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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched
« on: April 03, 2015, 04:37:14 AM »
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
It was shit.
It was shit.
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I've just finished Huxley's Brave New World. It's the last of the dystopian novel triangle of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 I needed to read and I think it's the best of them. I found the world of BNW far more believable and sinister than Orwell or Bradbury's simply because it doesn't portray the ruling elite being evil for its own sake. There is a faintly terrifying familiarity with the leisure-and-drug-drenched world where people are more than happy to sacrifice freedom and liberty for happiness and short-term relief.
The plot itself is less well-organised than the other two, but it helps capture the feel of a world warped by drugs and social conditioning. Unlike 1984, it knows not to labour the point and wraps up neatly before you can get too bored with it.
My biggest problem with Brave New World was that the writing was terrible. Huxley created a world both fascinating and frightening, but his descriptions of said world were hampered by his complete and utter lack of writing talent. It wasn't quite as bad as, say, Tom Clancy's writing, but it was still pretty bad.
The thing with a Pynchon novel is that for all its mystery, unanswered questions, deep unidentified longing, and zany humour, there is never a moment that the prose becomes ponderous, ill fitting, devoid of lucidity and flow, alienating to the reader
I beg to differ. What I read of Mason & Dixon suggested that it was all of those things, all of the time.
With such a limited frame of reference it seems odd that you would imagine yourself to have any grasp on the matter at all.
I take this back, Chip Kelly may be insane. But in a fun way.Well, now that Chip Kelly has murdered my team I'm shopping around for someone to root for who might actually get somewhere next season. Any suggestions?But he made it better.
Well, now that Chip Kelly has murdered my team I'm shopping around for someone to root for who might actually get somewhere next season. Any suggestions?
But bro, you're getting Marcus Mariota...
Next up is "What Is and What Should Never Be," and...all right, I've danced around the issue long enough. Something every Zeppelin fan needs to accept is that Robert Plant is, quite simply, a god-awful lyricist. Not the worst, certainly. He at least has a decent sense of meter - which is to say that he isn't constantly tripping over excessively long, clunky lyrics full of idiosyncratic uses of overly-technical terms that seem to have been written with the intention of showing off how smart the lyricist thinks he is rather than whether or not they can be sung well (Guess which lyricist that barb was directed at. Go on, guess.) But still, they're pretty bad, and nowhere does it show more prominently than songs that are apparently trying to be poetic, mystical, fantasy-influenced, or the like. "What Is and What Should Never Be" is one of those songs. It's meant to be a love song, and it has a nice melody, alternating smoothly between soft verses and a heavy chorus, but man, the lyrics suck, and it's really distracting.
Led Zeppelin IV
Sorry, what?
Technically, this album is untitled.
I just finished Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke about an invasion of sufficiently advanced aliens who use their technology to bring peace, prosperity and wealth to the people of the Earth, whilst maintaining an enigmatic ulterior agenda.
The novel starts well, framing the 'invasion' through the eyes of the leader of the UN who becomes the human face of the 'overlords.' The early chapters involve his efforts to balance the demands of the overlords against the wishes of the human subjects, managing protests and dealing with violent rebel groups. The novel then skips ahead fifty years and it's this part of the book which is the weakest and yet occupies the greatest volume of the book. The overlords have revealed themselves, humanity is settling into a peaceful yet dull golden age and there is no real mystery or challenge to drive the plot forwards until we reach the final fifth of the book.
On one hand, the ending comes too quickly without enough buildup but the last few chapters are what cements this book in the SF canon. The bland utopia novel you thought you were reading suddenly leaves you feeling small, insignificant, and faintly depressed as the real purpose of the overlord's invasion becomes clear and mankind changes beyond all recognition in a swirl of beautiful prose.
In conclusion, I'd give the opening chapters a 4/5, the middle a low 3/5 and a full 5/5 to the final chapters. Overall 4/5 - Definitely worth reading but you'll have to struggle through the bland middle section to get the most out of it.
Harry Potter is really just a cheap carbon copy of DC Comics' Tim Hunter.
No way, it was all stolen from Nancy Stouffer:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/01/style/author_stouffer032801.htm
My favorite part:QuoteFor example "Neville" is another name in the books I have trademarked.
I grinned when Tuco opened the door with the gun. It might get stupid if they try too hard to weave characters from Breaking Bad into the story but I like what they are doing with Tuco. I'm more on the fence about Mike, but it's been amusing and I'm eager to see what it leads to. Bob Odenkirk has been spectacular. I'm loving it so far.
It makes sense for certain characters to make an appearance. Mike is introduced in BB as Saul's private investigator. It would be weird if we didn't see him.