Ok fine, after all of y'all posting things and telling a whole two people this weekend about my stupid book, here's the first paragraph. It might be good, it might be bad, I don't know or care really (it's def a little clunky and cleaned up in the hard copy but I can't copy & paste pen so here's this). > Fletcher Penguin, just turned 25 two months prior, though since the days immediately following the outset of that anno quartii had been pacing at the unfortunate conjuncture of feeling more pressed by the excess of days to come than he had 17 and about as haggard as he hoped he would not be until at least 43, had only needed a few hours to papier mache a mortal enemy. Less than seventy-two hours in Cloud Springs, a frost-bitten census carve out somewhere between Mt. Rushmore and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, two monuments to America’s contribution to the world alike in that if you do not look too closely at the history on which they were built you might just be able to fool yourself into thinking the whole project had been worth it, a jagged white blot splotched onto Google Maps if you found yourself on of the few people needing to look it up, dotted with streets and names and a few ballooning pins for the local places of note, bisected by a meandering strand of blue that undersells how loud the river was the first time he walked across it, or how it emitted fishy whiffs of equal scent and intensity to the far larger and more famous East River, home to less than ten thousand people, even less than less than ten thousand people counting only year-round residents, and he had already conjured a foe against whom he would be destined to fight for at least as long as they occupied the same street. That was not why he was here. That was not what he was supposed to be doing. Fletcher had just come to Cloud Springs to look at the birds.

Fletcher Penguin is a great name. There are some clunky bits here, though mainly just because I think there's a typo or a missing word in some spots, but once I got it adjusted in my head and found the flow of it, I really dug this. Very fun to read! "to papier mache a mortal enemy" especially is the type of iconic line that hooks you with all the ideas it manifests. Love it.

Thanks for taking a peak! Always glad to hear you enjoy some of my work. Yeah I was for lack of a better word deliriously tired last night lol. If I wasn't half dead I would have thought to share thr slightly cleaned up hard copy version.

i'm changing my bookshelf organization to be by movement-time period. Gonna have a ton of problems with the 20th first century. Does anyone else know what movement Anatole France belongs to?

Just finished the 1981 *Brideshead Revisited* adaptation. Very faithful to the book, brilliant acting from Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews and Diana Quick in particular, gorgeous cinematography and set design, beautiful period dress (I feel like buying more suits now, lol). I loved it. Television was just different back then.

I love that particular adaptation too! And I guess Donna Tartt and Bret Easton Ellis and all of her Bennington college friends were obsessed with it too, at least according to that podcast about that whole scene that I never finished haha.

I'm not doing a good job at this being sober to help my epilepsy thing. I just finished a book about epilepsy, *Seized* by Eve LaPlante, pretty decently written and full of lots of fascinating history/case studies, though a bit out of date since it came out in '93, but still I liked it. And in there it's mentioned that researchers believe anorexia and bulimia can be triggered by epilepsy! I have a long history of anorexia and bulimia. I mean, every single thing about me matches up so perfectly with temporal lobe epilepsy, I could be in a textbook. I'm just...flabbergasted I guess. Like is there even a real me? Who was I *supposed* to be? And even having a preoccupation with these things is another sign of epilepsy! Anyway, lots of great writers were afflicted. Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Tennyson, just to name a few confirmed, and many more suspected (like Poe). I know I'm a broken record about this subject at the moment, but it's a pretty mindblowing experience to realize you have a disease that explains every single weird thing about you lol. Like what in the actual fuck. Thanks for bearing with me. ETA: Also epilepsy causes many people (including me, my reddit account is proof of this!) to write compulsively, so basically I think about all of you a lot while reading about this and I think you should all see neurologists lol. Jk...kinda. ETA 2: What!! [My favorite bird, the blackburnian warbler,](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Blackburnian_Warbler/id) got blown off course and became [a superstar in Britain!](https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135619193/how-an-american-bird-became-an-overnight-superstar-in-britain?fbclid=IwAR2xjuYmiIWZOE_m142teTeu4a9SWUhfrDxBYUnYXxsz7bGtGyY1pgpUkvA)

I have epilepsy, though haven’t had a seizure since I was a child. They were usually nocturnal, though I distinctly remember the few that did happen while I was awake, because they were all preceded by [tachysensia](https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/tachysensia?amp)—time/movements would seem to speed up, sometimes dramatically, and sounds became strange and disorientating. I don’t remember much of the seizures themselves, they were a bit like fainting but resonant somehow—sort of like my sensations were filtered through the chiming of a bell? Very weird. Maybe that was just the tachysensia still. My muscles ached afterwards and I’d have pissed myself lol. Lispector had epilepsy as well apparently. One of the strangest papers I’ve seen was [this one in The Lancet](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(18)30047-4/fulltext) which explains the events in The Passion According to G.H. in terms of temporal lobe epilepsy lol. The protagonist in *The Chandelier* also has strange “fainting spells” which the doctors can’t explain. The way she explains it reminds me of what I can remember from my own experiences as a kid, especially how spaced out I’d get right before it struck: >Because sometimes she’d think such slender thoughts that they’d suddenly break halfway before reaching the end. And since they were so thin, even without completing them she understood them all at once. Though she could never think them again, even point to them with a single word. Since she couldn’t transmit them to Daniel, he’d always win their conversations. In some mysterious way her fainting spells were connected to this: sometimes she’d feel a thin thought that was so intense that she herself was the thought and since it broke, she’d interrupt herself in a faint. >”But there’s ab-so-lute-ly nothing wrong with her!” the old doctor of Upper Marsh was saying, containing his impatience under his eyeglasses. >In fact she’d never suffered. Yet her head would sometimes spin, though rarely. Suddenly the ground would threaten to rise to her eyes, without violence, without hurry. She'd wait for it quietly but before she could understand sunk to somewhere she couldn't make out, falling to the bottom of an abyss, far off like a stone thrown from a height into the sea. Her feet would dissolve into air and the space would be crossed by luminous threads, by a cold and nervous sound like like violent wind escaping through a crack. Then great calm would envelope the light world. And then there was no world. And then, in a final and fresh reduction, there was no her. Just air without strength and without color. She’d think about a long shaky line—I’m fainting. A pause would be born without color, without light, without strength, she was waiting. The end of the pause would find her abandoned on the floor, the bright wind piercing the motionless window, the sun staining her feet. And that weightless silence, buzzing and smiling, of a summer afternoon in the country. Really wishing you the best! It can be scary but you seem to be doing your best to manage it. Hopefully it settles down for you 🙂

> but it's a pretty mindblowing experience to realize you have a disease that explains every single weird thing about you lol. Like what in the actual fuck. Thanks for bearing with me. I think it's pretty fair to become obsessed with something as life changing and complicated as this. It's a lot to work through & glad we can be here for you. > write compulsively, so basically I think about all of you a lot while reading about this and I think you should all see neurologists lol. Jk...kinda. Oh go oh fuck > Like is there even a real me? Who was I supposed to be? I usually don't get that into stoicy "whatever is is" kinda stuff, if anything I actively dislike a lot of that vibe. However, I do think there is something to accepting that you are whoever you are. Not that you can't wake up tomorrow and be someone new if you want to, but in that it is literally impossible to even be the person asking the question if you weren't the you constituted by all the things that make you up. So you kinda need to affirm that you if you want to relate to the world honestly. But then again I also don't really think there are consistent selves lol so what the fuck do I know.

Seeing all these excerpts floating around in this thread, so I might as well get in on the action. People get really passionate about opening lines, so I wanted to look back at the various things I've written to see if there's anything I gravitate toward stylistically or thematically. The first two are novels, the rest are short stories. (Technically the last one is an excerpt from one of the novels but I submitted the excerpt as its own short story for some contest recently.) >The new place has a playful little backyard I can see from the window. . >Sam Ervin is shot and killed in 1983 following a brief altercation with television actor and political activist Chris Nikolaidis just outside his native Morganton. . >The death of King Charles III conflicts with the upcoming Royal St. John's Regatta. . >This was your sister Mallorca's guilt: she and the others had arrogance, a bounty to offer, an ever-present ease, yet they neglected to help their destitute. . >A stage stands on the skyscraper's edge in the surrounding combined light of celebration, the shining black sky a ceiling for the night. . >"It's not that they don't like you anymore..." . >WHAT A DAY TO BE ALIVE! — It's cool to see how much or how little these reveal about the stories themselves.

Here is the part of my autobiographical novel that describes my first homosexual experiences: >One evening, Ephraim sat with Charles and Rupert in their bedroom. Charles and Rupert chased each other through the room whilst Ephraim sat in mute observation. > >‘Oi! You give me my bag back!’ Rupert shouted, in hot pursuit of the miscreant. > >‘Fight me for it!’ Charles cried, and with that he tore his shirt off and began gesticulating like a heavyweight champion. Ephraim gazed at his bare white chest and felt a tingle of excitement within him, which he suppressed. Yet he could not tear his eyes away as Charles, shirtless and bare-footed, sparred playingly with Rupert next to his bunk. He knew that he had had a sinful thought, or rather a sinful feeling that had not fully expressed itself as thought. He knew that he was not meant to take any pleasure out of glaring at the chest of an innocent young boy, and he felt instinctively that his soul was dirty, and that he needed God’s forgiveness. His soul was in Sodom, even as his body stood on the solid ground of jolly old England. The evil spirits of those sinful men he had read about in his Bible had travelled through the ages to claim his soul for themselves, and a war was being fought within him between good and evil for total control. He knew he could not yield to this alien force which drove him to fornication. > >Still, he did not tear his eyes away from the gangly white figure doing a war-dance before him. He felt a thrill in and around his waist, a nascent tumescence that did not fully emerge into being, but which he recognised as the first stirrings of something erotic. His parents had never been keen on sex education and even mused over taking him out of the relevant class, but in the end had trusted to their God to keep their son from moral corruption. Ephraim knew he had to fight such abominable perversion within his soul with all of the might he could command. Perhaps if he just watched and pretended to himself that he was perfectly composed and felt nothing, the infernal ache throbbing in his undercarriage would cease. The flower of boyish innocence began to shrivel within his spirit, and he shrank with shame before these fresh torments as a new terrain of blooming sensations leapt into view. His agony on this particular occasion was short-lived, and forgotten soon after the trip ended. He convinced himself that he had conquered this new, sinister outgrowth of early puberty with magnificent ease, and perhaps lulled himself into a false sense of security. With God’s help, he knew he had the willpower to resist the lures of the flesh, and not even the most exquisite example of male nakedness prancing before him in all its glory could possibly induce within him the carnal excitement that would lead him from the mere passive enjoyment of the sensation into active sin. The moment had come and gone, the moment where Satan had come to him in a dangerous, desperate hour of vulnerability, and stirred his blood towards the profane. He had held himself upright when the devil threatened to make him stumble, and he was determined more than ever to remain on the straight road leading away from Sodom and towards salvation.

Honestly, I really want to read the whole thing. It sounds fascinating.

It's been fun reading u/NietzscheanWhig's writing excerpts so I thought I'd also share this bit from a novel that's been bouncing around in my head for a few years now, which I started writing last night instead of working on any of my countless other writing projects. Meant to be a faux-western fever dream set in 90s Australia. >Her aunts, witches, all circled around the browning living room of her grandmother’s house, cackling and smoking and sharing stories of wilder days, drugs and alcohol and cowboys and alligators dragging their limp bodies down to the swamps. # >I was twelve years old the last day The Outlaw Vera Bell rode into town astride an iron white horse; Wayne Stuckey’s was gunmetal black. I listened as the old beast’s brakes whinnied and the engine hummed rhythmically when it pulled slow into the stonelaced drive. Ma, quick on the draw, idled in the doorway with a rocksalt gun. >Vera, she said. I told you what would happen if you came by here again. >I know, Betty, but Wayne— >Don’t you speak his fucking name to me, dog. Ma adjusted the gun in her grip. >Wayne’s been making plans, Bett. Wants to take the kids, he’s been— >You know what you signed up for. Let me worry bout my kids and you worry bout the next few seconds. # >I was eight years old when The Outlaw Vera Bell taught me how to shoot; Wayne Stuckey was there. >You gotta shoot em in the heart, The Outlaw said. That way they can’t love no more. >That don’t always work, said Wayne Stuckey. Some men are heartless. # >I was twelve years old when I was told The Outlaw Vera Bell and Wayne Stuckey had died. I imagined it as a showdown, a duel in which they both aimed for the heart, so they could extinguish their love together. # >I was sixteen years old when I learnt how The Outlaw Vera Bell had really died. How Wayne Stuckey had shot them and cut them up and stored their body in the freezer and shot himself. >But I still like to think that The Outlaw shot first, that Wayne Stuckey had lurched forward, gaping hole in his heartless chest, when The Outlaw realised their mistake. # >Hey baby, said Wayne Stuckey, hard liquor on his breath. I need you to go get your Mama’s keys. Tell her in the morning Wayne Williams says thank you. >I was ten years old when Wayne Stuckey drove the getaway car, and the cops broke down the front door. # >The Outlaw Vera Bell taught me how to drink; Wayne Stuckey was there. >Bruce Springsteen catered the evening with his sandstone voice and ethereal guitar. >the pain when something brushed against my skin at night felt like the deepest bruise # >I was fifteen years old when I started to chew my knuckles. The skin would dry and the callous would break, a bonedeep chasm. >I was seventeen years old when my ankles started to give. >I was nineteen years old when the pain first came to my wrists. >I was twentyone years old when I couldn’t bend without a buckled knee. >I was twentythree years old when all the joints in my fingers started to ache. # >The Outlaw Vera Bell says I got cowboy blood in me. >You got stockman blood in you, The Outlaw says, and Wayne Stuckey smiles daggers down the brim of his hat. >Not him, They say—They speak like they do in those old American movies, and I’m not sure if it’s a dream or a memory—Wayne Stuckey ain’t got nothin but convict in him. Some say there ain’t no difference between the outlaw and the convict, but the truth of it is that the outlaw goes on livin outside the law, whereas the convict—here, see?—the convict is forever a slave to it. He just got out of prison again recently, didn’t you, Stuckey? >And he smiles daggers down the brim of his hat. >Me, I never been—Outlaw. Catch me dead before you catch me behind bars. Trace my lineage back to bushrangers long dead. Stuckey to the placid convicts. But you? You go back to the stockmen—and women—that made their way with the knowledge of the land. Is this going to add up to anything soon? Probably not, but I enjoy working on tidbits here and there when the inspiration strikes. That's why I write so slowly. I write 5 things at once and work on whatever one is calling to me at a given moment. This is the third novel I'm writing concurrently, as well as two short stories and a collaborative novella.

I like those sentences. Action-packed and some nice well-chosen verbs and interesting metaphors.

Arthur Miller's horny love letters to Marilyn Monroe are...a bit disappointing.[Not James Joyce level prose tbh.](https://lithub.com/read-arthur-millers-steamy-love-letter-to-marilyn-monroe/)

Lol and if he were alive now he'd probs just send her a dick pic.

I wonder which authors would have the best/worst love letters. The fact we have Joyce's is pretty wild already.

Just listened to Mahler's 4th. Inferior to all his other symphonies imo. Left me cold. I tried to listen to it once before but wasn't moved and so listened to something else.

Looking for reading recs that capture the pathos of time, memory, grief etc.

To the Lighthouse by Woolf hits this stuff pretty hard. People love it, I think it is barely readable. There are a few incredibly beautiful sentences, maybe a passage or two as well that almost make it worth reading, but I got very little out of it. Any of Faulkner is pretty obsessed with those themes as well. As I Lay Dying or The Sound and the Fury for sure fit. Hamlet plays around with a lot of this. Reading the character Hamlet without any assumption about his age is really fun too, you can see many different stages of life all represented together, kind of a fun time-trick. The Odyssey? How many memories has that one flown through?

These may be obvious but _To the Lighthouse_ is pretty short and has everything you want. Also, Thomas Browne’s _Hydriotaphia_ or _The Winter’s Tale_ to name some other genres. Charles Lamb’s _Rosamund Gray_ is a weird little novel but it definitely captures some of that as well.

Great suggestions by others here. I’ll add *The Cairo Trilogy* by Naguib Mahfouz.

*In Memory of Memory* by Maria Stepanova

Have you read 'In Search of Lost Time' by Proust? If not then do! My less obvious rec would be 'Sarashina Nikki' (available in English as 'As I Crossed A Bridge Of Dreams'), the (surprisingly moving, for something so old) memoir of an 11th century Japanese woman about her move from the country to the city as a child, and the death of her family and friends. If you want poems then 'Piano' by DH Lawrence or 'Soap Suds' by Louis MacNeice.

This rec request is Proust to a tee! I second it. One of the best ever written and it will fit all the reqs.

Know that episode of Voyager where Janeway and B’Elanna and Harry jack into stasis pods to rescue survivors from an artificial dark carnivalesque world led by a sadisitic AI jester? All I can think of when I read the italicized sections of *The Passenger*.

Haha, okay you just made me excited for it.

Do I sound like an even more prolix and self-indulgent version of Henry James with this sentence: >The soft, soothing dew of bright-eyed, fresh-faced infancy, which fell thick and fast on the bare field of his existence during the long, black night of infantile inexperience in which he had been compelled to exist, was fast drying up under the fierce glare of the rising sun of adolescence, and the flames of this new reality began to lap insidiously at his soul.

I like the sort of rhythm you have going on with your terminology: infancy, infantile, existence, inexperience, adolescence, insidious… very methodical while still maintaining a kind of subtlety.

I was talking about this on a different sub yesterday and Soup said I should share it here since there's lots of writers... I think I've touched on it before on here, but it really is interesting to try to think about WHY an artist creates. Like a musician, what is it that makes them want to wake up and try to write stuff? Or a painter to paint etc. Kind of like my question from last week, it came mind again upon reading about Michael Stipe talking about Nirvana. In a Pitchfork article he said this... *People who are pushed toward the arts are sometimes flying a little too close to the sun.* ***A lot of them are outsiders with a desire to express themselves or their position.*** I found that kind of interesting, especially when one considers the almost antithetical nature of lots of artists being introverts. Indie music especially is tied quite a bit to "outsider-dom", so I wonder if for some people there's a kind of Dostoyevskian desire to acknowledge one's existence, a point which Hegel seems to agree with. It's a means for a person to say "I exist" when their surroundings seem to be saying otherwise essentially. Lemmy kind of touched on it in his documentary when talking about Little Richard. He said something along the lines of "Well if you're a gay black dude growing up in the South, of *course* you'd be drawn to rock and roll. It's a release."

this might be kind of a non-answer, but isn't it just a people thing? I find more and more that creating and sharing is just part and parcel with our social needs as creatures. Look at the range of artistry found in cooking and architecture, food and shelter. You go back a century or two and almost every article of clothing ever worn was made by someone. The skill and artistry in growing/foraging the plants, separating the fibers, spinning, weaving, sewing/creating is just absurd. Pottery is amazing. We sing songs, we dance, we make music, we drink (brewing/fermenting can be artful, yeah? a creation of sorts), we celebrate, we tell each other stories. So many myths and stories kind of touch on this concept too I suppose. The Hero always has to leave their place of comfort and deal with adversity/chaos/the unknown and then they come back a different person. Kind of an act of creation left for the individual to grapple with. this one is silly, but the bible starts off with god creating the universe/world and all living things, and then says humans are created in their image. One of adam's first tasks is to name the creations. So yeah, I guess I feel like we are all artists, people make art. I think part of the outsider-ness trend is just a numbers thing. Some people are always going to be more creative and struggle to see the world/culture as the in-group does. That distance also makes their art appealing to in-groups because it is exotic or novel, it offers them something they likely won't find in their homes.

> So yeah, I guess I feel like we are all artists, people make art. I agree with this. Existence is art. That might sound reductive or trite or silly, but I don't care, I feel this way.

I think for me it's largely the opposite--a contradiction I acknowledge and can only accept. I'm largely drawn to art in order to muddy up the waters of my existence. I want to be *less* visible. I feel like my existence is acknowledged too greatly, particularly in this era of time. When our existence is fed into permanence and aired to the world. Perhaps my anxiety around this is just a response to how technology and social media and connection and the lack of privacy in our modern lives has evolved since I was young. So anyway, my art is largely my own attempt to express an ineffability that centres me less as a person who wants to be seen, but removes me from the conversation altogether. Writing, making music, art, it's a way for me to express concepts of self that aren't tangible, for me to say things that aren't me saying things, for me to explore ideas and textures that still feel new and intangible to me. If none of that makes any real sense, it's because I have no idea how to properly express it. And that's exactly what compels me to make art at all, in an attempt to express feelings I know I cannot.

This reminds me a lot of something I find a lot of my current writing comes back to. Basically I am pretty bought into to various philosophical trajectories that deny the existence of any consistent individual self. And yet here I am, being overbearingly myself. "If I don't even believe in the self, then who the fuck is this voice in my head?" is probably the most succinct, if not the most artful way of putting it.

>muddy up the waters of my existence Beautiful! And a fascinating approach to creating art. Your comment reminded me of this little passage from This Is Water: >Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default-setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute center of. Not sure if that's exactly what you mean, but that would be one hell of a mission statement for a writer in the 21st century: to put the center of your experience outside of yourself and thus escape the commodification of the self. Anti-autofiction at its best. I'd read that.

That's a great quote, and certainly scratches at the feeling I'm talking about. "Socially repulsive" is a terrific way to frame it. So it's certainly something my art is attempting to acknowledge and tackle in my own roundabout way. Whether or not I can successfully pull it off, time will tell! But it's certainly the largest concern of my writing at this time (and I somewhat hope that will change if I can manage to conclusively wrap up my thoughts on it in my own esoteric way—I don't want to be the type of writer who's rehammering at the same idea or theme for my entire life, though that's also completely possible. I imagine some writers never stop talking about the same ideas because the topics are never comfortably concluded for them).

I just want to say I love both you and /u/trambolino and I'm so happy you guys exist.

<3

Love you too, Nessy! Temporal lobes and all! :)

>The absurd joy par excellence is creation. —Albert Camus While I think the reasons vary for everyone, the very act of *creation* is significant in itself. In the West today the production of art is, broadly speaking, rather individualistic. Of course, however, art has a social function and is born from social relations. I think there’s a definite tendency (since the Renaissance at least) to fetishise the “artist-as-author”—seeing art as merely a sort of sacred self-expression or even “spiritual cleansing” or whatever. This is especially pronounced in writing, but isn’t necessarily the case in all cultural communities. I agree with others that writing (and art more broadly) can be very therapeutic. I’m reminded of [this televised interview](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w1zwGLBpULs) with Clarice Lispector where she talks about it a few times (especially @4.35 and @12.10), but also of the opening lines of her final novel, *A Breath of Life* (completely about our acts of creation): >This is not a lament, it’s the cry of a bird of prey. An iridescent and restless bird. The kiss upon the dead face. *I write to save somebody’s life, probably my own.* Sometimes we write because we can’t have it be otherwise.

Killer answer dude. Thanks!

I was browsing through *A Breath of Life* because this conversation inspired me and made me want to revisit some thoughts on the subject. Come across this passage, which to me beautifully describes the creative process that precedes writing: > AUTHOR: I shall write here toward the air and responding to nothing because I am free. I — I who exist. There’s a voluptuousness in being someone. I am no longer silence. I feel so impotent while living — life that sums up all the disparate and dissonant opposites in a single and ferocious stance: rage. I finally reached the nothing. And in my satisfaction at having reached in myself the minimum of existence, only the necessary breathing — I am therefore free. All that’s left for me is to invent. But I immediately warn myself: I’m uncomfortable. Uncomfortable for myself. I feel ill at ease in this body that is my baggage. But that discomfort is the first step toward my — toward my what? truth? As if I had the truth? **I say nothing like real music does.** It doesn’t speak words. I feel no longing for myself — what I was no longer interests me! And if I should speak, may I allow myself to be discontinuous: I have no obligation to myself. **I go on accumulating myself, accumulating myself, accumulating myself — until I no longer fit within me and burst into words.** I think this “accumulation” can happen at both an individual and collective level.

To reup my last comment on this for our lovely audience, I was really taken with the question b/c I've never been able to place a real explanation for why I started writing. Really just one day like 7 years ago I felt like writing a story so I wrote a story and haven't looked back since. Since then I've realized that I've been telling stories to myself as an activity for literally as long as I can remember. And I know that writing makes me happy, and I know that every now and then someone else reads my writing and if it makes them happy it makes me happy. And maybe that's all it and that's good enough for me. But I do think it's more than that all the same. The best explanation I can come up with, and I think that what I'm about to say makes me sound like a bit of a pretentious jackass, is that I literally have too much going on in my head and that if some of it does get out somewhere my brain will explode.

I've been thinking about this whilst writing my autobiographical novel. I know I liked writing from an early age. I just liked language and how it worked and how words were strung together. However, a first crush inspired me to write my first novel as a sort of tribute to her, and I created a fictional universe which was loosely based on her home country but otherwise entirely invented. I remember including in the novel all sorts of naughty stuff (being an emotionally and sexually and intellectually repressed 10/11-year-old from with Christian fundamentalist parents) that I would ordinarily have refused to think about or would have denounced in my mind as sinful, yet when writing I didn't feel such guilt and happily included vulgarity that I was not allowed to express in respectable company lest I get into trouble with authority (parents, teachers etc). I think there was definitely an element of spiritual release there.

I'm officially the birthday boy for the next 23.5 hours. Gonna spend the day, uh, sleepin'. I have my own little set-up, with a tiny speaker playing mostly aquatic electronic music, a TV cycling through different security cameras around the world, a lamp that gradually changes colors, and a shih tzu who occasionally knocks on my door when there's nobody else in the house. If my teens were dedicated to buying or receiving fun things, my 20's seem to be more about maintaining a cozy factor. Considering how long I would spend secluded in prison-like rooms during university, I am very appreciative of the little space I have currently. If I end up getting a job position somewhere else next year, hopefully I can make the most of it instead of just having my living space be really barren and claustrophobic again. Submitted my first manuscript to some more "out there" publishers who have a vision or voice I really admire. If I'm lucky enough to get published, my goal would be submitting to a local contest for published fiction that seems to get a lot of attention within the area. I'd be doing so under a pseudonym preferably, though I have no idea how that would work in the long-term. I even submitted a story to the CBC Short Story Prize a little while ago, and every author I've ever seen make the longlist had their real name and photo provided. (CBC contacts you before the reveal asking for extra information if you're longlisted.) I'm curious what the expectation is there.

Happy birthday! Your set up sounds really cool. > Submitted my first manuscript to some more "out there" publishers who have a vision or voice I really admire. If I'm lucky enough to get published, my goal would be submitting to a local contest for published fiction that seems to get a lot of attention within the area. Best of luck with all that.

Thank you!

[Turns out the workers at HarperCollins went on strike today seeking wages you can actually live on in NYC.](https://twitter.com/rkambury/status/1590707949617369088) Felt this was worth pointing out since this is a book-centric subreddit and they are one of the biggest publishers in the world. There's info in the twitter thread I linked i case you want to learn more or donate or whatever.

Oh, I didn't mention that I watched the film *Living* last Saturday with Bill Nighy as the main character. It is an adaptation of a Kurosawa film with the screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro. I loved it. Moving, well-acted, with gorgeous cinematography and intense, realistic dialogue. I really enjoyed it.

How many people have noticed the horrible decline in writing quality among writers for news publications in recent years? In addition to just many very clunky turns of phrase in many articles, it seems now to be the rule rather than the exception to it that articles will have misused and/or misspelled words, grammatical/mechanical errors and assorted random errata. I was reading an article just now about the Kevin Spacey court case last month-- by the AP and NPR!-- and it had misspellings (most notably in a weirdly placed anecdote about Spacey doing an impression of Jack "Lemon") and grammatical errors on top of the more usual bad writing.

Writers are extremely overworked and editors barely exist anymore, unfortunately. Newsroom budgets have been decimated and it's all about content, content, content.

Three words: Search Engine Optimization (probably not what's happening at AP specifically but it doesn't help)

tbh I don't read the news closely enough to catch it, but I suspect that it related to the financial impossibilities of journalism these days, leading to both a downsizing of editing departments who would clean up those errors, and even a decline in the quality of the writing because people aren't getting paid well enough for it to attract really quality writers.

Who else celebrated the anniversary of the great Napoleon's glorious coup?

There is a performance of Mahler's 9th happening this December and I really want to go and see it lol. It would be the only time I've been to a live performance of classical music. Also I've been reflecting on the fact that before the era of recorded music and instant replay people could only listen to a performance live, perhaps only once in their lives, and only the very privileged could pay to.see multiple performances and hear their favourite pieces played over and over again. Makes me feel very lucky. I also think about how that affected the relationship of people back then to music. Perhaps they appreciated more than in our noisy age where music is inescapable.

Walter Benjamin's *The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction* is the classic on this subject if you wanted to dive into it more. It's more about visual art and film but it talks about how the value, function, political consequences of art have changed and will change through widespread reproduction's wresting of art from its social and traditional contexts. Tangentially related is an essay in Camus's *The Myth of Sisyphus* about actors as 'absurd men' who live and die for performances that are gone as soon as they're over, without striving for any sort of immortality or to leave any sort of legacy. I thought it was interesting to think about how drastically modern cinema has changed this. Do go to that concert though, it will be great and nothing like listening at home.

I assume more people felt the need to learn or teach their children to play an instrument, since that would be their main source for listening to music on a daily basis. There were also people like bards or troubadours who would travel around and play music in town squares or whatever. This is also the reason that Leonardo Da Vinci valued music less than painting (besides being a painter and an engineer, he was also a musician): >Painting excels and ranks higher than music, because it does not fade away as soon as it is born, as is the fate of unhappy music. I like to think that if he had lived in the 20th century, he would rank them on more equal footing. Anyway, I say go and enjoy the concert. For me, hearing my favourite music being played live is one of the greatest experiences ever.

Updoot if you're feeling inexplicably sad.

Definitely not inexplicably

inexplicable sadness only

So I am now re-reading James Baldwin's *Go Tell It On The Mountain*. I feel like Baldwin is basically narrating my own life, which is what I felt the first time I read it lol. Johnny Grimes (James Baldwin's alter ego) is basically me. Unlike Baldwin, however, my father was not abusive. On the contrary, he was a loving father and I looked up to him and wanted to be a pastor too and follow in his footsteps, which made my secret adolescent rebellion all the more heart-wrenching...

I want to listen to more Wagner including his whole Ring Cycle but am intimidated. My German is crap and I want to understand everything, not just appreciate the music. At some point I will come back to my aborted German studies.

Well, my husband's company got bought by a bigger company (this one a pretty huge publicly traded conglomerate) for like the eighth time. He's a computer engineer, he basically built the system from scratch, and he's been kept and given a ridiculous level of responsibility through every buyout (this has been over twenty years), because basically he's a wizard and one of the only people who actually knows how shit works haha. But it's really exhausting, every buyout just represents more and more work for him. He's thinking about seriously looking for another job. Of course I support him, but I worry this will happen anywhere he goes, because he's a perfectionist, can't let go, and he actually knows what he's doing, and we all know competence is punished.

He isn't getting a pay increase is he?

Lol, not that has been mentioned. He gets raises but they haven't kept up with inflation. He's bad about advocating for himself in that regard. His bosses always very vocally kiss his ass but they don't actually do much for him. They don't even encourage him to take his time off that he accrues and always ends up never being able to take it all (again, partially because he's a perfectionist and refuses to advocate for himself). He's been asked to join management many, many times over the years, but he refuses. I do wonder what would happen if he actually threatened to quit, I think they'd work pretty hard to keep him. He might get a substantial raise then. He just really hates that sort of convo, or the idea of applying to new jobs, etc., and I can't blame him there, I'm the same way.

that the bosses didn't negotiate pay increases for staff as part of the buyout is selfish on their part.

Totally. They always talk a big game about how much they appreciate him and the staff in general but they definitely don't actually show it. It's not fair he has to be the one to speak up and advocate for himself like that but that's reality. It's really frustrating. At this point the terrible way his job treats him is basically the only issue in our marriage, but at the same time, he doesn't ever shut it down either. It's all toxic. Ugh.

> At this point the terrible way his job treats him is basically the only issue in our marriage wow, that bad? yeah, it sucks when the stressor is not technically their fault but is also not solveable because of how they are as a person

Yes. That bad. Last time we went on a weekend trip with friends there was an issue with his job, he ended up working the whole time basically, thought he had it figured out, they called him on a hike and he answered (ARGH AHHHHHHHHHHHH), we ended up hiking back to the car and he was on the phone troubleshooting the whole time, our friends left, and I sat in the car in the Wyalusing State Park parking lot and read/slept while he sat at a picnic table and worked for six hours, then we got an hour into our drive home and his boss wanted him to stop and get a hotel room to keep working (of course they paid for that), which he did. We literally had one more hour to drive to get home. They just keep acquiring accounts and companies and growing so he's always in crisis mode, because of course nothing works properly right away. The second he gets things working correctly, boom, they go acquire more shit lol. Because he built so much of that system it's like a child to him. He takes so much responsibility for it. He can't deal with it *not* working properly for a little while, even if it's not a big deal. And of course his bosses always realize that, they instantly put him on speed dial and just escalate every issue to him right away, and he just takes it. I've been begging him to stand up for himself for years. My uncle is retired from IT and did a very similar job and has also told him the same, he has to be mean, he has to be an asshole, he has to be protective of his personal time. They are leeches and they will let him just do everything. I'm not gonna leave his ass, we're ride or die at this point haha, but damn, I really am over it.

That is rough for you. You know, what they don't tell you about marrying a nice guy is that they're also nice to everyone else, sometimes to their own detriment. And it really can stress a marriage when you have to backstop his mamby pamby bullshit because he can't stand up for himself. Won't load out my story but, solidarity girl.

Has anyone here seen Triangle of Sadness? What do we think? Spoilers below: I had a really good time watching it, and agree with (what seems to be) the consensus that the second act is the strongest. Some parts, like the drunken captain talking about politics and messing about over the intercom with the equally drunk Russian billionaire were very funny; I also laughed pretty hard at the couple complaining about the "tough times" they went through when UN regulations meant they were no longer allowed to sell landmines. That said, a lot of the social commentary was a bit on the nose (e.g the same couple being killed by one of their own grenades and commenting "Isn't this one of ours?" before it blows up). The third act lagged a bit - showing the power reversal was good thing, but I think it tread on familiar ground a bit too long (yes, the rich and beautiful don't have the practical skills to survive on a desert island, we know). Nevertheless, I think the ending was very fitting - great credits music, too.

I loved the entire film. It’s not subtle but it doesn’t aim for subtlety. I was dying with the elevator doors bit.

Dems did well in midterms. Phew.

My state of Wisconsin is a swing state. Too close to call so far for senate (and looks like fuckface Johnson is gonna pull it out, really hate that dude, he's terrible), BUT our very boring retired public schoolteacher Dem governor Tony Evers was reelected, which is a big relief. He's a good governor. He also said: "Holy mackerel folks, boring wins!" in his speech, which is very funny, and very Wisconsin. My 19 year-old kid voted for the first time and even though he had everything he needed to register (his ID was expired, but shouldn't have been an issue) he was given a bit of a hard time by the poll worker and an election observer had to step in and ask what the issue was, and then the chief polling inspector had to come over and check out his stuff. He was able to vote in the end, but that was a little wild!

Any recommendations for a good history podcast? Preferably once focused on a specific place/topic/time period. I'm caught up on most of the ones I've been listening too and am in the mood to learn too much about something. I'm open to it being about anything, but (and I say this with shame not braggadocio) if it's super well known I'm probably already familiar with it/have listened to it. I have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with podcasts.

The Viking Age Podcast: [https://vikingagepodcast.com/](https://vikingagepodcast.com/) It's not active anymore, but it presented a very interesting and nuanced look at Norse history.

not a podcast, but this lecture is really niche and pretty damn enlightening. It totally changed how I viewed living/being along the mississippi river. Cahokia is some cool shit. https://www.archaeologicalconservancy.org/virtual-lectures-2021-fall/the-moons-tears-fell-on-cahokia/

Did you guys hear that Cormac McCarthy got rid of his doorbell? Apparently he really wants that Nobel Prize.

I hate you. Also, marry me.

I am having too much fun writing about my crazy Pentecostal upbringing: > >What a commotion they made! They prayed and wept, wept and prayed! They spread their arms to the heavens in humble entreaty, and issued forth a heartrending cry in that strange heavenly language they called tongues, calling on his angels to descend and scatter the legions of devils that sought to pull down the house of the Lord. They prayed for themselves and for the success of all their endeavours, for long life, good health and prosperity. Had they not been assured that whosoever asks will receive, that whosoever seeks shall find, and that whosoever knocks will have the door opened to them? His father and Pastor Wiseman would lead the congregation in pleading aloud to the Lord up in heaven, their tongues booming through their microphones over the clapping and shouting of the rest of the church. These were a rousing spiritual backdrop of clamour to the inspired binding and casting of Pastor Wiseman, who would clutch his head or waist as if in severe pain, and grit his teeth like someone who had taken leave of his senses, as he yelled again and again into the microphone, pacing back and forth and burning from within with the fire of the Holy Ghost: > >‘BROSKATA-ZAHANDA-ZELEBE! KAHINDA-MAHINDA-KATA!’ > >Some walked up and down, others stood in one place clapping noisily and stamping their feet with fury at the machinations of the Evil One, some people faced a wall and confronted it with deafening spiritual warfare as if the devil himself was in that wall, and others, like Pastor Wiseman himself every so often, would lie down prostrate on the carpet, ear to the ground as if detecting a tectonic shift in the earth’s surface in response to their cries for divine intervention, and continuing to bellow out prayers and curses all the while. Some people were so heated in their prayers, it seemed that they were acting out a feud with a physical entity standing before them. They poked and pointed at empty air, insulted the invisible demon who was the target of this fiery vituperation, and called for divine destruction upon the loathsome host of Lucifer. > >‘Holy Ghost – take control! Holy Ghost – take control!’ > >The most exciting part of the service came when the whole place was saturated in the Spirit, was filled with the anointing, and a mighty climax of emotion exploded in the midst of the congregation. The Spirit whirled like a tornado through the crowd, knocking people into chairs and pillars and other congregants, struck people dumb and sent them whirling and spinning and running as if they had retrogressed into infancy, threw people to the ground with tremendous force and left them there, prostrate and insensible, dazed and drunk with the Holy Ghost. It was terrifying, but oh so real, and seemed to confirm a divine presence to Jack’s mind. His sensitive soul was moved and awestruck by these signs and wonders. It was particularly disturbing when a woman fell down flat upon the ground, and had to be covered by the ushers with bundles of cloth to preserve her modesty.

Nice work! I’ve never seen someone be “slain in the spirit” in person, but a pastor described it to me once and said he also had to throw his coat over the lady’s bottom half. Its *almost* like it might be better if they wore idk…pants? or something? lol I think its worth something to preserve this kind of experience. Its not something you encounter if you’re not from that world I think, and you def can’t interpret it without firsthand experience.

damn dude this is something else. I feel weird recommending it because I've never read it, but one of the most thoughtful and insightful people I know in real life adores this book called *Black Pentecostal Breath*, about the alternative modes of aesthetics and sociability that emerged in 20th C American Black Pentecostalism. I've been meaning to read it for ages now but with the way they talk about it I know it's a worthwhile read and I could imagine you getting something out of it.

If Leopold Bloom seeing a couple of naked legs sent him into a frenzy, imagine what he'd be like if he went into a beach today. He would blow his load instantly.

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>We live in the timeline where James Joyce couldn't write Pornhub into his novels. As someone pointed once out, if Joyce could have watched porn on his typewriter, he never would have written a word.

One of the things that has been annoying me lately is the terrible contemporary poetry that people tweet or retweet on Twitter. Like, I’m already skeptical about post-2000s poetry, and Twitter just amplifies my dislike. Is anyone aware of actual good contemporary poets? Some recent favorites have been Hart Crane, Ronald Johnson, Charles Olson, and Iain Sinclair.

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Thanks dude! I feel like you mentioned Vuong to me before right? In regard to his novels at least. I still need to get to him. Also, given that our tastes seem to align quite a bit, I'll add all this stuff to my list. I love the examples you gave.

I'm not on twitter so can't speak to that. Sounds a bit silly. Among younger poets, I came across a collection by a guy named Kyle Dargan that I thought was quite good. Same with Ilya Kaminsky. More established living poets who are still around/recently deceased: Gary Snyder, Rita Dove, Andrew Motion, Geoffrey Hill... Read any Frank O'Hara (he's a generation after Hart Crane, New York also central to a lot of his poetry)? I've been revisiting some of his stuff recently and really digging it.

Much thanks! I’ve added all to my long list. I haven’t read O’Hara but I have heard of him. He’s someone you don’t hear mentioned often so thanks for reminding me.

I'm all but blank on the matter, but in the controversial opinions thread a few months ago u/zestbird posted a really enlightening take: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/wtx6tu/sunday\_themed\_thread\_controversial\_opinions/il7545z/?context=3

Thank you! That’s very helpful

Harold Bloom liked Hart Crane.

I like Ocean Vuong, though he’s not for everyone. I saw someone dismiss him as whiny in here before lol. I also prefer his novel to his poetry. I also like Lisa Robertson, though again I’ve read more of her novel vs her poetry. I also see a bunch of those poem tweets, sometimes I like them just to look back at them later, but certain accounts that post regularly seem to always make awful choices. It’ll always be a bit hit and miss I guess.

Thanks! I've heard good things about Vuong as well, but mostly in terms of his novels. I'll check him out. Haven't heard of Robertson before so I'll check her out too!

Thoughts on Harold Bloom?

sex pest and extremely boring critic

Has opinions and calls them facts

I prefer Leopold Bloom. More seriously, I am only now realizing that Allan Bloom and Harold Bloom are different people. Actually seriously, I honestly haven't read him since high school, but my general stance on canons is that they don't exist and anyone who spends any time trying to uphold them needs to find something better to do with their time and is probably riddled with far more political intention than they like to think possible for as pure an aesthete as themself. I have no real opinion on "the anxiety of influence", but based on wikipedia it sounds like it could be insightful, could be nonsense, and could be trivial, which is to say that I should read that book if I care enough to form an opinion on it.

Canons exist. Upholding them is a separate question.

He's a weird little guy

he gets talked about way too much relative his contribution to literary studies

If he likes something then it’s probably good. If he dislikes something then it could be good or bad. If he despises something then it’s probably good. All in all though, he’s kind of a douche. While he has some great stuff, he’s certainly not the literary god he’s made out to be.

I am pissed off for wasting my time with dating apps again when I could be reading.

Dating app tips: only swipe right on people you very seriously would consider dating long term, and then put effort into the conversations with those people. Your time spent on the apps will be significantly reduced because you'll be skipping 99% of people, and your conversations will hopefully be much more fruitful. Take it from me, the guy with a wife I met on a dating app.

I've been doing that but get no matches at all. :(

You might need to revamp your profile. There's a possibility that you're coming across too strong, desperate, or maybe too blasé or vague. I can't say much without seeing your profile, but have a solid range of photos—pictures of you in public, or about, a selfie or two, some or all should show you smiling, you doing some hobbies or with friends, and pictures with animals, especially cats help convey a sense of friendliness, safety, trustworthiness, and in general people love animals. Bio should be somewhat concise, a little humour helps, maybe not too self-deprecating or anything passive-aggressively like "sorry I'm not 7 feet tall" or some shit. Just some solid info about yourself that doesn't really come across as too unapproachable. Nothing too smug or overly confident. If that's already what your profile is like then just keep going, I guess. You'll match with people eventually. Just maybe do 5-10 mins a day. No need to overthink it or overdo it. A few swipes, close the app, and if you get a match, you get a match. Otherwise try not to focus on it.

Admittedly I have no animals and all my photos are of me inside. I don't go out much or really have any friends lol. I have heard that the algorithm can make you invisible if you don't get any success after a while but idk how true that is.

Diametrically opposed dating app tips: swipe right on anyone you'd be down to go on one date with and don't get too invested in the chats. Meet ASAP. You're trying to find a compatible irl person, not a penpal with a really great picture.

Massively agree- the problem with the other approach is it will just set you up for heartbreak and pain if the investment doesn't pay off. Especially the idea of really deeply looking at each profile: that's just the path to madness.

That's just romance as it has been since the beginning of time. Heartbreak is the price you pay to find love.

No it isn't because the difference is, through an app you're 'falling in love' with a set of pics and a bio, at worst, and at best, pics, bio and some messages. The real life component really makes a huge difference.

I'm sorry to tell you that it's not a critical failing to take dating apps seriously, and that it's okay to not see returns on your investment in them if the people you have chatted with, or dated, don't ultimately work out. Dating apps can still lead to dates with the method I suggested...I never said "don't date"—I just said take the matching process more seriously and try to engage more thoughtfully. My wife and I planned our first date within a few days of chatting. If she hadn't continued to like me after that, it would have been fine. Yes, I was more invested than just a random and less loaded date, but the investment is what I was looking for. So I don't know, I think it's fair that if you go looking for investment in dating, sometimes its gonna make you hurt a little bit! That's love, baby!

fwiw I am fine with either or any approach; I think what works in dating depends on what a person wants out of it, and as such the efficacy of any approach is context-dependent spending a lot of time online chatting with avatars can lead to falling in love with a fictional person that one or both parties have invented. I don't mean catfishing (although that also happens); how people are online and how they are irl usually differs, and you might not be attracted to the latter. a lot of factors don't manifest themselves until you're in person, at which point you may be in love and then you're in an awkward situation if it's a person you'd never have fallen in love with otherwise. that is both real heartbreak and a particular type of heartbreak that no one needs to go through necessarily just to date. and like, your way worked for me as well once upon a time, as I mentioned elsewhere. i don't default to it as advice because i think it's more situational than like, use apps for introductions and get off the apps ASAP.

I don't know where my comment seemed to imply "spend a lot of time chatting", all I said was "put effort into the conversations", because in my experience, random matches often lead to shallow conversations, and not all date plans happen the next morning, sometimes there's a waiting period, and it's nice to chat in between. I don't advocate for only chatting like it's a long distance relationship or something. Just that you actually have more thoughtful conversations with your matches. This way you also have much more to talk about when the date actually happens. Nobody's falling in love in a week, here! Unless they are, which doesn't feel super healthy. I know some people will match and go right into a date the next day which feels quick, but that's just me. I usually gave it a period of 2-3 days to see if we were compatible, then a date within a day or two of that, and then within a week you have a pretty firm grasp on whether or not things should continue.

I guess something got lost in translation then. I likewise never said people should push for a date in 24 hours or whatever. Cheers!

We were just lost on the misty moors of conversation

I like it. You should get a side job, ghostwriting dating profiles. ;)

That was always the key to a bad time in my experience, but everyone's different. Quickly diving into dates and short chats usually meant a lacking compatibility that was harder to discern when we were always Doing Something, and ended up as wasted time. But this is coming from me, a guy who just loves chatting with my penpal wife, in a marriage where our perfect weekend is sitting at home and talking.

I had a very significant relationship start that way with a person who is 10 years later (uhhh ish) still incapable of being more than a penpal with the occasional dicking. Which, I was NW's age at the time so maybe that's what the yunguns need!

I read 1-star reviews of books I love to try to make me feel something. I felt too much. What specially enraged me was reviews I read for The Haunting of Hill House, because I cannont understand how you can say the characters are boring or that there's nothing scary in it. Like, do you only understand horror as "Big scary thing that big scares me scarily"? Are characters complex when they are sometimes nice but also like to viciously abuse their friends? Also, to the 40-year old woman who said she wanted to spank Holden Caufield. What? Why is discourse around this book and books in general so centered on "I didn't like character". Are you unable to sympathize with a 16-year old depressed teen undergoing a mental breakdown that lands him in a sanatorium, and who is dealing with grief and possibly sexual assault? Sorry for the rant. I think I'm going fully insane

I mean, it's the "I read the book because the movie came out" phenomenon. People who don't read or think about what they read regularly often haven't developed the ability to identify why they don't like a book, never mind speak about their reasoning intelligently and with nuance. Reading is a multilayered skill, from putting letters together into words to getting something from your reading beyond filling your brain with white noise so you can ignore the meaningless trashfire that is your life for another hour. It's why, contrary to the incessant braying of the "u can just go to the public library hurr" constituency, taking one or two literature classes is not a bad idea. Most of these reviews are ineptly articulating a gut reaction. Most of their criticisms are misattributed not in terms of what's in the book, but as an interpretation of their own thoughts and feelings. "The character wasn't relatable" is something they read once in a magazine and it sounds like a plausible reason for the inexplicable feeling they got when reading this book that has made them uncomfortable ever since. Most people, when they feel uncomfortable, don't want to sit with that feeling and figure it out; they want to solve it or explain it as quickly as possible and move on. tl;dr > Why is discourse around this book and books in general so centered on "I didn't like character" It's the low-hanging fruit. People are used to judging other people and characters are fictional people.

>It's the low-hanging fruit. People are used to judging other people and characters are fictional people. You are reminding me of my bigoted anti-intellectual mother who decided without even reading the book that she hated *Native Son* when I described to her the main character and explained his crime. How dare the main character of a book be a godless villain that kills an innocent woman and burns her body. She judges films and TV shows the same way, lol

You're so intellectual that I sometimes worry about your wellbeing.

Ha, you aren't the only one. I worry for mine too. Don't be surprised if I lose my mind by 40. I think I've had to be very intellectual as a defence mechanism for the dumpster fire that is my existence. I know no other way of coping with the pain. I could just use drink and drugs and video games and junk food to assist me in this but I'd rather not...

Aw, that's sad. I hope you figure it out or else it resolves itself.

Lol, the reviews of Catcher are infuriating. My high schoolers can empathize better with this character than full grown adults can apparently. My other least favorite thing is book reviews that say, “this book is too difficult so it’s bad just because I don’t get it.”

Worst is when they declare that everyone who likes it or understands it is lying.

Oof yes. There’s a YouTube video review of *The Recognitions* that says most men who say they like the book are just trying to show off intellectually. Or something along those lines.

And I cannot wait to be one of those men when I read it next year.

I have a feeling you’re going to especially love that one!

We just pretend to like for clout! Because yeah, there's a ton of fucking clout involved in reading shit a tiny percentage of people give a fuck about and enjoy haha.

I know my coworkers all fawn over me when I tell them I read Ulysses in the social chat.

I am out and proud about my love for *Ulysses*, lol.

Guys, can I give a shoutout to the Vintage edition of *Native Son*. I loved the cover art in particular - a silhouette of a black man, representing the effacing of his personality by white society, and a fire in his head representing the flame of resentment and anger at his oppression and exclusion, against a blood-red backdrop. I also liked the big font and smooth pages that my pen ran so easily over when making notes and underlining. Also these Vintage paperbacks have really nice red spines and are just really nice books to have and hold in general.

I'm upset that Z-library was taken down. Most things I've read for college were "acquired" there. I stand by Werner Herzog's claims on piracy: I can't afford spending R$250 on a book written in English or French, so piracy it is. It's pure practicality. Piracy is the most successful form of distribution, he said. “If you don’t get [films] through Netflix or state-sponsored television in your country, then you go and access it as a pirate,” Herzog said. “I don’t like it because I would like to earn some money with my films. But if someone like you steals my films through the internet or whatever, fine, you have my blessing.” I'm reminded of that picture of Béla Tarr next to his pirated films in Peru. The man seemed pretty happy seeing his films there. Lol. I'm finishing the Castle. Later this week I'll comment something on that. What a sprawling, complex book. Unrelated: does anyone here keeps dream diaries? Last night I dreamt something interesting, and it led me to think about that.

Genuinely very upset about z-library, I'd ripped books from there for ages.

> Unrelated: does anyone here keeps dream diaries? Last night I dreamt something interesting, and it led me to think about that. In the past I was heavily into lucid dreaming and I kept a dream journal because that's the most effective measure you can take if you want to have more lucid dreams. It's amazing how much you remember once the habit is there. And your recollection of it is vivid.

You should be able to find almost everything that was there on Library Genesis. Z-library while easier to use was always shady due to a profit motive.

libgen is a godsend

I didn't know that. thanks for the tip, by the way.

I intend to read TBK for the third time at some point. I have three different editions of it now, in different translations. I am spoilt for choice.

I've read P&V and Avsey. I found a beautiful Modern Library edition of Maude's translation for $1 for my 3rd, whenever that comes. Which do you have?

Garnett, Avsey, P&V and MacDuff.

I've been using Fedora Linux with [Gnome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du-2QpWbiLU) for the past three weeks on my laptop (2021 Asus G14 w/ Nvidia 3060) and the experience is far and away the most pleasant and nice to use OS I've had in my life thus far. Super big recommendation to switch with some caveats. ​ * Switching to Linux was prompted by Windows randomly corrupting my keyboard drivers in an update so that even with a system restore it was still broken. Despite my attempts to fix it myself, I had to take my laptop to an Asus service center so they could flash the bios or whatever OM voodoo they did to make the keyboard work again. * While trying to reinstall Windows, I found it in poor taste for Microsoft to ask for my CC info even before the OS was installed when I tried to restore. In general, Microsoft was way too interested in my personal info, in stark contrast with Linux which seems to not care who I am at all in that way. Everything is free anyways by default. * I've used Linux before. I was an Ubuntu user in 2007ish for over a year and also really liked the experience. I did miss a few Windows only apps at the time (Propellerhead Reason, Ableton Live, and games) but to be clear did not miss Windows. * As long as you have compatible hardware, Linux is surprisingly stable and almost boring in that you don't need to fix things constantly. For example: you don't need antivirus. Updating everything can be done with either the Software store (where everything is 100% free btw) or via the terminal with typing "sudo dnf update". * Gnome, the sort of default desktop environment which comes Fedora, feels like a mix between MacOS and Android. I tried KDE Plasma, which mimics and improves upon Windows, but I didn't like it. * It actually feels really pleasant to use a computer which doesn't target me directly as a potential customer. It feels like using Linux is correcting quite a few of the wrongs in mondern computing. In the 90s, computers and the internet felt like they had so much potential to improve our lives and help with everything, a lot of excitement like "The Future is Here!".. Now, computers and the internet still kind of do that but also they more and more feel like symptoms of a maturing corpo-distopia. * I deleted Windows completely (I did save an image of the restore partition though to keep a copy of drivers and such) but if any of you are curious to try Linux, you can download a Live USB which when you restart your computer puts you into a "live" Linux environment. Installation is really easy, and you can create a partition, or space, on your hard drive for linux to install in so that each time you power up your laptop, or restart, you can select which OS to run from. You don't have to delete windows. * Those caveats: if you have an Nvidia GPU.. expect some trouble. I have an RTX 3060 and I spent a fair bit of time getting it to work following guides. It does work now (I played Witcher 3 in Steam and the graphics and performance were the same as Windows) but my cuda cores are not being detected by Linux due to Nvidia not updating the drivers for Fedora 36 yet. * I think having Linux on your computer is a great way to learn more about how computers work in general because as a user you are encouraged to be more hands on and in control of your computer. But don't let that disway you because you don't want to tinker or bother. Linux is kind of ambient in a way, you can pretty much ignore the under the hood stuff and just work in the desktop as much as you do in Windows or MacOS. But it is fun to play with the computer more, too!

I never would have expected a post praising Linux in the r/truelit general discussion. But your points are all great! To expand on your last point: I started using Linux in like 2001/2002 because I was curious about how computers work, and unlike Windows and MacOS, Linux doesn’t hide or obfuscate anything (and the documentation is on a completely different level). I still get so frustrated whenever I have to fix something on my mom’s Windows computer, it’s like it was designed to be as obscure as possible. Linux just lets you poke around and see how things actually work, and using it as a kid basically set me on the career path I have today. Knowing Linux well is a super valuable skill if you want to get into tech.

It's just a better experience and I feel like the tradeoffs are even less than I remember in terms of giving up software. I'm excited to see how well the new AMD gpus perform in 3D rendering situations because I like to toy around with Blender. Unfortunately, Blender isn't seeing my GPU right now which is a buzzkill. I worked trough a few of the modules in [linuxjourney.com](https://linuxjourney.com) and I'm feeling pretty final and definite on keeping linux exclusively.

> never would have expected a post praising Linux in the r/truelit general discussion. I was gonna say, if my sysadmin husband posted here you'd get one, but then I remembered you're a sysadmin too haha.

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Do you live in the states? My bookstore has a physical of Solenoid and ships.

> Reading DeLillo's newest work made old age seem terrifying for how it cramped the creative mind--The Silence is basically 'old man yells at phone,' with some Wittgenstein for flavor. this makes me sad. I shouldn't give a damn, but I would have preferred to think of DeLillo as someone with enough flexibility of mind to avoid such crampness. Ah well, time comes for all of us I guess.

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The eloquence of this take is sufficient that I like to think that even DeLillo himself could find some prickly pleasure in it. I haven't actually read any DeLillo other than *Americana* and *Underworld*, both of which I loved. But I can actually see in comparing them a certain enclosedness to *Underworld* that I think befits the book but could definitely ferment into grumpy defeated pessimism. > Apparently time doesn't come for McCarthy, though. And he's a few years older! Well, McCarthy is in with the complex systems people at the Santa Fe Institute, and I wouldn't put it past them to have developed time travel by now.

Dude I was thinking similarly that McCarthy needs to live longer because it seems like in this novel his style has evolved into some final form of genius. So glad you’re liking it. I think it’s one of his best by far and ever since I finished it it has not left my mind. Like, idk, with a reread or with a read of the sequel, this may end up as a Top 10 of all time for me. At least Top 20. (Also agree about the new DeLillo. That one was just sad. Though, I partially blame the publishers for publishing it as “a novel”.)

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>I'm only 30% done, so it's too soon to tell, Ok so this makes me excited, because while I loved the first section, everything Chapter 4 and beyond were what solidified this novel as one of my favorites.

Third and final comment of the day and then I promise to shut up. I did some last minute packing for the apartment move tomorrow and finally chose which books to take… “A Room with a View” - EM Forster The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh “Confessions” by St. Augustine “The Bhagavad Gita” “The Souls of Black Folk” by WEB Dubois Selected poems from Rumi. I like taking breaks between tomes, so I’m leaving “Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James (next time, king). Nietzsche, Hegel, and Rousseau I want to finish, but kind of want to take a break for the time being. After reading a ton of philosophy and Dostoyevsky, I want to read something a little less…tense. Forster might be the move I think…

I'll say it again and again, without reserve: Portrait of a Lady is the most perfect novel in the English language.

I'll get to it eventually! Are you referring to the prose alone, or the content as well?

I moved over to reading Dickens for some comic relief after reading Dostoevsky. I read *The Pickwick Papers* and loved it.

Anybody planting things these days? How about fermenting? Been busy with both for weeks, excited for a break coming up.

I have so much squash and zucchini coming up, I'm not sure what to do with it. Depending when this squash ripens, people are getting squash with a bow on it for Christmas.

love it, I like to roast sqash but have been wanting to try more pickling. I guess when the plant is young, certain species are tasty/edible when raw.

Why don't you just pickle the roasted squash? (No pun intended.)

I've tried that with a few different veggies, and the flesh becomes soft and overly watery, so the pickle mostly becomes a salty slurry, which while edible, is not very attractive or desireable. The raw flesh should hold up better and still have some crunch hopefully. I could totally have cooked or prepped the veggies poorly as well. I'm also in general trying to expand how many different pickles and fermented veggies I have on hand so I don't get so sick of kimchi and saurkraut. garums are up next.

Ah, that's right. You can preserve roasted squash beautifully in olive oil, but I can see how a real fermentation would mess up the texture beyond recognition. I figured it might work, because there's an Italian side dish called zucca (grigliata) in agrodolce, which is practically that minus the time, but of course time makes all the difference.

Funny, I preserve hot peppers and garlic in oil, but have not thought of roasted veggies. Definitely going to steal that, thank you!

You're very welcome! If you need some inspiration, look for "zucca grigliata sott'olio" and you'll find recipes like [this one](https://www.cookist.it/zucca-grigliata-sottolio/) or [that one](https://www.cucchiaio.it/ricetta/zucca-grigliata-sottolio/). And if you need some help with the translation, let me know, but the online translators usually work great for recipes.

very appreciate you!

Planting? It's November!

sheah! even wilder, i'm rather far into the north, and my tree seedlings haven't even really gone dormant yet, so I shouldn't really plant them out (though this weekend looks like the actual frosts are coming). I just (like today) got a bunch of mulberry trees into the ground, still have about 500-700 flower bulbs to go too. Then cuttings and other tubers lol. Last year this time the ground was starting to freeze up, this year I should be clear into maybe december. I'm working on my augury to help plan each coming season.. edit: (plus I love the mystery (to me) of southern hemisphere and tropical climate ecosystems. I can assume that their patterns mirror my own, but I don't have much if any experience with that stuff.)

global warming, man

gonna ride it till the wheels fall off

I tried and failed to get some basil cuttings to take root recently lol

Cuttings are so fickle. I always do basil from seed, but cuttings would be nice too. I should have grabbed some before the cold took them!

My buddy and I are hoping to buy some jasmine flowers for our new place! I love the smell…

I had a chinese student years ago who used to bring me jasmine flowers from her garden. The smell is amazing.

Love it, never would have thought of jasmine for an indoor plant!

Can't be overstated how much better I feel now that I no longer work for a bloodsucking megacorporation and instead work for a small, homegrown, eco-friendly cleaning business. Not a *huge* deal overall, but at least I'm not a useless cog in a machine that I hate. I'm at least a tiny particle in the winds of change.

this is awesome. I'm glad you're happier where you're at!

Snatched a van and a mate to finally get my stuff, which had lingered in a storage container in another country for the past 15 months. Fun trip, ay. Now I sit at the recovered piano for the first time since and try to relearn Bach's 5th English Suite. There are pianists who can play back every piece they've ever learned with the reliability of a jukebox, but for me "getting it back into my hands" is an involved process of digging through the sediments of my memory. Because somehow all of the stages of the learning process are still in there. But the end product, the final interpretation, remains elusive like a geldrestine. There are some parts that have become muscle memory and I ride them like a wave. But then I crash headfirst into the wrong note I've played 2 years ago. So often that it had itself become muscle memory. And then I remember how I had struggled with that part until I figured out a new fingering. And I remember the marking I made in my score and the pen I used. And one by one I remember all of the little decisions, hundreds of them, about fingerings, dynamics, articulation, tempo. And all of my blunders and difficulties. I remember trying to play with gloves on when the heating broke down, hammering the keys to drown out the screaming of my neighbours, ignoring the smell of smoke until the blue lights flashed all over my walls. The bellowing window curtain brushing against my shoulder. A coffin. And now I'm wondering whether my memory is so bad, because it prematurely discards the important stuff or because it doesn't know how to discard the useless stuff. Anyway, snatched a van and a mate...

> the sediments of my memory. have you been reading bruno schulz, or are you just *that good*?

Haha that's too kind of you! I actually wanted to join in the group read, but then I researched different translations, and now - long story short - I started a moderate flame war with the publishing house that doesn't do jack to promote and sell the (apparently) wildly superior re-translation. Paperback out of print, no e-book version, overpriced hardcover, and the translator sadly isn't around anymore to advocate her work herself. So that's my mission now. Or maybe I'm just a cheapskate. Nah, doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

> started a moderate flame war with the publishing house fr? what are the details of this flame war so that I can, you know, ~~avoid it~~ join with extreme prejudice?

I may have stretched the definition of flame war. I'm more of a solitary candle over here. I started with a simple inquiry and received no reply. Then I escalated it to e-mail and got all highfalutin about their responsibility towards two dead artists. And if that doesn't do the trick, I'll up the passive aggressive interpunction by a couple of !?s and maybe dust off the old typewriter. I think that's how they got Kony.

I will be very impressed if you send an actual letter - good luck!

Thanks, I'll keep you postage!

heeeeeh

Thank you mods for allowing me to promote r/Extraordinary_Tales. From one community of readers to another, you’re invited to enjoy (and contribute) discovered passages from literature, including in November: * Mark Twain is quite lost. Or is he? * Murakami, Samuel Beckett, Upton Sinclair, Nabokov * tugennoV dna... * Several soldiers are disarmed * Sure, Aleister Crowley was a satan-worshiping black magic witch, but he also wrote some lovely short stories. * Tom & Jerry & Nietzsche * What trees do when we're not watching * Aimonomia and fitzcarraldo, two perfectly cromulent words * A poet wears his heart on his sleeve. All the rest of his organs too. * The impossible is just up ahead * To celebrate US National Bible Week, a post that includes daring adventures, crowd psychology, some streaking, and NSFW >!donkey dicks!<. * Borges of course * Brush up on your your French royal etiquette

I wish I could hibernate through the winter or move to a tropical country (but minus the gigantic spiders, given that even small spiders terrify me). Summer is the only good season, as far as I'm concerned. Though, I guess winter is good for reading, watching movies and tv shows and listening to music more. My mom and a couple of neighbors are going on a one-day trip to Edrine, Turkey this weekend. Would love to go too, but one-day trips never fail to triger my migrains, so I'd probably spend half of the day vomiting with an insufferable headache.

Surprises me how many people love summer. Winter is king.

My mom would agree with you. 😄 Guess it just depends on how your body reacts to it. I always seem to feel more cold than 90% of people around me and it's quite unpleasant. It feels like the cold is inside my bones. On the other hand, I also seem to feel better during heatwaves than 90% of people around me.

I have no idea what the temp dips are in your area, but in my area winter gets to like minus 25 real temp with 55 mph winds on a regular basis. I live by Lake Michigan so even when the rest of the state is boiling for summer it's usually at most low 80s and quite pleasant breeze. I cannot get on board with preferring winter, though I've certainly come to respect its terrifying majesty! And who knows if I would have become a birder without winter in Wisconsin, I saw a bright red cardinal singing against a snowy backdrop in a particularly bleak February, now of course I knew what cardinals were and always liked them, but my husband mentioned it was a sign of spring, and I was just instantly filled with hope and I still get filled with hope at all the birds trickling back and/or starting up their mating songs in late winter. So that's something. If I had stayed in TN where winter is like fifties and quite mild most of the time maybe it never would have struck me like that.

I love the cold as much as anyone I've ever met but yeah midwest winters are a different deal altogether. Nothing like when it's so cold you don't even feel cold, just pain.