nikkeisindex
Email Address: pneumatic_arse-bludgeon@gunston.com
Posts: 407 
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Post by nikkeisindex on Dec 19, 2020 18:38:00 GMT
When I was young, in high school, early 90s, I'd get these "Best 100 Fiction" "Best 100 Non-Fiction" book lists of "all time" and go to the library and grab a bunch that sounded interesting and try them. I think this hit me at a really good time in my life when I had a genuinely curious intellect. So anything from 1984 to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Brave New World, Steppenwolf, Autobiography of Malcom X, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, etc, etc, I guess my tastes were fairly defined from the start.
I don't think I read any Bukowski til after college, but that really clicked, for whatever reason. The absurdity, subtle humor, self-awareness, plain language, it really resonated. I followed up on his repeated hammering on Fante and above all, Celine, whose "Journey To the End of the Night" I still think is the best book I've ever read, probably a dozen times at this point. Death on the Installment Plan is also excellent and after that I can't even read them, after multiple attempts.
For whatever reason, this seemed to ruin me for any other form of legitimate literature. I remember after this trying DH Lawrence, probably Lady Chatterly's Lover, and realizing, this just takes more discipline than I'm willing to apply at this point. Was this my own age and perspective, the advent of the internet and the shortening of the American attention span, both, or some additional element I can't put my finger on? I don't know, but I embraced it.
Now I read pretty much exclusively rock-related books.
Michael Bradley (Undertones)'s book, Paul Collins book, Wreckless Eric's, Andrew Matheson (Hollywood Brats), even the Lookout Records "How to Ru(i)n A Record" label was a blast, you get the idea.
There seems to be no going back but I will say my respect for Journey to the End of the Night runs deep. I don't know how that guy dealt with the world of the early 1900's being that smart and that funny (and that dark) that much ahead of his time.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Dec 19, 2020 22:07:50 GMT
the advent of the internet and the shortening of the American attention span  My booky history was similar boomy busty. At about 9 went berko for Stephen King, then discovered Philip Roth which was very, very naughty for a 10 or 11 year old laddie, read zillions of his + John Updike and Gore Vidal then got to about 15 and just... stopped reading novels. Never really to resume in earnest again. Probably distracted by music/my cock/sports/sports on telly. And I still am to this very day. These days I will plug away at the odd novel lying around, currently meandering through Tolstoy's "Resurrection" (which isnt as pretentious as it sounds, the translated prose is very meat and potatoes and its a real page turner of a story) but the thrill is totally gone. Kind of keen to try a few Margaret Atwood books... but not at the expense of record buying $$ or - god forbid - precious wanking time on the internet. Let's face facts; wanking is the new reading. |
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hiccup
thinks "perineum" might be a type of disinfectant
Posts: 290
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Post by hiccup on Dec 19, 2020 22:24:22 GMT
I used to read a book a week, every week, but the last book I read (Braiding Sweetgrass - which as a beautiful, very moving book) was months ago, after 8 years of not reading. First got distracted by other things, then a benzo addiction turned my brain to mush. I'm still putting my brain back together. I have a huge book waiting for me to read it about the history of abolition but I can't concentrate. Playing chess is helping a lot though and I hope to throw myself into the book in the new year.
I discovered Philip Roth about age 11 myself. I read everything as a teen, Pillars of the Earth was one of my faves back then, King, Anne Rice, classics too. I don't think I would have survived my teen years without reading and Michael Jackson.
I love Margaret Laurence, I really want to read The Diviners again. I don't know if I could read Atwood's Handmaid's Tale after seeing the tv show. I've read a few of her other books, I remember not liking Robber Bride, but it may have been my mood at the time, a lot of people love that book.
Reading regularly is going to be my 2021 resolution. I miss it a lot.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Dec 19, 2020 23:17:03 GMT
  The irony being that, as a woman, you are prohibited from reading any book, let alone this book with its subject matter pertaining to women being prohibited from reading books. Hope Atwood released an edition with a cover playing on the wimmins "forbidden material" motif. That would be a fucking awesome marketing idea and I cannot be the first prick to have thought of it. In all seriousness though, I'm sure the book version wouldve scooped up all the light comedy awards for literature too: |
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Post by pussycat on Dec 20, 2020 13:02:31 GMT
I guess I started with comic books. Then SE Hinton books, which they made us read in middle school. A few required classics in high school. I started reading books for pleasure maybe around senior year and I guess it was a lot of beatnik stuff, kerouac, burroughs. Then hst because of the johnny depp movie. Today i read pretty much only sci fi and books about the occult.
I have pretty lame tastes in books and i’m also a slow reader.
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Post by pussycat on Dec 20, 2020 13:04:56 GMT
Oh yeah i used to really like jim thompson type crime books, but i’m sort of over them now.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Jan 25, 2021 10:40:25 GMT
Was skulking around the library waiting for record shop to open, grabbed a rando book ("The Road" by "Cormac Macarthy") just cos I7d seen his name somehwere and wft before I knew it I7d read 150 fucken pages!
WFT!
I can't even read!
I was shocked. It took about 2 hours but damn the time flew by. I cannot rememebr the last time I got that engrossed in a book of fiction. Need to get back to the library and finish the prick now.
Just an amazingly basic style. Father and son traipsing along roads looking for food in some unexplained post-apocalypse. So simple. Like the Walking Dead telly show where they go scabbing for shit in houses. 150 pages in and fuckall has happened.
The author dudes writing style is so barebones basic. Describes scene, ends paragraph with wistful poetic-like sentence, then a bit of utterly bog-standard dialogue
...
"You okay?"
"I'm okay."
"Okay then"
Rinse, repeat.
Don't think I've ever read a novel that makes writing a novel look so damn piss-easy. And him sowing that seed of effortlessness in my tiny brain makes me think this author dude must be some sort of grandmaster of the art of the novel or some shit ffs
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Mar 20, 2021 23:45:30 GMT
currently on;
Tolstoy "Resurrection". ploughing along, simple stuff but a bit of a chore at times
John Irving "The 4th hand". starts well but then after 20 pages he's back doing his old trick of just letting scenes bleed into each other with zero concern for the reader, we're just there to meander along in his dreamscape with him. FFS why doesnt his editor just tell him "um, excuse me Mr Big Writey Shithead, you are allowed to leave an idea then start a new idea on a new page. In the business we call them "chapters", you tourettian cumshart".
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Post by sukebegg on Mar 21, 2021 12:14:55 GMT
I don't think I read any Bukowski til after college, but that really clicked, for whatever reason. The absurdity, subtle humor, self-awareness, plain language, it really resonated. I followed up on his repeated hammering on Fante and above all, Celine, whose "Journey To the End of the Night" I still think is the best book I've ever read, probably a dozen times at this point. Death on the Installment Plan is also excellent and after that I can't even read them, after multiple attempts.
Now I read pretty much exclusively rock-related books.
Michael Bradley (Undertones)'s book, Paul Collins book, Wreckless Eric's, Andrew Matheson (Hollywood Brats), even the Lookout Records "How to Ru(i)n A Record" label was a blast, you get the idea.
There seems to be no going back but I will say my respect for Journey to the End of the Night runs deep. I don't know how that guy dealt with the world of the early 1900's being that smart and that funny (and that dark) that much ahead of his time.
I really got into the beats, Bukowski, Henry Miller, etc. after dropping out of my MA program while living in Mexico City. It was a very literary period of my life with lots of crazy real-life adventures I dallied with turning into fiction. I was actually living quite close to where Burroughs William-Telled his wife. A book of Burrough's letters published around the same time included addresses so I also tracked down the Burroughs' apartment and a place where Kerouac lived briefly... A while back, a guy on FB same age as me (55) called Bukowski an author for "hipsters" and my reply was, "I mean sure once you read his influences like Fante and Celine, and similar desperate starving artist stuff like Hamsun's Hunger or tales of desperation like Last Exit to Brooklyn, you can see where he copped some moves and whatnot, but Bukowski is no doubt an American poet laureate..." His reply was, "Never read Bukowski and don't know those other guys..." ahahah whatever. btw, I fell in love with Journey to the End of the Night but just couldn't get into Death on the Installment Plan...Alas, maybe it was the beginning of the end of fiction for me. I was talking to an old buddy the other day and he quoted his dad as saying, "Fiction is a young man's thing..." So, I too read basically non-fiction, heavy on the rock end, these days also. Just finished the 33 1/3 book on the VU and Nico and figured I should continue on with the Modern Lovers one. Was loving that Hollywood Brats book and then put it aside for some reason. Great writing and I just purloined that double-CD reissue of the album, so I need to dive back into it...Oh and I recently read a book by the guitarist of Bitch Magnet ~ pretty entertaining but not really essential. He became a financial tv guy and married some millionaire but still did a reformation re-release and tours. Me nodding along to the first Bitch Magnet in 1989 or whatever would not have been able to imagine any of it... |
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Mar 21, 2021 22:34:04 GMT
recently splurged on that 3xLP reissue of their's, kind of spewing I dont like it. Just a shapeless, forgettable roar. LOL@ that name too, so CANCELLED today. I really got into the beats, Bukowski, Henry Miller, etc. after dropping out of my MA program while living in Mexico City. It was a very literary period of my life with lots of crazy real-life adventures I dallied with turning into fiction. I was actually living quite close to where Burroughs William-Telled his wife. You gotta do it! Fuck fiction, go non-fiction! If the details are a bit hazy just make those bits up... "Then I popped next door to borrow a cup of sugar from my neighbour old man Willy. 'Burrows', I think his surname was, I forget now. My memories are a bit fuzzy. It was either a cup of sugar or a cup of heroin. Definitely one of those two. I know it wasn't a cup of flour. I don't do flour..." |
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Post by sukebegg on Mar 22, 2021 11:37:39 GMT
yeah, pretty much..."The Bitch Magnets" would've been dumber though I always thought it meant like a thing that attracts problems. There reform tour was in the early 2010s so I guess SJW were busy frying bigger fish...
The idea behind fictionalizing things would be to work in all the crazy political stuff that was going down - talking about assassinations of top politicians in broad daylight and locales I frequented...
Just a few highlights...and of course the massive drug business that was obviously greasing the wheels of all this corruption was the continuous backdrop...
oopsie
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Mar 29, 2021 5:13:31 GMT
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Mar 31, 2021 8:08:33 GMT
John Irving "The 4th hand". starts well but then after 20 pages he's back doing his old trick of just letting scenes bleed into each other with zero concern for the reader, we're just there to meander along in his dreamscape with him. FFS why doesnt his editor just tell him "um, excuse me Mr Big Writey Shithead, you are allowed to leave an idea then start a new idea on a new page. In the business we call them "chapters", you tourettian cumshart". Disgraceful take. WFT was I thinking. Impatient cunt. Trust The Process FFS. John Irving knows exactly what the fuck he's doing here. This book is goddamn hilarious. They just make it up, you know. Can easily see how his books gets made into movies, albeit movies that aint shit compared to the books. Hotel New Hampshire. World According To Garp. Cider House Rules. The books are so good it must be almost impossible for screenwriters to resist the allure of making them into movies. Which inevitably fail when the moviemakers try to cram their shitty takes on a superior imagination's writhings and writings right into the earholes of some dumbarse inertly-passive movie audiences. "Please do my imagining for me, Mr Director". |
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Post by pussycat on Mar 31, 2021 15:50:04 GMT
I’ve been curious lately to re-read some haruki murukami. I read one a long time ago and don’t remember much except really liking the dream-like style of da prose and atmosphere of the thing. I’m not really sure which book it was, but maybe i wasn’t ready for it then.
Recently i’ve seen little snippets here and there of his writing and i find myself really feeling his vibe. Wondering what may be a good one to re-start with.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Mar 31, 2021 22:26:22 GMT
I read a couple but they were so unremarkably dull I can't remember anything about them now.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Apr 23, 2021 0:09:56 GMT
Almost bought Red Hot Chile Peppers singer guys book the other day. The fucken thing is thick as shit and must have some wacky stories in it.
$5.
Didnt buy.
Dont think I'd buy it for $1.
Sort of realised this guy is one of the dumbest humans who ever lived as well as being responsible for about 30 years of totally fucking wack music. Do I really want to spend 400 pages with him showing off about all the hos he ate, shat on and left?
Disclaimer; I loved this bands 2nd and 3rd albums when I was a teen. They were one of my late 80's gateway bands into weird music. But after that 3rd lp? OMG FUCK NO PLEASE TURN THAT SHIT OFF PLEASE THANK YOU
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joylesshouse
Has world's biggest Steven Seagal VHS collection
who wins in a fight between Conan the Barbarian and Seagal?
Posts: 20
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Post by joylesshouse on Apr 23, 2021 2:10:24 GMT
Ha! Was just reminded today, when one of their hits came up on the mix at work, how RHCP are one of the few bands I can't stand the sound of enough to like a single one of their songs. The tone, the clown singer, the whole clown act just shuts me down right off. Oh, there was a minute there when I liked them too–at an age where I should not have been subjected the gaslighting of a bunch of pedo-drug addicts with a major label record contract and socks on their wieners! Fuck I even like a U2 song here and there.
Also I knew someone whose, like, seminal book experience was with AK's autobiography. Talked about it all the time. I can't remember who that person was, which I think is the work of some self-defense mech in my brain.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Apr 23, 2021 23:31:49 GMT
SHEEEEEEEEEEEIIIT, maybe I should buy that AK book. Seminal experience? Your pal mustve been 9 years old and that was the first book he'd ever picked up in his life. Don't tell me he was one of the sprogs you kidnapped from the bus stop and chained to your basement radiator. #too_old
Remember quite rooting the drum sound on a couple of those U2 tracks back in the 80's.
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Post by sukebegg on Apr 24, 2021 10:04:08 GMT
I mentioned here before how I saw them quite a bit early on but I never considered them anything beyond a fun goofy time ^ I have a very less-than-zero interest in reading about the life dynamics that forged the creative "genius" of Anthony Kielbalsa ~ That said, caveat lector, because I genuinely loved and still crank the first GNR. This biography is excellent. They captured lightning in a bottle and then filled that bottle with piss... newnoisemagazine.com/book-review-last-giants-guns-n-roses/ |
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Apr 24, 2021 11:26:04 GMT
ha, me and my snooby indie pals dismissed them as "Guns'n'Posers" back in 1987, never to listen again. Maybe I should give them another burl if Tsukebo says theyre good.
*edit that Night Train 7" sounds pretty neat on the discogs.
*edit surprised how cheap their 7"s are, $2, piece of piss. NEVER seen them 7's in Japan. Guessing cos 1987 was coincidentally The Year The Laughter Died AKA the year Japan's record pressing industry abruptly stopped and went all in with the dreaded cd format.
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nikkeisindex
Email Address: pneumatic_arse-bludgeon@gunston.com
Posts: 407
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Post by nikkeisindex on Apr 26, 2021 18:12:28 GMT
There's a pretty funny bit that pops up a couple times on Comedy Bang Bang in which Zach Galifiniakcksjdk and someone else call themselves "The Peppermen" and basically do parodies of RHCP songs, all of which basically go "Ding-a-dong Ding-a-dong BURBANK!" "Ding-a-dong Ding-a-dong [some other place in CA]"
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Apr 26, 2021 22:59:23 GMT
Speaking of The Rock, next up in my reading stack is this daft looking bit of fluff:  |
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Post by Sprague Dawley on May 4, 2021 4:34:23 GMT
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Jul 5, 2021 9:03:33 GMT
Lasted about 10 minutes with the Ozzy book. All false modesty aside, I could do a better book than that. You can have yer laughs but I'm actually reading this now:  It's not too hard and is actually quite relaxing and soothing for some reason. My only experience witn Nietsche is the Jesus Lizard live album where a heckler yells out "...is that, like, Nietsche?" and Yow replies " yeah, that's like Nietsche.... Nietsche mouth full of my cock".Young Freddo had a hell of a mo.  Kind of unfortunate the idiotic pose below went out of style. Wouldnt stand in the USA. "GUN!"  |
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Oct 31, 2021 6:13:52 GMT
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Post by sukebegg on Nov 1, 2021 23:14:24 GMT
I didn't read Nietzsche until post-Rollins but was kinda surprised at how easy to understand he was. I guess my encounters with philosophy previously had left me with bad taste but I remember proudly carrying around the "Portable Nietzsche" (the "Portable Wm Blake" accompanied a mushroom trip in the hills outside of Mexico City...) Have you ever heard of Ivan Illich's "Deschooling Society"? More practical than high-minded, but a devastating total critique of the education system. www.goodreads.com/book/show/223403.Deschooling_Society******* Coked-out King directed this one himself: |
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Nov 2, 2021 0:17:57 GMT
It's not too hard and is actually quite relaxing and soothing for some reason. Yeah, this was quite flowery and pie-in-the-sky. Unrealistic ivory towered types untethered to the needs of the common man, hemming and hawing about theoretical constructs that are never going to put food on the table ffs Weirdly, I think I enjoyed the notes in the back more than the book itself |
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Nov 25, 2021 9:35:39 GMT
There's a bit of Morita Theory in his "fuck the future, fuck the past, try to appreciate the moment" thinking
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Jan 26, 2022 0:51:04 GMT
Wouldnt mind this book:
LOL, half?
In Japan I'd say 90%.
Even the convenience store clerks are being automated.
I'd hazard a guess my occupation falls under "box ticker"? Maybe circus attraction/entertainer.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Feb 17, 2022 23:08:05 GMT
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