Luke > Recent Status Updates

It was hard to understand a little and then walk away.

Been a while since I last read this author. Hope the magic is still there.

Seeing posts on this site of people crowing about bypassing anti-COVID transmission mechanisms so they can get their pwecious vacation time in while a bunch of others cheer them on, and it's like, ok plague rats. Hope it all goes well for you, and by well I mean you directly contribute to less than the maximum possible number of deaths of folks that you could potentially cause.

If I had a dollar for every time someone who obviously hasn't read my About Me sent me a friend request, I wouldn't have to worry about the cost of groceries so much.

I wonder how many had heard of A Tribe Called Red before they cracked open this book.

The mind is a mine. So often we revisit its winding, unsound caverns when we ought to stay out.

In the north the darkness was gulping down the light, the mountain was nearly swallowed up, the day's last escort fled to the northwest and I stood on the little bridge on the edge of nothingness, enveloped in infinity.

Zero days since a person I've blocked got shoved onto my dash on this site. True to GRAmazon form.

At the time I mistook suffering for decency.

Call me a crotchety old luddite, but if someone attempts the recommend me a book by sending me a link to a YouTube video, I'm not even going to bother.

You have to perform in any situation, so you may as well pick your battles.

If, in the 21st century, you look at a minority diaspora that has high unemployment, high dependence on social welfare, and high rates of crime compared to the dominant population, and then conclude it's actually the diaspora's fault, congratulations. You've just failed the first test of analyzing socioeconomic power structures and cultural habitus in relation to the history of the last few centuries.

One part of my brain: Y'know, if you crammed in another 4k pages of reading into this month, you'd read around as many pages this year as you did last year.

The other part: Naaaaaaah.

Ah yes, mass Euro imperialism induced diasporic displacement of non-Euro populations being used as evidence that Euro imperialism is the ultimate zenith of civilization. It's akin to judging Trump's governance on the basis of the fluctuations of the stock market during the midst of a pandemic claiming 250k+ of the country's citizens. Then again, plenty of so called intellectuals do that right now, so what's new?

On the one hand, I truly am savoring/getting a lot out of this and chunks (of varying sizes and accompanied by differing levels of critical analysis) of the other works I'm reading. On the other, I haven't finished/reviewed a work in almost a week, and it's making me cranky.

The imposition of medical precautions led to rioting...They refused to obey orders forbidding them to gather in marketplaces and churches and to kiss supposedly miraculous icons in hopes of protection [from the bubonic plague].

It always amuses me when certain kinds of folks mindlessly follow in the wake of book award announcements and then get offended when the work/author isn't as comfortably palatable as they assumed it would be.

Just because a country is strong and obdurate and has its own ways of thinking — that does not mean it cannot be wronged.

Since the publication of this, the author wrote about how this was written to pander to the white male reader, so it'll at least be a change of pace to read something that, at least in hindsight, is a lot more honest about such than much of today's literature market.

Around half a book later, Catherine's finally becoming the Great (not like it wasn't interesting beforehand, but now she can deal with real country-building issues instead of pathetic relatives and their hanger-ons).

I wonder if there's any credible research out there that analytically juxtaposes the motifs of Islamophobia with the tenets of anti-Catholic sentiments and/or antisemitism à la "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," cause Hitchen's whole screed is sounding very familiar.

Ripping off the band aid with this one, and not cause I expect to be a "difficult, but rewarding" read.

Need books by women published in 1860s, 1960, and 1963. I'm thinking something by Gaskell for 1860 and have these for the two years:

1960 - The Country Girls - Edna O’Brien
The Ballad of Peckham Rye - Muriel Spark (or The Bachelors)
Venice - Jan Morris

1963 - Iris Murdoch - The Unicorn
The Glass-Blowers - Daphne du Maurier
The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark
I, etcetera - Susan Sontag

Comments/recs welcome.

Wish I could enjoy the history/chem talk without gearing up for the inevitable 'oh psychopath/sociopaths are so fascinating we always have to be on the lookout for the next one at the expense of worrying about huge corporations doing more legal poisoning in a year than an individual could illegally achieve in several lifetimes,' but so it goes.

I think self-esteem is a white invention to further separate one person from another. It asks people to assess their values and implies people have worth. It seems like identity capitalism.

Got a stupid amount of books at the revival (?) of my usual book sale, so apologies in advance for the spam.

It may be a bit early to do this, but I already know that my least favorite literary moment of 2020 was when this one book written about Trump got published and every liberal 'critical thinker' on this website started fearmongering even harder about people with personality disorders cause that showed off their 'social justice' badge a lot more fashionably than any sort of holistic humanization paradigm would do.

[Adorno] couldn't believe that the German people would give any long-term backing to this Führer who seemed to him to be 'a mixture of King Kong and a suburban hairdresser.'

Folks be coming up with their 'Best of 2020' lists while it's taking all my willpower to keep myself in the long neglected 21st. century part of my library in order to do some cleaning out.

Real world in my area's starting to boil over (again), so it's just as well I take a break from Nonfiction November in order to fulfill the next stage of this yearly reading commitment.