Feldman's Faves: October 18, 2021

Good morning BL5 – I have to admit, that I certainly felt some trepidation about starting to come back to the office after all of this time working from home (which I have loved). I was in a few times last week and I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed bumping into other humans, having great IRL conversations and feeling (rightly or wrongly) that the worst of this pandemic is behind us. I hated the commute and I hated not being able to wear my Lulus (I did not feel that it was morally right to subject others to that….). I think we all have mixed emotions about this change, which is completely understandable ad I think we take it slowly and see how it unfolds for everyone.

I still don’t want to pick A BL5 DAY for people to come in but if this happens organically over time it will be nice to see each others in bulk (and then JC and I can stop subjecting you to our BL5 Weekly Zooms).

No theme this week, just interesting stuff.

Harlem Shuffle By: Colson Whitehead – Colson Whitehead is the current it boy in contemporary literature. As I mentioned previously, he has already won two Pulitzer Prizes – for The Underground Railroad and for The Nickel Boys. So it comes as no surprise, that there was great anticipation for his latest novel, Harlem Shuffle. As one critic notes, the story is set in the early 1960s, Harlem Shuffle and is an extraordinary story about an ordinary man. Furniture salesman Ray Carney is a good guy gone wrong, like Walter White in Breaking Bad. He gets sucked into schemes and heists through his cousin Freddie, whom parents would call “a bad influence” (and Freddie himself has his own “bad influences”). The novel is structured in three instalments, covering a period from 1959 to 1964, each climactically peaking with criminal activity. Act 1 shows how easily a man can step downward into crime. Act 2 considers Carney’s upward criminal climb. We could call this the illusion of advancement; we all get suckered into it. “The mistake was to believe he’d become someone else.” Act 3 considers whether a man should step up to help others. What’s our responsibility to the greater social good? The three parts present our options: descent, personal advancement, social progress. Or Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. The three acts could make satisfying novellas on their own, but they’re better together. The novel gains force through accumulation and acceleration – brake and gas, gas and brake, until we are far from where we started. In one or two sentences at the end of a chapter, Whitehead can change the book’s whole trajectory. Set 60 years ago, the novel nonetheless has a number of parallels to our time. There’s a delight in taking down powerful people who believed themselves invulnerable to consequences. There’s the expansion of empire and wealth. Some people aspire to own houses, while others own entire buildings. There’s the chillingly familiar racial unrest, down to a shooting that incites protests. In the novel, two leaflets circulate as potential paths to an equitable and just society. The first gives instructions on how to build a bomb. The wording on the second nudges us toward patient cooperation: “COOL IT BABY.” Thankfully, Whitehead is never sermonising or sentimental.

While I found the stories to be OK (not Whitehead’s best work in my view), I did appreciate a number elements of this novel. First and foremost, was the way that Whitehead described in granular detail the workings of Harlem during this period from life at the Hotel Teresa (a major focus of the plot) to having coffee at Chock Full of Nuts (that is old school New York). He also did a good job in describing both the furniture business and the jewelry business and how they worked both legally and otherwise. The most interesting relationship is between Carney and his father in law (a well established professional in the community who was both wealthy and very connected (living in Striver<s Row) and who believed that his daughter married beneath her). His micro-aggressions including suggesting that his daughter and their children move in with him so that Carney can work without disturbance and him sabotaging Carney’s chances to join a prestigious social club are some examples. All in all, while not his best work ever, it definitely worth a read. Here is a good review from the NYT - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/books/colson-whitehead-harlem-shuffle.html

Freakonomics Radio - “This Didn't End the Way It’s Supposed to End.” Chris Bosh is definitely one of the greatest Raptors of all time. During his tenure in Toronto he was known for being a hard working and clutch player. When he took his talents to South Beach to join LeBron and D-Wade, where he was a perennial favourite to win the NBA title, life was great. Then suddenly his career came to a premature end due to life threatening blood clots. Bosh who was always a reader and a life long learner was faced with a question that is scary for all star athletes, of what do I do next. This PODCAST describes his experience, his love of reading, his five children and what prompted him to write his new book. He is a really fascinating and introspective guy. Here is an excerpt from the PODCAST itself - The N.B.A. superstar Chris Bosh was still competing at the highest level when a blood clot abruptly ended his career. In his new book, Letters to a Young Athlete, Bosh covers the highlights and the struggles. In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, he talks with guest host Angela Duckworth: //podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519?i=1000536694056

Thank you for your ongoing engagement and participation.

And remember to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

Jon