nomos

Administrator
Just getting into Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky...

a man loses his way in the vast black waste of his own small room; the Eiffel Tower runs amok; a kind soul dreams of selling “everything you need for suicide”; an absentminded passenger boards the wrong train, winding up in a place where night is day, nightmares are the reality, and the backs of all facts have been broken; a man out looking for work comes across a line for logic but doesn’t join it as there’s no guarantee the logic will last; a sociable corpse misses his own funeral; an inventor gets a glimpse of the far-from-radiant communist future.

http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/memories-of-the-future/
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Or Moby Donk, Simon Reynolds would enjoy that.

I'd love a T-shirt that says "Moby:",

followed by a photo of everyone's favourite vegan slaphead blues-sampling pop-rock-ravester,

followed by "DICK".

Well, I mean I wouldn't wear it myself because I don't do "joke" T-shirts, but I would appreciate the gag if I saw someone else wearing it.
 

droid

Well-known member
Blindsight and echopraxia by Peter Watts - snowcrash level sci-fi infodump set about 100 years in the future ostensibly about alien contact but primarily concerned with potential biological and neurological futures of humanity with a surprisingly thorough subtext touching on consciousness theory, philosophy of the mind and brain hacking.
 
Blindsight and echopraxia by Peter Watts - snowcrash level sci-fi infodump set about 100 years in the future ostensibly about alien contact but primarily concerned with potential biological and neurological futures of humanity with a surprisingly thorough subtext touching on consciousness theory, philosophy of the mind and brain hacking.

Yes, both excellent. Consciousness as maladaptation, the idea at the heart of Blindsight, doesn't quite convince though.

Did you leave out mentioning the vampires on purpose? ;) His take on them alone is worth the price of the books.

I've been reading The Magus again over the past week, I think for the 4th or 5th time over the past 20 years. That book has so much class.
 
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droid

Well-known member
The vampires.. yes. :eek: He gets away with it, but its an unnecessary clouding of the waters.

I was just happy to find all those Wegner and Metzinger references. Consciousness as maladaptation... sure, he doesn't convince - both books are more shotgun than laser beam in argument, but in general its a pretty convincing thesis. All the stuff in echopraxia about consciousness developing as a mechanism to resolve contradictory impulses is great, and his stuff is outrageously well referenced for sci-fi.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I read Don Delilo's The Angel Esparanza. Some of it was good, but a lot of it was pretty shit!

Currently reading Don Quixote, Ulysses (guess who's still in college *laughs, throttles self*) and The Last Temptation of Christ.

The latter is just as good as the movie. At one point Mary confronts her brother in law, a rabbi, over Christ's visions from god giving him epileptic seizures should he ever pursue things like women, normal life, etc. She wants him to exorcise what plagues her son, and he can't because... it's God. He can't overpower God, obviously. So she asks, why is God tormenting her son like that, to which the rabbi replies, exasperated: "Because he loves him!"

www.instantrimshot.com

I always presumed all the black humor in the film came from Scorcese. The whole logic of "You know who'd make a great Judas... Harvey Keitel!"; but this book has some drastically funny bits so far.
 

blacktulip

Pregnant with mandrakes
A Scots Quair
William Roughead - Classic Crimes
Arthur Golding translation of Ovid Metamorphoses luka was on about years ago
The Mersey Sound
 

luka

Well-known member
QUOTE.ICE.ANNA KAVAN.

I could not remain isolated from the rest of the world. I was involved in the fate of the planet, I had to take an active part in whatever was going on. The endless celebrations here seemed both boring and sinister, reminiscent of the orgies of the plague years. Now, as then, people were deluding themselves; they induced a false sense of security by means of self-indulgence and wishful thinking.I did not beleive for one moment that they had really escaped.
I observed the weather carefully; it was fine and warm, but not warm enough.I noticed particularly how the temperature fell after sunset, producing a definite chill. It was a bad sign.

 

craner

Beast of Burden
QUOTE.ICE.ANNA KAVAN.

I could not remain isolated from the rest of the world. I was involved in the fate of the planet, I had to take an active part in whatever was going on. The endless celebrations here seemed both boring and sinister, reminiscent of the orgies of the plague years. Now, as then, people were deluding themselves; they induced a false sense of security by means of self-indulgence and wishful thinking.I did not beleive for one moment that they had really escaped.
I observed the weather carefully; it was fine and warm, but not warm enough.I noticed particularly how the temperature fell after sunset, producing a definite chill. It was a bad sign.

Awful. Turgid.

I'm reading The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Škvorecký,; that's writing. Another great Sean Shapiro tip.
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
Playful, full of lust, a great dance, and yet weighted with the complexities and tragedy of the real world.
 

luka

Well-known member
you dont know what turgid means you just know it is a word people like tom paulin used on the late show while frowning and crossing one leg over the other in a painful contorted pose
 
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