Book: The Road

by Cormac McCarthy

Finally a post-apocalyptic novel without monsters - no vampires, zombies or other men-eaters, except men themselves. Who really needs fictitious demons when humans are more than capable of monstrosities beyond imagination?

The whole story happens on the road, in the world burned to ashes, where a man and a boy travel scavenging the deserted houses for food and looking for "good guys". They avoid hordes of cannibals, looters and thieves. All along, the man is coughing, the ashes taking his breath little by little, until the end.

Very dark story, extremely detailed in surviving ingenuity and unfortunately very possible. It leaves no hope at the end, except the hope in survival itself. There's no promised land or miraculous healing. It also leaves no illusions about people - all of them are monsters, with a very few exceptions. Prosaic and deeply disturbing.

Book: A Dance With Dragons

Going through this one was quite a slog. Martin wrote about the last two books: "The last one was a bitch. This one was three bitches and a bastard." It really felt that way reading through it. When an author doesn't enjoy writing a book, how could we enjoy reading it? I wish I found those two sentences in the foreword, not the afterword, maybe it would save me from wasting time.

GRR Martin, it seems, is too busy with the production of HBO's TV series based on the first three books, which were fabulous. Or, he simply lost the flare for action, and is given to politics. Maybe he simply let too much time pass since the first books, and can't re-create the atmosphere he had there. Whatever the reason, this one was a bitch, slow and expansive, with (too many) new characters entering the story, while the old characters are trapped in place and the author can't think of a creative way to get them going again. Imagine a (very simple) video game in which your character is driven to the wall, and it keeps walking in place and pushing without going anywhere - that's how it felt with many of the old heroes we followed from previous books - Daenerys, Jon Snow, Arya, Tyrion, Jamie...no one is going anywhere, or doing anything of interest and essence, yet the book grew to 1,200 pages.

One thing I have to give Martin credit for - with his writing, raw and gritty, he keeps the promise of suspense going through the book, so you keep reading expecting something to happen. When nothing does, you feel betrayed.

When the next book comes out, I think I'll wait to see how readers like it, before deciding whether to read it or not.

Why did Bolt monkey around after winning 200 m gold?

Are you watching the Olympics? I am stealing every moment I can to watch. There's something special about the Games, something that makes me wait in suspense for sports I would never follow otherwise. Partly it's cheering for Canada - the Games, like nothing else in life, make me feel Canadian. And partly it's the atmosphere, and all the sports packed together in the same place and on tight schedule in just over two weeks. You get bored with diving, just switch the channel. There's track - still the queen of all sports - or boxing, or soccer, judo, wrestling, basketball, you name it.

With all the video available online, you can catch every action, from Usain Bolt bolting for gold, to the most bizarre sports like BMX downhill races where, as my colleague put it, "grown up men ride children's bikes over speed-bumps."

There's one thing that bothers me, though. Well, if truth be told, there are quite a few things, but this one is getting more obvious with every games: the weird behavior of elite athletes. Yahoo! sports pegged it on the "Ugly Americans" in this article, and I agree that they may have started the whole "I am the greatest" attitude, but it seems to be highly contageous.

Yesterday, golden boy Bolt easily won his second gold, adding 200 m to the 100 m one of a few days ago. That's an amazing feat! I tried to imagine how would I celebrate that moment, crossing the finish line way ahead of the pack, cameras swarming me instantly...and I couldn't. My imagination, as wonderful as it is, doesn't reach that high; I simply can't comprehend how is it being a class on its own, way above even the other fastest humans on earth. I somehow know that I would be humbled by the experience - I always am humbled with great success, of my own or the others - and I wouldn't cross the line with the index finger on my mouth, quieting the crowd who came to cheer me on. No, I'd rejoice in every voice raised in my honor, and wallow in the noise I caused. I'd probably raise my arms in triumph, and maybe point index fingers to the sky, as I sometimes do when I cross the finish line of my own marathon races. I know for certain I wouldn't drop to the ground to do push-ups. If I am extremely emotional, I could drop down to kiss the track, or some such nonsense. But, push-ups? Really, Usain?

Did he really feel the urge to complete his workout with some upper-body exercises, just as he finished the gold-medal Olympic race? Or was that showing his supremacy, saying "look at me, didn't even break a sweat, now I have to do some push-ups to look tired for the cameras?" What are we, regular Joes and Janes watching from around the world, supposed to think? That in the euphoria of victory he doesn't really think? That he ran so fast, his brain was still catching up while the body kept itself busy, doing some exercising while waiting? What does it say about his respect for the competition? What happened to the humility of a great champion, someone the kids can look up to? Because, the kids will emulate everything, as they aped the American sports champs for decades. They seem to learn silly things much faster than true and humble ones.

It may truly be just a momentary silliness, but a great champion knows he is being watched in every moment, ESPECIALLY in the moment of his triumph. And so, applying brain before acting would seem like a good idea.

I can't not admire Usain Bolt for everything he is and all he's accomplished. I am really grateful for being able to witness him running and winning. I just wish that, in the time of other great victories he will most certainly achieve, he would return to the innocence of the Beijing days and those cocked arms pointing skyward in the dancing pose we remember.

Post Scriptum:

While I was typing this blog post, the news reports from Usain Bolt's press conference proved that the only thing bigger than his ego is his mouth. Thanks for the ride, Usain, it will be interesting to watch your descent (because, once you're on top, there's no place to go but down)!

De-socializing my life

I've tried hard to be socially active. I was on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Tumblr, Google plus, Blogger, Goodreads, DailyMile, and a few now-defunct services which disintegrated under my fingertips into digital dust (Excite.com, AOL blogs, Yahoo 360, MySpace, etc.).

Yes, I know, it was insane thinking I could maintain all of them. I guess I was craving social interaction with like-minded people, something to fill in the void of the friendless place we live in. What a folly!

What I got is a bunch of childhood friends on Facebook, curious to find out what I'm up to, with nothing in common to keep the interaction going after three exchanges. I also found out that the digital social scene is brimming with egocentrics who are more than ready to offer their opinions and utterly unable to empathize with mine. (The only exception to all this is Daily Mile, a network for fitness enthusiasts, with the most polite and supportive crowd you'll ever find anywhere, not limited to the net only.)

In the pit of my stomach I constantly felt mild anxiety for neglecting one or the other of those social tools. Finally I paused to think about that constantly present feeling that I'm missing something, and traced it to its roots. It was almost laughable how trapped I was in the social net I weaved myself. As it usually happens with complicated knots, the easiest way to deal with them was - to cut them. One by one I closed all accounts, until eventually there were left only the two I use for work: Twitter and Google+. And this blog, which is a diary of sort, and a place where my thoughts can roam to untangle and de-stress.

My social experiment didn't resolve friendlessness, and cutting it away actually gave me new freedom. I'm free of obligation to check and respond to real or perceived communication. I truly don't miss digital "friends".

Being by ourselves - my life always involves Meg, our hearts are conjoined twins beating like one - no longer means loneliness. We learned to love our time alone, involved in things we like to do, or enjoying the familiar silence.

As for the social experience - I never felt lonelier than when I was on social networks.