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Valerie Schrag

Goodreads Author

Born

The United States

Website

http://valerieschrag.com

Twitter

valerieschrag

Member Since

September 2007

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Valerie Schrag’s books

Average rating: 3.55 · 1,701 ratings · 287 reviews · 2 distinct works

	The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1: From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons (The Graphic Canon, #1) by Russ Kick (Editor), Seymour Chwast (Contributor), Valerie Schrag (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 3.71 avg rating — 954 ratings — published 2012 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age by Ariel Schrag (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Daniel Clowes (Contribution by), Joe Matt (Contribution by) 3.37 avg rating — 792 ratings — published 2007 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Valerie is Currently Reading

Valerie is currently reading

The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

by Matt Ridley

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Nov 20, 2015 03:50PM

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Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking

by Daniel C. Dennett

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Valerie said: " Daniel C. Dennett cites himself a lot. Just sayin'.

Right, so his thing is that free will and determinism are not incompatible. He's really big into non-incompatibles. the idea that you can predict the choice someone will make does not effect his abil Daniel C. Dennett cites himself a lot. Just sayin'.

Right, so his thing is that free will and determinism are not incompatible. He's really big into non-incompatibles. the idea that you can predict the choice someone will make does not effect his ability to make that choice. So, its predictable that i would write this... but i still also made a choice to write it. i really hope he explains how this is so because i still don't get it.

I had no idea this book would be so much about rhetoric, linquistics, etc. a delightful surprise as I love that stuff (for example, every time I malapropriate I cover with the declaration that "I love malapropisms!" because 1) it makes me look clever when I was looking dumb and 2) its true - I love the fact that I can use the wrong word for something and my intentionality/meaning is still conveyed intact - at least much of the time). I can't wait to apply his nasty little tools, like "rathering" to my own writing b/c I also agree with him in that there is often nothing more fun than realize how wrong you are - mistakes are such a juicy opportunity for growth.

so far this book reminds me of Jonah Leher's "How we decide." (I still find myself wanting to champion him despite his unfortunate debacle - his writing was nice and clear and interesting and I still trust it in the main [self plagiarizing is nonsense, and I'm somehow not too bothered by the other stuff...])

I still don't really understand where Dennett falls in the dualist/materialist etc camp (I know most assume he's a strict materialist, but the way he complains about being misunderstood..and at times seems to discuss the reality of qualia confuses me).. need to read more of him.

I like this quote: "Let's stipulate at the outset that there is a great deal of deplorable, stupid, second-rate stuff out there, of all sorts. Now, in order not to waste your time and try our patience, make sure you concentrate on the best stuff you can find, the flagship exexamples, extolled by the leaders of the field, the prize-winning entries, not the dregs." I wonder if he'll discuss how people's tendency to do this is just 'cause they're insecure and it makes them feel good to tear apart weak scholarship or weak anything, really. probably he won't. speaking of , this is an angry statement. dennett is quite an angry man.

still judging dennett's ability to write/speak clearly about complex stuff, so far, he's doing pretty well. I was having a conversation with Ariel the other day about how it's so annoying how people will write really convolutedly with lots of big words (or worse a bunch of terminology specific to your field ["word-dropping"]) and stuff to sound intelligent, and it can be, like, a lot of quantity and stuff, but she said something like - the more words you're using and the longer your sentences, likely the less you're actually saying. i think she probably quoted someone who said it better. but anyway, this is true also of novelists, she was probably thinking about healy's "how i became a famous novelist"... everyone should just read and follow chicago's manual of style. k? thanks.

another thing i was thinking about along the line of phonies is, like, i know it's a fine line between original ideas and copying and nothing new under the sun and all, but you know it when you see it? in that, it seems that often a person instead of being inspired by an idol in the same field to create someone of their own or copying their style in a way to express their own stuff - the best they can do is just copy the obvious mannerisms or personaility quirks or things unrelated to the particular craft really, you know a caricature, like someone puffing on a pipe and reading a book by the sea who actually hates to read, or someone who is all angry like dennett and thinks that's his "persona" or something and it's his duty to set the score with his "philosopher" friends as if he were a big wig within a community or something, because really, he just likes dennett's persona and wants desperately to believe that he is just like that..... ...more "

May 15, 2013 08:42AM · see review

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My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind

by Scott Stossel (Goodreads Author)

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Jun 12, 2018 07:44PM

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Quotes by Valerie Schrag (?)

“the weather in northern california is like your body at 16, you just don't feel it.”
― Tania Schrag, Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age

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Valerie’s Quotes

“You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

tags: cigarette

1010 likes

“I always run into strong women who are looking for weak men to dominate them.”
― Andy Warhol

17 likes

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible....”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

tags: shallow

521 likes

“I know well that healing comes-if one is brave-from within, through profound resignation to suffering and death, through the surrender of your own will and of your self-love. But that is of no use to me; I love to paint, to see people and things and everything that makes our life-artificial, if you like. Yes, real life would be a different thing, but I do not belong to that category of souls who are ready to live and also at any moment to suffer. I am everything but courageous in sorrow, and everything but patient when I am not feeling well, though I have rather a good deal of patience in keeping to my work.”
― Vincent van Gogh, Dear Theo

37 likes

“Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.”
― Niels Bohr, Essays 1932-1957 on Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge

tags: particles, physics, quantum, reality, science, strange

145 likes

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