Yes, you’re welcome. It’s a good 600+ pages with smallish type and, yes, with something as detailed as this there are going to be some mistakes, but overall, it’s a great read!
Started, then stopped. Again. I tried reading this, like, maybe twenty years ago, and didn't get far. I couldn't remember why. I vaguely recalled liking it. Deciding it was time to revisit the novel, I got about a few chapters into it when I remembered why I stopped. David Foster Wallace is an amazing writer who really sucks at telling a (fictional) story.
There are a few writers from his generation of modern lit guys who all kind of fall into that category- amazing wordsmiths who have healthy imaginations and an artisan talent for English literature- but their works are just fucking tedious. William Vollman is another who comes to mind- a guy who has a breathlessly expansive vocabulary but his writing is impenetrable. Joyless, even.
Fun post with lots of video links. But I put it here mainly because this is the only place I know where the following quote might generate a good prog-fight: '“Nights in White Satin,” probably marks the beginning of the prog-rock era.'
It may be a hard pill to swallow, but Days of Future Passed did come out a year before Head by the Monkees, so I'd have to say these guys have a legitimate point.
But “Pipers at the Gate of Dawn” by Pink Floyd came out a full 96 days before “ Days of Future Passed” on August 5th 1967!
True, but do you really consider TPatGoD a progressive-rock album? I'd call it full-blown 60's British psychedelia, not prog, but of course that's just my opinion. I might even say that Pink Floyd didn't embrace prog-rock until they recorded Meddle... Side 1 of Atom Heart Mother (i.e., the title track) was prog, but a lot of those elements were supposedly added by Ron Geesin, not so much the band.
Then again, it's not like I have a degree in Floydology, so I could easily be wrong. You clearly know more about this stuff than me, so I'm genuinely interested in your opinion.
@ScissorMan I know what you mean. It is hard to tell where psychedelic ends and progressive starts. I was thinking of “Astronomy Domine” and “Interstellar Overdrive”. Mind you a lot of us would say that Prog only truly started on October 10th 1969 with the release of “In the Court of the Crimson King” by King Crimson!
“You Say You Want A Revolution? Records And Rebels 1966-1970”.
A fabulous book based on an exhibition held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London with a really interesting analysis of the period and an extraordinary range of photographs.
To quote the Director’s Foreword, the book “investigatesthe seismic political, social and cultural changes that took place during this period and resulted in a fundamental shift in the mindset of the Western world”.
My Christmas holiday reading down the Surf Coast in Australia with 60s music playing in my headphones!
I was totally into the writing of Kosinski back in the day. I read pretty much everything of his back in the 90s shortly after discovering his work. Cockpit and The Devil Tree were my two favorites. I liked how he told a story, especially in the flurry-of-vignettes style of Cockpit and The Devil Tree, but also enjoyed his more straight-forward style, too. His characters' typical confused mix of personality traits was also very appealing, and the odd scenarios he placed them in. But now, a lot older and having seen a few things, I dunno... I still think Kosinski is a pretty amazing writer, but the plot and characters, especially in favorites like these two novels... Kosinski really comes off with the perspective and appeal of a college freshman edgelord. If the writing weren't so strong, I wouldn't have finished my re-read of Cockpit. However, I finally had to put down The Devil Tree. Just wasn't worth keeping on.
A good read and one that would be of interest to many on this board, I would think. Links together a lot of the ideas and people that shaped the cultural world we grew up in. Just finished up reading about the relationships and collaborations among John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns...Now getting into the rise of teen culture/rock and roll in the 50s-60s
Thanks, I did some research and I believe it has a jacket. Ordering it today. Thanks again! Probably will become one of those permanent books in my collection.
We've been hacked can anyone get rid of this junk?
Content deleted, user banned. I’ll remove the link from your quote as well. Sorry, I did approve the application because the user provided a reason for joining in a proper English sentence, though the user name did give me doubts. Easily fixed though.
I'm really back into the reading swing. Still dumbfounded that I fell out of the habit for as many years as I did. I mean, I get it. Life had me down pretty low, and that gets me to stop doing a lot of stuff I love to do (even though reading has always been a refuge during those interludes). Plus, I spent over two years writing my current novel and I tend to read a lot less during those stretches, but, still...
Here's some stuff I've been reading lately:
Gaiman & Pratchett - "Good Omens"
Donald Glynn - "Temporary Sanity"
Eugene Ionesco - "The Hermit"
Walter Mosley - "The Man in my Basement"
I mentioned in a previous post how I tend to re-read books anytime I move to a new town, that there's something about the continuity of revisiting an old story when everything is new again that floats my boat. The first three of these books represent the end of that exercise, and the fourth book the signal of a new direction.
Pretty sure I read "Good Omens" when it first came out, or shortly thereafter. It was one of my Columbia Book Club selections back in the day. I remember adoring it. I had read some Pratchett before this, and I'm pretty sure all I had read of Gaiman's was some comic book stuff pre-Sandman days, but I could be wrong. I just noticed that Sandman began in 1989, shortly before Good Omens, but I had stopped reading comics around '86. I have some vague memory of Gaiman doing something for Epic Illustrated or Eclipse Comics or maybe First Comics, but I could be misremembering it. There was something very appealing to me back then with Pratchett and Gaiman's cute & clever style of storytelling, but even my young self grew tired of it as the book drew to a close. It didn't take me nearly that long to weary of it this time around. I got maybe a third of the way through this book and put it back on the shelf. I'm glad I read it back in the day, and I can see the appeal of their style of writing, but its cuteness becomes an obstacle and begins to read like a love letter to themselves as writers.
I discovered the Fiction Collective when I was living in Denver. It was a group of experimental writers who created their own imprint back in the '70s. I think actually, the Boulder group was Fiction Collective II, and the original iteration began in Champaign, IL. In either event, I began scooping a bunch of their books up. "Temporary Sanity" is a straight-forward tale about some upper New York hillbillies that get into trouble. I remember enjoying it back then and it was fun to revisit. It doesn't do anything particularly special from a fiction perspective (though it does a couple things with language that struck me back in the day and which I used as a learning experience for my own writing).
Ionesco's "The Hermit" was another Denver read. I'm about halfway through my re-read. Not sure if I'm gonna finish it up. I'm definitely enjoying it, but I find myself absorbing its philosophies no differently than back in the day and kind of engaging with the book as I did back then. The experience is making me feel like there's not much sense in seeing it through to the end on my second go-around. However, I think the reaction may have more to do with simply wanting to read new stuff.
As a writer of the modern jazz scene, sometimes I lament those jazz fans who never leave the confines of the bop era and explore all of the new music of the modern era. I have discovered that I am the equivalent of a bop-era-only listener but for fiction writing. So, I'm committing to reading books that have been released in this century. I have a couple Mosley books on my shelf. I think I got them free back when I worked for Harpo Studios (there was a promo shelf we could help ourselves to). I love love love this book so far. I'm only a few chapters into it, but I think Mosley is going to occupy a little section on my bookshelves before this is over.
I created a Goodreads account. I am very late to this. It's helpful keeping a list of stuff I want to buy so I don't have to maintain a list on a scrap piece of paper anymore.
Hey, I could be misremembering where I read this, but I'm pretty sure it was on eMusers. I sort of think it was BadThoughts who posted it. But someone had a friend who had written a book about a professional advisor to evil overlords or maybe it was James Bond bad guy types, and the story is about how the bad guys keep ignoring his advice and, I assume, wacky shenanigans occur.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? I haven't found the post in my forum searches. It's possible it wasn't on this forum or maybe when we had the back-and-forth between .net and .org, maybe we lost some posts... but I figure google simply isn't indexing this site as well as it could. But even going through all the posts on this discussion thread didn't reveal anything. Anyways, I was reading a description of a book recently and it reminded me of that forum post and it got me thinking I'd like to check it out.
I don't think it was me. However, my recent book purge showed me how much I have forgotten over the years: I can't remember anything about the Ian Rankin books other than taking place in Scotland.
I've been reading a lot of SFF recently, so if you are looking for a recommendation, try Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time: a great hard scifi look at colonialism.
Comments
and, yes, with something as detailed as this there are going to be
some mistakes, but overall, it’s a great read!
Yes, I remember that Audio issue too!
so I'm gonna relax and finish up the first book
and start the second book below:
"The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock" by Charles Snider.
To quote the Director’s Foreword, the book “investigates the seismic political, social and cultural changes that took place during this period and resulted in a fundamental shift in the mindset of the Western world”.
My Christmas holiday reading down the Surf Coast in Australia with 60s music playing in my headphones!
Well done you! One of the weirder charts they've published for sure.
if so, does it come with a dust jacket? Thanks!
Ordering it today. Thanks again! Probably will become
one of those permanent books in my collection.
We've been hacked can anyone get rid of this junk?
Sorry, I did approve the application because the user provided a reason for joining in a proper English sentence, though the user name did give me doubts. Easily fixed though.
I've been reading a lot of SFF recently, so if you are looking for a recommendation, try Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time: a great hard scifi look at colonialism.