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Jonathan Shay is a psychiatrist who's written two books about the Iliad and the Odyssey, respectively: Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America. It's been some time since I read them but I remember them as being interesting. He writes about the parallels he sees between the poems and the experiences of his veteran patients.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by aussie_powerlifter at 1:13 AM on April 17, 2023

Not entirely what you want, and perhaps too academic, but you might look at Louis Sass's Madness and Modernism.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by painquale at 8:55 AM on April 16, 2023

Haha from where I sit that's not a niche area at all! There's an incredible amount of scholarship on that exact subject by psychoanalysts, to the extent that this seems to me to be the main thing psychoanalysts obsess about.

Some great books to get you started:

- Otto Rank's entire ouvre, especially ART AND THE ARTIST but also many other works.
- Ernest Becker's DENIAL OF DEATH which was influenced by Rank's work
-... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by MiraK at 11:46 AM on April 15, 2023

Cinema Therapy is a youtube channel with what I suspect is a less highbrow version of this than you had in mind. But exploring works of art using concepts from therapy, and vice versa, is indeed what they do, and they're good at it.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by nebulawindphone at 9:37 AM on April 15, 2023

Adding to the Adam Phillips dogpile: as a preview of his whole vibe here's the essay, On Giving Up, where he muses about Kafka and what it is to "give up" on anything.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by obliterati at 11:39 AM on April 14, 2023

You might be interested in the work of Peter Gay, particularly Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider. While his historiography is inevitably dated now (he died in 2015), his insights into particular artistic works or movements are still valuable.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by praemunire at 10:09 AM on April 14, 2023

I came here to recommend Adam Phillips: Missing Out does just this.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jshttnbm at 9:39 AM on April 14, 2023

You'll want to look into Adam Phillips's books, but I also recommend Imagining Characters: Six Conversations about Women Writers, which is a series of conversations between the novelist A.S. Byatt and the psychoanalyst Ignes Sodré.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by verstegan at 8:28 AM on April 14, 2023

Alain de Botton also wrote about architecture and its effect on people in The Architecture of Happiness.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by meijusa at 7:16 AM on April 14, 2023

How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton, a philosopher.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by meijusa at 7:14 AM on April 14, 2023

Marion Milner's On Not Being Able to Paint?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by spibeldrokkit at 7:05 AM on April 14, 2023

OK, I can't in good conscience recommend Rod Dreher. He's always had his problems, but recently he's gone fully off the deep end. That being said, "How Dante Can Save Your Life" is from earlier in his career, and is about how reading the Divine Comedy helped him through some mental health struggles. Caveat about how there's not much overlap between what helps Rod Dreher with his mental health and what would help most other people with their mental health. If you're interested,... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by kevinbelt at 6:49 AM on April 14, 2023

Here's an overview of Adam Phillips's work that might help you to decide whether his writing/speaking might be of interest to you. Not all of his essays delve into art/literature, but the ones that do often capture that combination of unusual & insightful angles you describe in your question.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Hellgirl at 6:36 AM on April 14, 2023

Let me be the first of probably many to suggest Musicophilia!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by babelfish at 6:04 AM on April 14, 2023

Flagged as fantastic, grumblebee.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by unicorn chaser at 9:26 AM on June 30, 2022

Wow grumblebee! You've explained acting and directing and writing in ways that I've never thought of before. Thank you!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by ashbury at 6:41 PM on June 14, 2022

If you go down a few rabbit holes starting with the blogspot link found in the obituary pinochiette posted, you eventually find this Blogspot profile which links to several blogs maintained by Scott.

From there you'll find links to two blogs, each containing a good number of his stories plus more with poetry (1 & 2), paintings, and two full novels: On The River Eg and On The River Eg II.

Though, unfortunately, no "Ellen's Eyes" as... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by flug at 6:19 PM on October 3, 2021 marked best answer

this one?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by TheGoodBlood at 9:11 AM on April 21, 2017 marked best answer

This whole thing makes so much more sense to me after having experienced some food aversions while pregnant. There are things like eggs and sausage that I normally love, but during pregnancy they literally made me gag if I tried to eat them.

It did not feel like I was being "picky" or "princessy," it felt like things that I previously liked and wanted to like had overnight turned into revolting non-food. It did not feel like something I could... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by beandip at 4:12 AM on January 17, 2017

I think you're saying that people like me aren't what you're calling "rude fussbudgets," but I'll say that I hate being the way I am, and if someone could cure me of my food aversions, I'd gladly give him thousands of dollars. I'd empty my bank account. Because it really, really sucks.

Yep.

I continually berate myself to "man up" and "just get over it," which seems to make it worse. And... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Talez at 7:18 PM on January 16, 2017

Grumblebee's answer nails it. Everything from sight to sound to taste is just too much, ambiguity/lack of definitive structure/rules is torture, and this makes the world exhausting and traumatic on a daily basis. Every day, as an adult with HFA, I reboot and have to face a world that makes no sense to me, is loud, unpredictable. People are unpredictable and so "special interests" I can control become the focus of my world. I had what SEEMED like tantrums, but have been labeled... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Young Kullervo at 10:10 AM on October 15, 2016

That I'm comfortable being the way I am. I'm sure some introverts are, but I'm not.

this is two days late and no one's probably reading, but god yes on this one. I think what some people don't understand is that introversion often goes hand in hand with shyness, which can be excrutiating. I know when I was more shy it was so painful and I was avoiding the pain of that situation and it wasn't meant to be a personal snub of the people involved. But... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by GospelofWesleyWillis at 2:48 PM on September 30, 2016

The parts of my brain that can form longer sentences--or even think of longer sentences to say--are offline

Yes, yes, yes! Like my being has this much capacity for socialness, but once that bandwidth is gone, it's gone.

I'm on bed rest with a particularly nasty case of bronchitis. The mister is traveling on business, and the kid is staying at my parents' house to help my mom after my dad's reconstructive foot surgery. I've... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ruki at 8:36 PM on September 28, 2016

I find this kind of article frustrating. If you take it as given that some introverts are rude and others are polite, just as some extraverts are rude and others are polite, and that some rude people use their personality traits as an excuse to justify their rudeness - facts that most people would agree upon -then what does the article offer? It's a case study in one person wondering if they're sometimes impolite. Probably a good exercise for any of us, but I'm not sure it makes a great opinion... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by langtonsant at 2:53 PM on September 25, 2016

Note that having View→Show Clipping on wont catch this error because the output gain is applied in the very last step before the audio is passed to the output & is not shown in the waveform displayed on screen. The only way to catch clipping due to too much gain is to either a) set the gain to 1.0 (no gain? no problem!) or b) watch for the red line in the output db meter which tells you that the output is clipping.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by pharm at 2:11 PM on August 19, 2016

Seconding always having View → Show Clipping on, unless you have a spectacular reason not to.

Also, if the recording's anything you'd want to keep, save it as an Audacity project (*.aup). It keeps the original data and much of the undo history. When you want to give a file to someone, export the audio.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by scruss at 12:51 PM on August 19, 2016

thank you! I appreciate your detailed and thoughtful response.
posted to MetaFilter by theorique at 8:06 AM on June 11, 2015

An individual work, or a couple of similar works, become popular, probably intrinsic reasons, such as good writing, good acting, or a good advertising campaign. Popular people start championing it, and that makes others interested in it. Those other people tell their friends about it, and they tell their friends.

Grumblebee, have you ever read "Bellwether" by Connie Willis? It's a really funny (to me) novel based on the almost-believable... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by OnceUponATime at 2:27 PM on April 27, 2015

The subject itself is not obscure, but if you want a labor of love, something that's just enthusiastic and heartfelt, please listen to Compleatly Beatles.

They're not associated with any company or organization (read: no ads), and there's a great duality between David Dedrick, who's a Beatles disciple, and Ian Boothby, a wonderful comic with roots in improv, who brings equal amounts of irreverence (see: openly calling out the misogyny in their early lyrics) and wonder... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by mysticreferee at 9:27 AM on October 31, 2014

There are 29 states in the US where Cook could legally be fired for saying what he just said.

And people are talking about special treatment?

Pull the other one. It's got bells on.
posted to MetaFilter by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:50 AM on October 30, 2014

McDonald's has the best fries, ever, as long as they're fresh and hot. To make sure they are fresh and hot, order them unsalted -- they salt them regularly, so they have to make a fresh batch just for you -- and then ask for packets of salt when you get your food. Because of the random way they have people work the drivethrough and the pickup windows, they will never make the connection.

Everything else at McDonald's leaves me feeling very slightly poisoned, but oh those fries.
posted to MetaFilter by KathrynT at 2:41 PM on October 28, 2014

Of all of the possible objections King could have had to Kubrick's adaptation, that seems like the least sensical one to me.

If anything I'd read the opposite. In the book, with Jack's internal dialogue included, it seemed much more obvious to me that this guy isn't in total control of himself. In the movie, he's just sort of a Nicholson-brand sorta jerky guy until later in the movie. Granted, the clearer look inside Jack's mind really is the horror of the book, but I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cmoj at 8:34 AM on October 28, 2014

We're in complete agreement, and I am certainly not a fan of letting bygones by bygones. I hope that's not how I came across.

Speaking for myself, that's how the comment came across to me, and I disagreed with the sentiment violently enough that I couldn't find a way to state my disagreement in a way that wouldn't have wrecked the conversation. That being the case, I decided not to comment. Thanks for clarifying your point.
posted to MetaTalk by Rustic Etruscan at 6:49 AM on October 24, 2014

> Being charitable is often exhausting.

> Because the burden of a difficult conversation is placed on the shoulders of those for whom it is most difficult.

> Because all to often just the expression of anger is taken as an actual attack, and/or is treated as the angry person being unwilling to educate (like, ever, I guess?), or - this to me is the one that makes me want to yak hardest - as a... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by languagehat at 5:57 PM on October 23, 2014

MF's trans members have been exemplary in showing how this kind of patient education can take place, and I think a lot of us here could testify, on a lot of different issues, that it really works.

I wanted to add that my interest in how we address each other isn't motivated by a desire to use rhetoric to silence, but because I've seen people on this site who I've grown to care about in large part because they use charity and patience to respond to... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by SpacemanStix at 1:25 PM on October 23, 2014

Toddler is being quiet for five minutes!

If all the trans mefites ignore someone being aggressively unpleasant (or just incredibly wrong) because we don't have the emotional energy to deal with it, and the conversation starts forming around that person, then the education ball starts rolling in the wrong direction.

I see what you're saying, but I don't think that will happen. Like I said, I think the majority of people here are... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by forza at 1:20 PM on October 23, 2014

I appreciate the direction these comments have taken while I've been asleep. And I totally understand that it is exhausting and wearisome and feels unfair to be asked to uphold one standard that it doesn't seem your oppressor / opponent / detractor is also being held to. I also really, really appreciate the people who have tried to be gentle and reasonable even when it takes a lot out of them.

To take an inappropriate analogy, I think the situation is something like the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by forza at 12:42 PM on October 23, 2014

But the latter kind of comment is not the kind of comment I'm talking about, as I think I've taken great pains to be clear about in all of my examples.

And many in here have taken great pains to be clear that the latter kind of comment is the kind of comment we are talking about.

I do agree with you that some people do get very opinionated in here, but there are actually a few more... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by EmpressCallipygos at 6:17 AM on October 23, 2014

Grumblebee!
posted to MetaTalk by Lesser Shrew at 4:09 PM on October 22, 2014

yah yah team grumblebee

(ps +1 Puppets) (For greg's scroll bar)
posted to MetaTalk by Potomac Avenue at 3:14 PM on October 22, 2014

Okay, now this is a site problem! grumblebee, you've always been one of my all-time favorite mefites, and I doubt I'm alone in missing your participation in recent years.

No, you're not alone in that. grumblebee come back!
posted to MetaTalk by torticat at 3:10 PM on October 22, 2014

I was once very active here. I still visit every day, but I've morphed into a lurker.

Okay, now this is a site problem! grumblebee, you've always been one of my all-time favorite mefites, and I doubt I'm alone in missing your participation in recent years. Your earnesty and unshakable assumptions of good faith are a credit to you and a boon to the site when you choose to participate. I assume you're just busier with your other... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by dialetheia at 2:53 PM on October 22, 2014

There is really no such thing as doubling your money safely.

To the degree that you can double your money "safely", the safer the chance of doubling, the longer it will take on average.

One of the things that is considered very safe is putting it in an FDIC-ensured savings account, CD or the like. At present rates, that would make your money will double in something like 70 years. But even that isn't really doubling; you'll have to... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Flunkie at 10:22 AM on October 5, 2014 marked best answer

I am probably one of ten people in metafilter comfortable openly stating thier sympathies with the MRA cause and who is distressed when people here conflate PUAs, MRAs, and Red Pillers. But really...it is perfectly alright to have a piece of art, whether it be TV show, book, or music that is not devoted to showing an ethnographically diverse group.

Specialization and focus is just fine.

The Wire would not be stronger with more seasons... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by bswinburn at 6:32 PM on July 2, 2014

grumblebee: ...there are cons, and the biggest one is having trouble living in a world in which people want you to take a firm side and defend it, going by faith if necessary.

We have have created an economy (if not a culture) based on an idea of Freedom that amounts to, "Just spend a little money and you can take the easy way out of this problem. No one's going to tell you you're wrong. And hey, it's going to be fun! It's... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by sneebler at 7:49 AM on June 22, 2014

I think of one type of failure somewhere in line with Nassim Taleb's take on Fragility. Failure helps us identify our strengths and our weaknesses and prepare for and deal with things that will eventually go wrong. We learn how to bolster our own pre-emtive defenses. Failure makes us anti-fragile.

From the perspective of those that never fail, they may believe they are endowed with excellence and a better sense of their business. They may very well be, but they may... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Nanukthedog at 6:37 PM on January 9, 2014

I had the privilege of looking at Melville's manuscripts in their library repository, and he compose the same way - only he used pins to attach the scissored scraps apart, and his daughters ended up transcribing the whole piece.

To this day, even though I compose in a word processor, I find the organizational part of writing long pieces to be an intensely physical-feeling process.
posted to MetaFilter by Miko at 6:14 PM on January 9, 2014

Including an answer by MeFi's own grumblebee!
posted to MetaFilter by yaymukund at 9:56 AM on December 31, 2013

"Well yes. The original complaint about my use of the word 'monster' was different though; I believe that person thought I was being politically incorrect by denying the humanity of a class of people who might be different in some way, but were still human."

If you want to have this argument, I can play that role, a little bit.

I agree that there are a class of people who are genuinely psychologically distinct in the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:00 AM on October 31, 2013

I've convinced myself that I'm too stupid to really get literary fiction, the classics, you know, serious books.

It helps if you remember that these are marketing categories and have nothing to do with the actual content of the book. I see SFF in the literary fiction section all the time, but it won't appeal to SFF buyers (or, more honestly, the litfic buyers won't find it in the SFF section) and therefore it's classed somewhere else so the right buyers can find it.
posted to MetaFilter by immlass at 8:49 AM on October 3, 2013