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Getting to know you...
http://arwen-undomiel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=2421		 Page 436 of 447
Author:  Gandolorin [ October 31st, 2017, 8:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
Evil.Shieldmaiden wrote:
On a good day, with few interruptions from the four-legged inhabitants in the house, I can read three books in about 15 hours.

That must depend on the size of the books. I once did manage a 19-hour stretch with LoTR, no distractions of any kind, but that only was good for about half of the total tale (excluding appendices!).
Author:  Evil.Shieldmaiden [ November 1st, 2017, 7:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
Yeah, the books are what I call "light" reading, and are generally under 500 pages in length. I do read very quickly mind you.
Author:  Gandolorin [ November 2nd, 2017, 8:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
When I look at the books of fiction that I have enjoyed reading, and perhaps more to the point re-reading recently, I believe I find that all of the authors had some professional background which was related to what they wrote.

JRRT: one of the leading philologists in his field of specialty, elected to two chairs (professorships) in the English School at Oxford, which he held for a total of 34 years, and at his election to the first one in 1925 at the age of 33 was very young for such an honor.

Paul C. Doherty: we own books of his in German translation (incomplete) of two of his most well-known series, which in translation were entirely published under his pen-name Paul Harding, a professional historian specializing in the time period these two series were placed in.

Arthur C. Clarke: attained a first-class degree in mathematics and physics from King's College London after WW II. I have the four-part Space Odyssey series, the four-part Rama series, and “The Hammer of God”, and have read the odd excerpt. Maybe more Sci-Fi writers need to get some education in the Sci field.

Possibly too small a sample of authors, but I do get the feeling that when they know what they’re talking about in the real-world background of their stories, it doesn’t hurt their writing – quite the contrary.

And the special case Douglas Adams: he put Monty Python into space (and with the Dirk Gently books in a weird Earth context). Not being able to fulfill his life dream of becoming John Cleese because the original one had already filled the spot and refused to yield, he at least managed to take what the Pythons had created in wild hilariousness (or was that the other way around?) into different media and environments.
Author:  Gersemi [ November 5th, 2017, 11:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
I wish just simply 'getting away for a while' was free.
Author:  Evil.Shieldmaiden [ November 5th, 2017, 7:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
I wish my house would clean itself.
Author:  Hanasian [ November 8th, 2017, 7:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
Fact: When I was 14 I used to hang out at the local Budget Tapes and Records to listen to music they played on the good stereo and speakers (Speakerlab 7s) they had, browse LPs and read Freak Brothers comic books. The store manager used to let us kids loiter as long as we didn't cause trouble, stayed out of the way of the older paying customers, and bought something now and again. I probably bought half my album collection from that store (along with a good number of Zig-Zags and other head gear) as my loyal payment for all the time I spent there when I was younger and had little money.
Author:  Evil.Shieldmaiden [ November 8th, 2017, 8:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
Fact: I have roughly 3,000 vinyl records, most of which I purchased in the 60's and 70's. In the main they are traditional folk, or classic rock and blues, with a smattering of Classical and jazz. Over the years, people have urged me to "update" my collection. Fortunately, I have never been inclined to do so. I think the most I ever paid for a record was $16.00 for my Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues album. Most of them were bought for under $4.00.

I just saw they rereleased some record, on vinyl no less, for the price of $21.00. Guess who's laughing now?
Author:  Gandolorin [ November 8th, 2017, 9:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
Pretty much no one has ever suggested any “updates” to my vinyl collection, probably because it confused anyone who ever gave it a closer look (very few). And since some vague, undefined period in the late 1970s, what has cropped up as new music trends has mostly left me cold. Disco? I have a handful or two of LPs, sometimes with useful stuff besides the hit(s). Punk? Techno? Meh! Synthesizer-pop? Gag. The Eighties felt like a total disaster area, except for some (obviously with limited play outside of the home market) “Neue Deutsche Welle” stuff – Nena with "99 Red Balloons" and Trio with “Da Da Da” being among the exceptions internationally. The bands who were catapulted to the front simply by the fact that they sang in German, but not specifically stuff that would be categorized as “NDW”, were the ones with the real staying power. Pretty much all with musical roots going back into the mid-60s to mid-70s or, in the case of the Munich band “Spider Murphy Gang”, a seriously good Rock ‘n’ Roll band, into the late 1950s. I started losing track of what was “current”, very much so in the sense of charts, however they are compiled (and there have been serious issues about this say in the US going back into the 1950s), somewhere in the 1990s. Now, I am totally ignorant of any such charts – not to my detriment, I think. Who can top Sgt. Pepper?
Author:  Hanasian [ November 18th, 2017, 4:33 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
Gandolorin wrote:
Who can top Sgt. Pepper?

Revolver... White Album... Sgt Pepper is overrated
Author:  Evil.Shieldmaiden [ November 18th, 2017, 1:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
I think Revolver is my favourite. I'm not a fan of Sgt. Pepper at all.
Author:  Gandolorin [ November 19th, 2017, 4:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
I have all three – in fact, checking my Excel list, I have 19 Beatles titles. I’m not going to argue musical taste – about the stupidest thing anyone can do (as with anything artistic). I also like all three albums, and more (I’d agree with Douglas Adams that The Beatles are very unique, and influential to a degree that maybe no one even up to today realizes). A few weeks (months?) ago, very much past midnight, I was very much electrified by a (very rare) TV program in which somebody with apparently very wide knowledge including musical theory (more usually found in classical music) explained what was exceptional about every single song on Sgt. Pepper. Way above my head. Like only late 60s and early 70s jazz musicians like Miles Davis (and John McLaughlin!) could really appreciate what was so revolutionary about Jimi Hendrix. And what Keith Richards, always in technical brilliance overshadowed by Brian Jones, Mick Taylor, Ronnie Wood, and never mind Eric Clapton, did with open and otherwise unconventional tuning of a guitar (in this perhaps overshadowed and inspired by Joni Mitchell) that only active guitarists can appreciate – and I ain’t one.

Sgt. Pepper is still considered a milestone. Fifty years old (now I know why I bought the double CD!). Now no longer considered “revolutionary”? DUH. Fifty years earlier before Sgt. Pepper, a guy named Louis Armstrong was perhaps locally known in New Orleans. And make no mistake about is, what he did musically later had an effect on many, including The Beatles. That Sgt. Pepper no longer sounds revolutionary has to do that what was then revolutionary is now mainstream. Though, truth be told, what is now considered mainstream in music seems to me to be far more primitive that Sgt. Pepper, or for that matter almost anything after about the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.
Author:  Hanasian [ November 20th, 2017, 7:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
I have to say that at the time, I liked the Rolling Stone's Their Satanic Majesties Request that came out six months later. I did like the song 'Within You Without You' that kicked off side 2 of the Sgt Pepper record though. I suppose one reason I have gone off Sgt Pepper was my 1st wife played it to death.
Author:  Gandolorin [ November 21st, 2017, 4:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
Hanasian wrote:
... I suppose one reason I have gone off Sgt Pepper was my 1st wife played it to death.

No question, I would sour on Sgt. Pepper if I were forced to listen to it in an endless 24/7 loop. And getting “yuck” emotions attached to anything can ruin it.

Vaguely on topic, in the protective ward of the old people’s home that I had to confine my mother to due to her dementia, they had a cartoon by one of our best satirists attached to the inside of the window of nurse’s office right next to the entrance, showing into the ward, showing old coots in wheelchairs snarling “Beatles” – “Stones!” “Beatles” – “Stones!” “Beatles” – “Stones!” at each other (I forget if he also included a Fender – Gibson confrontation into the picture).

And, this is over two decades ago, when I mentioned “The Beatles” to a teenager probably in our commercial vocational training at the time, I had my first “geez, I’m getting old” situation: she mentioned “I think my parents occasionally listen to that stuff.” :confused2:
Author:  Hanasian [ November 24th, 2017, 9:12 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
My granddaughter: The Beatles? That is grandpa music. Me: No, Glenn Miller is grandpa music. ;-)
Author:  Gersemi [ November 24th, 2017, 10:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
I am the happiest I've been in months.
Author:  Gandolorin [ November 25th, 2017, 3:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Getting to know you...
Gersemi wrote:
I am the happiest I've been in months.

I'm happy to read that, Gersemi, I really am. :)
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