What I'm Reading, Oct 2022
Kim Stanley Robinson, David L. Buchbinder, Derek Sivers, Loic Le Meur, Libel, Jed Diamond, Brad Berens, David Katznelson, Surfing To Alcatraz, The Offer, Bill Maeda, Ethyl Acetate Decaf, and Rasa!
Reading
Kim Stanley Robinson, The High Sierra. KSR is known foremost for his science fiction writing. His Mars Trilogy introduced me to the concept of terraforming which we are now racing to put into practice in an attempt to engineering ourselves a solution to global warming. I met Kim-Stan once at a reading event at The Interval and was delighted to learn that this luminary of sci-fi epics is also a hard-core aficionado of high Sierra backpacking. He’s done more time up there than I ever will, and this book is a truly beautiful ode to what is the ‘best mountain range for backpacking in the entire world,’ as he puts it—and I agree.
I also came across this KSR fan site, which led me to Cory Doctorow’s review of THS, which led me to Cory’s book How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, all of which reminded me of another science fiction writer that I met at the Interval, Annalee Newitz, and this excerpt from her forthcoming book, The Terraformers.
David L. Buchbinder, Studying Men and Masculinities. I was led to this rather academic work via Grayson Perry’s book The Descent of Man, and it’s a treasure trove of deep writing about masculinity. The author concludes—and I agree—that “we may feel free enough to abandon the idea that men *must* conform to a certain model of the masculine if they are to be counted as men, and come to recognize that ‘masculinity’ is simply the totality of how *all* men might choose to enact socially the fact of their maleness.”
Derek Sivers, How To Live. Derek is one of those internet-native creators and writers. He cooked up the very cool /now page concept, and I appreciate his brand of personal philosophy.
Frans de Waal, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist. I’m very interested in the current explosion of gender norms, in large part because I’m interested in the evolution of what it means to be a “man,” or “masculine,” and how that is different—if at all—from being a person, or, a person with a penis. I especially appreciate the scientific perspectives in books like de Wall’s, along with Carole Hooven’s T: The Story of Testosterone, Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen, Chris Ryan’s Sex at Dawn, and David M. Buss’ The Evolution of Desire.
The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex — I don’t like perpetuating the idea that men want just sex, or even that we might want only “one thing” more than sex, but I do agree with the premise of this short piece, which is that “there is a deeper need that is being satisfied. I call it the need for a safe harbor.” I just love this turn of phrase and how true it rings.
Loic Le Meur, Discipline: teachings of my spiritual path — I’ve been thinking more about “discipline,” since my conversation with T Callahan, and I’ve been enjoying my friend Loic’s writing lately, including this post on the subject.
, The King Of Record Collecting — another old friend of mine here on Substack is writing beautifully about music and other related esoterica.Brad Berens, When A.I.’s compete with human artists.
, The Search For VulcanSteven Pressfield, In the Wilderness
Podcasts and Music
Conversations with Doug, Decide Nothing - with Bowen Dwelle
Joe Rogan with Chris Best, CEO of Substack
SPOTLIGHT: ‘IMPOSTER’ FROM LIBEL—one of the guys that used to work for me at AdMonsters has a new album out, and it’s really really good. Buy it here on Bandcamp.
My friend Bob Smith wrote a new tune called Surfing to Alcatraz that captures the vibe of our Crissy Field wing-foiling scene beautifully.
Steven Pressfield on the Rich Roll podcast: The War of Art and Conquering Resistance
My own writing and podcast
E08 / Sex is Better Sober with Kenyon Phillips — getting our nose in it
AI, Intuition and the Collective Unconscious — we’re building intuition machines
Why I Don’t Use Psychedelics — I'm a supporter, and I've been there, but I don't need to go back.
E07 / Essence, Intuition, and Penetrating Divine Illumination with Robert Ellis
Film, TV and Video
The Offer, based on Al Ruddy’s experience as producer making The Godfather.
Tim Ferriss, Should We Always Examine the Subconscious Using Psychedelics?
Bill Maeda’s insta is so impressive and inspiring. I mean, I’m sort of fit, but this guy, at 53, damn!
Other Resources and Products
Natural Readers text-to-speech, super cool tool!
I don't drink much caffeine at all any longer, but I do still love coffee sometimes, and ever since I heard of the Ethyl Acetate / sugar cane decaffeination process, I'd been wanting to try some coffee made this way. Not easy to find—and a lot of roasters that talk about EA decaf sell decaf that isn’t actually produced this way :( — but then again, that's what the internet is for—and so I was happy to come across Yield's Decaf Colombian. What I found is a decaf coffee that tastes alive in a way that other decafs haven't for me. I make it freshly ground in a Chemex cone filter, and the result is what tastes to me like a really great cup of coffee, with the added bonus that it doesn't mess me up in the way that caffeine does these days.
Speaking of coffee alternatives, in addition to MUD/WTR (which I like quite a lot), I also ordered some Rasa BOLD and I have been loving it. In fact, I drink it more often that the decaf I mention above. It works really well as a way-better-than-black coffee! It feels good—and, it turns out that the company was founded by an old friend of mine!
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I’ve got some questions for you…
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Derek Sivers is a fav. Thank you for sharing. I’m taking my time to read through and listen to each episode. Thank you for sharing again.