Week Forty Two: This Means This, This Means That

This Means This, This Means That - A User's Guide to Semiotics by Sean Hall is a text book of sorts that examines the science or philosophy - or potentially the hidden language of visual representation.

Anything and everything that you can see has a visual representation, otherwise you could not see it. The study of Semiotics breaks this theory down into components for a holistic view of, your view.

The book is straightforward but often asks you a question about you and what you feel/think rather than give you an answer. One item can have many meanings to many people. An object when photographed for instance is still that item, but if the picture is skewed, out of focus or even black and white then the meaning can be wholly different.

Interesting introduction to the subject - I think I want to read more on the subject in greater detail.

Week Forty One: The Number Mysteries

The Number Mysteries (AKA The Num8er My5teries) by Marcus Du Sautoy takes 5 well known and hitherto unsolved mathematical problems and presents them as challenges for the reader to solve. Not that you are expected to be able, greater minds than the large majority of us have tried so far in vain to solve these. But it's still intriguing enough that in the back of your mind you do start the exercise mentally (until you figure out how much work is involved).

Each of the 5 chapters is presented in readable format - often devolving from the vastly entertaining history and context of the issue down to the impenetrable algebraic representation of the problem in it's simplest (for some) form.

And enjoyable read and it puts some things in context - like how we encrypt Credit Card information on the internet - smart stuff indeed - not just from a concept point of view - but at the sheer scale of the calculations required to decrypt these without the right code keys. I.e. not impossible - but certainly by the time you scratched the surface on one half of the prime key you'd be several years down the track and several code keys on.

Next week: Possibly Orwell, possibly something else.

Week Forty: The Botany of Desire

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan is at odds with it's stated intention. Ostensibly it's an in depth look at four plants and the desires they engender in humanity (or conversely that we seek in them). But it is also a book about the nature of nature, who drives who and classical studies and greco-roman mythology.

One level is about the four plants, The Apple, Tulip, Marijuana and Potato. And the four histories provide some fascinating insight on the history of and subsequent placement of the four plants in our own history. Learned a whole bunch of stuff. Apples were not routinely eaten for pleasure until approx 100 years ago when advertisers came up with an apple a day etc... prior to this they were mainly a source for booze, not nutrition. The Tulip is descended from the Turkish word for Turban (look at a picture of them both). Marijuana inhibits short term memories the same way the cannabinoids(?) in women's brains prevent them from recalling the specifics of childbirth. Monsanto is evil and messes with potatoes (ok I already knew that).

Another level is the desires and the relationship they have with plants - do plants react to our desires or do our desires reflect the directions the plants drive us in, which comes first - the chicken or the egg. Darwinian ideals drive all these thoughts, but to ascribe them to plants seems silly and counter-intuitive - they have no conscious thought - not in conventional sense - but maybe in a genetic imperative one?

And then each section is bathed in the classic fight of mythology and ancient greco-roman classics, Apollonian order vs Dionysian excess. Marijuana's battle in this arena is particularly captivating as it's effect and purpose is Dionysian but it would not exist and thrive without an Apollonian structure for growth and evolution (through Artificial Selection - not Natural).

Very interesting book and just deep enough to be entertaining while not so massively overdone to bore with too much biological detail.

Next Week: Either 1984, or a book on Math or one of my new Book Depository books on Semiotics or children's literature.

Week Thirty Nine: The State of Jones

The State of Jones by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer is a history book, one that turns the stones over on a forgotten piece of a much more famous event. Like Schindler's List on the Holocaust or The IBM/Holocaust book by Edwin Black, the details of an extremely interesting and enlightening sub-set of events often lie there waiting for your attention.

In this case the American Civil War and the County of Jones in Mississippi which effectively seceded from the Confederacy and stood for slave rights, the rights of the poor and the human rights of dissenters. Of course its not as black and white as all that but it's not far from it.

Guerrilla Warfare, insane generals mad with blood-lust and lacking in sense, the futility of war and the ultimate waste of time that the Civil War was. As the defeated racist and bigoted people of the south, who (which I did not know) were immediately put back in charge of the place after Lincoln was assassinated, despite the efforts of the people of the south who did not support slavery, rich plantation owners abuses and other horrible events.

And at the center of it all one man, a giant Clint Eastwood esque hero/villain (depending on your perspective) who ran his own war against anyone who threatened his family and his world view (which was mostly but not 100% liberal and fair) - reads like a movie waiting to be made.

Fascinating and enthralling detail and educational on the Civil War, how Republicans and Democrats seem to have flipped their beliefs in the last 150 odd years is beyond me.

Next week - as yet unknown.

Week Thirty Eight: The Nigger Factory by Gil Scott Heron

The Nigger Factory by Gil Scott Heron is not as confronting as you'd think. I'm sure plenty of reviews would refer to the title as the N-Word Factory but when the book was written back in 1972, a mere decade after the civil rights marches, the deaths of King, X and Kennedy (R not J) the language and the placement of the word are fitting.

And the book expresses so much yet leaves me confused on what GSH is trying to say, perhaps the message is nothing. The angry disaffected black youths, the miltant and hip resonate with GSH's poems and songs, but the protagnonist resonates with his obvious intelligence and balanced view, with an air of fatality and futility.

I would like to know what he thought of this work now, 40 years on, but unfortunately he's no longer with us - having died a couple of weeks ago. Which is how this book ended up on my list.

Next Week. The Dragon Tattoo has been calling me - perhaps that.