posted
Silly person from north of the border...
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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future king
Excuse me but can you please direct me to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles?
posted
I am ashamed to say that I am not currently reading anything of note. Can anyone recommend anything good for me start back on? There are so many choices when I walk into a Chapters/Indigo store nowadays!
From: ontario | Registered: Feb 2007
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cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
My Mac Photoshop tutorials. Again.
One of these days I'm sure it'll all sink in...
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
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posted
I'm halfway thru "Just Kids"- this year's National Book Award winner by punk poet/musician Patti Smith & I highly recommend it.
It's an autobiography/biography of Smith & her dear, departed friend, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
The story is ravenously compelling & Smith's spare prose is achingly beautiful. Sometimes, I have to stop & re-read a passage just to soak in the heart-rending perfection of it. Plus, it's so emotionally raw & honest, that I've found myself on the verge of tears more than once while reading it.
Even if you have no idea who Smith & Mapplethorpe are, this book is a must-read for any fan of fine literature.
From: elizabeth,nj | Registered: Jul 2003
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cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
Excel tutorials.
There is not enough caffeine on the entire planet to save my braincells. I fully expect them to melt from boredom and start dribbling out my ears by Thursday or Friday. But hey-- anything for a buck, right?
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
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posted
I just finished Neil Gaimen's Neverwhere. I liked it a lot. Not the greatest book ever, but a really good enjoyable read.
Prior to that I had read "How The Other Half Lives:Studies Among the Tenements of New York" by Jacob Riis. This book was written in 1890 and was a sensation of the day exposing the actual conditions of the poor of New York. I think what made the book such a success and influence was the actual photographs included in the book. At times it seems like Mr. Riis is blaming the poor for a lot of their own ills, but the trust of the book is that it is the environment that shapes the people. And reading it with a modern day sensability, you can see some very obvious racism. The Italians are used to living in dirt and like it that way. The Germans are hard working and regimented. Black people love to gamble to the point of it being a compulsion. The Jews worship money. etc. The book is good for the photos and descriptions of tenament life.
-------------------- Five billion years from now the Sun will go nova and obliterate the Earth. Don't sweat the small stuff!
From: Boston | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
For Christmas last year, my mother bought an anthology book of horror stories, 13 More Tales of Horror, it's a sequel to a anthology book called 13, and both stories focus more-or-less on stories aimed at teenagers. However, 13 More was published in England, so that's where all the stories take place.
I've three stories left to read in 13 More, but I've started re-reading some of the stories in 13, including a couple I haven't read so far even though I've owned the book for years.
One of the noteworthy stories that I find myself constantly re-reading in 13 is called "A Little Taste of Death" by Patricia Windsor. A teenage girl named Louey is spending the summer with her grandmother in the South (not the Deep South, but more like Georgia or South Caroline) while her parents go on an anniversary vacation. Louey reads an ad in the newspaper which brings her to remember an incident from her childhood. When she was younger and travelling with her mother on a train, a man gave her a red lollipop. Her mother told her to throw it away, but Louey kept it and tasted it. The ad in the paper is calling for anyone who had a similar experience to come to a meeting, it might be the difference between life and death.
Louey attends the meeting, and most of the people there, teenagers, are all talking about "changes" they are going through, supposedly brought on from eating the lollipops they were given. Louey, though, has no idea what they are talking about, and leaves as the group discusses committing suicide rather than submitting to these horrible changes. Subsequently, as the people who attended the group start showing up in the obituaries, Louey's finding it harder to control her temper around her grandmother, and begins dreaming about one of the boys she met at the group, Bobby Lee. This is adjacent to a vandal having trashed Gran's living room the night of the meeting, and heads to a climax when someone boils a dog on the kitchen stove.
Bobby Lee comes from Louey, intending to kill her as he did the others. But she simply tells him off. You see, she only had one lick of the red lollipop before her mother threw it away. So, she doesn't have to go with him, as she only had a little taste of death.
What compels me towards this story is how the reader is left to analyze and try to guess just what these "changes" are that have fallen those who ate and finished the lollipops.
-------------------- I want to be hated by lies - Bring Back Lian Harper
posted
I recently read the "Wizard of Earthsea" trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin. It is supposed to be a classic among fantasy literature, but I thought it was really really dull.
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I am just about finished with Shogun, which I haven't read in about 20 years or so. What a great story!
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I re-read a two part Fear Street story called "Fear Hall". I didn't recall that much about it, only that it involved a girl whose boyfriend began killing guys whom her roommates had been going out with because he kept mistaking them for her.
The series is about Hope Mathis, her roommates Angel, Eden, and Jasmine, and her boyfriend Darryl. The first book shifts the narrative from Hope to her friends, as they try to convince Hope to turn Darryl in to the police after her murders two boys that Angel and Eden have gone out with. Darryl apparently mistook them for Hope and got insanely jealous. Throughout the first book, there are subtle hints that show that something is off with Hope and her friends. Three girls who live in the same dorm as Hope, Melanie, Marge, and Mary, are perceived as snobs by Hope and her roommates. They're usually seen staring at Hope, or one of her roommates, and speaking in hushed voices around her.
We also learn that Hope had grown up with a horribly abusive mother. Emotionally, that is. Probably because Hope had always been a bit chubby and her mother was thin. She once handcuffed herself to her daughter to stop her from seeing a boy.
We eventually learn that, Hope doesn't actually have any roommates, or a boyfriend. Angel, Eden, Jasmine, and Darryl are all split personalities that Hope developed as a result of her mother's treatment. The first three, actually. Darryl manifested after she learned that the aforementioned boy she went out with in high school only went out with her as a joke (although it's my belief her mother was the one who told her this). Whenever the narrative shifted, it was merely one of the other personalities becoming dominate. Hope actually killed those boys while Darryl was in control, although when he kills a second time it's seen through the Eden personality's eyes. Those times people were concerned about her, or the three Ms speaking in hushed tones or asking if Hope was alright, was because they saw her talking to herself or heard her arguing. Or she was acting like a different person or, from their perspective, she was referring to "Hope" as a different person.
In the first book, Darryl actually winds up killing the Eden personality. Those three had been trying to convince Hope to "break up" with Darryl, which could be interpreted as her mind trying to get a better control on her violent impulses, similar to the way some of Crazy Jane's personalities in Doom Patrol had been trying to fix Jane's splintered mind while the others were content with just acting as buffers and were afraid of merging.
The sad thing is, Hope doesn't even realize she's sick
The second book has Hope and her "friends" on the run after the police have labelled her the number-one suspect in the previous two murders. The narrative shifts between Hope, the Darryl personality, Melanie of the three Ms, and a new character named Chris who Hope begins seeing under a false name, "Karen". This book expands on Melanie and her friends and we see that they aren't that snobbish. Darryl begins targeting them because "he" is doing it to please Hope because they called her crazy, even though Hope doesn't want anything to do with "him". We also learn that, when Darryl first manifested, he "saved" Hope from her previous relationship by killing said boy, so this isn't actually a new thing for Hope.
I felt sad for Hope, in that the abuse she suffered from her mother was so bad her mind fractured to create a support group for herself, and that she'd been living with these split personalities for years without any help.
For an R.L. Stine book, this made me wonder, will a person go to hell for something their split personality committed. And, do split personalities have souls of their own?
-------------------- I want to be hated by lies - Bring Back Lian Harper
posted
I actually have read a couple of good ones over the past few months. One was "The Seven Percent Solution" by Nicholas Meyer. This one was a Sherlock Holmes story. (Used by permission.)
One of the best I have read lately was "Little Fuzzy" by H. Beam Piper. I read all 3 of Piper's Fuzzy books, but the first one was the best. At the center of the story is the age-old question, "What makes a person a person?" I highly recommend the first book!
I really enjoyed both of these.
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I am currently reading a triad of William Gibson books. I thought Neuromancer was pretty dull. I am reading Count Zero now, and am quite bored. I don't know if I am even gonna try Mona Lisa Overdrive.
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Just finished "Leaving Las Vegas". Very good, but pretty soul crushing. I was surprised how faithful the movie was to the parts it covered (about the last third of the book), but how little of Sera's story was in the film (which made the relationship that much more tragic).
From: Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada | Registered: Sep 2004
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