C.A. Hall's Blog, page 10

Amphigorey Also

By Edward Gorey

It's bit odd talking about a book with so few words, but I suppose it's only odd because it's new to me. Art books are books just the same as novels are. In a way artbooks are cooler because they just don't translate well into a digital format.

Edward Gorey is sort of a new discovery for me. In looking that his art, I realize that I had seen some of it before, but it just didn't register for some reason. I found this book via a recommendation by Mary Doodles (She's great. Defi...

David Hates Keith

Sometimes you just highlight a passage cause it catches a truth; the kind of thing that make you put the book down and shout "Yes!" to an empty room. It's not always a life altering revelation or the articulation of the invisibles of your soul, sometimes it's just something funny; something that has buzzed in your brain before. David Sedaris nails it here:

"Was that your husband?" my mother asked, and Mrs. Peacock looked at the spot where the car had been.

"Naw," she said. "That's just Keith."...

Nebraska

Two people recommend this movie to me in the same day. I rarely go watch movies immediately after having them recommended, not because of a lack in trust but mostly because my Netflix queues, both discand instant, are full to capacity. Modern releases sway little more influence over me than the millions of movies made in the past, so I stockpile in preparation and I watch based on mood.Maybe, this time, the recommendations stood out because they came from two people with such different taste...

What If?

Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions














byRandall Munroe

This is the type of book that makes me feel like a complete moron—and I mean that as a compliment. Science fascinates me; it is continually amazingbut in general, l I don't know shit about it. I understand the basics concept and the well known theories but the scopeof the specifics is totally overwhelming...kinda like advanced math. Drop a wild, multi-level algebraic equation in front of me and put a gun to my temple...

There Are No Excuses

Assholes always get the girl. Evil men rule the world.Wanna know why?

We all know that phrases become cliché's through repetition but the repetition persistsbecause on some level we believe that these phrasescontain a kernel of truth. Maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder and maybe the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree, but the only people who laugh all the way to the bank are the ones with guns in their pockets andthe ones with dog bones up their asses. Every cliché containsa truth...

A Modest Proposal

by Jonathan Swift

Let's get one thingout of the way:I fear the person who reads this and fails to see that it's satire. What soulless fuck he'd be.I don't have much trouble imagining a person incapable of getting the joke. I did after all grown up with family that failed to understand that beingthe drunk crooner was an act that Dean Martin put on, not a reality. (Though they weren't souls fucks, just overtlypracticalminded and insensitive to irony and nuance.)

Anyhow, I won't say what thegag i...

Night of the Creeps

Ohgod, how I miss cheesy 80's horror. Itwas the ultimate fuck you. It didn't need to makesense. It didn't waste time over-explaining things that the audience didn't need to know or didn't even care about. It didn't waste money onbig name actors or feasible plot lines. Itwas in for cheap thrills.

You can tell that movies like this were just fun to make. It comes across in the viewing as yougrinyour way from the title to the credits. Now, It's possiblethat thesespecial effects were close to cut...

Withering Away with Jerzy Kosinski

The beauty of literature is sometimes about encapsulating things that are anything but beautiful. In his novelSteps, Jerzy Kosinski captures, with brief yet specific words, all of the depressive, horrificand pitiable feelings associated with rest homes and ultimately with our fear of ending up in one.

"As I worked in the wards I saw the dying inmates, rheumy-eyed and hollow-faced, their bodies shrunken by disease, lying on their narrow beds gaping apathetically at the faded portraits of saint...

Why Authors Fail

*17 Mistakes Self-Published Authors Make The Sabotage Their Success (And How to Fix Them)*by Derek Doepker

One of the best things about the Kindle Marketplace is the way that is has made roomfor things like this; things that are too short to be a traditional book and too long to be a blog or an article. A perfect 40-100 pageebook is sometimes all a subject needs.

With that said, there isn't really anything ground-breakinghere; noreason to skid into the gutter. Most of this book is full of thi...

The Turn of The Screw

by Henry James

There are long-winded writers like Proust, who's sentence swing back and forth on hinges, never letting go of the reader's hand; and then there are writers like Henry James. I'm not a famously patient person. I interrupt people as soon as I see where their sentence is going;I pause movies to see how much time is remaining;I even listen to podcasts at 1.7x speed, but the one thing I can't do fast is read. I'm a terribly slow reader. I only reader at about 250words/minute. And ye...