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put down the ol confucius to pick up a great book —->
Gary Snyder – Danger on Peaksthis old guy is the last of his kind.. i enjoy this book like a rare 40 oz. of luck lager… a true american original!
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Pretty pleasing read so far, gets into the brains & personalities of people who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens. No doubt the authors gonna get a lot of hate mail on this issue, I’m loving it so far…
review from amazon…
From Publishers Weekly
If you’re going to read just one book about alien abductions, make it this one. And if you think alien abduction stories aren’t worth considering seriously, Clancy will convince you otherwise. A postdoctoral fellow in psychology at Harvard, she follows the dictum of William James to "take ‘weird beliefs’ seriously but not literally." Thus, she considers that the belief that one has been abducted by little gray beings with large, black catlike eyes, subjected to intrusive and painful physical examinations and exploited to create hybrid human/alien babies serves the deep human need to find meaning in one’s life. She presents clear explorations of what most mainstream experts believe are the sources of the abduction story, such as sleep paralysis and the dubious use of hypnosis in "recovering" forgotten memories of the abduction. Her more original contribution, based on her own research, is that abductees score high on measures of schizotypy (they’re far from schizophrenic, but are prone to fantasy and "magical" thinking) and, more speculatively, experiencing what in the 19th century was called hysteria. Writing in a nonacademic and witty style, Clancy offers an intelligent and compassionate look at people whose "weird" belief usually elicits derision, and argues convincingly for the need to look deeper into its significance. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.This sounds pretty cool, Thurston Moores new book on The Art of Cassette Culture…
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Stop. Fast-forward. Pause. Rewind. It has become part of our vocabulary when talking about the momentum of our lives . . . .
Over forty years ago Phillips launched the compact audio cassette at the 1963 Berlin Radio Show and our relationship with music has never been the same. Durable, inexpensive, and portable, the new format was an instant success. By the 1970s, we were voraciously recording music onto blank cassettes. It allowed us to listen to, and, in effect, curate music in a new way. Privately. Mix tapes let us become our own DJs, creating mixes for friends, lovers, and family, for parties and road trips.
Artist and musician Thurston Moore looks back at the plastic gadget that first let us make our own compilations. Over eighty home tapers, including artists, musicians, actors, writers, directors, comediennes, talk show hosts, and, of course, record store employees were invited to tell the stories behind their mixes. From the Romantic Tape, to the Break-up Tape, the Road Trip Tape, to the "Indoctrination" Tape-the art and text that emerged was of the mix cassette as a new way of re-sequencing music to make sense of our most stubbornly inexpressible feelings-a way of explaining ourselves to someone else, or to ourselves.ahhhh those were the days… it is still fun to hit the cassette racks/bins at the used stores and find some gems..
my book i am reading now is Death on the Intallment Plan by Louis Celine an incredible book by a super cool writer… it is amazing to see how many american writers have copped their style from celine… you can see most of bukowski emerging from these pages.. quite a good read… and many a laugh.. black comedy rules.Hunter s Thompson – Hey Rube !
the latest hunter s thompson book. it is a ciollection of his espn articles he wrote on is website.. just a review for me since i was a rabid fan of this collom. but so insiteful into all the savage pagentry that is the nfl.. i only wish he were around this season to weatch his beloved colts win so completely… i guess being blown out of a cannon can bring good luck to your favorite sports teams…
Hunter s Thompson – Hey Rube !
Definitely on my list of must have books, don’t think there could be a better title
Just finished: BlackTown- By shane Weaver
Shane Weaver’s Blacktown, of the 1950s and 1960s, was a brutal place. But this is not so much the story of a place that can be painted with the same brush, as it is a family story of unhappiness and scars, surviving and hiding.
Weaver grew up in a violent household with a volatile stepfather, fragile-but-resilient mother, and with a big chip on his shoulder.
From occasional uni student to pro boxer, streetfighter to dishwasher, psych nurse to father . . . Weaver tells a story of surviving, laughing, laughing, drinking and bleeding.
Just finished Kurt Vonnegut’s Man without a Country.
I re-read the posts on this thread – and would recommend any of Vonnegut’s works to those who have been reading Timequake and Jailbird. The man is a genius – the new book is both funny and depressing. It seems to have opened a whole new audience for him by what I read elsewhere.
John
…I put down Dr. Sax, jsut can’t get into it. I just finished Where Angels Fear to Tread, by E.M. Forster, it was crazycool. Now started The Moon and Sixpence, by W.Somerset Maugham, it is fun so far. Also reading Do It by Jerry Rubin in the bathroom. Non-fiction library reading has recently included a fine biography of F.Scott Fitzgerald by Andrew Turnbull, he actual new him so it was cool to read his impressions…
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picked this up today, should be hilarious, gotta love this chapter ‘A head is a terrible thing to waste’…
I just read "The Five People You Meet In Heaven". Now it had a few interesting theories about death, and a few nice statements about life, but overall I found the book to be quite drab.
i’m reading ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ by Tolstoy…the paperback edition i’ve got has some other short stories of his as well.
the first one is called ‘Family Happiness’ and is written from the perspective of a 20-year old girl. i’ve never read Tolstoy before…i was hoping for some Dostoyevsky-style grimness but instead found the dated ramblings of a 19th century Russian aristocrat. having said that, it’s a decent read, just not very current. at the time this novella was written, gender roles were more clearly prescribed in society than today, i suppose.
Tolstoy has some interesting ideas about why men and women fight when they’re in love, and some hang-ups about the institution of marriage sounding the death knell for romantic love. i don’t really know why i bought this book. since i live in China, my options for English reading material are primarily limited to that spectrum of possible lameness we refer to as ‘the classics’.
Stiff:The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers was kinda gruesome at times, but overall I really enjoyed it. Although I kinda wish I had never heard of mellified man & cadaveric medicine…
Currently reading Rat Scabies & The Holy Grail Ex drummer from the Damned & a pal search for treasure…hilarious so far!!!
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most of the books i read while in africa were agriculture or food related. i did read "a million little pieces" by james frey. being a recovering heroin addict, i was a bit skeptical of some of the passages, turns out i had good reason to be. it was an entertaining read nonetheless. but nobody will ever do junkie lit. the way bill burroughs did…..RIP..
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