20 Comments
Jul 12, 2022Liked by radicaledward

Ooooooh, I want to do a couple!

No show better captures the geek/nerd experience than Freaks and Geeks. No show captures it worse than Big Bang Theory.

If your child is a bully, you are a bad parent. Bullying is learned.

Stanley Kubrick is painfully overrated.

I am pro choice and anti gun. However, if you want to argue for "common sense gun restrictions" you can not also refuse to accept the idea of "common sense abortion restrictions."

If "The Sparrow" didn't make you cry, you're dead inside. If you haven't read it, you've made poor life choices.

The "Space Raptor Butt Trilogy" is the best dinosaur on man gay scifi erotica that has ever been published.

Musical theater is an incredible art form, superior to both non-musical theater and opera. It has only been improved as the music styles have expanded in the last decade or so.

Browsing streaming content online is a sad simulacrum of browsing the shelves of a video store.

If you don't have too many hobbies, you're not doing life right.

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author

The Sparrow! I've bought this for a number of people since reading it. Maybe the best SF novel I can think of.

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The Sparrow came to me at the right time and helped change my life (along with a lot of antitheist content by folks like Rushdie and Eco).

MDR is a self-described "genre slut" who loves to show her research on the page, but she'll always have a special place on my shelf.

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Jul 13, 2022Liked by radicaledward

And with an amazing sequel that had no right existing, much less being as good of a book as it was.

And then she's like, "Yeah, I've written two sci-fi books. Guess that's enough. Back to historical nonfiction for me."

Crazy...

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That's the craziest thing! No sequel has ever seemed more unnecessary yet so brilliantly perfect.

Her historical novels are pretty good! But I don't think any of them are as good as The Sparrow.

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Jul 12, 2022Liked by radicaledward

Wait, wait... Two more. Then I promise I'll stop.

"Tender is the Flesh" is one of the most amazing and compelling books I've ever read. You absolutely should not read it.

The closest you can ever come to a true Lovecraftian experience is reading "House of Leaves."

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author

Been eyeing Tender is the Flesh for a few months! And, yes, House of Leaves is impossibly good.

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Jul 13, 2022Liked by radicaledward

Tender is the Flesh is just... I don't even know.

It's amazing, and yet so horrible. It's not something I could ever recommend, and yet....

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Jul 12, 2022Liked by radicaledward

“That many writers, editors, and publishers came up as fanfiction writers/readers is profoundly bad for literature of all genres.

Fanfiction can be quite good.”

inside me are two wolves.......

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author

I like to be complicated

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Jul 12, 2022Liked by radicaledward

We have the same wolves 🤝

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May 26, 2023Liked by radicaledward

Would be very interested to hear that extended treatment of the Kanye / Beatles theme.

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author

Ah, I forgot about that! Maybe I'll write it soon

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My latest is "Any creative content made by someone in a societally marginalized group will deemed problematic."

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This was so fun to read, and I totally agree with you about the kindle (very useful for insomniacs; you can read at 2am without waking up your partner) and Gorecki.

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author

That's the real reason I use it so much! I do most of my reading after my wife falls asleep.

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Jul 12, 2022Liked by radicaledward

I'm still fighting the idea of getting an e-reader. I keep telling myself I really like to hold the book. I'm not sure whether or not that's actually true.

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author

They're much better than they used to be! There are a lot of different problems with sinking deeper unto the amazon ecosystem, but the usability and ease of the kindle is pretty tough to beat.

Also, poetry and short story collections are best in physical form. But it sure is nice to read a 900 page book on something that can fit in your pocket.

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Jul 12, 2022Liked by radicaledward

I agree or am neutral on most of these. I don't do fantasy lit./anime etc., so I'm ignorant on most of that.

Re: "Ulysses" I have read and loved most of the typical long and difficult books, and many of my favorite writers talk about that one and say that if you get the humor, you'll be very glad for putting in the effort (right up my alley), but I haven't got past about 40 pages (and I have the book-length annotations too). It's been sitting in my to-read stack for about eight years. I'll try it again.

I'll have to check out Virginia Wolf's suicide letter. I love her novels, but don't remember ever seeing that.

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My advice for Ulysses is always just to read it like any other book. Don't worry about catching all the allusions and parodies and so on. Just read it like you'd read any book and you'll probably enjoy it a great deal more.

It is a hilarious novel.

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