Mercurial » Books

Everything is political

Camilo — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:06:20 +0000

I am re-reading Anansi Boys, that delicious book by Neil Gaiman; the writer describes it as

If you have to classify it, it’s probably a magical-horror-thriller-ghost-romantic-comedy-family-epic, although that leaves out the detective bits and much of the food.

.
The whole story that can be retold as a contemporary political tale, or a cognitive science early myth, one that describes the moment in which stories shift from survival to creative, from procedural to transactional.

That book, though, had however a terrible fault, at least here in a Southern state: you don’t call black grown men “boys”, and since the protagonists are black, and the whole tale revolves around the story of Anansi, any reference to the book was almost forbidden. Was no cultural marketer there to tell Mr. Gaiman about the requirements and restrictions of a large market?

As Skunk Anansie would say, “everything is f***ing political”.

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Nanowrimo!

Camilo — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:56:41 +0000

And I thought I had outlived this horrible November loved/dreaded task! Last couple years were definitely too surreal to even think about writing, This year is proving to be unique as well, but I might give it a shot, between 2am and 3 am. Plenty of time!
OK, so what to do? Nicole Gustas has tips on how to win at NaNoWriMo.

# Set aside at least two hours per day to write.
# Review your calendar.
# Tell your family and friends that you’re participating in NaNoWriMo.
# Build a NaNo support network.

I am going to hide under a rock. That, or find a planet with 30 day hours!

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Bobo marketing

Camilo — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:21:20 +0000

A marvelous realization! All that fake Nepalese cutlery? All those distressed tables? all carefully marketed!:

We tend to think our standards for the beautiful and good are natural and eternal. They aren’t. And you know who needs this analysis of Bobo consumption most? Not Bobos, nor Bobo-aspirants, but marketers. If business is about knowing how your customer thinks, then this is a business book. It tells you exactly how to jack all those fat baby-boomer wallets—whether you’re selling ice cream, a university, a book, a religion, or a company. When I see suits on planes reading business best sellers, I think: Wrong! Get some books that explain how groups try to reconcile their dreams of who they want to be with the social and economic realities of their world through the stuff they buy. Then get down to business. That’s what J. Crew did.

I know both those marketers and those buyers. And of course, blogging makes me one of those. Damn!

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Harry Potter: a review

Camilo — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:44:55 +0000

Jessa Crispin points to Harry Crace’s review of the latest Harry Potter:

The book will start witph Harry making his way back to Hogwart’s for his final year and his scar will be hurting. Ginny and Ron will be flirting a bit, while Harry tries to take himself seriously by almost swearing. There will be loads more unedited, not very interesting back story that should have been cut and there will be a ‘terrifically, exciting denouement that I can’t reveal as I don’t want to spoil the plot in which two much-loved characters die’. Oh, and JK will make another fortune.

And then Christians, forgetting about the lions once more, will again ask for the pyres.

No, wait! I have the ending! Voldemort reveals that he is, in fact, Harry’s father, and that he expects Harry to join him. Harry, of course, refuses, and in the ensuing fight he loses his arm.
Later Ron marries Princess Leia. Or somebody.

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Plastic brain, purple rain

Camilo — Wed, 30 May 2007 12:29:19 +0000

OK, so that is a bad word game, yet the plasticity of the brain appears to be nothing short of amazing, miraculous, and incomprehensible just yet; from the NYTimes:

For patients with brain injury, the revolution brings only good news, as Dr. Doidge describes in numerous examples. A woman with damage to the inner ear’s vestibular system, where the sense of balance resides, feels as if she is in constant free fall, tumbling through space like an ocean bather pulled under by the surf. Sitting in a neuroscience lab, she puts a set of electrodes on the surface of her tongue, a wired-up hard hat on her head, and the feel of falling stops. The apparatus connects to a computer to create an external vestibular system, replacing her damaged one by sending the proper signals to her brain via her tongue.

And I am getting the book.

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Swarm

Camilo — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 11:28:23 +0000

Better called the environmentalist revenge, The Swarm is a tad cold for me; begins as a sort of environmental ethic primer, traverses some encyclopedic descriptions and ends up in a maelstrom of rapid conclusions, almost too catastrophically convenient.
I like the idea of a swarm intelligence, as it is basic to our daily lives. However, the book comes up with a plain character development, and there is no depth to the people. And although the author has a plethora of technical facts to weigh the book, there is still something missing there – the interactions, the not so obvious endings.
That said, it is worthy of attention because the environmental awareness that the book provokes, and the ethical revision of our position towards our environment.
environment, books

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Non-appropriate books?

Camilo — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 12:50:51 +0000

Going from boingboing about erotica in a list that tries to protect children from bad books, I went to the original site and found the PABBIS List of Lists, with such a gem like

Books on this list may, or may not, be appropriate for your child.

. Note that the descriptions can be funny as well:

Extremely graphic (EG): cut off his head, blood gushed onto floor, splattered on wall and head bounced on the floor and his brains slowly oozed out onto the carpet in a purple gray mass.

Among the books in the Index are:

1984
A Clockwork Orange
A Day No Pigs Would Die
A Farewell to Arms
A Girl Named Disaster
A Way Of Love, A Way Of Life: A Young Person’s Introduction To What It Means To Be Gay
Alfred Hitchcock’s Witches Brew
Almost A Woman
Always Running
Anne Frank: The Diary Of A Young Girl
As I Lay Dying
Beloved
Beowulf, A New Telling
Black Like Me
Bless Me, Ultima
Brave New World
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Canterbury Tales
Cocaine And Crack
Crucible
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman
East of Eden
Ender’s Game
Everything You Need to Know About Sexual Abuse
Fahrenheit 451
Flowers for Algernon
Hamlet
Heather Has Two Mommies
Hiroshima
Human Sexuality
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
In Our Defence: The Bill Of Rights In Action
Johnny Got His Gun
Jump Ship to Freedom
Latin Moon in Manhattan
Letters From a Slave Girl
Lolita
Lord of the Flies
Love and Sex: Ten Stories of Truth
Love In The Times Of Cholera
Make Lemonade
Matilda
Mom The Wolfman & Me
Of Mice and Men
One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Our Bodies, Ourselves
Pedro and Me
Portrait of America, Vol. II
Slaughterhouse-Five
Song of Solomon
Sons and Lovers
Steffie Can’t Come Out to Play
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Giver
The Graphic Work of M.C. Escher
The Hobbit
The Martian Chronicles
The Merchant of Venice
The Pearl
To Kill a Mockingbird
Tommy Stands Alone
Ulysses
Women In Love

Imagine giving this list to your children to read, to became acquainted with the real world, to develop both a good knowledge of English and a social conscience as well!

This list actually reads like a wishlist for me, so you know what to send me.

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New Yorker

Camilo — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 12:18:47 +0000

I love keeping things. Of course, getting the whole 80 Years of The New Yorker DVD is appealing to a collecting mind.

Besides, I get to read. A little.

I need a bigger screen.

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Fifty novels

Camilo — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 07:45:40 +0000

China Miéville, besides doing his PhD (A Historical Materialist Analysis of International Law and the Legal Form, LSE, 2002) and writing amazing novels, has also a critical socialist side to him. Go read his recommendations for Fifty Fantasy & Science Fiction Works That Socialists Should Read.
And it is not jus because boing^2 recommended it.

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Quicksilver

Camilo — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 12:41:23 +0000

I got the limited edition for Stephenson’sQuicksilver, magnificently bound, signed, in a different format and all. A luxurious book.
Useless.
I cannot play with it! I can not read the thing with my hands dirty, or while in bed, or while drinking coffee, and god forbid, I cannot leave it around with my other books, you know, the ones that get bent pages and broken spines and small marks as a result of being alive and read. Nooo. This book is a prissy one, requiring to be placed on the shelf after each judicious reading, hands washed beforehand, and please be very healthy when handling it. I can not leave it in the car overnight, or during a hot day, I can not read it at the coffee house, or take it with me to my friends’ houses. Too precious for its own good.
Angry David (who, in actuality, is a very nice individual, only too right about a whole lot of things) remarked that the only books that are worth reading are those that have marks, that are completely worn, books that have shown not only that they have been read, but that they have been handled, sometimes roughly, sometimes lovingly. He is absolutely right.
This shiny useless book reminds me of beautiful girlfriends, the ones that can not go on the rain, nor eat an ice cream: gorgeous and a pleasure to behold, but annoyingly complicated. Much better to be living in the world, you know.

So, I should be getting a cheap copy of the book, a used one, an ex-library; one with dog teeth marks and coffee stains, one that has been read and enjoyed. Still, I am not ready to give away my trophy book either.

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