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Evan Shively (Perseus271)

For David Deutsch, a young physicist of unusual originality, quantum theory contains our most fundamental knowledge of the physical world. Taken literally, it implies that there are many universes “parallel” to the one we see around us. This multiplicity of universes, according to Deutsch, turns out to be the key to achieving a new worldview, one which synthesizes the theories of evolution, computation, and knowledge with quantum physics. Considered jointly, these four strands of explanation reveal a unified fabric of reality that is both objective and comprehensible, the subject of this daring, challenging book. The Fabric of Reality explains and connects many topics at the leading edge of current research and thinking, such as quantum computers (which work by effectively collaborating with their counterparts in other universes), the physics of time travel, the comprehensibility of nature and the physical limits of virtual reality, the significance of human life, and the ultimate fate of the universe. Here, for scientist and layperson alike, for philosopher, science-fiction reader, biologist, and computer expert, is a startlingly complete and rational synthesis of disciplines, and a new, optimistic message about existence.

After reading Baudelaire, I suddenly find myself wanting to smoke cigarettes and say very cynical things while donning a trendy haircut. Plus, if I didn't read Baudelaire, how could I possibly carry on conversations with pretentious art students? In all seriousness, though, I wish my French was better, so that I could read it in its intended language. I'm sure it looses something in the translation... but it's still great stuff nonetheless. And with a title like "Flowers of Evil," how can you go wrong?

“The world is neither meaningful, nor absurd. it quite simply is, and that, in any case, is what is so remarkable about it.”― Alain Robbe-GrilletFor anyone interested in exploring the fiction of the Nouveu Roman (New Novel), Alain Robbe-Grillet’s 100-page novella, Jealousy, would make for a great start, a prime example of the author’s unique style, a style highlighting precise, mathematical and frequently repetitive descriptions of objects rather than the novel’s more traditional emphasis on inner psychology or stream-of-consciousness. Reading this short novel set on a banana plantation within the tropics made for one unique literary experience; more specifically, here are six themes most piquant:Novel As FilmEnglish “Jealousy” is a translation of the French “Jalousie,” and in French there is a second meaning of this word -- ‘shutters’, that is, window shutters. Actually, I don’t know if any other reviewer or literary critic noted a third possible meaning: camera shutter, as in camera shutter speed working in concert with the aperture settings of a film camera. It’s this third meaning I particularly enjoy since one possible interpretation of the novel is ‘novel-as-film,’ that is, the two main character, a man and a women, could be leading actors in a film with the objective 3rd person narrator as film director, Incidentally, Robbe-Grillet was one of the top French film directors of his day.Detail, Detail, DetailOn the first two pages we are given a blueprint of the house, courtyard and surrounding banana trees along with a legend labeling ten different parts of the house. And throughout the novel the detail continues, expressed in a kind of mechanical drawing length-and-width language, descriptions overwhelmingly visual, as if outlining specifics for a film crew to construct a set and do a filming. Mechanical engineering-like detail also applies to the surrounding banana trees, for example, here is a snippet from a full two pages description: “Without bothering with the order in which the actually visible banana trees and the cut banana trees occur, the sixth row gives the following number: twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty, nineteen – which represent respectively the rectangle, the true trapezoid, the trapezoid with a curved edge, and the same after subtracting the holes cut in the harvest.”Alienation From NatureThe way the author writes about man-made objects and nature, one has the distinct impression the two main characters, Franck and A . . . (yes, we are only given the lady’s first initial and three dots) are in a running battle with such as engines continually breaking down as well as tropical heat, the deafening racket of crickets, the dark of the night and particularly one species of insect, sometimes wriggling, sometimes squished, described in minute detail: the centipede. Recall how Albert Camus wrote frequently about man’s estrangement and alienation from the world; also recall how Jean-Paul Sartre philosophized extensively about the alienation of human experience (being-for-itself) from objects and nature (being-in-itself). Alan Robbe-Grillet was much influenced by both Camus and Sartre.Alienation From One’s Own Body“Franck’s face as well as his whole body are virtually petrified.” A . . . is “Petrified by her own gaze.” Also, reference is made to the stiff movements of both A . . . and Franck, movements in sharp contrast to one of the Negros described as having a loose, quick gait. Sidebar: In Robbe-Grillet’s novel The Erasers, the main character, Wallas, is the one with the loose, quick gait and the people in the novel’s city are the ones that are stiff or flabby.Novel Within a NovelBoth main characters are reading, reflecting and sharing their thoughts on an African novel that has many parallels with their own lives in the tropics. For me, this was a most fascinating part of this novella. At one point we read about Franck’s (and also the narrator’s) reaction to A . . . ‘s discussing various other possibilities the plot of this African novel could have taken: “Then Franck sweeps away in a single gesture all the suppositions they had just constructed together. It’s no use making up contrary possibilities, since things are the way they are, reality stays the same.” How about that; on the topic of things, the narrator (or possibly Franck) echoes Robbe-Grillet’s own disinclination to use simile and metaphor. And, by the way, not only are there nearly zero similes or metaphors in this novella, the sentences tend to be short and staccato.Metafiction, anyone?“The sentences become shorter and limit themselves for the most part, to repeating fragments of those spoken during their last two days, or even before.” Does this quote refer to the spoken sentences of the main characters or to the written sentences of the novella, or both? One more fascinating aspect we encounter – is the narrator really all that objective or is the narrator an integral part of the life of either or both of the main characters? The more I contemplate the possibilities at every turn in this little new novel, the more admiration I have for its author.*Special thanks to Goodreads friend Ian for suggesting we both read and write separate reviews for this Robbe-Grillet novella.

Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969; his literary output of plays, novels, stories, and poetry has earned him an uncontested place as one of the greatest writers of our time. Endgame, originally written in French and translated into English by Beckett himself, is now considered by many critics to be his greatest single work. A pinnacle of Beckett's characteristic raw minimalism, it is a pure and devastating distillation of the human essence in the face of approaching death.

Among Shakespeare's plays, "Hamlet" is considered by many his masterpiece. Among actors, the role of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is considered the jewel in the crown of a triumphant theatrical career. Now Kenneth Branagh plays the leading role and co-directs a brillant ensemble performance. Three generations of legendary leading actors, many of whom first assembled for the Oscar-winning film "Henry V", gather here to perform the rarely heard complete version of the play. This clear, subtly nuanced, stunning dramatization, presented by The Renaissance Theatre Company in association with "Bbc" Broadcasting, features such luminaries as Sir John Gielgud, Derek Jacobi, Emma Thompson and Christopher Ravenscroft. It combines a full cast with stirring music and sound effects to bring this magnificent Shakespearen classic vividly to life. Revealing new riches with each listening, this production of "Hamlet" is an invaluable aid for students, teachers and all true lovers of Shakespeare - a recording to be treasured for decades to come.

Easily one of the 20th century's most visionary writers, J. G. Ballard lived far ahead of his time. Called his "prophetic masterpiece" by many, The Atrocity Exhibition practically lies outside of any literary tradition. Part science fiction, part eerie historical fiction, part pornography, its characters adhere to no rules of linearity or stability. This reissued edition features an introduction by William S. Burroughs, extensive text commentary by Ballard, and four additional stories. Of specific interest are the illustrations by underground cartoonist and professional medical illustrator Phoebe Gloeckner. Her ultrarealistic images of eroticism and destruction add an important dimension to Ballard's text.

The first novel of Samuel Beckett's mordant and exhilirating midcentury trilogy intoduces us to Molloy, who has been mysteriously incarcerated, and who subsequently escapes to go discover the whereabouts of his mother. In the latter part of this curious masterwork, a certain Jacques Moran is deputized by anonymous authorities to search for the aforementioned Molloy. In the trilogy's second novel, Malone, who might or might not be Molloy himself, addresses us with his ruminations while in the act of dying. The third novel consists of the fragmented monologue - delivered, like the monologues of the previous novels, in a mournful rhetoric that possesses the utmost splendor and beauty - of what might or might not an armless and legless creature living in an urn outside an eating house. Taken together, these three novels represent the high-water mark of the literary movement we call Modernism. Within their linguistic terrain, where stories are taken up, broken off, and taken up again, where voices rise and crumble and are resurrected, we can discern the essential lineaments of our modern condition, and encounter an awesome vision, tragic yet always compelling and always mysteriously invigorating, of consciousness trapped and struggling inside the boundaries of nature.

Chomsky's linguistics work has revolutionized our understanding of language. These nontechnical Reflections consider the point &amp; purpose of studying language, exploring some of the more general intellectual implications that result from linguistic study. The considered are classical ones. From Plato to the present time, philosophers have been baffled &amp; intrigued by how humans, with limited personal experience, achieve such rich systems of knowledge, beliefs &amp; values—systems that guide their actions &amp; interpretations of experience. In answer to this fundamental question, he argues that the growth of language is analogous to the development of a bodily organ &amp; is in large measure predetermined by genetic factors. These Reflections offer incisive analyses of the controversies raging today among psychologists, philosophers &amp; linguists over the acquisition of cognitive structures, the way language interacts with other mental organs &amp; the way cognitive structures enter into &amp; guide activity. He explores the social &amp; intellectual factors that have led to the dominance of certain ways of thinking, &amp; asks why the study of mind &amp; behavior has so often followed a path remote from the general approach of the natural sciences. In examining some of the implications of recent work, he suggests that the conception of humans as totally malleable isn't only false but also serves to support reactionary social doctrines.

I am not sure that another book has influenced my thinking quite as much as The Beginning of Infinity.As I read through Deutsch's many provocative assertions, I often reacted with instinctive scorn and disbelief. But with only a few exceptions, I found myself within a few pages not only persuaded but convinced of the utter obviousness of his ideas.The specific assertions in this book are important not because of the claims they make relevant to that field, but because they are meta-assertions which empower every field, even when we have no idea what's coming.

Published in rapid succession in the middle 1930s, Journey to the End of the Night and Death on the Installment Plan shocked European literature and world consciousness. Nominally fiction but more rightly called "creative confessions," they told of the author's childhood in excoriating Paris slums, of service in the mud wastes of World War I and African jungles. Mixing unmitigated despair with Gargantuan comedy, they also created a new style, in which invective and obscenity were laced with phrases of unforgettable poetry. Céline's influence revolutionized the contemporary approach to fiction. Under a cloud for a period, his work is now acknowledged as the forerunner of today's "black comedy."Death on the Installment Plan is the story of young Ferdinand's first 18 years. His life is one of hatred, of the grinding struggle of small shopkeepers to survive, of childhood sensations and fantasies – lusty, scatological, violent, but also poetic. There is a running battle with his ineffectual insurance clerk of a father, with his mother, who lives and whines around the junkshop she runs for the boys benefit; there is also the superbly funny Meanwell College in England, where the boy went briefly, a Dickensian, nightmare institution. Always there is humiliation, failure, and boredom, at least until he teams up with the "scientist" des Pereires. This inventor, con-man, incorrigible optimist – whose last project is to grow enormous potatoes by electricity – rescues him, if only temporarily; for the reader he is one of the most lovable charlatans in French literature.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine's revulsion and anger at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society explodes from nearly every page of this novel. Filled with slang and obscenities and written in raw, colloquial language, Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence, cruelty and obscene nihilism. This book shocked most critics when it was first published in France in 1932, but quickly became a success with the reading public in Europe, and later in America where it was first published by New Directions in 1952. The story of the improbable yet convincingly described travels of the petit-bourgeois (and largely autobiographical) antihero, Bardamu, from the trenches of World War I, to the African jungle, to New York and Detroit, and finally to life as a failed doctor in Paris, takes the readers by the scruff and hurtles them toward the novel's inevitable, sad conclusion.

The American poet John Shade is dead. His last poem, 'Pale Fire', is put into a book, together with a preface, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade's editor, Charles Kinbote. Known on campus as the 'Great Beaver', Kinbote is haughty, inquisitive, intolerant, but is he also mad, bad - and even dangerous? As his wildly eccentric annotations slide into the personal and the fantastical, Kinbote reveals perhaps more than he should be.Nabokov's darkly witty, richly inventive masterpiece is a suspenseful whodunit, a story of one-upmanship and dubious penmanship, and a glorious literary conundrum.Part of a major new series of the works of Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita and Pale Fire, in Penguin Classics.

Foucault's Pendulum is divided into ten segments represented by the ten Sefiroth. The novel is full of esoteric references to the Kabbalah. The title of the book refers to an actual pendulum designed by the French physicist Léon Foucault to demonstrate the rotation of the earth, which has symbolic significance within the novel.Bored with their work, and after reading too many manuscripts about occult conspiracy theories, three vanity publisher employees (Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon) invent their own conspiracy for fun. They call this satirical intellectual game "The Plan," a hoax that connects the medieval Knights Templar with other occult groups from ancient to modern times. This produces a map indicating the geographical point from which all the powers of the earth can be controlled—a point located in Paris, France, at Foucault’s Pendulum. But in a fateful turn the joke becomes all too real.The three become increasingly obsessed with The Plan, and sometimes forget that it's just a game. Worse still, other conspiracy theorists learn about The Plan, and take it seriously. Belbo finds himself the target of a real secret society that believes he possesses the key to the lost treasure of the Knights Templar.Orchestrating these and other diverse characters into his multilayered semioticadventure, Eco has created a superb cerebral entertainment.

For out-starting upstarts of all ages, here is a wonderfully wise and blessedly brief graduation speech from the one and only Dr. Seuss. In his inimitable, humorous verse and pictures, he addresses the Great Balancing Act (life itself, and the ups and downs it presents) while encouraging us to find the success that lies within us.\
  \
  And will you succeed?Yes! You will indeed!(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)\
  \
A modern classic, Oh, the Places You'll Go! was first published one year before Dr. Seuss's death at the age of eighty-seven. In a mere fifty-six pages, Dr, Seuss managed to impart a lifetime of wisdom. It is the perfect send-off for children starting out in the maze of life, be they nursery school grads or newly-minted PhD's. Everyone will find it inspired good fun.

<p>The Thief of Always is a novel by Clive Barker that was published in 1992. The book is a fable written for all ages. Its cover was created by Barker, and the book contains several black and white illustrations by him.</p>

A woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce. Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister.

French film (dir. Andrzej Żuławski; 1981)

A proud strip club owner is forced to come to terms with himself as a man when his gambling addiction gets him in hot water with the mob, who offer him only one alternative.

Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with Earth.

Three generations of women all share the same problem: marriage woes, and they want to put an end to it.

At Le Hollandais gourmet restaurant, every night is filled with opulence, decadence and gluttony. But when the cook, a thief, his wife and her lover all come together, they unleash a shocking torrent of sex, food, murder and revenge.

Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals.

She's the perfect all-American parent: a great cook and homemaker, a devoted recycler, and a woman who'll literally kill to keep her children happy.

Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.

2007 film directed by Ethan and Joel Coen

A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.

Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there's something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they've built, wrestle over their new invention.

2004 American science fiction drama film directed by Shane Carruth

As corruption grows in 1950s Los Angeles, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.

They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live.

The owner of a seedy small-town Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered.

Tom Reagan, an advisor to a Prohibition-era crime boss, tries to keep the peace between warring mobs but gets caught in divided loyalties.

Anonymous videotapes presage a musician's murder conviction, and a gangster's girlfriend leads a mechanic astray.

After discovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, mankind sets off on a quest to find its origins with help from intelligent supercomputer H.A.L. 9000.

The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.

Meet a mother and daughter, high-society dropouts, reclusive cousins of Jackie O., managing to thrive together amid the decay and disorder of their East Hampton, NY, mansion, making for an eerily ramshackle echo of the American Camel

1975 film by Albert Maysles, David Maysles

German-American Dieter Dengler discusses his service as a U.S. naval pilot in the Vietnam War. Dengler also revisits the sites of his capture and eventual escape from the hands of the Viet Cong, recreating many events for the camera.

Documentary on the Friedmans, a seemingly typical, upper-middle-class Jewish family whose world is instantly transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with shocking and horrible crimes.

English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist

Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor (1928–2020)

<p>DC, D.C., D/C, Dc, or dc may refer to:</p>

American recording artist, singer-songwriter, musician, author, artist and Nobel Laureate in 2016

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