Thyroid

It started-out very tongue-in-cheek, as the Hemingway, Mahfouz, and Fitzgerald sections hopefully show, but as I grew more tired I think I started taking it seriously. That having been said, I pity, not glamorize, all these people. I think I need to spit and polish it at one point. I wasn't. Thanks for the recommendation; it sounds interesting. As I mentioned to juv3nal, it started-out heavy on the irony (as hipster-ish as that sounds), but I think I lost the plot around the time I arrived at Carson McCullers. But I seem to have not gotten that across. The sea-weed thing was representative of gossip, at least how I view it: someone brings in the tide, little, unremarkable fish live off it until the next one. As for the F. Scott Fitzgerald section, it's a play off the final paragraph in The Great Gatsby. A lot of aspects from their lives could be threaded together using an ocean metaphor, and the final lines of the book - how Gatsby doesn't realize that getting Daisy is something he's already failed at - mirrors Scott's own attempts at reconciling with Zelda. It's also why the final lines are straight from The Great Gatsby. Thanks for your feedback. I do hope I learn to love to write again, but maybe they did too good a job at too formative a time. We'll see.

Why wouldn't I? Seriously, though, enjoy A Storm of Swords. That having been said, I'm not happy where they ended season three. Game of Thrones season four spoilers: Game of Thrones season...five? Four, more likely, but just in case:

I have mental lists of favourite authors or books (The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Skippy Dies, A Song of Ice and Fire) or bands (Pixies, Portishead), but thinkers is one I consider a bit amusing. I'm not teasing you! But this idea that you'd go up to someone and say, "You're one of my favourite thinkers!" makes me smile. I'd never even considered that. But in a good way, promise. -- I've been reading The Inheritors by William Golding. It's wonderful how he manages to get Neanderthals' lesser intelligence across without being judgmental, condescending towards his audience, or resorting to cheap tricks. He just makes something as trivial as putting a log across water a difficult, mundane task for them, then phrases their cognitive processes in ways that make you realize the Neanderthals were less intelligent than Homo sapiens. I'm not far into it, because I'm catching-up on much, much needed sleep these days, but this far I recommend it.

You get whatever you want if you manage to stop reading from that point on. The last four hundred pages of A Storm of Swords are absurdly good.

A lot of books are like this. Little, Big; Joe Pitt; Bobby Dollar; Sandman Slim; most of Stephen King, Peter Straub. Christopher Moore has a lot of funny ones, like A Dirty Job.

I find the whole notion that people existing like that (and they do; I know them) makes the work less enjoyable. Are you saying characters ought to be sympathetic or likable?

Do people have that? Lists of favourite thinkers?

I haven't seen the episode, since I wait for them to be available legally (in 9 hours I can see it on pay-for-TV), but from the reviews I'm reading, it wasn't similar, but apparently quite effective. Spoilers for episode 10/finale (book readers you can read this): Book three spoiler that might be a spoiler for season four:

Major spoilers for Game of Thrones, season 3, episode 9. I'm talking the penultimate episode. The one that hasn't aired yet.

I had the same problem (I get to Netflix through a proxy). It's the speed of your net connection. Try also updating SIlverlight.

I'm watching season two. Phenomenal show. Delay no longer. Michael to GOB: Get rid of The Seaward. Lucille (overhearing): I'll leave when I'm good and ready.

Trivia: that book inspired Hideo Kojima in developing Metal Gear Solid 2's story, although whether that's a good thing or not is up to you.

Yeah, this has been an interesting thing to read over and as much as I want to comment, I'm swamped with deadlines and finals. I hope you all don't mind my coming in here later and posting things, though that could be a few weeks from now. Either way: good show, thumbs.

Boy, I arrive late for all the fun threads, don't I? Quick two cents, then, before I head back to my month from hell: Compare that to other fantasy or historical-focused literature, where the author beats you over the head with how sexist everything was and how awful life was for most women, and you can tell the author wants you to think: "wow, things sure were terrible for women back then, glad that our modern age isn't like that at all!" These female characters have no agency; they're stand ins so the modern audience can feel better that women aren't treated this poorly anymore. In my opinion, Martin's work slides neatly alongside Mantel's in this regard, although I've yet to read any of her work. There's a pretty long conversation in the second book - and a lot of inner-monologues in the fourth - about the kind of attitudes a woman in Westeros must take to survive. Unfortunately, the show hasn't revealed a lot about what makes a lot of these women be the way they are, so I can't spoil. Is there a little bit of goggling at women in the books? Sure. But most of it takes place within the POVs of characters who do that anyway, like Theon. I've only seen the first season of the show, which I agree was rampant with nudity. That's HBO's decision. Also, starting from the second book is a huge mistake. Finally: I'm pretty sure the line here means that said woman is attractive and Arya doesn't trust her because she's not attracted to her. Finally: I don't know if this was a comment on the show, but I feel that this line was a bit dismissive. For something as meticulously crafted as Ice and Fire, without all its foreshadowing and careful, deft movement of the pieces, that's terribly unfair. I understand that fantasy isn't seen as a terribly intellectual or mind-expanding enterprise to pursue, but it remains a well-crafted story.

I saw Samurai Cop and it actually beats out The Room for best bad movie ever. Just watch any clip on YouTube. Here, see this one. Language is .

I watch Gravity Falls with my cousin and enjoy it more than she does. It's one of those cartoons that targets both adults and children; it's sweet and funny and sad when it needs to be. It touches on growing-up (there's an episode centred around Dipper, the boy, realizing his voice is changing), what it means to be a sibling, the first crush. There are loads of easter eggs strewn throughout, from hidden codes that seemingly hint at the overall storyline to, for example, a time traveler appearing in the first episode as a background character and then actually going there in a later episode. It's not perfect - there's at least one joke aimed about disability that I thought sent a very wrong message - but it's generally very good. Ridiculous joke. Even the TV shows within the show are good. Video game parody!

It was mine, too. Nifty poem.

I'm reading ST Coleridge's poetry and I kinda super like it. Read it for yourself. (And tell me who this "spotless Sara" is.)

I find being intellectually bested incredibly stimulating. It's a reminder that there are other, better ways to think. That's something worth striving for. The other thing to keep in mind is that books are not necessarily rooted in intelligence; many good or great books need some experience, whether in feeling in certain ways or failing or succeeding at certain goals, to really resonate. I've found that reading great books early in life results in a bizarre state where life itself becomes justification as to why these books are great. Just kick back. Take it a page at a time. Enjoy yourself. At the end of the day, it's just a book.

Why on earth would you feel intimidated about reading a novel? What's so scary about it?

Shame I'm not in Ottawa still. I'd help you out if I could. Good luck.

Everyone who finishes Bleak House wishes they hadn't, because it's so absorbing. I should read it. Plus a million other books. -- I've been reading Pride and Prejudice for two (two!) months, because I've been busy, and it's insightful. It gets better if you contextualize it, but a lot of it, the stuff about relationships and how they fit into the scheme of things, is still relevant. It's also funny, which is a plus. I finished it last night. Recommended.

I haven't seen the movie, but Cujo's my favourite of the dozen or so Stephen King books I've read. There's a precise dissection of the nature of evil, both as a separate, animistic entity, as well as an element in human nature. It's not the kind of thing the Idle Thumbs podcast would go out of their way to read, but I recommend it.

Yeah, I'm not sure how on board I am for anything people like Rothfuss can contribute. He's written some really good material, but The Name of the Wind (I haven't read Wise Man's Fear yet) is largely, unless it's intentional, about how awesome he wishes he was. It's Casanova plus Romantic poetry set in a Renaissance-like fantasy world. Unless it's intentional and the Truth is Eventually Revealed . In fairness to Rothfuss, Kvothe does get called out on his bullshit on at least one occasion. Doesn't he describe a woman as very beautiful, and then get interrupted by someone who points out that he just said she has a beaked nose? And it's not like that's part of the appeal. Kvothe gets defensive about it.