Whatcha reading?

Sweet action for kids 'n' cretins. Marjoram and capers.
Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 116000
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Image
This person has the nerve to write about something tangentially related to my diss. Well, I'll show her by reading this and declare any differences of interpretation as proof she's a moron.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

You aware of any decent history of EC comics or fifties horror comics in general?
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 116000
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:
29 Jul 2018, 2:58am
You aware of any decent history of EC comics or fifties horror comics in general?
Pulling up my old research database, the obvious ones would be:
von Bernewitz, Fred and Grant Geissman. Tales of Terror! The EC Companion. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books, 2000.
Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
Barker, Martin. A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign. London: Pluto Press, 1984.
Nyberg, Amy Kiste. Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 1998.

Because the whole thing has become inseparable from Fredric Wertham, I'll add:
Wertham, Fredric. Seduction of the Innocent. New York: Rinehart, 1954.

And an intelligent analysis of Wertham's arguments beyond the knuckledragging "duh, he hated comics":
Beaty, Bart. Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2005.

There's also a good documentary on Wertham called Diagram for Delinquents: Fredric Wertham and the Evolution of Comic Books.

edit: Also, if you're interested in the Wertham angel, about five or six years ago, an essay was published by someone who looked at Wertham's raw data for Seduction and found he fixed the evidence, creating composite characters to maximize his points.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Image
Casino Royale - Ian Fleming. Audiobook. The first James Bond adventure, and one that's quite unlike the later, more insane books. A small plot with an unconvincing love story and a sadistic scene where the alcoholic secret agent of 1953 is tied to a bottomless wicker chair and has his genitals beaten with a carpet duster. Very thin on characterisation, a laughable moment where a recovering Bond tries to get at the nature of good and evil ("the kind of conservatism we have now would have been called communism fifty years ago") and lots of Fleming's dusty wish fulfilment. Once you accept you're getting a weak chinned snob who shares none of the characteristics that Connery brought to the character, these silly thrillers become quite addictive.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Image
John Tyler - Gary May. A short book about the 10th President, the guy who took over from William Henry Harrison and set the presidential precedent that the vice president should ascend. Nobody liked him at the time, his main goals were avoiding war with Britain, not getting decimated by the still-powerful trio of John C Calhoun, Henry Clay or Daniel Webster, and the annexation of Texas which hastened the move toward civil war. He had this to say about Lincoln's election: "We have fallen on evil times. Madness rules the hour, and statesmanship... gives place to demagogism which leads to inevitable destruction." He then treacherously went on to serve a major role in the budding confederacy and then died, leaving his hot wife and bundle of young children to make an effort at protecting his forever battered reputation.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 116000
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:
01 Aug 2018, 2:54am
Image
Casino Royale - Ian Fleming. Audiobook. The first James Bond adventure, and one that's quite unlike the later, more insane books. A small plot with an unconvincing love story and a sadistic scene where the alcoholic secret agent of 1953 is tied to a bottomless wicker chair and has his genitals beaten with a carpet duster. Very thin on characterisation, a laughable moment where a recovering Bond tries to get at the nature of good and evil ("the kind of conservatism we have now would have been called communism fifty years ago") and lots of Fleming's dusty wish fulfilment. Once you accept you're getting a weak chinned snob who shares none of the characteristics that Connery brought to the character, these silly thrillers become quite addictive.
Give me two sauteed carrots, three pea pods in Hungarian oil, three-quarters of a Cornish hen wing with half an ounce of salt, and a pint of Bolivian lager chilled to exactly 13.6ºC.

Bond's weirdly specific ordering in restaurants always made me laugh.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland - Patton Oswalt. Audiobook, read by the author. This is good, I found myself enjoying his measured prose far more than the kind of performance his stand up tends towards. Always a gifted writer, here is on show with out the bells and whistles. A breezy recommend.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

The Declarations of Havana - Fidel Castro, with an introduction by Tariq Ali. Audiobook, read by una gringo sin cojones. A windbag admits no fault. There are some great, insightful passages in the two sections, the first from Castro on trial before the Batista judges, the second from after his movement triumphantly installed him as a strongman, but here was a fella in need of an editor. Maybe Che would have cut down on his verbiage. Whatever lip service is paid, I never get the sense of someone wanting to empower the people.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 116000
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Finished listening to Winter Kills on the plane yesterday. Silly and absurdly contrived (tho that was the point), so much so that it became rather boring. Every four chapters or so, it would be revealed that everything that was revealed in the previous ones was false and so we start all over again. You can only go to that well so often before the reader starts to tune out and get fed up.

Started this audiobook today:
Image
May's book Homeward Bound, about how a type of domestic containment was introduced to establish Cold War order in the family home during the 50s, is deservedly still respected, so I'm quite hopeful about this. The essence of the book thus far is that since 1945, Americans have moved farther away from citizenship and public institutions to an insularity and individualism rooted in fear of … well, lots of stuff.

Tub book I'll be starting today:
Image
Picked this up on a whim at a used bookstore in Saskatoon. Might reorient some of my perceptions, might be complete crap. Huzzah for all that!

edit: So I started reading Higgs and got a weird sense that I'd read this before. Intense deja vu is my warning sign of a possible seizure coming, so I'm pulled the plug on the tub—drowning in a bath tub ranks high for me on embarrassing ways to die—and got out. No seizure but I looked up on my book catalogue and, yup, I have a pdf of this one. I still don't think I've actually read it, but I must have skimmed the introduction and stored some of it in my normally crappy memory.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 116000
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

New audiobook:
Image

A solid citizen has seemingly murdered a young boy, but, duh, things might not be what they seem. I don't know why I'm listening to this. I haven't actually enjoyed a King novel in well over a decade. It's not quite hate-listening because I don't hate King's work by any means, but there's a weird counter-attraction that I listen to so many of his newer books.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Flex
User avatar
Mechano-Man of the Future
Posts: 35803
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:50pm
Location: The Information Superhighway!

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Flex »

I remember enjoying Cell, which i think was the last Stephen King book I've read.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 116000
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Starting this bedtime book before bedtime:
Image
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Kory
User avatar
Unknown Immortal
Posts: 17319
Joined: 17 Jun 2008, 1:42pm
Location: In the Discosphere

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Kory »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
16 Aug 2018, 7:05pm
Starting this bedtime book before bedtime:
Image
Please keep me updated on this one.
"Suck our Earth dick, Martians!" —Doc

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 116000
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Kory wrote:
17 Aug 2018, 12:19pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
16 Aug 2018, 7:05pm
Starting this bedtime book before bedtime:
Image
Please keep me updated on this one.
Okay: Day 2. Still reading.

Thhhpt.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

One Acre Homesteading: Planning For Self Sufficiency - Sara SImmons McDonald. A not particularly helpful or insightful book, a few pieces of sensible advice aside. Much of it has an autobiographical bent that isn't interesting or illuminating for the topic. I'm sure I'll find a better one as I research this stuff.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Post Reply