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Chumley

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Everything posted by Chumley

  1. This is an understatement! The movie didn't just warp things, it had almost no significant relationship to the book except for the title and the names of a few characters. I second the recommendation for Heinlein, but be prepared for assorted looniness in his later works. He mentions John Galt in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," and he once expressed a desire to write something akin to the Fountainhead but with modern art as his target. For science fiction, I also like Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Charles Sheffield. Pournelle's stories of Falkenberg's Legion and The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle would be especially good if you happen to enjoy military-oriented fiction. -- Chumley
  2. Yes. Exercise your free will by walking away from them until they stop being irrational. You may be able to convince them of your refusal to deal with the irrational. I would recommend Peikoff's "Certainty and Happiness" for a definition of "evidence". He points out that there can be no evidence for the existence of God, because evidence, by definition, is related to something real. The existence of God is an arbitrary supposition and the rational way to deal with the arbitrary is to reject it. (I believe this is also covered in OPAR.) This doesn't mean to reject everyone as a possible friend just because they believe in God. But it means that there are some arguments that will never be resolved if they insist on using faith, and calling reason or atheism another form of faith.
  3. That was me! I was telling some of the things I didn't like about Pulp Fiction. I enjoyed Wicker Park, and the use of flashbacks was appropriate. It's not the sequencing itself that I object to. In Pulp Fiction, I think I was annoyed by what I saw as the lack of a coherent plot. That isn't the case in Wicker Park.
  4. Well, Objectivists are passionate valuers! It would be boring if we all agreed on everything. I enjoy reading the debates and contributing to them. Even if we "agree to disagree" there is still value in the conversation.
  5. I would not object to a violent movie where the depraved people got their comeuppance, if there were a hero to compare them to and who is the agent of their (depraved ones) destruction. The message I got from Pulp Fiction is that this is the essence of life and there is nothing better to look up to. I did not see any positive characters in the movie. There was in article in TIA in 1995 or so, The Worm and The Spider (I think) that compares Pulp Fiction with Forrest Gump and condemned them both. I read the article some time after both movies and I agree with it.
  6. I watched Pulp Fiction at the suggestion of friends. It nearly made me feel nauseous, and I have refused to watch any Tarantino movie since. The sense of life of Pulp Fiction is that "This is what real life is like and people are essentially depraved." The movie also tells episodes out of order, in a way that makes it difficult to integrate the episodes into a coherent story - not that I would want to.
  7. Chumley

    The Worst Evil

    Better yet, a dead Red.
  8. I saw them on August 1st in Atlanta. Fantastic show! It's the best Rush show I have seen so far, although this is only the 4th time I have seen them. Come to think of it, I've seen them once in each decade since the 70's.
  9. I too enjoy Al Dimeola's music, but I like his electric albums, especially "Tour De Force - Live" which is probably my favorite DiMeola recording. I didn't like his studio recordings as much. I also love "Friday Night in San Francisco", especially the humor in "Short Tales from the Black Forest." The only problem is that I started listening to these in 1981 when I was starting to learn guitar. Gave me quite an inferiority complex.
  10. I'd like to start by thanking Stephen for starting this thread - it is the reason I decided to see The Village. My emotional reaction at this point (almost exactly 1 hour after the end) is positive. This is the first of Shyamalan's films I have seen, and now I want to see more. I would compare my feeling right now to the way I felt after finishing the first Robert B. Parker novel I read - "I'm so happy that there are lots more books by this writer for me to read and enjoy!" I did not see any major problems with the plot. Although many things were not explicitly explained - the "memory boxes", yellow flags, the painting on the rock, the "bad color" - I was able to infer their meaning from the events in the movie. The motivation of the elders was also clear to me. They wanted to escape from what they saw as a malevolent world that had already destroyed much that was dear to them. One specific moment that stuck out to me: I loved how Ivy used her mind to defeat the creature chasing her in the woods. Those of you who have seen the movie know what I mean, and if you haven't seen it, I won't spoil the scene for you. Well, that's all for now. I will probably come up with more thoughts on this after a day or so. And I may see it again, with a date next time. -- Chumley
  11. My job title says "software engineer" right now. That means that I spend a lot of time playing with computers and getting paid to do it! I have also been a guitarist for 23+ years. It's just a hobby but sometimes I actually get to play in public for a pittance. Before this job I was in the Navy for a little over 10 years.
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