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COOL CORN posted:Tommy Ligotti's "Special Plan for This World" is suicide right I disagree. I consider it to be some kind of philosophical retrogenisis mindset. Like un-separating the light and darkness as was done in the first part of the bible. The strangely shining light and darkness before there was night and day. It sort of reminds me of uh, what's that one where aliens appear and a linguist figures out their language and it breaks her sense of time and causality? I get the same kind of feeling from special plan were there's some kind of extremely weird woldview that cracks... idk some kind of logical relationship that people take for granted. When the puppets look at the puppet master they become something else and it's kind of like once you peer through the gaps and see things as they really are you can't go back, and it's best to do this when everything is finished and you can put away the things you care about, because if you do it before then it may be more regrettable, because to others you will be seen as alternately-sane at best. This is also related to the narrator teaching the kids about the true nature of the world -- it's a plan that will continue to tick away after he dies. It sort of reminds me of those stories where people get buddha'd up but use that power for something that would be considered bad if they were still subject to normal morality.
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Mar 4, 2020 15:15
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SniperWoreConverse posted:It sort of reminds me of those stories where people get buddha'd up but use that power for something that would be considered bad if they were still subject to normal morality. That makes sense. It's not nihilism for self-hatred's sake, it's nihilism for the good of the world, for a reason that people can't yet understand. drat, he Li-got me again
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Mar 4, 2020 15:24
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COOL CORN posted:Tommy Ligotti's "Special Plan for This World" is suicide right the earth has grown tired and all of your time has expired
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Mar 4, 2020 15:32
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chernobyl kinsman posted:have you read wuthering heights Every time this gets recommended I spend half of the day humming Kate Bush its getting pathological
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Mar 4, 2020 16:16
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SniperWoreConverse posted:I disagree. I consider it to be some kind of philosophical retrogenisis mindset. Like un-separating the light and darkness as was done in the first part of the bible. The strangely shining light and darkness before there was night and day. I agree with this, and I think also it's suicide.
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Mar 4, 2020 16:56
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SniperWoreConverse posted:Uldolpho was not a one I was able to get into. Turn of the screw imo was not worth it either, I just can't really deal with the mindset of those people I guess. I really liked Turn of the Screw but it's not one you can go into with the expectations you'd put on a modern horror story. I also tend to dislike Henry James so it's kind of noteworthy (to me) that I liked it at all. If you want horror stories in a similar time period and setting, but that's closer to modern horror and a little less ambiguous/psychologically centered, try MR James.
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Mar 4, 2020 17:02
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Skyscraper posted:I agree with this, and I think also it's suicide. It's probably some mix of the two, filtered through some David Tibet ideas of "I'm an my own universe, and understand its higher purpose, and killing myself becomes a catalyst for the world, which dies with me and which is me" I'm really worried I'm going to go down a rabbit hole of trying to understand Thomas Ligotti now
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Mar 4, 2020 17:26
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COOL CORN posted:It's probably some mix of the two, filtered through some David Tibet ideas of "I'm an my own universe, and understand its higher purpose, and killing myself becomes a catalyst for the world, which dies with me and which is me" That sounds right! And, as rabbit holes go, that one's solid.
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Mar 4, 2020 17:49
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In his own paradigm he can't be understood because everyone is competently utterly isolated and cannot communicate with any other in any meaningful way. Except, maybe, through sideways allusions. Essentially he's talking to nobody while you happen to hear a sequence of words and then reconstruct them into something meaningful. Basically everyone is simultaneously every character in that thing at some point or another. There's not a sane way to understand what he's really trying to say because he's saying everything else and leaving a hole shaped like what he means. In the text he literally says the words do not exist. Dunno if he actually has some kind of understanding about what he's trying to not say or if he's just good at pretending he does. Suppose it doesn't matter.
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Mar 4, 2020 17:50
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SniperWoreConverse posted:Uldolpho was not a one I was able to get into. Turn of the screw imo was not worth it either, I just can't really deal with the mindset of those people I guess. bad post
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Mar 4, 2020 18:04
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gotti gang?
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Mar 4, 2020 18:13
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I want a Lit Gotti gang tag Edit-- lol I was expecting something animated and just stared at it for a while
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Mar 4, 2020 18:16
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COOL CORN posted:Edit-- lol I was expecting something animated and just stared at it for a while  I think it'd be best with no explanation or title or animation.
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Mar 4, 2020 18:18
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it needs a single-frame flash of the terrible cover the new edition got: 
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Mar 4, 2020 18:30
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Skyscraper posted:
Same, I support this tag unless someone can come up with a way to make it seem even more obscure and slightly off seeming
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Mar 4, 2020 18:44
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Ugh why'd I make my new year's resolution to read a dumb 15 book fantasy series this year, I'm gonna put CATHR next on my read list Edit-- or add a single frame flash of a marionette puppet with the words Ligotti Gang
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Mar 4, 2020 18:47
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Skyscraper posted:gotti gang? This is good. Also I need to read more Ligotti.
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Mar 4, 2020 18:54
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MockingQuantum posted:it needs a single-frame flash of the terrible cover the new edition got: anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Mar 4, 2020 |
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Mar 4, 2020 19:06
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just leave it completely static so that anyone watching it stares unblinking at the dark
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Mar 4, 2020 19:10
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Make a few frames where the text of the cover shows up in the shadow part, one line at a time, but they only show up for like a tenth of a second and the other frames are long as hell and bracket the frames that have words? If someone wants to see what it says they should have to look for like 7 minutes straight lol (or just open it in an editor). Might have to expand it to 180px size to keep it clear idk.
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Mar 4, 2020 19:13
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Which Ligotti book is a good one to start with?
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Mar 4, 2020 19:22
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Teatro Grottesco, probably.
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Mar 4, 2020 19:22
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anilEhilated posted:Teatro Grottesco, probably. this is correct
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Mar 4, 2020 19:29
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SniperWoreConverse posted:I disagree. I consider it to be some kind of philosophical retrogenisis mindset. Like un-separating the light and darkness as was done in the first part of the bible. The strangely shining light and darkness before there was night and day. See, I read the poem as essentially exploring two interconnected anxieties: 1) Lack of finality. The fear that suicide alone will not be enough; that there can never be an end so complete and permanent as to go beyond wiping out "tongue and teeth and hunger and flesh...and the very dust of bones and the wind that would come to blow the dust away", which is what the narrator (and presumably Ligotti) truly desires. 2) Procrastination. The fear that all of us - even the most hardened pessimist - will find excuses and rationalisations to put off that ending. The joke is that the conditions the narrator is demanding in order to enact the Very Special Plan will never come about. Our nightmares will not be obscured. We will never be truly alone, and have run out of desires. We will never have that final silence. I said it reminded me of Beckett before, and now I'm wondering if that's deliberate; in one verse the narrator finds himself in dialogue with a spiritual forebear 'who was looking at the moon and waiting for me to turn the corner'. The man tells the narrator that the Very Special Plan is a mistake because 'there is nothing to do and there is nowhere to go. There is nothing to be and there is no one to know'. This isn't a million miles from Beckett's own 'Nobody comes. Nobody goes. Nothing happens. It's awful', and it's expressing a very Beckettian idea - that even the Very Special Plan, the longing for absolute obliteration, is in its own way seeking meaning, and therefore as equally absurd and futile as anything else in a meaningless universe. It’s just another way to pass the time. The narrator retorts that the world is a mistake and deserves to be wiped out, but nevertheless he keeps talking, keeps endlessly expounding on his theme, unable to stop for just one moment and actually take action - and the verse about the 'funny little man' feels like a self-recrimination in that regard, a storyteller who knows the awful truth about the world but rather than acting on it, shares it with others to provoke a reaction and ends up creating (shudder) entertainment in the process. Notably, the moment of ultimate truth and horror at the puppet show isn't described as actually happening - we cut away before we get to it. It's the moment the narrator is desperate for his art to finally evoke, but it's still 'what could never be / what could never be seen'. The narrator is like the Endgame character who desperately wants to leave the house, who keeps insisting that he's ready to abandon human connection and dialogue and the search for meaning and step out into the deadness, but finds himself, even at the end, still lingering on the threshold, talking about leaving. grobbo fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Mar 4, 2020 |
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Mar 4, 2020 19:47
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anilEhilated posted:Teatro Grottesco, probably.
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Mar 4, 2020 20:17
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anilEhilated posted:Teatro Grottesco, probably. Reading that next! Thanks!
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Mar 4, 2020 20:19
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I don't know if it was literary criticism or an interview with the man himself, but I recall someone arguing that fundamental to all of Ligotti's stories is a sort of horrific pantheism: all that is, is one entity, refracted into various illusions of individual consciousness. I see this littered throughout the poem, e.g. "There is no hope for escape from this dream, that was never yours. The very words you speak are only its very words, and you talk like a traitor under its incessant torture." Ligotti is the "lunatic in a dark and quiet room that smelled of stale time and space" and tells us as much directly: "'There are no people, nothing at all like that. The human phenomenon is but the sum of densely coiled layers of illusion, each of which winds itself upon the supreme insanity that there are persons of any kind, when all there can be are mindless mirrors laughing and screaming as they parade about in an endless dream." "But when I [the narrator] asked the lunatic what it was that saw itself within these mirrors, he only rocked and smiled, then he laughed and screamed and in his dark and empty eyes I saw for a moment, as if in a mirror, a formless shade of divinity in flight from its stale infinity of time, and space, and the worst of all of this worlds dreams." In this context then the "special plan" is to go beyond plans concerning the illusory and stagnant physical world as perceived by distinct consciousnesses (""There are many who have designs upon this world and dream of wild and vast reformations... elegant mutations and cunning annihilations"), where any change no matter how radical is fundamentally illusory. The only prospect for change from stale infinity is the dispelling of these illusions of the mundane world, to go "beyond the bones and the very dust of bones and the wind that would come to blow the dust away". This would entail the entity that is god and the universe and all that exists to perceive itself, i.e. that "moment of consummate disaster, when puppets turn to face the puppet master." The beginning and the end of the piece hint at the broad preconditions for achieving this gnosis: "When everyone you have ever loved is finally gone. When everything you have ever wanted is finally done with. When all of your nightmares are for a time obscured, as by a shining brainless beacon, or a blinding eclipse of the many terrible shapes of this world." Many of the passages contrast the efforts of a misguided individual who has big plans for physical reality with the various ways the narrator seeks to go beyond that stagnant illusion of reality to get at the underlying gnosis. Edit: I concluded that maybe the impulse behind the poem was hopeful, but I like grobbo's idea that the narrator's efforts too are futile and they are unable to proceed in the execution of their plan. The horror is inescapable which is why the lunatic (i.e. Ligotti), who in some sense understands the truth, is stuck in the room of stale time and space laughing and screaming. Muninn fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Mar 4, 2020 |
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Mar 4, 2020 20:52
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This discussion is my favorite thing to happen on these forums for a long time
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Mar 4, 2020 21:02
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Skyscraper posted:gotti gang? I don't actually know how to make a graphic into a gangtag.
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Mar 4, 2020 21:12
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Skyscraper posted:I don't actually know how to make a graphic into a gangtag. The old way was to buy it as an avatar (so it would be on SA's image servers) then beg a mod to hand it out. Not sure if there's a more straightforward way to do it with all of the little tweaks that have been done to the site in the last few months.
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Mar 4, 2020 21:21
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Muninn posted:Edit: I concluded that maybe the impulse behind the poem was hopeful, but I like grobbo's idea that the narrator's efforts too are futile and they are unable to proceed in the execution of their plan. The horror is inescapable which is why the lunatic (i.e. Ligotti), who in some sense understands the truth, is stuck in the room of stale time and space laughing and screaming.
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Mar 4, 2020 21:25
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MockingQuantum posted:The old way was to buy it as an avatar (so it would be on SA's image servers) then beg a mod to hand it out. Not sure if there's a more straightforward way to do it with all of the little tweaks that have been done to the site in the last few months. Host it on imgur and just add <img src="whatever link here"> to your avatar text I think Or beg a mod
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Mar 4, 2020 21:35
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FWIW somebody posted an interview with Ligotti, probably in this thread, probably a few pages back, where he said that he wouldn't consider himself a nihilist because his views don't align with nihilism, like how he's fundamentally a socialist because he wants everyone to be as comfortable as possible while they wait to die, which is the most hilariously Ligotti statement I've heard in a while, and might add some interesting nuance to the discussion. edit: found it, chernobyl posted it a few pages back: https://web.archive.org/web/20110716140816/http://www.thedamnedinterviews.com/2011/01/author-thomas-ligotti/ quote:Q: Does it irritate you to hear that some people consider you a nihilist? MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Mar 4, 2020 |
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Mar 4, 2020 21:38
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i hear that nihilism rant in an unwavering monotone
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Mar 4, 2020 23:46
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i wonder if ligotti knows how to polka
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Mar 4, 2020 23:47
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hallelujah posted:i wonder if ligotti knows how to polka I don't know one way or another but I'm sure he has a deep, existential dread about polka as should each and every one of us
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Mar 4, 2020 23:49
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i am of polish descent. because there is no polish-australian literature, my parents got me polish-american literature instead. usually this had a high population of italian characters as well, because the poles and the italians have historically got on like a house on fire except when they find themselves on opposite sides of a world war, and they usually gravitated to the same kinds of industrial immigrant communities (like detroit!) and were victims of a similar sort of racism back in the day, being white but not anglo. so i always thought of poles and italians as the yin and yang of working-class immigrant americana anyway, as i grew up i ended up with lots of polish friends and lots of italian friends, most of whom have also noticed the weird kinship of our races. a few years ago, my friend (italian) and i were discussing how italians and poles live in the same places, get on well with each other, have cultures that coexist peacefully, have similar religious practices, and generally share the same philosophies on life... but you never, ever hear about them getting married. why? we didn't know. we speculated that there is some unwritten law that if the poles and italians should ever pick the forbidden fruit and join together in holy matrimony, a weird chemical reaction of the spirit would occur and the offspring would be forever cursed so you can imagine my joy when i finally discovered a family that broke the law, and the cursed progeny was lugubrious tom
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Mar 4, 2020 23:57
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COOL CORN posted:Host it on imgur and just add <img src="whatever link here"> to your avatar text I think I think you host it on the SA servers, but I did go and beg a mod.
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Mar 5, 2020 00:08
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hallelujah posted:lugubrious tom Mods name change please
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Mar 5, 2020 00:08
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COOL CORN posted:This discussion is my favorite thing to happen on these forums for a long time It's kinda thrilling to see people discuss it, I Have A Special Plan is extremely my jam and has been for like 20 years and I've never seen anyone discuss it online.
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Mar 5, 2020 05:39
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