Lo’s Reviews > Chimpanzee > Status Update

"The heat wave broke like a blister." Can prose be deliberately un-lovely. Or, to quote DA, "as pretty as an airport."

"... the brain gets going with the activities and ideas we think are ours before we even get a clue. WE aren't in charge. The spaces around us, with their threats and opportunities and contextual stimuli are. They react the brain. [...] We can't even properly perceive actions before we're doing something about them." I THINK ABOUT THIS ALL THE TIME! But can never talk about it. Now I understand why this book exists!

"It is the spaces we must be concerned with because PEOPLE don't originate their actions, threatening or otherwise--the contexts around them do. The brain initiates movement, action, cognition long before conscious awareness even gets involved. It's called readiness potential. I still remember. Cynthia hasn't gotten it yet. There are gaps, of hundreds of milliseconds, of non-being, where the brain..."

"... because they were never supposed to be the point. My education was for ME. This was my enlightenment, my debt. This would be my philosophy, and fuck anybody else. They could follow along, if they could keep up." The closest I've ever seen an author come to admitting, "I'm just here for my own amusement; I hate my readers." I should be annoyed but I'm enjoying this. Hmm.