So I've been doing a bit more reading lately, but nothing all that heavy. It's strange: when I'm in school I can handle dense academic texts well, but when break hits my motivation barely extends to the frontier of pleasure reading.

Case in point, Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire. I generally despise Pollan because he is an apologist for carnists everywhere; he explains the problem with meat-eating quite succinctly but offers paltry few solutions, instead opting to massage the guilty omnivore's conscience by advocating for happy meat. Don't worry, he says to the affluent gourmet, we know that industrial farming is an anathema to the planet, so buy free range and organic when you can! It's the same old bullshit--salvation in consumption--peddled as critical commentary and available at a Barnes & Noble near you.

Forgetting for a second that Pollan is a major distraction in the fight to fix impeding global agricultural meltdown, The Botany of Desire is an excellent study in the co-evolution of humans and the plants we have domesticated for subsistence. It's good, and pretty light. Next week I have 600 pages to read--I'm hoping to dominate them on the flight back to NE, but we all know how that story usually goes.

brett at 10:23 PM on May 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

My personal reading slowed down quite a bit during finals, but now that classes are over I can devote plenty of time to my number one passion: devouring books.

Blue Covenant by Maude Barlow

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Ishmael is an old favorite that I just had to read again. I happened to have a copy sitting around and I found that returning to it really opened my eyes: I realize now how much I've grown as a person since first reading it. Zach recommended it to me years ago, and though I read it then, I think that I was too young to fully grasp a lot of what Quinn was getting at. Now, its themes stand out as nearly identical to my own personal philosophies. Maude Barlow's book is non-fiction and packs an enormous amount of facts into 175 pages. A great read for those unfamiliar with the current global battle between corporations and people seeking water.

brett at 07:12 PM on May 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

When it was snowing in Lincoln this February, I was able to laugh in condescension. For all of us transplants living in Monterey, white, cold days were only a chilly Midwest memory--here, the mercury never dips low enough to permit even a single snowflake. What that means, however, is that the other end of the temperature spectrum is also absent. On May 12th, when the first hints of Summer heat are starting to warm cornfields in Nebraska, the Monterey Bay is stuck in an eternal Spring.

I know, it sounds awful. And that picture makes life in the bay look like torture, eh? Really, it's not so bad, but just once I wish the temperature would climb above 70-or-so degrees. As nice as it is to see a new variety of plants come into bloom each week (it's really, really nice), I am starting to miss my favorite part of nature: the four seasons. What is Summer without Winter, and what is Spring without a bit of snow?

I'll be back in Nebraska on May 28th and will stick around until about June 15th. Let's drink and barbecue and ride bikes and stay up all night. I want to make the most of the Midwest sun before heading to Los Angeles for a few months of work. Speaking of Los Angeles, Megan and I found an apartment in Hollywood, where we'll be living during my internship. It's on the top floor of a seven-story building, has a view of downtown and is four blocks from the subway. Should be an adventure!

Also, more pics of Monterey's eternal Spring can be found on Flickr.

brett at 07:12 PM on May 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)