So, the next book I'm gonna be journeying into is a biography of eclectic musician and artist Beck Hansen, better known as just Beck. If you don't listen to Beck, go do it now. Hell, I'll even give you a link. http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Odelay/111102
Now that you're listening to glorious Beck for context, I'll give a short explanation of Beck as a musician. He mashes up every genre you could thinik of, from hip hop to jazz to country and folk, and puts them in songs. And even though those genres may seem to be things that don't go together, it works out quite well. As to what I know about his life, I know he grew up in a really diverse environment in LA, where he was exposed to lots of different cultures and types of music, leading to a fairly eclectic musician.
I've been a pretty big Beck fan since about 2008, when I heard some songs from his (then) new album Modern Guilt on the radio, and decided to buy it. However, I happened to get on the Beck train as soon as it stopped, because he didn't release an album for 6 years after Modern Guilt. This lack of new Beck forced me to go back into his catalogue, and I just ended up liking him more and more, with each new album I listened to. After a solid 6 years of listening to Beck's old stuff, he finally released a new album on february 25th, so I'm reading a biography of him to commemorate the event. What's interesting is that this biography was written in 1999, so it gets a picture of Beck before he was fully developed as a musician, it gives a more candid view of him in the middle of his development. I look forward to reading it!
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Monday, March 17, 2014
Final post for Hypthetically Speaking
So, I finished this book a long time ago, but I've been putting off posting about it.
Well, that was weird.
Around the halfway point, I said something similar about it being weird. It got weirder. Much wierder.
I found that this book was a journey in many, many ways.
It was a journey for the main character, going through the traumatic experience of realizing that he is but a character in a story, with no control over his actions, to realizing the power that only he holds over himself.
It was a journey for the main character in that he and the narrator travel quite a ways in their attempts to complete the quest of killing the author.
It was a journey for the author, as he writes the narrator and main character taking a trip into his subconscious, and examining with a magnifying glass the many influences that come together and make the individual that is David Dill, artist, writer, and person.
Overall, the book was a hilarious trip that takes you from meta to super-meta to further levels of meta that have yet to be named. Well done, Mr. Dill.
Well, that was weird.
Around the halfway point, I said something similar about it being weird. It got weirder. Much wierder.
I found that this book was a journey in many, many ways.
It was a journey for the main character, going through the traumatic experience of realizing that he is but a character in a story, with no control over his actions, to realizing the power that only he holds over himself.
It was a journey for the main character in that he and the narrator travel quite a ways in their attempts to complete the quest of killing the author.
It was a journey for the author, as he writes the narrator and main character taking a trip into his subconscious, and examining with a magnifying glass the many influences that come together and make the individual that is David Dill, artist, writer, and person.
Overall, the book was a hilarious trip that takes you from meta to super-meta to further levels of meta that have yet to be named. Well done, Mr. Dill.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Midpoint ruminations
Alright, so around the halfway point, Hypothetically Speaking is weird. NOTE: I'M PROBABLY GONNA SPOIL SOME STUFF HERE SO IF YOU WANNA READ THE BOOK (which you should) DON'T READ THIS PART.
So, the narrator starts out by destroying the main character's house with a giant tree, to get his attention. They then go through several treeheadings of people who did not please the narrator or would have gotten in the way of the master plan that said narrator had all plotted out. So, in short, the narrator wants the main character to kill the author, so he can fully hijack the story (as opposed to the large influence, but not ultimate control, that he has over the story) and become lord of the story's universe. It gets more complicated and confusing from there. And then some.
/SPOILERS OVER YO
So, this book is really funny. It has some quality/classy humor, and then some pathetically bad jokes, but all of them are entertaining in the end. The Narrator being given a character of his own provides for some earth-shattering fourth wall-breaking. Pop culture references are used extraordinarily often, and to added comedic affect. It is clear that Mr. Dill is highly versed in many forms of different arts and culture, going from music to movies to visual arts, and his references can draw a smile from almost anybody who considers themselves a fan of something. The plot of the book seems, at the halfway point, to just be a vehicle with which to transport this really cool idea that Mr. Dill had. The sometimes juvenile writing really keeps the story fresh and keeps you laughing. At this point, I'd definitely reccomend the book to anyone who isn't offended easily.
So, the narrator starts out by destroying the main character's house with a giant tree, to get his attention. They then go through several treeheadings of people who did not please the narrator or would have gotten in the way of the master plan that said narrator had all plotted out. So, in short, the narrator wants the main character to kill the author, so he can fully hijack the story (as opposed to the large influence, but not ultimate control, that he has over the story) and become lord of the story's universe. It gets more complicated and confusing from there. And then some.
/SPOILERS OVER YO
So, this book is really funny. It has some quality/classy humor, and then some pathetically bad jokes, but all of them are entertaining in the end. The Narrator being given a character of his own provides for some earth-shattering fourth wall-breaking. Pop culture references are used extraordinarily often, and to added comedic affect. It is clear that Mr. Dill is highly versed in many forms of different arts and culture, going from music to movies to visual arts, and his references can draw a smile from almost anybody who considers themselves a fan of something. The plot of the book seems, at the halfway point, to just be a vehicle with which to transport this really cool idea that Mr. Dill had. The sometimes juvenile writing really keeps the story fresh and keeps you laughing. At this point, I'd definitely reccomend the book to anyone who isn't offended easily.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Hey. I'm Owen, and I'm gonna read some books.
So, the first book I'm going to be reading is not, in fact, Ilium, the book that I had at first thought I'd be reading. Once I saw that it had ~700 pages, I realized that I was very, very stupid, and decided to read a different book. The book that I'll be picking up is called Hypothetically Speaking, and it is written by the best substitute teacher in the Wissahickon School District, the good Mr. David Dill. Mr. Dill, while subbing for Mr. Perlman last year, happened to mention that he wrote a book. A group of students, including myself, took interest, and checked out his blog, where he had published the book. Nobody really went any further than just skimming over the intro, but the idea stayed with me, in the back of my mind, waiting for the right time to emerge, and it did. I was down a book, and needed a good idea for something to pick up, and fast. The idea of Hypothetically Speaking stepped up to the plate, taking the chance it was afforded to save me from being screwed.
Anyway, now that I'm done introducing the circumstances under which this reading came to be, I'mma talk about the book. So far, it's a very meta-, self referencing sort of deal.The beginning definitely sets up a strong sense of rising action. The foreword (which, for once, actually contributes to the plot) is written by the author, warning in a cryptic manner that the narrator of the book is trying to kill him, and that he doesn't have much time. It then goes into the first chapterella (cause it's in a novella, geddit?), in which the narrator shows himself to be a megalomaniacal pyschopath with some immeasurable amount of power. Things get weirder from there, and it definitely holds one's attention with humor and left-field plot devices. I like it so far, but I'm not really too deep into it. I can definitely see that this book is going to have a clear conflict, but the resolution- not so sure about that.
till next time
me
So, the first book I'm going to be reading is not, in fact, Ilium, the book that I had at first thought I'd be reading. Once I saw that it had ~700 pages, I realized that I was very, very stupid, and decided to read a different book. The book that I'll be picking up is called Hypothetically Speaking, and it is written by the best substitute teacher in the Wissahickon School District, the good Mr. David Dill. Mr. Dill, while subbing for Mr. Perlman last year, happened to mention that he wrote a book. A group of students, including myself, took interest, and checked out his blog, where he had published the book. Nobody really went any further than just skimming over the intro, but the idea stayed with me, in the back of my mind, waiting for the right time to emerge, and it did. I was down a book, and needed a good idea for something to pick up, and fast. The idea of Hypothetically Speaking stepped up to the plate, taking the chance it was afforded to save me from being screwed.
Anyway, now that I'm done introducing the circumstances under which this reading came to be, I'mma talk about the book. So far, it's a very meta-, self referencing sort of deal.The beginning definitely sets up a strong sense of rising action. The foreword (which, for once, actually contributes to the plot) is written by the author, warning in a cryptic manner that the narrator of the book is trying to kill him, and that he doesn't have much time. It then goes into the first chapterella (cause it's in a novella, geddit?), in which the narrator shows himself to be a megalomaniacal pyschopath with some immeasurable amount of power. Things get weirder from there, and it definitely holds one's attention with humor and left-field plot devices. I like it so far, but I'm not really too deep into it. I can definitely see that this book is going to have a clear conflict, but the resolution- not so sure about that.
till next time
me
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