is he dead yet

[GreyClock]

An evening well spent trying to make sense of data from a field in which I don't even have the most basic of knowledge.

[Slurpee]

An evening well spent trying to make sense of data from a field in which I don't even have the most basic of knowledge.

haha

at least you're in good company

[PhantomCatClock]

smog spirits can't stay still for long when it's windy. When they approach the sensors, the numbers spike up by a couple hundred. Not as noticeable in China but you caught one in the States. They like to party so there's no real concern, they rarely stay still for long unless there are a lot in one spot

[GreyClock]

Continuing down this path of things I don't know shit about: writing style. I feel like that stuff has all been explained to me in high school, unfortunately I didn't pay attention. I'd consider myself fairly well read, but I don't think I could identify an author by style or voice or phraseology or whatever you want to call it. I don't really know what to look for. Maybe I could identify Vonnegut's simple, heartwarming prose. At the same time, I read like fifteen of his novels, so if I still was unable I might in fact be brain dead.* I read both Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. The former was a slog and seemed almost biblical in style (I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it somehow feels appropriate to say), while I finished the latter in two or three hours because it read like a kick to the teeth. (Maybe comparing the two would make a great case study for me?) How does reading compare to a kick to the teeth though? Is that just a bad analogy (/writing) or is it style? I sometimes google (parts of) sentences I write here only to turn up no results (did I make a mistake?). Or a line in some obscure 18th-century book (am I that outdated?). Part of the sentence above: "in which I don't even have the most basic of knowledge", probably "in which I lack even the most basic of knowledge" would be better? What does that mean? Certain authors seem fond of certain words? (HPL: hitherto, non-euclidean. HST: savage, fiend. DFW: byzantine, cunctation.) Or does it have something to do with rhytm? I'm arrhythmic, so shucks.

* "so if I still was unable" I don't even know if that's correct (so if I still wasn't able?), but I found it a funny turn of phrase, so I kept it. Is that style?

[NintendrCkolc]

I haven't slept properly in close to a week. It's really starting to get annoying.

Happens to me every so often. I'll fall asleep for like a few hours maybe and then wake up and can't fall back to sleep at all and just toss and turn for hours on in. Super fun.

I've had that same problem for ages now it feels like. Nothing worked. Now, instead of trying to force myself to go to sleep I just try to enjoy it. I'm in a comfortable, warm bed thinking about whatever, random stuff. It's nice. (I sometimes try and get my cat involved but he sleeps on the couch for the majority of the night and only joins me in bed in the early morning for some reason.) That all said, the next day will still fucking blow, but at least the night was somewhat enjoyable. It's a small victory.

If you can't change the situation, change your perception of it. Buddha probably said something to that effect.

Yeah... It used to really bother me when I first started having sleepless nights years back. Really stressed me out.

Nowadays I just tell myself that, if nothing else, I'm relaxed and resting my body. That's gotta be good for something. The less you stress about it the better off you'll be. Slept pretty decently last night so eh.

[Slurpee]

[HEMINGWAY] GreyClock sat at his computer. He was typing a post, reflecting upon his thoughts about writing styles, and his knowledge of them
[VONNEGUT] or lack thereof, such as it was. He made no attempt to hide his flaws,
[WALLACE] and unknown to him and the world, his beauty shone not through the naked barbarism of this honesty, but from it.
[BUKOWSKI] He let out a disinterested grunt around the mouth of his seventh beer of the morning over the noise of the Taiwanese hooker that lived upstairs screaming at another John
[GRRMARTIN] "My breasts," thought the hooker, her heavy chest heaving in rhythm with her shouts.
[CREEPYPASTA] Police and military are baffled as to what can have happened to this dramatic and malignant mysterious person called Grey, who went
[SHAKESPEARE] Inside the merry thread to talk / In the gathering quarter of cartoon clocks
[PALAHNIUK] day after day, and night after night, as the cancer silently ate away at his colon.
[KELLER] Yes sir, round about then ol' Grey
[BANCROFT] did say unto them, lo and every man shall receive unto him his daily bread forever and ever
[ADAMS] or until the bread runs out.
[PRATCHETT] The bread had of course run out centuries ago, but it was important to keep to tradition.
[KING] There was a scream,
[POE] terrible, guttural and long
[LOVECRAFT] as another mind succumbed to the crawling terror of the vast cyclopean
[KOONTZ] sky.
[BARKER] His dick throbbed.

[Slurpee]

[JOYCE] Went down today a readerywrite GreyClock he diddum did pikkitypot postin everything the other nothing while never he heard a thoughtsaid over the livelong day o the day o come oh the came alinglong Nintendo whendo who ripped him the loudest of farts ahhhhh what has he is blackened to thought it was though and how should it feel as he did

[GreyClock]

[HEMINGWAY] GreyClock sat at his computer. He was typing a post, reflecting upon his thoughts about writing styles, and his knowledge of them
[VONNEGUT] or lack thereof, such as it was. He made no attempt to hide his flaws,
[WALLACE] and unknown to him and the world, his beauty shone not through the naked barbarism of this honesty, but from it.
[BUKOWSKI] He let out a disinterested grunt around the mouth of his seventh beer of the morning over the noise of the Taiwanese hooker that lived upstairs screaming at another John
[GRRMARTIN] "My breasts," thought the hooker, her heavy chest heaving in rhythm with her shouts.
[CREEPYPASTA] Police and military are baffled as to what can have happened to this dramatic and malignant mysterious person called Grey, who went
[SHAKESPEARE] Inside the merry thread to talk / In the gathering quarter of cartoon clocks
[PALAHNIUK] day after day, and night after night, as the cancer silently ate away at his colon.
[KELLER] Yes sir, round about then ol' Grey
[BANCROFT] did say unto them, lo and every man shall receive unto him his daily bread forever and ever
[ADAMS] or until the bread runs out.
[PRATCHETT] The bread had of course run out centuries ago, but it was important to keep to tradition.
[KING] There was a scream,
[POE] terrible, guttural and long
[LOVECRAFT] as another mind succumbed to the crawling terror of the vast cyclopean
[KOONTZ] sky.
[BARKER] His dick throbbed.

Not to take anything away from this post, because it's good enough to frame, but:

For most of the examples I sorta get what you're going for. (Except with Koontz, as I've never even read that single word by him. Is he some sort of simpleton?) Some of it seems to veer more into the realm of subject matter though? Martin's obsession with breasts. Palahniuk's with diseases and colons. The Bukowski one is especially good, but at the same time I wonder if it would still be recognizable if you wrote a similar flowing, run-on sentence about ballet? Rather than about beer, hookers and johns. Or maybe that's just part of the style?

One of my favorite quotes is from Bukowski:
Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of reality.

I remember reading a sentence once, it was about the angles of a roof and some guttering and water dripping down from it. It brought a tear to my eye and I remember writing it down on a piece of paper. What I can't remember is the fucking novel it was in though. Can you believe that? I suspect it's either Omensetter's Luck, Carpenter's Gothic or White Noise. Guess I'll have to spend my day trying to find it now.

[Slurpee]

yeah tbh it stopped being an attempt to demonstrate different styles and started being a joke as soon as I came up with the palahniuk line
I was like "well I can't not use that now"

also
if I didn't include the authors' names, I don't think anybody would have guessed what I was going for, even with the subject matter clues
like, martin and barker, I was 100% just making fun of them for being horny

[Slurpee]

Koontz was also just me being mean

his writing... 🤔
has never surprised me, but I could say the same for a lot of "page turner"-type authors

it's just the idea of him following king, poe, and lovecraft and having nothing of value to contribute is extremely funny to me

whenever I picture Dean Koontz in my head he's just happy to be here

[RobClock]

my grandmother bought me a pie for my birthday

[VCRClock]

my grandmother bought me a pie for my birthday

flavor?

[GreyClock]

grandfather

[RobClock]

Blueberry

[Clocktopus]

don't eat that pie it could be tainted

[PhantomCatClock]

bumbleberry pie more like DUMbleberry pie

[Clocktopus]

my grandma bought me a television for my birthday but thats cool that all you got was a pie

[Clocktopus]

if im hungry i cant eat a television so you enjoy that pie

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

in a couple weeks I'll be thirty and way too old to still be alive it's awful