Fair enough. It's hard to elucidate exactly what I meant by "intense" and "hard", etc., but it sounds more penetratingly intense to my sensibility, particularly things like this:



I agree that metal and noise might be often more brutal, though.

It's multi-dimensional, humane, all-encompassing. It's the difference between great literature and formulaic genre fiction. It's warmer, yet harder, more intense yet more relaxed. It's a whole world, not just a petulant little part of it, like heavy metal is.

It was watching that video that finally allowed me to appreciate Cecil Taylor.

Jazz is definitely more technical than metal — Arcane Sandwich

Maybe so, but that's not the essential thing, and it's not why I moved away from metal and towards jazz.

Around 1992 I migrated to jazz and classical in search of the kind of heavy I really wanted (and found Coltrane and Stravinsky), so I missed everything that happened in metal subsequently. Prior to jumping ship, I had begun with Iron Maiden, progressed to Sepultura, and eventually found myself at the more intense end of the spectrum: Death, Morbid Angel, Obituary, Carcass. Very few of those albums have stood the test of time for me personally (in my case it really was mainly just angry young man's music), but I do still like World Downfall by Terrorizer (at the punk end of thrash metal ("grindcore")) and Reign in Blood by Slayer. I went to see Sepultura, Godflesh, Carcass, Slayer and others, in fairly small venues, and I'm still living with the tinnitus.

One of the more groovy (almost funky) tracks from Terrorizer:



In the 2000s I discovered Mr Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, and others in that ecosystem, and was thus awoken to the interesting influences that metal was having in the new century (EDIT: I think of Mr Bungle as a 2000s band, just because that's when I discovered them), but I never again got interested in contemporary mainline heavy metal.

I do love this one by Secret Chiefs 3, for the sheer horror (although I believe it's actually being performed by one of their satellite bands):

Nah, I think Javi overreacted.

I completely understand your reaction. I just think that Clarky is open-minded enough to revise his prejudices, in this case.

Thank you for explaining some more about Franco's legacy. I must admit that when I was living in Spain I avoided the subject completely, for fear of saying the wrong thing, so I didn't learn anything about it while I was there. I did make interesting, somewhat related discoveries, such as the fact that Denia was a shelter for a few German Nazis after the war. I put that in my micro-fiction "Moriscos" story a couple of years ago, along with the expulsion of the Moriscos. But these things stood out to me because I generally had an entirely positive conception of Spain, and I am certainly not aligned with the view of Northern European capitalists and bureaucrats—if there is a division there I'm generally on the side of Spain (and Greece).

I give up — javi2541997

Anglos aren't saying much in this discussion mainly, I think, because they feel they don't know enough. @T Clark was brave enough to raise his head above the parapet, perhaps thinking he could learn something, but you just shot him down.

That said, I have no idea why Spain strikes him as more repressive than other parts of Europe, and what he thinks the Islamic history has to do with that.

One thing in the OP that might be misleading for Anglos is your mention of the commemorations, which they might incorrectly imagine are some kind of celebration of Franco. In my experience, most Brits and Americans have no idea what the attitude is to Franco within Spain. Introducing that topic would be useful.

One-hundred Years of Solitude was absolutely spellbinding. — Pantagruel

Agreed :up:

• Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto
• Point Zero by Seichō Matsumoto

I went for a walk in Spain, starting at the beach then heading inland and up to the top of the mountain called El Montgo. Visibility was good all day. I couldn't see Ibiza from the beach but I could see it from the mountain.

I've also seen ships sinking over the horizon.

But the thing is, I knew it before these confirmations.

My favourite Russian song, once again:

There's now a non-English area on TPF. So far it's only Spanish in there but as we're allowing Spanish, we have to allow Swedish and Finnish too. So feel free. I can create the appropriate subcategory (it's one subcategory per language) if desired.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/categories/51/non-english-discussion

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. So far: great.

The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess.

A brilliant and fascinating dystopian science fiction novel, written in the same year he wrote A Clockwork Orange. The author’s homophobia, which he expects the reader to share, makes it difficult to endorse the book, but somehow Burgess’s contradictions and prejudices only make him more interesting. Not to let him off the hook, but it’s worth pointing out that while The Wanting Seed appears banally homophobic, and in an interview in the 80s he talked about the “gay mafia,” his epic Earthly Powers, with its gay main character, has been called the greatest gay novel of the twentieth century.

I decided to watch 'Brief Encounter.' — javi2541997

Classic!

I watched the David Cronenberg film “The Brood” last night, to get in the Christmas mood. Excellent and horrible.

I also watched “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”. When it came out I’d probably decided I was too grown-up and edgy to watch it (I was 17), so I’d never seen it. My assessment: dumb and partly enjoyable.

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by the Vandermeers. So far I've read the Algernon Blackwood ("The Willows") and the Julio Cortázar ("Axolotl"), both outstanding. It also includes Saki, M.R. James, Tagore, Kafka, Lovecraft, Borges, Peake, Buzzati, Murakami, Octavia Butler, and loads of others.

About half way through Herodotus, which in its own way is also a compendium of strange and dark stories.

Yes. But even so, there's something about getting right into it...a sense of familiarity. It doesn't have to be boring. The author can surprise by not following it up with expected horror but delight in candlelight. Or being wonderstruck by thunder and lightning...awesome nature. They stood at the window... — Amity

That's an excellent point.

mega cool and hot stuff, baby! :wink: — Amity

:cool:

Maybe "show don't tell" is more like "tell the effects, not the fact." For example, instead of saying it was a dark and stormy night you describe indistinct shadowy movements, the trees swaying, rain pounding on the conservatory roof, and a door being blown open.

EDIT: So it comes down to attention to detail, important in realism. "It was a dark and stormy night" is a shorthand and therefore a cliché; it doesn't tell us exactly what is happening.

So it's all just telling. I suppose the reason they say show, don't tell, is when it's for plays and films, where instead of exposition---particularly awkward in this case because it has to take the form of dialogue or voice-over---you can show emotions, motivations and the setting with the acting, action, cinematography and set design, etc.

This is the entire conversation — Daniel

As far as I can tell, what you've posted above was produced entirely by ChatGPT, so if there was a conversation, you haven't presented it here. Also, you didn't comment on its "understanding" of the philosophical issues discussed—which is what this thread is supposed to be about.

As for your deleted discussions, when you posted the ChatGPT output as a new discussion you did not indicate, except by the title of the discussion, that the entire content of the post was a quotation from ChatGPT. That would have been a good start (using the quote functionality), but even then, you need more than a quotation to properly initiate a discussion.

Welcome to TPF :grin:

Yes, @fdrake had a post pinned to the top of the forum for a while quite recently.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15480/site-rules-amendment-regarding-chatgpt-and-sourcing/p1

Extra stuff was added to the guidelines later.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/480/site-guidelines

It wouldn't be able to go ahead without the approval of admin Jamal @fdrake and then the support of any mods or any other volunteers. — Amity

It's a nice idea. I hope it gets plenty of interest and participation. You and, if willing, @Moliere (who is a moderator) can lead, and I'll do anything that you are unable to do yourselves, like creating categories. I suppose we need a new category; once that's created you can go ahead and post in it.

On a desktop browser you can zoom in and it'll remember the new setting. It's usually Ctrl+ (control and the plus key) to zoom in.

I have mine permanently zoomed in quite a lot.

How can 'optimism' be 'inhumane'? — Amity

One example, at the personal and interpersonal level, is toxic positivty.

Otherwise, a few times on TPF I've made use of Terry Eagleton's distinction between hope and optimism. The way I see it, optimism, particularly with respect to society and history, has a tendency to disregard or minimize bad stuff, whereas hope does not.

I have plenty of experience with toxic positivity, and I've noticed that it is humourless. So my tentative scheme is like this: on one side we have optimism, humourlessness, and inhumanity--a lack of attention to real people and real experience--and on the other side we have hope and humour, where humour is often if not always built on an attention to misfortune.

I tried to write a Gothic once and everyone in it turned nice by Chapter 3, so I had to throw it away and start another project. — Vera Mont

:lol:

Sometimes it's all in the style, tone, or approach, rather than the theme. The theme can be serious or dark while the tone is light, playful, or optimistic. As a reader it's not themes I find life-affirming and intellectually or emotionally energizing; rather it's in the creativity itself. Sometimes it's obvious that the writer is having fun even when writing a tragedy. — Jamal

There's a deeper layer here too. Optimism is in a sense inhumane (it's hope that is humane), and there is no humour in success and contentedness

I'm trying very hard to find a light, humorous, optimistic theme. — Vera Mont

Sometimes it's all in the style, tone, or approach, rather than the theme. The theme can be serious or dark while the tone is light, playful, or optimistic. As a reader it's not themes I find life-affirming and intellectually or emotionally energizing; rather it's in the creativity itself. Sometimes it's obvious that the writer is having fun even when writing a tragedy.

Echoes of Gogol continue to rebound. I just read Kafka's Metamorphosis for the first time since I was a nipper. Back then I found it frustrating, but now I love it. Very reminiscent of stories like "The Nose" and "The Overcoat", with a similar humour and creative joy.

It is difficult to meet an Iberian neighbour on the Internet, by the way. — javi2541997

On the other hand, there is a plethora of venomous far right keyboard warriors on the internet.

In what thread did this happen? — ssu

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/945354

@Lionino was banned for homophobia and racism.

He won't mind too much:

Unsurprisingly, this website is still a waste of time. — Lionino

I can't explain why this track is so good.

I tried it myself from a different email address and it worked for me, and I can't find any blocks relating to your email address, so I don't know what's up.

Sorry I didn't reply, Christoffer. I haven't had any similar reports; I think lots of people get notifications by email, and nobody has told me that's not working. I'll look into it though. Could be your email address is blocked or something.