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adam_mcphee's Reviews (2.87k)
Cooking in Ten Minutes: the adaptation to the rhythm of our time
Edouard de Pomiane, Edouard de Pomiane
Apparently the trick to being fast is to leave your hat on. Huge timesaver.
Great dialogue, fun setups. There's an interesting bit of remove with the protagonist being a defense lawyer, where he's allowed to take a step back and enjoy the ride because it's not his neck on the line. It's hilarious seeing him describe their crimes to his clients, with understanding but not quite sympathy. The downside is that there's no sense of urgency, no stakes involved except for the tedious family and tax storylines, which conclude the book with a clunk. Oh well.
Most of Europe’s admired philosophers cannot interpret this world, let alone change it. Economists and sociologists, however, are discussing a number of possible alternatives.
An update of the litany against neoliberalism. I liked the part about England and Scotland at the time of the Scottish referendum, especially his idea that states-within-a-state are the ones most likely to push back against radical centrism. It strikes me as being true in Canada, with both Quebec and our indigenous population. Also a bunch on New Labour and the problem of unwritten agreements where politicians wait until after they leave office to collect on bribes for actions taken while in office (apparently it's well known that British PMs and foreign ministers rake in Saudi Arabian cash for sparsely attended speeches after leaving office).
The rulers of the world will see in these words little more than an expression of utopianism, but they would be wrong. For these are the structural reforms that are really needed, not those being pushed by the EU. What is needed is a complete turnaround, preceded by a public admission that the Wall Street system could not and did not work and has to be abandoned.
One conscious or sub-conscious function underlying this false optimism about the US’s imminent decline is to abandon effective opposition. It’s no longer necessary to ask questions. If an Empire is approaching its death agony, why waste time discussing the real symptoms? Such an attitude encourages one to decontextualize geopolitical problems, seeing them in isolation from the strategy or needs of the grand hegemon. In this view the world becomes a chessboard, with the pawns in control. None of the setbacks suffered by the United States – most seriously in South America where the Bolivarians have a universal appeal, unlike the jihadis and their supporters – justifies such a view.
The fact is that the globe still revolves, however shakily, around a fixed political, ideological and military axis. We are not even close to the twilight years of the American imperium. Nor is Washington in any mood to surrender its place in the world. It may be a ‘stationary state’2 at home for the time being, but it is hyperactive abroad. In fact domestic economic problems, whose seriousness should not be underestimated, make the Empire more violent abroad. Each new enemy, however peripheral, is described as evil incarnate and presented as such by global media networks, like a capitalist variant of an old Stalinist category – the ‘enemies of the people’ who should be imprisoned, tortured or exterminated at will.
Sick burn:
A century ago, in 1913 to be precise, Lenin warned:
We live in a very different world on many levels, but what the Russian revolutionary wrote a year before the outbreak of the First World War remains apposite.
An update of the litany against neoliberalism. I liked the part about England and Scotland at the time of the Scottish referendum, especially his idea that states-within-a-state are the ones most likely to push back against radical centrism. It strikes me as being true in Canada, with both Quebec and our indigenous population. Also a bunch on New Labour and the problem of unwritten agreements where politicians wait until after they leave office to collect on bribes for actions taken while in office (apparently it's well known that British PMs and foreign ministers rake in Saudi Arabian cash for sparsely attended speeches after leaving office).
Spoiler
The advice proffered to the Labour Party in Britain in 1958 by Professor H. D. Dickinson was rejected by Labour, but accepted by the Bolivarian leaders in Venezuela and Bolivia some forty years later:If the welfare state is to survive, the state must find a source of income of its own, a source to which it has a claim prior to that of … a profits-receiver. The only source that I can see is that of productive property. The state must come, in some way or another, to own a very large chunk of the land and capital of the country. This may not be a popular policy: but, unless it is pursued, the policy of improved social services, which is a popular one, will become impossible. You cannot for long socialize the means of consumption unless you first socialize the means of production.
The rulers of the world will see in these words little more than an expression of utopianism, but they would be wrong. For these are the structural reforms that are really needed, not those being pushed by the EU. What is needed is a complete turnaround, preceded by a public admission that the Wall Street system could not and did not work and has to be abandoned.
Spoiler
Since all Empires in human history have fallen, the American version will inevitably do so too. But when? Until now, despite many a setback, the signs of impending collapse or irreversible decline are few. Occasionally, left-liberals and fellow travellers attempt to paint a canvas highlighting the setbacks in lurid colours, while leaving all else in darkness. The implication is that the United States was once an all-powerful Empire but is now on the wane. The first claim of omnipotence was never the case, and a cold-eyed survey of the evidence suggests that the second assumption, too, is misjudged.One conscious or sub-conscious function underlying this false optimism about the US’s imminent decline is to abandon effective opposition. It’s no longer necessary to ask questions. If an Empire is approaching its death agony, why waste time discussing the real symptoms? Such an attitude encourages one to decontextualize geopolitical problems, seeing them in isolation from the strategy or needs of the grand hegemon. In this view the world becomes a chessboard, with the pawns in control. None of the setbacks suffered by the United States – most seriously in South America where the Bolivarians have a universal appeal, unlike the jihadis and their supporters – justifies such a view.
The fact is that the globe still revolves, however shakily, around a fixed political, ideological and military axis. We are not even close to the twilight years of the American imperium. Nor is Washington in any mood to surrender its place in the world. It may be a ‘stationary state’2 at home for the time being, but it is hyperactive abroad. In fact domestic economic problems, whose seriousness should not be underestimated, make the Empire more violent abroad. Each new enemy, however peripheral, is described as evil incarnate and presented as such by global media networks, like a capitalist variant of an old Stalinist category – the ‘enemies of the people’ who should be imprisoned, tortured or exterminated at will.
Sick burn:
Spoiler
Grillo’s anti-immigrant views are no secret. In 2011 he was quoted in the conservative press uttering remarks no different in tone and content to those of Britain’s Ukip. The difference is this: Grillo is a clown, Farage merely pretends to be one.Spoiler
The attempts to roll back neoliberalism are gathering momentum, but what to put in its place, and by what means, remain subjects for debate. The most successful movements are targeting the political structures of the state. Taking on its socio-economic base and transforming it on the South American model – state ownership of utilities and heavy regulation of capital – is an essential next step. This will not be easy in Europe. The power of the world financial system, both officially and through rogue elements, to try and paralyse an economy has been on display in several recent cases. They include Argentina, attacked by a vulture fund based in the Cayman Islands; Russia, subjected to US/EU economic sanctions as political punishment; and Iran, subjected to US/EU sanctions for exercising its sovereignty. Radical democracy alone will not be sufficient to repel these challenges. It will require alliances both from above and below to cement changes. We are many, but the few control the wealth, and have a military to back up that control.A century ago, in 1913 to be precise, Lenin warned:
Oppression alone, no matter how great, does not always give rise to a revolutionary situation in a country. In most cases it is not enough for revolution that the lower classes should not want to live in the old way. It is also necessary that the upper classes should be unable to rule and govern in the old way.
We live in a very different world on many levels, but what the Russian revolutionary wrote a year before the outbreak of the First World War remains apposite.
Who'd have thought Primo Levi was a first-class science fiction writer?
The stories:
"The Mnemogogues": a doctor collects the scents of past places and events.
"Censorship in Bitinia": given the psychological effects of censorship on humans, farm animals are used to censor letters.
"The Versifier": Mr. Simpson of NATCA sells his latest machine, one that can write poetry.
"Angelic Butterfly": soldiers retrace the work of a German scientist after the war, who believed that humans were a pupal stage for angelic creatures.
"Cladonia Rapida": a parasite endemic to automobiles is discovered.
"Order at a Good Price": NATCA’s Mr Simpson shows off the Mimer. Like the replicator from Star Trek, anything can be reproduced.
"Man’s Friend": tapeworms communicate through patterns on their bodies. They are aware they live inside us, and produce beautiful poetry.
"Some Applications of the Mimete": A man duplicates his wife to become a polygamist, but things don't work out as well as he'd hoped. The story resolves with one of the wives duplicating the husband to form a second couple.
"Versamine": a drug called Versamine turns pain into pleasure. People and animals get addicted and start hurting themselves. There's a bizarre student orgy, American soldiers lining up to be shot in Korea, and a dog who is ashamed of what he's become.
"The Sleeping Beauty in the Fridge: A Winter’s Tale": a young woman is held for centuries in suspended animation, but awakens for a few days each year.
"The Measure of Beauty": a NATCA device for the objective measurement of beauty. Somewhat predicts selfies, Tinder, and facial recognition software.
"Quaestio de Centauris": a boy remembers his childhood friend, a centaur who taught him his people's myths but eventually succumbed to his animal nature.
"Full Employment": In his spare time, Simpson of NATCA learns to communicate with the bees who help him to communicate with other insects. He enters into deals with them. Dragonflies pick berries for him, ants clean his garden, they can also manufacture small electronic components and help with microsurgery. He gets in tax trouble when he eventually takes on a business partner, who trains eels to smuggle heroin.
"The Sixth Day"- a committee (composed of experts in anatomy, psychology, economics, mechanics, chemistry, thermodynamics and oceanography) is tasked by an absent management with creating mankind. The anatomist and economist want to use a snake's body, because its brainpan is easily modified. The psychologist wants to start from scratch with a new automaton vaguely related to ants, but the committee rules there isn't enough time left. Birds are chosen as a compromise, but the decision is made upstairs to go with a more simian form. The funniest story.
"Retirement Package" - My favourite story. Simpson's retirement gift from NATCA is the Torec, or total recorder. Like a virtual reality set that records all sensory information. His friend experiences a soccer triumph, then a fistfight from the POV of an Italian immigrant kid against some racist wasps. The friend hates the fight, but the narrator says it might have a didactic use, but the friend disagrees and thinks racists would love to experience a fight from the other side. A pornographic experience goes bad when a gay experience is accidentally played, but Simpson again suggests this sort of thing could be used to build empathy. An "Epicurus" experience involves scenarios where a thirsty person is relieved to find water in increasingly desperate circumstances. Finally the friend experiences hunting and feeding hatchlings as a bird of prey. Simpson recounts an experience of a tape played backward, where a person experienced a parachutist rising from the ground to an airplane. Simpson becomes addicted to the machine and the various experiences it offers. Between tapes he reads Ecclesiastes and feels at peace with himself and close to King Solomon, but a cognitive dissonance makes him feel anxiety: Solomon's wisdom came from a long and storied life, while Simpson's is "the fruit of a complicated circuit board and eight-track tapes, and he knows it and is ashamed of it." Reminds me of the feeling of spending too much time online, liking going down a wiki k-hole.
The stories:
"The Mnemogogues": a doctor collects the scents of past places and events.
"Censorship in Bitinia": given the psychological effects of censorship on humans, farm animals are used to censor letters.
"The Versifier": Mr. Simpson of NATCA sells his latest machine, one that can write poetry.
"Angelic Butterfly": soldiers retrace the work of a German scientist after the war, who believed that humans were a pupal stage for angelic creatures.
"Cladonia Rapida": a parasite endemic to automobiles is discovered.
"Order at a Good Price": NATCA’s Mr Simpson shows off the Mimer. Like the replicator from Star Trek, anything can be reproduced.
"Man’s Friend": tapeworms communicate through patterns on their bodies. They are aware they live inside us, and produce beautiful poetry.
"Some Applications of the Mimete": A man duplicates his wife to become a polygamist, but things don't work out as well as he'd hoped. The story resolves with one of the wives duplicating the husband to form a second couple.
"Versamine": a drug called Versamine turns pain into pleasure. People and animals get addicted and start hurting themselves. There's a bizarre student orgy, American soldiers lining up to be shot in Korea, and a dog who is ashamed of what he's become.
"The Sleeping Beauty in the Fridge: A Winter’s Tale": a young woman is held for centuries in suspended animation, but awakens for a few days each year.
"The Measure of Beauty": a NATCA device for the objective measurement of beauty. Somewhat predicts selfies, Tinder, and facial recognition software.
"Quaestio de Centauris": a boy remembers his childhood friend, a centaur who taught him his people's myths but eventually succumbed to his animal nature.
"Full Employment": In his spare time, Simpson of NATCA learns to communicate with the bees who help him to communicate with other insects. He enters into deals with them. Dragonflies pick berries for him, ants clean his garden, they can also manufacture small electronic components and help with microsurgery. He gets in tax trouble when he eventually takes on a business partner, who trains eels to smuggle heroin.
"The Sixth Day"- a committee (composed of experts in anatomy, psychology, economics, mechanics, chemistry, thermodynamics and oceanography) is tasked by an absent management with creating mankind. The anatomist and economist want to use a snake's body, because its brainpan is easily modified. The psychologist wants to start from scratch with a new automaton vaguely related to ants, but the committee rules there isn't enough time left. Birds are chosen as a compromise, but the decision is made upstairs to go with a more simian form. The funniest story.
"Retirement Package" - My favourite story. Simpson's retirement gift from NATCA is the Torec, or total recorder. Like a virtual reality set that records all sensory information. His friend experiences a soccer triumph, then a fistfight from the POV of an Italian immigrant kid against some racist wasps. The friend hates the fight, but the narrator says it might have a didactic use, but the friend disagrees and thinks racists would love to experience a fight from the other side. A pornographic experience goes bad when a gay experience is accidentally played, but Simpson again suggests this sort of thing could be used to build empathy. An "Epicurus" experience involves scenarios where a thirsty person is relieved to find water in increasingly desperate circumstances. Finally the friend experiences hunting and feeding hatchlings as a bird of prey. Simpson recounts an experience of a tape played backward, where a person experienced a parachutist rising from the ground to an airplane. Simpson becomes addicted to the machine and the various experiences it offers. Between tapes he reads Ecclesiastes and feels at peace with himself and close to King Solomon, but a cognitive dissonance makes him feel anxiety: Solomon's wisdom came from a long and storied life, while Simpson's is "the fruit of a complicated circuit board and eight-track tapes, and he knows it and is ashamed of it." Reminds me of the feeling of spending too much time online, liking going down a wiki k-hole.
Two of my favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, and the only two that really stuck in my head: The Red-Headed League (underground tunnelling, a ginger scam!) & The Speckled Band (a cheetah and a baboon as pets! Obviously a terrible idea in real life, but fascinated me as a kid).
You just couldn't write a book like this today but only because I don't think you can get benzedrine anymore and because you're bound to get distracted by the Internet when typing and pounding off at the same time.
An interesting book and one of the few I know of that shows a Canadian perspective on the war in Afghanistan. Like most good military memoirs, it comes with the trade off of an interesting experience as told by someone who isn't really a writer. There's enough exclamation points per page to last anyone else a lifetime, and he has a tendency to mix his popculture metaphors.
Semrau skips over his trial (he was acquitted on charges related to a mercy killing he performed) in favour of describing his time as part of the OMLT (Operational Mentoring Liaison Team) group training Afghan soldiers. The Afghan soldiers aren't interested in sticking their necks out – and who can blame them? The OMLT forces have to word commands as suggestions, for fear of upsetting their soldiers' honour, which often leads them to deserting or worse. It's kind of a shame, because Semrau has the opportunity to get upclose with the Afghan soldiers, but can't often find stories to tell other than their staggering incompetence on the battlefield or their occasional gratefulness for Canadian gear.
Semrau skips over his trial (he was acquitted on charges related to a mercy killing he performed) in favour of describing his time as part of the OMLT (Operational Mentoring Liaison Team) group training Afghan soldiers. The Afghan soldiers aren't interested in sticking their necks out – and who can blame them? The OMLT forces have to word commands as suggestions, for fear of upsetting their soldiers' honour, which often leads them to deserting or worse. It's kind of a shame, because Semrau has the opportunity to get upclose with the Afghan soldiers, but can't often find stories to tell other than their staggering incompetence on the battlefield or their occasional gratefulness for Canadian gear.
The Journey Of William Of Rubruck To The Eastern Parts Of The World
William Rockhill, Willem van Ruysbroeck, Willem van Ruysbroeck
Probably not as exciting as Giovanni da Pian del Carpin's travels to Mongolia a decade earlier, but probably a better account overall. The narrative is extensive, more detailed and the author is a far more skeptical about dog-headed people or whatever (but he still falls for a kneeless people story!). Möngke Khan's playing of the religions off of one another is masterful, in keeping with the Mongolian tradition. Particularly liked the monk's description of the Nestorians and the Buddhists. His trouble with interpreters is funny, though he eventually hooks up with a a European who has been hired as an architect at the Khan's palace, and who built an interesting fountain.
My other favourite bits:
Another version of Caesar's kneeless elk. Can definitely see how this leads to all of the crazy shit in the Prester John letters, especially once you realize how little context people had for this:
Möngke Khan's 'diplomatic' letter to the king of France:
My other favourite bits:
The Nestorians there know nothing. They say their offices, and have sacred books in Syrian, but they do not know the language, so they chant like those monks among us who do not know grammar, and they are absolutely depraved. In the first place they are usurers and drunkards; some even among them who live with the Tartars have several wives like them. When they enter church, they wash their lower parts like Saracens; they eat meat on Friday, and have their feasts on that day in Saracen fashion. The bishop rarely visits these parts, hardly once in fifty years. When he does, they have all the male children, even those in the cradle, ordained priests, so nearly all the males among them are priests. Then they marry, which is clearly against the statutes of the Fathers, and they are bigamists, for when the first wife dies these priests take another. They are all simoniacs, for they administer no sacrament gratis. They are solicitous for their wives and children, and are consequently more intent on the increase of their wealth than of the faith. And so those of them who educate some of the sons of the noble Mo'al, though they teach them the Gospel and the articles of the faith, through their evil lives and their cupidity estrange them from the Christian faith, for the lives that the Mo'al themselves and the Tuins [=Buddhists, from Chinese T'ao-yen: "man of the path." The term properly refers only to priests but Rubruck applies it here to all Buddhists] or idolaters lead are more innocent than theirs.
Another version of Caesar's kneeless elk. Can definitely see how this leads to all of the crazy shit in the Prester John letters, especially once you realize how little context people had for this:
One day a priest from Cathay was seated with me, and he was dressed in a red stuff of the finest hue, and I asked whence came such a color; and he told me that in the countries east of Cathay there are high rocks, among which dwell creatures who have in all respects human forms, except that their knees do not bend, so that they get along by some kind of jumping motion; and they are not over a cubit in length, and all their little body is covered with hair, and they live in inaccessible caverns. And the hunters (of Cathay) go carrying with them mead, with which they can bring on great drunkenness, and they make cup-like holes in the rocks, and fill them with this mead. (For Cathay has no grape wine, though they have begun planting vines, but they make a drink of rice.) So the hunters hide themselves, and these animals come out of their caverns and taste this liquor, and cry "Chin, chin," so they have been given a name from this cry, and are called Chinchin. Then they come in great numbers, and drink this mead, and get drunk, and fall asleep. Then come the hunters, who bind the sleeper's feet and hands. After that they open a vein in their necks, and take out three or four drops of blood, and let them go free; and this blood, he told me was most precious for coloring purples. They also told me as a fact (which I do not, however, believe), that there is a province beyond Cathay, and at whatever age a man enters it, that age he keeps which he had on entering
Möngke Khan's 'diplomatic' letter to the king of France:
Finally, the letter he sends you being finished, they called me and interpreted it to me. I wrote down its tenor, as well as I could understand through an interpreter, and it is as follows: "The commandment of the eternal God is, in Heaven there is only one eternal God, and on Earth there is only one lord, Chingis Chan. This is word of the Son of God, Demugin, (or) Chingis 'sound of iron.' " (For they call him Chingis, 'sound of iron,' because he was a blacksmith; and puffed up in their pride they even say that he is the son of God). "This is what is told you. Wherever there be a Mo'al, or a Naiman [J: Whosoever we are, whether a Mo'al or a Naiman], or a Merkit or a Musteleman, wherever ears can hear, wherever horses can travel, there let it be heard and known; those who shall have heard my commandments and understood them, and who shall not believe and shall make war against us, shall hear and see that they have eyes and see not [J: For the moment they hear my order and understand it but place no credence in it and wish to make war against us, you shall see that though they have eyes they shall be without sight]; and when they shall want to hold anything they shall be without hands, and when they shall want to walk they shall be without feet: this is the eternal command of God.
"This, through the virtue of the eternal God, through the great world of the Mo'al, is the word of Mangu Chan to the lord of the French, King Louis, and to all the other lords and priests and to all the great realm of the French, that they may understand our words. For the word of the eternal God to Chingis Chan has not reached unto you, either through Chingis Chan or others who have come after him.
...
"These two monks, who have come from you to Sartach, Sartach sent to Baatu; but Baatu sent them to us, for Mangu Chan is the greatest lord of the Mo'al realm. Now then, to the end that the whole world and the priests and monks may be in peace and rejoice, and that the word of God be heard among you, we wanted to appoint Mo'al envoys (to go back) with these your priests. But they replied that between us and you there is a hostile country, and many wicked people, and bad roads; so they were afraid that they could not take our envoys in safety to you; but that if we would give them our letter containing our commandments, they would carry them to King Louis himself. So we do not send our envoys with them; but we send you in writing the commandments of the eternal God by these your priests: the commandments of the eternal God are what we impart to you. And when you shall have heard and believed, if you will obey us, send your ambassadors to us; and so we shall have proof whether you want peace or war with us. When, by the virtue of the eternal God, from the rising of the Sun to the setting, all the world shall be in universal joy and peace, then shall be manifested what we are to be. But if you hear the commandment of the eternal God, and understand it, and shall not give heed to it, nor believe it, saying to yourselves: 'Our country is far off, our mountains are strong, our sea is wide,' and in this belief you make war against us, you shall find out what we can do. He who makes easy what is difficult, and brings close what is far off, the eternal God He knows."