What are you reading, watching and listening to? - All languages

[mèþru]

Thread merged and moved here.
Please give the language of the version of the work you are reading, watching and listening to

[mèþru]

English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEHmSoPJM7U
Alexander Rybak plays jazz for the Swedish royal family and it is as magical as it sounds.

I wonder, does Rybak have a substantial gay following? I know he has a substantial het female following

[Vijay]

How could he not have a substantial gay following? He was in Eurovision. And he's hot

[mèþru]

Exactly my thoughts. Especially the last one.

[Linguoboy]

How could he not have a substantial gay following? He was in Eurovision. And he's hot

Maybe in Europe. I've never heard of him.

Contrary to common belief, most gay men are not ephebophiles.

[mèþru]

Good because he's not an ephebos. He's a grown andros, damnit!

More seriously, attraction to youthful individuals (as opposed to actual youths) is quite common across various sexual orientations.

[Linguoboy]

Good because he's not an ephebos. He's a grown andros, damnit!

Coulda fooled me. I can't believe he's actually 32.

[mèþru]

Replacing the link because it was made private:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjT9KLZPNxM
Also, more from the concert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEJFl9pzyo4 - (instrumental)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i84RhBdOIRc - The title of the video is written in Swedish, I can't tell if it's Norwegian or Swedish

He sings in how many languages now? As far I can count: Belarusian, English, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish and maybe Swedish? I can't tell if he's really singing in Swedish because it sounds way more Norwegian to me and I don't actually know any Scandinavian dialect continuum languages.

[linguistcat]

Japanese and English:
Various crafting and cooking videos. On the crafting side, a lot of tutorials on how to make various things with UV resin, and in cooking, the use of agar-agar in different dishes.

English only:
I have been watching the second session of Critical Role, might go back and watch the original session in between broadcasts.

Japanese only:
Various Japanese musical artists but most notably GARNiDELiA.

[Dē Graut Bʉr]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i84RhBdOIRc - The title of the video is written in Swedish, I can't tell if it's Norwegian or Swedish

He sings in how many languages now? As far I can count: Belarusian, English, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish and maybe Swedish? I can't tell if he's really singing in Swedish because it sounds way more Norwegian to me and I don't actually know any Scandinavian dialect continuum languages.

He's singing in Swedish.

[doctor shark]

I've been watching a lot of Fort Boyard in French, which is great for helping to improve my French. (Loved the British version from many eons ago. Love the French version now, and not just because the host is smoking hot.)

[Vijay]

I've been listening to a lot of Salil Chowdhury at work. That means lots of Bengali, Hindi, and Malayalam, plus I think two songs each in Gujarati and Tamil and one song each in Oriya and Telugu. I miss my precious Turkish barsongs and Iranian pop(ish) songs. And Afghan and Tajik songs.

[Gulliver]

I'm taking a break from reading the Discworld series to take a break from reading the Song of Fire and Ice books by reading the Lord of the Rings. I'll work my way back up eventually.

SOFAI: Enjoyable but arduous. Excellently paced chapters and good characterisation, so far, but I gather it gets a bit wobblier later on in the series and it probably won't have an end. The writing is rather... viscous in places. I haven't seen any of the TV series but I gather that everyone I like will die.

Discworld: Like meeting up with an old friend. I read many of them about 15 years ago so returning feels rather nice. They're actually better, if somewhat lighter, than I remember. Terry Pratchett did like to reuse plot element and jokes, though, and it becomes very clear when you read them in quick succession.

LOTR: Surprisingly enjoyable. I read it when I was about 16, trying to outrun the films and found it a bit tedious in places. I remember the writing feeling very uneven. They've just arrived at Rivendell, which is the point I remember stopping finding it as good, which is a shame as there are still five sixths of the book left. Let's see if I like it more this time as an older reader. From what I've gathered, if you like the Hobbit (which I did), you like the beginning of the book and if you like the Silmarillion (which I didn't), you like the rest.

I'm also reading the Welsh-for-learners short story collection Ffenestri and ambling through Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata at bed time. I'd recommend either if you want to increase your exposure to the respective languages in a gradual, guided way.

[alynnidalar]

As someone who quite enjoyed reading ASOIAF, your review sounds quite accurate.

I've been reading the John Carter books lately! Never read them before, but they're delightful adventure books and excellent at manipulation. It's quite clear they were originally serialized (EVERY CHAPTER must conclude on a shocking cliffhanger) and specifically written to keep people wondering what will happen next, but it turns out being aware of the manipulation doesn't make it any less effective. Every chapter, I'm like "well obviously they get out of this terrible situation... but how? How???"

I'm also pleasantly surprised at the worldbuilding of the books, because I didn't expect much; while it's not "realistic", it's always interesting. I've just finished Chessmen of Mars and Tara is by far my favorite character in the series thus far; she spends the entire book stabbing people.

[MacAnDàil]

I've been listening to a lot of Salil Chowdhury at work. That means lots of Bengali, Hindi, and Malayalam, plus I think two songs each in Gujarati and Tamil and one song each in Oriya and Telugu. I miss my precious Turkish barsongs and Iranian pop(ish) songs. And Afghan and Tajik songs.

Thank you for mentioning his music. It seems particularly interesting. I listened to song by him and bookmarked a website of his music.

I got several books and DVDs out the uni library over the winter/summer, including the linguistics book Les actes de langage dans le discours by Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni and the sociology book L'individualiste hyper-connecté (that discusses the atomisation of society and its connection with the overuse of digital technology) by Bruno Dufay, and a DVD by Michale Moore called Where to Invade Next that shows various things that are better run in other ountries than the US, e.g. long Italian paid holidays, Finnish education system with short days, little homework and better results, and Norwegian prisons where the encouragement to live a normal life leads to significantly less crime, most notably less repeat crime.

I also bought several books while I was in Scotland (and met up with Finlay), mostly books about local Scottish culture and life, like Air mo chuairt (My journey) by Ealasaid Chaimbeul, and ecology, like A sustainable future edited by Klaus Wiegandt.

[Salmoneus]

I'm taking a break from reading the Discworld series to take a break from reading the Song of Fire and Ice books by reading the Lord of the Rings. I'll work my way back up eventually.

SOFAI: Enjoyable but arduous. Excellently paced chapters and good characterisation, so far, but I gather it gets a bit wobblier later on in the series and it probably won't have an end. The writing is rather... viscous in places. I haven't seen any of the TV series but I gather that everyone I like will die.

Probably not - at least, not yet, though maybe in the end. People die throughout, but the most popular characters mostly survive (so far).

I don't know how far you are, but the books peak, overall, with #3. #4 is weaker. #5, I actually really liked, and I think the writing skill itself may have improved (it's certainly greatly improved over #1, which I found only hooked me after you-know-what); but it's meandering, and dealing with a bloated plot that it doesn't manage to cut down, and as a result people were disappointed.

Discworld: Like meeting up with an old friend. I read many of them about 15 years ago so returning feels rather nice. They're actually better, if somewhat lighter, than I remember. Terry Pratchett did like to reuse plot element and jokes, though, and it becomes very clear when you read them in quick succession.

It helps to see it as not 're-using' but as 'homaging' or 'creating a running gag': I find the injokes get funnier precisely because they're repeated. It does help, I think, to avoid 'reading guides' and just read through in order (maybe skipping a few early on), so that you don't read all the watch together or all the witches together - this reduces the 'hey, I've just read this plot!' aspect somewhat.

But yes, Discworld is better than people think it is. I honestly think he's the Dickens of our age - enjoyable enough for a mass audience, but substantial enough that people will keep going back to him. [his downside is serialisation, but that's not a huge problem] Lighter? Depends what you're reading. The early ones are much lighter than the later ones. The ones in the middle are probably the heaviest. Night Watch is not very light..

LOTR: Surprisingly enjoyable. I read it when I was about 16, trying to outrun the films and found it a bit tedious in places. I remember the writing feeling very uneven. They've just arrived at Rivendell, which is the point I remember stopping finding it as good, which is a shame as there are still five sixths of the book left. Let's see if I like it more this time as an older reader. From what I've gathered, if you like the Hobbit (which I did), you like the beginning of the book and if you like the Silmarillion (which I didn't), you like the rest.

I must go back and read it. I read it time and time again in childhood, but haven't done for... well, at least since the films, and probably a few years before that, even. But I'm worried I may not love it as much this time...
[The Silmarillion is just fascinating, but too deep and dense to read easily]

[Gulliver]

It helps to see it as not 're-using' but as 'homaging' or 'creating a running gag': I find the injokes get funnier precisely because they're repeated. It does help, I think, to avoid 'reading guides' and just read through in order (maybe skipping a few early on), so that you don't read all the watch together or all the witches together - this reduces the 'hey, I've just read this plot!' aspect somewhat.

But yes, Discworld is better than people think it is. I honestly think he's the Dickens of our age - enjoyable enough for a mass audience, but substantial enough that people will keep going back to him. [his downside is serialisation, but that's not a huge problem] Lighter? Depends what you're reading. The early ones are much lighter than the later ones. The ones in the middle are probably the heaviest. Night Watch is not very light..

I read probably up until about The Last Continent and then stopped when I was a teenager so the ones after that, other than the Tiffany Aching set, are a mystery to me. I think there's a mixture of running gags and just re-using them, if I'm honest. Some are hits, some are misses. Sourcery felt like "and here are some plot points of Equal Rites I never used", but that's an aside. The good is very good and the rest is forgettable (I have to say, I have no fondness for Rincewind who I don't think is ever really characterised believably, as opposed to the witches or the watch, who are mostly grounded is something humanlike - he feels too much just a pun delivery service and travelogue vehicle).

I'm reading them in order now, and I'm up to Moving Pictures which is to some extent the start of the Golden Age of Discworld Books (later Tiffany Aching books notwithstanding) where characters and settings start being more consistent - Ridcully, the 'real' Vetinari and Gaspode the Wonder Dog are all now in play. Wyrd Sisters was and always will be one of my favourite books. The first outings of characters and settings often feel a little rough but now things are taking shape.

Also, reading them with a vague idea of how it ends shows just how good Pterry was at foreshadowing. There is so much in there.

[Salmoneus]

I recently read the titanic, the spectalar, the awe-inspiring, the criminally-forgotten Ash: A Secret History (by Mary Gentle). It's... wow.

On the one hand, it's in the vein of, and arguably better than, Martin and Hobb (certainly better than Martin, maybe Hobb). On the other hand, its cheerful, anachronistic obscenities and cynicism make it a precursor to, but much better than, 'grimdark' like Abercrombie.

On the one hand, it's greatest difference from other fantasy is its grimy verisimilitude - it's written by a historian (bachelors in history, masters in war studies, hobby of battle re-enactment and sword fighting), and she clearly know what she's talking about, making it feel much more realistic - and hence more compelling - than almost any other fantasy novel. But on the other hand, it's also more literary than most fantasy, with a slipstream plot (history? alternative history? fantasy? science fiction? It's hard to pin down or describe) and a postmodern twist (which doesn't seem like it'll matter at first, but is actually hugely important).

On the one hand, it's the longest standalone fantasy novel ever published. On the other hand, it's an absolute page-turning thriller in which almost every chapter is a cliffhanger. Seriously, there are major plot twists that most authors would reserve for the last few chapters in the first 100 pages, and they don't stop. I had to take a week's breather with a few hundred pages to go, so I didn't get too exhausted, but otherwise I'd have raced through 1100 pages in little more than a week. And I remember, by contrast, how hard it took me to chisel through The Count of Monte Cristo...

[It's about a cynical heroine who survives a deeply traumatic childhood to become a powerful woman in a man's world*, and yes, that's a very over-used trope. But as with many fantasy tropes Gentle uses in the novel, she overcomes it by basing those tropes in the reality of the world, suspending disbelief and adding specificity and uniqueness to the character. It's also about... well, it would be hard to even reduce it to a paragraph, and it would be impossible to do so without massive spoilers.]

*I would say "trigger warning!" about some aspects of the heroine's life, but to be honest if you need trigger warnings Gentle is not the author for you - whatever your trigger, there's bound to be something here that fits the bill. It's not, I should say, gratuitous, but it's a version of war in the middle ages with relatively little sugar-coating.

Anyway, for fantasy fans, it's an amazing novel, one of the best things in the genre, and it's lamentable that it's been virtually forgotten (it was published in 2000).

Oh, and FWIW: American audiences weren't trusted with a long book, so in the US it was broken up into four volumes. I can't imagine that this worked very well - if you can, I'd read from start to end although, as I say, it may be worth taking a little break so you don't get overstimulated.


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In music: I've now bought not one but two CDs of Onslow's string quintets (to go with a CD I already had of his cello sonatas). They're really good - h was called 'The French Beethoven', but imo his chamber music is more like that of Schubert (but lighter) - though hints of both Beethoven and Mozart are there too. He never hits the heights of genius that those composers manage, which is why he's been forgotten. But if Schubert was 80% really good and 10% brilliant, Onslow is maybe 30% good and 60% really good... so I think most of Onslow is probably on a par with most Schubert or Mozart. It's just that those composers ALSO have the works of genius, and Onslow doesn't. He's just consistently good. And good in a way that's not that common - he's gone beyond the relatively facile classicism of a Hummel or a Weber, but he's not yet gone into the foggier forms of Romanticism. It's the sort of music that I think would be well-received today, not as lost masterpieces but as attractive and sometimes impressive music in a style people like. And indeed, although he's little-known, the few CDs there are of him seem to be displayed prominently in shops.

Anyway, it seems Naxos (I think?) have commissioned a quintet to go through and record all of Onslow's string quintets (there are around 30). And yet he's so obscure that there's very little on youtube by him yet.

So, don't go rushing to him expecting the French Beethoven. But if you like Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, and want more music in a similar (albeit undeniably less talented) vein, Onslow might be worth checking out. [I'd give a specific recommendation but I'm away from my music at the moment.]

[Vijay]

I've been listening to a lot of Salil Chowdhury at work. That means lots of Bengali, Hindi, and Malayalam, plus I think two songs each in Gujarati and Tamil and one song each in Oriya and Telugu. I miss my precious Turkish barsongs and Iranian pop(ish) songs. And Afghan and Tajik songs.

Thank you for mentioning his music. It seems particularly interesting.

No problem, and I'm glad to hear you're interested!

I listened to song by him

Which one, if you don't mind me asking? I'm curious as to whether it's one I've heard before. Most of the ones I'm familiar with are either from some Malayalam movies or songs with those same tunes in other languages.

I also forgot to mention a song of his in Assamese that I listened to as well (listed as "Mon possuar" on salilda.com and sung by his wife, Sabita).

and bookmarked a website of his music.

salilda.com? That's the one I always use at work.

[Salmoneus]

I read probably up until about The Last Continent and then stopped when I was a teenager so the ones after that

After The Last Continent? Yeah, that's entirely understandable. I love the Faculty parts of that novel, but the Rincewind parts are maybe the worst thing Pratchett ever wrote...

, other than the Tiffany Aching set, are a mystery to me.

Then congratulations, because you've still got some classics that you've never read. The style changes over time, but personally I'd class The Fifth Elephant and Night Watch among my favourites, and a couple of others as very solid too.

(I have to say, I have no fondness for Rincewind who I don't think is ever really characterised believably, as opposed to the witches or the watch, who are mostly grounded is something humanlike - he feels too much just a pun delivery service and travelogue vehicle).

Rincewind suffers because he, as it were, develops in reverse - he's at his most human and relatable in The Colour of Magic, and as everything else in the books gets better, his character is stripped away into just repetitious mentions of his cowardice.

I'm reading them in order now, and I'm up to Moving Pictures which is to some extent the start of the Golden Age of Discworld Books

Indeed, it's an exciting point in the cycle to be at! I'd agree that the following run are the 'Golden Age' if defined in terms of 'how people think of Discworld at its height' - think of Discworld, that's the era most people think of. It's the era when many of the most famous characters are active (CMOT, for instance) and some of his most distinctive themes get explored. I'm not actually sure anymore, though, whether it's a golden age in quality. It's hard for Pratchett to ever really string together a series of great hits, and hits and misses fill the whole run in varying proportions - I think the number of outright misses is lower after the Golden Age, though maybe the number of hits is too.

The first outings of characters and settings often feel a little rough but now things are taking shape.

I think there's a transition from Discworld as the setting for unrelated novels to the idea of Discworld as a series.

Three minor landmarks people don't notice?
Moving Pictures is the begining of a run of novels that intentionally tie disparate places together. Most notably, of MP and the next 12 novels, 9 of them feature Ridcully in at least a cameo (and another has the Librarian). Watchmen turn up in 7 of the 13 at least (they have cameos in Reaper Man, Soul Music and Maskerade, and maybe others I can't remember). CMOT or a CMOT-analogue shows up in at least 7 as well. I think 5 have Vetinari.

Witches Abroad is, outside of the Rincewind novels, the first real sequel. [I don't count WS, because although it shares Granny with ER, all other characters and the setting are different, and Granny wasn't the protagonist of ER]. Lords and Ladies is the only novel that felt the need for a previously-on intro.

Lords and Ladies begins what I think of as 'the rotation'. At this point, Pratchett realises his books are falling into 'sub-series' and intentionally rotates between subseries. Not including Jingo (which I think was inspired by current affairs) and The Truth (nostalgic and forward looking for the 25th book), the novels rotate Witches-Watch-Death-Rincewind until Night Watch, 15 books later (though the final witches book in that cycle is replaced by Maurice).

Also, reading them with a vague idea of how it ends shows just how good Pterry was at foreshadowing. There is so much in there.

I always got the impression Pterry was inspired by himself - he'd write a throwaway line in one book, and it would inspire him to come back and write a whole subplot, or even a whole novel, later on.