Commonplace digest 4

As usual, clicking the links will take you to the full quote.

This time we start with Robert Sheckley, who we've had before. From his Journey of Joenes, more commonly known by the less-good re-title Journey Beyond Tomorrow, here he is on the laws, on the living dead, police brutality, and other things, and on one difference between democracy and dictatorship.

On to Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, from The Morning of the Magicians, on science in the context of all knowledge, on Nazis, Reason, and the Fantastic, and on the difference between signifier and signified.

And now Charles Fort, from The Book of the Damned, on Being, inclusion, and exclusion (and more detail on the same), on our relationship with the gods, and on science, fear, and business.

And in with the Charles Fort, one I wanted to single out because I love it so much: probably the best definition of evil possible.

And finally, Joanna Russ, from The Female Man: on men, women, and what to do in every situation, on being socialized female and related things (including a single-sentence condensation of everything that ever comes out of the mouth of a Certain Type of Dude: "That's irrelevant, because I'm a man"), on perspective and taboos, on the dominance game called I Must Impress This Woman, on patriarchal society's reactions to women's truths, and on what women ought to be interested in.