An Impulse Buy: Flat & Affordable Land (#2)

The land.

The land.

That little "home" icon at the top is me, on the edge of the Finger Lakes National Forest.

By February I'd located five properties I wanted to look at, including a plot of 13 acres for only $11,000. But most of the bargain-bin prices turned out to have very distinct reasons: chief among them, then land was often inaccessible.

The 13 acres was up a snowmobile trail, landlocked by farms on all side. Another was off a seasonal road impassable to vehicles several months of the year (but not to the skiers who helped me find the property). And what could anyone do with four acres of land all on a six percent grade?

In the end, one piece of land stood out. It was about five and a half acres in Hector, within a half hour of Ithaca and almost exactly 10 minutes from both Trumansburg (which has a few good bars, a coffee shop, organic grocery and an exceptional pizza place), and the wineries along Seneca lake.

But beyond the location, it looked flat and I could afford it.

That was really it. In fact I cringe a little to say this, but I never walked the land before putting in an offer. How could you, in three feet of snow and with impassable mounds of brush? Flat and affordable. I never met the real estate agent. He was just a phone number on a sign.

The first offer was turned down. The realtor and I had written into the offer that a new survey would be done, but at $600 for a survey it represented a significant portion of the total purchase price. In the end we found an agreeable price and I agreed to walk the land and locate the survey pins, relying on an existing survey, before closing.

There was still snow on the ground when we walked the property. And this was when I realized what I'd bought: Five and a half acres of rose-bush scrub. The property is roughly 650 feet long and 325 feet wide, so in theory you could walk around it in 10 or 15 minutes. But the realtor, my brother and I took the better part of two hours to find those pins. We should have brought machetes, the scrub was so dense. My brother got frustrated and left us to it halfway through, but then got turned around on his way off the property.

Closing took a month longer than expected. The lawyer said he usually gets 1% of the purchase price as a fee for updating the property abstracts, title searches and so on, but “I just can't do it for that amount. $500 is my minimum fee.”

On the day of closing I woke up at 4 a.m. in D.C., did a little work and then drove straight through. The lawyer's office was an old home in a small town, across from a shuttered gas station. I recognized his secretary's voice from many phone conversations, which was comforting. He had a bible in his stack of reading material in the waiting area, a wall of law books and little crocheted signs about how much ge loved golf.

Saul Goodman, he was not.

But that was that. I handed over the biggest check of my life and drove to my brother's cabin for some celebratory shots. I owned land. Such a strange thought.

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Robert Walton.

The Library of Congress is Awesome

The ceiling of the main hall, which is awesome. 

The ceiling of the main hall, which is awesome. 

Overheard, from the observation platform above the Library of Congress main reading room:

Man: What do I need to get into the main reading room?

Guide: Curiosity.

Anyone can access the Library of Congress' reading room and more than 800 miles of books and resources, though you do need to apply for a reader's card. But that's available to anyone above high-school age, and even then you can use the library under certain circumstances.

"The primary function of the Library of Congress is to serve the Congress. In addition, the Library provides service to government agencies, other libraries, scholars, and the general public. "

It's a beautiful building with a lot to explore -- from the first map made and printed in the United States by an American, to displays on civil rights, due process and the documents which helped create our society.

http://www.loc.gov/

Thomas Jefferson's library.

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Robert Walton.

Create Your Own Canon: Life is too short to be well-read.

I've never read Moby Dick or Heart of Darkness. Haven't cracked Lord of the Rings. Same for the Bible and Catch-22.

On the other hand, I've read Walter Tevis' The Hustler about a dozen times, and I'm working my way through the complete works of both Hunter Thompson and Charles Bukowski. I've read Fletch (yes, the book which became the Chevy Chase movie) maybe a half dozen times; The Talented Mr. Ripley at least three times; and a novel called Balling the Jack, about a darts match, at least four.

My high school was pretty heavy on the new classics. Heart of Darkness was actually required reading and I failed that test,. For a while — far longer than necessary — I actually felt guilty for not having that book and others. These are important books, and I don't say that facetiously. 

And yet I can't bring myself to do it. I've tried reading Catch-22 several times but the first chapter is so incredibly dull I never make it any farther. And virtually no one will tell you Moby Dick is a fun read.

As a kid, I was "well read." And into middle school and high school that was still probably an apt description — I'd read what I was supposed to, and then a lot more. But as years went on, the things I wanted to read were dramatically different from the books people kept putting in front of me.  I got a D- in English 101 as a Freshman in college. 

Your average American reads about five books a year. 

About four years ago, Google estimated the number of books in print worldwide at 129 million. For these purposes though, a far more relevant figure is probably 328,000. Although I cannot find a direct source, that figure is reportedly the number of new and editioned books published in the United States in 2010, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. 

In the U.S., about a third of the population will read 11 or more books in a year. Let's say you read a lot, and more than double that number. You read two a month, or 24 books a year. Let's give you a reading lifespan of 60 years — essentially all of your adult years. That's 1,440 books you can read as an adult, assuming you read twice as much as those Americans who already ready more than most.

The number of books you can read is tiny, insignificant, compared to what's out there. Maybe not all books are created equal, and maybe a classics-heavy diet to start your reading career out is a great way to begin (they are classics for a reason). 

But at a certain point, and maybe for some it comes sooner than others, you start to find your own literary way. If you enjoy reading it's essential - you have to get off the map and explore, you have to create your own reading resume. Because just like the world is big and you can't see it all, so is the literary world.

If you carved out big chunks of time, you might make it through 1% of the books out there. To me, that's incredibly freeing. The sheer futility of thinking about it broadly means a hyper-focused approach makes sense.

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Robert Walton.

Things Which Are Awesome: NPR's Book Concierge

NPR book critics didn't put out a Best of 2014 this year, instead continuing a project begun in 2013: A book "concierge" service which can recommend titles released this year, based on the type of book you like to read.

"Concierge" is a bit of a misnomer, and sadly the name under-sells just how addictive the site can be. It doesn't take too many genre-selections before you start wondering just how specific and weird and perfect you get. And yet on the other hand, the site only looks at 250 or so titles, making it quickly manageable.

Some categories seem obvious. If I'm an art lover who wants to read a mystery, the app suggests Lenny Kleinfeld's Some Dead Genius. On the other hand, perhaps' you'd prefer NPR staff to suggest a rather long biographical tale from around the world focused on music? Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford.

http://apps.npr.org/best-books-2014/#/_

 

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Robert Walton.

Source Documents of Fear, Loathing & an Obsession ...

When Rolling Stone showed up in my mailbox the other day, it was brittle and yellowed and 41 years out of date.

The paper tore lightly. It had a musty smell to it, and an uncomfortable dryness. Inside the front cover was a full page ad featuring Andy Warhol. The staff box: Jann Wenner, editor. National Affairs Desk: Hunter S. Thompson. Raoul Duke was listed as a contributing editor [Sports]. Ralph Steadman, too [Gardening].

First thought: A literary time machine. 

Second thought: Those guys were having fun.

Perhaps I'm obsessed, but in order to better understand Hunter Thompson I wanted to read some of his work as it was published originally. And to my real surprise, it made a difference. 

The article is long and weird and substance-fueled, typical of Thompson's Gonzo style. Which is funny because he begins with this admission:

I was seriously jolted, when I arrived in Washington, to find that the bastards had this Watergate story nailed up and bleeding from every extremity. ... There was not a hell of a lot of room for a Gonzo journalist to operate in that high-tuned atmosphere."

The rest of the story is just that, a Gonzo-styled tale, many thousands of words about Watergate, Nixon, a drunken evening with Pat Buchanan, and the very unpleasant things Thompson wanted to do to Charles Colson. It begins with Thompson writing a letter to Avis car rental about an insurance claim, and it ends with said car accident being the reason he didn't drag Colson down Pennsylvania Ave. behind a gold Cadillac.

Fantastic. But Thompson's disclaimer, of sorts, is really interesting. It's an admission that what he does isn't straight journalism — but that was obvious enough from the start. I think Thompson is also conceding the style works better in some areas than in others, that there are limits to the genre. You're fighting the same war, but you pick your battles based on the weapons you have.

Trying to imagine a mashup of All the President's Men and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas ... total opposites. 

Anyway, I'd read this article before in a collection of work called The Great Shark Hunt. But reading it in a book and reading it in columns, between ads, with Steadman's brutal illustrations ... It steps beyond satire to become a kind of release. It's the nonsense mere mortals dream of pulling off in the face of a government that believes in its own impunity.

There's a word he uses often — cazart!

It means, roughly, "of course!" But with a sort of dark inevitability tinge to it. And that's what it is, that's the thing he's writing about. Beyond frustration it's the ability to attack absurdity with absurdity, knowing it's going to be a long slog.

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Robert Walton.