@Moon#10017 if you're enjoying the early-mid 60s work this much then you have a lot to look forward to. “The air disaster” is the JGB story that I think about most often
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@marlfuchs2#10038 Merzbow
that's a tough sell alright
Listening to Merzbow makes me feel deeply unsettled to the point of dread. Is that his intention? Do we know?
yeah i listened to about thirty seconds of that MERZBOW stuff and it was super distressing to the point where i felt like i was entering a panic episode. so i can see how that's a tough sell lol. i suppose you get used to it.
@whatsarobot#10072 somewhat? He‘s a pretty fervent animal rights activist and a lot of his records focus on the plight of endangered species so in that way I feel like he’s going for at least some dread. But I think he started doing this kind of music just because he liked it:
'I started playing music around 1972. I was playing drums, in a kind of blues rock band influenced by Cream, Jimi Hendrix, etc at some local studios with my high-school friends. After a while, around 1973, we gradually moved towards playing improvisation. I've been playing with Kiyoshi Mizutani since then. We were profoundly affected by King Crimson's Earthbound, Albert Ayler's Bells and Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat.
Later, our interests shifted to free music such as ICP, FMP and INCUS. We wanted to break out from the field of rock. I felt I reached a dead end just playing instruments so I quit playing and tried other things like tapping the floor of the studio or rattling the chairs.
Quitting something is so thrilling to me, because it tells me what's important. At that time, I was struck by Pierre Schaeffer's Symphonie pour un Homme Seul, also influenced by Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, Xenakis' Electro-Acoustic Music, Walter Marchetti's Homemade Electric Music, and the poetry of Dadaism and Surrealism. All of this led me to making music only by noises and sounds generated solely by non instruments. This was the birth of MERZBOW.'
https://15questions.net/interview/fifteen-questions-merzbow/page-1/
Merzbow isn‘t for everyone! I think it’s impossible to sell. I think you have to let the concept of harsh noise, as a music genre, roll around in your head for a while before you‘re ready to come to it. For me it was a means to concentrate and quiet my mind, so it makes me peaceful. I know that sounds weird and coming away from a listen with feelings of dread/anxiety is a totally normal reaction. I don’t think I could sell anyone on Merzbow unless they said they really liked Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music
Thanks for the feedback. I really respect what the Merzbow project is trying to do, and I think the ability to instill dread is a powerful artistic force. Inducing fright and panic is applauded in other forms of media, and can be an enjoyable experience, so it‘s interesting to find that sort of experience in an audio format, even if (especially because?) it’s not immediately palatable.
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@MichaelDMcGrath#10079 Later, our interests shifted to free music such as ICP
I know he means a different ICP but I choose to believe otherwise
@whatsarobot#10082 I had the same reaction to merzbow when first hearing his work which I think is entirely reasonable, but that kind of goes away with some familiarity and when some of the mystery around him and the records is lifted.
I saw part of a documentary that featured the nurse with wound guy and he was showing the film crew around his house, and he pointed to these decapitated doll heads he nailed to the wall, and his teenage daughter is walking around like my dad is such a dork. So that was it forever as far as finding NWN frightening goes
The what: Umineko no naku koro ni (When the seagulls cry)
https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/611938-umineko-when-they-cry-question-arcs-linux-front-cover.jpg
The pitch:
Umineko is my favorite game of all time. It's a Visual Novel and in it, you only get to push one button to move text forward. But please, don't assume it's not a game, or that it isn't interactive. It's one of the pieces of media that have obsessed me the most and for the couple of months I spent playing/reading it, I could barely think about anything else. Umineko is, at its surface, a murder mystery. The main objective is, as it usually goes with these things, to find the culprit.
There is a twist, tho, and it's that the epilogue of the story claims that all the characters died. But our protagonist disagrees. He states that the story was poorly told and obsfuscated crucial information in a way that made it seem supernatural elements were involved. Beatrice, the alleged murderer and architect of the story is amused by the fact that the character refuses to accept his fate, and so proposes him a game: let's retell the same story, if he (the protagonist but also us, the players) are able to prove that magic wasn't involved using logic alone then she forfeits, if not, he needs to accept he died, unfairly or not.
And so begins a tale that actively challenges the readers to see through an unreliable (but fair) narrator while also engaging in a dialog with itself and its nature. The magic vs. logic turns into a debate about the relationship between fiction and reality and, ultimately, subjectivity vs. objectivity, onthology and the nature of truth itself. Why do we care about stories so much? Why do we invest ourselves in them when they are something ultimately imaginary? What's the relationship we should build with the characters and the author? Are all the feelings we allow ourselves to have while consuming fiction actually worth something?
https://youtu.be/X76lu7TCvOg
Tough sell because:
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/R62DKgk.jpg]
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/R62DKgk.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
_(this is Ushiromiya Battler, the hero of the story, you are going to get as frustrated as he is)_
The Ask:
Fairly simple. Just read the first episode of the series, Legend of the Golden Witch. Do it applying [this patch](https://07th-mod.com/home/) to add the original voice acting from the PS3 version. You can also change the art to the one that was introduced that edition, so it looks [like this](https://pm1.narvii.com/6514/45955ebfbc7908637fd7bcbd236e6e7db5e44014_hq.jpg), but that's optional (I find the weird proportions and funky look of the original one more charming).
There is also the alternate path of going for the manga adaptation, which is faithful for the most part (with a different art style to the other two versions). Although there is the catch with this one of the fact you lose the soundtrack and voice acting, which add a lot to the atmosphere and enjoyment of the story. Avoid the anime at all costs, it's crap.
After completing the first episode you should already know if it's for you or not. If you are at least curious to see how it goes, then proceed ahead. If it didn't catch your interest at all you you can check out with no regrets. That should take between 15-20 hours depending on your read speed, and it's a reasonable amount of time to see if it lands on you, I think.
Ulimately Umineko is something wonderful that requires a degree of tolerance for mainstream japanese media, and that I don't usually recommend unless it's to people have tolerance for the shenanigans and histrionics of it. If you are able to go along with that and have fun with stuff like, let's say Case Closed/Detective Conan, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Danganronpa, the already mentioned Gyakuten Saiban or other juvenile stuff, go for it. If not, well... proceed with caution.
Btw, in case you didn't notice, my profile picture comes from this thing, so yeah, I Really Like It.
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/EaOgxWQ.png]
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/EaOgxWQh.png[/IMG][/URL]
@yeso#9978 This is exactly what I'm into. I just bought this!
@JoJoestar#10233 is it possible to take a few months long break between playing the 20 hour-long sections or do you need to commit 160 hours in relatively close succession to be able to follow?
@shane#10243 hell yeah you're going to have a good time
@yeso#10248 To put things in context, I read the complete thing in the lapse from june-july to october of the year I dedicated to it. Now, your question is a tricky one because the answer is relative to the type of person you are as a reader and the kind of relationship you establish with fiction in general. If you have a good memory and are able of remembering specific details easily, or if you are the type of person that is able to reconnect quickly with the characters and conflict I would say you can take longer breaks, but consider those a risk of disengaging with the story.
Since you mentioned Sátántangó, I would recommend a parallel approach to the one you described with that film, and that would be something along the lines of definitely take breaks between episodes, play something else, get distracted and don't let yourself get tired or dragged by it, but don't engage with stuff like RPG's, big-ass series or any other "long commitment stuff" until you are done with it.
But definitely take breaks. As it usually goes with these things taking some distance occasionally actually helps to put everything in perspective.
It took me a very long time to come around that FX cartoon “Archer” I just reeeealllly didn't like the rotoscoped art style and was deeply put off by it. But my friend convinced me to keep watching it, and it is one of the funnier shows.
I‘ve been trying really hard to think of my own tough sells, but it seems like I’m a pretty lazy consumer of media. Other than maybe reading some longish novels, I‘ve really not engaged in anything that took a lot of work for me to appreciate. Which is kind of disappointing for me to realize! I feel like I have some weird and extensive taste (relative to the average consumer – maybe not relative to other people who post on the forum), so I when I first saw this thread I thought I’d be loaded with tough sells. But I guess not!
The closest thing I can think of is this:
20th Century Box (The Pops of Haruomi Hosono)
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/3gdJlBY.jpg]
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/3gdJlBY.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
It's a six disc, seven and half hour collection of songs Haruomi Hosono wrote for other (mostly idolpop) singers.
Just as a collection of music, I don't think this really qualifies as a tough sell at all. Haruomi Hosono is one of the most important and influential Japanese musicians there is, and this is a package of his most accessible and easy to appreciate songs. It's got almost none of the weird electronics and discomforting sounds that his solo albums started to acquire in the 80s. I think you could easily sell pretty much anyone who's ever had any interest in Japanese music on this (that is, assuming that they're just going to download it off the internet. Looking at Discogs, actually buying the physical collection would cost you over $500~~~)
My pitch to you, however, is to listen to the whole thing in a single seven and a half hour long sitting. I did this once (while working from home) and it definitely felt like a journey. To be clear, nothing magical happened. This isn't super crazy music or anything. There's not really that much of an evolution present -- I'd say that before writing any of these songs, Haruomi Hosono was already a fully developed composer of pop songs. If you care about his personal development you'd be better served by listening to his solo albums. So perhaps the toughness of this particular sell is that there's no real reason to do exactly what I'm asking of you. But! It did feel like something significant when I did that single sitting listening myself! So maybe it will be significant for you.
In case you care, here are three songs from the collection that, off the top of my head, stand out to me (and more importantly are on Youtube. A lot of the songs I like most aren't!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD3J6NIe3-k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf97pvN09Uc
(I feel like a real cool guy sharing a video that, at the time of my sharing, has only 16 views!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3d_cnQ78K4
(sharing this one more for the video, since it's got All The Cool Guys.)
@JoJoestar#10233 I just want to say that this sounds extremely good to me. Thank you!
In the past, I have enjoyed: Steins;Gate OG VN, Ace Attorney series, Danganronpa. More recently, I have been swept away by Disco Elysium, and am currently under the spell of 13 Sentinels. Am I correct in assuming that Umineko may be for me?
If I'd like to play it in Japanese, is the [Complete Collection](https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/5465/Umineko_When_They_Cry_Complete_Collection/?l=japanese) on Steam a good way to do it?
EDIT: I'm assuming that the "twist" you've described is not a spoiler? Like, if I know going into my first playthrough that I'll later be asked to revisit these events with added knowledge, doesn't knowing that everyone may or may not actually be dead sort of obfuscate the need for that first playthrough? I might not be articulating this very well, but I'm curious as to how big an impact knowledge of the epilogue's contents will have vs going in with no expectations?
@whatsarobot#10276 Heck yeah. If you already like VNs in general you are already there for sure, with the length being the only issue probably.
The complete collection is good, but you can pass on golden fantasia, since that was a fighting game spin off with no actual plot and can be skipped, saving a few dollars.
@JoJoestar#10280 Awesome! Thank you!
And I don't know if you saw my second question, since our posts got a bit timey-wimey, but to what extent is knowing about the twist in the narrative a quote-unquote "spoiler"?
Not that I care so much about being spoiled - it just strikes me as an interesting thing to so casually reveal up front!
@whatsarobot#10283 It‘s either not a spoiler or the bare minimum required to present what the story is about. Admittedly, the twist is indeed a twist, but happens very early and it’s basically impossible to present the thing without explaining at least that much.
Let's put it this way, if Umineko was a metroidvania I "spoiled" that the main tool for traversal is double jumping. Which is technically a spoiler, I guess? But a relatively innocuous one.
@saddleblasters#10275 I think Tim Rogers recommended this box set on a stream, saying “If you want instant street cred, get the 21st Century box set”
@marlfuchs2#10287 I‘m not sure I agree with him! I don’t think this collection is Cool Haruomi Hosono. If you ask me, Cool Haruomi Hosono is, like, S·F·X or Mental Sport Mixes. This collection is just well-written-but-not-particularly-life-changing 80s J-Pop (with some 70s and 90s thrown in). It‘s not even the kind of 80s J-Pop that all the kids are into these days. The majority of it leans more towards the Seiko Matsuda variety of J-Pop, rather than the Anri/EPO/Tomoko Aran sort of citypop that’s experiencing a revival now. I mean, there's definitely some funk and soulfulness in this collection, and also a lot of synth, but none of that is the predominant feeling.
So I don't know what kind of street cred this will get you! Maybe street cred with Tim Rogers? I guess that's something. But I know from experience that whenever I try to talk about this particular kind of J-Pop with people who are cooler than me, that is, people who listen to lofi beats while studying, they don't really seem to care for it.
To be clear, I love it! But maybe I've listened to it too many times to find it cool or exciting anymore.
For reference, this is what _I_ think Those Who Seek Street Cred should be listening to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VJaocRlnoI
It is very difficult to recommend long novels, as most people find it quite difficult to commit the time to a long book. Unfortunately for them, most of the best books out there are also the longer ones.
This leads me to my "tough sell," which I describe as such because my dad tried to read this book after I told him how much I loved it, and he didn't even make it 3 pages in. The book is Marcel Proust's _In Search of Lost Time_ (_À La Recherche du Temps Perdu_). This is a famous novel, and well regarded among "academics," authors, and art critics, which is probably (and fairly) why it has a reputation for being hoity-toity and boring. On top of this, the language is certainly flowery, and sentences often reach somewhat ridiculous lengths and span multiple pages. On top of that, the subject matter is a man's memories, and this particular man did not get up to much, and spent most of his time hanging around in salons among the French aristocracy.
All that being said, the book is beautiful, and the depth of observation is unparalleled. The characters are deep and genuine, and while it is in some respect a "parody" of the aristocracy, it always treats the characters as people and not caricatures. Even the smallest moments are given so much attention, that it feels like everything in the entire world has some sort of rich meaning to it. This is because of the way the book presents the story as "memories" and not "events." I don't know exactly how to articulate what that difference makes, but it is part of what makes the novel unique.
It is introspective, but to me, it did not feel overly "me me me" like a lot of introspective novels feel. Perhaps this is because Proust finds a way to describe tiny events in ways that instantly feel recognizable, not because you have had such an experience, but because you can find something analogous in your life that gave you that same feeling. It is a very comfortable, affirming book, that, to a very sad and lonely young me, reminded me of the commonalities that we all share simply by being human. And I think that's the most beautiful thing a book can do.
The Ask: This is the kind of book that you will understand immediately whether you like it or not. Just read the first ten or twenty pages of _Swann's Way_ (Volume One)* . If what he describes, and how he describes it, appeals to you, you will like the book. If not, then that's that. Like I said, my dad gave up about five pages in, and knowing my dad, it's fairly apparent that the rest of it was not going to work for him. (*For the record, I read the DJ Enright revision of the Moncrieff/Kilmartin translation, which I think is generally regarded as definitive.)
Of course, if you do like those first few pages, there are 3000 more for you to enjoy! Lucky you! You're in for a treat. (I recommend taking breaks between volumes to avoid burnout.)