May 26, 1895: Dorothea Lange born.
Friday, May 26, 2017
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Q&A with Max Klau
Max Klau is the author of the new book Race and Social Change: A Quest, A Study, a Call to Action. His other work includes The Idealist's Journey and Youth Leadership. He is the chief program officer at the New Politics Leadership Academy and is on the board of the International Leadership Association. He lives in the Boston area.
Q: You write, “America came into being in a manner that was
laced with paradox and hypocrisy.” Can
you say more about that, and how it affects race relations today?
A: The founding truth of the country is a mix of incredibly idealistic
ideas and a brutal system of slavery based on race. American history is a
struggle to narrow the gap between the ideals and the reality.
Q: In the book, you describe a “personal quest” that helped
you understand race and social change in a new way. What did your quest
involve, and how did your perceptions change?
A: Part of the story is that I’m Jewish, and learned a lot
about how people are cruel to each other, with the progressive belief that
people should be kind.
But I was a privileged white person living in an
upper-middle-class suburb in Connecticut. I had the belief that the truth was
out there, I was a good person, [and] the facts outside myself had to be
understood.
It was a journey of waking to the consciousness that I was
immersed in the system; I was blind to the existence of the system. [My
perceptions changed] over years of conversation, curiosity, and willingness to
be in uncomfortable situations.
Q: The book describes an experiment focusing on the topics
of race and social change. Can you briefly describe the experiment and a few of
its most striking findings?
A: I stumbled on a program that runs an exercise in line
with social psychology exercises. Diverse high school students are segregated
into different groups, and told not to talk to each other. It’s set up as a Jim
Crow unjust system, but the kids have the opportunity to challenge it. [It
involves] what might be learned by observing an experiment, an observable civil
rights movement.
There’s the blindness of the people at the top, the people
lower in the hierarchy are likely to challenge it. [Awareness of] the wholeness
of the system is a challenge to the system. A segregated system is not a
disconnected system. It’s a whole system unconscious of the reality of wholeness.
Q: How would you replicate this on a larger scale?
A: I spend several chapters exploring the implications of
the experiment, how to extrapolate it to the real world. There’s a lot you can
learn about the personal journey each person can undertake, and to understand
more effectively [how] our nation [can] address these challenges.
Q: Given the political climate, how do you see these issues
playing out?
A: I’ve heard from a lot of folks who are profoundly pained
by the state of civic life in America and race relations in particular, and
don’t know what to do; we seem to be at the same place over and over.
Consciousness matters. My own lack of consciousness led me to perpetuate things
over and over. [Perhaps there] is a national policy that can shift this.
Q: What do you see looking ahead?
A: I’ve arrived at clarity that all we can do is each walk
our path, and live with as much courage and compassion as we can. If the book
helps people understand this stuff at a deeper level and be of service as a
whole, [we can] hope it influences the policymakers.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My profession is leadership development. I’m the chief
program officer at the New Politics Leadership Academy. Our programs
[encourage] military veterans and Peace Corps [volunteers] to run for office.
We would have a different politics…
Q: Anything else we should know about the book?
A: I hope it awakens people to the interconnectedness
between the inner and outer worlds. The systems are a reflection of inner ways
of being. When we shift inner ways of being, we shift systems. It always seems
to start with people getting together, achieving a higher consciousness, and
that’s the beginning of the journey.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Q&A with A.J. Low
A.J. Low (the husband-and-wife writing team of Adan Jimenez and Felicia Low-Jimenez) are the authors of the children's book Sherlock Sam and the Sinister Letters in Bras Basah, the third in a series now published in the United States. The first two books are Sherlock Sam and the Missing Heirloom in Katong and Sherlock Sam and the Ghostly Moans in Fort Canning. Sherlock Sam and the Ghostly Moans in Fort Canning. The authors are based in Singapore.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for the third book in your Sherlock Sam series?
A: The international school in book 3 is actually based on
one of the very first schools in Singapore that we visited after we published
our first book (in fact, most of the students are named after kids we met
during that visit!).
The idea for this book came about because Adan really wanted
to write a story about how it feels to be far away from home, and how, at
times, it can be difficult and lonely to be in a new and strange environment.
We had met kids who had moved to Singapore from other countries and knew that
many of that felt that way too.
We came up with the idea of "chain mail" because
it was something that both Adan and Felicia played when they were kids (before
email was invented :D).
Q: Do you feel your character Sherlock Sam changes from book
to book at all?
A: When he first started out, Sherlock mainly spent most of
his time with Watson, Wendy, and Jimmy. But now his team of detectives is
growing and he's also gaining a reputation as a reputable kid detective (which
is why Inspector Siva reached out to him) so he's learning to take on bigger,
more difficult cases, and how to work with the different personalities in his
team too.
In later books, he encounters his most fiendish nemesis yet
and gets in lots of trouble with his parents (which has never happened before).
Q: What age group do you think would especially enjoy these books?
A: Well, the books are meant for kids between 7 and 12, but
we've inserted quite a few geek Easter eggs for parents and grown-ups as well
so we think anyone who likes nerdy jokes and a fun mystery would enjoy our
books!
Q: Who were some of your favorite authors when you were
kids?
A: Felicia read a lot of Enid Blyton and Felicia and Adan
both really loved the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: In Singapore, our 11th book was published in 2016 and right
now we're putting the finishing touches on book 11A--it's somewhat of a
continuation of book 11, but not really. That should be out next month.
It's titled Sherlock Sam's Orange Shorts and is the first
collection of short stories that we've written for the series. All the
characters will be alternate reality versions of themselves! For example,
Sherlock Sam's superhero alter ego is named Chicken Wing, Watson is a Star Ship
captain, and Wendy has the power of colour-fu!
We're really excited about it and we hope our readers will
enjoy the new take on Sherlock, Watson, and the Supper Club!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Just that Sherlock Sam has multiple pairs of the exact
same orange shorts that he wears in every book. Even we don't know how many he
has exactly :).
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. For a previous Q&A with A.J. Low, please click here.
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Q&A with Simon Van Booy
Simon Van Booy is the author of the novel Father's Day, now available in paperback. His other books include the novel The Illusion of Separateness and the story collection The Secret Lives of People in Love, and his work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The New York Times and the Financial Times. He lives in Brooklyn and Miami.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for Father’s Day, and
for your characters, Harvey and her father Jason?
A: In a dream! I used to laugh when people said that, that
it would be full of rabbits riding bicycles. I dreamed I had an artificial leg
and was hobbling around a baseball field and my daughter was missing. At the
time she was 7 or 8. Any parent’s biggest fear is a child missing. In the
dream, I had such panic.
I thought, who is this character? The only person I knew
[who resembled this figure] was the guy who ran the IT department at the
university I went to. He was a loner, a heavy smoker. He unknowingly cast
himself in the role of Jason. You understand the strange alchemy.
Q: The novel includes various times in the characters’
lives. Did you write it in the order in which it appears in the book, or in
chronological order for the characters?
A: I didn’t write it chronologically. After, I moved bits
around, [when I figured out when a certain plot point] should be revealed. I
understood that the thing about the book was keeping myself out of it. My
natural style with language is to go over the top. I wanted to have a trace of
Jason’s vernacular.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started
writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: That came to me as I was writing. The ending I originally
submitted ended about a page before the ending now. My editor said it’s not the
right ending. After five books, I thought I had a handle on endings, but he was
100 percent right! I worked on the ending for several more weeks, and I and he
were happy with it. The reader’s supposed to know something the characters
don’t.
Q: How was the title chosen?
A: It’s the idea that fatherhood is more than just a genetic
entitlement, it’s an act of will. It’s a generic holiday, Father’s Day. It was
probably invented by a raging capitalist to make money on cards and tool boxes. But it’s important—it gives us a chance to recognize people…we recognize elders
within our tribe.
I wanted to give it a commercial title almost as a disguise.
I think it’s too disguised. Nobody said, I like what you did with the irony of
the corporate holiday!...
Q: Do you prefer writing novels or short stories?
A: I much prefer short stories, but novels are more
satisfying in a way. You get to develop the character the way you don’t in a
short story. In a novel, you can see the character through all sorts of development
and personality changes. Everything hinges on the tone in a short story.
Q: Why do you prefer short stories?
A: It’s like a Rubik’s Cube I can actually do! It takes me
maybe three weeks of tinkering. With a novel, there’s absolutely no sense of
completion until you’re a year in. It’s so hard—it’s like dealing with a
roomful of kids throwing up, and it’s all chaos, and then suddenly they’re all
sitting down, in suits, and it all comes together!
The hard part of being a writer is it’s work with no sense
of safety…It’s a strange process—with a normal job, you’re making progress, it’s your job, the boss is happy.
As a writer, you tie up a story with your own life,
almost as if you’ve impacted your life. In the middle of the night, you decide you’re going to
rearrange your drawer. In a book, it’s like unpacking your life at a time of
crisis and when you put it back you have to rearrange [things]. It’s like
constant self-therapy.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Book two of a children’s series. It’s about a girl who
wakes up on a mysterious island and doesn’t remember anything about herself.
She’s found by an old person who takes her back to a cottage. She’s the next
keeper of lost things…she has to return things to people in history.
It’s fun to write because it’s not often you can sit in bed
in the middle of the day in your pajamas and write about mice rollerskating.
You can indulge any whim you have!
Q: Anything else we should know about Father’s Day?
A: The main theme of Father’s Day is overcoming anger. For a
lot of people, anger is the solution to things they faced in the past and felt
they had no control over.
People are saying, are you in touch with your feelings? If
people feel rage, it’s no good to be in touch with yourself, they just get in
trouble. How can they be in touch with themselves?
For someone like Jason, or a lot of decent men, they never
learned the tools to deal with themselves…Jason gets a second chance at life;
he has to give what he most needs: unconditional love, care, gentleness. It’s a
book about overcoming anger and terror and a terrible childhood, to making your
life pretty wonderful.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Q&A with Massimo Pigliucci
Massimo Pigliucci is the author of the new book How To Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy To Live a Modern Life. His other books include Nonsense on Stilts and Answers for Aristotle, and his work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The New York Times. He is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York, and he lives in New York.
Q: Why did you decide to
write your new book?
A: It took me a number of
years to experiment with several philosophies of life (Catholicism, Secular
Humanism, Aristotelianism) before finding Stoicism, somewhat by accident --
because of a tweet from the University of Exeter that invited me to
"celebrate Stoic Week."
Once I began studying and
practicing Stoicism it immediately clicked; I saw that it has the potential --
at least for some people -- to dramatically alter the way you look at things
and live your life.
I love writing, so the first
thing I did was to compose a column for The New York Times about my ongoing
investigation of Stoicism. It went viral, so I decided to begin publishing a blog that
would allow me to share my experiences with others. From there the idea of
writing a book was the obligatory next step, I suppose, and here we are.
Q: How would you define
Stoicism, and what are some of the most common perceptions and misperceptions about
it?
A: Stoicism is an ancient
Greco-Roman philosophy that has a lot in common with Buddhism. It teaches that
a moral life is the only one worth living, and it provides you with tools to
achieve serenity of mind and to develop an attitude of equanimity toward
whatever the world throws at you.
In popular lore it suffers
from a couple of misconceptions: that it is about suppressing emotions and
going through your life with a stiff upper lip -- sort of a Mr. Spock from Star
Trek type of attitude. The reality is very different.
Regarding emotions, the
Stoics distinguish between negative and positive ones. In the first group you
have things like fear, hatred, and anger. In the second group love, joy,
concern for other human beings, a sense of justice. The Stoic attempts to shift
her emotional range away from the negative and toward the positive emotions.
As far as the stiff upper lip
goes, it is true that Stoicism is a philosophy of endurance and resilience --
and those seem to me positive characteristics to practice. But the Stoic also
enjoys the very same things that everyone else enjoys, from good meals to the
company of friends, from good readings to the love of a companion.
The only difference is that
the Stoic refers to these things by the deliciously but only apparently
oxymoronic phrase of "preferred indifferents." This means that the
good things in life are preferred, of course, but they are indifferent to one's
moral character -- meaning that we can be moral agents regardless of whether we
are healthy or sick, wealthy or poor, educated or ignorant.
Q: Who are some of the most
notable people over the centuries who have espoused Stoicism, and do you see
them as figures to emulate?
A: Cato the Younger was a
Roman Senator famous for his moral integrity, and he took arms against the
tyranny of Julius Caesar, e gesture in consequence of which he eventually lost
his life.
One of the most famous Stoics
was the emperor Marcus Aurelius, one of the "good emperors" that
governed Rome during the second century. He constantly strived to be a better
person and to treat others with respect, even when they did not reciprocate. He
passed laws that improved the treatment of slaves and women, and, contrary to
popular perception, did not persecute Christians.
Michel de Montaigne was also
a Stoic, and Stoicism influenced Rene Descartes and Baruch Spinoza. In modern
times, reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations helped Nelson Mandela get through
the toughest time in the prisons of the Apartheid government in South Africa.
Of course, as with any
philosophy or religion, just because someone declares himself a Stoic, a
Christian, or a Buddhist, it doesn't mean either that he follows the pertinent
precepts or that he is a good person. There is a difference between the ideas
and the people who claim to adopt them.
Nevertheless, Stoics
themselves counsel to identify role models after which to pattern your own
behavior. As Seneca famously put it, "[we] must indeed have someone
according to whom we may regulate our characters; you can never straighten that
which is crooked unless you use a ruler."
Q: You've said that
"Stoicism is largely a matter of practice, not just theory." What are
some strategies someone could use to incorporate Stoicism into his/her life?
A: My book includes a chapter
of what I call "spiritual exercises." Other refers to them as
"mind tricks," or meditations. I begin the day by reading a favorite
passage from one of the ancient authors, Seneca, Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius,
reflecting on how it may apply to my own life.
I then visualize potentially
delicate situations that I am likely to encounter during the day, envisioning
the worst possible outcomes, and thinking about the best way to tackle them.
This allows me to be better prepared for the actual problem, should it in fact
occur.
In the evening I take a few
minutes to write down my thoughts about the day, asking myself three questions:
what did I do right? Where did I go wrong? What could I do better in the future,
under similar circumstances?
All of these approaches are
meant to develop a type of mindfulness about what one does and why, as well as
to prepare you mentally to engage at your best with whatever problem may come
your way. You also become more serene as a result of this routine
self-examination.
The Stoics occasionally
engaged in exercises of mild self-deprivation, which I find very useful. For
instance, fasting for a day, or abstaining from alcohol for a bit, or going an
entire week without shopping (other than basic necessities), or going out in
cold weather a bit underdressed, or taking a cold shower.
This isn't a matter of
masochism, but rather has two objectives: to prepare you for the possibility
that you really might have to go through lean times and forgo some of these
things by necessity; but also, and more importantly, to reset what
psychologists call the hedonic treadmill, the fact that we get used to what we
have and no longer appreciate it.
It works. You wouldn't
believe how good the next hot shower or nice meal feel after you've done
without them for a bit!
Q: What are you working on
now?
A: A number of projects, as
usual. One of them is a book on Stoicism for kids, with the help of a friend of
mine who is an excellent graphic artist. The idea is to introduce children aged
8-12 or 13 to the theory and practice of Stoic philosophy by way of a series of
comic book stories featuring children who tackle everyday problems, from
bullism at school to dealing with diversity and disability.
Too often writers focus on
adults as if they were the only audience worth having. But kids are the next
generation, it is they who are going to change the world, hopefully for the
better.
Q: Anything else we should
know?
A: I would encourage your
readers to seriously consider the idea of developing a philosophy of life. It
doesn't have to be Stoicism, of course.
But a life philosophy
provides you with a general framework that saves you time in figuring out what
is and is not important for you, and it provides you with guidance on how to
navigate the small and big happenings of your life. Try it out, I think you'll
be surprised by its efficacy.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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