/plaza/ - General/Random

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>>3475 (OP) 
Sounds like an interesting read, especially the "liminal" process even if it sounds arachic in other parts of the world. 
>He thinks these kinds of experiences are essential for a healthy society but now that I think of them, we don't have many at all. 
You mean western society?

Personally, I've been reading pic related and it's been a very enlightening experience. The authors go into depth analyzing a rediscovered non-canonical gnostic gospel from early Christian times that claimed that Judas was Christ' most trusted disciple. Elaine does a great job on setting the stage for how much insight this gospel gives into the chaotic and very underlooked beginnings of the early Christian Church. I recommend it if you're interested in learning more about history or are interested in Gnosticism in general (like I am).

>>3479
>you mean Western society? 
Yeah... I mean there aren't these big events where people transition or transform in a Western society. You have graduation ceremonies, weddings etc. but they feel hollow. Turner believed communitas was connected to religion in some way. He saw it in Catholic ritual but also tried applying it to hippies. Other anthropologists have used it to study everything from EDM to sex clubs. Personally, I think these are a stretch. I guess the theory applies well to some Gnostic rituals too. I've been taking an interest in Christian theology lately, as a non-Christian. Its hard to know where to start but a fun time anyway.   

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A book that I poke in every now and then is "Great Modern Reading," edited by W. Somerset Maugham, 1943. In the introduction, Maugham talks about the need of the public for books, and how the need seems unmet; libraries are great but ultimately far short, and book stores are quite rare, so the needs are only able to be satisfied by an extensive mailing system. He says he put together this anthology to help remedy the situation. I found this interesting mainly because, reading through it, it reads like it was written just yesterday. I'm fortunate to live near a few used bookstores and near one pretty big new one, and have three libraries no more than fifteen minutes of driving from my house, but even with all this I find my wants to be lacking. The libraries are well stocked, and there's usually something cool at the stores, but even with all of this, 90% of the time the books I really want have to be ordered online. My tastes are too niche, I guess. The introduction has a few other things to say, like how the classics seem dull to everyone and such.
>>3483
There is a publisher called Crossway that generally has some pretty good theological books. They have a Reformed and Puritan leaning, so you'll be seeing that view. It's not comprehensive by any means, but it's something. Good luck on the journey.

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Today I re-read Marcell Mauss' famous essay The Gift, which is about traditions of gift-giving in non-Western cultures. In Western societies, gifts are freebies that are supposed to come with no strings attached, whereas in Maori culture each gift has to be reciprocated by the receiver with a return gift. Mauss claims this is because of Maori belief in a mystical power called hau that inhabits objects and will kill you if you don't give back. Two years before Mauss, Malinowski studied reciprocal gifting in Melanesia. He states that this kind of gift exchange is really about reciprocity, not fear of death. You continually exchange gifts because of fear your partner will break off contact if you don't. Its interesting to see how these kinds of gifting have been slowly hollowed out by capitalism. As a child, I distinctly remember relatives from the countryside showing up at our door with a live chicken as a gift, which of course had to be repaid back in some way, albeit with cash. 
Fun Fact: in the Indiana Jones TV movies, Malinowski is the guy who convinces Indy to become an archaeologist and gifts him a Melanesian vaygu'a. 

>>3484
Thanks. I thought I'd start with Augustine, since he has influenced virtually all of Western Christianity. Thanks for the recommendation. Some of the prints from Crossway look pretty high quality. I guess I'll start with Catholic theology, then move on to the different strands of Protestantism. 

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Finished "At Home in the Heart of Appalachia" by John O'Brien. There is so much to say about this book. It was very painful to read, in the sense that everything seemed so real and so depressing to me. It was very insightful to the region and how it came to be so depressing, with an unreal portion of the land being bought by corporations to mine and deforest. There's a decent bit of talk of the philosophy that the "place" inspires and the fatalism that is both real and exaggerated in its people - I write it like that because the author cannot conclude that Appalachia is a "place," despite admitting to living there. He talks of how, really, the place is not unlike any other impoverished area of the country. I related very closely to the author's father, who is also a subject in the book. The like of routine, the feeling of never being able to escape destiny, of being torn between feeling like you could escape but didn't work hard enough and of tirelessly pursuing excellence and never being good enough to obtain it, of the embarrassment of everything you've ever done and trying to hide from anything from your past. I feel like this will definitely be a favorite of mind once enough time has passed for it to settle and cement itself.

Just finished John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory. A very boring and tedious read. The author tries to develop a postmodern critique of secular thought and calls for an updated Christian theology. While some of these criticisms are very insightful, the whole tone of the book is extremely obnoxious. Milbank's solutions are just not convincing or even clear. Over the years, Milbank has become more of a chud but by far the worst thing is the way he strips Christianity of all the things ordinary people like about it, turning it into a cult of aristocratic snobs. This read just felt like a near total waste of time.  

 

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Read "The Color Out of Space" today. I don't really like Lovecraft (his philosophy is the antithesis of mine,) but I do find him a compelling writer nonetheless. Plus, I aligned myself closely with his worldview when I was a kid, so reading him is a bit of a blast from the past. This story was interesting because it seemed a lot more naturalistic than his other stories are. The story is much less about existential dread than really any story of his before this and more about physical horror, the horror of what an eldritch demon could actually do to you. It feels a lot like some space-age science fiction in this way, fearing about all the things out in space we do not know, that specific smallness many people have when they look to the stars. The horror is not just about the existence of incomprehensible evils but of about being overtaken by something outside of your control. The characters do not go mad over the existence of such a thing but are terrified about what this means for them and for the small town it happened to. It was interesting to see how much more dreadful I felt when the decay shifted from plants and animals to humans. I don't know if Lovecraft meant for it to come off that way, but I don't suppose Lovecraft is much of a naturalist.

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Mother of Learning

A coming-of-age story in a time loop. Good world-building, the MC learns magic in a very believable way. The characters are all very lifelike. Every couple pages one thing or the other makes me chuckle.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21220/mother-of-learning

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I read one of David Sedaris's collection of writings, "When You Are Engulfed in Flames." I did not like it, though Sedaris is apparently a humorist writer (he is often defined as such,) and I usually don't find anything from anyone funny. Really, I only ever found his writings horrifying, and that was rare anyway. He talks about living with his husband, and living with his family as a kid, in the way I think most people satirize the typical American family and couple. That wasn't an interesting revelation or comment within the writings, though. I ultimately found most of the writings pointless, with the exceptions meeting only the bare minimum. Only every now and then did I catch some meaningful insight or consideration within the essays, mainly how he often feels even nature mock him for being gay, and the way he mocks other people for expressing their homosexuality in certain ways. I always imagine, should I have pursued writing in earnest, I would have ended up like Sedaris: mindlessly lauded for mindless writing, a stain upon pages, a waste of ink and wood.

Not sure if it belongs here, but it fits this thread more than any other. I read Crossed: Wish You Were Here recently. Thought it was corny. The dialogue sounds like what the average American thinks British people speak like. The way I can describe Crossed in general is that it is a sort of fake-edginess. The people who produce these series pull their punches every time they could make a scene absolutely twisted. Also, the whole cross-shaped scar thing is a bit on the nose. I say that as someone who dislikes Christianity, too. That's not the only anti-Christian content in it I have a gripe with either. There is a nun character who is very sexually active throughout the story, for example. Again, I'm not Christian (though I once was and I still have to deal with them all the time due to where I live) and I don't really care for it, but I can't appreciate very shallow, superficial criticisms of it. I think those tend to do more harm than good because they embolden believers instead of convincing them. Not trying to start a religious debate, by the way. If it sounds like I automatically hate someone because they are a Christian or if I attribute most things I dislike about someone to their being Christian, I don't. I try to tolerate most beliefs so long as the people espousing them are cordial.

>body is too long
Would it be possible to implement an x/max (e.g. 1/20,000) character limit display to the post body or somewhere near it?
Anyway, Crossed really isn't my cup of tea. I saw it mentioned elsewhere that one of the parts might be getting an adaptation so I grew curious about it (I'm generally not a fan of Western comics). I read the original part and Wish You Were Here because someone described it as the best one. I wasn't impressed by either and I'm hesitant to waste my time reading another part. I think it's safe to assume that the rest of this series is just shallow, fake-edgy, anti-Christian crap. If you think I missed the point or read into its message too far, feel free to argue with me.

>>4822
>Would it be possible to implement an x/max (e.g. 1/20,000) character limit display to the post body or somewhere near it?
yup, this will be included in the site overhaul! sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience m(_ _)m

>>4823
No problem, friend. Thanks for the transparency. 

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I read "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde" recently. I didn't like it at first; it seemed like a fine horror story, but then there's that last chapter that really ham-fists the author's intended message to you. It seems unnecessary and makes the whole thing awkward. After I've let it sit for a moment, I suppose it isn't quite that bad. I also found the DID comparisons to this book to be very obnoxious after reading it; even the tome I have says "this book is associated with DID" explicitly on the back, and after reading it that not only seems incorrect but demeaning. It's about the common human want to have your cake and eat it to, the want to be the worst version of yourself. Jekyll had to develop an alchemic formula to make it feasible, but technology has advanced since then, and we have the internet for that now. It's a decent story.

>>5235
>Jekyll had to develop an alchemic formula to make it feasible, but technology has advanced since then, and we have the internet for that now. It's a decent story.
LMAO
thanks for the review, zinon. I haven't read it but I can empathize, it can be a total bummer when an artist makes something fuzzy and messy and great and then tacks on an addendum that basically says "HERE IS THE INTENDED INTERPRETATION. TAKE FORTH MY MESSAGE"

>>5235
>this book is associated with DID
Why are people like this now? People seem to love diagnosing themselves with psychiatric and sexual orientation labels and insert these into fiction, then argue about whether X or Y book is literally me or not. I guess this is some kind of new surrogate religion.

>>5235
>drink "potion"
>become asshole
i thought it was about alcoholism.

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As far as manga goes I'm reading Witch Hat Atelier, which has very beautiful artwork and a fun and interesting world. It seems well written and isn't just slop, which makes a nice change.
As far as real books go, I struggle to sit and read books but currently I'm working through The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, which is a very interesting Chinese sci-fi book.

>>5535
it being a DID story really doesn't seem right
it absolutely felt like some kind of message on drugs

remember, cocaine was legal and popular when the book was written

been very slowly making my way through storm of swords for a while. 
not in a rush seeing as the author isnt exactly in a rush to finish the series :P
i wanna start reading the shards sometime soon also

>>5627
i didnt know that. so he's old timey scarface...

>>5535
>>5627
It’s based on Goethe’s Faust and Shelley’s Frankenstein. So it’s about a scientist who goes too far and ends up cursed like Icarus flying too close to the sun. What made it special was that it plays with the idea of anonymity in a big city. That you can pretend to be someone else entirely and live a double life because cities were now so huge you could have a double persona.

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I read William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury." I really liked the unique formatting used in this book. It is set out very clever - you start out with the disabled man, and you have his thoughts deranged and all over the place, and you think Faulkner's done a good job tactfully writing a disabled person, but then you go to the other two character's chapters and their thoughts are just as disorienting. It's beautifully done. The unveiling of the layers of dysfunction is done well too. My main issues are with the first chapter and the appendix. The end of the first chapter feels like it abuses the formatting; it takes a well-done system of loosely flowing from one period of time to the next, of memories welding together, and makes it feel like stale, rigid hopping. It loses its charm when it is ramped up so much. The appendix just felt unnecessary. It didn't contribute anything, and nothing is lost if you remove it entirely. The story itself is of the downfall of Southern Aristocracy and how both its fall and its rise are just like the rise and fall of the rest of the world's rise and fall. It is uncomfortably normal. It is also about how even the most harrowing circumstances can be held together by someone who is unwilling to do what is wrong and who has a little faith. I have nothing bad to say on that. My edition came with an introduction by Robert Warren Penn. I did something different with this book and waited until I finished it to read the introduction. With this novel especially, this was a good move, as it was more enjoyable working everything out for myself. It was also nice to read the introduction and see that I had correctly understood everything myself. I did not find reading the novel too difficult, but I understood that it could easily be quite confusing. The intro piece was good otherwise as well.

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I am currently reading "Simulacra and Simulation" by Jean Baudrillard. It's the best (un)comprehensive analysis of contemporary politics of science I have read. Marxists are fighting against the culture of capitalism and global homogeneity, and Baudrillard expands that to a critique to systems of science, knowledge and experience itself. The world of today dissolves all barriers between truth and falsehood at all levels, no longer a question of simulation, but of simulacra. A game that we all play and we all lose,  almost a jewish deterministic viewpoint that borders on /pol/ schizophrenia. 

All that said, Epstein and Diddy aren't a scandal, there is no such thing as a scandal, it is all dissimulation.

Bump

>>6006
>almost a jewish deterministic viewpoint that borders on /pol/ schizophrenia.
H-How?! Baudrillard can be a bit edgy and provocative, but he's nowhere near /pol/ tier retardation.

>>5559
readin this next will reporte on it

>>5559
>>8095
The Witch Hat Atelier, initially, seemed like "this is a very typical self-insert fantasy trope written by a sloppy artist" to me, for which I wrote a much more hostile review of it earlier on but it didn't sit right so I treated it with some more respects before getting all too pedantic. I'd say that this paid off.

Without going into the specifics of the details, it seemed to me that this is a pretty well written piece of media that, VERY subtly, explores the costs of freedom and growth, authority, bureaucracy, whether we are held down by others, or if we can grow past them, and at what costs? I initially was going to call it "this is someone's pretty princess savior fantasies" but it did seem off to me. I'll be getting into the story a little bit further past this point, so;

What stood out to me is that coco seemed held down to me. Girl wants to be a witch, mom's protective, already lost dad. The world in itself forbids magic to most, claiming that it's impossible for the regular folk to do it. She even comes across a REAL witch. One who DOES magic. But how does she become a witch herself? By breking the rules, learning things she "shouldn't've known" according to all but one person! The one who sold her the forbidden book. I like it. I'd place it up there next to the "this was clearly written by someone who knows how to make something simultaneously entertaining for anyone who doesn't care to think too deeply of it, but also for anyone mature enough to do so." which, ultimately might be the one "detrimental" thing to the piece, if so to be pedantic. Things that get everything done at once, tend to be a bit undercut on both fronts, I've figured, which is usually why I lean more towards things that are furthermore cryptic in their writing. But is it BAD? absolutely not. do I like it? I'd say so. I think this is the kind of media that'd add positive traits to someone who absorbs it which I do think is rare in the general fields of media. I'd actually love to talk even more about it but I'd be self-indulging my appreciation for the themes explored so I'll leave it here. I suggest anyone who likes that glance should read it for themselves.

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I read "102 Minutes" by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. An account of the terrorist attack on the WTC complex from the perspective of those inside the buildings, using firsthand accounts from those who made it out and secondhand accounts from those who saw the people who didn't. It's obvious that some of the book is speculative (in edt, they will describe things that can be reasonably assumed to be true but that no one could have possibly actually seen,) but overall there is a very high standard of quality and a lot of high quality information used. The book seems primarily focused at pointing fingers, interestingly enough - at New York City for valuing floor space over fire safety, at the Port Authority for not using rigor when selecting building and fireproofing materials, the Police Departments and Fire Departments for not having a good relationship and not practicing for a WTC emergency, both for never testing their equipment with the WTC in general, and the Mayor for covering up the failures of both Departments and snubbing the civilian participation in the rescue. It's a very enlightening book in this regard. It's very enlightening about the tragedy in general, pulling stories from the people who were there and who had to make it out, some by just walking out, some by propping up rubble to make a just-crawl-through sized hole in the hallway or using a squeegee to cut the drywall on a blank elevator floor. It's also heartwrenching to read about everything that happened and all of the people who died, especially that practically all the people above the floors of impact were doomed and never made it out. If I remember correctly, 14 of the thousand or so people above floors of impact were able to escape. I also didn't realize how thoroughly the entire complex was damaged; the towers falling managed to completely destroy the Marriott Hotel in the complex, for instance.

As an aside, I checked this book out from the library, and the person who last checked this book out left their receipt in the book. It was dated 2015. A bit worrying. I feel like all 9/11 is to most people is a joke anymore. I fear that none of us have any connection to the event, which is not good because it is quite important, far beyond the scope of the ones who suffered in the plane crashes.

>>5628
as an update to this, the shards was really good. i would recommend anyone to read it. it is technically a really long book i think, and yet it went so incredibly fast because it was just so gripping.
>>6006
i personally preferred the illusion of the end, i think its a much better book that illustrates his arguments better.

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>>This is my year for tackling some big books that have been on my list for a while. Absolutely adored House of Leaves, what an uncanny yet fun experience that the text takes you on. Currently reading Little Women and enjoying it in the completely opposite way; it has a deeply grounded coziness.

>>5892
I'm convinced, I'll read that next

>>8224
house of leaves is my favorite book! you have great taste marzinon

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>>3475 (OP) 
I'm often not one for books but I'd recommend dracula. I listened to it in audiobook format, mostly for the first half because the second half seemed more like a fetish-fantasy.

The first half of the book, if you care to take an interest, feels like an extremely interesting dive into social dynamics. It'll feel unnecessarily dragging if you're not into vampires, because the writing goes into a lot of depth about the most smallest details, but I do think that bram did this because he had a very specific image of dracula in his mind. The way dracula moves, acts, can be so cruel yet suddenly so comforting paints a very interesting personality. He doesn't really come off mindlessly villainous, he just seems painstaking only to the extent. Only hinting at what would induce fear, only ever taking one drop of blood, barely ever hurting anyone, only enjoying that he can make them squirm without anything else.

The second half where dracula takes off from transylvania did really come off much like self-indulgent-cuck-fetish pornography though. I didn't really like it enough to read too far into it.

https://nopanamaman.itch.io/z-a-t-o-i-love-the-world-and-everything-in-it
I read this a while ago and keep thinking about the ending, you guys would probably like it. Best OELVN I know of.

I don't know if this counts, but I think this fits the thread.

https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=mxj7xp4nffia9rbj

Howling Dogs (2012), interactive fiction novel by Porpentine. Surreal philosophy provoking read about someone taking place in chamber with nothing inside but just basic human needs and lucid dream inducing VR set. The whole story can be somewhat perplexing. Writing style is rather poetic. It's quite free to interpretation because it's not really a story, but something of an artwork and it makes it, , somewhat special? I loved it a lot even though I must admit I did not understand it completely, it surely affected me somehow.