reading & watching
Copenhagen — Michael Frayn
Perhaps we are incomprehensible to ourselves and perhaps the perception is inalterably entangled with the action. The many interpretations of one meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg in the midst of World War 2.
Good Material — Dolly Alderton
The most amazing break up book; no one is completely in the wrong and everyone is embarrassing. The last chapter unabashedly carries the whole thing.
The Dispossessed — Ursula K Le Guin
Barren wasteland utopia below and lush dystopia above, though direction is relative depending on which world you stand. 170 years after the anarchists on Urras left for the moon, creating the anarch-communist society, Anarres, theoretical physicist, Shevek, is the first of his people to travel back. We move through his life, alternating before and after this journey from plain freedom to gilded cage.
Easily 5 stars.
‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas ’ — Ursula K Le Guin
I found this in the syllabus of a course on Utilitarianism and am nothing if not an Ursula Le Guin lover. What does it say about us to not accept the utopia and understand implicitly that there must be some underbelly? We cannot have abundance without exploitation, not even in imagination. Yet Le Guin endorses the reckless optimism required to imagine.
Some reaction pieces to Omelas:
The Odyssey — dir. Christopher Nolan
Stunning film and amazing theatric experience. For me, left much to be desired in how much I cared about, was interested in, or challenged by the characters. This hits the plot beats with little of the many-twists, many-faces, polytropos of the original text. We should be both furious with and enthralled by Odysseus. For most of the movie, I felt nothing towards him at all.
An Uncomplicated Man — Emily Wilson
Lots of discourse around this! Emily Wilson is the first woman to publish a translation of the Odyssey. Her review of Nolan’s Odyssey film is predictably gorgeous and evocative. It captures well the emotional gaps I felt in seeing the film and the difference in values between the Greek original text and uniquely American-soldier-esque adaptation.
The Dark Night of Mathematics
A mathematician’s meditation on the future of his work and the field of mathematics broadly in the wake of LLMs producing counterexamples to significant long-standing conjectures. What does it mean to be in an intellectual field increasingly indifferent to your contributions by virtue of being less efficient? Is part of the effervescence of discovery wrapped up in the human curiosity and resilience? Would the surpassing of human capabilities in mathematics by AI sever us completely from the spiritual and sacred value of discovery?
listening
Swing — Billie Marten
Alabama — Neil Young
Tusk — Fleetwood Mac
1901 — Phoenix
Los Angeles — Big Thief
butterflies. — Brent Faiyaz
Heaven Knows — 54 Ultra
