Showing posts with label Kilgore Trout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kilgore Trout. Show all posts

Tuesday 25 August 2020

Uniform - #AnimalAugust #16


The sky is a uniform grey and it's raining and drizzling a perfect situation for the word "dreich" , not exactly great walking weather or inspirational and certainly not summery.

With the weather being so awful I was wondering if I could hit my 11K steps without actually leaving the house. I know people have done it, but basically the house is about ten steps from side to side, so going from one side to the other and back 550 times would actually do it but I could see that tedium would  hit me very quickly. Of course there is up and down stairs and the rest of the house to use but it's a lot of repetition, which I am not really up for.

Yesterday during a work meeting the sound went off, and I assumed that there was a problem with the person speaking then realised my TV , that provides the sound, and switched it self off which it does after four hours. After several months I found the setting to stop it from switching itself off, but this means I now have to remember to switch it off when I've finished with it.

On my #MusicWhileYouWork Instagram sequence which I started when working from home I am now listening to the Bruce Springsteen "Soundstage" 15CD box , which is still available for around £20 , and while it's a radio broadcast quality , it is still excellent. I'm on CD2 so a long way to go and after this I have a 4CD David Bowie set (The Collaborator) to enjoy.

Still on "Venus on the Halfshell" and though it's dated tongue in cheek , I am still enjoying it, and it is packed full of ideas and observations that are very relevant today.

Over the last week I have binge watched (for me) lots of TV coming to the finale of "Veep" , one and a half series of "Bosch" , which is very good and his apartment and view is worth watching the program for.

"Shortly After Take Off" by BC Camplight has just been played by Chris Hawkins on 6Music, followed by "96 Tears" by ? & The Mysterians which put me in mind of Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs who had a hit with "Wooly Bully" which will do for today's #AnimalAugust .

I'm just wondering whether to have a September sequence based on fruit , but will have to think of a hashtag for that.

Thursday 20 August 2020

Sun Back - #AnimalAugust #14


Last night there was another Windows update , but this was a five minute one so I'm OK with that. Just wish that they were all that easy.

After the deluge that night the sun looks to have returned and it's a beautiful morning. This has continued so far and is looking to be a nice day after the greyness earlier in the week.

While I didn't feel liek doing any walking, that has picked up so I'm back on target for my steps.

I'm enjoying "Venus On The Halfshell" although Mr Farmer takes every opportunity to drop in a single entendre . On slightly unusual thing , is , I know it's a 1970s copy, but the pages are on quite thick paper, and I keep thinking that I've turned multiple pages, but I am re enjoying the book.

I also keep dipping into "Small Dreams of a Scorpion" with Milligan veering from funny / absurd  to serious and thought provoking.

TV wise I am on the final series of Veep and despite everyone being particularly awful (like the American Republicans and the UK Tory Party) it is very funny and incredibly well written and acted. Sometimes you see actors being particularly obnoxious , but generally that shows them just to be excellent actors.

Once I've finished that I do have "Silicon Valley" to be getting on with , which also has it's share of obnoxious characters.

For #AnimalAugust I can share "Five Years Time" by Noah and the Whale , a particular favourite of mine in it's almost flung together feel.

Have a brilliant Thursday.

Monday 16 September 2019

Answer


I am enjoying, if that's the right word, "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins but seems to be more against  organised controlling religion and by extension the monotheist "god" which is the focus of most religion. I'm a tenth of the way through the book and think that at some point he will take aim and my own belief that evolution won't waste our consciousness but I have no evidence or reason to believe that, but you can never satisfactorily prove the non-existence of something, and also the fact that we cannot explain something means we have not found the answer. I couldn't really explain how a plane flies but it's not supernatural, magic or the will of god.

Also I wonder if Richard Dawkins would have a problem with people who worshipped the Earth and believed when they die become one with the Earth. He couldn't really argue with the basic premis.

Often religion is a search for "the answer" and two books spring to mind that provide the solution.

The first being Douglas Adams' "Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" which gives that answer as 42 but the tells us you need to know what the question was.

The next is "Venus on the Half Shell" written by Philip Jose Farmer under the pseudonym Kilgore Trout, a creation of the amazing Kurt Vonnegut. Basically the protagonist is searching for God to ask, in his opinion, the ultimate question:

Why are we born to suffer and die?

Through many adventures he eventually comes face to face with God and asks his questionand God answers:

Why Not?

A great ending to the book.

And just a thought, why doesn't the Christian God have a proper name? It's like calling your dog Dog (ironically a palindrome of God) and what the heck is the Holy Ghost ?

So what to go with this morning , maybe "Converted" by The Alabama 3 from "Exile on Coldharbour Lane" which my friend Tom glared at me as they broke into the chorus "Let's Go Back To Church* but by the end of the gig even he was converted.

Monday 31 October 2016

Author Author and No Coldplay - #ALifeInNumbers #42



Number 42. This is a really difficult one for me. I can think of a song called “42”, but it’s by Coldplay and I listened to it and it's Coldplay in limp chinned student mode. Having said that there are probably not all that many Coldplay songs I would countenance so really I don’t want to include it.

Because it’s 42 I want to include something related to The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, because Douglas Adams told us that the answer to the Ultimate Question was 42 , that answer was of course 42, provide by the mega computer Deep Thought. The quest for the ultimate question… well read the books and you’ll find the answer.

A similar scenario occurs in another of my favourite books “Venus On The Half Shell” by Kilgore Trout.

Kilgore Trout is an author who is a figment of the imagination of the wonderful but sadly missed Kurt Vonnegut.

However this pseudonym was taken up by Philip Jose Farmer to write the book. All three authors are incredibly intelligent, have a healthy attitude to life and humanity, as well as a wicked sense of humour.

The premise is the search by the hero to find the answer to the ultimate question, “Why are we born to suffer and die?”. At the end of the book the hero gets to meet God and asks God the question. God’s reply: “Why Not?” One of my favourite las lines in a book.

Anyway I have decided, for number 42, to go with The Eagles “Journey of the Sorcerer”, because it is awesome and the theme to “The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” which has as the answer to the ultimate question the number 42. And that is good enough for me.

Enjoy Halloween my Pagan and Wiccan friends.