The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs

After Julie and I watched the John Adams miniseries on HBO, I had two reactions. The first was unsettling: if I'd been alive in Colonial times, I would not have been on the side of the patriots. This is an unpleasant epiphany for someone who's always considered himself moderately patriotic. But I'm convinced of it.

I wouldn't be a king-loving Loyalist, mind you. I'd be somewhere in the middle. John Adams estimated that a third of the country was patriots, a third loyalist, and a third neutral. That'd be me: neutral. 

I don't have a revolutionary nature. I'm not confrontational enough. I'd probably grumble about the tax on tea, but in the end, I'd cough up the money rather than putting on a feathered headdress and storming a ship. I mean, I've shelled out $3.45 for a tall pumpkin latte without declaring war on Starbucks. That's truly intolerable.

-The Guinea Pig Diaries

So I was doing a little research on The Guinea Pig Diaries, for my own personal edification—or perhaps because I was having trouble getting started with this entry—and I stumbled across a couple of interesting pieces of information. 1) In paperback, this book has a new name: it's now called My Life as as Experiment. I've Googled the reason for this change without success. (Frustrating! It's so stupid, yet I must know.) 2) Jack Black's production company has bought the rights to turn The Guinea Pig Diaries/My Life as an Experiment into a TV show. Intriguing.

Anyway, what's this book all about? Anyone who's read A.J. Jacobs' previous books, The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically, knows that he is game to completely reorder his life around a certain goal or idea. (Perhaps that's why the title changed. My Life as an Experiment does sum that up pretty nicely). His latest book includes nine essays that cover some of the other projects he has taken on, from living his life according to George Washington's principles to outsourcing everything he does to India. Naturally, there are consequences to all of these decisions: some funny, some aggravating, and some that actually lead to lasting  change.

The Guinea Pig Diaries is a quick, funny read, but it's ultimately less satisfying than either of Jacobs' previous books.  Because each experiment is short, it can never be as absorbing as one of his longer projects—for either him or the reader. I'm not sure that any of these projects could have been sustained for that length—so good for Jacobs for not trying to stretch something that shouldn't have been—but I am eager to see him get back to such a project. Jacobs really excels at taking things on that benefit from in-depth exploration, and making those projects both informative and funny. The Year of Living Biblically even had an unexpected profundity, when Jacobs realized how his challenge to himself had changed his life. (In The Guinea Pig Diaries, he notes that he still is devoted to the concept of thanksgiving, which he first practiced in the previous book.) I did enjoy The Guinea Pig Diaries, but I don't expect to return to it the way I have with The Know-It-All, or the way I feel I could with The Year of Living Biblically.

Up next: Watching Frost/Nixon, I discovered I have some serious gaps in my 70s American history knowledge. Thus, All The President's Men by Woodward and Bernstein.

The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup by Susan Orlean

I am totally unique. No one in this entire country has the merchandise we have. Also, I am practical. I will not make certain flavors. Mango I won't make. Weird stuff I won't make. Some guys who worked for me a couple of years ago, they broke off on their own, and started making the oddest-ball-flavored ices in the world - mango this and banana-something that - and, of course, they eventually went out of business. I found out some guy was carrying their merchandise and carrying mine also in his store, and I said to him, 'No way you're carrying both. Carrying both! You can drop dead.' And you know what? Three weeks later, he did. No kidding. But I had nothing to with it. He had heart trouble. The fact is, though, I am very vindictive. I am. You might think: Peter Benfaremo, he's a short guy, he's a plumpy guy, what can he do to hurt me? Well, I have my ways.

-"Nonstop," from The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup

If I'm remembering correctly, my first introduction to Susan Orlean's work was via the film Adaptation. Intrigued by the wild and crazy plot, I went back to the source material, which was Orlean's book The Orchid Thief. My parents had both read it and enjoyed it much earlier, and, belatedly, I caught on. It was a fascinating read, and Orlean's name stuck in my mind.

Thus, earlier this month when I checked out my grab bag of books from the library, her collection of essays, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, was among them. I am pleased to report that it was a good choice.

The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup is a compilation of profiles of people Orlean deemed "extraordinary." Most of them were previously published in The New Yorker, and they date back as early as 1987. Luckily for the reader, Orlean really does have a knack for finding extraordinary people, who are all the more interesting because you've never heard of them before*. This isn't Barbara Walters' Most Fascinating People, in other words.

Take Peter Benfaremo, the Lemon Ice King of Corona, whom I quoted above. Or Colin Duffy, an average ten-year-old boy Orlean decided to profile instead of Macaulay Culkin, then also ten. Or the sisters who were in the outsider band The Shaggs. All actually fascinating, and Orlean has a lovely, dry wit that makes reading the profiles a pleasure. She is also adept with description ("The Maui surfer girls love one another's hair. It is awesome hair, long and bleached by the sun, and it falls over their shoulders straight, like water, or in squiggles, like seaweed, or in waves. They are forever playing with it - yanking it up into ponytails, or twisting handfuls and securing them with chopsticks or pencils, or dividing it as carefully as you would divide a pile of coins and then weaving it into tight yellow plaits.") She uses words like "bosky." She's a really good writer, is what I'm saying.

My attention did flag a few times, notably in some of the longer profiles. I also wasn't a huge fan of the title essay, mostly because I find the whole bullfighting culture pretty nauseating. In general, though, it was a very interesting book - and it really made me want to go get some ice from Corona.

Up next: A friend lent me Divine By Mistake, a fantasy novel by P.C. Cast. I think I'll try that before delving into the Keats bio.


*Exceptions: Tiffany, of "I Think We're Alone Now" fame, and perhaps some tennis players and a basketball player if you were following those sports in the mid-90s (I was not). Also, Silly Billy (aka David Friedman, although he's since changed his name) is now somewhat well known as a member of the Friedman family featured in the documentary Capturing the Friedmans.

Essay: "The Case for Memorizing Poetry"

I know scarcely any poetry by heart, save a few random verses of Baudelaire and Jean de la Fontaine from high school, but I found this essay to be very persuasive:

"The Case for Memorizing Poetry" by Jim Holt (from The New York Times)

Since reading it, I managed to memorize "The Road Not Taken," which is hardly the most difficult poem (it's so familiar at this point), but a step in the right direction nonetheless. I thought I might try something a bit more ambitious, but instead I've apparently decided to try....nothing. Maybe posting this will be a kick in the pants to exercise my brain a bit more (A kick in the head, then? That doesn't sound right.)