Juggling books

I learned how to juggle while I was going through my divorce. I mean that literally; I attended a one-day workshop on juggling.

I am not so adept at juggling books, literally or figuratively. In spite of that, I'm too impatient to wait until I finish one book before I start another. At the moment, I'm somewhere between the covers of:

Your Negro Tour Guide by Kathy Y. Wilson
Just Listen by Mark Goulston
Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan
Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi
The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart --> this one is off to a very nice start

What about you? What RU reading?

This Game Has Gone On Long Enough

Reading Terry Pluto's feature on Bernie Kosar, I thought, a dedicated journalist could use this to show how a narrative piece can tell an engaging story without crossing the line into PR. But not me, not today. What struck me was that Kosar, at age 46, has trouble standing up and sometimes struggles to find the words he needs to express himself. 

According to Pluto, Kosar (who played his last professional game in 1996)  "has dealt with the aftermath of concussions suffered while playing. There are some headaches, some brief memory loss, some occasional involuntary twitching." Kosar says, "I struggle sometimes to say exactly what I want when I'm tired." 

Folks, that's called brain damage. The Alabama High School Athletic Association defines concussion as "a type of traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by a blow or jolt to the head that can range from mild to severe and can disrupt the way the brain normally works."

Look, I know virtually all sports are contact sports. Serious injuries happen on every kind of court and field everyday.  But football is special. Football players experience more brain injuries than athletes in any other sport (according to The American Journal of Sports Medicine). 

The phrase "crush your opponent" was made for football.  

If you want to foster violent behavior, encourage boys and young men to learn that might is right and bigger and meaner is better, by all means, get thyself to the nearest football field and cheer on the home team.

I love sports, but football isn't very sporting, really. 


How many middle-aged men with seriously beat-up bodies and overly-thumped heads do we need to see before we evolve away from smash-mouth football?

Are you proud to say bashing heads is our American pastime? I'm not. I suggest we return the word 'football' to the Brits (and the rest of the world) and until we can come up with something a little more sportsmanlike, play their game. Who knows? Once our brains (and our bodies) are taking less abuse, we might figure out how to make entertaining commercials year round, rather than just during the Superbowl.

-------

Additional reading on concussions in sports

Concussion in High School Sports, CDC, May 25, 2010

http://www.cdc.gov/concussion/headsup/high_school.html

The Impact of Concussions on High School Athletes, Committee on Education & Labor, May 20, 2010 

http://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/2010/05/the-impact-of-concussions-on-h.shtml

Study: Kids Competing Too Soon After Concussions (and second impact syndrome can be fatal) 

Time Magazine, January 2009

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1873131,00.html

Gifts for writers/lexiphiles

Kiss and Tell and Haikubes, both available in Chronicle Book's Fall/Winter catalog, could be perfect gifts for a writer, English teacher, librarian, book club leader, or other word-lover in your life.

Haikubes is a set of 63 word cubes players can roll like dice to dish up ingredients for an original haiku. From the folks behind the Cranium games, the cubes are available in August. US $25

Players of Kiss and Tell compete to tell the sexiest/sultriest/silliest story, according to the story component  cards they are dealt. Available in November; US $19

Futbol fans rejoice!

Check out five titles all about futbol/soccer, reviewed by The Plain Dealer's Karen Long. Sounds like enough good stuff to keep you reading for a couple of months after World Cup 2010. Enjoy!

Got a soccer player at home willing to work to get better? 

Check out Matt Smith's Epic Soccer Training program. Guaranteed results; 8 week money-back offer.

Follow This

Ye gads, books can pile up! Like garbage...which is a messy segue into this brief review of Malena Watrous' If You Follow Me.  To be clear, the book isn't garbage but it contains an extensive thread about gomi, (garbage) and the rules that govern its disposal in Japan.


(Thank you, Sherry, for recommending this book; I enjoyed it!) 


As a writer, I'm impressed with Watrous' first novel, based on her personal experience teaching English to Japanese children. While the story could be just a fish-out-of-water tale, it's really about love, loss, letting go, and learning to deal - while you're also a fish-out-of-water learning how to sort the damn trash, Japanese style. (Aside: I've read that the Japanese system is highly efficient and about as environmentally friendly as garbage systems can be. Of course, to be so requires reams of rules be followed t.o. t.h.e. l.e.t.t.e.r.)


If... isn't your average love story, and, frankly, isn't as much of a story as it is an extended slice of life. To her credit, Watrous chose an immensely interesting slice, and created the characters and setting so brilliantly that they shine, even when action is somewhat slow. 


Though its appeal will likely be lost on most male readers (it's not chick lit, but it is for chicks)  I highly recommend this paperback, light and comfortable enough to tote around and enjoy wherever you find yourself reading this summer. 

-   -   -   -   -   -   -   - If You Follow Me by Malena Watrous
-   -   -   -   -   -   -   - Harper Perennial (c) 2010
-   -   -   -   -   -   -   - US $14.99

Language lovers will appreciate that each of the book's chapters is 'titled' by a Japanese word or phrase. Readers learn sekushii means sexy, taoreru means to fall or collapse, and reizoku means refrigerator - and Watrous can elaborate on all three.

History in a Hurry

Gimme Rewrite Sweetheart and Front Page Girl are good old-fashioned books, meaning you can't judge 'em by their covers.

Doris O'Donnell and Don Bean have lived - and written - enough history to fully appreciate the current state of journalism, and both are honest enough to admit they can't predict the future of the game. When O'Donnell and Bean started writing for Cleveland newspapers, that's what it was called: the newspaper game.

There were three - count 'em, three - daily newspapers in Cleveland when Bean and O'Donnell got started in the game. The players weren't perfect and the papers weren't unbiased, but they had plenty of watchdogs on staff. As Bean ruefully points out, in his reporting era  reporters would measure the depth of the concrete on the street. And if it wasn't what the taxpayers had coming to them, well, somebody would print it.

In her book, O'Donnell describes discrimination in the business, certainly, but she also describes a business with a lot of principles. Regardless of sex, reporters were supposed to consider themselves representatives of the community. While female reporters were expected to wear white gloves and hats and to say "Yes ma'am" and "No sir," they were also tough enough to measure the concrete on the street and find out just what was buried in Sam Sheppard's backyard. (That's a teaser. Read the book.) They were also given an unbelievably long time to get a story. It's unbelievable today, anyway.

Bean and O'Donnell both spoke at today's meeting of Ohio Professional Writers, attended by about a dozen current college students (journalism majors) and many more with hair long gone gray, fellow journalists who were getting their first beats about the time O'Donnell and Bean were retiring.

O'Donnell likes to say journalism is history in a hurry. And while it's hurrying faster than ever before, it's not dead yet. We can hope that among today's budding journalists are some visionaries who see the value in the old, and a way to make it new again.

The plea from this graying writer: HURRY.

Lois Lowry's Having a Ball

I'm embarrassed to admit I've just gotten around to  Lois Lowry's latest, The Birthday Ball, a delightful new middle grade title that's lighthearted but not easily dismissed. As always, Lowry's writing is just right for her audience. Something of a reverse-Cinderella tale, it was published in April by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, The Birthday Ball will appeal very much to girls and not very much to boys, I'm afraid. Amazon offers an interesting Q&A with the author here.

The Birthday Ball had to wait until I finished the non-fiction NurtureShock, chock-full of important info about kids and their development.  http://what2readornot.blogspot.com/2010/05/welcome-shock-makes-great-teacher-gift.html

An obvious hint for hard-pressed shoppers: Lowry's latest would make an ideal gift for a tween girl's birthday.  And a timely tip for parents: NurtureShock makes a nice gift for teachers.