tom moody

current ebook list

Comments Off on current ebook list

Q. Tom, what's in your Kindle?
A. Uh, Jeff Bezos is an *ssh*le monopolist who owns the Washington Post (fake news dispenser) and seems bent on hooking consumers into addictive rent-extraction schemes, so I use the Kobo reader for ebooks now.

Q. (Sigh) OK, Mr. Man of Principle, what's in your Kobo ebook reader?
A. Joseph Conrad, Nostromo, Chance, Under Western Eyes, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Victory (all good, all available DRM-free from Feedbooks.com)

Mark Olden's Poe Must Die and Kevin Baker's Paradise Alley both take place in the slummy, scary New York of the mid-1800s. Pigs running wild in the streets, Hot Corn Girls, Croton hydrants...

Ross McDonald's books pre-Lew Archer: The Dark Tunnel, Trouble Follows Me, Blue City, The Three Roads

George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Digger's Game, Cogan's Trade

James M. Cain, Double Indemnity (the movie version turns claims analyst Edward G. Robinson into a sympathetic character and friend to the main heel, making it less bleak than Cain's cold-blooded book), The Postman Always Rings Twice

Philip Pilkington, The Reformation in Economics (just purchased -- DRM-free epub -- looking forward to this book by an erstwhile Naked Capitalism contributor)

utopia and dystopia in architecture (a capsule)

Comments Off on utopia and dystopia in architecture (a capsule)

belcourt_650

Louise Belcourt, Mound #28, 2015, oil on canvas, 66 x 85 inches

Will likely not make it to Locks Gallery in Philadelphia for Louise Belcourt's show so this is a "jpeg review."

The recent film Midnight Special, a leaner, meaner version of John Carpenter's Starman [caution: spoilers], imagines a race of perfected humans in a dimension "above" ours, who "have watched us for years." At the end of the movie we're given a glimpse of their architecture, very tech-y, CAD-designed, eco-friendly structures twisting and soaring above the landscape. Belcourt's urban vision above, for me, better approximates what an evolved humanity might build. Kinder, gentler, more integrated and integral than the film's Eiffel-meets-Saarinen machine confections.

On the other side of the design-wheel, opposite Belcourt's mound cities of neopolitan ice cream but not that far off from some of Midnight Special's skyscraper para-buildings, we have this clanking artifact from the real world, spotted by James Howard Kunstler (fortunately not yet built -- this is only a rendering -- but awaiting city approvals -- in Los Angeles -- near the airport):

eyesore-Jan-17

Friendly aliens, if you are watching us, please intervene now.

left disarray

Comments Off on left disarray

Corporatist Clinton bitter-enders vs populists -- The Elephant in the Room Is a Donkey (Reflections on Kamala Harris) (Gaius Publius, Down with Tyranny)

Sam Seder once wisely said that during the Bush era, almost every Democrat and Democratic supporter looked like a solid progressive. It's only when Obama becomes president that you can see the difference between the Ezra Kleins of the world and the Elizabeth Warrens (my paraphrase).

But the recent Democratic primary widened those rifts — between the austerity-loving corporate enablers and the actual populists — and they may not close this time under the next Republican president. After all, in the face of real defeat — yes, I know, "she won the popular vote," but still, defeat pretty much up and down the line — the battle still rages in the Democratic Party. And it should.

Identity politics wrangling -- Nascent Anti-Trump Coalition Already Fracturing? (Nat Parry, Essential Opinion)

One early sign of the anti-Trump coalition’s fracturing came when a group of women decided after Hillary Clinton’s defeat that they would organize a “Million Women March” to commiserate the first major-party female presidential nominee’s electoral loss to Donald Trump, a misogynist.

The day after the election, a Hawaii woman named Teresa Shook created a Facebook event and invited a few dozen of her friends to march on Washington on Jan. 21, the day after Trump’s inauguration. The idea was picked up by a Hillary Clinton Facebook fan page called Pantsuit Nation, with more than three million members, and suddenly there were multiple event pages with thousands of women signing up.

The original name of the march, however, was hastily dropped after the organizers were accused of “cultural appropriation.” Apparently the organizers hadn’t considered that the name “Million Woman March” was already used in 1997 by a demonstration organized for black women.

We need to pull together to fight orange hitler! But wait, who is "we"?

krugman hysteria

Comments Off on krugman hysteria

A friend emailed a poorly-written Paul Krugman (NYT) column about Trump/Russia. The Clinton camp first floated this "Russian hacking" meme to distract from the unfavorable DNC leaks and now it's expanded to cover the entire election.
My reply:

I can't tell if you're being serious in your last message, but please don't send me any more emails with the words "Putin" or "Russia."
The DC elite's attempt to revive the Cold War in the aftermath of the election seems foolish.
Watching the entrenched Washington cliques fight it out with the incoming billionaire posse is fun but not with geopolitics (and nukes) involved.
Krugman should know this but his unabashed Clinton support has thrown him "off his nut."
I hope all is well, otherwise.
Best, Tom