For some time now, long before Kim Jong-il finally kicked it, I have been wrestling with a morbid curiosity of  North Korean.

Can you relate?

The reasons for my fixation are probably somewhere between Orwellian Obsession and Despot Envy.

With her book Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demick provides an impressive journalistic contribution to history by giving voice to the people of North Korea by telling the awful, modern story of their national cult by interviewing normal, everyday citizens who defected from the misery of the failed state.

Immediately addressing my North Korean compulsion, Demick asserts that, “While the persistence of North Korea is a curiosity for the rest of the world, it is a tragedy for North Koreans.”

Guilty as charged.

Even alongside the modern era’s menagerie of beasts, North Korea still contains plenty to be intrigued and horrified:

1. The recurring global theme of co-opting and perverting religion and exploiting people’s capacity to Believe

“What distinguished him [Kim Il-sung] in the rogues’ gallery of twentieth-century dictators was his ability to harness the power of faith. Kim Il-sung understood the power of religion. His maternal uncle was a Protestant minister back in the pre-Communist days when Pyongyang had such a vibrant Christian community that it was called the “Jerusalem of the East.” Once in power, Kim Il-sung closed the churches, banned the Bible, deported believers to the hinterlands, and appropriated Christian imagery and dogma for the purpose of self-promotion.”

Pyongyang was the Jerusalem of the East??? It is never a good sign when you live in a country with hinterlands.

Demick shares with us matter of factually that during the famine of the ’90s, it was the, “Simple and kindhearted people who did what they were told – they were the first to die.”

2. North Korea is literally covered in shit

“North Korea was chronically short of chemical fertilizer and needed to use human excrement since there were few farm animals…The countryside reeked of the night soil that is still used instead of chemical fertilizer.”

3. There is a name for that creepy material preferred by Bond villains and Dictators alike

“Vinalon, a stiff, shiny synthetic material unique to North Korea.”

4. North Korean Irony

“In 1991, while South Korea was becoming the world’s largest exporter of mobile telephones, few North Koreans had ever used a telephone. You had to go to a post office to make a phone call.”

, and

“An aside here about sex in North Korea…[what] many North Korean defectors…found most surprising about South Korea was that couples kiss in public.”

1991. Few North Koreans had ever used a telephone, much less a mobile phone. Think about that.

And these poor people are so prude, so repressed, so stifled by the mere grim struggle to subsist on a daily basis that they are most surprised by public displays of affection. Affection. Think about that.

5. Grotesque Canopies of Frozen Menstrual Rags

Life in dormitories of North Korean schools was a bit different than the typical cushy American upbringing:

“[Students] were roused by a military-style roll call at 6:00 AM, but instead of marching off like proud soldiers, they shivered into the bathroom and splashed icy water on their faces, under a grotesque canopy of frozen menstrual rags.”

6. Government Healthcare

A “Let’s Eat Two Meals a Day” campaign was cheerily implemented by the North Korean government during the famine of the ’90s.

How’s that for a new diet fad?

“They [North Korean citizens] jumped from the tops of buildings, a favorite method of suicide in North Korea since nobody had sleeping pills and only soldiers had guns with bullets.”

How’s that for actual death panels?

7. Big Brother

One young man featured in Demick’s book used his new life in South Korea to read all the books unobtainable in his homeland.

“His favorite was a translation of 1984. He marveled that George Orwell could have so understood the North Korean brand of totalitarianism.”

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“I would choose freedom even if it meant less prosperity.” – Ron Paul

I approve of most books that come with an additional reading list. Hooray, Reading!

I especially approve of books with “A Reading List for a Free and Prosperous America.” Good for you, Ron Paul!!

The Revolution is refreshing because Ron Paul dutifully and thankfully goes after the Bush Administration and goons like Alberto Gonzales responsible for the Patriot Act and its focus on citizens rather than foreign terrorists. In The Revolution, Ron Paul accuses politicians of treating Americans like sheep and even criticizes a Senator’s quote with a summation of “creepy propaganda.”

And Ron jumps into the real issues, like weed, for which Mr. Paul diplomatically tells us, “People’s opinions on this issue are so deeply and fervently held that it can be very difficult to persuade them to revisit the evidence dispassionately.” But he quickly assures us that, “We seriously mistake the function of government if we think its job is to regulate bad habits…When you actually study the beginnings of the federal war on drugs, you uncover a history of lies, bigotry, and ignorance so extensive it will leave you speechless.”

And all this from a medical doctor no less. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a leader familiar with healthcare?

Ron Paul hits his stride and wraps things up with a topic he is clearly comfortable and passionate: money (End the Fed is his 2nd book), sharing with us a letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson:

“All the perplexities, confusions, and distress in America, arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.”

And I agree. We are all foolish in many ways, especially money. Consumption Is The Problem.

Ultimately, it will be difficult for Ron Paul to garner the needed blind support of the masses because he is a walking embodiment of a theme familiar to readers of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. Freedom is messy and ugly and difficult because it demands freedom for everyone, even those you don’t like.

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Sometime in 2010, Jay-Z published a memoir/manifesto/song explainer, Decoded.

Soon to be released as a blog post, here are 18 original Authwhore tracks sampled from the book:

1. Childhood Kicks: “It was the seventies and heroin was still heavy in the hood, so we would dare one another to push a leaning nodder off a bench the way kids on farms tip sleeping cows.”

2. Adolescent Fortitude: “When Dee Dee was murdered, it was like something out of a mob movie. They cut his balls off and stuffed them in his mouth and shot him in the back of the head, execution style. You would think that would be enough to keep two fifteen-year-olds off the turnpike with a pocketful of white tops. But you’d be wrong.”

3. Form: “I still loved rhyming for the sake of rhyming, purely for the aesthetics of the rhyme itself – the challenge of moving around couplets and triplets, stacking double entendres, speed rapping.”

4. Thoroughness: “To tell the story of the kid with the gun without telling the story of why he has it is to tell a kind of lie.”

5. History: “I was part of a generation of kids who saw something special about what it means to be human – something bloody and dramatic and scandalous that happened right here in America – and hip-hop was our way of reporting that story, telling it to ourselves and to the world…We came out of the generation of black people who finally got the point: No one’s going to help us.”

6. Hip-hop: “Hip-hop is the only art that I know that’s built on direct confrontation…There are very few beta rappers – it’s alphas all the way…It’s a recurring story in hip-hop, the tension between art and commerce.”

{Isn’t hip-hop a funny word when written? It seems a character from Watership Down.}

7. Boxing: “Boxing is a glorious sport to watch and boxers are incredible, heroic athletes, but it’s also, to be honest, a stupid game to play. Even the winners can end up with crippling brain damage.”

8. Cristal Champagne: “It was symbolic of our whole game – it was the next shit. It told people that we were elevating our game, not by throwing on a bigger chain, but by showing more refined, and even slightly obscure, taste.”

9. Failure: “I don’t accept that falling is inevitable – I think there’s a way to avoid it, a way to win, to get success and its spoils, and get away with it without losing your soul or your life or both.”

10. Physics: “There’s an equal and opposite relationship between balling and falling.”

11. Seeing Yourself on TV for the First Time: “After my first record got on the radio and on BET, it was wild being at home, feeding my fish, and suddenly seeing myself on TV.”

12. Duality: “I think it’s worth it to try to find that balance. It’s like life – sometimes you just want to dumb out in the club; other times you want to get real and go deep.”

13. Poverty: “One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That’s the American ideal. Poor people don’t like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank, they don’t like to think of themselves as poor. It’s embarrassing.”

14. Charity: “To some degree charity is a racket in a capitalist system, a way of making our obligations to one another optional, and of keeping poor people feeling a sense of indebtedness to the rich, even if the rich spend every other day exploiting those same people.”

15. 80s Hair Bands: “Rock started to change. Style started trumping substance, which culminated in the rise of the big hair bands. There were probably some great hair bands – I wouldn’t really know – but I do know that most of them were terrible; even they’ll admit that now. And what’s worse is that the thing that made rock great, its rawness, whether it was Little Richard screaming at the top of his lungs or the Clash smashing their guitars, disappeared in all that hairspray. It was pure decadence. It crippled rock for a long time. I wasn’t mad, because rap was more than ready to step in.”

16. Preferences: “More than anything, I love sharp people; men or women, nothing makes me like someone more than intelligence. Big was shy, but when he said something it was usually witty. I’m talkative when I get to know you, but before that I can be pretty economical with words. I’m more of a listener.”

17. Religion: “I don’t believe in the fire-and-brimstone shit, the idea that God will punish people for eternity in a burning hell. I believe in one God.”

18. Poetry: “…a set structure forced sonnet writers to find every nook and cranny in the subject and challenged them to invent new language for saying old things. It’s the same with braggadocio in rap…If you can say how dope you are in a completely original, clever, powerful way, the rhyme itself becomes proof of the boast’s truth.”

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Writing a book is probably the least idle thing I can think of. Try to not hold that against Mr. Hodgkinson when reading his “How to be Idle: A Loafer’s Manifesto.” The inherent irony of this book’s existence will torment your lazy brain.

Take your time with it. Library fines be damned.

“How to be Idle” is a whimsical lark of a book, pondering such hefty topics as Saint Monday, hangovers, and the “Death of Lunch.”

There are pertinent references to [productive] cultural luminaries such as Keats and his concept of “diligent Indolence.” Diligent Indolence. Now that’s something I could get behind. If I weren’t so torpid.

I am also a big fan of the chapter, “On Being Ill.” If you cannot relate to the “exquisite langour of surrender,” then this book is either for you or not for you.

Did you know that in 1839 it was considered elegant to take a tortoise out walking?

“How to be Idle” is peppered with poets and songs and philosophers, musings and collections. It is humorous and admirable, a dutiful effort for a book on idleness. It affords for worthy ruminations on drinking, working, and dreaming. As well as the impact of the Industrial Revolution on our modern working lives and consumer culture. Damn you Robber Barons and Titans of Industry!!!! My clenched fist shakes in your general direction.

“How to be Idle” is ultimately an eloquently argued plea for the value and worth of less. I hope that makes sense to you. Less is more. Small is the new big. Downsizing is the new expansion. Fuck outsourcing, you shouldn’t be sourcing in the first place.

Buy this book. If you get around to it.

And then read it. Eventually.

I guess.

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I too was disappointed and, quite frankly, utterly shocked upon realizing that this was not a book about the perennial funk rockers infamous for such groovy hits as “Low Rider.”

“Society can give its young men almost any job and they’ll figure how to do it. They’ll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for.”

This book, from the author of The Perfect Storm, is about combat. Not war.

Sebastian Junger puts himself on the tip of the fucking that is the American military machine currently thrusting into the deep oily swaths of Arabian pussy. And god bless him. He embeds with the very best jism of our society’s ejaculate.

“Wars are fought with very heavy machinery that works best on top of the biggest hill in the area and used against men who are lower down. That, in a nutshell, is military tactics, and it means that an enormous amount of war-fighting simply consists of carrying heavy loads uphill.”

“War” is pure and true, touching on both the logistical realities of modern warfare, as well as its philosophical underpinnings. It is a griping, fierce read. But it sometimes misses the point with too much journalistic focus:

Junger relates that, “The market town of Nagalar was a mile to the east and boasted a “men’s club,” whatever that meant; at night something akin to Christmas lights flashed weirdly over the rooftops.”

What??? That’s it? Let’s go! To the titty bar in Nagalar!!!! You shitty, shitty journalist.

There is bonding and camaraderie and love and devotion. Friendship and family. Triumph and terror. Despair and delight.

Junger gets to know the men and describes their plight with stunning simplicity and passion. Hemingway, your seed has sprung. But it is Junger’s analysis and observation that comes with cool cutting, slicing through the heat, blood, and death.

“The idea that there are rules in warfare and that combatants kill each other according to basic concepts of fairness probably ended for good with the machine gun.”

And I know what you’re thinking: “WHAT ABOUT THE 2ND AMENDMENT!!!”

And I agree, this book is a stirring rebuke of the second amendment’s validity.

But let’s let him continue, as he does, later:

“As a result, much of modern military tactics is geared toward maneuvering the enemy into a position where they can essentially be massacred from safety. It sounds dishonorable only if you imagine that modern war is about honor; it’s not. It’s about winning, which means killing the enemy on the most unequal terms possible.”

Damn fine writer.

Ah, poetry. Blunt brutal reality, stirringly told:

“War is a lot of things and it’s useless to pretend that exciting isn’t one of them. It’s insanely exciting.”

So let the drumbeat roll, the machine gun rattle.

“The machinery of war and the sound it makes and the urgency of its use and the consequences of almost everything about it are the most exciting things anyone engaged in war will ever know. Soldiers discuss that fact with each other and eventually with their chaplains and their shrinks and maybe even their spouses, but the public will never hear about it. It’s just not something that many people want acknowledged. War is supposed to feel bad because undeniably bad things happen in it, but for a nineteen-year-old at the working end of a .50 cal during a firefight that everyone comes out of okay, war is a life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.”

And then somber inevitability:

“Suddenly it seems weak and sad, a collective moral failure that has tricked me – tricked us all – into falling for the sheer drama of it. Young men in their terrible new roles with their terrible new machinery arrayed against equally strong young men on the other side of the valley, all dedicated to a kind of canceling out of each other until replacements arrive. Then it starts all over again. There’s so much human energy involved – so much courage, so much honor, so much blood – you could easily go a year here without questioning whether any of this needs to be happening in the first place.”

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“Each Javelin round cost $80,000, and the idea that it’s fired by a guy who doesn’t make that in a year at a guy who doesn’t make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable.” – Sebastian Junger, “War”

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I too was deceived into thinking (hoping?) this would be a coherent, cohesive contribution to the canons of pessimism and cynicism.

Instead, it is just another collection of Sedarisian essays. Some humorous. Others only mildly so. Some poignant. Others only mildly so.

I really enjoyed Rakoff’s previous work, “Don’t Get Too Comfortable,” and “Half Empty” is not without its moments.

“Unless someone looks you in the eye and hisses, ‘You fucking asshole, I can’t wait until you die of this,’ people are really trying their best.”

Really.

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“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience – well, that comes from poor judgment.” – A. A. Milne

“How To” books are a perilous endeavor. How to Win Friends and Influence People is worthwhile but The Secret is drivel. Right?

And so we are confronted with [How To] Make Ideas Happen, an instructional tome for creatives encouraging accomplishment by way of organization & execution, community involvement, and dynamic leadership.

I found it a worthwhile read of recommendations sure to sneak their way into my personal undertakings. I am confident I will experience rampant success immediately.

But I was certainly doubtful in the opening pages as Belsky encouraged the implementation of “energy lines,” “responsibility grids,” and “windows of nonstimulation.” Maybe I was expecting something more theoretical and less cheekily practical?

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed fresh from his successes at Cornell, Harvard Business School, and Goldman Sachs, Belsky also recommends “Darwinian Prioritization,” i.e. nagging.

Praising the benefit of quick action, Belsky notes disparagingly that “Bureaucracy was born out of the human desire for complete assurance before taking action.” I know, complete assurance can be such a bummer. What squares those people are who prefer lame things like assurance.

Page 70, the beginning of the chapter on Execution, begins with the infamous Thomas Edison quote: “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” And not until page 99 comes the rub: “Unfortunately, perspiration is not glamorous.” No shit. And thus we are paid to do what others do not want.

But all is not lost. Belsky has his own quotes to rival Edison: “To envision what will be, you must remove yourself from the constant concern for what already is.”

And “[Engaged leaders] are driven by deeply held convictions rather than by some persona that requires tremendous energy to uphold.”

But the most relevant, and to me revelatory, segment came when Belsky noted the importance of storytelling to leadership. But more on that in my own book.

There is nothing but stories.

Ultimately though, Belsky is a disciple of the Gold Sachs and is proudly supervising his own network of grifters and charlatans. He has created a vast money-making enterprise and this book is little more than a philosophical mouthpiece to proselytize his wares. Look at all the neat products you creatives can buy.

Have you fully implemented the Action Method?

Purchased tickets to the Conference?

The Behance Network seems legitimate and reasonable and respectable. What happened?

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A provocative title for a slender graphic novel that is boring.

It begins formally and dutifully enough. With a dedication.

“For Moqtar Hirabe, gunned down by Somali insurgents in Mogadishu in June 2009 – and for all the other fixers, stringers, interpreters, drivers and guards who’ve risked their lives, and sometimes given them, to help us reporters do our jobs.”

Following this honorable, respectful acknowledgment, Ted Rall’s introduction let’s us know a bit more about this David Axe guy who thinks War is Boring. Axe is an adrenaline junkie with a death wish. He is cynical. He’s not afraid of dying.

But most importantly, David Axe is a war correspondent and with him via cartooney frames we go to Chad, Iraq, and back home to South Carolina where Axe tells us that, sure, War is Boring but Peace is Worse.

And then on to Lebanon, Washington DC, and East Timor where Axe is stricken by a severe bout of contemplation.

“Truth is, I didn’t really know any more what was normal, or, for that matter, what was right, what was wrong, and what was best for myself and those around me. Is war an aberration or the most basic human function, the thing we resort to when all our comforts crumble?

“In choosing war, was I courageously embracing some important, painful truth? Or was I willfully ignoring the real truth? That most people live in peace, comfortably, happily, and have no need for a place like East Timor. Had war chosen me, or had I chosen it? And what did that say about me?”

And on to Afghanistan where we are exposed to corruption and death.

Surprise!

And a second bout of existentialism.

“I should have been happy. After all I’d seen and done, I should have treasured every friendship, relished every beer and reveled in every moment I wasn’t getting shot at, blown up or mortared.

{Yeah, you should have. You’d probably have a more compelling story to tell.}

“But every beer tasted stale. Every conversation was a lie. I still found war tedious. I still found peace worse. I didn’t feel much anymore. What pleasure I used to take in everyday things was replaced with a constant low-grade anger.

“Anger at the millions of Americans who sacrifice nothing while their neighbors fight and die overseas. Anger at the pundits and editorial cartoonists who make their living criticizing wars they know nothing about and are too cowardly to go see for themselves.

{You say War is Boring. I say War is Bad. I don’t need to experience war to know its spoils. I don’t need to have tragedy to know it’s sorrow. I don’t need to have cancer to know that it’s bad.}

“Anger at the assholes who started it all. But mostly anger at myself for thinking that going off to war would make me smarter, sexier, and happier.

{Yeah, that was foolish. And now I’m angry at myself for thinking that your book was going to be engaging, worthwhile, and good.}

“Maybe I wasn’t angry at the ignorant Americans after all. Maybe I was jealous.”

And then on to Somalia.

And on to his girlfriend dumping him and his return home. To Detroit.

In the Afterword, Axe is bleak and crass.

“The more of the world I see, the less sense it makes. The more different people I meet, the less I believe in their humanity. The older I get, the less comfortable I am in my own skin. We are a world at war, sometimes quietly, often not. We are the cleverest monsters, and we deserve everything we’ve got coming.

“Everything falls apart. Everyone dies in time. In the great, slow reduction of our lives and history, the things we can believe in shrink into a space smaller than our own bodies. To preserve them, for as long as you might, arm yourself, and be afraid.”

Ultimately, there are many reasons why War is Boring was an unsuccessful contribution to the canon of storytelling. Perhaps it was a poor choice of form? For a graphic novel from a war correspondent, it is starkly void of stirring imagery. Little action, little plot or decision making. And what a slouch of a protagonist. <See above>

Arm yourself. Be afraid.

Not bad advice. Can’t say as I disagree. And I’ve never even been to Chad nor Iraq nor South Carolina nor Lebanon nor Washington D.C. nor East Timor nor Afghanistan nor Somalia nor Detroit.

I guess I’m disappointed because while it is acceptable for War to be Boring, it is categorically unacceptable for Your Book to be Boring.

I’m disappointed in the book’s tone. It strikes me as immature, glib, and unexamined. Too much time spent with Axe’s neuroses and emotional flailing (which aren’t very entertaining). His actual war reporting I’m sure is stellar and gripping.

P.P.S. David, you have found violent, bloody conflict to be boring. Have you tried drugs? Sex?

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“It wasn’t the people with sociable genes who fled the crowded Old World for the new continent; it was the people who didn’t get along well with others.”

Freedom is about a crazy family.  But not in an Augusten Burroughs way. And not in a quirky way like John Irving or Gary Shteyngart. But definitely white and suburban and privileged like Cheever or Richard Yates. Maybe people are so excited because Franzen might be the next Fitzgerald? Does Franzen drink?

Freedom is about love, sex, work, depression, mistakes. Existential crises. Familial drama. College love. Professional ambitions. It’s domestic. It’s a soap opera. A very, very well-written soap opera.

It operates within the genre of “Ripped-from-the-headlines” and “Modern.” There is Mountaintop Removal and Iraq War. It is immediate present now.

Freedom is interesting in its straightforwardness. It carries with it a certain severity/realism. Things, plainly said. But not in a blunt Cormac McCarthy way. An eloquent Milan Kundera way.

Freedom is moral. As James Woods would have it. And it takes place mostly in the mind. Do you take offense with the thoughtful consideration given to contemplative evaluation of some of our era’s pressing questions: the war in Iraq, environmentalism, overpopulation? “Freedom” is certainly an “intellectual” novel. A serious book with aspirations. And yes, for that it is elitist and pompous. And absolutely delicious and why I loved it.

Freedom’s appeal lays in its verisimilitude and its authenticity lays in its banal interest. Normal, everyday things; dramatically told with stirring prose.

And while so much of it really is just people conversing and articulating arguments and descriptions taking place within the mind, there is also really great pacing and plot. It flows with a rhythm that is steady and sure. Franzen beats a cool cadence. It reads.

And of course it’s impossible to prove any of this because to do so would require too much quoting because these things take time, like jazz songs, the really good stuff doesn’t hit you for a few bars/pages. (My only offerings are the quotes opening and closing this humble opinion.)

Freedom is a world inhabited and called to life by its own politics, behavior, happenings, and poor decisions: a life, a fully wrought and imagined life. Thus, a story.

Have we a myth?

“The life, neither glamorous nor outstanding but nevertheless admirable and essential…”

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