You’re either going to read this and be alarmed for the future of all mankind, or you’ll think it’s a lie-ridden, left-wing agenda meant to obscure facts and bring down freedom with free enterprise. Anyone interested enough in real-world economics and politics to read beyond the fiction of John le Carre and Ian Fleming about “fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder” will have a visceral response to Perkins’ assertions. Perkins glosses over his upbringing, but makes a few points that explain his interest and vulnerabilities in his profession of being an economic forecaster for an international consulting firm in the 1970s. He worked hard, followed the corporate rules and moved quickly up the pay scale and influence ladders. Only innocently curious in the beginning, he became convinced through the years of a primarily (but not solely) U.S. corporate, government and banking system that colluded enough to gain spoils for western civilization at the expense of economies around the globe. During his time as a participant in global economics, he sees and pieces together evidence of corruption that purposely brings down foreign governments to benefit the west. The book primarily covers the political and economic circumstances of the 1970s in Indonesia, Colombia, Panama, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Readers who are familiar with history at that time will probably not be surprised by anything, but readers who avoid or ignore real-life politics will have a reaction. The arrogant, self-centered, and vicious attitudes and methods of U.S. business, banking, and government portrayed in the book is not how the U.S. public likes to see its swaggering, but still generous, entrepreneurial, patriotic self. Eventually his conscience does not allow him to continue and he leaves the business. He makes a case that it has taken so long for him to write and get this published due to pressure from others to keep the information away from the public. Perkins calls his book a confession only, though he turns the information over to the reader with suggestions to spark action at a grass-roots level. Because thirty years have passed since most of the action happened, the reader can be appalled, but dismiss it as history. What is impossible to dismiss, however, even for the person who reads only headlines for news, is that the trail has become bloodier and the economic strategies that brought down foreign governments are walking down our own Main Street and in our front door in this current recession. The housing, banking and jobs crises we face smack of Perkins’ description of what U.S. interests have done to others across the globe. This is not an easy read, even if you end up dismissing it as garble from a disgruntled employee. If you like all your history and current events from local television and newspapers, don’t bother reading this. Head instead to the fiction shelf of political thrillers where U.S. might always makes right.

The Heritage Cookbook from the 70s.

The shelf where I keep cookbooks is so stuffed some of them have to lay on top of others to have room in the cupboard. And a few of them have been around almost as long as I’ve been married which is closer to gold than silver. That’s another story. A very tattered, now coverless cookbook was put together by the local junior league ladies of the day and dates from the 70s. The women would be in their sixties and seventies now and their recipes are reading about as old. It is fittingly named Heritage Cookbook.

The idea was to go through with scissors, clip the recipes I wanted and chuck what would surely be most of the book. I made it to the preface page for Appetizers and Beverages where a short “Heritage Footnote” told the story of the Ute Chief Wakara. Wakara asked Brigham Young for a young woman he was smitten with which resulted in the young woman being hastily married to her sister’s husband, a judge. Only in Utah. That clipping will go in one of my several “Utah” files of oddities.

Then I got to page three and had to save the whole page. I’d never made the “Bleu Cheese Ball” that sounds good, and hey, I marked the bottom appetizer “Crab Rounds,” with an “A” years ago, so it may come in handy again. Plus, the woman who submitted the recipe is a woman I worked with on a non-profit board years later, so it had minor sentimental value. There I paused to think of Nancy for several minutes. I wonder what’s happened to her. Last I knew she’d moved to Montana. On I went through appetizers, clipping three more.

Next were soups. I passed over a shredded iceberg lettuce soup, and another that featured canned tomato soup with orange juice, but then I stopped. I tried to imagine what a can each of tomato, cream of celery, cream of mushroom, split pea and a can of crab would taste like with two tablespoons onion and a quart of milk. There you have it. Was someone just desperate to clean out the cupboard? Or have to feed people they didn’t want to come back? I don’t know whether to continue to clip or keep the remnants as evidence for food history. I was defacing an archeological dig. For as long as I’ve had it, I haven’t made a lot of the recipes. Several that I liked years ago had felt dated and somehow geared to a palate before the popularity of lemongrass, cilantro, adobo, and cardamom. Kitchen spices and methods have evolved leaving me feeling like a caretaker of history more than a de-clutterer. What to do?

As I read this book I had a running conversation with myself about why I read because this book baffled me. It wasn’t gripping. It wasn’t boring. It wasn’t inspiring. It wasn’t without inspiration. It wasn’t instructive. It wasn’t without small slices of insight.

The story was narrated by Edgar Mint as he recounted his life beginning with being an unwanted baby born to an Indian mother on an Arizona reservation and a visiting Pennsylvania wannabe cowboy passing through. One unfortunate, well, closer to tragic, event after another scoots the boy Edgar through his childhood.

His story begins when he is seven and is accidentally run over by a mailman’s truck. From that pivotal event, which landed him in the hospital for an extended stay, his life unfolds. It is not a gentle unfolding as he realizes his physical problems and that he has lost contact with his mother, but he comes to a peace and comfort of sorts within a substandard medical system where he is roommates with three men. It’s not expected life will get any easier for an abandoned, physically damaged half-Indian boy, and it doesn’t.

Through the hospital stay, a horrific time in a reservation school, and a confusing time living in a middle-class Mormon household, he meets an assortment of colorful, good, bad, and ugly characters. As I moved through the book with my running background conversation about why I read, I finally settled on why I finished this book.

Edgar himself is a lovable, little guy who I didn’t want to abandon to the odd collection of Udall’s characters. He deserved more. He deserved a safe place to sleep, good food, clean clothes, an education, and people who cared, because through it all, Edgar maintained a child-like, innocent view of the world that very, very slowly propelled the story’s action.

Edgar wanted to do right by people. That included a visit to a Nevada juvenile detention center where a friend was sent after standing up for Edgar in a fight. Then, following up on his inspiration to find the mailman who ran over him, Edgar wanted to tell him he was forgiven for hurting him. Those are expansive gestures for a by then teenager to plan.

Udall’s style, the tone he used, his excellent similes, and his young protagonist very deftly shows a life that may be all too possible among Native Americans. He tells it through the eyes of a child with a generous spirit who must and does make his way through the actions and intentions of whatever strange adults surround him, and in the end gives himself a miracle life.

Here in Utah Josh Powell was at the center of suspicion over his wife’s disappearance in December 2009. Powell, his missing wife Susan, and over half a dozen family members on both sides have been in local news fighting over custody of Susan and Josh’s sons, accusations of infidelity, and child pornography whenever the police thought they had another lead that inevitably made statewide headlines and ended in failure to find Susan’s body.

It’s all been nothing but sad while it went from ugly to uglier to now, with three deaths, ugliest. Sort of, in a cerebral kind of way, I understand the anger and passion that can rise up to the heat of wanting someone dead. It becomes closer and less cerebral if I imagine someone in my family harmed by another, or my daughter or mother missing with no trace found. 

Yet, still, what is it with humans? Where do we find the energy, time, desire and how-to for the sure destruction of others? And so often? It’s not like this tragic case is isolated. At least two other local murders and one missing person story are also in today’s Salt Lake Tribune, though the Powell story dominates with almost four full newspaper pages. By coincidence popular columnist Robert Kirby wrote about the frequency of spouses paying to have the person they promised to stay with until death do they part, meet their death on television shows like 48 Hours and Dateline. Kirby’s approach was humorous and written as social commentary. It is timing that is grotesquely hilarious in its black humor that underscores his point. 

Human emotion is so overwhelming, while logic and compassion are so frail, that there are no answers that can be counted on to make a difference. Take Josh Powell’s childhood and name half a dozen turning points that made him the man who willingly took the lives of his two helpless sons, and then take the turning points of a selected football player in yesterday’s Superbowl and this is what I would bet: A reader of the cold facts of their early lives could not tell the difference in why one of the men became a murderer and one became a sports star.

The Secret of Lies starts in the intriguing prologue where the reader joins the mysterious storyteller as she stealthily leaves a sleeping man in the dead of night and drives toward the sea; where her haunted memories began.

Then Abate opens her story fifteen years earlier and we join the teen-aged storyteller, who we learn is named Stevie, on the beach with her sister Eleanor, two years older. There is awareness of a long, important story being told through the memories of a woman who must revisit teen-age memories to heal her adult life. Innocent teen-age banter and interests while Stevie and Eleanor spend the summer with their childless aunt and uncle become the setting of the usual interest in music and local boys.

The naive Stevie watches the disturbed marriage of her aunt and uncle, and the ever more secretive Eleanor, while she becomes friends with a local boy who is deaf. Abate walks the fine line of telling a story from the memory of an escaping woman leaving a man sleeping, and of her own unknowing teen-age self who could not or would not see the ever more threatening danger in Eleanor’s life.

The tone sways like a sea’s waves between the recitation of fact and action against an emotional depth that reads like islands of prose from an aching, adult heart looking back. The weather was almost an additional character as it gave Stevie a secure handle to hold and see her through a painful memory before continuing. There was also a cross-current between an understandably naive Stevie who would not face her sister’s deepening troubles, with one who blurted surprisingly insightful observations like, “And is this … the same ratfink who’s dolling up his incredibly gullible niece for a cocktail party just because he knows how much it’ll annoy his wife?”

Then, of course, the summer ends in tragedy and life continues, as it always does. It is in this second story of living with results that Stevie learns, regrets, grieves, and continues on with the detritus of deeds done and undone. Her powers of observation continue to sustain and haunt her as she adjusts to a forever changed family and personal life that she knows holds a broken, unsteady self.

The Secret of Lies can be read for pure story. There’s enough in the action and tone to sweep a reader from start to finish in one more human drama that can be left behind when finished. But I think Abate’s dramatic prologue invites a reader to consider the deeper meaning of facing a life in pain with whatever gifts we have of people who remain or come into our life unaware of history, giving us the power to look at ourselves in new contexts.

Keith Gordon, Sam Gordon, and my Sam waiting at the Tower Theatre

The excitement can be caught like a cold, even if all you do is brush shoulders with a few people standing in line for yet another “film.” (The word, and I whisper here, “movie” is never spoken here.) Up to two hours ahead of a starting time lines begin to form to buy whatever tickets may become available fifteen minutes before start time. And, yes, it’s worth it! When you might see Chris Rock, Rashida Jones and her dad, Quincey, Kirsten Dunst, Bruce Willis, Ic-T, and yes, they’ve all been here. Thousands of people flock to Park City, Utah, the heart of it all, and hundreds see up to six films a day. It’s possible. And necessary if you’re serious about this festival.

Though not in my experience of Sundance. Not willing to plunk down serious money to be the first in the internet line to buy “packages” for events including parties, I waited until whatever was left over for Utah residents. For that I had to register in December to buy during a specific half hour only, in person, on a day to be specified in January. Away I came with tickets to movies I knew next to nothing about, but I had one ace up my sleeve.

My husband, Sam, is on the board of the local Salt Lake City Film Society

Inside the Tower Theatre waiting for Filly Brown

and they are hosting a couple of events for members. The first movie (er, film) we attended was Filly Brown, a heartfelt story of a girl rapper in Los Angeles with her share of family problems. The story moved, had heart and really good acting. The real treat is having members of the production be on hand at the end to be quizzed by audience members. It’s like having a personal showing and explanation by the people who know the film best. We had Youssef DeLara, Michael Olmos, and we heard Gina Rodriguez say hi over a cell phone.

Last night after seeing For Ellen we had So Yong Kim and her location man (wish I heard the name). I have my thumbs up and down for that one, but definitely an up for actor Paul Dano. Then it was off to dinner where Sam had this meatball with spaghetti. I got to sit across from Utah filmmakers Tyler Measom and Jennilyn Merten. Tomorrow its The Surrogate! Then a Chinese New Year party! Whatever is happening to my life? It’s hijacked by films and parties! I can stand it.

E.M. Forster

Shakespeare wrote Comedy of Errors and Forster could have named his book, Tragedy of Errors. Missteps of words and action that follow one after another keep people from understanding each other through the cloak of gender, social class and cultural differences. Ripe with opportunity for a thousand more misunderstandings, the story is between the uneasy relationship in India of the Indians and British during the British Raj. Mrs. Moore, an old woman, and Adela Quested, a young woman, are visiting newcomers from England, who upset everyone’s comfort with their desire to meet Indians in their own background and learn the truth about India. Nothing like clueless, foolhardy white women to upset social order. The biggest misstep occurs from an accusation of sexual impropriety by, of course, Adela, against the innocent Indian physician, Dr. Aziz.

A Passage to India is a novel of its time that reflects the then current standards of law and social communication that now would not be tolerated in either India or England. Conversation style is dated, as are the rules of etiquette and morality that underlie it, but none of that keeps the novel from being understandable and valuable. Hearts are still hopeful and then broken. Social structure and its rules are still often incomprehensible. Morality is still a troubling, inconsistent and tricky meeting point between two cultures. Religion still sets people apart, poetry still brings them together. History is important to re-visit during any era to better understand why the world is still in such a mess.

In an older style, Forster is happy to tell rather than show a lot more than is encouraged today, but that tactic does give the reader the background and belief system of the writer and saves a lot of guessing. Where I did have to guess were a number of passages that referred to “he” and “she” so often I lost track of which who was meant. I had to back-track and more than once I made a guess, only to discover a paragraph or two later I was wrong.

Forster did throw out a few sentences that will forever remain favorites. For me, they are witty, sad, funny, and full of meaning to ponder. Two of them are: The human race would have become a single person centuries ago if marriage was any use. There are different ways of evil and I prefer mine to yours. Two other sentences might have been lost in a paragraph fifteen lines long, but they brought me back to attention as a half-way mark: What does happen to one’s mother when she dies? Presumably she goes to heaven, anyhow she clears out.

Innocence, guilt, right, wrong, intentional, non-intentional, desire, necessity, all uneasily oppose one another in this period novel that reaches below the surface of two major world cultures.

Not show stopping, but it was telling that the responses all came from people in the grandparent demographic of my “friends.” Like me, I suspect whenever they don’t ace a trivia quiz or remember something they’re sure they used to, there is a momentary flutter of self-notification, “Keep tabs on me. Make sure not losing mind and all memory to petrifying brain. Do not panic.”

I know I make it worse than I need to. Sam and I often take the Isaac Isimov Super Quiz in the morning paper (a clue as to our age, huh?). I’ll read the question, we’ll both say an answer, or not, when neither can think of a thing. It takes two of us to manage this morning ritual. This morning the quiz was “Anyone for Seconds?” as in name the second largest country. Answer: Canada. Between the two of us we actually knew five, and guessed at four. Of the four, two we guessed correctly and two we were just plain wrong.

What does that say about me? I knew the name of Elizabeth Taylor’s second husband (Michael Wilding), but a correct guess was the second longest river in the world. Luckily, I knew the Amazon is mighty long. Really, it could have been first or fifth. What makes something stick in your head? Early learning? My mother was really into Elizabeth Taylor when I was a kid and I remember her sadness the day the paper had a picture of a wrecked small plane that had taken Wilding down. Out of elitist pride, I would have preferred “knowing” the Amazon and guessing at Wilding.

Years later I was around to know who was the second man on the moon, but I couldn’t remember anyone but John Glenn. Sam remembered the right man with Buzz Aldrin, who we both met years earlier at an event. By actual in-person observation I know he is a dynamic man. I should have remembered that. Aldrin was momentarily, with a real handshake, in my life, after all.

On quizzes like this I also think a sort of generalized memory plays in like it did with my grocery list. Question number seven asked who Henry the VIII’s second wife was. Henry’s wives had been part of my education several times so names like Anne and Catherine popped up. The easiest one to say was Anne Boleyn, helped by the movie with a poetic title I have always liked, “Anne of a Thousand Days.” The reason I remembered the grocery list is I had reviewed it several times because I was buying items for a specific dinner and I mentally went through the courses and dishes while I was shopping. It made it easier to remember the seventeen items. But still, I had left the list home. What does that say?

M.T. Anderson
Candlewick Press, Cambridge

Take all the worst aspects of American consumerism and pack into the future lives of middle class teenagers. Then sit back in a comfortable chair and enjoy Anderson’s dystopian vision. In fact, make yourself enjoy it because if the book is taken seriously you will have to cry in fear for all humankind before selling the house, gathering your family, and moving to the backwoods in hopes your brain, pocketbook and DNA will be overlooked by the looming corporate control.

feed is written as science fiction and aimed at the young adult market. It is aimed well. There was a year in middle school when my favorite outfit was a black, head-to-toe, rebel artist look that underlined parents were evaporating substances in life, my certainty the future was ruled by uncaring adult systems, and only friends held the knowledge and power of the future. This book would have substantiated all that and given me new beliefs as well.

The story is told through the eyes of teen-age Titus and begins when he is with his rowdy friends on the moon during spring break. As teens do, the friends entertain themselves by flitting from one activity to another, as teens do. Periodically, they are compelled to buy t-shirts or shoes because of ads relayed to their brain from the implanted “feed.” They discount protesters yelling, “Chip in my head? I’m better off dead,” thinking them silly. Perfect time to meet the alluring, smart-talking outcast (wearing black and grey wool, not plastic), Violet.

Though feed is a typical story of the outsider coming into the group and blossoming young love of two people who can learn from each other, it is grounded by the oddly interesting and deeply disturbing social surroundings of the imagined time. Popular items are “totally brag,” the word school is trademarked, and if the feed isn’t sending personalized ads of items on sale, the teen could well be listening to the popular song, “I’ll Sex You In.” Not such a far cry from today’s popular song titles. There’s just enough to tie the present consumer climate with Anderson’s future that the story feels creepy.

Violet is the clarion call to Titus of what’s really “out there” in the world beyond their protected lives. Forests have all but disappeared, major South American cities are being bombed for economic reasons, and the protesters are killed. Violet and Titus wonder if the lesions growing on everyone’s bodies are really a mark of beauty as they are being told, or caused by a disease. But few are questioning the spread of many diseases. Instead, as today, too many people turn their backs, convinced it won’t happen to them and government, as well as industry, is caring for them. A favorite line is from Violet’s father who does not have a feed and is a lone voice of intellectualism. As he and Titus stand by Violet’s sickbed he says, “Your bon mots cannot fly fleetly when each consonant is a labor.”

feed is sad, unsettling, and not hopeful. It is also well-paced, entertaining, and eerily conceivable as a future.

“So,” Sam said, “would you rather have a useless kitchen gadget or spend the same amount for a ticket to EVE?”

“How useless? Could I have that really cool parmesan grinder I saw on Amazon?”

“We could save money and for only a three dollar cover charge see Tough Tittie.”

“Whatever happened to names like The Beatles or The Supremes or even Blondie?”

“You’re living in the last century. F_ _ _ Like a Beast is only eight dollars. Now there’s a bargain.”

“I could get maybe three-quarters of a pound of crab for $15 and eat it all myself.”

“For a couple of beers, I could be a heartless bastard.”

“Huh?”

“Okay. You win. Let’s stay home and be one of the groups.”

But, for those interested: http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/view-place-5335-burts-tiki-lounge.html, http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/54/590416/restaurant/South-Salt-Lake/Carols-Cove-II-Salt-Lake-City, http://www.thestateroomslc.com/. And the cheese grinder: http://www.amazon.com/Zyliss-11370-Classic-Rotary-Style-Cheese/dp/B000FDZJG2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325262446&sr=8-1