Short Takes
June 11, 2015
‘Pot Luck’ won’t get you high. It may just improve your health.
Richard Lewis spent two decades in charge of the Absolut advertising account — he invented those classic Absolut ads. He’s taught Branding at Yale and NYU. You may recall his book, Why Hire Jennifer? Now he’s back, with an equally accessible book: “Pot Luck: Why Marijuana is Today’s Medicine.” Huh? His reason: 23 states have legalized medical marijuana, 4 have gone further and legalized recreational marijuana. And there are hundreds of books. His aim: the simplest and most factual. In 200 pages, with big print, many illustrations and contributions from doctors and patients, he pretty much does that. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
June 9, 2015
A first-time director to watch, an actor’s breakthrough performance
Lou Howe is married to my favorite and only stepdaughter, but if I didn’t know him, I’d still be knocked out by “Gabriel,” the film he wrote and directed. Rory Culkin is devastatingly compelling as a damaged kid so desperate to fix his life that he stalks a long-lost girlfriend. “Gabriel,” a little film that launches two careers, is now playing in New York and Los Angeles. The website lists other cities, streaming opportunities and much more objective praise.
June 1, 2015
You are falling into a deep, deep sleep
Jason Clement is the first engineer to be inducted into the Sony Samurai Society, the most prestigious honor that a Sony employee can be awarded. When someone of this stature creates an app and “Zen” is in the title, I pay attention. Not that I grasp the tech: “Zen Tunes combines Isochronic tones with monaural and binaural beats.” Translation: Zen Tunes lets you create a custom mix of sounds, set volumes individually, and then store your personalized “mixes.” Result: “brainwave entrainment.” Translation: Your brain eases into a deep state of relaxation or sleep. Who would like this? Insomniacs. Travelers. Dreamers. Aficiondoes of the new and cool. Deep dive here.
May 11, 2015
Workin’ for the man ev’ry night and day
You pump your own gas. Check out your own groceries. Book your own plane tickets. Essentially, you work for large corporations — for free. How that came to be is the subject of “Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day,” by Craig Lambert. I’m too conflicted to review this book: Craig’s not only a close friend and my editor at Harvard Magazine, but he thanks me profusely — too profusely — in the acknowledgments. I can assure you the book’s a winner because it’s reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Book Review by the estimable Barbara Ehrenreich. To read more about it, visit Craig’s web site. To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition. click here.
April 6, 2015
Surprise! I am reading a 531-page novel.
“All the Light We Cannot See” was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award and a #1 New York Times bestseller. Despite the praise, I didn’t rush to read Anthony Doerr’s book — the last time I read a 531-page novel the author was Russian and dead. Then I saw this video — and immediately one-clicked a purchase. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.] Sometimes a picture-with–words really is worth more than just words. The Pulitzer committee thought so — “All the Light” won for fiction. Do watch.