Bryan Kam @bryankam@writing.exchange
Writing about/discussing complexity, step changes, and revolutions in between drafts of a Victorian-style novel of ideas
I wrote about Epicurus https://bit.ly/3fWPAO4 and his view on death https://bit.ly/3g6seGd
Olivia Laing's The Trip to Echo Spring, about alcoholism and the writing of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Williams, Cheever, Berryman, and Carver is almost unbearably beautiful https://amzn.to/2JkpZlZ I remember The Lonely City being like this too.
This argument is similar to Julian Jaynes' account of the origin of language, but for Jaynes command precedes communication (based on apes) https://psyche.co/ideas/our-greatest-invention-was-the-invention-of-invention-itself
Darwin's notebooks missing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55044129
I wrote about what it was like taking a five day break from eating, speaking, screens to read, write, meditate, and exercise. And to see if time slowed down... https://bit.ly/36EESYo
Wrote about the heritability of variability in Darwin https://bit.ly/3lpvFt3
Reading Darwin, he's pretty sure all domestic pigeons came from rock pigeons. But I had no idea there were such crazy-looking ones, called "fancy pigeons" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_pigeon
Anyone done a dopamine fast? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/style/dopamine-fasting.html
Can anything top "The Silversword Alliance" in terms of an awesome name for plants? I want to join.
Sounds like Lisa Feldman Barrett is going the way of Friston and Heyes? I.e., that basically everything is culturally constructed, and all about interpretation/predictions? I'd be really interested to discuss this trend. https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/lisa-feldman-barrett/
Really enjoyed this article on bringing back mammoths https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleistocene-park/517779/
Anyone seen Crumb? Reminder of how different San Francisco once was, but also just how weird America used to be, how homogenised it is. It's a kind of dirge for the 60s from the 90s, but even more poignant because the 90s seem even deader now by contrast
London has changed a lot since I moved here in 2007, and these photos show exactly that period.
In a few weeks we'll be discussing the origins of consciousness, polytheism, language, selfhood, monotheism, and more!
https://bryankam.substack.com/p/consciousness-language-selfhood
Midlake, "Head Home" from The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006):
But there's someone I'd like to see
She never mentions a word to me
She reads Leviathan
I think I'll head home...
Mentions of works of political philosophy in music thread!
Elvis Costello, "Pony Street" from Brutal Youth (1994):
If you're going out tonight
I won't wait up
Reading "Das Kapital"
Watching "Home Shopping Club"
While you're flogging a dead horse
All the way down Pony Street
Breaking Away is subtle but incisive. It's about purpose in life, the meaning of work, the haves and have nots, town and gown. It feels so topical, so about the present moment, which is impressive since it remains so fixed in time and place, so candid, so prepossessing. The characters are awkward, lost in such a lifelike way, each with their own hangups, oddities, preoccupations. It's as much about exhaustion as it is about work, as much about hope as it is about hopelessness.
Watching Breaking Away (1979). How have I never heard of this film before? It's incredible!
Bit like Rebel without a Cause or American Graffiti in structure, but very much its own thing. Fresh, unique, exciting, vulnerable, funny, sad.
Hi everyone! I'm moving over from @bkam.
I'm in my third draft of my first novel, which is a sprawling novel of ideas (a "loose baggy monster") set in modern London — or at least 2019 London, before some unspecified catastrophe, which I'm now worried seems too on-the-nose.
I found editing tough during lockdown, so I began writing on #revolutions, step-changes in complexity, and other topics which you can find here: https://bit.ly/2PyTvoe
Look forward to meeting you!
Writing about/discussing complexity, step changes, and revolutions in between drafts of a Victorian-style novel of ideas
