ok. so there it is. i’ve embraced prog rock publicly. yes i’m a king crimson fan. yes i still listen to meddle and atom heart mother. go ahead punks hurl your insults in comments. hope someone out there enjoyed it.

for more in depth historical context and music samples check out…

progressive rock online’s discografia

strawberry bricks progressive timeline

and the mega site prog archives.

this is what i saw 4 years ago from broadway and 9th street.

i can’t believe it was four years ago. seems so much further away in some ways and so much closer in others.
back to regular blogging tomorrow.

some strange commotion is in his brain: he bites his lip, and starts; stops on a sudden, look supon the ground, then then lays his finger on his temple; straight sptings out into fast gate; then stops again, strikes his breast hard, and anon he casts his eye against the moon. -shakespeare.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. -Kierkegaard

Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. -Roche

Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today’s jobs with yesterday’s tools. -mcluhan

The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but deliverance from fear. -emerson

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed. -Siddharta

Anxiety is not fear, being afraid of this or that definite object, but the uncanny feeling of being afraid of nothing at all. It is precisely Nothingness that makes itself present and felt as the object of our dread. -Barrett

Your soul will be dead even before your body: fear nothing further. -Nietzsche

I’ve developed a new philosophy… I only dread one day at a time. -charlie brown

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. -swedish proverb

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. -twain

fear like a dog stuffed in my mouth,
fear like dung stuffed up my nose,
fear where water turns into steel,
fear as my breast flies into the Disposall,
fear as flies tremble in my ear,
fear as the sun ignites in my lap… -anne sexton

Dread of night. Dread of not-night. -kafka

The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last. -wilde

now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede? -burroughs

Worry is not thought; complaining is not action. -cooley

Who’s not sat tense before his own heart’s curtain? -rilke

O foolish anxiety of wretched man, how inconclusive are the arguments which make thee beat thy wings below! -dante

Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is, with thoughts of what may be. -dryden

(all illustrations by heiri steiner. 1962)

don’t touch me! dont question me! don’t speak to me! stay with me! -beckett

how the world was saved






One day Trurl the constructor put together a machine that could create anything starting with n. When it was ready, he tried it out, ordering it to make needles, then nankeens and negligees, which it did, then nail the lot to narghiles filled with nepenthe and numerous other narcotics. The machine carried out his instructions to the letter. Still not completely sure of its ability, he had it produce, one after the other, nimbuses, noodles, nuclei, neutrons, naphtha, noses, nymphs, naiads, and natrium. ‘This last it could not do, and Trurl, considerably irritated, demanded an explanation.

  “Never heard of it,” said the machine.

  “What? But it’s only sodium. You know, the metal, the element…”

  “Sodium starts with an s, and I work only in n.”

  “But in Latin it’s natrium.”

  “Look, old boy,” said the machine, “if I could do everything starting with n in every possible language, I’d be a Machine That Could Do Everything in the Whole Alphabet, since any item you care to mention undoubtedly starts with n in one foreign language or another. It’s not that easy. I can’t go beyond what you programmed. So no sodium.”

  “Very well,” said Trurl and ordered it to make Night, which it made at once - small perhaps, but perfectly nocturnal. Only then did Trurl invite over his friend Klapaucius the constructor, and introduced him to the machine, praising its extraordinary skill at such length, that Klapaucius grew annoyed and inquired whether he too might not test the machine.

  “Be my guest,” said Trurl. “But it has to start with n.”

  “N?” said Klapaucius. “All right, let it make Nature.”

  The machine whined, and in a trice Trurl’s front yard was packed with naturalists. They argued, each publishing heavy volumes, which the others tore to pieces; in the distance one could see flaming pyres, on which martyrs to Nature were sizzling; there was thunder, and strange mushroom-shaped columns of smoke rose up; everyone talked at once, no one listened, and there were all sorts of memoranda, appeals, subpoenas and other documents, while off to the side sat a few old men, feverishly scribbling on scraps of paper.

  “Not bad, eh?” said Trurl with pride. “Nature to a T, admit it!”

  But Klapaucius wasn’t satisfied.

  “What, that mob? Surely you’re not going to tell me that’s Nature?”

  “Then give the machine something else,” snapped Trurl. “Whatever you like.” For a moment Klapaucius was at a loss for what to ask. But after a little thought he declared that he would put two more tasks to the machine; if it could fulfill them, he would admit that it was all Trurl said it was. Trurl agreed to this, whereupon Klapaucius requested Negative.

  “Negative?!” cried Trurl. “What on earth is Negative?” “The opposite of positive, of course,” Klapaucius coolly replied. “Negative attitudes, the negative of a picture, for example. Now don’t try to pretend you never heard of Negative. All right, machine, get to work!”

  The machine, however, had already begun. First it manufactured antiprotons, then antielectrons, antineutrons, antineutrinos, and labored on, until from out of all this antimatter an antiworld took shape, glowing like a ghostly cloud above their heads.

  “H’m,” muttered Klapaucius, displeased. “That’s supposed to be Negative? Well… let’s say it is, for the sake of peace. . . . But now here’s the third command: Machine, do Nothing!”

  The machine sat still. Klapaucius rubbed his hands in triumph, but Trurl said: .

  “Well, what did you expect? You asked it to do nothing, and it’s doing nothing.”

  “Correction: I asked it to do Nothing, but it’s doing nothing.”

  “Nothing is nothing!”

  “Come, come. It was supposed to do Nothing, but it hasn’t done anything, and therefore I’ve won. For Nothing, my dear and clever colleague, is not your run-of-the-mill nothing, the result of idleness and inactivity, but dynamic, aggressive Nothingness, that is to say, perfect, unique, ubiquitous, in other words Nonexistence, ultimate and supreme, in its very own nonperson!”

  “You’re confusing the machine!” cried Trurl. But suddenly its metallic voice rang out:

  “Really, how can you two bicker at a time like this? Oh yes, I know what Nothing is, and Nothingness, Nonexistence, Nonentity, Negation, Nullity and Nihility, since all these come under the heading of n, n as in Nil. Look then upon your world for the last time, gentlemen! Soon it shall no longer be…”

  The constructors froze, forgetting their quarrel, for the machine was in actual fact doing Nothing, and it did it in this fashion: one by one, various things were removed from the world, and the things, thus removed, ceased to exist, as if they had never been. The machine had already disposed of nolars, nightzebs, nocs, necs, nallyrakers, neotremes and nonmalrigers. At moments, though, it seemed that instead of reducing, diminishing and subtracting, the machine was increasing, enhancing and adding, since it liquidated, in turn: nonconformists, nonentities, nonsense, nonsupport, nears ightedness, narrowmindedness, naughtiness, neglect, nausea, necrophdia and nepotism. But after a while the world very definitely began to thin out around Trurl and Klapaucius.

  “Omigosh!” said Trurl. “If only nothing bad comes out of all this . . .”

  “Don’t worry,” said Klapaucius. “You can see it’s not producing Universal Nothingness, but only causing the absence of whatever starts with n. Which is really nothing in the way of nothing, and nothing is what your machine, dear Trurl, is worth!”

  “Do not be deceived,” replied the machine. “I’ve begun, it’s true, with everything in n, but only out of familiarity. To create however is one thing, to destroy, another thing entirely. I can blot out the world for the simple reason that I’m able to do anything and everything - and everything means everything - in n, and consequently Nothingness is child’s play for me. In less than a minute now you will cease to have existence, along with everything else, so tell me now, Klapaucius, and quickly, that I am really and truly everything I was programmed to be, before it is too late.”

  “But -” Klapaucius was about to protest, but noticed, just then, that a number of things were indeed disappearing, and not merely those that started with n. The constructors were no longer surrounded by the gruncheons, the targalisks, the shupops, the calinatifacts, the thists, worches and pritons.

  “Stop! I take it all back! Desist! Whoa! Don’t do Nothing!!” screamed Klapaucius. But before the machine could come to a full stop, all the brashations, plusters, laries and zits had vanished away. Now the machine stood motionless. The world was a dreadful sight. The sky had particularly suffered: there were only a few, isolated points of light in the heavens - no trace of the glorious worches and zits that had, till now, graced the horizon!

  “Great Gauss!” cried Klapaucius. “And where are the gruncheons? Where my dear, favorite pritons? Where now the gentle zits?!”

  “They no longer are, nor ever will exist again,” the machine said calmly. “I executed, or rather only began to execute, your order…”

  “I tell you to do Nothing, and you… you…”

  “Klapaucius, don’t pretend to be a greater idiot than you are,” said the machine. “Had I made Nothing outright, in one fell swoop, everything would have ceased to exist, and that includes Trurl, the sky, the Universe, and you - and even myself. In which case who could say and to whom could it be said that the order was carried out and I am an efficient and capable machine? And if no one could say it to no one, in what way then could I, who also would not be, be vindicated?”

  “Yes, fine, let’s drop the subject,” said Klapaucius. “I have nothing more to ask of you, only please, dear machine, please return the zits, for without them life loses all its charm…”

  “But I can’t, they’re in z,” said the machine. “Of course, I can restore nonsense, narrowmindedness, nausea, neerophilia, neuralgia, nefariousness and noxiousness. As for the other letters, however, I can’t help you.”

  “I want my zits!” bellowed Klapaucius.

  “Sorry, no zits,” said the machine. “Take a good look at this world, how riddled it is with huge, gaping holes, how full of Nothingness, the Nothingness that fills the bottomless void between the stars, how everything about us has become lined with it, how it darkly lurks behind each shred of matter. This is your work, envious one! And I hardly think the future generations will bless you for it . . .”

  “Perhaps… they won’t find out, perhaps they won’t notice,” groaned the pale Klapaucius, gazing up incredulously at the black emptiness of space and not daring to look his colleague, Trurl, in the eve. Leaving him beside the machine that could do everything in n. Klapaucius skulked Home - and to this day the world has remained honeycombed with nothingness, exactly as it was when halted in the course of its liquidation. And as all subsequent attempts to build a machine on any other letter met with failure, it is to be feared that never again will we have such marvelous phenomena as the worches and the zits - no, never again.

check out the rest of daniel mroz’s illustrations for the cyberiad.

for some more lem fragments see here

also don’t miss the exhaustive lem cover gallery

if i took away anything from herzog’s film it was an even clearer vision of all humans as lunatics.

this is not a film review. the film should be seen and that’s all i’ll say on that score. nor am i particularly concerned with timothy treadwell. in his case the obvious lunacy can be pinned to the singular belief that he was protecting bears. he was doing nothing of the sort. he was like a child on a 13 year camping trip. the belief that he was doing anything other than escaping humanity while pretending to be a naturalist is the most obvious lunacy the film presents. (if the bear who ate treadwell had not been shot and killed, the act of giving the hungry bear a meal would have been the most real help he ever offered.) but that particular sort of lunacy aside there is another to be gleaned from grizzly man.

in that the film was cobbled together largely out of treadwell’s own footage what you see overwhelmingly on the screen is a single man surrounded by the wilderness. a single human surrounded by the natural world. watching a human talk to the camera, complain to the camera, confess to the camera, presenting all his worries, dreams, concerns, and goals, against a backdrop of the natural processes of the alaskan wilderness is telling. the message could not be clearer: human concerns, when set against the counterpoint of the natural world, the “real” world, are absurd.

we have built our world on top of the real one. we like to believe we have seceded from the natural world, but of course, as a hurricane, or tsunami, or earthquake, or pandemic, or draught, or ice age reminds us, we have done no such thing. watching a human speak while behind him the mechanizations of nature chug confidently along makes that human seem above all else a lunatic. exchanging pieces of printed paper for other pieces of printed paper which grant the right to sit in a dark room and watch a 20 foot high artificial image of this same human speak, while stars explode and icebergs crumble into the sea, is lunacy as well. isn’t it?

while every other living thing does exactly what it instinctually knows it must, we hobble through life riddled with anxiety, stress, doubt, anger, paranoia, fear, and misery. we have created a world for ourselves which we can not seem to run effectively, the purpose and meaning of which we can not agree on. we are the most successful species the natural world ever unleashed and this success has earned us office jobs and audits and obesity and “reality” tv and prisons and governments.

this present state of our evolution does not in and of itself make us lunatics. it is natural. it is the way we have come. the place we are at. could not be any other way i suppose. but we are lunatics all the same. what makes us lunatics is the fact we use our skill to do little more than build our flimsy house of cards higher. we use our natural advantage, our high intelligence, to ponder not much besides the minutia of our house of cards. we are lunatics because having outpaced all our predators we prey on ourselves in order to own a larger piece of our house of cards. we are lunatics because so much trivial meaningless bullshit define our lives and we perpetuate it. we are lunatics because we not only perpetuate it but glory in it.

treadwell’s particular outer layer of lunacy, that fantasy of the bear protector, was not out of place in nature but the deeper lunacy, that of the cultured civilized modern human being, of course, was. we are all delusional about ourselves and about our place in the universe. watching the film i could not shake the feeling that the sight of any human being placed with his work and worries in the wilderness, would seem equally as absurd. in the modern world a human removed from the construct of civilization is rendered instantly oddly useless. isn’t he?

the image which springs to mind is this one:






“and now for something completely different” it’s absurd! we all agree and laugh. hahaha! but doesn’t that image sum up, in a way, what we humans really are here on planet earth in the year 2005?

lunatics one and all i say.

from tom:
new orleans mayor ray nagin is a stone bad ass and he’s pissed:
listen to the radio broadcast of his interview with a couple of AM radio journalists. the guy may not have a career in politics after this all plays out but as far as I am concerned he just secured his place in history.

from t buckner:
Inexcusable, unforgivable, the more I find out about the situation in New Orleans the more I want to punch republicans in the face.

bush spent the levee money in Iraq.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. connects the dots between Haley Barbour’s anti-Kyoto protocol memo and the wrath of god.
and imeldaleeza rice is buying shoes.

from cast:
try this one on for size.  a few months back, the bush administration and republican congress almost changed the constitution because it was inhumane to let a braindead woman starve and die of dehydration.  apparently, though, they’ll let thousands die of starvation and dehydration if they are poor, black, and able to function.  i think someone needs an executive order to insert a feeding tube into new orleans. while we at it, can we check to see if our president is braindead?

from jmorrison:
when i came home from work yesterday my girlfriend said, “there are snipers and looters and chaos going on right now, why aren’t there troops of some kind there to keep order?” she was incensed. the answer of course is that this would be a job for the national guard and there is no national guard. they are in iraq. this morning the word is that “by sunday” they hope to have 30,000 people there.

.

explosions, rape, robbery, murder?

this is the reason the hawks ought not be allowed to keep our country in a perpetual state of war. it’s why they ought not be allowed to create wars where none existed before. why they ought not be allowed to create giant money drains which were not absolutely necessary. because emergencies will happen naturally, wars will break out without any prompting, attacks will happen when we least expect it from people or otherwise. there is no need to manufacture tragedy.

federal govt not ready?

this hurricane has been pretty awful, but imagine if the unexpected catastrophe facing us right now were something even worse. imagine if it were north korea or iran. imagine if it were a scale topping earthquake, a pandemic, or hell- an asteroid. we the all powerful juggernaut would be screwed. too deep into our manufactured conflict to adequately defend or help ourselves.

i say no need to create bloody, resource draining misery, it will find us naturally. meanwhile as of today the leader of the richest country in the world can’t manage to help the people he is supposedly in office to serve.

and p.s. what happened to all the ballyhooed homeland security initiatives for disaster preparedness? weren’t police forces, national guardsmen, and firefighters all drilled on how to handle emergencies? bio-attacks! anthrax! dirty bombs! “we have to be ready” well, are we?

planning and response?

from orangeguru:
So much for homeland security or disaster response. Most people here in Europa are just shaking our heads in disbelief. Plus Bush has so far rejected any help from the outside.

from @rt:
It’s good to know that our leaders have kept their priorities straight.

On the subject of current events, eye of the storm and insomnia: new orleans stories and the interdictor have maintained excellent blogs throughout this catastrophe.

various links:

ending the Impunity of the bush white house

troops told shoot to kill

remarks bush during briefing on trent lot losing his home.

bush tours region

death toll

congress likely to probe nat. guard delay

conservative mag blames blacks & political correctness for chaos

editorial rip bush response

the rebellion of the talking heads including fox men geraldo and smith

jack cafferty calls it like he sees it

journalists fear for own safety
“Times photographer witnessed a deadly shootout, got roughed up by police, hid in fear, and now plan to flee the city to save their lives.”

feds weren’t ready even though no one can say we didn’t see it coming

poor told: your on your own

budget cuts undermined levee fix

red cross banned from nola

bush rules out significant fed aid

world stunned at our struggles

rhetoric does not match reality

why no mention of race or class in mainstream reports?

it really represents a failure of the fed gov

serious venomous indignation

the perfect storm

quote “God is at work, and we are called by Him to Serve His Will. There was a purpose for Katrina, let us not fail to fulfill our duties.” those duties? sending 40,000 Personal Witnessing Testaments to the astrodome. fucking gideon morons.

dysentery outbreak feared

falluja floods the superdome

murder and mayhem

troops begin combat ops in new orleans “this place is going to look like Little Somalia”

behind the curtain

shock at federal snub of offers to help

doubts about terror plans fueled by katrina

the administrations mask of confidence demolished

goal #1: quell political crisis in time to deal with what really matters

politicos failed flood victims

brittish victims told your on your own

united states of shame

norquist the prophet?

accomplishment is looking busy when they turn the tv cameras on

the censoring of kanye’s remarks on the west coast: “the network violated the most moving and essential moment in an otherwise sterile, self-serving corporate broadcast.”

more from christian leaders “katrina purged new orleans of its wickedness” i’m sorry to all you sensible christians out there but these “leaders” of yours are giant assholes. you need to reign them in.

a cant-do government

study finds oil company profiteering behind gasoline price spikes

senators to launch bipartisan inquiry into immense failure. ah business as usual. our govt has only one power it seems the power to launch “investigations” after screw-ups. only, as we all well know, these investigations lead to nothing, answer nothing, solve nothing, hold no one accountable and are in fact simply an official means of ending further inquiry. maybe a weatherman and mayoral intern will get thrown in jail as a result.

what are we seeing?!
-a turning point in the perception of America in the world
-a turning point in the perception of the urban poor in America
-a revelation of the impotence of government
-the first of many future episodes of social chaos in America

from jmorrison:
i have to say personally that as much as i have disliked the current administration, as much as i disagreed with 99% of the choices they have made, i always assumed that they were competent, that they could get things done, just that they did things i totally disagreed with. now for the first time i must admit i’m beginning to feel… well… worried. truly and honestly worried. a bit scared really. i’ve said in the past they were incompitant but i meant ideaologically. the results that we have seen from “the war on terror,” iraq, and now a natural disaster have really got me worried. is our government not only ideologically 180 degrees from what i’d like, but also functionally, in the basics, incompitant?

new orleans disaster sequel coming on oct. 17. “The president’s beloved Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act goes into effect on that day. while the bill was passing through the House Judiciary Committee early this year, Democrats attempted to amend the bill to include measures to protect victims of natural disasters such as hurricanes.
The amendment to the bill was voted down without debate. Along party lines.”

the lost city “For Days, Bush’s Top Advisers Argued Over Legal Niceties About Who Was In Charge.” and “Military Engineer: “We Just Got Back From Afghanistan. Organization’s A Lot Better There.”

times-picayune calls for firing of every official at fema.

my pet goat- the sequel “This time, during a catastrophe, the president did not merely dither for seven minutes, but for three days, and his top advisors followed suit. While the media has done a good job in portraying the overall failure of leadership in this weeks hurricane’s disaster, it has not focused enough on this deadly dereliction of duty.”

nola begins grisly clean up

many evacuted but thousands still waiting

video: russert rips into chertoff and full transcript

video: bob sheiffer blasts the response

“no one could have forseen the levee breaking” bull. no funding despite warnings

massive blog reaction roundup

why fema was missing in action

slow response exposes holes in planning

on politicizing the hurricane, from the wfmu message board:

bill kelly: How about this. Instead of proselytizing and politicizing, we all write a check for an amount of money we can afford and send it to a legitiimate organization equipped to offer some relief for those in need?

Karma’s a bitch: Live by the sword, DIE by the fucking sword.

try telling bush a disaster is not political-

the bush camp

springs into action to help… help ease the political damage to bush that is.

Under the command of President Bush’s two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

in a reflection of what has long been a hallmark of Mr. Rove’s tough political style, the administration is also working to shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana who, as it happens, are Democrats.

from jmorrison:
o.k. much as i felt post-election i am now fed up with all this and will not post any more about it for the time being. i need to rebuild my mental levees.

for continuing sources of spiking blood pressure and sadness see:

over spun

cursor

whiskey bar

crooks and liars

daily kos

the following is a repurposing of a book called my easy-to-read true book of more science experiments put out in 1956 by the childrens press, a division of grosset & dunlap. all illustrations by chauncy maltman. (click all…)

see how easy it is ye good clean red blooded crusaders! now get out there and stunt the mental growth of those kids!

take us back
“how far back?”
way back!

first off i’ll explain that when the site first started it was actually two sites. one called the nonist: zeitgeist, the other called the nonist: philology. they looked like this- (click for a closer look)

not much to look at i suppose but it was my first go at web design and i actually rather liked the randomized “portrait” + “portrait” thingy in the zeitgeist header. always made for an interesting combo. anyhow the reason i mention this seemingly prehistoric part of the nonist’s past is that most of the stats i’m about to divulge in fact only cover the 11 months since our re-launch. the only stats which include the old sites are as follows:

members: 110

total weblog entries: 1,357

total comments: 1,268

everything which follows is specific to the newer and much improved nonist 2.0 you are all familiar with:

Total Sessions: 450,207.00

Total Pageviews: 2,022,649.00

Total Hits: 7,963,146.00

Average Sessions Per Day: 1,230.07

Average Pageviews Per Day: 5,526.36

Average Hits Per Day: 21,757.23

Average Length of Session: 00:06:38

Visiting Countries: 143

Top Viewing Methods:

1) internet explorer
2) firefox
3) safari
4) bloglines
5) mozilla
6) netnewswire
7) opera
8) netscape
9) applesyndication
10) rssbandit

top visitor platforms:

1) widows
2) mac
3) linux
4) freebsd
5) sunos
6) webtv
etc

top downloads:

1) blog depression pamphlet: 7,192 downloads

2) nonist old testament activity book: 319 downloads

3) relative tie for all “soundtrack” mp3’s

most viewed posts of the year:

1) a nonist public service pamphlet
2) making love in 1976
3) announcing the first nonist activity book
4) mysterious, plentiful, and space faring: tardigrades
5) lower east side stickers 92-95
6) creative commies
7) an ode to naked type
8) doing our part for darwin day
9) casual numismatics
10) beauty amidst the rubble

(the lesson here is the oldest in the book. there is just no telling what people will respond to.)

so from a statistics standpoint that about wraps up what i can figure out.

from a personal standpoint i’ll say that i’m happy to have drawn in or otherwise connected with all the cool folks i have- from the diehards who post goodies for us, to the peeps who stop by occasionally to comment, to the fellow bloggers. your involvement has made the first two years fun. i hope to stay alert, energetic, and just masochistic enough to continue for another two years at least.

lastly while gathering this info it dawned on me that save for the few members here who know me personally, in the meat realms, the only image anyone has had to connect to me has been that tiny gravatar of snowflake the albino gorilla. well, after some consideration i’ve decided to reveal myself to you all if only to give you a mug to connect with the snide posts and philosophical ramblings in the dark-

first- photo with wax lips

and second- photo wearing a pillow-hat
(the pillow-hat being the official head gear of the finest,
aristocratic, near-royal in stature, blogger extraordinaire.
it is so the world over! or in my household at least.)

yikes! snowflake the albino gorilla is a lot easier on the eyes, i know.

so that’s it.
2 years of the nonist,
some wax lips,
and a pillow hat.
waddaya want for nuthin?
now help me blow out that candle.

the treasure trove i mentioned is escholarship editions: public subjects. the site offers a huge array of interesting books in their entirety, well presented, with illustrations, for free. i will offer a small cross section of titles i thought interesting. many are worthy of their own posts but as stated i haven’t the energy at present. take a look you may find just the thing to pleasantly suck up a few hours-

a medieval mirror
The Speculum Humanae Salvationis or “Mirror of Human Salvation,” is the only medieval work that exists in illuminated manuscripts, in blockbook editions of the mid-fifteenth century, and in sixteen later incunabula. The authors have provided lavishly illustrated account of the manuscript.

the flux of history the flux of science
Does thinking have a history? If there are no necessarily changeless structures to be found in things and in our inquiry into them, then what knowledge of the world and ourselves is possible?

chuck jones: a flurry of drawings
Flurry of Drawings reveals in cartoon-like sequences the irrepressible humor and profound reflection that have shaped Chuck Jones’s work. the author offers both a fascinating explanation of cartoon culture and a new understanding of art’s relationship to technology, criticism, freedom, and imagination.

foregone conclusions: against apocolyptic history
this passionate denunciation of apocalyptic thinking provides a moral, philosophical, and literary challenge to the way most of us make sense of our worlds. In our search for coherence, Bernstein argues, we tend to see our lives as moving toward a predetermined fate. This “foreshadowing” demeans the variety, the richness, and especially the unpredictability of everyday life.

light moving in time: studies in the visual aesthetics of avant-garde film
To view a film is to see another’s seeing mediated by the technology and techniques of the camera. By manipulating the cinematic apparatus in unorthodox ways, avant-garde filmmakers challenge the standardized versions of seeing perpetuated by the dominant film industry and generate ways of seeing that are truer to actual human vision.

the persistence of memory: organism, myth, text
While memory is one of the most fascinating faculties of consciousness, it is also one of the most mysterious. Is it memory - our own marvelous personal computer or data base - that brings us the intense feelings prompted by a certain object or situation?Drawing on an expansive array of sources, from microbiology to cosmology, Ovid to Proust, Egyptology to the cinema, Philip Kuberski leads us on a brave and beguiling exploration of memory.

1910. the emancipation of dissonance
The year 1910 marks an astonishing, and largely unrecognized, juncture in Western history. In this perceptive interdisciplinary analysis Focusing on the cultural climate of Middle Europe and paying particular attention to philosophy, literature, sociology, music, and painting the author provides a new, wider, and more ambitious definition of expressionism and shows the significance of this movement in shaping the artistic and intellectual mood of the age.

a history of wine in america
The Vikings called North America “Vinland,” the land of wine. Giovanni de Verrazzano, the Italian explorer who first described the grapes of the New World, was sure that “they would yield excellent wines.” And when the English settlers found grapes growing so thickly that they covered the ground down to the very seashore, they concluded that “in all the world the like abundance is not to be found.” Thus, from the very beginning the promise of America was, in part, the alluring promise of wine. How that promise was repeatedly baffled, how its realization was gradually begun, and how at last it has been triumphantly fulfilled is the story told in this book.

the calligraphic state. textual domination and history in a muslim society
In this innovative combination of anthropology, history, and postmodern theory, the author examines the changing relation of writing and authority in a Muslim society from the late nineteenth century to the present.

descarte’s imagination. proportion, images, and the activity of thinking
Renè Descartes is commonly portrayed as a strict rationalist, a philosopher who theorized a radical, unresolvable split between mind and body. In this long-overdue examination of the role of imagination in Descartes’s thought, the author reveals a Descartes quite different from the usual dualistic portrayals and offers a critical reconception of the genesis and nature of the philosopher’s thought.

before the nickelodeon
the author takes us into the long-forgotten world of early cinema - unexpectedly sophisticated and yet radically different from current movie-making.

the two-headed deer. illustrations of the ramayna
India’s epic poem, the Ramayana, is a dramatic, ever-evolving tale of a prince and his bride, their adventures and dilemmas, and demons…

their sisters’ keepers. prostitution in new york city, 1830-1870
This intimate study of prostitutes in New York City during the mid-nineteenth century reveals these women in an entirely new light. Unlike traditional studies, the author’s account of prostitution’s positive attractions, as well as its negative aspects, gives a fresh perspective to this much-discussed occupation.Using a wealth of primary source material, from tax and court records to brothel guidebooks and personal correspondence, the text shows the common concerns prostitutes shared with women outside the “profession.” As mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives, trapped by circumstances, they sought a way to create a life and work culture for themselves and those they cared about.By the 1830s prostitution in New York was no longer hidden. Though officially outside the law, it was well integrated into the city’s urban life.

there you go. make sure to check the site link in the beginning of the post as there are hundreds of books available. enjoy.