Author: John Roberts

Amazon delivered my pre-ordered Spook Country by William Gibson some weeks ago, and I made time for it a few weeks ago. For Gibson, this book felt entirely too much in the present. Rather than a recognizable, but just slightly altered view of how the near future might present itself, Spook Country felt like right now.

I still enjoy some of the characters, especially the amalgam of cultures and ethnicities that Tito presents. Tito is a young member of an extended Cuban clan, trained by the KGB (or so it’s hinted) during its glory days. The family’s embrace of the “systema,” as they dub their fieldcraft, is fun to read and follow, with the most believable use of iPods ever.

By contrast, the former rock star/current journalist Hollis is more interesting for where she goes than who she is. And the other characters — even the ones I was sympathetic to — were colorfully drawn cutouts, not people. I like the mood and ambiguity of Gibson’s books, but this novel gripped me less than others he’s written.

After finishing these brief notes, I watched the video on the book page. I’ve never looked at Gibson before. He’s not how I imagined him. I also read Tim Bray’s review of the same book. I’d avoided his take earlier. Bray lives in Vancouver, where all the characters collide, so he has his own (ahem) Pattern Recognition. And, it seems, a stronger appreciation of this novel.

As to Gibson… he’s always have Neuromancer, even if it pains him to have all subsequent work compared to that wonderful burst of static noise.

The San Francisco summer (September) delivered another beautiful morning today. The Bridge to Bridge 12K race is a local fixture I’ve never run. Starting at the Ferry Building, the race has only one short, steep hill, as it stays along the water almost the entire race, finishing in the Presidio. The official results are not available yet, but my self-timed result was 47:00 (approx). I’m very pleased with that ~6:18 pace, although I’ll update with the official time when it appears.

Update Official results: 47:12.4 for 9th in the M30-39 age group, and 34th overall, out of 2294 in the race. Pace was actually just a shade under 6:20 per mile.

The miles were marked clearly for a bit and then…not so much. Here’s what I got:

• Mile 1: 6:21
• Mile 2: 6:27
• Mile 3: 6:30 (only hill on the course, up and then back down)
• Miles 4-6: 18:15 (all on Crissy Field, dead flat, turning at the Golden Gate Bridge)
• Mile 7-finish: 9:32

In my preparation for the race, I ran a 5:46 mile on the track this past Tuesday, as the final piece. The previous three miles were 6:20, 6:23, and 6:12. Stretching it out over 7+ miles worked pretty well today, so I’ll aim for the 10K this Thanksgiving Sunday.

I spent most of August carrying around Vietnam: A History, by Stanley Karnow. I read snippets when I could, finally finishing around Labor Day, with the brief mention of the infamous helicopter evacuation of the last Americans from Saigon.

This is a popular, general history which doesn’t talk down to its readers. I learned much. Karnow does tell his readers about Vietnam, not just America’s role in the country’s tumult, though the focus is on the 1950s-1970s. Unlike Iraq, Vietnam has a cohesive history as a nation, although it’s not an unalloyed story of triumph. The division between North and South was the exception, not the rule.

The American presence in Iraq feels wrong because, like Vietnam, the war is disrupting our national self-image, our world presence, and our economy (and that last part does matter). Seeing that so many warned of the dangers of our involvement in Vietnam, it’s all the more tragic to watch us assume that our ability to change other people has improved. So many who supported America’s role in Vietnam at first learned the error of their ways…and yet we dragged on for years.

Read these words, from page 514, and replace one country name with another. This is from a report in October 1966 by Robert McNamara to President Johnson.

Worst of all, South Vietnam’s leadership and population were apathetic, corrupt and undisciplined, and there appeared to be no prospect of stirring them out of their torpor. “This important war must be found and won by the Vietnamese themselves. We have known this from the beginning. But the discouraging truth is that, as was the case in 1961 and 1963 and 1965, we have not found the formula, the catalyst, for training and inspiring them into effective action.”

We were in Vietnam until 1975, although the military mostly left in 1973 (aside from, ahem, the matter of bombing in Cambodia). Are we ready for another seven to ten years? (And Iraq doesn’t have the unified history that Vietnam could harken back to.)

I read the revised edition, updated in 1990 with additional interviews with some of the North Vietnamese participants who were unavailable before the initial publication in 1983. In high school, I saw some of the accompanying PBS series, as it was shown in the basement of the science center over several evenings. Thinking back, the visuals and storytelling there missed the mark with me. Now, after reading Karnow’s book, I’d take more away from the visual companion.

Metacritic condenses the reviews to an 85, quite high. I found The Bourne Ultimatum to be a worthy continuation of the character, but it’s not the best of the three (as many were saying).

A few notes…

First, the “edgy” camera techniques every time Bourne sprung into action spun me around a bit too often. I wanted to shout at someone occasionally “Just hold the damn camera steady!” If the technique intruded that much, they went too far. Appreciation was shaken into exhaustion.

Second, the female agent Nicky Parsons has the least vocal role imaginable in a thriller. The meaningful silence schtick? Carried way too far.

Third, the vicarious travel put James Bond and Harrison Ford movies to shame. Jumping from Moscow to Turin to Paris to London to New York to Madrid to Tangiers and then New York and probably a few spots I’m forgetting along the way = fun.

Fourth, the New York City car chase was nothing special, but the rooftop and alley ballet in Tangiers and the directed almost-escape from Waterloo Station in London captured full attention. The wife’s comment about the Waterloo scene? “My cell phone headset doesn’t stay in place that well, and I’m just driving a car.”

Fifth, the first Bourne book was the first Robert Ludlum I ever read, as a pre-teen, so it’s imprinted fairly well in my memory. The third book, though… can’t say that I remember it well enough to know just how far the movie Bourne has strayed from the printed page. I was impressed with the first film’s fidelity to the tenor of the book, despite obvious required liberties with the story. By now, I’m just watching the movie — which is a good thing.

I am not plugged in enough to know, but I can’t believe this is the last Bourne movie we’ll see.

I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix a fortnight ago because I knew enough to wait for the wife for the third Bourne movie.

I haven’t read all the Potters (though the boy has, several times), and I can never remember which of the previous movies I’ve seen. This one was fine, but I’m not invested in them. Metacritic weighs in with a combined 71: makes sense to me.

One side note: despite a comment from my friend Sean to the theater owners during the early part of the film, the entire movie was shown out of focus. I might not have noticed before, but I’m starting to pay attention — and it’s really distracting once you do. Ignorance is bliss!

Earlier this month, after an East Coast vacation, but before the rest of the family returned, I hunkered down for the entire 3+ hours of The Right Stuff.

Long ago, I read Chuck Yeager’s autobiography (title: “Yeager), so I enjoyed the almost-parallel tale of Yeager’s pursuit of the speed & altitude records. But the Mercury space program is the focus of The Right Stuff, with an emphasis on the very human teamwork and rivalries that bound the first group of astronauts.

The movie did win Best Picture, among other Academy Awards. Three hours is still a long time. I wanted to see it, and enjoyed it…but I was ready to go bed at the end!

Not having read the book, I lack insight into the differences.

The music, though, is fun and appropriate throughout. Clair de lune by Claude Debussy is played as a tune of reflection and celebration near the end. I was instantly returned to the end of Ocean’s Eleven, with the Bellagio’s fountains soaring. Yes, I have the reference backwards, chronologically…but that’s the order in which I saw the films. You can listen/see the music for yourself in many, many versions on YouTube, including this one.

Thanks to a recommendation from my friends at CNET Networks, I found out about BikeParking.com. Great selection of bicycle racks for offices, garages and other commercial spaces. No online ordering, and the price sheet is on a PDF, but clear pictures, descriptions, and suggestions for different situations. I’m grateful that Minor Ventures is making an attractive workspace even more friendly by adding some secure bike storage. If you have the opportunity to add bike storage to a commercial space (or a large private space), check BikeParking.com. I don’t know how far afield, geographically, they work… but a great choice in bike-friendly San Francisco.

Maybe I’m too old, but watching Napoleon Dynamite, I could only be grateful it was short. Metacritic score of 64 is far above my personal rating.

I’ve read Robert Heinlein many times before, but never one of his most famous novels, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.”

Published in 1966, the first-person story walks us through the revolt of a colony on the moon against the earth. The colony was founded as a prison, like Australia’s origins. Right away, the dialect hits you as different, and then we have a computer “waking up” and first supporting and then helping orchestrate revolution… to the point of bombing Earth from above.

Very human point of view, but definitively different point of view throughout. The computer gets named, and loved, and missed. The protagonist, Manny, is abstracted, and addressed by the ever-more-human computer as “Man.” Hardly accidental, and Manny is an amputee, with an array of specialized left arms to carry out different tasks. Both are “heroes” of the story, but their souls are not so different.

Now I’m back in a non-fiction book, but fun read.

The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman was a hoot. The accompanying blog shows the spirit of the humor. If you’ve seen Hodgman on The Daily Show, then the voice and wry straight-man tone are even more fun. This is short, which is fine, since it’s a bit repetitive after a while.