While I believe it’s still possible to do some of these things, I still wish to respond to Mr. Teachout’s recent item. Here are ten things I feel a sizable regret not doing (or at least putting off):
1. Learning to play the piano.
2. Learning French.
3. Visiting Rome and looking for what remains of the road markers.
4. Personally cooking the food for and preparing a fantastic dinner involving at least 50 guests.
5. Having a one-on-one three hour conversation with the President about the issues of our time and seeing what he has to say.
6. Getting a proposition on the local ballot, seeing it pass, and watching it help other people without being squashed by the cold realities of bureaucracy.
7. Performing a live one-hour set of my own personally composed songs in front of an audience and making them happy.
8. Reviving the reputation of ten great and forgotten writers.
9. Making a sizable dent to end poverty and to promote world peace.
10. Getting carte blanche to write and direct a modestly budgeted feature film that devastates and gets a decent release.
There are more, but then revealing these would cut even closer to the personal. And I have no desire to unleash this upon you folks.
Even so, I’m curious. What ten things do you want to do? Pass the meme around.
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.