gregbrown

I certainly felt intimidated by Gravity's Rainbow while reading it. :[

1. Option Cosmicomics and write a script. 2. Re-title the film "Spore" 3. Possible profit.

But you can also argue that endings are generally weak are because most reviewers and players don't play them, so they don't get as much of the attention. I can't see anything healthy about that situation, and an important step to changing it would be for prominent writers to actually play all the way through and call-out games with middling endings, or praising ones that finish strong. There's also something to be said about game reviewing vs. game criticism, with the great writers—like Ebert—able to write a piece that works as both. I think criticism has a higher expectation of finishing than reviewing, though again we can imagine pieces where we didn't finish the game. It's a tough question.

Ouch.

Finished the book this afternoon; I kinda steamrolled through it in the exact way that y'all recommended NOT doing. Like I said earlier, Calvino's novel is similar to Borges in the high-concept, borderline metaphysical premises, but more focused on the characters rather than following all the consequences of that premise. That's not to say that Borges isn't emotional; one of his under-appreciated gifts, and one lacking in most of his wanna-be successors, was in wringing emotional grist out of his evocative images and premises. Instead, Calvino isn't afraid to weave a separate emotional story onto the premise, or wander off-topic as he continues down the tale. Indeed, Calvino is more interested in using the outlandish settings to more literally represent emotions and relationships that exist in our own lives, albeit in more subtler forums. For example, one of the stories depicts the transition of some species from the land to the sea—but struggling with relatives who have refused to make the change, and seem stuck in their ways yet still insist on their own wisdom.. Our narrator's girlfriend is thoroughly habituated to the land, and he fears of the consequences if he introduces her to his great-uncle. Even if we aren't amphibian, can't we recognize this tale? This sort of panpsychism pervades the stories, with our narrator Qfwfq taking the form of a dinosaur, a mollusk, pre-creation matter, and more. Calvino's painstaking efforts to depict the sensory experiences of these creatures are what lends the book a poetic edge, since you rarely see those kinds of explorations in prose. There are exceptions of course, like Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?", but they tend to be specialized forms and not general fiction. Talking about it with Sarah, she mentioned that the book seemed to be more a novel than a collection of short stories, and I'd agree. Resonating throughout many of the stories is love, loss, and dealing with the confluence of the two. Calvino's language is beautiful, yet dwells in melancholy. If this had been his only book I would have thought it a personal obsession, but it instead resonates as a particularly thoughtful thematic choice for a book concerned with the consequences and casualties of cosmic creation.

Honestly, I'm only about 1/3rd of the way through the collection, but the narrator seems far more wistful than anything at this point. It's hard to characterize him as cranky when Calvino unleashes those amazing, poetic endings that soar off into the clouds. Also, if y'all liked these stories, I'd highly recommend you tackle Borges. His premises are a bit more focused on the metaphysical side (and he's more interested in pursuing their implications than Calvino's tangents), but Borges rules nonetheless.

As someone who played Bioshock for the first time about a year ago, I think you're underestimating how much your Infinite criticisms also bite that earlier game. The elements you mentioned—being alone, the horror milieu—mitigate it a bit, but I still stalled out after a few hours just because the combat felt wonky and annoying. But then again, it might just be that I'm totally over combat as a pacing mechanic.

I really, really hated that book. The fair stuff is great, but Erik Larson really cheapens out the premise by actually narrating the inner thoughts of H. H. Holmes, and it is both completely generic and the worst published writing I've ever seen. It's a tremendous moral and artistic error, and I don't know whether he made it to amp up the pop-history aspect (which seems to have worked?) or just because he has no taste. Regardless, I've actively avoided his other books since.

Gone Home just made the front page of NYTimes.com. Bonus sliver of Idle Thumbs backer shirt:

Valcan_s is my favorite poster on Shacknews. He REALLY likes video games and video game graphics. 100% passionate.

David Remnick—editor of the New Yorker and candidate for the hardest-working man alive today—wrote a great piece on different schools of thought around translation. Highly recommended. Douglas Hofstadter wrote Le Ton beau de Marot, a pretty highly-regarded book on the same subject. I haven't read it, though, so I can't personally vouch.

Yep, they tweeted about it... late last night(?) I think. PAX + GDC means no episode this week, as well as the possible death of one or more Thumbs from exhaustion.

I love the realistic style if only because it foregrounds how completely absurd the supernatural/pseudoscience elements are. MGS5 looks to be continuing the tradition of dry satire, and I'm excited. Plus: FIRE UNICORN.

Nice editions are pretty hard to find outside of public domain books in English. Translated works will also have nice editions, but they're usually based on older, lower-quality translations that have gone into the public domain as well. I love Harper Perennial's cute Olive Editions, but they're rare and out of print at this point, I think. Penguin Classics Graphic Deluxe Editions generally stay in print, and are also gorgeous. And then there are publishers that put out good-looking books across the board, like McSweeney's (and in my opinion, NYRB Classics).

Hmm, I saw TWBB a bit differently. Such a great movie, and I really need to see it again soon. The ambiguity comes not from the characters so much as the themes; so many different slices you can take away from what it says about ambition, Capitalism, the oil boom, etc.

Honestly, that snowball effect is why a lot of racing games will have rubber-band AI. Could there be a more forgiving DOTA/LoMa that still allows for the micro but isn't always balanced on a blade's edge? Or at least, something where mistakes will end a game more quickly, rather than trying to hold out and see if the other side makes a counteracting mistake of their own?

And honestly, it still had way too much shooting in it; I bogged down in around the same spot as Thrik, and have yet to return and finish it.

Fact: the original opening to Apocalypse Now was actually Chris Remo staring at the ceiling fan, flashing-back to Zuma's Revenge. It was scrapped when Coppola decided to lash his Conrad allegory to a more contemporary concern.

Yeah, one of the questions I'd love to see answered by reviews is whether the game would be better off with less/no combat.

He also does the annual Best European Fiction, which translates stories from literary cultures that we never see here in the States. It's a fascinating treat if you ever get the chance to pick one up.

It's his brother Joshua. He occasionally does some NYT Magazine features too.

Wrong Foer on the Moonwalking with Einstein. :[

There's a book, Delusions of Gender, that breaks down a lot of the pop-science that's been used to prop up sexist differences between genders. It's lazy and dangerous to take a characteristic exhibited by a certain gender and ascribe it to biological differences, when culture exerts an intense gendered focus from the start. Even buying a male infant pink clothing can invite backlash. For example, imagine if you'd run the same survey—anecdotal or formal—in the 1950s. You'd get results that would indicate that women were naturally subservient to men, even though we know now that it was because second-wave feminism hadn't arrived yet. And as Merus said, even on the capabilities where we can see a sex difference, intra-sex variation always far exceeds the inter-sex variation. Comparing the greatest athletes of both sex says nothing about everyone else. (It's the same mistake that Charles Murray made in The Bell Curve, and he even wrongly argued for genetic determinism there too!) Appealing to biological differences to prop up stereotypes is so lazy—and pervasive amongst MRAs and their ilk—that most active feminists have rightfully come to deride them as "biotruths". The actual truth is far more complicated, and far more damning.

The NYRB Blog ran a really fascinating piece by Elaine Blair about a year ago on this subject. Her thesis is that Updike and others of the older generation of novelists treated sex in their books in such a misogynistic way that it sort of poisoned the well for younger authors. Most contemporary novelists either hold the subject at arm's length, or treat it like a pathology of the character's. In either case, it's designed to shield the author and make it clear that they don't personally believe in or endorse the character's way of thinking. Ullman, on the other hand, has a refreshingly uncomplicated treatment of sex—layered in relationship stuff, sure, but the character isn't treated as weird or different for just wanting a satisfying sex life, and reaching out to grab it. I agree with y'all that it was one of the novel's finer points. Like Sarah said, great cast. Each time I listen, I feel embarrassed for not articulating my thoughts in as careful and meticulous fashion as you two. Can't wait for Cosmicomics and Wolf Hall!

I made a stupid video positing that .