The Horatio Alger Myth (also mentions references in Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger_myth
"In Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Horatio Alger is mentioned as what could be interpreted as a guide for the protagonist: "How would Horatio Alger handle this situation?" (70). The novel itself is focused around a week-long attempt to discover the American Dream through drugs, degeneracy, and honest curiosity. Thompson references Alger in other scenes, but is most profoundly referenced in the very last sentence of the novel: "I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger ... a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident."
Hopefully Thompson visualizes himself as a reincarnation of Horatio Alger due to the fact that in the novel he is in a drug induced manic frenzy. I prefer Miller's comment, below, from his book Moloch. The quoted phrase is in reference to a request by one of his bosses at Western Union requesting he write a Horatio Alger novel about the lowly Western Union Messengers Miller hired and fired at his job there.
Every day now the Horatio Alger myth grows more ironic. Or at least the way the myth is taken - in terms of the American Dream.
Reference from Henry Miller:
http://cosmotc.blogspot.com/search?q=horatio+alger
I will give you Horatio Alger, as he looks the day after the Apocalypse, when all the stink has cleared away”
Horatio Alger Wikipedia Entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger,_Jr.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
The Art of Seduction and the Welfare State
Strange bedfellows?
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_051409/content/01125109.guest.html
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_051809/content/01125106.guest.html
~The "Low Art of Political Seduction," and Obama as a master of it.
Rush does a good job on these. I had no idea, never having paid any mind to him. My own commentary to follow soon...
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_051809/content/01125106.guest.html
~The "Low Art of Political Seduction," and Obama as a master of it.
Rush does a good job on these. I had no idea, never having paid any mind to him. My own commentary to follow soon...
Friday, April 10, 2009
Mourning the loss of the personal narrative sense
I discovered to my dismay several voluminous and expensive Kierkegaard volumes coming to press from Princeton University Press. I saw them while browsing on sites like Amazon - a truly bad habit. (See link Here
for amazon search).
So much of Kierkegaard's perspective centers on his breaking off his engagement. He is no doubt subjective and inward in the extreme.
Sometimes this vast, endless array of knowledge to be gained seems like an undo burden, a stress, the placing of a claim or a burden on existence. Almost a hamster wheel, but not quite circular - instead like following an infinite string all over the earth. So when you read someone like Kierkegaard, or for that matter, Henry Miller, the ultimate aesthete, you travel everywhere, and the writing never seems to end. You never have enough, always one more page to read, just one more book.
One can tolerate only so much possibility, potential - take your education from it as you can, but actuality beckons. But the mind has a hunger of its own and tires much more slowly than the feet, and occasionally refuses to be turned off. Even in dreams the mind walks countless miles.
Following the string, at least it is a pathway, restricted to the linear, even if infinite. It is more reassuring than the forever expanding, the dissipated. But it can lack the mystery, the condensation of narrative, of profluence. Stop to smell the roses, for Pete's sake. The simpler structure of fiction and possibly of life with a smaller axis to revolve around. When life was simpler.
Hang a sign on the door that says "Gone fishing," and listen to some Howlin' Wolf.
for amazon search).So much of Kierkegaard's perspective centers on his breaking off his engagement. He is no doubt subjective and inward in the extreme.
Sometimes this vast, endless array of knowledge to be gained seems like an undo burden, a stress, the placing of a claim or a burden on existence. Almost a hamster wheel, but not quite circular - instead like following an infinite string all over the earth. So when you read someone like Kierkegaard, or for that matter, Henry Miller, the ultimate aesthete, you travel everywhere, and the writing never seems to end. You never have enough, always one more page to read, just one more book.
One can tolerate only so much possibility, potential - take your education from it as you can, but actuality beckons. But the mind has a hunger of its own and tires much more slowly than the feet, and occasionally refuses to be turned off. Even in dreams the mind walks countless miles.
Following the string, at least it is a pathway, restricted to the linear, even if infinite. It is more reassuring than the forever expanding, the dissipated. But it can lack the mystery, the condensation of narrative, of profluence. Stop to smell the roses, for Pete's sake. The simpler structure of fiction and possibly of life with a smaller axis to revolve around. When life was simpler.
Hang a sign on the door that says "Gone fishing," and listen to some Howlin' Wolf.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Updates
I have done some more updating on my Recommended Reading List
It is still very much a work in progress, as I have to add many more books that I have already read, and intend to include on the list, particularly quite a few by Rollo May.
It is still very much a work in progress, as I have to add many more books that I have already read, and intend to include on the list, particularly quite a few by Rollo May.
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