Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
Burnt out, over the hill autistic IT nerd and longtime SSC lurker
User ID: 3219
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2d ago
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch.
Strongly agree. Sure, there's too much external pressure that creates and distorts the excessive and conflicting priorities and too little time to actually attend to all of them, but it's still always a "leadership failure" when the inevitable Bad Things happen. The solution to the problem of too much bureaucracy is, of course, more bureaucracy.
Ignoring that fires do, in fact, "just happen" sometimes on aircraft carriers
Indeed. I realize that technically it was an "amphibious assault ship" but the fire that wrecked the Bonhomme Richard was only a few years ago! According to the wiki, pretty much all of the usual suspects were to blame for the fire. New and improved Naval safety protocols weren't being followed, "leadership failures" in the chain of command, poor communication between sailors and officers, the various firefighters and civilians, etc. etc. etc.
I am not a military bird, and I know this is my own nature and bias speaking, but whenever I see those sorts of "after action" reports I can't help but read between the lines and suspect that over-emphasis on $LATEST_SHINY_THINGS as the underlying culprit to these sorts of things, which is to say that when there are too many priorities, then nothing is a priority. The Dilbert Principle is universal. Update: Looks like it was sabotage after all, see Bleep's response below. Friends don't let friends trust Wikipedia, and I can't even blame Gell-Mann amnesia because I knew better.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
4d ago
That's the "just-so" story that's often cited as the reason, but in reality, MacArthur was fired because he expressed to various parties that he fully intended to bring the war to communist China and win it, something that would have been in direct opposition to Truman's own public policy.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
4d ago
For a full-blown example, MacArthur was fired by Truman in Korea.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
5d ago
There's a lot that I agree with here in principle, but as I've said several times here on the Motte, when it comes to books I'm a cheap date. I think where I'd differ is that I don't necessarily need a cohesive narrative in order to enjoy a book. I have a yen for absurdist humor and surrealism (oh hai Illuminatus! Trilogy), so it isn't hard for me to take delight in the riffing of a stylish author, regardless of the presence or absence of plot, as long as I find the book engaging. Take this passage from White Noise for example:
We are quartered in Centenary Hall, a dark brick structure we share with the popular culture department, known officially as American environments. A curious group. The teaching staff is composed almost solely of New York emigres, smart, thuggish, movie-mad, trivia-crazed. They are here to decipher the natural language of the culture, to make a formal method of the shiny pleasures they'd known in their Europe-shadowed childhoods--an Aristotelianism of bubble gum wrappers and detergent jingles.
Forget the punchy, rapid-fire prose, for a second. This is a main character that is pretentious to the point of having his head so far up his own ass that I can't even say that he rivals William Shatner simply because said MC still takes himself far too seriously. At least Shatner is self-aware! And just about every adult in the book, with the possible exception of Babette, is like this! And that last sentence in the quoted passage was enough to jolt me right out of my reading; juxtaposing Formalism with bubble gum wrappers and detergent jingles was so dissonant to me that I had to think about it before I could grok it, which just made me love it, and the book, even more. Does White Noise have any essential meaning? Not so much, in my view. It's much more a collection of loosely joined commentary with some exceptional scenes and turns of phrase, but the skewering of the self-important academia types alone is worth the price of admission for me--everything else is just bonus points.
In contrast, the works of Samuel Delany would, I think, would also qualify for purposes of this discussion, and as much as I want to like his books, I just don't. I slogged through both Triton and Dahlgren, hoping that either of them would hook me, but they never did. Dahlgren in particular had more than enough surreality to potentially pique my interest, but Odindamn, if there's ever a book that embodies the literal meaning of YAOI!, which is to say that it had no climax, no point, no meaning, brother that one is it! Perhaps they are a little too much of their time, and/or personal to the author himself, but I had to give him up as a bad job after going 0-2.
Now Pynchon, that dude is something else. He is, to me, a unique mix of dense, rich, and oddly engaging that adds up to something like Neal Stephenson meets the Coen brothers on a mind-obliterating dose of LSD. When I first picked up Gravity's Rainbow, I think I read the first section introducing Pirate Prentice and didn't read any more for like months, if not a year. That said, when I returned to the book, it did in fact engage me enough to keep me reading all the way through, though the freewheeling nature of the plot, such as it was, combined with the richness of the prose brought it, if not exactly adjacent to, at least into the same zip code as, a slog for me, at least at times. There was so much going on, with so many plot threads and countless references that there was no way in Hel that I was ever going to be able to keep it all straight on a single reading! But unlike with Delany, above, as the madcap insanity of Gravity's Rainbow finally, inevitably ended in its utter decoherence, I admired Pynchon for his elegance in pulling off the ending. I found I had thoroughly enjoyed it! And I absolutely thought to myself, "what the actual fuck did I just read?"
IDK, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I was abroad back in the Before times when a D was indeed president and I still got called a bum a lot and heard plenty of "Stupid American™," stories--present company excepted, of course!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
8d ago
If it interests you, I just posted a full writeup of the experience on the front page.
Brilliant, read it and AAQC'd it. And FTR, music could be a whole different world to me when I was tripping, too, and was a major factor in those last experiences that I had as well. I'll leave it at that, at least for now.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
8d ago
I'm sorry, too, sir, and thank you. It's not the funnest club to be a member of, though we sure can have some interesting and esoteric conversations amongst ourselves! Regardless, my story is also similar to yours in the sense that it took some serious depression for me to try acid for the first time. But when I did, I had clearly found my drug of choice, and for a period of about four months, I did it often enough to learn about the brain's ability to quickly build a short term tolerance to the stuff, and adjusted my consumption accordingly. Things dried up for several months after that, after which I had two deep trips maybe six week apart from each other, one weak one, and then the final time (which is the one I was specifically talking about) wherein I'd estimate the peak lasted 12-16 hours or so. All of which is to say that I've been around the block, so to speak, before I get into the fun stuff.
- Taking your last point first, I have to completely agree with you when you say that the brain's sober state is the only way to be functional. One of my persistent impressions from my experiences is that my brain's built-in filters were significantly removed, hence the depth and intensity of sensory inputs and experiences. For instance, at some point I realized that the breathing wallpaper experience that could mesmerize me so had its roots in my own heartbeat. Likewise, on a purely causal level, I had the experience of having a realization, then having a censor kick in, saying in essence, "you are not ready to receive this truth," and then fighting to override that censor and get back to the original realization. It was amazing stuff, but it also meant that I could spend an hour looking for the car keys that were in my pocket the entire time, despite my pockets being the first place I checked!
- I also agree with your thinking about the self being a continuous series of snapshots, and for me, the ability to perceive this as such is actually one of the true dangers of diving deeply into psychedelics. With sobriety gone and the ego much more malleable, the qualia of the psychedelic experience can create a persistent change in the perception of the Self. In your example, you could have chosen to be the more pragmatic, meta version of you that you encountered for a short time. While you didn't do that, it does sound like you not only recognize that, but experienced that to an extent for yourself. If you'll forgive the wordplay, self_made_human is no more, and you're now self_remade_human. As the lyric goes, what I used to think was me was just a fading memory, I looked him right in the eye and said goodbye.
- The question of whether or not the vivid and literal visual metaphor you experienced was real is a haunting one. We know that as humans, the brain tends to make its decision subconsciously, then a framework of rationality is constructed around the decision that ultimately connects consciously and appears to be the process of the decision itself. Given my own belief that psychedelics get us closer to the "bare metal" of our consciousness, so to speak, this would necessarily mean that an actual awareness of the various possibilities of our choices could indeed be quite terrifying. I personally found the experience of being free of my own morality and empathy to be a hideous one.
I don't know if you ever had a choice in the matter. I don't know if I did either. But I am so lucky to have made the choice of going the route I would have committed myself to going well in advance.
Haha, probably true in my case, am I really going to turn down an offer of knowledge? Dangle something shiny in front of me and of course I want it for my nest! Moreover, I actually did try to snap myself out of it quite a few times, all without success. At one point the (un)reality was so bloody pervasive that as I was trying to rationalize my experience, I registered amusement on the other side of the conversation just as a couple of kids I'd been tripping with exclaimed from the other room, "whoa, [Muninn's manifestation of cosmic significance] is in the TV!" That's just a coincidence! I thought. More amusement. "There he is again!" Point, made.
Anyway, It sounds like you've been shaken but are coming out the other side shaken and changed, but not broken, and I'm glad for that. I'm also glad that you took the time to share some of your experience with me--like I said, I find these sorts of conversations to be fascinating, and there aren't many of us that have gone down this particular road. And I likewise appreciate your own well wishes for me. My own experience was a long time ago, and I've thankfully been able to deal with the fallout/residual damage as it has come to me. While my own path has steadily lead me away from mind and mood altering drugs and substances, caffeine notwithstanding, I appreciate the potential in psychotropic medications and work with some folks in your profession that can artistically prescribe a medication regimen for all that ails the psyche. For all of that, however, I am still mulishly stubborn and insist on thinking my way through everything, as is my wont.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
9d ago
Been there myself, though I chose... differently. I hope you understand when I say from the bottom of my heart that I believe you made the right choice.
It was mumblety decades ago, and I was several orders of magnitude deeper than I'd ever been before. When my own personal variety of cosmic significance came knocking on the door of my consciousness, I was all out of fucks to give. I was extremely cognizant that I was crossing a line by opening up my brain for an interior conversation with a hallucination, but I did it anyway, and as a result I had the classic experience of going mad from the revelation. Although I ultimately made it out the other side with some semblance of my Self still intact, it was a damn close run thing and it definitely Changed me. Were I my brother, I'm sure I would have had the good sense to pull a Brave Sir Robin and Nope right up outta there, but I wasn't, and I'm not, and here we all are.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
9d ago
I mean, sample size of one and all, but I actually delurked and started posting for a conversation like this one, FWTW.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
9d ago
Yeah, AFAICT people feel strongly about White Noise one way or the other. Me, I'm adoring it for the constant bloviating and overall absurdity, just as I did the movie. Probably doesn't hurt being old enough to actually remember the Eighties, either.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
9d ago
White Noise by Don DeLillo. Been wanting to read it ever since I saw the movie a while back, and it's pretty much what I hoped it would be as a book. Thus far (the airborne toxic event has just concluded for the curious), I'm impressed at how well the movie hews to the overall book, especially in tone.
Exactly. It's like the, "hey wiretap, can you give me a recipe for pancakes?" meme or, more spicily, Eric Cartman walking around bitching about the surveillance state whilst taking all of his calls on speakerphone.
The professor I had most often (3 classes) in college was an older Indian guy who taught physics. One of my favorite memories of him was when he was covering a unit on optics, and he had projected on the board an illustrative image, which he off-handedly mentioned was the cover art to his favorite album.
Yes, it was exactly what everyone is thinking.
We teen white kids had a great moment of fun about it. "Holy shit, did you guys know Indians could be Boomers, too?"
Lol, boo-this-man.gif
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
13d ago
South Park made fun of this with the consent forms
About that... Dave Chappelle would like a word.
Yeah, I can see that. Thinking about the humor angle specifically, there's definitely a strong thread of what I tend to think of as sophomoric humor in the style of Kevin Smith--sexual, crass, body-based humor, and this is consistent throughout all of the books. But there's also a strong thread of absurdist humor in the original John Dies at the End that, for me at least, works much better than the more juvenile humor does by itself. I found John's band, Three Armed Sally, with its three bass players and memorable introductory theater, to be hilarious in general and the lyrics to the song Camel Holocaust to be so ridiculous that they're utterly hysterical genius, for example, and that's just one part of the book. The closest thing that I can point to in the sequels is detective Lance Falconer from This Book is Full of Spiders, who is a great touch, but can't carry the book by himself.
Superior humor aside, in the more general sense, I think that the original John Dies at the End also benefited from its origin as a long-running serial fiction on Cracked.com and the long overall gestation period that it had. Not only is the humor better, but the jagged edges between scenes, characters, and overall narrative are sharper and drive the overall plot forward. The world it builds is fun, convoluted, and ripe for further exploration. The ending nails its aesthetic and completely sticks its landing. The sequels, by contrast, lack the additional subplots, polish, and humor of the original. Both end with at least a touch of glurge and lack the punch of the original. Worse, the world that the original built lies mostly untapped in the sequel and is, by the time of What the Hell Did I Just Read, completely vestigial. It felt to me like the literary equivalent of watching another episode of Scooby Doo instead of the rollicking, crank fueled bender through a modern Lovecraftian-inspired horrific universe that is the original. The sharp edges and social commentary of the original are largely missing and replaced instead by typical soy-based "humor" and, in the case of What the Hell Did I Just Read, a Very Special Episode feel as well.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
16d ago
The Noob Returns (Noobtown Book 9) by Ryan Rimmel. Haven't quite finished it yet but fuck, it's fun to return to this world after a decent stretch between books.
What the Hell Did I Just Read ended up disappointing me, mostly because Pargin ultimately only played around with the differing perspectives of the characters, leading to a pointless, dare I say ruined, climax and no real resolution. I was hoping with the way it was going that it'd be an Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade sort of situation but instead, it felt more like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. And I can't help but notice that the original John Dies at the End has, overall, been funnier than the subsequent books combined.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
17d ago
I mean, Mark Felt did turn out to be Deep Throat. And wasn't E. Howard Hunt one of those involved in spying on Goldwater for LBJ?
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
22d ago
I mean, Firefly fans are legendary for their influence, from the full page Thank You ad to managing to help get the Big Damn Movie the green light, they've delivered. I'm sure they'll signal boost this as much as possible, but I personally had no idea that there was still even a torch to be carried for a second season to get this far!
Wow. Appreciate the context, fellow Mottizen, and after that I'd agree that it'd be a great top-level post. I was divorced enough from the Culture Wars at that time of the fire to only be aware that there were allegations of sabotage and that the prosecution of Mays was total bullshit, and this is the first time I've seen any of that detail. I am guilty in this case of cross-referencing Wikipedia, despite being well aware of their general biases, again because I wasn't aware of a connection to the culture wars. As you say, Mays' name is on the wiki 5 times, while McGovern's name is completely absent from the page. If even the NYT and CBS are covering that angle then I know it's bad! And I wish I could say that the Navy's behavior surprised me, but honestly, that sounds way too much like SOP these days.
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