Empire-Builders

In the same vein: οὐκ ἔστι τοῖς μὴ δρῶσι σύμμαχος τύχη. - Fortune is no ally to those who do not act. Sophocles, Fragments x.com/Athanasius_45/…

Yo Anons…

Mass drivers on the Moon!

@EmmettStinson McCarthy feels grander…And he owes more to Joyce & Melville for his masterpieces Suttree & BM. And then as much to Hemingway for the stuff that came after. His early work is closest to Faulkner and also not as good or celebrated…

Found the guy who thinks the pastiche is better than the original.

Going through Project Hail Mary…Keeping my followers on Lex posted.

@lovedropx Em dash detected. Must be AI slop.

Dostoevsky… what a paragraph!!!

KISSINGER: The feasibility of…you’re asking about- NIXON: Fusing with a sandworm, Henry. Yes. And ruling as God Emperor. I want a, I want a frank feasibility assessment. KISSINGER: Mr. President, I want to…I’m going to approach this as I would any, ah, as a strategic question and simply note that the first obstacle would appear to be- NIXON: The sandworms don’t exist. I know the sandworms don’t exist, Henry. I’m not- do I seem like a man who doesn’t know that? I’m talking about the principle. I’m talking about whether the architecture of the thing, whether a version of this, a, an analogous- HALDEMAN: An analogous sandworm. [EIGHT SECONDS OF SILENCE] NIXON: Don’t do that, Bob.

Clint Eastwood.

“My true glory is not to have won forty battles… What nothing will destroy, what will live for ever, is my Civil Code.” -Napoleon on St. Helena

Dante's Hell under Mont Saint Michel, Pierre Lonica

@CHRISF0GLE Generational writers, and creators in general, are allowed to be full of contempt

That McCarthy dfw article is so funny bc it seems to want to be proof that dfw sucks, but really it’s just proof that McCarthy was kind of a loser

@natecooley The “concise, dash-separated summaries as chapter headings” was pretty common in general. You can even find it in Gibbon’s Decline & Fall

What fiction impressed Cormac McCarthy and what books did he recommend? In 5-page hand-written letter to “Jerry” [n.d. late summer/autumn 1979?], Cormac wrote that it was hard for him to find novels to read and that he read one novel for every fifty or so that he investigates (on the basis of a review, or advice of a friend). Cormac wrote that he liked 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, but likes other South American writers better. Cormac also wrote that he “loves” Borges and read a recent book by Brazilian author João Ubaldo Ribeiro titled Sergeant Getúlio (1971). Cormac mentioned that he had just started reading a novel called Desperadoes by Ron Hansen that he said “may be interesting.” He also referenced writer Carlos Castaneda and says if Castaneda’s books are novels, they are “high on my list.” In this letter to “Jerry”, Cormac also recommended Encounters with the Archdruid, The Pine Barrens, and Coming into the Country by John McPhee as well as The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe and The White Album and Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion. Cormac also mentioned being fond of Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, and then mentions having a pretty good-sized collection of books on Texas and the Southwest. He mentions the books and accounts written by early travelers to the area and says they’re “exceptional books.” (Side Note: The way Cormac wrote the chapter headings in Blood Meridian matches exactly the style of chapter headings in John Russell Bartlett’s 2-volume 1854 published books Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, Connected with the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission During the Years 1850, '51, '52, and '53. This style of concise, dash-separated summaries as chapter headings was common in mid-19th century exploration and boundary survey reports and personal travel narratives, the exact types of books McCarthy is talking about in his letter to “Jerry”.) Also in his letter, Cormac also mentions Guy Davenport and specifically his book Tatlin!, the Michael Herr book Dispatches, and says he’s reading “with great enjoyment” Letters of Flannery O’Connor the Habit of Being (1979) edited by Sally Fitzgerald. (BTW, “Jerry” is almost definitely Reverend Gerald A. Krum, who led the St. Mark Lutheran Church in Hanover, PA from 1977-1980.) In another letter to “Jerry” [n.d. 1980?], Cormac says he read a review of Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, but he doesn’t comment of the book or its quality. Finally, in a 1985 letter also to “Gerry”, a week or so before Blood Meridian was released, Cormac expressed admiration for the work of Michael Ondaatje. He specifically mentioned Coming Through Slaughter. So, there you have it. Some books and authors CM enjoyed and recommended in his own words.

Continuing listening to this on @GetLexApp Highly recommended, fascinating book.

@tszzl Going through the book right now, and only one chapter in, but isn’t the comedic zinger redditsm a direct consequence of source material…

project hail mary was unfortunately a middling adaptation of a good book. the script has the unfortunate affect of “language model populism” - where every single line has to be some sort of punched up comedic zinger yet still unremarkable. visuals were uninspired and trite and more or less identical to other space movies. everything good about the film comes from the wonderful world scaffolding of the book and the hard science fiction of it all that lets you suspend disbelief on the alien rocky the movie doesn’t really try to get into the xenolinguistic stuff even at the depth the book tries (someone called it “arrival for idiots” which unfortunately hit ) the thing that elevated the book is the commitment to a hard science fiction engineeringporn fiction at a level nobody else is able to write. the direction of the movie doesn’t really convey the same feeling successfully, and you’re left with flat characters, an alien that is more human than several humans i know, and a marvel populism gosling and the german woman are great as actors, but this movie will not be remembered in a year. it is disappointing to see people do so little with a quarter billion, insane acting talent, and incredible source IP

@nic_munoz Any specific Tesla biography you’d recommend?

@EmpiresPod I reccomend reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and any biography on Nikola Tesla as well.

👀

@TheManlet_King Bro didn't stop at the Strait of Gibraltar...

They were following the journey of Hercules, but you aren't ready for that conversation.

@noahjones4321 I like Twilight of the Idols

Ever wonder why Spotify has such good music recommendations? The secret is the playlist. Playlists capture something more elusive and ineffable than genres. Any time you make a playlist, you are informing the platform about an underlying vibe connecting the songs therein. The algorithm picks up on this vibe, identifies a lookalike audience, and the result is a Discover Weekly playlist that actually manages to give you good song recommendations every Sunday. Lex has the equivalent for reading: the bookshelf, of which there are 4,463 and counting. Anyone can make a shelf, and you can also browse official ones to find your next read. Every shelf gets us one step closer to making the ultimate recommendation algorithm for books...So keep making, saving, and sharing shelves. It might just get the world reading again.