What are you reading now?

[prinnysquad]

Does this not work better in film form, Prin?
I just find martial arts rarely transfers to the page effectively.

It’s totally different to the films. Because he’s a ronin, the fights often boil down to a single strike of the blade. The fights are kinetic and frantic and slightly blurred, but they’re generally easy to follow.

The atmosphere generally is like a Kurosawa film.

[prinnysquad]

To save me reading the whole thread (or any of it tbh) is this just for fiction?

Whey. No one wants to hear about your foray through a well-thumbed copy of The Joy of Sex.

[Zen Monkey]

I've been dipping in and out of this for several weeks during my lunch break at work and it's the most enjoyable book I've read in a long time and regularly has me laughing out loud.

Of the early philosophers who followed in the footsteps of Socrates, none are as striking or as eccentric as Diogenes. He was the original Stoic - a man who rid himself of the trappings of culture and challenged social values, but is best remembered for his remarkable intellect which rivalled even Plato's and his razor sharp wit which he employed with great effect to shock and demonstrate the artificialities of society. Diogenes, perhaps more than any other ancient Greek philosopher, understood that fancy philosophical teachings alone are insufficient, that ideas must be accompanied with physical demonstrations if they are to truly jolt a person free from their conditioned thinking; and so, much like the Chinese Zen masters of old, Diogenes employed shock tactics to hammer home his ideas.

Although some believed him to be an absolute madman, Diogenes was also one of the most respected and loved of the ancient Greek philosophers (so much so that Alexander the Great went out of his way to visit the philosopher on more than one occasion) and is now regarded as brilliant and important a historical figure as Plato or Aristotle.

Born into affluence (his father minted coins), Diogenes rejected wealth at an early age, choosing instead to live homeless on the streets of Athens begging for daily sustenance. He lived in a large, disused wine barrel and owned but three possessions - a cloak, a walking stick and a bowl, but allegedly threw away his bowl after watching a child drinking water from a river with cupped hands, remarking "A child has beaten me in simplicity".

He made no attempt to groom himself and was so unkempt that people often referred to him as the Dog. When asked why he was referred to this way, he said, "Like a dog I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse and sink my teeth in rascals". Though intended as a criticism, Diogenes took being compared to with a dog as a compliment. Praising the nature of dogs, he counselled others to look to the dog as a model of how to live a natural and unaffected life, pointing out that dogs live off instinct, have no anxiety about the future and are not weighed down by materialism or perverted by artificial laws.

Once, whilst listening to people partying and making merry, Diogenes reflected disheartingly on
the hard path he had chosen but at that moment a mouse crept up and busied itself with the crumbs
of his bread. Diogenes observed the mouse for a time then smiled, recovered his spirits,
and said to himself "How can this be? Here is a little mouse who enjoys the crumbs
that fall from your hands and nourishes itself with them with simple joy. You, on the other hand,
despite your clear mind, complain and suffer for not being able to get drunk and eat fancy food,
fool that you are!".

When asked what wine he liked to drink most, he replied, "Somebody else's".

He masturbated in the marketplace and when a passerby reproached him, he said,
"If only it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly".

He often begged for money from statues, when asked why he did so, he replied
"To gain practice in getting refused".

He once asked a disagreeable man for some money, and when the man said,
"only if you can persuade me", Diogenes replied, "If I could persuade you of anything,
I would persuade you to hang yourself."

He frequently lit a lamp in full daylight and walked the streets with it, when asked
what he was doing, he replied, "I am looking for an honest man."

A student of philosophy, eager to display his powers of argument, approached Diogenes,
introduced himself and said, "If it pleases you, sir, let me prove to you that there is no such
thing as motion." Whereupon Diogenes immediately got up and left.

A man asked Diogenes, "What is the main reason for wearing a cynics robe and the begging bowl?"
"So as not to deceive oneself", came the reply.

Diogenes was knee deep in a stream washing vegetables. Coming up to him, Plato said,
"My good Diogenes, if you knew how to pay court to kings, you wouldn't have to live on vegetables."
"And," replied Diogenes, "If you knew how to live on vegetables, you wouldn't have to pay court
to kings."

Diogenes was once invited to dinner by a wealthy admirer. During the evening, one of the guests
became so outraged by Diogenes' general behaviour that he began to throw bones at him,
calling him a "dog." Whereupon Diogenes got up, went to the guest, cocked up his leg and
urinated on him.

When asked where he came from, he replied, "I am a citizen of the Cosmos."

Diogenes received an invitation to dine with one whose house was splendidly furnished in the highest order
and taste. Diogenes, hawking, and as if about to spit, looked in all directions, and finding nothing adapted thereto,
spat right in the face of the master. Asked why he did so, he replied,
"Because I saw nothing so dirty and filthy in all your house".

Diogenes was asked why he always begged. "To teach people," replied Diogenes. "Oh yes,
and what do you teach?" people would ask him scornfully. "Generosity", he replied.

Diogenes was asked, "Tell me, to what do you attribute your great poverty?"
"Hard work," he replied.
"And what advice can you offer the rich?"
"Avoid all the good things in life."
"Why?"
"Because money costs too much. A rich man is far poorer than a poor man."
"How can that be?"
"Because poverty is the only thing money can't buy."

In the midst of serious discourse in the Craneum, Diogenes realised no one was listening.
So he instead began to whistle and dance about to attract attention. Immediately, people flocked
round him. Diogenes stopped and said, "You idiots, you are not interested to stop and pay
attention to wisdom, yet you rush up to observe a foolish display." Brilliant!

A heckler in the crowd shouted out, "My mind is not made like that, I can't be bothered with philosophy."
"Why do you bother to live," Diogenes retorted, "if you can't be bothered to live properly?"

Someone once asked, "Tell me Diogenes, what does a wise man look like?"
At once, Diogenes straightened himself up and stroked his beard.

A young man contemplating marriage sought advice from Diogenes. "Should I marry?"
"Marriage is too soon for a young man"
"Would you have me wait then until I am old."
"Oh no, marriage is far too late for an old man."
"What am I to do then? I love the girl."
"Love is a luxury no one can afford. It is for those who have nothing better to do."
"What should we be doing then?"
"To seek freedom. But it is not possible to be free if you have a wife and children."
"But having a wife and family is so agreeable."
"Then you see the problem, young man. Freedom would not be so difficult to attain were prison not so sweet."
"You mean to be free is to be alone?"
"We come into the world alone and we die alone. Why, in life, should we be any less alone?"
"To live, then, is terrible."
"No, not to live, but to live in chains."

Asked about his worst nightmare, Diogenes said,
"Waking to find myself living in a palace and everyone else in barrels."

Diogenes was walking backwards across the Agora, attracting a studied indifference to all who
laughed at him. Finally, when he had collected a large following he stopped and announced,
"You are laughing at me walking just a little distance backwards while you all lead your entire
lives arse-about."
"And what's more," he asked, "can you change your way of living as easily as this?" Whereupon,
he turned on his heel and walked off in normal fashion.

Diogenes was asked, "What is the difference between life and death?
"No difference."
"Well then, why do you remain in this life?"
"Because there is no difference."

When someone said to him, "You play the philosopher without knowing anything at all, he replied,
"Even if I merely pretend to wisdom, that is itself the mark of one who aspires to it."

Plato was discoursing on his theory of ideas and, pointing to the cups on the table before him, said
while there are many cups in the world, there is only one `idea' of a cup, and this cupness precedes
the existence of all particular cups.
"I can see the cup on the table," interrupted Diogenes, "but I can't see the `cupness'".
"That's because you have the eyes to see the cup," said Plato, "but", tapping his head with his
forefinger, "you don't have the intellect with which to comprehend `cupness'."
Diogenes walked up to the table, examined a cup and, looking inside, asked, "Is it empty?"
Plato nodded.
"Where is the `emptiness' which proceeds this empty cup?" asked Diogenes.
Plato allowed himself a few moments to collect his thoughts, but Diogenes reached over and,
tapping Plato's head with his finger, said "I think you will find here is the `emptiness'."

Alexander the Great came to Athens and was very interested in meeting the famous Diogenes.
He found Diogenes resting in the sunlight, introduced himself, and asked if there was anything
he could do for him. Diogenes replied, "Yes. Get out of my sunlight." This abrupt and rude response,
showing his utter contempt for the power and prestige that Alexander craved, could have had him killed,
but Alexander admired his spirit
and said, "If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes" to which Diogenes replied,
"If I were not Diogenes, I would also wish to be Diogenes."

On another occasion Alexander the Great found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of
human bones. "What are you doing?", asked Alexander.
"I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.”

When some one reminded him that the people of Sinope had sentenced him to exile, he said,
"And I sentenced them to stay at home.”

Asked why he had chosen to live in poverty, he replied, "Self-taught poverty is a help toward
philosophy, for the things which philosophy attempts to teach by reasoning, poverty forces
us to practice."

Once Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold to slave trader. An interested buyer approached
him asking, "What is your occupation?", Diogenes replied, "To govern men." The man, so impressed
by the witty reply, hired him to tutor his children.

[Brad]

Why don’t you marry him!?

[teddymeow]

Why don’t you marry him!?

That's hilarious. How hilarious? About this much...

[Nico87]

Dispatches by Michael Herr for the third time. My absolute favorite book on war together with G. M. Fraser's Quartered Safe Out Here

[QualityChimp]

Got this for £8!

[_SD_]

I’m wondering what you can learn about anal from those two... they’re a bit old for it aren’t they!

[Paulos G]

Don’t be so ageist! They have a lifetime of memories to share.

[Zen Monkey]

Why don’t you marry him!?

I once met a poet who was sweet-natured, beautiful and intelligent. The clothes she wore, the way she did her hair, the way she sighed, ahh... she was the very definition of feminine. I quickly fell in love with her and, to my heart's delight, the sentiment was requited. We travelled the world together, she told me about art and poetry and philosophy I told her about the stars in the sky and nature and music. We became best friends as much as lovers. Then one day we married and settled down in Brooklyn. I left her within 12 months. It still saddens me, leaving her like that. I won't marry again. It doesn't suit me.

[prinnysquad]

None of that happened.

[Atticus]

Any Audible subscribers on here? Tempted to get on board for the new William Gibson Alien III dramatization (feat a full cast inc Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen).

I wish I could buy it as a one-off, rather than subscribe ... but if Audible comes relatively highly recommended then I might just dive in.

[wakka]

I've heard from a mate with good taste that the Alien III dramatisation is excellent. Worth a month's sub to hear it from what he's told me.

[QualityChimp]

Just finished Jack West Jr. 3, but I'm a bit burnt out, so needed something else.

I stumbled across "Run" by Blake Crouch a few years back and really enjoyed it.

Recognised the name when "Dark Matter" and that was even better:
"“Are you happy with your life?”

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

From the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of."

So, I was really pleased to see a new novel, "Recursion" which I've started. I'm on the audiobook and there are two main characters, a man and a woman read by two narrators, which works brilliantly. Their tales are a decade apart, but are linked:
"Memory makes reality.

That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.

Neuroscientist Helena Smith already understands the power of memory. It’s why she’s dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious moments of our pasts. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.

As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face-to-face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease—a force that attacks not just our minds but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it.

But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them?"

[QualityChimp]

Oooh, it looks like Recursion is coming to Netflix!

https://media.netflix.com/en/press-releases/shonda-rhimes-and-matt-reeves-developing-blake-crouchs-recursion-for-netflix