Zompist Bboard Again

Stars and Stripes by KMFDM, on repeat.

Recently, I read Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow, a culturally conservative Nobel Prize laureate in literature. Loosely reminds me of Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels. That could be because I haven't read a representative sample of English literature. (I have never read Hemingway and only bits of Faulkner.) If you are ever tempted to retreat into esotericism, remember (this is relevant to the plot): https://youtu.be/y0gxccYR-QE https://youtu.be/R9h6yCixvpc https://youtu.be/Hd3yrHS88WA https://youtu.be/g-w8Kwhd0dQ

I also started The Last Painting of Sarah de Vos. I get the feeling Dominic Smith doesn't understand that Jack Kerouac was rabidly anti-Marxist. Or maybe the poet figure is a reference to someone else I don't know about.

I shouldn't have read Goliath by Max Blumenthal. Businessmen in suits were hurling themselves at protesters, and Israeli airport authorities were shooting laptops containing Arabic text before this book was published in 2013.

I'm trying to get into Schoenberg.

Edit: I am reading The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk. I don't know what to say about it yet. It's too deep for me.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 10:31 pmI'm trying to get into Schoenberg.

Good luck.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 11:29 pm

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 10:31 pmI'm trying to get into Schoenberg.

Good luck.

Thanks. I liked this one: https://youtu.be/kpTXZDVe5Wg

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Patrick Boyle's latest video: https://youtu.be/rnW3Bq6_-6k

I reread the books on Platonic Theology by Proclus: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Six_ ... y_of_Plato When you read this, you realize the things he says in his hymns weren't poetic metaphors for him. For example, his metaphysics has something called Life, and Life literally has a "prolific fount". The technical works of Proclus are hard to read. If you want to understand this, thoroughly study Plato's most annoying dialogue first, Parmenides. The theurgic Neoplatonists believed Parmenides reveals the structure of the World of Ideas. This structure was later smuggled into Christianity in a bastardized form as the hierarchy of angels.

Vita Nostra by the Dyachenkos. I love this book. It's often called "evil Hogwarts". It's a magic school combined with cosmic horror. The school isn't fighting the horror. It is the horror, a horror that's practically metaphysical in refinement. It could be an analogy about the horror of existing in any social system. Not sure how much of this is intended. However, when a student complains the school is torturing them, they are told all education is like that, and it's good for them. The book is in Russian. The standard disclaimers apply if you read it in translation.

Trying to read Kant's Critique of Judgment. I've only read Pure Reason and Practical Reason before. This book, Judgment, is actually considered to be Kant's most central and distinctive work. This is the book where Kant discusses the beautiful and the sublime, for example; central to the debate over whether Kantian morality is sadism in disguise. It's also considered to be annoying to read even for Kant. When he was very old, Kant apparently lost all perspective on how to emphasize the important points in writing. The translator says the text meanders all over the place, and important points are buried in the middle of rants.

India's RSS has an international network: https://youtu.be/b7Lxsi5Os4k

Medicines can suddenly disappear for no reason (Veritasium): https://youtu.be/ksn5yrsC3Wg

MKUltra: https://youtu.be/FG613PxD6zY

A survival of Odin: https://youtu.be/rK7yYSFfSOw

Cyberpunk short film: https://youtu.be/-Rzl7nUdEs4

"Narcissism": https://youtu.be/CjWDlwISFcY

a thousand plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari. I hear the book is like modern scripture. Maybe learning to be schizophrenic on purpose will give me some control over the manner in which I go insane.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 10:22 pm a thousand plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari. I hear the book is like modern scripture. Maybe learning to be schizophrenic on purpose will give me some control over the manner in which I go insane.

I wonder if Machine Learning has disproved this book's claim that "a rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model." I could argue both ways.

Music my brother sent me:

Seycara:

Payaba!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxH80he5KMA
Alice in Paris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnE2xIN4GRk

暁Records:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb5E9668ISo
https://youtu.be/_Q5_Sesq7xs?si=BxtpsMxnZRnFunCE
https://youtu.be/4KWTyoMtVL8?si=mu4E0lTEcp_KStVn

One Must Fall (the DOS game): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Jf4i4jG4U

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sat May 16, 2026 7:25 pm Alice in Paris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnE2xIN4GRk

To forestall any potential confusion, this has nothing to do with me.

so me and the gf just started watching the handmaid's tale yesterday evening, and covered ep1 and something like a third of ep2. my initial reaction, having tried to read the book and stopped a couple of time, is that sure, yeah, poignant premise but... question for anyone who has seen it, is it just six seasons of misery, slavery, rape and otherwise the-world-conservatives-want? cause this far it's been something of a stomach-ache inducing experience.

Torco wrote: ↑Tue May 19, 2026 10:58 am so me and the gf just started watching the handmaid's tale yesterday evening, and covered ep1 and something like a third of ep2. my initial reaction, having tried to read the book and stopped a couple of time, is that sure, yeah, poignant premise but... question for anyone who has seen it, is it just six seasons of misery, slavery, rape and otherwise the-world-conservatives-want? cause this far it's been something of a stomach-ache inducing experience.

Zizek has suggested the show is really for people with a sex slavery kink in denial.

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Reading:

How to Astronaut by Terry Virts
Love's Executioner by Irvin D. Yalom

Seycara:

Pastel: https://youtu.be/qH6Rribub-c
illusions of the heart: https://youtu.be/BT9ABOe-7S0

Bossa Nova: https://youtu.be/L13ZDP9OHsI

French Riviera Cafe vibes music: https://youtu.be/V6f_1aSSGgE (can't vouch for authenticity)

Chinese Tai market: https://youtu.be/riD9d6WD1mo

Was the pond scum the Aztecs ate this item or something else?

Science:

Sperm whale: https://youtu.be/Hm9ADZ28Wgo
Jumping spider: https://youtu.be/kRQMOF5c2Z8

Questioning doesn't help you leave or improve toxic social systems: https://youtu.be/B-s3x7ign34

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2026 12:43 pm

Torco wrote: ↑Tue May 19, 2026 10:58 am so me and the gf just started watching the handmaid's tale yesterday evening, and covered ep1 and something like a third of ep2. my initial reaction, having tried to read the book and stopped a couple of time, is that sure, yeah, poignant premise but... question for anyone who has seen it, is it just six seasons of misery, slavery, rape and otherwise the-world-conservatives-want? cause this far it's been something of a stomach-ache inducing experience.

Zizek has suggested the show is really for people with a sex slavery kink in denial.

i'll take that as a yes, then, i suppose lmao

Torco wrote: ↑Tue May 19, 2026 10:58 am so me and the gf just started watching the handmaid's tale yesterday evening, and covered ep1 and something like a third of ep2. my initial reaction, having tried to read the book and stopped a couple of time, is that sure, yeah, poignant premise but... question for anyone who has seen it, is it just six seasons of misery, slavery, rape and otherwise the-world-conservatives-want? cause this far it's been something of a stomach-ache inducing experience.

I don't have an answer, but I have the same question I didn't watch past the first episode, it was a little too grim.

I read the book (which I do recommend) and another concern is that it's not that long a book, and I don't really see how they stretch it across six seasons.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2026 6:50 am

Torco wrote: ↑Tue May 19, 2026 10:58 am so me and the gf just started watching the handmaid's tale yesterday evening, and covered ep1 and something like a third of ep2. my initial reaction, having tried to read the book and stopped a couple of time, is that sure, yeah, poignant premise but... question for anyone who has seen it, is it just six seasons of misery, slavery, rape and otherwise the-world-conservatives-want? cause this far it's been something of a stomach-ache inducing experience.

I don't have an answer, but I have the same question I didn't watch past the first episode, it was a little too grim.

I read the book (which I do recommend) and another concern is that it's not that long a book, and I don't really see how they stretch it across six seasons.

I haven't watched the entire series, but I did at one point watch past the first two seasons and read the original book. I do think it's hard to make a show with the premise of the book without it being grim, seeming like sex slavery kink fodder, or both. TV isn't the best medium for nuance, at least not on that level. I would suggest trying the book again before I would suggest trying to get through the series, and that's assuming you want to read the book/understand the story.

Seycara's Everlasting Summer: https://youtu.be/lK0zDsa0Pn0

The Demon in the Machine by Paul Davies. It's about the connection between knowledge and energy.

Geburt Einer Nation by Laibach

Secret Skin by PIG v. KMFDM

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 11:26 pm Secret Skin by PIG v. KMFDM

I like this one.

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A "model" of consciousness: https://www.youtube.com/live/qjtYl3zWv-w Can't tell if this is a joke.

PS. Killing Commendatore was the smoothest novel by Haruki Murakami I've read so far.