Bonus Book! The Mindful Day (The Mindful Scorecard)

The Mindful Day by Laurie Cameron

Self-Help (2018 - 245 pp.)

Laurie Cameron's The Mindful Day walks the reader through 24 hours of uncensored, uncut mindfulness: locking into your lived experience from waking up to falling asleep, through whichever of work, school or anything else you do.

Five bullet points on the back of the book explain its contents in a nutshell:

• Wake up to joy
• Create a morning routine
• Focus your wandering mind
• See your loved ones with fresh eyes
• Transition peacefully from day to evening

Among the book's emphases are oneness with nature, appreciation for the presence of family members, forgiveness toward those who trespass against us,* and refusing to obsess over things we can't control.

Rather than write a traditional entry for The Mindful Day, I'll focus on the field guide aspect of the book. I've discussed many field guides on this blog, from O.P.E.N. Routine to The Hobo Handbook, and I assure you there will be more to come. When I discuss them, I pay special attention to any exercises or practical advice they give.

The Mindful Day's table of contents is broken into chapters with subheadings. Each subheading is written in the imperative, directing the reader to perform (or refuse to perform) a certain task in order to achieve maximum mindfulness. Some of these I already do, some I don't, some I should, and some I'm glad I don't. There are 50 directions, giving those of us who love calculating percentages an easy time - doubling the raw score gives a percentage score in, for lack of a better term, mindfulness compliance.

I repeat each direction in bold below and then write 1-2 sentences explaining my response. I encourage you to do this exercise only once you've finished the book. The directions aren't numbered; I'm adding numbers for ease of reference.

HOME: Start the Day

1. Wake up to joy - YES

Every morning, I wake up to a melodious alarm. Anyone who's heard it says it's the nicest sounding alarm they've ever heard. Fifteen minutes later, the BRRRRRRRRRRING starts.

2. Sit still and breathe for five minutes - YES

This is usually a product of overtiredness, sadly. I need a few minutes to wake up before I make my morning coffee (or get it out of the fridge if I'm drinking iced coffee from the night before). It is rather still, though.

3. Strengthen a positive outlook - YES

My outlook is so positive I was once nicknamed Pollyanna.

4. Set intentions - YES

I have a few key tasks I make sure I do every day. These tasks have no one watching over me but myself. If you can't keep a promise to yourself, how can you keep a promise to anyone else?

5. Reflect in writing - YES

I keep extensive notes of everything from my grocery lists to my new consumer purchases. The notes of regular people in the current day inform the cultural historians of the future.

6. Meditate through exercise - YES

At varying times throughout the day, I work out at Orangetheory Fitness for an hour. (Pre-COVID, at least.) When I'm getting through my reps, or blowing away the competition on the treadmill, I enter a hyperactive yet calm Zen zone.

Otherwise, or in addition to that workout, I walk, sometimes over 30,000 steps in a day. I've also run in the RBC Race for the Kids every year since 2016.

7. Shower with awareness - YES

On a bad day, a shower can be the best part of the day. Whether it's phone, email, social media, or any other medium, it's nearly impossible to interrupt someone who's taking a long, hot shower. The exception, ironically, is that whenever I go to the gym, showering afterward becomes far more urgent. There's a meditative trade-off.

(Sorry, no picture for this one.)

A question for Laurie Cameron: what about people who prefer baths?

8. Listen to nature's symphony - YES

When I'm at my parents' house or at the cottage, I take in the wind rustling the trees and the bird calls that come every morning. Admittedly, when I'm at my apartment, this symphony is replaced by the gulping sound of pigeons.

9. Connect at breakfast - NO

This is the first mindful tip I don't practice, dropping me to 8-1 overall. I routinely ate breakfast at work, back when physical workplaces were the norm. If I'm at home, I usually reheat leftovers. Breakfast isn't a social time for me.

10. Set a morning routine - NO

I'm not a routine-oriented person. If I ate the same breakfast every day, I'd be bored out of my mind. One of my mane mottos is "show me something I haven't seen before". Yes, that includes which spices I put on my leftover fried rice.

11. Wave goodbye - YES

Whenever someone else is in the same dwelling as me, I make sure to wave goodbye - especially to pets. As we learned from the admittedly underwhelming Secret Life of Pets, they need it the most.

Record so far: 9-2

WORK: Seize the day

12. Transform your commute - YES

My commute is sometimes my favourite part of the day. (Again, pre-COVID.) Sitting on the subway on a cold Toronto winter day, my charcoal wool trench coat on over my suit, with a coffee beside me and a book in my hands, I feel like the sophisticated travellers on European trains from a century ago.

13. Greet colleagues with presence - YES

I've been called "smiley" (as an adjective, not as a nickname) for doing this.

14. Focus your wandering mind - YES

I'm a big believer in the "eat the frog" philosophy. At home, that usually means emptying the dishwasher. At work, that could mean responding to an unpleasant email or replacing printer paper.

15. Remember your purpose - NO

This is a weird point to answer in the negative, but I can't think of myself as having one singularly defined purpose, even on a given day. This morning alone, I've made coffee, done online banking, had a conversation, listened to music and started this blog entry.

16. Listen mindfully - YES

I'm a believer in active listening.

17. Lead mindful meetings - YES

As part of multiple executive committees, we have agendas that bring us back to the important topics of the day. We can have free-form discussions but they always circle back to the main points.

18. Email and text mindfully - NO

I generally pause before hitting Send. However, I text spontaneously, usually with friends. Using the legal maxim that the word "and" requires all the items in the list to be considered, one for two doesn't cut it here.

19. Keep an open mind - YES

I put vindaloo powder on my pasta.

20. Banish multitasking - NO

I dislike the book's opposition to multitasking - I'm listening to music as I write this - my rule is one task per sense at any given time. An example I've given on Quora is eating dinner while watching a movie. Your senses of sight and hearing are occupied by the movie, while your senses of smell, taste and touch are occupied by your meal. Neither the movie experience nor the dinner experience is compromised.

21. Face difficult emotions - NO

If I feel a difficult emotion, it's usually related to a problem that requires fixing. Rather than ponder my emotions, I fix the problem, if possible. If I can't fix the problem, I accept that and move on to something I can fix.

22. Create space when overwhelmed - NO

This echoes #21 above: if I'm overwhelmed, it's because there are multiple priorities I'm juggling. In these situations, I frequently complete tasks in inverse order of time required, so I can focus on more in-depth tasks without having quick tasks continue to hang over my head. If I have to draft a document and take out the trash, I'll usually take out the trash first so I can focus on the document. I suppose taking out trash is creating space in a literal sense, albeit not in the figurative way Cameron envisions.

23. Prepare for a tough conversation - YES

Depending on the conversation, preparation can be as quick as a confirmation email or as detailed as a page of notes.

24. Reframe challenging situations - YES

In my line of work, I frequently deal with people who have had bad things happen, sometimes calamitously so. Helping people let go of the past and meet their future opportunities is essential for me.

25. Calm your inner critic - NO

This is something I think most people could do better, myself included. Should I have hopped on that flight to Oslo when I was delayed in the airport in Newark back in 2011?** It would have been woefully irresponsible, but I still haven't been to Scandinavia, so...

26. End the workday with ease - YES

Walking from a workplace to the subway, past all the happy hours (or dinners if I stayed late), has a certain liberating feeling to it. During COVID, that walk is replaced by a walk around the neighbourhood or a delicious home-cooked meal.

Work record: 9-6

Record so far: 18-8

PLAY: Enjoy the day

27. Take pictures - YES

My phone is loaded with pictures, ranging from interesting street signs to macro flowers. Here's one from two days ago:

Doesn't that scene make you feel mindful? This is in downtown Toronto, no less.

28. Use music - YES

I've rated over 3,000 albums on Rate Your Music. I have a Spotify Premium account, an iHome speaker, and a Smart TV I can use as a gigantic speaker. As I mentioned in #20 above, I'm listening to music while I write this entry.

My general guide to genres of music listened to during different tasks:

Anything lyric-focused (e.g.: hip hop, vocal jazz): cleaning

Lyrical, but the music is the focus (e.g.: most rock music): cooking, blogging

Mostly instrumental (e.g.: death metal, black metal): writing non-fiction

Totally instrumental (e.g.: ambient, electronic, drone): writing fiction

29. Go for a walk - YES

As I mentioned in #6 above, walking is my lighter form of exercise. I've walked to various points in Toronto, Edmonton and Houston that have taken me surprisingly far from home, sometimes as long as an hour in each direction. Walking really far and then taking transit back is also an option.

30. Create something - YES

As over eight years of this blog should show, I can't stop creating things. I even make charts of moral and practical aspects of life sometimes.

31. Engage with your children - YES

I'm cheating here, but whenever I've had a cat or a dog, I engage with him extensively. Playtime is all the time with our furry friends! I have no human children, although I tend to get along with them.

32. Get outside - YES

I was writing this entry outside until the sun's glare forced me into the living room. Some of my favourite memories involving climbing hills or discovering paths. One notable example is my ascent of the Grouse Grind back in October 2018. I finished in an unimpressive 1:18 (i.e. 78 minutes) because, as a first-time participant, I simply had to stop to take pictures so often. See #27 above.

33. Visit a museum - YES

I have a membership to the Royal Ontario Museum. I've seen dozens of regular and special exhibits there, to the point that I can recommend individual artifacts to first-timers and tourists.

34. Travel with curiosity and wonder - YES

Although my travel has been hampered in 2020 due to COVID, I have a long history of travel. I'v been to eight European countries and approximately half of the continental US states, as well as the Bahamas. Wherever I go, I seek out old parts of cities, museums, art galleries, roads people don't usually take, and, of course, food.

Play record: 8-0 (I must be really playful!)

Record so far: 26-8

LOVE: Enrich the day

35. Welcome one another - YES

Anyone I see when I get home gets a warm welcome. I smile too - no matter how bad my day's been, the bad part's over and the good part's just beginning.

36. Love yourself - YES

I think my interests are really interesting. (Don't we all?) From my favourite sports teams to my homemade hot sauce, I surround myself with the things I find interesting. I swear, my friends do too... some of them... sometimes.

Here's a 10-ounce bottle from my latest batch of my signature bird's eye chili sauce:

37. See your loved ones with fresh eyes - NO

38. Forgive from the heart - NO

These can be addressed together. I have a long and detailed memory. Everything gets added to it.

39. Choose generosity - YES

I rarely hesitate to buy a gift for a friend or to donate (time or money, or both) to a worthy cause. This often means either youth mental health (see the RBC race from #6 above) or Toronto Cat Rescue.

40. Touch with presence - YES

Every contact, from a kiss down to a socially distanced COVID-influenced greeting,*** receives the mindfulness it deserves from me.

41. Gather your posse - NO

Despite being a dedicated ENTJ with a lot of friends, I'm solitary a lot of the time. Some of my favourite activities, like reading or cooking, simply lend themselves best to having one person take the helm. (I'll never complain if someone offers to help chop veggies though!)

42. Be open to grief - YES

In flagrant contradiction to #21 above, grief is one of those few times there's an unavoidably bad emotion that just needs to be let out.

Love record: 5-3

Record so far: 31-11

HOME: End the Day

43. Transition peacefully from day to evening - YES

Rinse and repeat #12 above when the subway isn't full. I can get my reading in while being underground and thus out of cellphone or internet range. If the subway is full, a quick walk is a peaceful transition.

44. Clear your home for calm and joy - NO

Although I am a fierce declutterer, it's a war without end. If my home were that clear, I wouldn't have to declutter so many times.

45. Cultivate hygge at home - YES

Hygge, the Dano-Norwegian concept of everything being just right in a cozy way, is a warm blanket on my soft but firm couch. I've loved blankets since before I could say the phrase "I love blankets".

46. Cook with your senses - YES

Sight: the rainbow of colours I arrange for the evening's stir-fry.

Hearing: the sizzle of veggies as they hit the pan.

Smell: the permeation of sliced garlic cloves into the cozy air of my kitchen.

Taste: the punch of bird's eye chili peppers (see #36 above) meets the salt of soy sauce.

Touch: the texture of tender chicken breast complemented by the satisfying crunch of a carrot slice.

47. Savor eating - YES

Although I frequently eat in front of sports or movies (see #20 above), it never detracts from the experience. I don't "eat like the French" as Cameron recommends; I eat like a proud Canadian who enjoyed visiting Paris but prefers to integrate good food into my faster-paced life.

48. Sip evening tea - YES

As with exercise (see #6 above), my tea consumption occurs at various points throughout the day. I make a pot of (usually) noncaffeinated tea (my go-to in 2020 is lime ginger mint), let it steep for a while, and then fill my glass carafe with it. Into the fridge for a few hours and then I have delicious iced tea. I never add sugar.

49. Create a bedtime routine - NO

As with #10 above, such a rigid routine would turn me into the human equivalent of a German shepherd left home all day who tears up the couch.

50. Ease into sleep - NO

Sometimes I fall asleep easily. At other times, I can toss and turn for hours. Sometimes it's technology-related (which would likely make Cameron scold me, as she wants us all to unplug from our devices), sometimes because I feel too hot,**** sometimes because I'm lost in my thoughts.

Home (2) score: 5-3

Home (combined) score: 14-7

Final score: 36-14 (.720)

Weighing each criterion the same, I am apparently 72% mindful.

I'd put down my Pixel 3 more often, but I use it as a combined clock, newspaper and Fitbit. Knowing the time, or being able to know the time, is central to my day.

Speaking of which, the centre of the day is almost upon us. Now for a mindful lunch.

Ease of Reading: 10

Educational Content: 3

*Cameron draws more from Buddhist thought than from Christian thought in The Mindful Day, making this an example of a true cross-religious shared concept.

**My ticket was to Ithaca, New York, which is beautiful in its own right, and where I was living at the time. I can't say I really lost out here.

***I saluted a friend last month. I think all of us who live on bodies of water should all do this instead of namaste. It's so much more naval.

****The only times I've ever had difficulty sleeping due to the cold were during a camping trip in Upstate New York in 2012 and during the ice storm that hit Toronto in 2013. See #45 above: when a blanket is available, I get under it.

August's Book: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal

Ethology* (2016 - 275 pp.)

In Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, Frans de Waal summarizes the key literature in the study of animal behaviour, including his own, while advancing the point that animals are worthy of study in their natural environments. Additionally, he points out that animals often learn better than humans; humanity is simply another animal in this way. Animals should therefore be discussed on their own terms, not as a comparator to humans, not as a generic "animal" grouping, and certainly not as a subset of beings inferior to humans. De Waal's work centres on primates, so many of the examples are apes, baboons, macaques, capuchins and other primate species. However, substantial portions of his discussion range from corvids to less common animals like canines (wolves and dogs; sadly, there seems to be a dearth of literature on foxes), cetaceans (especially dolphins) and cephalopods (especially octopodes**). Felines*** and equines are notably missing.

Where do humans and animals sit with regard to each other? De Waal notes that in the never-ending battle between reason and emotion, "Traditionally, animals are depicted as slaves of their emotions. It all goes back to the dichotomy of animals as 'wild' and humans as 'civilized'. (222) He also notes that "monkeying around" is seen as being funny, yet there are far funnier animals, like an ostrich or a giraffe. This points to a sort of uncanny valley of similarity between monkeys and people; calling someone a monkey can be considered deeply offensive, whereas calling someone an ostrich is nonsensical, because monkeys so much more resemble us. From Pavlov to Skinner, historical animal cognition researchers have distanced us from all of these species by using a model of instinct, impulse and incentive to portray animals as subhuman robots.

De Waal explains his alternative to this patronizing model:

The methodology sections of scientific papers rarely offer a look in the 'kitchen', but I think it is crucial. My own approach has always been to be firm and friendly. Firm, meaning that we are consistent and don't make capricious demands but also don't let the animals walk all over us, such as when they only want to play around and get free sweets. But we are also friendly, without punishment, anger, or attempts to dominate. (143)

De Waal goes on to discuss the importance of animals being observed in their native habitats, or alternatively, anywhere they can coexist in the absence of observable researchers. In this way, researchers may find that an animal's lack of response to a human command does not signal stupidity, but rather a simple lack of interest in whatever it was the human was doing. (Those reading at home: try telling your cat to get off the couch.) De Waal points to the importance of within-species interaction: "For culture to arise in a species, all that matters is that its members pick up habits from one another."**** (152)

One of the threads that pops up throughout both the scientific and popular assessment of our relationships with animals is anthropomorphism - the tendency to see animals as human-like. The 20th-century turn toward seeing animals as separate from, and inferior to, humans led to a concept de Waal calls anthropodenial - the inability to see any similarities between animals and humans, or to see any differences as examples of human superiority. (25) De Waal spends much of the book combating this concept, whether through demonstrating the independent development of animals' behaviours toward each other or through the ways they interact with humans. Conspecific behaviour is a key term for how animals interact with each other without the interference of human researchers, who may accidentally create endogeneity. (Consider how you might behave differently if, for example, you had to perform an experiment under a bright light, or if you knew you were being watched. Dozens of studies are arguably useless due to factors like these.)

On a more pop cultural level, the anthropomorphism/anthropodenial debate far predates de Waal, you or me. In the first decade of the 20th century, the "nature fakers controversy" arose when literary figures who made animals seem too human were attacked by rival literary figures who believed that animals were not like humans at all. Animals with seemingly human traits range from Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit to Jack London's White Fang; London was one of the celebrity authors embroiled in the dispute, which eventually drew in then-President Theodore Roosevelt. (Roosevelt thought London wrote White Fang too much like a human, for what it's worth; London denied this.) In more recent times, Brian Jacques famously created his Redwall series of talking woodland animals in a medieval fantasy setting by watching the animals in his backyard. How to Train Your Dragon presented the adorable black dragon lead character acting pet-like (don't try this with komodo dragons!), and Disney's Zootopia went so far as to have the main fox and rabbit characters be named Nick and Judy while having witty conversations about human topics. Non-fiction creators aren't immune; these adorable YouTube videos of otters doing laundry, which is so cute in part because of how bad they are at it, and a raccoon sweeping a floor, show the more everyday side of people wanting to see our furry friends imitate us. These books, videos and movies all go way farther than de Waal does, but they show an equally obstinate unwillingness to accept animals as only those beings from National Geographic documentaries. (Or Quora posts.)

One of the more humorous aspects of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? is how mischievous animals are across the animal kingdom. A study on crows' responses to friendly and unfriendly humans by John Marzluff at the University of Washington in Seattle shows that crows will divebomb people who are demonstrated to be unfriendly to them. Marzloff points out that humans are a species crows have to evaluate one by one: "It would be a rare hawk that would be nice to a crow, but with humans you have to classify us as individuals. Clearly, they're able to do that." (72) Other mischief consists of captive animals escaping their habitats. Stoffel the honey badger, who is actually a member of the weasel family (and therefore not a badger), found multiple ways to escape from his enclosure at a South African rehabilitation centre. De Waal called this feat a "Houdini act", and noted discussions of honey badgers as being "the Chuck Norris of the animal kingdom". (88-89) Inky, a giant Pacific octopus who escaped from a New Zealand aquarium in 2016, perhaps acted too late to be included in the book; he made his maneuver within a few days of the book's release date. I wasn't at the book launch, but I hope Inky received a mention and some applause!

Unlike most academic texts, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? is illustrated. The New Yorker-style single-panel pictures demonstrate various animals performing the tasks de Waal describes on the opposite page or on the part of the page below the picture, such as a monkey blowing air through a tube to retrieve a peanut. Two of these illustrations stood out to me as being like political cartoons: the comic showing a standing rat dressed as the Pied Piper leading the disciples of B.F. Skinner to their dooms (57) and a group of orcas upending an ice floe so a seal would slip off of it to its rather more certain doom as their prey. (190)

One claim I thought was curious was in the elephant section. Although some research has been done on elephant cognition, such as the famous test of whether an animal recognizes itself in a mirror, elephants have been notably absent from traditional testing facilities:

But even if the pachyderm mind may be the next frontier in evolutionary cognition, it is a most challenging one given that the elephant is probably the only land animal never to be seen alive on a university campus or in a conventional lab. (236-237)

Using the classic rule of "never say always or never", my first thought was: is there any other land animal never to be seen alive on a university campus or in a conventional lab? My second thought was: is there any evidence whatsoever that, perhaps, a live elephant has been seen in one of these settings? To non-answer the first question, I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out which land mammal is least likely to have been seen live in either of these settings. To answer the second question, live elephants have been seen on university campuses, but not for research purposes; Texas A&M's elephant walk has at times apparently involved graduating seniors walking with captive elephants. 

The most impressive part of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, to me, is how thorough the endnotes, glossary, bibliography and index are, yet how quickly the book reads. Each chapter cites numerous studies performed over more than a century. The glossary includes terms that range from evolutionary biology terms like convergent evolution^ to more dolphin-focused terms like signature whistles.^^ The bibliography includes enough sources that if someone read and engaged with them, it could be enough for a master's degree in the subject. The index led me to almost everything I needed. Despite having the citation of an academic monograph, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? reads like an airport book. I read it in under 24 hours, faster than I read Jeffery Deaver.

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? is the literary release equivalent of a lifetime achievement award for de Waal. In the front matter, the list of de Waal's book-length publications goes back to 1982, with a book release approximately every 3-4 years from then until 2016. The personal experiences de Waal relates throughout the book are examples of research studies that have changed the way people think about animals, rather than the trite anecdotes one might find in a different book. On the front cover, the quotation appears: "A remarkable book by a remarkable scientist." -Edward O. Wilson Wilson's groundbreaking work on ants^^^ makes him well qualified to make that statement, which overshadows the numerous bestseller lists de Waal where found himself.

Lastly, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? is a really fun read, as it should be. Some of life's fondest memories involve animal-related fun, whether it's a trip to the zoo or watching Bugs Bunny on TV. De Waal's endless stories of chimps, capuchins, crows, orcas and various other animals had me in stitches. Not everyone's work makes people who read about it smile and laugh. Animal cognition research does just that.

Ease of Reading: 7

Educational Content: 8

*This is the only ethology book I've discussed in the history of this blog. Ethology is essentially a cross between biology and psychology, especially as applied to animals in their natural habitats. The undergraduate course I took on this subject, taught in Wilfrid Laurier University's psychology department, was called "Learning".

**Or whatever the plural of "octopus" is.

***One study de Waal mentions consists of a cat having to rub a latch with its side to open a door. (20)

****What about solitary species like the aforementioned octopodes? Are they incapable of forming culture even though they can solve puzzles, create rock arrangements and play with toys? (249-250)

^From the Glossary: "Convergent evolution: The independent evolution of similar traits or capacities in unrelated species in response to similar environmental pressures." An example de Waal uses is the formation of wings in both bats and birds, two obviously unrelated species which nonetheless both needed to ditch their arms in order to have wings to fly.

^^From the Glossary: "Signature whistles: Dolphin calls modulated so that each individual has a distinct and recognizable 'melody'."

^^^Some puns just have to be made.

July's Book: The Gambler

The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Literature (1867 - 172 pp.)

The Gambler is my first entry concerning a book by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and among the first - if not the first - concerning a book originally written in Russian. I have a good recent history with translations on this blog, from German to Polish to Japanese, so it is fitting that my gigantic Russian literature hole should be at least partially filled here.

The Gambler is partially autobiographical, written when Dostoevsky was an inveterate problem gambler who almost lost all his money numerous times while writing The Gambler in record time to pay off gambling debts. The protagonist, Alexei, sinks into a gambling problem while in a German spa town; his co-travellers Polina, the General, Mr. Astley (no relation to Rick), De Griers, and then Grandmother join him; everyone is waiting for Grandmother to die so Polina can inherit her vast fortune. Many games of roulette ensue.

Unsurprisingly, no one gets along for long with anyone else. Alexei, as unreliable a narrator as he is, is quick to self-deprecate. In the opening scenes of the book, when the characters first congregate in Germany, he admits that interacting with De Griers, "...eventually I got so irritated that I decided to be a bit boorish." (12) This behaviour is not a one-off: "...I once threatened to spit into a Monsignor's coffee." (12) Feelings between Alexei and De Griers appear to be mutual, as during a subsequent conversation, "De Griers glanced at me with a look of hatred." (59) Alexei's gambling affects his relationships later on, resembling a modern anti-gambling public service announcement. In the book's final scene, Mr. Astley remarks acidly on Alexei's fall from temporary riches to what seems like ongoing poverty: "You've ruined yourself beyond redemption. Once upon a time you had a certain amount of talent and a lively personality, and you were quite good-looking too."* (170)

Once Grandmother makes her grand entrance, she becomes the subject of favoritism from the hotel staff due to her riches. Alexei, always the humorous narrator, notes that the hotel uses its own class-based criteria for placing guests: "At spas - all over Europe, it seems - hotel owners and head waiters are guided in their allotment of rooms to visitors, not so much by the wishes and requirements of the visitors as by the hoteliers' opinion of the guests. It may also be said that they seldom make a mistake." (81) Alexei sees himself as above at least some of Grandmother's retinue, as he refers to her servants as "flunkeys". (70) To the crowd decrying wealth and income equality in 2020, in almost everywhere except Europe, this sight could have happened yesterday - even a hotel operating in Europe. Grandmother immediately becomes reckless at the tables; when Alexei is cautious, prior to his spiral into gambling madness, Grandmother states that "'He who fears the wolf should never enter the forest.'" (91)**

Alexei's sometime love match, Polina, becomes a loss as Alexei sinks closer to his enveloping love of roulette. Alexei suspects she will not love him: "I wanted her to come to me and say 'I love you', and if she would not come, or if to hope that she would ever do so was an unthinkable absurdity - well, what else is for me to wish for?" (100) When they finally meet again, Alexei offers her 50,000 francs; (142) her decline of the money ends up being trivial when she inherits Grandmother's fortune. After their final meeting, Polina becomes unattainable to Alexei, to the point that he gets word through Mr. Astley that she is travelling in Switzerland. Ironically, Alexei may well have become richer if he had been able to marry Polina but had never gambled.

The book's highlight is Alexei's emotional roller coaster at the tables. Roulette takes over Alexei's identity by the book's climax: "I myself was at heart a gambler. At that moment I became acutely conscious both of that fact and of the fact that my hands and knees were shaking and the blood was hammering in my brain." (93) This language could just have easily been used to describe Alexei's feelings for Polina. His self-confidence overwhelms him with every win until, finally, he sees that one lost bet would cost him the small fortune he had amassed to that point: "It was the only time during the evening's play when fear cast its cold spell over me, making my hands and knees tremble. For I had realised with horror that I had to win, and that my whole life depended on that bet." (135) Even if Alexei hadn't won the bet, there's always the desire to get back into gambling. After that aforementioned final meeting with Mr. Astley, when Mr. Astley tears apart every aspect of Alexei's character, Alexei thinks after they part: "I'm a lost soul. But why should I not rise from the dead?" (171) 

In 2020, The Gambler asks: To what extent can a 19th-century Russian in Germany be modeled onto present-day people from around the world? The rise of sports betting into online arenas, including fantasy sports, makes it possible for gamblers to use increasingly advanced stats while playing against people whose faces they'll never see. When Grandmother says "Let's hurry back, let's just hurry back. But I don't mean to wager a penny on that blasted zero, or on the equally damned red,"*** (110) it defies meaning compared to the minute calculations of fantasy points (does your fantasy NBA league subtract points for turnovers?) and equally minute calculations of poker odds. Movies like Rounders and 21 move closer, but a true 2020 The Gambler may be yet to be made. At least in Rounders and 21, the characters physically see each other. Movies about brainiacs behind screens tend to be about programmers, not gamblers.

Would a modern version of The Gambler take place online? 

Ease of Reading: 5

Educational Content: 3

*This is a Billy Madison-worthy string of insults, but perhaps worse, as Mr. Astley speaks to Alexei's entire life, not just one incident.

**This quotation makes me think of Jack London's Call of the Wild and White Fang. Having it be a metaphor for gambling may actually make it scarier.

***This quotation is an early statement of gambler's fallacy.

Raptors vs. Heat on My Birthday

Sadly, July 2020 was only the third month in the history of this blog when I didn't post an entry. (The other two were November 2014 and May 2017.) Happily, July's book entry will be coming soon, as will August's (I've already read both books), plus an awesome summer reading list featuring fiction and non-fiction entries ranging from classic to bestseller.

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With that out of the way, Happy Birthday to me once again! (As well as to Tom Brady and James Hetfield, as I noted in the inaugural year of this blog.) 

Today at 1:30PM Eastern, something happens that has never happened before and might not ever happen again: a Toronto Raptors regular season game on my birthday.

I've been a Raptors fan since the team started making inaugural season preparations in 1994. I had a Raptors T-shirt before they played a game. I even owned Raptors-branded pencils at one point. (More on NBA corporate sponsors in my Quora post today.) I've been to dozens of games, through the horrible 1997-1998 season when they went 16-66, to the first playoff appearances with Vince Carter, to the lows of the 2010 rebuild, to last year's championship. Never, ever, has any of this happened on my birthday - until now.

It's a good game too: the Raptors are the East's #2 seed, and their opponent, the Miami Heat, are fighting for home court in the East's first round. With six fierce competitors in the Eastern Conference this season, a top-4 seed means a key Game 7 at home in the first round if it comes to that.

Raptors vs. Heat - August 3, 2020

Toronto is second in the NBA in steals and second in fewest points allowed in the paint. 

Miami is second in the NBA in fewest points allowed on fast breaks and tied for second in defensive rebound percentage.

Expect lots of defence today from these teams. After the Raptors' suffocating 107-92 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers and the Heat's 125-105 blowout of the Denver Nuggets on Saturday, both teams are ferocious (like Raptors) and scorching (like Heat).

Best of all: in a league that has an October to June schedule, with August often being a season of doldrums, the Raptors are playing on my birthday.