Whatcha reading?

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Kory
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Kory »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 2:08pm
Kory wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 2:02pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 1:41pm
Kory wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 1:20pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 11:54am


Oh, definitely. I should have added that I wasn't necessarily dumping on the author for that. It certainly smells of dumb marketing, like the reader is getting a glimpse of the taboo, the history they don't want you to know about. Possibly the only thing worse is a description that a work is definitive. Well, I guess we don't have to debate the subject anymore then as it's all been settled by Prof. Oswald Q. Smartypants' definitive study.
I like how Bill Watterson called his C&H 2-book collections things like The Indispensable, The Authoritative, The Essential...he thought they were funny titles because those books were none of those things.
Even tho his stuff, far more so than most, justifies descriptors like indispensible and essential. So there's kinda sorta an extra layer of humour there.

(Man, Calvin sure has a weak bladder when it comes to car company logos …)
I ONLY LIKE IT WHEN HE PEES ON FORD. I FEEL VERY STRONGLY ABOUT THIS.
There were probably a good couple dozen guys from high school who would also have strong feelings, too, tho they might want him peeing on Chevy or Hyundai or whatever. Guys who have emotional attachments to their vehicles unnerve me. Seriously.
Cars are tools and nothing more. My dad always wants to wash mine for me and I just say "why?" I use it to get from A to B. It doesn't mean anything else.
"Suck our Earth dick, Martians!" —Doc

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 2:08pm
Kory wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 2:02pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 1:41pm
Kory wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 1:20pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 11:54am


Oh, definitely. I should have added that I wasn't necessarily dumping on the author for that. It certainly smells of dumb marketing, like the reader is getting a glimpse of the taboo, the history they don't want you to know about. Possibly the only thing worse is a description that a work is definitive. Well, I guess we don't have to debate the subject anymore then as it's all been settled by Prof. Oswald Q. Smartypants' definitive study.
I like how Bill Watterson called his C&H 2-book collections things like The Indispensable, The Authoritative, The Essential...he thought they were funny titles because those books were none of those things.
Even tho his stuff, far more so than most, justifies descriptors like indispensible and essential. So there's kinda sorta an extra layer of humour there.

(Man, Calvin sure has a weak bladder when it comes to car company logos …)
I ONLY LIKE IT WHEN HE PEES ON FORD. I FEEL VERY STRONGLY ABOUT THIS.
There were probably a good couple dozen guys from high school who would also have strong feelings, too, tho they might want him peeing on Chevy or Hyundai or whatever. Guys who have emotional attachments to their vehicles unnerve me. Seriously.
My father in law's like that. He'll talk about football and cars long past my faning any kind of interest.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

I had a prof as an undergrad who once stated that he got weirded out by people who have bumper stickers that say “I Love My [car model].” What kind of person develops an emotional attachment to a car? And what does that say about their feelings toward living beings? He had a point, I think.
"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

JennyB
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by JennyB »

Kory wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 2:21pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 2:08pm
Kory wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 2:02pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 1:41pm
Kory wrote:
17 Nov 2017, 1:20pm


I like how Bill Watterson called his C&H 2-book collections things like The Indispensable, The Authoritative, The Essential...he thought they were funny titles because those books were none of those things.
Even tho his stuff, far more so than most, justifies descriptors like indispensible and essential. So there's kinda sorta an extra layer of humour there.

(Man, Calvin sure has a weak bladder when it comes to car company logos …)
I ONLY LIKE IT WHEN HE PEES ON FORD. I FEEL VERY STRONGLY ABOUT THIS.
There were probably a good couple dozen guys from high school who would also have strong feelings, too, tho they might want him peeing on Chevy or Hyundai or whatever. Guys who have emotional attachments to their vehicles unnerve me. Seriously.
Cars are tools and nothing more. My dad always wants to wash mine for me and I just say "why?" I use it to get from A to B. It doesn't mean anything else.
Yep. VH is always trying to get me to clean my car out or wash it. What part of "I don't give a shit" does he not understand? It's an eight year old Prius. It's not even really a car.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Bedtime reading:
Image
Started this last night, reading just the intro, about the appeal of growing a beard after you have nothing left to prove as a man (i.e., having secured a spouse and reproduced). I was amused as I seem to have stumbled into another one of my periodic bouts of shaving laziness that might become something more. Which is to say, I end up looking like a hobo.

Tub reading:
Image
So apparently I bought this within the last year or so, but have no recollection of doing so. I was just looking for something to read and found it on my bookshelf. That's one mystery. The other is why I bought this. It's a collection of entries that are obviously about punk and many that are not obvious. It's postmodern pastiche, an argument (apparently) about punk's cynical(?) nature without wanting to be all upfront and state what it is. It's not nearly as clever, wry, or persuasive as the author thinks. Still, a few entries led me to hunt down some things that are useful to me in my current research.

Biking audiobook:
Image
Starting this tomorrow morning, as I finished that Matheson collection (note: they're mostly forgotten novels for a reason; I endured two, skipped one). Andersen, if the name is unfamiliar, was one of the founders of Spy magazine back in the 80s, so I'm hoping for some wit. The argument, I gather, is that Americans for their entire history have been a self-delusional people and that Trump is the logical culmination of it all. Fine, yeah, whatever, I'll go with that as long as it's in service of some frustrated venting and not a legit historical argument. My hope is more amusement than actual intellectual stimulation.
"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 »

31) Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury. Audiobook. Read this for the first time and had a good time with it. It was even bleaker than I thought it would be. I watched Truffaut's film adaptation and that was a strangely unmoving film. Static and emotionless.
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Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

32) Animal Farm - George Orwell. Pretty obviously pro-communism.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:00pm
32) Animal Farm - George Orwell. Pretty obviously pro-communism.
Horses are useful idiots.
"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:
27 Nov 2017, 1:01pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:00pm
32) Animal Farm - George Orwell. Pretty obviously pro-communism.
Horses are useful idiots.
Marx was right, Lenin's good, Stalin's bad, and the tragedy comes when the pigs become indistinguishable from the humans (the capitalists).
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


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Flex
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Flex »

Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:04pm
Marx was right, Lenin's good, Stalin's bad, and the tragedy comes when the pigs become indistinguishable from the humans (the capitalists).
Yeah, I've never figured out how Animal Farm got considered an anti-communist book. Anti-Stalinist, sure, but it's pretty obviously anti-capitalist and matter of factly accepts that some iteration of communism could work (the early post-revolution). It's very anti-vanguardism, obviously.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:04pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:01pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:00pm
32) Animal Farm - George Orwell. Pretty obviously pro-communism.
Horses are useful idiots.
Marx was right, Lenin's good, Stalin's bad, and the tragedy comes when the pigs become indistinguishable from the humans (the capitalists).
I don't know that you can confidently conclude that Orwell thought Marx was right or communism is correct. It's certainly populist, that elites will always betray the people, but communism seems just as likely in his telling to collapse into hierarchy. It's despairingly populist, I'd say (which comes across even stronger in 1984).
"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:
27 Nov 2017, 1:10pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:04pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:01pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:00pm
32) Animal Farm - George Orwell. Pretty obviously pro-communism.
Horses are useful idiots.
Marx was right, Lenin's good, Stalin's bad, and the tragedy comes when the pigs become indistinguishable from the humans (the capitalists).
I don't know that you can confidently conclude that Orwell thought Marx was right or communism is correct. It's certainly populist, that elites will always betray the people, but communism seems just as likely in his telling to collapse into hierarchy. It's despairingly populist, I'd say (which comes across even stronger in 1984).
I think Orwell lays in hope and possibilities around the farm revolution and is fairly onside with Snowball.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 2:13pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:10pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:04pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:01pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:00pm
32) Animal Farm - George Orwell. Pretty obviously pro-communism.
Horses are useful idiots.
Marx was right, Lenin's good, Stalin's bad, and the tragedy comes when the pigs become indistinguishable from the humans (the capitalists).
I don't know that you can confidently conclude that Orwell thought Marx was right or communism is correct. It's certainly populist, that elites will always betray the people, but communism seems just as likely in his telling to collapse into hierarchy. It's despairingly populist, I'd say (which comes across even stronger in 1984).
I think Orwell lays in hope and possibilities around the farm revolution and is fairly onside with Snowball.
There are good "people," definitely. The common animals are noble if naive, which makes their fate all the more unjust. Snowball has the advantage of being exiled by the sinister Napoleon, automatically elevated by the latter's villainy, but there is no certainty that if he had triumphed over Napoleon that things would have been better, that he wouldn't be as bad. Orwell just doesn't play that game of individuals (again, see how things play out in 1984). The initial rush overthrowing the old system, when everything is up in the air—anarchic, one might say—are the good times, but then old patterns re-settle, the state reasserts its domination. Communism proves to be as awful as capitalism for it is, in fact, an authoritarian state capitalism. If there's an ideological advocacy to be gleaned, I think it's in the direction of anarchism, not communism.
"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:
27 Nov 2017, 2:28pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 2:13pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:10pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:04pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:01pm


Horses are useful idiots.
Marx was right, Lenin's good, Stalin's bad, and the tragedy comes when the pigs become indistinguishable from the humans (the capitalists).
I don't know that you can confidently conclude that Orwell thought Marx was right or communism is correct. It's certainly populist, that elites will always betray the people, but communism seems just as likely in his telling to collapse into hierarchy. It's despairingly populist, I'd say (which comes across even stronger in 1984).
I think Orwell lays in hope and possibilities around the farm revolution and is fairly onside with Snowball.
There are good "people," definitely. The common animals are noble if naive, which makes their fate all the more unjust. Snowball has the advantage of being exiled by the sinister Napoleon, automatically elevated by the latter's villainy, but there is no certainty that if he had triumphed over Napoleon that things would have been better, that he wouldn't be as bad. Orwell just doesn't play that game of individuals (again, see how things play out in 1984). The initial rush overthrowing the old system, when everything is up in the air—anarchic, one might say—are the good times, but then old patterns re-settle, the state reasserts its domination. Communism proves to be as awful as capitalism for it is, in fact, an authoritarian state capitalism. If there's an ideological advocacy to be gleaned, I think it's in the direction of anarchism, not communism.
I can dig that. I'll amend my original statement to the book being pro-revolution.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 2:46pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 2:28pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 2:13pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:10pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Nov 2017, 1:04pm


Marx was right, Lenin's good, Stalin's bad, and the tragedy comes when the pigs become indistinguishable from the humans (the capitalists).
I don't know that you can confidently conclude that Orwell thought Marx was right or communism is correct. It's certainly populist, that elites will always betray the people, but communism seems just as likely in his telling to collapse into hierarchy. It's despairingly populist, I'd say (which comes across even stronger in 1984).
I think Orwell lays in hope and possibilities around the farm revolution and is fairly onside with Snowball.
There are good "people," definitely. The common animals are noble if naive, which makes their fate all the more unjust. Snowball has the advantage of being exiled by the sinister Napoleon, automatically elevated by the latter's villainy, but there is no certainty that if he had triumphed over Napoleon that things would have been better, that he wouldn't be as bad. Orwell just doesn't play that game of individuals (again, see how things play out in 1984). The initial rush overthrowing the old system, when everything is up in the air—anarchic, one might say—are the good times, but then old patterns re-settle, the state reasserts its domination. Communism proves to be as awful as capitalism for it is, in fact, an authoritarian state capitalism. If there's an ideological advocacy to be gleaned, I think it's in the direction of anarchism, not communism.
I can dig that. I'll amend my original statement to the book being pro-revolution.
Definitely. If there's an advocacy of Trotsky in AF, it's for permanent revolution.
"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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