Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.
(Wittgenstein, Tractatus 5.6)

Our attitudes are made of what we read and of the languages that are available to us. I am not referring to a language as a linguistic construct (although there is a value in untranslatability of humour, agglutination, and metaphor) but rather to the space of available conceptual vocabularies.

Mathematics is one of such vocabularies: a collection of shortcuts through which reasoning can be self-observed, parallelised, committed to an external memory, shared, justified. A programming language is another example: a set of words and rules, allowing to automate recursive and repeatable thoughts in an error-free way.

Compared to the previous two, spoken languages have larger sets of symbols, rules as soft constraints, rules as cost functions. It is difficult to come up with a sentence that as a result of a one-word violation would fly past the realm of unheimlich into the bin-bucket of a compilation error. But it is easy to be misunderstood!

I avoid reading in translation; a writing is already approximation of a thought and so it would be better read a first approximation: a meaning is not independent from its form.

Bookshelf, in a chronological order

Winter 2013
1. Gustave Le Bon "Psychologie des Foules" (1895)
2. John Gray, "Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern" (2003)
3. Edgar Hilsenrath, Le Nazi et le Barbier (Der Nazi & der Friseur)
4. Herman Melville, "Bartleby, the scrivener."
5. Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology
6. Casey Reas, Ben Fry, Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists (2007)
7. Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities (1983)
8. Philip Roth, The Counterlife (1986)
9. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung (1921)
10. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953)
11. Bernard Williams, Problems of the Self (1973) (selected essays)
12. Bernard Williams, Philosophy as a humanistic discipline (medieval times)
13. Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity (1989)
14. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)
15. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
16. Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, "L'Anti-Œdipe – Capitalisme et schizophrénie" (1972)
17. Glenway Wescott, The Pilgrim Hawk (1940)
18. B.S. Johnson, House Mother Normal (1971)
19. B.S. Johnson, Albert Angelo (1964)
20. Norman Davies, Europe: A History (1996) (selected essays)
21. Krrpk doit mourir, Graphic Novel
22. P. Bacilieri, Venezia Uber Alles, Graphic Novel
24. Michael Billig, "Henri Tajfel's 'Cognitive aspects of prejudice' and the psychology of bigotry" (2002) (essay)
25. Massimo Banzi, Getting Started with Arduino
26. Joshua Noble, Programming Interactivity
27. Usman Haque, Adam Somlai-Fischer, Low Tech Sensors and Actuators
28. Marcel Proust, Du côté de chez Swann
29. Diego Marani, Las Adventures des Inspector Cabillot (1998)
30. Arnheim R, Art and Visual Perception second edition (1974)
31. Arnheim, R.,Visual Thinking.(1969)
32. Nigel Dennis, Cards of Identity (1955)
33. J.G. Ballard, Miracles of Life (2008)
34. Rachel Shteir, The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting(2012)

Fall 2012
1. Robert Coover, Noir (2010)
2. Robert Coover, Briar Rose (1996)
3. Robert Coover, Spanking the Maid (1982)
4. David Foster Wallace, Girl with Curious Hair (1989)
5. Gilbert Sorrentino, Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things (1971)
6. Gilbert Sorrentino, Aberration of Starlight (1980)
7. Gilbert Sorrentino, Little Casino (2002)
8. Gilbert Sorrentino, Lunar Follies (2005)
9. Gilbert Sorrentino, The Abyss of Human Illusion (2010)
10. Camazine, Deneubourg, Franks, Sneyd, et al "Self-Organization in Biological Systems" (2003)
11. Hans Meinhardt, Models of Biological Pattern Formation (1982)
12. Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison (1975)
13. Daniel Kahneman, Attention and effort (1973)
14. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)
15. Jacques Derrida, La carte postale. De Socrate à Freud et au-delà (1980)
16. Tanizaki A Cat, A Man, and Two Women

Movies
1. Museum Hours (2012) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2268732/
2. Hors Satan (2011) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1666168/
3. Like Someone in Love (2012) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843287/
4. Noi the Albino (2003) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0351461/
5. Cesar Must Die (2012) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2177511/ , excellent soundtrack too

Recommended Graphic novels:
1. Gabriella Giandelli, Sotto le foglie, Coconino Press (2008)
2. Guy Delisle, Shenzhen, L'Association (2000)
3. Guy Delisle, Pyongyang, L'Association (2003)
4. François Schuiten, Benoît Peeters, Souvenirs de l'éternel present (1993)
5. David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp (2009)
6. Seth, It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken (1996)

Recommended Graphic Novel Publishers: L'Association (in french), Coconino Press (in italian)