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I gotta skip the misogyny/alt-right crap today. So here’s a question for you all: what are you reading?
I’ll start: in addition to reading way too many news stories about Donald Trump, I’ve been reading about meditation. Here are a couple of books I especially like:
Mindfulness in Plain English, by Henepola Gunaratana (An older version is available for free online!)
The Mind Illuminated, by Culadasa (John Yates). Website here.
How about you?
As an added bonus, here are some words of wisdom from my unconscious mind:
"Pickles don't just CAUSE hippies. Pickles ARE hippies." — Someone said this in a dream of mine last night. #PicklesAreHippies #TrumpTail
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) September 30, 2016
It didn’t make any more sense in the dream than it does in the real world.
And a Pledge Drive capybara reading a goddamn book!
@Julia
Thanks for that interesting, provocative article! You bring up topics that have been on my mind for a while now. I appreciate your courage in putting your thoughts out there for the world to consider.
A book from way back in the wayback time (1992), Women Respond to the Men’s Movement: A Feminist Collection, includes contributions by Gloria Steinem, Barbara Kingsolver, Starhawk, and other feminists. IIRC Starhawk talks about the “side effects” of patriarchy — higher rates of suicide, emotional constriction, and so on — for men. She makes the point that men absolutely benefit from patriarchy — but there’s a cost.
Remember the mytho-poetic men’s movement of the 1990s, led by poet Robert Bly? IMO, that was men complaining about the cost of the patriarchy to men. And that’s what this book is responding to.
Yes, men do suffer under patriarchy. I watched my father suffer. And I watched how my father, in the service of the patriarchy, made my brothers suffer.
So on the one hand, I’ve seen these dynamics up close and personal, and it is not pretty. In fact, it’s tragic.
And on the other hand, boo effin’ hoo.
Guys who complain about how you’re inconvenienced by the patriarchy: Get back to me when you’re willing to spare one single thought for how women suffer under patriarchy.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062509969?_encoding=UTF8&isInIframe=0&n=283155&ref_=dp_proddesc_0&s=books&showDetailProductDesc=1#product-description_feature_div
Following a post on Boingboing, I am reading Everything Change, an anthology on Climate Change SF, available for free download here. Only two stories into it so far: the first story is quite optimistic, the next one not so much. The first story is set in the Floridan Everglades, while the second’s setting is in Manchester, so the difference might be an illustration of the basic natures of US vs UK skiffy, I don’t know.
Actually, I guess I’m also reading Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, but I put it down after one of the protagonists has sex with someone who might be his mother, and though I want to find out what’s going on with the other protagonist (and what his link to the first is), somehow I haven’t managed to read any further.
I finished up Code Name Verity and have picked The Fifth Season from my backlog. So far it’s interesting.
@guest
Really? I love Gaudy Night. I reread it earlier this year. It was wonderful, to me, reading about intellectual women living lives dedicated to ideas, and being taken seriously by the author.
Plus, the poison pen letters, written by a misogynist, are reminiscent of the shit David mocks here every day.
I just finished reading Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Albina & The Dog-Men which I found incredibly underwhelming. It’s a great case of how you can’t carry a story on a bunch of interesting ideas alone – that you need a decently constructed narrative to make it work.
Like, for example, there’re highwaymen that ride rabbits the size of horses – sounds awesome, right? They just appear for a few pages by the end and are of no consequence.
I’m trying to decide on what to read next and having a hard time really deciding. Maybe I’ll go for some non-fiction…
On a sadder note, if anyone here follows The Orbit blog network, Niki Massey (author of Seriously?!) died suddenly this morning . I wasn’t terribly close to her, but I considered her a friend, and the world is lesser for her passing.
Gaudy Night? I thought that maybe I had read that. A look at Wikipedia convinces me that I had.
I enjoyed the story, particularly the feminist aspect of it. The style was dated, but it was published eighty years ago.
And it’s very British, so I had to do some cultural translation. Luckily, I had read Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas, her lengthy antiwar essay, in college. I think it’s in that work that she discusses an Oxford administrator chasing her off the lawn of his college. He seems pretty incensed that a woman would invade Oxford.
I read it in my first year of college. I attended a state university that only that year had begun admitting women on an equal basis with men.
OT
Bombshell New York Times Report Reveals Details From Donald Trump’s 1995 Tax Records
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-1995-tax-records-new-york-times
Here’s my question: Who leaked this story?
Was it Donald J. Trump — because it makes for good reality TV?
@Dalillama
I’m really sad to hear that about Niki. I’m a regular reader of her blog, and I loved her snark and her angry fierceness. I don’t know what to say. 🙁
Dostoevsky. Way too many online blogs. History of Russia.
@Donnie Saul Alinsky was not a communist, and he never had a particularly Marxist or neo-Marxist outlook. He was part of the non-socialist left-wing populist tradition in the United States, which isn’t the same thing as European social democracy (which is related to Marxism) or modern U.S. progressivism (like Bernie Sanders). Alinsky thought that government poverty alleviation programs like welfare don’t work and he favored fighting for better wages and working conditions. He attacked New Left people who used his tactics to promote socialism and communism.
@Moggie
That sounds really depressing but eh, I should branch out from reading genre stuff at least once in a while. I’ll be sure to look for that book.
@eli
Definitely gonna check out Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World.
And to everyone here, I want to thank you for your recommendations!
And the alt right claims he’s for the (white racist) people, when he scews them over regularly with stuff like this.
The Lyonesse trilogy by Jack Vance and the Grendel Omnibus (volume 1) by Matt Wagner.
I’ve finally got round to reading Proxima by Stephen Baxter and am mostly enjoying it. I just finished Ursula K. LeGuin’s collection of early novels, Worlds of Exile and Illusion and loved all three of them in there. I particularly liked her take on planetary romance and the ‘kidnapped by the faeries’ narrative in Rocannon’s World.
@Dalillama
I heard the tragic news from my Significant Otter, who is much more active on Facebook than I am. I was not very familiar with Niki Massey, but Otter liked her. We had a few drinks and talked about it last night. Otter’s ex-boss was close to Massey, I believe.
On a lighter note, we went to a local restaurant for an all-vegan Sri Lankan themed buffet. Pretty much everything was great! There were some kind of beetroot patties with a very interesting texture, and amazingly seasoned, a curry lentil dish, fried angel hair noodles with chives and (I think) sesame oil, veggies and “pork”, roasted potatoes and pumpkin in a thick cream sauce, fried deviled “shrimp”, onion rings and fried veggie balls, giant flatbread style chips, curry rice, cashews and raisins rice, “mutton” rolls which we had to triple check to make sure it was not actually mutton (I’ve never had such meat-like non-meat before – Otter was actually a little psychologically grossed out, but the taste was spectacular), two different kinds of crispy bread (beetroot and veggies flavor, and coconut flavor), plus a “fish” stew that I didn’t try, a fairly large cold/salad buffet, and three different desserts, but I didn’t have room for any dessert when the time came. :/
The whole thing cost $17/person. Including a beer, a pear cider, a diet coke, and a pina colada, we paid about $50 altogether. Definitely going back for their next vegan buffet!
I’m currently reading “Adaptation” by Malinda Lo. It’s a sci-fi, young adult novel about natural disaster phenomena impacting North America, government secrecy and a teenager trying to figure everything out. So far, so good.
Right now? I just caught up on the Unbelievable Gwenpool (Marvel comicbook). It’s… much better than it has any right to be based on how the idea even started (“there was a cover gimmick” and gets stupider from there).
I’m reading two Arundhati Roy books: God of Small Things and Walking with the Comrades
@Dalillama
Fuck! I loved Niki’s uncompromising nature. That really sucks. They were exactly the sort of aggressive determined person that I liked.
@Kat
A thing about games, they are always safe versions of serious things. Sports is war, gambling is chance and reward. It’s similar to how humor is a positive feeling reflection of something we feel negatively about.
The fact that they call it “game” is very telling.
@sillybill
I feel the same way. My comment was meant to define the terms of any potential engagement. On some levels I’m morbidly curious about what someone might take from the free speech arguments of a rapist guidence counseler. While I am assuming (and feel safe with this one), it’s often useful to see new ways in which terrible people react to justifiable criticism and shunning.
I just finished reading the book adaption of the TV series “This Life” (late ’90s British sitcom). Was pretty good. But now I need something else to read! I’m studying Of Mice and Men for my exam in January, but that’s not the same, plus I’ve already read it and I’m not too keen on the book itself. Problem is, I read very fast, and whenever I get new books I get through them really quickly. I’ll go through this thread for some ideas.
Edit: Anything better than Roosh’s scribblings.