"The Kreutzer Sonata" was a pretty enthralling tale of murder, misogyny and misanthropy, but I think some of my fellow Paizonians might most like this line about music:
"And yet every one knows full well that it is, thanks to these very occupations, especially musical studies, prosecuted together, that by far the greatest proportion of wickedness takes place in our society."
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It's kind of nifty, Doodlebug, especially since a lot of Tolstoy's contemporaries were making claims that music and art would bring about the moral uplift of society.
It took us two world wars to reach the conclusion that art is, in and of itself, neither moral nor immoral. But that's a boring conclusion.
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A horrible, horrible Wallander fan-fiction piece by the son of one my dad's co-workers.
It's kind of nifty, Doodlebug, especially since a lot of Tolstoy's contemporaries were making claims that music and art would bring about the moral uplift of society.
It took us two world wars to reach the conclusion that art is, in and of itself, neither moral nor immoral. But that's a boring conclusion.
Yes, our ancestors would consider us horribly obscene and immoral.
Hip-hip-hooray!
Yes, our ancestors would consider us horribly obscene and immoral.Hip-hip-hooray!
Now and then someone will tell me that I should not judge the past so harshly (even though I don't, really) because we will be judged harshly in the future. At this point, I tell them that I hope we're judged harshly and the sooner the better. I want future people to look back at us and think us savages for enduring all the things they've fixed, or at least made progress on. Who wouldn't?
Also: reading Freehling on and off, but mainly I made a project of reading Iron Man comics from the 80s since I've meant to for years. Polished off David Michelinie's run a few nights ago and started in on Dennis O'Neil. Pretty good so far. The set rate is three a night, but sometimes I'll read extras.
Very distracting how none of the artists seem to know that Tony is supposed to look like Robert Downey, Jr, though.
Well, Sugar Candy Mountain didn't get off to the greatest of starts.
Supposing I were to ask you "What's the most important object in loading the truck for the Burlington Mall? What's the sine qua non without which you couldn't perform the task?" and you were to answer "A truck," well, you'd be one step ahead of my bosses.
Not that I don't appreciate the two and a half extra hours of overtime, but I didn't get to read a blessed work of either Asimov's I, Robot or Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories.
:(
...I hope we're judged harshly and the sooner the better. I want future people to look back at us and think us savages for enduring all the things they've fixed, or at least made progress on. Who wouldn't?
Supposing future people "fix" things by making them better in their own eyes, but worse in ours? Supposing their idea of "progress" is towards some dystopia? Even within the confines of one time period, people in one culture judge those in another harshly for not fitting their narrow definition of "good". Who wouldn't want future people to think us savages because of things they "fixed"? Depending on their "fixes", it's very possible that *I* wouldn't.
Well, Sugar Candy Mountain didn't get off to the greatest of starts.
Now I keep thinking of Time Enough At Last.
Supposing future people "fix" things by making them better in their own eyes, but worse in ours? Supposing their idea of "progress" is towards some dystopia?
Everyone's idea of progress is someone else's dystopia. If that doesn't stop us now, why should we worry about it in the future?
Supposing future people "fix" things by making them better in their own eyes, but worse in ours?
What we consider "good" and "bad" are usually things that, respectively, either grease the wheels or throw sand into a working communal society. That's generally constant over time. I can't think of too many historical references in which some scholar honestly advocates that rape and unprovoked murder are "good" things, or that generosity and loyalty are "evil," and then those views catching on worldwide.
Yeah, people forget lessons learned sometimes (like the two just mentioned), but overall, the fairly steady decrease in wanton murder, cruelty, etc. over human history says that, overall, we do on the whole eventually learn what works and what doesn't.
Agreed, Kirth, but... there are many reasons WHY someone can lose a bid for power. It is tempting to say that Hitler and Stalin lost because of their ideology... but how sure can we be of that? Both men were just men, prone to bad judgements and in both cases none too stable. I don't know if the discussion of mustard gas during WWI for Hitler is true, but he was a definite iconoclast, and insisted on running the show pretty much one-man, ahead of arguably some of the finest generals available, enforced ideas like "nobody retreats, ever", and drugged himself with amphetamine to manage it. Stalin had a very serious alcohol problem. I don't have the answer, but I am wary of taking too much comfort in the idea that they lost because of their ideology. Humans will follow any strong leader - perhaps next time the leader won't be that iconoclastic?
Everyone knows how much I hate Uncle Joe (we Trots hated him before everyone else did), but I'm having trouble trying to understand Kirth's sentence about how he "lost."
Unlike Adolf, he died happily in his sleep (especially if that Judy Davis comedy Children of the Revolution is to be believed). Fiftyish years later, "communism" was done for, but Russia is still a world power of the first degree, which certainly wasn't the case pre-Stalin. And, alas, he is still considered a hero by many, many Russian and Chinese pinkskins and even some Britishiznoid elves. Granted, not everyone in China is an unreconstructed Stalinist, but shiznit, you add up all of the unreconstructed Third World Stalinists in the world and I would guesstimate that there are just as many people out there who love Stalin as hate him.
Yeah, Americans don't like him, but most of our advocates for mass murder haven't taken much of a hit. Last time I checked, Andrew Jackson, for example, was still on the $20 bill.
Time Enough At Last.
[Has nightmares]
Stalin died of dehydration after a partial stroke, alone in his quarters, AFTER TELLING EVERYONE HE DID NOT WANT TO BE DISTURBED. It takes several days to die of dehydration, and longer before anyone dared defy his orders and check on him.
IIRC.
"Died happily in his sleep" may have been an overstatement, but he died in power, in no danger of being overthrown.
And, alas, he is still considered a hero by many, many Russian and Chinese pinkskins and even some Britishiznoid elves.
Well, not me, and I will deny that before any Committee you care to name.
Still on the Decameron, but I did buy a load of 2nd hand [redacted] books over the weekend, including a biography of You Know Who, published in 1949 in the USSR and no doubt an unflinching warts and all portrait of the man himself. And some Andrea Dworkin, which was interesting.
Well, not me, and I will deny that before any Committee you care to name.
Fair enough.
And some Andrea Dworkin, which was interesting.
Interestingly enough, back in my Spart days, I used to run into a zany outfit of Third Worldist Maoists who loved both Uncle Joe and Auntie Andrea. In fact, they were so vehement in their arguments that under-patriarchy-all-sex-is-rape, which I assumed they had gotten from Dworkin, that I was dumbfounded when I read in that interview she did with Moorcock that she claimed she never said it.
Perhaps apocryphal Lenin quote that I can't cite at the moment: "He who takes someone's word for it is a fool who can be dismissed with the wave of a hand."
Yeah, Americans don't like him, but most of our advocates for mass murder haven't taken much of a hit. Last time I checked, Andrew Jackson, for example, was still on the $20 bill.
And we put Bobby Lee on stamps, more than once, despite his instrumental role in murdering far more people. And those people were even mostly white! Though the four million he fought to keep slaves were not, and fighting for that kind of thing is the sort of thing that a lot of Americans historically have admired.
So, I'm starting to think that the NSA has been sharing information with UPS. I've been at Sugar Candy Mountain for three days now, and all I've been able to read on the clock is half of a story from I, Robot.
I'm only up to "Catch that Rabbit" and, I swear, Powell and Donovan need to join a union.
"No employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first time"? Oh yeah? I want my steward!!!
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Just finished Abbadons Gate and started On Basilisk Station.
Oh man, Abbadon's Gate was one of my favourite books of the year! (On Basilisk Station I tried because of a short story by DW that I liked, but couldn't finish it - it was quite bad).
I like that the book doesn't have a villain. I mean there was Mao, but you can't really think of her as a villain even when she is responsible for most of the death and destruction that happened in the book. And even in the huge action part at the end of the book, the "bad guys" were doing what they thought was the right thing to do - honestly thought so, even though they were being very brutal about it.
Also, such a great cast of new characters! Bull was probably my favorite, but Ana and "Melba" were very good as well. I was sorry not to see Avasarala back, as she was of course the thing I liked best about "Caliban's War". I wonder if we will keep seeing about 3 new POVs every book, each one appearing once and then making room for yet another remarkable person to affect the fate of humanity as they explore the stars.
I originally thought the "the expanse" is a trilogy - however, I am quite happy to know now that 3 more books are on the way. I kind of hope we get read of Holden at a certain point, though. It kind of feels more and more like he's being shoved into the plot for no reason.
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Jeezum Crow, Doodles, I've got nothing but respect for Mr. Leitch, but now I need a Silkwood shower to get the hippy off!
(Yes, I just said "get the hippy off"; save it, I've heard it.)
Rudyard Kipling: The Musical Interlude
As the link says, "If you like hippy shiznit maybe the song is for you."
Oh yeah, that whole reading thing: "The Death of Ivan Ilych"
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Can I just say that linking to Donovan tracks without a clear warning is the absolute height of irresponsibility?
An hour's practice with a scimitar followed up with Conan The Defiant (or 'Threesomes with Zombies', as it should be known) left me completely unprepared for that
It's impossible to write a non-cheesy song about Atlantis, as proved by Eloy
Also,this is nothing to do with anything literary, but it does have a man in lipstick shooting down a slide and going 'Ha ha ha ha'
Can I just say that linking to Donovan tracks without a clear warning is the absolute height of irresponsibility?
Oh man, I had to sit through the movie about Francis of Assisi that he wrote songs for years ago. It was all about how Frank the pusher jammed a dozen tabs of LSD up your ass and then sung you off to his harem in the hills to do fabulously decadent things. You can't convince me otherwise.
I don't know what you mean by "cheesy" ("Hail, Atlantis!") but that Hindi dance number was da bomb. (Doesn't look like a suspense movie to me.)
Oh man, I had to sit through the movie about Francis of Assisi that he wrote songs for years ago. It was all about how Frank the pusher jammed a dozen tabs of LSD up your ass and then sung you off to his harem in the hills to do fabulously decadent things. You can't convince me otherwise.
[Adds to list]
I kind of like Donovan.
I love Donovan and I've got his GH cd on my MP3 for work. (Yes, I have many of his albums, too, but I don't have the gadget that converts records to MP3s.) Maybe I'll make a big long Donovan post on the WPZO after I get finished with this Annika Norlin chick (who's hawt, btw).
EDIT: [Watches Those Dancing Days and causes computer to short out due to excessive drooling]
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Can I just say that linking to Donovan tracks without a clear warning is the absolute height of irresponsibility?Oh man, I had to sit through the movie about Francis of Assisi that he wrote songs for years ago. It was all about how Frank the pusher jammed a dozen tabs of LSD up your ass and then sung you off to his harem in the hills to do fabulously decadent things. You can't convince me otherwise.
Well, public opinion seems to be against me; if fey Scots and/or monks of great reknown are your thing, who am I to argue?
Mind you, his version of Yeats' Song of the Wandering Aengus isn't bad. Not as good as Terry Callier's, though.
When it comes to Scots and tunez, I think I prefer them fey and making literary allusions.
Just picked up The Scroll of Years: A Gaunt and Bone Novel by this Chris Willrich fellow. Anybody know him?
Not particularly fey, but More Scots Rockers with Literary Pretensions
Taking a break from Brandon Sanderson's Elantris for some King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. Also got Emperor of Thorns, The Girl That Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stig Larsen (sp?), and some kind of Skin Mapper novel.
Stieg Larsson.
"-sen" is Danish/Norwegian. Possessive "s" followed by "-son" is Swedish and Icelandic.
So a man with a father named Knut would be called Knutsen in Denmark and Norway, and "Knutsson" in Sweden and Iceland (except only the Icelanders still use patronymics - in the rest of Scandinavia they've turned into family names, my dad's father was called Lennart, not Karl, and my mother is called "Haglund," not "Ragnarsdotter").
And the descendants of scandinavians with -son names to the US usually got rid of that extra s.
A surprising number of my friends and family have Swedish wives. :-P
Well, some national stereotypes are true. :D
Except tall, blonde and blue eyed is just a look we put on abroad.
Just got a bunch of these 99c PF shorts loaded on to my phone. Reading "Ironroot Deception" by Robin Laws. I like that Gad character.
Except tall, blonde and blue eyed is just a look we put on abroad.
[Tries to make Madame Sissyl jealous]
I had a hawt blonde Scandinavian girlfriend once, but she was of Danish descent and had the -sen ending. We saw Saving Private Ryan on our first date and Life Is Beautiful the night we first consummated our relationship which, in retrospect, was kinda weird.
I can't see Dicey's link, alas.
Oh yeah, like Madame Sissyl, she didn't like communists, either.
Except tall, blonde and blue eyed is just a look we put on abroad.
Were-Swedes? ;)
Except tall, blonde and blue eyed is just a look we put on abroad.You can say that again! ;)
My younger brother spent his last vacation working at a restaurant of his in Gothenburg. (Chefs can be weird, but I guess it looks good on the CV.)
As for books, I'm working my way through one about the European revolutions in 1848 (parallels with the Arab Spring are thicker than a tropical shrubbery) while I wait for Republic of Thieves and Raising Steam to arrive.
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Except tall, blonde and blue eyed is just a look we put on abroad.Were-Swedes? ;)
Eternal rivals of the were-cabbages.
I'm working my way through one about the European revolutions in 1848 (parallels with the Arab Spring are thicker than a tropical shrubbery)
Ain't that the truth.
So, about my hawt Scandinavian girlfriend...
Even weirder, in retrospect, is I had to sit through her graduation ceremony at BU before she ditched me and went to med school in LA (the whole relationship was all kindsa Good Will Hunting to keep the 90s date movie thing going) and the commencement speaker was Henry F~&~ing Kissinger and, I shiznit you not, he spoke about Red China.
Books wise, I was disappointed to flip through all my Dostoyevsky novels, some of which I've had since high school, and 2/3rd of them were translated by Constance Garnett.
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Eternal rivals of the were-cabbages.Except tall, blonde and blue eyed is just a look we put on abroad.Were-Swedes? ;)
Reminds me of Bunnicula, the vampire-bunny that sucks the juices out of vegetables. :-P