johnrakestraw

johnrakestraw , 5 days ago to random

Repeating a question I asked years ago, thinking that the Mastodon hive mind has grown. In the mid-1990s I read an essay by or interview of #VáclavHavel in which he addressed the question how they moved toward democracy so quickly. He said something like "because we spent years talking together when we knew talking wouldn't make any difference." This was in a published collection. Can anyone help me find it? Please boost for broader exposure.

@bookstodon #velvetRevolution #democracy

johnrakestraw , 9 days ago to random

“The attrition of civic memory and craft knowledge, a reduced attention span and loss of discrimination, the attenuation of nuance and the homogenization of vocabulary — in all these ways the decay of literacy currently serves both the manufacture of consent and the accumulation of capital."

--George Scialabba

#consumerism #reading #literacy #capitalism

johnrakestraw , 1 month ago to random

#silentsunday #stilllife #photography

ALT

johnrakestraw , 3 months ago to random

#evolution #climatecrisis #cartoon #endtimes

ALT

johnrakestraw , 6 months ago to bookstodon group

“If the fact that I am a ‘celebrity’ makes you feel silly, what dear girl do you think it makes me feel? It’s a comic distinction shared with Roy Rogers’s horse and Miss Watermelon of 1958. In a great many ways it makes things difficult, for the only friends you can have are old friends or new ones who are willing to ignore it” (Flannery O’Connor, in a December 1955 letter; ‘The Habit of Being,’ pp. 125f).

bookstodon group #fame #reading #FlanneryOConnor

johnrakestraw , 7 months ago to bookstodon group

“The two friends, one of them blond, resembling Richard Strauss, smiling, reserved, adroit, the other dark, properly dressed, gentle and firm, all too supple, lisps, both epicurean, constantly drink wine, coffee, beer, schnapps, smoke uninterruptedly, one of them pours for the other, their room across from mine full of French books, write a great deal in the musty writing room when the weather is nice” (Kafka’s Diaries, 29 July 1914).

bookstodon group #franzkafka #sundaysentence

johnrakestraw , 7 months ago to bookstodon group

I know this is a minor problem compared to all the major problems of the world today, but I think there’s a special place in hell for people who mark up library books — especially those who mark prolifically in bold ink strokes

#reading #libraries bookstodon group #books

johnrakestraw , 7 months ago to bookstodon group

"There is glory in each day, for each of us. It is waiting to be illuminated and observed. ,,, Art has the power to alter our interior selves, and in so doing to inspire, exhilarate, provoke, connect, and rouse us. As we are changed, our souls are awakened to possibility — immeasurable, yes, and potentially infinite. If ever there was a time for art, it’s now."

--Claire Messud

bookstodon group #art #poetry #literature

johnrakestraw , 7 months ago to bookstodon group

“Rule by sheer violence comes into play where power is being lost. To substitute violence for power can bring victory, but the price is very high; for it is not only paid by the vanquished, it is also paid by the victor in terms of his own power.”

#hannaharendt , 'On Violence"

#SundaySentence cluster bookstodon group #MiddleEast #IranWar #violence

johnrakestraw , 7 months ago to bookstodon group

"I walk along the edge of a precipice, I count days and make notes. I do it in order to remember. Or I do it in order to hold the days together. Or perhaps I do it because the paper remembers what I say. As if I existed. As if someone were listening."

-Solvej Balle, "On the Calculation of Volume II."

bookstodon group #reading #memory #journaling

johnrakestraw , 7 months ago to bookstodon group

Private faces in public places
Are wiser and nicer
Than public faces in private places

—W. H. Auden, in the dedication to his verse play ‘The Orators.’ Quoted by Hannah Arendt in her acceptance speech for the Sonning Prize for Contributions to European Civilization, 1975

bookstodon group #WHAuden #fame #modesty #hannaharendt

johnrakestraw , 8 months ago to bookstodon group

"Would I prefer to be remembered wrongly, I wondered, if it meant that some trace of my life would persist, a barnacle on a raft, into the future?"

Madeleine Thien, 'The Book of Records,' p. 50.

bookstodon group #SundaySentence #memory #legacy

johnrakestraw , 8 months ago to bookstodon group

“It is not easy to describe things here. It is a life of unreality. … Reflection withers. … There seems to be no place at all for real thought. … Every day I say to myself: Patience, just be patient. Don’t be discouraged, no matter what. If we do what we can, the rewarding moments are bound to return.”

#KarlJaspers, writing from Germany, in a letter to #HannahArendt, 12 March 1946.

Seeking reason for #hope, wherever I can find it bookstodon group #patience #politics #thinking

johnrakestraw , 9 months ago to bookstodon group

"We write in response to that world; we write in response to what we read and learn; and in the end we write out of our deepest selves, the breathing, bleeding place we guard so carefully in daily life" (Andrea Barrett, 'Dust and Light,' p. 55).

#SundaySentence #writing #reading bookstodon group

johnrakestraw , 9 months ago to bookstodon group

Last week's celebration of independent bookstores has me thinking about the independent bookstores I've treasured and the treasures I've found there. I wrote up a list of stores that have been important to me --- perhaps you'll find some of your favorites in this list; even better, tell us about stores that aren't on my list. I love to find stores when I'm in a city that's new to me.

https://johnrakestraw.com/post/treasures-of-independent-bookstores/

bookstodon group #reading #books

johnrakestraw , 9 months ago to bookstodon group

“Any body politic governed by a sovereign ruler accountable to nobody is in the hands of a sick man.”

Simone Weil, in “The Need for Roots.”

#SundaySentence #simoneweil bookstodon group #tyranny #tyrant #government

johnrakestraw , 9 months ago to bookstodon group

A human side to #philosophy/philosophers:

“It still seems incredible to me that I managed to get both things, the ‘love of my life’ and a oneness with my self. And yet, I only got the one thing when I got the other. But finally I know what happiness is.”

Hannah Arendt, in a letter to her husband Heinrich Blücher (also a philosopher), 18 Sept 1937 (Within Four Walls, p. 41)

#marriage #flourish #happiness #selfhood #love #hannaharendt @bookstodon

johnrakestraw , 9 months ago to bookstodon group

“The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits “atrocities” but that it attacks the concept of objective truth: it claims to control the past as well as the future.”

—George Orwell, 4 February 1944

bookstodon group #georgeorwell #totalitarianism #history #truth #PostTruth

johnrakestraw , 9 months ago to bookstodon group

"How are we to speak of these ‘common things’, how to track them down rather, how to flush them out, wrest them from the dross in which they remain mired, how to give them a meaning, a tongue, to let them, finally, speak of what is, of what we are" (Georges Perec, "The Infra-Ordinary").

#SundaySentence bookstodon group #reading #journal #quotidian #Georges_Perec

johnrakestraw , 9 months ago to bookstodon group

A prophecy?

"Who knows whether in a couple of centuries there may not exist universities for restoring the old ignorance?"

-- Georg Chistoph Lichtenberg, "The Waste Books, Notebook K, 1793-1796." Quoted in "Ignorance and Bliss," by Mark Lilla, p. 199.

bookstodon group #universities #academicfreedom

johnrakestraw , 10 months ago to random

They would push us toward #cynicism. “There is a reason why current authoritarians, as they did in the mid-20th century, deliberately cultivate widespread cynicism with their indifference to reason and reality: it keeps the political field clear of challengers.”

—Lyndsey Stonebridge, “We are free to change the world: Hannah Arendt’s lessons in love and disobedience.”

#politics #authoritarianism #PostTruth @bookstodon

johnrakestraw , 10 months ago to bookstodon group

“I have no problem with the idea of an online social network; I just don’t want to buy a sense of community with my attention to ads, on a platform that implicitly encourages me to advertise myself, all while my data gets collected.”

—Jenny Odell, “Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock,” pp. 89f

bookstodon group #SundaySentence #socialmedia

johnrakestraw , 10 months ago to bookstodon group

"In the West even the millionaire suffers from a vague sense of guilt, like a dog eating a leg of mutton."

--George Orwell, 'Coming up for air,' published in 1939.

bookstodon group #SundaySentence #georgeorwell #incomeinequality

johnrakestraw , 10 months ago to bookstodon group

#Predators and #prey: size matters. “A chickadee is almost too small to have any [enemies]. That whimsical fellow called #Evolution, having enlarged the dinosaur until he tripped over his own toes, tried shrinking the chickadee until he was just too big to be snapped up by flycatchers as an insect, and just too little to be pursued by hawks and owls as meat. Then he regarded his handiwork and laughed. Everyone laughs at so small a bundle of large enthusiasms."

--Aldo Leopold
@bookstodon

johnrakestraw , 10 months ago to bookstodon group

Earlier this week @takeonrules offered up a quotation from Anaïs Nin's diary: "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect." I found that very profound, and sought out more context. I posted a bit more from her diary a couple of days ago, but this morning found still more. Reading it pushed me not only to revisit the question "Why write?" but also challenged me to be more public in my resistance.

#anaisnin, #politics #uspolitics bookstodon group #writing

https://johnrakestraw.com/post/why-write/

sacha , 10 months ago to random

From @johnrakestraw ’s On keeping a notebook

“One thing that really fascinates me is how I’m reminded of events and readings that I’d completely forgotten – but, once reminded, I find that these things are once again in my mind. Perhaps I can say what I’m thinking more clearly — though I’m more than a little frustrated by having absolutely no memory of experiencing or reading something I describe in an entry written only a few years ago, I’m fascinated by how reading what I wrote has brought that experience back to mind rather vividly. Of course I’m reminded of what I described in the text that I’m now re-reading, but I can also remember other things associated with whatever it is that is described there. It’s as though the small bit that I wrote and can now read is the key that unlocks a much larger trove of memory. Funny how the mind works.”

I am also quite fuzzy about things that happened, and I’m glad I’ve got notes to help me sort of remember.

johnrakestraw , 10 months ago to bookstodon group

“A journal — any writing — is a chance at immortality, or if not eternal life, at least a little more life, a little more after death” (Elisa Gabbert, 'Any Person is the Only Self,' pp. 102f).

#SundaySentence #journaling #writing bookstodon group #meaningoflife

johnrakestraw , 10 months ago to bookstodon group

Like many others, I post notes about my reading in my blog. Some of those notes are rather long, and some readers might stop scrolling and leave the page before noticing a book that they might find interesting. But TIL about the HTML details disclosure element. Now I have a short summary, and readers can click on the summary to reveal the entire note. Seems much cleaner to me. (And #emacs, #oxhugo, and #hugo make it very easy to do this.)

https://johnrakestraw.com/reading

#blogging bookstodon group

johnrakestraw , 10 months ago to bookstodon group

“I can get food for my mind in books — in observation of life — in my own reflections, [but] food for my heart must come direct from others — & my heart always craved more than my mind” (p. 96 in Megan Marshall's book 'After Lives,' quoting a letter from Elizabeth Peabody to her sister Mary).

bookstodon group #reading #SundaySentence #friendship #conversation

johnrakestraw , 11 months ago to bookstodon group

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. There is no other way for land to survive the impact of mechanized man, nor for us to reap from it the aesthetic harvest it is capable, under science, of contributing to culture" (Aldo Leopold, writing in 1948).

#conservation #environment bookstodon group #climatechange #nature

johnrakestraw , 11 months ago to bookstodon group

Occasionally in my reading I stumble on a passage that seems so germane it's as though truth and emotion have jumped across decades. Consider this from a letter the philosopher A.J. Ayer wrote in 1939: "The political situation makes me more and more depressed. I resent above all the feeling of impotence from which one suffers at times like these, the feeling that really everything one values is at the mercy of knaves and fools" ("A.J. Ayer: A Life," p. 160). #politics bookstodon group #despair

johnrakestraw , 11 months ago to bookstodon group

"In withholding or distorting knowledge or imparting falsehood, a liar deprives others of the information they need to participate in public and political life, to avoid dangers, to understand the world around them, to act on principle, to know themselves and others and the situation, to make good choices, and ultimately to be free" (Rebecca Solnit, in Orwell's Roses, p. 221).

bookstodon group #SundaySentence #truth #lies #democracy #politics #freedom #bookstodon

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

“Under … Fascism there appears for the first time in Europe a type of man who does not want to give reasons or to be right, but simply shows himself resolved to impose his opinions.”

—Ortega y Gasset, writing about Mussolini in 1930, but has a ring of truth today as well.

#politics #fascism #bookstodon bookstodon group

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

“#Fish will count objects in experimental tasks. They use counting as a last resort, using other clues if they can…. Fish have learned to discriminate different styles of #music—blues from classical—and could extrapolate from one blues artist to another; they were not learning the quirks of one performer.” (Peter Godfrey-Smith’s “Metazoa,” p. 178; a fascinating book). I’d like to learn more about the experimental evidence for all this. #evolution #intelligence #biology bookstodon group

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

"All fiction offers up the possibility of escape from everyday life, but great fiction allows us to explore what we otherwise look away from" (Agnes Callard, "Open Socrates," p. 46).

bookstodon group #SundaySentence #reading #fiction #bookstodon

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to random

Blog post — yes, it’s bad. And there are fights to be fought. But there are still the day to day things, including the reading

https://johnrakestraw.com/post/quotidian-life-in-the-midst-of-turmoil/

#uspol #uspolitics #reading #quotidian @bookstodon

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

As I live today, fearing what comes tomorrow and the day after, I find myself thinking of this from Hannah Arendt:

"Constantly bound by craving and fear to a future full of uncertainties, we strip each present moment of its calm, its intrinsic import, which we are unable to enjoy. And so, the future destroys the present."

bookstodon group #SundaySentence cluster #hope

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

This offering from Oliver Burkeman may be the best advice regarding my #TBR pile I've read in a while. "Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket. That is to say: think of your backlog not as a container that gradually fills up, and that it's your job to empty, but as a stream that flows past you, from which you get to pick a few choice items, here and there, without feeling guilty for letting all the others float by." (If only....) bookstodon group #bookstodon #reading

CultureDesk , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

Do you track your reading habits? "Like the things we eat or the ways we move our bodies, the books we consume get talked about as yet another avenue for self-improvement," writes Tajja Isen for The Walrus. Here's her story about the problem with reading lists, and a way to make them useful and even lead to more enjoyment. Tell us in the comments what you think — and if you track, why.

https://flip.it/AEiSjN

#Books #Bookstodon bookstodon group #Reading #ReadingLists #Goodreads

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

Rebecca Solnit: "In withholding or distorting knowledge or imparting falsehood, a liar deprives others of the information they need to participate in public and political life, to avoid dangers, to understand the world around them, to act on principle, to know themselves and others and the situation, to make good choices, and ultimately to be free" (Orwell's Roses, p. 221).

bookstodon group #bookstodon #SundaySentence #lying #truth #democracy #freedom

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

“The trouble, I think, is less that power corrupts than that the aura of power, its glamorous trappings, more than power itself, attracts; for all those men we have known in this [20th] century to have abused power to a blatantly criminal extent were corrupt long before they attained power.” #hannahArendt, speaking in 1975. #power #corruption #SundaySentence bookstodon group

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

I know this sentence is often cited -- I put it here as a reminder to myself.

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

-- Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

#SundaySentence bookstodon group #milankundera #power #oppression

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

"At all times, agency is required. To not exercise agency is, inevitably, to be enslaved by those who do exercise it. The former condition, in fact, stimulates the latter" (Vivian Gornick, chanelling Hannah #Arendt).

#SundaySentence cluster #socialJustice #activism @bookstodon

johnrakestraw , 1 year ago to bookstodon group

Gabriel Marcel: “Today the first and perhaps the only duty of the #philosopher is to defend man against himself: to defend man against that extraordinary temptation toward #inhumanity to which — almost without being aware of it —so many human beings today have yielded.”

Philosophers cannot meet the obligations of this duty alone — it’s a struggle in which we all must join. (Though I would say that all who love wisdom are philosophers.)

bookstodon group #socialjustice