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Showing posts from December, 2022

2022 in review

I thought Kanye West losing $1.5 billion was bad with his stupid communication and thinking, but then I read that Musk lost $200 Billion. We lost Pele, Barbara Walters, Madeleine Albright, Queen Elizabeth and Meatloaf, James Caan, Ray Liotta, Nichelle Nichols, Olivia Newton-John. Life is impermanent.  Also Grant Wahl died, a soccer journalist, and Jean Franco, a great Latin American literary critic.  My most hits post was:  Character list of Inherent Vice the novel . That was my favorite novel that I read in 2022 (came out 2009). I also like my comparison of the novel versus the movie. My most popular blog post this year, by far, is my Buddhism blog:  Wynn Alan Bruce . I read 24 books to completion and many more were started, skimmed, sampled. 
 

Recent Gravity Rainbow thoughts

"There are also a number of carefully orchestrated analepses: to the day several months earlier when the first V-2 rocket fell on England; to an Easter 1942 air raid by Allied bombers on the German city of Lübeck..." (Steven Weisenburger) analepses: in which a past event is narrated at a point later than its chronological place in a story. "The name "Jamf" apparently derives from an acronym used by Charlie Parker: "Jive-Ass Mother-Fucker"!" Not for p. 48 from Wiki Today I'm thinking Pynchon is a poet and a beat writer, he's riffing so much better than Kerouac. Kerouac is Desmond and Pynchon is Bird. Googled "The White Visitionation": "The White Visitation (the secret unit of psychological warfare) is following Slothrop, studying him, and setting up sexual exploits for Slothrop to determine the pattern of the next rocket strike." ( HardlyWritten ) Steven Weisenburge's companion to GR from William Nichols’s Third Book

Don't rain on my parade

My daughter saw the Simpsons episode where Lisa breaks out in this number. To give her some context I had her watch Barbra Streisand, and she wouldn't see any more.  Lisa Simpson version Barbra Streisand version Lea Michele version from Glee  Santana (Naya Rivera) version from Glee Lillias White

Pirate Prentice

P.12 “…a strange talent for—well, for getting inside the fantasies of others: being able, actually, to take over the burden of managing them…” “…Pirate’s career as a fantasist-surrogate, and go back to when he was carrying, everywhere he went, the mark of Youthful Folly growing in an unmistakable Mongoloid points, right out of the middle of his head.” Johnny Doughboy found a rose in Ireland ( Spotify : Freddy Martin and His Orchestra) (Bing Crosby on YouTube ) There are quite a few versions. Listened to a podcast , and it wasn't about this, but they mention that there aren't really any female characters, and much of the novel has sort of juvenile male attitudes towards women. He probably didn't get the Pulitzer because of his childish male viewpoint. They decided just to not give one that year. They say what is good is the relationship to technology and perhaps it's a cyberpunk novel.  I'm not sure what the issue is with male sexuality. It might not be high literatu

Gravity’s Rainbow Start

12/17/22 I started the book. I will update this record of my reading. I read about half of it in the 90’s. I’m going to try again. This is a collection of references, I'll try writing essay later. It starts: “Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transfor-mation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. -Werner von Braun” I'm going to read Steven C. Weisenburger's companion : "In many ways doing this book was fun. It meant readings in American pop and material culture, the occult, varieties of pseudoscience, real science, vernacular geography, and forty-year-old news periodicals—to mention just a few fields I wandered into." Robert Crayola's Handbook: "“Gravity's Rainbow, however you approach it, is a difficult book. Widely regarded as a classic, new readers may read fifty or a hundred pages with feelings of confusion and disgust, wonder why t

Fleishman is in Trouble

The lead character reminds me of my cousin, the way he talks. My cousin has a twin and they're similar in ways, but to me they are very different. I've always been able to tell them apart and some people can't. Fleishman is in Trouble  has Lizzy Caplan who was Nick Miller's girlfriend (as a role) in New Girl. I like her as an actress and the two roles she's played that I know. I thought she was Zooey Deschanel's twin, and I thought she had a twin, but she has a sister who acts on Bones.  I've never cried as much as I do in this show. After I watched the first one, I had the guts to watch Marriage Story (2019) which I'd avoided watching. I guess I need more catharsis because it really hurts to watch these shows. I love it that he's non-materialistic, even if it's a sort of a pose. I love it that Josh Radnor plays the ball and chain husband after being the star of How I Met Your Mother . At the heart is the friendship of the 3 people over a life s

Benjamin Labatut

When We Cease To Understand The World is history of chemistry, astrophysics, mathematics personalities. I could go into what he says, but just read the book. He's supposed written two novels, and this is non-fiction. That got me thinking about philosophy of science. I read The Logic of Scientific Revolutions . It's hard to overthrow the dominant paradigms, probably every new person on the block wants to overthrow the paradigm. But to really overthrow it, there has to be something of benefit and a fight. One of the reasons I didn't really go to graduate school in philosophy was that there wasn't a paradigm I wanted to defend or overthrow. And nobody thought I was brilliant, encouraged me. My father was a logic scholar, and worked with Nicholas Rescher. I think that's his name. I'm not going to google it now. When I did a year abroad at the University of Warwick I studied with David Miller, who was a discipline of Karl Popper, and his stuff. A good scientist look

Star Wars chronological

I read Shakespeare chronology , based on the Wikipedia best guesses. Not by producing but in the time line of Star Wars, this is the list they give on Disney+ with the insertion of Tales of the Jedi before Clone Wars because Asoka is a baby: Phantom Menace Attack of the Clones (Tales of the Jedi) Clone Wars Revenge of Sith Bad Batch Solo Obi-wan Kenobi Star Wars Rebels Andor Rogue One A New Hope The Empire Strikes Back Return of the Jedi Mandalorian Boba Fett Star Wars Resistance The Force Awakens The Last Jedi The Rise of Skywalker Shorts: Visions. Miscellaneous Vintage videos including Holiday Special 1978. My sons like 1, 2 and 3. I was 10 in 1977 for the first one (IV). I’ve watched many of these many times. Haven’t watched all the animated ones all the way through, in order. So watching 1 & 2 are not that great after many watchings. I do love Natalie Portman as an actress. I hear Abed trying to get people to not watch these movies, he's a character in Community. My son is

Democracy or democrazy?

Admittedly the choice between corrupt democrats and corrupt republicans isn't the political choice I want. I'd rather vote my way towards fairness, elimination of poverty, anti-trust laws that fight the consolidation of corporations (you read about grocery stores lately?), education, infrastructure. What you do get is a vote for democrats that vote to end rail strikes ( source ) because they can't carve out of the profits a sick leave, versus reality denying, Russian bought, obstructionists who might lower taxes, and want smaller government. The Ron Swanson's of the world who hate government and work in government. I've been running into people who believe the corrupt choices aren't worth even making. Reasons not to pay attention.I've thought that a few times in my life, but I don't think that now.  There are real choices about health care for women, and even just an attitude towards democracy. It's hard to fight past the rhetoric, and understand eve

Altered Carbon

I love the amount of naked women in the show. I wonder if a show has more than this one. You hate yourself for loving this exploitation. Perfect. The scifi concepts are good, I think the mind drive is my favorite sci-fi device. I like it in Battlestar Galactica, The 100, and other sci-fi. It's perfect questions about what makes a person, when we're so intimately connected to our bodies.  The social analysis is good, rich versus poor, veneration of the rich, etc.  The visuals are amazing beyond the naked woman all over the place.  Poe brings in a literature element, but I haven't read enough Poe, he's not my favorite genera.  Cops and mystery. Jedi and samurai. Romance and action. Genetics, family and legacy. It's all there, the big themes. Cynical narrator, mercenary with a heart.  Great exploration of fanaticism, of culture keeping the Spanish.  Martha Higareda, Kristin Lehman and Dichen Lachman are amazing. My biggest complaint is "block the chain" doesn