Sorry, I just haven’t felt like sitting down and posting anything substantial on the internet in a while.

We’ve all been there.

The Left Hand Of Darkness - I think this is the best Le Guin novel I’ve read because it’s the one with the most going on in it. The gender stuff seems to overshadow most of the other ideas in popular discussion but that by itself wouldn’t be enough to make me think it was so great. Re “and the main character’s >quest (to get Gethen to join an interplanetary federation) doesn’t seem to weigh on the reader (or just me?) as much as the reader would think.” That’s at least the justification for sending him there by himself, which ties into the “uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question” stuff, unless I’m not >remembering it correctly.

I’m probably just going to read the book again, probably before the end of the year. 2006 was the year I went on my first big non-school-related reading sprees, so I’m going to revisit some of that stuff for a 20th anniversary first. Expect to see “(RE-READ)” a lot.

Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed - I think what I really love most about this book is that Le Guin puts alot of ideas that I think she really believed in out that and then ruthlessly interrogates them, exposing alot of the cracks. If you like podcasts about books, the Dickhead’s podcast (a PKD podcast) does a >good job digging into that. The part where they shoot the protesters is a stray-man cop out that kind of betrays what I love about the rest of the book. Regarding your rating of four out of five stars, this is the kind of book that I’d find difficult to give that kind of rating. There’s an obvious disparity >between its worth as a book and its “perfection.”

I guess. A great “cognitive dissonance” book, at any rate.

Regarding your comment that “I will say though that LeGuin was writing at a pretty high, intellectual level for the genre in 1969,” that was a pretty ambition time for alot of science fiction & and era when the genre market became more literary.

Well yeah. I mean she was towards the top, right?

A Time to Kill - You were alot kinder to this than I would be. I thought it was just more garish bad-taste-camp, and not in a fun way, for Schumacher. I know there were specific scenes that I hated but that I no longer remember well enough to discuss. One part that stuck out to me was the arrest in the bar. They >bring a shoe which was an important piece of evidence into a smokey bar and put it down on the table, which is just idiotic. And then the white cops stand around approvingly while the black cop beats up the suspect, in a town that’s supposedly a cesspool of racism. I assumed this act of stupidly contaminating >evidence and committing flagrant police brutality was going to lead to the acquittal that would result in the vigilante shooting. But no, Jackson decided to shoot them without waiting for a trial first. And we’re supposed to root for him and his BS lie of a defense because the movie takes the position that that’s >what any real man would do.
I liked the “you’re my secret weapon” scene, but I thought the ending where they actually do have a cookout together weakened it.

It doesn’t seem like that movie is particularly well remembered for anything besides “yes they deserved to die, and I hope they burn in hell!” McConaughey became a star because of it, but most people seem to retrospectively think (mistakenly) that he became a star because of Dazed And Confused.

I need to rewatch One-Eyed Jacks and The Missouri Breaks to really talk about them. I know I thought the former was genuinely good and the later was at least enjoyable as a novelty. I remember that Pugeye generally hates westerns but said that critics only bashed The Missouri Breaks because they had such high >expectations for it because Brando was in it.

Oh, no, there’s plenty of other problems with it besides the weird Brando performance. Are you big on Brando otherwise?

I haven’t seen The Godfather Part III in a longass time and only saw it once, but I thought it was enjoyable enough and a good thematic continuation of the series, but the production was several steps down. This and Dracula were sure a weird pair of films, with wildly different strengths and weaknesses.
Carlito’s Way is alot better.

Dracula doesn’t feel very much like a Coppola movie. You have stated that the film was full of references to older horror movies from like the 1930s and such, had he done much of that sort of thing before? I have not seen some of Coppola’s 80s movies and he made Godfather III to get out of debt.

Blue Cheer, Vincebus Eruptum- Listen to the Mose Allison or Bluesbreakers version of Parchment Farm and compare them to this version. The contrast is pretty funny.

I did, and it is!

I like the songs with lyrics on Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid. I never listen to most of it, but I think it’s harsh to call it “shit” unless you think it’s all shit in context of the movie. Maybe as an album it’s not really worthy, but there’s no way an all-Dylan soundtrack wouldn’t be released no matter what it >sounded like out of context.

I will be rewatching the movie sometime soon.

I mostly agree with you about Desire, except that I always loved Hurricane and I’d rater this lower in his discography because Iove more of his early and late period albums than you do.

I like “Hurricane” more now that I’ve heard it in the context of the album. I liked it but never thought much about it before.

Jimi Hendrix, Live At Woodstock - I like most or all of it but I’ll concede that a good chunk of it is probably not necessary if you’re not a big fan. But if The Star Spangled Banner is just “a glorified novelty,” do you think that ANY instrumental performance can have social/political weight?

I dunno. I guess I just expected more out of it since it’s so famous. I had probably heard it before but not thought about it much.

You do not “have to be on substances” to enjoy stuff like Voodoo Child, which I still find exciting after listening to it for decades, or all the jamming after Purple Haze.

Gngngngng. I’m at an impasse here.

Do you hate The Grateful Dead too?

I’ve heard Aoxomoxoa and only cared for a couple of the songs towards the end. I’ve tried listening to some of their jam stuff as background music while browsing and such, and didn’t get into it either. I’m seriously wondering what 60s live stuff I like at all.

Valleys Of Neptune - Has more soloing and jamming that I really enjoy than First Rays does, but it just feels like a bunch of stuff that should have been released as bonus tracks, rather than a “lost fifth album” or something. I didn’t like it when it came out but when I relistened to it with adjusted >expectations I enjoyed it well enough.

There’s two more sets of outtakes that were released as companions to VON, they were People, Hell & Angels and Both Sides Of The Sky. I’m gonna skip ‘em. Hell, some of that “lost fourth album” stuff was already on South Saturn Delta, and between that, First Rays, and live shows, I’m so burnt out on this stuff that it’s like being asked to eat a mediocre cake five times.

I like Songs For Groovy Children, from what I remember, but it’s not my favorite live Hendrix. I’m more familiar with the original Band of Gypsies, which I thought I remembered you having no use form, so I’m surprised you weren’t more dismissive of this one. I guess because it also has old songs on it?

I guess that’s kind of it. I really don’t have the words for why I liked it more. “Machine Gun” is at least good from BOG, so I wouldn’t say NO use…but looking around the Internet, BOG just doesn’t have that many admirers.

On the other hand, I remember hating Zappa’s long “Billy The Mountain.”

I don’t know what all from this whole 1969-75 Zappa period I’m ever going to listen to again, period.

I can say with total honesty that, although I like Clapton more than all but a few people who ever posted here, I never really cared about Tears in Heaven. I recently read someone who wrote, without irony or condescension, “Clapton was already a legend before Unplugged.” That made me laugh out loud.

I think it says a lot how many people chimed in about that whole idea of Clapton being at the top of the list of people who should have died when they were 27. It seems like people have just been sort of sick of the guy for a long time.

Regarding “one of the better 90s bands, even if they weren’t good for all that long!” I thought that you only liked Superunknown. Is the other one you like >Down on the Upside? Am I wrong in thinking that you dislike Badmotorfinger?

If I were handing out George ratings, Superunknown would get a 12, but that’s because of length; chop “Kickstand,” “Fresh Tendrils,” “Half,” “Spoonman” (sorry), and a couple minutes off of “Fell On Black Days” and “Head Down”…well now you’re talking a 13 or 14. Down On The Upside would get a 10.5 or very low 11 (I only sporadically relisten to it, but I haven’t forgotten it either…especially not its best song, “Applebite,” which I revisit all the time), and Badmotorfinger would get an 11. Badmotorfinger was a tough listen; I always loved “Rusty Cage,” “Jesus Christ Pose” and “Mind Riot,” but found most of the rest of it a monochrome bore at first. It was also a very slow album for the most part and hard to slog through, making 57 minutes seem like 80. BUT: I gradually got into “Holy Water,” “Room A Thousand Years Wide,” “New Damage,” “Drawing Flies” and “Outshined.” Slowly, a late summer annual relistening ritual formed, and I’d usually pair it up with watching the movie Freeway, so yeah, the album gradually became a part of me. It was not easy going, though.

As for the 1988-90 stuff, give me “Big Dumb Sex,” “Hunted Down,” “Flower,” and (for laughs) “Fopp,” and you can have the rest of it for all I really care.