cheese it, the cops!

Monday will be great but Sunday Never Ends

 

Coming to know something about history, intellectual or otherwise, would seem to be a matter of uncovering and mastering facts and setting them into structures or narratives in which they become comprehensible. But it is also a set of decisions to wave things away, to dismiss or ignore them. --Sartwell

I was just going through the Times Literary Supplement, and was dumbfounded by one thing - the incredible price of books. I'm pulled Crispin's tail recently about the cost of his new book Entanglements which will clock in at about $95.00 according to Amazon. But, that price will probably come down as they generally do, at least a bit, and will be re-published in paper and who knows may even have a Kindle version as well. But, $95 for a book seems to bring out the frugality usually sublimated by the curiosity in my slightly-Scots / mainly Irish soul. I'm having to think again when I think about pre-ordering. 

Text books have always been overpriced, as anyone with an Associate's Degree can attest. It would be nice if they had some other value, but except for classics and primary sources, who needs a copy of the 3rd edition of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe's Textbook on Ethics in the Auto Industry when the current edition, number 22, is available? 

Anyway, TLS had other interesting reviews but I finally got around to reading Crispin's review of Benjamin Fondane's Existential Monday from October 2016. I've had a copy of Fondane sitting on my to be consumed soon table for a while, prior to Crispin's article. In my defense there's a lot of stuff on the table, and often I just pick up my Kindle Fire and read some Lovecraft mythos or Gothic Noir mystery because I've just watched some political thing and I have a desperate need for context, narrative and declarative sentences. Phillip Marlowe battling Cthulhu in 1950s LA is an marvelous cure for what ails you ("Ailes"you?) after listening to the Orange Orangutan and Kelley Anne What the Fuck for an hour or so...

I've had a subscription to TLS for a while, and meant to read the review so I stumbled on it today and decided that no time like the present. Since the TLS is parsimonious to its non-subscribers as to what they'll let you see, I've attached the file here Download Sartwell TLS Review Existential Monday. Crispin was in excellent form when he wrote it; it's encouraging me to say "Screw email and newspapers, I want to read Fondane's now." It may be Thursday, but it's really Sunday and Monday will never get here if I don't drive on. 

how

i think you'd have to say that those murder-type dudes in ny know how to escape.

this piece, about a guy who sold miracle anti-terror software to the bush admin, is very hilarious, but also very revealing. their response to 9.11 was a total freakout accompanied by extreme stupidity, useless random thrashing and pointed brutality. and one characteristic of bush, cheney, rumsfeld etc was that they could only hear what they wanted to hear: everything confirmed them in their prepossessions. like i say, power makes people stupid, which is one reason it does no good to elect "the best and the brightest" (not that that the bush admin featured the best and brightest). one feature i like is that the guy claimed his package could detect the secret terrorist messages on al jazeera. if you had any doubt that we were targeting al jazeera reporters here and there for death and destruction, this should reduce it. shit, people, ain't you even got no common sense? when dick cheney wanted to communicate secretly (like every few minutes) did he do it on good morning america? at any rate, it certainly was an excellent piece of software, a kind of flattery machine. it couldn't detect al qaeda submarines (well, nothing could), but it provided affirmations that pumped everybody full of self-esteem: you're so good; you're so right; you're so effective; you're so pretty.

geez, man. what the hell is supposed to be wrong with a little cockfighting ? no, seriously. you gonna ban cockfighting and then stop on the way home for a bucket at kfc?