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Showing posts from October, 2015

Plot Twist - The Hippies Didn't Actually Save Physics - Physicists Did.

How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival by David Kaiser My rating: 2 of 5 stars In a word, ug. Honestly, I was disappointed with the lack of physics. Aside from a solid explanation of the two slit experiment and Bell’s Theorem (which is used to assert quantum nonlocality), and the refutation of the no-cloning theorem there is very little here. This is not a book about physics, but a book about how the nature of philosophical questions about physics was preserved by the Fundamental Fysics Group (FFG), a group of disaffected from the mainstream physicists who tried their damnedest to use Bell’s Theorem as a basis for parapsychology, getting the CIA, DIA, and Erhard to foot the bill. While I regard philosophical questions about physics to be of fundamental importance, but with all the book’s emphasis on Uri Geller’s “mental spoon bending” (were these people so easily duped?), EST seminars with LSD and naked coeds to attract physicists like F

Bob Dylan playing with the Grateful Dead

Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again [6:03] Tomorrow Is A Long Time [4:42] Highway 61 Revisited [4:12] It's All Over Now, Baby Blue [5:40] Ballad Of A Thin Man [4:42] (cuts) You can see most of the show in this video: Quality varies.   E Rutherford New Jersey, 7/12/87 Full Setlist: Sunday, July 12, 1987 E Rutherford, New Jersey Set One: Hell In A Bucket [5:49] West L.A. Fadeaway [6:46] Greatest Story Ever Told (*) [4:04] Loser [6:15] Tons Of Steel [4:51] Take A Step Back Tuning Ramble On Rose [6:19] When I Paint My Masterpiece [4:33] When Push Comes To Shove [4:34] The Promised Land [3:53] > Bertha [6:45] Set Two: Morning Dew [9:21] Playing In The Band [9:09] > Drums [7:31] > Space [5:01] > The Other One [4:36] > Stella Blue [7:34] > Throwing Stones [9:12] > Not Fade Away [6:35] Set Three: Slow Train [4:01] Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again [6:03] Tomorrow Is A Long Time [4:42] Highway 6

Rosemary's Baby - Review after my Happy Halloween reread

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin My rating: 5 of 5 stars Ira Levin specializes in disturbing tales of enormous vision. As such, Rosemary’s Baby is a quintessential tale of terror, standing beside giants like Frankenstein and Dracula, because it creates a new, oft-imitated horror form. The book is essentially a psychological conflict set in New York CIty, the capital of the modern sophisticated world, where a young newlywed couple, composed of an ambitious self-centered actor and his made-in-Omaha housewife, are drawn into a world of Satanists for the express purpose of forging (with Rosemary’s reluctant assistance) Satan Incarnate. The book is set in 1966, “Year One” of the new era, a year of tremendous conflict and change, and this plays a role in the book’s setting and also figures in the plot: [part of Rosemary’s reaction is in response to the cover of Time that says “Is God Dead?” (hide spoiler) ] I’ve read it three times now and I’ve reacted differently each time. The fi

Thomas Tryon - Harvest Home

Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon My rating: 4 of 5 stars Let’s take a successful, but troubled couple (Ned & Beth Constantine) with a daughter (Kate) who has emotional issues that manifest in physical illness out of the city and put them in the country where all their problems will be solved. Give them a rainbow to point the way. Now, let’s see what happens. Is there a more frightening horror archetype than the fertility cult? Belief in Earth Mother, representing both the bounty of the earth and motherhood, is thousands of years old. We see figures that some archeologists believe represent mother goddesses dating back to Paleolithic times. The Venus of Dolni VÄ›stonice (Brno, Czech Republic) dates from 29000 BCE to 25000 BCE. In Neolithic time both in Europe and the New World, there are mother goddess symbols associated with fertility. Later there are Isis & Hathor of the Egyptians and Demeter for the Greeks. There is Venus for the Romans, and Mary who was worshiped as a moth

My Review of Knebel's Seven Days in May (a reread after 35 years)

Seven Days In May by Fletcher Knebel My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is the third time I’ve read Fletcher Knebel’s novel about a beleaguered president whose job is threatened by a charismatic military man. Before I go into my new impressions I will give a short summary of the political situation of 1961-2, when the book was written, coinciding incidentally with my first year alive. President Eisenhower (a two-term president who was a famous military commander in World War II) left the Oval Office in Jan 1961 after President Kennedy’s election in November of 1960. Kennedy was also a WWII war hero for leading his crew to safety after his torpedo boat, PT-109, was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer. Kennedy was matched against Nikolai Kruschev, a formidable player in the Cold War. 1961 saw American embarassment in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, a summit in Vienna, and the construction of the Berlin Wall. The novel was set in the 1970s (1973 I believe) in an alternate America where a

Moving Interview with Trey Anastasio - New Yorker

Alec Wilkinson interviews Trey Anastasio: (1) Conversation about songwriting, influences, playing with the Dead, summer tour, parenthood, much more. (2) Performances of "Blaze On", "The Line", "Joy", "Cartwheels", "Farmhouse", "Backwards Down the Number Line", "Sample in a Jar" Listen to show here! I loved the story of counting down "Althea".

Bold is the Thirst of a Butterfly