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

[TomHChappell]

Well, enough about me! How have you been?

Thank you, miserable, as usual. My life keeps being one big mess, and I keep having no idea how to even start un-messing it. But that's off-topic for this thread.

I also have no idea how to un-mess my own life: but, this thread attests to my feeling that I might be having ideas of how to get such ideas!

ibi pendet, bro!

[Raphael]

Well, enough about me! How have you been?

Thank you, miserable, as usual. My life keeps being one big mess, and I keep having no idea how to even start un-messing it. But that's off-topic for this thread.

I also have no idea how to un-mess my own life: but, this thread attests to my feeling that I might be having ideas of how to get such ideas!

ibi pendet, bro!

Thank you!

[TomHChappell]

Wait, do you mean "incel" as in "murderous far-right misogynist terrorists and far-right misogynist terrorist sympathizers"? What kind of person seriously uses that as a medical term? Big red flag!

I think you’re talking about MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way), who wouldn’t self-identify as “incels”.
They’re men between 18 and 30 who’ve accepted that they’re among the two-thirds of single heterosexual men in that age range who will never have a long-term romantic relationship with a woman until they (the men) age out of that age group.
So they just quit trying. (And they make a virtue out of not trying.)
So, in my lexicon, they’re a kind of “voluntary celibate”; not incels.

“Incel” is what the “Chads” call the MGTOW. It’s an insult word.
(“Chad” is what the MGTOW call men who aren’t celibate. It’s also an insult word.).

[Travis B.]

This is awesome. I want one now.

[Raphael]

I recently re-read How NOT to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman. A great and very quotable read ("Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find himself turned into an enormous symbol." "'Call my patent attorney' cried Thomas Edison. 'I have invented the telephone!'"), with a lot of great advice, delivered in a way that makes me wonder if that is how the Flaids write their books.

I'm just not sure if I agree with their claim that the main plot of a novel should always be present all the way from Page 1 to the last chapter. Is it really that bad to have a book about, say, a threat or problem that is, at first, just kind of looming in the background, showing itself in small ways, and just takes over the story later? On TV, that sometimes seems to work; e. g. the Shadows in Babylon 5 or the Dominion in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

[zompist]

I'm just not sure if I agree with their claim that the main plot of a novel should always be present all the way from Page 1 to the last chapter. Is it really that bad to have a book about, say, a threat or problem that is, at first, just kind of looming in the background, showing itself in small ways, and just takes over the story later? On TV, that sometimes seems to work; e. g. the Shadows in Babylon 5 or the Dominion in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

All writing rules are things that a beginner needs to learn, and an experienced writer can ignore. A novel indeed can have multiple plots, or start in one direction and then be about something else, or put in huge digressions; but these are advanced techniques that probably shouldn't go in a first novel.

TV has different rules, partly because it started out episodic and retains some of that freedom. But then, 19th century novels were often episodic too.

[alice]

All writing rules are things that a beginner needs to learn, and an experienced writer can ignore.

Doesn't one of your Almean culture tests say something like "An artist is expected to be conservative in his youth and daring in his old age"?

[Raphael]

All writing rules are things that a beginner needs to learn, and an experienced writer can ignore.

Doesn't one of your Almean culture tests say something like "An artist is expected to be conservative in his youth and daring in his old age"?

That was the description of Academy-era Xurno. Sounds to me like the ideal Academy-era Xurnese artist would be Goya.

[rotting bones]

The new Hugo Award winner Some Desperate Glory is loads of fun.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is good for people who enjoy depressing stories.

Re-reading The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire by Luttwak.

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Books I'm trying but I'm not sure will turn out to be good:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a pretentious and explicitly anti-Marxist French novel about how life has no meaning.

Atonement by Ian McEwan.

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens after watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tABH40bIVpo

[Ares Land]

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a pretentious and explicitly anti-Marxist French novel about how life has no meaning.

It was a huge best seller here, but as far as I'm concerned 'pretentious' about sums it up.

[Raphael]

Finished Aspects of the Novel, by E. M. Foster. I expected it to be a bit too highbrow for my taste, and to some extent, it was, but it was nevertheless interesting.

I'm still not sure what exactly the author is trying to tell me in Chapter 7 ("Prophecy"), though.

[rotting bones]

I read many books by Camus. I don't think I can call myself an Absurdist since Camus defines Absurdism as "sin without God".

Reading some of Richard Feynman's biographies, the dude was a pickup artist.

I read Mr. Palomar by Italo Calvino. It's like a philosophical Mr. Beans overthinking everything. I particularly liked the beach, the store and the ruins. "Don't listen to the senor. We don't know what it means." will stick with me forever.

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Books that look interesting:

The Historian: Scholars try to follow clues in obscure books to find Dracula.

When We Cease to Understand the World: It's like one if those online lore deep dives. It starts by talking about how the Nazis were hopped up on drugs. It then seems to shift gears and talk about chemical discoveries. I'm assuming this will culminate in the discovery of those drugs. The blurb said it will go in many different directions.

The Savage Detectives: A Latin American novel. It reads like a magical realism style, but who knows? Everything from down there sounds magical realist to me. Nothing magical has happened so far. It starts with a poet who gets involved in disputes among literary gangs. IIRC the blurb said this will somehow culminate in travels around the world. I can't imagine how, and I don't want to remind myself of how the plot will go.

[zompist]

Finished Aspects of the Novel, by E. M. Foster. I expected it to be a bit too highbrow for my taste, and to some extent, it was, but it was nevertheless interesting.

I'm still not sure what exactly the author is trying to tell me in Chapter 7 ("Prophecy"), though.

If you haven't read any of the authors he discusses in that chapter, it probably won't make sense.

But the basic idea is that the whole book applies to novels in general (mostly ones written in English)— but that whole framework has to be set aside, or sidelined in favor of new methods and values, for certain writers. "Fantasy" is one subgroup, "Prophecy" is another. Forster is well aware that rules can be broken, and these are subgroups of the novel where different rules apply.

(The Fantasy chapter is perhaps the one chapter that seems outdated. He had way less examples a hundred years ago. Be aware that he's not talking about the fantasy genre. I think the magic realists would probably fit in his subgroup.)

[rotting bones]

Possession by Byatt seems to be about excavating a Victorian poet's romance by reading old documents. You might have to be into scholarship to enjoy this as much as I am.

Brand New Ancients looks like a modern epic that interprets ordinary people as gods and heros. I hope it's more readable than Ulysses.

I'm looking forward to reading Experiments in Mystical Atheism this Wednesday. I'm told it's a book on atheism that will argue that if God is real, then everything has exactly one ultimate meaning within the Divine Plan. This stifling totalitarianism is antithetical to spiritual growth. I heard a podcast where the author specifically positioned himself against Zizek's Christian Atheism. If he reads Zizek's older work, I think he will find Zizek's broader approach is based on an existential frisson between the stressful freedom of not having a cause and the labor of love that keeps people devoted to seeing a vision of the future through to the end.

[Torco]

I'm on my second playthrough of mechwarrior 5: clans. I just love that conworld. okay, okay, and i also like the giant stompy robots with the missile and lasers and explosion and all the rest of it.

[Karch]

The current text in the "Name the language!" thread reminded me of an old classic.
Salju Abadi band - Anii uwii nee Meka makiyo (Ekari)

[rotting bones]

Still reading:

Experiments in Mystical Atheism. Zhuangzi had a dream about a butterfly and wondered whether the butterfly was dreaming the man. Similarly, this guy dreams that he could easily have been a theist writing Experiments in Mystical Theism. The main reason he's writing this book is that he can't imagine the theist writing this book. This guy sounds way more mystical than me, but I'll reserve judgment until I get to the Spinoza chapter, which he says is his main contribution. I have read before that Spinoza is incompatible with modern science because he's committed to holism.

Knowledge and Class by Resnick and Wolff. First book on actual "Marxist" Marxist theory, with the lingo and everything, I'm reading unless you count this: https://gruppegrundrisse.wordpress.com/ ... hought.pdf It tries to reframe knowledge as dependent on one's position within a social system as analyzed along multiple vectors. It takes a stand against class reductionism. Wolff is famous for promoting worker co-ops.

Rejection by Tulathimutte. Looks like a collection of short stories about rejection. Contains the first story I've read about a self-professed feminist author writing from the perspective of an incel. Not just any random incel, a fully blackpilled and violent incel.

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Recently finished:

Creatures of a Day by Irvin Yalom. These are cases of an existential psychotherapist. The first story is amazing. An 84 year old patient asks for one session, complaining of writer's block. During the session, he insists that the therapist read an old stack of letters. 60 years ago, the patient was writing a novel about Nietzsche for his graduate project. He kept writing for so long that the university eventually terminated his student status. He got a dead end assistant librarian job to keep writing it. 60 years later, he realizes he will never finish it. People know him as an assistant librarian who never amounted to much. What he wanted from the therapist is acknowledgement that his advisor, long dead by now, thought he amounted to something.

Exile and the Kingdom is probaly the book by Camus that I enjoyed the most. There's a story about how an artist suffers a block when he becomes self-conscious, and tries to reason about how he used to work before. This only exacerbates the problem.

Nutshell by Ian McEwan. Hamlet written from a perspective where Hamlet is an unborn fetus??? lolwut The fetus even has an attempted suicide scene.

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Books I read long ago:

People with faith in market efficiency should read When Genius Failed by Lowenstein.

Rust Belt Union Blues shows how people's intuitions come from social institutions.

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Misc:

Papa & Boy seems to be an animated Marxist cartoon. Yes, really. It's kinda funny.

I think I'm listening to too much Bach again.

[Travis B.]

I'm reading a short book by Brian Kernighan titled UNIX: A History and a Memoir.

[rotting bones]

History of the Germans podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7cvGmixy8 ... r1KckT6NjA

[Man in Space]

Blksmiith – “GORE-TEX COVERS MY SOUL”