Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, nonfiction, inspiring historical account of modern science and discoveries beginning around 1800.
About half way through, great read.
Just saw this on the shelf. I enjoyed reading it very much. Closest celebrity gossip I can manage.
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Canât find it on Kindle, Google Play Books, KoboâŚ
Makes you want it more, doesnât it? That Murakami mystique.
Youâll find it when you go sit in the bottom of your well and see the stars in the daytime.
Thatâs a good spot.
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Started this classic today. Ranks sometimes in top 100 of all time best nonfiction.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey, nonfiction, 1821
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Pebble in the Sky by Asimov.
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So who and when would you advise somebody to read this particular book to which you are referring?
Itâs for the right person at the right time correct?
The Jay Rubin book? Anytime. Itâs filler. Fun summer read.
Honestly, I just threw out Killing Commentadore or whatever it was. Just awful.
Iâd reread HMâs earlier stuff though when Iâm sad. Like I listen to Joy Division when Iâm sad.
What about the Wind-up Bird Chronicle?
I think Iâve read that twice.
Probably enough. Itâs not Hamlet.
This looks interesting. I had thoughts on the subject when people who paid $20 more for Bob Dylan tickets were under the awning, and we were 25 feet away from cover, behind a rope line.
Friction free life.
The word âfrictionâ appears throughout the book. Whether theyâre breezing through airport security or easily securing an appointment with an in-demand medical specialist, the wealthy increasingly experience life as friction-free. âOn the other side of the Velvet Rope,â Schwartz writes, âfriction is practically the defining characteristic.â
Schwartzâs examples are wide-ranging. He describes stadiums that have separate entrances and dining rooms for elite ticket holders (New Yorkâs Yankee Stadium even has a concrete barrier called âthe moat,â which prevents anyone but the big spenders from getting close to the field); cruise vessels that have small, luxurious âship-within-in-a-shipâ areas accessible only to VIPs, who dine in their own private restaurants but have premium seats reserved for them if they opt to mix with the other passengers at a show; theme park packages that allow priority customers to bypass interminable lines; and concierge medical practices that spare their patients the hours others spend languishing in waiting rooms or the months they spend waiting to get appointments in the first place.
Itâs so common to the people that have it that they think itâs common for many people but itâs not.
I donât know if I would call it a âshadow economyâ though except for the 1%, more like just a shadow perk for the upper %.
I get livid when I try to buy tix online. Tom Segura tix were $1000 a piece through third party vendorsâŚthen I walked into the empty box office and got them for $50. Fuckers.
The friction free life people arenât paying anything and are getting more extra perks like parking next to the door, escort direct to seat, and maybe some spot in the back for snacks and who knows what.
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Well, if youâve read White Trash youâd know that this is all a class system on steroids.
Thereâs a bit about the friction free avoiding traffic by getting helicopter service. Sounds familiar:
I see you just happened to stumble across a picture of a black couple. Is that because the average person using private helicopter services in America is black? Iâm sure itâs just a total co-incidence.
If you compared like-to-like, say, the richest whites to the richest blacks, or the poorest whites to the poorest blacks, the attempt to skew would be too obvious.
What does their race have to do with anything? Oh, and Kobeâs widow isnât black.
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Oh lordy, so what?
I chose Kobe on purpose because he was one of the friction free rich. He wasnât flying in a helicopter to save puppies on an active volcano. He just didnât like driving through traffic. He was flying his kid to basketball practice. Perfect example. Save your race baiting for IP.
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