Friday, 6 July 2018
Tuesday, 3 July 2018
Henry Miller quote and the five
(not sure where I read this... an essay, for sure, but what/where?)
Henry Miller
"It may indeed be the highest wisdom," he wrote, "to elect to be a nobody in a relative paradise such as this rather than a celebrity in a world which has lost all sense of values."
This is the way I always go. Not only because it's faastest, but because despite the conventional wisdom, I find it the most beautiful of all. California natives always call it just "the Five": not Highway Five or Interstate Five or I-5. The whole road is some 1,380 miles long, and is the only US interstate touching the borders of both Mexico and Canada. If, like me, you prefer to drive rather than to fly between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, the 400 or so miles along this route are the most distinctively Californian, the most revealing of the strange diversity of this landscape and its people, its terrible moral conflicts, and the weird vitality of its countless subcultures. The Five is unendingly rich and full of interest, despite all caricatures to the contrary; despite, or rather because of its glowing, gorgeous emptiness.
Henry Miller
"It may indeed be the highest wisdom," he wrote, "to elect to be a nobody in a relative paradise such as this rather than a celebrity in a world which has lost all sense of values."
This is the way I always go. Not only because it's faastest, but because despite the conventional wisdom, I find it the most beautiful of all. California natives always call it just "the Five": not Highway Five or Interstate Five or I-5. The whole road is some 1,380 miles long, and is the only US interstate touching the borders of both Mexico and Canada. If, like me, you prefer to drive rather than to fly between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, the 400 or so miles along this route are the most distinctively Californian, the most revealing of the strange diversity of this landscape and its people, its terrible moral conflicts, and the weird vitality of its countless subcultures. The Five is unendingly rich and full of interest, despite all caricatures to the contrary; despite, or rather because of its glowing, gorgeous emptiness.
Steampunk Anthology
Elisabeth Knox - "Gethsemane"
Cool story! Amazing little backdrops, an interesting premise.
MT Anderson - "Oracle Engine"
Fantastic
Cool story! Amazing little backdrops, an interesting premise.
MT Anderson - "Oracle Engine"
Fantastic
Peter Godfrey-Smith - "Other Minds"
An amazing book at octopusses and celaphopods in general; how their brains and nervous systems developed while they are on a very different biological branch, and as such might be the truest alien minds we will ever meet.
At times the biological background became a bit much. I must admit skipreading through these sections.
"[Inner speech] is a way of walking through the consequences of actions, a way to bring reasons to bear against temptations. [...] The sounds we cook up in our heads, including the sounds of words, are broadcast in our minds in something like the way that many ordinary perceptual experiences are broadcast. Once a sentence of inner speech is compaosed, it is expose to the same sort of processing that would apply to a sentence we hear. A novel combination of ideas, or an exhortation to act, its htus made available for consideration; it can have the same sort of effect that an ordinary spoken sentence can have."
At times the biological background became a bit much. I must admit skipreading through these sections.
"[Inner speech] is a way of walking through the consequences of actions, a way to bring reasons to bear against temptations. [...] The sounds we cook up in our heads, including the sounds of words, are broadcast in our minds in something like the way that many ordinary perceptual experiences are broadcast. Once a sentence of inner speech is compaosed, it is expose to the same sort of processing that would apply to a sentence we hear. A novel combination of ideas, or an exhortation to act, its htus made available for consideration; it can have the same sort of effect that an ordinary spoken sentence can have."
George Saunders - "Lincoln in the bardo"
An amazing book. Its setup of multiple voices (of people in the bardo, the in between between life and death, between this life and the next) takes a moment to get used to, but stays interesting. Perhaps at the very end, when he uses it like the very beginning, many voices telling us how Lincoln felt or what he looked like, it could have been shortened a bit. But the end ties things up wonderfully.
As I moved around the room I would encounter that silved wedge of a moon at this window or that, like some old beggar who wished to be invited in.
As I moved around the room I would encounter that silved wedge of a moon at this window or that, like some old beggar who wished to be invited in.
Monday, 2 July 2018
Fargo - series
Particularly like the second season: still has the cliche characters, but they are all a bit more world wise, a bit more realistic, and thus sad and human.
Hereditary
Supposed to be so scary, but considered it a bit cliche. Not badly done, but slow (for no reason) and a cliche explanation (praying to one of the eight Gods of hell, yada yada)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)