Fructose and Gout

Audrae Erickson and the Corn Refiners Association are going on the offensive. Corn has been vying with oil as the leading news item among the commodities due to anticipated crop losses resulting from flooding across the Midwest. But the CRA's new PR campaign is attempting to deal with a more difficult problem: consumer perception of high fructose corn syrup. The industry is concerned about the negative impact of books like Dr. Richard J. Johnson's The Sugar Fix. Erickson has an uphill slog.

We all know that too much sugar is bad for us, and we all know that contemporary diets contain too much sugar. What I found newsworthy in Johnson's book was the assertion fructose plays an important role in the production of uric acid which in turn causes gout. I already knew about the usual gout suspects: foods high in purines (shell fish, red meat, beans, asparagus, mushrooms, and beer). I did not know I had to be careful about dessert too. (Balch & Balch's Prescription for Nutritional Healing, 1990, made no mention of fructose when discussing gout).

Johnson did not suggest a healthy diet should be devoid of fructose, but he did strongly recommend that it be low in fructose. Makes sense to me. Since reading the book, I have replaced my roadtrip Starbucks Frappuccinos with espressos or iced teas and cut way back refined sugars. (Shellfish and beer are generally off the menu too.) I am feeling much better.

Merle's Door

Europeans understand dogs. Their dogs are typically well behaved. Dogs are welcomed in restaurants, and only American tourists seem to notice. In Merle’s Door, Ted Kerasote described the center of Chamonix where the local dogs congregated to socialize during the day before returning to their respective homes in the evening. They were well groomed, collar wearing, and registered. And they were enjoying the liberty, equality and fraternity guaranteed all French citizens.

Most dogs aren’t so lucky, at least not in the developed world. Our dogs may be well fed and thoroughly inoculated but they are nervous and behave poorly; often they are not able to be simultaneously happy and relaxed. Cesar Millan spoke of his grandfather’s farm in Mexico where all the dogs figured out how to fit in both in their immediate pack but also the larger community of people and other animals. They had jobs to do and were well adjusted. The village dogs I saw in Asia also seemed to get along well without much human interference. These third world dogs were filthy but happy. (The farm and village dogs should not be confused with the frightened strays scavenging around cities in the developing world—these truly are wretched creatures.) In Kelly, Wyoming, where Kerasote lived, the local dogs were free to come and go as they wished. And Kerasote’s dog Merle had his own door. And this, he believed, was the key to Merle’s success in becoming an equal partner in their life together.

Interspersed between the stories of Merle’s ability to learn, mature, and enjoy himself, Kerasote referred to a variety of experts, including Temple Grandin, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Douglas Smith among many others to find scientific evidence to support assertions based on his own observations of dogs in general and especially Merle. The book offers a lot of practical advice on how to understand dogs and what NOT to do to allow them to mature. But mainly, Merle’s Door is the story of a rare friendship.

Vermeer's Hat

One of the most captivating sights at the Neka Museum in Ubud, Bali is a pair of portraits painted by Abdul Aziz called Mutual Attraction. On the left is a young man peering out; on the right is a young woman soaking up his attention. Both appear to be standing in door ways, leaning against the frames. Aziz painted his subjects’ shadows directly on to the picture frames. It was a delightful conceit. It not only added a dimension to the pictures but it also impressed upon me that paintings are both windows and doors.

Timothy Brook became enchanted with Johannes Vermeer's home town of Delft as a young man; he went on to become a specialist in Chinese history. From that "promontory" he created an immensely satisfying study not only of Vermeer's work but also the forces which began driving world trade four centuries ago. In Vermeer's Hat, Brook looked into the artist's paintings and saw objects, metaphorical doors, which opened into what he called the "global world."

The Netherlands in the seventeenth century was the most prosperous trading nation in Europe. China was thought to be "a place of power and wealth beyond any known scale." There was thus intense competition to establish trading links with East Asia. Establishing those links changed the world.

Many of the items depicted in the scenes Vermeer painted would not have existed in Delft a generation earlier. In the View of Delft, one of the roof tops belongs to the Dutch East India Company or VOC, the world's first large joint stock company. Its structure quickly enabled it to become a powerful trading company, as well as a model for modern corporations. The search for a short cut to China resulted in abundant beaver pelts being exported from North America to Europe, which, in turn, led to lavish hats seen in Soldier and a Laughing Girl. Blue and white porcelain, newly imported from China, was superior to any pottery made in Europe; demand for it was so strong that it was copied in Delft, and then was transformed to become a style synonomous with the city itself. Tobacco from North America quickly found markets everywhere, especially China. Silver mined in South America facilitated trade in all directions. African slaves provided labor. Brook cited Fernando Ortiz' process of transculturation and showed how trade changed parties on both sides of a transaction, often in ways which were totally unanticipated.

Given the level of anxiety about global trade today, it might seem like a recent development. But its cross currents have buffeted and enriched the globe for centuries. Three hundred years after the VOC began its march across Southeast Asia, Abdul Aziz joined the fight asainst the Dutch for Indonesian independence. Later he studied art in Rome. His style was deeply influenced by the European masters, Rembrandt in particular, and embodied the very "transculturation" Brook described.

Made to Stick

Enthymemes are elusive prey. Aristotle spoke of them in Rhetoric. Owen Jenkins made them the focus of his writing seminar at Carleton College. And I have been stalking them ever since I took that class 25 years ago. Now the Heath brothers have captured and tamed them in Made to Stick.

At first glance, I thought the book was going to be a history of duct tape. That was enough to grab my attention. The subtitle, Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, put me back on the right track and kept me interested. Inside, Chip and Dan Heath, dissect ideas which capture the imagination.

They call these "sticky" ideas. And the anatomy of sticky ideas is summed up in SUCCESs: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories. Instead of a Joe Friday "Just the facts, ma'am" approach to communication, the Heaths demonstrate the most effective communication is through simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional stories. Their research is backed with plenty of case studies. This is an excellent book for marketers and anyone interested improving communication skills.

Aristotle never appears in Made to Stick. And the stories which resonate and amplify are never called enthymemes. But that's what sticky ideas are. They are still elusive. The Heaths have written an excellent guide book to help identify and propogate them.

Home Exercise Kit for the Noggin

The Intellectual Devotional is great for tuckpointing the foundation of an education. Apparently some of the holiday elves were concerned about the condition of my education. And justifiably too. After reading the first 28 lessons of The Intellectual Devotional, I am reminded of how little I know and how much I have forgotten.

David Kidder and Noah Oppenheim have compiled 365 one page lessons drawn from history, literature, visual arts, science, music, philosophy and religion. The format is perfect for a quick read before turning the lights out. There is more than enough information on each page to illuminate and intrigue. Typically, I find myself jumping ahead to see what the next few lessons hold.

Winter's Tales

Every small town used to have a dime store. Now convenience and big box stores have taken their places. Five years ago, Lee, Massachusetts still had Johansson’s. When I was growing up, Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin had Ben Franklin’s. Somebody attempted to resuscitate Johansson’s under a new name but it was gone within a year. The old name and an updated concept might have had a chance. Now that building is vacant. The dime store in Fort Atkinson turned into a carpet and tile showroom.

At first glance, there appears to be a Ben Franklin dime store in Oberlin, Ohio. There is and there isn’t. I suspect the familiar Ben Franklin sign is still on the building because everyone in town expects it to be there. It doesn’t resonate as loudly as a vintage Woolworth’s sign might, but it works. Inside, instead of finding tired variety store stuff, there are several independent retailers sharing the space to market their wares. That's where I found MindFair Books.

Used book stores seem to be headed in the same direction as dime stores, victims of more efficient business models. My friend Neill Cameron has suggested an enterprise should be as inefficient as it can afford to be. Since the new bookstore model maximizes efficiency, I reckon the old model still has a fighting chance if the proprietors embrace their most useful inefficiencies: know where all the books are and then encourage Serendipity to make herself at home in the stacks. I am happy to be directed to the books I am looking for and positively delighted to find books I didn’t know I wanted. And I will go back to the places which surprise me.

Winter's Tales by Isak Dinesen was great find. In it she draws the reader close and then heads into timeless lands. The stories it contains are perfect for winter evenings with a warm hearth as a companion.



Winter's Tales was Dinesen's third book published in the US. This edition was printed in 1942 and contains some interesting notes. Some things do change.

Tulipomania

Turning the corner into the gallery where Rembrandt's Night Watch hangs in the Rijksmuseum and seeing the picture for the first time must be one of the greatest surprises at any museum anywhere. It is massive. Rembrandt was paid 1,600 guilders for his masterpiece in 1642 (about the same amount a well to do merchant would earn in a year). Just a few years earlier, on February 5, 1637, at an auction in Alkmaar, 70 superb tulip specimens were sold and raised over 90,000 guilders, with a single tulip bulb, Violetten Admirael van Enkhuizen, commanding 5,200 guilders. Mike Dash asked why.

He traced the journey the tulip made from the Tien Shan mountains in Asia through Turkey to Europe and, at least symbolically, back again. He described how the bulbs became prized first by Dutch connoisseurs and later by speculators. He put the legendary tulip speculative mania into context and in doing so, made it easier to understand how speculative manias develop.

One of the great ironies of the tulip mania was that the most coveted bulbs, those which produced flowers with the most striking colors, were diseased. (The mosaic virus was later eradicated and consequently the great colors and unique varieties were lost). He showed how the crash had little impact on the Dutch economy at the time but a lasting influence over the centuries, most notably the continuing importance of the flower trade. He also recounted later flower manias in France, Turkey and most recently in China (spider lilies for RMB 200,000 each in 1985).