Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
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Flangepart
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Wed Jul 23, 2003 8:26 am Posts: 4724
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
Interesting. But when I want a poet, I like this guy. http://www.wordjazz.com/
_________________ TITANIC. A goods sinking marred by 3 hours of the worst romantic drivel. MOVIE MIKE.
"and Patty Duke as a whackadoodle schizophrenic man-killing were-spider from the Palisades": 3Beer man.
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| Fri Jan 13, 2012 8:47 am |
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Flangepart
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Wed Jul 23, 2003 8:26 am Posts: 4724
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
MAPHEAD by Ken Jennings. Yeah, the game show champ. As a lover of maps, Ken Jennings is a guy I think many of us can relate to. The history of cartography and the people involved, the meaning of maps beyond mere direction finding, and a nice chapter on the importance of maps in Fantasy novels, make this a good read.
I like Ken's sense of humor. There is more to maps than I knew, and he makes it fun to learn it. Flangepart says, check it out!
_________________ TITANIC. A goods sinking marred by 3 hours of the worst romantic drivel. MOVIE MIKE.
"and Patty Duke as a whackadoodle schizophrenic man-killing were-spider from the Palisades": 3Beer man.
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| Fri Jan 13, 2012 9:01 am |
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TelstarMan
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Sat Mar 03, 2001 8:24 pm Posts: 5896 Location: Tyrannia (NOTE: This is a lie.)
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
This would fit equally well in the random thread, I guess, but here's a zombie apocalypse story told almost exclusively through screen captures. Start at "Day 1" and work your way up. I found it to be astounding on a level that I've only really seen before in the fake documentary CSA: The Confederate States of America.
_________________ Tim Lehnerer / TelstarMan@yahoo.com
"Damn you, Tim." -- Brother Ragnarok "Damn you, Lehnerer." -- Osco Sean "Damn you Tim!" -- Professor Mortis "I'm going to enjoy having you as a cellmate in Hell, Tim." -- El Santo This week at Checkpoint Telstar: Clash of the Titans in a Ray Harryhausen tribute roundtable. I think I'm officially a Plamtone now.
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| Sun Jan 15, 2012 9:46 am |
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Hman
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:01 pm Posts: 3895 Location: São Paulo, Brazil
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
A Wind at the Door by Madeleine L'Engle - It's interesting how a group of people can save the "macrouniverse" by helping a fictional component of a single mitochondrion save the "microuniverse" (i.e. the organism who's the owner of the cell that houses the mitochondrion in question. I really like that parallel. Also, the continuation of the theme of how powerful a weapon love can be is also appreciated. And of course, it has Cherumbim that looks like a dragon.
A Switftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle - One thing I like is how the same characters are engaged in the same battle against Good and Evil, but each story is completely its own creature and nothing feels rehashed. Here we have our heroes averting nuclear war via making small changes in the past, mainly dealing with Welsh people that had come to the New World before the Vikings and subsequently intermarried with the existing natives (and their descendants). Really neat story.
_________________ "I will teach you a kung fu punch, using your fists."
- 5 Pattern Dragon Claws
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| Thu Feb 02, 2012 6:20 am |
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untitled user
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2004 9:05 am Posts: 3685
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
Reading The Descendants. I'll be blunt, when I see a movie and I pick the book up after, I want to learn the filmmakers clung to the book. Why? I loved the movie and grabbed the book for a reason. Here is a prime example. This reads like a great novelization of the film. Which retroactively means the film is a great adaptation. Pretty much every great line or scene started here with only a few changes.
_________________ Ninja of the Magnificence is a superb business title, better than assistant manager!
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| Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:14 am |
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Bergerjacques
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2001 12:41 pm Posts: 7904 Location: Carlisle, Kentucky
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
Reading update: I am on the last seven hours of an unabridged audiobook version of Melville's "Mody Dick" and, listening, am constantly reminded of why he is considered among the first great American authors/writers. I am also reminded of why I can't stand him. He is so wordy and overly formal (even for his time period) and has a tendency to pummel his readers with an over-analysis of nit picky symbols. There is a chapter in which he discusses the significance of Moby Dick being white, in which he goes on for PAGES of the varying cultural interpretations of "white" as a symbol and how each of these interpretations are not how we should perceive Moby Dick's white. It was like hearing an Obsessive Compulsive tell me the exact details of their day. Great book, no doubt, but yeesh, Herman, GET ON WITH IT!
Also still enjoying short stories from complete collections of Ambrose Bierce and Jorge Luis Borges. Its amazing how long it takes to get through short story collections - you get the good and great mixed with the mediocre and bad, it can get tedious after awhile.
After this, I think I'll tear through the Hunger Games books. I've read the first two chapters of Hunger Games and already see that its the sort of prose one rips through and disposes.
_________________ Oh yeah, down here, I am considered the apotheosis of cool - Sewer Urchin
This is an appalling film. And for some of you, well worth your time - SSM
I like the way this board thinks
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| Tue Mar 06, 2012 9:06 am |
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El Santo
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Wed Jun 26, 2002 10:21 pm Posts: 5513 Location: In the orbit of Baltimore, Maryland
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
Doesn't it sort of defeat the purpose if you tell your readers how they're supposed to interpret your symbolism?
_________________ Now at 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting-- The Devil Within Her, The Horror of Frankenstein, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, and a bunch of ancient Russian stuff you've never, ever heard of.
Also, I have a band.
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| Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:10 am |
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Bergerjacques
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2001 12:41 pm Posts: 7904 Location: Carlisle, Kentucky
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
Melville is all about the heavy-handed symbolism. Beyond a single chapter or two, Ahab is barely the center of the book. But every detail of whaling, and nearly every part of the Pequod, is so heavy laden with meaning, it's a wonder the ship manages to stay afloat. The chapter on "The Whiteness of the Whale" is too long for me to re-print here, but its chapter 42 of the book if you want to see just how much time Melville spends talking about the variety of meanings of "white." I include these few paragraphs as an example of Melville at his extreme. It is informative as hell and Melville comes off as well-researched, but after 22 minutes of listening to this extensive study of "white," I was drained:  |  |  |  | Quote: What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid.
Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught.
Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord of the White Elephants" above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things— the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.
This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark.*..... |  |  |  |  |
It goes on from there... Before I am perceived as completely condemning Melville, one thing I have got out of this revisit to Moby Dick is Melville's sense of humor. There is plenty of comedy, not to mention eroticism, found in the intense manly relationships of the crew of Pequod.
_________________ Oh yeah, down here, I am considered the apotheosis of cool - Sewer Urchin
This is an appalling film. And for some of you, well worth your time - SSM
I like the way this board thinks
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| Tue Mar 06, 2012 11:44 am |
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supersonic man
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:54 pm Posts: 5457 Location: Lafayette, CA -- land of deer on the onramps
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
I'm rereading Treasure Island. On my phone. Haven't read it since maybe junior high school.
I just picked up Douglas Hofstadter's I Am A Strange Loop.
_________________ "an all-male Busby Berkeley show for heavily tattooed, deeply closeted Lower East Side testosterone addicts. The show's title? The Curb-Stompers of 1987." -- Santo
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| Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:02 pm |
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beersoakedrascal
Godzilla
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 11:59 pm Posts: 273 Location: Endsville
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
GIANT, SUPER-MEGA SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER SPACE! I love (or at least solemnly appreciate) this part of Treasure Island: ' Well, to make a long story short, we got a few hands on board, made a good cruise home, and the Hispaniola reached Bristol just as Mr. Blandly was beginning to think of fitting out her consort. Five men only of those who had sailed returned with her. "Drink and the devil had done for the rest," with a vengeance, although, to be sure, we were not quite in so bad a case as that other ship they sang about: With one man of her crew alive, What put to sea with seventy-five. All of us had an ample share of the treasure and used it wisely or foolishly, according to our natures. Captain Smollett is now retired from the sea. Gray not only saved his money, but being suddenly smit with the desire to rise, also studied his profession, and he is now mate and part owner of a fine full-rigged ship, married besides, and the father of a family. As for Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he spent or lost in three weeks, or to be more exact, in nineteen days, for he was back begging on the twentieth. Then he was given a lodge to keep, exactly as he had feared upon the island; and he still lives, a great favourite, though something of a butt, with the country boys, and a notable singer in church on Sundays and saints' days. Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable seafaring man with one leg has at last gone clean out of my life; but I dare say he met his old Negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint. It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another world are very small. The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" Sounds like a bad case of PTSD. 
_________________ Rogaine is a hell of a drug.
"Your 'reality,' sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever." -- Baron Munchausen
"I even got my dog gold plated, he wasn’t even dead, I just wanted him gold plated and I gets what I wants and I wants my dog gold plated…… GOLD PLATED DOG!!!!!!!!" -- Richie Rich
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| Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:13 am |
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Marlowe
Site Admin
Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2001 4:49 pm Posts: 5245 Location: Portland, ME
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
Oh god, "The Whiteness of the Whale." I also went through most of a Moby Dick audiobook a while back, and that chapter in particular was rough going. It's like Melville's truest artistic goal is to bludgeon the writer senseless through comprehensiveness.
_________________ The AV Club: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Buy my book! If You Like Monty Python...
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| Wed Mar 07, 2012 6:56 pm |
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supersonic man
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:54 pm Posts: 5457 Location: Lafayette, CA -- land of deer on the onramps
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
In print, I didn't mind it. I imagine that the audio format can make passages like that especially punishing.
_________________ "an all-male Busby Berkeley show for heavily tattooed, deeply closeted Lower East Side testosterone addicts. The show's title? The Curb-Stompers of 1987." -- Santo
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| Wed Mar 07, 2012 7:32 pm |
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Bergerjacques
Burning Godzilla
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2001 12:41 pm Posts: 7904 Location: Carlisle, Kentucky
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
Yes indeed. In that paragraph alone, count the number of "and though"s or variations thereof and translate that to audio format and, around about the umpteenth one, you're ready to set the Delorean for the 1840s in order to go break Melville's writing hand.
_________________ Oh yeah, down here, I am considered the apotheosis of cool - Sewer Urchin
This is an appalling film. And for some of you, well worth your time - SSM
I like the way this board thinks
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| Thu Mar 08, 2012 10:53 am |
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Juniejune
Godzilla
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:04 am Posts: 306
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
I picked up the latest issue of 'Cemetery Dance' and the format and everything is the same as it has been since the beginning of its publication. It really makes me miss the great horror and dark fantasy small press scene of the 1990s. It is really nice to see that they are still around in 2012, after so many publications have gone belly up.
I also finished reading 'the hunger games'. While I enjoyed it, it does not make me eager to pick up the other two books. I have a feeling that the other books will focus on a teen love triangle and I could care less for that. But I hear it ends well. And by well I mean terrifying for all the characters involved!
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| Wed Mar 14, 2012 9:07 pm |
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Necrosorrow
Godzilla
Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2003 10:13 am Posts: 380 Location: Limbo
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 Re: Read! Or the Owl Will Eat You!
Finally finished Deathly Hallows last week, then went back to getting myself oriented in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars which I'd dipped into a couple months ago. It's satisfying storytelling and worldbuilding so far, and the hard science / sociological fiction stuff is a refreshing change of pace for me, but it's also slow going, and it's a little intimidating to know that this is only part one of a trilogy.
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| Wed Mar 14, 2012 9:40 pm |
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