Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Bookin It With Ciarán Neely and Davey Whiteof Pterodactyl Problems

Pterodactlyl Problems
The Torontonian quartet, Pterodactyl Problems, who've been idle lo these past five years are back.

They're bigger than ever?

They're ready to crush all our faces off with their comeback LP, Esoteric Hobbies.

You're just going to have to look into that album HERE. This disc is interesting because it's a reunion/comeback/debut album.

In the meantime, let's talk about books! 

1. I try to read at least two books per month, and mostly fail, what's your goal and reality?

C: There's no real specific amount I'd like to read, and I think it'd be hard to make a goal on that since the amount of free time I have is so inconsistent. 

I think my goals are more about how much of that free time I spend on reading. Billions of dollars are spent nowadays, figuring out how to make your electronics all as stimulating as possible, and keep your focus glued to them. 

It's really effective, and after a long day of studying, it's so much more temping to just give your brain a rest and throw on whatever YouTube's recommended for you that day. I think it's really just a case of getting out of the habit though. 

Your threshold for stimulus just becomes so high, but the more you get used to less stimulating things like reading, the less your brain expects that constant drip of dopamine.

D: I don’t have any goals around reading at all, which seems strange considering how much I enjoy books - I think I’ll put some more thought into it. 

In reality my reading tends to be sporadic, and essentially based on seeing a book I want to read or being recommended one by a trusted source. 

I’ll go a month without books and then I’ll juggle a few for a while and so on.  

2. Encyclopedia Brown and Choose Your Own Adventure books were a big part of my childhood. What did you read back in Elementary School?

C: I always really liked Junie B. Jones as a kid. I think the character rubbed off on me a fair bit at times, somewhat to the detriment of my parents. 

I definitely have at least one memory of my mom calling me by her name, after I suggested moving our family into a friend's backyard in a tent, in order to indefinitely extend the sleepover I'd been having at their house. 

That idea was obviously a little too eccentric to get anyone on board with -- a lot of my ideas can be, but I don't think that necessarily makes them bad despite what Pterodactyl Problems guitarist: Jack Neila might say. 

D: Manga (Japanese comes or graphic novels) were by far my most read books back then. Naruto, One Piece, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (if you like absurdity definitely check this one out), and other series were a staple in my childhood. 

I was also part of a bookclub for a while, and I can remember reading the Golden Compass which I really enjoyed, but not many of them seem to have stuck in the same way as the Manga.

3. It's no secret that I think Harry Potter is an amazing saga, but it wasn't until after the movie for Chamber of Secrets was released that I began reading the books. What was the big thing you were late on?

C: I still have never read Lord of the Rings.

D: I’m usually pretty oblivious to what’s current and popular, and even if I’m not I think I have some pretentious skepticism in the back of my mind that insists new books are automatically worse than classics, even though it’s not like I’m reading any of them either.

I know it’s silly but it can be hard to shake sometimes, though I have to say I’m not sure I’ll ever read one of those thriller novels advertised on the subway. The ads make them seem so ridiculous to me.  

4. My local library is amazing and I'm there pretty frequently. What do you like about your library?

C: I'm not totally sure what to compare the Toronto Public Library with, since I've never really used anything else, but I've always found the inter-connectivity of it really convenient. 

It's nice not having to keep track of which book you took out at which branch. And the extensive reference library we have is honestly probably one of my favourite places in Toronto. We used to always go in my orchestra class, and they had the scores for just about any piece you could hope for.

D: The massive windows you can sit in front of reading or working on the computer. It’s such a bright and open area of the library and I can sit there for hours. Also wifi is pretty nice to have just to bum around on Youtube and keep up with TFES and stuff like that.


5. Comic Books. Which ones are you reading?

C: I've never really read many comic books, but I out of the ones I have, Watchmen has to be my favourite. 

I think it may actually be one of my favourite books overall. I've always really enjoyed literature that subverts its genre like that. I saw the film when it came out, before I even knew there was a graphic novel, and it became my favourite movie for awhile, solely because of how they handled the villain.

Even as a kid, I was pretty bored with knowing the predictable happy endings every story was going to conclude in, and it was really cool to see something that, not only broke that, but broke the very idea of a villain itself. 

Of course nowadays you don't have to stray far to find stories that do the exact same thing, and do it better; especially as an adult. I think as a society we're all getting pretty bored of what's predictable and conventional.

D: I just started reading One Piece again, a really funny and action filled Manga about a group of pirates and their adventures. 

I also just found my big book of Herman Comics, which I know isn’t really a comic book, but it’s really hilarious. I used to read Bone whenever I could find it at the library, and I never really knew what it was about, but I think I’ll see if I can find some of it to start reading again. 

6. What author can you just read again and again?

C: I feel like there's just so much out there that it'd be hard for me to ever justify reading something twice.

D: I’m a huge sucker for Trenton Lee Stewart and his Mysterious Benedict Society series. Also, I know it’s not any one author, but there are autobiographies by my favourite musicians, Joe Jackson has a great one, that I reread every couple years

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