The Trials of Living In a Cultureless Society -- Umberto Eco's Death

The death of Umberto Eco on February 19th was no big event in the United States.  I did not hear anything in the news.  It was not even covered in "The New York Times Book Review" for that week.  In this society, entertainment is valued over culture, and, hoping not to sound like a long-nosed snob, I dare say we, as a society, are doomed because of it.  I just learned that Umberto Eco died; it's been almost two months since his passing.

I was always a big fan, and will remain so forever.  Years ago, I tried to explain to people who fell in love with a certain (unmentionable) novel about Knights Templar and obscure mysteries, that almost the entire affair had been "plagiarized" from "Foucault's Pendulum."  Most of the people I told this admittedly conspiratorial theory seemed interested and told me they would read the book, since the topic was so fascinating and anything dealing with it would no doubt be engaging... most came back telling me the book was "too long."  The fact that I am not a lawyer puts me in a position of advantage.  I can make these accusations about plagiarism as easily as I can declare Paul Auster the best writer in the world, pound for pound.  Sue me.

I also read much of Eco's non-fiction.  I did  have a particularly difficult time with "Kant and the Platypus: Essay on Language and Cognition," but enjoyed "Serendipity" and "Five Moral Pieces" tremendously.  Believe it or not, I have not read "The Name of the Rose," which will be top on my list in 2017.

The day that Gabriel Garcia Marquez died, it seemed the entire world went on mourning.  The front page of most European newspapers online were dedicated to his passing for a week or more.  "El Mundo" in Spain kept a picture of Garcia Marquez on their home page for a month.  Of course, Garcia Marquez was a Nobel laureate... Umberto Eco was not.  But Eco had a different aura, an in-depth facility of making highly intellectual and academic topics palatable to the common reader  (most which are so elevated by their proponents that the rest of the world is excluded).  Umberto Eco was a minor celebrity in Italy and most of Europe, but not in the United States.  As a nation we are losing something important, something irreplaceable.  I remember one of my professors in graduate school saying that the day James Baldwin died she felt a terrible sadness knowing she could never again pick a new book by her favorite author.  Her statement never left me.  It is the same with me, I suppose, with some of the authors I hold in high praise.  Death takes everything with it... everything.  Rest in piece, Maestro Eco.

More Umberto Eco: Serendipities, Language and Lunacy

I know that perhaps I drove some of you crazy with my entries on Eco's "Kant and the Platypus," but I can't help it when I find another slim volume by the Italian master of semiotics. "Serendipities: Language and Lunacy" offers more of the challenges that linguistics, semantics and semiotics in general present. I find that Eco covers a great deal (with much more humor, too) more on this short book regarding (to be put simply) "why things are what they are and how they become what they are." So, historical events, for example, can in fact change the course of humanity by virtue of a small "mistake" or "coincidence." Eco begins with Christopher Columbus' "discovery" of the New World by what can indeed be considered happerstance. "Though they were right, the sages of Salamanca were wrong; and Columbus, while he was wrong, pursued faithfully his error and proved to be right--thanks to serendipity." The challenge to understand the difference between an error and simply being "wrong," and certainty and the belief of being "right" becomes topsy-turvy. The New World was there even without Columbus stumbling into it; yet, the Heideggerian idea of "Being" again shows its ugly face little by little. If a massive piece of land sits there and no one is there to stumble upon it, does it exist?

Eco and his fascination with the Medieval occult (as explored in "Foucault's Pendulum") is in display here once again. Serendipity, while not entirely responsible for the vast conspiracy of the Jewish Protocols (Elders of Zion, etc.), might be connected to the idea that the protocol conspiracy as it developed from a work of fiction (Rodolphe de Gerolstein's "Les Mysteres de Paris"). And if you think that's enough, consider that this was all the plan of Jesuits and the ever-present evil-mindedness of the, you guessed it, the Rosicrucians, the Jacobins, and (amazingly enough) Cagliostro! This is the reason (over-simplified presently because there are many, many reasons) why I think Umberto Eco is a genius... his capacity for research and historical connections is amazing, and, to make it all readable and enjoyable is an added task in and of itself. Read this book if you want to be both entertained and challenged.

Truth and Mirrors: Umberto Eco's Last Stand on Cognition

I took some time off from the Internet, and during that time I was able to (finally) finish Umberto Eco's "Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition." The second part of the book dealt with more than just Cognitive Types, as Eco embarked on a semiotic examination of abstractions that could perhaps only be defined by way of pragmatism. Eco details "The True Story of the Sarkiapone" which becomes more convoluted, funny and entertaining with every turn. The Sarkiapone does not exist; it's an imaginary animal that a passenger in a train pretends to have in his luggage. Another person in the same compartment of the train expresses the idea that he knows everything there is to know about the Sarkiapone (one of those know-it-all people we hate so much). At any rate, as the first passenger continues to change the story of the Sarkiapone and its characteristics (physical and behavioral), the second passenger continues to adjust his "expertise" to match the conversation. In the end, the first passenger reveals that the Sarkiapone does not exist. The second passenger quickly states that he knew it all along, and that he was playing along with the "creation" of the strange animal. Umberto Eco uses this story to illustrate how people construct meaning from definition; that is to say, the Sarkiapone did not exist, but as the first passenger "mutates" the characteristics of the animal, and the second passenger adapts to those mutations, meaning is created out of nothing. It's an interesting trick of cognition and reference of "contract."


Visual cognition as reference of contract is a bit more complicated. What do we see in a mirror? How does the reversal of the image signifies a different type? Eco explains everything from the reversal of the image and the fact that what is returned from standing in front of the mirror is not fully a representation of what stands in front. Why? A reflection is composed of light/color spectrum and the eye perception of the same. Other perception examples include the classic "Mexican riding a bike" image. Why, I wonder, after 500 pages of some of the most insightful meanderings on epistemology, semiotics, etc. did Eco finish this tour de force with this funny trick of perception? Who knows, really. I did enjoy the reading tremendously. I realize now how much I marked this book. Normally, I do a lot of underlining (no highlighters allowed), marginalia, etc., but I think I over did it with this one. I still have two more Umberto Eco volumes to go this year, but before I get to them, I have to play catch up with some others and with my writing. And summer is almost over!

Umberto Eco's Cognitive Types and Bach's Suites for Cello Solo

Johann Sebastian Bach's Suites for Cello Solo have been a part of my life since I was 11 years old. These are essential pieces for every cellist. As a cellist, I have played them and enjoyed them over 2/3s of my life. They are never old or boring; I always find some thing new in them when I play them, and also when I listen to the numerous recordings I have by different cellists. So, imagine the surprise I received when upon turning a page in Umberto Eco's "Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition," I discovered that our good Italian semiotist included a chapter on Bach's Suite No. 2 as an example of cognitive types and nuclear content. The issue at stake here is as follows. The simplistic premise of the book itself is "when we say 'cat' how do we know that a 'cat' is a 'cat'." Basically, how does language transfers the meaning (or fails to do so) of 'cat' if we don't have a sample of a cat at hand? When applied to music, Eco makes a wonderful problematization of performance of a piece vs. the written work, and the potential variations within. In his example, Eco writes about a recording of the Suite No. 2 for Cello Solo performed on a recorder flute. The question related to the "difference between the physical phenomenon and its transcription on the stave, on the one hand, and between it and the 'musical idea' on the other. Transcription to the stave certainly represents a (highly conventional) way of rendering the musical idea public. That the procedure is conventional (highly codified) does not eliminate the fact that the sequence of the written notes is motivated by the sequence of the sounds imagined or tried out on an instrument by the composer." Add to this the idea of whether or not a piece that is not executed on an instrument, sang by a singer, etc. or even played in a record exists. That is to say, since the piece is transferred and made public by being printed (much as we print works of literature) it remain static and "dead" until someone picks it up and plays it. But imagine an orchestra conductor picking up an orchestral piece and seeing the entire piece (all instruments) in front of him, as he begins to read the score (much as you are reading this page... with the same facility) does that not constitute bringing the piece to "life?" I suppose that perhaps humming counts, no? At any rate, Eco then takes the argument to another level where he believes that "[i]t is clear that, if the relationship between the sound waves and the grooves of the disc is a case of primary iconism--and if the relation between [the performer's] execution and the notes of the score is already substantiated by multiple interpretative inferences, choices, and accentuations of pertinency--we have then arrived, with the physiognomic type, at an extremely complex process that seems very difficult to take account of." Looking at it from another angle, if a recording of the Bach Suites for Cello Solo performed by say, Mischa Maisky differs from that of Pablo Casals in the way each of them interprets them, then what we have is a version of the piece in execution that is much different from what the composer intended, if it was in fact that he intended anything at all but the phraseology and "message" behind it (which I admit is interpretable as well). I remember having a similar argument with a philosophy professor of mine when I was an undergraduate. I resorted back to my music training (which might have been unfair) and asked whether or not it was the same piece of hundreds of people played the same notes but with a different interpretation (his contention was that there was no variance). I can't remember how we resolved the matter, but he was a gracious old scholar and a lover of classical music. I do remember we ended up meeting at his house where his wife prepared elaborate dinners for three, and afterwards retiring to the salon to listen to his old LP recordings collection. The man had every one from Leonid Kogan to Gaspar Cassado, and numerous difficult to find recordings. Those were happy days, but I digress.

Eco posts another excellent problem. If the Bach Suite for Cello Solo No. 2 is an artistic endeavour that appears differently to everyone, could the Mona Lisa be appreciated similarly? Where do Da Vinci's brushstrokes end, and our appreciation begin? I'd be hard press to think that even a contemporary professional painter would stand in front of the Mona Lisa and say, "oh, sure... but I would have changed the light hits the side of her cheek here..."

I do, however, enjoy reading Eco very much. This is the kind of thing my students tell me to stop thinking about, just to "let it go," or the proverbial "you think too much." How little do they know of the pleasures of the life of the mind.

Cognition and Language: Eco Still Echoes of Nishida

I am still a long way from finishing "Kant and the Platypus" by Umberto Eco, and the reason behind it is my perverse habit of linking everything Eco writes about to Kitaro Nishida's study of "Pure Experience" in "An Inquiry into the Good." Their theories are linked by the idea that to experience something, whether or not for the first time, one must make sense of language first. At first this seems like a basic idea, until Eco explains the paradox of present tense and all the other goodies of how we construct meaning (cognition) from language. For example, if you've never seen a mouse, and you look up the definition in a dictionary, will you get an accurate appreciation of what a mouse is? The limitations of language notwithstanding, still with the pictures and not a language communicated categorical imperative, you might still be off target. The delicious "chicken-before-the-egg" equation of the entire book convinces me of 1) the importance of this reading, and 2) how enjoyable is to read Umberto Eco's non-fiction. Despite this I have had no time to devote to my reading because my teaching obligations. I will try to make up between June 9th and June 14th all of the time I haven't devoted to my reading list. At any rate, where these two excellent thinkers (Nishida and Eco) meet is where experience links us to the objects around us and how we make sense (cognition) of them. Eco explains the idea of Categorical Types and links everything quite nicely to Kant. Where things get really complicated is Eco's "diagnosis" of Categorical Types and schema. For example, a cat is a cat and that is one category. To the "untrained" eye, the fact that the cat is a Persian, or a Siamese, or a Tabby is irrelevant to how we communicate the idea of what type of cat is is. What Eco explains is how we make sense of language/cognition when talking about Categorical Types and experience. I am going to make a list of Eco's main points and tie them to Nishida (whose book I have been carrying around for this purpose for the last three weeks). I love making these connections.

Umberto Eco and Kitaro Nishida "On Being"

The interesting aspect of the first 100 pages of Umberto Eco's book "Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition" is the fact that it connects to Japan's only rational philosophy (at least historically) on the topic of "Pure Experience" and on "Being." Eco conventionally cites much Heidegger simply because one cannot write about Being without considering the great German. Having said that, Kitaro Nishida appears ignorant of Heidegger on theory and method, perhaps because he was writing before Heidegger became known, or even developed his ideas. This relates to that most obscure topic of serendipity, etc. I studied Nishida in 1994 while I lived and studied in Hikone, Japan. I came across his book "An Inquiry into the Good" by chance at the Michigan State University Center for Japan Studies right there in Hikone. Right away I knew I had to read this book. The introduction by Masao Abe alone is worth the price of admission. This introduction is brilliantly written; clear enough for a lay reader of philosophy like myself to be able to follow it and understand it on the first reading. Nishida, however, is a bit more complex and it took me several readings to understand at least half of what I read. While for the most part I am citing Umberto Eco's work, I am actually PDFing my notes on Nishida on this LINK. These are my original, handwritten notes from 1994.

Eco's first section of the book, entitled "On Being," covers for the most part the basic definitions of self-recognition and being that most people associate with Heidegger. However, Eco presents a clear and expertly shorten chronology on the ideas of self/being and recognition from Aristotle and Aquinas, to Descartes and Kant, and, as the expert semiotologist that he is, he refers to the process of how we recognize self/being and how symbols help us do so. Here's an example: "The problem with Aristotelian being lay not in the pollachos but in the leghetai [these are terms Aristotle uses to define the self/being from a substantial or transcendental or spiritual self/being]. Whether it is said in one or many ways, being is something that is said. It may well be the horizon of every other evidence, but it becomes a philosophical problem only when we begin to talk about it, and it is precisely our talking about it that makes it ambiguous and polyvocal." This is precisely what Kitaro Nishida problematizes when he creates the polemic of "Pure Experience" and "Reality" where he explores the phenomena of consciousness as the sole basis of reality. Because Eco is dedicated to the way we symbolize or recognize being (ourselves and others) he seems as disparate from Nishida, but a closer look reveals a distinct connection: both philosophers see language as a symbol used to recognized our own being. For that reason, symbols are primary as they appear in language and secondarily as material being. Eco continues "Being is that which enables all subsequent definitions to be made. But all definitions are the effect of the logical and therefore semiosical organization of the world.... if being is the horizon of departure, saying that something 'is' adds nothing to what was already self-evident by the very fact of naming that something as the object of our discourse." And here's a major clash with defining being/self as it appears to the cognition, especially as it refers to Heidegger. Heidegger's Dasein, and the problematic question he posted as "What is 'is?'" Eco explores that idea that since Heidegger begins and ends with language, he continues to be enslaved to language for a definition. To post it in an easier way... Could we recognize (cognition) the self and being without the intrusion of language? Do we need language in order to define our self/being? If language had never developed, would we be reasonable/logic-driven humans who recognize we exist and are substantially a being?

I am also reading a book on fiction writing theory where the author asks the reader/writer to create an emotional map of his/her history and try to sketch it in a way that is not biographically inspired. I find this exercise fascinating and very difficult to do, which is the reason why I am so engaged with it. I'll possibly be writing about this next here in the blog before continuing with Eco/Nishida.

Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum," the last post

Work has been keeping me from posting the last part of my re-reading of "Foucault's Pendulum," by Umberto Eco. I finished reading it last month, but I have been crazy busy and unable to transpose my scribbling Moleskine notes to the blog. The main reason why I re-read this magnificent book was due to the fact that the first time I read it (1994), blogs were not the blogs we know today, and despite the fact that I reviewed my notes from that 1994 reading and considered posting those here, I thought it best to just have a fresh, clean read... top to bottom. And it was absolutely worth it.
The main issue I rediscovered is that after Chapter 80 or so, the Plan takes a life of its own. With this I mean that the narrator, Casaubon, begins to decipher the Plan as an "ever-evolving-taking-a-life-of-its-own" document. If Belbo had written the Plan to incite the Templars/Diabolicals/Rosicrucians to come out to play, he did a marvelous job. They came out to play "en masse." It is after Belbo's disappearance, or shortly before it, that Casaubon notices this "life of its own" phenomenon. The Plan goes from 1) a mysterious Templar map to 2) a Rosicrucian reformulation of the location of the "umbilical cord of the world" to 3) a Jesuit conspiracy to overthrow the King of France by discrediting and covert action. This last one in particular strikes me as fascinating. Supposedly, the Jesuits developed some thing called the "Artis Magnae Sciendi Epilogismus," and this little something was a combination of numbers and letters all tied together to develop a seemingly unbreakable code. The problem wasn't that this code, or the many others embedded within (they actually look like they are interminable) wasn't valuable, it just happen that the Jesuits developed it as a "bait" and made other groups seeking the same secret believe that this was the code they were using to look for the secret. It wasn't, and this "fake" code (because as numerically legitimate as it was it was fake) was only devised to send other groups on a wild goose chase. Brilliant!
But it doesn't end there... the great Mashall Ney, the man who single-handedly marched Napoleon's troops back from the Russian disaster makes an appearance. In 1808, Ney and his troops were in Tomar searching for the plan. Napoleon, about to conquer all the "centers" of Europe, now wanted the "center" of the world. Yes, yes... this is the same Marshall Ney that Hemingway mentions in "A Movable Feast." I wonder if that statue of Ney that Hemingway writes about is still in that park in Paris.
At any rate, the Plan goes from the Templars to the Paulicans, to the Rosicrucians to the Jesuits... who might be next? The Jews, of course, and the great conspiracy of the Protocols... the great Jewish plot, right? Wrong. That's the deadly mistake both Belbo and Casaubon make... the Protocols were not written by Jews. The Protocols could, in essence, be another "Plan" someone put in place in order to get the aforementioned groups to "come out and play."
Jacopo Belbo bit on more than he could possibly chew. What started out as an intellectual "game" ended up as a miscalculation of massive destructiveness. There was no "Plan," but the more they played the game, the more everyone believed there was one.
This is a brilliant, brilliant book. Umberto Eco is a master and genius of not only fiction, but a marvelous philosopher, etymologist and philologist (please read anything by him).

Note to Dan Brown's critique of "Foucault's Pendulum: You, sir, are a dreg. You are no writer, albeit a brilliant businessman. Your artistry is a sham, your books shallow and under-researched. You must consider, sir, reading "Foucault's Pendulum," if you haven't already... better yet, don't read it; it might inspire your next venture into the "plagiaristic/idea stealing" path that gave rise to your star status.

Today, 2 Years later... and beyond.

This has been a particularly crazy summer. I still haven't written my last post for Foucault's Pendulum, and I feel terrible about it.

Today is the 2 year anniversary of this blog. What started as an endeavor to make sense of my father's death quickly gave way to a reading, writing, art and music appreciation blog. And I believe this has led me to a better understanding of the great patriarch my father was.

I am still around... busy, but still around. Happy Anniversary, readers of "Frequency of Silence!" Here's to a few more years and a few more thousand books, paintings, music performances, and writing musings! CHEERS!

Eco's closing of his great novel is still coming up.

Foucault's Pendulum - Chapters 1 through 80

Foucault's Pendulum continues to be one of my favorite books ever. This mix of masonic ritual, Templar theory, religious history, mystery comes complete with incredibly deep characters and very integral sub-plots. There's a long history of people getting intimidated by the book, really, for no other reason that it deals with an incredible amount of terminology, often in Latin, French, Portuguese or Spanish. I love this book... loved it the first time I read it and like it even more now.

I've gotten to the point in which the protagonists (the editors/researchers of Garamond Press) are in the throngs of completing their Plan. The Plan essentially is just an invented plot of diabolical minutia that the Garamond Press gang put together and published seeing if, in fact, the Templars would come out to "play." They are tempting the Diabolicals to come out of their hiding by offering them a secret that does not exist. Certain parts of the Plan have been put together by "Abulafia," Jacopo Belbo's computer. Right now, you can cut the tension with a sawing blade. I can't wait to get to the end. The last few chapters really get lyrical and demonstrates that Umberto Eco is a genius in the ranks of Joseph Roth, Knut Hamsun, Herman Hesse, and even Roque Dalton.

I've been away because like a fool I decided to complete the requirements for a M.Ed. degree this summer. The only reason I am doing it is because I am only being charged 30% of all tuition and fees. I wonder if B.A. + M.A. + M.Ed. = Ph.D. Nah, just kidding... I am really not that interested.

The Religion of the Samurai -- Zen & Reality: A Comparative Analysis

The book I am reading right now "Zen: The Religion of the Samurai" by Professor Kaiten Nukariya is a complex examination of Zen, its origins in China, its transport to Japan, and its impact on the Bushido philosophy. Nukariya explains early in the book about the two main schools of Zen that evolved from the core Buddhism as it originated in India and China. The Hinayana Tripitaka and the Mahayana Tripitaka evolve from the desires of monks to explain the mysteries of Buddhism into more practical methods. The origins of Buddhism in China are explained from a sketchy history, since many of the documents that held the facts of that history have been lost through the decay of history, and most of what survives from the origins come from a rich oral tradition. The title of the book is a bit misleading. The mention of the Samurai/Bushido mentality/philosophy is not mentioned until page 30 and that for a small paragraph. The book goes back to history of the religion in general, and then a brief comparison of Zen monks and Samurai warriors as being more similar than it originally appears. The Histories are, of course, interesting, and I have learned a great deal about Buddha in general, as I did when I read "An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World" by Pankaj Mishra.

Professor Nukariya offers a definition of Enlightenment that is a bit confusing; it appears more a Zen koan than a real definition, since it is composed of a revolving/circular reasoning that leads to its own premise. His explanation is more an effort at discouraging a definition of Enlightenment in general. As Louis Armstrong said once when asked about the meaning of Jazz: "If you have to ask what it is, you'll never know."

The different levels of spiritual and objective reality are examined closely from the Zen perspective. The question of what constitutes spirit and how it connect all things appears in this book as over-simplistic, but someone who may not know about Zen can definitely appreciate such. All things, explains Nukariya, are alive and connected--even inanimate objects! He challenges the idea using the premises of sub-atomical structures that dictate that even inanimate objects are constantly on the move at that level, and that their moving is as chaotic as fate is to knowing animals (humans). Sub-atomic composition is, for Nukariya, a level of spirituality, a soul of sorts. I am afraid to ask one of our Physics Department professors for fear of being laughed at. They'd probably turn me away telling me not to ask questions that concern the soul. I can appreciate that.

All of this reminds me of my study of Kitaro Nishida's "An Inquiry into The Good" when I lived in Japan in 1994. The introduction, written by Yale Professor Masao Abe, explains how the question of whether or not there's "real" philosophy in Japan has been asked over and over again. His premise is that if you look for Western-based philosophy (objective/rational inquiries) in Japan, you'll only find Nishida as the originator of a philosophy based on Zen but aimed at explaining phenomena objectively. So, all in all, Nishida's book aims to incorporate both schools. He uses the principles of Hegel, James, Heidegger, etc., but gives it all a Zen twist. What I remember the most from this book is Nishida's introduction to the idea of "Pure Experience." As he explains it, "Pure Experience" takes place in the instant we see some object, but cannot know what it is for. For example, a person looks at a tool but doesn't know what the tool is for. Well, before he can tell what it is for, he or she can tell it is a tool, that it is grey in color with red handgrips, etc. That, in a sense, is post-judgment. But if we to "freeze-frame" the moment his or her eyes first encounter the instrument/tool, before any type of judgment is made about it... that, in a nutshell, is "Pure Experience." That, of course, is an over-simplistic example, but looking deeper into "Pure Experience" and applying it to different more serious situations, we find that "Pure Experience" is an area of inquiry worthy of study, as much as, perhaps, pragmatism, absolutism, etc. are. One other example of this might be the encounter (First Contact) that occurred recently between "modern" men in an airplane and a tribe of natives in the deep forest of the Amazon. Whatever it was that the tribe first saw, before they could even react to the plane as a threat and, as they truly did, started shooting arrows at it, it was "Pure Experience." Before it was a threat, before they ran for cover because they felt threatened, the tribe must have looked up in wonder at the thing flying above them. That is "Pure Experience."

The fact that the tribe connected the plane to a threat touches back to Nukariya in "The Religion of the Samurai." Humans need a complete detachment from phenomena to achieve "Pure Experience." Which develops into an even more interesting question or questions: What, besides First Contact, can bring about "Pure Experience?" How is the world of technology helping to expose us to "almost everything," making us unable to see "Pure Experience." Do we already see that technology as predictable? Has the Internet made our possible encounter with "Pure Experience" null?

Going back to Zen in general, a few things are worth mentioning further. The main differences between Hinayana and Mahayana is that they are considered polar opposites. That is to say, Hinayana is considered pessimistic in nature, while Mahayana is more associated with optimism and positive outcomes. It is because of this that some Zen sayings are considered (incorrectly) as nihilist. Further notes about Zen and spirit yields another conflict with Western ideas of the soul. Zen problematizes the fact that the Western "soul" continues to carry with it the personality, irks and quirks, peccadilloes, etc. of the individual who has just expired. Buddhism in general urges the opposite: detachment, separation, "egolessness," etc. Egotism, argues Nukariya, makes people selfish enough to consider they need to continue to exist in their souls, ad infinitum. This is the cornerstone of egotism as it is known in the West.... what is considered the ultimate betrayal to the Truth in Buddhism.

"The Religion of the Samurai" in general has a lack of connection to how Zen applies to the Samurai and how Zen ended up being part and parcel of the warrior spiritual life. It's already page 90 out of 127 and the link to Bushido has not been clearly established. Perhaps Nukariya has saved the best for last. Next on my reading list: a re-read of Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum."

December is the cruelest month...

Not really, but since I am not going to (in all likeness) be able to finish my reading list this year (by four books), I now declare December a hostile month. Just kidding. I know T.S. Eliot had more to say about April than I have to say about December, so I'll leave it at that. I have been reading "On Bullshit," by Harry G. Frankfurt. The volume is a quick read through an intensely high discoursed theory on why is there so much bullshit in the world. It may or may not be humorous to some, but the fact that one can tell its "tongue in cheek" suaveness is a real treat. Prof. Frankfurt aims to answer "what is it, what it does and why is there so much of it." I have been touch and go in my reading of this, but I should be done before the week is out.

Since I have so much to do before "The Silence of this Wall" comes out in print, my reading list for the year 2008 is rather limited in scope. I will be reading "classics" primarily, but I have added some re-reads to the list because I feel they are essential to my growth as a writer. One of these is a beautifully, mint-condition, first printing of Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum." If you have never read it, I can only describe it as magical. It is really one of the most fantastic and well-written books in the world (no exaggeration, as the NYT once said about "One Hundred Years of Solitude," "This book should be required reading for the entire human race."). My love for "Foucault's Pendulum" grew out of a road-trip I had with a very wealthy friend who, while being in college, had a $85,000 car. We took his BMW all the way to Washington, DC all the while listening to Tim Currey masterfully reading it in Audio Book (here is a sample reading). I was hooked immediately. If you have read that book by a guy named Dan Brown, then you'll know where all those accusations of plagiarism came from if you read "Foucault's Pendulum." At any rate, that and some other "classics" will be my reading list for next year: some Dickens, more Brontes, Tolstoy, etc.