What are you currently reading?

[SimonNZ]

Added to things on the go:



I've actually read all the books these are taken from, but look forward to a revisit.

Can still remember my first encounter with his writing, his essay on attending Glostonbury. A couple of samples from that for the uninitiated:

"[...]The truth is this alternative weekend nirvana all comes down to plumbing and waste management. There are armies of kids who've been given tickets in exchange for picking up rubbish, of which there is an extraordinary amount. But it's bogs that are really the central leitmotif of Glastonbury. It's all about one thing: colonic endurance. Can you go the full three days without going? Because the very thought is so nauseous, so utterly medieval, it makes a colostomy bag sound like a civilised option. There are plenty of loos laid out like back-to-back miners' cottages. You can see the rows of feet in the morning, the whole-earth pasty-shoe next to the Nike Airs, next to Doc Martens. That's the thing that's rarely mentioned about hippies - they've managed to achieve completely unisexual footwear but, my darling, the smell. By the third morning it's, well, it's half a million turds and all the trimmings. There are horror stories of dropped stashes, of tripping and slipping, of horrible, horrible rectal explosions. But, for me, the most poignant, the most grisly, is the girl who told me she'd been putting off the call of nature for as long as sphincterally possible and until she was so comprehensively stoned and drunk she could face the drop. So at 2am she gingerly made her way to the pitch-black amenities block. Opening the door, she dropped her pants and, with the tense precision of a Romanian gymnast, lowered her posterior over the open sewer. Something cold and clammy squidged between the cheeks of her buttocks and in a sudden dark, repulsive flash of third-eye insight she realised she was squatting on the pointy turtle's head of the last occupant's offering, which itself was the high peak of a mountain of shit that had risen like the devil's soufflé from the bowl. She said her scream woke at least 4,000 people.[...]"

"[...]And I remember the nude wanker. Occasional nudity is respected at Glastonbury. It is the original flavour and spirit of nonviolent alternative protest, where hippies came from. Where would your flower-power happening be without some flaxen-haired, clear-eyed child of the morning getting her tits out and flicking peace signs at the world? This one wasn't exactly from central casting.
In front of the un-amplified folk gazebo where real, head-shaking lonely mandolin pluckers and finger-in-ear off-key whingers attracted a crowd of two or three delicate souls so hammered and wrung-out that their heads had been turned into iPods, there was a lady who had been so carried away by a folk combo that she'd taken all her clothes off. Nothing wrong with that. She'd been so transported by the musk she was moved to give herself a bit of a wank. Not a gentle, feel-good fingering, but the complete, top-of-the-range, brace-yourself-Doris, blurred-wrist seeing to. No, maybe not too much wrong with that either. There's an over-21 age limit and it's Glastonbury. The half-dozen pigs walk round with blinkers on doing community relations, funny-hat-wearing. Lord Lucan jacking up with Osama Bin laden would have difficulty getting arrested here, but the trouble was this wasn't some buff, fit, pert hippy chick with flowers in her hair and plaited pubes. It was an old, fat, hideous, meat-faced nutter bagwoman and something had to be done on purely aesthetic grounds. She was putting the folk folk off their protest songs, and they were complaining.
Two large security guards spent a lot of time animatedly shouting into their walkie talkies before gingerly approaching the frotting troll with rubber gloves and a blanket, the old trout desperately trying to finish off the full Meg Ryan while at the same time telling Securicor to f*** themselves, like what she was doing. And they danced around her trying to grab her wrists without getting the finger. I watched with bated breath on tenterhooks. Would they? Will they? And then one of them did. Gave me the punch line. "Oh, please, love. Come quietly." Yes![...]"

[LKB]

Bah, the cops should have just arranged for her to meet an old, fat and hideous boyfriend to finish up with...

[Florestan]

This is a superb book, highly recommended for anyone interested in that period's music and culture in general. It's written in an eminently readable style, technical analysis and examples are kept to a minimum and skipping them does not impact the coherence of the narrative or the argument. Most commendable and refreshing, the composers and their music are evaluated from the perspective of their own and their time's aesthetic values and priorities, not from an anachronistic one. It is also lavishly illustrated with relevant contemporary artworks. The only thing I miss is a bit of humour, but this is a quibble. 

[Todd]

It's early in this general election year, and I figured I'd revisit one of my favorite essays "Politics and the English Language", from way back in 1946.  It remains germane.  One of my favorite excerpts:

Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable'. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different...Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

As with works by Veblen, Bernays, Galbraith, and Schumpeter, among others, despite its age, the work remains evergreen.

[AnotherSpin]

"Consider these four questions, which cannot, as a whole, be satisfactorily answered with any combination of 'yes' and 'no', but rather lead one on in an endless circle.
    (1) Does there exist a Self?
    (2) Does there exist a world outside Self?
    (3) Does this Self cease with bodily death?
    (4) Does the world cease with my bodily death?"

[LKB]

"Consider these four questions, which cannot, as a whole, be satisfactorily answered with any combination of 'yes' and 'no', but rather lead one on in an endless circle.
    (1) Does there exist a Self?
    (2) Does there exist a world outside Self?
    (3) Does this Self cease with bodily death?
    (4) Does the world cease with my bodily death?"

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No
4. No

See how easy that was?

[AnotherSpin]

It's early in this general election year, and I figured I'd revisit one of my favorite essays "Politics and the English Language", from way back in 1946.  It remains germane.  One of my favorite excerpts:

As with works by Veblen, Bernays, Galbraith, and Schumpeter, among others, despite its age, the work remains evergreen.

Putin is probably one of Orwell's most diligent readers. At least he knows perfectly well how to disguise a lie as truth, dissolving the latter into the former.

[AnotherSpin]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No
4. No

See how easy that was?

No doubt about it. The less one understands, the easier it looks

[Todd]

Putin is probably one of Orwell's most diligent readers. At least he knows perfectly well how to disguise a lie as truth, dissolving the latter into the former.

What?

[LKB]

No doubt about it. The less one understands, the easier it looks

I'm fairly well acquainted with him, since the 1970's. I think l have a reasonably good bead on the guy, and his contributions to quantum physics are unquestionable.

But like more than a few " deep thinkers ", his explorations into other disciplines ( such as philosophy, in his case ) tend to be superficial.

The cat in the box was pretty good, though.

[AnotherSpin]

I'm fairly well acquainted with him, since the 1970's. I think l have a reasonably good bead on the guy, and his contributions to quantum physics are unquestionable.

But like more than a few " deep thinkers ", his explorations into other disciplines ( such as philosophy, in his case ) tend to be superficial.

The cat in the box was pretty good, though.

It seemed to me that in this part Schrödinger overlaps quite closely with the understanding of Self (Atman) in Vedanta. If one looks at it from this angle, one can see the limitations of the Western type of thinking.

[Florestan]

"Consider these four questions, which cannot, as a whole, be satisfactorily answered with any combination of 'yes' and 'no', but rather lead one on in an endless circle.
    (1) Does there exist a Self?
    (2) Does there exist a world outside Self?
    (3) Does this Self cease with bodily death?
    (4) Does the world cease with my bodily death?"

(1) Yes
(2) Yes
(3) No
(4) No

Easy-peasy indeed.

[Florestan]

like more than a few " deep thinkers ", his explorations into other disciplines ( such as philosophy, in his case ) tend to be superficial.

Amen, brother! High competence and skills in a scientific field do not in any way guarantee knowledge (let alone wisdom) about life and death. An illiterate peasant might be more experienced in this respect than all the Nobel Prizes in Physics combined. 

[AnotherSpin]

Amen, brother! High competence and skills in a scientific field do not in any way guarantee knowledge (let alone wisdom) about life and death. An illiterate peasant might be more experienced in this respect than all the Nobel Prizes in Physics combined. 

You're not seriously suggesting that Schrödinger had a harder time answering questions about life and death than forum members, are you? The book is freely available online, and the author explains quite succinctly why a yes or no answer to each of the four points is not definitive. I see another problem here though - the inability of the intellect to grasp the obvious

[Florestan]

You're not seriously suggesting that Schrödinger had a harder time answering questions about life and death than forum members, are you?

What I'm suggesting is that forum members, or any common person for that matter, are just as competent to answer questions about life and death as Schroedinger, or any other famous scientist for that matter. High competence in physics does not translate into any special competence in answering those questions.

[AnotherSpin]

What I'm suggesting is that forum members, or any common person for that matter, are just as competent to answer questions about life and death as Schroedinger, or any other famous scientist for that matter. High competence in physics does not translate into any special competence in answering those questions.

Of course, everyone tends to believe their own answers to any questions, including those formulated by Schrödinger. It is most natural and unobjectionable. Nevertheless I was a little surprised at the attempts not just to simplify the issue, but to bring it to absurdity. After all, one does not need to be a great scientist to assume at least that these questions do not imply simple definitive answers.

For instance, the existence of Self in the sense that Sch. is talking about is not obvious to most people. Self and self are not the same thing here, more, Self is not a thing at all..

[vers la flamme]

I'll be the first to admit my almost total ignorance in philosophy but this book was an absolute pleasure to read.

I finished War and Peace over the weekend—I must admit, to AnotherSpin's credit, that the book became substantially more serious in tone in its second half. Regardless it was an absolute pleasure to read, and I can't wait to read it again, perhaps in a different translation.

[AnotherSpin]

I'll be the first to admit my almost total ignorance in philosophy but this book was an absolute pleasure to read.

I finished War and Peace over the weekend—I must admit, to AnotherSpin's credit, that the book became substantially more serious in tone in its second half. Regardless it was an absolute pleasure to read, and I can't wait to read it again, perhaps in a different translation.

Besides philosophy, Plato texts are good literature.

It is difficult for me to decide what Tolstoy is like in translations. I don't want to tease, but his Russian is simply magical, no other Russian writer has used the language with such power. I can only mention that Tolstoy at the end of his life studied Greek and took up Hebrew. He wanted to read Bible without translation.

[vers la flamme]

Besides philosophy, Plato texts are good literature.

This was my impression as well. The end of Phaedo where Socrates drinks the hemlock is quite dramatic, made me think that Plato could have been one of the great tragedians if he was not so busy philosophizing. I wonder if you have any recommendations of where to from here? This book contained Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, and amounts to all of the Plato I've ever read.

[AnotherSpin]

This was my impression as well. The end of Phaedo where Socrates drinks the hemlock is quite dramatic, made me think that Plato could have been one of the great tragedians if he was not so busy philosophizing. I wonder if you have any recommendations of where to from here? This book contained Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, and amounts to all of the Plato I've ever read.

It is difficult to single out something in particular. Plato's cycle is quite coherent. I've been fascinated by different works at different times. I am less interested in his political doctrines contained in the Republic, Laws, etc., but you can find interesting things there too.