WhimsyLand

Video readings by Joshua, Kasey, Linh, Reb, Noah and others.  One thing I love about this site is that the PayPal donation page comes up in French (Payez rapidement avec PayPal!) and donations are in euros.

Thanks to Jilly for the link to poet's audio readings.  Readers include Billy Collins, Tory Dent, Rita Dove, Cornelius Eady, Louise Glück, Donald Hall, Robert Hass, Jane Hirshfield,  Major Jackson, Ted Kooser, Stanley Kooser, Campbell McGrath, Heather McHugh, W.S. Merwin, Naomi Shihab Nye, William Palmer, Linda Pastan, Robert Pinsky, David Wagoner, and more -- even Vivian Shipley and Lin Lifshyn!  The downside is that they're hour-long MP3 files, not streaming audio, so it takes a (long) while for them to download before play.

Jonathan makes the argument that Silicon Valley minor elite shouldn't be angst-ridden over their lives as minor millionaires.   As it turns out, I know lots of people like those in the article, and was a co-manager with one of them (Celeste) in my last job.  I think Celeste is typical of those I know:  extremely hard-working people with engineering backgrounds, generally gracious with modest lifestyles.  The ones I know have worked 60-80 hour weeks for decades – and I can guarantee you that 95% of the time, the work isn't exciting, cutting edge activity.   Most have given up 401(k) plans and pensions to work long hours for startups, and most have seen no benefit from it (startups have rather high failure rates, in case you thought every new computer venture ended up like Google).  They suffer 2-3 hour daily commutes and often make less than a college professor.  Many live in 1,600 square-foot stucco homes on an eighth of a acre that cost them a million dollars.  Unlike a college professor, they will not be able to retire at 62 with a mid 5-figure retirement, so worrying about their future isn't as crazy as it sounds (how long will a million bucks last if you're looking at 20 years of retirement without a pension?).  I think a lot of the insecurity of individuals mentioned in the article derives from the sheer randomness of the outcomes – for every 10 ValleyFolk who made a million dollars, there are 100 people whose firms fizzled out, and 1 who made even more money.  Junie read the article and asked the obvious question:  why don't they just cash out and move?  That's a fair question, but how many people move from their homes, their friends, their children's school districts?  Well, some do, but it's usually because they work for a national company and only by moving can they move up.  That's much less true in The Valley, where there are almost always plenty of jobs available without leaving the area, and where most of the companies you work for have headquarters there, so promotion may not require relocation (although it often requires a lot of long, boring travel).  In the final analysis, without these crazy risk-takers, we wouldn't have iPods, cheap PCs, Google or YouTube (to name a very small subset).  The defense rests.

I've never met the talented Ange Mlinko, but I've always thought she had a beautiful name, so strange and challenging and reminiscent of a songbird.  "My Russian grandmother has a whole philosophy of dreams handed down to her from the mists of peasant legend. I know she takes it very seriously when she dreams of the dead; they predict corresponding maladies: this one her arthritis, that one her indigestion. Then I remember it was the Russian Formalists too who theorized that poetry must have strangeness in it."  I work with a great guy who happens to be Russian as well.  His engineering activity is occasionally reminiscent of this strangeness, an almost folktale-like approach to a problem that favors heroics over analysis, a wishful-thinking-ness that is contagious.

When Junie's in town, I get to go to Brewing Mart in the afternoons and order one of their superb lattes in a ceramic cup with a pattern in the crema that looks like a willow tree or an peacock feather or an apple, which is what I will do now and let you get on with your day.