Fred, it would be great if you're reading this. In a nice coincidence, after leaving your place, we found a used bookstore in Canandaigua where I found a copy of Simak's A Choice of Gods and, of course, I bought that copy and read it over the next two days. Good stuff. Thanks for the recommendation.
Brandon, I'm way behind on posting here due to having just had a lovely long vacation, but I'm at the library now and intend to write up more than a few posts today. I watched The Killing of a Chinese Bookie two days before your "stick 'em ups" post. You need to see it. It is now my #1 favorite non-2009 film that I've seen in 2009. I've started writing a longer essay about it which I hope to post here soon. I need to catch up on writing about other movies that I've seen, too. I wish that I had electricity at night just so that I could write, but, alas, I've got to do all of my writing/typing at the library. I've got notes, but it could take a while before I get around to writing something longer.
Also, I dug out my 5th edition copy of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and I'm now planning on watching all 1001 because, really, why not?
2 comments:
That's great. I'm glad you think it's a good book. Because it is. I wrote a piece of music inspired by part of it. I'll try to remember to [remember to] post it to my blog in the next few days. It's for live percussion ensemble and synthesizer. lots of cymbal rolls.
I remember that you composed something based on some SF novels for your Senior exhibit. Was that something different or the same? We went to the performance, but I don't remember much about it.
Please do remember to post the music.
Simak's novel is interesting from a film blog standpoint because it seems like it would be incredibly difficult to adapt for cinema. Long pages of prose consist of nothing but two characters talking to one another and the conceit of the diary entries would be difficult to translate. Also, the Principle and shipless star travel would be tough things to convey in visual terms.
You should watch La Jetee. I know that you dislike time travel stories, but I think that you'll like it anyhow. At least, I hope you will.
I'm reading 2001 right now. It's good, but it also already seems like a much more inhuman book than A Choice of Gods is. Simak's work is deeply humanistic. Clarke's work seems, from the beginning, to want all us dumb humans to quit being human and move on already. I don't know. I'm about halfway done. I'm still reserving judgment. I am glad that I'm finally reading a "classic" that I've avoided this long.
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