Whatcha Reading?

[Mark]

Yesterday I noticed in one of his comments on COTO that Waldo is reading, Family of Secrets. I got that book from the library the other day and just started reading it myself.

Come across any good books lately?

I want to read Eva Golinger's recent book, The Empire's Web: Encyclopedia of Interventionism and Subversion, but it was published in Venezuela in Spanish and I don't know if it is out in English yet.

[Mark]

Way I see it (and my eyes ain't that good either), the point of reading is learning, so if you're learning it doesn't matter what the medium is. Kinda stuff we read, maybe we should call it an extreme instead of a medium.

[curt]

I can agree with that. But do tell, how can we pass a day without learning ?

Not a trick question, one of my main goals in life os to learn something each day. I've learned this is a common goal. Many people think this way. Not enough, but many.

But augh, this documentary is good. I'm almost finished watching it. Another day or so.

[Cal]

I've also been wondering if my lack of reading was to do with eye trouble ... no sooner do I pick up a book than I need to take a nap ... and I've always been a compulsive reader. Also been making up for it by watching documentaries on the web. HannahJ posted links to the BBC2 "Century of the Self" - Adam Curtis. I am a product of "me" and the social environment I grew up in ... interesting to re-evaluate how I lived my life given the backdrop Curtis gives of the profound impact the work of Sigmund Freud had on the century in one way or another.

[Mark]

Attention Deficit Disorder is contagious--you get it from your computer.

[pan]

Reading for entertainment (novels, etc.) has been substituted by internet stuff and renting movies - watch lots of movies. Read at night before sleeping - always non-fiction, usually somehow related to work. Got to get back to Adorno's Aesthetic Theory - got about halfway through my re-read of it (I really like the Frankfort School authors) and took a break to read about John Cage's theatre works and Harry Partch.

Doing my homework for a new class I'm teaching - Dance Production. One more chapter left in an anthology I required - some useful information, some bullshit - once again I find that I should write a text book for the class I'm teaching...

[Mark]

This excerpt from Family of Secrets (pp. 363-364) may offer some background for other discussions, particularly those concerning Ward Churchill and academic freedom:

"The Basses shared the ideological and cultural interests of the Bush clan and their secret society confreres. In 1991, Ed Bass's brother Lee donated twenty million dollars to Yale, his alma mater, and specified that the money--one of the largest donations ever made to the school--was to be used for revitalizing the Western civilization program. In fact, Bass hoped to limit the growing emphasis on multiculturalism; he was worried that the study of Toni Morrison and Malcolm X was pushing out the 'classics.' A controversy ensured, and Yale returned Lee Bass's money. To some, the problem with the Bass's gambit was not their ideology, but rather their apprent belief that money, rather than vigorous open debate, should be the deciding factor in a matter of broad public concern. As if to confirm this, when Lee Bass's effort backfired, Lee's father, Perry (Yale '37), offered five hundred million dollars to the school to formally declare that his son had done nothing wrong. Yale president Richard C. Levin refused that deal.

Nevertheless, by the time George W. Bush had become president, Ed Bass was one of Yale's nineteen trustees...."

[Mouse]

I started falling asleep as soon as I opened a book too, about 6 years ago I think, time of terrible stress. Had to read walking about. Got back to it here, really. Still believe in book osmosis, keep them around you in living piles, dipping in. Picture books, just bought some more. Bills overdue, dreadful, have to buy books. Expecting a pile in the post, thank god, necessary. Instead of cans of tomatoes and packets of pulses. Picture books. For the future.
Gustave Moreau
William Stott of Oldham: A Comet Rushing to the Sun
Auguste Renoir
Amedeo Modigliani
The Golden Dream: A Biography of Thomas Cooper
El Greco in Toledo
Bonnard and the Nabis

It was a sale. They may come tomorrow. Ah!

[Mouse]

Odilon Redon, perfection, such pleasure and space. After the birth of his son, colour came into his work, and colour so rich, exceptional. About six years ago I bought several books of his work to comfort myself, being lost in billowing waves of formless colour from time to time,

from which arise

[waldopaper]

Happiness Consultants Won't Stop a Depression: another gem from Chris Hedges. I haven't gotten into Empire of Illusion yet because Family of Secrets is freaking me right the fuck out... and there is really nothing in there that I did not already suspect. It just keeps confirming my worst suspicions.

If "Happiness Consultants" sounds like "Freude durch Arbeit," you aint wrong. I keep getting pushed into the role of being a "Happiness Consultant," which also freaks me right the fuck out. Not that I WANT to bum people out, mind you, (oh well... maybe just a LITTLE) but the idea of bullshitting people who know I'm bullshitting grinds my ass almost as bad as bullshitting people who DO NOT know I'm bullshitting.

And I'm really fucking tired of hearing about the NWO (New World Order), and although you can get a belly-full of that in Family of Secrets, what strikes me is that there is nothing majikal or extraordinary about any of "them." They hob-knob and work their Rolodex and "network" just like any mid-level "manager." The ONLY thing different about them is they can plop down half-a-billion bucks like you or I would plop down a fiver. It's the "banality of evil." Every time I encounter the "Law of Attraction" I want to kick fucking furniture across the room. NWO. What fucking bullshit.

There is nothing "New" about it. It's the same old bullshit that's been around since the fucking Pharaohs. Whether it's "divine right" or "Law of Attraction," it's all the same old crap designed to make popping out of the right hatch look like some kind of meritocracy. "Since I'm rich and fat because I DESERVE IT, YOU must be poor and sick because you DESERVE IT." I really don't think the Fats see through the bullshit any more or less than the poor. The thing is, the Fats don't NEED TO.

Yet...

[Cal]

I have been bad - I quit worrying about being able to afford to keep myself alive after retirement and splurged on some dog training books... Waiting eagerly for 2 parcels to arrive so I can lose myself in doggy tales. Mouse, that's my version of the picture books at the moment.

Happiness psychology ... been there, done that ... some 20 odd years ago. It was 'fringe' stuff then - and it had its attractions in the heady immortal days of youth. Now it seems to be the mainstream conventional-person thought pattern amongst people I know. My peers are planning their golden, wealthy retirement days to come, while I'm planning how to painlessly leave the planet when my luck runs out.

[Mark]

If you use this link instead

Happiness Consultants Won’t Stop a Depression

you can see my little debate with somebody called Gordy. My first post is about 2/3 the way down on that page.

[Mouse]

Me too Cal. But I often feel as though I might be staying longer than I thought after all, possibly. The urge to jump off a cliff comes less often at present. Nice.

Ooh, that Bonnard, my favourite book in the whole wide world, makes it easier to see.

Opened it last night and fell in. Today went to the water meadows with the baby, and on to Gostrey Meadows in bright sunshine. It was like looking at heaven with children in the stream and me looking down into the ripples and lights with the little fishes and boys stringing up a tightrope on the river bank, learning how to balance. Everywhere groups of young people sitting and talking. The playground full of children and the paths so curvaceous making their patterns amongst the broad shadows.