well yeah, there wasn't at a time any other way to deliver printed words

but yes he also loved THINGS. i mean huge chunks of leaves of grass are quasi-biblical catalogs of things.

however, i didn't bring up whitman as some emblem, i just brought up that poem to illustrate the notion that the place to keep one's greatest treasures is inside one's head, not a pile of decaying objects.

not that the mind doesn't also decay in the end (sometimes even sooner but that's another story). everyone goes back to zero.


that particular paperback with green cover and tiny print (was it a viking book?) was the only english copy i could buy at an israeli bookstore where most books were printed in hebrew. it was all i could get. so i read it at the beach, i read it in coffee shops, i carried it in my pack, i tore the living shit out of it and i digested and absorbed it. i don't care to read any more from that cheap battered vehicle, which after serving its purpose must reincarnate as compost as we all do.

;) I was kidding! I have old yellowed books too. First editions of Vonnegut printed on caca paper....

they're old yellers!

first like this



then like this



at which point we have to put them down :(

BTW, reading the Exegesis of Phillip K. Dick, (I am about 180 pages into it) makes me feel like I am having a schizophrenic breakdown. Poor ol' PKD. His mind really did get lucidly fried, or it fried his lucidity... I cannot tell and so it seems, neither can anyone else.

Currently reading Rêves de gloire, by Roland C. Wagner (Dreams of Glory, Glory being the name of a drug here).
The story takes place in Algeria, nowadays. Except that Charles de Gaulle died in an assassination attempt he escaped in real life. Thus many things would not fit in our world.
The main character is a record collector looking for a rare item of Algerian psychodelic (that's how it is spelled, so it ain't something one might have heard here). There's another story about drugs and Timothy Leary.
Ideal when you commute by train every day.

And there's the accidental track that does exist here and there such as that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npc4H6jz8mE Girls were made to make love), and fictitious labels such as Ubik (the label in the book is fictitious, the reference numbers starting with PKD).

I'm with Rob on this one.

I love books. I love the printed word. I don't think I quite have the balls to say that I live a life of the mind, but that certainly is the goal. And I think the mind is informed by more than just hard data or even traditional information. The mind lives in tactile experiences as well. The feel of a book. The scent of the ink and paper and age. Powerful stuff indeed.

Reading The Best of Henry Kuttner, a collection of short stories. He is another of the long-lost great visionary sci-fi writers.... Never read anything by him. Never heard of him, but cool cool stuff.

He wrote at the same time as the great hard sci fi authors and did so with a humor and a weirdness that predates by decades the cyberpunk sci-fi of the late 70's early 80's. good stuff.

Daniel Silva - The English Spy

and then I'm going to read 5000 Years of Debt and also Governing by Debt (semiotexte), since we live in a society where debt is the unit of value and measure of wealth, I figure I should learn something about it.

More Lovecraft-influenced American 50's weird-fi! Excellent choice! Check out a Wikipedia entry on Kuttner while you're at it. He wrote hand in hand with his wife, apparently more than I realized. It's likely that just about everything he wrote was a collaboration with her, though she has given him sole credit for some of his more successful stories. Not sure I buy it, but whatever... I think his life would make for a great film, with such an intensely personal relationship happening out of sight of the readers and industry of the time.

P.K.Dick - The Penultimate Truth

The Neal Adams run of X-Men comic books. He drew about 10 of them all told in 1969. I am always blown away by his art.

Hey Rob Instigator, clear some PM's!

OPPIANO LICARIO

lezama lima's posthumous masterpiece.

finally, someone who can write a good sentence.

those DO rule all

Just finished this book


Modern Critical Interpretations: Slaughterhouse-Five
http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2015/1...alyzed-in.html

I am about to begin on Area X - The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer, from a recommendation by Severian.

New Page on RXTT's Intellectual Journey, RXTT's Top Ten Novels (so far) http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/p/top-ten-novels.html

The Art of Noise by Luigi Russolo.

http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2015/1...-need-for.html

finished this, the first in a trilogy. Thanks for the recommendation Severian.

Review up http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2015/1...-i-cannot.html

Hey Rob- excellent review! I'm so glad you're enjoying the story ("enjoy" doesn't seem like the right word, does it? As much as I loved the book(s), there was very little joy in the experience of reading them).

Thanks for the kind words too. You honor me, sir.

I have run into a lot of mixed feelings about this book from other folks. A lot f people seem to find it boring. I had a feeling you would "get" it, and be open to the truly horrifying ideas and theories the story presents.

Sometimes I feel very self conscious about he fact that so much of what I read these days is science fiction/speculative fiction, and I have a hard time getting "serious" literature buffs to take my recommendations seriously. But I really appreciate your thoughtful and open minded approach to the genre. Thanks for giving this ungodly mindfuck of a series some attention.

Let me know how you like Authority.