What are you listening to/watching?

What can I say? It doesn't fit above, put it here. Also the location of board rules/info.
Salmoneus
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by Salmoneus »

Dormouse559 wrote: 14 May 2021 06:18
elemtilas wrote: 14 May 2021 02:16I did the quiz thingy before checking what this is all about. I got Abnegation.

But then I read that "Faction leaders want their members to think and act a certain way" and "The factions have conditioned their members to think and act a certain way" I immediately thought, nah. Too much like real life society: why would I want to join that?
That kind of thinking makes you Divergent. The idea in the "Divergent" timeline is that most people have been genetically altered so that their personality fits into one of the factions. The people whose DNA has … unaltered itself? Somehow? They're capable of thinking outside of the faction system; i.e., they're normal humans. And they're called Divergent.

(Does anyone know why the faction names aren't parallel, all nouns or all adjectives? It grinds my gears whenever I think of them all together [xD])
I read them as all nouns. Much like ship names where adjectives can by nouned just because: HMS Content, USS Active, USS Reliant, USS Dauntless kind of thing.
Of course, the names are used as nouns, but three of the words themselves are nouns anyway (candor, amity, abnegation) and two are adjectives (erudite, dauntless). The author, Jessica Roth, studied creative writing; she knows basic parallelism, and this isn't that.
Surely the explanation is just "the author was lazy and didn't put too much thought into it". Your first paragraph of explanation there seems to demonstrate that that's a pervasive trend within the the books, and the "studied creative writing" would seem to explain it.
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elemtilas
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by elemtilas »

Dormouse559 wrote: 14 May 2021 06:18 That kind of thinking makes you Divergent. The idea in the "Divergent" timeline is that most people have been genetically altered so that their personality fits into one of the factions. The people whose DNA has … unaltered itself? Somehow? They're capable of thinking outside of the faction system; i.e., they're normal humans. And they're called Divergent.
Ah!

For once I get to be normal!
Of course, the names are used as nouns, but three of the words themselves are nouns anyway (candor, amity, abnegation) and two are adjectives (erudite, dauntless). The author, Jessica Roth, studied creative writing; she knows basic parallelism, and this isn't that.
Perhaps it's a case of divergent parallelism?
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Dormouse559
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by Dormouse559 »

Salmoneus wrote: 14 May 2021 15:23Surely the explanation is just "the author was lazy and didn't put too much thought into it". Your first paragraph of explanation there seems to demonstrate that that's a pervasive trend within the the books, and the "studied creative writing" would seem to explain it.
As someone who took a creative writing class and understands parallelism, I take mild issue with that last statement [;)] In any case, Veronica Roth (I gave the wrong name earlier) apparently wrote the first book over winter break, so, yeah, there wasn't much time for thought.
elemtilas wrote: 14 May 2021 19:33
Dormouse559 wrote: 14 May 2021 06:18 That kind of thinking makes you Divergent. The idea in the "Divergent" timeline is that most people have been genetically altered so that their personality fits into one of the factions. The people whose DNA has … unaltered itself? Somehow? They're capable of thinking outside of the faction system; i.e., they're normal humans. And they're called Divergent.
Ah!

For once I get to be normal!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ_bIZy24oY
[:P]
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by elemtilas »

Dormouse559 wrote: 15 May 2021 06:04 As someone who took a creative writing class and understands parallelism, I take mild issue with that last statement [;)] In any case, Veronica Roth (I gave the wrong name earlier) apparently wrote the first book over winter break, so, yeah, there wasn't much time for thought.
Possibly.

It could be purposeful, you know. I understand parallelism as well. Sometimes you have to break it.
A classic, that!
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by Salmoneus »

Salmoneus wrote: 20 Apr 2021 22:58
But serious, I've been watching Taskmaster. It's been around 11 series now, so I'm kind of late to the party. It's the sort of show I've kept catching bits off, but never watched properly, partly because of how they structure their advert breaks (which is designed to keep people watching, but deters casual channel-switchers...). But I've now caught up on the ongoing series 11, and I've watched series 10 as well. And it's absolutely, struggling-to-breathe-from-laughter, hilarious.
Update: I've seen a bit of series 1, and it doesn't quite work. The atmosphere is wrong. It's in a weirdly cramped, darkened set, and the host (Greg Davies) is too serious, and hasn't yet embraced his energetically-despairing tyrannical role. Also, the tasks are a bit too simple. However, I've started watching series 2, and while it's still not quite right, it's a big step forward!


You may remember that I said before that it was very British. It is, and yet apparently it's had at least 8 international remakes! Most of these make sense - a lot of Scandinavia, and New Zealand, and yes, I can imagine it translating well there. But I was shocked to find that there was an American version!

...and then rather less shocked to discover it had terrible viewing figures, was scrapped after a single season and was never spoken of again. That sounds about right.


[Speaking of Taskmaster discoveries: I didn't realise that the entire thing is the invention of Alex Horne, the Taskmaster's assistant (who is belittled throughout) - despite the fact that the first episode begins with him thanking Davies for the opportunity. In fact it's the other way around, Horne brought Davies in to bring added authority and allow himself to be the power behind the throne (as it were). It began as an Edinburgh show, before being made for TV some years later. Horne even wrote and (with others) performed the theme tune...]
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

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Salmoneus wrote: 19 May 2021 00:50 You may remember that I said before that it was very British. It is, and yet apparently it's had at least 8 international remakes! Most of these make sense - a lot of Scandinavia, and New Zealand, and yes, I can imagine it translating well there. But I was shocked to find that there was an American version!

...and then rather less shocked to discover it had terrible viewing figures, was scrapped after a single season and was never spoken of again. That sounds about right.
Had a shufty...

I've long appreciated British television, and comedy in particular. This Taskmaster was just not funny at all. The random Youtube dude introducing the video was funnier. I made it to 1:44 of a random BTM clip before asking myself "why am I even watching this rubbish?" And then I tried a bit of the USTM. I think I made it to rather less than 1:26 before vomiting. It's dreck. I mean, there was a laugh track and all the "comedians" had that fake rictus on their faces that you see whenever more than one comedian is on stage together. But there was literally nothing funny happening. If there were such a thing as a fun-o-metre, Taskmaster wouldn't even make on to the negative end of the scale.

I can completely understand why Comedy Central nixed USTM after a season.

I'm glad you find it enjoyable, though!
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by elemtilas »

Brood X

They'll be playing live for the next month or so in a continuous series of one concert. They hold the record for the largest massed choral assembly!
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by eldin raigmore »

elemtilas wrote: 22 May 2021 18:09 Brood X

They'll be playing live for the next month or so in a continuous series of one concert. They hold the record for the largest massed choral assembly!
Don’t they perform only once every 17 years?
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

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eldin raigmore wrote: 22 May 2021 20:58
elemtilas wrote: 22 May 2021 18:09 Brood X

They'll be playing live for the next month or so in a continuous series of one concert. They hold the record for the largest massed choral assembly!
Don’t they perform only once every 17 years?
Well, it's a different choir each performance! :mrgreen:
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Dormouse559
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by Dormouse559 »

I watched a few episodes of "Le Meilleur Pâtissier", the French version of "The Great British Bake Off", a few weeks ago. It was neat to see the various differences in the format: each episode is two hours long; there are no meat pies to be found; the episode themes are often holidays or geographic areas, rather than a kind of food.

But there was one change that I think may be the result of linguistic differences. What's called "baking" in English gets split two ways in French: boulangerie "bread making" and pâtisserie "pastry". (On top of that, croissant-style confections are considered viennoiserie, a subtype of boulangerie.) The show's title uses pâtissier "pastrymaker" and, accordingly, most of the dishes are pâtisserie. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent to GBBO's Bread Week, and the most bread that appears in the latest season is tarte tropézienne, a cake made with brioche.
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by vampireshark »

No idea why, but I'm finding this cover of Icehouse's Electric Blue quite addictive to listen to.

(And speaking of Electric Blue, there's a totally unrelated song by Arcade Fire that's also, to me, quite an earworm.)
And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise;
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thigh...

Looking for subjects to appear on banknotes. Inquire within.
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by Salmoneus »

I made the mistake of listening to Joplin's Solace. It's a mistake because it's one of the ultimate earworms - it's a simple melody but it just goes round and round without stopping. Joplin himself presumably had this problem, which is why it's twice as long as most of his piano pieces despite being much simpler than most of them. I think he just couldn't stop...


Meanwhile, I've discovered that you can get thrashed by a computer at makruk online!
Even at the lowest setting, I can't get close to even beginning to survive against it.
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

More Aromanian music. This is quickly becoming my favorite minor Romance language [:D]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqm78XzwSn8

It sounds like Romanian meets Italian meets Greek.
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by Dormouse559 »

August Rush [:|] [maybe]

The music is rather pretty, and the actors seem to be doing their best, but the plot holes and contrivances get distracting.
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by Salmoneus »

The final season of Lucifer is genuinely really good.
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by Tsugar »

Adventure Time is good, as is Steven Universe
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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

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Re: What are you listening to/watching?

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

Been listening to a lot of J-pop. Japanese is still the most euphonic language to me. And I love hearing the alveolar trill in Japanese (rare as it is). Something about it. [:D]
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