All things must come to an end.
I began writing this blog in early 2007 and have written well over 1,000 posts aggregating over 500,000 words. Some predictions were blunders, some were brilliant. Krypto Fund survived and prospered in the toughest markets since the 1930s.
Bunkerman bashed billionaires, beefers, Bush, Barry and bloviating pundits and politicians. He championed the common man and woman trying to have happy lives.
Free Fraternalism was developed here as a coherent political philosophy.
I simply have little motivation to write daily now. The Well of Inspiration is dry. I plan to publish my "best" writings and ideas in other forums and with other methods (including printed pamphlets). Also, I will re-format this blog to make older, "good" posts more accessible with sidebar links.
And I want to have more time to help the not-for-profit corporation that a couple high school friends and I formed last year. The mission of that effort is to help small towns and cities across America survive and prosper in the 21st century. The principal tool: the human mind. We endeavor to educate people in those communities how to re-orient their economies and assets towards industries and uses that can prosper in the nation and world as it exists now. We've made some progress already in my hometown, causing long moribund efforts to be re-started, among other successes. Once we receive IRS approval as a 501(c)(3) entity, we will begin to raise $ to expand and do more. That process, unfortunately, takes many months. For all the governmental blather about wanting people to volunteer and do more, "they" put many roadblocks in the path of progress. No surprise, I suppose, that "they" want their toll.
I expect to write weekly or so, as events occurs and as I have new inspiration or "good" ideas to propound. I'll write of moves by Krypto Fund as they occur. I'll also continue the Word of the Day as an important intellectual effort. With all the reading I've been doing, my card file overflows.
Thanks for reading.
Word of the Day
"Jejune" - adjective [$10]
Jejune means 1. lacking nutritive value; 2. lacking interest or significance; 3. lacking maturity: puerile.
Sentence: Without motivation and inspiration, daily posts would certainly be mostly jejune, or worse, blather. Bunkerman will write less frequently now, perhaps roughly weekly.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Call Me Curmudgeon
Time to cause more trouble.
Modern music and "literature" in the American and English speaking world stinks. Not everything, but most of it - enough to use that general statement as a working model. To paraphrase Virginia Woolf, on or about a certain day in 1954, American and English song and writing changed. For the worse, much worse: they died.
À Propos Music: Four years ago your writer proved (using abduction*) that no "good" recording for a song has been made since a certain day in 1954; two years ago he posted an update of that proof. See the link following ->
http://viewfromthebunker.blogspot.com/2009/02/end-of-good-music-reprise.html
Exceptions are recordings by Julie Andrews, Judy Garland and a few others. Sure, a song might strike an emotional chord with you, it might please you, but most likely, it is be technically deficient - no better than a "C" on any absolute scale of quality. If you disagree, read my proof and expose the errors in my logic. Or provide me a counterexample of a broad class of "good" recorded songs.
*Btw, "abduction" is a $100 Word of the Day from February 10, 2011. See below for its reprise as Word of the Day.
À Propos Writing:
Proposition: No good literature has been written in the American or English language since that same day in 1954. This is also an abductive proof.
Facts:
1. I like almost nothing written since that day in 1954.
2. Most of the writing of T. S. Eliot and all of the works of W. B.Yeats, H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis occurred prior thereto.
3. Churchill won the Nobel prize in Literature in 1953, Hemingway in 1954. Steinbeck won in 1962, but for works written decades earlier. Beckett won in 1969, but for a work written in 1953. Golding won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983, but for a work published in 1954. For works written after 1954 - thin gruel indeed.
Little poetry has been written in American or English since WW II. A few novelists won the prize, but their novels seem to lack qualities for greatness. To Kill a Mockingbird was nominated by a friend, but to me, it lacks greatness for this reason: it was written in 1960 when the civil rights issue was already national, unlike Uncle Tom's Cabin, being written before the slavery issue went nuclear, and which is recognized to have caused national recognition of slavery's cruel and inhuman nature. A few other novels might claim greatness, but those of more recent Nobel laureates seem quite forgettable, unlike those of Sinclair Lewis or Mark Twain. The much lauded John Updike mostly adapted ideas of Sinclair Lewis.
No columnist matches up to H. L. Mencken, except possibly Walter Lippmann who retired in the 1960s. William F. Buckley was good, but not great; he was not in the class of H. L. Mencken.
Great nonfiction? None.
Possible counterexamples: most are translations of writing originally done in other languages: Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak, Milosz.
For now, I'll consider the proposition proven abductively.
Please post examples of whatever you think is great writing in American or English.
Actions
I own too much silver vis a vis gold, especially silver bullion. It's heavy and has little survival value in 100 oz. bars. My gold-silver ration dropped below 1:1 recently - too low; 3:2 or 2:1 is more appropriate for the long term. I'll sell 1/3 of my bullion in the next few days, and buy gold via GLD to keep the asset class appropriately sized.
Gosh, it's good I moved it to the bank vault a few years ago - the ground is frozen and covered with several feet of icy snow; digging would be impossible.
Word of the Day (a reprise today)
"Abduction" - noun [$100] Logic
Abduction means a syllogism whose major premise is certain but whose minor premise is probably.
Sentence: Much reasoning in life (investing, detective work, historical analysis, policy analysis) is neither deduction nor induction, but is abduction, where one starts with facts and creates a probable scenario / narrative that fits the facts to use in actions. Sherlock Holmes used abduction.
Modern music and "literature" in the American and English speaking world stinks. Not everything, but most of it - enough to use that general statement as a working model. To paraphrase Virginia Woolf, on or about a certain day in 1954, American and English song and writing changed. For the worse, much worse: they died.
À Propos Music: Four years ago your writer proved (using abduction*) that no "good" recording for a song has been made since a certain day in 1954; two years ago he posted an update of that proof. See the link following ->
http://viewfromthebunker.blogspot.com/2009/02/end-of-good-music-reprise.html
Exceptions are recordings by Julie Andrews, Judy Garland and a few others. Sure, a song might strike an emotional chord with you, it might please you, but most likely, it is be technically deficient - no better than a "C" on any absolute scale of quality. If you disagree, read my proof and expose the errors in my logic. Or provide me a counterexample of a broad class of "good" recorded songs.
*Btw, "abduction" is a $100 Word of the Day from February 10, 2011. See below for its reprise as Word of the Day.
À Propos Writing:
Proposition: No good literature has been written in the American or English language since that same day in 1954. This is also an abductive proof.
Facts:
1. I like almost nothing written since that day in 1954.
2. Most of the writing of T. S. Eliot and all of the works of W. B.Yeats, H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis occurred prior thereto.
3. Churchill won the Nobel prize in Literature in 1953, Hemingway in 1954. Steinbeck won in 1962, but for works written decades earlier. Beckett won in 1969, but for a work written in 1953. Golding won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983, but for a work published in 1954. For works written after 1954 - thin gruel indeed.
Little poetry has been written in American or English since WW II. A few novelists won the prize, but their novels seem to lack qualities for greatness. To Kill a Mockingbird was nominated by a friend, but to me, it lacks greatness for this reason: it was written in 1960 when the civil rights issue was already national, unlike Uncle Tom's Cabin, being written before the slavery issue went nuclear, and which is recognized to have caused national recognition of slavery's cruel and inhuman nature. A few other novels might claim greatness, but those of more recent Nobel laureates seem quite forgettable, unlike those of Sinclair Lewis or Mark Twain. The much lauded John Updike mostly adapted ideas of Sinclair Lewis.
No columnist matches up to H. L. Mencken, except possibly Walter Lippmann who retired in the 1960s. William F. Buckley was good, but not great; he was not in the class of H. L. Mencken.
Great nonfiction? None.
Possible counterexamples: most are translations of writing originally done in other languages: Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak, Milosz.
For now, I'll consider the proposition proven abductively.
Please post examples of whatever you think is great writing in American or English.
Actions
I own too much silver vis a vis gold, especially silver bullion. It's heavy and has little survival value in 100 oz. bars. My gold-silver ration dropped below 1:1 recently - too low; 3:2 or 2:1 is more appropriate for the long term. I'll sell 1/3 of my bullion in the next few days, and buy gold via GLD to keep the asset class appropriately sized.
Gosh, it's good I moved it to the bank vault a few years ago - the ground is frozen and covered with several feet of icy snow; digging would be impossible.
Word of the Day (a reprise today)
"Abduction" - noun [$100] Logic
Abduction means a syllogism whose major premise is certain but whose minor premise is probably.
Sentence: Much reasoning in life (investing, detective work, historical analysis, policy analysis) is neither deduction nor induction, but is abduction, where one starts with facts and creates a probable scenario / narrative that fits the facts to use in actions. Sherlock Holmes used abduction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
