Chris Ware’s new book is out soon
Chris Ware’s new book is out soon and Salon has an early review. Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan is one of my favorite books of all time.
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
kottke.org posts about books
Bullshit parallels
In Jim Holt’s review of three recent books about bullshit, he writes:
The essence of bullshit, Frankfurt decides, is that it is produced without any concern for the truth. Bullshit needn’t be false: “The bullshitter is faking things. But this does not mean that he necessarily gets them wrong.” The bullshitter’s fakery consists not in misrepresenting a state of affairs but in concealing his own indifference to the truth of what he says. The liar, by contrast, is concerned with the truth, in a perverse sort of fashion: he wants to lead us away from it. As Frankfurt sees it, the liar and the truthteller are playing on opposite sides of the same game, a game defined by the authority of truth. The bullshitter opts out of this game altogether. Unlike the liar and the truthteller, he is not guided in what he says by his beliefs about the way things are. And that, Frankfurt says, is what makes bullshit so dangerous: it unfits a person for telling the truth.
In thinking about Judeo-Christian religion, atheism is a bit like bullshitting in this respect. If you believe in God, you also necessarily believe in the existence of Satan. So too for Satanists…like the liar, they are concerned with the counterpart to their main interest (i.e. God) as something to defend against. But atheists opt out and don’t believe in the existence of either.
Update: There’s been a bit of confusion as to what I’m actually trying to say here. My fault. I’m definitely not trying to say that atheists are bullshitters. Or that Satanists are liars. Or that Christians believe in Satan (as opposed to believing in the existence of Satan). What I’m saying that as both truth-tellers and liars are concerned with the true and false, so too are Christians and Satanists both concerned with God and Satan. But the bullshitter cares little for the true or false, just as an atheist is little concerned with God or Satan.
Also, someone pointed out that Satanists often don’t worship Satan. Sez the Wikipedia entry on Satanism:
Many Satanists do not worship a deity called Satan or any other deity. Unlike many religions and philosophies, Satanism generally focuses upon the spiritual advancement of the self, rather than upon submission to a deity or a set of moral codes.
So my whole point is shot anyway. (thx, kevin)
Shakespeare put coded messages about Catholicism into
Shakespeare put coded messages about Catholicism into his plays that, due to the “Protestant, Whig ascendancy”, have not been decoded until now.
Short positive review of 1491: New Revelations of
Short positive review of 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (@ Amazon). Thumbed through it at the bookstore yesterday and it did look good…but I’ve got too many books in my queue already.
In addition to books, you can check
In addition to books, you can check people out of the Malmo, Sweden library. The library “will let curious visitors check out living people for a 45-minute chat in a project meant to tear down prejudices about different religions, nationalities, or professions”.
Totalitarian Institutions That Would Have Been More
Totalitarian Institutions That Would Have Been More Fitting for George Orwell’s 1984, Considering How That Year Turned Out. “The Ministry of the Beef, and Where It Currently Is”.
On reading (or not). “Since when did
On reading (or not). “Since when did a regular quota of suitably serious reading matter become obligatory?”
Trailer for Shopgirl, based on a book
Trailer for Shopgirl, based on a book by Steve Martin and starring, tada, Steve Martin (and Claire Danes and Jason Schwartzman). “I can either hurt now or hurt later…”
Ten precepts from The Art of War
Ten precepts from The Art of War that never made it past Sun Tzu’s editor. Ex: “When you sally forth to meet the enemy, show your contempt for him by the haughtiness of your prance”.
An interview with Ruth Reichl, currently the
An interview with Ruth Reichl, currently the editor of Gourmet, on Garlic and Sapphires, a book about her experiences as a NY Times restaurant critic. (via meg)
Steven Shaw, founder of the excellent food
Steven Shaw, founder of the excellent food site eGullet, has a new book out called Turning the Tables, an outsider’s inside perspective on food and restaurants. Here’s an excerpt and a review from Wine Spectator.
Emergence
I recently reread Steven Johnson’s Emergence and was struck by how familar it all seemed, even for a reread. Flipping through the bibliography at the end, I realized why: much of my reading list over the past four years has come directly from those few pages in the back of the book:
The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil
A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History by Manual De Landa
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
The Pattern on the Stone by Danny Hillis
How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Nonzero by Robert Wright
Since reading the book, I’ve also heard talks or read articles by other folks mentioned in the bibliography, like Franz De Waal, Eric Bonabeau, Kevin Kelly, James Howard Kunstler, Marvin Minsky, etc. I’d read a few things on the topic before Emergence, but it was really a catalyst for a area of study I didn’t quite know I was focusing on until much later.
Freakonomists Levitt and Dubner: where did all
Freakonomists Levitt and Dubner: where did all the crack cocaine go? Well, it didn’t. Go. But the crime did.
Dan Barber on the embraced chaos of
Dan Barber on the embraced chaos of working in David Bouley’s kitchen. Barber, who runs the excellent Blue Hill, contributed this essay to the new book, Don’t Try This at Home (eGullet chatter).
Harnessing the power of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink
Harnessing the power of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink to win at poker.
Steven Shapin reviews Tom Standage’s A History
Steven Shapin reviews Tom Standage’s A History of the World in 6 Glasses, a “social life of beverages”. Standage is one of my favorite technology/culture writers; he wrote about the telegraph in The Victorian Internet.
Steven Johnson’s open letter to Hillary Clinton
Steven Johnson’s open letter to Hillary Clinton regarding her call for a Congressional investigation about the effects of video games on children. “I know a congressional investigation into [the violence and hostility in high school] football won’t play so well with those crucial swing voters, but it makes about as much sense as an investigation into the pressing issue that is Xbox and PlayStation 2.”
The evolution of book cover design
The evolution of book cover design. Using Robert W Chambers’ The King in Yellow as an example.
“So You Want to Write a Book?”
“So You Want to Write a Book?”. O’Reilly Media’s guide for new authors.
Why children love Roald Dahl’s stories —
Why children love Roald Dahl’s stories — and many adults don’t. Danny, The Champion of the World is my favorite Dahl book and I’ve read most of the others as well.
Good interview with Malcolm Gladwell about Blink on Powells.com
Good interview with Malcolm Gladwell about Blink on Powells.com.
Slideshow of Harry Potter fans purchasing the newest Potter doorstop
Slideshow of Harry Potter fans purchasing the newest Potter doorstop.
An unauthorized electronic version of the new
An unauthorized electronic version of the new Harry Potter book is now available online. Rowling won’t do an e-book version of the Potter books, but one made its way onto the web about 12 hours after the hardcover was released in stores.
Harry Potter and Willy Wonka are going
Harry Potter and Willy Wonka are going head to head this weekend. Something tells me that Harry’s gonna win.
Summer reading list from Edge
Summer reading list from Edge. I think I would have rather seen a list of recommendations from Edge members rather than their books. Gee, Dawkins writing on evolution? Didn’t see that coming…
Table of contents for The Complete Norton
Table of contents for The Complete Norton Anthology of Emily Dickinson, Post-Zoloft Prescription. Includes “Oh, the ice cubes are melting” and “Today’s a good day for stuff”.
Stay Connected