Book recommendations from Neal Stephenson–among other things

I read this Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash among others” href=”http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/20/1518217″>very cool interview with Neal Stephenson on Slashdot the other day and decided it was worth linking to.

His list of book recommendations alone makes it worth checking (so I’m quoting that here):

Neal:

Fiction I have lately read and enjoyed:

Set this House in Order by Matt Ruff

Ilium by Dan Simmons

Iron Council by China Mieville

Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart

The I Love Bees alternate reality game

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clarke

The Fool’s Tale by Nicole Galland (in galleys; soon to be published)

Short story collections by Etgar Keret: The Bus Driver who Wanted to be God, and The Nimrod Flip-out. Last time I checked, The Nimrod Flip-out was only available from an Australian publisher named Picador, but this should pose only the most minor of challenges to Slashdot readers. Keret is a young Israeli writer who has also done some work in film and graphic novels.

Nonfiction:

Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates and Lincoln’s Cooper Union address

Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson

Thank god for Dr. Hunter S. Thompson!

I caught a bit of his rambling in this Rolling Stone article.

No one can write like him:

Bush signed his own death warrant in the opening round, when he finally had to speak without his TelePrompTer. It was a Cinderella story brought up to date in Florida that night — except this time the false prince turned back into a frog.

Immediately after the first debate ended I called Muhammad Ali at his home in Michigan, but whoever answered said the champ was laughing so hard that he couldn’t come to the phone. “The debate really cracked him up,” he chuckled. “The champ loves a good ass-whuppin’. He says Bush looked so scared to fight, he finally just quit and laid down.”

Wherefore the weblogs halting behavior?

Now that my life has changed utterly (the transition from cubitant to gradstudent being completed), I find that my online habits have been changing as well. Mostly, I’ve been struggling with what to do with this thing, this space which is increasingly devoid of content. I often *mean* to write something here, but I find that I don’t really think of it. It doesn’t occur to me like it used to, when I was poking away at spreadsheets and databases in the cube farm.

My initial thought is to incorporate this, somehow, into my school-life. I’ve had thoughts of turning this, here, left-side into a dumping ground for school notes and thoughts related to studies, while turning that increasingly defunct right-side over there into an amalgamation of what the left/right dichotomy used to (doesn’t it still) mean to me.

I’ve thought about collapsing the two into one single entity. Just letting it all stir together in a grand stewpot, letting the chips or whatall just fall wherever. I’ve also thought about finding some kind of new vigor and, while continuing the old classic left/right style, adding a new school-related thing. I sort of balk at this last option–managing three weblogs seems to fall just a hair away (if not over!) the line of complete and utter sheer madness.

The sadness, for me, is that I’ve been having a lot of really great thoughts and thinks about things that I feel are sort of falling by the wayside. (Another possibility: Am I feeling paralyzed by the insanity and madness that seem to me to be roiling just beneath the thin skin of our “civilization”, just waiting to burst onto the scene in a fury of violence and savagery? I am afraid of what is to come, even as my life blossoms with all kind of possibility. And perhaps ashamed of my inability to take action or speak in the face of where the world seems to be heading. So I just kind of peer out at the world through my little hazy glass porthole, hoping that maybe I’m wrong, and things really aren’t as bad (though I think ‘fucked’ would be more appropriate) as they seem.) So, basically what I’m saying is that I intend to keep writing in this space in *some* format; though there may be something of a reconstruction or a remodeling in the near future.

Also, I kind of even doubt if anyone is even poking around here anymore (not that that was ever really the reason for writing here, though a nice side-effect), so I should just do whatever strikes me as useful and good and maybe something groovy will come out of it.

all the sauce in heaven

just watch that nectarine juice dribble off god’s chin, or so sayeth the beetleman…

contrariwise, there’s a cold heap of stew just waiting to be cooked up in a stewpot; all those delicious potaters; crammed heap of dandelion wines; heaps and crocks of cheesemongers; and plenty of stones to go around; yellowing umbrellas that spray water everwhere; uncle’s hats and trawsers; steamboats and curlicues and madcap reindeer horns; jelly ticklers; puncher cards and heaps and heaps of turkish delight in turkish baths; fluttering incunabulae; just-in-time-for-its getting there just in time; bouncing, burbling mountaintops jiggling with their oncelerosity; just watch that breaded sky break out; dallying gentlemen, waiting for that coy milkmaid to saunter by….

oh, maybe not so contrariwise after all.
just eat that scrumptious stew. full to bursting.

crunching the bits to bits and pieces

oh my, well that was an expensive conversation or five.

at least it was a good one, anyway.

the sun’s been beaming, and otherwise the grey old nackers have been keeping hooded and away. that’s grand, i suppose, and here’s hoping they have a grand old time hydeing out there. better than them hydeing in here. and that’s mr. hydeing to you.

i loike me the paragraph tags. that’s for sure.

that’s the ticket.

and all the words in me mouther have dried up.

and all the words in me brickabrack brain.

Sinking in, twiddling toes in the water

There’s nothing like moving to a new city to throw of one’s sense of rhythm, and like a bobbing doughnut, I’m dancing along just a half-beat along from the great throb of life. I can even feel my heart skipping a beat or two, these days, wanting to tap into that new tap-tappity-tap, but just not quite getting there.

Which is just fine. Really. I mean, it takes a little while to find the grocery store and discover which streets dead-end and which go through to the bottom of the hill and which streets its really best not to have to walk upwards. (The first time I came to Seattle, about 4 years ago, I stalled out 5 or 6 times trying to clutch into first gear from a stop. There’s nothing worse than that acrid burning smell from stalling out one too many times…)

[WHICH, completely unrelated, but it’s too cool for words: the old Hitchhiker’s Guide text adventure game has been graphicalized and put online, thanks to those kindly folks at the BBC.]

Now that I’m solidifying in this new place, having felt a bit wraith-like of late, ghosting about town, lurking on the backs of buses and things, I mean to post to this thing a bit more and perhaps add a bit of changes to the premises. Nothing drastic, mind, but maybe it could use a bit of sprucing.

Lurking in the underbrush

The hush of steaming eyes grown cold and still in the growling darkness; retiring out of all sight into the dim and drear alcoves and interstices of voluminous artistry. To wit: when the curtain draws itself apart and all the mechanics and industrial gears are exposed in all their shrieking, clanking, everyone hides their ears for shame and clutches them so carefully still to keep the hard sound from entering. A small child hides among the clacking, spinning gears. Why isn?t she crunched and mawled by those biting teeth? Why doesn?t she bleed and break from being bit and torn by metal? Why doesn?t rust coat her back and head? She is silent; she is still. All the metal teeth just pass her by. I lack the words to describe the shade of calm which shines out of her pale gray eyes; to pin down the smooth caution with which she leaps from giant metal tooth to gleaming spinning geartop. Mighty as they are, they cannot touch her. They do not fill her with dread or deep despair. She does not fear them for they are unaware, crunching out their timefilled metres.

But what do these others think as they stare out from the darkest dark? With their pinhole eyes shining from the projected-then-reflected light? Is that a tear strolling down a wide expanse of cheek and chin? In the darkness, there are coughs and chuckles, groans and creaks from ancient chairs. Eyeglasses further refract and focus the light. Where might anyone stop these days when all the phantom hands reach up to push these spectacles up the slippy noses? They must be sad; a deep sigh breathes forth and all are caught among the tines of it. What makes them sigh so? What makes the woman with the feathered hat weep in the stillness of the night? What dark neurochemicals wash over her brain or explode in dire unseen brilliance to keep her staring, waiting? What makes the man with shaven head scratch out his name a thousand times into the waiting bark of all the parkways elms? What timeless loss does he fear when all his names are dust in ash in the unforeseeable future? In spite of these brief glimpses, no one seems to make any sense at all, just whirling around in their prefigured roles. What cold comfort does this bring to us, as we sit in darkness watching light?

And still this girl, this elfin spritely figure, leaps from gear to cog. Her teeth glash in the metallic, artificial light. She?s got the works mapped out from car to ear and down to the depths of all the ropes and pulleys lurching deep earthstuff from the bowels of it. Her feet are barefoot too, covered with deep red rust. Her red prints pattern her past journeys. What will they watch when she vanishes? When a tearful gasp tears me away from my pondering, staring solemn at back of chair, I look to see her swinging from chain to chain. Her thin arms and fingers seem too thin to keep her from spiralling into destruction. A dark ululation arises from her mouth and I can feel them tensing all around me, even as the chairarms press hard beneath my fingers. What could she possibly gain from such folly? Her cry reminds me of a falcon?s cry when it spots its running prey. I imagine its cold dark eyes seeing violently and cringe.

Time turns upside down. All the clocks are running down. All the clocks in the world are pouring their lifesblood into this test of folly.