Even More August Books
Yeah, I read a lot.
Alastair Reynolds takes a shot at steampunk. And it's not bad at all.
It's a fun read. I liked the characters. I liked the story. And Reynolds has a knack for dodging tropes upon which others would dwell. I would list some, but they would contain spoilers. Maybe you'll see the same ones avoided that I did. Maybe not. In any case, I like it when I think I see where the plot is going, groan about it, then get pleasantly surprised when it doesn't go in that direction.
I do have one nit to pick. In a way, it mirrors most of his Revelation Space work in that he builds a world about which I would like to know more, then sets his books after that world has ended. In Revelation Space, it's the Melding Plague. I find stories set before the Melding Plague to be more fun to read than those set after it. Yet, most of his stories take place post-Plague. Same thing here, sorta. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil the plot.
Okay, I resisted reading this for awhile. Yeah, I followed his Twitter feed and laughed at the shit his dad says. But I figured I really didn't need to spend money to get the same content in book form. But PunkieDiva liked it, so I gave it a shot.
And I'm glad I did, because the book is great. It's so much more than just shit his dad says. Each chapter starts with some shit his dad says, then tells a childhood story of the context surrounding that particular piece of shit his dad said. (And then each finishes up with a handful of shit his dad says, for those who really did just want the Twitter feed in book form.)
And the stories are really touching. What's more, they round out his dad in ways that just quoting the shit his dad says can't. Meanwhile, the shit his dad says acts as a balance keeping things from being too maudlin. It works amazingly well.
Finally, the fact that this is actually a touching and finely crafted work ameliorates any resentment I might have had over a guy getting a book and TV deal out of a Twitter feed. This is much more than simply quoting a bunch of shit his dad says.
Serious Movies
I've been to several serious intellectually fulfilling movies recently.
This is your basic Will Ferrell vehicle. But I mean that in a good way. If you like Ferrell movies, you'll like this one. If you don't, well then, you won't. It's really as simple as that.
Plus, The Rock continues mining the gold vein of playing an outsized version of himself, much like he did in Get Smart. And that's always fun to watch.
It's a comic book just thrown up on the screen. But I mean that in a good way.
I'm a little older than the target audience for this. And I've never read the comic. (Although I do read comics. It's just that I tend towards superhero comics.)
Still, I loved the movie. Yes, the Ramona character is thinly sketched. Yes, the ending is muddled. Still, the damn thing sizzles and pops with energy. The comic book world works better than I would have imagined.
And I'll watch nearly anything with Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Although, she looks skinnier, which I don't like. Also, frankly, Alison Pill looks hotter in the movie. (I'm a sucker for a freckled nose.)
Boobs + gore + cheesy 3D effects = WIN.
It's a big cheese-ball of a movie. But I mean that in a good way. Check your brains at the door and just enjoy.
There's blood and guts galore. And they're not coy about it.
Plenty of boobs on view, but don't expect sexy. It doesn't work that way. There's an extended underwater nude scene that I think is supposed to be sexy.
Instead, I giggled all the way through it.
The 3D consists of jabbing things at your face, which is exactly what it should be in a film like this.
Plus, there are several homages to Jaws.
How can you go wrong?
Another Quickie
It's time for some quick book reviews!
This is really two books in one. Unfortunately, I only liked one of the two books.
It's supposed to be about all the weird and wonderful things that happened in baseball in the 70s. And that describes about half the book. And it is, indeed, fascinating reading. I loved this aspect of the book
Alas, the other half is all boring statistics. And then this team won the pennant behind so-and-so hitting something-something-something.
I found myself skimming the stats, slowing down when I saw actual descriptive text.
Part of the problem is the organization. It's broken into years, with a few topic-specific chapters mixed in.
The whole thing should have been by topic, tracing each topic through the years. In particular, the Billy Martin material should have been blocked together instead of making me pick it out of each year.
So, if you don't mind skimming the boring bits, and paying full price for half a book, it's a great read.
And if you like reading stats, then you'll probably love the whole thing.
There's this genre of book I like to call People Who Do Something Wacky For A Year While Writing About It.
It's not a bad genre and can produce some entertaining stuff. But, in general, it's lazy.
The author of this book lives in this genre. His previous book was about him reading an encyclopedia all the way through. Yeah, I bet that was fascinating.
Anyway, the wacky thing he decided to do for this book was to follow as many of the myriad rules of the Bible as he could, in a literal fashion, for an entire year. And, of course, write about it.
The results are amusing, overall. But, also annoying, overall.
The problems is that the guy, an admitted agnostic, wants to avoid offending Bible-believers so much that he tries mighty heartily to find good rules amidst the chaff.
But, rules in the Bible tend to fall into two categories: 1) the fucking ridiculous, and 2) the fucking obvious. (I'm sure plenty of folks would disagree. Fine. Go ahead, but be sure to list them. Honestly, people talk about all these great truths in the Bible, but when pressed, come up with pablum.)
Despite this, the author feels the need to discover insightful things. For example, hey, don't let your kids completely walk all over you! He sees stuff about disciplining kids and then goes on to describe what a complete pussy he is with his kid and how it helped when he instilled a little discipline. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.
Or how he reveals that, after reading some rule about being nice to others, he starts holding doors for people. Holy shit, he wasn't holding doors for people already? What a douche-bag!
Much of the insightful stuff ties in with the author being a neurotic mess. He's so completely fucked up that, indeed, parts of the Bible give him some guidance. But it's only because he's such a sad little mess of a person with which to start.
For anyone reasonably well-adjusted, this is all pretty obvious.
By the end of the book, I'm left wondering whether he really is that big of a pussy neurotic douche-bag, or is just pretending to be one for the purposes of the book?
And finally, an older book:
If you liked Starship Troopers/The Forever War, but didn't really need the pro/anti-military sentiment, then Old Man's War fits the bill. It's that sort of space military novel, but without the weight of an agenda. To me, that makes it a better read. I mean, I liked Starship Troopers/The Forever War, I really did. But I liked Old Man's War better.
Also, Scalzi can fucking write! I basically just sat and read straight through it. The writing is clear and compelling. The dialogue feels natural and really brings the characters to life.
It's just a really, really good read.
BTW, Scalzi also has a blog, which I just discovered
while writing this post. Yeah, it's good, too. Not as good as this blog, of course. But, really, what is?
New Blogroll
Honestly, nearly all those blogs on the right sidebar were long defunct. Let's add some new ones!
- Musically Awesome! :)
- Rant-a-Bit
- Life, Homesteading, and Everything
- nurbs at large
- The Mind Is Willing
- Greta Christina's Blog
Medium Raw (and a Little Half-Baked)
I like Anthony Bourdain. And I like him because he's an asshole, not in spite of the fact. But I'm not overly familiar with his work. I've watched No Reservations more than a few times and I've read his scathing blog post about the Food Network, with which I heartily agree. But I haven't read any of his books.
So I downloaded Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook to my nook and gave it a go.
In general, it's a fun read. But it's not a great read. (I've been saying that about books and movies a lot recently.) He's wonderfully assholish at times. But, at other times, he's whining about getting soft and almost apologizing for the very trait that has made him famous.
The book itself is a series of unconnected chapters. Nothing flows. There doesn't seem to be much of an over-arching idea, other than he's getting older and more mellow. Yeah, don't really care.
The better chapters are those where he describes dishes in all their glory and those where he takes aim at those well deserving his scorn.
The best chapter by far is a short one about his daughter and Ronald McDonald. It reads like edgier Calvin Trillin. I'd love to see more of this from him.
There's another chapter about fatherhood which is your standard how my life has changed now that I have a kid
sentimental drivel that every writer excretes once they reproduce. Yes, it's all true, I'm sure. But it's also so painfully obvious.
The final chapter is a disaster. It's basically a Where are they now?
look at characters from Kitchen Confidential. I'm sure it's a nice chapter for those who have read the earlier book. But, for me, it's a disaster because it's such a missed opportunity. Look, I'm going to be thinking one of two things here: 1) I didn't read the earlier book so I don't fucking care. 2) I didn't read the earlier book and now I really fucking want to!
Suppose he lucks out and my thought is the second one. So I head off to online B&N to get a copy. Guess what? It's not available as an eBook!
So that final chapter either leaves me bored or frustrated. It's a lose/lose proposition. Maybe a better idea would have been to release Kitchen Confidential as an eBook with that chapter added as additional bonus content?
Why I Hate the Food Network
With my mind on Anthony Bourdain, I thought I'd list some of the things that bother me about the Food Network.
1) Most of the people can't cook. Sometimes this isn't a problem. I'm perfectly willing to watch Sunny Anderson for hours on end simply because I like to daydream about her wrestling Mrs. Neely in a big vat of pudding.
2) Too many competitions, with the main feature of them being that the judges are assholes.
3) Guy Fieri needs to shut the fuck up. Every time he asks someone on DDD to describe how they make something, he inevitably then interrupts them, trying to anticipate each step himself. You fucking asshole! It's some poor schmucks one shot at TV publicity and you won't let him/her explain their own damn food. Shut up you fucking narcissist!
4) Rachael Ray is an idiot. We're watching that show where she toddles around a foreign location, trying to eat on less than $40. It's Belgium! Hey, I like waffles and chocolate! Let's watch!
And I notice something. She eats food, then is unable to say anything even remotely intelligent about it. She basically just smiles and says Yum!
Shit, even Guy can somewhat describe what he likes about the food he's eating. Rachael can, literally, only manage to tell us that it's nummy. Contrast that to a Bourdain description and it makes you want to cry.
5) The Next Food Network Star is an idiotic show. You would think that, if it weren't, the winners would be, I dunno, actual stars now? (Okay, Guy Fieri is a star.
But, get this, not for his cooking show. No, he's famous for his show where he interrupts people and shoves food into his face. The show where he actually cooks is just Emeril-lite with a bad bleach job.) But the shows featuring the winners actually cooking always bomb. Maybe they should rethink the concept.
The show would be much better if they had contestants like this fucking idiot.
Also, if you want to know how rotten these shows are inside, here are two things from the contract that everyone signs, at least for the first season: 1) The winner isn't actually guaranteed a show. They're guaranteed an appearance on a show, any show. That's it. 2) They explicitly reserve the right to edit footage to show you in a misleadingly negative light. Yes, they do come right out and say it.
6) Sandra Lee. Kwanzaa Cake. Nuff said.
No, actually, that's not enough said. In the same episode, she presented her Hanukkah cake that used marshmallows. A non-kosher Hanukkah cake! And she hid the fucking things inside the cake! Surprise!
Cheetara Striptease
Because, deep down inside, I'm still a 12-year-old boy.
Yeah, it's a huge-ass animated GIF. Just let it load.
Back On Top!
After languishing for a bit around #6 or so, Cresco, the Birthplace of Genius, is back on top at #1!
On top of what?
On top of search engine results for the phrase Birthplace of Genius,
of course:
Birthplace of Geniuson Google!
Alas, it has dropped a bit on Bing, falling from #1 to #3:
Birthplace of Geniuson Bing!
Such are the vagrancies of search engines. And SEO is a racket, folks.
Really Short Record Reviews
I've picked up a bunch of CDs recently. Here are some really quick reviews
in reverse chronological order of when purchased:
The Jayhawks - The Jayhawks (Bunkhouse Tapes)
First Jayhawks album. Used to be only 1000 vinyl copies. Now on CD. Very country, but up-tempo country. This really isn't proto-Jayhawks. Not much harmony. Not nearly enough Louris. Nice to have but won't get played much.
Cheap Trick - In Color (Albini Re-Record)
Re-recorded while working with Albini because the original mix sucks. Not actually released, but leaked on the net. Google it, then be sure to buy a copy when it's actually released. Much more muscular and crunchier than the original, sometimes self-consciously so. Long enough ago that Zander could still hit the high notes. Worth tracking down.
Straight Outta Burbank
Compilation of songs from Bomp! artists. Lots of songs for the money.
Cheap Trick - Sgt. Pepper Live
Sounds like Sgt. Pepper. Just go listen to Sgt. Pepper. This doesn't add anything.
Betty Blowtorch - Last Call / Are You Man Enough
All-girl hard rock band. Leader now tragically dead. Both discs are loud raunchy fun.
Riot grrrl stuff. Too noisy for me. I like a hook and this doesn't have many. Doesn't make it bad, just not for me.
Toilet Boys - The Early Years
Glam/Hard Rock with a cross-dressing front-man. I'd actually rather have some of their later releases, but I can't find them on CD anymore.
The Dictators - Every Day Is Saturday
'Tators rarity CD. Harder-edged versions of some songs. Great radio spots. It's a must-buy for any Dictators fan. (And if you're not a fan, what the hell is wrong with you?)
Shoes - Double Exposure / Tongue Twister / Present Tense / Best
Shoes are power-pop, but not hard-edged power-pop. Think softer Fountains of Wayne songs. The songs are just great. Lush vocals and fuzzed guitars. You really can't go wrong. Buy some!
Colorado had a Punk scene?
I recently bought a CD/record combo called Rocky Mountain Low, detailing the Colorado Punk scene from the late 70s. (A friend recommended it to me when he heard I was going through some of my old vinyl-based Punk.)
I know what you're thinking: I didn't even know that Colorado had a Punk scene.
Well, they did and it was pretty damn cool.
And, if you're up on your Punk history, you might also think: Hey, Jello Biafra is from Boulder. I bet this is all early Jello stuff.
Well, it's not. There are two songs featuring Jello, one a harrowing tale about a school bus driver. (Actually more of a audio story than a song.) The other is a vinyl-only bonus, mentioned below. But that's it for Jello. This is the scene from which Jello came. But it's not a scene driven by Jello.
What you do get is a surprising variety of really good stuff. Some is Punk loaded with energy and rage, but short on melody. (That's not a criticism.) Some is straight-ahead Rock 'n' Roll. There's a good smattering of female bands and band members. There's clever Punk and just plain pissed off Punk. And there's a song about killing the President that would get you a Secret Service visit today. (I like to play that one extra loud in the car.)
Of course, there are also some great band names, too. Dancing Assholes?
Yes, please!
The whole package is very impressive and makes me miss the days of vinyl, which isn't something I normally miss that much. It's a two record set. It comes with a huge booklet filled with information, bios, and photos. (Wanna see Jello with a beard and long hair? It's there.) It also includes a CD version, so you don't have to rip the vinyl just to get it into MP3s. And the sound quality is impressive considering the age and obscurity of the music.
Now, don't go thinking that just because it includes a CD version that you won't need to dig out the old turntable. The vinyl contains the very first, pre-Dead Kennedys, version of California Über Alles, which is not on the CD.
If it's been awhile, replace that needle and turntable belt first. I found LP Gear to have good info on needles and belts. Plus, they shipped fast. If you no longer have a receiver that accepts a phono input, J&R has a cheap pre-amp.
And the whole freakin' package is just $28, including shipping! Just go buy it!
And if you're just dying for more info on the Colorado Punk scene, well, here ya go!
