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Aug. 1st, 2008 02:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goldenmeanIf you could hear me love, I'd tell to you my story. To you and only you, so love that you might save me.
Tempus fugit. Long time no post. The problem I always have when I write a journal entry that I'm especially fond of is that it makes it harder to write subsequent entries that don't hold up, and then I don't post for a while and it gets even harder to get momentum up to do so, and so on and so forth. Clearly the only answer is that I just post mediocrity. So, taking that firmly to heart, let's just have a random list of media I've enjoyed semi-recently.
My Winnipeg is great. It's Guy Maddin! It's a questionably autobiographical, Secret history faux documentary about Winnipeg. This is obviously a formula for awesome. I think this is probably the most accessible thing he's ever done, which admittedly isn't really saying a lot, but if you've never seen any of his stuff, this is most likely the best place to start.
I've been reading a bunch of Slipstream, New Weird, and Interstitial Fiction anthologies recently. I couldn't possibly tell you which one was which, but that's ok, because I don't think most of the authors contained in them could either. Pretty much all of them open with a long rambling screed trying to justify the existence of the sub-sub-sub-genre naming convention the editors have come up with. As usual with anthologies, they wobble up and down in quality between stories, but I've become especially fond of Kelly Link as a result.
You should also check out Paolo Bacigalupi. He's got a short story collection called Pump Six, which I found to be quite fine. There are some sample stories from it up on the web site. Most of them are more or less cyberpunk with an environmental bent. Bleakedy bleak bleakness.
Also recently read, Roland Topor's The Tenant, Christopher Priest's The Affirmation, and John Franklin Bardin's The Deadly Percheron. Because there's nothing more soothing when you're unhappy than seeking out surreal fiction involving having one's persona subsumed. Or... something. Oh, also, Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers. Upbeat I am not.
Ooh, and reaching back in my memory, but still read more recently than my last journal entry, Blindsight, which is just offensively good science fiction. Charles Stross has a pretty decent summary of it "Imagine a neurobiology-obsessed version of Greg Egan writing a first contact with aliens story from the point of view of a zombie posthuman crewman aboard a starship captained by a vampire". Yes, I know, it sounds horrible, but it's at least as good an example of the vampires in space subgenre as Lifeforce was. I'm not helping am I? Kidding aside, it's a pretty worrying look at post-humanity and some of the grimmer possibilities for extraterrestrial life. It also has a 144 section bibliography. You've got to appreciate science fiction that cites its references. Well, I do at least. That link up there leads to a complete version of it online. You should at least read the preface. And then go buy the real thing. Or better yet, just find the author on the street and stuff wads of money into his pockets until the police pull you off of him.
In addition to my usual practices of reading and movie watching, I've gotten myself embroiled in a Dungeons&Dragons game. I don't see how this can fail to increase the already incredibly potent allure I hold for the opposite sex. It's a lot more fun than it has any right to be. I spend a pretty decent section of each game giggling uncontrollably.
It's getting late-esque. I think I'll wander off before giving you the music update. Capsule summary, music purchased in the last month that I would classify as indie rock beating out music I would classify as industrial by a good order of magnitude or two. Oh the humanity.
Say what you want to say, and hang for your hollow ways. Moving your mouth to pull out all your miracles... for me
Hell, while we're at it
I know I should go, but I follow you like a man possessed. There's a traitor here beneath my breast and it hurts me more than you've ever guessed. If my heart could beat, it would break my chest, but I can see you're unimpressed
Tempus fugit. Long time no post. The problem I always have when I write a journal entry that I'm especially fond of is that it makes it harder to write subsequent entries that don't hold up, and then I don't post for a while and it gets even harder to get momentum up to do so, and so on and so forth. Clearly the only answer is that I just post mediocrity. So, taking that firmly to heart, let's just have a random list of media I've enjoyed semi-recently.
My Winnipeg is great. It's Guy Maddin! It's a questionably autobiographical, Secret history faux documentary about Winnipeg. This is obviously a formula for awesome. I think this is probably the most accessible thing he's ever done, which admittedly isn't really saying a lot, but if you've never seen any of his stuff, this is most likely the best place to start.
I've been reading a bunch of Slipstream, New Weird, and Interstitial Fiction anthologies recently. I couldn't possibly tell you which one was which, but that's ok, because I don't think most of the authors contained in them could either. Pretty much all of them open with a long rambling screed trying to justify the existence of the sub-sub-sub-genre naming convention the editors have come up with. As usual with anthologies, they wobble up and down in quality between stories, but I've become especially fond of Kelly Link as a result.
You should also check out Paolo Bacigalupi. He's got a short story collection called Pump Six, which I found to be quite fine. There are some sample stories from it up on the web site. Most of them are more or less cyberpunk with an environmental bent. Bleakedy bleak bleakness.
Also recently read, Roland Topor's The Tenant, Christopher Priest's The Affirmation, and John Franklin Bardin's The Deadly Percheron. Because there's nothing more soothing when you're unhappy than seeking out surreal fiction involving having one's persona subsumed. Or... something. Oh, also, Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers. Upbeat I am not.
Ooh, and reaching back in my memory, but still read more recently than my last journal entry, Blindsight, which is just offensively good science fiction. Charles Stross has a pretty decent summary of it "Imagine a neurobiology-obsessed version of Greg Egan writing a first contact with aliens story from the point of view of a zombie posthuman crewman aboard a starship captained by a vampire". Yes, I know, it sounds horrible, but it's at least as good an example of the vampires in space subgenre as Lifeforce was. I'm not helping am I? Kidding aside, it's a pretty worrying look at post-humanity and some of the grimmer possibilities for extraterrestrial life. It also has a 144 section bibliography. You've got to appreciate science fiction that cites its references. Well, I do at least. That link up there leads to a complete version of it online. You should at least read the preface. And then go buy the real thing. Or better yet, just find the author on the street and stuff wads of money into his pockets until the police pull you off of him.
In addition to my usual practices of reading and movie watching, I've gotten myself embroiled in a Dungeons&Dragons game. I don't see how this can fail to increase the already incredibly potent allure I hold for the opposite sex. It's a lot more fun than it has any right to be. I spend a pretty decent section of each game giggling uncontrollably.
It's getting late-esque. I think I'll wander off before giving you the music update. Capsule summary, music purchased in the last month that I would classify as indie rock beating out music I would classify as industrial by a good order of magnitude or two. Oh the humanity.
Say what you want to say, and hang for your hollow ways. Moving your mouth to pull out all your miracles... for me
Hell, while we're at it
I know I should go, but I follow you like a man possessed. There's a traitor here beneath my breast and it hurts me more than you've ever guessed. If my heart could beat, it would break my chest, but I can see you're unimpressed
