Apricitous Temperature Check

Some mornings, it looks almost as though the pub's windows are completely frosted over. How's everybody feeling on the approximate precipice of deep winter? (I'll have whatever's warmest, barkeep.) I'm glad to see y'all are keeping the hearth well-fed.

I didn't have carpet on my floor for a long while, recently, because of some flooding. I finally had it replaced today, though. I was able to set back up my bookshelves, which is probably the nicest part of it all...very much looking forward to copious, quality reading over the coming weeks.

Incidentally, what's the weirdest book you've ever read?

johano

I forgot to reply to the main question you posed here! As far as "weird" books, I've read more than my share, but "A Voyage to Arcturus" by David Lindsay has to rank up there among the weirdest...

The Standard Ebooks edition

nopalm

Not that strange per se but this book about how domesticated cats came about goes into how they actually aren't that separate from their wild forms and is something I think about it more than I would have expected having pets around the house.

https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=LCCN&searchArg=2016000722&searchType=1&permalink=y

till-we-have-faces

"On Having No Head" - he points out that we've never actually seen our heads. And finds enough material there for a whole book! It has a few laugh-out-loud moments...it's quite clever. But that's all.

I just thumbed through it again and did find a neat quote: "The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see." -- Huang Po (9th C.)

inquiry

> "On Having No Head" - he points out that we've never actually
> seen our heads. And finds enough material there for a whole
> book! It has a few laugh-out-loud moments...it's quite
> clever. But that's all.

Oh, wow, I've not heard that book mentioned in ages. I first read it in the late 1980's... still have my paperback copy somewhere.

I found it rather profound, although of course that says more about me than the material.

johano

I am also a fan of Douglas Harding and his teaching -- reading "On Having No Head" contributed quite a bit to my philosophical development.

inquiry

I can actually still see the bookstore environs surrounding my first looking at the cover... all the way back to... <wait for it> ... <drum roll> ... 19.... EIGHTY.... SIX....

Headlessly, of course. :-)

It definitely felt a great conceptual basis for other reading material taking discussion/analysis of mind/self/conceptuality/modeling/"reality"/etc. to even greater/more-interesting depths.

johano

I first read it perhaps 10-12 years ago and felt an internal shift with the experience of headlessness after doing some of the experiments. There were a couple of nights/days where I definitely felt myself to be in an altered state without benefit of unusual substances :)

inquiry

It's like whereas there are sub-stances, there are also super-stances.... ;-)

johano

I've over-stood :)

inquiry

Perhaps suggesting you have over-studies? ;)

johano

At times, perhaps :)

I also refer you to a fundamental text:

Wordy Rappinghood

First snowflakes around here this morning ...

Weird read?

Well some time ago I read a book by some Swiss guy, whose book was highly recommended by "the critics". It was so unbelievably bad --- the story, the wording, no two complete sentences in a row ... well, sure, it probably was written like listening to a teenagers flow of half baked, drug triggered half sentences, who knows. I found it so bad that I dumped it into the paper bin. I even actively forgot the authors name and the title of the book. :-)

And another: A few years ago. The author from Israel, the story about a boy, whose Mom was shot by a bad guy and the good guy tried to get the boy elsewhere safely. And failed iirc. The story unfolding in Scandinavia. Crammed together with some 2000 years of Jewish history, written as if the author had been there all along. Unbelievable. I probably dropped this one on some book exchange table. And I also forgot the names. I'm sure, someone will point out, what it was.

~bartender? How about another stout, so I can forget that I ever read this stuff? Ah, no, one stout would be enough, I think. No schnaps needed :) Cheers!

littlejohn

I *so* miss a proper winter :-(. Global warming robbed me of the greatest joy of my childhood. I can't remember the last time we had snow on Christmas.

This winter looks like it's gonna be no exception, either. Temperatures are dipping below zero on some mornings but that's about it. It barely even rains anymore.

tetris

First day of Winter for us here too. It's glorious. Recently I've been spending 10 minutes or so every morning before work just sitting with the back window open letting the cold air in whilst drinking a coffee, and today you could see what I hope to be a permanent frost line creeping down the hills.

Weirdest / best book:

Of recent times would have to be *Friday Black* by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah[0]. It has this incredible sense of momentum and detachedness that hits a lot of real issues in a really abstract way.

Ever, would have to be either *Shadow of the Torturer* by Gene Wolfe, or *Fifth Head of Cerberus* by Gene Wolfe[1] ("The familiar made strange", "the uncertainty principle made real").

0: https://www.nanakwameadjei-brenyah.com/friday-black-1/

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe