What are you reading?

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starjots
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by starjots » Thu Feb 03, 2022 4:41 am

The Peter Kropotkin Anthology - The writings of a thinker in Anarchism pre WW1 (Communism too). Not too far into it, but the topic interests me. Whether I finish depends on if it strikes me as 'relevant', so who knows.

The Skylark Series, E E Doc Smith (first 3 books) - These were also written around WW1 and into the 20s, pretty early sci fi but on a large scale (space opera). How women are written about is kind of cringey when you go back this far, so that's a -1, the villains are dastardly, so that's -1, but still a quick read with interesting far flung stories. Space drives are discovered (the import of Einstein's maximum velocity isn't dealt with - Doc Smith bothers to wave his hands to get around it in the better known Lensmen series at least), alien races are discovered, some bad some good, hilarity ensues. The protagonists learn to exterminate entire threatening alien races then learn to let other threatening races live but be safely caged up, so there's some progression there. Most interesting was the construct of multiple alien societies, including an entire planet of scientists who had large heads and long white beards and were rather mellow. I read this kind of stuff as a kid - it's still entertaining to me.

Off to be the Wizard, Scott Meyer - this is modern fluff science fiction, a dude discovers a part of the file to the simulation we all live in, gets in trouble and escapes to the past to find other dudes who have done the same and make a living as wizards (being able to manipulate reality through the file). This something to listen to while driving 2000 miles, so okay and probably forgettable - just light stuff.

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Madrigal
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Madrigal » Thu Feb 03, 2022 8:57 am

starjots wrote:
Thu Feb 03, 2022 4:41 am
The Peter Kropotkin Anthology - The writings of a thinker in Anarchism pre WW1 (Communism too). Not too far into it, but the topic interests me. Whether I finish depends on if it strikes me as 'relevant', so who knows.
Interesting, I never studied him but get a sense of him having been one of the more conservative anarchists, to the right of Bakunin. I seem to recall Emma Goldmann mentioning him in passing as a sellout to the Bolsheviks. I guess The Conquest of Bread is obligatory reading for an anarchist but I never got to it during my brief phase.

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starjots
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by starjots » Fri Feb 04, 2022 5:46 am

Madrigal wrote:
Thu Feb 03, 2022 8:57 am
starjots wrote:
Thu Feb 03, 2022 4:41 am
The Peter Kropotkin Anthology - The writings of a thinker in Anarchism pre WW1 (Communism too). Not too far into it, but the topic interests me. Whether I finish depends on if it strikes me as 'relevant', so who knows.
Interesting, I never studied him but get a sense of him having been one of the more conservative anarchists, to the right of Bakunin. I seem to recall Emma Goldmann mentioning him in passing as a sellout to the Bolsheviks. I guess The Conquest of Bread is obligatory reading for an anarchist but I never got to it during my brief phase.
Honest question - who do you think is more idealistic, anarchists or communists or dumb question?

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Madrigal
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Madrigal » Sun Feb 13, 2022 3:22 pm

starjots wrote:
Fri Feb 04, 2022 5:46 am
Honest question - who do you think is more idealistic, anarchists or communists or dumb question?
Oh I forgot to answer this. Anarchists. But Marxists only consider them idealists in contrast to their own philosophy, which is historical materialism, the view of history as based on the economic conditions of mankind and class warefare as something arising from the classes forged under those economic conditions. So anarchists would be considered idealists or utopian while Marxists would be considered materialists or scientific. Not that they can't both be wrong.

Anyway, even in the most common use of the word, I still think Anarchists are more idealistic. Nothing more idealistic than believing something that has no basis. In that sense I think social democrats are more idealistic than marxists too. FWIW I think Che was also an idealist.

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Madrigal
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Madrigal » Sun Feb 13, 2022 3:31 pm

Now I forgot what I was gonna post here. xD I'm reading a book of short stories by Stefano Benni called L'Ultima Lacrima. It's sorta like a dystopian, Black Mirror-type collection except it dates back to the mid-90s, so the technology is a bit dated. Not sure I would read it if not to learn Italian (even though the writer is a known commie who used to write for Il Manifesto). It's entertaining enough, I'm mostly humbled by how many things I have to look up in the dictionary, since there's a universe of vocabulary you're only ever going to find in fiction.

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MoneyJungle
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by MoneyJungle » Sun Feb 20, 2022 8:19 pm

Best American Short Stories of the 20th Century as curated by John Updike. I’ve never been much of a short story reader. I guess I wanted to check the boxes of having read big long books, which I did and am still an idiot. There’s some really great stuff in this book and you can really get a sense of how writing changed over that span of time. I just read one from the nineties ‘The Gloaming’ that fucking killed me as much as any passage in a novel ever has. The book itself is massive and I feel like I’m going to get stuffed in a locker when I take with me but it’s the perfect thing to read on the go.

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Madrigal
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Madrigal » Sun Feb 27, 2022 6:26 pm

I just grabbed a history book I decided I was finally gonna read and discovered I had already read, underlined and annotated it. My memory's absolutely fucked.

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Catoptric
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Catoptric » Fri Mar 18, 2022 6:43 am

PDFs from a Bigelow Noetic consciousness subject contest winners.
https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php

Review (by Tom Butler of AA-EVP) arguing against Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove winning the contest:
https://www.academia.edu/65571292/Revie ... BICS_Essay

*************

I have a set of these still shrink-wrapped in a folio size with slipcover, and was pleased to see a downloadable copy of it is available for free:

European Post-Medieval Tapestries and Related Hangings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Volumes I and II
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublic ... olumes_I_a

Note: using Adobe Acrobat on the computer, CTRL+L (full screen) and CTRL+'+' with CTRL and scroll wheel and left click to progress (vice versa right to return) makes it better than messing with the actual book.

***********

Going over old books I have on the topic:
Francis Bacon’s contribution to three Shakespeare plays Barry R. Clarke
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... he_Tempest

PDF (of copy) The Bacon-Shakespeare Anatomy by W. S. Melsome
https://sirbacon.org/2015.76666.The-Bac ... natomy.pdf

N. G. Cockburn’s The Bacon Shakespeare Question: The Baconian Theory Made Sane
https://sirbacon.org/cockburn.htm

The Secret History Of Francis Bacon by Dodd, Alfred
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.60445

At some point people have assumed Shakespeare was a pseudonym, or implied he never existed as a person, or if he did he was just an investor in a globe theater.

Here is his death mask (and 15 others)
https://www.calebwilde.com/2014/06/16-f ... ath-masks/

And don't forget the first person to get the covid vaccine was William Shakespeare (who died of unrelated complications with it?)
https://www.businessinsider.com/william ... -81-2021-5
Last edited by Catoptric on Wed Apr 06, 2022 5:34 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Yesterday
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Yesterday » Thu Mar 24, 2022 6:49 am

If you go away on this summer day
Then you might as well take the sun away
All the birds that flew in a summer sky
When our love was new and our hearts were high
When the day was young and the night was lo-ong
And the moon stood still for the night birds song
If you go away, If you go away, If you go away
But if you stay I'll make you a day
Like no day has been or will be again
We'll sail on the sun, we'll ride on the rain
We'll talk to the trees and worship the wind
Then if you go-o I'll understand
Leave me just enough love to fill up my hand
If you go away, If you go away, If you go away
If you go away as I know you must
There'll be nothin' left in the world to trust
Just an empty room full of empty space
Like the empty look I see on your face
Can I tell you now as you turn to go
I'll be dying slowly till your next hello
If you go away, If you go away, If you go away
But if you stay, I'll make you a night
Like no night has been or will be again
I'll sail on your smile, I'll ride on your touch
I'll talk to your eyes that I-I love so much
But if you go, I won't cry
For the good's gone from goodbye
If you go away, If you go away, If you go away
ENTP

"Our truest selves exist within the observational incongruencies among general first impressions and further analyses of the finer details."
- from my Ph.D. thesis in psychobabble

Yesterday
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Yesterday » Fri Apr 01, 2022 6:51 am

When they poured across the border
I was cautioned to surrender
This I could not do
I took my gun and vanished.
...
Through the graves the wind is blowing
Freedom soon will come
Then we'll come from the shadows

RIP Leonard Cohen
ENTP

"Our truest selves exist within the observational incongruencies among general first impressions and further analyses of the finer details."
- from my Ph.D. thesis in psychobabble

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