The Soul of a New Machine really grabbed me in college. Tracy Kidder wrote with a unique style that (to me) really drives the narrative forward while making you stop and consider the forces behind the story he's telling. The characters he writes about are real people and they seem like it.
Moutains Beyond Mountains[1], another book by Kidder, is even more compelling to me. It's a fascinating story of Paul Farmer, who dedicated his life to fighting infectious disease, especially in Haiti.
Mountains Beyond Mountains was an incredible recruiting tool for health equity work, inspiring a huge number of people (including my partner) to try to follow in Paul Farmer's footsteps.
(Farmer himself died a few years ago, at only 62, of a sudden heart attack in his sleep, but he seems to have put in about 100 lifetimes worth of work. One wonders if his legendary overwork contributed to an early death.)
Virtually everybody I knew in the US Peace Corps had read and been inspired by Mountains Beyond Mountains. It's safe to say it'd been a strong nudge in that direction for many.
Mountains Beyond Mountains is a pantheon read for me.
Farmer grew up incredibly poor, got into Duke and Harvard, had opportunities to make incredible money and traded it for a life of providing medical care to the third world on a shoestring budget while schooling organizations like the WHO on how to provide care along the way.
Agreed. Farmer's O for the P (provide a preferential option for the poor in health care) was clearly central to his life. I think about it often.
On top of that he was incredibly competent at navigating the combination of hostile bureaucracy, apathy, and disorganization. It's incredible what he and PIH accomplished.
He always spoke more about "Mountains Beyond Mountains" than his other works, I think because of what he had to endure to write it. It caused him severe illness and health problems due to the locations he had to go to.
My favorite was actually the one about the carpenters/house builders (forget the name of it, I need to dig it out of some box in the garage and read it again)
Yeah, I bought that and SoaNM as a pair because my parents had copies back in the day. Never regretted it and went on to read everything he wrote. Will miss the opportunity to dive into some subject I know little to nothing about with him.
I don't know if I liked it more then Soul Of A New Machine but for some reason House stuck with me. I remember a bit that talked about building to a "good and workmanlike manner." It's funny the stuff that sticks with you.
StarCraft was actually built by Blizzard Entertainment (formerly Silicon and Synapse), Blizzard North (Condor) were the team behind Diablo and Diablo 2.
The last release was in 2006 it seems. No wonder it was hard to google it. Its also interesting knowing someone compiled and published this interpreter for the Jornada Super-H CPU.
I concede Radiohead (though, of course, not Nirvana). First time I saw Radiohead was at an REM show (Patti Smith made a surprise appearance). I'd still go to bat for the argument that REM's influences are more influential than REM itself is.
Some other bands that list them as an influence are Pavement, Pearl Jam, Live, Collective Soul, Alice in Chains, Better Than Ezra, Liz Phair, The Decemberists, Wilco.
You hear Pearl Jam in that list the way you hear Nirvana, but I think that has more to do with the chronology and with REM's unofficial role as the bellwether/popularizer of alt radio (which I think is overblown) than any actual artistic influence. Whatever Liz Phair wants to say about Exile, her real influences (besides the Stones) are simply REM's influences.
I concede The Decemberists. Basically a band that blended the Athens Elephant 6 sound with 80s college rock. Sure: the Decemberists were more influenced by REM than by Patti Smith or the Velvets or Television.
Wilco is a weird one. I have a suspicion that Wilco, or at least Jay Bennett-era Wilco, is more influenced by mainstream early-90s alt rock than anybody is comfortable admitting. Heavy Metal Band is basically 1979 off Mellon Collie, which: what Chicago band is going to admit that influence?
Collective Soul, Better Than Ezra, Live: these are bands that kind of prove my point. The lead guy from Live once wrote Stipe a letter asking for advice on how to become a rock star.
Tweedy is from the Illinois side of metro St Louis and was touring colleges in southern IL, MO, KY, GA, etc as a member of Uncle Tupelo when he met and became friends with Buck. They collaborated on some projects, and Buck even produced an Uncle Tupelo album.
It’s probably better to think of it as “Tweedy influenced by REM” rather than “Wilco influenced by REM”.
I'm an unabashed Tupelo fan and I don't get as much alt-rock in No Depression or Anodyne (another top 5 album for me) as I do in Summerteeth and, especially, YHF.
But then Jay Bennett leaves and they're a krautrock band.
Moutains Beyond Mountains[1], another book by Kidder, is even more compelling to me. It's a fascinating story of Paul Farmer, who dedicated his life to fighting infectious disease, especially in Haiti.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_Beyond_Mountains
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