Sharon Orlopp's Blog

Wow! I am searching for the words to describe the phenomenal experience of reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

I am not a gamer but I have worked alongside engineers at a tech startup who are gamers and my daughter is a gamer. Reading this book was like a peek into another world. A gamer is a builder of worlds. Readers do not need to be gamers to thoroughly enjoy this literary treasure.

Zevin masterfully creates the rhythms of friendships that enthralled me. She references torri gates in Japan as symbolism for moving to new openings, new passages, new portals and new worlds.

https://images.fineartamerica.com/ima...

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is from Shakespeare and it represents infinite rebirth and infinite redemption. Nothing is permanent. Games provide the ability to continually start over.

Zevin's book illustrates the journey three friends make over several decades and how they handle the ebb and flow of life events, as well as "starting over" with their friendships. Early in their gaming careers, it was described as a bottomless pit of ambition where one's tastes exceeded one's abilities. It's a story of failure and perseverance and the life of artists. Art isn't typically made by happy people.

The moral of the story is that true collaborators in life are incredibly rare.

Professional gamers work hard to improve their skills, they learn from others, and they practice their craft frequently. While reading Zevin's book, I continuously looked up new vocabulary words that were used throughout the book. Some of the many words I looked up included: tautology, queef, detritus, somnolent, reticle, propitious, verisimilitude, grokking, eponymous, hirsute, palimpsest, ouroboros, auteur, and many, many others.

Thank you Zevin for helping me improve my vocabulary and possibly my writing skills.

Highly recommend!

Ray Bradbury's classic, Fahrenheit 451, was published in 1953. Over 40 years ago, it was required reading at my school. It's a dystopian novel that has huge applicability today. It impacted me many decades ago and I wanted to read it again.

The main character, Montag, is a fireman with his symbolic helmet that says Fahrenheit 451---the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns. Firefighters are called to burn houses, books, and if need be, people, because books are banned.

Below are passages from the book that resonated with me as well as three songs that came to mind with specific passages.

* You never stop to think what I've asked you.

* Do you ever read any of the books you burn?

* Are you happy?

* What do you talk about?

* Nobody knows anyone.

* Do you notice how people hurt each other these days?

* My uncle says his grandfather remembered when children didn't kill each other.

* Nobody says anything different from anyone else.

* There was a list of one million forbidden books.

* When burning books, you weren't hurting anyone, you were hurting only things.

* There was nothing to tease your conscience later.

* How do you get so empty?

* Nobody listens anymore. (Reminds me of Demi Lovato's song, Anyone. Lyrics below)

ANYONE
I tried to talk to my piano
I tried to talk to my guitar
Talk to my imagination
Confided into alcohol
I tried and tried and tried some more
Told secrets 'til my voice was sore
Tired of empty conversation
'Cause no one hears me anymore

A hundred million stories
And a hundred million songs
I feel stupid when I sing
Nobody's listening to me
Nobody's listening
I talk to shooting stars
But they always get it wrong
I feel stupid when I pray
So, why am I praying anyway?
If nobody's listening

Anyone, please send me anyone
Lord, is there anyone?
I need someone, oh
Anyone, please send me anyone
Lord, is there anyone?
I need someone

I used to crave the world's attention
I think I cried too many times
I just need some more affection
Anything to get me by

A hundred million stories
And a hundred million songs
I feel stupid when I sing
Nobody's listening to me
Nobody's listening
I talk to shooting stars
But they always get it wrong
I feel stupid when I pray
Why the fuck am I praying anyway?
If nobody's listening

Anyone, please send me anyone
Lord, is there anyone?
I need someone, oh
Anyone, please send me anyone
Oh, Lord, is there anyone?
I need someone
Oh, anyone, I need anyone
Oh, anyone, I need someone

A hundred million stories
And a hundred million songs
I feel stupid when I sing
Nobody's listening to me
Nobody's listening

Demi Lovato, Anyone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ixVd...

* How long has it been since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?

* We must all be alike.

* Firefighters who burn books are custodians of our peace of mind.

* Books say nothing.

* The world is starving and we're well fed. Is that why we're hated so much?

* I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I'm one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the "guilty," but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself.

* Books are hated and feared because they show the pores of life.

* When you've got nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. (Reminds me of Kris Kristofferson's lyrics to Me and Bobby McGee: Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.)

* Books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.

* The only way the average chap will see ninety-nine percent of the world is through books.

* A little learning is a dangerous thing.

* The dignity of truth is lost without much protesting.

* Live as if you would drop dead in ten seconds. (Reminds me of Tim McGraw's song, Live Like You Were Dying: Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying.)

Fahrenheit 451 is shockingly prophetic and frightening with its implications.

Highly recommend reading or re-reading it!

An amazing book! Five stars!

A huge thank you to Goodreads friend, Michael Burnam-Fink, for recommending I read Spare Parts. He has also recommended several other books that are on my TBR list.

Joshua Davis has woven a historical and inspirational thriller about four undocumented Latino high school students in Phoenix who enter a NASA contest to build an underwater robot that is evaluated on accomplishing several incredibly challenging tasks. The team from MIT historically won the NASA contest or was in the top three finalists.

The book was made into a movie of the same name, but the movie ends after the winning team is named at the NASA contest.

Life and reality are much different than movies. Davis' book follows the four students for many years and shows their career and education paths compared to the MIT students' career paths after the NASA contest.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, infamous for being "America's Toughest Sheriff" during his reign for 24 years in Phoenix between 1993 - 2017 as well as citizen's support and approval of Proposition 300 impacts these students' lives. Parts of the book made me very angry because we are allowing talent to be wasted when it can be used to improve our nation.

Highly recommend!

"Arrogance is a pandemic."

That passage in the book's introduction grabbed me and wouldn't let go. It was referencing weather forecasters during the blizzard on January 12, 1888 where 250 - 500 people perished in Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, and the Dakotas.

A big shout out to a Goodread's friend, Debbie, who shared with me that there are two books called The Children's Blizzard.
Melanie Benjamin's book is historical fiction.
David Laskin's book is nonfiction.
I had read Melanie Benjamin's book and Debbie recommended I listen to David Laskin's book on audiotape. I did and it is fabulous!

I gave both the historical fiction and the nonfiction book called The Children's Blizzard five stars. The two books have very different approaches to the same event. I highly recommend both books!

Laskin's book provides terrific context about immigrants from various countries who came to America in search of land and freedom. Over 750,000 immigrants came to the Great Plains in the 1880's. Laskin shares what their life was like in their original country, the immigration experience to the US, and the continual challenges of farming.

Laskin's writing style is memorable...he shares that immigrants were told that they just needed to "tickle the earth with a plough" to farm successfully.

Farmers dealt with blizzards and brutal winters during many of the years prior to the blizzard of 1888. They also dealt with grasshopper/locust plagues from 1873 - 1877 which destroyed their crops and life savings. Throw in famine, poverty, smallpox, and high mortality rates for infants/children and it's clear that grit, resiliency, and perseverance are critical for survival.

Laskin's thorough research and testimonials/memoirs from those who survived the blizzard enable the reader to follow many families' stories through multiple generations.

Laskin utilizes analogies to help understand weather patterns and the violent convergence of weather patterns that created the 1888 blizzard. The day before the blizzard, there were significant drops in barometric pressure coupled with high spikes in temperatures which creates a phenomenon known as a jet streak. Laskin said a jet streak is like a bullet train racing through a moving tunnel. He uses other analogies, such as being dealt a bad hand at a poker table, to describe weather scenarios.

The morning of January 12, 1888 was very different from the day before. Temperatures were 20 - 40 degrees higher than the day before, so many people felt it was a reprieve from typical January weather. Some school children wore lighter coats and didn't bring hats or gloves to school that day.

As a side note, the description of the beautiful January 12th morning was eerily similar to how people in NYC described the morning of 9/11 before planes crashed into the Twin Towers.

The other sub-story is about weather forecasters in 1888. The Army was responsible for weather tracking and notification. There are power plays, relationship issues, communication glitches, and scandals. It reads like a corporate thriller!

The leadership lessons that come to mind while learning about weather forecasters during that era include:
* Do you lead or do you follow?
* When do you follow the rules and when do you break them?
* What is the true meaning of your role and responsibility?
* What do you focus your time on while at work and does it align with your most important role and responsibility?
* Can you see around corners and anticipate what can happen?
* Can you spot patterns and make conclusions?
* Are you a person of action and what is your sense of urgency?
* How do you hold yourself accountable?

These are key leadership lessons that are applicable through all eras.

The one chapter I struggled with were the details about what happens when a person is exposed to high wind/cold and how the body shuts down.

I strongly recommend this book!

5+++stars. A MUST READ.

Azar Nafisi has written an incredible book that is composed of five chapters about critical authors. These chapters are written as letters to her deceased father who was jailed in Iran for standing up for his beliefs. Nafisi and her father shared a love of literature and freedom of expression and art.

The first chapter is about authors Rushdie, Plato and Bradbury. On August 13, 2022 after I had completed the first chapter, the news was announced that Salman Rushdie was stabbed and attacked onstage during a panel interview.

In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Rushdie's execution because he felt Rushdie's book, The Satanic Verses, was blasphemous.

Discussions about book banning at schools, libraries and bookstores has exploded across the country.....so reading Nafisi's book was incredibly timely and thought provoking.

Read Dangerously shares parallels between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States. Nafisi has lived in both countries and transparently shares historical and current context of both countries, particularly on topics of exclusion (race, gender, religion, politics, etc).

The quotes at the beginning and the end of the book highlight the role and intersectionality that writers and readers play in changing the world.

"Create dangerously for people who read dangerously. This is what I've always thought it meant to be a writer. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them." Edwidge Danticat

"Readers are born free and they ought to remain free." Vladimir Nabokov

The authors that are highlighted and discussed in each letter (chapter) to her father are:
1. Rushdie, Plato, Bradbury
2. Hurston, Morrison
3. Grossman, Ackerman, Khoury
4. Atwood
5. Baldwin, Coates

Nafisi shares that the world knows a lot about America but America doesn't know much about the world. Americans wear our ignorance of the world casually and good naturedly. Author James Baldwin stated that indifference makes one blind.

America pays little attention to writers and we avoid reading dangerously. Reading fosters a mindset that questions and doubts. Fiction arouses our curiosity and our imaginations.

Reading dangerously teaches us how to deal with those viewed as enemies. Democracy depends on engagement with our adversaries.

Censorship is dangerous to the well-being of societies. When we stop reading, we pave the way for book banning. Different opinions and perspectives are critical for understanding and empathy.

I highly, highly recommend Reading Dangerously. It links writers and readers to the universality of the human experience.

OMG! This is my favorite book of 2022 and I highly recommend it.

I listened to it on audiobook and it is read by the author, Wajahat Ali. I highly recommend listening to the book rather than reading it. Wajahat has done a TED talk, been a successful playwright and director of The Domestic Crusaders, and is a writer, activist, and recovering attorney.

Wajahat's parents immigrated to the US in 1965 and he was born in CA in 1980. He describes he and his family's journey over 40 decades with humor and self-awareness interwoven with the harsh realities of being a person of color while trying to achieve the American dream.

He kicks off his book with actual hate emails that he receives. His responses are humorous, but it is along the lines of "I laugh to keep from crying" because there is so much hate and vitriol in the emails.

His father was almost deported when his father was studying in the US. The random act of kindness by a stranger prevented his father from being deported the following day. Other people who were involved in the situation did not offer to help and had racist views toward immigrants. Wajahat's father was approved for an "Einstein" visa which is typically given to immigrants with "extraordinary ability" and those who are highly acclaimed in their field, such as academic researchers, Pulitzer, Oscar and Olympic winners. It is the same type of visa that was granted to Melania Knauss (Trump) in 2001 when she was a Slovenian model dating Donald Trump.

Wajahat grew up with a "healthy" build which required him to wear Husky jeans with a Husky label on the back that was in "92 font and visible from outer space."

Wajahat is also left-handed and he humorously describes being a lefty in a "right supremacy" world.

One of Wajahat's aunts visited from Pakistan and became extremely concerned when she saw a Black man when they were getting gas at a gas station. When Wajahat asked her about her unwarranted concerns, she mentioned that in Pakistan the television information from America typically shows Blacks as criminals and people to be feared.

Wajahat also shares his perspective on the "model minority" that is often used to describe Asian/Pacific Islanders. He stated, "We don't rock the boat, we row the boat." Then he shares why that approach and perspective can be damaging.

While he was attending college, his parents were arrested as part of Operation Cyberstorm---the FBI and Microsoft partnered together to locate individuals who were suspected of selling and distributing counterfeit software, laundering money, and committing credit card fraud. Forty-seven people were arrested.

When his parents were arrested, the US government confiscated all property belonging to the family. Wajahat was in his 20's and had to figure out how to help his parents get an attorney, where he and his two grandmothers would live, how he would earn money to pay expenses, etc. It was a tremendous ordeal to handle. Many of their friends and people in their community turned on them.

After many years of investigation and legal appeals, 4 people of the 27 arrested were sentenced. His parents were sentenced to 5 years in jail and ordered to pay restitution of $20 million to Microsoft.

At age 30, Wajahat and his mom were sharing a bedroom in his uncle's home with a few boxes of belongings prior to the date when his mom reported to prison.

His book is filled with the peaks and valleys of life, but the peaks are more jagged and shorter and the valleys are deep, almost unnavigable troughs due to how immigrants and people of color are viewed and treated in America---even when children of immigrants are born in America and are American citizens.

Despite the various challenges he has faced, including his two-year old daughter's battle with stage 4 cancer, he is optimistic and creates a rallying call to invest in hope. He asks readers/listeners to imagine they have a bi-racial grandchild whom they love dearly. What would each reader/listener do differently to ensure their bi-racial grandchild was safe and able to reach their fullest potential.

This is one of the most memorable, poignant, humorous memoirs that I have read that bear testimony to the resilience of the human spirit.

Highly, highly recommend! Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American

BookFest invited several authors to do short readings. I am the last author on the list with a short reading from Standing Up After Saigon.

https://www.thebookfest.com/reading-r...

Tomorrow is the 44th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. Hundreds of thousands of lives were permanently altered.

I am so humbled that Thuhan Tran and her father, Chinh Tran, invited me into their lives to tell the world about their personal odyssey.

Stories are emotion in motion. Thuhang's journey demonstrates that against overwhelming odds, humans can prevail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyGA...

Very excited that Standing Up After Saigon was highlighted on television!

https://kmph.com/great-day/book-club/...

Today, July 26, 2018, is the 28th anniversary of the date President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Americans With Disabilities Act which prohibits discrimination and guarantees civil rights of people with disabilities. The ADA paves the way for equal opportunity and access and full integration of differently abled people into society and communities.

Why does this matter? According to the 2010 census, there are over 57 million people in the US with a disability. That’s one in five Americans. 19% of our population. With the aging of the population, typically more than 2.2 million Americans join the differently abled ranks every five years.

Many of us either have a disability or have family members, loved ones, and friends who are disabled. Disabilities are non-discriminatory---they occur to people from all backgrounds, religions, races, ethnicities, genders, etc.

Reading memoirs from differently abled people helps us experience life from another’s perspective. Some of my favorite books in this genre include:

I Can See Clearly Now by Steve Hanamura. As a blind person, Steve describes walking into the Department of Motor Vehicles and cracking a joke about having a difficult time parking his car. Humor often helps put others at ease.

https://www.amazon.com/Can-Clearly-Di...

In An Instant by Lee and Bob Woodruff: Bob suffered a major brain injury from an explosive device in Iraq and describes his experience and road to recovery.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Standing Up After Saigon by Thuhang Tran and Sharon Orlopp: Thuhang faced significant challenges due to polio, war, poverty, family separation, and immigration. She crawled on the ground for 17 years before having surgery that enabled her to stand upright with the aid of braces and crutches.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...