trochee: (Default)
trochee ([personal profile] trochee) wrote2004-11-22 06:29 pm

books books books

A brief update, mostly to identify all the stuff I've been reading:

Chomsky's MA thesis The Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew. Obsessively-formalized without any apparent sensitivity to what this formalism means. Most of that comes from its era.

Aliens and Linguists, by Walter E. Meyers, at the recommendation of [livejournal.com profile] ozarque. A fairly basic but entertaining exploration (in 1980) of how science fiction copes with language questions.

Ocean, the new comic miniseries by Warren Ellis. The opening three pages alone (and the surprise -- sort of -- on page 4) are worth the price of the comic. And it keeps up the quality (the preview doesn't capture the sense of wonder in it, though).

Various other comics, not nearly as good (Lucifer, Fables, Terra Obscura -- which is head-and-shoulders the best of those three, but still seems tired somehow). BPRD: The Dead is pretty good; it's nice to see Mignola writing again (preview here).

On my list of to-read, but holding off because I need rewards for doing work:
Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson, which I got today because it's out in paperback.
Finder, still the best comic out there.
Volume 2 of the uneven Boneyard.

[identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com 2004-11-23 05:57 am (UTC)(link)
So I just talked to my dad who apparently was still up and bonding with a figuring of Don Quixote I had just sent to him, and I mentioned my childhood Chomsky/Abbe Faria from Count of Monte Cristo conflation, and he reminded me that around the time that I read Lord of the Rings for the first time this amalgam figure also began to include some Ganfolf teachers. No wonder I like old men as mentors!

Anyway, wonderful to talk to you...

[identity profile] trochee.livejournal.com 2004-11-23 06:47 am (UTC)(link)
oo, and I have an essay lurking in me about Quixote. Dammit, just not enough hours in the day...

[identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com 2004-11-23 07:23 am (UTC)(link)
erm, figurine. Apparently talking to you has impaired my ability to spell.

[identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com 2004-11-23 07:24 am (UTC)(link)
p.s. what is the thesis of said lurking essay?

[identity profile] trochee.livejournal.com 2004-11-23 07:40 am (UTC)(link)
I could tell you, but then you'd write it up in some anthro journal and scoop me.

It has (quite literally) been on my to-do list for months. I will get around to it. soon. It involves Quixote and Borges and The White Stripes and Dolly Parton. Yes, really.

[identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com 2004-11-23 07:58 am (UTC)(link)
anthropology journals don't care about dead colonial fools.

[identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com 2004-11-23 05:58 am (UTC)(link)
erm, Ganfolf features.

[identity profile] trochee.livejournal.com 2004-11-23 05:59 am (UTC)(link)
er, Gandalf features.