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Grex > Books > #3: What Was the Last Book You Read? | |
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| Author |
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| 25 new of 298 responses total. |
oddie
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response 194 of 298:
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Oct 11 04:53 UTC 1999 |
Can somebody tell me what _The Last Temptation of Christ_ is about? The only
thing I know about it is that Peter Gabriel did the music for it :)
I read a lot of stuff over the summer which I will write something about later
'cause it's getting late.
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mcnally
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response 195 of 298:
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Oct 11 05:16 UTC 1999 |
It's about an alternate universe where Christ is seduced by the dark side.
(Oh, no, wait, that's the Star Wars "prequel".. Nevermind..)
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gelinas
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response 196 of 298:
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Oct 11 05:19 UTC 1999 |
Jesus, a carpenter in Nazareth, makes crosses for crucifixions. He has
been subject to fits since he realised that he loved his cousin Mary.
That rejection led Mary to a life of prostitution, also in rebellion against
her father (a rabbi). (So she has mixed motiviations. Don't we all?)
Some suspect that Jesus is the Messiah, but they neither can nor want to
believe it.
I've not gotten much farther than that, and I'm not willing to repeat
the summarisations offered by others.
It's written by the same guy who did _Zorba_the_Greek_.
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lilmo
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response 197 of 298:
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Oct 12 23:16 UTC 1999 |
To continue:
Jesus spends some time with a group much like the Essenes (kind of like Jewish
monks), and then begins a ministry much like that described in the Gospels,
but he is very unsure of himself. Eventually he becomes more self-confident,
and goes to Jerusalem. There, he sends his oldest and closest friend, Judas
Iscariot, to betray him to the Jewish leaders. While on the cross, he is told
by an angelic figure that his debt is paid, and he can come down. He marries
Martha *and* Mary (whose brother Lazarus was killed before he was arrested),
and later confronts Paul of Tarsus, who is preaching Christianity. He is
dying in bed as Jerusalem burns in AD 70, when Peter and Judas come to tell
him how badly he screwed up. He then prays for God to return him to the
cross, where he can correct the error that led to the rest. God does, and
the rest, as they say, is history.
Anyone who notices an error in my summary is free to say so.
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otaking
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response 198 of 298:
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Oct 14 13:48 UTC 1999 |
I finished _Ecstasy_Club_ by Douglass Rushkoff recently. It started out well
as a story about a motley bunch who decided to buy a warehouse and have raves
every day, with a different theme for different subcultures (goths, gays,
ravers). Then it turned into this bizarre conspiracy story involving Tesla
and Scientology (called Cosmotology in the novel). The ending was very
unsatisfying. I enjoy conspiracy theories, but this book left me feelin like
I wasted my time. Stick with his non-fiction if you read anything by Rushkoff.
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lilmo
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response 199 of 298:
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Oct 15 20:05 UTC 1999 |
By Tesla, you do'nt mean Nikolai Tesla, do you? He was dead long before raves
started, I think.
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omni
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response 200 of 298:
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Oct 17 07:28 UTC 1999 |
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otaking
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response 201 of 298:
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Oct 17 15:53 UTC 1999 |
Re #199: Yes, Nikolai Tesla. The conspiracy theory involved telepaths and time
travel.
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mcnally
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response 202 of 298:
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Oct 17 23:36 UTC 1999 |
Most of the better conspiracy theories do..
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otaking
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response 203 of 298:
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Oct 18 14:23 UTC 1999 |
My favorite conspiracy theories are either plausible or completely loopy. The
best are both.
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jazz
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response 204 of 298:
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Oct 18 17:48 UTC 1999 |
Like the one about that project where the government spent billions
researching some obscure physics theories that might have applications, while
a war was going on?
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pfv
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response 205 of 298:
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Oct 18 18:07 UTC 1999 |
hehe ..which war? ...which theories?
Yah, we all "know" the conspiracies are fantasies, eh?
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otaking
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response 206 of 298:
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Oct 18 20:25 UTC 1999 |
Remember, just because you're not paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not
out to get you.
"Perfect paranoia is perfect perception." - a line from Stephen King's Golden
Years
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i
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response 207 of 298:
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Oct 19 01:26 UTC 1999 |
The most unbelievable thing about most of the interesting government
conspiracy theories is that our government is intelligent and
competent enough to be involved in such things, without it being
more widely known than the Watergate scandal and more bungled than
the Vietnam War.
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lilmo
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response 208 of 298:
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Oct 19 02:09 UTC 1999 |
That's what I find to be the most effective argument against most of them.
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mcnally
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response 209 of 298:
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Oct 19 05:25 UTC 1999 |
re #207, 208: That's *just* what They WANT you to think.. ;-)
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otaking
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response 210 of 298:
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Oct 19 13:03 UTC 1999 |
A lot of conspiracy theories fall apart when you realize that no plan, however
ingenious, goes off as planned. Plus, the more people involved, and the wider
the conspiracy, the more likely it's going to be discovered.
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jazz
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response 211 of 298:
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Oct 19 13:13 UTC 1999 |
That's not necessarily true. We've managed to do a few things in
complete secret and away from the public eye, like developing thermonuclear
weapons and breaking the German and Japanese main ciphers, that were only
revealed after they'd ceased to be useful to keep secret. The government
isn't as bungling as you might think - they're just bound to the ebb and tide
of public opinion and political process when they act in an open manner.
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otaking
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response 212 of 298:
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Oct 19 15:20 UTC 1999 |
With the Manhattan project, there were leaks, but those leaks were very
quickly suppressed. Scientists would go to nearby diners and say the wrong
thing. Army officials would very quickly converge on these places and swear
the people inside to secrecy.
As for the Enigma project, the way it was kept secret was by letting the
Germans bomb some of their targets without resistance. It was costly, but it
worked.
I can agree that the government is perfectly capable of doing things in
secret. My point is that world-wide conspiracies can't exist to the extent
that the theorists say because the more people involved, the greater the risk
of exposure. Everyone within a group has their own agenda. They may act with
or against others in the group for the sake of furthering their personal
motives. Even when a group is in agreement with an agenda, they may disagree
with the means used to carry out a plan.
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jazz
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response 213 of 298:
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Oct 19 18:16 UTC 1999 |
Unless someone at some level comisserates with someone else. It's
not difficult at all for gas stations, for instance, to maintain
near-identical price levels despite the vagrarites of gas prices and shipping
to various markets.
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otaking
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response 214 of 298:
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Oct 19 19:30 UTC 1999 |
Yes, but in the instance of gas prices, you're dealing with multi-national
corporations with interlocking boards of directors, ensuring that no one oil
company will try to undercut another. On the more local level, gas stations
will compete with other places down the street, but they do agree not to step
on each other's toes too much. They want the appearance of competition.
On to the actual topic though...
I just finished reading Japanese Mythology by Juliet Piggott. I enjoyed the
brief historical overview and the survey of Shinto and Buddhist beliefs. It
also had a decent selection of Japanese myths, legends and stories. It wasn't
very comprehensive though. I much preferred "Myths and Legends of Japan" by
F. Hadland Davis. That book had more stories that were divided into varoius
topics (animals, mirrors, Mt Fuji, etc.). Both are enjoyable reads.
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jazz
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response 215 of 298:
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Oct 20 03:54 UTC 1999 |
I'm much more concerned that corporations would attempt to conspire
than governments. And they do. When they're not all owned by the same
people.
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oddie
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response 216 of 298:
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Oct 20 04:29 UTC 1999 |
Some of the books I read over the summer:
_Borderliners_ by Peter Hoeg. I picked this one up because I loved _Smilla's
Sense of Snow_. I didn't like this one quite as much, because the tone is
darker and a bit depressing. The story is about an orphaned boy called Peter
who is taken out of a state home (in Denmark) and sent to an expensive private
school called Biehl's Academy. He forms friendships with two other
"outsiders," a disturbed boy named August and a girl called Katarina. (er,
I think I have those names right.) They try to discover the details of the
reason that they have been brought to the academy. There is also a lot of
philosophical speculation on the nature of time, and towards the end these
passages get in the way of the story a bit too much. Still, I thought it was
a very engrossing and thought-provoking book. (I'd like to smack the person
who wrote the blurb on the jacket. It gives away two of the major important
points of the plot.)
Also read _The Woman and the Ape_ by Hoeg. I thought it was awful: a sort of
bizarre pseudo-fantasy plot and a mystery story that doesn't hang together
very much.
I went to hear Ray Bradbury talk at the Chautauqua Auditorium and while
there bought a copy of _Quicker than the Eye_, a collection of stories,
and got it signed. It is a bit of a mixed bag, but because of the several
truly wonderful stories in it-"The Electrocution", "Hopscotch", "The Finnegan,"
"The Very Gentle Murders," (both of which are rather like updated Poe
stories), "The Witch Door," "Last Rites," and "The Other Highway"-I have
probably missed a few good ones; those were just my favorites-it is well
worth the $12 I paid for it. Ray Bradbury is a great speaker, BTW.
I might write about some others if I can remember them. At the moment I am not
getting to read a lot because of schoolwork. :(
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mcnally
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response 217 of 298:
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Oct 20 05:17 UTC 1999 |
I don't think I could read another Hoeg book after "Smilla's Sense of Snow"
It built up so nicely that the ending was a shocking disappointment.
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oddie
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response 218 of 298:
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Oct 21 04:05 UTC 1999 |
Was it the SF-like component of the ending that you didn't like? It seems
from reading the customer comments on Amazon that a lot of people (probably
those who are into mystery novels but not science fiction) think the ending
was a sort of copout. Personally, I think the final mysterious, inconclusive
paragraphs are wonderful. The ending of _The Once and Future King_ (which
I read for school) is a bit like that too. (I loved TOAFK as well).
Another book has come to mind, _Red Shift_ by Alan Garner. Now *this* is
one of the strangest books I have ever read. It is a bit more difficult to
get through than the average "young adult" novel; sometimes I lost track of
who was speaking in the dialogue passages, as there are no cues from the
narrator. There are three interwoven plots: one concerning two teenagers
engaged in a strange sort of romance in the twentieth century, one set
during one of the Roman occupations of Britain and involving a boy in
a Roman legion who has epileptic-like visions, and one set in England's
civil war. The ending complicates the puzzle of how the plots fit together
rather than clearing it up. I hope to read the book again later and try to
understand it better.
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