what are you reading now?

[jenks]

No I agree that is the most interesting thing about it.

Based off reading this he seems to be most on fire as an artist when he's disgusted by things. Which is funny cos he's seen as this very cheerful, sentimental author – which he is, but when he's expressing fear or disgust or contempt he's usually very powerful and/or hilarious.

Yep. I think this is the problem of Dickens - people think they know what he’s like because so many characters have passed into common currency but few people actually read him. He’s a very angry writer - I re-read Curiosity Shop recently - so much vile and cruel behaviour in there. And yes, he is still very funny.

I listened to the audiobook of Tale read by Martin Jarvis - I know he has the reputation of being a bit of an old ham but he was very good. Always the right side of melodrama

My sister-in-law lives on a well to do estate that has all these streets named after his characters. I had to point out to her that Quilp Drive honours one of the nastiest of all characters in literature - line naming somewhere Manson Boulevard.

 

[Corpsey]

As I said on the Martin Amis thread, reading 'A Tale' I kept thinking of Amis — particularly this:

"The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly."

 

[Corpsey]

Yep. I think this is the problem of Dickens - people think they know what he’s like because so many characters have passed into common currency but few people actually read him. He’s a very angry writer - I re-read Curiosity Shop recently - so much vile and cruel behaviour in there. And yes, he is still very funny.

It's interesting how the really horrible characters are so fun to read and the really nice, angelic characters are so BORING.

 

[Corpsey]

Me, I'm just reading Knausgaard. Quite the character, very pleasant.

I read the first 'my struggle' book and I really liked it but it was unfortunately timed to tip me into an existential abyss around my parents ageing and my own death.

But I keep thinking i might pick up the next one one day.

 

[Corpsey]

My sister-in-law lives on a well to do estate that has all these streets named after his characters. I had to point out to her that Quilp Drive honours one of the nastiest of all characters in literature - line naming somewhere Manson Boulevard.

Pretty sure Quilp was in a Victorian version of Oasis

 

[jenks]

It's interesting how the really horrible characters are so fun to read and the really nice, angelic characters are so BORING.

Absolutely- TOCS really droops when the focus is Little Nell.

 

[sus]

"The Phenomenon of Life" by Hans Jonas (Highly Reccomended)
"Materialist Phenomenology" by Manuel DeLanda
"The Phenomenological Mind" By Zahavi and Gallagher
"The Critique of Practical Reason" by Kant
"The Origin of Species" by Darwin

and of course
"Bodies that Matter" by Judith Butler

What's interesting you in Origin of Species?

Me, I'm just reading Knausgaard. Quite the character, very pleasant.

Which Knaus?

 

[malelesbian]

What's interesting you in Origin of Species?

I want to combine Judith Butler and Darwin, of course!

 

[Mr. Tea]

I want to combine Judith Butler and Darwin, of course!

Understanding the evolutionary origins of patriarchy as part of the effort to undo it, that sort of thing?

 

[malelesbian]

Understanding the evolutionary origins of patriarchy as part of the effort to undo it, that sort of thing?

Hmm, I was thinking more of gender as a sexually selected mating strategy and a Darwinian species, a species that changes due to environmental conditions over time. Hence we could look at the evolution of gender as the success of some behaviors in gaining communal acceptance as definitive of a gender in a historical era.
But to your point, Freud's primal horde might be relevant here.

 

[sus]

Hmm, I was thinking more of gender as a sexually selected mating strategy and a Darwinian species, a species that changes due to environmental conditions over time. Hence we could look at the evolution of gender as the success of some behaviors in gaining communal acceptance as definitive of a gender in a historical era.
But to your point, Freud's primal horde might be relevant here.

So like, gender performativity is a behavioral form of costly signaling, designed to increase sexual fitness?

 

[malelesbian]

What's costly signaling?

 

[luka]

What's costly signaling?

no point trying to decode Gus' private terminology.

 

[sus]

What's costly signaling?

no point trying to decode Gus' private terminology.

It's the foundational concept of ethology (animal signaling & communication), and by extension, the foundational concept of human language. It has a massive literature behind it and is well worth brushing up on IMO.

 

[sus]

Have you read Lynn Margulis Mr. Lesbos? She is one of the better feminist answers to masculinist neo-Darwinism. This docu is a good place to start: https://hummingbirdfilms.com/symbioticearth/

 

[malelesbian]

It's the foundational concept of ethology (animal signaling & communication), and by extension, the foundational concept of human language. It has a massive literature behind it and is well worth brushing up on IMO.

I looked into it a little. Do you know what the canonical text on it is? I guess I would question what the cost of gender is? Though I suppose you could say that heterosexuality for example blocks a man from potential male sex partners, and thus closes off relations between an individual and particular population.

I'll watch that documentary, thanks!

 

[sus]

I looked into it a little. Do you know what the canonical text on it is?

Read this, which frames signaling within continental theory that you're probably more familiar with: https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/10.1086/427115

I guess I would question what the cost of gender is?

Gender is a performance, per Butler. That means it requires constant, ongoing, taxing face-work and stage-upkeep (in the Goffmanian, dramaturgical sense). One of the standard feminist lines is that women literally die from performing gender.

 

[WashYourHands]

Nicked a Nadine Dorries from the secure unit pile of wank replacing the last steal, looks utterly grotesque, The Angels of Lovely Lane

Placed on top of the wife’s reading heap as a tease but quietly determined to experience the healthcare universe Nadine came up through, probably on the bus to wind up students, what values she projects and her understanding of best practice

Occasionally you have to indulge a work even Bojo turned down

 

[IdleRich]

Was chatting to my friend the other day, apparently his dad appears in this book under a pseudonym

View attachment 14537


"Three workers were appointed in contrasting areas of England to make contact with unattached young people. It is useful to narrow the term “unattached” to those who do not belong to a youth organisation and who are also unhappy and/or delinquent. Mary Morse considers the effectiveness of these three “detached youthworker” projects undertaken in the early 1960s ..."

His dad appears to be quite an interesting character. I think he got fired from his teaching job at a London college cos he got raided by the police who had figured out he was selling drugs. Oops. Now he lives in the Algarve and seems to be a hippy and ladies man, and so Max grew up between England and Portugal.

Anyhow, I ordered it, let's see if it turns up...

This book finally turned up the other day and even more finally I started reading it. It's a bizarre artifact which takes the form of a kind of anthropological study of "unattached" young people which really does treat them like another species. It seems that someone got some grant to conduct a study into young wasters and they used it to employ a number of spies to infiltrate them and then report on their behaviour. The names of people and places have been changed so the first part takes place in "Seagate" which is pretty clearly Brighton, one of the "workers" moves there and takes on a vague identity as a writer, and then the fun begins.

The agent approaches the youth of Brighton in much the same way I imagine that that woman approached gorillas in the mist. The report details various attempts to become an accepted member of the pack, first by talking to people in bars and inviting them back to his to listen to jazz records. But this fails due to his overfamiliarity. Then eventually he befriends "Jerry" and begins to realise with satisfaction that his face is starting to be known at his chosen watering hole. As Jerry leads to Paul and Paul to Mark it's impossible not to hear David Attenborough providing a voiceover to the events. It's really weird.

The whole thing provides as much insight into the minds of the researches and their presumed norms as they can have ever gained into their subjects. The book thus becomes a kind of meta-study of the studiers. I'm not sure I'm describing it well but there is certainly something fascinating about it - as well as something quite distasteful in the way they seek to reduce people to mere specimens to be observed and categorized - no matter how well intentioned.

I think I mentioned that the reason I was interested in this book, in fact the reason that I became aware of its existence was cos my friend told me that one of the anonymous fruit flies in the experiments was in fact his dad. As luck would have it, tonight I went out to this club called Titanic and I brought the book with me to read on the metro on the way there - and of course, later in the night I saw that very friend. I hadn't really understood the nature of the book before, but now I had I was very keen to identify which was his father, and it was surprisingly easy, he said that he was in the Brighton section and was described as having "the philosophy of a bum" (strangely American phrase I thought) which, neatly enough, was something I remembered reading on the tube a couple of hours earlier. We were thus able to very quickly find the relevant part and laugh together over the descriptions of his dad's shortcomings, his inadequacies as a worker and his flawed relationship with his parents - all according to the undercover anthropologist/informer/whatever. Come to think of it, the agent must have revealed his mission at some point (or have been discovered) or else how would Max's dad have known that he was the subject of such research? I'm gonna have to ask him about that I guess.

 

[ghost]

This book finally turned up the other day and even more finally I started reading it. It's a bizarre artifact which takes the form of a kind of anthropological study of "unattached" young people which really does treat them like another species. It seems that someone got some grant to conduct a study into young wasters and they used it to employ a number of spies to infiltrate them and then report on their behaviour. The names of people and places have been changed so the first part takes place in "Seagate" which is pretty clearly Brighton, one of the "workers" moves there and takes on a vague identity as a writer, and then the fun begins.

The agent approaches the youth of Brighton in much the same way I imagine that that woman approached gorillas in the mist. The report details various attempts to become an accepted member of the pack, first by talking to people in bars and inviting them back to his to listen to jazz records. But this fails due to his overfamiliarity. Then eventually he befriends "Jerry" and begins to realise with satisfaction that his face is starting to be known at his chosen watering hole. As Jerry leads to Paul and Paul to Mark it's impossible not to hear David Attenborough providing a voiceover to the events. It's really weird.

The whole thing provides as much insight into the minds of the researches and their presumed norms as they can have ever gained into their subjects. The book thus becomes a kind of meta-study of the studiers. I'm not sure I'm describing it well but there is certainly something fascinating about it - as well as something quite distasteful in the way they seek to reduce people to mere specimens to be observed and categorized - no matter how well intention

this is what spendy is doing on dissensus, so you know

his early attempts at sharing his liking for pinafores failed, but he's eventually made a place for himself. book coming soon, I'll be doing the cover.