The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye tackles a lot of issues in a relatively short book. Morrison writes about race, gender, poverty, abuse, and self-hatred among other topics without heavy handedness or pointing directly at the problem and saying “look at that”. She just tells the story and the issues become self-evident through the telling. Far too much to discuss here, but one of the themes that stood out to me was how abuse and self-hatred are passed down through generations.
Whew - it’s been decades since I read The Bluest Eye, but it hit me like a brick and I still think about it. For me personally, it made a bigger impact than Beloved.
Rereading Arrhythmia, a comic I picked up recently with three plots:
I particularly like the rather fluid way the three plots switch from one to another. (Ask me about the 24 other comics I have in my feed reader.)
What book is this?
dumb dumb dumb by mary jo pehl
If you were a kid in the '70s, you’ll likely get a kick out of this…
A couple days ago I finished A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. It’s about Mona, who’s 14 and her only magical talent is the ability to command dough. I found it a great YA fantasy novel about finding your strength and making do with what you have. 4 out of 5.
Trying to get into Ghost Story by Peter Straub after hearing great things about it for decades.
So far I am having a lot of trouble getting into it. Maybe starting your book with page after page of nothing happening isn’t the greatest choice?
Meh. A week or two ago I had went on a phrase-length mini-rant against one UG coworker who was griping about “ZOMG ‘Calc IV’!'.” To which I rejoindered “vector calculus will rule your world!”
Something like that, anyway. I give the abbreviated exchange.
Whatever. And then I overheard him griping about “meh meh pew pew, why do I need to know linear algebra if I am computer science.” Idiot.
But, I had the good idea to brush up on partial derivatives, tensors and stuff just now. Yes, it’s an old book, a Schaum’s Outline, but it’s still fine!
Really? CS would-be student doesn’t see freaking linear algebra as fundamental? Must have had fun flunking out of discrete mathematics, that tool. Not to mention applications.
Going through this…again ! I love all the stories, and the writing style is so good as to be theft worthy.
HEY!!! Book people!!!
Should one read The Magnificent Ambersons…you know, the novel…or is the movie enough?
I must know.
Running water, upstairs and down!
TBH, I’ve never used linear algebra in a lifetime of computer work. Except occasionally for fun.
I haven’t read that one. I’ve actually got a question for anyone who’s read Robinson Crusoe.
There’s a small passage where Crusoe talks about working on his “mechanics” or some such term, anyone remember this from the book?
Anyhow, I actually found a real crazy, blatant editing mistake in Strassler’s Landmark Herodotus…he identifies a horse as a camel in a black and white photo…
“That’s not a camel, that’s a horse’s ass !” (Takes one to know one).
Well, that’s a good find, and thank you very little for making me get down my old copy and flip through.
Where is this bad deed, anyway?
I see horse and Strassler says horse.
Anyway, good find! I haven’t thought about this one in ages. So, good to dip into again.
Four places (thanks Gutenberg!):
the labour and sufferings of the mechanic part of mankind
every man may be, in time, master of every mechanic art.
was yet but a very sorry workman, though time and necessity made me a complete natural mechanic soon after
I improved myself in this time in all the mechanic exercises which my necessities put me upon applying myself to
I would have thought τέχνη for “mechanics,” but Dafoe could be drawing from roughly contemporaneous ideas like a crude materialism or atomism, or equally something like in Descartes, viz., an automaton theory of primitive creatures.
Just WAGs.
I think it’s like “working class”.
Check figure 2.124A, it falls on page 173 on my copy.
“A view of the Great Pyramid of Cheops…Note the camel with rider (lower left) which provides scale.”
If you look closely, you will see that it’s a horse, with two riders that is present in this picture !
