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Things to Come . . .
Near the end of last year, I sort of dropped out of the online world entirely. I had a lot of plans and projects, but then God laughed at them, and after my daughter was born I scrapped them all. For a while I wasn't doing anything except trying to get through each day with a baby and a toddler. Then, because I am a hopeless fool, I started working on a screenplay based on about a dozen Borges...
The New Science of Giambattista Vico: The Course of Nations (Part 1)
Three Kinds of Human NatureThree Kinds of CustomsThree Kinds of Natural LawThree Kinds of Government Three Kinds of Language Three Kinds of Symbols
Reading List for the Vico Series
Here's a list of books referenced in my commentary on The New Science (other than Scienza Nuova itself, of course). I will add to this as we go through the work.The Decline of the West- Oswald SpenglerA Study of History- Arnold ToynbeeThe End of History and the Last Man- Francis FukuyamaThus Spake Zarathustra- Friedrich NietzscheLectures on the Philosophy of History- GFW HegelHegel & The Herme...
The New Science of Giambattista Vico: Introduction
Kicking off a Reading and Commentary series on an incredibly seminal work, which may contain a skeleton key to our past, present and future.
In the Stacks: The Crying of Lot 49, Pt. 2
Threads. Networks. Signs and wonders. Who is Thomas Pynchon? Who are you?
In the Stacks: The Crying of Lot 49 Pt. 1
Oh, the labyrinth that is Thomas Pynchon! My advice: start here. But one measures a circle, beginning anywhere. Themes: Entropy, Codes, Information Theory, Threads, Towers, Pentacost . . . Part II on the way in a week or so, hopefully.
Against the IQ-boosters
I want to briefly make a case against the proponents of IQ. Notice that I don't say that I am making a case against the scientific concept of the Intelligence Quotient--although I should note that I am highly skeptical, and would be very interested to investigate any evidence against it. But I simply haven't looked at the IQ criticisms in detail. I should probably just be up front about th...
Vol. XIII- Mirrors pt. 2: Narcissus
It has been said that it is a symbol of the imagination--or of consciousness--in its capacity to reflect the formal reality of the visible world. It has also been related to thought, in so far as thought--for Scheler and other philosophers--is the instrument of self-contemplation as well as the reflection of the universe. This links mirror-symbolism with water as a reflector and with the Narcissus...
Groundhog Day of The Dead: A Forest of Symbols Holiday Special
Please join me as I ramble about my two favorite holiday stories: (after a brief prelude on Dickens' A Christmas Carol) the 1993 film Groundhog Day, and James Joyce's 1914 (long) short story, "The Dead."Themes: Narcissism Purgatory Epiphany The Symbolism of Cold and Snow The Art of Happiness The Community of the Living and the Dead
Cormac McCarthy Novels, Worst to Best #4-1
Cormac McCarthy as a cosmic optimist.
We Didn't Start the Fire (vers. 3)
Fall Out Boy has made a very cringe cover of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," the original itself already a piece of canonical cringe. But that's not what it sounded like to me at 8 years old, when it first became a massive hit. At the time, it was like reading Pynchon and DeLillo combined: a complex web of esoteric 20th-century lore I would have to spend years decoding...
Interplanetary Music: Foreverfloating
I'm working on "An Introduction to the Symbolism of Western Music or, The Harmony of the Spheres vs. the Emancipation of Dissonance." This playlist and commentary will serve as a nice preview.1. Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space- Spiritualized2. Clouds- The Stark Reality3. Variations on Canon in D Major: 1) Fulness of Wind 2) French Catalogues- Brian Eno4. Untitled 1- Love ...
Cormac McCarthy Novels, Worst to Best: #8-5
Written in letters of blood and fire.
Cormac McCarthy Novels, Worst to Best #12-9
This is one of the best "bottom tier" book lists you'll find.R.I.P Cormac.
Mirrors: A Partial Reading List
I- Religion, Metaphysics Complete Works- Jorge-Luis Borges (entire series) The Bible: Genesis & Ezekiel On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead-Gershom ScholemII- Myth, Literature, and Psychology "Narcissus and Echo" from Metamorphoses- Ovid On Narcissism- Sigmund Freud The Culture of Narcissism- Christopher Lasch The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde Through the Looking-Glass- Lewis Carrol...
The Ghosts of Podcasts Present and Future
Let's make God laugh.
Volume XII- Mirrors Part One: The Aleph
As Above, So Below
Against Interpretation: Reading & Commentary
Let's take a look at Susan Sontag's influential 1966 essay, "Against Interpretation."
The Literary Object or, This Thing of Ours
Literature is not a subject of study but an object of study.--Northrop FryeWhenever I have a good idea, I find somebody else has had it before, and expressed it better.A few years back, I started to get annoyed by people constantly saying things like "love is just a chemical reaction," or that your body (or your self) was "really" just a collection of atoms. (A random collection, t...
Discussing Suttree on There Will Be Books
I was recently a guest on the podcast There Will Be Books to discuss Cormac McCarthy and what I think is his most underrated novel, Suttree.Forest of Symbols fans will probably be most interested in the discussion about the symbolism of the Tennessee River in the novel, which I compare with the river Styx, and is called in the book a cloaca maxima, which was the main sewer of ancient Rome.I also b...
In The Stacks: The Fermata
In the 1950's, the French novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet proposed a new type of novel. This phrase might sound redundant, since "novel" means "new," but not in French since they call the novel a roman or "romance." The nouveau roman was supposed to de-emphasize character development (with its attendant psychological assumptions) and plot, and would instead focus on the li...
In the Stacks: A Universal History of Iniquity
Apologies for taking so long to get this one out. Let's take a look at Borges first collection of prose fiction.
Borges on Art of Darkness and Coming Attractions
I know it's been a slow couple months, and I want to thank everybody who's still here supporting me. (The House of Asterion has relocated twice this year, and it's labyrinth is stalked by a baby in teething agony.)I recently joined the boys on the Art of Darkness Podcast to talk about the life and work of Jorge-Luis Borges. (If you're interested in seeing me show face, check out th...
Interplanetary Music: Kosmic Khaos (The Music of Uqbar)
Only the 1900 excavation of the Royal Palace of Knossos in Crete, which may have been the fabled ancient "labyrinth," and the discovery of the buried heresies in the gnostic codices at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945 rival the discovery of the cultural artefacts of the impossibly arcane civilization of Uqbar. We explore its fascinating musical features which have transformed the postmodern soun...
The Chariot and the Passenger: Brad Kelly on Cormac McCarthy and Others
Author & podcaster Brad Kelly returns to talk Art of Darkness, the new McCarthy novels, the tarot in Blood Meridian, the Bung-Plug of the Void, and more.
In the Stacks: Books are Made Out of Books
Some recommended reading for McCarthy heads, or anyone interested in the minute details of literary influence.
Vol. XI: Ice
For destruction, Ice is great.
"The Book Scorpion" by Aldous Asterion
Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.—YeatsI. Ex LibrisAs if gazing down a corridor, observeThe great replete shelves repeat themselves(as, I’m sure, their contents do) and noteHow no red thread describes the arcane ark,As if a minotaur would leap ex libris;The Dewey-decimal editions ofThe New Jerusalem might here be held,But by my unerudite blunt mind belied:O belated ghost, get lost in...
"Snow" by Louis MacNeice
A short reading for a cold spell. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all patrons!The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window wasSpawning snow and pink roses against itSoundlessly collateral and incompatible:World is suddener than we fancy it.World is crazier and more of it than we think,Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portionA tangerine and spit the pips and feelThe drunkenness of thing...
In the Stacks: Blood Meridian
Blood, Time, and the Cosmic Dance.
