PSA: This winter protect yourself with a ski-mask

Note: This post is about winter. If you are a Californian, you need to read any further. But I know you will read anyway because, let's face it, you will clamor to read any drivel I write. 

A massive winter storm (fancifully named "Ion" - while we are at it, can we stop naming these storms please?) has hit large swathes of the country leading to havoc, chaos and destruction everywhere. Ok I might be employing a slight exaggeration but that's mostly because I am bored sitting in my half-empty lab staring out at the sun glinting off mounds of snow. Most of St. Louis is shut down. Even my medical school classmates who are on rotations (you know, saving lives, helping people etc.) got the day off.

But I made a valiant effort to get out of bed, clean up and come to lab. All for the noble cause of SCIENCE. No sacrifice too big at this giant altar, as I often proclaim. With me, on this journey, was one crucial item (of clothing, I guess you could say) without which I would be floundering on the icy streets bracketed by ominous piles of fluffy snow.

In fact for the last 2+ years that I have been in St. Louis, this humble item (of clothing, I guess you could say) has protected me unfailingly from biting cold and many a chilly nights. I present to you the all-vital, all-sustaining ski mask :

Also goes by the name of a balaclava, snow mask, snowmobile balaclava etc. For only $11.27 this majestic item could be yours! (gosh I sound like a QVC schmuck). This bad boy has let me roam the streets of St. Louis at all sorts of odd-hours on my bicycle in the months of winter. IN YOUR FACE COLD WEATHER! Put on a beanie, fit this mask snugly over your face and zip-up - you are ready to go. Gloves and two layers of upper outerwear recommended.

Sure weak-willed skeptics will shy away from wearing this thing. They will say things like: "OMG you look so creepy" or "You like you could rob a bank". Pay them no mind. This thing is magical. Sure you will get the occasional weird look from pedestrians when you go walking out at 9 in the morning with this on, or the occasional hastening of steps of people around you at 11 at night when they see you, but who cares? While they are huddling in their scarves or whatever, you are walking tall and strong with the zip all the way up!

So heed my golden advice, go over to Amazon and order it right away. You will not be disappointed. Hands down THE best thing since sliced bread. And YouTube.

The curious malady of the modern novel

I am currently reading Snow , by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. Written in 2002, it paints a very nuanced and detailed picture of modern Turkey and its problems, particularly the schism between conservative Muslims and the more western-learning republicans. The ostensible plot is this: Ka, a minor Turkish poet, returns from a 12-year exile in Germany to Istanbul and sets off to the border town of Kars to cover the alarming rise of suicide rates among young women. These women had recently been condemned by various outlets (government officials, school officials, family, media etc.) because they heeded the call of conservative Muslims and began wearing head scarves. I won't go into too much detail about the story because that's not what I want to discuss here.

Snow has flashes of utter, overwhelming brilliance, which are unfortunately punctuated by periods of unbearable stupor. And this seems to plague a lot of modern/postmodern novels. The authors tend to get tangled up in their own web of symbolism, meta-narratives, and abstractions. They lose focus and as result, the novel tends to lag. Now I don't mean the novel lacks "excitement" or a "binding plot." I have read plenty of things where nothing seems to happen for long stretches of time (Lampedusa's Leopard comes to mind) but still manage to provide a very enjoyable reading experience.

Haruki Murakami's Wind-up bird chronicle, a 600-something page behemoth is a classic example of this. A very mundane event opens this long, twisted, exhilarating novel: the protagonist Toru and his wife Kumiko become concerned when their cat disappears. As Toru begins the search for this cat, bizarre things start happening in his life. The rest of the plot is too convoluted for me to describe here, but suffice it to say it includes weird dream sequences, a mysterious mother-son duo who claims to cure people of unspecified problems by touching them, a gruesome detour into the forgotten Russo-Japanese conflict along the Manchukuo border right before WWII started (a man gets skinned alive), and a disturbingly blase 16-year old who works in a dreary factory and spends her free time thinking the duck people talk to her.

There are parts where the novel becomes very frustrating. It just bogs down. It's like Murakami got himself stuck in a quagmire and had to figure his way out. Emotionally draining novel. I think Murakami could have slashed 150 pages easily and still conveyed the same message and tone.

At the same time, I can't stop reading post-modern stuff. The flashes of brilliance abso-frickin-lutely make it worth reading the whole novel. They are so good at giving a glimpse into the complex thought process of their respective authors that they more than make up for the dreadful lags in the middle.