So I’m sitting in my room, working on my linguistics home exam, and I’m trying to explain why the verb paint in the sentence his father was painting a picture is not the same verb as the paint in the sentence his father never painted again, right? My line of resoning is the kind I [...]
Posts filed in Goosebumps!
You know the feeling, when something is so good, it makes the hair on your arms rise, and you get shivers running down your spine. Can’t do anything but love ‘em. Personally, I live for these things these days.
The Matrix
Just watched The Matrix, but seeing as I’ve already reviewed this movie somewhere else on this blog, I’m going to limit myself to pointing out how much the whole Matrix/human batteries thing seems like something out of Marx.
You’ve got your people, right, who can be likened to either the people in Marxist theory in general, [...]
I was, in fact, not aware of this
“To Athens and Sparta Xerxes sent no demand for submission because of what happened to the messngers whom Darius had sent on a previous occasion: at Athens they were thrown into the pit like criminals, at Sparta they were pushed into a well — and told that if they wanted earth and water [signs of [...]
Curse of the Golden Flower
I had myself a small movie marathon last night, and as a couple of the movies I watched might be of interest to my readership (I do after all have a fairly good estimation of both you gentlemen’s tastes), I though I’d review them. First one out is Yimou Zhang’s Curse of the Golden Flower.
An English villager’s complaint
Ye friends to truth, ye statesman who survey
The rich man’s joys increase, the poor’s decay,
‘T is yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and an happy land.
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards e’en beyond the miser’s wish abound,
And rich men flock from [...]
A TV Dante
My sister is one of the most important students at NTNU’s Department of Nordistics (or whatever) and Literature, primarily through her role as founder of the departemental body responsible for arranging events related to the relevant field of study (primarily Nordic linguistics and literature, as well as literature in general). Yesterday, she had arrange a [...]
WALL-E
As I went to see WALL-E (from now on Wall-E, as Nature abhors a shout, even though it’s supposed to be an acronym) last a couple of days ago, I was feeling highly ambiguous and thus also a bit scared. You see, my hopes for this movie were nothing short of astronomic, as just about [...]
Not again!
Shit.
Here I turn my head for a second, and when I turn back towards the ‘net again, two months have passed. If I’d had a dollar for every time this has happened (or, perhaps more precise, for every time I’ve done this) in the last three years, I’d probably have… enough for a soda, anyway.
So, [...]
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
2008.
536 pages (Gollancz Fantasy trade paperback).
“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.”
— Paul Gaugin.
This being the opening quote of Last Argument of Kings, the concluding volume in Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law series, one can perhaps perceive that this is a bleak affair. As I remarked in my reviews of the first [...]
I don’t want Bendis to ever go away!
So, I’ve been reading Ultimate Spider-Man lately (bye-bye, decent exam-period meals), and at first I thought it would be boring to read a superhero comic with only one superhero. I imagined it would be far less interesting than the more group-oriented superhero comics I’ve read before, like Astonishing and Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates, as [...]
A Plague! A Plague on Our Houses!
In my Last.fm shoutbox, I was recently asked by one of my readers to post more frequently in my blog, and seeing as your whim is my law, I bring you this: an essay of sorts about the last topic you’d expected me to write about!
One of the things you might not know [...]
Amadeus
Had quite the movie-athon yesterday. Here’s part two, Amadeus, with three and four coming as soon as I can find the time to read them.
Amadeus is often portrayed as the lifestory of one of if not the best musical composer in the history of mankind. (Disagree? Go listen to his Requiem while you wait for [...]
Lord of War
It’s been nearly two weeks since I watched Lord of War, so this’ll be a brief review, but better late than never, eh?
First off, what struck me during this second watching of Lord of War was how similar, in many ways, it was to Charlie Wilson’s War. They both dealt with serious subjects, and they [...]
Almost Famous
Almost Famous has been described as doing for the 70s what Rock Star did for the 80s. Do I believe this description is an accurate one? Perhaps. What I do believe is that it’s a great movie.
Supposedly, Almost Famous is based on writer/director Cameron Crowe’s own experiences as a Rolling Stones journalist. In it he [...]
Atheists <3 Averröes (or ibn Rushd, if you prefer)
“In the Christian intellectual environment of the thirteenth century, apparent conflicts between argumentation in natural philosophy and argumentation in matter sof theological doctrine became exceptionally acute. The newly introduced writings of from the ancients — Greek philosophy and science, accompanied by Arabic and Hebrew commentary — rigorously set forth propositions alien to fundamental dicta of [...]
A Message from the Lost Son: Why I Love Heraclius
“The Persians were applying inexorable pressure on what remained of the empire. Heraclius was faced with a stark choice: he could either wait for the Persian grip to tighten, fighting a series of rearguard actions which offered little chance for ultimate success, or he could throw caution to the wind and take battle to the [...]
Oh. My. Fucking. Gods.
I just found out that there exists a British television show from 1990 where Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry plays the parts of P.G. Wodehouse’s Wooster and Jeeves. Naturally, all my viewing plans and schedules have been postponed until I’ve downloaded and watched all four seasons.
Not that that means much — I’ve hardly watched any [...]
The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe
2004.
920 pages, Gollancz trade paperback.
An American kid is out walking in the forest surrounding his and his brother’s cabin when he spots a castle in the sky, and follows it. During his pursuit he looses track of where he is, and when night falls he decides to sleep out in the forest. When he wakes [...]
Hässelby by Johan Harstad
2007.
444 pages, Gyldendal hardcover.
This is a tale about Albert Åberg — the main character of a series of childrens’ books written by Gunilla Bergström in the early 1970s. What happened to him after his childhood in the quiet Stockholm suburb of Hässelby? How did he grow from a lively, enthusiastic boy to a disillusioned, bored [...]
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
1968.
168 pages, including an afterword by Jon Bing, translator and professor of information law.
In the not too distant future humans have made Earth almost inhabitable by nuclear war. Colonies have been established on Mars and elsewhere, and most of mankind has moved there. Many still remain, though. Some because they don’t want to go, some [...]
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