Álvaro Enrigue, You Dreamed of Empires **** 1/2

You Dreamed of Empires is a historical novel about the day in 1519 when Hernán Cortés arrived at Tenochtitlán and met Moctezuma. It tells the story from the point of view of several characters both Spanish and Aztecan, each one of them unsure about whether things are going well or very, very badly. Moctezuma welcomed the Spaniards into the city: does he consider them honored guests or is he planning an ambush? Is he a brilliant strategist or is he losing his touch?

Enrigue has an entertaining writing style that mixes historical detail with modern-seeming characters. He loves to deploy Nahuatl words for their interesting sound. The story often has a hallucinatory feel, which is appropriate given Moctezuma's penchant for mushrooms.

I loved everything about the book until the later sections where postmodernist trickery starts to intrude. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the conclusion, which (spoiler alert) is an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge-type situation except that all of subsequent history, up to an including my reading of the novel, is part of the reverie.

Andy Clark, The Experience Machine ** 1/2

The philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark argues that our minds are best understood as generative prediction models and that our subjective experience derives from the interface between the models' predictions and the incoming sensory signal. We use our senses to validate our expectations, and use "prediction errors" (i.e. mismatch with actual sensory signal) to train our model to make better predictions.

I wholeheartedly agree that we impose our understanding of the world onto the raw sensory data, and that indeed there is no such thing as raw sensory data "untouched by our own expectations." I agree with most of Clark's conclusions, but I find his arguments and conceptualizations hand-wavy. I was particularly unconvinced by his explanation regarding "action as self-fulfilling prediction."

Clark (or his publisher) tries to present this theory as being revolutionary "For as long as we've studied human cognition, we've believed that our senses give us direct access to the world." Really? I don't think we've believed that since the 18th century. He himself cites earlier authorities that go back at least as far as the mid-19th century. Clark's thesis is just an au courant version of the long-standing tendency to understand the mind in terms of the latest technological advances, in this case generative AI modeling.

To me, the most intriguing innovation in Clark's conception is his treatment of conscious attention as comparable to modeling precision.

By increasing or decreasing these "precision-weightings," the impact of certain predictions or of certain bits of sensory evidence can be amplified or dampened. ... What we informally think of as "attention" is implemented in these systems by mechanisms that alter these precision-weightings.

Samantha Harvey, Orbital *** 1/2

Orbital describes a day in the life of six (fictional) astronauts on the International Space Station. They observe the Earth as they circle over it sixteen times—passing from night to day every ninety minutes or so—and ponder their place in the universe.

Many reviewers of the Booker Prize-winning Orbital describe it as "meditative," which turns out to mean that it is the literary equivalent of the music they play when you're getting a massage. It favors atmosphere over development, incorporates images of nature, and encourages contemplation. Like guided meditation, the book is structured around a recurring rhythm (breath, orbits) and makes connections between mundane activities and abstract cosmic questions. 

Dan Charnas, Dilla Time **** 1/2

Dilla Time is the third book I've read in as many months about musical artists whose work I am largely unfamiliar with (following Time's Echo and Cocaine and Rhinestones). The artist in this case is J Dilla, "the hip-hop producer who reinvented rhythm" as the subtitle has it. The great thing about all of these books is that they provide vivid accounts of the contexts in which the artists worked and musicological analysis of their innovations.

J Dilla's most influential innovation was the creation of a new lurching way of keeping time, more complex and "sloppier" than swing time. He used a variety of techniques on drum machine/sequencers to achieve rhythmic friction; in particular, he subtly shifted the timing of the various drum components (snare, kick drum, hi hat) so that some feel rushed while others feel slow. His production technique created an entire genre of hip-hop in the 1990s and early 2000s, comprising such artists as A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, and The Roots.

Charnas does a nice job of explaining Dilla's approach and treating it as an important musical advance. He pays less attention to Dilla's unique way of handling harmony and melody, perhaps because it would take away from his main thesis. 

Charnas' previous book was about the business of hip-hop, so it's not surprising that he clearly navigates the maze of record labels, rights owners, and collaborations. After Dilla's death (at 32 from a rare blood disease) there was a battle over his estate, with different parties having legal authority, moral authority, and artistic authority over his legacy. Charnas presents the messy details even-handedly.

The book gave me enjoyable insights into musical artistry, the music business, the cultural milieu, and how they all impact each other. It reinforced my prejudice that hip-hop was the most innovative form of music over the turn of the century, with its artists exploring advanced techniques like jazz musicians do.