tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post2750135265467653158..comments2024-03-28T20:04:20.286-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Government Of, By, and For the UngovernableGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-29209143674534200522012-02-09T03:54:51.032-08:002012-02-09T03:54:51.032-08:00Vive les Frenchies:
Bien, the authors I spend most...Vive les Frenchies:<br />Bien, the authors I spend most time rerererereading seem to be Raymond <br /><a href="http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/018_02/7807" rel="nofollow">Roussel</a> [novels/poetry] <br />and RA <a href="http://www.robertschoch.net/The%20Temple%20of%20Man.htm" rel="nofollow">Schwaller de Lubicz</a> [esoterism]<br />I mentioned this book once before here but in case any missed it, no text reminds me more [in several ways] of MOtT than <br /><a href="http://www.cista.net/Houses/" rel="nofollow">The Dwellings of the Philosophers</a> <br />which has the distinction of being occultly-authored likely by Schwaller! For that theory see<br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Al-Kemi-Hermetic-Political-Private-Schwaller/dp/0940262312" rel="nofollow">AL-KEMI</a>gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015936407999495181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-59488207130168052772012-02-08T17:05:03.228-08:002012-02-08T17:05:03.228-08:00Not many modern authors listed here.
I would rec...Not many modern authors listed here. <br /><br />I would recommend:<br /><br />Robert Musil<br />Kobo Abe<br />Haruki Murakami<br />Herta Muller<br />Nicola Barker<br />Nabokov<br />Solzhenitsyn<br /><br />And for our usual strain, I would recommend J. Budziszewski, particularly his book The Line Through the HeartKv0nThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06944383062900738261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-40269851095462068302012-02-08T14:17:35.993-08:002012-02-08T14:17:35.993-08:00here's the link to Wallace's
picks
---b...here's the link to Wallace's <br /><a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/02/02/david_foster_wallace_s_favorite_books_the_sum_of_all_fears_the_stand_and_red_dragon_.html" rel="nofollow">picks</a> <br /><br />---btw Wallace didnt list his fellow Pisces Kerouac; that was H Miller's POVgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015936407999495181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-91820671663001308692012-02-08T11:56:38.936-08:002012-02-08T11:56:38.936-08:00GE said "Socrates' Funeral Oration"
...GE said "Socrates' Funeral Oration"<br /><br />Typo? Pericles' Funeral Oration maybe? If that's not a typo, could you send me a ref?<br /><br />I've got to admit that I do often find myself reading Descartes’ Meditations and Discourse on Method, Kant’s Prolegomena & Critique of Pure Reason, Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and to a much lesser extent William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience, but only because I like to know my enemies... I can't <i>imagine</i> reading them for pleasure. <br /><br />I can see why Kerouc would be on that reader's list though.<br /><br />Oscar Wilde, yep. I'm going to have to get around to Cormac McCarthy, I do hear a lot of good things about him.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-82709591861486884082012-02-08T11:20:10.688-08:002012-02-08T11:20:10.688-08:00happened on these opinions of DFWallace not long a...happened on these opinions of DFWallace not long ago:<br /><br /><i>OK. Historically the stuff that’s sort of rung my cherries: Socrates’ funeral oration, the poetry of John Donne, the poetry of Richard Crashaw, every once in a while Shakespeare, although not all that often, Keats’ shorter stuff, Schopenhauer, Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy and Discourse on Method, Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic, although the translations are all terrible, William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Hemingway—particularly the ital stuff in In Our Time, where you just go oomph!, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, A.S. Byatt, Cynthia Ozick—the stories, especially one called “Levitations,” about 25 percent of the time Pynchon. Donald Barthelme, especially a story called “The Balloon,” which is the first story I ever read that made me want to be a writer, Tobias Wolff, Raymond Carver’s best stuff — the really famous stuff. Steinbeck when he’s not beating his drum, 35 percent of Stephen Crane, Moby-Dick, The Great Gatsby.<br /></i>gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015936407999495181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-6062019224991461212012-02-08T10:01:14.943-08:002012-02-08T10:01:14.943-08:00I burned out on novels and poetry a while ago and ...I burned out on novels and poetry a while ago and only seem to return to writers like Dante and Shakespeare. Not for snobbery, mind you, but for efficiency. I don't have Russian or German, so that leaves out some heavies like Goethe and Tolstoy. Dostoyevsky demands a lot of time. I find Joyce too heavy work for the pay. Maybe when I have more free time. <br /><br />Short forms can be good, but their demand for skill is in some ways greater, which sets up a lot of writers for failure. Those who don't fail are James, Hemingway, O'Connor, Mansfield, Wilde, Waugh, Spark. I like a lot of what I read from southern writers in the US. One of the latter who is full of irascible flash is Barry Hannah.<br /><br />I find myself responding more negatively than positively to my contemporaries, and I think it's because they presume my intimacy. I like third-person narration because it puts yourself out there in a way first-person narratives don't. The latter are always hiding their commitments behind the aw-shucks pose. Be a man and offer omniscience, I want to say. We readers get to decide whether you achieve it. Pony it up.<br /><br />For poets, can't go wrong with the old classics written for people who read, but as time staggered on, poets sure had a harder time. I like Eliot, Rexroth, Wallace Stevens, and a smattering of others. It's hard to say -- the older I get, the more I keep saying "yeah, tell me about it." So there's less incentive to valorize the poets, as I did in my youth. I keep trying to dip back in to contemporaries, but so few of them are artful, and those that are artful, lack ambition. So I settle for smiling with recognition at well-rendered moments. I'm not waiting for something 'great,' leaving that to posterity. But I do want to read things that will pull me out of dullness and bad perceptual habits.<br /><br />And sometimes I just want to kick back and be entertained. Usually by P.G. Wodehouse, who understands.Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00987042455512485699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-49786928799243891622012-02-08T09:58:37.183-08:002012-02-08T09:58:37.183-08:00I owe Robin a lot for comparing McCarthy to anothe...I owe Robin a lot for comparing McCarthy to another writer I like a lot from around Roedie'lund and thus getting me out of my rut. Of the people writing principally in the last half of the last century, McCarthy is a rare, unique and powerful voice.mushroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07651027035577798096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-84913508116132970552012-02-08T05:55:21.249-08:002012-02-08T05:55:21.249-08:00Well the [local boy!-- santa fe] McCarthy to be su...Well the [local boy!-- santa fe] McCarthy to be sure & read is BLOOD MERIDIAN [1 masterpiece per life oughta be bastante] He must be forgiven that postmod ""-less dialog habit!<br />Try and catch Henry Miller's appreciation of Kerouac =part of the fwd to the reissue of THE DHARMA BUMS<br /><i>“intoxicated from the moment I began reading. No man can write with that delicious freedom and abandonment who has not practiced severe discipline … Kerouac could and probably will exert tremendous influence upon our contemporary writers young and old … we’ve had all kinds of bums heretofore but never a Dharma bum, like this Kerouac...I say it’s good, very good, surpassingly good... He’s a poet. His prose is poetry. Or, shall I say, the kind of poetry I can recognize” </i>gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015936407999495181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-12773455227069387162012-02-07T21:52:12.718-08:002012-02-07T21:52:12.718-08:00Hmmm... favorite reads. I'm not a big fan of m...Hmmm... favorite reads. I'm not a big fan of modern authors, in standard fiction anyway. I take the heretical raccoon position of not liking Joyce, though Gagdad has gotten me to the point of conceding that mayyybe he isn't as utterly foul as I once thought and admitting that it's possible that a person can find value in him. Not a fan of Hemingway either, though I have come around to liking F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I like P.G. Wodehouse, Checkov, Edmond Rostand, Robert Frost, Ayn Rand.<br /><br />The modern fiction I do enjoy would be Sci-Fi/Fantasy... C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, Orson Scott Card, Stephen King, Terry Brooks, Isaac Asimov, Robert Jordon, Patricia A. McKillip.<br /><br />Modern non-fiction, Thomas Sowell, Victor Davis Hanson, Joseph Peiper, Theodore Dalrymple, Richard Weaver, Richard Mitchell, Caroline Alexander - she's got an excellent perspective on the Iliad with "The War That Killed Achilles").<br /><br />My favorites are the old guys though,<br /><br />Homer, <br />Aeschylus,<br />Sophocles,<br />Thucydides,<br />Plato,<br />Aristotle,<br />Cicero,<br />Sir Thomas Malory,<br />William Shakespeare,<br />Dr. Samuel Johnson,<br />Edmund Burke,<br />Walter Scott,<br />Jane Austen<br /><br />... Emerson,<br />Matthew Arnold,<br />Frederic Bastiat, <br />Edgar Alan Poe<br /><br />... and Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch, Dante, Montaigne, de Tocqueville, The Federalist Papers Authors, Locke & Blackstone.. Alexander Dumas, Alexander Pope.<br /><br />Geez... WIll Durant, Joseph Addison, Randall Wallace (screenwriter 'Braveheart')... <br /><br />Peeking at others, Mushroom's, yep on Joseph Conrad, Chesterton and Dostoyevsky,Robert Louis Stevenson, W.B. Yeats, Dostoyevsky... no can do on Kerouac... I've wanted to read The Road's The Road but haven't gotten around to it yet.<br /><br />ok, that's two extended blinks and a head nod, to bed.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-15628321628830965582012-02-07T20:44:14.788-08:002012-02-07T20:44:14.788-08:00Mushroom, I think you would really like Thomas Man...Mushroom, I think you would really like Thomas Mann, and probably Robert Musil.Kv0nThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06944383062900738261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-48840090073735500182012-02-07T19:24:27.527-08:002012-02-07T19:24:27.527-08:00Hell, y'all are making me feel quite illiterat...Hell, y'all are making me feel quite illiterate. Well, maybe because I am. I'll be happy to finish MOTT by the vernal equinox. I don't know how you do it.<br /><br />I enjoy watching Bob read like some out-of-shape sports fan enjoys watching an athlete.John Lienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02302615225311776021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-67918376941244471002012-02-07T18:20:03.522-08:002012-02-07T18:20:03.522-08:00Great list, Mush. I can only add:
The War of the W...Great list, Mush. I can only add:<br />The War of the Worlds<br />Animal Farm<br />Gulliver's Travels (book 4)<br />Robinson Crusoe<br />Some Jack London and Farley MowatRickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13720790978632771716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-42564952889986217402012-02-07T16:23:44.438-08:002012-02-07T16:23:44.438-08:00What lit? Well, Joyce is popular -- both Ulysses ...What lit? Well, Joyce is popular -- both <i>Ulysses</i> and <i>Finnegan's Wake</i>. Rick is a Hemingway man, at least in part. ge is has convinced me that Kerouac is OK. <br /><br />I like mostly everything by George MacDonald, possibly especially <i>Lilith</i> and all of the work of the Other Inkling, Charles Williams. All of Lewis, especially <i>Till We Have Faces</i> and Tolkien, of course. I like Chesterton and Belloc. Dostoyevsky -- <i>Crime and Punishment</i> more than <i>The Brothers Karamazov</i>. Henry James in very measured doses -- the same for Austen -- actually the same for a whole bunch of famous writers. Just tell me the story and don't beat me to death with it -- one of best points of Hemingway and Samuel Beckett. <br /><br />Robin convinced me to read Cormac McCarthy and I really liked <i>The Road</i>. I'm still working on <i>Blood Meridian</i>. <br /> <br />A lot of science fiction, H. Beam Piper, Pournelle/Niven and <i>Lucifer's Hammer</i> and <i>The Mote in God's Eye</i>, Fritz Leiber, Simak's <i>City</i>, Heinlein's <i>The Moon is a Harsh Mistress</i>. Let's see, Bobbie Burns, Gerard Manley Hopkins, W.B. Yeats. E.R. Burroughs (John Carter Lives!) -- William Burroughs not so much, Lovecraft, Howard, Robert Louis Stevenson, H. Rider Haggard, John Buchan, Joseph Conrad. I like <i>Anna Karenina</i> a lot. David Gemmel's <i>Legend</i>. And I have tons of other stuff on my reader, but that's what comes to mind.mushroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07651027035577798096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-6738269380207353132012-02-07T15:40:27.216-08:002012-02-07T15:40:27.216-08:00Kv0nT - I don't know that I'd call much of...Kv0nT - I don't know that I'd call much of what I read for entertainment "literature," but lately I tend to gravitate either toward sci-fi or whatever my H is reading that seems decent. Not awful, but mostly what I'd consider "mental popcorn" compared to the OC-inspired books I've read. Lately that's been Niven and one by Greg Bear. Although the more deep reading I do, the less I tend to tolerate the mental popcorn. Like splashing in a wading pool after having explored real depths, though of course there's a time and a place for both.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-65712985076586764732012-02-07T14:47:47.673-08:002012-02-07T14:47:47.673-08:00Well since there is no post today I'll ask a q...Well since there is no post today I'll ask a question for those Cooniacs who poke their noses in on the off chance that Bobcoon wakes up.<br /><br />We are always talking about philosophy, commentary, biographies, blogs, and comparative religion, but what literature do you read?Kv0nThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06944383062900738261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-80467882095683668002012-02-06T11:08:03.107-08:002012-02-06T11:08:03.107-08:00Apropos the prudishness of conservatives...Apropos the <a href="http://news.investors.com/Article/600162/201202060818/republicans-enjoy-a-better-sex-life-than-liberals.htm?ven=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20AndrewMalcolm%20%28Andrew%20Malcolm%20-%20Investor%27s%20Business%20Daily%29&utm_content=FaceBook" rel="nofollow">prudishness of conservatives</a>...juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-21151775344603506792012-02-05T20:00:38.494-08:002012-02-05T20:00:38.494-08:00http://news.yahoo.com/police-11-arrested-occupy-dc...http://news.yahoo.com/police-11-arrested-occupy-dc-162011876.html<br /><br />I think Alfred in the Dark Knight put it best. Some men just want to watch the world burn.Kv0nThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06944383062900738261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-16138025438267743182012-02-05T12:17:26.615-08:002012-02-05T12:17:26.615-08:00Obsessed with sex in art? Thank God for projectio...Obsessed with sex in art? Thank God for projection, since it permits us to monitor at all times what's going on in the liberal mind.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-83035348717205788412012-02-05T11:25:00.323-08:002012-02-05T11:25:00.323-08:00Julie said "Well, all that proves is that he&...Julie said "Well, all that proves is that he's never met a conservative."<br /><br /><br />Or anyone else who eats at Applebee's I guess!<br /><br />Hey, anyone know anything about Louis Menand? A friend just recommended a book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Metaphysical-Club-Story-Ideas-America/dp/0374528497" rel="nofollow">“The Metaphysical Club”</a>, about the formation of Pragmatism. The blurb on Amazon includes,<br /><br /><i>” Holmes, James, and Peirce all believed that ideas are not things "out there" waiting to be discovered but are tools people invent -- like knives and forks and microchips -- to make their way in the world. They thought that ideas are produced not by individuals, but by groups of individuals -- that ideas are social. They do not develop according to some inner logic of their own but are entirely depent -- like germs -- on their human carriers and environment. And they thought that the survival of any idea deps not on its immutability but on its adaptability.”</i><br /><br />Mind Parasites anyone?<br /><br />Despite the blurb, and while it may be good history, from my quick scan, it looks like he’s more of a fan than a critic. I know the history well enough already, and don’t need anymore fanfic about it.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-29243378423169206452012-02-05T11:23:18.267-08:002012-02-05T11:23:18.267-08:00Here's a bit of a parallel observation to Murr...Here's a bit of a <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2012/02/its-takers-versus-makers-and-these-days-takers-are-winning/2170511" rel="nofollow">parallel observation</a> to Murray's view: “In contemporary America, we now have two parallel cultures: An anachronistic culture of independence and responsibility, and the emerging moocher culture."<br /><br />The problem, again, is that the culture of independence and responsibility - or of "Belmont," in Murray's terms - is seen as anachronistic.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-77705241513158796492012-02-05T11:08:00.773-08:002012-02-05T11:08:00.773-08:00Good grief - really? He really thinks all conserva...Good grief - really? He really thinks all conservatives would see is David's Wee Willie Winkie, and be incapable of appreciating any of the rest? Well, all that proves is that he's never met a conservative.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-14849349139684280482012-02-05T10:10:21.502-08:002012-02-05T10:10:21.502-08:00Kv0nT said "I know that you can only think in...Kv0nT said "I know that you can only think in superficial terms, but at least try to dig a little deeper on topics that are obviously more complex than an isolated market number here or a Bureau of Labor Statistics report there."<br /><br />Lol, better luck finding a new species of spot changing leopards.<br /><br />Being superficial, eagerly jumping at the first smart assessment possible and going no deeper (lest you risk seeing how stupid it might be), is how leftists identify and find themselves. To break with that would be to risk being shunned by the herd, and that is unheard of... within the remaining herd anyway. Those who do, like <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/converting-mamet_561048.html" rel="nofollow">David Mamet</a>, are quickly shunned and forgotten and the herd goes on undisturbed.<br /><br />I haven't had the chance, or stomach, yet to watch the moyers interview on this page a leftie friend enthused about containing such interesting and in-depth discussions, but scroll down to the next video with precious psychology professor Jonathan Haidt, and watch as he proclaims his <a href="http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/moyers-and-company-jonathan-haidt-how-do-conservatives-and-liberals-see-the-world/" rel="nofollow">Superficiality</a> right off the bat in describing how two Americans, left and right, react to seeing Michelangelo’s David for the first time. <br /><br />He says that one will be struck with awe at the beauty of the statue, and the other will be embarrassed at his lack of a fig leaf, and then asks the TED crowd "Which is more likely to vote for Al Gore, and which for George Bush?" ipso facto: lefties "score higher on a major personality trait, openness to experience.", they're open to new ideas, and conservatives reject them, "once you understand this major personality trait, you can understand why anybody would eat at Applebee’s, but not anyone you know."<br /><br />He then spends the next 15 min, in true leftie tradition, going wide, rather than risking depth, to get more data to support how right his superficiality is and how tolerant he is, and should be, of the doltish conservatives, who after all, are a necessary evil. <br /><br />The gem comes, when after making every insulting snark he can throughout the talk at conservatives, he then praises the virtue of aspiring to and practicing Dali Lama like humility in all you do.<br /><br />Priceless.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-56878061591034177252012-02-05T07:46:44.149-08:002012-02-05T07:46:44.149-08:00Good interview; I find it interesting that Murray ...Good interview; I find it interesting that Murray is a Libertarian.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-32440126292404737912012-02-05T07:05:34.089-08:002012-02-05T07:05:34.089-08:00Kv0nT:
I think the problem you describe applies t...Kv0nT:<br /><br />I think the problem you describe applies to the educated in general, since the educated are by definition the people who are most subject to indoctrination. You might say that their intelligence allows them to be indoctrinated much more rapidly and deeply than the unintelligent. Throw in their inappropriately high self esteem for being so much smarter than everyone else, and you have a herd of elite conformists who mirror one another and banish new information via mass auto-fellation.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-80700298145216781912012-02-05T06:46:08.273-08:002012-02-05T06:46:08.273-08:00Charles Murray submits to questions about the book...Charles Murray <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2012/02/04/charles-murray-answers-questions-on-americas-growing-class-divide/?KEYWORDS=Demetria+Gallegos" rel="nofollow">submits to questions</a> about the book.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.com