Reviews Written By: AVC8ZAFPYOHZLprovided by Amazon.com |
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 | SIRENS OF TITAN | |
 | "And finally the answer" | 2009-11-06 |
| I selected this book after seeing a reference to it with the main plot of the novel that struck me as making it intriguing. The issue of meaning in life is the focus right from the start. Of note is the 1950's (this was published in 1959) interest of Vonnegut in the physics point of view regarding time. Love the concept of "chrono-synclastic infundibula" which is described as "places in the Universe ... where all the different kinds of truths fit together...." P. 14 Interesting that the main character disappears the same way the cat did in Alice - grin last. This is a silly question, but if everyone is using a goofball to oxygenate their body could they still be strangled? A bit of interesting information "...the big trouble with dumb (people) is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart." P. 127 Tralfamadore! Ah. And finally the answer. | ||
 | The New Dare to Discipline | |
 | "But how to persuade those who need it?" | 2009-11-06 |
| This book presents a very common sense view regarding raising children - common sense to me since my parents and other adults in my community used these methods when I was growing up. An important point of the book concerns what happens when parents fail to use these methods because of new trends in thought regarding childrearing or through lack of a stable nuclear family. Considering many of the reasons why many adults were not raised using these methods we now have a parenting crisis resulting in large portions of the current cohort being raised without success. Unfortunately reading the book is not something those failed parents are likely to do. | ||
 | Middlemarch | |
| "insightful lines" | 2009-08-24 |
| This is a must read book considering all the references to it in literature. But why? The dialog and narrative direction are remarkably similar to that of Jane Austin books and neither is especially relevant from anything but a historical perspective. I suspect that apart from those values there are the wonderfully insightful lines such as these:
"Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another." "A man's mind - what there is of it - has always the advantage of being masculine, - as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm, - and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality." "...when a woman is not contradicted, she has no motive for obstinacy in her absurdities." "Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts - not to hurt others." "...the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it." "The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes." "But Aquinas, now - he was a little too subtle, wasn't he? Does anybody read Aquinas?" "...it is seldom a medical man has true religious views, - there is too much pride of intellect." | ||
 | The Geography of Thought : How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why | |
| "Almost Crying Whorf but not quite" | 2009-07-31 |
| Is this book just crying Whorf? Or do modern investigation techniques help support the thesis that language structures thought? In this book Nisbett outlines the relationships between different languages and aspects of apparent perception using much new empirical support from a host of studies. Keep in mind that Nisbett later publishes his book "Intelligence and How to Get It" which makes use of much of the same work in building the thesis that fluency comes from immersion and fluent parents result in more fluent children. A main result - intelligence comes from linguistic fluency. So what kind of intelligence the fluency gives a person depends on the sort of intelligence the linguistic tools make possible. One focus of the book argues European languages lead more to an individualist perspective while Chinese leads more towards a communal one. Here I certainly wonder if the sort of study Charles Taylor gives us in either "Sources of the Self" or "A Secular Age" details a historical evolution that offers a different explanation of these differences in perspective - especially since the languages seem relatively persistent while the cultural focus changes. New vocabulary is created and meanings change with cultural developments but the logic of the language seems to remain the same. If so, this must certainly weaken the thesis, at least the strong Whorfian thesis, that Nesbitt seems to support. Can both be true? What if the logical structure of the language - especially the grammar - predisposes speakers to evolve a certain type of perspective? In this way ancient Greeks still had the grammar but the vocabulary evolves through cultural periods. Romantics emphasize individualism more than the Scholastics did. Perhaps? An interesting issue concerns the difference between compound bilinguals and coordinate bilinguals. A pretty clear conclusion follows this study: "There is an effect of culture on thought independent of language." (p. 161) and "There is also clearly an effect of language independent of culture - but only for the coordinate speakers from China and Taiwan. They responded very differently depending on whether they are tested in Chinese or in English." (p. 162) So tentatively "language does indeed influence thought so long as different languages are plausibly associated with different systems of representation." Both cultural groups tend to make logical errors but each shows light on the other. Perhaps the weakness of each can be enhanced towards the more logical by an appreciation of both? Would this also be reflected in an individuals maturation? An interesting point Nisbett makes regarding the globalization of American Culture is a description of Francis Fukuyama's point of view in "The End of History" that "everyone is really an American at heart, or if not, it's only a matter of time until they will be". (p. 220) But describing Huntington's views as the contrary Nisbett says "Westerners tend to confuse modernization - defined as industrialization, a more complex occupational structure, increased wealth and social mobility, greater literacy, ad urbanization - with Westernization. But societies ... have become modern without becoming very Western." (p. 224) Nisbett continues with the suggestion that convergence might be more likely. (This reminds me of Peter Berger's book "The Heretical Imperative".) | ||
 | Parkinson's Law | |
| "Share with a good friend" | 2009-07-31 |
| This classic work ought to be thought of as a companion volume to books describing the "Peter Principle". Both have the interesting approach of describing the counterintuitive as the rule - perhaps even tongue in cheek - the mathematical rule regarding the way bureaucracies work - or rather don't. We have an apt description of the rules by which they grow, hire new workers, go through their evolutions - Marx would be thrilled. Some interesting points about the British Navy along the way. How committees work - oops, don't work - certainly are entertaining and great for board chairs planning agendas. Some of the rules are to be kept confidential or if too many are aware of them may not work, such as figuring out who is most important at a party. All of this is useful but most of all entertaining and certainly the result of a wealth of practical experience graciously shared with those of us lucky enough to be advised to read it by a good friend. | ||
 | The Seeing Stone (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 2) | |
| "Are we safe yet?" | 2009-07-11 |
| Thank goodness with a little help the kids have been safe so far but things do not look very good with all of the new things they are learning about the creatures in the woods around them. How can they expect to be safe? | ||
 | The Field Guide (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 1) | |
| "crazy or courageous" | 2009-07-06 |
| I am glad that these books have been made available to us but as I read them I cannot help but wonder if the kids that found the guide were not very wise ignoring the order to burn the book! Were they courageous or crazy? I do not know. | ||
 | Iris and Her Friends: A Memoir of Memory and Desire | |
| "Finding friends on the inside of the mind" | 2009-06-28 |
| Much as John does not like the word "caregiver" it is the word most used to refer to those who are in this situation with their loved ones. Most especially, it seems life is toughest on the caregivers. Our own situation was with my wife's father who had (has) vascular dementia and lost control of his body but not his mind - for the most part. This book details five years of the opposite situation for John and Iris. For us the nature of his physical deterioration left us no choice and after fifteen years with us he moved into a home where they could care for him properly. The situation was then totally different in the sense in which John was alone and alone with Iris - who as he says was in so many ways no longer herself. How does one cope with five years of care giving without going out of their minds? By going into their mind instead. And sharing the secret with us. | ||
 | Culture of Make Believe | |
 | "Read John Rawls" | 2009-06-07 |
| An immense concatenation of horror story after horror story about how humans have treated one another and the world to include holocaust, racism, capitalism, war, etc. (Imagine using etc. here.) The goal seems to be a searching for a more natural way, perhaps an avoidance of the falsifying categorizations imposed to avoid thinking of one another as emphatically as we ought. Somehow the picture of a family sitting by the river eating salmon together is the idyllic setting that should replace everything else everyone knows. Reminds me of "The Pine Island Paradox" by Kathleen Dean Moore minus the horror. What is the suggestion? Not to vote for the party that supports war? But gee, we did that, and guess what, in taking office they discovered war was necessary. I just read William Lobdell's "Losing My Religion" and had a similar feeling - there is not enough philosophy in the author's background to help them understand the issues. There are none in the index that point to readings in this regard either. Shouldn't John Rawls at least be mandatory? Some level of philosophical literacy ought to be required before putting this much pen to this much paper. The critical sentiments in the book are wonderful and the horror certainly true, but what does it mean to think things could be different? Simon Schama's "The American Future: A History" tells the same sort of tale but with a sense to searching for patterns in American culture that can explain at least the American zest for these sorts of horrors. Howard Zinn is certainly a major player in the perspective of this book. | ||
 | The Culture of Make Believe | |
| "Read John Rawls" | 2009-06-07 |
| An immense concatenation of horror story after horror story about how humans have treated one another and the world to include holocaust, racism, capitalism, war, etc. (Imagine using etc. here.) The goal seems to be a searching for a more natural way, perhaps an avoidance of the falsifying categorizations imposed to avoid thinking of one another as emphatically as we ought. Somehow the picture of a family sitting by the river eating salmon together is the idyllic setting that should replace everything else everyone knows. Reminds me of "The Pine Island Paradox" by Kathleen Dean Moore minus the horror. What is the suggestion? Not to vote for the party that supports war? But gee, we did that, and guess what, in taking office they discovered war was necessary. I just read William Lobdell's "Losing My Religion" and had a similar feeling - there is not enough philosophy in the author's background to help them understand the issues. There are none in the index that point to readings in this regard either. Shouldn't John Rawls at least be mandatory? Some level of philosophical literacy ought to be required before putting this much pen to this much paper. The critical sentiments in the book are wonderful and the horror certainly true, but what does it mean to think things could be different? Simon Schama's "The American Future: A History" tells the same sort of tale but with a sense to searching for patterns in American culture that can explain at least the American zest for these sorts of horrors. Howard Zinn is certainly a major player in the perspective of this book. | ||
 | Symphony No. 3: Music From: The Voyage/The Civil Wars/The Light | |
| "Hours of the Hours" | 2009-05-25 |
| This music feels like hours of "The Hours" but I agree that for Glass fans there are bound to be nuances that make various parts of this collection more interesting than others. I am not sure I would compare it to a summer's day or the picture on the CD jacket. Is there a postmodern generator on line for this? | ||
 | Patrick Cassidy - Children of Lir | |
| "beautiful music regardless" | 2009-05-20 |
| In what way would this be especially Celtic? The text is in Celtic though the story is of those misplaced by the Celts according to versions of the story. But there are certainly Celtic aspects of the orchestration as well and certain of the melodies have a Celtic sense - whatever that is. But this is not simply an imitation of Baroque music - Bach or Handel or otherwise, rather a modern Oratorio in Celtic of a pre-Celtic myth that selectively picks the finest melodic lines and harmonies of the genre of Baroque music to develop something new and interesting. There are rich aspects of this music that warrants repeated listening. Frustrating however are the missing lyrics and translations as the copy I borrowed from the library through ILL had the jacket sealed in plastic -- but even so appeared nothing more than a front and back. So no lyrics there either. Nor are they apparently on the web though there is much about the story itself and other treatments of it - even a band by the name "Children of Lir". I was intrigued by this piece having heard "Famine Remembrance" and becoming very impressed with that. CofL is one of PC's earlier works but as the comments show is certainly impressive as such. This is beautiful music regardless of it being a new piece written in an old style. | ||
 | Iris | |
| "A Beautiful Mind at the end of the road" | 2009-05-10 |
| This is a beautiful movie though not especially enlightening regarding Murdoch's philosophy at all. Rather it is a romp through her life with John from their meeting and through flashbacks and returns a comparison of their lives together then and the present of the film. It would be a little too risqué to play for students in class though I suppose everything was meant to portray the character of Iris as John recalls her. What the movie does do is encourages reading since one is curious about what the movie leaves out - what she wrote. There are a few choice interviews that Dench does wonderfully. Of interest is the happy YouTube offerings of several interviews with Iris Murdoch so one can compare. But I suppose the main concern of the movie is to present the unfortunate future for many who live the life of the mind and the eventual loss of it. The surprise is that those who are so intellectually active (as well as active in other ways) might still suffer the consequences of a deterioration of the brain and loss of what most makes life worth living for them. Sad. | ||
 | Iris | |
| "A Beautiful Mind at the end of the road" | 2009-05-10 |
| This is a beautiful movie though not especially enlightening regarding Murdoch's philosophy at all. Rather it is a romp through her life with John from their meeting and through flashbacks and returns a comparison of their lives together then and the present of the film. It would be a little too risqué to play for students in class though I suppose everything was meant to portray the character of Iris as John recalls her. What the movie does do is encourages reading since one is curious about what the movie leaves out - what she wrote. There are a few choice interviews that Dench does wonderfully. Of interest is the happy YouTube offerings of several interviews with Iris Murdoch so one can compare. But I suppose the main concern of the movie is to present the unfortunate future for many who live the life of the mind and the eventual loss of it. The surprise is that those who are so intellectually active (as well as active in other ways) might still suffer the consequences of a deterioration of the brain and loss of what most makes life worth living for them. Sad. | ||
 | Iris | |
| "A Beautiful Mind at the end of the road" | 2009-05-10 |
| This is a beautiful movie though not especially enlightening regarding Murdoch's philosophy at all. Rather it is a romp through her life with John from their meeting and through flashbacks and returns a comparison of their lives together then and the present of the film. It would be a little too risqué to play for students in class though I suppose everything was meant to portray the character of Iris as John recalls her. What the movie does do is encourages reading since one is curious about what the movie leaves out - what she wrote. There are a few choice interviews that Dench does wonderfully. Of interest is the happy YouTube offerings of several interviews with Iris Murdoch so one can compare. But I suppose the main concern of the movie is to present the unfortunate future for many who live the life of the mind and the eventual loss of it. The surprise is that those who are so intellectually active (as well as active in other ways) might still suffer the consequences of a deterioration of the brain and loss of what most makes life worth living for them. Sad. | ||
 | Much Ado About Nothing | |
| "Sigh no more" | 2009-04-04 |
| This movie is way too much fun. Great lines spoken with great flair. Crazy lines spoken with just the right amount of wit to make them reasonable. Even the extras on the disk help make the play more fun and more sensible too. Is it a play about who should marry who? Sigh no more ladies. | ||
 | Patrick Doyle - Much Ado About Nothing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | |
| "a touch too much of something" | 2009-04-04 |
| Well, I love the play but the music seems a touch too ... something. The theme song, "Sigh no more" gets interesting use in the movie - three times. But it is a puzzle either way either place. Patrick Doyle makes this interesting but one hearing was enough for me. | ||
 | Much Ado About Nothing (Cliffs Notes) | |
| "Sigh no more" | 2009-04-04 |
| This movie is way too much fun. Great lines spoken with great flair. Crazy lines spoken with just the right amount of wit to make them reasonable. Even the extras on the disk help make the play more fun and more sensible too. Is it a play about who should marry who? Sigh no more ladies. | ||
 | Much Ado about Nothing (Shakespeare in Production) | |
| "Sigh no more" | 2009-04-04 |
| This movie is way too much fun. Great lines spoken with great flair. Crazy lines spoken with just the right amount of wit to make them reasonable. Even the extras on the disk help make the play more fun and more sensible too. Is it a play about who should marry who? Sigh no more ladies. | ||
 | Much Ado About Nothing | |
| "Sigh no more" | 2009-04-04 |
| This movie is way too much fun. Great lines spoken with great flair. Crazy lines spoken with just the right amount of wit to make them reasonable. Even the extras on the disk help make the play more fun and more sensible too. Is it a play about who should marry who? Sigh no more ladies. | ||
 | Much Ado About Nothing | |
| "Sigh no more" | 2009-04-04 |
| This movie is way too much fun. Great lines spoken with great flair. Crazy lines spoken with just the right amount of wit to make them reasonable. Even the extras on the disk help make the play more fun and more sensible too. Is it a play about who should marry who? Sigh no more ladies. | ||
 | Samurai X - Trust & Betrayal (Director's Cut) | |
| "Campbell's Hero Quest" | 2009-03-30 |
In asking a friend what their favorite movie was he said this one. I had never heard of it so he lent his copy to me to watch over the weekend. What struck me as most obvious was how closely the plot follows Joseph Campbell's description of the necessary steps on the hero's quest. A quick search on Google shows these two topics do a dance with one another on lots of pages. So this point is nothing new. It may very well account for the power the movie has - the plot follows the ideal map of the hero's quest very closely. It is fascinating how following Campbell's map seems to insure such dramatic interest. | ||
 | Leading with Kindness: How Good People Consistently Get Superior Results | |
| "Common Sense revisited" | 2009-03-17 |
| This book was a little disappointing. Inspired to read it by watching the Charlie Rose interview with Bill Baker it seemed like it would be an intriguing read. Instead it seemed to espouse common sense leadership skills. Which brings up the question: are the basic personal skills deteriorating badly enough that leaders and teachers have to emphasize them this much? I expected some more depth in the book. | ||
 | God Is Red: A Native View of Religion, 30th Anniversary Edition | |
| "Excellent summary of cultural war" | 2009-03-12 |
| This is written from the point of view of an intellectual well versed in Western philosophy and religion but who is also well versed in American Indian Native religion. The chapters detail the stark differences between what he develops as warring cultures as he step by step describes the impact of Greek philosophy on Christian religion and how that molds the sense of individuality viewed as the modern individual in the West today. In contrast to this he describes the nature of community as seen through the eyes of natives and native religions that are land based instead of abstract conceptual systems. I find it interesting because other books such as Charles Taylor's "The Sources of the Self" make much the point he does in describing the nature of the modern individual and what brings it about. We might also see this in other books that deal with the subject. Of importance are several insightful points regarding the difficulties native communities face and how they have reacted to these culture wars. For example, regarding suicide he says, "Many people are trapped between tribal values constituting their unconscious behavioral responses and the values they have been taught in schools and churches, which primarily demand conforming to seemingly foreign ideals. Alcoholism and suicide mark this tragic fact of reservation life. People are not allowed to be Indians and cannot become whites. They have been educated, as the old-timers would say, to think with their heads instead of their hearts." (p 242) On the chapter between Natural and Hybrid Peoples he describes the Native religions as based on a sense of place - the importance of the land where "The soil you see is not ordinary soil - it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and the bones of our ancestors. We fought and bled and died to keep other Indians from taking it, and we fought and bled and died helping the Whites. You will have to dig down through the surface before you can find nature's earth, as the upper portion is Crow." (p 148 quoting Curley, a Crow Indian Chief). (p. 247) "Education and Religion apparently do not mix." | ||
 | Beethoven - Triple Concerto ~ Choral Fantasy / Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Berliner Phil., Barenboim | |
| "Wonderful Surprises" | 2009-03-08 |
| Beethoven continues to deliver wonderful surprises especially with the help of performers like these. I heard the Triple Concerto live for the first time in Anchorage when the Symphony played it with the Perlman/Schmidt/Bailey Trio and thought it was fantastic, Randy Fleischer's interpretation was as terrific as Zuill said it would be. But it also inspired me to order a copy for my library and I picked this one. Great music. | ||
 | Adams / Glass: Violin Concertos | |
| "Smooth as Glass" | 2009-03-06 |
| I must admit it will probably take some getting used to the Adams concerto and I bought the disk for the Glass, but the Glass is well worth it. There are things Glass has done I can't get used to either but the violin concerto strikes me as among the work I enjoy very much. A real keeper. | ||
 | The Masterless: Self & Society in Modern America | |
| "Grand Review" | 2009-03-05 |
| Reading the description of the Grand Review - a two day parade of the army through Washington following the end of the Civil War - prompted me to wonder what it would be like if after the Iraq War we were to have the American forces march in review through Washington DC and how long it might take. Would anyone today be able to stand and watch the whole thing? The most poignant description was that of Seward recovering from his wounds in Lafayette Square honored by Sherman. (p 15) This statement (p 23) also struck me "War is the most powerful of all engines for fostering national self-consciousness, and the most reliable of all centralizing and unifying agents in human affairs." I considered this a major point since Professor McClay repeated it in a summary article besides the book, and reiterated it twice during the week while visiting UAA (for the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birthday in 2009). It struck me that he wrote this after the Persian Gulf War but before the Iraq War, though it still clearly was a point of emphasis he makes today. It certainly gives one pause for reflection. Also interesting I found was McClay's treatment of Whitman. But the Grand Review becomes a ready analogy for the book as it marches an army of American intellectual history by us developing the paradox of individualism and the search for social connectedness. | ||
 | How We Decide (1st Edition) | |
| "Fooled by a Feeling" | 2009-03-02 |
| Fooled by a Feeling is a chapter that teaches us how easily we fool ourselves into thinking we can predict outcomes even when statistics demonstrate we can't. This introduces a whole new level of self-control through intellectual removal. Now instead of being manipulated by our cultural attitudes - what Francis Bacon referred to as the Idols of the Mind, now can be taken to a new level when you intellectually step back from the biological way our brains compute. Much of this follows up on the work of folks like Antonio Damasio. This books turns out to be a practical guide to understanding how the brain works and what you can do about it. | ||
 | Bells of St. Genevieve & Other | |
| "Great for light listening" | 2009-03-01 |
| Very nice collection great for background music if you can get the hang of such short pieces mixed together. It reminds me of the old Longines Symphonette recordings of the masters. A few minutes of the most memorable melody and then on to the next one. | ||
 | Self-Consciousness: Memoirs | |
| "On JU's passing" | 2009-02-09 |
| On the passing away of JU it occurred to me to read something of his to fix the memory of him and chose this book because of its autobiographical nature. The sort of books I would normally read with such a title would be about what Consciousness is and Self-Consciousness in particular, but this is JU's thoughts on his own self-consciousness - a very different sort of thing. The chapter "On Being a Self Forever" comes closest to what I would normally expect. But in chapter one the walk that night in Shillington eerily reminds me much of my similar experiences in West Chester. Even the street names are similar, though of course that was, for me, a college town, not where I grew up. In some of his comments in chapter two it strikes me how recent events in a near by community - Coatesville - there has been a string of arson fires destroying whole blocks of the town. Perhaps not the same reason as JU gives for the one he describes (p 65) but I am suspicious. In the chapter "On Not Being a Dove" I enjoyed the description of things associated with Unitarians. His father in law's statement that "our human need for transcendence should be met with minimal embarrassments to reason" (p 132) is precious. Love the Robin Williams quote "If you remember the Sixties you weren't there." (p 148) I suppose I should read Kurt Vonnegut's "Galapagos". "The yearning for an afterlife is the opposite of selfish: it is love and praise for the world that we are privileged, in this complex interval of light, to witness and experience." (p 217) I may get to use that line someday. It strikes me that his point of view is very contemporary on this. Not Medieval at all. Not Buddhist either. Quoting Unamuno "Consciousness is a disease." (p 226) becomes a thoughtful discussion of religion with JU's conclusion: "Perhaps there are two kinds of people: those for whom nothingness is no problem, and those for whom it is an insuperable problem, an outrageous cancelation rendering every other concern, from mismatching socks to nuclear holocaust, negligible." (p 228) Odd, while reading "Now the dog heaves in his sleep, woofing at some dream prey" - my own dog was doing the same thing at my feet. (p. 242) The last chapter was my favorite. | ||
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