How to Read Donal Duck. Dorfman & Mattelard
This book was burnt by the Pinochet Government in Chile, censored in Argentina and banned in the USA in 1975. It is a classic popular study on cultural imperialism and children's literature.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Paulo Freire.
It deals with the philosophy of education for the practice of freedom. It is based in the conviction that every human being, no matter how ignorant or how submerged in the "culture of silence" is capable of looking critically at reality and transform it.
One Hundred Years Of Solitude. Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
It made me think about literary possibilities. How to think about time, history and memory. How history, culture, magic and the supernatural can be expressed.
The Catcher in The Rye. J.D. Salinger.
I identified with Holden when I was 19, and felt that Salinger understood.
It is towards the end of the book when Holden decides that he would leave and take off to California or somewhere. He wants before he leaves, to give a note to his sister and takes it the her school. When he’s going upstairs to the Principal's office to deliver it he sees the word “Fuck you” written on the wall and he erases it. He didn’t want the children to think about it and to worry. But when he comes back downstairs by a different staircase he sees another “fuck you” on the wall. He says : “ I tried to rub it off with my hand again, but this one was scratched on, with a knife or something. It wouldn’t come off. It’s hopeless, anyway. If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the “Fuck you” signs in the world. It’s
impossible."
Sister Outsider. Audre Lorde.
For many things, and her essay Poetry is not A Luxury.
"For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt - of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on a Sunday morning at 7 A.M., after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth, mourning the dead - while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while we taste new possibilities and strengths."
There are many many more.....
3 comments:
In no particular order:
Anthem - Ayn Rand
The Shape of Content - Ben Shahn
TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, Second Edition - Peter Lamborn Wilson (as Hakim Bey)
Still Life with Woodpecker - Tom Robbins
Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac
Any words from the mouth or mind of Marguerite Ann Johnson
Zen Mind Beginner Mind - Shunryu Suzuki-roshi
I don't see any of these texts as particularly life changing events, more as pillars which I was able to align myself with along my path. Thinking about the quote that Chris brought in, there were many times in my life that I felt my thoughts to be slightly insanein the face of society and reality because what I belived in was against the grain and then these books pop up, some new some old, to remind me that these ideas are not new, nor am I crazy or sane - just different.
J. Baldwin
Jim Zimpel
AD463
5 Books of Influence Workshop for Sylvia
5 Books (in no particular order), each caught my attention and effected me at the time in ways I might not be able to appreciate at this time:
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera)
I read this book approximately 10 years ago and saw it as an eye opening kind of book that struck a chord with some things I was going through at the time but also as a work that spoke to me, from what I recall, in broader terms regarding ideals, nostalgia, and a life imagined.
• A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson)
This book provided me with an escape from Chicago and the Urban through what felt like a walk with an old friend while learning a lot about the American landscape, Parks system, and a variety of other things. I remember that I loved to read this book while traveling on the bus or CTA while listening to Andrew Bird's Weather Systems, and found myself in a bizarre euphoria on walks back to my place in Bridgeport at the time.
• The Infinite Plan (Isabel Allende)
Another case of the right book at the right time, Allende is an incredible writer-so choosing one book of hers was a difficult decision.
• Nausea (Jean-Paul Sarte)
This book provided me with a less dry and more approachable ("real") way to read philosophy. I remember that I felt as if I related to the thoughts and feelings of the character at the time in some cases.
• Classic Hunting Stories (edited by Lamar Underwood)
This is another “escapist” selection similar to Bryson's on my list that provided me with intimate views of some historical figures and famous hunts. I find this kind of work freeing and exciting as it allows me to tap into my longing to participate and be immersed in nature. Reading about hunting also reconnects me with my blue collar, mid-western, relatives and roots which I have in some ways lost contact with through my families divergences.
Excerpt from The Unbearable Lightness of Being (page 208):
The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. From the time he met Tereza, no woman had the right to leave the slightest impression on that part of his brain.
1. Walden and Civil Disobedience, ralph emerson - first non novel read in school, a real man with a sober high.
2. Narcissus and Goldman, herman hesse - women as a source of inspiration
3. Against Nature, Karl Huysmans - victorian decadence in an era of change and social unrest
rafael
4. Interaction of Color, joseph albers - the science of art
5. My bondage and My freedom, fredrick douglas - against all odds
rafael
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