The holidays are nearly past and I get back to business. Almost. The punctuated week (running something like Monday. Tuesday. Fake Wednesday. Holiday Stop.... Friday), gave a bunch of opportunities for distraction, and in a fashion true to form, I took it up on its offer. At points in there I thought that I'd get back to book like pursuits, but that ended up being a no go until last night.
I'm about half way through the first of my Hofstadter books right now and I'm enjoying it immensely. I posted this quote elsewhere, but it deserves a bit more immortality then the zen garden scratch that I made of it.
"...and we were both exploring mathematics with a wild kind of intoxication that only teen-agers know."
To go off on a mild tangent. When I read something that really strikes me, I tend to get a sense of immersion in ice cold water. My skin prickles, and I can feel the words crash against my skin. Little darts of piercing thought. A few books I've read in the past five years or so have hit like that. Fahrenheit 451. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Ishmael (at points). Enders Game.
Hofstadter hasn't quite hit me like that thus far. There's more of a familiarity then a sense of exterior stimulus. There's a lot in what he's saying that I've had an internalized sense of. Some bits kind of point me towards new things to read (I hadn't previously had it on my list, but I think I'm going to look into Godel a bit more), but in general it's like looking in a circus mirror. There's some distortion and transformation, but the general shape is something that I see on an everyday basis. I'm looking forward to the end of this first book, so that I can see where he takes it all.
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