Very Smart Gals Salon

Really now, how often do you hear someone say, “Do you think my car will be secure in valet parking? I have 150 pairs of men’s underwear in my back seat.”

But then this is just the type of thing I expect when I bring together extraordinary women, which I did last Wednesday night in the Secret Bar of the W Hotel in downtown Austin. Attending were  Linda Ball, Judith Knotts and Melissa D’Antoni (pictured l-r).

Linda Ball - where do I possibly start to efficaciously portray just how dynamic and thought-provoking this Very Smart Gal is? Perhaps you recognize Linda’s name, which is typically attached to her husband Forest Preece and to a plethora of Austin non-profits, as they are highly recognized community supporters. Although Linda downplayed her very early involvement in the computer industry, this mathematician, Dallas native and long-time Austin resident, was probably an anomaly in the at-the-time male dominated industry. Linda is a dedicated music and film buff, a downtown walker, and a savant it seems on just about any topic that comes up. My question to her about her trips to New York I’d seen mentioned on Facebook brought out Linda’s stories about her two-year odyssey of reading the once-censored Ulysses by James Joyce, and her annual trek to Bloomsday, a commemoration and celebration of the life of the Irish writer at the Ulysses Pub in NYC. Linda spoke with unmasked adoration of famous author Colum McCann’s (Let The Great World Spin, etc.) warm hosting of the event and what a thrill it was for her to meet and exchange with him.  I could spend a couple of pages talking about what a Very Smart Gal Linda is, but you get the gist.

Dr. Judith Knotts, asker of said underwear question, and an unflagging supporter of the homeless, is the only person I know who trolls the alleys of Austin checking on her friends, giving them the basic stuff we the fortunate take for granted, like underwear. Judy is the Interim Head of School at St. Michael’s Catholic Academy and former Head of School at St. Gabriel’s Catholic School. She earned her doctorate in Educational Administration at Virginia Tech, and has studied at the University of Oxford.  Judy has also served as a National Advisory Board Member for Harvard University’s Principals’ Center, co-authored the book, Growing Wisdom, Growing Wonder, and exquisitely pens a religious column called In Your Words for the Austin American-Statesman. Commendably, in spite of my religious fence riding, she likes me! What a gift it is to be a friend of this Very Smart Gal.

Melissa D’Antoni is a mystic, artist, visionary and life muse who, upon our first encounter, seemed to see my soul. She owns Fire Tree Studio, a registered methodology she describes as: …a guided path of awakening where individuals seeking self-empowerment can heighten their creativity, discover their full self-expression and celebrate their potential and prosperity — with passion and practicality. Melissa has one of the most interesting bios I’ve read, but a couple of things jumped out at me. She has a BA in English Literature and minor in Studio Art from Tulane University, and she left a successful career in internet and technology marketing based in San Francisco, canceled her wedding, and moved to Austin with the promise to never compromise herself and her truth again.
Melissa explained that her studio is located on the 85-year-old Commodore Perry Estate, which led to an intriguing discussion about the history of that home. You really must visit Melissa at her studio (pictured) to appreciate this Very Smart and unique Gal. 

Why I don’t host a couple of Very Smart Gals Salons a week is a bit of a mystery to me. I guess my reclusive tendencies trump the staggering gratification I always receive from being within the aura of the amazing women who populate our planet. But, spurred on by the residue of evenings like this, I’ll keep trying to overcome my psychosis. Thank you Very Smart Gals Melissa, Judy and Linda. 

100 Things I Want to Tell My Children and Grandchildren: #7

Don’t mess with the IRS.

(Picture is of me, 1984)

If you've never had a terrifying encounter with the Internal Revenue Service, raise your hand. Anyone? Anyone? I didn’t think so.  Mine was in 1984 when I received a letter from the IRS claiming I owed $10,000 in back taxes from 1982.

Since my employer automatically deducted taxes from my monthly paycheck in 1982, I just ignored the letter thinking the IRS had made a mistake.  However, when I failed to get a paycheck from my employer in 1984 because the IRS had garnished my wages and would continue to garnish my wages until the 1982 back taxes were paid, I could no longer ignore them.

When I called the IRS in tears, they said the back taxes were actually for wages earned by my x-husband.  They continued to explain that when you divorce and file your taxes jointly for the year you are divorcing, both parties are responsible for any and all taxes due during that year. I was easier to track down than he, so I was the one whose wages were garnished!

I immediately consulted a tax attorney who said, “We can fix that! We’ll apply for Innocent Spousal Relief and you won’t have to pay a thing to the IRS.”  When I asked what he would charge to provide this exceedingly beneficial-to-me service, he responded, “About $10,000.” 

So I paid the taxes, licked my wounds, and learned a really hard lesson.

Don’t mess with the IRS!

The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive By Brian Christian

When I read in People Magazine that Elon Musk was reading The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive by Brian Christian, I had to read it. Elon and I have a long and polarized relationship.

You know Elon, right?? (pictured) He dropped out of the Stanford Physics Ph.D. program at the age of 24, and created and sold PayPal for $1.5 billion. Oh, and he invented the Telsa and now builds spaceships.  Anyway, I describe Elon and my relationship as polarized because he’s never heard of me, whereas I am extremely jealous of his brilliance and success, but back to the book. 

The Most Human Human is about Brian Christian’s invitation to serve as a judge in the annual Loebner Prize. This prize goes to the creators of a “chatterbot” computer program designed to simulate a human in small talk, considered by the judges to be the most human-like. In each round, a human judge simultaneously holds computer conversations with a chatterbot and a human via computer. Based upon the responses, the judge must decide which is which. $25,000 is offered for the first chatterbot judges cannot distinguish from a real human and which can convince judges the human is the computer program. $100,000 is the reward for the first chatterbot judges cannot distinguish from a real human. Once this is achieved, the annual competition will end. So far computers have come within one point of winning.

The format is based upon the Turing test, which was introduced by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" which posed an essential concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, “Can machines think?”

Christian enters the challenge determined to get “in shape” to not let a computer program fool him into thinking it is human and, in the process, he learns a lot about what makes humans human and comes to the conclusion that if the computer programs win (most sources predict they will eventually), it will not be because computers are getting better at acting human but rather because humans are getting worse at acting human. He points to the computerization of our lives as the major culprit in our dehumanizing, saying “The more helpful our phones get, the harder it is to be ourselves.”

I found it completely clever (human) that one of the best chatterbots created so far defaulted to sarcasm and diversion when it couldn’t follow a conversation. For example, if I said, “So what’s your position on abortion?” or “Do you think Putin will drop the you know what?” the computer might say, “I really don’t want to get into it,” or “That’s a dumb topic. If you can’t think of anything else to talk about, let’s just cut this conversation short.”

So did Brian beat the bots? I guess you’ll just have to read the book, and Elon and I recommend you do.

Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate by Rose George

My bestie in New Mexico doesn’t typically recommend nonfiction books, so when she recommended that I read Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate, I knew it must be good, and it was. The title tells you exactly why this book is interesting and why you should care about the shipping industry. We should care because 90% of everything we touch and consume comes to us on gigantic yet virtually invisible cargo ships, dramatically impacting the global economy.  This frequently quoted passage from the book illustrates the financial issues at stake. Shipping is so cheap that it makes more financial sense for Scottish cod to be sent 10,000 miles to China to be filleted, then sent back to Scottish shops and restaurants, than to pay Scottish filleters. 

Ninety Percent of Everything is a well-written and intriguing chronicle of the obscure, yet curious world of maritime transportation as told by 20-something-year-old journalist, Rose George, who was a 5-week passenger on a Danish cargo ship. For example, a vast majority of the people who work on cargo ships are Filipinos because they will work for almost nothing, accept being with their families just a few weeks out of the year, and they speak English. And then there’s the “flag of convenience rule” which allows ships to register under the flag of countries with notoriously lax shipping safety and security regulations.

If you’ve seen Tom Hanks latest, “Captain Phillips” you have a pretty clear idea of what modern-day piracy looks like, and George (pictured) deals with this topic as well, when she spends a week with the Portuguese Navy patrolling for pirates. Her accounts however, are even more bloodcurdling, as she sheds more light on the frequency and brutality.

I found it ironic that although about 2,000 seafarers die each year and two cargo-ships go missing each week, we never hear about it. Is it the lawless nature of the business that allows these issues to be swept under the oceanic carpet, the “cheapness” of the lives of the crews, the millions of dollars at stake, or all of the above?

I remember in 1968 when it was reported Jacqueline Kennedy was marrying a shipping magnate, Aristotle Socrates Onassis. Why in the world would our former First Lady get involved with a Greek in the shipping business, I wondered? Well, I understand now. Shipping is very big busine$$. And it is an intriguing business, especially as told by Rose George.

So, yes, I recommend you read Ninety Percent of Everything.  And by the way, I’ve heard her other book, The Big Necessity The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters, and which is on my bedside table waiting to be cracked, is equally fascinating.

The Light Between Oceans: A Novel by M. L. Stedman

When I read the description of The Light Between Oceans, I sensed that it was going to be an emotional journey, and I was right. Tom and Isabel Sherbourne are a young couple caretaking a lighthouse on an isolated outcropping of rock off the southwest coast of Australia. Tom has recently returned from a horrific experience in World War I, his character sharpened and quieted as a result. Isabel, born into a family of means, fell in love with Tom and chose him over all else. But soon they yearn to expand their love into a family.

Fate intercedes denying Tom and Isabel with two stillborn births, and then again when it sends a rowboat containing a dead man and a live baby floating onto Tom and Isabel’s shore. You sense before the book matures that Tom and Isabel will make a dramatic decision about that baby, and that as with most decisions made in the heat of emotion, it will not go well. And then you anticipate the unfolding of the drama with curiosity and dread.

What makes the story of Tom and Isabel, the lighthouse at Janus Rock, and the history and fate of the cast away child so enjoyable, in spite of the anticipated heartache, is the strength of author M. L. Stedman’s (pictured) writing, which renders deep, vivid characters and brilliant visions of the beauty of the southwest Australian ocean and coast.

The Light Between Oceans is a lovely, well-written book that will leave you feeling warm, enriched, and emotionally challenged.

I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

Sixteen-year-old Pakistani, Malala Yousafzai, became the Western world’s poster girl for the “evils of radical Islamics” when she was shot in the face by a young Taliban zealot because she was an outspoken advocate for educating girls and women. Don’t you just love it when someone else takes the bullet to justify your values?

I am Malala is the fairly well written and stirring back-story of Malala Yousafzai, an extraordinarily mature, intelligent and articulate child whose scholar-father groomed her to be the face of education for girls and women in Pakistan. At the age of 11, Malala penned a blog for BBC about life under the Taliban. Unfortunately that made Malala and her father targets for the Taliban’s ruthless “weeding out” of anyone who spoke against them. Fortunately, Malala survived the attempt on her life, catapulting her into a huge limelight and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination (she didn’t win).

While reading Malala’s book, I floated along in my safe self-righteousness, revering and cheering her on for so bravely standing up to tyranny. But what I found most revealing and provocative, not from the book, but rather in my research for this review, was the reaction of Malala’s country-people and peers to her fame and notoriety. Apparently many of her Pakistani fellow advocates of equal education were incensed that Malala gained such notoriety, implying that Western media handpicked her story, out of many stories of Pakistanis’ sacrifice and heroism, to attract audiences and to reinforce the Western world’s political and religious agendas.

I also saw claims that the whole “Taliban terrorism of Pakistan” was sensationalized. Numerous commentators pointed out that a vast majority of Pakistanis live peaceful lives, and girls and women are routinely educated and assume many leadership rolls as adults. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

I also found of interest that since recovering from her gunshot wounds, writing this book (with the support of British journalist, Christina Lamp), and an extensive speaking tour, Malala has steadfastly claimed, and even told President Obama to his face, that she thinks the deployment of American drone attacks in Pakistan are as big a threat to the Pakistani people as armed Taliban raids.

I am Malala is an interesting story about a very interesting child in a interesting setting, and I encourage you to read it, keeping in mind that it is one perspective.

The Circle by Dave Eggers

If you flinch at the mere mention of social networking, you’ll probably embrace The Circle as an “I told you so!” cautionary tale of what happens when one voluntarily chooses to live their life in a fishbowl.

The Circle is the story of underachiever Mae, who through a college friendship connection lands a low-level position at The Circle, a fictionalized mega-amalgamation of social network.coms so radical that the company’s tagline is “Privacy is Theft.” Working at The Circle is considered the opportunity of a lifetime so Mae is thrilled, especially when she steps onto the lush company “campus” that looks and acts more like a luxury resort than a job site. But when, at her job orientation, a company rep offers to take her old laptop off her hands, assuring her that she won’t need any of the information stored on it, we’re pretty sure The Circle is sinister.

Sure enough, Mae soon learns that this idealized company is an insidious web of social pressures that strangely resembles high school: popularity is everything and you’re in or you’re out. Unfortunately this dystopian satire that could have generated a nice mystery, psychological thriller, or character study, caves in on itself because author Dave Eggers (pictured) forgot to make us care about the characters in the book, he didn’t bother to understand technology, and he banked too much on readers’ tech phobias. So we slog through frenetic, juvenile popularity contests, ankle-deep characters, meaningless relationships, and a tech-based storyline that doesn’t make sense technologically, and doesn’t pose a believable threat, until we are willing to just throw everyone under the bus to get it over with.

In her review of The Circle, Margaret Atwood called it a "Menippean"satire, distinct from social satire in viewing moral defects less as flaws of character than as intellectual perversions." She further described this fifth book of Eggers as "the mirror of art to show us ourselves and the perils that surround us," and says that The Circle's insistence that we share everything is a "form of solitary confinement." Atwood's musings always feel a little over intellectualized, but she is distinctly insightful, and I always learn new words when I read her. 

Eggers has written better books, Zeitoun, my personal favorite, is a subtle look at how a natural disaster (hurricane Katrina in this case) brings out the worst and best in people. So if you're interested in reading him, and I recommend you do, read Zeitoun, not The Circle.

BEST BOOKS 2013

BEST OF THE BEST

As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling by Anne Serling

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

BEST FICTION

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Me Before You by JoJo Moyes

Big Brother: A Novel by Lionel Shriver

BEST NONFICTION

As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling by Anne Serling

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

VERY HONORABLE MENTION

Sum It Up: A Thousand and Ninety-Eight Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective by Pat Head Summitt and Sally Jenkins

Fosse by Sam Wasson

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro

HONORABLE MENTION

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson

Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards by Jan Reid

The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug by Thomas Hager

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink

Wool by Hugh Howey

The Round House by Louis Erdrich

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright

Coreyography by Cory Feldman

People Who Eat Darkness - The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished From the Streets of Tokyo - and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up, By Richard Lloyd Parry

Heads In Beds - A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality By Jacob Tomsky

Fatal Vision by Joe McGinniss