Mythologies and French Philosophy

French philosophy requires lubrication.

Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life by Peter Godfrey-Smith

4 Stars

Philosophy meets evolutionary biology and very very interesting.

For those out there fascinated by the recent 'octopuses are aliens' (paraphased) journal paper, read this, please.

Godfrey-Smith explores how sensory and reacting developed differently in cephalopods versus vertebrates. Postulating how the highly centralized nervous system of vertebrates varies from the more dispersed one in octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish. Once I got into the frame of mind to read this, it went very quickly. This is aimed towards the interested layperson and gives the reader solid background information to follow along easily.

This was a gift from my friend Emma--Thank YOU! I loved it and plan to send it on to another friend, and with any luck the book will make its way around the world: NZ --> US --> UK.

Two Dramatizations from Vergil: I. Dido--The Phoenician queen; II. The Fall of Troy by Vergil

3 Stars

I wandered to read the first play Dido because while reading Circe by Madeline Miller I found myself listening to Dido's "I'm No Angel" and "Life For Rent" albums, especially "This Land is Mine" from the latter. And my brain being what it was kept whispering in the dark, Go. So, I went.

Dido and Aeneas is listed as a tragedy. I think if you're female in any ancient Greek play/story or Roman harkening back and you align yourself with a male then it's a tragedy--or more accurately, a parable. In the post-Trojan war Mediterranean, the gods are having fun messing with the humans per usual, which means getting the short end of the stick. This time Venus and Juno are squabbling, and let's be honest no good can from this: Venus, one of the instigators of the whole Trojan disaster and Juno, jealous and vengeful wife of philandering Jupiter.

Dido and Aeneas, puppets of the gods and one gets the worst of it. I'll let you guess which one.

I adored this:

Let there be no amity
Between our peoples. Rise thou from my bones,
O some avenger, who with deadly sword and brand
Shall scathe the Trojan exiles, now, in time to come,
Whenever chance and strength shall favor. Be our shores
To shores opposed, our waves to waves, and arms to arms,
Eternal, deadly foes through all posterity. 

For it brought me back to thinking of Hannibal's Oath by John Prevas. Love Hannibal. Carthage and Rome, clearly it was destined.

Anyway, this version was pretty cool in all the stagecraft and directions noted, as well as the listing of sheet music and lyrics for the songs. It is available at Gutenberg.org to download and read for FREE. Now, I really do need to read The Aeneid in it's entirety.

Border Districts: A Fiction by Gerald Murnane

1 Star

Unpopular opinion time.

Guard eyes while in town. 

Underdeveloped. Confluence of unwoven themes in a stream of consciousness format that bores the reader with repeated instances of "I never took any interest" and "While I was writing the previous paragraph".

There are repeated themes of stain glass, horses, females, anti-Protestantism as the author struggles with his faith. He espouses a belief in the humble and now, but a longing for wealth and mythic past. Reminds me of a nostalgic collective unconscious memory; the weaving of it is very starkly presented.

I feel that this speaks to a narrow audience: white, Gaelic/British heritage, and Catholic, which considering the author's Australian roots is not surprising, but it feels rather alienating and exclusive. I just wished that explorations of color and light had been better executed because there's an intriguing circling of the subjects. Feels more like a flushed book outline than a finished book.

There is an idea of something substantive, but it's never realized and that's disappointing.

My favorite part was in the closing, a quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity.

A Death by Stephen King

3 Stars

Short and zingy.

Well, that was a right fine short story. Definitely got the mind running around in circles and wondering until the very end. If you like the Old West and questionable justice, then you might enjoy it.

Not sure if it was Shelby or Kelly that brought this to my attention first, but definitely worth the few minutes to read. FREE HERE .

Head On by John Scalzi

3.5 Stars

"Basically, Hilketa is both representation and alienation for Hadens."

This is an FBI procedural story set in the near future where the case is focused on robot controlled medieval gladiatorial sport, Hilketa. I wish there had been more sport, but this emphasized the political and economical consequences of Hadens, especially how business and legislation are in a constant push and pull. It feels like a Washington D.C. story with the lens decidedly on the business side.

The trajectory was good, but it felt dry. This is not a thriller even though there are elements which certainly seem pegged as such. But I guess that the protagonist, Agent Chris Shane, because he is a Haden can be preternaturally calm since his physical body is not responsible for the checks his threep is cashing.

This had some interesting points about inclusion for people who are limited by their physical bodies in the social world through threeps--imagine androids you can neurally connect to and interact in everyday life from work to shopping to family. Imagine them as star athletes with huge endorsement deals. It also brings to question all the other kinds of human interaction including sex and identity.

Overall, this was a fun read. Good choice for a beach, pool, or lazy weekend read.

And this world is a lot closer than you think, see this BBC article about a running robot: http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44089636/atlas-the-robot-shows-off-running-skills. We just need the neural interface, which a lot like saying sure we're going to Mars as soon as we figure out how to deal with solar radiation so we don't cook people along the way.

Watchmen by Alan Moore

4 Stars

The games humans play and the inevitable shades of gray.

This was very good, conflicted, and did a lovely job of whipsawing the reader back and forth between positions. Some obvious and some far more subtle.

Good intentions. Does the end justify the means?

The parallel symbolism between the Watchmen and the Black Freighter comic was sublime. The paths chosen by each of the characters, the consequences, the terrible choices, the good ones, and in the end I have to say either I go the way of Doctor Manhattan or Rorschach.

Because an imposed end is never an end, merely a hiccup to be replayed. Jon is correct in his words to Ozymandias.

I think I shall read some Shelley, now: Ozymandias :

Btw. there's some lovely parallels between V for Vendetta and Watchmen.

Doctor Manhattan from Watchmen

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

4.5 Stars

Like being at the best cocktail party--EVER!

So funny, clever, over-the-top, philosophical Eurovision/Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that had hints of This is Spinal Tap and cameos by:

How you ask. Simple. After nearly annihilating the universe, the varying factions created the Grand Prix, a song competition. The descriptions of the all the species and their peccadillos were fabulous, entertaining. Trust me, you love red pandas? You'll love them even more. Organic, inorganic, substantial, insubstantial--it's all good. Clearly, some species are always going to be more friendly than others, but there are always outliers too. And it's the work of one being in the book, the murder of stupidity that really helped keep me grounded as I read:

The fateful weapon? A large-print, mildly venomous picture book for which the general galactic population feels a level of affection and tender attachment that falls somewhere between Newton's Principia Mathematica and Goodnight Moon. Goguenar Gorecannon's Unkillable Facts contains 99.9 percent pure reliable and comprehensive laws of the universe as observed by an underachieving socially anxious mutant murderhippo and is considered to be as essential to a healthy, balanced childhood as hugs, night-lights, and cellular division.

I borrowed this book from my library, but I'm going to my local bookstore to get a copy so I can hand it out to people who really matter to me. And because there's at least one person who finished AP Calculus took the exam and still had a month of showing up to class, wherein the the teacher said do what you want and they teamed up to created/record a song called "Concave Up" set to the music of "Bottom's Up" by Trey Songz and Nicki Minaj; they deserve a book that speaks to them:

Second place went to the machine intelligences known as the 321 for their precision-tuned, eighty-nine-minute, neo-gangsta math rock anthem "This Program Has Encountered an Error and Must Shut Down," coded, compiled, and submitted by the Entity Known as Monad.

This is a wild ride on the pop culture tilt-a-whirl that critiques life and humanity. I got dizzy once while reading this and had to stop. Didn't stop me from jumping back on. Just don't have a corndog before hand. It was only once-- I swear. 

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

3.5 Stars

Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak.

This is a book I probably need to read again because I believe I missed the allegorical nature of the story. I didn't realize it, perhaps the unrelenting graphically described acts of maiming and murdering distracted me. Those were countered by these gorgeous panoramic views described so precisely that they were stunning.

"In a night so beclamored with the jackal-yapping of coyotes and the cries of owls the howl of that old dog wolf was the one sound they knew to issue from its right form, a solitary lobo, perhaps gray at the muzzle, hung like a marionette from the moon with his long mouth gibbering. "

"They found the lost scouts hanging head downward from the limbs of a fire blacked paloverde tree. They were skewered through the cords of their heels with sharpened hustles of green wood and they hung gray and naked above the dead ashes of the coals where they'd been roasted until their heads had charred and the brains bubbled in the skulls and steam sang from their noseholes."

The description of their demise continues for another two elongated sentences to truly illustrate the horror. You can see how it is distracting. Add in McCarthy's frugal use of punctuation, and you can see that it at times overwhelming. There is a weird niggling in the back of my mind whispering Canterbury Tales or some other such work, but honestly, it was so long ago that I read it, didn't enjoy it, and thus have failed to retain critical components. I'm sure there's a smashing review out there critiquing it--this is not that review.

Anyway, it was repetitive in nature and seemed to drag on. I'd probably have enjoyed it more if it were tighter. Oddly enough, it had a feel of the movie The Highlander to me by the end, but I didn't see it until over 50% of the way through it. Another reason I need to reread it. I can see where McCarthy's The Road gets it's trajectory though that ended more optimistically in my opinion.

Is that why war endures?
No. It endures because young men love it and old men love it in them. Those that fought, those that did not.

Overall, the ugly, brutal truth about how the West was won.