June 2012
11 posts
4 tags
Iain M. Banks is my favourite author of speculative fiction and Look to Windward is possibly my favourite book by him. The characters are certainly a big factor, I posted an exchange from the novel earlier. But the themes that it grapples with are another reason. This isn’t going to be an original observation, reading a scholarly article on Banks made me realize this*, but it’s a...
1 tag
As a bit of an antidote to my stilted little review below I’d like to mention the sincere joy I feel at watching pictures of cute animal people and people dressed up as animals.
3 tags
Watched Prometheus tonight. I rather looked forward to it so I persuaded my friend to make a second attempt at seeing it when a badly adjusted projector thwarted our first. The ghost image on the screen certainly did nothing to dispel my skepticism of 3D technology. To what must have been the staff’s relief there were only four of us in the auditorium requiring repayment. An hour later we...
2 tags
I guess Cannadine was only talking about Marxisim in a rather limited sense, the class concept. Other historians in the congress mentioned that Marxist and Neo-Marxist perspectives might be useful now in this global crisis of capitalism.
I don’t know, ever since I started reading about Marxism I’ve been very conflicted about it. There are a lot of things that don’t seem to hold...
4 tags
I guess using tumblr as an old fashioned blog is kind of irrelevant, considering both the audience and the nature of the medium. I don’t mind though, I want to document some of my thoughts occasionally whether they’re of interest to others or not.[[MORE]]
I’m attending the fourth Icelandic history convention this weekend. I missed a good chunk of it yesterday due to work but...
A Dinner Party
clupster:
A former frat roommate — broish Italian American, fluent in 4 languages, graduated summa cum laude in Economics and now does sales for a mid-range wine label — condescends to an Anthropology PhD candidate for “doing useless shit that contributes to nothing in society” + participating in OWS.
Seriously? Peddling luxury wines is ‘useful to society’? Your salary pays for weddings and...
2 tags
A bit too intoxicated to cycle home safely in the uncharacteristically warm night, from the lively midtown, through the abandoned central business district, enjoying the light-blue sunless sky that fades into orange towards the northwestern horizon. It was from a long anticipated book club meeting, discussing a book that hit a nerve for all of us. Les Choses, published in mid 60’s France, a...
