Data analysis: every single book I read in 2012

Above: Adolfo Bioy Casares

In 2012, I read a total of 40 books. Of these books...

• 36 were written by men; 4, by women
• 33 were written by white people; 6 were written by non-white people; in 1 case I am not able to make any determination
• Of the non-white authors, 2 were African-American, 2 were Mexican-American, 1 was Indian-American, and 1 was Chinese.
• 21 of the authors are still alive; 17 are dead; 1 can reasonably be assumed to be dead; and, in 1 case, I have no idea
• 16 of the books were fiction; 24 were non-fiction
• I read 24 of the books for the first time; 16 of them were books I had read before at least once
• I owned 26 of the books; 14 of them were from the library

Every single book I read in 2012

Above: Ryszard Kapuscinski in Angola

The Normandy Diary of Marie-Louise Osmont: 1940-1944-- Marie-Louise Osmont

Catch-22-- Joseph Heller

Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade-- Kurt Vonnegut

The Caine Mutiny-- Herman Wouk

From Stalingrad to Pillau: A Red Army Artillery Officer Remembers the Great Patriotic War-- Isaak Kobylyanskiy, edited by Stuart Britton

A Farewell to Arms-- Ernest Hemingway

Condemned to Live: A Panzer Artilleryman's Five-Front War-- Franz A. P. Frisch and Wilbur Jones, Jr.

A Quarter-Century of Un-Americana-- edited by Charlotte Pomerantz

Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial-- James A. Miller

The Ox-Bow Incident-- Walter Van Tilburg Clark

To Kill a Mockingbird-- Harper Lee

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man-- James Weldon Johnson

The Neighborhood of Baseball-- Barry Gifford

Another Day of Life-- Ryszard Kapuscinski

There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom-- Louis Sachar (out loud to my students)

Time for Outrage/Indignez-vous!-- Stephane Hessel

Change-- Mo Yan

Moving Through Here-- Don McNeill

Fugitive Days: A Memoir-- Bill Ayers

Out of The Whale-- Jonah Raskin

Hillsborough: The Truth-- Phil Scraton

The Day of the Hillsborough Disaster: A Narrative Account-- Compiled and Edited by Rogan Taylor, Andrew Ward, and Tim Newburn

The Education of Hopey Glass-- Jaime Hernandez

The Girl From H.O.P.P.E.R.S.-- Jaime Hernandez

The Catcher in the Rye-- J.D. Salinger

Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga-- Stephen Davis (2008 edition)

LZ-'75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour-- Stephen Davis; Photographs by Peter Simon

On High Steel: The Education of an Ironworker-- Mike Cherry

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)-- Mindy Kaling

Good Ol' Snoopy-- Charles M. Schulz

Good-Bye To All That-- Robert Graves

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness-- Edward Abbey

Cut Off behind enemy lines in the Battle of the Bulge with two small children, Ernest Hemingway and other assorted misanthropes-- Bill Davidson

Naples '44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth-- Norman Lewis

The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms: A Biography-- Kai Bird

JIM: The Author's Self-Centered Memoir on the Great Jim Brown-- James Toback

The Dream of Heroes-- Adolfo Bioy Casares

The Big Fix-- Roger L. Simon

The Third Man-- Graham Greene

The Maltese Falcon-- Dashiell Hammett

What I have been reading lately #54

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)-- Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling, a writer/actor on The Office and, currently, Fox TV's The Mindy Project, recently wrote a book about her life growing up in Massachusetts, going to college at Dartmouth, and becoming a writer in Hollywood. I enjoyed this book.

Good Ol' Snoopy--  Charles M. Schulz

This book collects a number of early Peanuts cartoons related to Snoopy. A lot of them revolve around Snoopy's unhappiness at being called "Fuzzy Face" by Lucy.

Good-Bye To All That-- Robert Graves

I read, for the second, third, or maybe fourth time, Robert Graves memoir of growing up in England in the final days before World War One and his subsequent service as an officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers on the western front. Everyone should read this book.

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness-- Edward Abbey

Sometime in the 1950s, Edward Abbey worked as a ranger at the Arches National Monument; a few years after that, he wrote a book about the experience. In this book Abbey discusses, among other topics--

• the desert
• his ideas for reforming the national park system (eliminating roads and cars mostly)
• a uranium-finding/murder/survival story
• going on a cattle drive
• his thoughts about Native Americans (admiration/they need birth control)
• water (and quicksand)
• trying to capture a long-ago escaped horse
• floating down the Colorado River through Glen Canyon one last time before it was dammed
• almost getting trapped forever in a canyon
• searching for and finding a dead body
• climbing Mt. Tukuhnikivats
• exploring a group of canyons known as the Maze.

Similarly to Good-Bye To All That, everyone should read this book.

Soccer update-- more on recent cancellations

We recently reported that Real Madrid's match at Rayo Vallecano had to be cancelled due to acts of sabotage to the electrical system. (See photos of the damaged electrical equipment above and below) 

The match was finally played today, resulting in a 2-0 Real Madrid victory.

Below: Karim Benzema celebrates after scoring for Real Madrid

In other news, due to the recent cancellation of AS Roma's match at Cagliari, Serie A officials have decided to award a 3-0 victory to Roma. Cagliari have announced that they will appeal this decision.

Soccer update-- cancellations and more

Today's La Liga match between Real Madrid and Rayo Vallecano was cancelled due to sabotage. (Apparently an electrical cable was cut.)

Above and below: Workers attempt to fix the lights 

Below: Fans outside the Estadio de Vellecas

In Italy, today's match between AS Roma and Cagliari was cancelled due to a dispute between Cagliari and Serie A authorities about whether home fans would be allowed to attend the match.

And finally, Milan's disastrous season continued with a 2-1 loss to Udinese. Highlights included two Milan players sent off with red cards (Cristian Zapata and Kevin Prince-Boateng) and continued speculation about whether Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri will be fired.

Below: Milan players after the match

Friday fashion report

Friday at my school is Free Dress Day, and nothing says "Free Dress Day" like a Mesut Ozil Real Madrid jersey...

...unless it's a counterfeit Mesut Ozil Real Madrid jersey. 

For Mesut Ozil's official website, click here.

For an unofficial Mesut Ozil website that has actual photos and information, click here.

For highlights of Mesut Ozil's 2011-12 season, watch the video below.

AC Milan's season so far

I have tried several times to write a post about how incredibly disastrous this year has been for AC Milan so far, but I just can't do it.

Above: Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri urges his team on

Below: Anderlecht goalkeeper Silvio Proto

Picture of the Day

Maybe you've seen this one already, but here it is, just in case-- an angry Pittsburgh Steelers fan throwing her beer at a Denver Broncos fan as the Broncos wrapped up last Sunday night's 31-19 victory.

Go watch this movie right now.

Other than a very successful baseball team and the alleged invention of both the hot dog and the ice cream cone, there was little to be proud of about St. Louis when I was growing up there. Imagine my surprise when I grew up and discovered that, for many historians, political scientists, public policy experts, architects, and others, St. Louis's Pruitt-Igoe housing project had come to symbolize all that was wrong with public housing and government anti-poverty programs. For years, I knew little about Pruitt-Igoe other than that it was demolished in the early-1970s leaving behind an large series of completely empty blocks. This movie did a fantastic job in getting past the myths and uncovering the system of racism, oppression, and neglect that resulted in Pruitt-Igoe. Go watch this movie right now.

Abandoned books and/or movies #12

These are the books that I started and then stopped reading over the summer.

Maggie the Mechanic-- Jaime Hernandez

Two Love and Rockets books was probably more than I needed to read. This one-- the third in a row-- was definitely too much.

Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label-- various authors and photographers

This is a coffee-table book about Def Jam by Def Jam. The pictures were pretty good (such as the one of LL Cool J above), but I wasn't all that interested in reading the text.

 The Clay Machine-Gun-- Victor Pelevin

I've read this one before but not recently. When I started reading it again, it seemed like a good idea to re-read a novel that mixes the Russian Revolution, Buddhism, and Arnold Schwarzenegger (among other things). After about forty pages, it didn't seem like such a good idea anymore.

Here are some of the movies that I started watching but did not finish this summer.

Repo Man

I love this movie and have seen it many, many times. This time I watched about forty-five minutes and then decided that, instead of finishing it, I would go to bed.

Continental Divide

I had heard for years about how terrible this movie is-- it's a romantic comedy starring John Belushi as a big-city newspaper reporter trapped out in the wilderness. I finally decided to find out for myself. I made it twenty-one minutes before I had to turn it off.

Six Degrees of Separation

I have seen this one a few times and always liked it. This time around I couldn't get into it, though. I'm not sure why. It did inspire me to re-read The Catcher in the Rye, however (or maybe that was the other way around).

Rainier Valley Heritage Parade 2012

Today was the Rainier Valley Heritage Parade-- along with the many drill teams and junior cheerleading squads, Sound Transit Man was there. Thank you, Sound Transit, for sending him!

What I have been reading lately #53

Hillsborough: The Truth-- Phil Scraton

In April of 1989, at the start of an FA Cup semifinal match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death on the terraces at Hillsborough Stadium. Despite what some thought at the time, the deaths were caused not by drunken hooligans but by a combination of poor planning, incompetence, and inaction primarily by the South Yorkshire police. Phil Scraton's disturbing book, a comprehensive narrative covering the entire event and its aftermath (i.e. the attempted police cover-up) , was the first book I read this summer.

The Day of the Hillsborough Disaster: A Narrative Account-- compiled and edited by Rogan Taylor, Andrew Ward, and Tim Newburn

Why read just one book about a horrible sports-related, crushing disaster caused by government and corporate complacency when you can read two? This book was an oral history of the events at Hillsborough and complemented Scraton's book very well. Needless to say, my summer was off to a rosy start.

Above and below: Scenes from the Hillsborough disaster 

The Education of Hopey Glass-- Jaime Hernandez 

The Girl From H.O.P.P.E.R.S.-- Jaime Hernandez

I am not sure why I read things like this. All I can say is a) it seemed like a good idea at the time, and b) neither of these graphic novels involved people being crushed to death in pens while police officers stood idly by and watched.

The Catcher in the Rye-- J.D. Salinger

I take great satisfaction from the fact that I still own the copy of this book I first read in high school (not pictured above, although mine looks almost exactly like that)

Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga (2008 edition)-- Stephen Davis

Growing up in suburban St. Louis in the early 1980s, I tried very, very hard to learn to like Led Zeppelin. (It didn't work.) This book did go a little ways towards reminding me that Led Zeppelin are, despite everything, actually a pretty good band.

LZ - '75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour-- Stephen Davis; photographs by Peter Simon

Why read just one book about the most overblown and preposterous rock band of the 1970s when you can read two? This book covered just one of Led Zeppelin's US tours, and it was actually quite enjoyable-- the photographer, Peter Simon, turned out to be singer Carly Simon's brother. Additionally, this book raised an important question for me-- is it possible for an author (in this case, Stephen Davis) to plagiarize their own work?

On High Steel: The Education of an Ironworker-- Mike Cherry

By far the best book I read all summer (and the summer of 2008 and the summer of 2004)-- everyone should read this book. Good luck finding it, though (and no, you can't borrow my copy).

A live version of Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine"

Someone doing a cover version of Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine"


For all you guitar players, Bob from Toronto, Canada teaches how to play Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine" on your own

Seedorf scores his first goal for his new club

This summer, former AC Milan midfielder Clarence Seedorf signed a two-year contract to play for the Brazilian club Botafogo. The contract is said to be the largest ever signed by a foreign player to play for a Brazilian team. Seedorf, who enjoyed a long and exciting career at Milan, scored his first goal of the season in Botafogo's win against Atletico Goianiense yesterday. Hopefully this will be just the first of many goals as Seedorf pursues his career in Brazil. 

Above: Seedorf displays the Botafogo flag

Below: One of my all-time favorite goals by Seedorf

Seattle Seahawks training camp update #1

Our goal here at Ape Canyon News Service has always been to be the world's number one source of sports-related news, commentary, and analysis. In keeping with that goal, our staff took a trip today down to the Seattle Seahawks training camp at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center on Lake Washington (see photo above). During the month of August, the Seahawks, led by coach Pete Carroll (pictured below wearing white pants), will practice numerous times each week in order to get ready for the upcoming NFL season.

Coming into this year's training camp, the Seahawks have three different players competing to become the starting quarterback-- last year's starter, Tarvaris Jackson; former Green Bay Packers back-up quarterback Matt Flynn; and recently drafted Russell Wilson. During the scrimmage at the end of practice, all three quarterbacks took turns running the offense. (See videos below)

Above: Tarvaris Jackson attempts to complete a pass during a scrimmage

Below: Matt Flynn's turn to throw a pass

Among the returning players who are pretty much guaranteed a spot in the starting lineup is defensive lineman Red Bryant. In addition to doing an excellent job on defense, Bryant holds the single-season Seahawks record for most blocked kick attempts during one season (four). 

During today's practice, Bryant worked on many drills, such as the pass rushing drill in the video above. His performance seemed pretty unremarkable; however, I was curious as to why Bryant appeared to be wearing some sort of pantyhose or stockings under his uniform. (See photo below)

Probably the biggest highlight of today's workout was getting to see offensive lineman John Moffitt vomiting on the sidelines at the start of practice. Moffitt had been having a discussion with fellow offensive lineman Breno Giacomini about the weather-- both players were happy about today's sunshine-- when suddenly Moffitt became violently ill and started throwing up (see photo below). 

Moffitt, who missed the last part of the 2011-12 season due to an injury/suspension for testing positive for banned substances, later on had to ask one of the equipment managers to unlock a door so he could take a quick bathroom break. (See photos below)

Above: Moffitt leaving the practice field

Below: Moffitt waiting for the door to be unlocked

(Click here for a recent video of Moffitt delivering the local weather forecast on television.)

Keep checking back for more on the Seahawks training camp, the regular season, and the rest of the NFL as well-- only thirty-three more days til the start of the regular season!

Below: A storage shed which appeared to hold shelf after shelf of Nike athletic shoes.

The end of the world gets closer every day #2

Today, while out walking around my neighborhood, I came across the Benaroya Research Institute KIDS Seafair Triathlon. Like triathlons for grown-ups, this one came complete with medals, race numbers (both attached to shirts and written in magic markers on legs), sponsor booths, first aid tents, and more. In addition, in one corner of the park, there was somebody dressed in a fuzzy, purple suit dancing around to "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams. (Click on the photo above for a closer view.)

The end of the world gets closer every day #1

Friday, July 13, 2012 was EQC Girls Night Out at Safeco Field. In addition to watching the Seattle Mariners lose to the Texas Rangers 3-2, female fans had the opportunity to get manicures, massages, and various beauty treatments. (See photos above and below)

No word yet about when Boys Night Out will be taking place.

Twenty-three haikus written while re-watching Game Six of the 2011 World Series

Below are twenty-three haikus* which I wrote while re-watching Game Six of the 2011 World Series yesterday. 

Introduction

It's nice to know the

Cardinals are going to win

this game we're watching.

Top of the 1st

Jaime Garcia

gives up one run but it could

have been a lot more.

Bottom of the 1st

Lance Berkman swings at

the first pitch he sees and hits

a home run-- Cards lead.

Top of the 2nd

Once more Garcia

gives up one run but it could

have been a lot more.

Bottom of the 2nd

Nick Punto swings and

his bat goes flying-- almost

hits Chris Carpenter.

Top of the 3rd

A double play gets

Jaime Garcia out of

trouble once again.

Bottom of the 3rd

Pujols hits high fly

ball which ends up being caught

at the warning track.

Top of the 4th

Holliday, Salas

both make errors but Texas

only scores one run.

Bottom of the 4th

Texas makes a bunch

of mistakes; Cardinals score one--

game tied yet again.

Top of the 5th

Freese error leads to

Texas run-- Lewis strikes out

with bases loaded.

Bottom of the 5th

Cards down in order--

Washington glad he did not

pinch hit for Lewis?

Top of the 6th

Top of the sixth goes

quickly-- Rangers get one hit

but don't score a run.

Bottom of the 6th

Cards tie game on walk

to Yadi-- Holliday picked

off third and hurts wrist.

Top of the 7th

Home runs by Beltre

and Cruz, plus another run--

Rangers lead by three.

Bottom of the 7th

Cards go in order--

possible final Cardinal

at bat for Albert.

Top of the 8th

Rangers go down one,

two, three-- Buck and McCarver

talk about Albert.

Bottom of the 8th

Craig's home run makes me 

almost as happy today

as it did back then.

Top of the 9th

Rangers do not score

in the top half of the ninth--

Cards have three outs left.

Bottom of the 9th

Freese hits two-out, two-

run triple off right field wall--

Cruz could have caught it.

Top of the 10th

Josh Hamilton hits 

a massive two-run home run--

the crowd is silent.

Bottom of the 10th

Once again down to

the final out-- Berkman drives

in the tying run.

Top of the 11th

Westbrook pitches well--

Rangers get a base runner

on but can not score.

Bottom of the 11th

Cards win, Cards win, Cards

win, Cards win, Cards win, Cards win,

Cards win, Cardinals win!

* or should that be "haiku"?