“I know that I am your friend. Yet you take me for a clown, or a clod, or a betrayer, and so must I be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magi“I know that I am your friend. Yet you take me for a clown, or a clod, or a betrayer, and so must I be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magic and will vanish as soon as you are free, but the enchantment of error that you put on me I must wear forever in your eyes.�
Really enjoying this but started it too late and now it needs to go back to library -- got to middle of Ch 4 -- need to check it out again and finish it!...more
Apparently there are quite a few major typos that substantively affect the content. I need to mark the in my copy of the book before I read it.Apparently there are quite a few major typos that substantively affect the content. I need to mark the in my copy of the book before I read it...
Also, another review links to an article , intending to illustrate how Pearl's book differs from others like Hernan's. Apparently there is a big "ongoing struggle within the causal inference community between Pearl's approach and the Neyman's potential outcomes approach." I haven't read this Pearl book yet but I did read the article, and whoo boy, I was not impressed. In that article, Pearl sounds like he is full of nonsense, dismissing valid concerns with handwavy arguments and meaningless abstractions....more
Started it in Feb 2023 for book club, but ran out of bandwidth for reading that month, and book club moved on before I finished it. Would still like tStarted it in Feb 2023 for book club, but ran out of bandwidth for reading that month, and book club moved on before I finished it. Would still like to go back and finish it....more
[July 2022 -- I read the 1st half but not the 2nd before it had to back to the library]
I'm reading *specifically* "The Annotated Alice: The Definitive[July 2022 -- I read the 1st half but not the 2nd before it had to back to the library]
I'm reading *specifically* "The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition," where the annotations have been made by Martin Gardner (and a bunch of others who've written to him or to Alice-themed newsletters). AHHHHH they should have taken the King's advice:
p.143: "If there's no meaning in it," said the King, "that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any."
So. The way this "Definitive Edition" was advertised, I was expecting that Martin friggin Gardner (author of the "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American, and respected mathematician in his own right) would focus on mathematical or logic-puzzle themes that were hidden in the Alice books by Carroll (himself also a mathematician and author of books on logic).
But instead...
1) Gardner states in the foreword that he doesn't think Carroll did much interesting math. And so far (I've read all of "Wonderland" but haven't yet read "Looking Glass"), indeed there are almost no math annotations. The few that are there are mostly about *names* that mathematicians and physicists borrowed from the Alice books *later*.
(I even noticed one that Gardner missed, probably because he was ninety when it came out: There is a HTML-parsing Python package named , and it seems to be named after the Mock Turtle's song.)
~~~
Okay well, that's too bad, there's not much recreational math here after all---but maybe the other annotations themselves are interesting? Nope:
2) Most of the annotations I found to be incredibly uninteresting: they are trivial facts ("a cucumber frame is a frame in which you grow cucumbers, duuuuuuuh!"), or spurious random connections ("The Alice books start with 'Alice' and the Oz books start with 'Dorothy,' which proves a deep link between Carroll and Baum!"), or outright nonsensical numerology ("The King says something about Rule 42---and if you let A=1, B=2, etc, then the author's middle name adds up to 42, OMG!!!").
A few annotations link events in the books to events in Carroll's diary (e.g. he took his friend Alice Liddell on a boat trip and they got wet, which is similar to how Alice meets the Dodo). Maybe this is interesting to some. But to me, it feels like... if the book is interesting in its own right, then **who cares** whether it was inspired by real-life events of daily life? That's how I make up bedtime stories to tell my own kids! Should I write those stories down to publish AND also keep a diary, so that future generations know that, say, "They all got ice cream on a Tuesday in Jerzy's classic of children's literature because Jerzy and his actual kids got ice cream that day"??? Of course not! Who cares? Tell me why the book is (or should be, or could be) **interesting to a wide audience of readers**, not minor details of why the book has random plot event A instead of random plot event B.
There are indeed a *few* annotations I found legit interesting: Most of Carroll's songs and poems are outright parodies of lyrics that have been forgotten today. "Twinkle twinkle little bat" is obviously a play on "Twinkle twinkle little star," but I did not know most of the others---for instance "How doth the little crocodile" is written about a "lazy" animal as a parody of "How doth the little busy bee" which at the time was a popular moralistic poem about a "hardworking" animal.
I expected a lot more annotations like this last category. Take the case of a different British fantasy author: the explains some of the less-obvious classical references and linguistic jokes in the Discworld books. In the case of the APF, I personally find Pratchett's books funny in their own right even when I miss the references---but when I do finally understand a reference (say, knowing that Pratchett's characters are having fun mangling a beloved Shakespeare line or a stodgy Roman myth), it makes my grin all that much wider. By contrast, knowing that Alice gets wet because Carroll and the real Alice Liddell once got rained on? That doesn't do much for my appreciation of the book.
~~~
Okay, well, these annotations mostly sound like the work of a harmless old crank, finding patterns in noise... but they're not hurting anyone. Right? RIGHT?!??
3) Oh boy. Carroll liked to photograph little girls. In the nude. Like, really little girls. And when it comes to the one that *this* book was written for (Alice Liddell)... HER MOM WAS SO FREAKED OUT BY CARROLL THAT SHE CUT HIM OFF AND BURNED HIS LETTERS TO HER PREPUBESCENT DAUGHTER. In the annotations and forewords, Gardner works very very very very very hard to try and spin this in a not-THAT-negative light, but... man!
Why are we still reading this old white creepy dude's bullsh*t when there are a zillion other books out there? [This is a rhetorical question, but also a legit one that Gardner doesn't seem to answer: Why did the Alice books become so popular at the time, and how have they stayed popular enough to be known today, when so many other books from that time have been forgotten? Presumably THAT wouldn't be due to Carroll's fetishes nor due to numerology nonsense---and it would have been far more interesting to speculate about than the stuff Gardner chose to focus on.]
Maybe more to the point (since again I didn't choose to just read Carroll, but specifically I was hoping to be inspired/amused by *Gardner's* annotations): Why did GARDNER (the famous mathematician!) decide to publish annotations about the Alice books WHEN HE HIMSELF SAID THE AUTHOR'S MATH WAS BORING---and when he also KNEW the author was pervy? Why didn't he pick someone whose books DID actually contain mathematically-interesting references worth annotating? Or if not, then why didn't he pick someone else that WASN'T a sketchy sleazeball? ...more
Had to return it to the library before I finished it. Stopped at p.78 (in Ch 3, just after the 2013 map). But I'd like to check it out again and finisHad to return it to the library before I finished it. Stopped at p.78 (in Ch 3, just after the 2013 map). But I'd like to check it out again and finish it soon. It gives a lot of context for the current war in Ukraine (as well as Snyder's view of the connections between Russia's rulers and recent right-wing extremism in the USA).
Some striking lines and other notes so far: * p.8: distinguishing a "politics of inevitability" vs a "politics of eternity": "Within inevitability, no one is responsible because we all know that the details will sort themselves out for the better; within eternity, no one is responsible because we all know that the enemy is coming no matter what we do." * p.15: "He who can make an exception is sovereign." --Carl Schmitt, 1922 * p.15: "An oligarch spinning a tale of an innocent past, perhaps with the help of fascist ideas, offers fake protection to people with real pain." * p.21: EM Cioran came up in another book I read recently, Flights. I had no idea he was a fascist thinker. That seems at odds with how he was used in Flights, but I might be misremembering. * p.24: If you subscribe to politics of eternity, your homeland is inherently always under attack and therefore its wars (even wars of expansion) are always justifiable as "only self-defense." * p.29 and elsewhere: Totalitarian states are ruled by an "eternally innocent redeemer" autocrat. But it's impossible to plan for the redeemer's succession (i.e. a healthy safe sane transfer of power), because that would require admitting he's only human and recognizing you're living a fantasy. * p.38: "Functional states produce a sense of contiguity for their citizens. If states sustain themselves, citizens can imagine change without fearing catastrophe. [...] The meaning of each election is the promise of the next one." * p.41: Brief review of how Gorbachev came to power through the coup that removed him and led to breakup of the Soviet Union... I've always found these events confusing! Some day I need to review all this---what *was* Gorbachev's intent, and how did it get away from him? [In Snyder's telling, Gorbachev sincerely wanted to reform communism into a better version of itself, but he had to take on the ossified version of the party apparatus as it existed then; he tried to replace rule-by-the-party with an independent state; party leaders led a coup that somehow left Yeltsin in charge; Yeltsin and the other republics' leaders each believed their own republic had been exploited by the others; and the union fell apart...? But if Yeltsin didn't think the party's primacy justified keeping the Soviet Union intact, how did he end up being the leader after the coup?] * p.43: "Wild privatization was not at all the same thing as a market economy, at least as conventionally understood. Markets require the rule of law, which was the most demanding aspect of the post-Soviet transformations. Americans, taking the rule of law for granted, could fantasize that markets would create the necessary institutions. This was an error." * p.44: Putin was chosen "as the closest match to the fictional" hero of a popular Soviet novel / TV series?!? (This has some very weird resonance with Zelenskyy being elected president of Ukraine after first playing an outsider-elected-president in a TV show himself...) * p.46: Regarding the Baltic states and eastern European countries joining the EU: "In order to join the European Union, these countries had to demonstrate their sovereignty in specific ways that Russia had not: by creating a market that could bear competition, an administration that could implement EU law, and a democracy that held free and fair elections." * p.47: "Democracy is a procedure to change rulers. To qualify democracy with an adjective---'people's democracy' during communism, 'sovereign democracy' thereafter---means eliminating that procedure." * p.51: "The politics of eternity requires and produces problems that are insoluble because they are fictional. * p.54: "The point was to choose the enemy that best suited a leader's needs, not one that actually threatened the country. Indeed, it was best not to speak of actual threats, since discussing actual enemies would reveal actual weaknesses and suggest the fallibility of aspiring dictators." * p.65: Fascinating brief historical sketch of Volodymyr, a Scandinavian-rooted warlord of the Rus Vikings who became ruler of Kyiv a little before 1000 AD and is seen as a founder of Russia(?), at least by Russia's rulers today---hence why they insist that Ukraine has to belong to Russia and not be independent? (This does NOT sound like what I remember from the "Lech, Czech, i Rus" stories I heard growing up.) * p.70: Whoa---when Hitler betrayed Stalin in 1941, his aim was not political rule over Moscow as such, but rather acquisition of Ukraine's bread basket in order to make Germany self-sufficient. I had not known that. (Honestly, until this year I hadn't realized how much of the world's wheat and other resources Ukraine still produces. ) * p.77-78: There never was a true "nation-state" era in European history: maybe a few individual countries have been nation-states for a while, but most of the big ones (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, etc) transitioned from a global-empire-with-colonies before WW2, directly into postwar integration-into-the-EU (or rather its precursors). Yet many of us "unreflectively believe" in an incorrect history where there were indeed nation-states who learned over time to wisely band together and choose integration over war... whereas Snyder argues that the empires falling apart **had to** choose integration to survive without their colonies, and similarly the former Soviet republics and satellites **had to** choose integration to survive without the USSR. The problem with this "fable of the wise nation" is that many of us imagine our countries **could** reasonable choose to "go back" to being separate nation-states. Even those of us who are against disintegrating the EU at least grant that it could be feasible and voters might as well be allowed to vote on it, since we have an (imagined) history in which nation-states weren't integrated and managed OK on their own... But Snyder argues that this never really happened, and it's ridiculous to even accept this as a choice on the table. ...more
Powerful stuff. Baldwin is incredible at conveying a sense of menace under the surface of what might otherwise sound like innocuous conversation.
I alsPowerful stuff. Baldwin is incredible at conveying a sense of menace under the surface of what might otherwise sound like innocuous conversation.
I also love a line from the opening of "The Rockpile": "This... was far too intriguing an explanation to be challenged..."
I do want to come back and finish the book some day. But I had to put it down after the 3rd story's vivid depiction of horrible things happening to a small child. It's very moving literature, very worthwhile, but more than I can take at this moment....more
Started reading right before the pandemic hit. Never finished (much of it seems aimed for parents of older kids), and now it's due back at library, buStarted reading right before the pandemic hit. Never finished (much of it seems aimed for parents of older kids), and now it's due back at library, but might return to it someday.
Plenty of good ideas, though with a (very strange to me) focus on how this advice will make your kids into competitive college applicants and valued employees. Why's it not enough to be good citizens and community members with strong character? I guess the target audience is those over-the-top helicopter parents who "need" to get the kids into the right preschool so they're ready for Harvard, etc? And it's easier to sell them this book by emphasizing "teaching kids to be good people can *also* get them into Harvard" rather than "Harvard's not the only important thing" (despite some mentions of that perspective too)?
* p.xiii: "...the vast majority of adults who consider themselves successful have had winding (what I call 'squiggly') life paths. So we'll look at the benefits of a squiggly path going forward, the pressing need for moral clarity, as well as how to incorporate a more robust sense of community for all of us who too often feel isolated and alone."
* p.43: Parents don't want the kid to overextend and burnout, but they also "equally fear a different outcome: missing the gold ring by just a few grade points, blowing the chance at that top-tier school. ... Most lack a clear concept of the long-term advantages their child might gain by pivoting in a different direction from community standards---advantages such as practice standing up for himself, resisting the status quo, articulating his point of view, investigating other options, and acquiring a sense of agency. All these skills are likely to serve a child at least as well as playing a season of high-school baseball."
* p.45: "A dad in Atlanta told me, 'You can always catch up on sleep and the emotional stuff later, but you can't undo bad grades and low test scores.' Every bit of evidence we have actually points in the opposite direction... it's tougher to learn life skills that you've skipped over or to recover from substance abuse or mental illness."
* p.48: "Sidestepping responsibility for an unpopular decision is a ploy our kids see through." (That is, if you've decided the kid should follow through with something difficult, don't put the "blame"/"authority" on someone else e.g. "Grandma already paid for these lessons" or "Coach will be disappointed if you drop out" -- just own the decision you've made.)
* p.49: "...the brain learns best when its predictions are wrong. ... Those who see errors as opportunities to learn and try again are the people who will most quickly find new solutions. (This is how our children become resilient.)"
* p.65: Picky kids -- are they manipulative or just over-sensitive? Either way, "the response should be the same because the way to deal with an anxiety disorder is by exposure and the way to deal with manipulation is by refusing to play: 'This is our dinner tonight. Eat what you want and leave the parts you don't like. I'm not making anything else.'"
* p.67: An extra benefit of playdates: it's not just the socializing and exposure to other kids, but also to other *environments* -- inoculate against the anxiety of thinking that your own cozy home is the only safe place to be.
* p.77: "Behavioral control" = let kids know their limits and the consequences of crossing those limits, eg curfew vs driving privileges... but give freedom within those limits. This is much better than "Psychological control" = manipulating the kid's thoughts/feelings, guilting them into doing what you want... which leads to a sense of helplessness.
* p.106: "Always, our goal is to promote bravery and inquisitiveness. We're not going to win every round... A general thrust toward fearlessness and engagement is what we're aiming for..."
* p.108: Nice chart of , starting at ages 2-3 and going to ages 12+.
* p.110: "Tony Wagner... told me that he'd like to replace the word 'failure' with the term 'trial and error.'"
Started reading in summer/fall of 2022, to help me get some context around a data analysis project with the local homeless shelter. It's a good book, Started reading in summer/fall of 2022, to help me get some context around a data analysis project with the local homeless shelter. It's a good book, but I just ran out of bandwidth for reading it at the time. I'd like to get back to it & finish it some day....more
Started reading the draft PDF in Spring 2017 semester, while TAing a class based on the book. Still clearly a draft with rough patches but plenty of uStarted reading the draft PDF in Spring 2017 semester, while TAing a class based on the book. Still clearly a draft with rough patches but plenty of useful nuggets, including some new-to-me perspectives on material I thought I already knew backwards and forwards. However, I ran out of time to keep up with the readings and I never finished it that semester, but I'd like to come back to it one day....more
still haven't gotten around to finishing it, but here are some notes to self:
p.4 - Shakespeare actually used to be popular entertainment back in 19th-still haven't gotten around to finishing it, but here are some notes to self:
p.4 - Shakespeare actually used to be popular entertainment back in 19th-century America... you don't need to be "educated" to enjoy him -- just grown up with it constantly around you, labeled clearly as popular entertainment.
p. 31 - Gerald Nachman: "Shakespeare becomes theatrical spinach: He's good for you. If you digest enough of his plays, you'll grow up big and strong intellectually like teacher."
"Alfred Harbage characterized the mood prevailing at Shakespearean performances as "reverently unreceptive," containing "small sense of joy, small sense of sorrow;...rarely a moment of that hush of absorption which is the only sign-warrant of effectual drama." People attended Shakespeare the way they attended church: "gratified that they have come, and gratified that they now may go.""
p. 67 - people believed it to be a natural right to boo actors if they deserved it, not just applaud whether or not it was good. nowadays there's no way you could boo/hiss a performance even if it sucks! it's like you have to protect actors' egos instead of be honest about what you paid for. why does art need to be protected from its audience?
p. 89 - "Opera... was not presented as a sacred text". Composers like Rossini even intentionally left places in their operas for the company to put in a popular song of the day!
p. 97 - apparently England DID have highbrow/lowbrow distinctions in art already in 1850s, and some Americans were aware of this -- does that break down author's thesis that highbrow/lowbrow distinctions are a recent invention, or is he just claiming these distinctions weren't AS important, in America in particular, until lately, in specific fields?
p. 103 - people started to think opera is too important of an art form to permit the uneducated to watch it, as if that'd demean its integrity! especially if you take selections instead of putting on one whole show, sacred-text style. opera became "more of a symbol of culture than a real cultural force"...more
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