recommend me something

[margot]

based on your knowledge of me, please recommend me a book. ?__? There's something I really really want t to read in the depths of my heart, but I do not know what it is. I am really pining for it.

i can also recommend you something (i am really intuitive and i understand people really well)

things i like:

the beat generation

jd salinger

[No Sad Endings]

The Etched City? xD Okay I don't actually know if you'd like it at all, but it is my favorite of course.

There is a book called House of Leaves, I have not read it and am a little intimidated but kind of want to. It's really wild and expiramental, text is written in different directions and sometimes mirror imaged, and certain words are always in a different color - house is always in blue, minotaur always in red. Sounds gimicky, I know, but it's gotten a lot of good reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Remaste...TF8&s=books

Book Description

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.

Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.

The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

I figure since it's so outside the normal constraints of thinking, you might like it.

[margot]

THANKS

YOU SHOWED ME I WANT TO READ "BEAUTIFUL LOSERS" BY LEONARD COHEN

*KISSES TO VAMPY*

[No Sad Endings]

wh-what?

[margot]

just reading about that book made me remember i want to read "beautiful losers" by leonard cohen

i love it because part of it is about a man who is in love with this native american girl from the 17th century and ISN'T THAT THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING EVER, to be in love with stuff like that. it is the same with jeff mangum and anne frank. ~__~ i don't feel that way sadly

[No Sad Endings]

...I... I do not understand but uh... okay

[No Sad Endings]

oh is there anything you would reccomend to me?

[Ceraziefish]

just reading about that book made me remember i want to read "beautiful losers" by leonard cohen

i love it because part of it is about a man who is in love with this native american girl from the 17th century and ISN'T THAT THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING EVER, to be in love with stuff like that. it is the same with jeff mangum and anne frank. ~__~ i don't feel that way sadly

Wait... Is this dude living in the 20th century?

How is that beautiful at all? That's horrible...

[margot]

oh is there anything you would reccomend to me?

"The etched city" by kj bishop

i think you will like it based on reviews ect

description from amazon:

"Set first in the dustbowl wasteland of the Copper Country, Bishop introduces the battlefield sawbones Raule and her gunslinging companion Gwynn. The duo's relationship of necessity is cemented as they flee the justice of "The Army of Heroes," a force created to put down a rebellion in which they were active participants. Wanted and destitute, they make for the uncharted Telute Shelf to find new lives amid the sprawling metropolis of Ashamoil. Gwynn's ruthless knack for violence sends him to the top of the town as an enforcer for the Horn Fan Cartel and its bustling slave trade. Raule, meanwhile, heads to the bottom where she tries to erase her brutal past through ministrations to the city's forsaken. Between the opposite poles of Gwynn and Raule is a languid tale wandering through a sideshow menagerie of lovelorn mobsters, debased priests, brutal imperialists, sorcererous drug dealers, gangland warlords, and otherworldly artists that deftly examines the nature of violence, compassion, spirituality, redemption, and reality. "

[margot]

Wait... Is this dude living in the 20th century?

How is that beautiful at all? That's horrible...

?_? no it just shows how emotion transcends

[Ceraziefish]

?_? no it just shows how emotion transcends

But it will always be unrequited love. Basically he'll be like "I LUUUURVE YOU SO MUCH" and she'll be like "I'm dead." And then nothing will ever happen except he'll get really depressed and not live in reality.

Living in reality is stupid but living in a fantasy like that is stupider. That's the same sort of person who starts dating someone in 9th grade and, after being together for three months says "We're going to get married and live together forever!" There's nothing beautiful about that, the person is just ignoring what is obviously true (i.e. "She's dead" or "People change.")

This post strictly IMO.

[margot]

no i don't agree with what you're saying. ~_~ you're using 'logic' which is terrible.

i liked autumn in 9th grade and we will be married XD;

[Ceraziefish]

no i don't agree with what you're saying. ~_~ you're using 'logic' which is terrible.

i liked autumn in 9th grade and we will be married XD;

*Shrug.* Do whatever you want.

I'm just saying, I prefer not to get burned by stupid relationships anymore; love for me is more like a series of carefully planned movements rather than "Heyyy let's do whatever we want right now and not plan realistically for the future."

[No Sad Endings]

"The etched city" by kj bishop

i think you will like it based on reviews ect

description from amazon:

"Set first in the dustbowl wasteland of the Copper Country, Bishop introduces the battlefield sawbones Raule and her gunslinging companion Gwynn. The duo's relationship of necessity is cemented as they flee the justice of "The Army of Heroes," a force created to put down a rebellion in which they were active participants. Wanted and destitute, they make for the uncharted Telute Shelf to find new lives amid the sprawling metropolis of Ashamoil. Gwynn's ruthless knack for violence sends him to the top of the town as an enforcer for the Horn Fan Cartel and its bustling slave trade. Raule, meanwhile, heads to the bottom where she tries to erase her brutal past through ministrations to the city's forsaken. Between the opposite poles of Gwynn and Raule is a languid tale wandering through a sideshow menagerie of lovelorn mobsters, debased priests, brutal imperialists, sorcererous drug dealers, gangland warlords, and otherworldly artists that deftly examines the nature of violence, compassion, spirituality, redemption, and reality. "

:(

But it will always be unrequited love. Basically he'll be like "I LUUUURVE YOU SO MUCH" and she'll be like "I'm dead." And then nothing will ever happen except he'll get really depressed and not live in reality.

Living in reality is stupid but living in a fantasy like that is stupider. That's the same sort of person who starts dating someone in 9th grade and, after being together for three months says "We're going to get married and live together forever!" There's nothing beautiful about that, the person is just ignoring what is obviously true (i.e. "She's dead" or "People change.")

This post strictly IMO.

Erm. I think you just effectively missed the point of all literature, especially love stories, ever.

[margot]

ok XD i'll think of something in a min

[Ceraziefish]

Erm. I think you just effectively missed the point of all literature, especially love stories, ever.

...

So the point of all literature is "Let's be big idiots and live in a fantasy world?"

What would you say is the point of all literature?

[margot]

Having unrequited love doesn't make you an idiot.

[No Sad Endings]

...

So the point of all literature is "Let's be big idiots and live in a fantasy world?"

What would you say is the point of all literature?

Um. The point is people and their feelings, obviously. o.O The actions of characters in literature are not intended to be lessons in proper behavior. The fact that you believe a character's motivations to be foolish, or even if they are empirically foolish, does not make it a bad story. In fact, I've never read a good story that didn't involve some pretty crazy-ass motivations from at least one important character. The foolishness of character's actions in a story do not make them any less beautiful.

For another thing, you're awfully quick to judge this fellow in the story. You don't even know a damn thing about this story other than "oh this guy feels love for a woman from the 17th century." I'm sure glad you're so omniscient and wise that you can lay down judgments like that. Otherwise who could we trust to tell us how to live?

And lastly, let's see the first time you fall in love with someone who doesn't love you back and you pine after him/her. I will be the first to tell you how stupid you are.

[margot]

vampy should read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Epileptic-David-B/dp...TF8&s=books

it's a french graphic novel that was really well received over there (they respect comics more as an art form over there)

"Epileptic is a memoir of B.'s evolution into an artist, how learning to re-envision and recreate the world with his eyes and hands became his escape route from the madness and disease that might have destroyed him. B.'s family becomes involved with the shady alternative medicine world in France circa 1970 in an attempt to help his epileptic, unstable older brother. What B. picks up from that culture, from the military history he obsesses over and from his brother's cruel delusions is the raw material of his art: his stylized bodies and objects, which look like woodcuts and urn drawings, and especially his constant conflation of physical reality and symbolic value. With B.'s parents consumed with finding a cure, and his brother's quality of life deteriorating, B.'s dreams of a normal childhood are constantly undermined by his brother's illness, to be replaced by a waking and dreaming life filled with demons.This struggle becomes Epileptic's narrative core. B.'s artwork is magnificent—gorgeously bold, impressionistic representations of the world not as it is but as he's taught himself to perceive it—especially in the heartbreaking dream sequences near the end of the book. B.'s illustrations constantly underscore his writing's wrenching psychological depth; readers can literally see how the chaos of his childhood shaped his vision and mind."

[No Sad Endings]

hmm that sounds interesting

wonder ifit's in the bookstore

[Ceraziefish]

Um. The point is people and their feelings, obviously. o.O The actions of characters in literature are not intended to be lessons in proper behavior. The fact that you believe a character's motivations to be foolish, or even if they are empirically foolish, does not make it a bad story. In fact, I've never read a good story that didn't involve some pretty crazy-ass motivations from at least one important character. The foolishness of character's actions in a story do not make them any less beautiful.

For another thing, you're awfully quick to judge this fellow in the story. You don't even know a damn thing about this story other than "oh this guy feels love for a woman from the 17th century." I'm sure glad you're so omniscient and wise that you can lay down judgments like that. Otherwise who could we trust to tell us how to live?

And lastly, let's see the first time you fall in love with someone who doesn't love you back and you pine after him/her. I will be the first to tell you how stupid you are.

I'll answer the last paragraph first; I've been there more times than I'd care to think about, and that's precisely why I have this opinion. I don't want to be hurt like that again; therefore, I have to be careful and rational about everything I do. If I just ran off and did whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, I could not be held as the responsible, upstanding person I would like to be.

Second paragraph; I wasn't addressing the story, I was addressing Lindsay's reaction to it. It sounds to me like she hasn't read the story either. She just knew the synopsis too, and was calling that "The most beautiful thing ever (sic)." How is that snap judgement any worse than mine? Maybe she does know more, but that's not the point; I wasn't addressing the story at all, rather Lindsay's assertation that it was the most beautiful thing ever. Personally, I think that that is not the most beautiful thing ever, so I disagreed with her. As I said, the information, as presented to me, was not at all beautiful. I would feel sorry for that poor man if I knew him personally. Loving the unreal must be hard, and I can't see why anyone would celebrate that.

First paragraph; personally, I believe that literature doesn't have a point, or if it does than I don't know it. I don't think the point of literature is to describe people and their situations. I also don't think that the point is to tell people how to act. Of course people often makes stupid decisions; obviously, people in stories will too. That doesn't mean I can't judge them as stupid. Of course it makes for a good story; I am interested in history because of its merits as a story. Take, for example, Constantine XI, the last Roman Empire at Constantinople. I think of this as a tragic story. Try to imagine that it's fiction.

His capital was put under siege by Mehmed II and an army of Ottoman Turks that far outnumbered and outgunned the Roman army at Constantinople. When the Turks broke into the city many parts immediately surrendered; Constantine XI was allowed the option to surrender and become a Turkish Vassal, but he said no. In fact, what he said (although he probably said it in Latin) was this: "The City is fallen but I am alive." He then led a bunch of soldiers out to their deaths.

Is this a stupid decision? Of course, and obviously he only made when he realized he was dead anyway to be remembered positively in history. But it is a good story.

Just as spending all of your days drunk or high (not in control) is stupid, or letting life pass you by (not in control) is stupid, so too is letting your emotions rule you (not in control). Obviously it's okay to let loose sometimes. But I think that self-control is a virtue.

[margot]

i think emotions are more important than "self-control". I think people often get caught up in this false pretense of self-control and they forger how to really live.

[No Sad Endings]

I'll answer the last paragraph first; I've been there more times than I'd care to think about, and that's precisely why I have this opinion. I don't want to be hurt like that again; therefore, I have to be careful and rational about everything I do. If I just ran off and did whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, I could not be held as the responsible, upstanding person I would like to be.

You can't control who you become infatuated with. You're deluding yourself into thinking you can just control how you feel through rationalism.

Second paragraph; I wasn't addressing the story, I was addressing Lindsay's reaction to it. It sounds to me like she hasn't read the story either. She just knew the synopsis too, and was calling that "The most beautiful thing ever (sic)." How is that snap judgement any worse than mine? Maybe she does know more, but that's not the point; I wasn't addressing the story at all, rather Lindsay's assertation that it was the most beautiful thing ever. Personally, I think that that is not the most beautiful thing ever, so I disagreed with her. As I said, the information, as presented to me, was not at all beautiful. I would feel sorry for that poor man if I knew him personally. Loving the unreal must be hard, and I can't see why anyone would celebrate that.

She called it beautiful because she has a fixation on the concept, son. Duh. She's always talked about that sort of thing.

And just because a thing is painful does not make it less beautiful. I don't understand your concept of beauty, but it doesn't seem to have a lot of relation to art. Most beautiful art pieces are somewhat painful.

First paragraph; personally, I believe that literature doesn't have a point, or if it does than I don't know it. I don't think the point of literature is to describe people and their situations. I also don't think that the point is to tell people how to act. Of course people often makes stupid decisions; obviously, people in stories will too. That doesn't mean I can't judge them as stupid. Of course it makes for a good story; I am interested in history because of its merits as a story. Take, for example, Constantine XI, the last Roman Empire at Constantinople. I think of this as a tragic story. Try to imagine that it's fiction.

A good story is a beautiful story. Thus if the story Lindsay wants to read is well told, then it is beautiful.

It isn't stupid to love something. You don't love things because you decide to. I mean, what planet do you live on?

Just as spending all of your days drunk or high (not in control) is stupid, or letting life pass you by (not in control) is stupid, so too is letting your emotions rule you (not in control). Obviously it's okay to let loose sometimes. But I think that self-control is a virtue.

........your simplicity hurts my head.

[Ceraziefish]

i think emotions are more important than "self-control". I think people often get caught up in this false pretense of self-control and they forger how to really live.

Emotions are important, too. Both are important. Neither moreso than the other.

Emotions are an incredibly powerful thing. What I want to do is to be able to control that power. I don't want things happening to my inner psyche (the most fragile and important part of anyone) that I don't allow. I don't want to be doing things that I don't want to be doing.

Example: If I develop a crush on someone I want to make sure that they are a good person and that I truly like them, rather than running up to them and be like "My love for you is like a cascading torrent of happiness, let us be together forever and have lots of sex!" Because what happens in this situation? After committing yourself to a permanent relationship you realize the person is different than you thought they were.

Snap judgements =/= good judgements. Everything requires careful preparation. Everything.

Don't you understand, Linds, that my way of looking at life is just a way to greater, more enduring happiness? You say I don't know how to really live, but I think that I know how to experience life in a way that I never would be able to if I just ran off and did whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying what you think is right for you isn't right for me. And that's perfectly okay, we're not the same person. It's just like we were talking in RT earlier tonight; you think "Blonde on Blonde" is the best album ever and I think Bob Dylan is a talentless hack. That doesn't mean anything to either of us. You like Bob Dylan and I don't, end of story. You like living by what your emotions tell you, and I like living by careful consideration of everything around me. Neither way is wrong, and everyone has to find their own way. This is my core belief, and I'm sorry if I've said anything contradicting it in this thread; I just got done with finals week and I'm stressed out and tired.

[Dramatic Conclusion]

House of Leaves was great.

I also liked Kushiel's Dart, for those who like alternate Europe-type fantasy settings, with a world rich with legal prostitution, and an awesome female lead with extreme sexual desires. Phedre is a girl sold into a night court, when a noble realizes that the crimson mote/imperfection in her eye shows that she was blessed/cursed by Kushiel, a fallen angel figure representing judgment/punishment, that causes her to only feel pleasure ultimately through pain. The noble uses this, and has her trained in the darker sexual arts, allowing her status as an anguisette to take her to the beds of those with higher ranking, so she can spy on them as they divulge court conspiracies unknowingly while using her for their sadistic fantasies. It sounds dorky, but it's really goooood.

Edit: Samurai, sounds like you're afraid of making mistakes. I dont know, I think it takes a healthy mix of logic and instinct/emotion to get through life. Our foolish errors mold us. If you double take everything, you'll never realize that a ridiculous mistake can lead to a better resolution.