Could I recommend Harry Frankfurt's 'On Bullshit' as one of your 7 pieces of (analytic aka "Western") philosophy? It's a good showing of contemporary analytic philosophy at its most powerful, and entirely accessible without any sacrifice of rigour.
I just finished Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver's novel in which she sets David Copperfield in Appalachia. Although sometimes predictable because it tracks the original novel (e.g. you know who will die and about when), it somehow succeeds in having a very different trajectory.
Bellow is just unbelievable. I read Herzog, Ravelstein, about 50 pages of Humboldt's Gift, and Seize the Day last year and was completely floored (esp. by Herzog), he seems to just see and feel and express life on a incredibly rich, almost psychedelic level and his prose is so rhythmic and enchanting. I posted my favorite bit on Substack notes a few months back:
"An oriole's nest, in the shape of a gray heart, hung from twigs. God's veil over things makes them all riddles. If they were not all so particular, detailed, and very rich I might have more rest from them. But I am a prisoner of perception, a compulsory witness. They are too exciting. Meantime I dwell in yon house of dull boards. Herzog was worried about that elm. Must he cut it down? He hated to do it. Meanwhile the cicadas all vibrated a coil in their bellies, a horny posterior band in a special chamber. Those billions of red eyes from the enclosing woods looked out, stared down, and the steep waves of sound drowned the summer afternoon. Herzog had seldom heard anything so beautiful as this massed continual harshness."
I mean, that's the kind of thing that makes you despair of ever writing anything even a tenth as good.
I read Against the Day while unemployed in Florida during covid, it's about 500 pages too long but certain sections, especially the opening Western sections, are some of Pynchon's best ever prose, which means they are among the best prose ever written by anyone.
Also -- I saw your post about your screen time minute penalty thing on Twitter (lol) a couple days ago and it has stuck with me ever since. I don't think I can actually commit to the full spreadsheet tracking thing but it has caused me to be more mindful of what I'm actually looking at and whether it's worth my time. A good system, I think.
You should give historical (20th century) mainland Chinese cinema more of a chance! There are a lot of gems there that even reputed experts don’t know!
I would love recs! I really liked Spring in a Small Town and have seen a few Shanghainese silents - read a biography of Ruan Lingyu last year and did some interesting academic readings on their star system. Never really sure how/where to branch out in my limited movie watching time as so much is lost or in questionable quality
If you lean more classic, I highly highly recommend the opera films of the 50s & 60s. My fave is 追鱼(1963) which is incredible ethereal stuff (very “fairyland”). You can just go through the filmographies of the four Dan opera performers and find tons of gems. Directors Ying Yunwei, Cen Fan & Wu Zuguang are some of the best too.
Could I recommend Harry Frankfurt's 'On Bullshit' as one of your 7 pieces of (analytic aka "Western") philosophy? It's a good showing of contemporary analytic philosophy at its most powerful, and entirely accessible without any sacrifice of rigour.
I think Lucky Jim and Augie March are masterpieces of the twentieth century. I'm glad you liked them.
And Claudette Colbert is criminally underrated.
I just finished Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver's novel in which she sets David Copperfield in Appalachia. Although sometimes predictable because it tracks the original novel (e.g. you know who will die and about when), it somehow succeeds in having a very different trajectory.
Bellow is just unbelievable. I read Herzog, Ravelstein, about 50 pages of Humboldt's Gift, and Seize the Day last year and was completely floored (esp. by Herzog), he seems to just see and feel and express life on a incredibly rich, almost psychedelic level and his prose is so rhythmic and enchanting. I posted my favorite bit on Substack notes a few months back:
"An oriole's nest, in the shape of a gray heart, hung from twigs. God's veil over things makes them all riddles. If they were not all so particular, detailed, and very rich I might have more rest from them. But I am a prisoner of perception, a compulsory witness. They are too exciting. Meantime I dwell in yon house of dull boards. Herzog was worried about that elm. Must he cut it down? He hated to do it. Meanwhile the cicadas all vibrated a coil in their bellies, a horny posterior band in a special chamber. Those billions of red eyes from the enclosing woods looked out, stared down, and the steep waves of sound drowned the summer afternoon. Herzog had seldom heard anything so beautiful as this massed continual harshness."
I mean, that's the kind of thing that makes you despair of ever writing anything even a tenth as good.
I read Against the Day while unemployed in Florida during covid, it's about 500 pages too long but certain sections, especially the opening Western sections, are some of Pynchon's best ever prose, which means they are among the best prose ever written by anyone.
Also -- I saw your post about your screen time minute penalty thing on Twitter (lol) a couple days ago and it has stuck with me ever since. I don't think I can actually commit to the full spreadsheet tracking thing but it has caused me to be more mindful of what I'm actually looking at and whether it's worth my time. A good system, I think.
You should give historical (20th century) mainland Chinese cinema more of a chance! There are a lot of gems there that even reputed experts don’t know!
I would love recs! I really liked Spring in a Small Town and have seen a few Shanghainese silents - read a biography of Ruan Lingyu last year and did some interesting academic readings on their star system. Never really sure how/where to branch out in my limited movie watching time as so much is lost or in questionable quality
If you lean more classic, I highly highly recommend the opera films of the 50s & 60s. My fave is 追鱼(1963) which is incredible ethereal stuff (very “fairyland”). You can just go through the filmographies of the four Dan opera performers and find tons of gems. Directors Ying Yunwei, Cen Fan & Wu Zuguang are some of the best too.