Unsolicited Recommendations Part 2
In today’s Unsolicited Recommendations, we start off with the funniest reviews you’ve ever read, heard and seen. Then we swing by Athens to pick up Spyros Giasafakis on our way to the nearest temple to Dionysus.
1. Zero Punctuation
It's hard to overstate how monumental Zero Punctuation was and is in my life. Yahtzee basically wrote the playbook on what it is I find funny with these 4-5 minute long video game reviews (even if you're not a huge gamer, only a very vague knowledge is necessary to enjoy ZP.)
But once you delve deep, there's a world of complexity to the jokes and references that will guide you to good books, movies and hell even interesting historical events to look up. So much so that a whole decade and some after Ive begun watching ZP, I regularly rewatch old episodes of games I still haven't played, unconvinced? Very well, behold!
https://youtu.be/zHnYFP73MKE
2. Daemonia Nymphe- Κραταια Αστεροπη (Krataia Asteropi)
What would happen if you dragged Einar Selvik from Wardruna, Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry from Dead Can Dance and Psarantonis (from Crete? No but he's a solo artist) into a studio? Well you'd probably get a very angry group of musicians but say you managed that and you got them to record, what would you get? Something much like Daemonia Nymphe
Opinions may vary in regards to what the ideal starting point with the band may be, my take would be Krataia Asteropi. The band's personality and explorations into Greek mysticism goes hand in hand with a memorable but not overly simplified approach. It's definitely a time investment but a rewarding one.
(For those coming from a Metal place, Sakis Tolis of the black metal institution Rotting Christ recently covered track 4, "Nocturnal Hecate." You can find this excellent cover on the last track of his debut solo album, Among the Fires of Hell.)
Unsolicited Recommendations Part 1
As you could tell from my previous post wherein I opened saying I have no right to tell anyone how to write and spent the whole blogpost telling you how to write, I'm very fond of giving unsolicited recommendations (and hypocrisy in general.) Usually this totals in Metal music recommendations, but in this new segment, we're going to talk about everything but metal. Two to three unsolicited recommendations a week of what scholars and learned men in far off shores call "cool stuff."
The art of Franz Ritter von Stuck
Starting off with something dark but not audible (unless you're listening to Tribulation's The Formulas of Death's included poster somehow) is the art of Bavarian painter Franz von Stuck.
The first thing that always gets me about his paintings is that, if the eyes are the gateways to the soul, then his subjects are some fucked up motherfuckers. Which, granted, is to be expected from his mythological work, but even his more innocuous paintings have a sense of melancholic grandeur to them.
Personal favorites - Pluto, Salome and The Murderer.
2. Rocky Erickson's Don't Slander Me
Alright so anybody who knows their pinky from their ring finger would immediately ask "why not The Evil One? " So here's the deal- The Evil One is the better album, plain and simple, but it's in fact so good that many never talk about Don't Slander Me and that's an act of slander against Rocky. The one thing he expressly said not to do, you heartless bastards.
Whereas The Evil One beautifully captures a sense of paranoid dread and delusion, Don't Slander Me is a more straightforward rock n' roll affair but Rocky's personality shines through in subtler ways. The title track in particular will get stuck in your head for the rest of forever and the snarly, raspy vocals describing everything from Bermuda Triangle legends to particularly foxy apples of his eye lend a sense of attitude to what is a classic record.
TL/DR? No it's not The Evil One but very few (only one actually) records are and it's fantastic in its own right
MythoLogical
While as a writer I'm far from qualified enough to tell others off for making mistakes, as a fan I can point to a couple that always lose me. When dealing with mythology, the first and foremost to me is when people try to impose realistic and/or modern logic on an ancient setting.
It's a supremely thin line to tread, but to me this authenticity is the difference between what's a piece of mythological writing and what's a reference. Because if we can level with one another- the Ancient Roman and you have seen Mars decide a fight about the same amount of times. Whether you want to imagine Eve as looking like a Renaissance painting or Aubrie Plaza, you could honestly make decent arguments either way. But, without explanation, I do not see how we can take the fantastical elements of mythology and separate them from their time period and outlook and then expect it to read coherently.
A lot of younger readers chuckle at Zeus'... let's say "extremely skeptical" view of monogamy or Loki turning into a mare to give birth to Odin's horse, Sleipnir, but to me the solution can't be to gloss over these tales. Or worse yet, transform them to something that makes more sense to a modern reader. Part of the staying appeal of these worlds, these stories, is that they don't make contemporary sense. That the rules feel "otherworldly." Trying to think it through a different rationale is part of what engrosses us in the story.
The keen eyed among you have undoubtedly already spotted the salient "without explanation" in my second paragraph. I must, as much as it hurts my fragile self-esteem, concede that if you can make a change of logic flow with a setting, it really is up to you. Your work should, all things considered, convince your audience to stay and read. Yet, in order to kiss my now broken ego better, I'll compare it to forgoing a lawyer and mounting your own defense in court. You always can, it's just usually inadvisable. Unless you want to go to jail, in which case go nuts, you (insert nationality here) Charles Bronson you.