Currently Reading

[Gaendaal]

Last And First Men, Olaf Stapledon

Disturbingly prescient so far.

[anastasia vronski]

currently enjoying my birthday present

Red Star Over Russia
David King
Tate publishing



The Russian Revolution instigated some of the most startling advances in the fields of art, photography and graphic design seen in the twentieth century; their impact on the development of modernism was immeasurable and is still felt today. Through an amazing array of material including posters, photographs, paintings, magazine covers, book jackets, advertisements, pamphlets and other rare ephemera.

[diederich]

Part of my continuing efforts to educate myself on the "other side". I mostly did pretty hardcore analytic philosophy.

[surfer]

A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (Clive Ponting)

[yonhosago]

A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (Clive Ponting)

Depressing?

[surfer]

A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (Clive Ponting)

Depressing?

Not so far. 60 pages in, its outlined the development of a life sustaining planet, then the gradual evolution of modern Homo Sapien Sapiens, the spread throughout the globe, and now the gradual transition from small mobile hunter-gatherer units to sedentery agriculture societies,about 10,000 BC. The second half of the book I surmise is going to deal with the Romans and other societies that over time grew too large or overtaxed their ecosystems.

Though the prologue briefly looked at the rise and collapse of Easter Island.

Its a good book, but its packed with information, every sentence is very dense with facts. This textbook style doesnt lend itself to being very readable, and I dont think I'm going to read it straight through. A chapter at a time, and alternate with some fiction that has a bit of flow.

Fun fact: Wolves were the first domesticated animals, around 10,000 BC in and around Australia and New Guinea. Its unclear what their use was at first; they probably helped a bit with hunting, provided some protection, and mostly provided companionship. Man's best friend for 12,000 years.

Yours Truly,

A Sappy American Who Loved His Dog (whom I had to put to sleep last week)

[walto]

Sorry about your dog, Darren.

BTW, the fact-packedness of the book according to your description made me think of Guns, Germs & Steel. Is it kind of along those lines?

[surfer]

Thanks Walto. I appreciate it (and others' kind thoughts as well, but let's not turn this into a receiving line).

I havent read Diamond's book Collapse, but I imagine its more along the lines of Zinn or Al Gore's book, in that its what I would call a narrative history, with a didactic element and more emphasis on sentence-to-sentence flow, and "readablility". And also you sort of know immediately what the author's stance is in relation to the subject matter even before you pick up the book.

But despite Ponting's book cover and esp the title and subtitle, this isnt (so far) a didactic book. Its very dry, with very little personality behind the almost overwhelming facts. It reads like a textbook. But rather than being a history of societal or environmental collapse, its probably more accurate to characterize this as a history of man's influence, use, and relationship to his environment.

But I think the publishers are definitely trying to market this book to people who might rather read about how man is irrevocably destroying his environment. So far it isnt that type of book at all.

[p.t]

Old Boy!

Haven't seen the movie, but the book (graphic novel) is brilliant!

[Stevo]

Old Boy!

Haven't seen the movie, but the book (graphic novel) is brilliant!

hadn't realised it was a graphic novel until I started going through a book of 500 graphic Novels you Must read. film was good and this 500 book has directed me to some stuff I hadn't been aware of before.
currently reading Jodorowsky/Moebius Black Ichtal which I stumbled on on demonoid looking up jodorowsky after the 500 book had his Borgia listed.

[cheerios]

oh man, i'm not a big film person, but I highly recommend the movie! it's a must see.

[p.t]

first I need to finnish the 8 volumes!!!

now:

[jkudler]

has anyone read josh ferris's "then we came to the end"? i know i'm a few years late on this, but i've been pretty curious about this book and its themes. i'm so bad about reading fiction, but this one has piqued my curiosity. .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Then_We_Came_to_the_End

-j.

[horaflora]

Cracked Media
The Sound of Malfunction
Caleb Kelly


Pretty decent, though covers quite a bit of very familiar territory (Otomo, Oval, Marclay, Collins, Tone, etc) there are certainly some lesser-knowns (Gum, Graeve, Abela, etc) he writes about, albeit sometimes briefly...

Lots of details as to the techniques and inner workings of many of these artists approaches.. though many of which will be fairly well known to any reader of IHM, I believe.

lightly recommended.

[Dohol]

I'm re-reading this:

[Dan Warburton]

anyway i read inherent vice this week. i enjoyed it, though i do have a few complaints.

man, I found it worthless to the point of irritation by the end, superficial, not especially interestingly written, really a waste of my time. I'd be curious to hear more specifics on your opinion if you have a chance...

well it's somewhat hard to defend what is probably a moderately shallow pleasure. but i can give it a try. i'll try not to say anything too spoilerish, but anyone already working on the book might want to bypass this post. it's too long, anyway.

What, the book or this post? Just finished the book yesterday, found it just about the right length. Kinda depressing / intimidating when you have to confront a huge tome like Against The Day. Like putting a CD in the machine and seeing "79'55" flash up as total duration.
Anyway, I'm such a Pynchon fan I might just end up writing an extended review of this myself for the website. Will give it a second and maybe third read first, though. But a few knee-jerk reactions to your posts.

first of all, the stumbling momentum of the book is something i really enjoy about pynchon. the way his characters are just sure enough about what they're trying to do to let the time and place step into the story like a character. in fact this time i think that los angeles in 1970 was the second most important character of the book. the best writing in pynchon (to me, anyway) are the fade-outs, as he takes a step back away from the characters and lets them disappear into the scenery. i also thought the plot was pretty entertaining. it had the right build to it, with herrings just pink enough to keep the pot from cooling down. the secondary characters might have been mostly parodies and porn cliches, but their screen time was just right to keep them funny. in fact if anything i think the 'big story' was a little too resolved, and the only scene that really fell flat was the 'big climax'. and i don't think that was accidental. i've always liked the way that people never quite manage to become convincing villains in a pynchon telling. they can be bad, sure, but real evil is something else entirely.

Good points, all. But Weismann / Blicero is purdy nasty, wouldn't you say?

it was more an unraveling, as if all the pieces were in place and then the carpet was yanked out from beneath them in slow motion.

Yep, spot on.

the ARPAnet schtick was indefensible.

Odd choice of word - how so?

the gradual escalation of porn appeal from all the female characters was definitely overdone

Disagree. There's not much actual sex going on in Inherent Vice. A few hardons here and there, but nothing to compare with the amazing orgy on the boat in Gravity's Rainbow. There's always been a fair amount of smut in Pynchon, anyway. I don't mind that. You sound as if you do, somewhat.

the third most important character, the police officer, didn't ever resolve to me as a character. a little too developed for the comic cut-outs that filled out the rest of the cast, but not solid enough to understand or feel for or against.

How many of Pynchon's characters ever "resolve"?

(this is only the fourth I've read, the first two and Vineland, embarrassingly still no Gravity's Rainbow

That's definitely the one to read. Coming to terms with Pynchon without reading GR is a bit like.. umm, writing a Derek Bailey biography without mentioning Evan Parker

[jon abbey]

sure, but the books should still stand on their own, shouldn't they? I got nothing out of Inherent Vice, a total waste of my time.

[Dan Warburton]

Why did you struggle on until the end then? You'd already read Lot 49 and Vineland, you knew you're weren't likely to get any really spectacular surprises at the end of a Pynchon novel when all's said and done. (Though I maintain you should really give Gravity's Rainbow a go one of these days..). About five pages into this, I recognised the landscape and the voice. For me Pynchon is like Misha Mengelberg - by now I know more or less what to expect, but it's still a great pleasure. Interesting issues, in any case, and ones I might discuss at greater length elsewhere.

[jon abbey]

we're not talking Jim Thompson here, I don't think Pynchon novels really all resemble each other that much (do they?). I finished it because I thought it might actually be worth it somehow in the end, but indeed I was mistaken.

and I do plan to read Gravity's Rainbow at some point, although the bulk of my reading seems to get done on my rare trips away from home. GR almost made the cut for my Tokyo trip in June, but instead I went with The Savage Detectives, another book that mudd liked more than me.

but my input here isn't especially productive, so I'll leave it to you two kids.

[mudd]

the ARPAnet schtick was indefensible.

Odd choice of word - how so?

i suppose the word choice was somewhat in response to conversation jon and I had offline about it. if pynchon wanted to write about ARPAnet he could have done much better. as it stands it was a brief, under-developed, and a huge disappointment considering how pynchon seemed to have a better grasp on the role of the internet 40 years earlier. this time around it was just a funny anachronism.

the gradual escalation of porn appeal from all the female characters was definitely overdone

Disagree. There's not much actual sex going on in Inherent Vice. A few hardons here and there, but nothing to compare with the amazing orgy on the boat in Gravity's Rainbow. There's always been a fair amount of smut in Pynchon, anyway. I don't mind that. You sound as if you do, somewhat.

no, you misunderstand me. i'm fine with the sex scenes, always have been. it's the way in which new female characters are introduced that got on my nerves. it's a very deliberate thing, close to a parody of the way a noir film would introduce the mysterious woman who needs help from the detective, only instead of shadowy there's a leering, drooling feel. it wouldn't be a problem if it were only used once or twice, but it's really nearly every female character, which seemed to squeeze out pynchon's ability to make the entrance interesting by the time we're up to japonica i was pretty tired of it.

anyway, those are just my responses. both of the fairly subjective, so i don't expect we could compare mileage.

m