41–50 of 70 posts
I was introduced to Poe via "The Cask of Amontillado". After that, I binge-watched The Fall of the House of Usher when it released, which is a mash-up of a lot of Poe's stories (the show didn't have the subtlety of the original work, but was a lot of fun). Now I'm reading all his short stories. His work is really cool, and I wish I read him earlier.
I produced CC0 ebook compilations of Poe’s short fiction and poetry for Standard Ebooks if anyone is interested in diving deeper into his writing: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe (I’d also recommend Leonid Andreyev’s short fiction; he’s often referred to as Russia’s Poe: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/leonid-andreyev/short-fict... )
I was recently inspired to embark on a project to mirror the Standard Ebooks library, starting with a book that you produced, which happens to be my favorite:
https://flowery.app/books/edgar-allan-poe/short-fiction
Once the business achieves ramen profitability, the next milestone will be to give back with a corporate sponsorship.
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This sounds like some serious copium, we don’t live in the vastness of time, we live now. Not to mention that I can assure you in the vastness of time his work will also be forgotten in an almost as small a “blink of the eye” in geological time. You could just as easily say “we’ll all end up rotting in the blink of an eye, so better to be happy and enjoy it than waste your time trying pointlessly to do something of n…
Your enjoyment is a machine responding to neural stimuli that evolved to follow gradients in order to propagate genes. This enjoyment is infinitesimal no matter how much you generate in your short lifespan. None of it will be enjoyed when you perish. Even more damning: the pleasure you had ten minutes ago cannot be enjoyed now. Sex, fine meals, belongings from years ago can't bring you anything. It's just ephemeral c…
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I don’t remember where I read it but I heard David Lynch recounting a conversation with his doctor in which he asked if being prescribed antidepressants could interfere with his creativity. The doctor said he couldn’t rule it out, so Lynch decided he’d rather deal with the symptoms of depression.
On the other hand, Lynch also went on record saying that an artist doesn't need to suffer to produce great art. And that depression is the enemy of creativity. https://youtu.be/UljZmbgK_sI
Just because Van Gogh was (presumably) happy while doing his painting, doesn’t mean that the suffering previous wasn’t an important component in portraying it in his art.
One of my favourite novellas is Dostoyevskys White Nights, which portrays a young man in love.
His portrayal is so vivid that I doubt it could have been written by anyone who hasn’t experienced heartbreak.
I produced CC0 ebook compilations of Poe’s short fiction and poetry for Standard Ebooks if anyone is interested in diving deeper into his writing: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe (I’d also recommend Leonid Andreyev’s short fiction; he’s often referred to as Russia’s Poe: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/leonid-andreyev/short-fict... )
Many thanks to each of you editors for the sterling work! I was recently inspired to embark on a project to mirror the Standard Ebooks library, starting with a book that you produced, which happens to be my favorite: https://flowery.app/books/edgar-allan-poe/short-fiction Once the business achieves ramen profitability, the next milestone will be to give back with a corporate sponsorship.
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Classic paintings: everything used on Standard Ebooks productions is old enough to be in the US public domain. The artists are in the colophons if you want to find out more.
Odilon Redon, Melancholy, and Robert Delaunay, Saint-Séverin No. 3. https://www.artic.edu/collection?q=Redon - I see he also made a series of prints, "To Edgar Poe"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Delaunay ...and some seascape with a ship in it, wasn't fussed about that one.
He was also into cryptography: https://www.cs.trincoll.edu/~crypto/historical/poe.html
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This sounds like some serious copium, we don’t live in the vastness of time, we live now. Not to mention that I can assure you in the vastness of time his work will also be forgotten in an almost as small a “blink of the eye” in geological time. You could just as easily say “we’ll all end up rotting in the blink of an eye, so better to be happy and enjoy it than waste your time trying pointlessly to do something of n…
Your enjoyment is a machine responding to neural stimuli that evolved to follow gradients in order to propagate genes. This enjoyment is infinitesimal no matter how much you generate in your short lifespan. None of it will be enjoyed when you perish. Even more damning: the pleasure you had ten minutes ago cannot be enjoyed now. Sex, fine meals, belongings from years ago can't bring you anything. It's just ephemeral c…
Depending on your perspective, life can be amazing and full of wonders, or it could be drudgery where the only thing which makes you happy is a moment of respite. Someone could easily strawman your argument by saying that everything you do is worthless because we're infinitesimal beings on a tiny rock orbiting a star in a corner of the universe. The Sun is going to explode eventually, humans might destroy the planet no matter what you do, or an asteroid might take us all out like the dinosaurs, rendering your life of actions and purposeful existence useless in the end.
All of this is to say, do what makes you happy and dont worry about others so much.
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Many thanks to each of you editors for the sterling work! I was recently inspired to embark on a project to mirror the Standard Ebooks library, starting with a book that you produced, which happens to be my favorite: https://flowery.app/books/edgar-allan-poe/short-fiction Once the business achieves ramen profitability, the next milestone will be to give back with a corporate sponsorship.
Looks good! One minor point: it looks like some of your conversion isn’t keeping accurate styling. For example, if you look at the letter in https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe/short-fict... that starts with “In conformity with an order” you’ll see (in Firefox and Chrome, Safari’s in the process of adding the styling) that the address is 90º as per the original scans. The same in https://flowery.app/boo…
I also overlooked the diary styling of “Mellonta Tauta.”
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Very cool. Are the cover images made with AI or classic paintings?
Classic paintings: everything used on Standard Ebooks productions is old enough to be in the US public domain. The artists are in the colophons if you want to find out more.
Is there a back story to the Gormenghast collection not being available: https://standardebooks.org/collections/gormenghast
The comment given was:
This book was published in 1946, and will therefore enter the U.S. public domain in 17 years on January 1, 2042.
No great drama, it just caught my attention, I like the series and wanted to check the art and the copy against what I have here in book form.
* https://standardebooks.org/about/standard-ebooks-and-the-pub...