zompist bboard

Salmoneus wrote:And does things like abandon the POV character to throw in 200 pages of seemingly unrelated action in a different country with a different protagonist for reasons that only become clear later on...

Wait, what? Which different country? Now I'm afraid that the version I read as a boy was an abridged version (and it seemed long enough...)

Maybe Italy?

I read the Illustrated Classics version, which was of course highly condensed and thus not that bad about this, but even then it was kind of confusing (but lots of fun!). Like

hwhatting wrote:

Salmoneus wrote:And does things like abandon the POV character to throw in 200 pages of seemingly unrelated action in a different country with a different protagonist for reasons that only become clear later on...

Wait, what? Which different country? Now I'm afraid that the version I read as a boy was an abridged version (and it seemed long enough...)

Italy. Chapters 31-38 are set entirely in Italy, following a different protagonist. (it's more like 100 pages, but it felt like more...)

Torco: pretty sure that's not actually Alkan as the pianist!

hwhatting wrote:

Salmoneus wrote:And does things like abandon the POV character to throw in 200 pages of seemingly unrelated action in a different country with a different protagonist for reasons that only become clear later on...

Wait, what? Which different country? Now I'm afraid that the version I read as a boy was an abridged version (and it seemed long enough...)

Yeah, I found it an engrossing read. Then later I found I'd read an abridged version. The purist within me was a bit disappointed, but the realist isn't interested in revisiting this terrain when I still haven't read Ulysses or Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften.

I'm watching my NetFlix again. Last night was دختری در شب تنها به خانه می‌رود (A girl walks home alone at night). It was boring.

I'm thinking about quitting Netflix, but there's still Stranger Things 2 within few weeks and potentially Black Mirror 4 later this autumn, so it may wait.

Anyway, listening to Electric Light Orchestra.

My dad was so done with Netflix once they started raising prices because we don't even find a need to use it much anymore. Neither he nor I watches movies all that often, and my mom tends to prefer Malayalam movies IIRC, which are much, much easier to find on YouTube than on Netflix.

"I Wish I Was Thomas Bangalter" by Dreams West

Vijay wrote:My dad was so done with Netflix once they started raising prices because we don't even find a need to use it much anymore. Neither he nor I watches movies all that often, and my mom tends to prefer Malayalam movies IIRC, which are much, much easier to find on YouTube than on Netflix.

I legitimately enjoy watching Wakaliwood movies on YouTube.

John Lydon's autobiography. Channel-surfing trying to find something which deserves my attention. The sound of traffic on the bypass.

linguoboy wrote:Yeah, I found it an engrossing read. Then later I found I'd read an abridged version. The purist within me was a bit disappointed, but the realist isn't interested in revisiting this terrain when I still haven't read Ulysses or Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften.

Exactly my feelings now that I've also realised that I only read an abridged version. Plus, I only would be really satisfied if I read it in French now that I know that language, and I don't feel like slogging through a French doorstopper...

Re Netflix: I don't know, they have a lot of interesting stuff, so I'll kep my subscription going. I'm still putting off watching the 4th season of BoJack because I want to watch it together with my daughter when she comes home for Christmas. We binged on the previous seasons together and it's just not the same without her.

Honestly, I mostly just keep Netflix for the Marvel shows, which are about the only TV shows I consistently watch. I loved The Defenders! (only got through about 75% of Iron Fist, though--I just never cared about Danny)

I'm not much of a movie person, I'm too easily distracted. (I'm constantly on my phone or playing a game at the same time as watching a movie or TV show) But every once in awhile I get the itch to settle down with something, and as long as I don't have something specific in mind, Netflix is good for this. My go-to used to be Cutthroat Kitchen, but it's not on Netflix anymore, so I sometimes watch an episode or two of The Great British Bake Off instead. I'm also sloooowly working my way through the new MST3k series, which is fantastic.

Someday I'm gonna get caught back up with The Blacklist on Netflix, too. I always liked that show, but I fell behind and never got caught back up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuN6GfUix7c

Looks like the left is finally adapting to the methods of internet reactionaries. They have probably lost the first mover advantage though.

Yesterday I've watched the fourth episode of “The Orville”. I must say, the show is getting better and better.

Pole, the wrote:Yesterday I've watched the fourth episode of “The Orville”. I must say, the show is getting better and better.

I find this so hard to credit despite having it on good authority.

Pole, the wrote:Yesterday I've watched the fourth episode of “The Orville”. I must say, the show is getting better and better.

Please tell me it's nothing to do with this:

linguoboy wrote:

Pole, the wrote:Yesterday I've watched the fourth episode of “The Orville”. I must say, the show is getting better and better.

I find this so hard to credit despite having it on good authority.

Well, it could be just me having a weird sense of humor (after all, I'm one of the few people who don't think “Teen Titans Go” is shit), but if you look at the audience reception on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic or even IMDb, they are also quite favorable.

The show is made by MacFarlane, but — apart of a few toilet jokes here and there — the humor feels closer to “Futurama” or “The Simpsons” than “Family Guy” or “Ted”. It manages to deconstruct some common tropes without alienating the traditional sci-fi audience. Also, I like how most of the main cast have been presented as multi-layered characters from the very first scenes they have appeared in.

Of course, it's probably nowhere near the best of what contemporary TV/streaming has to offer, but it made on me an impression so big I decided to add it to the list of shows I wait for every next episode of.

Please tell me it's nothing to do with this:

I don't think so, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

Regarding Alexandre Dumas, I once read The Three Musketeers (unabridged). I thought Satan from the bible was a more sympathetic character than the protagonist of that novel. Satan is about as faithless as d'Artagnan, but to me he comes across as less self-righteous. That is when I decided I would never read another book by Alexandre Dumas unless I was feeling too happy with how my life was going and needed to be brought back to earth by reminding myself that things like Alexandre Dumas' novels exist. That occasion hasn't arisen so far.

I don't see why protagonists have to be morally correct. Look at (Sean Connery) James Bond, for instance (If I watched any post-Moore Bond I completely forget which films those were). And I like villain protagonists too.

rotting bones wrote:Regarding Alexandre Dumas, I once read The Three Musketeers (unabridged). I thought Satan from the bible was a more sympathetic character than the protagonist of that novel. Satan is about as faithless as d'Artagnan, but to me he comes across as less self-righteous. That is when I decided I would never read another book by Alexandre Dumas unless I was feeling too happy with how my life was going and needed to be brought back to earth by reminding myself that things like Alexandre Dumas' novels exist. That occasion hasn't arisen so far.

Ironically, the "hero" of The Count of Monte Cristo basically is Satan, or at least is currently endeavouring to do a good Satan impression.

I think maybe Dumas just wasn't as interested in making his protagonists "likeable" as some modern audiences are used to expecting.

Also, a lot of the musketeers' awful behavior is a reflection of what Dumas thought musketeers behaved like.

Halt and Catch Fire.

Only 2 more episodes...

Checking Reddit and another forum and watching this. (The movie is in Tamil, but the main character is the guy who's initially wearing a yellow shirt. He speaks Malayalam, or a slightly Tamilized version of it).

Salmoneus wrote:Torco: pretty sure that's not actually Alkan as the pianist!

Would any sort of recording from that age persist though ?

Currently trudging through Hamlet, which I had never read or seen before. Reading Elizabethan English is hard.

Now I understand the old joke that this play is "just one famous saying after another".

Torco wrote:

Salmoneus wrote:Torco: pretty sure that's not actually Alkan as the pianist!

Would any sort of recording from that age persist though ?

Theoretically, yes. The first known recordings (of voice alone) are from 1860 (unusually, only the recording device (using soot) was invented at that time - it took more than a century to work out how to actually play the recording back). The earliest surviving musical recording known is a piece by Sullivan recorded in 1888 (more interesting may be a recording of Brahms playing his own music from 1889), which is the year Alkan died. However, the Sullivan recording wasn't the first recording ever made - prototype recording systems had been going around for about a decade by then. Alkan came out of retirement to give annual public concerts between 1873 and at least 1880, maybe later; and he died in 1888 from pulling a heavy umbrella stand onto himself, so he wasn't bedbound in the final years.

Short version: if it were discovered tomorrow that at some point in the mid-to-late 1880s, someone had shown the old man one of these exciting new recording machines that everyone was talking about, and Alkan had played a piece on the piano to see the machine in action, and the cylinder had been shuffled into some obscure collection when the old recluse died, and some old lady in Paris has only now dug it out of a box in the attic and realised what it was... well, obviously that would be remarkable, but it actually wouldn't be implausible!

Ryusenshi wrote:Currently trudging through Hamlet, which I had never read or seen before. Reading Elizabethan English is hard.

Good luck!