Books! What are you currently reading or just finished?

[Starthief]

Coincidentally, I just got this monster in from interlibrary loan:

[Kheone]

Slowly working my way through it.

[zoundsabar]

An invaluable survey of almost every imaginable dimension of electronic music composition and realization.

[jayhosking]

The Overstory was superb!

[Helen]

It’s really stuck with me. I think the combination of good story arcs and the writer’s obvious love for (and research into) the subject is a real winner.

Don’t want to say too much more because spoiler alert

[pleurodesis]

Les Chants de Maldoror by the Comte de Lautréamont.

The swimmer is now in the presence of the female shark he has saved. They look into each other’s eyes for some minutes, each astonished to find such ferocity in the other’s eyes. They swim around keeping each other in sight, and each one saying to himself: ‘I have been mistaken; here is one more evil than I.’ Then by common accord they glide towards one another underwater, the female shark using its fins, Maldoror cleaving the waves with his arms; and they hold their breath in deep veneration, each one wishing to gaze for the first time upon the other, his living portrait. When they are three yards apart they suddenly and spontaneously fall upon one another like two lovers and embrace with dignity and gratitude, clasping each other as tenderly as brother and sister. Carnal desire follows this demonstration of friendship.

Uh, okey doke.

[Gregg]

I love that book! Another one David Tibet turned me on to many years ago.

[DoS]

I’ve still yet to finish the second copy of Maldoror I’ve obtained over the years… it is a lovely edition though, published by Damon and Naomi of Galaxie 500 fame.

exactchange.com/shop/lautreamont-maldoror-the-complete-works/

[euclidian]

Guillermo Arriaga, author of tales novels and Cult films (his screenplay for Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel, his directing of the Burning Plan and of Ti Guardo, Leone d’oro in Venice)

[pleurodesis]

That’s the one I’ve got. It’s a really nice edition, but I see that there also exist versions illustrated by Dali and Magritte (separately).

[DoS]

I see that there also exist versions illustrated by Dali

I encountered the originals of these illustrations for the first time when I visited the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres - they’re hidden away at the top of the building in an attic space, and are quite small but intriguing.

[Kheone]

I thoroughly enjoyed and am inspired by American Cosmic by D.W. Pasulka. Good stuff about the sources creativity, inspiration, technology and our relationships with the unknown.

[jessemiller]

I really enjoyed the Nocilla Trilogy
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374222789

[oscillateur]

I really enjoyed the Nocilla Trilogy

This is on my “to read” list, it was recommended by Warren Ellis in his newsletter (I think at this point 2/3 or so of my list comes from his mailing list )…

[voidstar]

My father put on a theatrical version of Maldoror at the LaMama Experimental Theatre Club in NYC and with Camera Obsucra in Amsterdam in '74. Grew up with a really disturbing poster for the show in my house… maybe now it is time I finally read it after all these years!

This is not the poster we had in our house but it’s what I could find on LaMama’s website…

I’ll have to take a photo of that poster next time I am back in LA!

Also found this cool contact sheet from the theatre… Seems like there is some more cool offline stuff in the LaMama archives that I will have to track down.

I don’t know what kinda path he took to end up directing lifetime tv movies in the early 2000s

Anyways, I have not seen Maldoror come up too often outside of that poster in my home, so was excited to see it discussed here (and in turn to find some more of this stuff online from a period of my father’s life I do not know a ton about).

[DoS]

Grew up with a really disturbing poster for the show in my house… maybe now it is time I finally read it after all these years!

Be prepared for a wildly disturbing read.

I have one of most boring ever posters for a production of Maldoror at the Avignon Festival a few years back:

[Paul_Booshank]

I read Infinite Jest at the beginning of the year after too long of putting it off. I’m squarely in the “blew my hair back” camp. I’ll read it again, maybe trying it an alternate order like I’ve seen suggested.

I knew the next couple of things I read after IJ would wash over me so I opted for the below. PKD is a long time fav.

[nonsmeddy]

I’ve started A Theory of Music Analysis by Dora Hanninen, based on Curtis Roads citing it in Composing Electronic Music. (Incidentally, maybe I should have started with The Computer Music Tutorial.) It’s…slow going, mainly because I get sidetracked looking up unfamiliar terms from 12-tonal/post-tonal/atonal theory.

[Vunz]

Sonic Warfare (MIT Press) by Steve Goodman (AKA Kode9). Fascinating read!

[Gexex]

My first time though Maldoror took me quite a while and resulted in countless nightmares (he wasn’t lying in the opening). Second time went down smoother, though the translation was far less “poetic.”

My black cat is named Maldoror.

I read Nathanael’s Je, Nathanael on a flight (very short read). Wonderfully destabilizing, though I felt a better knowledge of Andre Gide would have been beneficial (I’ve only read the Immoralist)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1280692.Je_Nathana_l