The Life of the Insects by The Brothers Capek.

 

pookie getting into the heavy czech sci/fi

I am so happy to teach in California, our core standard for our history programs is critical and analytical thinking. In fact, in third grade that is ALL we teach in social studies, the methodology of the study of history. Permeating all the standards in every year following are critical thinking strategies, exercises and writing assignments challenging students to create independent interpretations and inferences from of the historical data we give them, and in our in-class discussions, from middle school through their senior seminar classes to graduate high school we focus on listening to our students and helping them form their own intelligent conclusions. My job is not to brainwash kids into believing whatever the text book teaches, but rather to help mentor them to be able to more intelligently and substantively explain and understand their own personal beliefs. Everyday in the classroom, I am always blown away at the sincerity of youth. Kids think big, society just tries it damned to shut that down through adulthood by suffocating all outlets of individual thinking and expression. In high school we provide a lot of outlets, but in real life after school our society is geared towards taking these away or devaluing their significance. Simply put, it rarely pays the bills to think critically, often the opposite.

Do you know The Brothers Capek? I had never heard about them until I read that Jan Svankmajer is currently making a film version of this.

Critical thinking was certainly never taught when I was at school and with this government there is more of a move towards facts (with a bigger emphasis on BRITISH history) and even less critical thinking.

I'm in my 30s, so I recall the older teachers really pushing anti-communist nonsense on the students, even after the Soviet Union collapsed and the wall fell.

It wasn't until 11th grade--Advanced Placement US History--that we were asked to turn on our brains. (I was permitted to give a report on the history of anarchism in the US, though it obviously pissed off the teacher).

But next year, back to same shit. On the first day of AP Government, our teacher, for some reason, spent the whole class time explaining why the Viet Cong were morally inferior to US military.


Anyone notice that until the mayor of Toledo smokes fucking crack, we hear jack shit about Canada? How many Americans can name the PM of Canada? What about his predecessor? (I shamefully include myself in the ignorant herd.)

I know of them because of personal research into the history of science fiction.

Finished the awesome Randi book on Houdini. Houdini was one of my idols when I was a kid.

Now going to start in on The Physiology of Taste by Brillat-Savarin.

new on my ~private~ list:







uni list:
getting ready and gathering books and essays about feminism and television (how promiscuous women are depicted in american tv).
should start reading soon. anyone any reading suggestions?

edit:
also new:

^^ watchu think of salinger? i sort of like and hate him at the same time. like because he's highly readable, hate because the mental illness of his characters is a sort of virtuous moral stance. yes yes, the sane will be crazy in a crazy world and all that, but truly, it's like a spoiled brat.

as for reading suggestions: does nietzsche make you break out in hives? and you can read him in the original. luckeee... (i think anyway). i have his "daybreak" right in from of me right now (fuck if i know the original title, and i'm too lazy to look it up) and i'm thinking of cracking it open in the next 10 minutes. but have you ever?

also, the other day nefeli put up that james franco interview and in it he talks about as i lay dying. i've tried reading that and failed. spaced it out. don't know why. have you?

oh, one of my favorite fucking books EVER. i go back to it all the time. is that the MFK Fisher translation? i sure hope so-- she was great.

His COLLECTED SHORT STORIES or even better PORTABLE FAULKNER are good ways to get into his world.

I have a love-hate relationship with salinger (it's new. NEW!)
It doesn't have to do anything with him, really. at least the hate part. I remember having to read the catcher in the rye when i was in 4th grade and i didn't really remember anything from it. and when the time came and i wanted to re-read it i was at uni and people were talking about how it was the best book they ever read and that kind of made me hate him. dunno why. maybe cause i am ~different~ and ~rebellious~ and not like the other kids at uni.
I only got franny and zooey because a friend recommended it to me and i trust her not to recommend me shit. and i have to say, i really like(d) this one. i'm just gonna say do it for the fat lady. but then again, maybe he should be my favorite, i am a spoiled brat.

Nietzsche exhausts me. for him, I need time. Give me time. I have homo ecce and Jenseits von Gut und Böse sitting on my shelf but I never find the time (and desire) to read it. He kind of scares me. I am scared that I won't understand.

Today, i started reading Don Quixote by Kathy Acker. I've read about 50 pages so far and it makes me really ~think~ and try and connect everything. I feel like, if I would take the time and think about everything she's writing I could find enlightenment. yes, i am aware this sounds weird and pathetic... but. woah. everyone, go read kathy acker and pretend to be me (or any other girl in her early 20s or late 20s. or whatever age).

hey, you. i need a little time to reply to this (i'm doing a bunch of things) but i thought i should preface my reply to say that i think i like you now, ha ha ha ha. but no, seriously, i didn't know this side of you, but it's a good one.

will post you a reply later, promise. don't wanna spew any random bullshit but i'd rather think on it a bit.

You better believe it! 60 pages in and awesome so far. awesome.



BTW, I hate JD Salinger. suck

glad we can start the we hate Salinger consensus because the guy fucking totally sucks. There are at least a dozen Depression era writers and former muckrakers who are much, much better. Sometimes the high school curriculum has kids read subtantially good literature (To Kill A Mocking Bird, House on Mango Street, Night, Hero With A Thousand Faces, A Brave New World, Grapes of Wrath, Hundred Years of Solitude, Julius Caesar, The Jungle, The Trial), other times we force feed them crap academia has honored as "literature" which is otherwise best suited for the burning pile (The Crucible, Catcher and the Rye, The Book Thief, Frankenstein)

fuck yeah, burning inexistent books, that's what i love to do on weekends

watch:

see, i just burned a book. in my imagination.

fucking book burner...

It is the ONE book even people who "don't read books" have read. So that's something. I think I've met one person in my entire life who has never read it.

AND the rye?
Surely nobody has read that--must be new. Is that a sequel to sex IN the city?

books are made of words, idiot

you got the wrong book

in other words-- make sure you've apprehended the right witch before you burn her.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to !@#$%! again.

yeah. don't go all LA cop on literature.

Haha, you called Catcher in the Rye literature? NOW I KNOW YOU'RE TROLLING!

eh, i don't have time for this.

KEKES--

i don't know that you're that spoiled-- you have a job, for fuck's sakes. i know you wish you were, but you aren't. you have to work.

one of the notable things about holden is that he's rich and pampered-- rich enough to attend some prep school and never have wanted for any material things in his life. which makes it hard to sympathize with him at some level, but then when you realize he's also rich enough to have a better jacket than the guy who's going to try and fuck the girl holden likes, and he's oh so alone in the world, oh so special and misunderstood, you say, okay, maybe, fine, i pity him, the freak, one of us, one of us (you've seen that movie? freaks?). he talks about some sort of hormonal problem. in a way he's right-- whether the hormone thing is literal or metaphor, he's stuck in some stupid place refusing to grow up. he doesn't have the balls for it-- literally, metaphorically-- the hormones.

now i'd say fine, the world is a fucking rotten place, when you're all goodness it must hurt to make the compromises grownups make-- but then you realize the little fucker looks down on people from classes below him. the taxi driver. the secretary that he dances with, in particular, he's such a dick in the way he thinks about her. holden caulfield thinks he's beyond the evil of the world but in fact he's a classist little shit. he's no better than anybody else in particular. in many ways he's actually worse.

if at some point he actually realized that, he came to realize that his shit also stinks, one could say, hey, fuck, there he is, yet another ape achieving self-knowledge, but no, he wants to be the catcher IN the rye and stop the little kids from going over-- he wishes he could keep everyone stunted as some sort of overgrown children. just like jesus commanded. "be like children." well. fuck.

in a way, you can see why his book is so popular. anybody wounded teenager who is disgusted enough or unequipped enough to cope with the universe will see holden as their little hero. but to me he grows up to be like buster bluth-- from arrested development. there, buster the monstrosity holden caulfield grows up to be. so yes, in the way that the type is getting to be so popular, meaning, there are more and more buster bluths every day, holden is winning-- he's stopping the little children in their tracks.

now the story is pretty great, as a kind of anti-bildungsroman (i hope i spelled that right), there is drama and the style is great, and when the book came out it made quite a sensation with the language. so the stuff is well written, and after all is said and done, yes, any angsty teenager will be able to connect with something in it in spite of differences in social class, language, nationality, whatever. because everybody goes through that in some way and even if you're supposed to overcome not everybody does, and not even those who win in the end always feel like they are winning. growing up is tough for all. and he captures some of that, and for that he is good.

but ultimately i like it better as the film adaptation known as igby goes down. that somehow worked better for me, because in the end… nah, i won't spoil it, if you haven't watched it-- let me know if you have. plus, there's sookie sapperstein.

anyway, beyond catcher in the rye i've read nine stories (nine stories i think it is) but i recall little of them, only the bananafish one, and found it also dismal, a kind of quitter's repetitive twitch, and so i never made it to franny and zooey. maybe i'll borrow it from the library out of curiosity of something.

alright, i'll reply to the nietzsche stuff later because you're right, he's scary-- but the right kind of scary, i'd say. seeya.

yeah, he's heavy-- for one thing, he was attempting to overthrow 2,000 years of christian morality. for another, he was standing up against i don't know how many hundred years of german idealism, and to really understand his attacks and mockery you need to understand that lingo-- i don't really, i've never had patience for that stuff, so i've had to rely on notes & commentary. but the first time i read him, really read him, and understood what he was doing to me, it was a huge earthquake. i put me "in crisis" as they say. holy fuck. it was like neo's red pill. never the same again.

i love beyond good and evil, tremendous book, and i'm not really crazy about his zarathustra but maybe that's more accessible-- i mean, a boy and his magic animals wander the world, it's like atreyu but with hair on his chest, ha ha ha.

eh, im rambling.

Archer Mayor - "Three Can Keep a Secret"

maybe i'll give that one a try then and hope to get into him and try to read the other stuff ayyyyyyyyy. but i think i'll wait with that until my christmas break. cause... time.

i read the introduction to homewrecker today. now i can't wait to read the rest.

re: Philosophy texts in general

Without a background in philosophy--a survey course, at least--I'm not sure how people can jump into a text and expect to get much out of it. With precious few exceptions, these are specialized books loaded with jargon and constant references to other philosophers/movements.

It's like picking up a book on advanced neurology without having a firm grasp of the parts of the brain. Might get something out of it, but a lot more will be missed.

There's no shame whatsoever in starting with secondary sources. If a reader doesn't know what "epistemology" is (and there's no reason why the average person should) and isn't aware of the history of that branch of philosophy, then reading, say, Kant is treading close to pointlessness.

Yes, I know one wants to read what the philosopher himself said (yes, "himself;" 99.99% of the time it will be a male author), and one is suspicious of being tainted by another author's interpretation. Good. But a decent secondary source will highlight common areas of contention. At the very least, a good secondary source will provide a framework for understanding why the philosopher felt the need to write the book in the first place.

Of course, there are plenty of crap secondary sources. But there are a lot of good ones out there which have no other purpose than to make philosophy accessible to the non-initiated.

To get the most out of the time one devotes to a philosophic text, I insist a little homework beforehand will make the experience far richer.

Hahaha.

The Brillat-Savarin was great!

Glad I read it at 40 instead of at 20. It helps to have had many satisfactory and non-satifactory gustatory experiences.

Now I am reading this.



Dick Gregory, for those who do not know, was the first, groundbreaking, harsh-truth telling black american comedian. He laid the groundwork for Pryor, Mooney, etc.

and this one is on the way to my mailbox rn:

Jesus fuck I am about 80 pages into Nigger: an Autobiography of Dick Gregory, and it is the saddest most rough shit I ever read. heavy.

reading this, and I don't know why I bough t it ....

Just went through some notes I took while reading books and thought I'd share some lines I really liked from "I love Dick" by Chris Kraus

"You shrunk and bottled in a glass jar, you're a portable saint. Knowing you is like knowing Jesus. There are billions of us and only one of you so I don't expect much from you personally. There are no answers to my life. But I'm touched by you and fulfilled just by believing."

^

The "funny caption" possibilities are endless.