Not, like, politics or racism or anything like that, but everyone should have some weird or obscure thing they like that is definitely not something everyone likes. There is some kind of weird, obscure, maybe hard to find thing that speaks to you on a specific level that only a certain amount of people also like. I think it’s an important part of finding yourself.
For instance, my favorite book series is John Dies At The End, not just because it’s the most fun you can have reading a book, but because it introduced me to gonzo lovecraftian as a genre. I try to get everyone I know to read those books. A lot of people just don’t get it. Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place might have been the most formative experience in my life. A lot of people just don’t get it. (I’m from the states, I understand a lot of folks from the UK understand how great it is. Even better than quantum leap.) Tetsuo: The Iron Man is probably my favorite movie of all time. My brother loved it, it has made some people stop talking with me. I like weird shit, I could go on. I raced home from school to watch Beetleborgs.
What weird, obscure, specific thing have you fallen in love with that it seems like nobody else is aware of?
Also, Phantom Crash is the best game there ever was. I will fight you.
(This was an actual thought I had in the shower. I take long showers.)
I love to knit. Not that polarizing, but I hate the softness supremacy, everybody is in a race to have the fluffiest, softest wool that looks and feels good but doesn’t really keep you warm.
I want that working class wool, I want that rustic fall-into-ocean-get-rescued-and-keep-working wool. I love local yarn made with scratchy-ass local wool and I want to feel it on my skin, I want it to stink of sheep when it gets wet.
I like anchovies on pizza.
Oh I love some polarizing foods.
Anchovies, sardines, black licorice, really spicy stuff, mustard greens. Not together. But love all of those.
Obscure? The Ramsey Midwood song Feed my Monkey is so good.
I like yellow mustard with my fries
I love Alice in Wonderland and there is this rather obscure claymation version that was done by Czech director and artist Jan Švankmajer called Alice. Its very creepy and off putting, but also a surreal masterpiece, with things like animated animal skulls and other animated taxidermy. Its one of my all time favorite movies, but I’ve talked to other people who have watched it and for the most part people seem to dislike it.
You can watch it in full here and come to your own conclusion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK_l74cSPGY
I havent thought about Jan Švankmajer in ages, thanks for reminding me of him! All of his stuff is so off putting and surreal, I really like his works.
He is great right? I think under appreciated really. Loved this one too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1THMc9g5SaU
I also love that book so you’re not special. Take that.
Or maybe we’re both special.
The best zombie movie ever made is Kuolleiden talvi (Winter of the Dead), a small short indie film, by some finnish folks. It is corny in the best way possible, and has all the elements, to make it a perfect example of the best sides of the whole genre. Amazing. Nobody ever watches it, and if they do, they do not understand, why I hold it in such high regard, haha. You can still find it on youtube, with English subtitles even. I highly recommend it, obviously, but it definitely is not something, most people would enjoy.
I’m obsessed with a genre I can’t quite find a solid name for, but it’s the middle of a venn diagram where the circles are “surreal horror” and “uncomfortable comedy”.
Stuff like Adult Swim Infomercials, Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell, Buffet Infinity, and Greener Grass.
I watched that new movie Buddy this weekend and was absolutely cackling at the most horrifying parts because the context made them hilarious.
Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell is one of my favorite shows. Henry Zebrowski is a gem.
Probably a few genres that fit that description, but one i enjoy a lot is Afro-surrealism.
Media like “Atlanta” and “Sorry to Bother You” are a couple of personal favorites, but there’s lots more
Adultswim’s ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ is also very good at this experience, but I wouldnt call it afro-surrealist.
Oh yeah Too Many Cooks is great, that’s one of the Infomercials. Casper Kelly did that, Buddy, and YPFIGTH. He’s one of my favorite creators in that sphere. The Adult Swim Yule Log specials he did are also really good.
I’ll have to check out Atlanta, I guess I assumed it was some basic standard dramady. But I liked Sorry to Bother You. I thought the second half was some fever dream I had for a while.
Have you watched Monkey Dust?
No, but I just found a stream for it and just a few minutes into the first episode I’m digging it. The bit with the dad killing himself because he thinks the kid’s life with his mom is so much better, then the kid yelling up the bloody stairs “can I come live with you?” Perfect.
Thanks for the recommendation! I’m going to binge this all tonight and then be a bit sad when it runs out.
Aye, that storyline gets pretty dark like
You should check out the movie Friendship with Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd. It’s like an I Think You Should Leave skit that just keeps going, which quickly turns into a surreal psychological horror situation. It’s fucking hilarious.
My preferred sleeping temperature is to be a little bit sweaty.
You are literally the only end l other person I’ve ever heard talk about John Dies at the End. I loved that book! It sticks with me now, like 15 years after reading it and I still think about it.
Read the sequels, if you haven’t yet. They’re all amazing, and the fifth book is releasing soon. So much fun.
I also love John Dies at the End (and the couple of sequels I’ve read), and Garth Marenghi.
What other books do you recommend?That’s a beautiful question.
Skullcrack City can’t be recommended enough, one of my all time favorites. Noir, Practical Demonkeeping, A Dirty Job, or anything else by Christopher Moore. Jason Pargin also has another book series that starts with Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, and a stand alone novel called I’m Starting To Worry About This Black Box of Doom. The Yellow Wallpaper is a fun short read. Who Goes There? is the oroginal story that inspired The Thing and The Thing That Fell From Space and is just a cool story for how early on it was written. House Of Leaves is weird as fuck, but that one is definitely not for everybody. Most anything from Lovecraft, but I especially enjoyed reading Shadow Over Innsmouth.
If you’ve read and enjoyed JDATE, read Skullcrack City right fucking now, I’m serious.
Edit: Not as much on the same level of weird, but The Dark Tower series by Stephen King is a masterwork, except for the middle bits of book four.
Edit: Also Apathy and Other Small Victories is a ton of fun. And Ulrich Haarburst’s Novel of Roy Orbison In Cling Film is an absurdist marvel of short stories where the author and his turtle are put in situations in which the solution requires Roy Orbison to be wrapped in cling film. I can’t stress this enough, it is not in any way sexual and is oddly wholesome and entirely earnest.
Amazing response! Thank you so much!
I mentioned AD/BC: A Rock Opera in another comment, that’s all I can offer, if you don’t know it already!Always glad to share my weird interests! I’ll check that out, thank you!
I’m sorry, but the most fun you can have reading a book is Robert Asprin’s M.Y.T.H. series.
Also I feel you should know that the banjo is a far more versatile instrument than it is given credit for. In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins is a favorite of mine to play.
LOVED M.Y.T.H. series. One of my favorite reads of all time. Check out Phule’s Company series by him as well if you have not read it yet, just as page turning and entertaining.
I’m more of a North Pole guy because I like the bears.
I like sex. Not just doing it, but talking about it, thinking about it, studies about it, philosophies around it, who different cultures view it, etc.
It’s largely taboo where I live, but my girl friend get it and my best friends are chill about it, but I’d love to be able to talk about the interplay between taboos and gratification in the grocery store with the clerk instead of the weather. You know?
I don’t care for the Beatles.
They insist upon themselves
I think most artists do, but a lot of people also insist upon them. They also suffer from the problem of being so influential that they were copied to death, which makes them sound derivative even though they were the inventors.
I like the idea but not so much the title. I think everybody should have something they like that not everyone else does, but not for a goal. But just to have something unique about them.
My favourite singer is Enya, which is hardly unpopular given that she is the best-selling solo artist out of Ireland (she’s behind U2, which is a band, so they aren’t counted against one another). I don’t just like her music, I know some trivial information, like how she lives in a castle, doesn’t tour, and with her songwriter, invented a language (Loxian) after opting to sing the song from The Fellowship of the Ring in freakin’ Elvish, though nobody asked her to do that. It just made sense to her that part of the song should be in that language that Tolkien invented about a century ago. Following that, she not only made her own language, but wrote this whole sci-fi manifesto behind it, most of which I believe is unpublished, it’s just a guide they use for the language. In summary, the descendants of the Irish go to Mars, discover something between a Stargate and a Mass Effect relay that sends them to a faraway galaxy. Yeah, Enya, of all people, came up with that. Why? Who knows. It’s just background for her whopping five songs in Loxian. And it may not be any more since it’s been 11 years since her last album, her longtime/exclusive producer passed away last year, and she and her songwriter (who is also the producer’s wife) are getting up there in years.
I’d say most people who have heard Orinoco Flow don’t know all that (and most of them call that song “Sail Away”).
My second favourite singer is ReoNa, from Japan, and way fewer people know about her. She’s licensed some of her songs to anime, such as Shadows House and Sword Art Online. She played the singing voice of one of the main characters in the SAO spinoff in the gun world. Her character was batshit crazy, she wanted a true life-or-death stakes VR game like the first season of SAO, and she was secretly everyone’s favourite rock star. Anyway, she’s done a lot of music that isn’t in anime, and her range goes from folksy pop music to hard rock, with a lot of in-between. She also has a “private” YouTube channel where she plays English covers of western songs (I mean, as a Japanese person, she isn’t singing them in Japanese, she’s singing them in English). And by private, I mean it’s her personal channel. Anyone can view it. It’s just what she does on the side. She also cosplays the Vocaloid character, Hatsune Miku (skinny girl with aqua twin tails and “01” tattooed on one shoulder — even if you’re not into anime, you’ve probably seen Miku before). I’ve actually never seen her cosplay. I’m really just here for the music.
I really want to read Enya’s sci-fi now.
