Disqus - Latest Comments for ekppp

Re: The Coldest War

ekppp — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 23:34:04 -0000

I don't know if this posted. It is Nina Hagen and Lene Lovich singing Communist Russian children's songs. https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Re: 'It Seemed A Sheet Of Sun'

ekppp — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:12:04 -0000

I would like to humbly suggest "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. That book elucidates with crystal clarity the inevitability with which people seize on the power of an insight into the working of the world and apply it. The understanding of power that moves from Niels Bohr to Curtis LeMay, and the philosophical changes that attend that movement, flow like water. For all the industrial effort it took to build the first atom bomb, it was done the day Leo Szilard visualized a chain reaction. It is this inevitability that is remarkable in the story Rhodes tells about how humanity extracts and communicates first insight then vision, expertise, and work from a succession of people in order to consolidate power.

Re: More Grappling With Raymond Chandler - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic

ekppp — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:15:50 -0000

"I think plotting--keeping a story moving--is an underappreciated among those who take the novel as an art-form."

Thank you for putting that sentiment at the top. Plotting, or storytelling, looks so easy, like dancing, when it's done well, but so much of that is refinement: pruning or removing extraneous material or movement. In the case of writing, letting go of so much commentary and giving the material what it needs. I should mention I've been reading your blog for a while now before I pretend to a familiarity you can't know. When you put down "A Farewell to Arms," I thought you made a great point, that Hemmingway did not keep the story moving, and forced it, and it broke. I love "Moby Dick" for the sense it gives of its text floating on a sea, but I love P. G. Wodehouse, too, because the characters are all after something, and acting to get it, and the writing is all in the service of telling the story.

Re: The Pretenders - Tattoed Love Boys Live 1981

ekppp — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:31:39 -0000

I guess the early 80's are underrated. Take a look at this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=...
(Talking Heads live in Rome, 1981)

Until I saw these videos, I didn't think the stuff from Remain in Light could be played live. As Chuggo says when he gets slapped: whooo.