The Late Lamented Molly Marx ... a Juicy Read!

My sister Sally's second novel , The Late Lamented Molly Marx, has just come out and I heartily recommend it. It's a really good read on many levels - interesting, complicated characters with contradictory motives, acting like real people - not always in their own best interests. It's a grand tour of the Upper West Side, through the eyes of Molly, someone longing to be in the game but who is, unfortunately, dead. She watches the drama of her post-mortem from an undisclosed location dubbed The Duration. She has died in a grisly, mysterious bike crash, but it's more of a meta-mystery of human behavior than a typical murder mystery. Sally totally nails our endless interior monologues - Molly can tap into her loved-ones thoughts while she watches her husband, daughter, sister, parents, best friend, lover [yes! lover!], mother-in-law, and the detective assigned to her case all interact, trying to determine what happened to Molly. Since Molly herself does not remember what happened, it is a mystery unfolding for her too.
On a surface level, this is an elegant comedy of manners; well-to-do Manhattan Jewish culture is invoked down to the last bagel, each buttery babke lovingly described. Molly herself was a magazine stylist, and the descriptions are lush - her tall blue hydrangeas in just the right vase, a tour of her upscale lingerie drawer. A fun peek for those of us who are more LL Bean and Bendels, more Costco than Zabars. (When I lived in Manhattan, I could never figure out how that social strata seemed to know all the rules, all played out with perfunctory kisses and hugs.) Molly, hailing from Chicago, is somewhat of an outsider to all this, learning the rules through marrying Barry, an East Side plastic surgeon. He is my favorite character - superficial but aware of it, charming and self-centered, occasionally atoning for his character, adoring Molly while he sleeps with everyone in sight, all orchestrated by his perfectly coiffed, manicured mother.Was there ever a nastier mother-in-law? Not accidentally, she is named Kitty. Watch out for her claws.

These characters will stay with you - and you'll have some great laughs, too. My personal favorite was the newcomer to The Duration, an admissions officer from Princeton, gunned down by the deranged parent of a spurned applicant. Sally's writing is witty and wise. Great job, Sally!

PS You can read the first chapter on Amazon.com

Costco Gets a Black Mark in NYC

Since I am a serious Costco-phile, it seems fair to mention that they're running into resistance in NYC where they're building a gigantic store on the EastSide, but are not accepting Food Stamps. Their explanation is that their IT systems can't handle it, but that seems pretty lame. Here's the story:

November 19, 2008, 6:30 am

Why Doesn’t Costco Accept Food Stamps?

By Jennifer 8. Lee

Councilman Eric N. Gioia outside the Costco store in Long Island City, Queens.

Farmers’ markets accept food stamps. The Harlem Fairway accepts food stamps. So does Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn. Even Whole Foods, which has been trying to shake that “Whole Paycheck” image, accepts food stamps. But Costco, the warehouse retailer that made its reputation as the anti-Wal-Mart, generous not only to Costco’s customers but to its workers as well, does not.

“Costco in general has a reputation of being a socially conscious company,” said Eric N. Gioia, a city councilman from Queens who last year began a campaign asking Costco to accept food stamps after discovering it did not during the “live on food stamps for a week” stunt. “There is no logical reason for someone not to accept food stamps. It is not only compassionate, but it’s good for their bottom line.”

My presumption is they will capitulate. This is so out of line with their image and PR.

Happy Mothers' Day: Developing World Mothering Gifts

The New York Times ran a wonderful feature this morning on the back of the Week in Review Section, What Do You Give the Developing World for Mother's Day?

Of course, the list is long. My gift would be solar lights and biodigesters, but the five columnists each touch on preventable health and pregnancy issues: stanching post-postpartum bleeding (at 3 cents a dose!), UNICEF's recognition that counseling needs to go along with food aid - hungry children of hungry mothers do way better if the moms can still play, cuddle, interact; this magnifies the food interventions remarkably. Continuing education for girls (lots of people working on this one, including my daughter! :-), and anti-fistula treatment.

I am the daughter of a healthy woman who had access to top of the line 1950's medical care and am a proud mother of two healthy, fine adults. Someone at a conference I attended recently spoke of genetic roulette - where you are born makes all the difference in where you get to in life. Being born into an upper middle class family means the basics are presumed. I just sent off an impulse contribution to the blood-stanching program - helping to re-engineer the odds just a wee bit so some mother's roll of the genetic dice may have a better outcome for her and her children.

Baby Gift: A [Gently Used] Picture Book Library

Baby registries are all the rage, and I don't like them any more than I like wedding registries. Practical, yes. Personal, no. A friend's Amazon registry gave me a new approach. They had included many children's books they'd enjoy for their new daughter, and specified that "gently used" would be just fine. (Smart parents!). However, when you buy used books on Amazon - and you can often find books for $.01, since vendors can make money on the shipping), you pay the shipping for each book, so they all cost at least $3.96, and you can't combine shipping, since each title comes from a unique vendor.
But! Check out Powells Used Book Store in Portland. You can buy a gift certificate and send it to the new fam. They can then go online and pick whatever books they want. Powell's used children's picture books online are not dirt cheap like Amazon, but they are heavily discounted. So financially and environmentally, the parents will come out way ahead, and all the books in the order ship together. I am EXCITED about giving this gift! And isn't the Curious George card fun?

Barbeques, Grills, and Improved Cookstoves

Last Sunday’s supplement ran an ad which really stuck with me, so much so that a few days later, I went back to my recycled newspapers to confirm my recollection: Wal-Mart is selling spiffy, stainless steel backyard BBQ gas grills for $298. Such grills have long been a suburban status symbol of macho domesticity, much evolved from the little kettle-style charcoal burning versions of my childhood. My first shock was that they’re so cheap (thank you, China) that all elite symbolism has passed. Now average people with backyards who shop at discount stores can afford this luxury, and fuel it with a tank of propane gas, advertised for $17.82.

My second reaction is looking at this snazzy item through the lens of third world cooking; in my role as Director of Communications for GreenMicrofinance, I have learned a great deal about life without the infrastructures we in North America take for granted. GMf’s mission is to bring clean energy, environmental benefit, and poverty alleviation to the world’s 2 billion people without access to modern energy systems. Most of these households cook over foraged wood or dung in open fires; given population expansion, this requires ever more time to gather, since close-by supplies are exhausted. This is not exactly Martha Stewart’s domain. Not only is the direct burning of wood, dung, and crop residue extremely inefficient, it is highly polluting, resulting in respiratory disease as well as black carbon emission. It’s exactly the kind of outdoor “campfire” that in the affluent world has been replaced first by kettle barbeques and as we all became more affluent, gas grills.

Slightly better off families in the developing world can afford LP, liquid petroleum – generally all imported and way beyond the means of a Bottom of the Pyramid family. So the type of grill Wal-Mart is selling is actually a high-end third world stove. The irony, of course, is that for Wal-Mart’s customers, this is not a primary cookstove. It is just for recreational warm weather backyard barbeques. The indoor range, gas or electric, serves that duty.

One breakthrough for perpetually impoverished developing world households is improved cookstoves, paired with gas produced by a family’s biodigester. A slightly higher tech version of composting, these cisterns have a seal, so the waste which is dumped into them is processed anaerobically. Within a month or so, the biodigester yields methane gas along with very rich fertilizer. There are hundreds of different types of stoves being designed and marketed in the developing world. While very simple, they accomplish a great many improvements. They consume less fuel, making them less expensive to run. They utilize locally produced gas (ideally the “in-house” product!), eliminating the time required foraging for wood and dung. And since they are more efficient, they produce less pollution, resulting in improved health for both users and the planet.

The cost of a typical improved cookstove which can provide so many beneficial health, environmental and economic impacts? About $20 - beyond the budget of most Bottom of the Pyramid households….