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  • mrbeuys
    Senior Member
    • May 2008
    • 2313

    ^ Loved Pattern Recognition when I read it, but I always seem to lack something with Gibson, actually substance is what I miss most. It's a detailed world he crafts, but I can't quite seem to find the core. Same goes for Ellis, but he makes up for it with the relentless detail in which he describes every mundane situation...
    Starting on Carver today - "what we talk about when we talk about love".
    I also have the unabridged version "Beginners", which I hope to read straight after. Has anyone read them back to back?
    Hi. I like your necklace. - It's actually a rape whistle, but the whistle part fell off.

    Comment

    • mrbeuys
      Senior Member
      • May 2008
      • 2313

      Originally posted by AKA*NYC View Post
      i also recommend the other books in this series crash and concrete island as well as the unlimited dream company which may be his most eloquent work
      Crash is one of my all time favourite reads, both for the way it is written and the relevance of the content (to me at least). Concrete Island is on the shelf waiting to be read this month, I would also recommend The Atrocity Exhibition, which was the precursor to Crash and many other narratives. It's a really deconstructed narrative, almost unreadable until you understand that it doesn't matter if you read it in a linear or non-linear way. He was a real visionary.
      One of my favourite quotes of his:

      Sex x Technology = The Future
      Hi. I like your necklace. - It's actually a rape whistle, but the whistle part fell off.

      Comment

      • Carpe Noctem
        Senior Member
        • Dec 2010
        • 112

        Re-reading Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow to see if I can make sense of it this time hah.
        "My Roll is to Rock"
        -Jimmy Page

        Comment

        • maldoror
          Senior Member
          • Jun 2007
          • 1132

          Comment

          • AKA*NYC
            Senior Member
            • Nov 2007
            • 3007

            Originally posted by mrbeuys View Post
            Crash is one of my all time favourite reads, both for the way it is written and the relevance of the content (to me at least). Concrete Island is on the shelf waiting to be read this month, I would also recommend The Atrocity Exhibition, which was the precursor to Crash and many other narratives. It's a really deconstructed narrative, almost unreadable until you understand that it doesn't matter if you read it in a linear or non-linear way. He was a real visionary.
            One of my favourite quotes of his:

            Sex x Technology = The Future
            atrocity exhibition is the best. i recall reading it in the early 90s: he had ronald reagan as president, ralph nader (or his "notional pudenda") in every other sentence, media soundbites, etc. somehow it all made sense and i assumed that the book had been written late in the previous decade. it came as a total shock to see that it was first published in 1970 and written in the late 60s. ballard really demonstrates the power and for lack of a better word, nobility, of the sci-fi genre.
            LOVE THE SHIRST... HOW much?

            Comment

            • AKA*NYC
              Senior Member
              • Nov 2007
              • 3007

              since we're on the topic of ballard here is his epic prose poem:

              WHAT I BELIEVE - J.G. Ballard

              I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen. I believe in my own obsessions, in the beauty of the car crash, in the peace of the submerged forest, in the excitements of the deserted holiday beach, in the elegance of automobile graveyards, in the mystery of multi-storey car parks, in the poetry of abandoned hotels.
              I believe in the forgotten runways of Wake Island, pointing towards the Pacifics of our imaginations.
              I believe in the mysterious beauty of Margaret Thatcher, in the arch of her nostrils and the sheen on her lower lip; in the melancholy of wounded Argentine conscripts; in the haunted smiles of filling station personnel; in my dream of Margaret Thatcher caressed by that young Argentine soldier in a forgotten motel watched by a tubercular filling station attendant.
              I believe in the beauty of all women, in the treachery of their imaginations, so close to my heart; in the junction of their disenchanted bodies with the enchanted chromium rails of supermarket counters; in their warm tolerance of my perversions.
              I believe in the death of tomorrow, in the exhaustion of time, in our search for a new time within the smiles of auto-route waitresses and the tired eyes of air-traffic controllers at out-of-season airports.
              I believe in the genital organs of great men and women, in the body postures of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Princess Di, in the sweet odors emanating from their lips as they regard the cameras of the entire world.
              I believe in madness, in the truth of the inexplicable, in the common sense of stones, in the lunacy of flowers, in the disease stored up for the human race by the Apollo astronauts.
              I believe in nothing.
              I believe in Max Ernst, Delvaux, Dali, Titian, Goya, Leonardo, Vermeer, Chirico, Magritte, Redon, Duerer, Tanguy, the Facteur Cheval, the Watts Towers, Boecklin, Francis Bacon, and all the invisible artists within the psychiatric institutions of the planet.
              I believe in the impossibility of existence, in the humour of mountains, in the absurdity of electromagnetism, in the farce of geometry, in the cruelty of arithmetic, in the murderous intent of logic.
              I believe in adolescent women, in their corruption by their own leg stances, in the purity of their disheveled bodies, in the traces of their pudenda left in the bathrooms of shabby motels.
              I believe in flight, in the beauty of the wing, and in the beauty of everything that has ever flown, in the stone thrown by a small child that carries with it the wisdom of statesmen and midwives.
              I believe in the gentleness of the surgeon's knife, in the limitless geometry of the cinema screen, in the hidden universe within supermarkets, in the loneliness of the sun, in the garrulousness of planets, in the repetitiveness or ourselves, in the inexistence of the universe and the boredom of the atom.
              I believe in the light cast by video-recorders in department store windows, in the messianic insights of the radiator grilles of showroom automobiles, in the elegance of the oil stains on the engine nacelles of 747s parked on airport tarmacs.
              I believe in the non-existence of the past, in the death of the future, and the infinite possibilities of the present.
              I believe in the derangement of the senses: in Rimbaud, William Burroughs, Huysmans, Genet, Celine, Swift, Defoe, Carroll, Coleridge, Kafka.
              I believe in the designers of the Pyramids, the Empire State Building, the Berlin Fuehrerbunker, the Wake Island runways.
              I believe in the body odors of Princess Di.
              I believe in the next five minutes.
              I believe in the history of my feet.
              I believe in migraines, the boredom of afternoons, the fear of calendars, the treachery of clocks.
              I believe in anxiety, psychosis and despair.
              I believe in the perversions, in the infatuations with trees, princesses, prime ministers, derelict filling stations (more beautiful than the Taj Mahal), clouds and birds.
              I believe in the death of the emotions and the triumph of the imagination.
              I believe in Tokyo, Benidorm, La Grande Motte, Wake Island, Eniwetok, Dealey Plaza.
              I believe in alcoholism, venereal disease, fever and exhaustion.
              I believe in pain.
              I believe in despair.
              I believe in all children.
              I believe in maps, diagrams, codes, chess-games, puzzles, airline timetables, airport indicator signs.
              I believe all excuses.
              I believe all reasons.
              I believe all hallucinations.
              I believe all anger.
              I believe all mythologies, memories, lies, fantasies, evasions.
              I believe in the mystery and melancholy of a hand, in the kindness of trees, in the wisdom of light.
              LOVE THE SHIRST... HOW much?

              Comment

              • mrbeuys
                Senior Member
                • May 2008
                • 2313

                A Ballard manifesto.
                I believe every single word.
                Hi. I like your necklace. - It's actually a rape whistle, but the whistle part fell off.

                Comment

                • nickcave
                  Junior Member
                  • Oct 2010
                  • 8

                  the conspiracy of art

                  Comment

                  • Emel
                    Member
                    • Oct 2010
                    • 55

                    Originally posted by nickcave View Post
                    the conspiracy of art
                    I've always wanted to know what Nick Cave spend his spare time reading.

                    Here's to Spook Country by William Gibson.
                    It's the suede/denim secret police; they've come to your house for your long haired niece

                    Comment

                    • viv1984viv
                      Senior Member
                      • Feb 2008
                      • 194

                      Originally posted by mrbeuys View Post
                      ^ Loved Pattern Recognition when I read it, but I always seem to lack something with Gibson, actually substance is what I miss most. It's a detailed world he crafts, but I can't quite seem to find the core. Same goes for Ellis, but he makes up for it with the relentless detail in which he describes every mundane situation...
                      Starting on Carver today - "what we talk about when we talk about love".
                      I also have the unabridged version "Beginners", which I hope to read straight after. Has anyone read them back to back?
                      Originally posted by mrbeuys View Post
                      Crash is one of my all time favourite reads, both for the way it is written and the relevance of the content (to me at least). Concrete Island is on the shelf waiting to be read this month, I would also recommend The Atrocity Exhibition, which was the precursor to Crash and many other narratives. It's a really deconstructed narrative, almost unreadable until you understand that it doesn't matter if you read it in a linear or non-linear way. He was a real visionary.
                      One of my favourite quotes of his:

                      Sex x Technology = The Future
                      Agree with a lot of this. The ideas, the composition, the themes of GIbson are so so intriguing, vital and relevant - but ultimately I just dont feel immersed, dont lose myself in he gibsonian world. Ellis on the other hand totally gets under my skin - imperial bedrooms was fantastic imo.

                      Ballard manages to walk the tightrope between the two I guess! His later novels were wonderful, I guess being english and from the south gives me the bias of familiarity though....
                      Notes from the Vomitorium - The Nerve Of It -

                      Comment

                      • Emel
                        Member
                        • Oct 2010
                        • 55

                        I love reading William Gibson.

                        My reading always takes this strange form whenever i do, though.

                        I start the book. Slowly. English is not my first language and his books are hard as hell to stay on top of.
                        After a couple of pages I inevitiably have to stop and google some of the products/concepts/technologies etc. he names.

                        Then i spend the next half hour trying to read that, because that isn't exactly easy either (I'm still not fully convinced that i understand what "locative media" is. And that's pretty much what Spook Country is about. Right? Right?)

                        Drink milk.

                        Continue with the book while in the meantime i have forgotten half the characters and what their function is.

                        Go back a few pages and try again etc.

                        At the same time the whole universe, or the way he sees our world and everyday, maybe even just the possibilities he sees in it, is just so damn compelling in some very bleak and very artsy way that i walk away from the book (to the supermarket. After more milk) feeling extremely learned in a way no other author does.

                        Very.. grey.
                        It's the suede/denim secret police; they've come to your house for your long haired niece

                        Comment

                        • Acéphale
                          Senior Member
                          • Apr 2010
                          • 444

                          «
                          La Cascade

                          Quelle flèche a percé le ciel et le rocher ?
                          Elle vibre. Elle étale, ainsi qu'un paon, sa queue
                          Ou, comme la comète à minuit vient nicher,
                          Le brouillard de sa tige et ses pennes sans noeuds.

                          Que surgisse le sang de la chair entr'ouverte,
                          Lèvres taisant déjà le murmure et le cri,
                          Un doigt posé suspend le temps et déconcerte
                          Le témoin dans les yeux duquel le fait s'inscrit.

                          Silence? nous savons pourtant les mots de passe,
                          Sentinelles perdues loin des feux de bivouac
                          Nous sentirons monter dans les ténèbres basses
                          L'odeur du chèvrefeuille et celle du ressac.

                          Qu'enfin l'aube jaillisse à travers tes abîmes,
                          Distance, et qu'un rayon dessine sur les eaux,
                          Présage du retour de l'archer et des hymnes,
                          Un arc-en-ciel et son carquois plein de roseaux.
                          »



                          ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα

                          Comment

                          • docus
                            Senior Member
                            • Dec 2010
                            • 509

                            Concrete by Thomas Bernhard.

                            Comment

                            • spiral jetty
                              Member
                              • Oct 2010
                              • 79

                              henri murger's "scènes de la vie de bohème" (1849-49),
                              already selling out that, say, way of life.

                              Comment

                              • lowrey
                                ventiundici
                                • Dec 2006
                                • 8383

                                Originally posted by AKA*NYC View Post
                                i also recommend the other books in this series crash and concrete island as well as the unlimited dream company which may be his most eloquent work
                                just happened to pick up dream company recently (and will start reading it soon..), haven't read any Ballard before
                                "AVANT GUARDE HIGHEST FASHION. NOW NOW this is it people, these are the brands no one fucking knows and people are like WTF. they do everything by hand in their freaking secret basement and shit."

                                STYLEZEITGEIST MAGAZINE | BLOG

                                Comment

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