Tag: reading

I’ve never found any appeal in general social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook. They seem pointless. Sites that primarily serve some actual function and secondarily offer social networking features make more sense to me — something like Flickr: a photo hosting site that happens to offer social networking features. And now I’ve signed up for LibraryThing: a book catalog service that happens to have some social networking.

A friend recently told me about LibraryThing. It appealed to me as a way to keep track of all my books, and I thought it might be interesting to see who else owned copies of some of the more obscure books in my collection. I intend only to add books that I actually own to LibraryThing — not all the books I’ve read, which would take far too long. This makes LibraryThing’s recommendation service rather irrelevant for me, since most of the books it currently recommends are those that I have read, but do not own.

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This past week I read Dominic Reeve’s Smoke in the Lanes. The book is a first-hand account of the lives of Romani in England during the mid-1950s, which marked the end of the era of horse-drawn wagons. It’s an interesting read if you’re at all interested in itinerant lifestyles.

Toward the end of the book the author describes lighting his daily fire in very wet conditions:

Nobody had collected any wood for the morning’s fire, so I scrambled into the middle of a tangle of thorn-bushes, the limbs of which were heavy with rain that showered down on me; and within a matter of minutes I was completely soaked. I did not possess a raincoat and my old jacket and cord trousers were inadequate to withstand the water. Nevertheless, I managed to gather quite an imposing amount of dead wood, all sodden, and I returned with it to the site of the previous night’s fire. I took a stump of candle from my pocket and broke it in half, then I lit one half and set it upright in the watery ashes, piling some twigs and small wood round and above it. When I had placed sufficient twigs above the tiny flame I laid the other half of the candle stump in the wood directly above the flame so that the heat from below gradually rose upwards, melting the wax which then caught fire and ignited the soggy twigs. It is an old Romani trick, and a very successful one.

Le Loup often talks about carrying a beeswax candle in his 18th century fire kit. I always assumed that this would be used to keep a flame below damp tinder to dry it out, similar to how today we might take advantage of the long burn time of cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly to light slightly damp materials. It never occurred to me to break the candle in two and melt the second half above for even more heat. Neat trick!

None but the Romanies, or perhaps the few remaining tramps, can know how great a comfort is afforded by a fire. Once its warming tongues lick upwards into the pile of sticks and one’s tingling, numbed fingers are eased in its glow, one experiences great pleasure and satisfaction. It is a creative, aesthetic, pleasure. On countless grey winter mornings, often in company with other travellers, I have sat huddled close to an immense [fire], my front glowing and steaming with heat and my back running with rain or heaped with snow. The fire is everything to us. With it we can cook, eat, survive and live: without it we should perish.

After re-reading Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age last November, I had an inkling to do the same with The Baroque Cycle, Stephenson’s tome on Alchemy, Economics, Technology, and an agreeable amount of Swashbuckling in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. It is an account of the birth of our modern world-system.

Quicksilver and The Confusion I first read when they were published, but at the time The System of the World was released, I was distracted by other ruminations. By the time I was free, I felt too much time had passed since my experience with the first two books, so I never read the third. Now, I intend to read them back-to-back.

Quicksilver I finished in a week and half. The Confusion I’ve been reading for near the same amount of time and am roughly halfway through, though I fear it will take longer to complete. Allowing for (un)necessary distractions, I should like to finish the cycle by the end of February.

Steampunk: a history that wasn’t quite. At once both Victorian and Dystopic. A world filled by brass gears, pin-stripe suits, and a steam powered Deus ex Machina.

I’ve been familiar with steampunk as both a literary spin-off of cyberpunk and as a modding community, but only recently — through SteamPunk Magazine — come into it’s aberration as a subculture.

This third issue of SteamPunk Magazine is my first. I found it to be a most delightful mixture of short-fiction, interviews, tutorials, and rants. My preferred rant was My Machine, My Comrade by a one Prof. Calamity, in which he sees steampunk as “seeking[ing] to liberate the machine from simply existing as an instrument of work, while at the same time not elevating mechanical forms above all else… Steampunk seeks to find a relationship with the world of gears, steel, and steam that allows machines to not only co-inhabit our world but to be partners in our journey.” My favorite fiction was Margaret P. Killjoy’s Yena of Angeline in “Sandstorms by Gaslight” which (very much like mine own fiction) seems to go nowhere. It has no direction, and does not leave its reader with a sense of anything being accomplished, which makes it a disappointing first read. But, again and again, I find my mind wandering back to the world that Killjoy crafted and the characters that inhabit them. Ant that, I think, is some element of praise.

A SteamPunk’s Guide to the Apocalypse is a survival manual of sorts, covering basic aspects of shelter, water, and food. It should provide nothing new to the established crazy and serves as no replacement to In the Wake (or any of the works listed in the Guide’s Appendix B), though features thoughts on reclaiming urban resources that are lacking in other guides. But, like In the Wake, it is available as a free download, thus nullifying any excuse to not peruse the contents and keep it as a handy reference. I purchased it partly to support SteamPunk Magazine, but mostly for Colin Foran’s artwork, which provides a wonderful backdrop to the gritty subject of post-Civilization apocalyptic survival. Beyond comparisons to other manuals for outliving Civilization, my main criticism is that of the style of writing. Writers in the Victorian era were much more liberal than us in their use of capitalization, but there was a system. When I read those works, I feel the capitalization adds a certain emotion to the writing. Being a SteamPunk’s Guide, the author of this work (by happenstance, the same Margaret Killjoy whom I praised above) attempted to duplicate this capitalization, but failed. Whether there was or was not a system, it feels arbitrary, and detracts from the overall work. The Guide does present an attempt to emulate that era’s vocabulary, and I think does a good job of that — combining a sense of Victorian grace with modern punk and a bit of wit, for an agreeable solution of steampunk.

Jason Elliot’s An Unexpected Light: Travels In Afghanistan is a beautifully written book, on par with The Places In Between. The author’s aimless wanderings in Afghanistan during the rise to power of the Taliban record the country and its people in an undeniably alluring way. He captures the daily life of Afghans throughout the country and, in his honest and provocative writing, the impact of decades of war.

Colby Buzzel’s My War: Killing Time in Iraq falls into the category of books that I’m not sure what to say about — it leaves one stunned upon completion. Reminiscent of Jarhead, this book version of the author’s blog is a hard-hitting depiction of the war. There’s no coating or attempts to depict false senses of glory and honor and the rest of the recruiter’s material. The poor grammar serves to reinforce the raw vision. The highest praise I can give the book, I suppose, is that I burned through it in 8 hours.

Jason Burke’s On the Road to Kandahar despite its title does not deal exclusively with Afghanistan and the former power-seat of the Taliban. It is the author’s account of his experience reporting, for the last decade or so, from the Islamic world. Focusing on the rise and nature of militant Islam, Burke puts forth his theory on the dispersed and autonomous nature of the groups, analyzing the cause of their rise and their increasingly lacking support from local communities. Though I’ve yet to read his first book, Al-Qaeda, this one seems to be in large part a rehashing of the same, but updated, broader in scope, and, after the attacks on the author’s home city of London, more personal. I quite enjoyed it. A recommended read for those interested in the region.

The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq, Rory Stewart’s second book, is a depressing read. Detailing Stewart’s time as CPA governor in two of Iraq’s southern provinces, it gives a clear view of the mess of politics in the country. Despite intentions, any action taken by any party is turned negative, or at best futile — demonstrating the failure inherit in a people who do not wish to be governed, being governed by a people who do not wish to govern.

Jason Robert’s A Sense Of the World is a biography of James Holman, the Blind Traveler. Living in the early 19th century, Holman traveled the world, not letting his blindness come in the way of his successful career as a writer or his circumnavigation of the globe. I found the book itself to be wanting in detail — the sense of adventure in his travels is often missing — though this is more likely due to the lack of source material than the author’s talent. For those stricken with a case of wanderlust, or, as Roberts so skillfully puts it, the “freedom of abandon”, this account of “poet turned warrior turned wanderer”, the clear predecessor to Burton, is a recommended read.

The difference between journalists and writers is that journalists report events after the fact, constructing images from rumor and hearsay, presenting it as fact. Writers live in the moment. They pen what they see, hear, feel, taste, and smell — not purporting it to be fact, but only what was experienced.

Sarah Chayes begins The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban as a journalist and ends as a writer: the difference is starkly obvious. As such, I found the beginning of the book slow and mundane, but the rest an exciting and rich source of information. Overall, the book is a marked second to The Places In Between, but her summation of the history of Afghanistan, focusing particularly on the city of Kandahar, is well worth the read. And her exposure of the weakness of the Karzai government, the meddling of Pakistan, and the critique of post-Taliban U.S. policy is a crucial piece of insight into the region’s modern standing.

Having seen the film, I had been familiar with T.E Lawrence, the man and his story, before reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom: but I had no idea of his skill with the pen. This book — excelling not only in historical and military account, but also in literary merit — establishes himself as one of the greatest men and truly one of the most talented writers of the 20th century.

A recommended read, Lawrence’s book is a crucial work in understanding the conflicts in Arabia today.

In these pages the history is not of the Arab movement, but of me in it. It is a narrative of daily life, mean happenings, little people. Here are no lessons for the world, no disclosures to shock peoples. It is filled with trivial things, partly that no one mistake for history the bones from which some day a man may make history, and partly for the pleasure it gave me to recall the fellowship of the revolt. We were fond together, because of the sweep of the open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, and the hopes in which we worked. The morning freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up with ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep: and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.

There’s a certain madness in walking across the most heavily land-mined country in the world, in the middle of winter, during a war — but it clearly would make for a wonderful book. Rory Stewart’s The Places In Between is just such a book. The portrait of Afghanistan, it’s people, landscape and cultures in awe-some. It is a rare look that focuses not on the military history of the land, but of the people. The tale should be read by all.

Fawn Brodie’s The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton is an awe-inspiring look at the life of one of the most important figures of the 19th Century. In an age when relativism was unknown, conquest the norm, Burton was able to shed off Mother Culture and view the world with his own eyes, shocking British Society and displaying a prime example of what Hakim Bey would today call poetic terrorism. In describing himself, Burton once said “he speaks the things that others think and hide.”

Explorer, linguist, archaeologist, anthropologist, soldier, spy, rogue, pervert; all have been used in attempts to label and tame Burton’s legacy. He is a man whom I am proud to look up to, and I’m thankful for this glimpse into his life.

I’ve always thought it strange that one would write a book about urban exploration. There doesn’t seem to be a need for it. What more is there to say than ‘don’t be stupid’ and ‘don’t get caught’? But Ninjalicious pulled it off with Access All Areas: A User’s Guide to the Art of Urban Exploration. While the high points of the book are the author’s stories of explorations, he offers an amount of good advice and even managed to expand my definition of the Art. It’s also a superior piece on social engineering to Mitnick’s The Art of Deception.

It’s by no means a must-read, but if you are interested in UE, I think it’s worth a skim in the bookstore.

The Scabbed Wings of Abaddon is Sean Kennedy’s second published book. Like The Bloodstained Rabbit the book is a work in occult-horror, but this one is much more mature, both in its concepts and execution.

The editing could still use work — misused punctuation and similar looking but incorrect words are all to be found, though, unlike Bloodstained, not often enough to detract from the overall work.

A recommended read for fans of Sean, the occult, and/or horror.

Eclipse is Volume One of John Shirley’s oft-overlooked cyberpunk trilogy, A Song Called Youth.

In it, NATO and the Russians, fighting World War 3, have agreed to limit their warfare to only small-scale, tactical nukes — painfully drawing out the death of the planet (and FirStep, the space colony). Behind the scenes is the Second Alliance, a sort of combination of PNAC, Blackwater, and Jesus Camp. Worldtalk, a stand in for Newscorp, has developed a device allowing them to scan and selectively remove memory of their subjects. The New Resistance, a collection of fighters, refugees, philosophers (and a musician) headed by an ex-Mossad agent (with questionable funding and support), is the only hope against the neo-fascist-corpolitical takeover.

An excellent book, it is perhaps the most disturbing look at our corporate-dominated future. Shirley truly puts the punk in cyberpunk.

Kamana is the Wilderness Awareness School‘s four-level independent study “naturalist training program”.

Kamana One introduces the student to the ideas and style of teachings that will form the base for the rest of the program. It’s divided into two sections. The first, the “Nature Awareness Trail” devotes itself to the psychological aspects of the modern primitive. It deals with awareness; directions, surroundings, details. I was surprised at the remarkable similarities between it and vipassana.

The second part, the “Resource Trail” deals with the other half of naturalist training. Mammal and plant identification, bird language, and field guides are just a few of the topics covered. This part is often referred to as “the field guide for field guides” because of it’s ability to decrypt the otherwise esoteric manuals.

In addition to the text book, Kamana One includes Jon Young’s Seeing Through Native Eyes audio set. This is definitely the best part of the course. It’s best described as all of Jon Young’s vast knowledge squeezed down and compressed into 8 CDs, covering both psychological and physical aspects.

In the end, I don’t feel that the program (with the exception of the audio portion) gave me much new. The ideas presented in the “Nature Awareness Trail” I had already developed through my own readings and practice. The ideas in “Resource Trail”, too, I had already discovered through my own study, including the Learning Herbs kit. The course is better suited for one who is new to all of this. Someone who perhaps has an interest in the outdoors, in survival, but is looking to take that interest a step forward.

(Urban Scout has some criticisms and other thoughts of the Kamana program.)

Nelson Zink‘s The Structure of Delight is a book of stories within stories. A sort of manual for reprogramming you mind, it’s the book that Daniel Quinn would write if Quinn had been a student of Freud.

Through the interwoven stories, Zink challenges perception and meaning, expounding that all is rooted in the mind, shifting the reader’s experience of reality.

I’ve signed up for Wilderness Awareness School‘s Edible and Medicinal Plants course. It’s taught by John Gallagher, of Learning Herbs.

Have you ever wanted to know the plants that grow all around you?

Would you like to learn how wild plants, even in cities, can both feed you and take care of your health?

This informative and hands on weekend experience introduces participants to the most common and useful plants of our area through direct experiences of touching, eating, cooking, and making meals and medicines.

The nature of this weekend offers a new relationship with plants—whether found in urban yards or vast wilderness—that intimately connects us to their lives while enhancing the nourishment, nutrition, and health of our own.

Skills include:

• Plant identification to confidence and safety
• Herbal oils and salves for most minor first aid situations
• Tincture making with wild plants for cold & flus
• Herbal teas and infusions
• Herbal nourishment for better daily health
• Mineral vinegars: the ULTIMATE “vitamin”
• Making a wild foods meal that is nutritious AND delicious
• Poisonous plant identification
• Herbal first aid so you can treat yourself naturally
• AND lots of other fun herbal surprises

We will weave all these skills into a way for you to bring wild herbs into your life to enhance your health.

What is seen by many as an overwhelming subject will be presented in a simple way, so you can easily access herbal wisdom on your own. There will be a good balance between class time and herbal activities.

Students will go home with herbal remedies for their home first aid kits.

Students will also go home with a free copy of Wild Foods for Every Table, an amazing 100 page wild foods books with delicious recipes such as sorrel soup, creamy nettle soup and spiced wildberry jelly.

John Suiter’s Poets on the Peaks: Gary Snyder, Phillip Whalen & Jack Kerouac in the North Cascades is a biographical account of these Beat Bards, with emphasis placed on their wilderness outings and spiritual explorations, painting them as 20th century Thoreaus.

This book — the images, the text, the characters — are beautiful. It renews the magic of this place.

A portrait of mountains and rivers and Buddha and zen and trees and poetry. America.

Thomas Cleary’s The Essential Koran is a sort of summarized version of the Islamic text. It consists of passages selected for the opening of Islam to the modern Western mind.

I was surprised at the lack of myth in the book. It seemed to be filled with “God is this, God is that, disbelievers are poopy.” Names were dropped (Moses, Jesus, etc) and the Garden of Eden* was given a full page, but there were no real stories — the most important aspect of any religion or believe system. I’m forced to think that this is a result of the summation, that the actual Qur’an contains more myth.

I found many disagreements in the text, though none that I think are specific of Islam. Rather, all large, organized religions seem to fall to this.

Despite the beauty of the words, it describes a life of fear. Fear of some god, some master hanging over you. Even those who claim to love and find joy in their god must consider with every action what their judge will think of them. There is no harmony in this — these tiered systems, that find a distinction between heaven and earth.

They do not comprehend anything…except as God wills.

And what is the life of the world but the stuff of deception?

How can one live so removed? How can one deny the joys and beauties and truth of life?

There is much good in Islam — kindness, benevolence, tolerance — but it is still a structure of (dank) submission. A belief that separates its followers from the Earth.

• A note on the Garden of Eden story: this version has the fruit enlightening Adam and Eve to their bodies. It is said “and when they tasted of the tree, their shame was exposed to them; and they began to sew together leaves from the garden to cover themselves.”. Our bodies are now something to be shameful of? So much for humans shaped in the image of their God, and all that.

Isabel Fonseca’s Bury Me Standing digs past the lore of gypsy culture to find the Rom people as they really are. In her travels of Eastern Europe soon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, she researches the gypsy plight — early slavery, Nazi death camps, and modern persecution. The book is depressing, but recommended for the insight into the normally closed world of Roma.

Larry Dean Olsen’s Outdoor Survival Skills, first published in 1973, was one of the first books to rekindle interest in primitive living skills. And it is, of course, still a worthy read today. It is the only book I’ve read on the subject that discusses no modern implements. Not once is more than an acknowledgment offered to, for example, a steel knife. All of the skills described in the book are meant to be performed with absolutely nothing but what is found in Wilderness. It covers more than what Elpel discusses in Participating in Nature, but doesn’t go as in depth. Though the author, in the beginning, shows he has skills as a story teller, the book is written more as a manual. It’s use of diagrams and pictures are also lacking. But, Olsen’s creations are often more elegant than those in Elpel’s book. Perhaps it would be better titled Outdoor Living Skills.

I would recommend reading both, though between the two, study and carry Participating in Nature.

Participating in Nature is Thomas Elpel‘s “field guide to primitive living skills”. The book is presented as a story of the author’s wanderings throughout one day. It covers far more than primitive technology, expanding into Elpel’s environmental actions and ideas on modern, sustainable living. The primitive skills themselves are diverse — everything from bow drills to brain-tanning — and are presented in a much simpler, more digestible (yet still complete) manner than, say, David Wescott’s Primitive Technology: A Book of Earth Skills. The chapter on plants is a succinct version of Botany in a Day, and focuses only on a small number of plants local to Elpel’s Rocky Mountain bioregion, but I found the rest of the discussions applicable here to the Pacific Northwest, with only minor exceptions.

It is an excellent beginner’s book to primitive skills and the mind-set that goes along with them, as well as a valuable reference for the more advanced.

Eddy Joe Cotton’s Hobo is the fast paced adventure of a young runaway turned train rider. The rapid growth and maturity of the author tricks one into assuming a large lapse of time, when in fact the book spans only a few weeks of his life. I didn’t enjoy the whole book, nor did I find it to be one of the better books penned by a Hobo. I think his love for the state of Nevada played a role in this. He focuses on many of the things which disgust me about the state. That said, Cotton’s short journey on the road is peppered with many insights into the America of the early 90’s and plays host to many an interesting character.

Jessica Han’s Transient Ways concerns itself with stories of travel, trains, and squats. Unlike Off the Map, this book’s writing is amateur, the stories have no cohesion, and the author presents herself as mildly egotistical. Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it. The tales are entertaining — enticing in their simplicity. Jessica shows promise as a writer, but is no Kerouac.

Jessica is also featured in the excellent hobo documentary Catching Out.

Brigitte Mars’ Natural First Aid is a nice little book for dealing with home, and some wilderness, ailments. The book begins with a short introduction to basic first aid — CPR, splints, and the like — and follows that with “An A-Z Guide to Ailments and Injuries,” including everything from nosebleeds to jellyfish stings. Each ailment includes possible herbal and homeopathic techniques for prevention and remedy. The books also includes a chapter on “Surviving Nature’s Challenges,” which discusses basics of topics such as surviving bear attacks, making fire, and giving birth.

The book, sadly out of print, is very basic, and is no replacement for real first aid training, but certainly warrants a spot on your bookshelf for herbal reference.

Faust has been sitting on my bookshelf for close to two years now, waiting for me to read it. I had kept neglecting the book, but promising to read it eventually, since finishing The Magic Mountain. Finally, I decided to throw it in my pack for New York.

Kaufmann’s translation includes the German on one page and the English on the opposite, allowing one to view the original work in conjunction to what you’re reading. A novel and appreciated addition, even though the only German I know was learned from killing Nazi zombies in Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Goethe is full of wit and humor — twisted, sexual humor that would make Tipper Gore gorge out her eyes — that comes across well in Kaufmann’s translation. I found it quite enjoyable. It inspires you to push through the somewhat more confusing scenes that lack the entertainment of Mephisto. (Like those angles up in heaven. Why would anyone want to go hang out with those boring, drab, self righteous egotists when you could be with Mephisto and his wenches during Walpurgis Night?) I think a great many more people would enjoy the book, if they would only give it a shot.

Robert Young Pelton’s Licensed to Kill is the definitive post-9/11 book on guns-for-hire. From Baghdad’s Route Irish to the Afghan/Pakistan border, RYP is able to enter the closed world of mercenaries, PMC/PSC, and other contractors in a way that academics and reporters cannot.

In a world where Blackwater is deputized, this seems an important book for all. Like the guns they wield, mercenaries can be used for good or evil.

(Those interested in the EO/Sandline mercs of the ‘90’s would do well to add Three Worlds Gone Mad to their reading list.)

It was recommended to me last summer that I read Lonely Planet’s Travel Writing. I expected the book to be about the art, but instead it focused more on the details of how one enters the travel writing and scene and how to get published — something I have little interest in. If you’re serious about making travel writing a profession, particularly if you’re interested in writing for guide books, then this may be a worthwhile read. For the rest of us… just write.

Michael Maren’s The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity shatters the glossy image of NGOs as humanitarian organizations concerned with the betterment of third-world peoples. Instead, he claims Aid as a new kind of colonization. Focusing on Somalia, Maren shows that NGOs there not only didn’t help refugees, but actively killed them. That NGOs supported the power of Siyaad Barre and, later, Mohamed Farah Aydiid. And that NGOs were largely responsible for continuing and worsening famine conditions in the early ‘90’s. In the end, he shows them as no more than Corporations concerned with profit.

It’s an excellent book. Not only for exposing the Aid industry, but for the history and understanding of Somalia.

Three Worlds Gone Mad: The Hunter, The Hammer, and Heaven gets back to what RYP does best: storytelling. The book documents Robert Young Pelton’s journeys to three different war-zones (Sierra Leone, Chechnya, and Bougainville) and his attempts to understand the place and its people. Like in DP, Pelton manages to explain the places better than any history text. Where else are you able to see from the eyes of pirate hunting mercs, American ex-CIA jihadists, and hermit rebel leaders? Unconstrained from the limits of a journalism, Pelton shows us firsthand a world outside of our own — a glimpse into war-torn regions of the world — and the ordinary people who inhabit them.

I highly recommend this book to and fans of RYP and, for those who have never read his works, this is a good place to start.

I picked up the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin at one of those library book sales a few years ago for something like $1. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf, neglected, ever since — though I kept telling myself I’d read it one day. Finally, I have.

I enjoyed the book a good deal. Though I can’t say I agree with all of Franklin’s politics or his racist leanings, I did enjoy the writing style and the insight into the times. It’s impressive how varied a man he was, seemingly every institution and employment being touched by him at some point. (And the book only goes to 30 years before his death.) I wouldn’t use the book as a mold to shape my life to, which was the book’s intention, but it’s still a good read.

The Fairhaven Folktales of Dirty Dan Harris by Michael Sean Sullivan is a fun little bit of local history. It concerns the life and times of “Dirty” Danial Harris, the sailor and whiskey smuggler who founded the town of Fairhaven in the 1800s. Dirty Dan had a reputation as quite the story teller in his time, this book being the recounting of his tales that were orally passed down after his death.

It was staring up at the sky one day at the NVC that I decided to learn what the clouds meant. So, upon return, I picked up a copy of Basic Essentials Weather Forecasting by Michael Hodgson. The book serves as a short introduction to the topic of amateur weather forecasting, a chapter of it devoted to the science of clouds. The subject, I think, is not for me — a lot of it went over my head (too many big words like cumulonimbus) — but I did manage to take a good deal from the book. I’d recommend it for anyone who spends a deal of time in the outdoors, as the ability to predict stormy weather is a useful one.

The Complete Guide to Lock Picking by Eddie the Wire is something of a classic on the subject. I find that when talking to lock specialists, I’m always referred to it at one point or another. It’s a short book. At only 80 pages, it obviously isn’t very indepth. I found the author to brush over some topics too quickly, and was also lacking in pictures to help reinforce concepts. But all in all, the book taught me a good deal. Now I need to invest in a pick set.

Ragnar Benson’s Survival Retreat: A Total Plan for Retreat Defense is a whacky little book. It focuses on suggestions for locating, building, and stocking fallout shelters for surviving anything from economic collapse to nuclear war. Published in 1983, the book contains a lot of that Cold War paranoia. It does have a number of good tips, though the author has some mental issues he should probably work on.

Riding the Rails by Michael Mathers is a photo essay of riding freight trains in the ‘60s-‘70s. The pictures are incredible, the stories and interviews intruiging. A recommended read for those interested in hoboing.

Danien Leen’s The Freighthopper’s Manual For North America is a short, concise guide for the would-be hobo. Originally printed in the ‘70s, this edition was “updated” in 1992 — meaning he added a couple useful appendices. The main part of the book, though, still feels out of date, mentioning reefers and cabooses. The whole book is only about 100 pages, about a third of that pictures. It’s a nice little manual to blow through in an hour or so, but by no means a replacement for Littlejohn’s Hopping Freight Trains in America (which I’m quickly discovering is the modern bible on the subject).

The book is a little hard to come by. I didn’t have much trouble finding a used copy online, but there’s also a stamp in the back of the book that reads:

ADDITIONAL COPIES OF THIS UNIQUE BOOK ARE AVAILABLE FOR $8.95 (U.S.) POSTPAID FROM: DANIEL LEEN BOX 191 SEATTLE, WA 98111 U.S.A.

Hitchhiking, to me, has always seemed a rather spontaneous act. Not something that required much technique — find a spot and stick you thumb out. So I was intrigued when I first heard of James MacLaren’s The Hitchhiker’s Handbook. How could someone write a book on such a simple subject? When I learned it was published by the now defunct Loompanics, I had to buy it.

The book turned out to be full of nothing but common sense — I’m still not sure how he stretched it out to 145 pages. On top of that, the author comes off as being a homophobe with not but a 6th grade writing education and a broken caps-lock. One’s time would be much better spent browsing the information found on Digihitch.

Talk is that camp site fees are being increased. They charge too much already. I prefer finding a nice, secluded spot in a National Forest, but that isn’t always available. And it can be nice to have a bathroom.

In Village Books last week, I happened upon Ray’s Guides: Free Campgrounds in Washington State. The book is a no-nonsense list of free camp sites in the state. I’ve yet to have a chance to check out any of the listed sites, but hope to soon. Ray also has guides for Oregon and Idaho.

Guitar Whitey’s Ridin’ Free is a collection of stories about the author’s sixty-some years on the rails. A Seattle native, Whitey started riding during the Great Depression, making him a “cross-over” hobo — one who rode both steam and diesel trains. The book is a wonderful testament to the wandering spirit. Certainly somewhere up there in my top 10. I would recommend it to all.

If it’s true that you only go around once, then ,maybe you’d best get at it and do it — while you still can. You can always go back to school at any age. If you are of the adventurous spirit and feel you should test yourself — then go for it — get out there and adventure on life. Go for broke. Go ahead and do it. I would urge you to hop a freight trains while you still can. Never mind where it’s going or where you’ll end up. Get that first ride under your belt and see how you like it. Get out on the highway, stick your thumb out and see what happens. Forget about a destination, just travel. Hike down some railroad track to the far horizon. Test yourself to see how far you can walk. Try spending a cold night out somewhere without blankets. Peace Pilgrim crisscrossed this country on foot for 23 years, as an older lady, with no sleeping gear. She didn’t even wear a coat. Take a vagabond trip carrying a bedroll, but take no money, and take no credit cards. Not even a quarter for the phone. See how long you can hold out. You may be surprised to find out who your friends are. Try floating down some river on a homemade raft, Huck Finn style. Take a job on a boat, any kind of boat or ship as a workaway, never mind where it’s going. Try some hellishly hard job of work (physically demanding). See how long you can tough it out. Hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Beat your way through Canada on up to Alaska and try for a job — any job, with no concern for the pay. Canada and Alaska come about as close as you’ll ever get to a “lat frontier.” Find your own adventure. Take the risk. Be a dare-devil. Try something new and scary. Try giving your money away. Go for it. Express yourself.

Hopping Freight Trains in America by Duffy Littlejohn is a howto manual for riding trains — a hobo training manual. It’s an enlightening look into trains and hobo culture. At times, the author can delve too deeply into railroad history for my tastes, or become so technical I feel like I’m reading an operation manual for the railroad, but the amount of useful (and generally unknown) information contained in these pages is immense. I highly recommend it to anyone with the slightest interest in trains, hobos, or alternative transportation.

With things going the way they are, hopping trains may soon become a much more viable option for long distance travel. Here’s your introduction.

Today I finished reading Boston T. Party’s Bulletproof Privacy. The book attempts to teach one how to live off the radar, but within Civilization. It covers topics such as building identities, anonymous addresses, bugging out, and the like. Published in 1997, much of the information is dated (I skipped the part on airplane travel). Other parts are common sense, but the book does provide a few gems of information. I’d recommend giving it a skim if you’re considering becoming invisible (or would just like the ability to do so).

Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture is an alternative American history. It is a collection of essays, poems, and art, documenting America’s lost drop-outs, rebels, and other undesirables. The majority deal with the revolutionary period.

The book has its ups and downs. Some pieces are crafted in such a way that I only skimmed through them, others enthralled me. I recommend it for fans of Hakim Bey.

Today I finished reading The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a book about the author’s time with a flock of wild parrots in San Francisco. The book has its ups and downs, becoming boring at times with the attention payed to the parrots’ every action, but, overall, it’s a good read.

Wise Woman Herbal: Healing Wise is an excellent book written by Susun Weed, one of those shifty feminist witches. She begins the book with an examination of what she sees as the three different healing methods: the scientific method (who’s motto is “your body is a machine, you broke it, and now must be punished” and who’s symbol is a line), the heroic method (who’s motto is “you broke the rules and must suffer the consequences, repent” and who’s symbol is a circle), and the wise woman method (who’s motto is “accept the illness and learn what good it has to offer” and who’s symbol is a spiral).

After analyzes the three methods and their healing practices in depth, she moves on to describing 7 herbs — common weeds that can be found in the crack of any sidewalk, in any city — but she doesn’t just devote a page or two to each. Instead, each “green ally” receives special devotion in its own chapter, and she introduces and teaches about them in wonderfully unique ways.

Obviously the book is written from the female perspective, for the female, but, as a male, I didn’t find that hindered the book for me in any way. (Though it does show how even the most seemingly free-thinking people can be boxed in by our culture and it’s duality, but that’s another discussion).

I highly recommend the book for everyone. Even if you have little interest in herbs or healing, this is a book to have on your shelve for battling the common cold. No id check required.

Gregory Tilford’s From Earth to Herbalist, which I purchased with my herbal kit, is an herbal field guide that “challenges us to reconsider our roles as herbalists, to go beyond health care consultant, medicine-maker, wildcrafter, and gardener/farmer to become earth-steward”. It combines the two roles of field guide and medical resource in one book that has managed to show me a new, “earth-conscious” way of looking at plants.

Reading it at MutantFest, all I had to do was simply adjust my gaze in order to locate most of the plants mentioned in the book. A great learning experience.

I recommend the book for anyone interested in herbal medicine.

Robert Young Pelton’s Come Back Alive is a pun on survival guides. At least, that’s what I thought when I picked it up. As it turns out, the books makes fun of most other survival guides, but takes itself seriously — slightly disturbing, as most of his advice is questionable. It focuses on urban survival (driving, crime, etc) and, of course, war zones, forsaking wilderness survival for another time (or perhaps I just glazed over the wilderness sections, knowing they wouldn’t hold much of value).

It’s written in the same dark humor found in DP, so I would recommend it for fans of RYP, but only as entertainment.

Providence is Daniel Quinn’s autobiography. Though it obviously differs from Ishmael, a work of fiction, I kept feeling that while reading Providence, I was reading what that book would be, had it been narrated by Ishmael.

The book tells of Quinn’s 50 years leading up to writing Ishmael, from growing up in the Great Depression, to studying as a Trappist monk under Thomas Merton, and his eventual rejection of Christianity and its god.

At one point, Quinn describes what he experienced as a Trappist monk when he was allowed to go outside for the first time in three weeks:

I turned and faced the sunshine, and the breath went out of me as if someone had punched me in the stomach. That was the effect of receiving this sigh, of seeing the world as it is. I was astounded, bowled over, dumbfounded.

Everything was burning.

Every blade of grass, every single leaf of every single tree was radiant, was blazing — incandescent with a raging power that was unmistakably divine.

I was overwhelmed. In a single second of this, of seeing this truth, tears flooded my eyes and poured down my face as I walked along…

What I was seeing was reality, was the world as it actually is, every moment of every day.

The book is a recommended read for fans of Quinn’s other works.

The Spell of the Sensuous is a mystical trip into the heart of animism. Magician David Abram bridges the questioning of Civilization with a look at traditional Shamanism — the “ecological dimension of the shaman’s craft.” From the first paragraph of this text-book of Deep Ecology, I was hooked. Abram’s claim is that, as humans, we have cut off contact with the non-human world, and that this is a deadly way to live. He waxes poetically on the emergence of the phonetic alphabet, analyzing that as the act that severed our connection with the sensuous, feeling world.

It is an amazing book that with every word tears away the veils of perception — shows you the world in a different light. I’ve read it twice now. Once, I started it before leaving for Thailand, and finished it there in the North. And again I picked it up towards the end of my trip and completed it upon return. It has carried me on my journey, There and Back Again.

The following was written 7-15, in Sukhothai 5:52PM I’ve finished Black Elk Speaks, as told through John Neihardt by Nicholas Black Elk, which I also purchased in Chiang Mai. I enjoyed the book as a history of the Lakota people and an insight into Native American spirituality, through the eyes of a Shaman and Warrior. It’s strange that a book written in 1931 can seem so new, even today.

What struck me most was Black Elk’s vivid memory of his past. He’s able to recount so many details, and has so many tales to tell. Yet after his people are slaughtered at Wounded Knee, he has nothing else to say. As if living the way of the Wasichus ended his life — all a downward spiral of no significance from there on.

The following was written 7-12, in the garden of my Chiang Rai guest house. 3:45PM Ralph Blum’s The Book of Runes I found faded and worn, buried deep in a used book store in Chiang Mai. It is “a handbook for the use of an ancient Oracle: the Viking Runes”. It tells of their meaning and ways of their use. They are not so much a form of divination, of future telling or fairy-tale magic, but a challenge to look into yourself. By using the runes in search of an answer, you find your own interpretation and project what you already know, but perhaps do not wish to express, onto the stones. Their symbols, sounds, and arrangements seem almost arbitrary. Still, I must question it.

In The Spell of the Sensuous (which I will have to comment more on later), David Abram spends a great deal of ink on the impact of writing, particularly phonetic, with our experience of the world. He proposes that systems such as ours, where the sounds and the symbols themselves bear little to no resemblance to anything of the sensuous world, serves to cut us off from the that world — he assaults (with the alphabet, of course) this the same way Daniel Quinn assaults agriculture. Seeing the runes through these animist eyes, one wonder why they’re to be used as an oracle. Question their validity. Their symbols have no reference to the natural world, nor do their sounds. This unlike, for instance, the Hebrew aleph-beth, the first letter of which meant ox and looked like an ox. Indeed, Odin happened upon the runes one day while torturing his own body — attempting to transcend the sensuous, and thus the whole of the natural world. From my limited understanding of the runes and their origins, I must be skeptic of their use, even if it is unimportant. I would prefer a more natural gateway within.

Still, a good read. Recommended for those who are interested in a Western version of the I Ching or Tarot cards.

The following was written 7-9 in Pai. 4:36PM I should leave Pai before I run out of books.

I’ve just now finished Jeff Greenwald’s Shopping for Buddhas, which I picked up at Hobo Books in Chiang Mai. It documents the author’s time spent in Nepal, searching for the perfect Buddha statue who’s purchase would lead to enlightenment.

I enjoyed the book — sort of a Hard Travel to Sacred Places trip. Very humorous at times, and offering up ironic spiritual journeys at others. It is an accurate description of travel throughout Asia.

The following was written 7-8, lounging around my bungalow. 5:47PM I’ve finished reading Hermann Hesse’s

Siddartha

Daniel Quinn’s My Ishmael stands above the others as the superior book in the saga of the gorilla. Prior to this, Quinn was exploring the subjects with his narrators — having some ideas down, but not quite sure where it would lead him. Here, he has obviously developed is ideas much further and is ready to lay forth practical challenges and solutions. As usual, I highly recommend this book for its revolutionary potential and wonderful writing. Keep in mind that it should be read after Ishmael and The Story of B.

Peter Jenkins’ A Walk Across America is a book I began hating but ended up loving. The tale of one man’s walk across the East of 1970’s America, it’s something of an On the Road. I don’t feel that Jenkins is a terrific writer, but the tales put down in this book are inspiring. It humanizes America.

Fred Alan Wolf’s The Yoga of Time Travel: How the Mind Can Defeat Time is, to put it lightly, a mindfuck. Using quantum physics as his base, he explains how one can travel through time. All it requires is ego-loss. (Someone’s been reading Timothy Leary.) It’s an interesting book, but most of the physics went over my head.

In The Story of B, Daniel Quinn continues the teachings first layed out in Ishmael. Through B, he furthers his criticism of Civilization by continuing to attack agriculture as its base, and expounding a great deal on religion. Indeed, the majority of the book is devoted to religious issues. Quinn classifies the major religions of the East and West — Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — all as salvationist religions, meaning that they’re all of the opinion that man needs to be saved. He shows this as a result of the development of agriculture and a demonstration that collapse is coming, and has been coming for quite a while. It is certainly a book that fans of Ishmael will enjoy and, if you haven’t read Ishmael yet, what are you doing wasting your time here?

This is it, here it is. The book that pushes away all others as the most significant book of recent times. It’s been a strong influence on me since before I heard it’s name. Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael is the originator of the primitive movement — the so-called New Tribal Revolution. By allowing one to hear the myth that bombards us every day, Ishmael calls into question the basis of our society and forces one to look at the world in a different way. There’s little to say, other than read this book.

Last night I completed Dennis Tedlock’s translation of the Popul Vuh. Often referred to as the Mayan’s Genesis, this is the Quiché people’s creation myth. It tells of the gods’ creation of the earth-sky, their attempts to create humans, the exploits of the trickster‘s Hunahpu and Xbalanque, and the times of the first humans. Unlike most sacred texts, I found this one to be quite accessible. It’s written in a way that, even in translation, flows and is easy to understand. I did have trouble pronouncing many of the names, but for that just ask your friendly neighborhood Guatemalan.

When the first humans were created (on the gods’ third attempt), they had perfect sight. The gods were worried that, being able to see “the four sides, the four corners in the sky, on the earth,” these humans’ deeds would rival their own, so they took the sight away. The name Popul Vuh translates to Council Book. It is said that the Quiché lords would sit with the this book in council and, using the original hieroglyphic version (which is now either lost or hiding) as a celestial guide, could regain the lost sight.

They knew whether war would occur; everything they saw was clear to them. Whether there would be death, or whether there would be famine, or whether quarrels would occur, they knew it for certain, since there was a place to see it, there was a book. “Council Book” was their name for it.

Mel Gibson’s upcoming film Apocalypto is supposed to be partially based on these myths. Hopefully the book will gain more attention because of it.

Rudy Wurlitzer‘s Hard Travel to Sacred Places takes us to the depths of depression caused by death, amplified by the depression of middle-class travel and expensive hotels in S.E. Asia. A kind of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but take out the drugs and toss in Buddhism. Although it’s billed as travel writing, I found the actual locations and travelling to take a back seat to the author’s attempt to reconcile the loss of his step-son with his spiritual beliefs. Indeed, if one were to take out all the Buddhist quotes, the book would probably be halved in length.

I was first introduced to Jeff Vail (former Intelligence Officer for the US Air Force) last Winter by Anthropik — which will probably give you an idea of what he’s all about. His book, A Theory of Power, has been called “the most innovative approach to anarchist theory in a generation”. It has received praise from both John Zerzan and Noam Chomsky, and includes people such as Hakim Bey, Aldous Huxley, and Robert Anton Wilson in the bibliography. Impressed? I was. And I was right to be. It’s excellent.

The book is based, not surprisingly, on Vail’s theory of power, that “connections, not the parties connected, may best represent our world.” By analyzing the connections between genes and organisms, furthering this to the connections between memes and society, he “unravels the functioning of our world” and shows us the inevitable downfall of Civilization — but then he goes further.

Hakim Bey gives us the T.A.Z.. Jeff Vail gives us the Rhizome, a way to operate outside — and inside — of the T.A.Z.’s space in time.

Rhizome acts as a web-like structure of connected but independent nodes, borrowing its name from the structures of plants such as bamboo and other grasses. By its very nature, rhizome exhibits incompatibility with such critical hierarchal structures as domestication, monoculture-agriculture, division of labor and centralized government. Unlike hierarchy, rhizome cannot suffer exploitation from within because its structure remains incompatible with centralization of power. It provides a structural framework for our conscious organization of memes. Each node in a rhizome stands autonomous from the larger structure, but the nodes work together in a larger network that extends benefits to the node without creating dependence. The critical element of a world that focuses power at the level of the individual, that can meet the demands of our genome while providing the flexibility and potential to achieve greater goals, remains the small, connected and relatively self-sufficient node of this rhizome structure. In human terms, such a node represents an economic and a cultural unit at the size preferred by our genome: the household and the tribe. Functionally self-sufficient but not isolated, cooperating but not controlled, the rhizome economy, combined with a self-awareness of control structures, provides the real-world foundation of stability and freedom.

At only 50 pages, and freely available online, there is little excuse not to read this book. Go now. Forward, to Rhizome.

An obvious follow up to DP, today I finished reading Adventure Travel in the Third World : Everything You Need To Know To Survive in Remote and Hostile Destinations by Jeff Randall and Mike Perrin. Unlike DP, I’m not a big fan of this book. Though I did learn some things in the wilderness survival and first-aid sections, the book is written rather poorly and the travel advice is, I think, common sense.

It’s not necessarily a bad book, and I certainly respect the authors for their experience and knowledge, but I don’t recommend it.

Robert Young Pelton’s The Wold’s Most Dangerous Places is worthy of being added to the “books that will make you a better human being” list. Different from RYP’s autobiography, DP is adrenaline-filled and hard-hitting. That I read its 1057 pages in little over a week is probably the highest praise I can give.

The bulk of DP acts as a guidebook to the countries profiled, but there are other sections included. When people asked me what I was reading, I found it great fun to read off a couple chapter titles to them: Bribes, Drugs, Getting Arrested, Guns, Kidnapping, Land Mines, and Mercenaries are just some of the more interesting ones.

This 5th edition, published in 2003, can at times feel extremely dated. For instance, the Iraq chapter is pre invasion of Baghdad. The Mercenaries chapter doesn’t mention Blackwater, I think one of the most prominent merc groups, but I guess few knew of them before Fallujah. Pre Ariel Sharon coma, pre Hamas victory. The U.S. chapter even has profiles of Powell and Ashcroft (and, of course, the profile of Cheney mentions nothing of his marksmanship).

The political analysis and history is single-minded and the humor dark, but that’s to be expected from someone who has experienced all that RYP and his contributors have. At times his more compassionate side comes through, making it evident that he’s still part human under that large, bushy mustache.

Despite its shortcomings, DP includes detailed information on locations that you’ll never hear about it in school or the news. Where journalists fear for their lives, RYP is admired and respected by rebel groups, dictators, and special forces groups alike.

Hard-core readers of DP… seek the stone-heavy truth of experience and the wisdom-inducing perspective of intense emotional experience, tempered by the cool intellectual framework of research. Welcome to DP: No walls, no barriers, no bull.

Tamarack Song‘s Journey to the Ancestral Self is an attempt to lay out a life philosophy that encompasses believes of all Native people. (It’s always strange, learning about stuff like this from a white guy.) I think the book fails in its goal, but succeeds in describing Tamarack’s own ideas — heavily influenced by Native thinking.

Much of the book is very similar to Hawkeen Training. I enjoyed it a good bit, and will probably continue reading more of his books (and reread this one).

Today I finished reading Ralph Metzner’s Sacred Vine of Spirits: Ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca (which translates to either “vine of the dead” or “vine of the spirits”) is a hallucinogenic tea, native to South America and used there for shamanic healing purposes since pre-history. Also known as caapi, hoasca, yagé, natéma, mihi, kahi, pinde, and dapa, the brew is made of the bark of the vine Banisteriopsis caapi (which itself is also known as Ayahuasca) and (most commonly) the leaves of Psychotria viridis. Psychotria viridis is what contains the dimethyltryptamine (DMT), making the mixture hallucinogenic, but the DMT, when consumed orally, is made inactive by monamine oxidase (MOA). Thus the bark of the Banisteriopsis caapi is used for its MOA inhibiting property, allowing the DMT to take its course. Most interestingly, DMT is almost identical in structure to Serotonin, a neurotransmitter produced throughout the brain and responsible for “higher functions of behavior, such as planning and other time-related events.” Serotonin is eventually deactived by the same thing that deactives DMT, MOA. So, one could consume only the bark of the Ayahuasca vine (or any other MOA inhibiter) and receive a similar psychoactive active to that produced by DMT. (Apparently some antidepressants take this route.) Terence McKenna, in many of his recordings, fondly referred to the Ayahuasca brew as “brain soup”, since nothing in it is not naturally in your body.

As another interesting aside, there is DMT in your body right now (the human body naturally produces it), yet, in the United States, it is illegal to possess without a DEA license. Go to jail.

The first 100 pages or so of the book goes over the scientific, medical, and psychological properties of the tea, providing for more knowledge on the brew than I thought possible to know. The rest of the book is devoted to various first-hand experiences with Ayahuasca — all of which are excellent. I recommend the book highly for anyone remotely interested in Ayahuasca, psychology, or medicine.

(During my reading of this book, the U.S. Supreme Court came very close to recognizing Ayahuasca as a religious sacrament.)

When I first received Laurence Gonzales’ Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, I expected it to be a dry survival manual — specific solutions to specific situations. After the few few pages of the book, my expectations were quickly shot to the ground and the book managed to raise itself to the status of one of the best books I’ve ever read. Rather than dry disaster reports and analysis, I found the book to be part brain science, part stoic philosophy, and part zen teachings. It is a survival manual, but not like anything you expect. I highly recommend it to anyone, regardless of your interest in wilderness, as, more than anything, it’s a book about how to live.

I’ve finally finished reading Carlos Castaneda‘s The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. The book documents Casteneda’s time with a Yaqui shaman named Juan Matus. In the book, Don Juan takes Casteneda, a then young anthropology student at UCLA, under his wing as an apprentice shaman, teaching him the ways of Mescalito, Devil’s Weed, and a smoke mixture containing mushroom. (During my reading, a number of people asked if the book served as a sort of manual for these entheogens. Spiritual, perhaps, but not practical.)

There’s plenty of controversy surrounding the series of books, of which The Teachings of Don Juan is the first, but I really don’t see why it matters if Don Juan was a real person, or whether he was created as a medium for the book’s message — or whether Castenada simply hallucinated the whole thing. The books explores many interesting ideas, many of which would do good to be considered by people today.

Don Juan’s personification of not only the plants mentioned in the book, but also non-living objects, such as his pipe, have been imprinted on my mind. Regardless of whether you honestly suscribe to the indigineous way of thinking — that, in Don Juan’s case, the peyote plant is actually a teacher named Mescalito with various human characteristics — it is undeniably a healthy way of living.

Try this: take one day, or one hour, out of your life and treat everything you come in contact with — from your underwear, to your boss(es)/teacher(s)/parent(s)/friend(s), to your food — not as an item to be exploited but as a being to enter into a relationship with. If you look at a tree and see dollar bills, you’ll treat it one way. If you look at a tree and see a tree, you’ll treat it another. Which way of thinking, do you think, children seven generations from now will thank you for? (Those who listened to the Derrick Jenson interview I previously linked to will find this concept not so new.)

I look forward to continuing Castaneda’s series.

Last night I finished reading Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America by Dennis McNally (perhaps better known for his biography of the Grateful Dead), a book which I picked up for a few dollars this year at Bumbershoot. I never knew Kerouac had such a depressing life. In fact, it was pretty much over by about 1960. He sure was one strange antisemitic, christian-buddhist, hippie hating, drunk.

I’ve finished reading R. U. Sirius’ Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House, as per recommendation of Douglas Rushkoff. It’s an excellent book, which covers, as the title suggests, counterculture from the early counterculture of Socrates, Tao and Zen to the Enlightenment, Transcendentalism, Beats, Hippies, Punks, Hackers, Ravers, and even mentions S.P.A.Z.. The second part of the book (it’s split into three parts — defining counterculture, pre and post Hiroshima) reads more or less as a condensed history of the Western world.

I’ve finally finished reading Naomi Klein’s No Logo. It’s been on my bookshelf for over a year, and I’ve been reading it for about a month. For some reason it was really slow reading for me, but overall it is a good book — if slightly dated (pre Seattle and pree 9/11). It can be summed up in a few statements: 1) Modern advertising = evil 2) Corporate outsourcing = evil 3) Reclaim the Streets, Adbusting, Culture Jamming = Good

Today I finished reading The Black Pullet, a book which discusses various amulets and rings that give the bearer power to become invisible, conjure spirits, punish their enemies — you know, the usual. An entertaining read.

I’ve just finished reading John Shirley‘s Crawlers. I picked it up expecting it to be a cyberpunk book, but it turned out to be more horror than anything else. It takes about 200 pages to get actually get into the book, but I ended up enjoying it. It reminds me a lot of some of Sean Kennedy‘s fiction.

Last night I completed reading Sybil Leek’s Diary of a Witch. Although I’m not a fan of Sybil’s writing style, the book is very interesting. It’s part biography, part rant. She covers everything from her time living gypsies in New Forest to her thoughts on reincarnation.

During MutantFest, I finished reading Hunter’s The Rum Diary. It’s your typical Hunter Thompson book, but with rum instead of drugs.

A whole lot of rum.

I’ve just finished reading Sean Kennedy’s The Bloodstained Rabbit. I should probably start off by saying that I’m not a big fan of the horror genre — in fact this is probably the first real horror novel I’ve read. That said, I liked the book. A lot.

I don’t think it was so much of a horror book as it was a thriller. (Although it has all the makings of a good horror: nazis, the occult, lots of gore, interdimensional beings, etc.) Sean did a great job with keeping you tense (the scene with the Indian hunting party….I burned through that a sentence a second because of the suspense).

It could have used more editing, though. There were plenty of obvious typos that probably would have been fixed if one more pair of eyes had looked it over before printing.

I’ve just finished reading Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s one of those books I should have read a while ago, but kept putting it over because of the story that Kesey only wrote it to fund Further. Whether that’s true or not, it’s still an excellent book.

Yesterday I started and completed reading Aleister Crowley‘s The Book of the Law (also known as Liber AL vel Legis)— although I really shouldn’t say it is Crowley’s since, as the story goes, it was dictated to him by a spirit called Aiwass.

The book describes the philosophy of Thelema and is something of a holy text to two cults that I’ve been looking into recently: the Ordo Templi Orientis and Argenteum Astrum.

It ended up being your basic cult material. The basic theme of the book is the one law, “do what thou wilt”. All peaches and cream, right? Well, it would be, but they’re not a big fan of folks who don’t subscribe to Thelema.

Refuse none, but thou shalt know & destroy the traitors… Them that seek to entrap thee, to overthrow thee, them attack without pity or quarter; & destroy them utterly. Swift as a trodden serpent turn and strike ! Be thou yet dealier than he ! Drag down their souls to awful torment : laugh at thei fear ; and spit upon them !

Let the Scarlet Woman beware ! If pity and compassion and tenderness visit her heart ; if she leave my work to toy with old sweetnesses ; then shall my vengeance be know. I will slay me her child : I will alienate her heart : I will cast her out from men : as a shrinking and despised harlot shall she crawl through dusk wet streets, and die cold and an-hungered.

With my Hawk’s head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs up the cross.

I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him.

With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the Buddhis, Mongol and Din.

Let Mary inviolate be torn upon wheels : for her sake let all chaste women be utterly despised among you !

Not a friendly bunch, eh?

But the keen and the proud, the royal and the lofty ; ye are brothers !

And it ends with this, The Comment:

Do whalt thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. The study of this Book is Forbidden. It is wise to destroy this copy after the first reading. Whosoever disregards this does so at his own risk and peril. These are most dire. Those who discuss the contents of this Book are to be shunned by all, as centres of pestilence. All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself. There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt. Love is the law, love under will. The priest of the princes, ANKH-F-N-KHONSU

Today I finished reading Derrick Jensen‘s A Language Older Than Words. I’m not sure what to say about it, other than it’s the best book I’ve yet to read.

Go. Read it.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was ok. Nothing great. The book was better.

The audio books, read by DNA, are still the best interpretation, I think.

You know what really pisses me off? They cut out the part about the babelfish disproving God. That was the best bit. How could they cut that out but leave in the sperm whale?

Zaphod was really good. Although I always pictured him as short and fat.

Today I finished reading Eric S. Nylund’s Signal to Noise. I’ve had somewhat of a love-hate relationship with the book, but, in the end, love prevails and I’d recommend it to any cyberpunk fan. Although it’s not your average cyberpunk. I think of cyberpunk as generally being placed in a sci-fi setting, but not focusing much on the actual science fiction. And, of course, cyberpunk has your post-apocalyptic/dystopia themes, too. Signal to Noise is leaning more toward normal science fiction — they have aliens! — and ends with the apocalypse, instead of taking place in it. It ends in a cliff-hanger, too. Bastard.

All in all, a good book. I think Eric Nylund spent a tad too long at Microsoft, though. The whole book revolves around corporations and business.

A few weeks ago I finished reading Timothy Leary’s The Politics of Ecstasy. It’s an ok book. Less attention on the philosophical/mystical side of the psychedelic experience, and more on the real-world stuff. You know, politics.

I’ve just finished reading Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. One of the best books ever written, I’d say. Definitely deserved the Nobel Prize. It should be required reading for all Westerners.

I need to read it again.

I just finished reading James Bamford’s The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America’s Most Secret Intelligence Organization. If you have any interest the intelligence community, spys, or privacy, read this book. It has more information than I ever thought the NSA would possibly let out. (The fact that they did let it out frightens me. What are they hiding?) I can’t emphasize this enough: Read This Book. You’ll be amazed.

At the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology… I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America… That is the abyss from which there is no return. -Senator Frank Church, 1973, referring to the NSA’s SIGINT technology

Today I finally finished reading Volume Two of Emma Goldman’s Living My Life. Although it’s a direct continuation of the first (the first page is 504), I didn’t enjoy it as much as Volume One. The meat of the book is on Soviet Russia, following her 1919 deportation from America, which I just found to be too depressing. Everybody should read the first volume. If you feel like it, go for the second.

Now I need to figure out what happened to her after her autobiography ends (1923/24).

Last weekend I finished reading Pirate Utopias. Although it tends to be a very dry read, I recommend it if you’re interested in pirates; and who isn’t? I like the cover, too.

I’ve finally finished reading Emma Goldman’s Living My Life, Vol. 1. It’s a very good book. Even though I don’t agree with all of her ideas, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I think that people who aren’t even partial to anarchist ideals would like it.

I just finished reading The Virus Creation Labs: A Journey into the Underground. Although I have respect for George C. Smith, I didn’t enjoy the book very much. It’s interesting in a historical sense, but at times I find the book either too dry or not technical enough (yes, I know that’s contradictory); not to mention it just seemed to read too much like Masters of Deception, or some other book touting the good old days of underground BBS’s and those evil leet hackers. It’s short enough, so I guess if you have an interest in computer viruses, namely their history, you should pick it up and finish it in a day.

I finished reading Life of Pi (school required reading) last night. The first 100 pages or so I absolutely despised (religious rants and whatnot), but after Pi became a castaway, I enjoyed the book. The book’s tagline “this book will make you believe in God,” holds no substance. To me, god(s) wasn’t even a part of the book after page 100 or so. Oh well. It’s not your typical school required reading.

I just finished reading Neal Stephenson’s The Confusion. It’s long. Although not as long as Quicksilver or Cryptonomicon. Anywhoo, if you enjoyed Quicksilver, go read The Confusion. If you are impartial toward Quicksilver, go read The Confusion. If you didn’t like Quicksilver, don’t go read The Confusion.

I finished reading Dracula last night. It’s a good book (far better than any adaptions of the tale), but much too long. Only the last half of the book is really concerned with Count Dracula.

I finished reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road last night. It’s one of the best books I’ve read, by the self-proclaimed “voice of the Beat Generation”.

Hailed by The New York Times as the most beautifully executed, the clearest, and the most important utterance yet of the Beat Generation, On the Road is the kind of book people read, reread, and take to heart.

If you dislike William S. Burroughs, then don’t worry. Kerouac is completely different…yet somehow the same.

So go read the book.

I finished reading Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon today. The quote on the front from the London Times sums the book up best

This seamless marriage of hardcore cyberpunk and hard-boiled detective tail is an astonishing first novel.

I finished reading Crimethinc‘s Off the Map. It’s the story of two girls from Olympia who travel to Europe with no money, squatting in different buildings and the like. I highly recommend it. It’s one of my favorite books. From the site:

A punk rock vision quest told in the tradition of the anarchist travel story, Off the Map is narrated by two young women as they discard their maps, fears, and anything resembling a plan, and set off on the winds of the world. Without the smug cynicism that seems to permeate most modern radical tales, this story is told with genuine hope, and a voice that never loses its connection with the mysteries of life, even in the midst of everyday tragedies. Wandering across Europe, the dozens of vignettes are the details of the whole—a squatted castle surrounded by tourists on the Spanish coast, a philosophizing businessman on the highways of France, a plaza full of los crustos in Barcelona, a diseased foot in a Belgian train squat, a glow bug on the dew-covered grass of anywhere—a magical, novel-like folktale for the end of the world.

I finished reading Junky: The Definitive Text of “Junk” by William S. Burroughs today. It’s a good book. I enjoyed it more than Naked Lunch. The writing is easier to follow, there is a discernible plot, and less homosexual orgies. If you don’t feel like reading the book, I’ll sum it up for you: don’t do opium or derivatives thereof.

I finished reading Siva Vaidhyanathan‘s Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity. It’s an interesting book, if you’re into copyright. Me, well, I was bored at parts, and it’s not very high on my recommendation list. I suggest you go to your local bookstore and read the Afterword. If you’re not getting evil glares from the management when you finish that, skim the last chapter (“The Digital Moment”). Those are the only good parts.

I finished reading A Clockwork Orange. It’s an excellent book, definitely one of my favorites. If you’ve seen the movie, you must read the book, which is much better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book, then first watch the movie and then read the book. Over half the words were completely made up by Anthony Burgess, so watching the movie first helps to give you an idea of how he talks. If you’ve never heard of it, the story is somewhat of a 1984 meets Peter Pan. A horrorshow book.

The edition of the book that I linked to includes the last chapter, which was previously unavailable in the US version and also cut out from Stanley Kubrick’s movie. This really should be a sin, as the last chapter completely makes the book.

Also, a warning: the movie, and the book even more so, are definitely deserving of the R rating.

I just realized that when I said I had finished reading Ecstasy Club, I never said what it was about. Well, on a literal level it documents the rise and fall of a cult-ish rave club in San Francisco. At it’s worst it’s a drug-induced psychological journey through the collective mind of a bunch of ravers trying to take the human raise to the next evolutionary level through drugs and electronica. At it’s best it’s a paranoid vision of corporate brainwashing and mind control.

“A darkly comic contemporary fable: a brave, very funny, very knowing trip through the neo-psychedelic substrate of the wired world.” - William Gibson

Read it. And don’t do E.

I just realized that I never posted a few days ago when I finished Reading Simulacra: Fatal Theories for Postmodernity. So, yeah, I did. It was interesting, but seemed to dragged on at certain parts. You can tell it heavily influenced The Matrix.

Jason Scott is on the last episode of Radio FreeK America, 99.

I finished reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas last night. That’s a damn good book, in an LSD-induced sort of way. I Think the New York Times Book Review quote on the back does a good job of summing it up

The best book on the dope decade.

We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls… But the only thing that worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge…

I finished Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick last night. It’s a very good, highly recommended book. My favorite story is the Electric Ant. Go read it.

I finished Crypto a few days ago. It’s more of a recent history of cryptography (Lucifer/DES, public key, RSA, PGP) but the author loves to focus on how much the NSA tried to fsck everything up. Ok book, I guess.

I’ve recently discovered MlDonkey: an open-source p2p client that connects to the Donkey (edonkey, emule), Fasttrack (Kazzaa), IRC Direct Connect, Soulseek, BitTorrent, Gnutella, and Open Napster networks. An excellent idea but it can’t seem to keep a connection to the servers so it takes a long time to download anything. A project to watch, though.

I finished reading Simon Singh’s The Code Book yesterday. It is a short (350 pages compared David Kahn’s book which is over 1000) history of cryptography from the ancient Greek’s Linear B script all the way up to quantum cryptography. I think it’s unique in that he not only describes the code to you but takes you through the process of breaking it and manages to tie in the intriguing back story, as well. You get cryptography, cryptanalysis, and a mystery story in each chapter. I’d probably recommend it to anyone with an interest in cryptography (no math required).
The last chapter (A Quantum Leap into the Future) also manages to serve as a great introduction to quantum theory. He provides a short overview of the two camps: superposition (the cat is both dead and alive) and the many-worlds interpretation (the multi-verse, the cat is dead in one universe and alive in the other). And yes, this does tie into crypto!

It appears that WiFi will not be used at the 2004 Olympics in Athens because of security reasons. Could this be a sign that the general public is catching on to the insecurities of 802.11b/g/a? Certainly the people who put on the Olympics aren’t the general public but I wouldn’t consider them hackers or geeks, either.

I finally finished Cryptonomicon. Good book.

I just finished read The Fugitive Game by Jon Littman tonight. It’s a very good read and I’d recommend it to anybody interested in Kevin Mitnick, computing history, or hacking in general. It really does a great job of seperating fact from fiction and dismissing all the media hype that followed the case. To go along with the book, I decided to order 2600’s movie Freedom Downtime for $20. I think that’ll be interesting.

Oh! Has anybody else heard the latest edition of Off the Hook (Oct. 16th, I believe)? It was a 2 hour special featuring Mitnick. Go. Download. Now.