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Graham Massey recommended Live Evil by Miles Davis in Music (curated)

 
Live Evil by Miles Davis
Live Evil by Miles Davis
1970 | Jazz
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"My whole thing has gone playlist now, so I'll have this on my headphones now as I walk around because sitting down to listen to two sides of vinyl is less frequent in my life. But certainly when I bought Live Evil, it was the only record that I played for months! And quite deeply so. A friend had lent me an album on CBS, which had an inner sleeve and on this inner sleeve would be descriptions of other records. And on one of them was a journalist wordily describing this as something like, ""… an exploration of a sonic journey"", and that really set my imagination off. And the cover of Live Evil is fantastic. It just looked like a fascinating object, and it was a double album as well. It was a high-risk purchase. But playing this record, it was like, ""Wow! What is this amazing, glowing world?"" And it had these Hermeto Pacoal tracks on it that are really ambient – 'Nem Un Talvez' is one and 'Little Church' is the other – and those tracks really got me. Back then there was no particular place to start listening with what would become ambient music. There were pieces that were beatless but these were deeply coloured and were way before Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze records, which we didn't have much patience for. But there's so much bursting out of this record. Most of it is recorded live and the fact that John McLaughlin was on it really makes it for me, and he's just an amazing artist and guitarist. On this record, he's free as a bird and it's just mental. He just lights up this record. [Keyboardist] Keith Jarrett's on it, and he's a particularly complicated improviser. I jumped into that world and the ripples from diving into that pond, I just follow them. All the people that played on that record came out of Miles Davis' world."

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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
1968 | Classics, Sci-Fi

"My parents took me to see it in a re-release — it came out in the ’60s and they re-released it in the early ’70s — and I was only seven years old, so it totally blew my mind. My parents, I think, were just completely bored and baffled by it, but I was obsessed with it. It stuck in my head, and every time it came on television I would watch it, and I saw it again in the theater as a teenager; I would go to see it whenever they revived it. It was just a movie I’ve watched a lot. I think part of the reason is…when I was a kid, I didn’t know what to make of it. It was so unlike what I’d been exposed to on TV, or by watching Disney films in the theater. It was so fascinating to me. It has a really unique status, which is in my mind like a big Hollywood epic movie about esoteric ideas — which had never really happened before that, and I don’t think it’s going to happen again. No one would ever spend that kind of money on a movie that big, and with that scope, and be that strange and slow and oblique and unexplained. Some people, of course, think it’s incredibly pretentious; I think the ideas in it are really fascinating. That Kubrick meticulousness is incredible. But part of what makes it a great movie, I think, is that as it proceeds it turns into this really intimate kind of horror-thriller — with HAL — and when I think, “Who’s a great writer who wrote in that style?,” I think Edgar Allan Poe in outer space. It becomes this real, psychological, bizarre, unexplainable thing about a murdering supercomputer! Those are some of the most handsome, greatest, cinematic scenes I’ve ever seen, so the fact that it was attached to this esoteric thing… To me, it works on so many levels. And the design, and the use of music…there’s nothing else quite like it."

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Joe Swanberg recommended Crumb (1994) in Movies (curated)

 
Crumb (1994)
Crumb (1994)
1994 | Documentary
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"It’s in my top five list of best films ever made. I just think it’s perfect. It’s an amazing portrait of an artist, an amazing portrait of a family, Crumb is an incredible central character. I feel like whenever I watch that movie — I sort of watch it every couple years — I start talking like him afterwards. I mean he really infects me in a way that totally changes the way that I look at the world. All great artists have that sort of ability. When I read some of my favorite novelists after I put down one of their books, I’m thinking in their words. I’m seeing the world through their eyes and it’s the same with Crumb. I’m a big fan of his comics, but that film does such an amazing job putting you kind of in his headspace. It also looks amazing, it’s shot on film, Zwigoff does an incredible job framing Crumb’s world, and the Jazz music. it’s just great, I just think it’s great. I think the movie’s a pleasure to watch. I mean, his brother Charles is f—ing incredible, man. Like, the idea that this family produced not one great artist, three great artists. And that Crumb was actually the one who was political enough and sophisticated enough and just barely enough of a people person that his art got seen. But, you know, Charles and Matt also were like really pushing the boundaries of the stuff and also hugely influential on Crumb’s stuff. You don’t get Robert without Charles. You just never sort of have access to those stories the way that this documentary has access to that family. It’s a lot to think about, the artwork that we end up getting as a culture, you know, often times is less about what’s better, and more about how savvy the artist is and how able they are to kind of be in the right place at the right time so that there’s an audience for the work."

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Immortal in Death (In Death, #3)
J.D. Robb | 1996
6
7.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
This review and more can be found at my blog https://aromancereadersreviews.blogspot.com

A Romance Reader's Reviews

I read the first two books in this series quite a while ago now and the only thing I remember is Eve and Roarke's relationship progressing quite quickly.

This has taken me a long time to finish and I think that's due to its length. I'm not the biggest fan of long books and the fact the writing in the kindle app for PC is so tiny tells me it's a long one. I've been reading it in spurts between other books but as the investigation into Pandora's death got going I decided to just concentrate on this one and finally get it finished.

So Pandora is a successful model, loved the world over for her style and flair but also loathed for being vicious and cruel. When she's murdered and the prime suspect is Mavis, Eve's long time friend, Eve is determined to help solve the mystery and get her friend off the charge of murder and find the real killer.

I loved the twists and turns in this. I, like Eve, thought that they'd found the killers at about the 66% mark but then like how did they go about proving it? And then it turns out it wasn't those people?! I was like, WHAT?!

Of course, this one also contains Eve and Roarke's wedding and the stuff that leads up to it, including dress shopping, hen and stag nights and picking flowers. Admittedly, we don't get the wedding in this as such, just Eve getting dressed and walking out to make her promise to Roarke.

Although I didn't enjoy this as much as previous books, I think that was down to me not being in the mood for a mystery/crime/romantic suspense book as well as it's long length. Nevertheless I will be reading more books in the series at a later date.
  
People Like Her
People Like Her
Ellery Lloyd | 2021 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I thought I’d made a mistake when I was approved to read this on NetGalley. I’d requested it based on the cover photo, the fact that I’d seen it popping up on Book Twitter, and the authors name appealed to me! I read the first two pages and still thought I’d made a mistake, and then I COULDN’T STOP READING!! This book is like literary crack!
Emmy, the main character, is one of those outwardly lovely people, who beneath that veneer doesn’t really seem to care about anybody else. I even wondered at one point if she particularly liked her children or husband. Her husband seems long-suffering, backed in to a corner, having to put up with his wife being an Influencer on Instagram and ruling their lives based on the photos she must take, the places she must go to, and the companies she must appease. After all, she’s the main breadwinner in the family. He hasn’t managed to finish his second book after the success of the first. And then there’s another voice in the story.

At first this stalker seems only mildly threatening (like there’s a rating!), but as the book progresses and the stalker tells us more of their story, she begins to become more menacing.

Now, I post book reviews on Instagram more as a personal record. The likes and feedback are a bonus, and I get especially giddy if one of my favourite reviewers or, god forbid, the author, comments on what I’ve written! But to have millions of followers and millions of pounds depending on my content - it’s something that sounds far too stressful! This world was utterly fascinating to me. And the last 30% or so of the book is just devastating (I’m warning you!). This is well worth a read: I’d most definitely recommend this book - and I’m so glad that I chose this book by it’s cover!

Many thanks to the publishers, Mantle, for giving me access to a copy of this book on NetGalley.