reading my own post history

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idk I think the idea of looking at 2021 as tho it marks a New Beginning or some dumb shit like that is kinda important, a lot of ppl were kinda blind sided by 2020 and, at least in america, are more aware of how dumb and incompetent ppl can genuinely be. this pandemic has also gotten way more ppl online which has been... eye opening for some. take that as you will i suppose.

The notion that it's a chance for a "New Beginning" is also, IMO, very important.

Whether it is nonsensical in mechanical terms, it's still something people "think." That's very important in terms of how people may react and what their "behavior" could be when confronted with it.

It's effect is likely going to be just as impactful as a "New Year's Resolution" being attained by those who declare them. Even so, though, I think people will feel a bit more positively inclined just due to the fact that "last year" is now "behind us." I hope, at least, people will be able to use the new year in some positive way regarding their own outlook.

In short - It's a meaningful thing, despite being practically meaningless... :)

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joker posting is not allowed in my thread

That is a photograph of an accomplished and skilled artist... But, as a substitution:



(Hope PoE autosizes)

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

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crunkatog wrote:

Waiting for the rewrite of The Stand from Trashy's POV. My Life For You: The Pyro's Tale where all of his dialog is replaced with "Hunna hunng hnggha"

M O O N, that spells 'Stephen King needs to stop using 'simple' people as supernatural/magic conduits and/or messianic stand-ins'.

Or by representing the forces of evil as totally feckless goons, or primordial lurking cosmic horrors that just happen to be dumb enough to fall for the old Road Runner Black-Circle-On-The-Ground that Actually Creates a Wormhole that Sucks The Cosmic Horror Out Of Our Galaxy trick.

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crunkatog wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

"

crunkatog wrote:

Waiting for the rewrite of The Stand from Trashy's POV. My Life For You: The Pyro's Tale where all of his dialog is replaced with "Hunna hunng hnggha"

M O O N, that spells 'Stephen King needs to stop using 'simple' people as supernatural/magic conduits and/or messianic stand-ins'.

Or by representing the forces of evil as totally feckless goons, or primordial lurking cosmic horrors that just happen to be dumb enough to fall for the old Road Runner Black-Circle-On-The-Ground that Actually Creates a Wormhole that Sucks The Cosmic Horror Out Of Our Galaxy trick.

Surprised I missed this...

King does recycle a ton of "King Tropes."

BUT, here's the thing - Taken as a whole, many of his stories... just "work."

I'm not a huge fan, but I do really like a few of his of stories. Namely, "The Stand" as well as "Needful Things." For the former, it's the sort of "tiny epic" he managed to crank out with a bajillion pages that are, as a whole, "worth reading." For the latter, once again it's a sort of "tiny epic" sort of mastery, but this time taking characters into the deeper realms of the absurd. If I'm a fan of anything of King's, it's his ability to take something and making it "real" through the characters he builds. It doesn't make sense that some giant alien spider-clown is feeding off of children, but he made it "work." (Not a fan of that story, though.)

Love him or hate him, he could build a cruise-ship out of his published manuscripts and sail to Tahiti... (Then again, Rowling could do it from cashed checks and I find no redeeming qualities in her most famous works. Evidently, my taste sucks compared to "the rest of the World.")

PS: King's "On Writing" is one of the more valuable and inspiring testimonials out there for writers. It's good stuff.

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for those who are not american and/or can't count (americans) I would have been 11 in 4th grade. I think. I can't count.

Don't you start school at six in America? Which should make you nine in fourth grade.

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Morkonan wrote:

I'm not a huge fan, but I do really like a few of his of stories. Namely, "The Stand" as well as "Needful Things." For the former, it's the sort of "tiny epic" he managed to crank out with a bajillion pages that are, as a whole, "worth reading." For the latter, once again it's a sort of "tiny epic" sort of mastery, but this time taking characters into the deeper realms of the absurd. If I'm a fan of anything of King's, it's his ability to take something and making it "real" through the characters he builds. It doesn't make sense that some giant alien spider-clown is feeding off of children, but he made it "work." (Not a fan of that story, though.)

Love him or hate him, he could build a cruise-ship out of his published manuscripts and sail to Tahiti... (Then again, Rowling could do it from cashed checks and I find no redeeming qualities in her most famous works. Evidently, my taste sucks compared to "the rest of the World.")

PS: King's "On Writing" is one of the more valuable and inspiring testimonials out there for writers. It's good stuff.

'The Stand', 'Needful Things' and 'IT' are sort of my 'King At His Best' trilogy. If anyone asks me which King to read, it's those. The back-and-forth narrative of IT especially influenced me, for better or worse...but Needful Things was probably my favourite. I always imagined it'd be Christopher Plummer or Donald Sutherland playing Leland Gaunt, but I'll take Max Von Sydow anyday. Ed Harris as Pangborne didn't hurt either. And 'The Stand', well, that was the bottled lightning. The container of multitudes. Some awesome, some...Moony. My favourite sequence was when some of those who were unwittingly immune to Captain Trips still went and got themselves killed anyway. All very and so it goes.

The Dark Tower started amazing and, thanks to an unfortunate life-changing event that seemed to have rendered King temporarily egomaniacal, crawled up its own butt hardcore. Pretty entertaining first five books, painfully egotistical I-am-literally-the-centre-of-the-universe last two.

'On Writing' was apparently the other main result of that life-changing event, and yes, it's 100% worth every word. It was great to see an author known for pumping out bricks produce a terse, sleek manual prefaced by a CV that somehow feels richer than most of his books.

I'm also a fan of his older shorter works, the stuff he submitted to various magazines to make a name for himself. 1978's Night Shift, for example. But also Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight -- a great deal of which has seen successful transition to the screen. Most of Night Shift has been adapted, and rather extraordinarily, three of the four stories in Different Seasons went on to become successful films: Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me (the body), and Apt Pupil. I think King at his best writes flawed or monstrous characters we WANT to see come to life (Flagg, the Losers, Larry Underwood, Pennywise), and at his worst, tortured author protagonists (no one cared about who wrote Misery, only about who went fucking apeshit for its sequel, and Bill Denborough is by FAR my least-favourite Loser).

__

I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when it first came out, and was not overly impressed either. It was just a mix of Roald Dahl, CS Lewis and Susan Cooper to me. So you are not alone. I deeply enjoyed the third movie though. Love me some Gary Oldman. As Rowling's become increasingly problematic as an author who doesn't know when to stfu, I consider myself grateful I was never a fan to begin with.

First, on the OT:

For the reader - Most posters here have participated in online discussions on other forums/sites over some meaningful length of time. It could be a history of posts and comments over decades or even just a few years. In all those interactive moments, there's surely a few where you've stated an opinion about something that is or was significant to you. So...

Have you ever changed your opinion or, upon reflection after a suitably long period of time, noted that your previous opinions or views were flawed or wrong?

If you were forced to read all the stuffs you've written in discussions with other netizens, would you be able to say with confidence that you've had a personally held opinion that was changed due to those online interactions?

Do you find your opinion changes, where applicable, more due to reading responses/posts or upon reflection or self-exploration at some other more removed point?

Just curious, and trying to match the On-Topic Theme with something relevant to encourage participation and discussion. ;)

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

... It was great to see an author known for pumping out bricks produce a terse, sleek manual prefaced by a CV that somehow feels richer than most of his books.

First, it should be obvious by now that I agree with all you wrote above. Enthusiastically, of course. The only differences in opinion being detailed here.

Second, I lol'd hard... "an author known for pumping out bricks." That's beautiful. I'm going to steal that. Just letting you know... (Friggin' "A" I lol'd. Thanks for that!)

King is "best" when he's not pumping out backstory/setting fluff, but jumping into character's heads. I do not think it is possible for King to write some kind of process scene or even stage direction, for that matter. That's fine, truly it is - I don't want him to do those things. While I'm not a "King" fan, I like what I like of his and hope he cranks out something else in his plethora of work that I'll pick up and enjoy.

King is also at his best when he takes something very simple and turns it "fantastic." It's an easy story formula to master in terms of plotting, but because it's so thin on "content" it takes a Master to make it truly work. A car... that is possessed? Fantastical, simple... if not for a hundred pages that still need to be filled with something else interesting to read. :)

I haven't read any of his pen-name, alt nom de plumes. I have no idea if he changes his style or voice at all with those.

(Agree with all, especially "Four Past Midnight." IMO, they're all nearly perfectly contrived short-stories.)

PS: Trashcan Man is the best, most well-written, character in "The Stand." :)

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I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when it first came out, and was not overly impressed either.

I read it because a woman made me read it... OK, so I'm a sucker - I confess. Since it was traveling a lot at the time, I switched to narrated versions on CD. I was truly amazed that Rowling could take an interesting premise and then boil it down to uninteresting mush punctuated only by the occasional appearance of something fantastic to spice things up a bit, here and there. It is most assuredly a "YA" collection of stories. There's nothing wrong at all with that and some of my most beloved stories come out of YA works. BUT, that was before the invention of a whole new series of shelves in bookstores with "Young Adult" placards on them... We can thank Rowling and some others for those new shelves filled with more books not worth reading than we've ever had the unfortunate displeasure to have failed to avoid... reading.

I've had opinions that've been changed before. Never on these forums though. There've been times when it might've happened, but of course the conversation was shut down long before that.

There are some smart people on here, I'm sure. Pity there's very little potential for smart dialogue. I suppose you can always discuss art or literature (not my cup of tea), but even there you have to be careful about what art or literature. All in all, these forums are hopeless for meaningful discussion.

Funnily enough, I've had far more productive experiences with complete strangers on Reddit. Yes, even the PoE subreddit. At least the convos get somewhere there.