Better Than Friday - 28 - La Jetee & More (Patreon)

Hello ya'll, hope you're well. 

Thanks as always for the support!

For any patrons who would like to join the Discord group, here is the invite link, which will be good for 24 hours: https://discord.gg/ZW3k4Q

Feel free to message me if you need the invite after then. 

1. A book my friend recommended that I can't wait to read... 

I haven't read Dostoyevsky in years, and the time is nigh to begin reading the big ones.

 'Demons', my friend has told me, is long, but stellar. I can't wait to get to it.

The Goodreads description:

Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky conceived of Demons as a "novel-pamphlet" in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. What emerged was a prophetic and ferociously funny masterpiece of ideology and murder in pre-revolutionary Russia.

2 One of my favorite short films - La Jetee by Chris Marker. 

This is a short film made with black and white still images and audio. 

Perhaps contrary to the description, the effect is riveting. 

A gorgeous, meditative, disturbing and beautiful experience. 

Chris Marker also made a beautiful film called 'Sans Soleil', an experimental documentary which is difficult to describe. Highly recommended. 

3 The writings of my good friend Brian Robins 

My friend Brian has recently started a blog.

His most recent entry discusses the philosophical intersections of Nietzsche and Jung, amongst others, and their thoughts on the idea of Evil and 'The Beast Within'. 

Some fascinating material.

Jung’s ideas are echoed by Nietzsche, who had a concept he referred to as “the Beast Within.”  Likely partially inspired by Charles Darwin’s 1859 publication The Origin of the Species, which sent the academic world’s head spinning, Nietzsche’s concept consists of evolutionary insight into the instincts of our past.  What a contemporary evolutionary psychologist might refer to as the mammalian or reptilian brain is what the philosopher was hitting on. He understood that we all have primal drives and urges within us that are vestiges of our ancestry.  Drives that evolution has selected for, as they allowed our ancestors to have higher chances of survival, but which perhaps no longer always serve us in our modern context.  

The drives for sex, and violence are notable among them.  These instincts comprise “the beast within” all of us, a reference to our more animalistic and primal hunter-gatherer nomad pre-civilization past and instincts.  So, did Nietzsche characterize the beast within as a positive or negative?  Much like Jung, he thought it held elements of both.

4 The Latest Thing Stuck In My Head

For times when you need to get in a good mood, I recommend the song 'Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3' by Ian Dury and The Blockheads. 

I love that song. 

I had no idea Ian had a son who is also a musician, and that his music is fantastic. 

This is his latest release and it's been stuck in my head for days now.

'Ce n'est pas mon problème  Je ne suis pas ton chien'

5. An unreleased book recently sent to me by Archipelago Books

Not long ago I read and reviewed the strange, dreamlike 'A King Alone' by Jean Giono.

Recently I was sent this beautiful book which is to be released on 4/21/20. 

Here's the description from Amazon.

Written during the years of France's occupation by the Nazis, Jean Giono's Occupation Journal reveals the inner workings of one of France's great literary minds during one of the country's darkest hours. A renowned writer and committed pacifist throughout the 1930s--a conviction that resulted in his imprisonment before and after the Occupation--Giono spent the war in the village of Contadour in Provence, where he wrote, corresponded with other writers, and cared for his consumptive daughter. This journal records his musings on art and literature, his observations of life, his interactions with the machinery of the collaborationist Vichy regime, as well as his forceful political convictions. Giono recounts the details of his life with fierce independence of thought and novelistic attention to character and dialogue. Occupation Journal is a fascinating historical document as well as a unique window into one of French literature's most voracious and critical minds.

The beautiful San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio