The Gamer's Quarter

GSL · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 6:03 pm Post subject:

But does it have David Bowie?

dessgeega · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 6:09 pm Post subject:

ohh, i hope so. how i hope so.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

GSL · Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 3:38 pm Post subject:

Is that because your wife loves or loathes Bowie? Because if it were the latter, I'd start looking for some sort of marital counseling. Dislike of Bowie is a sure sign that the ship is going down.

dessgeega · Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 3:41 pm Post subject:

"she asked me to choose between her and david bowie.

the choice was obvious."
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

simplicio · . Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091

seryogin · Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 10:11 am Post subject:

I have found out that Mike finished Full Spectrum Disorder. I ask him to extrapolate here.

Back to my accounts.
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dhex · Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 10:49 am Post subject:

ok, so i nearly put down full spectrum disorder when i noticed it was edited by nick matamas (incidentally, it's a typical soft skull selection, meaning typos and layout errors aplenty) but that's strictly a personal beef thing.

anyway, it's an interesting memoir that's spliced with political commentary. now, there's plenty of that, incidental and obvious, in his actual memoir writing. as sergei said when pitching me the book, it's very weird/funny to see him shift from talking about shooting corpses to using terms like phallocentricity and quoting mao. it feels a bit artificial, as opposed to the content of his actual writing. "parlour socialists" are one of his hateful terms of choice for the insufficiently revolutionary - i think - and he has a serious boner for the FARC which leads to some unfortunate side-roads that take away from the meat of his work. ("see, they're not drug dealers, they just 'tax' the wholesale buyers" and the like)

but despite his inane politics i can wholeheartedly recommend this as as sincere memoir of a guy who has seen a little too much.
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seryogin · Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 11:11 am Post subject:

I actually really liked the FARC section (even though, he does read as a bit of an apologist)(though, I really liked when he said about the FARC along the lines of "they doesn't have the gnomish coffee-house appeal of subcomandante Marcos") Still, it was a point that needed to made, you can't win a guerrila war if you're unwilling to be brutal.

The North Korea chapter was also grand, but that's because I tend to be sympathetic to the DPRK for reasons that are all too personal.

Still, it's a crazy book about a dude that's been an imperial enforcer for most of his life and then turned ship and became a nutty maoist. It's a character straight out of a PKD novel.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

"I cut off the head of Yukio Mishima" (He's also referenced in the Japanese release of Matmos' latest album.

I really loathed Arkham Asylum. Sure, I got all the Jungian references, but considering how out of character Batman was, and how impersonal Morrison made the rest of the cast, it didn't do much for me at all. I think it could have gone a Hell of a lot further.

I like Morrison's ideas generally, even though he's completely out of it, but I still think his best works best works are WE3 and Flex Mentallo. The Filth is a good one too. And he has managed to get me interested in Superman, with his All-Star Superman run, and that's a feat in itself.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dhex · Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 8:34 pm Post subject:

i don't get why mishima's always a "right wing nut" instead of being called a hopeless romantic, which is far closer to the truth it would seem.

hey, i'm reading under the banner of heaven by jon krakauer about breakaway fundamentalist mormon sects and the people they kill and it's very fucked.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

My philosophy teacher called me a romantic nihilist once.

Then again, she ascribed to the objectivist ideal that you lose weight by thinking, and therefore, fat people do not think.

I almost miss those classes.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dhex · Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 9:03 pm Post subject:

how do you get a romantic nihilist? nihilism is a young man's game anyway.

i've never heard of any objectivists saying that but they are indeed a colorful and varied bunch of, um, folk. nearly anything is possible with methamphetamines and determination.

unrelated: that exquisite corpse journal is pretty craptacular.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Well, I suppose that one could get lost in the more self-indulgent aspects of the concept of meaninglessness.

Though that just sounds like existentialists anyway, so God knows what she was on about.

I can stand by the absurdists, however, but Ayn Rand wannabes have always irritated me to no end.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

I've gussied up my library with a few fun, and not so fun, titles. They've be given special treatment because I'm a sucker for new and timely things: "The Princeton Review: Cracking the GMAT," "Ancient Inventions," and "A Grammar Book for You and I ... Oops, Me!" I also got in "The Aeneid," but have had to put it aside until I'm done with the GMAT. Oh, what a ticking clock and hours of questions does to the nerves. Brain Academy: Prepare me with your relentless and ruthless clock!
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

dhex · Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 7:18 am Post subject:

dude, the gmat is so fucking easy it might as well be a drunk woman on her 30th birthday in a shitty brooklyn bar whose friends ditched her to go to culture club and pick up sailors.
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Mr. Mechanical · Friendly Stranger Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276

Guys I'm reading The Invisible Landscape by Dennis and Terrence McKenna right now and it's totally blowing my mind. Well, okay not yet. I've only read the first chapter but it is fascinating stuff. I'm really getting reading about ideas about the evolution of human consciousness and stuff, which is what's on display here in this book. Too bad there's not a whole of discussion on the subject outside a few particular individuals.

Whoa hello page 10.

dhex · Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 9:12 am Post subject:

if you like that check out the archaic revival.

mckenna was an interesting guy (his brother a little less so, though he's doing straight up ethnobotany now at the u. of minnesota) but he was also kind of a huge flake. but the novelty wave stuff is interesting, though.

he did introduce a bunch of people to dmt, which has its ups and downs. (both the introduction and dmt)
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ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

TheRumblefish · . Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 258 Location: Florida

I just finished J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye". I took it with me on my recent trip to Georgia. It has been one of the few books that actually moved me greatly. It's certainly angsty, and very beautiful in it's own right.

I'm about to dive head first into Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment." I'm not to sure how I feel about that yet. I am anxious needless to say.
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dhex · Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 8:10 pm Post subject:

i just finished re-reading the name of the rose by umberto eco. he's the fucking man.
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seryogin · Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:18 pm Post subject:

Man, I need to start reading books again.

Oh, and, Mike, I'm starting an actual salaried job next week, so to toast it, it'd be great if you had some time to meet me in the usual place next week.
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dark steve · . Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110

Coincidentally I just ordered name of the rose used off amazon!

I got J Pod by Douglas Coupland out of a public library. I heard his earlier stuff is better, but whoever was in charge of his college's english department ought to shoot themselves.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Berserk Vol 11

Yea, that's right!

Also, I will probably re-read Scanner Darkly soon.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

dhex · Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 10:36 am Post subject:

i'm totally reading my favorite popular book about mesoamerica - "this tree grows out of hell"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062508660/sr=8-1/qid=1151598878/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-3085454-8641549?ie=UTF8

guy was a total 70s hippie cheesehead, but he actually manages to not screw up that much. glorifying shamanistic cultures is kinda hard not to do in a layman's forum simply because, well, it's being compared to an awful lot of bloody and plain scary theocratic mania.
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GSL · Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 3:33 am Post subject:

Gary Shteyngart's The Russian Debutante's Handbook. I picked it up on a whim after reading a NY Times review on Shteyngart's latest novel. I didn't know what to expect, but feared the worst: some sort of long, snidely ironic joke about the immigrant with the funny accent. I read the first page in the bookstore and bought it on the spot. It's quite an enjoyable read, and some parts are downright funny.

Sergei, have you read it? I'm especially interested in your opinion on the book.

seryogin · Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 8:37 am Post subject:

GSL · Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 2:56 pm Post subject:

Elaboration, if you please, sir!

To be honest, I'm not taking the book too seriously, and I really think that helps in the reading. It's not at all anything I'd consider groundbreaking or remotely literary, but it's an amusing, quick read. I mean, I could argue for some deeper themes I'm seeing in the novel if I REALLY wanted to walk the pretentious line, but for now I'd like to hear more on why you hated it so much.

seryogin · Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 7:19 pm Post subject:

I could elaborate but my reasons are bit too personal, so I'll just paste this nice Engrishy amazon review by Kirill Pankratov in this space (since the time of the writing of this review Pankratov has become a much better writer in English; he barely makes any mistakes at all)

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

seryogin · Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 8:35 pm Post subject:

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

I'm not sure what to make of those remarks, honestly. They inspired a guttural laughter, and I can see where he's coming from, living in the damn country myself (I swear to God, there hasn't been a good English book, TV series or album in years). He may be a bit callous about the place, but he makes a point.

I think reading that article, bitter and personal as it is, is somewhat required to go with the one you linked to. It adds to it nicely.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

GSL · Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2006 5:30 am Post subject:

The Exile.ru page isn't loading, so I can't see the comments there, but Pankratov seems to have a singular bug up his ass re:the portrayal of Russians in the book, which was honestly the kind of response I was expecting. Pankratov wastes enough space ranting about the perceived slight to the Russian people (maybe I'm just the only one, but I never got a "this is how all Russians are, either mobsters or prostitutes" vibe out of the book) that he doesn't really cover anything else of import about the book. Even worse, he seems to have forgotten the concept of fiction in its entireity!

But anyways, here's what I thought about the book: like the movie Lost in Translation's Tokyo, I thought that the characters (the whole Russian immigrant thing) and the setting (New York and later generic Eastern European expatriate utopia) in The Russian Debutante's Handbook were simply a vehicle for the theme driving the story, namely, humanity's pathetic adaptability. Grishkin changes personalities and worldviews nearly with every other chapter, a reflection on our own drive to often change something about who we are to better mesh with a certain social group or professional gathering. Humans are master chameleons, constantly reinventing ourselves to take advantage to a particualr situation or just to enjoy the thrill of defining a new 'us', and I saw this mirrored very well in the character of Vladimir Grishkin. The charactures and locales are in the book merely to add color to this idea, and to get offended at some larger insinuation that may or may not be there is to miss the point entirely. It's just satire on the human condition, and not even particularly deep or profound satire; the book was obviously meant to be a fun, quick read, and really doesn't aspire to be anything more important than that. I think to waste as much vitriol condemmning the title as Pankratov did is just silly.

But moving on from that, I've picked up Banana Yoshimoto's Lizard and have read the first story, 'Newlywed'. I liked the story; it had a real Murakami-esque ring to it, a comparison I feel is very unfair to Yoshimoto, but as my first major experience with modern Japanese literature was through Murakami, it's the best I can give. It's a flaw entirely within myself as a reader rather than an insinuation that Yoshimoto isn't her own writer. That said, I look forward to finishing the collection; the prose is engaging and the translation flows nicely.

dhex · Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2006 5:51 pm Post subject:

the exile is sometimes funny but vice destroys it just by having a dos and donts section.

on this point sergei and i are forever locked in mortal kombat.
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rf · . Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 23

I'm reading:
-The Iliad, for school next year. The writing is so "dogmatic," not unexpectedly, that's it's hard to find the literary merits, if they're there. Like most (all?) epics, it seems much more like an expression of a culture's values than an individualistic work with the power to question values, but I guess it's worth reading on that score alone, if you want to understand the Greeks. Then again, there haven't been many moments when the expressed values have surprised me--it's mostly "war is painful; being brave is admirable."
-Lolita. Not too far in, and while the writing is good--I've always liked first-person narratives from characters with a lot to say--the sexual nature of it is a little jarring. Not in the explicit sense, at least not in this day and age, but in the sense that the entire thing so far, down to individual episodes and observations, is entirely about Humbert's search for sexual gratification. I'm expecting it to develop beyond this, though. I'm already getting some thematic vibes, but mostly I think they're what the critics tell me to see, so I dunno.

(I had something in here about a third book, but for some reason the board software won't let me post it--some bad character or something?)

About Murakami, I've found, like many, that Hard-Boiled Wonderland [etc] was the only book of his I entirely enjoyed. I liked that it was basically a feel-good story about the aloof protagonist warming up to life in general, and to the multitalented, (very) young girl who likes him. Yet all of the oddity, and the central pseudo-science-fictional conceit, neutralized the modern jaded media-consumer's usual defenses and prevented all that from seeming cloying or conformist. Overall, it was something very "well-made" with enough surface-level strangeness that it didn't feel artificial. Murakami's other novels are that without the "well-made" part, which doesn't end up well.

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

I was once reading Lolita at work and the guy who considered himself the resident intellectual came up to me.

"I don't think that was a very good book."

"Um. Yeah?"

"I mean, Humbert is just a sad little geek and Lolita just needs to grow up."

"Oh."

That was pretty indicative of his mode of thought. He is a member of a group of people I like to talk to Mr. Hexler about, People Who Are Just Smart Enough to be Really Dumb.

I've been reading history lately, more specifically the "A Short History of" series by James L. Stokesbury. They're all miltary histories and the ones I've gotten through so far are World War II, World War I and Air Power. I'm halfway through his Civil War book right now and it really makes me want to go out and get some Shelby Foote and see if I can find a copy of the Burns documentary on DVD for cheap.

It's also very illuminating in terms of the political movements and machinations of the time. That the South was associated with both lack of a centralized government AND slavery is too bad, since the latter invariably overwhelms the former. On the other hand, it's a great example of the troubles with decentralized governments.

simplicio · . Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091

Currently Working on:

The Minority Report-covered short stories collection. It's actually the first PK Dick I've read, and I'm quite enjoying it. I admit that he seems to have a formula pretty well worked out though, and this stuff is pretty heavy-handed at times, but it is his earlier work and I can certainly see it being revolutionary. What the Dead Men Say is my favorite so far, just for introducing much more ambiguity than the rest.

Mishima's Spring Snow; I read the Sound of Waves not knowing where to start with him, and then The Sailor based on recommendations here, with a little Temple of the Golden Pavilion in between, but the tetralogy's been at the core of my interest in him since I first found out about his stuff. Thanks, thread!

Don Quixote, Edith Grossman trans. It's great! It's hilarious, and a surprisingly good subway read for a 900+ page novel.

Peter Carey's Collected Stories. I never knew about this guy, but he writes exactly how I'd like my own stories to work. I read this for 40 minutes on the train the other day, and when my stop came up I was left with the feeling that I could have had any possible relationship with any of the other passengers, had I just gone over and started a conversation. Very entrancing like that.

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Fred · . Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 99 Location: Iowa

nICO · . Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Posts: 120 Location: WVUSA

I'm switching between three books right now:

Order Out of Chaos by Ilya Prigogine. I offer this as a recommendation of the highest order. I don't know how this is out of print... Prigogine is a Nobel winning chemist who did work on dissipative systems and complexity theory. In his later years he wrote some amazing philosophy of science books, of which this seems to come the most highly recommended. Order Out of Chaos is the kind of book you can pick up and turn to any random page and have it be rewarding and engaging.

The Coming Community by Giorgio Agamben. Hmm. It has its moments. I like poetically written philosophy so I can put up with its occasional obscurity, but I've found myself glazing over passages more than similar books I've read recently.

Gaming by Alexander Galloway. Everyone here should check out this book! Seriously! It's probably the first book of any importance to be written on videogames. It's not particularly brilliant or anything, it's just that it's probably the first book on videogames I've read that is worth being recommended and discussed. Not coincidentally, it's also the first book on a loosely defined Pongism, if that piques anyone's interest (i.e. it views games more as cybernetic systems). The authors gamer cred is also much better than any other person who has had an academic videogame book published. Just in the first chapter he briefly analyzes Shenmue, Ico, and others.
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Brauner: Damn you, humans... You selfishly start wars and despoil the earth. Perhaps justice wasn't on my side but I will never admit that it was on yours.

GSL · Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:17 am Post subject:

Okay, so I keep seeing the term bandied about the internets (mostly over at Insert Credit--GRIM FORESHADOWING?!), so what the hell is a 'Pongism'?

Mr. Mechanical · Friendly Stranger Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276

T R U T H

But seriously, there's a smarmy article about in Issue 2 so that's a good place to start. As well as a website that sadly hasn't seen much use.

GSL · Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 4:16 am Post subject:

Oh. I feel dumb for it being in TGQ and my not having noticed it.

It's an... uh, interesting idea.

rf · . Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 23

Pongism is my least favorite Jutla article, and I like his articles. *shrug*

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439