#sound objects

[ozkar-krapo]

СА ЗНА [SA ZNA]

"Into Oberland"

(CD. Leo rcds. 1995 / rec. 1994) [RU]

[jgruda]

Luigi Russolo - Risveglio di una Città

[gale-force-storm]

Thinking about the fact that, to pull Gale from the stone and get him in the game at all, you have to decide to try to touch an extremely dangerous looking swirling mass of unstable magic. Something that is, objectively, a terrible idea

Like, the options it gives you are to either touch the sigil or leave, and if you leave you just... don't get Gale in the party

You have to take the risk. You have to let your curiosity override your common sense. You have to look at this unstable, possibly dangerous malfunctioning magic sigil and go "...Ok, but what if I poke it?"

In short, to get Gale in your party, you have to do exactly what he would in that situation, and indulge in a moment of reckless curiosity. And I just think that's delightful

[girlwiththegreenhat]

team fortress 2 finally getting rid of the bots after 5 years

work on the team fortress 2 comic continuing after 7+ years

half life 3 development looking more likely than ever with legitimate code, file, and voicework leaks referencing a new non-VR single-player game from valve featuring a HEV suit wearing protagonist and Xen creatures and concepts

shoutout to the valve fan that found the genie lamp. you a real one

[bfdiredux]

What I want to happen

[hedgehog-moss]

Pls give recommendations for Odd books 🙏

Here we go, a list of literary oddity :) This post contains majestic spheres, alien taxonomies, cruel subway polytheism, a fourth-dimensional cat, disturbing earthworms, infinite space football, existential mussel terror, a Parisian absurdist time loop, and a picture of a telegraph-pole-man-cheetah. I'm not exactly recommending these books, in the sense that I won't take any complaints if you find them more odd than good, and some of them transcend the concepts of good and bad anyway.

• The Other City, Michal Ajvaz. It's all like this:

• Contes du demi-sommeil, Marcel Béalu ('Half-asleep tales') —is the book that prompted my post about stories that have no ambition or justification beyond being odd. I'm sad that it hasn't been translated :( One of the tales is about a strange opaline sphere that rolls on the road. It doesn't accelerate when the road becomes a steep slope but continues rolling majestically. At one point it floats away towards the sky. Someone wonders if it was the moon. Someone else says authoritatively "It was an angel's egg." Everyone is reassured by this explanation. The whole thing feels exactly like remembering a dream you had. There is also a man who reads too much and whose body atrophies so only his head is left and his wife puts it in an egg cup for better stability.

• Leonora Carrington— The Skeleton's Holiday, or maybe the Hearing Trumpet. I've read them so long ago but I think the latter is the one with the old ladies and nuns? There's also a guy who was murdered in his bath by a still-life painter because he said there was a carrot in one of his paintings, but it might not have been a carrot? It's hard to remember details from this book without feeling like I might be making them up. Bonus Leonora Carrington painting which kind of feels like a short story:

• The Codex Seraphinianus, of course. I wish there were more bizarre encyclopaedias out there.

Also I love this review:

• Sleep Has His House, Anna Kavan —I really liked the way this book used language; making life feel like a fever dream even more than in Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream (which I really liked too.)

The eye is checking a record of silence, space; a nightmare, every horror of this world in its frigid and blank neutrality. The actual scope of its orbit depends on the individual concept of desolation, but approximate symbols are suggested in long roving perspectives of ocean, black swelled, in slow undulation, each whaleback swell plated in armour-hard brilliance with the moonlight clanking along it . . .

• The second half of Michael Ende's Neverending Story, where things get stranger! I remember the hand-shaped castle with eyes and the city of amnesiac former emperors and the miserable ugly worms who cry all the time out of shame then create beautiful architecture with their tears...

• The Gray House, Mariam Petrosyan. This is the one I had in mind when I talked about a 'museum of the strange, but one you wouldn't want to be trapped in after closing time'. Another book that made me feel uncomfortable in a similar (good) way was Edward Carey's Observatory Mansions, the protagonist of which is a man who curates an odd private museum and can't stand the sight of his own hands.

• Oh, speaking of uncomfortable, and hands—He Digs A Hole, by Danger Slater. To me this book was in the more-odd-than-good category but I liked its refusal to have a coherent philosophical meaning. It's about a man who can't sleep so he goes to his garden shed and saws off his hands and replaces them with gardening tools. Then he starts digging a hole. And then it gets weird. (Read at your own discretion if you have a worm phobia; there's some body horror featuring sexually aggressive earthworms. And then it gets disturbing.)

• 17776 — Someone sent me an ask a few years back to recommend this online multimedia narrative to me and I really enjoyed it! Here's the summary, borrowed from the wiki page: Set in the distant future in which all humans have become immortal and infertile, the series follows three sapient space probes that watch humanity play an evolved form of American football in which games can be played for millennia over distances of thousands of miles. The work explores themes of consciousness, hope, despair, and why humans play sports.

• Saint-Glinglin, Raymond Queneau —the author admitted that this book presents some "internal discontinuities." I didn't like it much but I respect the talent it takes to write a novel where everything feels like a random digression, including the key suspenseful scene that matters to the plot. The one digression I loved had to do with the way the narrator is existentially horrified by various sea creatures. It's like he dreads them so much he can't help but think about them when he should be telling a story.

The oyster... This gob of phlegm, this brutal way of refusing the outside world, this absolute isolation, and this disease: the pearl... If I conceptualise them even a little, my terror starts anew. The mussel is even more significant than the oyster and even more immediately admissible in the domain of terror. Let us indeed consider that this little sticky mass whose collective stupidity haunts our piers, consider that it is alive in the same way as a cow. Because there are no degrees in life. There is no more or less. The whole of life is present in every animal. To think that the mussel, that the mussel has, not a conscience, but a certain way of transcending itself: here I am once again plunged into abysses of anxiety and insecurity.

Near the beginning he philosophises about what would happen if a man and a lobster were the only two survivors of the apocalypse. The lobster would break the man's toe and the man would say, "We are the only beings that remain on this devastated Earth, lobster! The only living beings in the universe, struggling alone against the universal disaster, don't you want to be allies?" But the lobster would disdainfully walk away towards the ocean, and "the sight of the inflexible and imperturbable lobster pierces the sky of humanity with its unintelligible claws." (I can't overstate how little this has to do with the rest of the book.)

• Autumn in Beijing, Boris Vian —needless to say the story does not take place in autumn nor in Beijing.* To the extent that it can be said to be "about" something, it's about people trying to build a train station in a desert with tracks that lead nowhere. (I just went on goodreads to check the title, and it's actually called Autumn in Peking in English. I also discovered that it was featured in a list of Books I Regret Reading. I liked this book, but I understand.)

(* French writers love doing this—like when Alphonse Allais said about his 1893 book The Squadron's Umbrella "I chose this title because there aren't any umbrellas of any sort in this volume, and the important notion of the squadron, as a unit of the armed forces, is never brought up at all; in these conditions, hesitating would have been pure madness.")

• The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins—I fear this one makes a little too much sense for this list, but you can't say it isn't weird; and I loved it and recommend it any chance I get.

• The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, Carol Hill —this book was so wacky and made me laugh. I've not yet managed to successfully recommend it to someone; its brand of odd didn't resonate with the people I know who've read it but that's okay. You could say it's about a woman astronaut whose weird cat disappears into the fourth dimension (or the quantum realm?) and she goes to space to save him—but that makes the book sound more straightforward and less messy than it is. Her cat leaves her a note before he disappears:

• The Bald Soprano, Ionesco —fun fact, there's a tiny theatre in the Latin Quarter in Paris where this absurdist play has been staged every night for nearly 70 years, with the exact same set design and costumes and everything, like the actors are stuck in a time loop. They celebrated the 20,000th performance this year! There's an actress who has been playing her character for 40 years and said joining this theatre was like joining a religion. I've been going to see this play as a New Year tradition with my best friend since we were 14, so I love it madly, though I wouldn't say it's good, necessarily—the author said it was about "absolutely nothing, but a superior nothing."

• Statuary Gardens; or Les Mers perdues (apparently not translated) by Jacques Abeille. This man is obsessed with weird statues. Unfortunately I find his writing style rather dull—I feel like he takes strange ideas and makes them feel mundane in a bad way...! But his books still have a nice, quiet, oneiric atmosphere, and images that stayed with me, like a solitary gardener trying to grow stone statues in the depleted soil of a walled garden. Here are some illustrations from the second one:

I'll look into some of the books recommended on my previous post! (and I agree with the people who brought up Cortázar, Borges, and Junji Ito. <3) Some potentially-odd books I have on my to-read list: Clive Barker's Abarat, Goran Petrović's An Atlas Traced by the Sky, Salvador Plascencia's The People of Paper, Jean Ray's Malpertuis; Jan Weiss's The House of a Thousand Floors; Brice Tarvel's Pierre-Fendre.

[389]

Ron Arad Concrete Stereo 1983

[yunithyzt]

I got the motivation to draw EL like this from @freezing-w1nds!

She's supposed to look like a bellhop bc she has a hotel. I was originally going to give her a tie, but having an orange turtle neck (if it even can be called a turtle neck considering her shape) looked better in the end.

[sappsorrow]

Stuart Thompson as Anthony Greville-Bell in SAS Rogue Heroes season 2

[saedyne]

nobody asked but my hot take is that i think kon's struggles with

being literally made to be superman

being given roles and expectations (as a hero/boyfriend/etc) based on that/how he looks and squeezing himself down into those expectations

being torn between duty/obligation (even and perhaps especially of the self-imposed variety) and his own sense of self

feeling like he outlived his purpose after coming back from the dead and not knowing what he's supposed to be now that he's done the superman thing (maybe even feeling like he needs the unbearable weight of expectation because without a job to do or a box to fit into he might dissolve into nothing because he's always avoided examining who he is when there's nobody he has to be i wonder why that is)

could. uh. y'know. all that could be read as quite...queer. in a pretty genderful way. but what do i know.

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

i love how ancient chinese currency is translated as "cash" in english, e.g. 500 strings of cash. like yeah, it's accurate, that's what 钱 means, but it just sounds so hilariously modern to my anglophone brain. i always picture someone saying it in a sleazy lawyer voice. "HAVE YOU OR A LOVED ONE BEEN A VICTIM OF CORRUPT OFFICIALS, UNSCRUPULOUS EUNUCHS, OR HAD YOUR FARMLAND UNJUSTLY CONFISCATED BY LOCAL WARLORD #34? YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO A LARGE CASH SETTLEMENT! BETTER RING MING!" it's pretty interesting that dynastic china never named the official mint like francs or pounds. might jstor this later.

[permian-tropos]

the “shabnak” monster hunting you is pretty directly a manifestation of daniil’s trauma of watching the herb bride being burned alive. when you light the fires to dispel her she screams and her bones horrifying break apart. that’s what he saw. I know some people didn��t like that part of the demo but I think the criticism isn’t fair if it genuinely is about the bone stake lot incident. we’re in HIS head and this is what he is tormented by, it’s not some objective truth about the lore of the steppe

[dendixia]

Oh, y'know. Playing a tubular tune with your Partner in Rhyme <3

[cubbihue]

Timmy would love to listen to girly pop songs, he would have loved chapel roan

Sometimes items slip out the human's conscious. Objects that, if pointed out, a person immediately remembers existing. But until that moment? Up until they remember, the object is lost. Sometimes these objects wash up on the shores of Pixies' Corp. The Pixies call these foreign objects: Found Things.

Most of the time its massive socks, or a giant clear lid for some tupperware. Other times, they find rarities such as human phones! Pixies enjoy scrapping Found Things, and ditching work to play with Found Things.

Although Jorgen usually ends up sending the items back down to Earth.

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[norazingrid]

[dragonnon]

why does it feel like sometimes Kazuma's themes could just be from the perpective of Ryunosuke? which is interesting considering the line Kazuma says, "i'm not the one who's changed Ryunosuke, you have."

Kazuma's first theme sounds like a downright heroic folk hero, someone you look up too and can depend on. the meter is focused and stays on point, every individual instrument waits for their perfect intervals. the bass instrument keeping them all steady. then an arpeggio comes and the original melody instrument stands aside and only plays as an accompaniment before coming back as lead with fanfare playing as it leads back to the main melody. there are a lot of japanese instruments in the song which go away in later themes. there is a kagura-suzu which is japanese bell! i really like it's sound!!!

in Nocturne, instruments are overlapping more but are quieter for the main melody which i think is the koto. it's no longer so steady, the bass is gone and i interpret the bass with his life/passion. no longer feels like a force always by your side more like a tun playing in your mind. the determined and steadfast arpeggio is gone and never comes back. and there are these contemplative plucking violin(?) strings in the middle section. they give me of the feeling of reminiscing. i feel like the last part before it repeats is Ryunosuke remembering all of the good times they've had, and then once it repeats that's him remembering he's gone. in this theme, all the other instruments take a real backseat to the main one. it's Ryunosuke remembering the best part of him, his main melody so to speak. the Kagura-suzu is still here.

In His Glorious Return, it starts out like a very triumphant and yearned for version of samurai on a mission (if that makes sense) until the brass section rests and it becomes almost exactly like Nocturne, something i find extremely interesting because of that part where susato was talking to kazuma in the departed soul scene, ryunosuke was looking towards the ground lost in thought around the same time this part plays i believe? it's almost as if he's remembering all the times he's grieved him.... thus the nocturne version playing.

the Kagura-suzu is now gone :( it is now "replaced" with snapping.

A prosecutor reborn, oh my god a prosecutor reborn, if it didn't have the same melody i almost wouldn't be able to tell it's the same character. most of his original japanese instruments are gone, and have been replaced with ones that are more associated with britain's characters. almost as if he seems more alien to Ryunouske. he borrows several instrument's from barok van ziek's theme, like the violin, and harpsichord. and yeah, the harpsichord absolutely haunts this song. it's EVERYWHERE. someone told me once the harpsichord represents the professor, so that's FUN. it's not like the professor absolutely haunts this guys life (,:'D)

i think the only thing he keeps is his bass which is used way more sparingly than it is in SOAM. and interestingly, the kagura-suzu is back, but it is only used like twice i think. (☹️), its still kinda replaced with the snapping

The opening almost sounds like an unveiling, as if seeing the man for first time and he's utterly terrifying. and then it jumps straight into this unfamiliar melody not heard anywhere in any of his other themes. it's reminiscent of barok van ziek's theme. ...because Ryunosuke barely recognizes him. he's nothing like who he's known... right? and it just keeps getting grander and grander! it then comes back to this more familiar part kazuma's iconic motif, but the notes are now in legato, and the melody's been changed by one note, and though it's only one it is NOTICEABLE. it distracts from how everything else about that section was so familiar. (when i first heard it i was actually taken aback)

now for the part that i'm crazy about

THE MIDDLE SECTION HAS THE GATEWAY TO THE TRUTH

THEME WHICH IS THE SAMD MOTIF THAT PLAYS IN THE PROFESSOR THEME! IF YOU LISTEN TO THEM BACK TO BACK YOU'LL HEAR THEM! Kazuma could've BEEN the professor if he didn't turn his heel and left! if he had killed gregson in pursuit of his mission, he could've become that! and the fact that motif is in this song is so important in showing that. just WOW. this song is Ryunouske finally seeing a different side to kazuma. him in his grief and rage, him at his 'worst' it's quite unlike how ryunosuke sees him in nocturne where it seems he is remembering only the absolute best parts about him like it's so easy to do when in grief.

listening to his themes with all that in mind has been a tear-filled hell for me, but it's always how i've thought of it basically.