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tarigwaemirAd Mundo Exteriore,
I got bogu yesterday. It stinks, which is why I went and bought Febreze today. But nevertheless, it is very cool, and I feel rather like a peasant dressing up in samurai armor. ^_^ Yesterday, my form sucked, badly, but I felt slightly more in control today. Slightly.
I've shifted back, somewhat, to reading as my main means of procrastination in the past few days. I finished Otherland, started The Republic, and just completed Ted Chiang's latest short story anthology. Regarding the latter, guh. Brilliant. I am at a loss for words.
There was this particularly interesting story on that went into superintelligence involving a "metamind" (note that I made up that word, not Chiang), where the awareness of your own mind's functioning enables you to almost "program" your own mind. It's just so creative, the abilities that the character gains from this one development. Initially, I thought the short story was almost going to be like Flowers for Algernon, but it veered into a completely different direction. I'm really awed by Chiang's mind. His stories tend to flower into fractal-like extensions upon extensions on a single theme. Very beautiful.
Oh, and there was another story where a man climbs a tower to Heaven (a reconsideration of the Tower of Babel), tunnels through the white granite vault, and swims through the waters to the other side, only to find himself back on Earth again. He then conceives that the shape of the world is like a seal cylinder and sets out into the world to let everyone know this further proof of the wisdom of Yahweh. Actually, the idea itself, though very fnxoopy, is not the best feature of the story. The way he describes the ascension, the dizzying vertigo, the strange and bizarre experiences in passing by the path of the moon and the sun (he adopts an ancient, rather than modern scientific, cosomology for the story), the way communities have come to live permanently in the upper levels of the tower not knowing what the ground looks like...Really just excellent writing.
I find it interesting that much of his style seems particularly suited for the short story genre. I wonder if he's ever going to write a novel; I'm curious about how he'd approach it.
This past week, all the manga scanslation groups have decided to release chapters for my favorite series. The one week when I don't go check for any releases, that is. -_- Hanakimi 132, Spiral 6-7, Worldend Fairytale 5, Penguin Brothers 21-22...and now I hear Naruto 57 is also released. I have a biology midterm next Wednesday! Are these people mad? I knew I shouldn't have gone online...
I wanted to write more about Otherland, but I feel that I should read the second book rather than speculate futilely on what's going to happen next. Oh, and The Republic is awesome. I think that Professor Sandel, who teaches Justice, (I don't actually take Justice, but I did sit in the first class) derived half of his teaching methods from Socrates.
...Tari
Post-script: I'd just like to add that the ending of "Seventy-two Letters" in the Ted Chiang anthology is an exquisite implied metaphor for DNA. I appreciate it especially after the constant emphasis in my biology textbook on the DNA as a language and genetics/genomics as a complex exercise in linguistics. Wah, these stories really appeal to the classical aesthete in me.
I got bogu yesterday. It stinks, which is why I went and bought Febreze today. But nevertheless, it is very cool, and I feel rather like a peasant dressing up in samurai armor. ^_^ Yesterday, my form sucked, badly, but I felt slightly more in control today. Slightly.
I've shifted back, somewhat, to reading as my main means of procrastination in the past few days. I finished Otherland, started The Republic, and just completed Ted Chiang's latest short story anthology. Regarding the latter, guh. Brilliant. I am at a loss for words.
There was this particularly interesting story on that went into superintelligence involving a "metamind" (note that I made up that word, not Chiang), where the awareness of your own mind's functioning enables you to almost "program" your own mind. It's just so creative, the abilities that the character gains from this one development. Initially, I thought the short story was almost going to be like Flowers for Algernon, but it veered into a completely different direction. I'm really awed by Chiang's mind. His stories tend to flower into fractal-like extensions upon extensions on a single theme. Very beautiful.
Oh, and there was another story where a man climbs a tower to Heaven (a reconsideration of the Tower of Babel), tunnels through the white granite vault, and swims through the waters to the other side, only to find himself back on Earth again. He then conceives that the shape of the world is like a seal cylinder and sets out into the world to let everyone know this further proof of the wisdom of Yahweh. Actually, the idea itself, though very fnxoopy, is not the best feature of the story. The way he describes the ascension, the dizzying vertigo, the strange and bizarre experiences in passing by the path of the moon and the sun (he adopts an ancient, rather than modern scientific, cosomology for the story), the way communities have come to live permanently in the upper levels of the tower not knowing what the ground looks like...Really just excellent writing.
I find it interesting that much of his style seems particularly suited for the short story genre. I wonder if he's ever going to write a novel; I'm curious about how he'd approach it.
This past week, all the manga scanslation groups have decided to release chapters for my favorite series. The one week when I don't go check for any releases, that is. -_- Hanakimi 132, Spiral 6-7, Worldend Fairytale 5, Penguin Brothers 21-22...and now I hear Naruto 57 is also released. I have a biology midterm next Wednesday! Are these people mad? I knew I shouldn't have gone online...
I wanted to write more about Otherland, but I feel that I should read the second book rather than speculate futilely on what's going to happen next. Oh, and The Republic is awesome. I think that Professor Sandel, who teaches Justice, (I don't actually take Justice, but I did sit in the first class) derived half of his teaching methods from Socrates.
...Tari
Post-script: I'd just like to add that the ending of "Seventy-two Letters" in the Ted Chiang anthology is an exquisite implied metaphor for DNA. I appreciate it especially after the constant emphasis in my biology textbook on the DNA as a language and genetics/genomics as a complex exercise in linguistics. Wah, these stories really appeal to the classical aesthete in me.
