following song came on. And the girl that I was dancing with it loved it, and wished she knew what it was called. And I - having just recently found it - very casually let drop my little bit of knowledge. And then she loved me, and dancing commenced.

Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks