Book Review-Mind and Matter: A life in Math and Football. John Urschel and Louisa Thomas.

I read the bulk of this book, two hundred pages, in one sitting.

It was so engrossing partly because of how well written this book is, the co-author, Louisa Thomas is a well known writer; and partly because the book addresses two worlds that are dear to my heart: mathematics and sports. I didn’t engage either one of the worlds in the depth that the author does, I am an engineer and a youth coach, but the juxtapositions of the two worlds was held deep attraction for me.

For most of the general audience the two worlds are seemingly diametrically opposed, but the authors manage to portray the deep love that the two world engenders in John Urschel. Indeed, the authors did a magnificent job coupling the two seemingly disparate threads together into a cogent whole. At first, I feared that I was going to dislike the structure of the book: they chose to alternated math and football chapters, but the book was so well written that my perceived distraction evaporated as I dove into the book.

John Urschel’s story is widely reported in the popular press. He straddled the football and math worlds as an undergraduate, a graduate student, and a post grad while playing at Penn State and in the NFL. He was good enough to be drafted by the Baltimore Ravens and having a productive three years while also studying for his PhD in mathematics at MIT. This book roughly described his journey. The book tells a great story in an unselfconscious and natural way. John Urschel came through the account as a genuine and honest person, even as he addressed a few issues that could have been controversial: the fall out from the Sandusky affair at Penn State and the effect of repeated concussions on his potential as a mathematician, he honestly told his story focused on his own perceptions and thoughts, while assiduously avoided inflaming any nerves. He told the story through his eyes without extrapolating the facts to come to any indefensible conclusions, which is all we can ask for.

The other part of the book that could have been difficult is the mathematics. I have had the background and training to get through most of the mathematics, most of the concepts were on an advanced undergraduate to graduate level, John Urschel’s teaching ability was evident and shone through in his explanations of some of the more advanced mathematics topics. I moved away from any thoughts of majoring in mathematics after my initial experience with real analysis, so I was cognizant but not an expert in many of the areas; but I was able to understand his explanations of his work in Graph Theory, algorithm development, uncertainty, and spectral bisection. His explanations assume some background in math, but he was able communicate to the readers in an exceptionally clear fashion just in terms of concepts and intuition and without employing any mathematical language. In fact, intuition was his guiding light as he powered through his way through his mathematical explorations, and he was able to explain the role that intuition played in his mathematical thoughts.

The football portions of the story were told somewhat matter-of-factly. I would imagine that this was intentional, as the authors may have assumed that the general public who would read this book are thoroughly engaged in the intensity and passions of football in America. Two parts of the football story engaged me: his freshman year workouts with his strength and condition coach at Penn State and the Raven’s win over the Pittsburgh Steelers and loss to the New England Patriots in the NFL playoffs. Those stories captured and conveyed the passion that John Urschel had of the game of football as well as the mindset he employed to become successful in football.

In possibly one of the great acts in self-awareness and honesty comes in the last chapter when he describes why he walked away from football and is devoting his considerable intellect to mathematics. Unlike most great athletes, he recognized his shortcomings and he was able to explain his logic and reasoning for walking away with aplomb and honesty.

I was a nice easy read but the book talks about the mathematics that he is doing as well as taking the reader though his life so far. I think that our culture’s preoccupation with specialization drives our internal narrative. We are expected to focus and be great at one thing, that one thing should give us all a good life while contributing to the orderly conduct of our life in society, but we all know that human beings are complex, and our intellect can be multi-faceted. What John Urschel’s story illustrates is that by exceeding societal expectations in terms of what his role is in life, he is staking his claim as a polymath.

This was, a very enjoyable and entertaining read.

Book Review-Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee

I became aware of Edward Lee as a contestant for the Top Chef show on Bravo, the Austin Texas edition. I identified with him because we are both of Asian descent, and we don’t see too many Asian folks on shows like Top Chef. In addition to that connection, I noticed he is from Louisville, a city I travel to quite often, at least twice if not three times a year. So, I kept track, hoping that he would open up his own restaurant, I wanted to taste what I saw.

Over time, I had eaten at three of his Louisville restaurants: 610 Magnolia, Milkwood, and Whiskey Dry, I enjoyed all of them and it made me a big fan of his culinary skills. When his first book: Smoke and Pickles came out, I was a bit more cautious, I was not a regular reader of cook books and I wasn’t about to start. I have read other books from famous chefs, Anthony Bourdain being one, but his books were different, they had a point of view and they were not all about the recipes.

It was with this mindset that I happened upon this second book of his while I was visiting my favorite bookstore in Louisville, Carmichael Books. After flipping through the book, I realized that there was much more to the man’s writing than that of a chef discoursing on cooking, taste, food, and the food culture. He was in fact, much like Anthony Bourdain than I had realized.  In addition, I figured that there is a certain amount of predestination involved since I was in a Louisville landmark thumbing through the book written by another Louisville landmark. So, I bought it.

This book is divided into sixteen chapters, each have a story or two to tell, some times they coalesce into a tidy narrative, mostly they don’t, and that is the beauty of Lee’s story telling: nothing is intentionally meant to be completely self-contained, everything is a bit messy, and that is its charm. He goes off and wanders these United States as someone who is not completely assimilated, someone who’s difference is written on his face. He goes into places where he is not completely welcomed, he is an outsider wherever he went. More to the point, he asks a lot of question, as a writer should, and he often invites suspicious scrutiny from those very people that he most wanted to have a conversation with. He does persevere, and he does have fascinating conversations, about the food of course, but also about his subjects lives here in America, about how they got here, what they think, how they feel about issues that are important to their daily lives. The chapters always end with his own interpretations of the recipes he speaks about in the body of the chapters, some are significantly different while others are tweaked, according to how he feels.

More important than the reportage of the stories is his own assessment of the stories, he speaks plainly and bluntly about what he experienced, there is always an elegiac feel to his prose. He conveys the sense of the immigrant experience both in terms of the fulfillment that comes from being satisfied with where they ended up yet also with a sense of sadness regarding the loss over the thing that defines the speaker’s past and culture. But, there always the description of the food, he is blunt and honest about the food he tastes, and he will call out a bad interpretation, but when he goes into the food, he is all at once evocative and descriptive. The only thing that he was not able to evoke is allow us to actually smell and taste the food, but he comes awfully close. He also does not insist on authenticity, because authenticity is not real to him, people will cook and eat differently as they evolve within this American stew, only the quality matters.

The stories are told as a main piece that brings us to social and cultural points, points that are made subtly but clearly. It gives us a sense of what the feelings are with the people telling Lee the stories but are not overpoweringly obtrusive.

I enjoyed the food writing, the travelogue, the stories, as well as the thoughtful reflections. It made me appreciate the breadth and depth of a meal, it could be just a satisfying meal, which is all that we ask, while it can also be a cross cultural exploration, if you converse, reflect, and question your experience.

Lee always went to the small, inconspicuous places in search of honest foods that reflects the cultures that are the most representative of the subject in each chapter, so it was with great excitement that I discovered that I had actually been to one of the places he focused on. Shapiro’s in Indianapolis is not small, nor is it inconspicuous, it is an icon in south Indianapolis. I happened to eat there while I was on my way home. It was a delicatessen in the finest sense of the word, and as I read Lee’s account of his visit, I could visualize the scene as I was there myself. I of course excitedly tweeted the picture of my meal at Shapiro’s to Lee, a reader lives for those little moments.

Finally, as he was winding down his book, he took us into his personal reflections about his life, his wife, his daughter, his Korean background and family. It is a very important point for me, it took a certain amount of courage to expose his thoughts, his fears, and his past history to the readers; and the humanity of what he had to say made the book that much more welcoming and honest. Going back to our shared Asian background, I felt his battles with the parental and cultural expectations. I was able to appreciate the frustrations and fears coming from the younger Edward Lee even though he rebelled against those expectations and took the road less traveled, while I took the well-trodden familiar path, only to be rebelling in my later years.  The last few chapters, in speaking of those challenges in his life as well as speaking about his adopted hometown of Louisville, was a very nice ending, it made the book journey more meaningful and the stories already told that much more appreciated.