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FatherAlabaster

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Everything posted by FatherAlabaster

  1. There you have it... even their fans admit the music puts them to sleep
  2. My daughter has been home with diarrhea for a full week, so I can attest that this is accurate.
  3. We moved a lot. Easthampton, Hampton Bays, Sag Harbor (not the fancy parts), and Shelter Island. My parents had finally been able to buy a house there and it seemed like we were done moving, but life had other plans. That's been a theme for all of us. NC was a fluke, we went there to stay with some friends of theirs from the upstate days and wound up staying. I wanted to move back to NY from the moment we got there and finally had my chance when I went to college. Oddly my dad's parents (from Bedminster) retired to Vermont, my mom's parents (from Great Neck) retired to Delaware, and even though my parents were both kind of the black sheep, both sets of grandparents moved down to their neighborhood in North Carolina for their final chapters.
  4. Dødheimsgard - Black Medium Current
  5. I'm gonna dispute this. I only went to middle school and high school there. Formative years without a doubt, but I was never at home there and I only ever visit now to see my family. Born in NYC, lived in the state and on Long Island till we had to leave. I've always been a northeasterner.
  6. I'll definitely watch it again. I liked the first part better after I watched it a second time. I thought Jessica and Stilgar were too one-note, almost cartoonishly so, and I'm not sure I buy Chani as either the avatar of a non-religious anti-BG coalition or the jilted lover riding off in frustration. I see that they wanted to focus on the "mostly reluctant participants in a cynical manipulative plot that offers the only alternative to complete annihilation" angle, and they made all of their storytelling choices in service of that. In a big-picture way it makes sense. But I think there's a lot of nuance and depth between the characters that they left out by doing that, not to mention interesting world-building stuff and the feeling of immersion in a sometimes jarringly different culture with different values and mores, and it made the story feel less consequential to me. For instance, when Chani got hurt by Paul's demand for Irulan's hand in marriage, I felt a little like I was watching that dumb Beowulf movie from a few years back. In the book, Paul had to take the wife of Jamis as his own after he won that first fight - culture shock! - and he and Chani were together for a few years, and they'd had and lost a child together, and she understood exactly what was going on when Paul married Irulan out of pure political convenience. And I think Jessica's character would have been deeper and more sympathetic if Alia had been born and we'd seen them interacting. There are other things that I think would have helped too. And it would have been cool to see some of the other characters who got sidelined. I can understand how all of that is of less consequence to the part of the story they wanted to tell through this movie, but for me, the characters are the focus, and when they're not served well - like in those fucking awful sequel books by Frank Herbert's son - I have a hard time swallowing it. But look, I read the first book when I was 7 and loved it immensely as a "coming of age" story. It took me a few years to get into the rest of the series - Paul was maybe a childhood hero and I didn't want to see him as a tragic ruined figure - but all the original books became favorites and I've read them a bunch. I might be too much of a purist about them to be happy with anything that isn't completely exhaustive. You might get more out of it than you think. Frank Herbert's world-building was meticulous. The mechanics of the sandworm/spice/desert ecosystem and the tools and methods the Fremen developed to interact with the worms are pretty thoroughly detailed, they're not just a stand-in for the "mighty steed". I like hard sci-fi too, but from my point of view anything relying on technology that doesn't exist yet is a kind of fantasy.
  7. Weird. Almost three hours and I felt like it was too short and lacking in character development. I think I get why they took the angle they did, but I feel like a couple of major characters got short shrift, and somehow that bugged me more than the significant liberties taken with the storyline. Not really sure how I feel about it.
  8. About to watch Dune 2. First time in the local theater and damn it's tiny. On the upside it seems like everyone clogging the entryway is here for Kung Fu Panda.
  9. Debussy - Preludes (Walter Gieseking) Ulver - Themes From The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell
  10. Howling Sycamore - s/t PoiL Ueda - Yoshitsune ...grabbed from the Thatguy pile. I'm not sure I can properly dig into this with everything going on at the household today, but I like it, wild stuff.
  11. I want to revisit these. I was really pumped about Perverse Offerings but the newer one never clicked. Maybe it's just where my head was at the time.
  12. Krallice - Mass Cathexis 2/The Kinetic Infinite Return To Forever - Hymn Of The Seventh Galaxy
  13. Before: Akercocke - Renaissance In Extremis Cryfemal - Apoteosis Oculta Incantation - Mortal Throne Of Nazarene NP: Grave Miasma - Endless Pilgrimage
  14. I'm starting to replace my studio stuff and I got a pair of Technics SB-A27 floor speakers and an old Yamaha receiver at the thrift store. I see people dunking on cheaper Technics stuff online, but I have to say this setup sounds great for what I need. Primarily using them as B speakers to fill in the blanks against my studio monitors. Stereo imaging is very clear.
  15. Akercocke - The Goat Of Mendes Akercocke - Choronzon
  16. This Bufihimat was on my list when it came out. Abigor is great. There's a lot of intricate musicianship that might appeal to you. I only started coming around to them in the past few years. They try different things and some of it doesn't really land for me. I think Totschläger has become my favorite, but it took me a few walks in the woods. If you're looking for mid 90s melodic BM, Nachthymnen and Verwustung are fantastic. Time Is The Sulphur... has a cleaner sound and some cool digital manipulation, neat vibe on that one. I like the newest one (Taphonomia Aeternitatis) a lot but it's got this occult heavy metal vibe and I don't think I'd use it as a starting place. Hope you enjoy 'em. NP: Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone
  17. Abigor - Taphonomia Aeternitatis Abigor - Totschläger Mayhem - Chimera Akercocke - Rape Of The Bastard Nazarene
  18. Gotta say man, as right as you are, he's douchier than those boots by a plane flight to Martha's Vineyard at the least.
  19. The blockage happened in the town line, but it seems like they're trying to pass the buck to the contracting company who installed the sewer last year. At some point, somebody's insurance should cover something.
  20. Nope. That's totally foreign to me and I hope I don't have to become involved in it. I want my studio back up and running, the sooner the better. I've already lost enough time and momentum. I would only consider that if it made the difference between me being able to work or not. Those boots really suit him.
  21. I try to pay attention to how much I can actually enjoy and digest properly. I talk a lot about burnout and that happens pretty easily for me, but the other path I can go down if I'm not careful is the endless stream of content - listening to everything, forming quick takes, but not really absorbing anything. I find I can alternate between maybe two or three new albums over the course of a month or two, as far as really paying attention and taking in what they have to offer. Any more than that and I start losing what I care about in the experience. So basically my listening habit is like it was when I was a teenager and could only afford a couple albums at a time, except I have to try to purposely keep it that way. I also find that being online at all while I'm listening is really disruptive to the experience, it turns music into background noise. That's hard to manage sometimes. NP - Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab
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