1. It’s a great weekend for readings! Tonight, Inga Muscio reads at Town Hall. Muscio’s book Cunt exploded my ideas about feminism and then reconstructed them. It was, and is, a very important book that I’d recommend to anyone. (Please note that this doesn’t mean I agree with everything in the book; far from it. But a lot of Cunt needed to be said, and I’m glad that someone said it.) Tonight, she’ll probably more likely be reading from her newer books, Rose: Love in Violent Times and Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society. I’m less excited about those books, but she certainly knows how to frame an argument.
2. The Bushwick Book Club gathers at Chop Suey tonight. The book that local musicians are writing songs about this time around is Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! This, too, is a book that I love and that I’d recommend to anyone. Feynman’s memoirs aren’t well-written, but they’re charming, like a series of amusing bar stories, and when he writes about death, he manages to hurt you somewhere deep in your gut. For teenaged me, it was the perfect book at the perfect time, and it blossomed into a huge man-crush on Feynman, which then got me reading his (general-interest) books on physics. This should be a fun night.
3. The readings calendar has the answers you seek.
Thinking of Feynman’s memoirs as bar stories is a perfect way to put your head in the right context to read them. I also came across them as a teenager, and he got me interested in science in a way nothing had before. When I returned to the books as an adult, I was pretty shocked at how poorly crafted they were, but loved them all the same…
“Please note that this doesn’t mean I agree with everything in the book; far from it. But a lot of Cunt needed to be said, and I’m glad that someone said it.”
That’s pretty much exactly how how felt about it. Great things mixed with good things mixed with goofy things mixed with “WTF?” things.
“Cunt” is lousy and could only be published because the print industry is in love with hyper-political, self-centered narcissism these days. Fuck facts or methodology or hitting the streets; just say the first dumb thing that pops into your head with the fervor of a true believer, pausing only to talk endlessly about yourself and your “important” life experiences. There really is no difference between “Cunt” and the average Fox news “commentary,” but it’s from a queer/feminist/anti-racist/anti-imperialist perspective so it’s a-okay. All the book’s best insights have already been made by better feminist writers.
@3 Most of the writers of the past 50 years primarily want a paycheck from their publisher. Keeping a diary for oneself is so closeted, childlike in the glories of Capaitalizing on ME, ME, ME.
I had to laugh at this post: a feminist and Feynman. Because I read Feynman’s book in my early 20s and broiled at his maddening, pompous self-importance and underlying sexism. I think at one point I actually threw the book across the room—maybe the only time I’ve done that! As you can imagine, I’d pick Muscio’s reading 🙂
Well, I agree that the passages in “Surely you’re joking…” are not well written, but in his defense, they weren’t actually written. They’re mainly transcripts of recorded conversations, as I recall. Feynman DID write essays, many autobiographical, and those are well written.
I’m not actually going to bother defending Feynman against charges of feminism, but I am going to ask you to provide an example of it instead of just mouthing off.
Richard Feynman was an elegant thinker and true genius. Muscio is for limited morons, dykes and crunchy pseudo intellectual gay types.
I’m less excited about those books, but she certainly knows how to frame an argument.
A wonderful example of damning with faint praise.
Ugh on Feynman’s book. He was a brilliant scientist but the book is clumsy and shows him to be deeply misogynistic (@6 – read it for yourself if you can make it through it). I especially hated that the title was taken from a long, boring anecdote which wasn’t even worth reading about.
See, it’s funny, because a flower is really just a plant’s cunt! (Well, also the plant’s dick, but hey, most plants are just hermaphrodites that way.)
Wow, I’m so impressed. Nobody ever figured that one out before. Now go smoke some hash until you see the Ouroboras and maybe I’ll be impressed.