If you haven’t yet, it’s time to experienceEugene Mirman. And what’s up with MC Hawking’s site? Is it dead? His Wikipedia entry doesn’t say so. I hope not. Nerdcore amuses me.
Category: REVIEWS
Minor Blog Change
Those paying attention to the sidebar may notice I’ve hacked out the “currently reading” section. It was giving me too much guilt as I skipped from book to book that wasn’t on my list, plus it wasn’t the most convenient system, as it wouldn’t allow me to build up much of a record of all the books I own. Therefore, I’ve decided to switch over to Librarything, and display random books from my library. Some of them are read, some of them have not been read, and whatever I’m currently reading may or may not show up on the screen… …
Logic, AI, and Instinct
Originally this post was going to be a lot longer, but I forgot where I was going to go with it, and it’s mouldered in teh Drafts box for many, many moons, so I’ve tied up the knots and I’m dumping it out on the porch for the neighbours to giggle at. I’ve met a few Dr. Spocks in my time, and this whole thing about being purely logical, it’s just an exaggeration. Nobody’s purely logical. Logic cannot function without intuition, which is the whole lesson of syllogistic logic: Every man is mortal. I am a man. Therefore I am …
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… if they wish to see my thoughts on Matthew Fox’s relatively recent book A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity.
A New Reformation, by Matthew Fox
So I am definitely going to write a futuristic thing in which Foxean Catholics are sparring with Old Roman Catholics, while New Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians compete for ratings online. The idea of a futuristic second Reformation is one that really does fascinate me, as it could articulate the divisions and issues withing Christendom in interesting ways, ways that highlight just how much, or how little, a version of Christianity might either choose to, or resist the urge to, deform itself to fit popular culture and/or any of several available secular/ideological consensus realities. Fox’s observations in A New …
Dogfight
I remember a couple of hip guys in my high school discussing this film, Dogfight, all those years back. Now I know why. It’s a good movie, if you can track it down. I got a copy released with two other films, for quite cheap. Well-done, humane, and interesting. Someone on IMDB called it a sleeper. I don’t know how successful it finally was, but I did find this discussion of how books and films become sleeper hits interesting.
Another Story Idea, Perhaps?
So, YouTube’s Lonelygirl15 was a fake. Well, I can’t say, “I told you so,” because though I did view a clip and shake my head about how this was not a 16-year-old or a regular blogger, I didn’t post about it. (I don’t remember doing so, anyway.) But you know, the news that it’s fake (here too!) includes all kinds of speculations about whether the makers of this sham project are going to quit or not. After all, if it were me, I’d be turning the project on its head, making a film about this girl who’s hired to make …
Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow
Taking a break from inhaling Cordwainer Smith’s short linked-story collection Lords of Space, I gobbled down Cory Doctorow’s Eastern Standard Tribe. All I can say is, damn! It was a short book — Doctorow’s writing the kind of novel that I like to see, the kind of thing I (a slowish reader) can read in a single day — but it was packed with fun stuff. It had a couple of different timelines, and some cool, believable tech for the time, given a slow-crescendo of technological change. I appreciated that. It was good fun and made no bones about the …
Notes of a Native Son, by James Baldwin
I just finished Notes of a Native Son other night. It’s not on my currently reading list because I’ve only included personal reading, not research for work, on that list. You know, I’m not sure I have so much to say that’s useful, but I think this is the first nonfiction book I’ve read in a while that really blew me away. The essays in it are powerful, illuminating, and brilliant. There’s a sharp intelligence in them that is not at all impeded by the palpable anger that suffuses parts of it, nor by the palpable regret and sorrow that …
Bamboozled Redux
I just watched the Spike Lee movie again, and I gotta say, it really got me… again. I don’t get what people had against this film. The only thing I can think is that it cuts close to too many uncomfortable, sad, embarrassing truths on (all?) sides, maybe? I see those cartoons, those skits, the long set of clips at the end of the movie, and then I think of how blacks, whites, and other people are portrayed in the media in the country where I live, and I wonder: will my students get what the hell I am talking …