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Author Topic: Recommendations!  (Read 430375 times)

Inlander

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #350 on: 18 Mar 2008, 17:08 »

Dexter's okay, but it's a bit over-written at times.

But really, the Wire's ruined me for cop shows.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #351 on: 18 Mar 2008, 17:15 »

The only TV cops I've ever liked are the ones on Law and Order.

Same goes for TV lawyers, actually.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #352 on: 18 Mar 2008, 19:49 »

i just finished Stephenson's Quicksilver and that went pretty quick for a book of that size.

Here is an absolutely excellent suggestion. Everyone should read this book (and the two that follow it in the trilogy). It's truly phenomenal. Even if it does clock in at around 3000 pages, it's so brilliant that I can't imagine the length being an issue.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #353 on: 18 Mar 2008, 19:59 »

Dexter's okay, but it's a bit over-written at times.

But really, the Wire's ruined me for cop shows.
Surely you still love Homicide.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #354 on: 18 Mar 2008, 20:09 »

True story: When I was in 3rd grade, I was in a theatre production of Peter Pan (playing Michael), and the guy who played Smee was in Homicide.  I think it was supposed to scare me that he was in Homicide, but it wasn't.  I think he's the middle black guy in the photo for the wikipedia article.  I'll try to find some pictures, I know my mom took like 200 photos of the whole thing.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #355 on: 18 Mar 2008, 20:12 »

Surely you still love Homicide.

Man, Harry is all about homicide.
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Inlander

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #356 on: 19 Mar 2008, 03:19 »

Surely you still love Homicide.

The complete series box set and the copy of David Simon's book Homicide: a Year on the Killing Streets sitting on my shelf say "Yes".
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doombilly

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #357 on: 19 Mar 2008, 05:48 »

Here's the only quote from Johnny Borrell worth ever repeating,
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TV's are for appearing on, not watching.
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Patrick

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #358 on: 19 Mar 2008, 16:42 »

This is why I don't pay attention to Johnny Borrell (I don't even know who that is [nor do I know anybody else, for that matter]) and just watch John Wayne.

I saw "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" for the first time today and it was so goddamn good I will have to watch it again sometime. John Wayne is the Jesus of Hollywood.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #359 on: 20 Mar 2008, 06:09 »

Yeah, Borrell: self-important ponce from Razorlight.
John Wayne war glorifying, service evading pansy.
Funny though, Stallone was a conscientious objector when it came time to serve, but not when he wanted to play dress up (Rambo).
If you think about it, they are both kind of like the WAR PREZNIT. Except like John Wayne wanted to establish a few separate states to send the black folk to.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #360 on: 20 Mar 2008, 07:26 »

A friend of mine served in 'Nam in '69. He got both his legs blown off by a landmine and contracted Hepatitis C from a transfusion.

I honestly cannot blame the guys. John Wayne remains my favourite actor of all time.
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doombilly

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #361 on: 20 Mar 2008, 09:16 »

A friend of mine served in 'Nam in '69. He got both his legs blown off by a landmine and contracted Hepatitis C from a transfusion.

I honestly cannot blame the guys. John Wayne remains my favourite actor of all time.
I don't blame them for not going. I blame them for making a career out of being an advertisement for other people like your friend to go. Also he is a pretty well documented bigot. But to each his own.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #362 on: 20 Mar 2008, 10:34 »

If you're going to watch TV, and not shows like Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, or Mythbusters - the best program out there is probably Battlestar Galactica - excellent acting, decent special effects, compelling storylines - what else do you need?
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #363 on: 23 Mar 2008, 15:55 »

If you're going to watch TV, and not shows like Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, or Mythbusters - the best program out there is probably Battlestar Galactica - excellent acting, decent special effects, compelling storylines - what else do you need?

Incessant fanboys who go "OMG DID YOU GUYS SEE THAT EPISODE OF BATTLESTAR GALACTICA LAST NIGHT!? SCORE IT WAS AMAZING" and then me going "I've heard it's kind of like Star Trek...that true?"  I've never had a more condescending look in my life.  But seriously, I should probably get into that show...but seriously, is it really, really worth it?
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #364 on: 24 Mar 2008, 11:34 »

It is really, really, really worth it. Awesome show, and (if you're not a fanboy) ridiculous amounts better than Star Trek!

If I'm going to start reading classic american litterature, what should I start up with?
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #365 on: 24 Mar 2008, 11:58 »

Books: Kurt Vonnegut books are always good! And also Mein Kampf, A clockwork Orange, uh....I am America (and so can you).
my recommended movies: Eraserhead, Gummo, Repo Man, and A clockwork Orange.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #366 on: 24 Mar 2008, 14:39 »

I stand by Dexter. Although I do, at times, agree with people that Deborah is a pain in the ass. However, her faults are nowhere near enough to turn me off the show. You can have your opinion but I continue to be dazzled by Michael C Hall :D

My favorite part of dexter is that there is a fucking reason that he goes out and takes care of the criminals himself.  CSI has people in his same role out there interviewing witnesses which is absolutely crazy.  Also the blood splatter stuff is much less obviously BAD science than CSI.  That being said I like Law and Order but I'm burnt out.  That plus I love the Fred Thompson Episodes, and they were off the air during his candidacy.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #367 on: 28 Mar 2008, 12:21 »

TV Recommendations:
The new Doctor Who
The Wire
Rome
Deadwood
obviously part of Lost is pretty spectacular
Torchwood has it's moments
the new Battlestar Galatica
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #368 on: 04 Apr 2008, 09:42 »

If I'm going to start reading classic american litterature, what should I start up with?

I really enjoyed Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, though it's a love-it-or-hate-it thing. As in, if you're not into it by the end of the first few pages, don't bother with the rest. If you like the first few pages, you will love the hell out of everything that follows. Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is obviously also a must-read. It's one of those books that will stay with you for ever. I think it taught me more when I read it at 12/13 than any other book has since (except maybe reading Joseph Heller's Catch-22 at around 16).

----

As far as my personal recommendation-of-the-moment goes...

I've just finished Friction by Joe Stretch.
This is not a book for the faint-hearted or easily offended; there is a lot of sex, a lot of uncompromising looks at society.... etc etc. It's a bleak and desolate look at today's oversated culture, told from the point of view of a narrator in a future society that is basically the result of everything before being taken too far. The characters are not entirely believable, and more stand-in symbols for exaggerated personality traits we'll recognize in a lot of people we know, but it works in the context of the story. The entire thing is peppered with a lot of surprisingly deep observations on the state of the world, and the writing is of the highest standards; words used as weapons but we can't help but notice how nicely they shine when they're about to deliver their fatal blow (to use overblown literary language). I'm not sure how culturally relevant it is for someone not of the 18-28 age range, and its impact may even be geographically limited to the UK in some way, but I do think it is definitely worth a read.

Also, author Joe Stretch is a member of the band (We Are) Performance ( http://www.myspace.com/weareperformance ), who are ok-but-not-great (with potential for getting better as they go along).

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #369 on: 05 Apr 2008, 21:07 »

These days all I really watch is The Daily Show / The Colbert Report. I am in love with John Oliver.
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #370 on: 05 Apr 2008, 21:22 »

I like the new guy with the thick neck.

Wait, that didn't come out right.

I like the new guy with the thick neck.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #371 on: 05 Apr 2008, 22:12 »

Who, Rob Riggle? Like many DS correspondents past, he is an SNL "featuring" also-ran. He's actually my least favorite correspondent, although the new lady bombed her first segment. I actually really like Aasif Mandvi.
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #372 on: 05 Apr 2008, 22:18 »

Yeah, but he turned the Republican race into a rip-your-head-off-and-piss-down-your-throat deathmatch.

That's really all.

John Oliver is better, but that stood out.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #373 on: 05 Apr 2008, 22:26 »

I'll admit his recent segments have been pretty great. His reporting on the Berkeley snafu was as such, mostly because he was a marine himself.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #374 on: 06 Apr 2008, 10:58 »

Classic American lit?  I myself had some pretty big issues with the Grapes of Wrath, though the narrative is quite strong in places, I'm still more on the 'hate it' side of the equation (at least partly because I found Casey to be an incredibly tedious character- "look at me I'm a transcendentalist Christ figure!" Whup-de-fucking-do)

See my writeup of "Benito Cereno" above.  It's Melville, but it's really short (ie a novella/long short story) and it is really good.  Note that it rewards a close reading--very few of the many issues raised by the novel, such as freedom's relationship to mastery, are discussed explicitly by the characters or the narrator.  Babo, who might be described as the villain, is one of the coolest characters ever, probably.  This is a story about Ideas, though it doesn't beat you over the head with them by any means.

Hucklebury Fucking Finn (not to be confused with Fucklebury Finn, which is probably a porn).  It's as good as people have said it is.  On just about every level.  Huck and Jim are one of the greatest pairs in literature, up there with Sancho Panza and Don Quixote.  Sure, the ending is a deus ex machina but frankly so are the endings to Philoctetes and As You Like It, and they're both great as well.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor is fucking intense and bears close reading.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #375 on: 06 Apr 2008, 15:47 »

If I'm going to start reading classic american litterature, what should I start up with?
(Joseph Heller's Catch-22).

This is a great recomendation. It's absolutely insane and completely irreverent. Definitely among the top American novels.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #376 on: 06 Apr 2008, 17:59 »

Taking the risk of having my post deleted, I am going to propose 2 authors that I luuurvve:

David Weber and David Feintuch (and not because they both are called David!)

For anyone who enjoyed the whole Horatio Hornblower thing as kids, but also enjoy a little speculative Space opera stuff - this is for you - big time!

Weber takes the female side through Honor Harrington, and builds a phenomenal universe spanning many different systems, of which the Solar is the oldest (and obviously the progenitor of all human worlds), he builds a huge story over almost a dozen books that will leave you very tired in the morning and swearing at the damn Z2 guy for getting you addicted!

Feintuch is a little closer to our time line, humanity has just started discovering habitable planets, and his Earth has experienced a lot of the nasty stuff that people are currently warning us of (rampant overpopulation and gang warfare etc...) Feintuch follows (and explains) the life of a young Midshipman as he climbs up through the ranks, and how a rather vicious amoeba looking alien "melt the spacesuit off you and eat your brains out" civilisation is found, and the hell that ensues - prepare for more late nights...

And just because you have read this far, I give you Kim Stanley Robinson - Start with Antarctica, then go through Red, Green then Blue Mars, we might just be there in 50 years, but more importantly is how Robinson unfolds the humanity of his characters (and sometimes the in-humanity of his characters).
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #377 on: 06 Apr 2008, 19:17 »

although the new lady bombed her first segment.

Do you mean Kristen Schaal? I had heard she was a new correspondent, but I haven't seen any of her segments yet. I'm willing to hold off judgment though, because she's absolutely hilarious on Flight of the Conchords.
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pinkpiche

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #378 on: 07 Apr 2008, 14:41 »

Reading William Faulkner by the way is a bitch
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Patrick

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #379 on: 07 Apr 2008, 15:16 »

Hey am I the only one who wishes Dickens were still alive so I could LIGHT HIM ON FIRE?
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #380 on: 07 Apr 2008, 16:29 »

That depends on what Dickens you're reading.

It's rare that an author has gotten such differing reactions from me between works -  A Tale of Two Cities is still one of my favourite books, but I've never managed to get through any of his others.

But I mean dude, Sydney Carton. Me at 12/13 had such a massive crush on that character from the very first page he graced, non-chalantly and arrogantly lounging about in that court-room... HE COULD HAVE BEEN A ROCK STAR!

To be fair, I haven't re-read it since then, so maybe I am romanticizing things in my memory.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #381 on: 08 Apr 2008, 04:42 »

I've read some Dickens, and the man is a product of his time.  But if alive today he would be writing about social problems in a way that the general public would find entertaining and thought provoking as a means of trying to get us to change how we treat out fellow humans.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #382 on: 08 Apr 2008, 08:57 »

Fahrenheit 451. Read this in 10th grade literature class. Book blew my mind right onto the wall. And other stuff like Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies. Mucho enjoyable all of them. Though it has been a while since I read them, so my opinion might be colored.

Books I've read recently that I've loved: American Gods, Anansi Boys, and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (I know I may sound like a goth-wannabe teenage girl by saying that, but damn the dude can write books like no one's business)
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #383 on: 08 Apr 2008, 22:01 »

People need to read more poetry (and not write so much). Start with Emily Dickinson (that is, all the stuff you haven't read fifty bazillion times in anthologies, and take the edition with the most dashes). Wallace Stevens. e. e. cummings. Pablo Neruda. Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Like it should be read: in books, not anthologies (keep a few on hand, though, for when you need ideas of where to look next).
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #384 on: 09 Apr 2008, 22:14 »

Ooooohhh...Poetry!
I really like TS Eliot.  Still first in my heart as far as lyric poetry is concerned.  Also good are John Donne, George Herbert and, for a poet that is still alive and is really, really good, Derek Walcott.  Donne and Herbert are Jacobean, writing immediately after Shakespeare, but considerably more 'artful' and self-conscious in the poetry, and Donne at least ranges over a greater array of subjects.  Walcott is very grounded in traditional literature for a contemporary poet--he obviously grew up reading Shakespeare and the King James Bible, but his verse is somehow peculiarly caribean in its rhythm, which is generally kind of languid and very beautiful.

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #385 on: 10 Apr 2008, 02:32 »

I fell morbidly in love with Wilfred Owen's war poetry a few years ago. Those were words that sent chills straight through me. Yeah, a bit more recent, a bit less elaborate language-wise, but evocative nonetheless.

Also, Rainer Maria Rilke's Panther remains one of the most striking poems I have ever read. All the translations I've ever seen lose the pacing, tense rhythm of the original German, but not the beauty of the image.

Robert Frost is cool as well. For some reason, he always brings up pictures in my head that could be taken from the pages of some magical storybook.

What do people think of Sylvia Plath? I've had times when I've read her poems and hated them for how purposefully obtuse she attempts to be, and then other times I've found lines that almost had me in tears and I still can't decide if I like her or not. Also, years and years ago a boy handed me a book of Sylvia Plath poems with an inscription next to Moonrise, saying that was the poem that symbolized me to him. I still don't know what to make of that.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #386 on: 10 Apr 2008, 07:18 »

I too have really liked what I've read of Wilfred Owen.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #387 on: 10 Apr 2008, 08:30 »

I really like TS Eliot.

Eliot's poetry is just too perfect for my liking. I prefer my art to have a few more rough edges - to be a bit more human and a bit less robotic. I love William Carlos Williams, for instance.

If people like Wilfred Owen's war poems, they should read Siegfried Sassoon's as well.

One of my favourite poets is John Clare. He wrote at the beginning of the industrial revolution in England, and he was something of an "outsider" poet, as he lived and was raised in the countryside (by illiterate parents, if I'm not mistaken) rather than coming from the literary set in London. He was very popular for a while, and his poetry was generally very simple: incredibly minutely observed vignettes of rural life, or of animals, or nature scenes, and also a lot of beautiful love poems. Tragically, the industrial revolution pretty much killed off the rural way of life he'd grown up with and loved, and a lot of the formerly public land became private and fenced off (he wrote an amazing poem about this called "the Lament of Swordy Well"). Whether as a consequence of all this or because it was just always in him, he ended up going mad and was institutionalised: he became delusional, adopting various personae at different times and believing that he was married to a woman he'd been in love with as a young man (when, in fact, they'd been forced apart and he had married somebody else). But the incredible thing about Clare is that even through this period he not only continued to write poetry, but that poetry was the most extraordinarily gentle and tender poetry you could imagine. His poetry is a wonderful and amazing example of the power of art to pierce through the darkest times in a person's life, and to provide just a little bit of hope in life.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #388 on: 10 Apr 2008, 19:22 »

Books: Kurt Vonnegut books are always good! And also Mein Kampf, A clockwork Orange, uh....I am America (and so can you).
my recommended movies: Eraserhead, Gummo, Repo Man, and A clockwork Orange.

Oh dude...you did NOT just recommend Mein Kampf.  I am the only person I know who owns and has read through the book.  Trust me, it's not worth it.  The writing itself is only ok, the ideas aren't....well-developed.  There's nothing insightful in it, he wrote it before he became the Fuhrer....and it's really....bad. 

ANYTHING by John Steinbeck is amazing.  Read Of Mice and Men or Cannery Row before you start Grapes of Wrath.  They're quite short so if you enjoy the writing style then you'll love Grapes of Wrath.  Don Quioxite is exquisite, I'm about 300 pages in, it's something that you just have to plow through and read for a couple of months.  Instead of recommending Lolita I'll recommend Pale Fire by Nabakov.  The Road, No Country for Old Men, All The Pretty Horses are all by Cormac McCarthy and are ALL amazing, depending on if you like his style.  If you want to get Vonnegut I'd recommend Timequake, Slaughterhouse Five, and Galapagos  My final recommendation will be my favourite book in a long time.  Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.  Oh..pick up some Kakfa too.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #389 on: 10 Apr 2008, 19:49 »

I second the Kafka.  Good stuff.
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Patrick

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #390 on: 10 Apr 2008, 21:34 »

Oh dude...you did NOT just recommend Mein Kampf.  I am the only person I know who owns and has read through the book.  Trust me, it's not worth it.  The writing itself is only ok, the ideas aren't....well-developed.  There's nothing insightful in it, he wrote it before he became the Fuhrer....and it's really....bad.

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark here and guess that nobody reads Mein Kampf for the literary or philosophical value.
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Border Reiver

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #391 on: 11 Apr 2008, 04:49 »

And it certainily isn't for the inspiring story line.  I have my grandfather's copy, purchased in the early 1930s and I've managed to get through it - barely. But man, turgid prose, really bad philosophy that is disturbing in its unreasoning hate and a view of history that was discredited before this book was even written.  It is a hateful book, but for all that it is a useful tool to understand what happened and why.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #392 on: 11 Apr 2008, 12:00 »

Siegrfried Sassoon is also really good.  Anyone ever read Isaac Rosenberg?  Bit more abstract that Owen or Sassoon.

William Carlos Williams is one of those poets that I need to read more of.
-Wilhelm
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TheFuriousWombat

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #393 on: 11 Apr 2008, 20:45 »

On the subject of poets, I've been reading quite a bit more contemporary poetry. Since  John Ashbery, Michael Ives and Robert Kelley teach in the poetry dept. here, and since I'm taking classes in that department, I decided to check out their stuff and found all of it to my liking. Ashbery in particular is really excellent although the prose poetry of Michael Ives is very much to my liking. One of the best living poets is, in my opinion, Charles Simic. He writes in both prose and verse and he's utterly brilliant.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #394 on: 12 Apr 2008, 16:09 »

I'd go for The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson. He's a pretty good author, and if you're in for a short read, I'd suggest his book Feed.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #395 on: 12 Apr 2008, 17:53 »

Midnight Cowboy, 1969.  The only X-rated film ever to win an Oscar!  Of course back then X-rating wasn't associated as heavily with porno, but still.  There's some T&A.  But what I really like is the way they use pictures to tell a story and express feelings, and even portray events that have happened in the past.

Guys.  Guys?  I really like it.  It's like Of Mice and Men, but with manwhores.
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Liz

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #396 on: 12 Apr 2008, 18:15 »

On the subject of poets, I've been reading quite a bit more contemporary poetry.

I recommend Mark Strand. He is my favorite poet, contemporary or not. You can read a selection of his poems here
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #397 on: 12 Apr 2008, 20:42 »

Death at a Funeral.  Hands down the funniest movie I've seen in my entire life.  I don't even know where to start.  I'll just say that this had me actually falling off the sofa from the violent laughing spasms I was having.
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Quote from: Johnny C
all clothes reflect identity constructs, destroy these constructs by shedding your clothes and sending pictures of the process to the e-mail address linked under my avatar

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #398 on: 13 Apr 2008, 11:31 »

On a classic note these are fablulous movies for completely different reasons:  Alien (one of the great horror flicks) and Aliens (a really good war/action movie).
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thehollow

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #399 on: 20 Apr 2008, 17:20 »

I've been watching a bunch of 30 Rock over the last week or so. It's amazing. I never thought Tina Fey was all that spectacular on SNL, but she's great on this show and the writing is superb. The supporting cast is awesome as well- Tracy Morgan and Alec Baldwin (who ever thought he could do comedy?) are great and Kenneth is one of the best characters to ever be on TV. The guest stars are also really well placed in the stories as well(Carrie Fisher was great, and David Schwimmer as Greenzo was the funniest moment of the current season). The entire second season is on nbc.com . Watch it.
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