What are you reading, watching and listening to?

[Tropylium]

Monstercat has struck me as one of those quantity-over-quality music labels, but I guess I've not looked into them very widely. Certainly though they seem to have no one of quite the same level as e.g. Zircon (if we're talking Internet Musicians).

My favorite musical dicovery of the summer has to be Aethernaut however.

---

On a different note, in case anyone's interested in acquiring a dictionary of Eastern Votic, the University of Helsinki dept. of Finno-Ugrics is currently handing some out free, if you can bother to visit them. I got one and I've now spent a while digging for interesting vocabulary. Lots of it is either Russian loans or predictable based on Finnish, but there are all sorts of surprizes as well. (E.g. "to stand" is sõisõag and not the expected seissäg or sõisoag.)

[Chagen]

Monstercat has struck me as one of those quantity-over-quality music labels, but I guess I've not looked into them very widely. Certainly though they seem to have no one of quite the same level as e.g. Zircon (if we're talking Internet Musicians).

I...don't see how you reached that conclusion. Monstercat is just a label which provides a bunch of artists a method of exposure. They do release a LOT of songs, but that's just because they have a lot of people signed on--each artist usually does only 1-3 songs per album.

As someone who is just getting into EDM I enjot how MC's releases let me hear a bunch of different genres so I can see what I like. I'll look up this Zircon guy you mentioned though.

[Pole, the]

I am reading “Fugitives of Chaos” by J. Wright.

[rotting bones]

I have been working my way through Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica for months now. So far, I have many pages of disjointed notes and still no clear idea of what I want to get out of all this. I am the least rational person I know.

[Salmoneus]

Finally gotten around to seeing two actual new films - one of them in a cinema!

The Imitation Game is a very safe, toothless, conventional film. It's well-made in every regard, but exceptional in none. Cumberbatch gives a fine performance as Turing, particularly in nailing the period accent, but it's nothing astonishing. The film unfortunately is of the modern style of biopic, in that it finds its subject and his life/work/interests entirely uninteresting, and seeks to 'discover' the subject by revealing them to ultimately be a cliched film character (usually the lead in a cliche romance, ideally tragic). This one is a more enjoyable example of the form than most, and was an entirely pleasant, but mostly forgettable way to pass the time.

Edge of Tomorrow is clever, funny, exciting, a little bit moving, and surprisingly visually impressive (it needs its CGI to work perfectly, and it does). Cruise gives a bold performance - the role essentially undermines his stardom, subverts his charisma, and plays to the fact that the audience is likely to hate him instinctively. Emily Blunt is fantastic - ruthless, sentimental, fragile, strong (mentally and physically - those are some seriously impressive arms for a woman with such a slight build!). A better performance than Cumberbatch's Turing, in my opinion, though much less flashy, and less 'worthy'. The film is seemingly based on a C-plot from 'Wreck It Ralph' (or rather, the latter parodied it note-perfectly before it even existed, right down to Blunt's hairstyle), but never mind. It wasn't quite as dark (or as funny) as I was hoping/expecting, but the plot was more interesting than I was expecting too. It's all the sort of idea that sounds great, but in practice would be likely to go hideously wrong, but the directors/writers do everything right here.

Edge of Tomorrow is the better film, though The Imitation Game is favourite to sweep the Oscars whereas you'd be laughed out of town for suggesting EoT could even be nominated for anything (outside maybe some technical categories - and I hear it's already been ruled out from Visual Effects, which might have been its best chance).

Note to academy (/critics/festivals/etc): "worthy" films about noble historical figures doing important historical things while being tormented and angsty are not inherently better films than entertaining, imaginative SF action films.

[Pole, the]

I've just read the first two volumes (the only ones already published) of The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson.

I've recently enjoyed also Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss.

[Birdlang]

Reading the Tunnels series, watching Pokémon and the news. And listening to foreign music and various Vevo music videos. I saw the new Night at the Museum movie and planning to see Mockingjay Part 1.

[Dezinaa]

I've been watching "classic" Doctor Who, now that I've watched all the newer episodes. In The Aztecs, I found it funny how the actors pronounced names starting with <Tl>.

[Birdlang]

I've been watching "classic" Doctor Who, now that I've watched all the newer episodes. In The Aztecs, I found it funny how the actors pronounced names starting with <Tl>.

How do they pronounce tł? like tK? K is the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative in X sampa.

[Dezinaa]

I've been watching "classic" Doctor Who, now that I've watched all the newer episodes. In The Aztecs, I found it funny how the actors pronounced names starting with <Tl>.

How do they pronounce tł? like tK? K is the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative in X sampa.

I know. Also, /t@l/ or /l/.

[Pole, the]

[Vurn]

Recently finished reading: The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Introduction to Daoist philosophy by Piotr Majewski, Wielkość Urojona by Stanisław Lem (literally 'Illusionary Grandeur' or 'Imaginary Quantity' but I can't seem to find an actual English translation)

Currently reading: the Kalevala by Ellias Lönnrot (or, I mean, by the collective Finnish conciousness), the Qur'ān, and Sufism - the Heart of Islam by Sadia Dehlvi

[Bristel]

Was trying to continue to read Game of Thrones, stuck before a certain major character gets chopped, but otherwise I'm caught up with the TV show.

I'm watching a Let's Play series on the game Until Dawn.

And right now I'm listening to the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door OSV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j3VL70JpBo

[Chagen]

Currently listening through Lumiere by The Afterimage right now. I like the cleans a LOT, but the harsh vocals leave something to be desired. The songs I've heard as of now are pretty good, but they keep that annoying trait of Metalcore and Djent to throw in a breakdown and then make half the fucking song the breakdown. Just...stop. Please. Breakdowns almost always kill all the momentum when they drag on too long and yet every Metalcore band does this. Holy shit there must be something I'm not getting.

Best song as of now is Follow (second song). The breakdown isn't as intrusive and the overall song just feels very good.

[Pole, the]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYcuPQwh9Xo

[Travis B.]

True Faith by New Order

[Vijay]

Reading: A scan of a photocopy of my grandfather's World War II diary, while trying to type part of it out

Listening to: This music video from Peshawar. I find it amusing that both "our" and "day" are perfectly good English words, yet this song is not in English at all, and in the video itself, the title is instead transliterated as "Our De Our De." It's sung mostly in Pashto by this guy named Shahid but with parts in Urdu sung by a Pakistani Punjabi model named Sono Lal. (Note also the very beginning of the video, where they use semicolons instead of colons, "cemra" for 'camera', and "darictor" for 'director').

Watching: Alternating between the scan, the video, Google Input Tools (which I use for writing in Malayalam now), a file where I save what I wrote out, the World Clock, this forum, and The Forum That Shall Not Be Named

[Ketumak]

Reading: catching up on "A song of ice and fire". I've recently picked up most volumes from second-hand bookshops.

Watching: old comedy clips on YouTube. I particularly like this Buster Keaton one. He gets four minutes of material from a simple idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZSTM3knaao

Listening: various. Though early ska gets a regular airing at the moment, particularly "Simmer down" by the Skatelites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9HyXc4e7Qc

[Vijay]

Listening to: A ska song in some Zoquean language (I forget which one but probably one that's spoken in Chiapas). It's apparently an original composition, not translated from Spanish, and I think it's the only ska song I've ever heard in an indigenous language of the Americas so far.

Reading: Lyrics in said video (well, I try to read them, anyway)

Watching: My laundry as I fold it, I guess

[Ketumak]

^ I like it!

I'm currently watching coverage of the fallout from our recent referendum. I daren't turn away in case I miss anything and began depressed by it all, but am now thinking there might be a silver lining or two in the mess.

[Vijay]

Aw, I'm glad you liked that song, and good luck!

EDIT: I think it's in Rayón Zoque. It's from Ocotepec.

[Pole, the]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T5rCSmduaY

[rotting bones]

Don't know if any of you have heard of Umika, but she's dead. RIP.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... SDivG2iB1Z_

Sincerity is my personal favorite.

[Vijay]

Reading: Alternating between this forum, my grandfather's diary as I typed it up, my translation of most of it (which I'm working on now), a dictionary, a list of new Malayalam words I'm keeping, and an IPA keyboard

Watching and listening to: Ketla Go Nyala Rati, a song in Tswana from Botswana

[hwhatting]

Binged on the 3rd season of BoJack Horseman. Now I want the 4th season to start immediately.