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12/31/12

12 in 12

Great things I discovered in 2012 (possibly after everyone else)--
  1. The state of California.
  2. Trees (the fall issue of The Philosophers' Magazine contains my paean to trees).
  3. Bjork--esp. Homogenic and Biophilia. Can't get enough of Joga and Cosmogony.
  4. Joanna Newsom--daughter turned me into a total fan in the past 24 hours!  Try The Book of Right On.
  5. The problem of personal identity. It used to be one of my least favorite philosophy problems, but no more.
  6. Philosophy books: Eric Olson's books on animalism (The Human Animal and What Are We?).  Also  Zoopolis by Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson
  7. Magnolia, the Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Favorite 2012 movie:  Argo.
  8. Magnolia soundtrack, featuring songs by Aimee Mann (here she is singing Save Me at the White House).
  9. Melancholia--wonderfully strange Lars von Trier movie.
  10. Fort Davis-Marfa area of west Texas. Wonderfully far from everything else and great for nature, history, art, astronomy.
  11. Twitter--when news is breaking, there's no better way to find out how people are reacting (e.g. during the presidential debates).  Then again, distraction, distraction, distraction.  May have to pull the plug in 2013.
  12. Barack Obama. During the campaign the case he made for himself turned me into a bigger fan than I'd been before.  Runner up: Hillary Clinton.  The champagne is already in the fridge for 2016. 
And one thing I'm really tired of--
  1. Watching the brawl over feminism in the atheist community. The tendency to brawl is the problem, not feminism. Few seem to see that.  I hope to pay much less attention in 2013.
Happy New Year!

3 comments:

  1. ianbargainJanuary 1, 2013 at 1:09 AM

    Magnolia/Bjork in 2012? Good God - where is your age appropriate cynicism? I recommend "There will be Blood" and "Dancer in the Dark" in 2013 as a cure. Or Antichrist if that doesn't work :-).

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  2. FaustJanuary 1, 2013 at 3:02 AM

    Happy New Year! Very glad about #5, hope to discuss it in more detail in the future.

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  3. Jean KazezJanuary 1, 2013 at 8:15 AM

    IanBargain, I know, there's a lot of uplift in my list. With a penumbra of existential doom, but still highly affirmative. Disgusting! "There will be blood"--good movie, I almost added it to the list, but "12 in 12" had a nice ring to it.

    Faust, More personal identity coming soon. I've almost got it all figured out :-)

    ReplyDelete

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