Whatcha reading?

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WestwayKid
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by WestwayKid »

...just to finish my Roddy Doyle comment from last week. Finished the book this weekend. Pretty darned good.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Finished listening to Howard Jones' My Lai yesterday. A very difficult book to work thru, not because the writing is dense, but the subject matter is angering, disheartening, and terrifying (and occasionally heroic, as in the case of Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot who tried to stop the killing). Stanley Milgram's and Philip Zimbardo's experiments in authority and cruelty played out in the real world. When I tell students that we're all moral actors and that objectivity is both an impossibility and a fundamentally chickenshit stance, this is the kind of topic that I reference.

From there, additional sobering subject matter. Starting this morning a collection of essays about democratic collapse:
Image

After that, maybe some opiates.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin. A fucking brilliant piece of short prose about religion, the black American experience and loneliness. It's unfair on both to compare them, but here I go anyway: Baldwin is ten times the writer Te Nehisi Coates is.

Shakespeare - Bill Bryson. A quick reread of a book I've done about five times before. Bryson's cute and timid style grated a little this go round. And he refuses to see the evidence that the Earl of Oxford obviously wrote the plays.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Silent Majority wrote:
23 Mar 2018, 8:20am
Shakespeare - Bill Bryson. A quick reread of a book I've done about five times before. Bryson's cute and timid style grated a little this go round. And he refuses to see the evidence that the Earl of Oxford obviously wrote the plays.
Are you being snarky/baiting Wolter, or are you an Oxford conspiracist?
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
23 Mar 2018, 8:38am
Silent Majority wrote:
23 Mar 2018, 8:20am
Shakespeare - Bill Bryson. A quick reread of a book I've done about five times before. Bryson's cute and timid style grated a little this go round. And he refuses to see the evidence that the Earl of Oxford obviously wrote the plays.
Are you being snarky/baiting Wolter, or are you an Oxford conspiracist?
The former. Anti-stratfordianism is up there with creationism and the flat earthers as bullshit with no compelling evidence.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Silent Majority wrote:
23 Mar 2018, 9:13am
Dr. Medulla wrote:
23 Mar 2018, 8:38am
Silent Majority wrote:
23 Mar 2018, 8:20am
Shakespeare - Bill Bryson. A quick reread of a book I've done about five times before. Bryson's cute and timid style grated a little this go round. And he refuses to see the evidence that the Earl of Oxford obviously wrote the plays.
Are you being snarky/baiting Wolter, or are you an Oxford conspiracist?
The former. Anti-stratfordianism is up there with creationism and the flat earthers as bullshit with no compelling evidence.
Ah, but it's the very paucity of evidence that validates the conspiracy!
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
23 Mar 2018, 9:39am
Silent Majority wrote:
23 Mar 2018, 9:13am
Dr. Medulla wrote:
23 Mar 2018, 8:38am
Silent Majority wrote:
23 Mar 2018, 8:20am
Shakespeare - Bill Bryson. A quick reread of a book I've done about five times before. Bryson's cute and timid style grated a little this go round. And he refuses to see the evidence that the Earl of Oxford obviously wrote the plays.
Are you being snarky/baiting Wolter, or are you an Oxford conspiracist?
The former. Anti-stratfordianism is up there with creationism and the flat earthers as bullshit with no compelling evidence.
Ah, but it's the very paucity of evidence that validates the conspiracy!
Fiendishly clever.
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Kory
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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I've started Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. It's extremely ADD so far, which I wasn't expecting, but he has an interestingly poetic prose style, I guess. I don't know if I'll make it through this one.
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Tub book:
Image
Punks in academia discuss applying those values to their scholarship and teaching. Initial sense is that it's rather elitist, cooler/radicaler-than-thou, but I'll keep at it.

edit: Apparently punkademics also means not proofing your work. Unless one set of authors meant renting an apartment from Greg Ginn when they wrote about the "tenants of hardcore." :rolleyes:

Bedtime book:
Image
Only a couple chapters in so far. I definitely appreciate the critique of leftist tactics of the past several decades as ineffective—lots of shows of anger, but the allergy to power and institutional action hasn't accomplished much—but there's a faith in technology as humanity's salvation that strikes me as silly utopianism.

Upcoming audio book (probably another couple days):
Image
I've read this a couple times, but it's likely been twenty years since I last dug in. Really accessible history that places the liberty/slavery contradiction at the heart of the American story.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
01 Apr 2018, 10:48am
edit: Apparently punkademics also means not proofing your work. Unless one set of authors meant renting an apartment from Greg Ginn when they wrote about the "tenants of hardcore." :rolleyes:
What's important is that these plucky academics have something to say, man. The grammar and virtuousity of spelling is truly beside the point.
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Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

21) History of the Russian Revolution - Vol. 1: The Overthrow of Tsarism - Leon Trotsky. Boy, I've spent a very long time reading these dense 300 odd pages. Christ. Trotsky is at the level of a literary genius, his prose is clear and powerful and yet the very high amount of incident and ideas in the conflict filled months between February and June 1917 that fills this first part of his trilogy means that comprehending it was a job of work. He does that slightly annoying thing of writing about himself in the history in the third person, but I do buy his reasoning for doing so. Quite a bit of slagging off the anarchists, yet he's writing in 1932 - he sees where centralising power and forced collectivisation has take the Soviet Union. Dude, check the mud in your eye, there. I admire some of Trotsky, but he's a real bastard and utterly willing to crush real working class movements. His thesis here is that the revolution was a democratic movement in the most true sense of the word and he's sold me on the idea. Going to wrap all three volumes up and then read others on 1917, then suss out the rest of twentieth century Russia.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Silent Majority wrote:
01 Apr 2018, 5:42pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
01 Apr 2018, 10:48am
edit: Apparently punkademics also means not proofing your work. Unless one set of authors meant renting an apartment from Greg Ginn when they wrote about the "tenants of hardcore." :rolleyes:
What's important is that these plucky academics have something to say, man. The grammar and virtuousity of spelling is truly beside the point.
And so far, being a punkademic amounts to … doing your fucking job. Seriously, one contributor talks about challenging students to thinking critically; being passionate in lectures; research on stuff you care about; be available to students who want to talk. Yeah, there are academics who fail on one or more of these points, but how the fuck is this "punk"? I can see that I'll be hate-reading this the rest of the way.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
01 Apr 2018, 5:52pm
Silent Majority wrote:
01 Apr 2018, 5:42pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
01 Apr 2018, 10:48am
edit: Apparently punkademics also means not proofing your work. Unless one set of authors meant renting an apartment from Greg Ginn when they wrote about the "tenants of hardcore." :rolleyes:
What's important is that these plucky academics have something to say, man. The grammar and virtuousity of spelling is truly beside the point.
And so far, being a punkademic amounts to … doing your fucking job. Seriously, one contributor talks about challenging students to thinking critically; being passionate in lectures; research on stuff you care about; be available to students who want to talk. Yeah, there are academics who fail on one or more of these points, but how the fuck is this "punk"? I can see that I'll be hate-reading this the rest of the way.
Cyberpunk and steampunk can also both go to hell, if you ask me.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:
01 Apr 2018, 5:50pm
21) History of the Russian Revolution - Vol. 1: The Overthrow of Tsarism - Leon Trotsky. Boy, I've spent a very long time reading these dense 300 odd pages. Christ. Trotsky is at the level of a literary genius, his prose is clear and powerful and yet the very high amount of incident and ideas in the conflict filled months between February and June 1917 that fills this first part of his trilogy means that comprehending it was a job of work. He does that slightly annoying thing of writing about himself in the history in the third person, but I do buy his reasoning for doing so. Quite a bit of slagging off the anarchists, yet he's writing in 1932 - he sees where centralising power and forced collectivisation has take the Soviet Union. Dude, check the mud in your eye, there. I admire some of Trotsky, but he's a real bastard and utterly willing to crush real working class movements. His thesis here is that the revolution was a democratic movement in the most true sense of the word and he's sold me on the idea. Going to wrap all three volumes up and then read others on 1917, then suss out the rest of twentieth century Russia.
When I was much younger and much more impressionable, I read his The Revolution Betrayed after reading Animal Farm and was captivated by his writing. Plus I was sufficiently ignorant about Trotsky's beliefs that I didn't it read it all the critically.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
01 Apr 2018, 5:56pm
Silent Majority wrote:
01 Apr 2018, 5:50pm
21) History of the Russian Revolution - Vol. 1: The Overthrow of Tsarism - Leon Trotsky. Boy, I've spent a very long time reading these dense 300 odd pages. Christ. Trotsky is at the level of a literary genius, his prose is clear and powerful and yet the very high amount of incident and ideas in the conflict filled months between February and June 1917 that fills this first part of his trilogy means that comprehending it was a job of work. He does that slightly annoying thing of writing about himself in the history in the third person, but I do buy his reasoning for doing so. Quite a bit of slagging off the anarchists, yet he's writing in 1932 - he sees where centralising power and forced collectivisation has take the Soviet Union. Dude, check the mud in your eye, there. I admire some of Trotsky, but he's a real bastard and utterly willing to crush real working class movements. His thesis here is that the revolution was a democratic movement in the most true sense of the word and he's sold me on the idea. Going to wrap all three volumes up and then read others on 1917, then suss out the rest of twentieth century Russia.
When I was much younger and much more impressionable, I read his The Revolution Betrayed after reading Animal Farm and was captivated by his writing. Plus I was sufficiently ignorant about Trotsky's beliefs that I didn't it read it all the critically.
I'm grateful I didn't read him before meeting Gene, Kevin & Jon - I'd be a marxist now if I had. Fuck, maybe a Marxist-Leninist.
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