Perhaps I read it too soon after his short stories, but though written really well - and I'm always impressed by people telling normal stories without boring me - it failed to truly capture me. Whether reading it in one go would have been better, I can't say.
Great writer though. Period.
There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond there, there is unrest. There is great unrest.
Friday, 25 January 2019
Thursday, 17 January 2019
Stargarden - "Nightro"
instrumental, good beat, pan flutes or saxophone.... Reminded me of Etienne Jaumet
Tuesday, 15 January 2019
Edmund Gettier - Justified True Belief
http://jsomers.net/blog/gettiers
Great article how justified true belief might not always be right:
Great article how justified true belief might not always be right:
- justified in the sense of deriving from evidence
- true, because it doesn’t make sense to “know” a falsehoood
- belief, i.e., a proposition in your head
Wednesday, 9 January 2019
The Favourite
Film with Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman (her of Blackwood, or that other detective series).
Same guy who did "The Lobster" and "Dogtooth".
Queen Anne, her confidante Sarah Churchill; their secret love gets disrupted by the arrival of a new girl.
Strangely filmed. Fish eye lenses a lot, particularly when indoors. Enjoyable enough.
Same guy who did "The Lobster" and "Dogtooth".
Queen Anne, her confidante Sarah Churchill; their secret love gets disrupted by the arrival of a new girl.
Strangely filmed. Fish eye lenses a lot, particularly when indoors. Enjoyable enough.
Tuu - "All our ancestors"
soma fm groovesalad. Very slow. Guitar, soft vocals, stretched strings. Kinda nice for a slow morning.
Swimming with men
Run off the mill comedy with Steve Coogan about some guys who do synchronized swimming because their mid life crises are getting a bit bad. Meh.
Friday, 21 December 2018
Thursday, 20 December 2018
Monday, 17 December 2018
Henry S.F. Cooper - "The Evening Star"
Only just started, but already a great read about the Magellan mission to Venus in the early 90s.
Killing Eve (series, season 1 & soundtrack)
Quite a fast-paced and fun series about Eve (Sandra Oh) in the British Intelligence Service, who matches seemingly random killings to the same assassin ("Villanelle"), a smart polylinguistic Russian assassin.
Dialogues are almost too snappy at points, but a great thriller forget-everything watcher.
Also, amazing soundtrack
Dialogues are almost too snappy at points, but a great thriller forget-everything watcher.
Also, amazing soundtrack
- Pshycotic Beats - "Killer Shangri-Lah"
crazy female vocals with a 60's vibe including a parlando part right in the middle, against an orchestral backdrop - Unloved - *misc*
Very David Lynch-y, soft female vocals, slow intense beat. Not bad, and moody, but nothing to rave about.
Sunday, 9 December 2018
Ottessa Moshfegh - "Homesick for another world"
Sad and beautiful short stories. Amazing character descriptions.
Oh, my mother. A week later she drove me to the bus stop. It was barely five in the morning and she still wore her burgundy satin negligee and curlers in her hair, a denim jacket thrown over her sunburned shoulders. She drove slowly on the empty roads, coasted through the blinking red lights and though they didn't exist, stayed silent as the moon. Finally she pulled over and lit a cigarette. I watched a tear coast down her cheek. She didn't look at me. I opened the car door. "Call me" is all she said. I said I would. I watched as she pulled a U-turn and drove away.
Oh, my mother. A week later she drove me to the bus stop. It was barely five in the morning and she still wore her burgundy satin negligee and curlers in her hair, a denim jacket thrown over her sunburned shoulders. She drove slowly on the empty roads, coasted through the blinking red lights and though they didn't exist, stayed silent as the moon. Finally she pulled over and lit a cigarette. I watched a tear coast down her cheek. She didn't look at me. I opened the car door. "Call me" is all she said. I said I would. I watched as she pulled a U-turn and drove away.
Jon Ronson - "The Butterfly effect"
Intriguing podcast about the growth of free porn. Stamp collection destruction, custom videos, young people registered as offenders because they don't understand context.
Annihilation
Film roughly based on the first book of Jeff Vandermeer's "Southern Reach" trilogy. If you've read the books, it's a weird collection of random parts. Not that great.
Monday, 3 December 2018
How to make decisions
(From a random hackernews page)
incredibly fortunate to have a chairman on our board who brings so much clarity of thought to the business.
incredibly fortunate to have a chairman on our board who brings so much clarity of thought to the business.
He's unemotional yet thoughtful. If he doesn't have an immediate answer for something, he instinctively understands how to search for the answer. He has a natural sense of the real priority of work and discussions.
So I asked him for some of his favourite brain hacks...simple tricks he uses when he has a mental challenge to overcome. A couple of his insights were very useful to me, so I thought I'd share them here and ask HN for their personal brain hacks in response.
Artificial deadlines
He has a clever technique for bringing tough choices to a conclusion and avoiding procrastination. This is especially useful for life changing decisions such as moving country or taking that new job.
To put an end to the decision making process he sets a deadline for the decision to be made. Say 6pm on Monday. At five minutes to 6 he usually doesn't know the answer but in those 5 minutes something clicks, and by 6pm the answer is always there.
10/10/10 rule
This is something I've read before but he applies this. The 10/10/10 is the framing of the outcome of a decision across three timeframes:
How will he feel about the outcome 10 minutes from now? How about 10 months from now? How about 10 years from now?
The answers to these questions provide a different perspective and usually help him to find the correct answer without being misguided by circumstances at the time of making the decision.
This will all be over by 6pm
If there's an important meeting with stakeholders, a scary appointment with the doctor or a tough chat with an employee - he simply keeps in mind the fact that by "X time", the thing will have passed and won't matter anymore.
If it doesn't matter after X time, chances are it probably doesn't matter now.
1) Suspension of judgement (from Sextus Empiricus, Zhuang Zi, Ecclesiastes): avoid forming an opinion at all about things that are not evident. The way I do this is by thinking through an opposing argument or two, and using language like "it seems" or "it appears" rather than "I know", "I think", etc. This technique saves time and energy by helping me avoid getting wrapped up in opinion-based thinking and helps me develop equanimity.
2) Suspension of value-judgements (from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Zhuang Zi, Ecclesiastes): being aware and in control of the value-judgement loop (this thing is good or bad). I do this by shifting the language in my mind from "that is bad" to "I feel this way because..." Again, like #1, this is about inverting the locus of control in my cognitive discourse such that my mind can easily go its own way from there, only on a more productive path.
3) Awareness of the mode of thinking I'm in, and the kind of learning that's appropriate to the task or objective at hand (from Plato). There are several modes of thinking or learning (eikasia, pistis, dianoia, episteme, techne, phronesis, and noesis, for example). Simply being aware of which mode you should be in for a task is much more valuable than it might appear at first glance. I see these less as bins to put various kinds of thought in and more as tools to apply to a problem.
Understanding your current state of mind, and what state of mind would work better for the current task is important, so you can match those up, or at least understand more deeply. These are things like the appearance of things or imaginative situations (eikasia), good faith and trust or persuasiveness (pistis), discursive thought (dianoia), theoretical thought (techne), practical knowledge (phronesis), or intuition (noesis). [Note: my comments on the meanings of the Greek terms are probably wrong, but...] You could combine multiple of these to reach your goal; and you will often have a sequence of thoughts that are in different ones.
Initial reading
* eikasia -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eikasia
* pistis -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistis
* dianoia -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianoia
* episteme -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episteme
* techne -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techne
* phronesis -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudence (latin: prudence)
* noesis -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy_of_the_divided_line
The "smallest possible thing" hack is a great one. It also works great for exercise. If your goal for example is to work out every morning before work, instead of setting ambitious goals for what's going to happen tomorrow morning when the alarm rings at 6am, promise yourself the following: "I will physically get out of bed. I will put on my workout clothes. I will do five pushups. If I don't feel like doing anything else after that, I will go back to bed."
When you've gotten up, gotten changed and begun to move, the prospect of going on to do an actual workout becomes like 90% less unpleasant of an idea, compared to how you perceived it from the comfort of your warm soft bed.
Tuesday, 27 November 2018
Lorrie Moore - "Birds of America"
Only just started, but already amazing sentences.
The story "Community life".
She looked at him darkly. "What the hell were you thinking of, recommending that stock?" she asked. "How could you be such an irresponsible idiot?" She saw it now, how their life would be together. She would yell; then he would yell. He would have an affair; then she would have an affair. And then they would be gone and gone, and they would live in that gone.
They stopped briefly at an English manor house, to see the natural world cut up into moldings and rugs, wool and wood captive and squared, the earth stolen and embalmed and shellacked.
No one had toasted Abby and Bob at their little wedding, and that's what had been wrong, she believed now. No toast. There had been only thirty guests and they had simply eaten the ham canapes and gone home. How could a marriage go right? It wasn't that such ceremonies were important in and of themselves. They were nothing. They were zeros. But they were zeros as placeholders; they held numbers and equations intact. And once you underwent them, you could move on, know the empty power of their blessing, and not spend time missing them.
"Gee, I thought you guys would never break up!" he says in a genuinely flabbergasted tone.
"Really?" I find this reassuring somehow, that my relationship at least looked good from the outside, at least to someone.
"Well, not really," admits Cal. "Actually, I thought you guys would break up long ago."
"Oh," I say.
"So you could marry her?" says the amazing Eugene to this father, and we all laugh loudly, pour more wine into glasses, and hide our faces in them.
She had, without realizing it at the time, learned to follow Nick's gaze, learned to learn his lust, and when she did go out, to work at least, his desires remained memorized within her. She looked at the attractive women he would look at. She turned to inspect the face of every pageboy haircut she saw from behind and passed in her car. She looked at them furtively or squarely - it didn't matter. She appraised their eyes and mouths and wondered about their bodies. She had become hi: she longed for those women. But she was also herself, and so she despised them. She lusted after them, but she also wanted to beat them up.
A rapist.
She had become a rapist, driving to work in a car.
But for a while, it was the only way she could be.
She began to wear his clothes - a shirt, a pair of socks - to keep him next to her, to try to understand why had done what he'd done. And in this new empathy, in this pants role, like an opera, she thought she understood what it was to make love to a woman, to open the hidden underside of her, like secret food, to thrust yourself up in her, her arch and thrash, like a puppet, to watch her later when she got up and walked around without you, oblivious to the injury you'd surely done her. How could you not love her, gratefully, marveling? She was so mysterious, so recovered, an unshared thought enlivening her eyes; you wanted to follow her forever.
A man in love. That was a man in love. So different from a woman.
She went home, poured herself a drink, stood by the mantel. She picked up the pink-posied tin and shook it, afraid she might hear the muffled banging of bones, but she heard nothing. "Are you sure it's even him?" Jack asked. "With animals, they probably do mass incinerations. One scoop for cats, two for dogs."
The story "Community life".
She looked at him darkly. "What the hell were you thinking of, recommending that stock?" she asked. "How could you be such an irresponsible idiot?" She saw it now, how their life would be together. She would yell; then he would yell. He would have an affair; then she would have an affair. And then they would be gone and gone, and they would live in that gone.
They stopped briefly at an English manor house, to see the natural world cut up into moldings and rugs, wool and wood captive and squared, the earth stolen and embalmed and shellacked.
No one had toasted Abby and Bob at their little wedding, and that's what had been wrong, she believed now. No toast. There had been only thirty guests and they had simply eaten the ham canapes and gone home. How could a marriage go right? It wasn't that such ceremonies were important in and of themselves. They were nothing. They were zeros. But they were zeros as placeholders; they held numbers and equations intact. And once you underwent them, you could move on, know the empty power of their blessing, and not spend time missing them.
"Gee, I thought you guys would never break up!" he says in a genuinely flabbergasted tone.
"Really?" I find this reassuring somehow, that my relationship at least looked good from the outside, at least to someone.
"Well, not really," admits Cal. "Actually, I thought you guys would break up long ago."
"Oh," I say.
"So you could marry her?" says the amazing Eugene to this father, and we all laugh loudly, pour more wine into glasses, and hide our faces in them.
She had, without realizing it at the time, learned to follow Nick's gaze, learned to learn his lust, and when she did go out, to work at least, his desires remained memorized within her. She looked at the attractive women he would look at. She turned to inspect the face of every pageboy haircut she saw from behind and passed in her car. She looked at them furtively or squarely - it didn't matter. She appraised their eyes and mouths and wondered about their bodies. She had become hi: she longed for those women. But she was also herself, and so she despised them. She lusted after them, but she also wanted to beat them up.
A rapist.
She had become a rapist, driving to work in a car.
But for a while, it was the only way she could be.
She began to wear his clothes - a shirt, a pair of socks - to keep him next to her, to try to understand why had done what he'd done. And in this new empathy, in this pants role, like an opera, she thought she understood what it was to make love to a woman, to open the hidden underside of her, like secret food, to thrust yourself up in her, her arch and thrash, like a puppet, to watch her later when she got up and walked around without you, oblivious to the injury you'd surely done her. How could you not love her, gratefully, marveling? She was so mysterious, so recovered, an unshared thought enlivening her eyes; you wanted to follow her forever.
A man in love. That was a man in love. So different from a woman.
She went home, poured herself a drink, stood by the mantel. She picked up the pink-posied tin and shook it, afraid she might hear the muffled banging of bones, but she heard nothing. "Are you sure it's even him?" Jack asked. "With animals, they probably do mass incinerations. One scoop for cats, two for dogs."
Deru - "Torn In Two"
When life is fucked up, and Deru turns out to have a new album, life is slightly less fucked up.
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
Louis MacNeice & W. H. Auden - "Letters from Iceland"
Finally started reading it. Some parts are fun, recognizable. Others long and dreary. I'm not too much fan of the poetry in here.
Hanna
Cool film about a young "assassin trained" girl (who at the end turned out to be some biological experiment... bit sad that, the original Scandinavian detachment from those plot details was a lot better). Quite enjoyable.
Julian Barnes - "Pulse"
Amazing short stories. Some of the chapters are dinner party discussions and are simply amazing.
TA few minutes later, the Twin Otter took off straight out across Orosay and the open sea. There was no farewell view of the island before that world below was shut out. In the enveloping cloud, he thought about marriage lines and buttons; about razor clams and island sex; about missing bullocks and fulmars being turned into oil; and then, finally, the tears came. Calum had known he would not be coming back. But the tears were not for that, or for himself, or even for her, for their memories. They were tears for his own stupidigty. His presumption too.
He had thought he could recapture, and begin to say farewell. He had thought that grief might be assuaged, or if not assuaged, at least speeded up, hurried on its way a little, by going back to a place where they had been happy. But he was not in charge of grief. Grief was in charge of him. And in the months and years ahead, he expected grief to teach him many other things as well. This was just the first of them.
The city of Carcassonne looks solid and enduring, but what we admire is mostly nineteenth-cenutry reconstruction. Forget the hazard of 'whetehr it will last', and whether longevity is in any case a virtue, a reward, an accommodation or another piece of luck.
TA few minutes later, the Twin Otter took off straight out across Orosay and the open sea. There was no farewell view of the island before that world below was shut out. In the enveloping cloud, he thought about marriage lines and buttons; about razor clams and island sex; about missing bullocks and fulmars being turned into oil; and then, finally, the tears came. Calum had known he would not be coming back. But the tears were not for that, or for himself, or even for her, for their memories. They were tears for his own stupidigty. His presumption too.
He had thought he could recapture, and begin to say farewell. He had thought that grief might be assuaged, or if not assuaged, at least speeded up, hurried on its way a little, by going back to a place where they had been happy. But he was not in charge of grief. Grief was in charge of him. And in the months and years ahead, he expected grief to teach him many other things as well. This was just the first of them.
The city of Carcassonne looks solid and enduring, but what we admire is mostly nineteenth-cenutry reconstruction. Forget the hazard of 'whetehr it will last', and whether longevity is in any case a virtue, a reward, an accommodation or another piece of luck.
Monday, 19 November 2018
Jeff Vandermeer - "Southern Reach Trilogy"
Three books, "Annihilation", "Authority" and "Acceptance"
Strange books about "Area X" where modern equipment doesn't work and the air is pristine. Different search parties are sent in, covered by Annihilation. Authority describes the Southern Reach, the research station and its political and power games, and finally Acceptance is an amalgamation of these, of past and current, of the Area growing. Never is everything completely explained, but enough so, but you'll have to read up to and including book 3 to figure things sorta out.
Strange books about "Area X" where modern equipment doesn't work and the air is pristine. Different search parties are sent in, covered by Annihilation. Authority describes the Southern Reach, the research station and its political and power games, and finally Acceptance is an amalgamation of these, of past and current, of the Area growing. Never is everything completely explained, but enough so, but you'll have to read up to and including book 3 to figure things sorta out.
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