Book Corner 2023.38

Easy Money

by Ben McKenzie & Jacob Silverman

An antic-crypto screed in which Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and the implosion of FTX figures heavily. I spent most of my 2020 workyear researching cryptocurrency, blockchains, stablecoins, etc., so I have an interest. I also have been a follower of the Effective Altruism movement, with which SBF was associated, so that’s given me a double-interest in the FTX story. I read this with glee. It’s not bad; while unabashedly anti-crypto, it doesn’t come off like a bone to pick, but rather one person’s not unreasonable opinion. Ben McKenzie does make constant references to his being an actor, a somewhat famous actor in his day, but I never saw anything with him in it so I didn’t care. (His biggest role was on a show called the O.C. which was for people younger than me.) For an actor, he’s damn smart.

He’s got lots to share firsthand about SBF because he actually once scored an interview with him as well as something of a Twitter relationship. He found the guy to be really weird (no surprise there), intrinsically; and also, it just felt so weird that SBF wanted to talk to him at all – not only that, but really seemed to want him to LIKE him. McKenzie shares some insight he got form a former FBI agent: Just listen. “Tell the suspect you know he is a good person, but you need help understanding what happened…” Bad actors, all of us, need to see ourselves as good people.

So, the FTX story. I remember it well (it wasn’t even a year ago). Binance, a rival crypto exchange, held tons of FTX tokens (FTT). When they announced that “concerns” about FTX’s balance sheet had led to them to decide to liquidate all their FTT tokens, that was the end. The CEO of Binance, “CZ”, had gotten into some kind of bicker-war with SBF, Well, all it took was the announcement of intent to sell a major quantity of FTT, and “Voila, bank run.” “CZ had played his hand well.”

McKenzie’s problem with crypto is that it has no use case, nothing for the here and now – use cases are always presented as “Someday it could…” His fundamental problem is that it seems to misunderstand the nature of money. Money has value because we TRUST the government to back it. We TRUST that other parties will accept it as legal tender because it has the government of the USA backing it. Crypto is “trustless” – that’s allegedly a feature, not a bug. But he doesn’t think that the necessary trust that could make it ever be anything more than a speculative gamble can be conjured out of thin air, or out of trusting the code – code is written by people. I could see having some good arguments with the guy.

Book Corners 2023.34-37

Charlie Brown’s ‘Cyclopedia

Volumes 1, 3, 7, and 9

Yes, I’m counting these as four books; wanna make something of it?

I got these off of Paperback Swap. These were the only volumes available.

When I was a kid I had two or three “Charlie Brown’s Super Book(s) of Questions & Answers” – which contained some of the same content as these. So it was a walk down memory lane as well as a chance to spend some time with Snoopy.

So Effing Sick of Barbie

I had Barbie. I had the Barbie Townhouse. The elevator was very cool.

But I have next to no memories of playing with Barbie.

I have memories of the various Fisher Price dollhouses and playing with them, particularly with my little sister, who called the little dolls “Peoples”. I have memories of my friend’s dollhouse and having a blast playing with it with her, right before we got too old for such things.

Those dollhouses all had family units, lots of characters to play off each other. Barbie was just Barbie. I know this is going to sound anti-feminist – but it should, as I had an anti-feminist childhood. But what did you DO with a character who was just a single woman? Did I have any role models of single women? Zip, nada. I know Barbie had Ken and maybe friend-Barbies. But still, I think that was the reason Barbie wasn’t so much fun. I had no idea what to do with a single woman in a townhouse, once she’d gone up and down the elevator a few times.

Beerfest Highlights

14th Star – Railcar Refresher – made with yuzu, really interesting (and good)

Goodwater – German Wheat – loved

Mill River – Watermelon Gose – mmm!

Switchback – Katie’s Love Poem – ‘a traditional Grodzsikie’ – what the hell is that? Polish wheat. We both liked

Switchback – Smoked Oyster Stout – mostly smoke, I really liked the smokeds this session

Lawson’s Finest – Elderberry Gose – loved

Book Corner 2023.33

Marcovaldo

by Italo Calvino

Connected short stories that grew on me. The title character is basically a schlemiel, but it’s not just about schlemielitude. Calvino surrealism is present. Marcovaldo is a poverty-stricken father of six in poverty-stricken northern Italy in the 1950s-1960s. First living in a basement room and then in a garret, he and his complaining wife and mischievous troublesome children make discoveries and get into pickles and end up on hospital cots or afoul of the law or the landlady. And life goes on to the next story.

Book Corner 2023.32

Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories

by Isaac Bashevis Singer, illustrated by Maurice Sendak

A collection of very Jewish children’s stories with illustrations by Maurice Sendak. The title and final story was the best. Young Aaron must take the old family goat, Zlateh, to the butcher’s in the next town. They get caught in a blizzard and survive for 3 days inside a haystack. Aaron lives on the goat’s milk and the goat of course lives off the hay. They return home after the storm, and the life-saving goat is then forever after welcome in the house and treated like a sibling. “Maaaa,” is all she says. Yes, I loved her.