Comments on: Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out

Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out

ZippityBuddha — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 16:24:03 -0800

Sine Fiction - invented soundtracks for science fiction novels.

By: ZippityBuddha

ZippityBuddha — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 16:26:12 -0800

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:30:54 -0800

This is brilliant. This is not what they're doing at the linked site, I don't think, but since I do pretty much all of my reading on my laptop (up to about 15000 ebooks now), it would be so cool to have, like, ambient sound that could be played while reading. Or use some kinda markup embedded in the ebook to trigger different soundscapes and stuff as you page through. It could be the new Art Form, and peer-to-peer shared. People who did especially good work would become famous in the scene for their lit-soundscapes, and, and.....*propeller spins wildly* Or maybe not. Still, neato.

By: deanc

deanc — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:46:25 -0800

Don't forget about soundtracks to movie sequels that don't exist.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:48:48 -0800

Very cool. L. Ron Hubbard did something similar for the novel Battlefield Earth.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 18:54:25 -0800

... but since I do pretty much all of my reading on my laptop ... [double-take] OK, that's fairly unusual. Any chance you might expand on that? If not here, that's OK. It just seems to me to be an interesting choice, and I'd like to know where it comes from. Just curious. My reaction is a combination of librophilia (the aesthetics of print books...holding them in your hand...reading them at the diner counter or the bar or in the airport terminal...this could go way OT really fast...) and pragmatics (like I said, reading in the diner or the airport and the low screen resolution...).

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 19:40:14 -0800

Any chance you might expand on that? Well, I'm a global nomad, basically. I've easily spent tens of thousands of dollars in my lifetime on paper books, and given all of them away over the years -- to friends, libraries, whatever, because I'm too poor and too mobile to countenance hauling them around the planet, and it makes zero sense to put them in storage. It's the same logic that has made me go to all-digital music as well, ripping any music I had purchased over the years, and giving away the media, except for CD-R backups. I read for two or three hours a day (in the sense of read books, digitized), in bed before I sleep, and I've gotten quite accustomed to reading from my laptop. The software I use allows me to page down with a touch of the space bar, and with cleartype and so on, I find the eyestrain is equal to or less than with actual books, and I find the ergonomics as comfortable as a hardcover novel might be, say. It's the ideas and stuff that come through the reading of the texts that I'm interested in, not the physicality of the books. If I were wealthy and had a permanent home, I'd love to have a big ol' library, sure, and there is much that I'd like to read that I can't because I can't find it digitized, but all in all, it's the best solution for someone with my wired, rootless lifestyle. I do have a couple of dozen book-books, and do occasionally purchase new ones, which I read when travelling and so on. Sorry for the lengthy tangent.

By: signal

signal — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:10:54 -0800

Continuing the OT: I do most of my reading on my Sony Clie. Convinient to carry at all times 15-20 novels in your pocket. And the backlight is good for reading at night without bugging the spouse.

By: the cuban

the cuban — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 06:13:37 -0800

15000 ebooks Wow. Where do you get them all from?

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 06:22:43 -0800

Wow. Where do you get them all from? Can't speak for stav or signal, but I use Project Gutenberg for the texts, and then Weasel Reader and makeztxt to make 'em into nicely readable e-books.

By: longbaugh

longbaugh — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 07:28:04 -0800

The book "House of Leaves" (which I have touted here before) has a sort-of-semi-official soundtrack by Poe, "Haunted". It's really quite good - atmospheric and spooky. If you've read the book it's worth a listen. If you haven't read it then give it a try - it rocketh. When I was forced to read Wuthering Heights as a child I listened to Kate Bush wailing continually as I struggled heroically through the book (as Heathcliff struggled across the moors...) - it's the only thing that made me finish it. I've always found reading to music is relaxing and enhances the experience - anyone got any musical suggestions for "At The Mountains Of Madness"?

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 07:31:56 -0800

Cantus Arcticus? Maybe not creepy enough...

By: sciurus

sciurus — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:14:47 -0800

I second the House of Leaves try, Poe and Danielewski are siblings. The album itself is a bit more focused on Poe dealing with her father's death but it does add hints to the book. And this website is great. I wish I'd had the dhalgren one when I read that this summer.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 16:16:39 -0800

IRC, mostly, the cuban.