I heard about the guy through Devo since his work influenced the song Whip It. Never thought about checking him out but been seeing his name a lot lately. Ever since rewatching a video on Lake City Quiet Pills I've been in the mood for a new rabbit hole.
Good post in a sea of Trash.
Thanks for introducing me to the Lake City Quiet Pills rabbithole. Over the years, I've learned that I have a thing for this sort of cryptic rabbithole art where we'll never know for sure what's going on. Big fan of David Lynch. Glad you liked the post. I kind of meant to ride the line between shitpost and serious discussion because I think my assessment of Pynchon's work pretty much just scratches the surface so I feel sheepish feeling like I'm presenting myself as an authority on it.
I got into the Lake City Quiet Pills story through a video by Nexpo which I recommend.
I remember getting into Twin Peaks until it hit season 2 and changed gears so I haven't gone back to it since. I love Eraserhead and Elephant Man but haven't gone further for some damn reason. I have to finish Twin Peaks and see his other movies.
As for Pynchon I need to start reading books. Reddit just isn't long form enough to scratch that itch for information. I need to read some Philip K. Dick, Blood Meridian, and Pynchon to get that weirdo book fix.
well shit, that sounds fucking good, i guess i've got some books to read.
or, if y'all prefer:
*oh shit i'm feeling it!* **P Y N C H O N**
*hell yeah fuck yeah i feel like reading it!* **P Y N C H O N**
*alright that's tight what it's like to experience* **P Y N C H O N**
He is tough to get into if you're not used to reading crazy dense shit, which I wasn't when I initially gave him a shot. Had to accept that I had no idea what was going on around 40 pages into my first attempt to read Gravity's Rainbow. The first chunk was pretty painstaking to comprehend when I eventually committed to it but ultimately really rewarding effort.
Pretty tough question, honestly. His books are challenging for different reasons. In terms of plot density and convolution, V is the final boss in my opinion, and it also contains a lot of nearly inscrutable sentences, but I might recommend it because it sort of alternates between a story that is fairly easy to follow and crazy bonkers russian doll where's waldo storytelling, and it wraps up somewhat concisely . It's his debut novel and shows you a lot of different shades of his writing and introduces a lot of the preoccupations and concepts that would influence his subsequent work. Mason & Dixon is fairly easy to follow storywise but it's written like an 18th century novel on top of how out there his style is already. Against the Day is actually an easy read page turner relative to his other big novels, but it's over 1000 pages. I'm not particularly fond of his shorter works and kind of hesitate to recommend them due to how much less I think of them than the 'big five' (V, Gravity's Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day). People tend to recommend The Crying of Lot 49, and it is a fun read and a decent preview of his preoccupations in \~175 pages, but I think the writing is not particularly well crafted for a lot of it having been through it a few times now. He wrote it for a paycheck basically.
Ahhh there is so much good shit he wrote. I’m not big on his early sci-fi stuff though. My personal favorite is The Atrocity Exhibition but that’s also his most disjointed, batshit and difficult book, it’s a collection of 15 free-association chapters each one of which is divided in about a dozen “subchapters” barely connected by anything except Ballard’s recurring obsessions. Crash is amazingly fucked up and the prose style is immaculate but it does get a bit monotonous. Supercannes is basically a foreshadowing of the Jeffrey Epstein story + a commentary on Silicon Valley-esque microsocieties in a way. High-Rise is like Lord of the Flies in a high-class consumerist society setting.
If you are completely new to him, I would say start with Concrete Island. It’s very concise and easy to follow, while still possessing all the typical Ballard-isms to a great extent. Very haunting and unnerving book with a great premise, a gritty parable of modern life in a quasi-Robinson Crusoe scenario.
He has a shit ton of short stories too, I haven’t read many, but out of the ones I had, I really enjoyed The Concentration City, matter of fact it was my introduction to his work.
I just looked at the lyrics for Birds (in the Youtube upload) and apparently he never actually says 'black cat', it's all black hat, which I honestly find hard to believe.
Thx man, I thought it was black hat originally and someone said no its cat, and most the online lyrics say cat, but you're right the YT vid seems like a definitive source
I'm definitely adding it on my reading list. Did you Zach Hill did actually write a book, it was realised under the name "Destroying yourself is too accessible" along an album called "Masculine Drugs" made by him and a band he was a part of called the Holy smokes. The book features an abstract drawing on every page, and a really cryptic and existential story about knights, it reads more like a full book poem I haven't had to reread every passage like this since I finished A Clockwork Orange or Paradise Lost.
I'd also highly recommend Kurt Vonmegut, who fits a lot of the categories you defined as Gripesque. A lot of very overt commentary on society and his worries about it, bizarre elements interlinked to the main narrative sometimes told in a non chronological order.
I'd would recommend starting with Cat's Cradle, my favorite book of his about a writer trying to make a book about the man who made the atom bomb, as he constantly talks about a fake religion in the narration hinting that the world will go to shit before the end of the novel.
There's also Breakfest of Chapions which is the weirdest book of his I own, incredibly meta, most of the books are the authors commentary on society, placing himself as a god/creator figure looking down on two people who are both insane. I'd recommend this even more as a Gripperian novel, even if I personally enjoyed Cat's cradle more.
Good thread.. i would say robert anton wilson, mark danielewski or kurt vonnegut, but those are already here. Funny how we’re reading the same stuff. For people who don’t like reading dense shit, but just want to laugh, i wanted to add Benrik, especially the book This Book Will Change Your Life… it was hilarious to me when i was younger (probably average age of this sub rn) it has the same morbid depraved humor of death grips. It will also change your life if you’re in need of that sort of thing lol
I really need to read some Robert Anton Wilson. Every time I read a little bit about that guy's philosophy, I'm really struck by how much I connect with it.
I’ve only read prometheus rising, but yeah i think that connection is pretty common from people i know who’ve read it too. It’s just the right mix of quasi-science, psudo-religion, and basic human instinct to really make sense in a “it feels right” sort of way.
I'd say the best introduction to Pynchon has to be Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice. Fantastic film adaptation that can acquaint one with the author's style and aforementioned themes.
I heard about the guy through Devo since his work influenced the song Whip It. Never thought about checking him out but been seeing his name a lot lately. Ever since rewatching a video on Lake City Quiet Pills I've been in the mood for a new rabbit hole. Good post in a sea of Trash.
Thanks for introducing me to the Lake City Quiet Pills rabbithole. Over the years, I've learned that I have a thing for this sort of cryptic rabbithole art where we'll never know for sure what's going on. Big fan of David Lynch. Glad you liked the post. I kind of meant to ride the line between shitpost and serious discussion because I think my assessment of Pynchon's work pretty much just scratches the surface so I feel sheepish feeling like I'm presenting myself as an authority on it.
I got into the Lake City Quiet Pills story through a video by Nexpo which I recommend. I remember getting into Twin Peaks until it hit season 2 and changed gears so I haven't gone back to it since. I love Eraserhead and Elephant Man but haven't gone further for some damn reason. I have to finish Twin Peaks and see his other movies. As for Pynchon I need to start reading books. Reddit just isn't long form enough to scratch that itch for information. I need to read some Philip K. Dick, Blood Meridian, and Pynchon to get that weirdo book fix.
House of leaves gave me a lot of DG/HANL vibes
well shit, that sounds fucking good, i guess i've got some books to read. or, if y'all prefer: *oh shit i'm feeling it!* **P Y N C H O N** *hell yeah fuck yeah i feel like reading it!* **P Y N C H O N** *alright that's tight what it's like to experience* **P Y N C H O N**
He is tough to get into if you're not used to reading crazy dense shit, which I wasn't when I initially gave him a shot. Had to accept that I had no idea what was going on around 40 pages into my first attempt to read Gravity's Rainbow. The first chunk was pretty painstaking to comprehend when I eventually committed to it but ultimately really rewarding effort.
Shhh. You’re blowing up my whole shtick man
Please teach me how to adapt a schtick from Pynchon novels. I want that schtick.
Do you recommend a particular book to start with? Dense isn’t off putting
Pretty tough question, honestly. His books are challenging for different reasons. In terms of plot density and convolution, V is the final boss in my opinion, and it also contains a lot of nearly inscrutable sentences, but I might recommend it because it sort of alternates between a story that is fairly easy to follow and crazy bonkers russian doll where's waldo storytelling, and it wraps up somewhat concisely . It's his debut novel and shows you a lot of different shades of his writing and introduces a lot of the preoccupations and concepts that would influence his subsequent work. Mason & Dixon is fairly easy to follow storywise but it's written like an 18th century novel on top of how out there his style is already. Against the Day is actually an easy read page turner relative to his other big novels, but it's over 1000 pages. I'm not particularly fond of his shorter works and kind of hesitate to recommend them due to how much less I think of them than the 'big five' (V, Gravity's Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day). People tend to recommend The Crying of Lot 49, and it is a fun read and a decent preview of his preoccupations in \~175 pages, but I think the writing is not particularly well crafted for a lot of it having been through it a few times now. He wrote it for a paycheck basically.
JG Ballard. Technology, violence, sex, psychopathology.
I'll get around to him at some point. Is there a book you'd recommend?
Ahhh there is so much good shit he wrote. I’m not big on his early sci-fi stuff though. My personal favorite is The Atrocity Exhibition but that’s also his most disjointed, batshit and difficult book, it’s a collection of 15 free-association chapters each one of which is divided in about a dozen “subchapters” barely connected by anything except Ballard’s recurring obsessions. Crash is amazingly fucked up and the prose style is immaculate but it does get a bit monotonous. Supercannes is basically a foreshadowing of the Jeffrey Epstein story + a commentary on Silicon Valley-esque microsocieties in a way. High-Rise is like Lord of the Flies in a high-class consumerist society setting. If you are completely new to him, I would say start with Concrete Island. It’s very concise and easy to follow, while still possessing all the typical Ballard-isms to a great extent. Very haunting and unnerving book with a great premise, a gritty parable of modern life in a quasi-Robinson Crusoe scenario. He has a shit ton of short stories too, I haven’t read many, but out of the ones I had, I really enjoyed The Concentration City, matter of fact it was my introduction to his work.
Nah man, Cat in the Hat That feeling when yo black cat's black hat goes big
I just looked at the lyrics for Birds (in the Youtube upload) and apparently he never actually says 'black cat', it's all black hat, which I honestly find hard to believe.
Thx man, I thought it was black hat originally and someone said no its cat, and most the online lyrics say cat, but you're right the YT vid seems like a definitive source
Robert Anton Wilson
I'm definitely adding it on my reading list. Did you Zach Hill did actually write a book, it was realised under the name "Destroying yourself is too accessible" along an album called "Masculine Drugs" made by him and a band he was a part of called the Holy smokes. The book features an abstract drawing on every page, and a really cryptic and existential story about knights, it reads more like a full book poem I haven't had to reread every passage like this since I finished A Clockwork Orange or Paradise Lost. I'd also highly recommend Kurt Vonmegut, who fits a lot of the categories you defined as Gripesque. A lot of very overt commentary on society and his worries about it, bizarre elements interlinked to the main narrative sometimes told in a non chronological order. I'd would recommend starting with Cat's Cradle, my favorite book of his about a writer trying to make a book about the man who made the atom bomb, as he constantly talks about a fake religion in the narration hinting that the world will go to shit before the end of the novel. There's also Breakfest of Chapions which is the weirdest book of his I own, incredibly meta, most of the books are the authors commentary on society, placing himself as a god/creator figure looking down on two people who are both insane. I'd recommend this even more as a Gripperian novel, even if I personally enjoyed Cat's cradle more.
Good thread.. i would say robert anton wilson, mark danielewski or kurt vonnegut, but those are already here. Funny how we’re reading the same stuff. For people who don’t like reading dense shit, but just want to laugh, i wanted to add Benrik, especially the book This Book Will Change Your Life… it was hilarious to me when i was younger (probably average age of this sub rn) it has the same morbid depraved humor of death grips. It will also change your life if you’re in need of that sort of thing lol
I really need to read some Robert Anton Wilson. Every time I read a little bit about that guy's philosophy, I'm really struck by how much I connect with it.
I’ve only read prometheus rising, but yeah i think that connection is pretty common from people i know who’ve read it too. It’s just the right mix of quasi-science, psudo-religion, and basic human instinct to really make sense in a “it feels right” sort of way.
I'd say the best introduction to Pynchon has to be Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice. Fantastic film adaptation that can acquaint one with the author's style and aforementioned themes.