Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Category: book review

  • Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz

    Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its SoulOnward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    It was eight years after the founder of Starbucks Howard Schultz had resigned from the position of CEO when the company that he had sown with the wind and reaped in whirlwind was at stake amid the catalytic financial crisis in 2008. The perilous state of Starbucks called for its creator’s return to take the helm of a distressed ship on the verge of sinking into the abyss of obscurity with all its hopeful expectations, respectful achievements, not to speak of all of its shipmates from the management down to the store employees. Schultz could not let all of it happen. He accepted the calling in the capacity of CEO to save the ship and continued sailing onward, which forms the basis of this book.

    What might be considered as an autobiography of a business tycoon at first blush of the title of the book will lead the reader to an interesting peek-a-boo of a successful enterprise that is armed to the teeth with its unique philosophy of practicality and idealism rooted in operational rigor and accountability striving for a healthy balance of profit and social conscience to provide customers with prime quality coffee proprietary to the brand. Schultz’s ambition to perfect the art of making fine espresso as the company’s distinguishing attitudinal value of coffee-making from the competitors is akin to that of craftsmanship of a seasoned artisan of a medieval guild. For example, in the afternoon of one Tuesday in February 2008, Schultz closed all of the US stores to improve the making of espresso because pouring espresso was something of an art, and therefore required a barista to attend to the quality of the beverage even though it meant the huge loss of profits for closing the stores just for one day. To Schultz, taking the ordinary to elevate it to an art also relates to a business principle of putting the sincerest endeavors to the foundation and innovation of the company; it is a right way to win as he believes, “Coffee can’t lie,” which is also reminiscent of what Theodore Roosevelt commented on his favorite coffee as being “good to the last drop.”

    In addition, Schultz offers many more interesting tidbits of the company without disclosing its trade secrets in an informative way: That Starbucks is company-owned and not franchised is something new to learn. Unlike William Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin’ Donuts, who was a fervent believer of a franchise, Schultz adamantly opposes the idea of franchising Starbucks because ceding ownership of stores to individuals will most likely to mar the enterprising spirit of the company and loosen the cohesiveness of esprit de corps, let alone the principles of providing a customer with the best quality beverage in a social yet personal environment between one’s house and job. Besides, the company’s provision of full health care benefits to all employees, ranging from the corporate heads to part-time attendants in stores points to the veracity of Schultz fostering of social conscience in the course of making profits, withal.

    Onward is a testament to the steadfast adherence to cardinal principles of playing a good clean competition in a business world without becoming a tainted soul. That is, achieving success in promoting its entrepreneurial profit growth and humanistic idealism is all over but the shouting. It might make the reader wonder if Schultz has heard the adage of Ralph Waldo Emerson during his lecture to the audience in the height of the Lyceum Movement: “Knowledge, plus moral character, promotes business success.” All in all, Schultz’s touchy-feely narrative surprisingly devoid of self-aggrandizement or ostentatious display of his lifetime achievement, relates a tale of a man whose ambitious but admirable philosophy of entrepreneurship rigorously kept against the insurmountable odds with  the heart of a man responsible for his legion of employees and their families appertains to the reader in one way or another. Upon reading the book, the reader will feel a bit privy to his/her regular Starbucks on a next visit in a nice sort of way.

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  • Hostages to Franchisers; on No Poaching Clauses

    Re: July 10, 2018 article of “Fast-food hiring practices are probed” by Jeff Stein of The LA Times

    Working at a fast food store is often the only possible choice of laboring men and women out of steady, well-paying employment under unfavorable circumstances that push them to choose provisional jobs to eke out living, just as some of aristocratic and educated middle-class men used to work at the docks at a harbor in Victorian England. To add insult to the injury, be it ever known that any such worker who finds himself/herself in the labor limbo gives hostages to employment security in exchange of his/her sovereign principles, dreams, and wills.

    I was appalled by this article of modern-day version of indentured service term called “No-Poaching Clauses,” which restricts managers from hiring employees from another store in the chain. Such arbitrary employment practice oppresses not only the livelihood but also dignity of employees working at well-known fast food franchises in the U.S.

    By binding employees only to one store in the chain, an employer violates the quintessential elements of what makes us human: to quest for freedom of will, will to meaning, and meaning of life. Anyone striving for a new opportunity in life should do so to achieve individual values of life of which the acquisition of sustenance is indispensably requisite.

    Forget sectarian political tendencies and partisan ideologies that are nothing but airy doctrines and demagogic campaign leaflets that are not in touch with the reality. Although it is reassuring to learn that there are at least seemingly some conscientious politicians (thank God for exerting their statesmanship on the existential matters of citizens’ daily lives) who are investigating such proprietorial contractual clauses, there should be many more bipartisan politicians willing to join the force to voice out the injustice done by the employers of the franchises and stop the exploitation of their workers at once.

    Never forget  “The laborer is worthy of the reward.”

  • ‘Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney’, by Paul Johnson – review

    CreatorsCreators by Paul Johnson

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    Kurt Vonnegut encouraged anyone dabbling in the act of creativity: “To practice art, no matter how well or badly, is to make your soul grow. So do it.” Accordingly, the art of creation is a noble act of finding a meaning of life in which man searches for his freedom of will and will to meaning by translating the principles of sentiments and reason that are universal in humankind to various forms of creativity, ranging from writing and painting to music and dance, and to even gardening and making people laugh. Such act of making something out of nothing requires Herculean feats of courage and spirit that serves as a sovereign remedy for the existential ills of everyday life, however ordinary or exceptional. Paul Johnson’s Creators, which looks into the bright side of clever, talented individuals contrary to his previously published Intellectuals in which he recounted the hypocrisy of historically famous intellectuals, presents his thesis: that we all have creative traits in us is our divine prerogative of humanity; and to produce works of the arts involves prodigies of courage as well as talent that is sublimated to the aesthetic expression of intellect and beauty, such as to be in the cases of luminous artists whose oeuvres marked their standing in literature, painting, and music.

    Each chapter on each different artist draws up on the artist’s unyielding courage and creativity, which is a quintessential element of creative originality of outstanding quality. Johnson admits that an artist tends to be egotistical due to his extravagant faculty of creativity into which the artist pours out everything that is in him. An unusual degree of courage that is akin to physical courage of a soldier on the front is demanded of the artist unless he bows to the final enemy of creativity, such as age or increasing debility. Take Beethoven’s struggling against his deafness by using a toothbrush in his mouth to feel the tonality of each piano key while composing his immortal symphonies. Great impressionist painter Toulouse-Lautrec’s inherited disabilities and grotesque deformities as a result of hereditary inbreeding could not stop him from producing beautiful paintings with his triumphant willpower and courage until his death at the age of thirty-seven. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote incessantly despite his chronic illness due to his weak and unreliable lungs that eventually killed him in his early forties. Emily Dickinson wrote poetry without encouragement and public response, while David Hume failed to receive public recognition upon publishing Human Understanding. So did Anthony Trollope of The Macdermots of Bally Cloran that was neither reviewed nor sold of a single copy.

    The life of an artist is full of peculiar aspects and strange satisfaction often spurred on by personal weaknesses, such as in the cases of Jane Austen and George Eliot whose real name was Mary Ann Evans. Both of the women led lonely and lugubrious lives without experiencing felicities of love and adulation by men despite their brilliant spirits and ingenious minds. Surely beauty was in their time and still is only skin-deep, but their plainness left them in spinsterhood and forced themselves to spur loneliness on writing that was the solace in which they could fall in love with the men they desired. In effect, the reader will learn that it was the courage to express their spirits and feminine aspiration to be loved that fed on their creativity. Also, self-awareness, careful nursing, and restricting of the talents and subject matters, rather than audacious rampant criticism of society in general in undisciplined tempest of words, were added to the wings of their creative spirits.

    In light of the above, art is not genius but a work born of love and labor of its creator whose Herculean degree of courage and desire of expressing imaginations and intellect perform a painful but delightful feat of ingeniousness. Johnson avows that rational and professional methods of using skills, experiences, creative industriousness, and self-confidence are the ingredients to create the work of art. Also, he affirms the reader that there is no need to make a pact with the devil or perform a magical ceremony to invoke a creative spirit because inspiration comes from within. It is how to find it and reveal it like a hidden diamond in its most radiant luminescence. Written in common words devoid of academic locutions and once again his usual consummate narrative skills, this is Johnson’s another scintillating book to be acquainted with the human face of geniuses whose works have produced pleasure in our senses and minds.

  • Italy Dreamin’

    Amalfi Coast photo book, Italy (60 photos) : Europe series 4Amalfi Coast photo book, Italy (60 photos) : Europe series 4 by Akira Okubo

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

     

    When my spirit feels weary of existential dealings of daily life and whets a desire of carefree escapade from the reality I am anchored in, I tend to daydream about places I want to travel alone. John Steinbeck once admitted that oftentimes, reading magazines and books full of colorful pictures of foreign countries would be more satisfying than actually going there, save all the hustling and bustling, flotsam and jetsam related to traveling. Hence my choice was this beautiful pictorial read of Amalfi Coast in Italy on my Kindle Fire. The delightful pix of southern Italy will take you out of your humdrum life while looking at them; they bring vibrancy of the ambience of the region to your eyes and allure your heart to the romance with the beauty in a heartbeat, alone with yourself.  The rustic and restive sensuousness of the scenery as vividly illustrated in the pictures will dazzle the reader’s eye like a beautiful paramour secretly pleading with you not to leave.

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  • Time to Make the Donuts by William Rosenberg

    Time to Make the DonutsTime to Make the Donuts by William Rosenberg

    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    Before Starbucks claimed a monopoly on franchised coffee-houses around the world, Dunkin Donuts had been arguably one of the most popular American food service franchises in the States as well as other countries. With its signatory Munchkins and famous slogan of “American runs on Dunkin” presented by Super Mario-look alike Fred the Baker (although he retired from the public in the late 90s), the famous coffeehouse brand has made its mark on the American urban culture thanks to its straight-talking, no-nonsense founder William Rosenberg who drew up his case history of being a successful entrepreneur against personal all odds in this simple but admirable memoir written during his last days of life while succumbed to a cancer.

    Rosenberg’s business philosophy of what works and what does not in business to share with the public forms the basis of this book whose inception was first conceived by encouragement of Mario Puzo, the author of The Godfather in the 60s. Straightforward and enterprising he was, Rosenberg’s sharing of his own experiences with the reader for altruistic motive without a sense of entrepreneurial machismo is traceable in every chapter. What he lacked in formal educational background because he had dropped out of school at age fourteen in the height of the Great Depression in 1930, was compensated by the simple but timeless tenets of achievements: diligence, persistence, determination, risk-taking, diligence, innovation, vision, and passion. Surely, all of the aforesaid seems bromidic, but oftentimes, it is these simple elements of life that we oversee as trifle and insignificant without pondering over Leonardo Da Vinci’s truthful adage: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

    In fact, there are parallels that the reader can make between Rosenberg’s elements of success and the three values for meaningful life in Logotherapy, the third Viennese school of psychotherapy established by the great Viktor E. Frankl whose experience in Auschwitz was a testament to its veracity and validity of Logotherapy, which is to help us find a meaning of life by freedom of will and will to meaning. Throughout the book, Rosenberg emphasizes that it is what we do with the challenges that determine our failure of success because learning from errors is the sine qua non of success. Whatever the circumstances may be, a person can find a way to succeed, and it is attitude that makes it possible. Having a good-hearted but violent-tempered father did not stop him from going out of his way and establishing world famous Dunkin Donuts. This forthright attitude links to attitudinal value of Logotherapy signifying our triumph over biological, social, and cultural inhibitions during difficult times with a discovery of meaning of suffering by the way in which we respond to. That is, how we respond to challenges will make a heaven out of hell, a hell out of heaven.

    Also, a sense of humor is a must-have for taking us a long way to succeed in life. “Work hard, play hard,” was Rosenberg’s mantra. Yet to put it lightly is to miss the gist of the meaning; humor is a prerogative of human that can help us take on a different view of life in a light-hearted way, so that we can be soundly assured that unpleasant things we may be going through are not everlasting and that they are occurring because there is a meaning to them. This, in fact, also relates to humor as a vehicle to turn our backs against emotional distress in life that may hamper our continuation of searching for a meaning of life. Whether or not Rosenberg might have been aware of Logotherapy in his lifetime, the reader will find at every turn analogy between Rosenberg’s business philosophy and Dr. Frankl’s Logotherapy.

    Philosophy aside, there is plenty of interesting information on how the brand name came up with, the origin of Munchkins, and revolutionary way of operating the stores . To illustrate, the catchy name of “Dunkin’ Donuts” came from “You dunk a donut,” Munchkins, previously called Dunkin Donuts Donut Holes sold for 19 cents per set, got the name of a character from “The Wizard of Oz” with the right to utilize the name exclusively in the food service business. After all, the famous Munchkins have become a household name throughout the States and achieved a unique status in the food firmament.

    This is an interesting read that the reader will find both practically helpful in applying Rosenberg’s elements of success to his own set of principles for betterment in life and entertaining to discover the history of the franchise in pastime. The reader will also find that the narrative will reflect the author’s artlessness, cleverness, and forwardness in this engaging book that matches its topic worth the writing.

  • The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker

    The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human NatureThe Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    We are living in an era of blank state of mind operated by leviathans that bind our collective social wills under a doctrine of the Standard Social Science Model established by intellectuals, such as sociologists, behaviorists, philosophers, and artists under the aegis of postmodernism. That we become who we are and what we are as a result of our relationship with society has become an ethos of our time. Yet, do we really have to believe that what we think and what we do is nothing but a product of social conditioning, excluding our own unique individual constitutions? Is our own hereditary individuality the enemy of free will and perpetrator of biological determinism that needs to be constantly kept in check by the bastion of rationalism? So Steven Pinker presents his passionate and erudite thesis on the illogicality and fallacy of the modern ethos in The Blank State in terms of social and cultural norms of our society and offers a breakthrough point of view on human nature based upon cognitive science which invokes Anton Chekhov’s aphorism “Man will become better if you show him what he’s like.”

    Pinker straightforwardly avers in the beginning of the book that the current intellectual ethos is tainted with intellectual complacency, a vice of so many intellectuals who do not bother to exert their academic efforts to find the truth of human nature. Instead most of them conveniently refer to a mob psychology and social relations to avoid being labeled as anachronistic or even supercilious intellectuals in agreement to postmodernistic political and cultural trends that have been in vogue since the mid 20th century swept by the motto of the blank slate. Hence Pinker introduces the reader to the fathers of the liberalism whose doctrines reverberate gloriously in the every theater of our modern societies. In fact, the philosopher John Locke coined and deployed the term “tabula rasa,” which mean “the blank slate.” Locke undermined a hereditary royalty and aristocracy and supported abolishment of successive monarchy. He motivated his political philosophy and paved a foundation of Liberal Democracy with the motto of the blank slate. Also, Rousseau’s avocation of the “noble savage,” the belief that humans in the primitive state are free from social ills is still regarded as an antidote to our overtly modernized society with moral decay.

    To top it all off, Descartes’ dogma of the ghost in the machine promulgates dualism of human nature by which our body can be nonexistent by the use of our thinking faculty which belongs to the mind; it can also promote our imagination of having the body as a mere hallucination. This may sound true and wonderful to think that our mind can do wonder, when in fact, it nihilistically denies the sciences if human nature itself. The aforesaid doctrines are the tenets of the intellectual ethos of our time in which the modern consciousness is collectively corrupted by the repercussions of the Enlightenment philosophers. That is, these airy, fallible ideas are deeply entrenched in our consciousness. It is the ultimate liberator of human will – the mind of man by the power of social communication jettisoning him from biological determinism.

    With respect to dominant psychology of out time, Pinker brings out that Behaviorism is an offspring of associationism that bans a talent or an ability, ideas, beliefs, desires, and feelings. That behavior is not a physical manifestation of hereditary factors is indeed hostile to the studying of human nature. The core of behaviorism is the blank slate that is inscribed with sensations and ideas conditioned by social interactions. Thus the most natural and popular topics in psychology, such as love, hate, work, play, food, religion, and art are invisible from the texts because regardless of our individualities, we are only a group of blank slates operated by social devices.

    In case of the arts, Pinker asserts that contrary to intellectuals’ grown indispositions that the possibility of sustaining high culture in our time is considerably dwindling problematic, the arts and humanities are not in a pickle. In fact, advances in technology have made art more accessible to the masses than ever before with the advent of personal computers and other information-related apparatuses. It has always been that in every era for thousands of years critics have bemoaned the decline of culture because competition of praise inclines to a reverence of antiquity, for we contend with the living, but with the dead. Such human nature is duly reminded by the Gospel: “Old things are passed away; and lo! All things are become new.”

    Furthermore, Pinker disagrees to the indiscriminate acknowledgement of postmodernistic view of art and culture in the name of social reality that does not appeal to the senses – human pleasure. In his opinion, a work of art and appreciation thereof are universal human traits across the boundaries of culture, race, and geography. It is an epitome of conspicuous consumption, a pleasure technology, such as erotica, food, and drug. According to Pinker, western societies are good at providing things that people want in art forms appealing to basic human tastes and engaging a universal human aesthetic experience due to the eclectic and appropriating nature of western culture. This notion of the versatile adoptability of western societies may stir a fit of rancor in today’s overtly politically conscious societies, but Pinker’s forthrightness results from consilience of the understanding the knowledge of sciences with that of humanities on the grounds of cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience that attempt to explain human nature and the mind in scientific terms not rooted in airy philosophical observations.

    This book is a testament to the erudition, intelligence, and conscience of an intellectual who sees a fallacy of theories heavily influenced by political motivations and personal ambitions that are so prevalently found in various strata of our society and theaters of academics and arts. In this heavy tome, Pinker expounds his knowledge of the subject matter and tries to make the reader understand the illogicality of the theory of the blank slate to the fullest extent. Anyone who does not believe in this theory or other popular theories that encourage nihilistic approaches to human existence will find a kindred spirit in this book. Upon reading this book, the reader will feel a sense of relief that (1) this world is not an arbitrary construct – a phantasm created by social contexts only – and that (2) our own period is not of decline because human nature has not been changed and will remain unchanged until humankind exists.