I Went to the library today to pick up some books that I had put on hold and had finally come in. Already started, of course, and there is going to be some coolness here. I have to get a good start on Hiding in the Mirror since I was the 57th in line for it when I put it on hold a couple of months ago. I am sure that I won't be able to renew it. Besides, I'll really want to read the book on Supermodernism when it comes in.
So, the books are:
Hiding in the Mirror, the Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond. I heard Laurence Krauss a few months back on an NPR program on science and knew that I would have to read this book. This little bit, which he recounted during the radio show, was a big seller:
Two parents walk in the middle of the night to sounds of their daughter's crying out in the distance. The father rushes to her bedroom and finds her missing. He frantically searches everywhere, slowly coming to the grim realization that she is gone. His wife runs into the room soon afterward, overcome with panic. At his wit's end, he dashes out to the living room and picks up the phone and calls a neighbor. He returns to his wife and, in words that are probably unique in the history of television he tells her:
"Bill's coming over. He's a physicist! He ought to be able to help!"
That was a synopsis from an episode of the Twilight Zone, no doubt unique in many ways. He then goes on to say:
I now vividly remember (or I think that I remember) being struck by how exotic and powerful Bill the physicist's knowledge seemed, and how much respect this knowledge engendered in his frightened neighbor. I, too, wanted one day to be privy to such secrets, and to explain them. I wanted to be the one whom people in distress knew they could count on. In short, the physicist-superhero!
And how cool is that? I mourne the end of the days when physicists could be super-heroes. Admitedly, Reed Richards still is one (and a recent Fantastic Four movie would account to that) but you just don't see the scientist as hero like you once did. When overthrowing the Ivory Towers of science fiction I fear that heroes like that were disposed as well.
The next two books (which now I don't remember what lead me to the first of them, but once I found one I found the other) are both from The Disinformation Company. They are: Book of Lies and Under The Influence. Book of Lies is "The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult" and I most likely came across it while searching for something on Grant Morrison, since he contributed.
From Morrison's introduction:
Personally, I don't need to know HOW it works -- although I have bucket loads of colorful theories -- just as I don't seem to need to know how my TV works in order to watch it, or how a Jumbo Jet stays up when I'm dozing through my in-flight entertainment at 35,000 feet. What I do know for sure, based on the evidence of my senses and on many years of skeptical enquiry, is that magic allows us to take control of our own development as human beings.
Under The Influence is about the world's "War On Drugs" and sounded pretty darn interesting too. That's the last one on the list for now though.