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Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Be a Genius, Not an Intellectual

Stephen Hawking's History of Time: The Story of Everything

is a MUST SEE and everyone on this planet should watch it!!!!!!

Finally a program that shows blatant evidence in the indisputable truth of physics over religion. Yes, science
and religion must be married in order to get a big picture understanding. But what this
excellent doco takes a step further is put precise answers to flappable questions.

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John Fante. Never heard of him before today. For some cosmic reason his thin paperback novel called out to me in a sea of overly-decorated flashy pop trash. Which always depresses me-that the Philosophy and Great Literature sections of Barnes & Noble are tiny little stalls at the back of the store, whilst "sex and the city: the sequel" and other such garbage has it's own stand smack center. Disgusting. Sad. When will this modern world shift it's priorities? It's hopelessly clueless. *note on that later



I started reading Fante's "Ask The Dust" and couldn't put it down. Fante should be placed in the classics. The power of his style is that it is honest, simple and strong. There are elements of J.D Salinger, minus the sarcastic wit. Fante doesn't have the literary eloquence of Hesse or the over-exaggerated lengthy descriptions of Faulkner, but that is exactly why reading him is soothing, smooth. Sparsely Hemingway, his style isn't entirely unique, but it's real. He structures concepts thru dialogue and narration and for a novel deeply about misery, it flows with the ease of a 40's Black and White film. Herman Hesse is my personal Yoda, and Fante is my new coffee cup collective mass of me and all my brilliant-struggling-artist friends. According to wikipedia his most significant novel "Ask The Dust" is the "greatest novel ever written about Los Angeles." I haven't read enough literature about Los Angeles to agree or disagree with this statement, but "Ask The Dust" is acutely bittersweet, poignant, beautiful, and a whole-hearted portroyal of LA life. Even though Fante wrote it decades ago, it's amazing how the essence of la-la land seems to have stayed the same.




Fante was the first of many to write about the struggle of writers/artists/etc. struggling in LA, but he was the one who was the Pioneer of the "LA Lyf is tuff yo" movement.





Like Hesse, yep, he's dead. All my damn heroes are dead.


Also "2012: Prophecies, Predictions & Possibilities" by Sounds True Publishers (Awwwwesome name!) is a terrific read. A wide range of perspectives and opinions from visionary thinkers, artists, writers and scientists. Cynics to believers. Fact/History as well as Theory. *relates directly to my saddened state at seeing the great works and thinkers of mankind ignored in a bookstore.

Totally expanded my mind in a zillion directions and it's great! Reading is k-k-koool kids!

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Observation of this week:


Logic is an extremely underrated thing.
It is such a beautiful tool, perfectly, perfect.
The world, and people, should use it more often.

There is too much factoid based busy activity consuming the populace's energy and not enough time nor energy being spent on analyzing and thinking.


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"Intellectuals solve problems. Geniuses prevent them."-Einstein

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