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baking and books
Mar. 28th, 2016 06:46 pmYesterday I took the risk of improvising a bit with my baking, and made dried cherry and blood orange rolls with cardamom. They turned out rather nice, so here's what I did.
( Details under the cut )
I spent much of the weekend binge-reading books by British journalist Jon Ronson. I started with The Psychopath Test, in which Ronson explores psychopathy, other mental illnesses, and what he calls "the madness industry." He's especially interested in the flattening of nuance, whether that's the way the ever-expanding DSM labels more and more human characteristics as illnesses, or the way media such as reality TV shows focus on the more extreme, "madder" ends of people's personalities. Ronson has a healthy but not excessive skepticism; he's critical of the DSM, for example, without claiming that it's worthless or that psychiatry is nonsense, and he beautifully exposes the lies within Scientology's anti-psychiatry rhetoric.
Ronson is sometimes called a "gonzo" journalist, a label I thought was unfair after reading The Psychopath Test. His earlier Them: Adventures with Extremists deserves the label more, but it's not gonzo in the way I dislike. Ronson isn't putting on a show of machismo--the opposite, I'd say--and his approach is rooted in an interest in truth, not in thrill-seeking. The book is, again, surprisingly nuanced, though that doesn't stop Ian Paisley from coming across as a wretched bully in ways that aren't even directly related to his politics.
I also read Lost at Sea, a collection of standalone pieces mostly written for the Guardian. I liked it, and I'd especially recommend "Who Killed Richard Cullen," a terrifyingly prescient story about predatory consumer lending written way back in 2005, and "Amber Waves of Green," from I think 2012, in which Ronson interviews people (mostly Americans) at five different income levels, from a dishwasher making less than $200 a week to a multi-billionaire. (Guess who's the most angry and bitter? Hint: it's not the dishwasher.)
I'm now reading Men Who Stare At Goats, but I've only just started it.
( Details under the cut )
I spent much of the weekend binge-reading books by British journalist Jon Ronson. I started with The Psychopath Test, in which Ronson explores psychopathy, other mental illnesses, and what he calls "the madness industry." He's especially interested in the flattening of nuance, whether that's the way the ever-expanding DSM labels more and more human characteristics as illnesses, or the way media such as reality TV shows focus on the more extreme, "madder" ends of people's personalities. Ronson has a healthy but not excessive skepticism; he's critical of the DSM, for example, without claiming that it's worthless or that psychiatry is nonsense, and he beautifully exposes the lies within Scientology's anti-psychiatry rhetoric.
Ronson is sometimes called a "gonzo" journalist, a label I thought was unfair after reading The Psychopath Test. His earlier Them: Adventures with Extremists deserves the label more, but it's not gonzo in the way I dislike. Ronson isn't putting on a show of machismo--the opposite, I'd say--and his approach is rooted in an interest in truth, not in thrill-seeking. The book is, again, surprisingly nuanced, though that doesn't stop Ian Paisley from coming across as a wretched bully in ways that aren't even directly related to his politics.
I also read Lost at Sea, a collection of standalone pieces mostly written for the Guardian. I liked it, and I'd especially recommend "Who Killed Richard Cullen," a terrifyingly prescient story about predatory consumer lending written way back in 2005, and "Amber Waves of Green," from I think 2012, in which Ronson interviews people (mostly Americans) at five different income levels, from a dishwasher making less than $200 a week to a multi-billionaire. (Guess who's the most angry and bitter? Hint: it's not the dishwasher.)
I'm now reading Men Who Stare At Goats, but I've only just started it.
