05w06:2 Death of a Salesman Posted February 11th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 6 number 2 (death of a salesman) ——————————————————————— Arthur Miller, Legendary American Playwright, Is Dead at 89 | Marilyn Berger http://tinyurl.com/48w3u “Arthur Miller, one of the great American playwrights, whose work exposed the flaws in the fabric of the American dream, died Thursday night at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 89. The cause was congestive heart failure, said Julia Bolus, his assistant.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Friday 11 February 2005 @ 2:28 PM
05w06:1 The Good Reader in the White House Posted February 8th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments ood Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 6 number 1 (the good reader in the White House) Of George W. Bush, we may often think of this quote of Mark Twain: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” And yet, apparently Bush does read. Although a few years ago he told reporters that his favorite book was a children’s story, and while he is now historically associated with My Pet Goat an enthralling tale which he couldn’t drag himself away from that Tuesday morning, lately he’s found new books other than the Bible to proselytize about. – Timothy ——————————————————————— The odd couple | The Economist http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=3623386 “Yet for the past few months this paragon of good ol’ boy common sense has been infatuated with a book about an abstract noun by a Jewish intellectual. Mr Bush recommends Natan Sharansky’s ‘The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror’ (Public Affairs) to almost everyone he meets (including Condoleezza Rice, who mentioned the book during her opening remarks at her Senate confirmation hearing). Nine days after winning re-election he spent over an hour discussing the book in the White House with Mr Sharansky himself. The meeting must have sounded extraordinary, given Mr Sharansky’s thick Russian accent and Mr Bush’s Texan drawl. But by all accounts they got on famously. “ White House Letter: Why is Bush reading Tom Wolfe? Don’t ask | Elisabeth Bumiller http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/06/news/letter.html “What the official list omits in Tom Wolfe’s racy new beer-and-sex soaked novel, ‘I am Charlotte Simmons’. The president, a Wolfe fan, has not only read the book but is enthusiastically recommending it to friends.” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 08 February 2005 @ 3:00 PM
05w05:4 Mumbo Jumbo Posted February 6th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 5 number 4 (mumbo jumbo) ——————————————————————— Atheism and children | Natalie Angier http://www.cfimetrony.org/natalie.html “But seriously. I’m here to talk about why my husband and I are raising our daughter as an atheist. The short, snappy answer is, We don?t believe in god. The longer, self-exculpating answer that is the theme du noir is, We believe it is the right thing to do. […] I can understand the literary and metaphoric value of any number of characters from mythology and religion. […] Yet however legitimate it may be to view any of our religious books as we would the works of Shakespeare or Henry James , I don’t take them seriously as descriptions of how the universe came to be or how any of us will re-be in some posthumous setting, or what god is or wants or whines about. So I am an unalloyed atheist by the standards of the mainstream sects.” Counting Sheep? | Seema Sirohi http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5190 “Are American Christian evangelists using the devastation wreaked by the tsunami to spread the word of God – their God? Disturbing stories from the region and fund-raising appeals from religious leaders in the US who want to ‘plant Christian principles as early as possible’ in the orphans of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India have raised profound questions about proselytisation of vulnerable people in times of tragedy. […] ‘This kind of proselytisation demeans the idea of religious conversion, for it uses helplessness to spread a religion,’ says Ashutosh Varshney, political science professor at Michigan University. ‘A genuine change in conviction remains the best basis for religious conversion and should not be stopped. Few people in abysmal distress can exercise sound judgement.'” For Tsunami Survivors, A Touch of Scientology | Peter S. Goodman http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43291-2005Jan27.html “‘Volunteer Minister,’ Meyers’s yellow T-shirt proclaims. You do not know the sound that a tree makes when it falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it. You cannot imagine the sound of a wave big enough to clear coconut palms and smash houses into bits. But you now know the sound of a Scientology minister tending to survivors. ‘Feel my finger,’ Meyers says, as he touches the ankle of a man with back pain. ‘Feel my finger,’ he says again as he touches the opposite ankle. ‘Feel my finger,’ he says for hours unending as he probes points of which you were only vaguely aware.” Fool Me Once, Shame on You. Fool Me Twice… | Mark Federman http://tinyurl.com/6dyhx “What is actually revealed here is the willingness of so many people to accept at face value, the ‘truth claims’ we are exposed to each and every day, in almost every facet of our lives. Our education system teaches in a particular way, based on a particular syllabus, because, we are told, this is best for the children. Our business organizations are organized in a particular way because, we are told, it is most efficient, effective or provides the best service to our customers. Political decisions are made that affect hundreds of millions of people all around the world because, we are told, this is the way to emancipation, freedom, liberty, and prosperity for all. The operative phrase in all of these – and many more examples that I could suggest – is ‘we are told.’ “ Creative Psychology | Timothy Comeau http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/commentary/2005/01/creative-psychology.html “We tell ourselves stories to explain our actions, but those actions are being processed beneath or above the threshold were the ‘PR person’ gets a hold of them. In Zorn’s case I would say that his musical facility means that a portion of his mind has great facility with music, and when it comes time to compose, this is brought to the awareness of the PR person and the part of his mind that directs writing and all that. However, the PR person is at a loss to understand just what is happening, because it doesn’t have the language to explain it. The only thing it has available for his ‘Coke story’ is to fall back on the mystical stories inherited from the time of Socrates.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Sunday 06 February 2005 @ 2:27 PM
05w05:3 Self-Transformation Posted February 5th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 5 number 3 (self-transformation) ——————————————————————— Hack Yourself | Anonymous http://www.bloodletters.com/hackyourself.shtml “You can be happy. You can live the life you want to live. You can become the person you want to be. This is what I’ve figured out so far. “ The End of My World as I Knew It | Seth Mnookin http://slate.msn.com/id/2111510 “I was 25 and had spent the years since I graduated from college focusing all of my desperate energy on my career as an intravenous drug addict. I was 6 feet tall and weighed less than 150 pounds. That entire year, I had cleared $3,192 in legal income. I worked for a coffee shop and a liquor store and a couple of bookstores, never lasting at any job for more than a couple of weeks. At one point, I gave confused, occasionally incoherent English lessons to Japanese academics visiting Harvard. (My eternal apologies, Mr. Kobayashi.) I hadn’t done any real writing in years, and the last time I’d traveled on anything resembling a magazine assignment had been the previous summer, when Details had shipped me off to Mexico for an experimental, two-day rapid detox program that was supposed to miraculously cure my heroin addiction. It failed spectacularly. Now I was on my way to Delray Beach with a bag of clothes, a bag of books, and an admission ticket to a long-term treatment center.” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Saturday 05 February 2005 @ 1:50 PM
05w05:2 Transcriptions Posted February 4th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 5 number 2 (transcriptions) I managed to get a couple of transcriptions done this week, which I’ve posted on my blog goodreads.ca/commentary. – Timothy ——————————————————————— Canadian Art | Ydessa Hendeles http://tinyurl.com/5lqcl “Regardless of the challenge of changing economics, contemporary Canadian art provides a valuable heritage that provides a resource of insight into the course the country has traveled in its relatively short history. Though more submerged in the international dialog then would be preferred, it is there, and still gives those of us who seek it out a perspective on what it means to be here and indeed, where is here, an especially difficult notion to identify besides the behemoth below the border. The good news is that our history is becoming known internationally, as more and more people from here are interacting with there and sharing what has and is happening here. It is no longer necessary for artists to flee to reside in a major art centre outside the country to be visible and join into the dialogue. It is now appreciated that one can live in Canada and still be on the world’s stage, one can finally function from here. I think it is important to add to the fabric of the art world, expanding its realm, to radiate from the historical global centres.” The Story Telling Problem | Malcolm Gladwell http://tinyurl.com/6wzn6 “We don’t have access to our unconscious, we don’t know what these thing are coming, where they’re come from that bubbles up from the recesses of our brain. So what do we do? Well, we have a behavior that we just did, we just made a decision of a certain kind, we don’t really know where it came from, so we come up with an explanation, we make up a story. And we’re really really good at making up stories. I call this The Story Telling Problem. And this is something that happens over and over again.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Friday 04 February 2005 @ 8:53 PM
05w05:1 Gay Marriage Posted February 2nd, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 5 number 1 (gay marriage) This morning’s The Current was awesome, so today’s Goodread is a link to their shows’ archive. The show is available in 3 seperate Real Audio clips. ——————————————————————— Gay Marriage | The Current http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2005/200502/20050202.html “I’m encouraged by the majority in favour, particularly the Catholic majority in favour of the legislation, but [through] my own work as an oral historian … I see everywhere and always that life is much more complex richer and diverse than pollsters and some politicians and ever some journalists … would like us to think. And I think some people want to control that complexity and richness, to restrict and limit it but it’s my impression living in the country that nature doesn’t take kindly to that, that it loves the exuberance of diversity. Having said that, I can acknowledge that there are certainly people in rural areas in my experience who are slow to adapt changes, frightened by change, but I think that also true (I’ve certainly encountered people) in the cities who are similarly afraid of change. And I think, to me that’s more of what this divide is about. It’s about fearing diversity and unpredictability and the sort of chaos of nature versus embracing it. “– Micheal Riordon, 12.27/24.00 of Part 2 —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Wednesday 02 February 2005 @ 3:40 PM
05w04:2 Freaky Fish Posted January 30th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 4 number 2 (freaky fish) ——————————————————————— Fish Off the Menu After Tsunami Fears | Jocelyn Gecker http://tinyurl.com/5l6zj “Top hotels in several Asian capitals have stopped ordering sea bass and sole from waters off their tsunami-ravaged coastlines to ease diners’ concerns about fish feasting on corpses. Some have turned to suppliers in Australia, while others are buying fish from Indonesian islands off the Pacific Ocean that were untouched by disaster ? dealing another blow to fishermen whose livelihoods were shattered by the giant waves.” Fish Discovered With Human Face Pattern | Local6.com http://www.local6.com/news/4112928/detail.html “A fish that has a pattern resembling a human face on its body was found in a pond in Chongju, South Korea, according to a Local 6 News report.” Reno man taken to hospital after self-castration procedure | Reno-Gazette-Journal http://tinyurl.com/6sex9 “A 50-year-old Reno man told authorities he castrated himself to lower his libido and learned of the procedure on the Internet, police said.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Sunday 30 January 2005 @ 2:45 PM
05w04:1 Painting Posted January 30th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 4 number 1 (painting) ——————————————————————— A Powerful Collector Changes Course | Alan Riding http://tinyurl.com/47os6 “In an article last weekend in The Sunday Telegraph of London, Andrew Graham-Dixon conceded that Mr. Saatchi could genuinely believe painting is now central to contemporary art. ‘It is also possible that, like a cannily contrarian fund-manager working in the equities market, he has simply decided that painting is currently an undervalued sector – and he has bet his portfolio on the proposition that it has a big recovery upside,’ Mr. Graham-Dixon wrote.” Some thoughts on the future of painting | Timothy Comeau http://tinyurl.com/6aq7k “As a 20th Century fashion, we can assume that in the future historians will be able to date our paintings by this look, just as easily as we can with past centuries. We know that the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries have style, a theme of subject matter, a look. In the 20th Century, painting became obsessed with itself as a viscous medium resting on a surface. We don’t know what 21st Century painting will look like – this century’s look has not yet developed. It seems that in a world where all of our images are perfectly rendered on screens, the human touch evident in brushstroke and viscosity is what makes painting valuable. It occurs to me then that perhaps the traditional tales of the rise of Modernism, and especially Ab-ex painting in the 1950s, ignores the concurrent development of television. These things make me think that this style has legs to go into the 21st Century. At the same time, we 20C folk are limited to thinking of everything as ‘human touch’ and go on and on about ‘humanity’ – this vast 19th C hangover of industrialization —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Sunday 30 January 2005 @ 2:40 PM
05w03:3 To Whom it May Concern Posted January 21st, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 3 number 3 (to whom it may concern) Joey Comeau has been writing satirical cover letters and sending them along for some time now, and they are all archived on his website, asofterworld.com. There’s no direct relation between him and I, although I’m sure we share an 18th Century grandfather. The link below is to the index of past cover letters, and a chance to subscribe to his mailing list. – Timothy ——————————————————————— Overqualified: A new letter every Tuesday | Joey Comeau http://www.asofterworld.com/oqindex.html “Looking for work is an exercise in selling yourself. You write cover letter after cover letter, listing the parts of you that you respect the least, listing the selling points that make you valuable in a buyer’s market. You leave out the little details that you tell yourself in the morning to make things okay. You don’t mention the way your heart flutters when you meet your lover’s eyes across the table, the way your feet felt like lead at your aunt’s funeral. You write cover letter after cover letter, listing the same store bought traits in the same wording, day after day, hoping to find another job. And then maybe one day you just snap a little. You sit down to write a cover letter, and something entirely new comes out. And you send it anyway.” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Friday 21 January 2005 @ 6:49 PM
05w03:2 Popeye Said Dope was for Dopes Posted January 20th, 2005 by timothy. 1 Comment Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 3 number 2 (Popeye said dope was for dopes) Both these readings are from the December 2004 issue of Scientific American. – Timothy ——————————————————————— Current restrictions on marijuana research are absurd | Scientific American http://tinyurl.com/3z7xt “The human brain naturally produces and processes compounds closely related to those found in Cannabis sativa, better known as marijuana. These compounds are called endogenous cannabinoids or endocannabinoids. As the journal Nature Medicine put it in 2003, ‘the endocannabinoid system has an important role in nearly every paradigm of pain, in memory, in neurodegeneration and in inflammation.’ The journal goes on to note that cannabinoids’ ‘clinical potential is enormous.’ That potential may include treatments for pain, nerve injury, the nausea associated with chemotherapy, the wasting related to AIDS and more. Yet outdated regulations and attitudes thwart legitimate research with marijuana. Indeed, American biomedical researchers can more easily acquire and investigate cocaine.” The Brain’s Own Marijuana | Roger A. Nicoll and Bradley N. Alger http://tinyurl.com/3wqfd “Marijuana and its various alter egos, such as bhang and hashish, are among the most widely used psychoactive drugs in the world. How the plant has been used varies by culture […] Marijuana gained a following in the U.S. only relatively recently. […] Its psychoactive power comes from its action in the cerebral cortex. […] Marijuana clearly does so much because it acts everywhere. […] In 1992, 28 years after he identified THC, Mechoulam discovered a small fatty acid produced in the brain that binds to CB1 and that mimics all the activities of marijuana. He named it anandamide, after the Sanskrit word ananda, ‘bliss.’ Subsequently, Daniele Piomelli and Nephi Stella of the University of California at Irvine discovered that another lipid, 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG), is even more abundant in certain brain regions than anandamide is. Together the two compounds are considered the major endogenous cannabinoids, or endocannabinoids. […] The two cannabinoid receptors clearly evolved along with endocannabinoids as part of natural cellular communication systems. Marijuana happens to resemble the endocannabinoids enough to activate cannabinoid receptors. […] The results indicate that endocannabinoids are important in extinguishing the bad feelings and pain triggered by reminders of past experiences. The discoveries raise the possibility that abnormally low numbers of cannabinoid receptors or the faulty release of endogenous cannabinoids are involved in post-traumatic stress syndrome, phobias and certain forms of chronic pain. This suggestion fits with the fact that some people smoke marijuana to decrease their anxiety. It is also conceivable, though far from proved, that chemical mimics of these natural substances could allow us to put the past behind us when signals that we have learned to associate with certain dangers no longer have meaning in the real world.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Thursday 20 January 2005 @ 2:43 PM
