Comments on: Brain damage

By: Jordon Kalilich

Jordon Kalilich — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:50:48 +0000

Thanks for reminding me; you already know how forgetful I am.

My university’s library has two copies, one of which is lost. I’ve put in a request for the other.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:14:43 +0000

So … have you read it yet? :-)

By: Joshua McGee

Joshua McGee — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 01:46:06 +0000

Yeah, but that would be, if your statement had any truth, “fad for the last 30 years”, which suggests some longevity.

I wrote a rather obsequious email to Hofstadter in 1995 explaining that, before the book, I had never found someone whose interests matched mine in so many disparate domains, and how people had almost convinced me that I was simply weird. He responded, measuredly, that he was glad I had “felt some kinship with him”. I haven’t met him, but if/when I do, I’ll mention the email and see if he remembers. My guess is “not specifically”, because I expect that he received a vast number of boilerplate letters from undergrads.

Here’s the really ass thing to say: if you didn’t find GEB a revelation, you aren’t the intended audience. But that’s OK. Pearl Jam, Yeats, Chopin, and Neal Stephenson aren’t for everyone either. You’ll have your own examples that don’t overlap mine. We don’t need to shit in each other’s sandboxes with dismissive adverbial wankery, to VitaMix my metaphors.

By: Luke

Luke — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 01:23:27 +0000

I found GEB to be less of a revelation than I expected it to be. It’s just a fad.

By: Joshua McGee

Joshua McGee — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:47:10 +0000

I could also go check it out at the library Then what are you doing wasting time chatting with me? Vas-y! :-)

By: Jordon Kalilich

Jordon Kalilich — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:42:46 +0000

You could send me a copy, but I could also go check it out at the library and save you a little dough. My university probably has it.

By: Joshua McGee

Joshua McGee — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:22:31 +0000

Seriously, Jordon, you are going to read it and say “Where has this book been all my life?!” And the response will be “on the library’s shelves”.

I don’t recommend this book to everyone. I am recommending it to you, and we’ve corresponded for, what, how many years? May I send you a copy?

By: Jordon Kalilich

Jordon Kalilich — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:20:07 +0000

Nope!

By: Joshua McGee

Joshua McGee — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:18:25 +0000

He wrote Goedel, Escher, Bach

Have you read it?

By: Jordon Kalilich

Jordon Kalilich — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:16:07 +0000

For what it’s worth (probably very little now), I picked up on the Hofstadter reference too. He wrote Goedel, Escher, Bach and has his eponymous law which is something like that, and that’s all I know.