Metal Reviews

I've only read A Handmaid's Tale and it was one of the better dystopian novels, up there with A Clockwork Orange and We.

NR:
Hardt/Negri - Empire
Merleau-Ponty - Phenomenology of Perception
French textbook

I like Neil Gaiman regardless if it's written for kids or adults.

Finished Mary Barton. Solid writing and story but too long. And too much about how being poor in the 1850s sucked. Readin Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White now.

Being poor in any age sucks. Reading a Clockwork Orange again; read it before some years ago in spanish but I didn't quite like the translation; really like the images it projects in my mind. Also Clash of Kings, the second book of the saga of George Martin. This fatso writes well I must say.

Just started this:



Of course, I already have read Onfray (his take on Nietzsche should be mandatory), but never this one which is usually considered as his "classic". So far, I'm a little disappointed, it's too much of a popularization... Probably worth the read for philosophy students though.

What's his take on Nietzsche?

How can i summarize a 200 book from a Nietzschean philosopher in a few words? Sorry, can't do.
Alas, I don't think the book has been translated in english... If you really want what I got from the book I can give it a try.

Meanwhile, here's what the editor says about the book :
"Un siècle après la mort de Nietzsche, notre époque n'a toujours pas examiné en quoi sa philosophie était porteuse d'immenses révolutions. Entre lui et nous, en effet, s'intercalent plusieurs types de parasites : une sueur qui dénatura son héritage, deux guerres et des idéologies qui brandirent son nom pour servir des causes qu'il aurait, à coup sûr, récusées, et, plus gravement, une impressionnante série de lectures de mauvaise foi et d'interprètes mal intentionnés... Tout ceci contribue à produire de Nietzsche une image fausse, floue, dangereuse - qu'il était urgent, à tous égards, de rectifier. C'est à cette tâche que s'emploie Michel Onfray dans ce texte inédit, qui date de 1988. Pour l'auteur hédoniste du Traité d' athéologie - qui a toujours revendiqué ce que sa réflexion devait au Gai savoir -, il s'agit là d'un formidable exposé du nietzschéisme originel et d'une émouvante " reconnaissance de dette " à l'endroit d'un philosophe majeur. D'où cette " introduction à Nietzsche " dont le ton se veut, à la fois, pédagogique et empreint de gratitude. "

I read some criticism saying Onfray was so much of a Nietzsche devotee that his view on the man and his philosophy were biased. The fact is, Onfray is kind of a misfit with his strong anarchist and proletarian views which lead him to create a "popular university" with no diploma or grade, opened for whoever wants to attend. A place of pure learning and intellectual exchange.
The "French intellectual community" (people such as Finkielkraut, Bernard Henry Levy or Glucksmann) despise him for no other reason than their jealousy of his success of the past few years...

Have you ever read Onfray, btw?

Unfortunately no, but I'm always up for some good philosophical reading. Can you recommend an Onfray's book that has been translated into english?

Also, that popular university concept is extremely interesting. Have you visited it yet? I don't know how things are in your country, but here, in the third world, if you don't have your "title", the salary is decreased considerably, no matter how good you are at what you do...

Problem is, with Onfray's university, that "those who think what we ough to think" (intellectuals and politics) see it as a way to form proletarian revolutionaries or something... That's how little they understand the aim of an establishment founded solely for one purpose: giving access to knowledge to everyone who wants to learn and learn how to think for himself.

Sadly, in France too, without the diploma, you cannot get the position, it's something Onfray's fighting against. If you can do the job, you deserve it even if you don't have the "legal" credentials... Makes sense to me.

As for books translated in english, his Atheist Manifesto is a good place to start. Actually, it's called "Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam". You can read reviews (not all of them positive) here.

Ben Duncan's High Performance Power Amplifiers. There's a link in the instrument thread.

It's a great book to learn more about sound perception because if you are going to build a stereo, you'd better know your shit in that area

I use it to tune my system by doing a routine check of my DSP chain to make sure I haven't introduced any qualities that might be subconsciously annoying. I find the sound of CD very cluttered, there's too much forwardness where the brighter part of vocals/guitars usually are at, not enough harmonics or weight in the bass and just a general lack of space and detail between instruments. This way sounds far more accurate to the real instruments to my ears. It removes the characteristic sound of recording itself.

I read the reviews and seems like an interesting reading. I don't follow any religion (but I was baptized catholic at the marvelous age of two weeks old...), but I do not consider myself an atheist. My experiences with peyote and magic mushrooms (I'm from México) lead me to believe there's something big and magical in the universe, impossible to define. But I do despise monotheism and the whole estructura of organized religion. Fortunately, I found the book in pdf format for free; I don't think Onfray's will care, as he fight for the freedom of learning

This might help with the definition

LOL! That's like the best book ever

The World As Will and Idea - Arthur Schopenhauer

About the magic mushrooms: I achieved a much better state with intense and deep meditation. A sense of absolute unity with the universe and the sense of connecting with the infinite is what I remember from my mystical experience. Everything clicks... no space no time... just the infinite. It is a very hard process and a lot of times a sense of absolute emptiness takes over which can be very deafening. There is also an immense amount of peace and joy that comes with this state.

What is it like reading him? I've never really checked out any of his works. I always kinda wrote him off as the bridge between Hegel and Nietzsche which simply never intrigued me.

Always reading two books at once, these days:

At work/in the car: just finished Himmlers Hirn Heisst Heydrich by Laurent Binet, now reading Swords, Horses and Germs by Jared Diamond.

At home: finishing Earthly Powers by Michael Burleigh (great fuck-off-to-Marxism literature) and then on to The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss.

Schopenhauer's "idealism" is based primarily on considerations having to do with the relation between our ideas and external reality, rather than being based (like Plato's, Plotinus's, or Hegel's "idealism") on considerations having to do with the nature of reality as such. Also, Schopenhauer was very much into Eastern mysticism and the whole idea on reality as being a mere veil of the apparent. Nietzsche took the pessimism of Schopenhauer and turned into a life-affirming attitude with accepting the nature of suffering in existence. It is challenging but a very interesting read to say the least.

I'd like to read some Schopenhauer because, from my limited exposure to him, he seems grumpy and cynical. And I like grumpy.

On my new Kindle (death to clutter!):



Not that I've read that many .. but so far, the best metal book I have ever read.

I take some exception to the Extreme tag.

Nietzsche brought joy and harmony to the negativity of Schopenhauer with the Dionysian and the Apollonian description; although he was leaning more towards Apollo towards the end of his writings. The Blackwell Companion To Nietzsche is an excellent guide for a better understanding of Nietzsche.