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shadowkat1. The 21 Best Fantasy Book Series
Meme: Bold the ones you've read all of, italicize the one's you've read part of..
The Broken Earth Trilogy (2015-2017) by N.K. Jemisin
(Including: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky) - I own the Fifth Season on the Kindle, haven't gotten to it yet.
The Culture Series (1987-2012) by Iain M. Banks
(Including: Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, The State of the Art If we have to say more than “utopian socialism on sentient spaceships” to sell you on this series, it may not be for you, but give it a shot anyway, won’t you?)
The Vorkosigan Saga (1986-ongoing) by Lois McMaster Bujold
(Including: Shards of Honor, The Warrior’s Apprentice, Ethan of Athos)
The Wheel of Time (1990-2013 by Robert Jordan (with Brandon Sanderson)
(Including: The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn)
The Pern Series (1967-ongoing) by Anne McCaffrey (with Todd and Gigi McCaffrey)
(Including: Dragonflight, Dragonquest, The White Dragon)
The Hainish Cycle (1964-2000) by Ursula K. Le Guin
(Including: Rocannon’s World, The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness) - Own two of them - Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness -- just haven't been able to get into either. I struggle with Le Guin.
The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955) by J.R.R. Tolkien
(Including: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King)
The Sprawl Trilogy (1984-1988) by William Gibson
(Including: Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) -- Only one I remember is Neuromancer -- read them all over thirty years ago, when I was about 20 or 21.
His Dark Materials (1995-2000) by Philip Pullman
(Including: Northern Lights (I thought this was called The Golden Compass(?)), The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass) - Loved this trilogy, much better than the Chronicles of Narnia.
Lilith’s Brood (Xenogenesis) (1987-1989) by Octavia E. Butler
(Including: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago) - own it on the Kindle
Remembrance of Earth's Past (2006-2010) by Cixin Liu
(Including: The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death’s End)
Binti (2015-2018) by Nnedi Okorafor
(Including: Binti, Binti: Home, Binti: The Night Masquerade) - I think I have Binti on Kindle
Temeraire (2006-2016) by Naomi Novik
(Including: His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War) - Have His Majesty's Dragon on the Kindle (Naomi Novik is another writer I struggle with for some reason.)
Machineries of Empire (2016-2018) by Yoon Ha Lee
(Including: Ninefox Gambit, Raven Stratagem, Revenant Gun) (This is military sci-fi in a universe built on number systems, where the physical laws we know (and upon which much of sci-fi is based) don’t necessarily apply. Lee doesn’t hold your hand -- he expects you to trust him and keep up, and if you do, you’ll be rewarded with an absolutely mind-bending reading experience.)
The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956) by C.S. Lewis
(Including: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) (First fantasy series -- and I read all of the books, most of which are not listed here.)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Series (1979-2009) by Douglas Adams
(Including: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything) (Another writer that I struggle with.)
The Foundation Series (1942-1993) by Isaac Asimov
(Including: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation)
Imperial Radch Trilogy (2013-2015) by Ann Leckie
(Including: Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy) - I tried Ancillary Justice and have not been able to get past the first fifty pages -- the reason is that the writing style gives me a bit of a headache. It's not something I can read on a subway or in transit.
Discworld (1983-2015) by Terry Pratchett
(Including: The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites) - I've read two of the books, neither listed here.
The Realm of the Elderlings (1995-2013) by Robin Hobb
(Including: Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest)
Mistborn (2006-2008) by Brandon Sanderson
(Including: The Final Empire,The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages)
Some of these look interesting.
2. I've been listening to Country Music channels on my Apple Music Streaming Service at work, everything from Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard to Hank Williams. And, I like the stuff that is post 1970s the best. The old stuff is too..twangy for my taste.
But I've changed my mind about country music aka Americana, I like it. It's very similar to Folk Music in that it is basically telling stories and you can hear the lyrics. The lyrics are key.
Also Dolly's Jolene is a better song than its source material. But this is true of most of Parton's song. Although I find her song "I Will Always Love You" insanely ironic, when you consider it was written in desperation -- she was hunting a way to convince her producer/duet partner to let her go. She had a somewhat abusive relationship with him and he was domineering and trying to control her. So she wrote a song that basically flattered his ego and brought him to tears -- as a result he let her go on her way, with on caveat, that she let him produce that song first.
That Country Music documentary -- got me into Country Music for a bit. It's very relaxing to listen to during work.
It occurs to me that the reason I can't listen to audio books or podcasts effectively is that I grew up listening to music and stuff as background sounds while studying, working, or to go to sleep. So I can't just listen to it without doing something else at the same time.
3. Well, this would explain a lot...for me at least... Your Brain Can Only Take So Much Focus
The problem is that excessive focus exhausts the focus circuits in your brain. It can drain your energy and make you lose self-control. This energy drain can also make you more impulsive and less helpful. As a result, decisions are poorly thought-out, and you become less collaborative.
So what do we do then? Focus or unfocus?
In keeping with recent research, both focus and unfocus are vital. The brain operates optimally when it toggles between focus and unfocus, allowing you to develop resilience, enhance creativity, and make better decisions too.
When you unfocus, you engage a brain circuit called the “default mode network.” Abbreviated as the DMN, we used to think of this circuit as the Do Mostly Nothing circuit because it only came on when you stopped focusing effortfully. Yet, when “at rest”, this circuit uses 20% of the body’s energy (compared to the comparatively small 5% that any effort will require).
The DMN needs this energy because it is doing anything but resting. Under the brain’s conscious radar, it activates old memories, goes back and forth between the past, present, and future, and recombines different ideas. Using this new and previously inaccessible data, you develop enhanced self-awareness and a sense of personal relevance. And you can imagine creative solutions or predict the future, thereby leading to better decision-making too. The DMN also helps you tune into other people’s thinking, thereby improving team understanding and cohesion.
There are many simple and effective ways to activate this circuit in the course of a day.
Using positive constructive daydreaming (PCD): PCD is a type of mind-wandering different from slipping into a daydream or guiltily rehashing worries. When you build it into your day deliberately, it can boost your creativity, strengthen your leadership ability, and also-re-energize the brain. To start PCD, you choose a low-key activity such as knitting, gardening or casual reading, then wander into the recesses of your mind. But unlike slipping into a daydream or guilty-dysphoric daydreaming, you might first imagine something playful and wishful—like running through the woods, or lying on a yacht. Then you swivel your attention from the external world to the internal space of your mind with this image in mind while still doing the low-key activity.
Studied for decades by Jerome Singer, PCD activates the DMN and metaphorically changes the silverware that your brain uses to find information. While focused attention is like a fork—picking up obvious conscious thoughts that you have, PCD commissions a different set of silverware—a spoon for scooping up the delicious mélange of flavors of your identity (the scent of your grandmother, the feeling of satisfaction with the first bite of apple-pie on a crisp fall day), chopsticks for connecting ideas across your brain (to enhance innovation), and a marrow spoon for getting into the nooks and crannies of your brain to pick up long-lost memories that are a vital part of your identity. In this state, your sense of “self” is enhanced—which, according to Warren Bennis, is the essence of leadership. I call this the psychological center of gravity, a grounding mechanism (part of your mental “six-pack”) that helps you enhance your agility and manage change more effectively too.
Taking a nap: In addition to building in time for PCD, leaders can also consider authorized napping. Not all naps are the same. When your brain is in a slump, your clarity and creativity are compromised. After a 10-minute nap, studies show that you become much clearer and more alert. But if it’s a creative task you have in front of you, you will likely need a full 90 minutes for more complete brain refreshing. Your brain requires this longer time to make more associations, and dredge up ideas that are in the nooks and crannies of your memory network.
Pretending to be someone else: When you’re stuck in a creative process, unfocus may also come to the rescue when you embody and live out an entirely different personality. In 2016, educational psychologists, Denis Dumas and Kevin Dunbar found that people who try to solve creative problems are more successful if they behave like an eccentric poet than a rigid librarian. Given a test in which they have to come up with as many uses as possible for any object (e.g. a brick) those who behave like eccentric poets have superior creative performance. This finding holds even if the same person takes on a different identity.
Eh, not so sure about the third option -- imagining I'm someone else?
4. The Age of Envy - How to Be Happy When Everyone Else's Life Looks Perfect
[Stop looking at Facebook or better yet? Get on a fanboard on FB that doesn't permit any of that crap. Honestly, I think we are bombarded with information about what we should have to be happy -- when the truth is that you really don't need anything at all to be happy. It's a state of mind or being that has very little to do with external items. There are folks with all the external stuff who are miserable and depressed..I feel song coming on...oh yes, Gershwin, Porgy and Bess..."I got plenty of nuthin'"]
5. "The Poem - After Silence by Rachel Carson is Read by Amanda Palmer"
Go listen to her read it. Poems should be heard not read. Like songs. You need to hear the cadence, to understand them. That's why Shakespeare makes more sense when seen and heard than read. Otherwise you lose the rhythm and beat and sound of the language, which has a meaning all its own.
AFTER SILENCE
for Rachel Carson
Seasons on seasons. The spring is signaled by birdsong
coyotes screech and yammer in the moonlight
and the first flowers open. I saw two owls today
in the daylight, on silent wings.
They landed as one and watched me sleepily.
Oh who? they called. Or how, or how who?
Then they leaned into the trunk
into the sun that shone through the tight-curled buds,
and vanished into dappled shadows
never waiting for an answer.
Like the sapling that buckles the sidewalk
and grows until it has reached its height
all of us begin in darkness. Some of us reach maturity. A few
become old: we went over time’s waterfall and lived,
Time barely cares. We are a pool of knowledge and advice
the wisdom of the tribe, but we have stumbled,
fallen face-first into our new uncomfortable roles.
Remembering, as if it happened to someone else,
the race to breed,
or to succeed, the aching need that drove our thoughts
and shaped each deed,
those days are through.
We do not need to grow, we’re done,
we grew.
Who speaks? And why?
She was killed by her breasts, by tumours in them:
A clump of cells that would not listen to orders to disband
no chemical suggestions that they were big enough
that, sometimes, it’s a fine thing just to die, were heeded.
And the trees are leafless and black against the sky
and the bats in fatal whiteface sleep and rot
and the jellyfish drift and pulse through the warming waters
and everything changes. And some things are truly lost.
Wild in the weeds, the breeze scatters the seeds,
and it lifts the wings of the pine processionary moth,
and bears the green glint of the emerald borer,
Now the elms go the way of the chestnut trees.
Becoming memories and dusty furniture.
The ash trees go the way of the elms.
And somebody has to say that we
never need to grow forever. That
we, like the trees, can reach our full growth,
and mature, in wisdom and in time,
that we can be enough of us. That there
can be room for other breeds and kinds and lives.
Who’ll whisper it:
that tumours kill their hosts,
and then themselves?
We’re done. We grew. Enough.
All the gods on the hilltops
and all the gods on the waves
the gods that became seals
the voices on the winds
the quiet places, where if we are silent
we can listen, we can learn.
Who speaks? And why?
Someone could ask the questions, too.
Like who?
Who knew? What’s true?
And how? Or who?
How could it work?
What happens then?
Are consequences consequent?
The answers come from the world itself
The songs are silent,
and the spring is long in coming.
There’s a voice that rumbles beneath us
and after the end the voice still reaches us
Like a bird that cries in hunger
or a song that pleads for a different future.
Because all of us dream of a different future.
And somebody needs to listen.
To pause. To hold.
To inhale, and find the moment
before the exhale, when everything is in balance
and nothing moves. In balance: here’s life, here’s death,
and this is eternity holding its breath.
After the world has ended
After the silent spring
Into the waiting silence
another song begins.
Nothing is ever over
life breathes life in its turn
Sometimes the people listen
Sometimes the people learn
Who speaks? And why?
6. According to the sign on the doors at the very front of my apartment complex - "The building inspector came. We did not pass. He gave the plumber additional tasks for the boiler and main room room. Plumber is ordering the parts. Once these things are fixed, another appointment will be made with the building inspector. There are no dryers working in the laundry room, only washers."
Ugh. But at least I have heat and hot water. Also purchased the Amtrak tickets to go visit my brother and niece in Hudson, NY. Sister-in-law will still be Istanbul, Turkey.
In other news? Aunt N is doing better. She has feeding tubes and a patch in her stomach, which is healing. She is tired and groggy. My mother has gotten additional information. And called everyone.
I don't know how she does it.
7. A Visual History of the American Public Library
It surprised me. I was expecting an article or a chart.
8. How Einstein Reconciled Religion to Science
The gist? You can be a scientist and believe in God at the same time. (Which I already knew -- since from my perspective the Universe is basically God.)
Einstein was asked whether he was a pantheist. The rest of his response is worth quoting in full:
May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza’s Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.
Benedict Spinoza, the 17th century Jewish-Dutch philosopher, was also in his day confused for an atheist for writing things like this, from his treatise Ethics: “All things, I say, are in God, and everything which takes place takes place by the laws alone of the infinite nature of God, and follows (as I shall presently show) from the necessity of His essence.”
In 1929, Einstein received a telegram inquiring about his belief in God from a New York rabbi named Herbert S. Goldstein, who had heard a Boston cardinal say that the physicist’s theory of relativity implies “the ghastly apparition of atheism.” Einstein settled Goldstein down. “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world,” he told him, “not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”
What that amounted to for Einstein, according to a 2006 paper, was a “cosmic religious feeling” that required no “anthropomorphic conception of God.” He explained this view in the New York Times Magazine: “The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.”
Meme: Bold the ones you've read all of, italicize the one's you've read part of..
The Broken Earth Trilogy (2015-2017) by N.K. Jemisin
(Including: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky) - I own the Fifth Season on the Kindle, haven't gotten to it yet.
The Culture Series (1987-2012) by Iain M. Banks
(Including: Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, The State of the Art If we have to say more than “utopian socialism on sentient spaceships” to sell you on this series, it may not be for you, but give it a shot anyway, won’t you?)
The Vorkosigan Saga (1986-ongoing) by Lois McMaster Bujold
(Including: Shards of Honor, The Warrior’s Apprentice, Ethan of Athos)
The Wheel of Time (1990-2013 by Robert Jordan (with Brandon Sanderson)
(Including: The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn)
The Pern Series (1967-ongoing) by Anne McCaffrey (with Todd and Gigi McCaffrey)
(Including: Dragonflight, Dragonquest, The White Dragon)
The Hainish Cycle (1964-2000) by Ursula K. Le Guin
(Including: Rocannon’s World, The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness) - Own two of them - Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness -- just haven't been able to get into either. I struggle with Le Guin.
The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955) by J.R.R. Tolkien
(Including: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King)
The Sprawl Trilogy (1984-1988) by William Gibson
(Including: Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) -- Only one I remember is Neuromancer -- read them all over thirty years ago, when I was about 20 or 21.
His Dark Materials (1995-2000) by Philip Pullman
(Including: Northern Lights (I thought this was called The Golden Compass(?)), The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass) - Loved this trilogy, much better than the Chronicles of Narnia.
Lilith’s Brood (Xenogenesis) (1987-1989) by Octavia E. Butler
(Including: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago) - own it on the Kindle
Remembrance of Earth's Past (2006-2010) by Cixin Liu
(Including: The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death’s End)
Binti (2015-2018) by Nnedi Okorafor
(Including: Binti, Binti: Home, Binti: The Night Masquerade) - I think I have Binti on Kindle
Temeraire (2006-2016) by Naomi Novik
(Including: His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War) - Have His Majesty's Dragon on the Kindle (Naomi Novik is another writer I struggle with for some reason.)
Machineries of Empire (2016-2018) by Yoon Ha Lee
(Including: Ninefox Gambit, Raven Stratagem, Revenant Gun) (This is military sci-fi in a universe built on number systems, where the physical laws we know (and upon which much of sci-fi is based) don’t necessarily apply. Lee doesn’t hold your hand -- he expects you to trust him and keep up, and if you do, you’ll be rewarded with an absolutely mind-bending reading experience.)
The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956) by C.S. Lewis
(Including: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) (First fantasy series -- and I read all of the books, most of which are not listed here.)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Series (1979-2009) by Douglas Adams
(Including: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything) (Another writer that I struggle with.)
The Foundation Series (1942-1993) by Isaac Asimov
(Including: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation)
Imperial Radch Trilogy (2013-2015) by Ann Leckie
(Including: Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy) - I tried Ancillary Justice and have not been able to get past the first fifty pages -- the reason is that the writing style gives me a bit of a headache. It's not something I can read on a subway or in transit.
Discworld (1983-2015) by Terry Pratchett
(Including: The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites) - I've read two of the books, neither listed here.
The Realm of the Elderlings (1995-2013) by Robin Hobb
(Including: Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest)
Mistborn (2006-2008) by Brandon Sanderson
(Including: The Final Empire,The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages)
Some of these look interesting.
2. I've been listening to Country Music channels on my Apple Music Streaming Service at work, everything from Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard to Hank Williams. And, I like the stuff that is post 1970s the best. The old stuff is too..twangy for my taste.
But I've changed my mind about country music aka Americana, I like it. It's very similar to Folk Music in that it is basically telling stories and you can hear the lyrics. The lyrics are key.
Also Dolly's Jolene is a better song than its source material. But this is true of most of Parton's song. Although I find her song "I Will Always Love You" insanely ironic, when you consider it was written in desperation -- she was hunting a way to convince her producer/duet partner to let her go. She had a somewhat abusive relationship with him and he was domineering and trying to control her. So she wrote a song that basically flattered his ego and brought him to tears -- as a result he let her go on her way, with on caveat, that she let him produce that song first.
That Country Music documentary -- got me into Country Music for a bit. It's very relaxing to listen to during work.
It occurs to me that the reason I can't listen to audio books or podcasts effectively is that I grew up listening to music and stuff as background sounds while studying, working, or to go to sleep. So I can't just listen to it without doing something else at the same time.
3. Well, this would explain a lot...for me at least... Your Brain Can Only Take So Much Focus
The problem is that excessive focus exhausts the focus circuits in your brain. It can drain your energy and make you lose self-control. This energy drain can also make you more impulsive and less helpful. As a result, decisions are poorly thought-out, and you become less collaborative.
So what do we do then? Focus or unfocus?
In keeping with recent research, both focus and unfocus are vital. The brain operates optimally when it toggles between focus and unfocus, allowing you to develop resilience, enhance creativity, and make better decisions too.
When you unfocus, you engage a brain circuit called the “default mode network.” Abbreviated as the DMN, we used to think of this circuit as the Do Mostly Nothing circuit because it only came on when you stopped focusing effortfully. Yet, when “at rest”, this circuit uses 20% of the body’s energy (compared to the comparatively small 5% that any effort will require).
The DMN needs this energy because it is doing anything but resting. Under the brain’s conscious radar, it activates old memories, goes back and forth between the past, present, and future, and recombines different ideas. Using this new and previously inaccessible data, you develop enhanced self-awareness and a sense of personal relevance. And you can imagine creative solutions or predict the future, thereby leading to better decision-making too. The DMN also helps you tune into other people’s thinking, thereby improving team understanding and cohesion.
There are many simple and effective ways to activate this circuit in the course of a day.
Using positive constructive daydreaming (PCD): PCD is a type of mind-wandering different from slipping into a daydream or guiltily rehashing worries. When you build it into your day deliberately, it can boost your creativity, strengthen your leadership ability, and also-re-energize the brain. To start PCD, you choose a low-key activity such as knitting, gardening or casual reading, then wander into the recesses of your mind. But unlike slipping into a daydream or guilty-dysphoric daydreaming, you might first imagine something playful and wishful—like running through the woods, or lying on a yacht. Then you swivel your attention from the external world to the internal space of your mind with this image in mind while still doing the low-key activity.
Studied for decades by Jerome Singer, PCD activates the DMN and metaphorically changes the silverware that your brain uses to find information. While focused attention is like a fork—picking up obvious conscious thoughts that you have, PCD commissions a different set of silverware—a spoon for scooping up the delicious mélange of flavors of your identity (the scent of your grandmother, the feeling of satisfaction with the first bite of apple-pie on a crisp fall day), chopsticks for connecting ideas across your brain (to enhance innovation), and a marrow spoon for getting into the nooks and crannies of your brain to pick up long-lost memories that are a vital part of your identity. In this state, your sense of “self” is enhanced—which, according to Warren Bennis, is the essence of leadership. I call this the psychological center of gravity, a grounding mechanism (part of your mental “six-pack”) that helps you enhance your agility and manage change more effectively too.
Taking a nap: In addition to building in time for PCD, leaders can also consider authorized napping. Not all naps are the same. When your brain is in a slump, your clarity and creativity are compromised. After a 10-minute nap, studies show that you become much clearer and more alert. But if it’s a creative task you have in front of you, you will likely need a full 90 minutes for more complete brain refreshing. Your brain requires this longer time to make more associations, and dredge up ideas that are in the nooks and crannies of your memory network.
Pretending to be someone else: When you’re stuck in a creative process, unfocus may also come to the rescue when you embody and live out an entirely different personality. In 2016, educational psychologists, Denis Dumas and Kevin Dunbar found that people who try to solve creative problems are more successful if they behave like an eccentric poet than a rigid librarian. Given a test in which they have to come up with as many uses as possible for any object (e.g. a brick) those who behave like eccentric poets have superior creative performance. This finding holds even if the same person takes on a different identity.
Eh, not so sure about the third option -- imagining I'm someone else?
4. The Age of Envy - How to Be Happy When Everyone Else's Life Looks Perfect
[Stop looking at Facebook or better yet? Get on a fanboard on FB that doesn't permit any of that crap. Honestly, I think we are bombarded with information about what we should have to be happy -- when the truth is that you really don't need anything at all to be happy. It's a state of mind or being that has very little to do with external items. There are folks with all the external stuff who are miserable and depressed..I feel song coming on...oh yes, Gershwin, Porgy and Bess..."I got plenty of nuthin'"]
5. "The Poem - After Silence by Rachel Carson is Read by Amanda Palmer"
Go listen to her read it. Poems should be heard not read. Like songs. You need to hear the cadence, to understand them. That's why Shakespeare makes more sense when seen and heard than read. Otherwise you lose the rhythm and beat and sound of the language, which has a meaning all its own.
AFTER SILENCE
for Rachel Carson
Seasons on seasons. The spring is signaled by birdsong
coyotes screech and yammer in the moonlight
and the first flowers open. I saw two owls today
in the daylight, on silent wings.
They landed as one and watched me sleepily.
Oh who? they called. Or how, or how who?
Then they leaned into the trunk
into the sun that shone through the tight-curled buds,
and vanished into dappled shadows
never waiting for an answer.
Like the sapling that buckles the sidewalk
and grows until it has reached its height
all of us begin in darkness. Some of us reach maturity. A few
become old: we went over time’s waterfall and lived,
Time barely cares. We are a pool of knowledge and advice
the wisdom of the tribe, but we have stumbled,
fallen face-first into our new uncomfortable roles.
Remembering, as if it happened to someone else,
the race to breed,
or to succeed, the aching need that drove our thoughts
and shaped each deed,
those days are through.
We do not need to grow, we’re done,
we grew.
Who speaks? And why?
She was killed by her breasts, by tumours in them:
A clump of cells that would not listen to orders to disband
no chemical suggestions that they were big enough
that, sometimes, it’s a fine thing just to die, were heeded.
And the trees are leafless and black against the sky
and the bats in fatal whiteface sleep and rot
and the jellyfish drift and pulse through the warming waters
and everything changes. And some things are truly lost.
Wild in the weeds, the breeze scatters the seeds,
and it lifts the wings of the pine processionary moth,
and bears the green glint of the emerald borer,
Now the elms go the way of the chestnut trees.
Becoming memories and dusty furniture.
The ash trees go the way of the elms.
And somebody has to say that we
never need to grow forever. That
we, like the trees, can reach our full growth,
and mature, in wisdom and in time,
that we can be enough of us. That there
can be room for other breeds and kinds and lives.
Who’ll whisper it:
that tumours kill their hosts,
and then themselves?
We’re done. We grew. Enough.
All the gods on the hilltops
and all the gods on the waves
the gods that became seals
the voices on the winds
the quiet places, where if we are silent
we can listen, we can learn.
Who speaks? And why?
Someone could ask the questions, too.
Like who?
Who knew? What’s true?
And how? Or who?
How could it work?
What happens then?
Are consequences consequent?
The answers come from the world itself
The songs are silent,
and the spring is long in coming.
There’s a voice that rumbles beneath us
and after the end the voice still reaches us
Like a bird that cries in hunger
or a song that pleads for a different future.
Because all of us dream of a different future.
And somebody needs to listen.
To pause. To hold.
To inhale, and find the moment
before the exhale, when everything is in balance
and nothing moves. In balance: here’s life, here’s death,
and this is eternity holding its breath.
After the world has ended
After the silent spring
Into the waiting silence
another song begins.
Nothing is ever over
life breathes life in its turn
Sometimes the people listen
Sometimes the people learn
Who speaks? And why?
6. According to the sign on the doors at the very front of my apartment complex - "The building inspector came. We did not pass. He gave the plumber additional tasks for the boiler and main room room. Plumber is ordering the parts. Once these things are fixed, another appointment will be made with the building inspector. There are no dryers working in the laundry room, only washers."
Ugh. But at least I have heat and hot water. Also purchased the Amtrak tickets to go visit my brother and niece in Hudson, NY. Sister-in-law will still be Istanbul, Turkey.
In other news? Aunt N is doing better. She has feeding tubes and a patch in her stomach, which is healing. She is tired and groggy. My mother has gotten additional information. And called everyone.
I don't know how she does it.
7. A Visual History of the American Public Library
It surprised me. I was expecting an article or a chart.
8. How Einstein Reconciled Religion to Science
The gist? You can be a scientist and believe in God at the same time. (Which I already knew -- since from my perspective the Universe is basically God.)
Einstein was asked whether he was a pantheist. The rest of his response is worth quoting in full:
May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza’s Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.
Benedict Spinoza, the 17th century Jewish-Dutch philosopher, was also in his day confused for an atheist for writing things like this, from his treatise Ethics: “All things, I say, are in God, and everything which takes place takes place by the laws alone of the infinite nature of God, and follows (as I shall presently show) from the necessity of His essence.”
In 1929, Einstein received a telegram inquiring about his belief in God from a New York rabbi named Herbert S. Goldstein, who had heard a Boston cardinal say that the physicist’s theory of relativity implies “the ghastly apparition of atheism.” Einstein settled Goldstein down. “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world,” he told him, “not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”
What that amounted to for Einstein, according to a 2006 paper, was a “cosmic religious feeling” that required no “anthropomorphic conception of God.” He explained this view in the New York Times Magazine: “The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.”
no subject
Date: 2019-10-16 02:37 am (UTC)(There are lots of country artists I don't enjoy, but that's true of pop artists as well.)
no subject
Date: 2019-10-16 03:06 am (UTC)Northern Lights - The Golden Compass
Both first published in the UK. Both for reasons known only to the publishers renamed for the U.S. market.
Asimov's Foundation series is good 1950s sci-fi, not fantasy. (Bookstores mix the two, but they don't belong in the same section.) I'm rereading it now and it is showing some signs of age and well as some good predictions. It predicts a very deterministic scientific slant for the future. Had Asimov written the whole thing in the 1970s, instead I think the tone would have been much different.
Le Guin wrote both sci-fi and fantasy. The Dispossessed wasn't bad. A squicky sex scene is about all I remember from The Left Hand of Darkness. In fantasy, I read her Earth-Sea books but, don't remember much beyond I liked them.
I read all three Douglas Adams books and didn't like them. I read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and started the second book and gave up. I got started on The Golden Compass, but the story lost me.
I quit reading new fantasy and sci-fi about 1980 in hopes of writing my own. Thought I would miss it more than I do.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-16 01:51 pm (UTC)Dragonflight, Dragonquest, The White Dragon
The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King
The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness
Northern Lights (I thought this was called The Golden Compass(?)), The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass
Dawn
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy I may have read the others, but I can't remember
Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation
The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages
I think I've read more of these than you have, which shocks me. However, I'm not a particular fan of any of them other than LOTR, Foundation (pretty dated now), and Hitchhiker (first book only). I did like Dragonquest when I read it long ago, but can't remember much about it now.
ETA: Turns out I have read the remainder of the Octavia Butler trilogy. Needless to say, it was not all that memorable. Also, while they dodged by adopting the rule that unfinished works don't count, the first 3 books of ASOIAF are much better than all of these except LOTR. Also, leaving out Harry Potter and The Hunger Games seems … remarkable.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 01:48 am (UTC)The people who love it -- are non-fantasy fans, with few exceptions. It's very mainstream. So if I were to guess? That's why.
I wouldn't say it's better or worse than anything I've read. Just different.
It is surprising that both Harry Potter and Hunger Games were left off in favor of Chronicles of Narnia and His Dark Materials (which are older series and not as popular now, albeit more literary). I did like His Dark Materials better than the others in that I think Pullman had more to say.
But they are very different, with vastly different styles of writing.
I find lists like this very subjective and somewhat telling of the person who put them together. It's certainly not the list I'd have put together.
I despise Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, have no interest in Brandford Sanderson (the kid protegee), nor have ever been able to get into Foundation. I'd have put Piers Anthony over Jordan, although he has issues.
And definitely CJ Cherryh's Chanur series over say...Jordan.
But I also don't tend to like series that much. I think the writer starts to lose steam somewhere around the third or fourth book, and begins to phone it in for the stupid publisher who talked them into a contract.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 01:59 am (UTC)I read the Narnia books when I was in the fifth grade. I'd graduated from Nancy Drew to Narnia and devoured them. But, the better books were The Magician's Nephew, Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Prince Caspian -- which I only vaguely remember -- I think I was 10 or 11 when I read them. And they were rapidly replaced by Escape to Witch Mountain, Dark is Rising, Circle of Light, The Hobbit, Wizard of Earthsea, Dragon Rider Series, CJ Cherryth Chanur series, Andre Norton, Dune, and Lord of the Rings. Sorry, Lewis couldn't hold a candle to Tolkien. Also I disagreed with Lewis religiousity, so there was that.
Personally, I think His Dark Materials is much better than Chronicles (it's also interesting if you read Chronicles, because it's sort of a critique of Lewis novels.)
I've never been able to get into Foundation. Some day, maybe. Also never could get past the first chapter of either Left Hand of Darkness or the Dispossessed.
But I did for the most part like Wizard of Earthsea...don't remember it, because I read it in the fifth or sixth grade.
I stopped reading a lot of sci-fantasy around 2010 or thereabouts. I go back to it occasionally, depending on mood. There's a lot of interesting new stuff out, but so much of it is dark and depressing and more slanted towards horror or dystopia, and I just can't read that right now.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 02:05 am (UTC)Then in 1988, I ended up hearing the good stuff through people in college, not realizing it was country. I thought it was folk music. That's when I heard Cash, and a lot of the more outlaw country. Willie Nelsen had the same problems I had with Bob Dylan...I like the songs, not the voice. But over time that has changed, my ear has changed.
I listened to more of it than I realized, I just didn't know what it was. And
in the 1990s, various people introduced me to other country singers, so I realized that I liked it, just not all of it. Which is actually true of all music genres, book genres, film genres, etc..
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 01:55 pm (UTC)ETA: I kind of get the point about ASOIAF as a coming of age novel, but my rule of thumb is that if there are dragons, it's fantasy.