posted
I'm now rereading Richard Price's Samaritan. I wish this guy would write some more, or I'm just going to have to put his best and biggest 3 novels on repeat, because right now I'm struggling to find anything better.
Also, I think he wrote for The Wire, which is what I'm watching every night.
Also digging Invisibles, thanks Benny! though it's a bit embarrassing that I'm now having the "fuck, he's really onto something with this city under a city, urban magic and aztec gods shit!" experience I should have had, like everyone else, when I was like 26 and the comic was first published.
-------------------- pudgy little saucepot Posts: 738
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I've got episode 14 of season 6, or two of 7?, of the sopranos sitting on my desk top waiting to be watched - man I love that programme. I can't actually start the wire without this finishing, so another 7 more episodes until it's completed and then the wire can start (I've watched the first 3). I taped and watched the Hotel New Hampshire - I first saw the film when i was about 7, and for some reason really liked it (probably because it had strange sex and slapstick sped up moments?) - it's funny, I saw the film years ago, then read the book and got a lot more out of the story, and then saw the film again and got a lot more out of the film. Also have Consequences of Love to watch before I bin the DVD rental account.... Been reading history of the world, the first section on prehistory did nothing for me, but once it hit ancient history I remembered why I loved my degree so much.
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I've been watching The Wire every night too. Just up to the episode where McNulty flips out and kills the lesbian with a bread knife(spoiler?).
It's very, very good. A real sense of veractiy and a brilliantly conceived storyline. It's not as poetic as The Sopranos, but comparing the two is really a bit of a dead end I reckon. The only things they really have in common are high quality, bursts of nasty violence and a habit of setting scenes in strip clubs to break the tension. Like, "Man, that last scene was pretty gruelling... I'm not sure I can.... Hey! It's a bunch of titties flopping about! Woo-hoo!"
-------------------- Now that you've called me by name? Posts: 2007
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Yeah, I got to that scene. That was certainly a kind of poetry, finding so many ways to say "fuck". Thorn may be interested to know that I taught one of the strippers from Sopranos. She stripped one episode, was killed the next.
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I spent my lunch hour in the Oxfam bookshop on Gloucester Rd. I was really tempted to spend £2 on a book entitled How To Make Anyone Fall In Love With You which was full of brilliant advice such as rating your own attractiveness on a scale of 1-10 and then ensuring you were only "hunting" those in within 2 points of you. It seemed to mention "studies" and "feedback" fairly frequently and to be quite serious. Do you think I should buy it?
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Yes - it sounds like an extremely insightful tome. You wouldn't want to find yourself as an octogenarian sitting on a rocking chair and smelling of cat urine, thinking back to today with a tear in your eye:
If only I'd bought that book back in the early 2000s. It was only two quid...
Where do you rate your attractiveness on this scale?
posted
I saw Sunshine yesterday. I read on another board that Boy Racer did'nt like it, but I mainly enjoyed it - I enjoyed it more when it was pastiching 2001 and Solaris, instead of boringly retreading Alien. I didn't really follow the plot much but I kind of tripped along with the visuals.
Then I went on a stand-up sunbed, to live the experience, and today I look like one of the people from the Icarus II's viewing deck.
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they were awesome. As I was going to sleep I was trying to work out how to put them out. I decided that the best way was to either build a giant metal lid to put over the hole, or fill it full of some kind of.....material...or something. Either way, it'll make me a millionaire.
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quote:Originally posted by wonderstarr: the Icarus II's viewing deck.
Now there's something I don't get - why name the ship after someone that failed when they got too close to the sun? It's like naming it Prometheus, who spent eternity in torment - it's an attempt to show that they know history, when they completely miss the point.
Although - I guess most classic myths tell of the hubris of man - so....
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I recently read Cormac McCarthy's unremittingly bleak post-nuclear nightmare The Road, which I recommend unreservedly to everyone on the forum.
The language has a carbonised beauty that seems a bit much at first but gradually fills you with the terrible feeling that, when 'it' comes (atomic war, environmental collapse, starvation rape and cannibalism) this is pretty much exactly as it will be.
quote:Originally posted by wonderstarr: the Icarus II's viewing deck.
Now there's something I don't get - why name the ship after someone that failed when they got too close to the sun? It's like naming it Prometheus, who spent eternity in torment - it's an attempt to show that they know history, when they completely miss the point.
Although - I guess most classic myths tell of the hubris of man - so....
Yeah, it's like manning a spaceship into the icy wastes of Pluto and calling it the Titanic.
And then launching another one when that crashes, calling it Titanic II
stupid future people
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quote:Originally posted by ben: gradually fills you with the terrible feeling that, when 'it' comes (atomic war, environmental collapse, starvation rape and cannibalism) this is pretty much exactly as it will be.
posted
Is he the guy who doesn't use " " marks but - instead?
I just read this on the BBC website;
quote: Composer and theatre producer Andrew Lloyd Webber says he will only attend this week's edition of Any Dream Will Do - in which budding musical actors bid to win a leading role in the West End - unless the BBC fly him back from his beloved Leyton Orient's away match with Bradford.
Terrible english, BBC website monkey no read???
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posted
I finished Auster's "The Brooklyn Follies" the other day, and it's a pretty weak book. Didn't get much enjoyment out of it. I wouldn't bother with it if I were you.
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Just finished Will Self's Cock & Bull. Two novellas, both of which offer hilarious insights into how sexual roles can be reversed. I found them both highly amusing anyway. Also read Carnivores by Guy N. Smith. A no-holds-barred, no-brainer horror flick, dealing with a 'curse' that affects the entire population of a prospering Stratford estate, leading to a pretty sick chain of events, including a scene where a baby is decapitated by a buzzard, followed by the Mother and Father, who were both stark bollock naked as they'd been fucking in the bushes while the baby was asleep. Hmm. Perfect beach-reading material.
Have started reading How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World, which is shaping up very nicely and Will Self's Junk Mail.
Am tempted to start another Guy N. Smith book in the meantime. Doubt I'll ever grow out of low-budget horrors. Think I'll give Cannibals a whirl as it has the sickest cover.
posted
im really thinking i need to sort out my teevee situation. its all very interesting living without the idiot box for five months, and it is pleasant not having to deal with the constant, almost sub- conscious feeeling of irritation that regularly subjecting yourself to most advertising and popular culture inevitably leads to. a life without vernon kaye and steve jones and shipwrecked hutcum diaries is not a life immeasureably the poorer, i can confirm this, as if you were even arguing such a thing. BUT. on the other hand. im really beginning to miss the rubbishy telly, to the point where im actually fetishising it a bit. after doctor who i get to watch maybe half of DREAMCOAT, and then im torn away from it as the people whose telly im borrowing throw me out onto the streets, and i go home and its like premature ejaculation. i really really really miss slobbing out all night in front of some load of absolute detritus. i miss being braindead. another consequence is that reading is becoming difficult. i read three books last week, and half- read another two, and im getting really bored of reading. im totally incapable of reading anything that is not located somehwere on the spectrum between middle- brow and moronic. i tried to read an article about the janja weed last weekend and my brain was like 'nah, not happening. lets try this article about mika instead'. i read the whole article about mika, even though i loathe him and want him to die or be maimed. wh' happen?
posted
I've been without TV for a year now, and what I would really like is a flat-screen tv attached to the wall opposite my bed. That would be so awesome. I'm starting to miss it too... programmes like Zena, Warrior Princess, or The OC, or Buffy... all the brilliant things that are like these unexpected nuggets of pop culture awesomeness. Having no TV feels a bit like chucking the baby out with the bathwater. At first I liked the austerity, but now it makes me feel sad. I haven't told my sister this though. She loves not having one.
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the americans invented americas next top model! which is total gash but i really feel an almost physical pull towards the television when its on. last saturday, just before doctor who started, we were watching a little bit of antm, the bit where the Stroppy Black One and the Soppy Black One were having an argument about the Amazonian Midwestern Blonde, and Stroppy took off her pants and wiped them all over Midwestern's duvet cover... my sister went to turn over and i was like, you cant turn over! i need to see what happens! she just wiped her lady- smee all over her duvet cover! this is watercooler stuff! i felt a bit dirty inside afterwards. and then doctor who wasnt even any bloody good. fucking daleks! i dont care about fucking daleks and i dont care whether the doctor and martha ever tongue! being as how you obviously cant show them engaging in sweaty tardis based animalistics, possibly involving butt- fucking, im really not interested.
-------------------- evil is boring: cheerful power Posts: 1655
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Doctor Who is wank - I fucking hate how bad it is in direct relation to how good everyone says it is. It looks cheap, is badly acted and terrible terrible scripts that people seem to be hearing as really clever. I don't mind that it looks cheap, but it's trying to pretend that it looks great - Dr Who - know your limits!!
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posted
part of me agrees with you. i suppose i like the idea of there still being such a thing as 'event telly', even when the event doesnt live up to the hype around it. also, it gets me out of the house, and quite often i get free food whilst its on. so. you know.
-------------------- evil is boring: cheerful power Posts: 1655
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quote:Originally posted by Benny the Ball: Doctor Who is wank - I fucking hate how bad it is in direct relation to how good everyone says it is. It looks cheap, is badly acted and terrible terrible scripts that people seem to be hearing as really clever.
I was forced to watch an episode of this last week and was similarly appalled. Every aspect of the show was fucking dreadful. Unfortunately I couldn't contain my disgust at it all and laughed/moaned constantly throughout it, much to the disdain of my girlfriend and her friend - who's also obsessed with Doctor Who. I don't think they'll be inviting me round again.
I never watched it as a child, so I suppose there's no emotional attachment between me and the series. Still, as a neutral, it sucked.
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I was a fan of Doctor Who when I was in short pants, and naturally I was keen to see the new stuff. I thought Ecclestone was good, but find Tennant annoying in that he appears to love overacting. One can ham up a character, but to ham it up to the point where it becomes cringeworthy is another thing entirely. When I see him leaping around the TARDIS like a deranged rabbit I just want to cut off his legs.
Then there is the whole set of cultural issues that are set off by his having a blacke companion - during the last two episodes they were in 1930s New Yoik ffs - a place where a blacke woman in tight jeans would have been arrested let alone be some sort of earth-saving herione. At least the term blackamoor was used in the Shakespeare episode.
Then there is the Russell T Davies effect - that is, trying to shoehorn his sexuality into every other episode. It is most annoying, and I bet Patrick Troughton is spinning in his grave.
I also watched the Turkmenistan documentary, which might have been more interesting were it not for Waldemar Januszczak poncing around like a caricature of the equally annoying Jonathan Meades. The Boratesque comedy muzak didn't help.
As for what I have been watching - hmm. The cricket world cup has only just finished.
posted
I held off starting The Invisibles until I had all 7 volumes, I read volume 1 yesterday. I understand what all the fuss is about. Thanks again, Benny.
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stupid future people![[Mad]](mad.gif)
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