::rap Thread::

[Mandieta6]

I missed your final points. Yeah, I agree, basically.

 

[Juventino]

Music is morr sensory than reading though because it requires no thought or imagination. You cant read a book like you can listen to a song.

I think the experience of listening to music and reading a book definitely have important things in common. I think we recognize and cling on to a song or a written story in the same way; structure and the language (or certain rules) both mediums developed. Like analyzing the layers of a story, you can definitely take an intellectual, analytical approach to music, whether it be linguistically, semiotically or another way. Leonard Bernstein gave a series of lectures about music at Harvard called ''The Unanswered Question'' in the 70's, it's pretty interesting.

Edit: but I agree an intellectual answer to the question ''why do I like this song or story so much?'' isn't necessary to the experience because most of us enjoy pop culture in an every day way, but I do believe the layers beneath to why we enjoy a song or a story are very similar.

 

[Filipower]

So Harry Potter, LotR or A Song of Ice and Fire have no "higher meaning"? I mean, I understand the difference between The Prisioner of Azkaban and One Hundred Years of Solitude, but certainly the former is about something more than a magical 13 year-old.

 

[Alex]

So Harry Potter, LotR or A Song of Ice and Fire have no "higher meaning"? I mean, I understand the difference between The Prisioner of Azkaban and One Hundred Years of Solitude, but certainly the former is about something more than a magical 13 year-old.

Not so much that they don't have higher meaning, but they're certainly but literature that is going to set the world on fire.

Brilliant stories, not brilliant writing.

LotR and ASOIAF on the other hand, I think could probably be considered both

 

[Filipower]

Yeah I know what you mean.

I think A Song of Ice and Fire is closer to Harry Potter than to Tolkien, though, at least in that regard.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

If I want entertainment I'll generally read non-fiction about something I enjoy: soccer or football.

Literature for me is a philosophical experience. I don't sit around reading philosophy or considering the human experience very often. I'm fairly introspective, but don't really examine my life or the lives of others very often either. For me this is provided by literature; I read novels to give me an insight into how people live and think and use it as a springboard to consider fundamental questions about how we should conduct ourselves in terms of priorities and morals and all kinds of stuff like that. I think I'm unique in that, but that's how I read fiction and what I want out of the milieu. I also require a great story, but that's more to keep me turning the pages. You can see my priorities just based on my favorite books: here are the fiction books I have rated 5 stars on goodreads:

Don Quixote
Light in August
Oblomov
A Farewell to Arms
Darkness at Noon
War and Peace
The Brothers Karamazov
The Great Gatsby
A Hero of our Time
The Twelve Chairs

 

[Filipower]

That's definitely understandable, and imo so is Zlatan's position on music, but as Alex said it doesn't mean that the rest is crap.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

No, it's just not for me, just like Country Music is not for me. That's how I look at it. I'll roll my eyes if someone tells me they like Country or read Grisham novels, but that's about it.

 

[Mandieta6]

In person I will always put down people with different tastes to mine because that's the way I talk and I like to play Devil's Advocate and take the extreme opposite position on any subject. But at the end of the day, to each his own, except Zlatan who is totally wrong.

 

[Zlatan]

You sound like such a nice person, Mandieta6. I'd love to hang out with you one day.

As educated people we all have our ways to satisfy our intellectual cravings. Art is one of the most powerful ways in this regard. Mine lies mostly in music (although I have it to lesser degrees with other forms of art as well). Yours lies, from what I hear, in literature. To each their own indeed. And nobody is wrong, because art is in its beginnings a subjective thing. On that level art speaks to our emotional side, driven entirely by our own inner experience. However that doesn't mean you're not allowed to think about those emotional effects of art on you personally and also on the world around you. It also doesn't mean it can't be stimulating to then go on to share and discuss those thoughts/views with others around you. I love to do that, and I think you do too. That is our innate investigative spirit, rooted in the rational intellectual side of us.

If they say why, tell 'em that it's human nature.

 

[Mandieta6]

You can think about them, but you can't then try to pass off that intellectual process as your emotional reaction to the stimulus.

And I don't want to hang out with you, you'll steal my girlfriend with a balloon.

 

[yoyo913]

He would steal your girlfriend, you beta.

 

[Juventino]

In person I will always put down people with different tastes to mine because that's the way I talk and I like to play Devil's Advocate and take the extreme opposite position on any subject. But at the end of the day, to each his own, except Zlatan who is totally wrong.

Mandieta6 Caulfield.

 

[Mandieta6]

He would steal your girlfriend, you beta.

Are you correcting my verb tense?

 

[Mandieta6]

Mandieta6 Caulfield.

Surely this is something you all do. Bagging on people because of their horrible taste in movies/music/etc. is something everyone does.

 

[Back Door Skip]

I only do it on the internet.

 

[Filipower]

I only do it on the internet.

 

[Juventino]

Surely this is something you all do. Bagging on people because of their horrible taste in movies/music/etc. is something everyone does.

Every teenager. As an adult (or as a university student) I feel it would come off as lame to bag someone for their tastes. Naturally as a teenager/early tween (I'm 25 now, not that far off) I used to pay attention to the taste in music or movies of friends or girls I went out with, using it as a form of communication (or the opposite effect as it being a turn off), but it became largely trivial. I still talk music, movies and books naturally, but the banter (because I assume you mean banter) disappeared. I'd feel like being stuck in a high school movie if someone gave me a hard time for liking a certain movie or band, just for the sake of giving me a hard time. You're totally stuck in the Holden Caulfield phase, haha.

 

[yoyo913]

He would steal your girlfriend, you beta.

 

[Mandieta6]

I think it's a totally normal thing to do and has nothing to do with age. People always want to impress others and will try to justify themselves when you criticise them. On a subconcious level it puts you in the driver's seat. Besides, any group of friends will spend most of their time doing this, small or old. I can't think of something mire boring than a life without banter.

It's not done for the sake of giving someone a hard time, that's not what banter is. Banter is kidding around.

I said he would. I even made it certain and said he WILL.