Most Magical Indeed
03/07/2008 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaThe procrastinating serpent finally reaches the end of the booklist as part of a previous meme courtesy of The Cat
For those who know this serpent, the answer is obvious. But for those who don't ....
"Gödel, Escher, Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter
"Is the soul greater than the hum of its parts?"
Don't even know where to begin with this one. Simply the most amazingly magical strange and loopy book that Izzie has ever peeked her little nose in.
Simply thinking about it is enough to make this serpent smile and get all nostalgic and slushy
To maintain a child like sense of wonder of the world and to convey it to others so that they catch it too is just the least of it.
Needless to say, the ma hated the sight of the thing and was always threatening to toss it into the fire claiming that it was corrupting and twisting this innocent serpent's mind. Those Dursleys most definitely do NOT like magic.
Had always been fond of paradoxes, strange and impossible things. But it was many many years after admiring nameless drawings in children's encyclopedias of twisted triangles, strange loopy spirals, ants going around in circles and all sorts of impossible buildings that the Izzie found them all again in one place and realised for the first time that they were all by the one artist M C Escher. And this book was the place. That alone made it special but was only the start of it
There were Zen koans and stories from all sorts of seemingly unrelated areas. But these are very special stories. Not only do the characters talk about complicated concepts but the structure of each story itself illustrates the very concept itself. Contracrostipunctus - is particularly wicked. Who would ever guess that you could get up to so much mischief with an old fashioned record player? And there's all sorts of wicked twists in the tale
Many moons ago, Izzie found the whole chapter posted online but a good twenty minutes consulting the Oracle of Google is not delivering the goods.
If there was only one book that the Izzie could rescue from her entire collection, this would be the one.
Then there's also his wickedly wonderful "Metamagical Themas" which introduced Izzie to yet more fun stuff like fonts, fractals, tiles, number numbness, the Prisoner's Dilemma and one of the most twisted tales ever told
Ohh that last paragraph does not count as the second book - more a sort of second instalment of GEB. Or as Izzie calls them 'The Old and the New Testaments'
Izzie got a bit too enthusiastic and has now run out of time to post the lucky last and will have to save it for another day
Now you can see why we don't do these Inquisition memes too often. Once started - just cannot stop squiggling
For those who know this serpent, the answer is obvious. But for those who don't ....
"Gödel, Escher, Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter
"Is the soul greater than the hum of its parts?"
Don't even know where to begin with this one. Simply the most amazingly magical strange and loopy book that Izzie has ever peeked her little nose in.
Simply thinking about it is enough to make this serpent smile and get all nostalgic and slushy
To maintain a child like sense of wonder of the world and to convey it to others so that they catch it too is just the least of it.
Needless to say, the ma hated the sight of the thing and was always threatening to toss it into the fire claiming that it was corrupting and twisting this innocent serpent's mind. Those Dursleys most definitely do NOT like magic.
Had always been fond of paradoxes, strange and impossible things. But it was many many years after admiring nameless drawings in children's encyclopedias of twisted triangles, strange loopy spirals, ants going around in circles and all sorts of impossible buildings that the Izzie found them all again in one place and realised for the first time that they were all by the one artist M C Escher. And this book was the place. That alone made it special but was only the start of it
There were Zen koans and stories from all sorts of seemingly unrelated areas. But these are very special stories. Not only do the characters talk about complicated concepts but the structure of each story itself illustrates the very concept itself. Contracrostipunctus - is particularly wicked. Who would ever guess that you could get up to so much mischief with an old fashioned record player? And there's all sorts of wicked twists in the tale
Many moons ago, Izzie found the whole chapter posted online but a good twenty minutes consulting the Oracle of Google is not delivering the goods.
If there was only one book that the Izzie could rescue from her entire collection, this would be the one.
Then there's also his wickedly wonderful "Metamagical Themas" which introduced Izzie to yet more fun stuff like fonts, fractals, tiles, number numbness, the Prisoner's Dilemma and one of the most twisted tales ever told
Ohh that last paragraph does not count as the second book - more a sort of second instalment of GEB. Or as Izzie calls them 'The Old and the New Testaments'
Izzie got a bit too enthusiastic and has now run out of time to post the lucky last and will have to save it for another day
Now you can see why we don't do these Inquisition memes too often. Once started - just cannot stop squiggling
