Stephen King - "On Writing"

Paperback. Fast read. Enjoyable enough for a few nuts 'n bolts, but nothing special. Not a book I'll quickly return to.

strange playlist: Floral Canary Sludge

http://8tracks.com/thelizardking/floral-canary-sludge

• The Grass Roots - "Let's Live for Today" - extremely flower power and yet I liked it. There was a haunting feeling to it
• Emily Wells - "Let Your Guard Down" - high wailed voice, but interesting. Sad. Should look her up.

Ctenoid

"Ctenoid” means “having an edge with projections like the teeth of a comb.” It could refer to rooster combs or the scales of certain fish.

Anosognosia

Anosognosia is a condition in which a person who suffers from a disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her disability

scotoma

scotoma, a blind spot in our field of vision that we are unaware of

Dunning-Kruger effect

our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence

If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/

Dunning:

The notion of unknown unknowns really does resonate with me, and perhaps the idea would resonate with other people if they knew that it originally came from the world of design and engineering rather than Rumsfeld.
If I were given carte blanche to write about any topic I could, it would be about how much our ignorance, in general, shapes our lives in ways we do not know about. Put simply, people tend to do what they know and fail to do that which they have no conception of. In that way, ignorance profoundly channels the course we take in life. And unknown unknowns constitute a grand swath of everybody’s field of ignorance. 

To me, unknown unknowns enter at two different levels. The first is at the level of risk and problem. Many tasks in life contain uncertainties that are known — so-called “known unknowns.” These are potential problems for any venture, but they at least are problems that people can be vigilant about, prepare for, take insurance on, and often head off at the pass. Unknown unknown risks, on the other hand, are problems that people do not know they are vulnerable to.
Unknown unknowns also exist at the level of solutions. People often come up with answers to problems that are o.k., but are not the best solutions. The reason they don’t come up with those solutions is that they are simply not aware of them. Stefan Fatsis, in his book “Word Freak,” talks about this when comparing everyday Scrabble players to professional ones. As he says: “In a way, the living-room player is lucky . . . He has no idea how miserably he fails with almost every turn, how many possible words or optimal plays slip by unnoticed. The idea of Scrabble greatness doesn’t exist for him.” (p. 128)
Unknown unknown solutions haunt the mediocre without their knowledge. The average detective does not realize the clues he or she neglects. The mediocre doctor is not aware of the diagnostic possibilities or treatments never considered. The run-of-the-mill lawyer fails to recognize the winning legal argument that is out there. People fail to reach their potential as professionals, lovers, parents and people simply because they are not aware of the possible. This is one of the reasons I often urge my student advisees to find out who the smart professors are, and to get themselves in front of those professors so they can see what smart looks like. 

 

Is an “unknown unknown” beyond anything I can imagine? Or am I confusing the “unknown unknowns” with the “unknowable unknowns?” Are we constituted in such a way that there are things we cannot know? Perhaps because we cannot even frame the questions we need to ask?

 

Hunter S. Thompson - "Hell's Angels - A strange and terrible saga"

"The girls stood quietly in a group, wearing tight slacks, kerchiefs and sleeveless blouses or sweaters, with boots and dark glasses, uplift bras, bright lipstick and the wary expressions of half- bright souls turned mean and nervous from too much bitter wisdom in too few years."

After just 30 pages it is already a wonderful read, clearly showing his markmanship. Yes, people will always remember him as a crazy dope fiend, but he had 100% journalist blood running through his veins. He disects the media circus and the events in a wonderful way.

"There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the kind of random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency."

"But in a society with no central motivation, so far adrift and puzzled with itself that its President feels called upon to appoint a Committee on National Goals, a sense of alientaion is likely to be very popular - especially among people young enough to shrug off the ugilt they're supposed to feel for devaiting from a goal or purpose they never understood in the first place. Let the old people wallow in the shame of having failed. The laws they made to preserve a myth are no longer pertinent; the so-called American Way begins to seem like a dike made of cheap cement, with many more leaks than the law has fingers to plug. America has been breeding mass anomie since the ned of World War II. It is not a political thing, but the sence of new realities, of urgency, anger and sometimes desperation in a society where even the highest authorities seem to grasping at straws."

"But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right… and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely  see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it… howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica… letting off now, watching for cops, but onlyuntil the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge… The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The other - the living - are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions."

An amazing read, because the intensity of his voice works so well to power the story, to bring you the intensity of those moments that us citizens never get to experience. 

psych guitars

http://8tracks.com/james-holroyd/ride-the-highway

• Cian Nugent & The Cosmos - "Double Horse"
  reminds me of The Doors, the slow buildup, the hints of a melody percolating through

Chris Forsyth - "Paranoid Cat"

long spinning audioscapes based on guitar and moderate strings & rhythm.

Quite cool while coding.

http://familyvineyard.bandcamp.com/album/paranoid-cat

"Front street drone" is a bit screechy...

"Heavy Metal" (1981)

Crazy animated film consisted of four or five sequences in which the "ultimate evil" incarnated in a green sphere is showed. Lots of violence and sex, best enjoyed with a few good beers.

Jeanette Winterson - "The Daylight Gate"

Based on the true events of the most famous Lancaster Witch trials (August Assize) this short novel follows the noble woman Alice Nutter who was tried and hanged for witchcraft together with a group of poor women.

Though not so in her usual style, still captivating and beautiful. Less poetic? Still intense language. Short simple sentences with depth.

Charles Bukowski - "the bluebird"

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be sad.

then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Charles Bukowski - "the word"

there was Auden, I don't remember
which small room I first read him
in
and there was Spender and I don't
know which small room
either
and then there was Ezra
and I remember that room
there was a torn screen
that the flies came through
and it was Los Angeles
and the woman said to me,
"Jesus Christ, you reading those
Cantos again!"
she liked e. e. cummings, though,
she thought he was really
good and she was
right.

I remember when I read Turgenev,
though, I had just come out of the
drunk tank and I was living
alone
and I thought he was really a
subtle and funny son of a
bitch.

Hemingway I read everywhere,
sometimes a few times over
and he made me feel brave
and tough
until one day
it all just stopped cold for me
and worse than that,
Ernie became an
irritant.

My Jeffers period was sometime
in Los Angeles, some room, some
job,
the same woman was back
and she said,
"Jesus, how can you read this
crap?"
one time when she was gone
I found many magazines
under the bed.
I pulled them out
and found that the contents were
all about murder
and it was all about women
who were tortured, killed,
dismembered and so
forth with the
lurid photos
in black and
white.
that stuff wasn't for
me.

my first encounter with Henry
Miller was via paperback
on a bus through Arizona.
he was great when he stuck
to reality
but when he got ethereal
when he got to philosophizing
he got as dry and boring as
the passing
landscape.
I left him in the men's crapper
at a hamburger
stop.

I got hold of Celine's Journey
and read it straight through
while in bed eating crackers.
I kept reading, eating the
crackers and reading, reading,
laughing out loud,
thinking, at last I've met a man
who writes better than
I.
I finished the book and then
drank much water.
the crackers swelled up
inside of me
and I got the worst
god damned stomach
ache of my
life.

I was living with my first
wife.
she worked for the L.A.
Sheriff's Dept.
and she came in to
find me doubled up
and moaning.

"Oh, what happened?"

"I've just read the world's
greatest
writers!"

"But you said you were."

"I'm second, baby . . ."

I read F. D.'s Notes from the
Underground
in a small El Paso
library
after sleeping the night
on a park bench
during a sand
storm.
after reading that book
I knew I had a long way
to go as a
writer.

I don't know where I read
T. S. Eliot.
he made a small dent
which soon ironed
out.

there were many rooms,
many books,
D. H. Lawrence, Gorky,
A. Huxley, Sherwood
Anderson, Sinclair Lewis,
James Thurber, Dos Passos,
etc
Kafka.
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
Rabelais.
Hamsun.

as a very young man
I worked as a shipping clerk,
made the bars at night,
came into the roominghouse,
went to bed
and read the
books.
 I had 3 or 4 of them in
bed with me (what a
man!) and then I would
sleep.

my landlady finally told
me, "You know, you read those
books in bed and about every
hour or so one of them will
fall to the floor.
You are keeping everybody
awake!"

(I was on the 3rd floor.)

what days and nights those
were.

now I can't read anything,
not even the newspaper.
and, of course, I can't watch
tv except for the boxing
matches.
I do hear some news
on the car radio
while driving the freeway
and waiting for the
traffic
reports.

but you know, by former
life as a bibliophile, it
possibly kept me from
murdering somebody,
myself
included.
it kept me from being an
industrialist.
it allowed me to endure
some women
that most men would never
be able to live
with.
it gave me space, a
pause.
it helped me to write
this.

(in this room,
like the other rooms)

perhaps for some young man
now
needing
to laugh at the
impossibilities
which are here
always
after we are
not.

Platoon (1986)

Another impressive war film, Oliver Stone, Charlie Sheen, a very tiny role for Johnny Depp.

The madness? It is there.
The ruthless Hollywood optimism? Also, slightly so, but I must admit I feel like mr Stone added that because he desperately wants to believe in it. Like the soldier almost going home, three days before R&R, has a bad feeling, thus was this film to him.

What is it with me and war movies lately? I still want to watch Full Metal Jacket (again). And feel like watching Apocalypse Now over and over again. Platoon was good, but it does not match up to Coppola's masterpiece. Is it the intensity of the madness? The plunge? Too slick?

Night Beats - "Puppet on a String" (Night Beats)

A very Cramps psycho/rockabilly 60's sound, but this album is actually from 2011.

Natalia Kills - "Problem"

Not my kind of song, bit like Britney Spears' "Toxic" but kinda fun.

Perhaps just because of the line "don't you want to save this dirty little damsel"

Aymara language and the idea of time

Linguistic and gestural analysis by Núñez and Sweetser also asserts that the Aymara have an apparently unique, or at least very rare, understanding of time, and Aymara is, with Quechua, one of very few languages where speakers seem to represent the past as in front of them and the future as behind them. Their argument is situated mainly within the framework of conceptual metaphor, which recognizes in general two subtypes of the metaphor "the passage of time is motion": one is "time passing is motion over a landscape" (or "moving-ego"), and the other is "time passing is a moving object" ("moving-events"). The latter metaphor does not explicitly involve the individual/speaker; events are in a queue, with prior events towards the front of the line. The individual may be facing the queue, or it may be moving from left to right in front of him/her.
The claims regarding Aymara involve the moving-ego metaphor. Most languages conceptualize the ego as moving forward into the future, with ego's back to the past. The English sentences prepare for what lies before us and we are facing a prosperous future exemplify this metaphor. In contrast, Aymara seems to encode the past as in front of individuals, and the future in back; this is typologically a rare phenomenon.
The fact that English has words like before and after that are (currently or archaically) polysemous between 'front/earlier' or 'back/later' may seem to refute the claims regarding Aymara uniqueness. However, these words relate events to other events, i.e., are part of the moving-events metaphor. In fact, when before means in front of ego, it can only mean future. For instance, our future is laid out before us while our past is behind us. Parallel Aymara examples describe future days as "qhipa uru", literally 'back days', and these are sometimes accompanied by gestures to behind the speaker. The same applies to Quechua speakers, whose expression "qhipa p'unchaw" corresponds directly to Aymara "qhipa uru". Possibly, the metaphor is that the past is visible to us (in front of our eyes), while the future is not.

Lawless (2012)

Amazing film about a family - the Bondurants - defying law and all when brewing and selling moonshine all over the Franklin county and beyond. Harsh, in your face, an amazing soundtrack, and a cool story.

Good acting. Good writing, most of all.

Beck & Warby Parker presents "Song Reader"

Score album by Beck, sung by various people.

• Heaven's Ladder: definitely should listen to this one again
• The Last Polka
• Old Shanghai
• Why Did You Make Me Care
• Americ Here's My Boy
• We All Wear Cloaks - must be Jack Black, very theatrical
• Do We We Do - folk

Valeria Luiselli - "Sidewalks"

"If there is an infinite aspect to space," writes Joseph Brodsky, "it is not its expansion, but its reduction. If only because the reduction of space, oddly enough, is always more coheren. It's better structured and has more names: a cell, a closet, a grave." 

The outcome of a long-awaited first meeting is often disappointing. The same is true of an encounter with a dead person, except that there's no need to hide the disappointment: in that sense, a dead person is always more agreeable than a living one."

It is a thin, amazing book of essays. Very well suited when travelling or walking through a city, even one so familiar. Do not read it fast. Take your time. Stare out of the window. Read a few more sentences. Read them again, your thoughts wandered the last six words or so. I don't agree with every observation she makes, but most are breath taking.