book larnin'
A while back in the comments I promised, portentously, that I’d talk about the actual books – actual = pages filled with words – that I have been reading and now seems like a more or less opportune moment, except for the part where suboptimal me has not set up Amazon referrer links to procure optimal cash. Nuts!
Anyway I have not actually read The World Without Us as certain comics might seem to indicate – though I have read the magazine article that spawned the book. No – because I’ve been on the internet a lot (fucking internet) I’ve been reading science fiction lately, currently: Charles Stross’s Accelerando. So far it’s engaging enough that thirty pages of it inspired a comic.
Manfred Macx is the main character of the early going of the book. He’s an information-consuming bleeding-edge meme polymath, sort of a Y2K update of the cyberpunk decker expert, and it’s okay as far as that goes. The writing is adept and distant enough that it doesn’t send off Mary Sue vibes. However, I became convinced, based on my Y2k9 internet experience, that a human of such a position and function would have to be considerably more of a dick. Or at minimum constantly having to quell his howling bullshit detector. Hence, Raoul in Nobody Scores In The Cyberfuture. Which comic’s ending I’m still due to screw with.
In any case the book is a good read and I think I can recommend it. Although, this sentence
Afterward, she reaches down and massages him until he begins to spasm, shuddering uncontrollably, emptying the Darwinian river of his source code into her, communicating via his only output device.
made the rest of that Tuesday a little more sad.
It beat the book that I had been slogging through before, the evidently well-regarded To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Connie Willis, who seems to find Victorian England a bit more endlessly amusing than I do. I don’t know, it follows the pattern of a number of comic novels I’ve read, where the first quarter to third is very funny, the middle is a slog, and at the end the plot momentum (this one is about time travel) finally takes over and you finish the book very quickly.
Admittedly I am a real bitch of a novel reader. It is too bad that Updike died and all but by way of example I made it thirty pages into Rabbit, Run before I hurled the book across the room, Dorothy Parker style.
THE HIGH (OR MIDDLE) CULTURE DOESN’T END YET FOOLS
Ok, that Nobody Scores with Fine Art thing. I’m fumbling around trying to come up with merchandise or merchandise-like items and so I thought of inserting my patented, crapulent Nobody Scores!™® touch to the classics of fine art, and then, after I’ve assembled a critical mass of the pieces – like as in three – I’ll set them up as either downloadable desktops or maybe as magnets for sale.
Also, I have a list of paintings/artists for me to ravage, if I don’t lose it (since after all I am a retard) but if anybody has any preferences as to what masterpiece needs a Nobody Scores! character garishly inserted therein, pipe up if you please. Additional inspiration.
OK NOW THE HIGH CULTURE ENDS OH GOD JESUS CHRIST MY CRISPY NIPPLES
I have also procured fun from outside sources! To make up for unprecedented fun shortages in local areas.
Perhaps you are getting a divorce and don’t know where to turn.
Or perhaps a digest of Craigslist numbnutsery (A numbnutserie?) is in order. Also check that place’s blogroll for sites in a similar vein.
I stumbled upon a funny comic on the internet the other day and I thought I would share it with you. It is called A Simple Apology and I am linking to it today! I got to these two and I was like “okay I am reading this now” and maybe you will be too.
I stumbled upon another worthy comic in my referral logs. Yes, that means this is a linkslut link, but since according to the handy penis measuring advertising service known as Project Wonderful they have like three readers and I have five more than that, the taint of linksluttery remains far far away from my pristine person… for now. Oh yeah I should be linking right. Ahem. This comic is called Halfcookies! and its style and colors go here, there, and everywhere. A couple examples that made me snort in my kimchi. Right – so. Go fatten its readership peoples. Destroy its server! I demand burning. And buenas noches y sayonara, language mixers und night dwellers. I have more stuff to blab about in a few days maybe.