AVALANCHERS ~ View topic

Heretic Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 9422

Simple enough question.

1. Walk on the Wild Side - Nelson Algren - This book destroyed me for a couple days after I finished reading it the first time. Utterly devastating. One year in the life of a kid that reaches an extreme high and drastic descent. Here is a quote from the book: "Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own."

2. Neon Wilderness (short stories) - Nelson Algren - 'How the Devil Came Down Division St' is the story that got me into Algren.

3. Choosing Death (finally). So far it's entertaining but not a great book by any stretch.

*Last edited by sprash on Tue Feb 06, 2007 6:18 pm; edited 1 time in total*

Voices of A People's History of the United States: Its a wonderful collection of essays, speeches, poems, articles dating back to 14th Century to recent years dealing with a wide array of topics from Removal of Native 'Indians', slavery, feminism, civil war, world wars (and many other wars).
Thanks to this book, I discovered many many interesting writers from the past such as Emma Goldman, Margaret Fuller, Harriet Jacobs, W. E. B. Du Bois ete etc...

Re-reading Identity and Violence

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Your mind... D.A.R.

The Joomla User Guide!

I agree.

. Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 4464

Member Joined: 06 Sep 2006 Posts: 7678

"The Areas of My Expertise" - John Hodgman

An odd parellel universe almanac of sorts.

Details the rise of hobos in the Great Depression and Hoover's creation of a Pneumaic army to stop them ("The wandering men will kill us all!"), features a chart on pigeon foot vs. lobster claw deformaties, and detailed information on the 51st state of the USA-- the cloud encircled Hohoq, which floats mysteriously within the confines of the US and has the state motto "Please do not seek us".

Although I just read the author, Hodgman, plays the PC in the PC vs. MAC commericals, and so I must fly up to an unassailable roost of a lofty high ground and strike him from the artistic roll call.

But before I do, the six oaths of the virtuous child, contained within it's pages:

1. Today I shall not be wasted, I shall rise before the sun, so that I may then watch my family as they slumber, with intent waiting eyes.

2. I shall honor my mother today, and I shall tell Father he is powerful

3. Today I shall be clean. I shall not touch my teeth, knowing the oils of my skin shall cause them to disintergrate. I shall instead hone them with a good steel twice after prayers.

4. I shall be a faithful child, and I shall ever make science my enemy. Also eels.

5. At day, I shall perform my chores and duties happily, and if I see an eel, I shall kill it before it may speak to me seductively of its lazy life on lazy river bottoms.

6. At night, I shall dream of more labor, and in my sleep I shall smile with sharpened teeth, knowing that today has not been wasted.

Heretic Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 9422

@ Klaw. - That sounds great! What else has he done?

@ Sprash - That collection sounds good. I've never heard of it before.

@ deadcase and Mono - geeks Mr. Green

Member Joined: 12 Nov 2006 Posts: 132

Franz Kafka: Amerika
William Burroughs: The Soft Machine

since september, i've read:

"glamorama" - bret easton ellis - really interesting fiction about the vacuousness and simultaneous all-pervasiveness of celebrity culture and its appropriation by global terror networks.

"naked lunch" - william s. burroughs - non-stop filth barrage on the senses.

"the rules of attraction" - bret easton ellis - familiar ellis territory, bourgeois vacuousness, but focused on the interpersonal relationships of the hip and useless.

. Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 4464

Heretic Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 9422

deadcase, is that you or mono pictured on the box?

@ Jason and notomorrow - You can never go worng with Burroughs.

Thats scott. I wouldnt license the use of my face to the company so they hate me now!!

Damn a TIMEX SINCLAIR!!!

The Stylophone looks like an old Fender head kinda hehe..

Member Joined: 06 Sep 2006 Posts: 7678

i think we had that damn sinclair thing--I remember some promethean computer with plastic-bubble style keys.

Some friend of the family gave it to us to encourage us to enter the computer world of the 1980s. I didn't know what the hell to do with it. It made friends with the dust.

later we were to get an Apple IIC and it was all King's Quest from there.

Ive been trying to get Kings Quest 5 off Demonoid for like 2 weeks now and the fucker wont seed it anymore!!!

Those games along with the old Ultimas were like the best ever.
Back when games were actually fun and involved and shit and werent just about how much ammo your BFG10K has and how many frags you got in a match heh.

Haha I win, I had a II+ AND a IIC! Very Happy

Im still gonna get a IIGS off ebay one of these days!

. Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 4464

10 PRINT "I LOVE BASIC"
20 GOTO 10
RUN

. Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 4464

add 'carbon' to that geeklist..

Member Joined: 06 Sep 2006 Posts: 7678

I recently finished "The Annotated Alice" which includes both Alice books with copious notes. The notes help comprehend the in-jokes and references to his time period. Also recently finished "A Woman in Jerusalem" by A.B. Jehoshua, which read like a very good novella-length short story. (I took a modern Israeli lit class in college--easy senior year class--and ended up reading some amazing fiction and poetry.)

Currently: "A Tale of Love and Darkness" by Amos Oz (autobio) and "No God But God" by Reza Aslan.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

FUCK READING WE GOT KINGS QUEST REMAKES!!!

Rad these are like the 'new' Ultimas folks have been working on too!!

Too bad the site where all the music packs and extras are is down but I got the KQ 1,2, and 3 now haha..

Hmmm wheres 4?? That was my favorite one I think..

Heretic Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 9422

Good one scuto!
I gotta get that Annotated Alice! Is it a big hardcover edition??

I think I got my sister one of these at Barnes and Noble for xmas a few years back.. Thing was on the clearance table for like $10 and when I went back to grab a copy for myself they were gone already!!

Shouldve grabbed another one when I bought my sisters!!

Mono--It wasn't a hardcover. Those editions look niiiiice, though. It was an old paperback my parents have, likely from the 70s cos it's printed-on price was $2.25 or so!

I, uh, hadn't read it until now! Embarassed

Awesome you got one in hardcover for such a good price. Will she lend it?

Currently reading (if you can call it that) - Lonely Planet Italy & Walking in Italy.

Planning for a 'grumpy old holiday', I think I need it Embarassed

Member Joined: 06 Sep 2006 Posts: 7678

currently reading:
determinants, cramers rule, multiplying matrices, the inverse of a (2x2) matrix and its use to solve equations. . . computers eh

Member Joined: 22 Sep 2006 Posts: 33 Location: Iowa

Currently reading The Biology of Transcendence A Bluprint of the Human Spirit by Joseph Chilton Pearce

i hear ya carbon.. i remember that shit, and remember it making me want to wipe my shit with the pages in the textbook. it's very difficult for me to get into a great deal of mathematics anymore because it's so esoteric and immutable, and i'm always thinking of the many ways math is completely irrelevant to existence. what the geeks don't understand is that mathematics is not absolute, it is a human construct and can only be applied to an idealized situation that allows itself to be answerable through mathematical reasoning. i realize that it has tremendous application as so many situations can be approximated to ideal situations, and of course all of humanity's technological achievements are testimony to that, however i'm always thiking of how these things still are approximations and not the essence, like a type of game playing at being real.

the one area i did find interesting was discrete mathematics and combinatorics. randomness, chance, and probability have an almost mystical resonation with me as they are tethered very closely to the operation of time, which i believe to be the closest thing to the divine that we'll ever know in life. mathematics that is propelled by this fundamental principle of discrete events happening seems worthwhile to me. it's interesting how it's essentially the mathematics of computer science as well.

hey, sorry, for the philosophical meanderings.. fuck matrix math (even though it's important)!

Member Joined: 10 Sep 2006 Posts: 11897 Location: istanbul

currently readin a comic book called "y:the last man" which is really great!

Currently working my way through some of these 'Directors on Directors' series, since Christmas I've read Loach, Scorsese, Cronenberg and am now onto Gilliam.. great books, very interesting reading

Very Happy

i suppose, sort of..

i'm just good at counting things, my skills have never progressed beyond the pre-school level.