My teacher says I'm breaking books at an eighth grade level: book thread

[Good Intentions]

Habermas is an imminently more respectable, though hardly more transparent, figure of study. Strange to study both, though, since Habermas thought Derrida was a charlatan where serious philosophy was concerned (simplifying slightly).

[Good Intentions]

I feel a little bad about these snipes at Derrida - nobody has any reason to agree with my low opinion of him simply on the basis of these three or four sentences on an internet forum. And nobody is crying out for another GI theory blowout either, and this one would be even more tangential than most, so I'll let the matter stand.

[fishjim]

You're a good man, GI 

I'm still terrified to play that Swans mix.

[Good Intentions]

Then you should listen to the later Swans mix. By then they had consciously set aside the bludgeoning ways of earlier (and their later period lasted a decade, whereas the early stuff was just three years). The songs on that mix are all about depth of feeling, performed with the quiet confidence and focus of a bar brawler who knows that there isn't anybody out there who could hurt them.

[elpollodiablo]

Pollo might like him. Apparently he made his bones on Habermas.

I've been reading a lot of Habermas lately! Though my first thought when I clicked through to the video was much the same as GI's; a big part of Habermas' trip has been denouncing postmodernism and poststructuralism as antihumanist, antidemocratic, etc.

[Good Intentions]

Above and beyond his academic output, Habermas has done some sterling work as a public intellectual, taking up causes of genuine public interest and arguing them at great length and rigour (one I read was about the position of Turkish guest labourers in German society, for instance). But it indicates, perhaps, that Germany is either as tremendously well-educated or patient seciety, or both, since I find all of those pieces to be very long and not transparent at all.

[mixed cats]

My branch of the library doesn't have volume 2 of Sandman
noooooooo

[davy]

ILL that bitch

[mixed cats]

One of the branches that has it is near the quilt shop I like and a pizza place that sells mac and cheese pizza by the slice, so I'm just gonna make an afternoon of it.

[bethany_m]

I have pulled myself out of an end-of-winter funk by rereading all of Kelly Link's short story collections.  They are so good.

[mixed cats]

Yay for unfunking via books!

I just put a hold on Sandman 2 and a Wheel of Time book for Bill so I'm ILLing that shit instead of going to get it. Gonna eat a bunch of ice cream with my parents tomorrow instead.

[Em]

Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development (Ananya Roy): Global microfinance practices are actually really interesting, guys.

[alistarr*]

I am here to confess that I just stopped reading Against the Day halfway through. I've been at it for about a year now, I think. I was beginning to worry I didn't even like reading any more!

I feel liberated and yet also pursued by a nagging guilt/doubt which I hope will fade with time.

[elpollodiablo]

I didn't finish Against the Day either.

Stuff I've read recently:

Invisible Man - Ellison
Containment Culture - Alan Nadel
Leaves of Grass - Whitman
first five chapters of Kapital
Homo Sacer - Giorgio Agamben

[Dick]

Against the Day has grown in my esteem since I read it.  I just looked and apparently that was five years ago.   At this rate I will be dead in another two years of subjective time.  Anyway, I think it's the best of his latter work, though I never read that last one Inherent Vice, and I think I have a somewhat different view of Pynchon from most as I prefer V to Gravity's Rainbow.

[G.C.R]

Gee, Ursula Le Guin is boss. I've been reading The Compass Rose and each story starts confusingly, with you not sure where you are or what's going on, but slowly she shows you a world or situation or idea that is just awesome. Damn, I admire her.

[elpollodiablo]

Jeezum crow I don't think I'll ever enjoy reading poetry.

[fishjim]

Jeezum crow I don't think I'll ever enjoy reading poetry.

Plenty of folks don't & won't, which is cool. I guess that's why I love that you can listen to it now. Honestly! Nebraska's pure poetry to me. It's where you find it.

[peacocks]

Damn straight!

[Thermofusion]

Jeezum crow I don't think I'll ever enjoy reading poetry.

You should check out Raymond Carver's poetry if you haven't. Same elegance, same realness, same absence of pretense as his storywriting, etc. etc. pretty much the antithesis of everything objectionable about modern poetry.

[coldforge]

modern poetry: too faggy, you think?

[Thermofusion]

Hey your buddy pollo is the one denouncing the entire form for the umpteenth time, I'm just getting in a little dig at dudes trying to be Eliot. Troll him instead, pal.

[Thermofusion]

also you're probably thinking of byron and shelley

[fishjim]

FWIW I didn't take pollo's post as trolling.

[elpollodiablo]

That's okay; momo on it