What are you reading?

[Isaac Sauvage]

vacation brings extra time to read...

for myself:

- couple books on the life of siddhartha and how his plan to save the world works. couple books queued up on some kind of jewish-buddhist fusion.
- "man's search for meaning", by a psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor. always interesting to read about the holocaust, for some reason. picking up therapeutic tips at the same time means bonus points.
- 'roughing it' books for young readers, such as "robinson crusoe" and "my side of the mountain". in which i find sleepy's advice valid, in terms of following the animals to find edible food. one of the most interesting ideas is how you can use a skunk cabbage leaf to make a cooking vessel by binding together the ends and filling it with water. even when the flame is hitting the bottom of the leaf, the moisture is so great that it protects the leaf from falling apart and spilling the contents, apparently. good deal when you don't have a turtle shell handy.
- "i am alive and you are dead", one of the most famous biographies of my favorite writer, philip k. dick. but quite difficult to get through- the idea that someone who could write so provacatively and with such clarity could be so mentally damaged is hard to reconcile and hard to take. what do you do when your heroes are shown to be basket cases?
- jacques cousteau' survey of the oceans, which is the kind of book i regularly inhale without even noticing.
- king solomon's mines, which was just lying around. quite dated (1885), but a cracking good read when you get past the difference in eras. the writing style itself is highly readable and modern compared to books of that time.
- on a video note, for their honeymoon, my brother and his wife are apparently watching the star trek series in reverse order, starting with "enterprise", which i had barely seen before. does anybody enjoy that series? so far it just seems like the usual berman-bragga formula, with none of the actors or characters standing out much. spending time looking for discontinuities seems pointless, particularly since the producers retroactively refitted the look and feel of the series, something which is understandable but at the same time doesn't sit too well with me.
- just read a couple quick reviews of the last futurama DVD movie, "wild green yonder". i like the idea of fry getting the girl (leela), but the movie itself sounds pretty mediocre, unfortunately. 26 new episodes have been ordered to air next year apparently-- but can they rediscover the quality of the original series? on a happier note, season four of the "venture bros" begins next month... :D

 

[faralos]

Personally, although I love Futurama, I really am on a mission to find any 'Tripping the Rift' episodes. I have an old video tape (remember those?) of them but my vcr broke so now I must hunt down dvd's of their short-lived season
But for books, well, i just finished reading 'Twilight' (yes the vampire movie) and will start the second book soon. I like to read fantasy/sci-fi, to lose myself in, (and to pick up ideas for future pins) no heady stuff for me!! beinga former gamemaster, sci-fi was a great inspiration for me (especially the 'Pern' series) as in 'The DragonRiders of', Dune (now there's a Tome to read! the hardcoever version I read had over 600 pages!), anything Asimov, or Heinlein, and every now and then a Tom Clancy novel

 

[mrschultz]

I'm mostly a sci-fi reader, nothing at the moment, read "flinx transcendent" back in May.

Been trying to get all of the Harry Kalas book read when I have to wait for something like getting work done on the car, it's a collection stories about Harry by lots of different people. Most of the Wawa's around here are still selling it for $10.

 

[mrschultz]

Personally, although I love Futurama, I really am on a mission to find any 'Tripping the Rift' episodes. I have an old video tape (remember those?) of them but my vcr broke so now I must hunt down dvd's of their short-lived season

You can get all 3 seasons for less than $45 on amazon:

Amazon.com: Tripping the Rift - The Complete First Season: Stephen Root, Maurice LaMarche, Gina Gershon, John Melendez, Gayle Garfinkle, Rick Jones, Terrence Scammell, John Stocker, Pauline Little, Mark Camancho, Claudia Besso, Harry Standjofski, Bernie Denk, Adam I. Lapidus, Andrew Borakove, Bill Rosenthal, Chris Moeller, Chuck Austen, Dode B. Levenson, Jeff Westbrook: Movies & TV

 

[faralos]

Woohoo! Being 'under the weather' during most of the episodes (i used to watch it with a bunch of gaming friends [ pen/paper rpg NOT fraggers!]) I don't remember half the episodes. I didn't even know it lasted 3 seasons. thanks I gotta get these!

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

ah... so much scifi to catch up on...

i've meant to read the "pern" series for a long time. also, looks like alan dean foster did some environmental-themed work, which certainly appeals. the kalas book sounds real good, since i like amusing / interesting anecdotes.

on that note, something i started to do while in chautauqua was open mics, reading my anecdotes. they were well received, so i've thought about keeping it up when i get back to the philly area. but since my material will quickly run out, i've toyed with the idea of trying to write some short stories, maybe scifi in nature. no idea how to really do that, though, since <various issues> usually short-circuit my creativity. time to go back to college for a course or two, maybe.

my last idea for a story was about a cleaning woman who hates to clean but is a master of artful arrangement. only when the clients leave the house does she enter, going from room to room, noticing how the light plays across objects, the colors and shapes of the furniture, the dust and stains that have built up, then calculates the ideal arrangement to subtly reposition everything just enough to hide the dirt. sometimes she has to add dirt, varnish or new material in order to mask what's there. due to her uncanny talent, her clients are deceived for years, until one day...

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

just reading WP on harry kalas and it kind of brings a lump to my eye and a tear to my throat. (wait, do i have that right?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Kalas

Swing ... and a long drive, and this ball is ... outta here! Home run, Michael Jack Schmidt!

probably sounds like nothing as text, but having heard that call so many times from the late 70's to the late 80's, it was pretty magical. the guy had such a superb broadcasting manner. i miss being a baseball fan when i hear his voice.

on a side note, it would appear that his ancestry is greek from the name "kalas." greeks were never a major immigrant wave in the US, but still they pop up occasionally, such as with (arguably) the greatest men's tennis player in history, pete sampras. of course, federer has all but passed him in the records, but still...

 

[crazzycat]

Just start to read I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max hope it will be interesting

 

[faralos]

harry kalas, I never knew. I have been residing in the Philly area for about 4 years now, so only recently heard of him in his passing. i am from originally North Jersey so never got a chance to put the voice to a face. But I remember him from all the old football films! he will be missed...
Back to short sci-fi, try to locate the Asimov short stories series. these paperbacks started to come out in the early 70's. We used to get the subscription way back then. also a seires titled " fantasy and scince fiction' these paperbacks were around the size of the 'readers digest' paperback. they came monthly so I'm guessing there is alot of them still around. they are an excellent sourse for short-stories, and usually had authors names or publishers notes on just how to write (and get published) short stories. good luck with. for starters, my sister has a short (scifi) story out in a book called "Amberzine" this book is mostly stories by gamers for gamers but they are all shorties and may give you the inspiration you need, (and I get to plug my sisters story!)(when I say gamers, I mean the old school pen/paper rpg's (D&D, Heroes, etc.)
She and I are both gamers, she lives in Florida and met her husband through gaming. (he was her Gamemaster for a while) A gammaster is the newer term for Dungeonmaster, but since so few rpg's actually use dungeons, we use the name gamemaster since it encompasses all aspects of gaming!

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

@crazzycat,
sounds pretty hilarious from WP's quick description. let us know how it plays out...


re: philip k. dick biography,
finally finished it last night. the most exhausting and depressing book i've read in a long time.

let's be clear here- i like books with a happy ending. i like books with a sad ending. i like books with an unclear ending, like most of PKD's stuff, and european films in general. yet still this book bothered me.

it had no insight to give after dick's death, having (theoretically) dispersed that already across the chapters on the man's life. but what did the insights and the events of PKD's life mean? i'll be godamned if i know. so far my strongest sense is that dick, as brilliant as he was, aimed his sights too high. he didn't go to college, didn't get trained in any particular field of knowledge, didn't take on any system of thought (limitations and all) that would have served to have been the ground zero for the rest of his life. instead he burned through arguments, religions and systems of thought all his life, taking them on fully, arguing them like the wisest person you've ever met, then discarding them for something new. how do you live a life like that? i thought that's sort of what i was doing, but PKD did it multitudes faster, more skillfully and more prolifically than i could ever dream of doing.

but perhaps that was his weakness, as well. my feeling is, the man needed to take on more limitations than possibilities in order to save his sanity. he needed to hang on to his problems rationally instead of neurotically and be humble enough to allow other people to help him with them, even though he was more than clever enough to make his examiners believe whatever he wanted them to believe.

yet for all my criticisms, the man's body of quality output was staggering. and legendary. and something that hollywood has been beating down his estate's door over for 25-odd years over, given that they have no imagination of their own and are terrified to recognise it in unknown sources.

so, yes. this:

@faralos,
thanks. let's see what happens.

 

[Rick2007]

I can't read anything longer than about 4 paragraphs. I read all sorts of articles,
for at least 2 hours each day, but I have always had a very hard time trying to
read any book. I get bored with the topic after the first few pages.
Books ramble on and on. For Me,,,,,,just get to the point in 1 or 2 pages.
Maybe it was "David Copperfield" in High School that turned me off to this type
of reading.

 

[lupo51ca]

I'm cuurently reading a how to book on Toilet repair in an older home. So far it hasn't helped a bit.

 

[juancar]

Since we're celebrating the 40th anniversary of Woodstock this year, I am reading books about the festival, the bands and the myth of the festival. I really liked the book by James Perone, very interesting information and also entertaining. Woodstock really changed the world in some weird way and that's funny.