Read the Books of Peaches Geldof Part Two

Continuing on from my earlier post in providing links to PDFs for the books that featured on the shelfie published by Peaches Geldof weeks before her sad and as yet unexplained demise. I post this second and final installment on the bottom shelf of the above image here to provide access to many classic texts on the occult while public interest has been stirred. If you want to honor the memory of Peaches, why not read a book she was a fan of.

Beginning on the lower shelf, we have already posted a link to a PDF for The Nag Hammadi Library (a personal favorite of mine, which sits on my own shelf) in the early Top Shelf entry. But from then on, left to right, we have:

Classical Mythology by Mark P. O. Morford and Robert J. Lenardo (Seventh Edition)
Peaches' edition of this classic text on the Classics is the ninth edition (there is a website companion to the ninth), but I link here to a PDF of the seventh edition.  The text contains a wide variety of faithfully translated passages from Greek and Latin sources, including Homer, Hesiod, all the Homeric Hymns, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Plato, Lucian, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, and Seneca. Acclaimed authors Mark P.O. Morford and Robert J. Lenardon incorporate a dynamic combination of poetic narratives and enlightening commentary to make the myths come alive for students. Offering historical and cultural background on the myths (including evidence from art and archaeology) they also provide ample interpretative material and examine the enduring survival of classical mythology and its influence in the fields of art, literature, music, dance, and film.

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion by Sir James Frazer
I grew up with many of the books on Peaches' shelf (my father was a loose Crowleyian) and this was standard reading from the age of about 14 for me. The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (retitled The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941). It was first published in two volumes in 1890; in three volumes in 1900; the third edition, published 1906–15, comprised twelve volumes. The work was aimed at a wide literate audience raised on tales as told in such publications as Thomas Bulfinch's The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855).

Frazer offered a modernist approach to discussing religion, treating it dispassionately as a cultural phenomenon rather than from a theological perspective. The influence of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature and thought was substantial.

The Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie
The Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie is considered by many to be the book that started the modern occult movement. The original Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which started in the late 1800s, borrowed from a wide variety of occult traditions; Kabalah, Tarot, Geomancy, Enochian Magic, Theosophy, Freemasonry, Paganism, Astrology, and many more and created a unique and viable system of magic that is still being practiced today. Almost every contemporary occult writer and modern group has been influenced, directly or indirectly, by the Order or its members, making The Golden Dawn one of the most influential occult books of the past 100 years.

The book is divided into several basic sections. First are the knowledge lectures, where you will learn the basics of the Kabalah, symbolism, meditation, geomancy and more. This is followed by the rituals of the Outer Order, consisting of five initiation rituals into the degrees of the Golden Dawn.

The next section covers the rituals of the Inner Order including two initiation rituals, equinox ceremonies, and more. Then you will learn the basic rituals of magic and the construction, consecration, and means of using the magical tools. Once you have these you can go on to evocation rituals, talismans, and invocations.

An Unrecognizable Text

The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage
The Book of Abramelin tells the story of an Egyptian mage named Abramelin, or Abra-Melin, who taught a system of magic to Abraham of Worms, a German Jew presumed to have lived from c.1362–c.1458. The system of magic from this book regained popularity in the 19th and 20th centuries due to the efforts of Mathers' translation, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, its import within the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and later within the mystical system of Thelema (created in 1904 by Aleister Crowley).

Unfortunately, Mathers used the least-reliable manuscript copy as the basis for his translation, and it contains many errors and omissions. The later English translation by Georg Dehn and Steven Guth, based on the earliest and most complete sources, is more scholarly and comprehensive. Dehn attributed authorship of The Book of Abramelin to Rabbi Yaakov Moelin (Hebrew יעקב בן משה מולין; ca. 1365–1427), a German Jewish Talmudist. This identification has since been disputed.

Judasim by Rabbi Dan Cohn-Sherbok
This all-encompassing textbook is an unrivalled guide to the history, beliefs and practice of Judaism. Beginning with the ancient Near Eastern background, it covers early Israelite history, the emergence of classical rabbinic literature and the rise of medieval Judaism in Islamic and Christian lands. It also includes the early modern period and the development of Jewry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Extracts from primary sources are used throughout to enliven the narrative and provide concrete examples of the rich variety of Jewish civilization.

Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa
Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia libri III) is Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's (1486-1535) study of occult philosophy, acknowledged as a significant contribution to the Renaissance philosophical discussion concerning the powers of ritual magic and its relationship with religion.

The three books deal with Elemental, Celestial and Intellectual magic. The books outline the four elements, astrology, kabbalah, numbers, angels, God's names, the virtues and relationships with each other as well as methods of utilizing these relationships and laws in medicine, scrying, alchemy, ceremonies, origins of what are from the Hebrew, Greek, and Chaldean context.

These arguments were common amongst other hermetic philosophers at the time and before. In fact, Agrippa's interpretation of magic is similar to the authors Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Johann Reuchlin's synthesis of magic and religion and emphasize an exploration of nature. Unlike many grimoires of the time, before and past, these books are more scholarly and intellectual than mysterious and foreboding. These books are often read as authoritative by those interested in the occult even today.

The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa
The so-called Fourth Book appeared in Latin some thirty years after Agrippa's death. Johann Weyer, a student of Agrippa's, denounced this work to be spurious (cf. Praestigiis Daemonum, 1563) and that evaluation has rarely been questioned. An exception to this is Stephen Skinner in his 1978 introduction to the facsimile edition published by Askin Publishers.

Magick in Theory in Practice by Aleister Crowley
My former work has been misunderstood, and its scope limited, by my use of technical terms. It has attracted only too many dilettanti and eccentrics, weaklings seeking in "Magic" an escape from reality. I myself was first consciously drawn to the subject in this way. And it has repelled only too many scientific and practical minds, such as I most designed to influence. But MAGICK is for ALL. So I have written this book to help the Banker, the Pugilist, the Biologist, the Poet, the Navvy, the Grocer, the Factory Girl, the Mathematician, the Stenographer, the Golfer, the Wife, the Consul - and all the rest - to fulfil themselves perfectly, each in his or her own proper function. Let me explain in a few words how it came about that I blazoned the word MAGICK upon the Banner that I have borne before me all my life. (from book)

Tanach
The Tanakh (Hebrew: תַּנַ"ךְ‎, pronounced [taˈnaχ] or [təˈnax]; also Tenakh, Tenak, Tanach) is the canon of the Hebrew Bible. It is also known as the Masoretic Text or Miqra.

Tanakh is an acronym of the first Hebrew letter of each of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: Torah ("Teaching", also known as the Five Books of Moses), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings")—hence TaNaKh. The name "Miqra" (מקרא), meaning "that which is read", is another Hebrew word for the Tanakh. The books of the Tanakh were passed on by each generation, and according to rabbinic tradition were accompanied by an oral tradition, called the Oral Torah.

Read the Books Peaches Geldof Read Part One

A part of the library of the late Peaches Geldof appeared on her Twitter feed a few weeks before her recent and tragic death (nobody should die at 25). What is interesting about the image of books upon the shelf of Peaches is the subject. Peaches was a Thelemite, a follower of the teachings of Edward Aleister Crowley. In honor of the memory of Peaches and as an attempt to get people to read Crowley and the books associated with him I begin to post the books from the above image here as PDFs. This is shelf one in the Books of Peaches (shelf two is tomorrow):

The Anatomy of the Human Body by Henry Grey (1918)
The Bartleby.com edition of Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body features 1,247 vibrant engravings—many in color—from the classic 1918 publication, as well as a subject index with 13,000 entries ranging from the Antrum of Highmore to the Zonule of Zinn.

Gems from the Equinox: Instructions by Aleister Crowley for his Magical Order
A resource list of The Equinox, the Review of Scientific Illuminism, the official organ of the Crowley’s A∴A∴ along with material of import to its sister organization, Ordo Templi Orientis.

The Holy Bible (King James Version)
Virtue and Prudence, could not be brought for a long time to give way to good Letters and refined speech, but bare themselves as averse from them, as from rocks or boxes of poison; And fourthly, that he was no babe, but a great clerk [Gregory the Divine], that gave forth (and in writing to remain to posterity) in passion peradventure, but yet he gave forth, that he had not seen any profit to come by any Synod, or meeting of the Clergy, but rather the contrary; And lastly, against Church-maintenance and allowance, in such sort, as the Ambassadors and messengers of the great King of Kings should be
furnished, it is not unknown what a fiction or fable.

The Book of Splendours: The Inner Mysteries of Qabalism by Eliphas Levi
This is the first part of Eliphas Levi's last great descourse on the mysteries of occultism that was continued and concluded in The Great Secret. In it, Levi examines with great precision and insight the inner meanings of Qabalism and their relationship to the occult sciences. Part One is a commentary on the Spihra Dzeniuta by Simeon Ben-Jochal, which includes an examination of the affinities between Qabalism and Freemasonry. Part Two pursues the correspondences between Qabalism, Numerology and the Tarot. This edition includes an appendix by Papus (Dr. Gerard Encausse) summarizing Levi's doctrines and teachings and supplying some fascinating information on some of the master's many disciples.

Transcendental Magic Its Doctrine and Ritual by Eliphas Levi
Transcendental Magic Its Doctrine and Ritual  (Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie) By Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant) Translated to English by A. E. Waite. Originally published by Rider & Company, England, 1896. Transcribed and converted to Adobe Acrobat format by Benjamin Rowe, January, 2002.

This is Eliphas Levi's (1810-1875) best-known book. This work arguably made Levi the most influential writer on magic since the Renaissance. Originally issued in French, the English translator is A.E. Waite and it is doubtful that anyone else could have better captured the essence of Levi's work. The book is divided in two parts; the first is theoretical, the second practical. This is a fascinating and often debated work involving a discussion that covers almost the entire realm of Ritual and High Magic.

Unrecognizable Volume

The Mystical Kabbalah
The Kabbalah is divided into two kinds, the Practical and the Theoretical. The Practical is occupied with the construction of talismans and amulets and is of no interest to Freemasonry.

Practical Kabbalah has its ancient roots in the "Thirteen Enochian Keys" of Enoch son of Qain, along with a highly eclectic admixture of material taken from Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and other non-Hebrew sources. The "Thirteen Enochian Keys" of Enoch son of Qain are reflected in such works as The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, the Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon, and mediaeval grimoires such as the Armadel, Goetia/Lemegeton, etc. The primary text of the mystical Kabbalah that appears to occupy a central place of importance in the hermetic Kabbalah is the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation). The two most prominent contemporary schools of Practical or Hermetic Kabbalah are the Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.).

The bulk of the mainstream orthodox Jewish Kabbalists focus primarily on the Sefer HaZohar (Book of Splendor) and the Etz HaChayyim (Tree of Life). They engage in practices of spiritual refinement (avodah) and meditation (devekut, "cleaving to God") gleaned from the writings left by Abraham Abulafia, Azriel of Gerona (disciple of Yitza'aq the Blind), Chayyim Vital (recorder of the teachings of Yitza'aq Luria), Dov Baer (Mezhirecher Maggid and successor to Israel ben Eliezer), Nachman of Bretzlav, and others. These practices include a variety of visualization techniques, breathing exercises, movements coordinated with the permutation and combination of Hebrew letters, mantric intonation of sacred phrases, meditative prayer, and chanting devotional songs.

The Book of Lies
The Book of Lies (full title: Which is also Falsely Called BREAKS. The Wanderings or Falsifications of the One Thought of Frater Perdurabo, which Thought is itself Untrue. Liber CCCXXXIII [Book 333]) was written by English occultist and teacher Aleister Crowley (using the pen name of Frater Perdurabo) and first published in 1912 or 1913. As Crowley describes it: "This book deals with many matters on all planes of the very highest importance. It is an official publication for Babes of the Abyss, but is recommended even to beginners as highly suggestive."

The book consists of 93 chapters, each of which consists of one page of text. The chapters include a question mark, poems, rituals, instructions, and obscure allusions and cryptograms. The subject of each chapter is generally determined by its number and its corresponding Qabalistic meaning. Around 1921, Crowley wrote a short commentary about each chapter, assisting the reader in the Qabalistic interpretation.

Several chapters and a photograph in the book reference Leila Waddell, who Crowley called Laylah, and who, as Crowley's influential Scarlet Woman, acted as his muse during the writing process of this volume.

Origins of the Kabbalah by Allan Arkush & Gershom G. Scholem
One of the most important scholars of our century, Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) opened up a once esoteric world of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, to concerned students of religion. The Kabbalah is a rich tradition of repeated attempts to achieve and portray direct experiences of God: its twelfth-and thirteenth-century beginnings in southern France and Spain are probed in Origins of the Kabbalah, a work crucial in Scholem's oeuvre. The book is a contribution not only to the history of Jewish medieval mysticism but also to the study of medieval mysticism in general and will be of interest to historians and psychologists, as well as to students of the history of religion.

The Diary of a Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley
Diary of a Drug Fiend, published in 1922, was occult writer and mystic Aleister Crowley's first published novel, and is also reportedly the earliest known reference to the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily.

The story is widely thought to be based upon Crowley's own drug experiences, despite being written as a fiction. This seems almost conclusively confirmed by Crowley's statement in the novel's preface: "This is a true story. It has been rewritten only so far as was necessary to conceal personalities." Crowley's own recreational drug use and also his personal struggle with drug addiction, particularly heroin, is well documented.

Crowley made a study of drugs and their effects upon the body and mind, experimenting widely himself. Many of his conclusions are present within this novel. The story follows Peter Pendragon and Louise Laleham, a couple passionately in love, as they fall head-first into a drug binge across Europe. Diary of a Drug Fiend encapsulates much of Crowley's core philosophy concerning Thelema and his conception of True Will.

The Law is for All by Israel Regardie
Aleister Crowley's life and thought are inexorably linked with The Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX). He was not the author of this short, prophetic text. He received this visionary work by direct-voice dictation from a preterhuman, possibly discarnate intelligence in Cairo in 1904.

The Book of The Law

Crowley was an intelligent sceptic, and at first found this improbable means of communication as difficult to accept as most intelligent readers will today. Yet he could not ignore it or its message, and eventually concluded that it stood as conclusive proof of the underlying assumption of all religion - that intelligences superior to mankind not only exist, but take an active role in our welfare. He found that The Book of the Law holds the keys to the Next Step in human evolution, and sets forth the spiritual principles of a New Aeon.

He worked for decades to interpret its meaning for initiates and the general public, but rejected commentary after commentary as inadequate. He eventually concluded that he was too close to his subject to judge the value of his own commentaries, and entrusted the task to his best friend, Louis Wilkinson. Wilkinson (who wrote under the pen-name Louis Marlow) possessed impressive literary qualifications and had the advantages of knowing Crowley well and being a layman in esoteric matters. The result of his work is this long-awaited authorized popular edition of Crowley's new commentary on The Book of the Law, and its first appearance as Crowley wished it. Louis Wilkinson's editorial work was posthumously completed and augmented by Frater Superior Hymenaeus Beta of the O.T.O. This new edition features annotations, reading lists and indexes, as well as an insightful introduction by Louis Wilkinson.

777 and other Qabalistic writings of Aleister Crowley
777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley is a collection of papers written by Aleister Crowley. It was edited and introduced by Dr. Israel Regardie, and is a reference book based on the Hermetic Qabalah.

The Book of Thoth : A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians
The Equinox, volume III, number 5, by Aleister Crowley. The book is recorded in the vernal equinox of 1944 (an Ixviii Sol in 0° 0' 0" Aries, March 21, 1944 e. v. 5:29 p.m.) and was originally published in an edition limited to 200 numbered and signed copies.

This book describes the philosophy and the use of Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot, a deck of Tarot cards designed by Crowley and co-designed and painted by Lady Frieda Harris. The Thoth Tarot has become one of the best-selling and most popular Tarot Decks in the world.

The original 200-volume signed limited edition was bound in Morocco leather and printed on pre-wartime paper. Crowley sold ₤1,500 worth of the edition (equal to £57,540 in 2013) in less than three months.

The Holy Books of Thelema: The Technical Writings of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley, the founder of Thelema, designated his works as belonging to one of several classes. Not all of his work was placed in a class by him.

    Class A consists of works that are not to be changed, even to the letter (The Holy Books)
    Class B consists of works of scholarship and enlightenment.
    Class C consists of material that suggests things other than the obvious.
    Class D consists of official rituals and instructions.
    Class E consists of manifestos, broadsides, epistles and other public statements.

Living Thelema: A Practical Guide to Attainment in Aleister Crowley’s System of Magick by  Dr. David Shoemaker
(A new book, could not find a PDF of it)
In this important new book, renowned Thelemic teacher Dr. David Shoemaker sheds light on the dense and often misunderstood world of Aleister Crowley's teachings. Beginners and advanced practitioners alike will find much useful advice here, as Shoemaker brings his characteristic down-to-earth style to bear on topics such as ritual and meditation practices, sex magick, astral projection, psychotherapy for magicians, the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, and that pinnacle of attainment known as the crossing of the Abyss. A popular lecturer and podcaster, Shoemaker has been a student and teacher of Aleister Crowley's system of magick and mysticism for decades. Living Thelema is designed to be a helpful resource for aspirants at any stage of the Thelemic path, drawing on Shoemaker's many years of supervising students in A.'.A.'., Crowley's magical order, as well as other related systems. This book presents a truly unique, 21st century synthesis of magick and depth psychology, and will serve as a useful reference at every stage of the aspirants path of attainment.

Bucklands Complete Book of Witchcraft
Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft has influenced and guided countless students, coven initiates, and solitaries around the world. One of modern Wicca's most recommended books, this comprehensive text features a step-by-step course in Witchcraft, with photographs and illustrations, rituals, beliefs, history, and lore, as well as instruction in spellwork, divination, herbalism, healing, channeling, dreamwork, sabbats, esbats, covens, and solitary practice. The workbook format includes exam questions at the end of each lesson, so you can build a permanent record of your spiritual and magical training. This complete self-study course in modern Wicca is a treasured classic—an essential and trusted guide that belongs in every Witch's library.

The I Ching of Book of Changes
The I Ching, also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes, Zhouyi and Yijing, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts. The book contains a divination system comparable to Western geomancy or the West African Ifá system; in Western cultures and modern East Asia, it is still widely used for this purpose.

Traditionally, the I Ching and its hexagrams were thought to pre-date recorded history, and based on traditional Chinese accounts, its origins trace back to the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. Modern scholarship suggests that the earliest layers of the text may date from the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, but place doubts on the mythological aspects in the traditional accounts. Some consider the I Ching the oldest extant book of divination, dating from 1,000 BCE and before. The oldest manuscript that has been found, albeit incomplete, dates back to the Warring States period (475–221 BCE).

During the Warring States Period, the text was re-interpreted as a system of cosmology and philosophy that subsequently became intrinsic to Chinese culture. It centered on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change.

The standard text originated from the Old Text version (古文經) transmitted by Fei Zhi (费直, c. 50 BCE-10 CE) of the Han Dynasty, which survived Qin’s book-burning. During the Han Dynasty this version competed with the bowdlerised new text (今文經) version transmitted by Tian He at the beginning of the Western Han. However, by the time of the Tang Dynasty the Old Text version became accepted as standard.

The Hag Hammadi Library: The Definitive Translation of the Gnostic Scriptures in One Volume
The Nag Hammadi Library is a collection of Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. Twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Mohammed al-Samman. The writings in these codices comprised fifty-two mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation/alteration of Plato's Republic. In his "Introduction" to The Nag Hammadi Library in English, James Robinson suggests that these codices may have belonged to a nearby Pachomian monastery, and were buried after Bishop Athanasius condemned the use of non-canonical books in his Festal Letter of 367 AD.

The contents of the codices were written in the Coptic language, though the works were probably all translations from Greek. The best-known of these works is probably the Gospel of Thomas, of which the Nag Hammadi codices contain the only complete text. After the discovery, scholars recognized that fragments of these sayings attributed to Jesus appeared in manuscripts discovered at Oxyrhynchus in 1898 (P. Oxy. 1), and matching quotations were recognized in other early Christian sources. Subsequently, a 1st or 2nd century date of composition circa 80 AD has been proposed for the lost Greek originals of the Gospel of Thomas. The buried manuscripts date from the third and fourth centuries.

Read The Books of Peaches Part Two.

The Blade Runner Sketchbook (1982)

Coinciding with the release of Blade Runner in 1982, David Scroggy published the Blade Runner Sketchbook, a book with 100+ production drawings and artwork for Ridley Scott’s classic sci-fi film. The sketchbook features visual work by Scott himself, artist Mentor Huebner, and costume designer Charles Knode, but most notably a slew of drawings by artist, futurist, and illustrator Syd Mead.

The Late Age of Print, Ted Striphas

Striphas investigates the everydayness of books that he claims is intimately bound with: "a changed and changing mode of production; new technological products and processes; shifts in law and jurisprudence; the proliferation of culture and the rise of cultural politics; and a host of sociological transformations" (5). His main argument is that books had been integral to the making of modern consumer culture in the 20th century, as they were one of the first commercial Christmas presents, and today are responsible in part for the fall of that consumer capitalism into a society of controlled consumption, a term that he borrows from Henri Lefebvre. He convincingly shows that book publishing pioneered the rationalization and standardization of mass-production techniques in that the massive quantities of book production required efficient production processes and the move toward an hourly wage. Ultimately, The Late Age of Print investigates how books have become ubiquitous social artifacts entrenched with the everyday. His book successfully proves that book circulation is, and has always been, a political act because the circulation of books embody specific values, practices, interests, and worldviews (13). And as such, the practice of circulating books embody struggles over particular ways of life.

What does this mean for the late age of print (a term coined by Jay David Bolter to characterize the current dynamic era of book history instigated by media convergence where books remain central to shaping dominant and emergent ways of life)? Well, for some, like Sven Birkerts, author of Gutenberg Elegies, this is a crisis, a decline in the quantity (and the quality) of literature being read and it poses a real threat to culture in general.

Book: Software Studies by Lev Manovich Available Online

Lev Manovich's new book Software Takes Command is available online as a PDF under a Creative Commons License. Here are the details:

Note: In the Spirit of the commons Lev Manovich makes available online his latest book. Release notes from the book’s website follow below.

———-

DOWNLOAD THE BOOK:
format: PDF.

VERSION:
November 20, 2008.
Please note that this version has not been proofread yet, and it is also missing illustrations.
Length: 82,071 Words (including footnotes).

Software Takes Command by Lev Manovich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Please notify me if you want to reprint any parts of the book.

ABOUT THE VERSIONS:
One of the advantages of online distribution which I can control is that I don’t have to permanently fix the book’s contents. Like contemporary software and web services, the book can change as often as I like, with new “features” and “big fixes” added periodically. I plan to take advantage of these possibilities. From time to time, I will be adding new material and making changes and corrections to the text.

LATEST VERSION:
Check softwarestudies.com/softbook.html for the latest version of the book.

SUGGESTIONS, CORRECTIONS AND COMMENTS:
send to manovich@ucsd.edu with the word “softbook” in the email header.

Brought to you by Remix Theory

The Aesthetics of Mimesis

I started reading The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems by Stephen Halliwell yesterday. It is the book of the month as far as I am concerned. For a long time I have been wanting to read more about the ancient texts on cognition, form, art and meaning. I think I have found what I have been looking for in Halliwell's book from 2002:

Mimesis is one of the oldest, most fundamental concepts in Western aesthetics. This book offers a new, searching treatment of its long history at the center of theories of representational art: above all, in the highly influential writings of Plato and Aristotle, but also in later Greco-Roman philosophy and criticism, and subsequently in many areas of aesthetic controversy from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Combining classical scholarship, philosophical analysis, and the history of ideas--and ranging across discussion of poetry, painting, and music--Stephen Halliwell shows with a wealth of detail how mimesis, at all stages of its evolution, has been a more complex, variable concept than its conventional translation of "imitation" can now convey.

Far from providing a static model of artistic representation, mimesis has generated many different models of art, encompassing a spectrum of positions from realism to idealism. Under the influence of Platonist and Aristotelian paradigms, mimesis has been a crux of debate between proponents of what Halliwell calls "world-reflecting" and "world-simulating" theories of representation in both the visual and musico-poetic arts. This debate is about not only the fraught relationship between art and reality but also the psychology and ethics of how we experience and are affected by mimetic art.

Moving expertly between ancient and modern traditions, Halliwell contends that the history of mimesis hinges on problems that continue to be of urgent concern for contemporary aesthetics.

I want to just go away and read for a week.....but there us too much else to do. Tomorrow I start teaching a short course at the Umeå Design School, English for Industrial Designers. Should be fun. As well there is the ever present thesis...will I miss it when it is dead? Maybe.

Literary Machines Reprint

Theodor Holm Nelson

A mythical text in the areas of computer media and literature, Literary Machines by Theodor "Ted" Nelson has been reprinted again. A book I have long wanted to read, but have never been able to afford (check out $191 on Amazon)

Literary Machines
by Theodor Holm Nelson
Mindful Press
Distributed by Eastgate Systems Inc
ISBN 0-89347-062-7
$25.00

An incredible multisequential volume about inventing hypertext, reforming copyright, reimagining quotation, and reworking education and reading. It extends from the viscous soup of the politics of computing to the nuts and bolts of how a hypertext system can, for instance, represent arbitrarily large integers compactly. The systems humanist is presented as an alternative to the techie “noid” and humanist “fluffy.” Nelson proposed to reshape literacy and publishing far more profoundly than Haussman altered Paris. Although he admits that a next-generation system might be needed at some point, the general approach is to think about the problem long and hard, devise a more or less flawless system, and then just implement it, never iterating. We should be glad that Xanadu was sketched, not completed. The dynamic, incisive, and continually revised and evolving writings of Ted Nelson have participated in thought and culture in a way that no crystalline, fully armed and operational literary machine could have. (From GXA)

I have asked the university library to buy it.....

Some Summer Reading

While I am supposed to be writing I have also been reading. I love reading and don’t seem to be able to stop so what the heck. The three above are what has been read so far this summer. Ramapuri's text is an account of travelling to India in 1970 from the USA, joining a group of Hindu yogis and never going back. It is travel writing with a difference but it is also religious philosophy and counter culture with a difference. A clear no-bullshit telling of a remarkable story (Baba Rampuri is still in India as I blogged about recently).
A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History is not a new book (1997) but it reads like the cutting edge even today. Manuael de Landa adopts many of the best concepts from Deleuze and Guattari (Body without Organs, striated and smooth space, meshworks, deterritorialization, collective assemblages and sedimentation) to construct a swirling but coherent account of 1000 years of mostly western history. I found it a stimulating example of how to read complex systems (although it does not have an index, which may mean something).
Finally I have just started Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word, Edited by Charles Bernstein (1998), so I can't say much except that the introduction is very promising (and online).

Close Listening and the Performed Word brings together seventeen strikingly original essays, especially written for this volume, on the poetry reading, the sound of poetry, and the visual performance of poetry. While the performance of poetry is as old as poetry itself, critical attention to modern and postmodern poetry performance has been surprisingly slight. This volume, featuring work by critics and poets such as Marjorie Perloff, Susan Stewart, Johanna Drucker. Dennis Tedlock, and Susan Howe, is the first comprehensive introduction to the ways in which twentieth-century poetry has been practised as a performance art. From the performance styles of individual poets and types of poetry to the relation of sound to meaning, from historical and social approaches to poetry readings to new imaginations to prosody, the entries gathered here investigate a compelling range of topics for anyone interested in poetry. Taken together, these essays encourage new forms of "close listenings"--not only to the printed text of poems but also to tapes, performances, and other expressions of the sounded and visualized word. The time is right for such a volume: with readings, spoken word events, and the Web gaining an increasing audience for poetry, Close Listening opens a number of new avenues for the critical discussion of the sound and performance of poetry.From the Publisher

Back to the thesis.......

2007 NMC Conference Proceedings

The 2007 NMC Conference Proceedings features sixteen papers on topics from virtual worlds and gaming to streaming media technologies, digital storytelling, and more. The topics were ones nominated by attendees at the 2007 NMC Summer Conference held in June at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.

The Proceedings include these papers:

The Arts Metaverse in Open Croquet: Exploring an Open Source 3-D Online Digital World Ulrich Rauch and Tim Wang | University of British Columbia
Beyond World of Warcraft: the Universe of MMOGs Ruben R. Puentedura | Hippasus
ClevelandPlus in Second Life Wendy Shapiro, Lev Gonick, and Sue Shick | Case Western Reserve University
Out of the Cave or Further In? The Realities of Second Life Gregory Reihman | Lehigh University
Pleasure, Play, Participation and Promise: Socio-emotional Dimensions of Digital Culture Which Are Transforming the Shape of New Media Literacies Angela Thomas | University of Sydney
Teaching Field Research in a Virtual World Ed Lamoureux | Bradley University
A View from Second Life’s Trenches: Are You a Pioneer or a Settler? Cynthia Calongne | Colorado Technical University

Download (2.6Mb, 133 pp)

55 Free Texts for Download

Download Free Books and E-X-P-A-N-D Y-O-U-R M-I-N-D

Texts:
Al-Ghazali - The Qualities Required in Kings
Aquinas - Against Gentiles
Aquinas - Summa Theologica Part 2 (incl. Treatise on Law)
Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics and Politics
Augustine - City of God
Averroes - Conclusion and On Proving God
Bentham - Anarchical Fallacies
Bible RSV - Matthew and Romans
Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France
Cicero - On Buties and Orations
Darwin - Origin of Species
de Gouges - Vindication of the Rights of Women
de Las Casas - Apologetic History of the Indies and Thirty Juridical Propositions
Declartion of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (French Revolution)
Descartes - Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy
Douglass - The Claims of the Negro and What to the Slave is the Fourth of July
Du Bois - The Souls of Black Folk and The Souls of White Folk
Epictetus - Enchiridion
Freud - Anxiety, Feminism, Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis, Some Psychological Consequences, and The Psychical Apparatus and the Theory of the Instincts
Galileo - Letter to Madame Christina
Haitian Constitution (1805)
Gegel - Philosophy of History
Hobbes - Leviathan
Hume - Inquiry on Morals
Introduction to Antifederalist writings
Jefferson - Notes on the State of Virgina
Kant - Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals and What is Enlightenment
Locke - A Letter Concerning Toleration and Second Treatise of Government
Machiavelli - Discourses and The Prince
Madison - Federalist 10 and Federalist 51
Maimonides - The Guide of the Perplexed
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
Mill - On Liberty
Newton - Rules of Reasoning
Nietzsche - Ecce Homo (incomplete)
Plato - Republic
Polybius - Histories
Quran
Rousseau - Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and Social Contract
Rushd (Averroes) - On the Harmony of Religion and Philosoph
Sepulveda - Democrates Alter
Sieyes -What is the Third Estate
Smith - Wealth of Nations (Vol I & II)
Tocqueville - Democracy in America (Part I & II)
US Constitution - The Bill of Rights
Vitoria - On the American Indians
Wollstonecraft - Vindication of the Rights of Women
Woolf - Three Guineas and To the Lighthouse


Thanks to FreeCulture@Columbia

Recombinant Poetics

Thesis by Bill Seaman (2000) available as a PDF download:

We are in the midst of profound technological changes that impact upon how people communicate, share knowledge and learn. Potentially, along with these technological changes comes a related change in poetics. Thus a techno-poetics is explored. Where once we focused on analogue media as the primary means of embodying our ideas through artifacts of thought, our understanding of reality is now interwoven (structurally coupled1) with an expanded linguistics of interpenetrated fields of meaning.2 Some would say this is not a techno-linguistics but an expanded computer-based environmental semiotics. Through Recombinant Poetics virtual space becomes a mutable field for evocative media-related exploration.

On the Road the Original Roll

the opening of On the Road as typed by Ti Jean Kerouac.
Last month the original manuscript for On the Road by Jack Kerouac was published for the first time. It differs from the first edition which came out 50 years ago on September 5 1957 in several ways. All the original names were used in the text, pointing to the fact that much of it was first written by Kerouac as the events depicited were occuring around him and he scribbeled in his little notebooks. Reading the vast Visions of Cody one gets a much clearer understanding of how Kerouac worked; lighting fast, intoxicated (by life as much by substances) and pulling everything he could into the creation of prose.

As the story goes, On the Road was written by Kerouac in three weeks while living with his second wife, Joan Haverty, in an apartment at 454 West Twentieth Street in Manhattan, which he typed on one long scroll of teletype paper, which Kerouac called "the roll."[2] The roll does exist — it was purchased in 2001 by Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, for $2.4 million — and it was indeed typed in a blazing three weeks, singlespaced with no margins or paragraph breaks. But the story overlooks some of the finer points of the novel's composition. Much of the book was actually written as it happened, over the seven years of Kerouac's travels, in the small notebooks that he always carried with him and wrote in during his spare time. The myth also overlooks the tedious organization and preparation that came before Kerouac's creative explosion, as well as the fact that Kerouac revised the novel several times before Malcolm Cowley of Viking Press agreed to publish it.

I think this is an important event, not in the sense of us obtaining some 'orginal' On the Road, as the one that was published is the one Kerouac had to live with. Rather this is a chance for us to gain an image of the man Kerouac and those people who surrounded him at the time he was looking around and taking notes.

Vali Myers A Memoir

Australian artist, Vali Myers (1930-2003), was a legend in her own time. Première danseuse of the Melbourne Modern Ballet at seventeen, she left home and spent ten years in Post WWII Paris, much of the time on the streets of the Latin Quarter, while never ceasing to draw. There she met Tennessee Williams, Jean Cocteau and Jean Genet. Ed van der Elsken featured her on the cover of his Love on the Left Bank, the manifesto of Paris in the 1950’s, and George Plimpton praised her work in his Paris Review. Eventually finding Paris depressing, Vali went to Italy, where she found a “paradise” in the verdant valley near Positano and spent the next forty years of semi-seclusion in this wild canyon; she continued producing her intricate, mystical, and passionate drawings and paintings, each one taking from six months to two years to complete. Vali also came to NYC from time to time, holding a salon in her room at the Chelsea Hotel; until finally she returned to her native Australia, in 1992, recognized as an artist sui generis.
In this frank and fascinating memoir Gianni Menichetti unforgettably gives us Vali’s art, times, and personality; for thirty years the author lived with Vali in the wild canyon of ‘Il Porto’— first as lover and willing slave, ultimately as friend, confidant, and protector.

Gianni Menichetti is an artist and poet, whose work is represented in private collections in Europe, America and Australia. Recipient of three distinguished awards at the International ‘Gypsy Friend’ Arts Competition, Lanciano, Italy, his books include The Land of Kali, A Tree of Tatters, and Poems to the Gypsies, as well as ‘Il Porto,’ storia di un canyon selvaggio, (in English and Italian) and Storie di cani (in Italian). He still lives in Il Porto, in the little Moorish pavilion he shared with Vali for so many years.

Vali Myers: A Memoir by Gianni Menichetti (2007) Available HERE.

Doctorow: Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present

Author Cory Doctorow discusses his book "Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present" as part of the Authors@Google series. This event took place Monday, May 21, 2007 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA
Cory Doctorow is the co-editor of the boingboing blog, and author of the books Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Eastern Standard Tribe, and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. A fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Doctorow writes for such publications as Wired, Popular Science, The New York Times and MAKE. In 2000, he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer. (more) (less)

A Handbook for Coding Cultures

A Handbook for Coding Cultures
Commissioned by Francesca da Rimini and d/Lux/MediaArts, Online and Free.

A Handbook for Coding Cultures provides a lasting companion to the inspiring projects and topical currents of thought explored in the Coding Cultures Symposium and Concept Lab. Six invited writers and groups from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, England, Italy and Hong Kong share their experiences of building imaginative digital tools, social networks, open labs and internet-based knowledge platforms for communication and creativity. Complementing these commissioned texts are contributions from our guest artists from Canada, England and Jamaica. Artist statements from Symposium speakers completes this snapshot of contemporary cultural practice.

List of Contents :

Lisa Havilah (AUS) - Foreword
David Cranswick (AUS) - Preface

Francesca da Rimini (AUS): Introduction: Archipelagos of open code and free culture

Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett, Furtherfield (England): Do It With Others (DIWO): contributory media in the Furtherfield Neighbourhood

Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney, (Belgium): Open ended processes, open space technologies and open laboratories

Andrew Lowenthal, (AUS): Free Beer vs Free Media

Leandro Fossá, (Brazil) in collaboraton with Claudio Prado (Brazil): Digital Culture: The jump from the 19th to the 21st Century

Lam Oi Wan, (Hong Kong): What is that Star? Media cultural action in the claiming of space

Agnese Trocchi (Italy): Shivers of sharing

Alice Angus and Giles Lane, Proboscis (UK): Cultures of Listening

mervin Jarman (Jamaica) in collaboration with Sonia Mills: mongrelstreet: the culture of codes

Camille Turner (Canada): Representing in Digital Space

David S. Vadiveloo (AUS): A time for empowerment or a new digital divide?

Tallstoreez Productionz (AUS): Returning the Gaze: the hero-project, how to join politics, youth empowerment and entertainment

Christopher Saunders (AUS): Big hART - a model for social and cultural change

Lena Nahlous, Ben Hoh and Trey Thomas (aka MC Trey) (AUS): A presentation about why ICE exists and how it works

Spook Country by William Gibson

"The core of how politics and technology work together for me is that technology is very seldom legislated into existence."
William Gibson 2007

William Gibson has a new book out on 7th August 2007, Spook Country is about the cultural changes in the United States since the Twin Towers attack of 9/11. A lengthy video interview with Gibson (with lots of moody sequences as Bill wanders around the urban car-nage of America) is available HERE. He says some very interesting things.

Code 2.0 Flash Movie

Its not often that a book is presented like a movie in a flash film online. Code 2.0 by Lessig is that sort of book (I have it sitting on my desk but have not yet started it). Check it out HERE.

And the blurb:
There’s a common belief that cyberspace cannot be regulated—that it is immune from the government’s (or anyone else’s) control. Under the influence of commerce, cyberspace is becoming a highly regulable space, where behavior is much more tightly controlled than in real space. We can—we must—choose what kind of cyberspace we want and what freedoms we will guarantee. This second edition of Code, or Version 2.0, has been prepared through the author’s wiki, a web site that allows readers to edit the text, making this the first reader-edited revision of a popular book.

UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day

Monday 23rd April is UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day. Do you agree with the sentiment of Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, when he claims:

Lastly, as there can be no book development without copyright, the celebration of the Day has always been closely associated, from its inception and throughout all these years, with an awareness of the importance of the moral and heritage protection afforded to works of the human spirit and their creators.

Really?? "there can be no book development without copyright" I concur. There was no copyright in China from the 6th to the 12 century when thousands of texts were produced. The library at Alexandria did not have to pay millions for access to electronic journals. Was the Vatican library or the Biblioteca Sansoviniana assembled within the system of copyright? The sages of the Vedas and Upanishads did not know anything of copyright. Did Petrarch have to deal with copyright as he scoured Europe rebuiling the ancient texts?
What of the situation today? The poor of Africa, South America and Asia need books but does copyright provide for these people? Meanwhile there are books being made available online for the use of millions, without the restrictions and market rationalization of copyright. Here are a few in various (free) forms (Happy Copyright day):

Deleuze Cinema 1: The Movement-Image and Cinema 2: The Time-Image
New Media Art - Nothing - Mark Tribe - Brown University Wiki
Henri Lefebvre The Production of Space - Google Books
Computer Lib/Dream Machines, Ted Nelson
Hypertext DigitalTheory Hypermedia
LibriVox
We Media
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
Wikibooks
Derrida Dissemination
Codev2:Lawrence Lessig
Mark ROTHKO - presentation par Geneviève Vidal
eBook Downloads - Get eBooks - eBookMall
Medieval Sourcebook: Full Text Sources
Internet Sacred Text Archive Home
superbunker » i feel better after i type to you
Global Text Project
The Libri of Aleister Crowley
Wireless Networking in the Developing World
Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts
The Agrippa Files
Language and the Internet - Google Print
Soft Skull: Home
Handbook for Boggers and Cyber-dissidents
Gen Hex
SparkNotes: Busted
The Kalevala Index
Eternalicious - the Magic of the Naths!
My Most Memorable Teacher (or Trainer) - FREE Digital Book!
Free e-books
Home Page - Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
autonomedia
:: Antiquities of the Illuminati :: Grey Lodge Occult Review :: IDX ::
Edison's Eve
Mechanical Bodies, Computational Minds : Artificial Intelligence from Automata to Cyborgs
Digital Poetics by Loss Pequeno Glazier- R A I N T A X I o n l i n e
Sabotage -- Emile Pouget tr. Arturo Giovannitti
Egyptological texts
Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh: Table of Contents
Annotated ancient Egyptian texts
Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise
Google Print

New Media Art (book) Wiki

New Media Art, a book written by Mark Tribe and ReenaJana (published by Taschen in 2006) is now available online as an open-source wikibook. This version of the book is not meant to be a substitute or replacement for theprint version, but rather an expandable and revisable online educational resource.

Grey Lodge review #18

Grey Lodge Review #18 is online and what a beautiful piece of work it is. The following are just some of what is downloadable from the site:

* Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning is a psychedelic roadtrip across the highways of the modern collective unconscious. It's a world where just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you, where the things you dream about can come back to haunt you when you wake, and where the end of this world is just the beginning of another.

* Ultraculture Journal One collects under one cover the most volatile and direct magickal writing currently available in the English language. It will change you at the cellular level. You have been forewarned.

* Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotext(e) Reader (PDF) What an anthology. Over 400 pages packed with the likes of Kathy Acker, George Bataille, Jean Baudrillard, William Burroughs, John Cage, Gilles Deleuze, Bob Flanagan, Michel Foucault, Felix Guattari, J-F Lyotard, Ulrike Meinhof, Kate Millet, Cookie Mueller, David Rattray, Ann Rower, Assata Shakur, Michelle Tea, Lynne Tillman, Paul Virilia and many, many more. Twenty-five years of some of the finest writing to come out of America, France, and beyond.

* Derrida: Dissemination (PDF) 'Who is it that is addressing you? Since it is not an author, a narrator, or a deus ex machina, it is an I that is both part of the spectacle and part of the audience, an I that, a bit like you, undergoes its own incessant violent reinscription within the arithmetical machinery. An I that functioning as a pure passageway for operations of substitution is not some singular and irreplaceable existence, some subject or life. But only rather moves between life and death, between reality and fiction. An I that is a mere function or phantom.

* Paul Virilio: The Vision Machine (PDF)"It is a war of images and sounds, rather than objects and things, in which winning is simply a matter of not losing sight of the opposition. The will to see all, to know all, at every moment, everywhere, the will to universalised illumination: a scientific permutation on the eye of God which would forever rule out the surprise, the accident, the irruption of the unforeseen."

* BANKSY X 3- Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall"Nearly a hundred pictures are featured here. Each and every one of them a pathetic cry for help" -The Guardian

Should I go on.....Really need I say more?