Currently reading....

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Pappawas1975 - 8-4-2006 at 21:31

I figured Id start a new thread for this, rather than us all tacking posts onto the LOTR thread......

Currently reading Cows by Matthew Stokoe.....Pretty vile stuff, but great fun....

vivien_o_blivion - 8-4-2006 at 23:23

zazkia - 9-4-2006 at 00:20

A currently reading post, that's quite impossible. I believe it's something like this:

Guinea Pigs - Vaculik (very very very cool)
War & Peace - Tolstoj (lousily translated in Dutch)
The Tartarian Helmet (a very very boring comic book, in the Spike and Susy series -rem. Bpns avatar)
The rise and fall of great empires - Paul Kennedy (a master piece that is taking me too long, about a year now)
The Choice for Europe - Moravscik (a sensible book about Europe and thus very rare in its kind)
something by Hrabal that book is quite lost at the moment it was something with trains...
and this list could continue for a rather long time if my sister wasn't jumping on her chair -she wants to say some things too):regan:

BBP - 9-4-2006 at 00:35

Still Gogol... but I'm through with the Qu'ran.
Though I'm very close to finishing Dead Souls. The second part of it was completed by the author several times, but every time it was destroyed by him. There's one manuscript remaining which misses words occasionally and here and there it has unreadable hand writing. It's a great book though.

DED - 9-4-2006 at 06:52

Yeah reading books.
At this moment I'm reading Gates of Fire by Elwin M Chamberlain in a Dutch translation in a Playboy Roman row of books. It is a disappointing story with a worse plot. The book before that was "A Rude awakening" By Brian Aldiss also in a Dutch translation in The row of Playboy Humor. And guess what. I didn't laugh once.
Further more I'm collecting the total biography of P.G Woodhouse in dutch and english. Had read over 45 books from the guy now and starting to read Mulliner Nights in English. Chapter 5 is called "The voice from the past" and actually that is what it is. Living in a time with no television, hardly telephone, no internet, no mobile phone etc. I love to read that kind a stuff.
In English now because of the humor that could not be translated and the use of "old fashioned words and understandings of the past.
I'm also trying to read and understand Big Blues, The unmaking of the IBM. A pretty old managementbook helping to understand the meaning of business in different economical settings.
Sometimes I open my (american)book of Multivariate Data Analysis. It was hard to learn it in a short time and for me it is some sort of knowledge that will fade out if you don't use it, and I won't allow that to happen. Apart from that I'm reading the English translation of the Philips taperecorder book to get my hands on the specific knowledge in English,
It helps me to speak about my favorite pasttime and also I need this to fully understand the servicemanuals that mostly are written in English.
And I open more regularely the PHP5 book from Baby Pee (bbp) To help her to get more content. in the site. Preparing a quiz now but the change of forms did't work quite well due to the redirection behind a action statement , with te help of the book I solved that and again some PHP scriptwriting is learned.

zazkia - 9-4-2006 at 09:58

baby P :-D

:biggrin:
Thankx for opening up the subject Goji.. I can't find you cow at the wikipedia thing... But there is something funny about another stokoe who developed some sort of sign language.
"BB" represents a dominant flat hand acting on a passive flat hand; this is disambiguated from both hands acting together by using an overt tab symbol, such as 'ØBB'.
ZaZ appears to stand for two bent middle fingers and an fist.
(this sort of numbing lookups is the reason why I havent finished Guinea Pigs...
A here it is:

Quote:

A cow that escaped a slaughterhouse dodged vehicles, ran in front of a train, braved the icy Missouri River and took three tranquilizer darts before being recaptured six hours later. News of the heifer's adventures prompted a number of people to offer to buy the animal.

:wow:

scallopino - 9-4-2006 at 13:10

Ahhh. All of these posts make me wish i could read. One day, scallopino. One day...*looks to the sunset with quiet determination*

scallopino - 9-4-2006 at 13:15

I don't have time to read anything else other than what i'm required to for skoowel. It's so much!

So i can't participate in this topic!

BBP - 9-4-2006 at 14:32

What do you read for school? I studied history for a year, and noticed you're reading some stuff I had to read as well...

Currently I'm reading for school:
some 6 books on Alban Berg, particularly the fragments on his Sonata op 1.

scallopino - 10-4-2006 at 12:42

For history? It's currently the Vietnam War this semester. Pages and pages and pages of documents each week, plus a related main text (a couple of chapters each week), plus additional readings from other works on special topics (like JFK, or Lyndon Johnson, or MacNamara, or Ho Chi Minh, etc.)

And for politics: either the whole or main parts of the masterpiece/s by the thinker in question (Rousseau, Marx, Foucalt etc.), plus commentary and analysis ON those guys by other people.

It's all very interesting though.

BBP - 10-4-2006 at 17:27

My twentieth-century history teacher had the annoying habit of talking about unrelated topics. We had 6 classes in which we were to discuss the 1914-1991 period, but when we got to the last class we still had to talk about WW2.
We had 2 text books on the period, one by Joll (The Ascendency of Europe) and The Age of Extremes of which I can't come up with the author's name right now.

aquagoat - 10-4-2006 at 19:04

Some of the things I read:

BBP - 10-4-2006 at 20:05

Quote:

Originally posted by BBP
My twentieth-century history teacher had the annoying habit of talking about unrelated topics. We had 6 classes in which we were to discuss the 1914-1991 period, but when we got to the last class we still had to talk about WW2.
We had 2 text books on the period, one by Joll (The Ascendency of Europe) and Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes.

DED - 11-4-2006 at 17:45

I think I stop with the playboy book, it is sh..

zazkia - 14-4-2006 at 00:15

@ sis "Huntington" dear BBP, you gave me two of them. He wrote really well about everything before 1950 but after then it became an annoying mixture with his own ideas
(I'm especially annoyed by his sceptiscism towards postmodernism, either be neutral or shut up, or stop being a historian. :mad

@ scallopino, hah that's almost philosophy that polical course, if you have to read primary texts.
Foucault now that's someone I know something about. What did you read? Discipline & Punish? That is much refuted by historians for its style, i believe.

scallopino - 14-4-2006 at 12:03

Actually Zaz we haven't got to Foucalt yet in the course. I was reading Discipline and Punish before semester started for my own enjoyment and was up to Panopticism when I had to postpone finishing it.

We've just done Marx, who is great to read. Next is a section on what Romanticism was, especially in contrast with the Enlightenment (which we've already done alongside Rousseau), then Weber, Nietszche, Foucalt and Habermas.

And yeah, it is very philosophical in a sense. I enjoy that kind of Politics because it's sort of a middle ground to (i) what people usually think politics subjects are (you know History of the Australian Labour Party, Feminism and Dissent in the 20th Century etc.), and (ii) straight out Philosophy; the first type i'm not really interested in and the second i would struggle to take seriously.

Pappawas1975 - 18-4-2006 at 09:27

Finished Cows and the Lincoln Lawyer, by Michael Connelly since I was last here....Both very good reads....
Am now re-reading The Dice Man, by Luke Rhinehart.....An excellent book, anybody else read this? Very recommended indeed....

polydigm - 21-4-2006 at 12:18

Quote:

Originally posted by zazkia: ... either be neutral or shut up, or stop being a historian ...

That's a pretty strident view about historians. I can't imagine not having an opinion about history.

polydigm - 21-4-2006 at 12:24

Quote:

Originally posted by scallopino: I don't have time to read anything else other than what i'm required to for skoowel ...

As a local, I know what that "skoowel" is about, I wonder if anyone else does?

Quote:

Originally posted by scallopino: ... So i can't participate in this topic!

It is what you're currently reading.

Anyway, hi guys, the official forum getting back on it's feet has been pretty engaging, but I haven't forgotten about this place.

BBP - 21-4-2006 at 15:02

That's good... Thanks for remembering!

Right now, I'm re-reading Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground" because I didn't understand a word from it the first time I read it.

scallopino - 23-4-2006 at 00:31

Quote:

Originally posted by polydigm

Quote:

Originally posted by zazkia: ... either be neutral or shut up, or stop being a historian ...

That's a pretty strident view about historians. I can't imagine not having an opinion about history.

I think she has a point. As i understand it, an historian's job is to interpret events, movements and ideas; to piece together those things and synthesise into a coherent account of something in the past.

It's not to make personal value or moral judgements on those events, movements and ideas. Any one can do that.

scallopino - 23-4-2006 at 00:46

What i'm reading for an upcoming (too fast) essay on the Enlightenment:

Condorcet, Sketch for an Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind

Georges Sorel, The Illusion of Progress. Couldn't find an image.

Krishan Kumar, Prophecy and Progress.

scallopino - 23-4-2006 at 00:48

Oh, and

Sidney Pollard, The Idea of Progress.

Pappawas1975 - 23-4-2006 at 12:13

Am now halfway through "What A Carve Up!", by Johnathan Coe.....Very quirky, but enjoyable....

BBP - 24-4-2006 at 16:06

Finally finished Gogol's Dead Souls... Great book, in spite of being unfinished. Somehow I can't put myself to reading when I'm stuck at home in one room with the PC with internet access...

BBP - 25-4-2006 at 18:35

Some stories by Tolstoy.

Pappawas1975 - 25-4-2006 at 20:09

Began re-reading Naked Lunch....Definitely something that needs to be re-read.....I love it....

BBP - 25-4-2006 at 22:45

I still need to get that some day...

Pappawas1975 - 26-4-2006 at 10:44

Quote:

Originally posted by BBP
I still need to get that some day...

Thoroughly recommended! But it is a difficult read, Ill warn you now, but there is something very magical about it.....

scallopino - 27-4-2006 at 07:32

I haven't read it, but i've heard it's the origin of 'Steely Dan'.

Pappawas1975 - 27-4-2006 at 14:35

Ha! Yes it is. Im not gonna tell you what Steely Dan is though.....Or Steely Dan Mark II. Or Steely Dan Mark III......

DED - 28-4-2006 at 08:46

Quote:

Originally posted by DED
I think I stop with the playboy book, it is sh..

Well in the contrary, I finished the book. Pff a good thing is that all main characters are missing or dead in the end. Upon me the writer can follow soon. It was a bad book.

Now that I have finished this one I started to read the English version of Mr. Mulliner off P.G. Woodhouse.....
But it is a little diificult to read, that special style of the guy.
So I choose to read a French book (in a Dutch translation first) It is called Wet Paint or originally Peinture Fraiche by Robert Escarpit.
The main character in it, is a wall. :roll:

BBP - 28-4-2006 at 10:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Gojira1975
Ha! Yes it is. Im not gonna tell you what Steely Dan is though.....Or Steely Dan Mark II. Or Steely Dan Mark III......

Unfortunately my pop music teacher gave it away... (the meaning of the name, not a Steely Dan)

Pappawas1975 - 28-4-2006 at 11:00

So he told you what Steely Dan is in Naked Lunch?....Not the sort of thing to be discussing with students?!!

BBP - 28-4-2006 at 19:48

She did, yeah. She's my popular music teacher, we were discussing art rock and stuff, played some Pink Floyd... She also introduced us to Yes, by saying how much she dislikes the band.

DED - 29-4-2006 at 08:46

Do not mind my asking BBP, but where is the seat of your bike..... ?.....:roll:

[Edited on 29-4-06 by BBP]

scallopino - 29-4-2006 at 10:30

Unfortunately, that went way over my head Ded.

Pappawas1975 - 29-4-2006 at 12:23

Quote:

Originally posted by BBP
She did, yeah. She's my popular music teacher, we were discussing art rock and stuff, played some Pink Floyd... She also introduced us to Yes, by saying how much she dislikes the band.

Dildos are surely still a strange topic for an art rock discussion nonetheless?.....I know you guys are liberal, but still....

BBP - 29-4-2006 at 17:36

No really! Teacher was talking about Steely Dan... The thing about culture is that it's at the moment very "hip" to dislike Metallica, Charles Ives, Michael Jackson, and Steely Dan among others. She didn't understand why SD should be so impopular just out of fashion.

Still reading Tolstoy, and thoroughly enjoying it. He's got such a fluent style of writing.

Puptent - 1-5-2006 at 12:47

I like the Dan, but most of my friends don't, because they feel it isn't "proper raw rock" and not 'heartfelt', and just too deliberately crafted and arty. I've heard similar complaints about FZ, though...

BBP - 1-5-2006 at 13:54

Kinda liked them myself...

BBP - 2-5-2006 at 19:48

Have now bravely picked up my copy of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Which I hopefully will finish by the end of May.

Pappawas1975 - 5-5-2006 at 16:10

Just finished Animal Farm by George Orwell. A good little book.

Now reading Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard...

vivien_o_blivion - 21-5-2006 at 20:51

although it has now been interupted by

as i have my test this wednesday

[Edited on 21-5-06 by vivien_o_blivion]

BBP - 21-5-2006 at 21:17

Good luck Viv!

Pappawas1975 - 22-5-2006 at 09:32

Just finished Women by Charles Bukowski.....Just started The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time by.......cant remember who...

BBP - 22-5-2006 at 12:25

Mark Haddon?

DED - 22-5-2006 at 15:21

I know someone with Asperger
poor guy. Is banned from the audiofreaksforum several times.

BBP - 22-5-2006 at 16:09

That's a long title for a book, Dad! :-P

Seriously, I knew someone with Asperger, he studies with me. I dated him for a day, he broke up with me after he found out I supported the "wrong" football team. Gotta admit, he's about the smartest person I've ever met, never made notes in college yet passed every subject, and spoke 11 languages.

Pappawas1975 - 23-5-2006 at 09:43

Quote:

Originally posted by BBP
Mark Haddon?

Thats it, thanks BB....You read it?...Its ok so far....

BBP - 23-5-2006 at 18:50

Never heard of it, just googled... sorry... Still working on Anna Karenina, but I'm nearly there.

BBP - 24-5-2006 at 15:52

I'm there! Yay! Good book, really, now I'm a happy single.

Now started on Naked Lunch!

Pappawas1975 - 25-5-2006 at 10:00

Quote:

Originally posted by BBP
I'm there! Yay! Good book, really, now I'm a happy single.

Now started on Naked Lunch!

Would definitely be interested on your thoughts on NL BB.....

BBP - 8-7-2006 at 12:40

Now reading a superb play by Friedrich Durrenmatt, called Der Besuch der alten Dame, "the visit from the old lady". An old, wealthy, eccentric lady visits her home town, and announces she will give a billion (probably Marken or Francs) to the town, provided somebody will kill her former lover who left her after she got pregnant.
The mayor refuses the offer, because the man's a well-respected citizen, but the people in the village already start spending huge sums of money...

Pappawas1975 - 12-7-2006 at 11:46

Lost interest in The Crow Road Im afraid BB. I was really enjoying it, until about the 250 page mark, and realised that nothing had really happened AT ALL, and nothing pointed to anything happening either! The author tends to take 30 minutes for a 5 minute journey....

I very rarely put books down, but I was just totally bored with it!

And then I started The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien......WHOA. HEAVY SHIT. This is interesting, but soo in depth and difficult. I am trying and perservering though!!

BBP - 13-7-2006 at 20:37

Please do! The first book of it (maybe the first two) was quite hard to get through for me, but the actual Silmarillion book is enjoyable!.

Was in Amsterdam today, and went into the American Book Store. And in the children's section, I found:
The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless by Ahmet Zappa!

I read it on the way back home, just finished it. Quite an enjoyable read it is too! The Ahmet illustrations are not too great, but the photoshopping is enjoyable! Ahmet uses himself and Frank in some of them, is cool! Also quite some Zappa references.

Sad to see him ending his lengthy Thank You page with the most thanks to his amazing wife, who he'll love forever and ever. Ouch... How old is that book anyway?

Pappawas1975 - 14-7-2006 at 10:19

Ha! Quality. Id be interested to read that Ahmet book actually....

BBP - 14-7-2006 at 13:01

Wanna borrow my copy?

Pappawas1975 - 14-7-2006 at 15:43

Nah, its all good, but thanks anyway BB....

BBP - 15-7-2006 at 09:46

Believe it or not but I lost it already... :rolleyes:

scallopino - 27-7-2006 at 09:00

I have David Copperfield sitting on my desk but I won't be able to read it for about 4 months...

BBP - 27-7-2006 at 09:14

I've grabbed my old Smurf comics. The ones Peyo made are really very funny!

scallopino - 28-7-2006 at 09:19

Ha! I loved the smurfs! Do you think they exist in real life? I always suspected my mother was a smurf, or at least descended from smurfs.

BBP - 28-7-2006 at 11:35

Not until I actually saw some smurfs when I was on holiday in France...

...but I always gathered from the comics Peyo was a misogynic communist...

vivien_o_blivion - 22-8-2006 at 20:05

punknaynowned - 4-9-2006 at 12:05

Quote:

Originally posted by BBP
Not until I actually saw some smurfs when I was on holiday in France...

...but I always gathered from the comics Peyo was a misogynic communist...

oh! I'm convinced the original artist was not a misogynist tho there is only one female smurf. A dear friend of mine who is female and decidedly not misogynist is convinced by deduction that smurfs reproduce asexually . . . she (my friend) frequently and with great vehemence will go on and on all day convincing anyone she's right about this. don't get her started!!!!

hahahhahhahhahhahhahhaahhahha!!!!!!

but she would agree with you that he was probably at least heavily socialist

[Edited on 4-9-2006 by punknaynowned]

BBP - 4-9-2006 at 13:04

Smurfs don't seem to reproduce at all. In the Babysmurf album, Baby is brought by a stork during a blue moon. When Brainy asks Papa Smurf where babysmurfs come from, the reply is that it is a great mystery.

Have you read the album in which Smurfette is introduced? Gargamel's recipe for a statuette with female character:

A spark of coquetry, a large dose of prejudice, three crocodile tears, the brains from a shrimp, powder from a vampire tongue, one carat of slyness, a handful of anger, a finger of lie-tissue, hand woven... a large quantity of craving for sweets, a quarter pound of bad faith, a thimble of unpredictability, a bit of haughtiness, a pint of jealousy, a bit of sentimentality, one part madness and one part cunningness, a lot of flying spirit and stubbornness, and a large measure of spendthrift.

(The responsibility for this recipe is for the editors of the book Magicae Formulae, Belzebub).

In the story any nasty prejudice on women is dealt with, from untimely headaches, spending ages on putting on make-up, singing badly whilst thinking she's singing great and unability to tell a joke properly, to endless talking and backseat driving... Ever wondered why the Smurf-dam is pink? Smurfette's suggestion.

punknaynowned - 4-9-2006 at 13:16

ouch!!! that's pretty damning I must agree.
you and my friend should talk. I'll see if I can't get her on here.

BBP - 5-9-2006 at 00:32

Great! Discussing Smurfs!

punknaynowned - 11-9-2006 at 23:41

bought a dozen books yesterday at a used bookshop.
Travel books of Dickens: Italy and America, The Old Curiosity Shop, 'the uncommercial traveller', a biography of Boccaccio, some faullkner miltie (hamlet again and Sanctuary the two 25 years apart), Conrad's Heart of Darkness, William Golding's Rites of Passage, some more sailing adventure-type books (CS Forester, Mutiny On the Bounty), Gunter Grass My Century c 1999, and John Fowles' The Maggot. I read The Magus 16 years ago but I bet this'll remind me of that.

I haven't been a fan of fiction for five years. I got the urge again. The weather just started to get a little cooler at night. Wonder if these'll whet my apetite again.

scallopino - 12-9-2006 at 13:37

i have read one work of fiction in about 3 years...Voltaire's Candide. No wait..i also read the last harry pothead book.

BBP - 12-9-2006 at 13:44

Nice purchases!

Today I bought a Japanese guitar book. It contains a lot of songs in a writing I cannot decipher, and, among others, "nothing else matter". Also I got a Guide to Learning Hiragana & Katakana, which looks fun, though considering I also still have a Modern Greek course, an Ancient Greek course, an Arabic course and a few Russian courses lying around I keep my fingers crossed I get to it.

Yesterday I got a nice Dutch youngsters classic, Stad in de Storm by Thea Beckman, about Utrecht in the Renaissance.

scallopino - 12-9-2006 at 13:52

my favourite part of Iron Chef is when Iron Chef Kenichi paints up his menu in that wonderful caligraphy. It looks real cool. It's just so different to European writing.

BBP - 15-9-2006 at 14:55

Just bought William Burroughs's Dead Fingers Talk.

And something else I'd been wanting for some time: a Donald Duck comic by Carl Barks, FC0308, the only scene Barks ever drew in which someone commits suicide.

language

punknaynowned - 15-9-2006 at 16:40

Quote:

Originally posted by BBP
Also I got a Guide to Learning Hiragana & Katakana, which looks fun, though considering I also still have a Modern Greek course, an Ancient Greek course, an Arabic course and a few Russian courses lying around I keep my fingers crossed I get to it.

Yesterday I got a nice Dutch youngsters classic, Stad in de Storm by Thea Beckman, about Utrecht in the Renaissance.

'Hiragana & Katakana' : are these Japanese character drawing categories (am I close?). I think maybe I once knew about this but have since long forgot.
middle greek is quite similar to russian and ancient greek is different still. I have yet to get back to latin and greek which I love. Arabic, tho needed now is a whole other world . . . tho if I were to live longer, I would love it.
Perhaps you are right for doing the polymath path . . .
I tried it once or twice and got tired of the routine for more than a few years . . .:singer:

-- what do you mean Dutch youngsters classic? I'd love to learn about Utrecht in the Renaissance! But I dunno Dutch, hmmm lemme go look! thanx fer the idea

BBP - 15-9-2006 at 19:38

Thea Beckman's debut was for adults, and the rests of her books are for kids age 12 and up, often based on historic themes. When asked "Why don't you write grown-up books?" she replied "Grownups will read my books anyway." :bald:

Shall I post you a summary of that book?

Ooh, and Arabic is relatively easy as a language... The biggest problems are the reading from right to left, and that in writing there are 4 different symbols for every letter: one for a letter on its own, one for the beginning of a word, one for the middle, and one for the end.

And what do you mean Polymath Path?

punknaynowned - 16-9-2006 at 02:27

oh!
a polymath is someone who studies lots of things.
Post me a summary? Well what can you tell me about Crusade In Jeans, the one where she got popular???? Or are the market for such things in general there, better. I for one would love to see more of that stuff. Was that story accurate insofar as appropriate for the tenor of Dutch cultural attitudes then???? or can that be measured. hmmmm
This is the first I've ever heard of this, tho, so I am already looking at it with a skewed perspective. Historical fiction for youth in the states never really took off. Video games replaced it and fantasy settings. I liked that stuff too, but I went into history. So it's a novelty to be hearing about such things and so of course, I ask questions about it that are interesting to me. Maybe not at all relevant to what you even brought it up for . . . Que?
Damn, I almost fell outta my chair there!

punknaynowned - 16-9-2006 at 02:30

Arabic is easy huh?
I'm intrigued. What 'lessons' are you looking at?
:bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing: :bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing:

punknaynowned - 16-9-2006 at 02:31

woah! that's almost eery all those bouncing balls smiling and leaping head over heels IN UNISON!!!!!

BBP - 16-9-2006 at 10:58

Quote:

Originally posted by punknaynowned
oh!
a polymath is someone who studies lots of things.
Post me a summary? Well what can you tell me about Crusade In Jeans, the one where she got popular???? Or are the market for such things in general there, better. I for one would love to see more of that stuff. Was that story accurate insofar as appropriate for the tenor of Dutch cultural attitudes then???? or can that be measured. hmmmm
This is the first I've ever heard of this, tho, so I am already looking at it with a skewed perspective. Historical fiction for youth in the states never really took off. Video games replaced it and fantasy settings. I liked that stuff too, but I went into history. So it's a novelty to be hearing about such things and so of course, I ask questions about it that are interesting to me. Maybe not at all relevant to what you even brought it up for . . . Que?
Damn, I almost fell outta my chair there!

Crusade in Jeans is about a 15-year old boy named Dolf, whose uncle is a scientist and who has invented a time machine. It's not perfect, when it's been used to ap something back and forth, it needs to be repaired for a month. As an experiment, they send Dolf to the Middle Ages and will flash him back in an hour. When the hour is over, the children's crusade is marching along and a little boy is zapped back to the present. Leaving Dolf to march along with the children...

It's a very captivating book, read it twice from start to finish in a day, and it's 600 pages long. Plus Beckman was famed for using relatively difficult lines. Whenever her bosses complained she used a too difficult word, she'd say "Nonsense!"

punknaynowned - 16-9-2006 at 22:58

ah yes! a device!
but then what does she do? does Dolf get to spend much more time in the 13th century? Is that the substance, the main plot arc of the thing or is it in getting him back? . . .

vivien_o_blivion - 16-9-2006 at 23:05

Quote:

Originally posted by BBP
Great! Discussing Smurfs!

here's a lost episode

lol

BBP - 17-9-2006 at 16:23

Quote:

Originally posted by punknaynowned
ah yes! a device!
but then what does she do? does Dolf get to spend much more time in the 13th century? Is that the substance, the main plot arc of the thing or is it in getting him back? . . .

Yeah much more... he travels along with the children's crusade and has to save the kids from hunger and disease on a number of occasions, then overhears what the crusade is really about... But you'd better wait for the film, or read it yourself. It's been translated.

BBP - 17-9-2006 at 16:25

punknaynowned - 25-9-2006 at 04:56

I'll look for it

BBP - 29-9-2006 at 22:49

There's English translations of CIJ available in book stores around here, I can get you one...

Am now half-way in Stad in de Storm, it's a very exciting book.

Edit: finished it last night... really good, really good... Now off to Dead Fingers Talk whilst running the virus scanner.

[Edited on 30-9-06 by BBP]

polydigm - 30-9-2006 at 01:05

I'm currently reading Unweaving The Rainbow by Richard Dawkins.

scallopino - 30-9-2006 at 03:53

I've read some chapters from that Poly. I couldn't read it all because it was in the middle of semester and completely unrelated to my work.

Mr. Dawkins featured for about 6 months as my avatar here.

scallopino - 9-11-2006 at 15:58

Here is my self imposed formal study free reading list for my holiday months:

CHOMSKY, Syntactic Structures, H 415 C548S
FOUCAULT, The Order of Things, U 901.9 F762M
NIETZSCHE, The Antichrist, U 235.48 N677A
NIETZSCHE, Portable Nietzsche, U 193 N677A
KAFKA, The Castle, U 830.912 K11.1 A6/S3m
KAFKA, Short Stories, U 830.912 K11.1 A23/P
ROUSSEAU, Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, M 840.5 R864 A6/C.B
DURKHEIM, The Rules of Sociological Method, U 301.018 D963R8
DERRIDA, A Derrida Reader, U 194 D438 A28/K.h
FEYNMAN, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, H 530 F435F
DICKENS, David Copperfield, U 820.8 D548 A6/D.n
FLAUBERT, Sentimental Education, U 840.8 F587 A6/E3B

plus some other stuff not by any particular author.

BBP - 10-11-2006 at 12:09

That's quite some literary stuff you got there... Kafka is great!
But to be honest I never heard of Chomsky.

punknaynowned - 10-11-2006 at 19:17

Quote:

Originally posted by scallopino

CHOMSKY, Syntactic Structures, H 415 C548S
FOUCAULT, The Order of Things, U 901.9 F762M

DURKHEIM, The Rules of Sociological Method, U 301.018 D963R8
DERRIDA, A Derrida Reader, U 194 D438 A28/K.h
FEYNMAN, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, H 530 F435F

I'd love to spend some quality time with these as well. I can't anytime soon :drool:

scallopino - 11-11-2006 at 04:24

Yeah tell me about it...i have to wait until the end of each year usually.

scallopino - 11-11-2006 at 04:41

Quote:

Originally posted by BBP
That's quite some literary stuff you got there... Kafka is great!
But to be honest I never heard of Chomsky.

I'm up to page 76 or something of The Castle. Noam Chomsky is an American and kind of has a similar stature to Michel Foucault. He is probably most famous for his advocacy of a sort of a modern form of anarchism and his criticism of american foreign policy.

There is a youtube video of a debate about human nature between Chomsky and Foucault (Foucault talks to Chomsky in French and Chomsky talks to Foucault in English..). It was a live to air thing and it might have even been for Dutch tv.

BBP - 12-11-2006 at 14:33

Sounds interesting...

punknaynowned - 25-11-2006 at 17:08

so you saw the CIJ movie. yeah books are always better, but did they do a decent job for this one?

BBP - 25-11-2006 at 21:36

Well there were some unfortunate plot changes... I wasn't too fond of the adding of a love story and the deletion of one main character... But it's still a very entertaining film. Two hours just flew past.

I ws surprised at one thing. One of my favourite actors, Jan Decleir, has a part in it; and I didn't recognize him.

BBP - 31-1-2007 at 12:56

Just started on reading The Devils by Dostoevski.

punknaynowned - 2-2-2007 at 23:27

Quote:

Originally posted by BBP
Just started on reading The Devils by Dostoevski.

that's one I never got to. Have I ever prattled on about how I love Dostoevsky? I think I did . . . could ya keep me updated , but noooooo that might be too much like school eh?

anyway, I love it. That's supposed to show some of what he learned about as a gambler and 'arnachist' before his jail time, after which he started writing his works that have been most remembered.

BBP - 3-2-2007 at 18:57

Ah great! I especially enjoyed reading about his experiences in Siberian punishment camp... dirty clothes, one bath per year... Not sure about the English title.

punknaynowned - 12-2-2007 at 22:09

I'm reading the latest Thomas Pynchon novel: Against The Day.
here's the dustjacket synopsis that Pynchon wrote (oh, you can bet on it).

"Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after WWI, Against The Day moves from the labor troubles in Colorado [that's where I am right now] to turn-of-the-last-century New York to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.
With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places.
The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikolai Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.
As an era of uncertainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.
Meanwhile Thomas Pynchon is up to his usual business. Charcters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange and weird sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-fact occurences occur. Maybe it's not the world, but with a minor adjustment or two it's what the world might be."

I call it fun.
Already, me being in Colorado as noted above, I find the characters paralelling where I'm at in my present day world. Love it when this happens to me. When you come upon a book of fiction pretty randomly that gives insight or shows analogous perspective to the troubles and concerns of real life, right now. Makes you feel like you are part of a larger stream of pseudo-consciousness or something.:grin:

[Edited on 12-2-2007 by punknaynowned]

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