Anybody read a good book lately?

[hbionic]

lol

Well maybe I would be ok if one of you heartless bastiches would come tuck me in?

Into bed or your penis between your legs?

[General_Failure]

I've started and given up on a whole bunch of books so far this year, so I'm done looking for new things to read. I'm rereading Discworld books until the next one comes out, Terry Pratchett finally has enough of alzheimers and offs himself, or I get bored. Whichever comes first.

[hbionic]

I just finally read a book I've had sitting on the shelf for about 12 years now....

"A brave new world" by Aldous Huxley

I'm sure most of you have read it...I'm still letting it all soak in. The messages within the story, symbolism, and how it relates to the present. It would be a good one to discuss. The foundation of the story gets laid out in the first half of the book and the last half it picks up rather quickly. I'll give it a 

[Diomedes]

lol

A thumbs up, that's good.  Huxley would be pleased.

[Rome]

He'd probably be most gratified by the use of an emoticon in a critique of the crowning achievement of his life's work.

[Geowhizzer]

I just finally read a book I've had sitting on the shelf for about 12 years now....

"A brave new world" by Aldous Huxley

I'm sure most of you have read it...I'm still letting it all soak in. The messages within the story, symbolism, and how it relates to the present. It would be a good one to discuss. The foundation of the story gets laid out in the first half of the book and the last half it picks up rather quickly. I'll give it a 

Read it in high school, going on 25 years ago now.  May have to pick it up again for a refresher.  If I remember correctly, Brave New World was one of the better novels I was forced to read...

[Rome]

Canterbury Tales.  Hated it beyond reason.  Also wasn't thrilled with reading Shakespeare in high school either although that eventually grew on me.    When you see the plays live it makes reading the stories much more palatable especially at that age.

I saw James Earl Jones in Othello on Broadway when I was in high school.  Completely incredible. 

[Diomedes]

The Loved One - 1948 - Evelyn Waugh:  Vicious little novel set in the Hollywood mortuary/british expat/show business societies.  Waugh was a masterful writer. His diction is impeccable and his ability to describe a scene are awesome.  I re-read paragraphs in this book on several occasions just to soak in the imagery.  He's also very funny.  His portraits of the American and Brits alike are textbook satire and very ruthless.    In fact, so ruthless as to make the book seem bitter.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed it.
Read this if you are into 20th century English literature, Catholicism (Waugh was a staunchly conservative Catholic and it seeps through everything he wrote, as far as I can tell), biting satire, or the mortuary trade.  I liked it enough to move on to a longer, more important work from Waugh, A Handful of Dust.  So far so good on that one.

Chronicles - 2004 - Bob Dylan:  I was pleasantly surprised by how good this was.  I found some sections describing his internal revelations to be rather tedious, especially in the section regarding his work with Daniel Lanois.  But on the whole, the book served as further proof that the word genius is not at all an overstatment of this man's artistic talent.  The language is lyrical and kind of simple, but not in the least song-like or played-out.  It felt like a true memoir in the sense that I think it gave a good impression of what it sounds/feels like inside the head of a great artist.
Not just for Bob Dylan fans, but it certainly helps.  If you are a student of folk music, this book is a gold mine, as he spends a great portion of the volume talking about songs, singers, and albums of artists who most of us have never heard of.

Alive - 1974 - Piers Paul Read:   I couldn't put this book down.  It's a straightforward, meticulously researched, detailed account of the infamous crash of the Uruaguayan Air Force Flight 571, which occured in the dead of winter in the middle of the Andes.  45 passengers on the plane, of which 28 survived the crash, and then 72 days later, 16 were rescued.  The headline story is Cannibalism, of course.  But the portrayal of the day to day challenges these people faced, the dynamics of their personalities, the consequences of their decisions, was stunning.  It's a shocking story beyond the man eating part and I loved every word of it.  Last book I read that captivated me like this was another cannibalism tale (mmm, flesh), about the real-life sinking of a whale ship (the Essex) by an extremely pissed off sperm whale.  That book lacked the volume of detail that this one had though, and of course, many of the survivors are still alive.  It is unreal what the human body and mind can survive, and even moreso what a group of people working together can survive.
Highly recommended to anyone who digs on manflesh, survival stories, mountaineering, or just likes to get captivated by a thrilling, horrific story.

[hbionic]

I think I'll take you up on 'Alive'. Sounds really interesting.

[ice grillin you]

just finished '100 things flyer fans should know before they die'

thought it would be cheesy but it had a ton of cool information and is a must read for any flyer fan...dont get me wrong its a bathroom book but its still really good refeence material

[Rome]

From The New York Times...

Where Death Shaped the Beats

By DAVID J. KRAJICEK

THE scene of the crime, Riverside Park at the foot of West 115th Street, is in full spring bloom, carpeted in the butter-colored flowers of lesser celandine. It was here 68 years ago, on a slope descending to the moonlit Hudson River, that Lucien Carr, 19, the Beat Generation's charismatic, callow swami, buried a knife in the heart of David Kammerer, 33, his besotted, dauntless hometown stalker.

Carr is often characterized as muse to the Beats, but he was more than that. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were acolytes, captivated by Carr's profane rants about bourgeois culture and the path to transcendence through pure creative expression — his "New Vision," after "A Vision" by Yeats.

Carr's "honor slaying" of Kammerer, as The Daily News called it, served as an emotional fulcrum for the group a decade before Kerouac, Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs published their seminal works; the violent death in their midst lent credibility to the tortured-soul narrative they yearned for.

Columbia University was critical to that narrative, and its Beaux-Arts campus is featured in a film now in production, "Kill Your Darlings," starring Daniel Radcliffe as Ginsberg. The university stood as a kind of crucible for the Beats, who were emerging "like a wild seed in a city garden," wrote the Beat historian Bill Morgan. Many of their haunts in Morningside Heights remain (all within a few blocks of the 116th Street subway station on Broadway), including the venerable dorms where they lived — Hartley and what is now Wallach. Any pilgrim's archeological Beat tour, inspired by the movie or not, must begin with the university itself, a useful antagonist in the iconoclasts' quest for artistic self-actualization.

"They all loved to feel they were sleeping in the camp of the enemy somehow," said Ben Marcus, a novelist and associate professor at Columbia's School of the Arts. "As much as universities should be cauldrons of creativity and breeding grounds for new creative activity, the Beats needed to feel that they were being stifled by forces at the university."

They seemed to enjoy the idea, he added, "that these forces were straitjacketing them, whether it was true or not."

"Kill Your Darlings," from Killer Films, an independent production company, was adapted from "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks," a roman à clef written in 1945 by Kerouac and Burroughs but unpublished until 2008. (The title was derived from an apocryphal story concerning a radio newscast about a zoo fire.) In addition to Mr. Radcliffe, shedding his Harry Potter guise to play Ginsberg, the film stars Michael C. Hall, the agreeable serial killer Dexter on Showtime, as Kammerer; Jack Huston, from HBO's "Boardwalk Empire," as Kerouac; and a relative unknown, Dane DeHaan, as Carr.

Kammerer's pederastic interest in Carr began when Kammerer was Carr's Boy Scout leader in St. Louis, where both came from privileged backgrounds, according to Mr. Morgan's "I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg."

Carr was a boy Aphrodite. In "Hippos" Kerouac called the Carr character "the kind of boy literary Romes write sonnets to, which start out, 'O raven-haired Grecian lad....' "

Kammerer, a whiskered redhead, taught physical education and English at Washington University. In about 1940, when Carr was 15, his mother, Marian, discovered a cache of "desperate" letters from the older man, according to James Campbell's "This Is the Beat Generation." She sent him to boarding school in Chicago, but Kammerer trailed him there — and then to Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.; Bowdoin College in Maine; and, finally, Columbia.

The Beats began to form during Carr's first semester there. He and Ginsberg, a freshman from New Jersey, lived in an overflow dorm at the nearby Union Theological Seminary. At Christmastime in 1943, according to Mr. Campbell's book, Ginsberg heard Brahms wafting from Carr's room and knocked to find out who was listening to the music he loved. Ginsberg was smitten. In his journal, he called Carr his first love and "sweet vision."

That winter Carr introduced Ginsberg to Kammerer and Burroughs, who had been schoolmates in St. Louis and were neighbors in Greenwich Village.

Kerouac, another Columbian, was ushered in a few months later when he met Carr at the West End, the saloon at 2911 Broadway, a 60-yard dash away from Columbia's College Walk. (Kerouac initially found Carr to be pretentious and obnoxious, although he used a more vulgar description in "Vanity of Duluoz," another of Kerouac's gauzy autobiographical novels.)

By then Ginsberg and Carr were living at Warren Hall Residence Club, at 404 West 115th Street (now a parking lot). Kammerer was an occasional visitor, sometimes stealing in through the fire escape to watch Carr sleep, according to an often-repeated anecdote in Beat biographies, including Mr. Morgan's "Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac's City." Kerouac stayed with his girlfriend, Edie Parker, in Apartment 62 at 421 West 118th Street, a plaster-frosted walkup off Amsterdam Avenue.

In August 1944 Kerouac and Carr schemed a Merchant Marine adventure to France, where — in the midst of war — they had an irrational plan to retrace the Paris footsteps of the 19th-century poet Arthur Rimbaud, whom Carr regarded as a doppelganger.

The plan fell apart on Aug. 13, when they got drunk and were late getting to their ship, and the men rued their broken dream that night at the West End (now called Havana Central at the West End). Kerouac left Carr at midnight and crossed paths on campus near St. Paul's Chapel with Kammerer, Carr's relentless birddog.

Kammerer asked his usual question: "Where's Lucien?"

Kerouac sent him to the West End.

"And I watch him rush off to his death," Kerouac wrote in "Duluoz."

Kammerer and Carr left the bar at 3 a.m. New York was sweltering, and they toddled downhill to Riverside Park for cool air.

An account of the crime in The New York Times at the time explained that Kammerer made "an offensive proposal." The article continued:

"Carr said that he rejected it indignantly and that a fight ensued. Carr, a slight youth, 5 feet 9 tall and weighing 140 pounds, was no match for the burly former physical education instructor, who was 6 feet tall and weighed about 185 pounds."

"In desperation," the account added, "Carr pulled out of his pocket his Boy Scout knife, a relic of his boyhood, and plunged the blade twice in rapid succession into Kammerer's chest."

Had Carr run to the police, he probably would have been hailed as a hero against a pervert. But he did something quite different.

He rolled the body to the river's edge, bound the limbs with shoe laces, stuffed rocks in the pockets, and watched his longtime lurker sink.

Carr hurried to Greenwich Village and reported his deed to Burroughs, who advised him to tell the police he was the victim of a sex fiend. Instead Carr woke Kerouac, who recounted that eye-opener in "Duluoz":

"Well," Carr said, "I disposed of the old man last night."

He didn't seem nettled. As much as anything, Carr seemed satisfied, by all accounts, that he had finally done something noteworthy. The two men walked up West 118th Street to Morningside Park, where Carr buried Kammerer's eyeglasses, which he had pocketed as evidence of his feat.

He and Kerouac traipsed about Manhattan, dropping the Boy Scout knife in a subway grate on 125th Street. They visited the Museum of Modern Art, a hot dog stand in Times Square and a cinema where they watched "The Four Feathers."

Carr finally walked into the district attorney's office and announced the killing. Prosecutors thought he was crazy — "the imaginings of an overstrained mind," The Times wrote. Carr sat there reading Yeats, to the bewilderment of police officers and crime reporters.

The police were convinced only when Carr led them to the buried glasses the next day, at about the time Kammerer's body bobbed up off West 108th Street.

A week after the killing Ginsberg wrote the poem "Hymn to the Virgin," which hinted at a complex relationship. Written to Carr in Kammerer's voice, it begins, "Thou who art afraid to have me, lest thou lose me." (Two months after the death Ginsberg took an apartment at 627 West 115th Street, about a hundred paces from the death site.)

Carr pleaded guilty to manslaughter. A judge had mercy on "young, good-looking Lucien," as The Times called him, and sent Carr to the Elmira Reformatory, not prison. (Burroughs and Kerouac were confined briefly as accessories. While he was jailed Kerouac was escorted by the police to his courthouse wedding with Parker, and the newlyweds later moved to another Morningside Heights Beat pad, at 419 West 115th Street.)

Carr returned to New York after 18 months away and joined United Press (later United Press International), beginning a 47-year career there. (He had three sons with his first wife, Francesca von Hartz, including the novelist Caleb Carr.) He remained close to Ginsberg and Kerouac, even as he tried to scrub himself from Beat history. He insisted that Ginsberg remove his name from the dedication of "Howl," and the publication of "Hippos" waited until after Carr died in 2005.

An archive of letters and postcards to Carr at Columbia's Butler Library shows that Kerouac and Ginsberg continued to solicit his approval long after they became famous writers — Ginsberg in intimate, lyrical letters and Kerouac in wisecracking postcards.

Yet in his journal (published in his "Book of Martyrdom and Artifice") Ginsberg wrote of Carr: "He must prove that he is a genius. He cannot do so in creative labor — for he has not the patience, says he, nor the time, says he, nor the occasion, says he. None of these reasons is correct. He seems not to have the talent."

Carr certainly was a talented editor. A 2003 history of United Press International called him "the soul of the news service." He did not talk about his life among the Beats or his crime, and former colleagues say Carr would have been livid about "Kill Your Darlings."

Joseph A. Gambardello, a longtime newspaper editor, was a protégé of Carr's at U.P.I. in the mid-1970s, when the news service was based in the Daily News Building on East 42nd Street.

"When I met him he was a hard-drinking, hardworking journalist," Mr. Gambardello said. "He did not come across as a pretentious jackass at all." He added, "The person I had read about with Kerouac and Ginsberg didn't exist anymore."

Carr occasionally sent Mr. Gambardello to Louie's East, an adjacent bar, to fetch a "Lou Carr Special" — a lot of vodka, a little Coke.

He had gotten over Rimbaud.

[Don Ho]

I think I'll take you up on 'Alive'. Sounds really interesting.

Alive is a fantastic book bionic.  I actually read it back in the day.  Highly recommend it. They've tried to make it into a movie several times. I believe one was a Spanish or Italian version that was horrible.  The one made in the early 90's was ok.  Descent Hollywood cast. 

[hbionic]

Just finished reading, "A Single Roll of the Dice" by Trita Parsi.

It basically highlights the Obama Administration's policy towards Iran since Obama took office.

You get a better understanding of the forces at work both undermining Obama (Israel, AIPAC, and the congress it controls), war-hawks, and the political in-fighting in Iran paralyzing them from making decisions.

Also, the geopolitcal fears amongst Isael and Saudi Arabia of Iran's growing influence in the region.
Iran's demand for 'mutual respect' and recognition of its deserved influence in the region, it's strategical importance to the U.S. on issues on Iraq, and Afghanistan. It's demand for its recognition to enrich uranium on its own soil.

But overall, you get a sense on how "Fear, and mistrust has become institutionalized" between both countries that it makes negotiation a virtual impossibility. Explains the nuclear fuel swap deals by the Vienna group and the one negotiated by Turkey and Brazil. It also gives a small window of how sanctions have hurt all U.S. 'allies' by forcing them to stop doing business with Iran and giving China and Russia carte blanche on all of Iran's industries.

George W. Bush had an amazing opportunity to have put this issue to rest when Iran had sent terms to have inspections, have enrichment outside of its soil, and to stop aiding Hamas and Hezbollah. But the arrogant President gave them a big middle finger.



----Anyways...pretty easy reading, and for sure a stepping stone into further reading about the dynamics of this current issue going on today. It gives a little insight into the pressures the President is faced with and some of the dynamics behind negotiation on a global scale.

Let's see what happens this weekend in Turkey.

[rjs246]

Anyone looking to get an in depth understanding of our country's cultural/political roots and how they still dominate voting trends, geographic culture and ethos today should check out American Nations. 

[Seabiscuit36]

I'll show you my Ethos