tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post8024659227616728263..comments2024-02-12T23:25:09.583-08:00Comments on Overweening Generalist: Irritate In Chic Bug: Notes on Four Articlesmichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-69728619935031120182014-01-25T21:49:36.380-08:002014-01-25T21:49:36.380-08:00Eric-
THANX loads for the rundown on Thompson bo...Eric- <br /><br />THANX loads for the rundown on Thompson books. His New Biographical Dictionary of Film books keep coming out, 100 pages longer than the previous edition. You've read the 5th ed? It's what? 1100 pages? Now I really want to read Moments That Made the Movies (my library has it), and Suspects.<br /><br />A week or so ago I was in a room in Berkeley with five other beings of curious breathing laughing flesh, and the topic of TV series came up and one lady said what you said about The Wire.michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-36293586017798236422014-01-25T21:44:21.915-08:002014-01-25T21:44:21.915-08:00Anon- great riffs on fast women and obnoxious Viki...Anon- great riffs on fast women and obnoxious Viking youth. Alcibiades is one of the most beautiful, glorious fuck-ups in all of literature...and he was "real"! Even Socrates wanted to "do" him, as the kidz today say. When that "American Taliban" kid from Marin County, Johnny Walker Lind, got busted, I thought of Alcibiades. <br /><br />I watched a gripping doc on Shackleton with a friend, then two weeks later I went to Edinburgh and the room we had booked was covered with a mural of Shackleton's most harrowing expedition. A mere coincidence, I guess.<br /><br />Yea, Twin Peaks was/is indeed great. I even loved Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, though it seems only confirmed Lynchians are with me on that.<br /><br />I'm almost positive RAW saw Brazil and thought if great, even if it didn't show up on that Top 100 list that Tom Jackson linked to recently at RAWIllumination.netmichaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-37221205491085446912014-01-22T14:37:05.060-08:002014-01-22T14:37:05.060-08:00I wrote this little guide to David Thomson's b...I wrote this little guide to David Thomson's books: http://www.amazon.com/lm/R2KUUG3PJA3P69/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view?ie=UTF8&lm_bb= .<br /><br />Thomson recommendations re: McLuhan: I thought of you when reading Thomson's latest book, Moments That Made the Movies. You could read it in a few hours. It has mostly pictures, with fascinating comments on the role of movies in society.<br /><br />Thomson's childhood memoir Try to Tell the Story... has great discussions of changing media, from books to live theatre to radio to film to TV to live sports.<br /><br />The Whole Picture, A History of Hollywood, has some great discussions of film vis a vis other arts: Mahler's Ninth vs. Intolerance, Virginia Woolf, Edward Hopper, etc.<br /><br />The New Biographical Dictionary of Film seems his masterpiece. I've read the fourth and fifth editions. The sixth edition comes out next May.<br /><br />His novel Suspects takes characters from a bunch of films and has them interact. I suspect you'd love it.<br /><br />The Big Screen deals with how screens have shaped our culture. It might best satisfy in terms of McLuhan and competing ideas about media.<br /><br />I loved Breaking Bad, but The Wire had a bigger impact on me. All other cop shows seem fake to me now (except True Detective). I watched The Wire all the way through twice, and it occurred to me this morning I wouldn't mind watching it again.Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-33146084103982159572014-01-21T22:13:46.574-08:002014-01-21T22:13:46.574-08:00The only Celts who aren't related
to vikings a...The only Celts who aren't related<br />to vikings are those whose women<br />anscestors were fast women.<br />The most hilarious of the Greek<br />myths is the corruption of a lad<br />named Alcibiades.<br /><br />The real source of the Viking spread<br />was their elders saying why don't<br />you obnoxious teenagers make a boat<br />and go bother someone else for a<br />change. Teens full of themself make<br />lousy farmhands.<br /><br />Humans love tragic love stories<br />unless they are living in them as<br />one of the chosen duo. Recycling<br />the epics is what makes great<br />literature in any age, making the<br />origin hard to discern is what<br />makes great authors.<br /><br />I have Shackletons book South on<br />my pile of next reads now. It has<br />a bunch of pictures too.<br /><br />I keep hoping another TV series<br />will match Twin Peaks for being<br />worth watching multiple times.<br /><br />I wonder if RAW ever saw Brasil,<br />that was to me the predictor of<br />our current situation.<br /><br />I also see the Vatican Banksters<br />are back in the limelight of bad<br />publicity again.<br /><br />I do like the idea of blaming a<br />gene for whatever faults or<br />virtues you have available.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-77031431650159057232014-01-21T16:53:21.265-08:002014-01-21T16:53:21.265-08:00S.W. Thompson-
I find the mutation that made milk...S.W. Thompson-<br /><br />I find the mutation that made milk products a source of protein and therefore underrated in widely known ideas about history and conquering: fascinating!<br /><br />Stephen Pastis is a known paranomast. Watch your children when he's around.<br /><br />Jitterbug Perfume! Yea. I hadn't thought of that. The dynamic, brilliant, wild professor and the wild, brilliant student - their relationship - is a theme that's endlessly fascinating to me, from corrupting the youth of Athens to corrupting the youth at Harvard, and beyond, into "fiction."michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-42630884776180929982014-01-21T16:43:21.140-08:002014-01-21T16:43:21.140-08:00phodicus-
I left "Kant" jokes out to cr...phodicus-<br /><br />I left "Kant" jokes out to create a vacuum for which you and others could throw that stuff in, but the beer and Categorical Imperative riff was perfect for the story, and I wish I had beaten you to the punch, or used an air gun, something!<br /><br />Thanks for adding to general mirth. What a ridiculous story that was, if true. <br /><br />Hey: if, in Discordian atheology, our catmas are relativistic meta-beliefs, then it seems comparatively that the Categorical Imperative is dogma. <br /><br />Someone once said that "Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable;<br />Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table." <br /><br />Bertrand Russell? No.<br /><br />Hannah Arendt? No. <br /><br />michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-62320511585429468032014-01-21T16:32:59.268-08:002014-01-21T16:32:59.268-08:00Tom-
Yea, RAW and/or Arlen did some poking around...Tom-<br /><br />Yea, RAW and/or Arlen did some poking around in their genealogies and RAW found he was descended from Olav the Black, a Norwegian pirate. Among others.<br /><br />My current main model for genes and migration and why some areas did so well centers around the info-matrices introduced by Jared Diamond in his magisterial Guns, Germs and Steel.<br /><br />As far as crazy genetic theorists in Europe in the 1920s: yea: their theories were crazy and some were even genocidal. I won't name names, for I have too much respect for Godwin's Law.<br /><br />Just about any country that has enough wealth to support a thinking class will have a subset of those thinkers advocating that They are the descendants of the the superior genes. Lately in Unistat I've seen white-trash "Aryans," Jews, Africans, and Chinese make claims along these lines, each in a very different rhetorical style. <br /><br />Meanwhile, like Woody Allen, I realize I don't have an Inferiority Complex: I truly am inferior.michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-21600871914981539982014-01-21T14:40:23.844-08:002014-01-21T14:40:23.844-08:00I. In the miraculous genes boat, perhaps lactose t...I. In the miraculous genes boat, perhaps lactose tolerance proved crucial as the west was won through superior application of organized violence? http://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471<br /><br />II. Having lived in a number of locales, the correlation btwn meatheadedness and mechanistic materialism confirms many a long held suspicion despite the shoddy methodology behind it.<br /><br />III. Somebody had to use a headline similar to 'You Kant Be Serious,' right? Terrible puns make this world a better place. Stephan Pastis proves it on a near-daily basis.<br /><br />IV. The bit about the scholar-student seduction for some reason reminded me of Tom Robbin's Jitterbug Perfume, though I'm still not quite sure why.<br /><br />Tom Jackson: I remember R.A.W. commenting on the preponderance of lice combs at Nordic archaeological sites, but he always seemed staunchly, almost obstinately Irish when outside the Fullerian dream world of open borders. Vikings, after all, relish in ax-murder. A few years ago you posted about a blogger chap who apparently considered the whole Viking bit in Nature's God an anti-immigration spew... (Not quite sure why that's floating up the ol' memory hole now.) Perhaps you're thinking of the Hyperborean analogy?S.W. Thompsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05852883476129196173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-80673252404079508572014-01-21T10:08:46.454-08:002014-01-21T10:08:46.454-08:00I thought part III would end with that tired old j...I thought part III would end with that tired old joke where a man pisses in a beer bottle and Immanuel Kant says, "that's against the categorical imperative!"<br /><br />And that's all I gotta contribute to tha OG for now.phodecidushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15180270013030833624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-50103090967761952992014-01-21T08:39:59.429-08:002014-01-21T08:39:59.429-08:00Didn't Robert Anton Wilson believe he was desc...Didn't Robert Anton Wilson believe he was descended from Vikings? And didn't he talk about people who had a propensity for new ideas and new experiences, vs. folks who did not? This might be a new theory for why western Europe became so dominant -- it was settled by waves of people who had a genetic propensity to seek new places and new ideas -- although obviously genetic explanations for history are always dangerous.<br /><br />I just heard about a crazy genetic theorist in the 1920s who insisted that Caucasian people in western Europe were more advanced than darker Mediterranean people. Of course, he had to struggle to explain those underachieving Greeks, Romans etc. Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07810736442596736041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-32363574307740398412014-01-21T00:59:58.794-08:002014-01-21T00:59:58.794-08:00Thanks, Eric.
Hey: what book by Thomson would yo...Thanks, Eric. <br /><br />Hey: what book by Thomson would you recommend to someone who likes McLuhan and competing media theories?<br /><br />I have not even heard of "True Detective." I don't have HBO, although I do have horrendous body odor, if that will help. (Wha?)<br /><br />If it's as good as it sounds I'll probably wait for the series to end, hope one of the libraries I frequent buys the entire series on DVD, then binge-watch. <br /><br />That's what I did with "Breaking Bad," and it was...hold on...bad example: I meant to write about my 32 days of watching all of "Breaking Bad" but I wasn't sure if it was OG stuff. I'll just say here that I'm afraid that show ruined all following TV series for me. I was wrecked by "Breaking Bad." Just thinking about that short window of time when I was watching it makes a shiver go down my spine. The idea that some show will come along and I'll say, "Jeez! I thought Breaking Bad was great, but this is way better!..." seems unthinkable to me. <br /><br />Sorry I went off there. Thanks for being one of the six people who landed on - and read! - something as ridiculously titled as "Irritate in Chic Bug." It's not the way you title an article to get hits, obviously.michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-68158759251579716012014-01-20T17:52:08.508-08:002014-01-20T17:52:08.508-08:00Terrific piece, as usual. Shackleton fascinates D...Terrific piece, as usual. Shackleton fascinates David Thomson; he wrote a book about him.<br /><br />Have you seen "True Detective" on HBO? I absolutely love it. Thomson raved about it over at the New Republic, and once again I fully agree with him. Mr. Clore might find it interesting. Episode two mentions Carcossa and the King in Yellow.Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.com