It's kind of strange when you have those days where a bunch of stuff is happening, then it all stops and you realize you're not even sure what to do with yourself for the rest of it. So I'm at my favorite coffee shop and I'm writing a blog post. That's a cool-enough thing to do on a friday afternoon. I guess I should have a little guest book so whatever engagment this page does get has some means of expression! It's definitely cool to see the view count go up once and a while, thanks so much for stoping by!
I guess I could update you on my reading journey. Finished the David Byrne book, and also listened to the Oxford's short introduction to Hegel. I saw it was availbile on Spotify and figured it would probably be smart to have some idea of what Hegel was all about as I work through the Marx-Engels Reader. So far the only section that's really stood out was the Economic and Philosphic Manuscripts of 1844, which gives a pretty interesting description of alienation. Also Reading Mythologies by Roland Barthes, which isn't what I expected it to be. I guess it's heavily focused on french culture so there's a lot of missing context. In a way, it's almost structured like Understanding Media, except in the reverese. I guess I have high hopes for the last couple sections.
Sometimes with the whole one-hundred day reading challenge thing I worry that the focus becomes more on completing the book rather than actually experiencing it. I was telling a friend about How Music Works and he asked me what my main takeaways from it where. It sort of caught me with my pant's down, you know? Like fuck, what did I really get out of listenitng to that shit for fourteen hours? I guess talking about this puts me at the risk of sounding like an acutal dumbass, but it poses a really genuine problem for me. And if I can't relay the contents of a book by the lead singer of Talking Heads, then what the fuck am I thinking trying to read Deleuze/Guttarri?
I've been really enjoying some of the posts by Matt Colquhoun's blog Xenogothic, and in a recent post about cute accelarationism they shared this quote from an essay by Karin Fry about Lyotard:
"Instead of a mastering a text, philosophical reading is an exercise in listening and being de-stabled by the text. He describes philosophical reading as a type of unreading and his use of the concept of the "child" is meant to underscore the lack of mastery and maturity. One needs to be open to otherness in order to do philosophy and cannot come to it with rigid attachments to particular stances."(1)
This reminds me of Mcluhan stance against a fixed point of view in favor of a more multi-dimensional approach. I guess this quote really connected with me, because I guess that's been kind of what I've been trying to do and am trying to do more with this 100-book-goal thing. I guess this type of worry and anxiety is why I spent a lot of time with the How to Read a Book by Van Doren and Alder, which was actually really great. It's just that seriously applying the rules outlined in that book is a lot of work, and every time I've tried it just seems like you either over-simplyify or over-complicate. So when I've been doing these more relaxed readings, I do just try to expose myself to it, stay open and let it have whatever effect it's going have. But I think it's also essential use it. If you can't talk to people about it, then at least think about how it relates your life to the things that acutally matter to you.
So what questions/issues am I actually interested in? Why am I doing this anyway?
Idk. I guess these are main things that come to mind, but I'm sure they're more.
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