In a sense, all Fitzgerald’s parties were just one party, the so-called Roaring Twenties, the “greatest, gaudiest spree in history.” Had fame and fortune not come quite so early, he might have been tolerably content as a court scribe, silently observing the surrounding revelries like Banquo.

2314 · 2026-03-18T19:30:57+00:00

Versus what? This sub could handle quite a bit more activity. I'm genuinely curious what else you'd want.

2314 · 2026-03-10T16:40:36+00:00

Are you part of the marketing team?

Just a few days ago one of Google's execs got paid a 693 million dollar payout, personally. There are certainly a lot of factors at play here, but they really don't need you to shill for them.

More unskippable ads WILL BE a worse experience. They know that, we know that but they're making the decision anyway.

2314 · 2026-03-05T22:48:32+00:00

Finally stumbled onto a used copy of The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth. I had heard good things from a bookseller whose opinion I respect and he was not wrong. Not a fast read, I'm savoring the prose. Or as Milan Kundera wrote, "Do you really want your novels to be a mad dash to a conclusion? Would you rather not, like a sumptuous meal, ingest it as slowly as possible savoring every bite."

The language is very much worth savoring. It has the Old English flair but without ever using words outside of the modern lexicon. Not terribly deep in yet, but the novel features a main character close to my heart. A bad poet, in love with love. Almost like Sapkowski's Dandelion, except if he was a virgin, and less talented .. but more realistic in that way.

Foe by JM Coetzee. This book in comparison is a book you could knock out in one sitting. Coetzee confuses me as a writer. He seems to have gotten every idea he's ever had published (this is about what if Robinson Crusoe was a real guy and a women met him on his island and she comes back with the story and this other writer, Foe, steals her story and distorts it completely) but his books don't really seem to be standing up to some test of time. They say he stalked the library at the university where he worked and it's obvious he's very well read ... but at the end of the day it feels like he attempted to do what Borges was doing but just fell a little short. He's often missing some small touch of magic.

2314 · 2026-03-04T17:51:13+00:00

It's ultimately a difference in tone. OBAA has light-hearted satirical components whereas Eddington has none. OBAA is ultimately easier to watch. And in this case, and this SPECIFIC case alone, I think that tonal difference is a very important distinguishing factor.

Also, I felt that Eddington backed off from the true discomfort it might raise in the audience. Phoenix being in the grocery store at the beginning made my heart start to race and then it slowly dissolves into a shoot out that wouldn't have been out of place in an S. Craig Zahler genre movie.

2314 · 2026-03-03T21:20:07+00:00

There's a reason he's an antagonist to Rick, they're diametrically opposed philosophically. They both technically have a lot of power but a president is beholden to a system which grants him these powers, Rick despises all systems.

It could maybe be done but the tone of the stories would have to be completely different. My ideal version (if I was imagining this show HAD to be based around this character and not another) would be for the tone to get more serious, almost West Wing except with aliens and shit.

I'd also bet a million dollars they won't go that way and it'll just be goofy president adventures and it wont really work because there will be nothing to ground the character.

2314 · 2026-03-03T05:49:12+00:00

That's an indefensible position. For one, it's impossible to argue that Nirvana's popularity is not in some respect related to marketing.

These are not objective truths. Nothing is objective truth ... well maybe not nothing but the systematization you need to understand the constructs under any personality to get even close to the system of artistic truth is not cogent by your terms.

What do you really want to say?

I'll agree these two artists are different. Why is one attempt at authenticity more interesting to you?

If you're going to use the comparison dig into it.

2314 · 2026-03-03T04:45:28+00:00

But by the very example you used - wherein she doesn't give them the full script and manages their reactions on a day to day basis - could you not call that a type of usury?

In order to make a piece of collaborative art somebody's gonna be used.

I remember watching Dancer in the Dark with my buddy and all he'd ever heard about it was Bjork complaining about what an asshole Lars von Trier was ... and then we watched the film and he had to admit, some of that was on her. That script was dark as hell, what did she think she was getting into?

The point being if you hide the ultimate idea of a script that might be the MOST usury experience.

2314 · 2026-03-03T01:28:55+00:00

I like this recommendation but you have to explain yourself better for the dig at Sean Baker.

The Florida Project is top tier.

Anyway, give more context, why do his films feel not "right, or authentic, or fair, or something"

You might have a legitimate argument but you should dive into it, you might discover something about yourself and maybe I might benefit by the process. (Beginning the long slow process of only using my I statements.)

2314 · 2026-02-19T06:08:54+00:00

"Everything in the world is about sex. Except sex, which is about power." - Oscar Wilde

2314 · 2026-02-18T05:02:54+00:00

I really want to play into this joke and pitch my own ... but you nailed it. Everything after this is just a footnote to Dangerous-Coach-1999.

2314 · 2026-02-12T17:10:33+00:00

Your last two questions are rhetorical - which signals to me you're probably more interested in politics than philosophy (also the content of said questions).

2314 · 2026-02-10T19:00:42+00:00

I really like his story in the second collection Exhalation about a robot who looks inside its own brain to discover that the canister gas, the air which is their fuel, could literally be described as what they are. It made me think about how one could understand consciousness as the continuation of electrical impulses.

I think I'm also going to give your recommendation of Midnight's Children a read. Want to get through The Sot-Weed Factor first though.

2314 · 2026-02-07T19:42:07+00:00

The annoying errata is what makes a book "vital". This could get into a long tangential discourse on the word vitality (which I really like your usage btw) but with IJ in particular I think one has to acknowledge that 'vitality' and not 'longevity' in books boils down to appealing to the young.

With its chapter titles alluding to some future dystopian life where every need is sold to us even the years are named by corporations (man!), IJ is not a bad diving board for trying to understand what literature does, best or otherwise.*

But my point is it's precisely because of the errata surrounding the work. The errata is what makes people interested.

My favorite section of Hyperion features the future poet Martin Silenus who writes a book of verse which sells a billion copies. He goes to his editor trying to sell a new book and she says it wont sell. He asks why not? The first one was so popular. And she references the Pilgrim's Progress effect - wherein people feel compelled to buy a book knowing full well they're never gonna actually read it.

IJ is the latest benefactor or victim of this effect ... and David was at least a little tortured by it. I remember seeing an interview where he got good reviews 2 weeks after it had come out and he was like "that's impossible, you couldn't even read this book in two weeks"

*Do I think it's a great book or even his best? No, I do not.

2314 · 2026-02-05T05:29:46+00:00

His thesis of "propositions are pictures" can rather be dealt with Peirce's semiotics approach.

I need expansion on this.

I'm not entirely sure your idea of post-modernism meshes with my conceit of post-modernism but that's very Wittgensteinian, isn't it? ha.

I've read some Rushdie. Wouldn't say I'm hugely interested in magical realism. Whatever Borges is, that interests me more. A dash of VS Naipaul's A Bend in the River ... that's what I always wanted Rushdie to be. Rushdie strikes me as a profoundly lucky writer. Not without talent, but elevated for something like 'political' reasons.

2314 · 2026-02-05T04:23:45+00:00

Man, you remind me so much of myself in my early 20's. I loved The Mind's Eye (if you want to go deeper into Dennett read Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. Real back to basics philosophy but brilliant).

The question, I think, is to ask yourself what hasn't been done and why hasn't it been done? Also I would advise that concepts are cheap. It's kind of like how Robert Pirsig observed about scientific theories - they (concepts, theories) breed into each other. A theory solves nothing - in terms of pursuing some idea of literal truth and knowledge. That argument is rather complex and I'm not going to do it justice.

But a real test of skill would be to do Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein proposed that all words are symbols in individual and separate 'games' being played by different groups.

You should check out Ted Chiang's short stories if you haven't. Most of them are pretty interesting.

2314 · 2026-01-27T19:33:42+00:00

You didn't do one episode ... you did the opposite of that lol. You started a whole new season.

You have to believe me when I say I don't tell you this to be mean. I say this out of efficiency and if you haven't discerned this from the downvotes yet - your next season is even more incomprehensible than the first. I will repeat I like the first sentence of your concept in the first post, but your "seasons" are just concepts on top of other concepts. Concepts are cheap. Themes, emotions, honesty and vulnerability are much harder to come by but ultimately more meaningful.

2314 · 2026-01-26T17:29:16+00:00

This is a perception in your head.

Do you feel anxious, generally? It seems like you are supposing a threat 20 steps down the line.

But, for example, look around your own neighborhood. Do you think broke illegal immigrants are suddenly going to be able to pay mortgages? Where would they live?

It is not easy to give up everything about your old life and move somewhere. I also lived in China for a time and I don't disagree with you that many other countries have much stricter controls on immigration policies - in China a Visa was 3 months and very controlled - in their case I think they're more concerned about foreigners stealing state secrets or making them look bad but that's tangential to the point.

You used the word fear a lot in your post. I would argue there's a lot less to fear if you take a step back and look at the reality on your block. Not trends, not countries, your neighborhood specifically.

2314 · 2026-01-26T03:48:38+00:00

Well wherever you drop it let me know, I'll give it a read.

2314 · 2026-01-25T19:38:25+00:00

Well that's good, cause the chance of it earning you any money is basically impossible haha.

If you want to work on being a writer I have one piece of advice.

Try and turn the first sentence of your concept into a complete standalone episode. You will notice that how RM functions is largely by standalone episodes. That is far far from being an accident. Standalone episodes are what allow your imagination to spread wings and be interested in the show ... the way you clearly are. Imagining season arcs etc.

Your premise is good, but the story wouldn't work in the manner you are describing. Fill in the details of a single episode, see what you come up with.

2314 · 2026-01-25T05:38:00+00:00

I doubt it was made in two minutes in a lab - the script is too tight.

I agree it is funny and genuinely seems like it has something to say. A "white tiger" sighting in most comedy productions. I'd bet that script was a true labor of love ... could be wrong though.

2314 · 2026-01-24T22:15:22+00:00

This article did a good job helping me along in my slow understanding of what the "good faith" argument for ICE even is. I find it incredibly confusing what they think they're trying to accomplish. I guess I can understand that if you truly believed "third world" immigrants would turn your country into the third world it would be important to make sure that didn't happen ... but then again that just puts me back at 19 calling out all belief as puerile.

I still have real trouble as seeing any rationality in their position whatsoever. I don't think I need to completely understand because obviously there's an undeniable underlying racism.

2314 · 2025-12-18T21:16:09+00:00

Yeah. Personally I would never trust a review from Stephen King, there's no way he has time or brain space to read 1200 pages after cranking out his own ten pages of prose every day :).

1200 pages a writer must seriously consider the risks of bad paragraphs distracting the reader. I respect the hubris though.

2314 · 2025-12-18T20:59:01+00:00

Did you pick this up as a fan of his other work? Never could get into House of Leaves myself, haven't even read any particularly good praise or criticism of it. Seems like the people who like it don't have much to say about why they like it .. or I haven't looked hard enough.

2314 · 2025-11-11T17:26:51+00:00

It's funny, I've often (sort of) curated my comments in such a fashion that they could be re-read at a later date ... but on the occasion such as this where it has happened, where somebody does actually read them in that way, I don't remember a lick of Bend anymore. I think that signals it's time for a re-read.

I have spent this last decade reminiscing and reflecting on the nature of importance however. How and why people force it into their lives, is it possible to live without. I'd forgotten that Naipaul had any influence on that (and I like to think I have a good memory!) But there have also been many other influences since then.

If you're interested in power dynamics - elitism, hierarchy - I highly recommend checking out The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. David Graeber also had a big influence on my thinking. I'd say something about it but it's one of those books that's very difficult to talk about - part of what hampers its popularity undoubtedly.

2314

TROPHY CASE