Now Reading

[usagi]

sweet m8

[Limo]

For reasons I no longer remember, JR Ackerley's "Hindoo Holiday" popped up on the top of my reading list. Dutifully worked through it, was entertained.

It's supposedly the diary of an openly homosexual British man during a five month stay at the court of a minor (and equally homosexual) Indian raja. The quest for pretty young boys is a bit tiresome but other than that it was an interesting and fairly amusing visit to a world now (thankfully) long gone.

A quick read, +1 would recommend.

[DyeMyBlueBlack]

On 6/15/2023 at 1:22 AM, usagi said:

who all enjoys Ligotti? I just picked up Songs of a Dead Dreamer + Grimscribe for my first foray.

do.

Lol - I remember one paragraph by heart:

”Like beings provoked out of the absolute rock and set nameless and at no remove from their own loomings to ramble ravenous and and doomed and mute as gorgons shambling the brutal wastes of Gondwanaland at a time when nomenclature was and each was all”

 

[chim]

I've just ordered a hardcover version of Blood Meridian. It's the best book I've ever read. RIP Cormac McCarthy 

[zlemflolia]

On 8/23/2021 at 10:10 AM, dcom said:

For a more modern take on those issues I'd suggest Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence, and Max Tegmark's Life 3.0.

this bostrom dudes basicaly a fascist , he pontificates on the most obscure bullshit "the ai in the box is gona use radio waves to rearrange the atoms into a knife to escape from the box" other bullshit type ideas, its all hype, "the ai creators are too powerful, theyre like gods, unleashing pandoras box" give me a break , the guys such a fool

what he doesnt see under his nose is capital itself is the super ai he claims to worry about, it exists in the balance sheets, in the machinery, in the emergent computations of the supply chains, in the supercomputers running the ecnomy for profit. 

the dude might have a big brain iq but hes a dunce and a fool, a useful tool and distraction for his other "long termist" fascist buddies  and evil folks

[Milwaukeeeee]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006295222000405

[luke viia]

decided to read Industrial Society & Its Future by Mr. Unicycle himself. It's....okay? Not very well-reasoned, but his whole thing about needing effort-based goals in our lives and how modern society foils that (except by giving us a desire for "surrogate goals") and cannot be reformed is interesting. I'm not done with it yet, but idk. He trashes "leftists" repeatedly but then also throws in a paragraph starting with "The conservatives are fools." So, you know, both sides.

also reading some Nietzsche for the first time in my life (I once heard that Nietzsche was a "young man's philosophy" so naturally waited until my late 30s to read him, being an iconoclastic stable genius myself). Started with Human, All Too Human, which felt like a good introduction, and I bookmarked quite a few pages, but there was plenty to dislike. I'm about halfway through Thus Spake Zarathustra now and it's a slog, ngl. I can see why it's hailed as a literary achievement, but again I disagree with most of what he's saying, so yeah. Trying to reserve judgment until I get through some more of his stuff, but idk how much time I want to spend with the guy. Might get through Beyond Good & Evil and call it quits. 

also recently read: Emmanuel Swedenborg's Divine Love & Wisdom, which was equal parts insane and profound; a few books on Platonic metaphysics by Tim Addey, who follows Proclus' teachings - not easy stuff, but I do love neoplatonism; and Crime & Punishment, which is absolutely a fantastic novel. And it's what made me pick up Nietzsche, though Dostoevsky is 1000% better, fairer, and clearer in his (well, Raskolnikov's) philosophy.

 

edit: finished Kaczynski's essay and it was, unsurprisingly, not great. pretty much what you'd expect... cracked luddite revolutionary manifesto. sadly not hard to understand his frustration with modern society, though. 

Edited July 6, 2023 by luke viia

[Milwaukeeeee]

On 7/6/2023 at 4:20 AM, luke viia said:

decided to read Industrial Society & Its Future by Mr. Unicycle himself. It's....okay? Not very well-reasoned, but his whole thing about needing effort-based goals in our lives and how modern society foils that (except by giving us a desire for "surrogate goals") and cannot be reformed is interesting. I'm not done with it yet, but idk. He trashes "leftists" repeatedly but then also throws in a paragraph starting with "The conservatives are fools." So, you know, both sides.

also reading some Nietzsche for the first time in my life (I once heard that Nietzsche was a "young man's philosophy" so naturally waited until my late 30s to read him, being an iconoclastic stable genius myself). Started with Human, All Too Human, which felt like a good introduction, and I bookmarked quite a few pages, but there was plenty to dislike. I'm about halfway through Thus Spake Zarathustra now and it's a slog, ngl. I can see why it's hailed as a literary achievement, but again I disagree with most of what he's saying, so yeah. Trying to reserve judgment until I get through some more of his stuff, but idk how much time I want to spend with the guy. Might get through Beyond Good & Evil and call it quits. 

also recently read: Emmanuel Swedenborg's Divine Love & Wisdom, which was equal parts insane and profound; a few books on Platonic metaphysics by Tim Addey, who follows Proclus' teachings - not easy stuff, but I do love neoplatonism; and Crime & Punishment, which is absolutely a fantastic novel. And it's what made me pick up Nietzsche, though Dostoevsky is 1000% better, fairer, and clearer in his (well, Raskolnikov's) philosophy.

 

edit: finished Kaczynski's essay and it was, unsurprisingly, not great. pretty much what you'd expect... cracked luddite revolutionary manifesto. sadly not hard to understand his frustration with modern society, though. 

I am in the third part ofThus Spoke Zarathustra, and the book is pretty funny to read, the guy was really a good writer... but he (Nietzche) has the image on his head of him being otherwordly intelligent and the most elevated, but the rest of mortals around were all kinds of scums. While you read it, you can sense his hate for almost all humanity, and the sad thing he seems to be right on all those kinds of funny labels he puts on some collectives. He tries to dig deep in the concepts of augmentated personal will, power and freedom which is good inspiration. Part 3 and 4 seems to be dedicated more to mysticism and the eternal recurrence stuff, a concept I do not really support much, because I cant wrap my mind around it, in its literal supposed sense.

More interpretations about it: https://philosophybreak.com/articles/eternal-recurrence-what-did-nietzsche-really-mean/

[IDEM]

On 2/22/2023 at 8:55 AM, prdctvsm said:

 jus started :

RIP Cormy. I'm actually good friends with the German translator, and he gave me a copy, so I' guess I'm gonna read that.

 

On 6/15/2023 at 12:02 AM, DyeMyBlueBlack said:

I’m gonna read Blood Meridian again now that McCarthy passed away. Thoughts from y’all?

 

On 7/1/2023 at 9:46 PM, chim said:

I've just ordered a hardcover version of Blood Meridian. It's the best book I've ever read. RIP Cormac McCarthy 

Blood Meridian is due before that, somehow never read it.

Before that, however, I'll have to finish American Psycho and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the latter of which I've started like four times since high school and never seen it through to the end. It's become something like my white whale, and this time I'm determined to harpoon the shit outta the mofo.

[DyeMyBlueBlack]

On 7/8/2023 at 8:38 AM, IDEM said:

RIP Cormy. I'm actually good friends with the German translator, and he gave me a copy, so I' guess I'm gonna read that.

 

 

Blood Meridian is due before that, somehow never read it.

Before that, however, I'll have to finish American Psycho and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the latter of which I've started like four times since high school and never seen it through to the end. It's become something like my white whale, and this time I'm determined to harpoon the shit outta the mofo.

Read American Psycho and Blood Meridian together - it’s like the same personality in vastly different worlds 

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by DyeMyBlueBlack

[IDEM]

2 hours ago, DyeMyBlueBlack said:

Read American Psycho and Blood Meridian together - it’s like the same personality in vastly different worlds 

 

Yeah, I know that BEE counts it among his most favorite books; definitely an influence.

[DyeMyBlueBlack]

1 hour ago, IDEM said:

Yeah, I know that BEE counts it among his most favorite books; definitely an influence.

What’s BEE

[IDEM]

18 minutes ago, DyeMyBlueBlack said:

What’s BEE

Bret Easton Ellis, lol.

[luke viia]

On 7/7/2023 at 2:48 AM, Milwaukeeeee said:

I am in the third part ofThus Spoke Zarathustra, and the book is pretty funny to read, the guy was really a good writer... but he (Nietzche) has the image on his head of him being otherwordly intelligent and the most elevated, but the rest of mortals around were all kinds of scums. While you read it, you can sense his hate for almost all humanity, and the sad thing he seems to be right on all those kinds of funny labels he puts on some collectives. He tries to dig deep in the concepts of augmentated personal will, power and freedom which is good inspiration. Part 3 and 4 seems to be dedicated more to mysticism and the eternal recurrence stuff, a concept I do not really support much, because I cant wrap my mind around it, in its literal supposed sense.

More interpretations about it: https://philosophybreak.com/articles/eternal-recurrence-what-did-nietzsche-really-mean/

so I ended up really liking TSZ. (much more than Human, All Too Human.) Each of the four parts got better and more engaging - maybe I was just getting used to the style, not sure, but by the end I was pretty well sucked into its dreamy allegorical world. 

Spoiler

Eternal Recurrence is an interesting idea, not sure how I feel about it. It's empowering in a way, finding the will to endlessly repeat things because that is just how things are anyway (I liked the imagery of the gateway and two endless roads that Zarathustra comes upon with the dwarf). I guess my objection is that since we all have such different experiences, some obviously full of far more circumstantial sorrow and pain than others, that trying to use a blanket criteria of being able to say an "eternal yes" to one's life repeating forever seems cruelly unrealistic. I could be misunderstanding it though.

Spoiler

time is a flat circle

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by luke viia

[Milwaukeeeee]

20 hours ago, luke viia said:

so I ended up really liking TSZ. (much more than Human, All Too Human.) Each of the four parts got better and more engaging - maybe I was just getting used to the style, not sure, but by the end I was pretty well sucked into its dreamy allegorical world. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Eternal Recurrence is an interesting idea, not sure how I feel about it. It's empowering in a way, finding the will to endlessly repeat things because that is just how things are anyway (I liked the imagery of the gateway and two endless roads that Zarathustra comes upon with the dwarf). I guess my objection is that since we all have such different experiences, some obviously full of far more circumstantial sorrow and pain than others, that trying to use a blanket criteria of being able to say an "eternal yes" to one's life repeating forever seems cruelly unrealistic. I could be misunderstanding it though.

  Reveal hidden contents

time is a flat circle

 

Haven't seen this movie yet, seems cheesy af, and Arman Assante aka Rico from Judge Dredd acts as Nietzsche (massively random cast one could think for that role), but seems a promising movie to enjoy around in a summer night

 

[IDEM]

1 hour ago, Milwaukeeeee said:

Haven't seen this movie yet, seems cheesy af, and Arman Assante aka Rico from Judge Dredd acts as Nietzsche (massively random cast one could think for that role), but seems a promising movie to enjoy around in a summer night

 

I think you might be better off with Yalom's book, which isn't bad.

[Atop]

[luke viia]

 

great read. especially if there are aging and/or terminally ill people in your life (as there are in mine). 

[chim]

On 7/6/2023 at 4:20 AM, luke viia said:

decided to read Industrial Society & Its Future by Mr. Unicycle himself. It's....okay? Not very well-reasoned, but his whole thing about needing effort-based goals in our lives and how modern society foils that (except by giving us a desire for "surrogate goals") and cannot be reformed is interesting. I'm not done with it yet, but idk. He trashes "leftists" repeatedly but then also throws in a paragraph starting with "The conservatives are fools." So, you know, both sides.

also reading some Nietzsche for the first time in my life (I once heard that Nietzsche was a "young man's philosophy" so naturally waited until my late 30s to read him, being an iconoclastic stable genius myself). Started with Human, All Too Human, which felt like a good introduction, and I bookmarked quite a few pages, but there was plenty to dislike. I'm about halfway through Thus Spake Zarathustra now and it's a slog, ngl. I can see why it's hailed as a literary achievement, but again I disagree with most of what he's saying, so yeah. Trying to reserve judgment until I get through some more of his stuff, but idk how much time I want to spend with the guy. Might get through Beyond Good & Evil and call it quits. 

also recently read: Emmanuel Swedenborg's Divine Love & Wisdom, which was equal parts insane and profound; a few books on Platonic metaphysics by Tim Addey, who follows Proclus' teachings - not easy stuff, but I do love neoplatonism; and Crime & Punishment, which is absolutely a fantastic novel. And it's what made me pick up Nietzsche, though Dostoevsky is 1000% better, fairer, and clearer in his (well, Raskolnikov's) philosophy.

 

edit: finished Kaczynski's essay and it was, unsurprisingly, not great. pretty much what you'd expect... cracked luddite revolutionary manifesto. sadly not hard to understand his frustration with modern society, though. 

His writings aren't all wrong and I believe there was merit to his fears, but none of it is very original and it has been covered by earlier philosophers, ones who didn't overreact with pipe bombs. 

[Limo]

Just finished Salman Rushdie’s latest, Victory City. It’s fun. You should read it.

[luke viia]

just finished, totally loved it.

[Milwaukeeeee]

https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/10/25/lewis-thomas-the-medusa-and-the-snail-self/

[chim]

On 6/15/2023 at 12:02 AM, DyeMyBlueBlack said:

I’m gonna read Blood Meridian again now that McCarthy passed away. Thoughts from y’all?

There are so many reasons why I think it's fantastic. It's not an easy read but incredibly rewarding once you start to look into the fathoms below the apparent violent Western story.

First of all I just adore the writing style. It's mostly naked, straightforward and somewhat Hemingway-style simple, then you get these very elaborate scenery descriptions, and terrific eloquent dialogue. It takes some getting used to, but McCarthy's style and choice of words are what brings the world to life. 

There's a strong historical accuracy with practically the whole journey being mapped beforehand according to the historical counterparts.

As for the meaning itself it's no use talking here for people who haven't read it, but I believe it's a powerful mix of a few universal themes, and a take on those that gives you a choice. It's very dark and gloomy at first glance but I believe it's way more than just the surface stuff. I'm not just talking about the interpretations of the villain who's always the popular point of discussion, but the symbolism of the other aspects of the story as well. 

The writing plays with you as well, certain things in a situation are deliberately not spelled out directly which, if you pay close attention, can make you question the actual role and actions of a character. This is genius writing, and to me it's the main reason why it's unfilmable because I would not want to lose that ambiguity. 

The ending is also the first and only time I felt horror from reading a book page.

Like when Alan Moore tells you that stories outlive people and you realise you're reading a page from a story that will outlive you, read in the right frame of mind Blood Meridian will touch you deeply with it's fountain of difficult themes of humanity and the natural world. 

[DyeMyBlueBlack]

On 7/23/2023 at 7:11 PM, chim said:

There are so many reasons why I think it's fantastic. It's not an easy read but incredibly rewarding once you start to look into the fathoms below the apparent violent Western story.

First of all I just adore the writing style. It's mostly naked, straightforward and somewhat Hemingway-style simple, then you get these very elaborate scenery descriptions, and terrific eloquent dialogue. It takes some getting used to, but McCarthy's style and choice of words are what brings the world to life. 

There's a strong historical accuracy with practically the whole journey being mapped beforehand according to the historical counterparts.

As for the meaning itself it's no use talking here for people who haven't read it, but I believe it's a powerful mix of a few universal themes, and a take on those that gives you a choice. It's very dark and gloomy at first glance but I believe it's way more than just the surface stuff. I'm not just talking about the interpretations of the villain who's always the popular point of discussion, but the symbolism of the other aspects of the story as well. 

The writing plays with you as well, certain things in a situation are deliberately not spelled out directly which, if you pay close attention, can make you question the actual role and actions of a character. This is genius writing, and to me it's the main reason why it's unfilmable because I would not want to lose that ambiguity. 

The ending is also the first and only time I felt horror from reading a book page.

Like when Alan Moore tells you that stories outlive people and you realise you're reading a page from a story that will outlive you, read in the right frame of mind Blood Meridian will touch you deeply with it's fountain of difficult themes of humanity and the natural world. 

Great great analysis.
 

The main things I remember now a decade on from last reading: narrator describes a boy “shitting” in the corner of an enclosed home, and the main character setting his revolver in the fire and shoving it through a bullethole in his leg to cauterize it. 
 

I imagine my memory comes all down to the writing. McCarthy can wax poetic then slam you with a Hemingway hammer. 

[MadameChaos]

Old but gold