CrowleyHead
Well-known member
I gave up on trying to be an intellectual this year, so now I'm just reading a bunch of Pro-Wrestling books.
what are you reading now?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I've recently finished this:
http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/north/ and http://polarcosmology.com/
It's by a friend of mine (DannyL knows him too - in fact I know him through Dan) so in a sense I can't really give an impartial account of it, but I'll try anyway. The central thesis is that from the very earliest cultures that had any kind of social hierarchy (i.e. from the adoption of husbandry and/or agriculture onwards) up until the Copernican revolution that heralded the transition in Europe from the Middle Ages to the early modern era, societies in many parts of the world had a shared cosmology that placed central importance on the celestial pole, envisaged as an axis mundi or World Tree, and that this was manifested on Earth in the person of the shaman, priest-chief, Pharaoh, emperor or in later times the divinely appointed king or caliph, who formed a conduit between the earthly realm (and ordinary people) and the realm of god/s, imagined as being in some sense Up There beyond the physical heavens. This was preceded by a much longer epoch in which largely leaderless hunter-gatherer bands viewed the world in fundamentally horizontal terms (the ground/sky dichotomy, mirroring their horizontal social structure), and was followed by a period that kicked off with Copernicus's heliocentric revolution and reached its apotheosis in Newton's unification of terrestrial and celestial mechanics, in which the celestial pole lost its special meaning but the terrestrial poles, in the course of being discovered and explored, took on an aura of otherworldliness, citing hollow-Earth theorists, Nazi occultists, Poe, Lovecraft, The Thing and Cyclonopedia.
Um, that's the gist, anyway. I think he's walked an extremely fine line between a work that's clearly hugely personal and subjective (the prologue begins with a description of an acid trip going horribly wrong at Glastonbury festival in the early '90s) and and one that's objective and scholarly, with a huge wealth of citations, many from very serious anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and philosophers. And unlike a lot of authors with a 'fringe' theory to promote, he rarely overstates his case and is happy to admit when evidence is tenuous or open to interpretation.
I got a lot out of it, as you can see, and I'm sure it would appeal to plenty of other regulars here. Highly recommended (and no, he hasn't got me on a commission!).
http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/north/ and http://polarcosmology.com/
It's by a friend of mine (DannyL knows him too - in fact I know him through Dan) so in a sense I can't really give an impartial account of it, but I'll try anyway. The central thesis is that from the very earliest cultures that had any kind of social hierarchy (i.e. from the adoption of husbandry and/or agriculture onwards) up until the Copernican revolution that heralded the transition in Europe from the Middle Ages to the early modern era, societies in many parts of the world had a shared cosmology that placed central importance on the celestial pole, envisaged as an axis mundi or World Tree, and that this was manifested on Earth in the person of the shaman, priest-chief, Pharaoh, emperor or in later times the divinely appointed king or caliph, who formed a conduit between the earthly realm (and ordinary people) and the realm of god/s, imagined as being in some sense Up There beyond the physical heavens. This was preceded by a much longer epoch in which largely leaderless hunter-gatherer bands viewed the world in fundamentally horizontal terms (the ground/sky dichotomy, mirroring their horizontal social structure), and was followed by a period that kicked off with Copernicus's heliocentric revolution and reached its apotheosis in Newton's unification of terrestrial and celestial mechanics, in which the celestial pole lost its special meaning but the terrestrial poles, in the course of being discovered and explored, took on an aura of otherworldliness, citing hollow-Earth theorists, Nazi occultists, Poe, Lovecraft, The Thing and Cyclonopedia.
Um, that's the gist, anyway. I think he's walked an extremely fine line between a work that's clearly hugely personal and subjective (the prologue begins with a description of an acid trip going horribly wrong at Glastonbury festival in the early '90s) and and one that's objective and scholarly, with a huge wealth of citations, many from very serious anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and philosophers. And unlike a lot of authors with a 'fringe' theory to promote, he rarely overstates his case and is happy to admit when evidence is tenuous or open to interpretation.
I got a lot out of it, as you can see, and I'm sure it would appeal to plenty of other regulars here. Highly recommended (and no, he hasn't got me on a commission!).
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CrowleyHead
Well-known member
One of the last books I read was Pasolini on Pasolini, series of interviews taken in the early 70s before he started filming for Salo and discusses his cinematic work up to that point. Also read William Gibson's "Distrust That Particular Flavor" because I apparently needed to kill myself via pages of paper.
Now trying A Brief History of 7 Killings.
Now trying A Brief History of 7 Killings.
I've recently finished this:
http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/north/ and http://polarcosmology.com/
It's by a friend of mine (DannyL knows him too - in fact I know him through Dan) so in a sense I can't really give an impartial account of it, but I'll try anyway.
Glad to hear you've read it! My copy is lurking unread in my flat somewhere, making me feel guilty.
I am reading Aziz Ansani's "Modern Romance" which I should maybe use as a cue to post Yo Gotti's "Down in the DM". Lightweight but entertaining stuff about online dating etc.
This is a break from the monumental EP Thompson "Making of the English Working Class" which is staggeringly good but 900 pages long. I'm about halfway through. I've just finished an utterly berserk section where he goes HAM on Methodism, denouncing it as a totally fucked up death cult. It'd rival ISIS in some respects. Brilliant stuff but hard to read and integrate it all. Fun to see him put the boot into the reactionary scholars who preceded him as well.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I've nearly finished Kent Kiehl's 'The Psychopath Whisperer'. Gripping book about the advances made in the last 20-odd years in understanding what makes a psychopath, with particular attention to results from fMRI scans taken of the brains of lifers who score high on the behavioural checklist for psychopathy.
If I have a criticism it's that the author dwells a great deal on his own achievements, but I guess he's entitled to when he's made as important contributions to such a vital field of medicine and science as he has. Also he has a tendency to explain terms that any reasonably educated reader would probably know already and then use psychiatry jargon like 'shallow affect' without explanation. But these are minor gripes really, it's a good read.
Back to IJ once I've finished it.
Edit: Dan, do yourself a favour and read 'North', it's really great. I'm pretty sure I'd have enjoyed it nearly as much if I'd never met Gyrus, but as I said, that just gives it an additional element of interest.
If I have a criticism it's that the author dwells a great deal on his own achievements, but I guess he's entitled to when he's made as important contributions to such a vital field of medicine and science as he has. Also he has a tendency to explain terms that any reasonably educated reader would probably know already and then use psychiatry jargon like 'shallow affect' without explanation. But these are minor gripes really, it's a good read.
Back to IJ once I've finished it.
Edit: Dan, do yourself a favour and read 'North', it's really great. I'm pretty sure I'd have enjoyed it nearly as much if I'd never met Gyrus, but as I said, that just gives it an additional element of interest.
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droid
Well-known member
Heard about his death literally 30 seconds after finishing this. RIP.
luka
Well-known member
Finished this this morning it's amazing. Highly recommended
I came close to throwing it into the fire when he cited hapless AI 'expert' kevin warwick as an authority on anything, but a few pages later it had redeemed itself. it's going to be a rocky road though, that's clear.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I've been half-tempted to read this ever since I heard about the authors' failed lawsuit against Dan Brown's publisher. Is it just funny-because-it's-ridiculous or is it actually interesting as well?