log☇︎
90200+ entries in 0.711s
boolcrap: i can speak
diana_coman: what can I say: it wouldn't even be the first time I saw someone as the best version they could be rather than what they actually really were
diana_coman: phf, in that case basically mircea_popescu has a point anyway and there isn't anywhere to go otherwise; I read it to mean what I said above (so no, not the best etc) - maybe I was just so tolerant as to miss the bullshit entirely
phf: i think that if you approach jrrt as literature and worse start applying literary analysis to it, then mircea_popescu wins in the first round. if you start looking for life lessons and values in jrrt books it's a lot of really dodgy shit
diana_coman: uhm, what, the dwarfs are now bad in there? (I am all open to seeing this in any other way - I did not grow up with it or something of the kind - but I can't say I see this in there at all)
thestringpuller: oh man i love seeing the qntra diversity
diana_coman: mircea_popescu, hm, as far as I recall they are not great fighters at all for one thing
mircea_popescu: diana_coman finer, i will wager, than anything to be found in the 50k lop (lines of pablum) here under consideration.
diana_coman: <mircea_popescu> really, byzantine fiction (currently known as the vulgate) is much better. but i don't think much more of the people who regard the bible as "great writing" than of the tolkien fans. <- fans, lol; out of curiosity: an example as to "much better"?
mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo "they sunk instead of swam" << swimming. or alternatively, "instead of swan" i guess.
mircea_popescu: really, byzantine fiction (currently known as the vulgate) is much better. but i don't think much more of the people who regard the bible as "great writing" than of the tolkien fans.
diana_coman: I find it actually quite interesting that it's perceived as saying "britain the isolated , small, insignifiant by now island actually matters/is mighty/hero/whatevs" when I read it quite the opposite: as long as they are happy in their own world, they don't matter/contribute nothing/and if they are not interested in the world, the world at some point will be interested in them - and with a big stick at that
asciilifeform: i kept waiting for somebody to bring up the luddism
diana_coman: as to length that indeed I can agree it is a big fault of tolkien - at times he rambles because apparently he's just too much in love with the landscape basically
diana_coman: http://btcbase.org/log/2016-08-02#1513051 - it seems to me that you are taking what I said to mean what you meant; called to do something and responsible in some way does not mean everybody is the same/has same effect or some other such nonsense; the peasant in the hut won't save the world no matter what they do, but this doesn't mean they should do nothing/whatever; similarly, the same peasant may not have "done bad" but this ☝︎
mircea_popescu: hanbot i was referencing this with the baudelaire and whore story. but then again... absolutely nobody would have guessed as much, i figure, amirite.
mircea_popescu: as i said, we're not about to dispose of this matter here and now anywayz.
hanbot: right. well so, apparently i have no argument lol
mircea_popescu: hanbot why would you place ~it in the actual work~ when it's a response to a meta-discussion you started with " i don't think tolkien had much mastery of economy of words" ?
hanbot: yeah, i'm not sure i can specifically place this unapplication of rules, emplacement of britannia ruling the seas in the actual work
a111: Logged on 2016-08-02 17:20 diana_coman: I'll add only the message that considered to be "what Tolkien had to say" (even though he did it through "not-real-life universe") namely that all and everyone (yeah, the ordinary and no, they are not made anything by gandalf quite pointedly not made anything by him) is in some way responsible /called to do something when shit hits the fan; that is all I guess
hanbot: sure. and no, i don't think tolkien had much mastery of economy of words (somehow this'd seem to make him less a copywriter? or maybe merely a more monstrous one).
mircea_popescu: but, a blog differs from "a body of literary work" in this sense, that it's much more extensive. a blog is "all the literature i could write", a middle ground between "i did" and "i could have".
hanbot: well there's an interesting cleavage. it's probably a stretch but i might suggest that tolkein's bit with gollum shares the sensual/sexual/at any rate internal-and-external, physical change via subjugation of self that appears in say alice's "eat me" wafers, if that does anything for you mircea_popescu
mircea_popescu: when i was a child i wore blue, and diana_coman wore pink. thanks god they didn't mix up the colors, lest i'd have grown tits ?
mircea_popescu: i do not say any such thing. i say he is a competent smith, running as best he can a convenience shop, which for whatever reason is blessed with a wall where every jay and silent bob in the county is attracted to rest, and rap, and what they do.
phf: so is it purely when i became a man, i put the ways of childhood behind me, or you're saying there's something specific to tolkien that turns his fans into castrati?
mircea_popescu: i suspect so.
mircea_popescu: she asked me if i ever read it, and i said oh god that thing was spooky.
mircea_popescu: phf i couldn't tell you re stevenson. the only scott i ever read was shaw. anmd shaw is not in this.
phf: hehe, i don't care about dickens :>
diana_coman: I'll add only the message that considered to be "what Tolkien had to say" (even though he did it through "not-real-life universe") namely that all and everyone (yeah, the ordinary and no, they are not made anything by gandalf quite pointedly not made anything by him) is in some way responsible /called to do something when shit hits the fan; that is all I guess ☟︎
BingoBoingo: By butthurt readers I especially mean WAPO http://www.slate.com/blogs/nightlight/2016/07/31/harry_potter_and_the_cursed_child_reviewed.html
BingoBoingo: My opinion of JK Rowling increased over the weekend when I learned that she released the new Harry Potter story as a printed play. A++ Trolling.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform so once its head rolls i'll take it off.
mircea_popescu: i can understand others can be, and have no beef with it. and i don't necessarily even pity the situation, a test's a test.
mircea_popescu: the reason i don't watch "Star wars" or "sex and the city" ; nor bother with "lords of the rings" or "jezebel" is exactly the same reason i don't go around sex stores to sniff used condoms and napkins from the bin in their video booths, like isabelle huppert's character in the piano teacher : i am not quite that hungry.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i'd remove sks from your 'contact me' page if i were you
asciilifeform: i am wondering what BingoBoingo did last time
BingoBoingo: asciilifeform: I pasted the key in fresh
diana_coman: hm; so far we established we agree (and apparently this wasn't in fact disputed although it seemed so) that tolkien's writing is not reflecting "real life" nor intended to really; this makes it crud in your view I gather
diana_coman: maybe; guess I need to revisit bouvard&pecuchet
mircea_popescu: "somewhere in the teens". ie, "when i disbecame a child".
diana_coman: but how does that make him crud I don't get
mircea_popescu: it is not literature, but copywriting. reading him can be interesting, like reading an instruction manual for any artefact can be interesting. i do it sometimes for "no reason" even.
diana_coman: Tolkien made his universe as a place to experiment with his language; I can fully see and agree with the point that it is "not real life" - I read him very late and therefore I knew this already, I never for a second considered it as "real life" or reflection of it or whatever; I guess that's where the whole thing comes from
diana_coman: hm, funnily enough I did love Sadoveanu as a kid but got over it somewhere in the teens
mircea_popescu: i even loved him as a kid, and thought it great fiction. just don't seem to summon the interest these days.
mircea_popescu: what doth surprise me however, diana_coman , is that the allergy i presume in you for the works of "socialist realism" does not somehow extend to... this here OTHER, exactly the same, socialist realism.
mircea_popescu: i suppose it's not to be surprising. if one day you decide to pump the septic tank into the house, the only things still standing will be still standing because lower density than the shit, and so float, not other reason.
mircea_popescu: except if you go to i dunno, farm in normandy or w/e. certainly no paris in paris.
diana_coman: mircea_popescu> this activity, not just "tolkien" but generally "reading", is very much subverted in the anglotard world. have yo useen this, whole carloads of white, quiet, mousy people "reading a book" on their commute <- actually I saw this in FRANCE
phf: i don't think even tolkien fans think of tolkien as a writer, that's why him and his brood get own section at a bookstore
mircea_popescu: then i took a look at the "books" in question.
diana_coman: well, fwiw tolkien as far as I know did NOT consider himself a writer
asciilifeform: i dunno that i've ever run into anyone among the kind of folk BingoBoingo described, who actually ~read~ tolkien.
phf: but the message seems to be, don't eat this it's bad for you. BingoBoingo grew up with fat people who don't know how to cook and only eat at mcdonalds. i grew up with moscows girls who all know how to cook, and for them stopping by a mcdonalds for a milkshake was sort of a thing
diana_coman: mircea_popescu, absolutely; I can't compute it atm at all, not even enough to spit out something meaningful on it
phf: i think it's the "computers for professionals" thread all over again.
diana_coman: mircea_popescu, I don't get it
diana_coman: other than that I don't see any link to either immersive universes or Gandalf or Tolkien or whatever else
diana_coman: BingoBoingo, I think that teens who want to wait for someone to make them special will find something to justify it
diana_coman: guess not since I don't see the link
diana_coman: what point? that hobbits were special? they are meant to be exactly not-special, that's why I suspect BingoBoingo perceives them as boring in the first place
asciilifeform: all i see here is folks who possibly encountered modern and vaguely-tolkienisticly-flavoured pablum and proceed to piss on the original sight unseen
diana_coman: uhm, what worlds where people are special BingoBoingo ? as far as I know Tolkien's point was quite the opposite of this really
asciilifeform: who never read literary criticism in their lyf << lel, i live with it
diana_coman: I don't follow where the magical artefact came from; fwiw I fully agree that a book's a mechanism, true; I still can't fully grasp where you say this particular mechanism is broken/not even one ; I'll go through the old threads again, maybe I get it
asciilifeform: fwiw i enjoyed jrrt moar in translation.
mircea_popescu: i said, actually, bring out a class, a function, a fucking data type, ANYTHING, that'd show this kid can program.
diana_coman: so basically that's what you are asking for: translate tolkien for me so that I can see what is worth in there for in the current language I can't see it
diana_coman: I followed your simile, what can I do
diana_coman: I think the language here is not the key
mircea_popescu: that's where the simile breaks down, i even read arabic.
mircea_popescu: diana_coman this is not true, for i am not people. i am a scholar, and when i spit an error the problem's the code not the compiler.
mircea_popescu: phf no argument there. he can be the president of the oxford medieval reenaction society and organise medieval faires. i'd go, with the chicks topless, they'd kick me out, all nice and good.
diana_coman: mircea_popescu, thing is that what people can or cannot be bothered to read has to do with them, not with what is written really; so it's kind of circular: he writes "crud" because I can't be bothered to read it
BingoBoingo: I remember the 10 BTC at the time which traded for ~$50
mircea_popescu: i said THEY DON'T FUCK PROPERLY!
mircea_popescu: i did not say insufficient
phf: i thought the objection was, not enough fucking
mircea_popescu: i have read the book. to my standard of reading a book, which does include throw it away on its own merits.
mircea_popescu: so i say "this man never amounted to anything" and you say "but he is rich" and i say "and it doesn't matter"
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform same way i know errything ?
mircea_popescu: yes, but i specifically disclaimed the argument as to craft. yes, the man is a crafty writer, archeologist, etc. put in the work. hard work. intelligently. yes.
mircea_popescu: yes, it could be i'm an idiot, granted.
mircea_popescu: i for the life of me can't distinguish them, and this is never a good sign.
diana_coman: don't know where he is on that, but harry potter is a shit from what I saw and no way to compare it to tolkien
diana_coman: I'm with asciilifeform on this one re Tolkien
mircea_popescu: i dun really read the spam queue.
mircea_popescu: i can't help it, for all my patience i can't read ANYTHING integrally. some things annoy.
mircea_popescu: i read fragments.
mircea_popescu: yes, this includes tolkien. no, i don't see him as much more than an earlier, therefore craftier, woman what's her name.
mircea_popescu: i never cared much for the oxford genre fiction of the 50s.
mircea_popescu: i recall adlai mentioning teh policy.
shinohai: I'm just pulling his chain :D
mircea_popescu: fatlogic is part of a larger series on "Socialism-brand Idiocy [I Can't Believe It's Not Stupid], and its consumerist aftermarket effects"
mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo pretty good flower bouquet i thoutht.
a111: Logged on 2016-08-02 00:16 asciilifeform: so i have nfi what kind of imbecile would pay the ransom.
BingoBoingo: I like the title tag on new mpex.ws