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And i'm still coming down from my rehab reading, Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day." This book stunned me. Partly an expose of pirate capitalism and current power politics, it's actually a fantastical roller coaster ride across the continents in the period leading to WWI. With a measure of the supernatural thrown in as the major powers search for Shambala in the Mongolian desert with undersand ships while the Balkan tinderbox catches.
There's lots of anarchy and bombs in the war against the mine owners in Colorado and Mexico, and even a gumshoe kidnapped by a "Crowley" sect with deep ties to British intelligence (such as it is.)
There are airships circumnavigating the globe, and strange lights which disrupt civilization and time, not to mention the Tesla coils.
Plus there's lots of cowboy sex with exotic heiresses, mostly set between the Riviera and the Balkans. Ohhh, and talking dogs and mad scientists and the battle between the Vectorists and the Quaternions at the University of Göttingen, which also had sex amongst mathematicians.
Pynchon's latest is rather a 1200 page frenzy than a book, and for DoDo, when they're not blowing up trains, they're riding them.
Meanwhile, back at Casa Crazy, i'm about to shave so i don't look so haggard at the whisky tasting, where i will hope to receive the good news that Anya's bestest survived her first parachute jump. (Of course i should be working, which i've barely done for two months. and no, there is no amount of money which will get me to Hell-Hole Houston in June for the American Wind Energy Conference, even if Lyle Lovett is playing opening night.) Skennah Kowa
I've also finished "On the Road" by Kerouac, as was recommended by the friendly people here, and before I start raving all the way, I'll just say that it was probably the best book I've read for a long while. Talk about earth shattering experiences. Wow zoink boom whee.
Hints and recommendations anyone? The core of evil is a lack of empathy
Write about what? There are a few overdue projects I've committed myself to, and I'm trying to hash out a diary now. The core of evil is a lack of empathy
I also loved On the Road - long time since I read it though! Ad astra per aspera
The poetry of Gregory Corso you'd also find interesting..
But I should get married I should be good How nice it'd be to come home to her and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen aproned young and lovely wanting my baby and so happy about me she burns the roast beef and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf! God what a husband I'd make! Yes, I should get married! So much to do! like sneaking into Mr Jones' house late at night and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky! And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him When are you going to stop people killing whales! And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust You can't be me, I'm taken
SHAH FALLS! IRAN! Skennah Kowa
The second bar was the writers' bar, a museum really, called Specs. It was the derelict bar, frequented by the Corso's and would-be-Corso's of the world. I was also permitted to go there.
Next to City Lights was another bar, Vesuvios, which took the spillover. It was this nexus which gave San Francisco its reputation. Strangely, to this day, it is still (in my mind, wherever i put it) the Bohemian capital of the world (or at least in my world.)
Despite all the famous bars with all their famous experiences, it was Ferlinghetti's City Lights which gave birth to the next generation of amurkan counter culture. I'm still permitted there, and my visits lately, twice in the past few months, show that the City Lights spirit ain't dead yet.
Sven, tell us how this intersection of Beatnik and Dylan and Hippie, overseen by Ginsburg, affected you. Skennah Kowa
I was given 'The Holy Barbarians' by a sculptor then dating my older sister and later, husband. I really don't know why this all clicked for a middle class virgin - but it seemed like a whole other explanation for existence that nobody had told me about. It is probaby connected to my father who was totally bowled over by India where he was stationed during the war. He gave me a copy of the Upanishads when I was 9, which, now I come to think about it, was a weird gift to a son at a tender age. He also gave me a copy of 'Ripley's Believe it or Not' at the same time, which had quite a lot of strange things that people had avoided telling me about before (so I reasoned).
Of course, all this was just a typical imprinting intersection with hormonal changes. Nothing we can do about that. The just born duck sees a football rolling by at the critical imprinting moment and then dedicates its life to leather sphericalness. My football is a patchwork of stitched up panels of heretics who can write unusually.
But it is indeed a privilege to meet someone who actually visited such hallowed haunts with the same nonchalance that I occupied Swinging London, thinking that eating sausages with Lennon was what people did. My naivity was then a blessing. You can't be me, I'm taken
Hugh Kennedy - The Great Arab Conquests. (Pretty good.)
Sarah Dunant - In the Company of a Courtesan, and The Birth of Venus, which are research of a sort.
Sadie's biography of Mozart.
Alex Scarrow's Last Light - a trashy Peak Oil potboiler.
Craig Cheetham - The World's Worst Cars. About the worst cars. In the world. Ever. (Worth a tenner.)
Also in the past few months: John Crowley (Little, Big and the Aegypt cycle) - quite good. What else would I recommend, hmmh, Stefan Chwin's Tod in Danzig (Hanemann)is very good (avoid his other stuff). On the same sort of theme, if you've never read Christa Wolf's Kindheitsmuster I'd strongly recommend it. Also Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay is very good, and I'm told his most recent book, The Yiddish Policeman's Union is something I should read.
I could go on for quite some time, but I'll stop here.
Books exceed bookshelf. Have epistemological model of Complex Information environments. Will Travel.
That way you can't see the books you haven't read, freeing you up to buy more...
I was simultaneously horrified and fascinated by that concept. I've never been able to get it out of my mind.
you are the media you consume.
I've steamed through a biggish chunk of Capra's Web of Life
