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Other Names for Love
Other Names for Love
Taymour Soomro | 2022 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, LGBTQ+
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This rather enjoyable novel is harder to describe than it is to read, so I’m not going to describe it!
I think at the heart of this is the need of the main character to be accepted for who he is: his personality, his sexuality, his life choices. He doesn’t want to carry on with the family businesses of either farming or politics, and he likes his life in London. This is only reinforced for him when he needs to go back to see his ailing father.

The language is evocative of the places and times, especially when Fahad is living in the countryside. It’s a place that’s barely contained - the jungle wants to reclaim the farmland, much like Fahad wanting to claim his own life.

You can feel how repressed Fahad is by cultural and familial expectations, as much as the oppressive heat seems to smother him as well.

I enjoyed this melancholy read, and look forward to seeing what the author writes next
  
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Beth Ditto recommended Da Real World by Missy Elliott in Music (curated)

 
Da Real World by Missy Elliott
Da Real World by Missy Elliott
1999 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"That album! Oh man. Supa Dupa Fly was such a jam but Missy was just a creative fucking force when Da Real World came out. I remember she looked like Lee Bowery and her skin was painted true black, her eyebrows up to her forehead, back when videos could still be incredible videos. It was so top-of-the-line, Timbaland and Missy collaborating, and I felt like it was her time to shine as a writer and as a producer. It set the tone of that time. I was obsessed with it. 'Hot Boyz'? It is hit after hit. 'She's A Bitch'? What a jam? That was the video. She was so innovative and ahead of her fucking time. Everybody was on that, it was a family affair, but she is a genre all of her own. She is her own thing. Nobody is like Missy. She is one of those people where I'm like, sexism is alive, because if she was a man, she would be getting all of these crazy props. She's so incredible, and so underrated. Her harmonies are unbeatable. Un. Beatable. She's a maestro, a genius, a music nerd, an absolute culture nerd. And a style nerd. She's just such an icon. She was cool too. She's powerful. She is performance art, and that wasn't in hip hop at that time. And it certainly wasn't in female hip hop. The thing about Lil' Kim was that she sold sexuality and she did it so well, like no one is Lil' Kim, but Missy wasn't selling conventional sexuality, she wasn't selling female sensuality, that wasn't what she was doing, and I relate to that as a person who is big and a person who isn't attracted to conventional things. I like the weirdness, I like the things that stick out, I like things to look a little clowny, or look a little crazy and that's why she's such an icon. Same with Outkast. I think Southerners are just naturally weirder. Look at Lil' Wayne, Missy, Timberland, Outkast, Neptunes, all of those are Southerners so they're different. A different breed of rapper."

Source
  
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Johnny Marr recommended track Jean Genie by David Bowie in Platinum Collection by David Bowie in Music (curated)

 
Platinum Collection by David Bowie
Platinum Collection by David Bowie
2006 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

Jean Genie by David Bowie

(0 Ratings)

Track

"I wanted to mention this record because it’s almost taken for granted in David Bowie’s canon as just ‘there’s another great Bowie track’, yet it gets overlooked by something like ‘Let’s Dance’ or ‘Heroes.’ “If this came out now I don’t think it’d have any chance on mainstream radio and I think that’s because - and this might be incredibly subjective - he does this amazing thing where he manages to be completely remote whilst leading this band. It’s a really genius performance, the way he pitches his vocal and his persona, it’s cold and remote, but yet really sexy and it’s got no earnestness in it whatsoever. It’s not inciting you to get up and rock like ‘Jailhouse Rock’ or any of the Elvis Presley records, which is someone wanting to dance with you or encouraging you to do that. “To use an obvious comparison about Bowie, this has a really alien position because the voice is so cold, but it’s perfectly Rock and Roll. And it’s really white I think, probably because I can picture him in my mind when it came out and you’d never seen anyone more white, but it’s also as low down and Rock and Roll as any of the blues records that came out. It’s interesting, it’s got that sexuality in it. “I was about ten when it was released and to me and a bunch of kids experiencing it then it was so modern, because of what Bowie’s doing on top of what is essentially a Yardbirds or a Muddy Waters riff and using ‘The Jean Genie’, which back then was such a hip kind of slang. It’s a play on Jean Genet and he’s describing bits he’d picked up from Iggy, but in the early 70s’ everything was ‘Ziggy’, ‘Iggy’, ‘Genie’ and people were called ‘Mick’ and ‘Stevie.’ “There was a very urban, street Rock and Roll that was quite illicit; the threat of drugs, danger, confused sexuality and super-androgyny and the character he’s singing about personifies that in the mind, which leads me to Iggy."

Source
  
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RəX Regent (349 KP) rated Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941) in Movies

Feb 19, 2019 (Updated Feb 19, 2019)  
Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941)
Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941)
1941 | Action
6
7.5 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Contains spoilers, click to show
Well, unfortunately, Jane did survive the last one…

…and by now, this Tarzan series has become a simplistic, cynical cash cow. Delivering yet another formulaic adventure, almost beat for beat what has come before, we now find that Cheeta, the never aging chimp, has become the star of the show. No longer just a bit of comic relief, entire scenes are handed over to her and “Boy”, Tarzan and Jane’s adopted son, in favour of appealing to the child market no doubt.

This has become unabashed family entertainment, no longer speaking to its audience as it once did. No longer discussing the differences of a simple life versus a civilized one, nor tackling the constraints of civilization on things such a sexuality or freedom of expression.

Her the jungle is funny and safe, only threatened by primitive tribes and greedy westerners, all of whom will be stopped by Tarzan and his Elephants in the end. Though the action is good and the finale it one of the best so far, so cynical or not, it still works.
  
The Scarlet Gospels
The Scarlet Gospels
Clive Barker | 2015 | Fiction & Poetry
8
7.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
It has been a long time since Clive Barker published a book of the sort that made him famous, and it's nice to see him return with this one. Following 2 of his most well-known characters, investigator Harry D'Amour and Cenobite "Pinhead", in a tale in which the very fate of Hell itself will be determined, this really is a return to form for the author. It is filled with fantastic prose, well drawn-out personalities, and many memorably nightmarish set-pieces and scenarios. As per usual, Barker doesn't shy away from gore and sexuality, so the easily-offended should stay away. For fans of his previous work however, this will be a treat, even if it seems like it is missing a certain something that made some of his earlier books so special. The scenes of Hell are especially interesting, and make this come off somewhat like his answer to "Dante's Inferno"; and the ending is very satisfying and suitably epic. Not his best book, but it's nice to have him back.
  
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Emily M. Danforth | 2012 | Fiction & Poetry
4
7.5 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Miseducation of Cameron Post has the potential to be a beautiful and moving piece of literature
Hours before her parents died, Cameron Post was kissing a girl. Now living with her conservative aunt, she has to hide her sexuality, but when her aunt finds out that she is more than friends with beautiful Coley Taylor, everything changes.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post has the potential to be a beautiful and moving piece of literature, but it isn’t. The book felt unnecessary and I feel like I wasted my time, taking nearly a year to finish it. Parts of the book felt as if they didn’t exactly fit in and could easily have been left out. I also thought that the ending left a lot to be desired.
I was really excited to read this book after reading lots of amazing reviews about it, but I was extremely disappointed. I wish I had left it on the DNF pile rather than forcing myself to finish it, in the hope that it would get better.