Reader’s Notebook: #58
For my final entry of 2016, I’ll make my first attempt at my promised adjustment in how I share the books I’ve been reading. No more monthly entries, where I can barely remember the details of the book I read five weeks ago. Back to individual posts for each book. Or occasionally a small group of books. I began 2016 reading Richard Price’s The White’s, which he wrote under his pen name of Harry Brandt. It was an excellent, gritty, New York cop novel. To close out the year, I stayed in the cop realm, but went a completely different direction in tone. Stephen Dobyns’ Is Fat Bob Dead Yet?…
Carrie
Yesterday was one of those weird afternoons where you take a brief nap and, after waking, nothing seems quite right for an hour or so. The cobwebs seem too thick to push through and you’re left feeling like you’ve taken a bunch of cold medicine. As I was sitting there, trying to find solid ground again, I picked up my phone and began scrolling through Twitter, soon finding the news that Carrie Fisher had died. Suddenly I felt even more unsteady. I don’t think Carrie Fisher was my first celebrity crush, but I do know I, like all the other boys my age at my school, was totally in love…
Christmas 2016
A very busy and fun first quarter of our Christmas break is in the books. As is required of anyone who still runs a personal blog, here is a rundown of the past few days. The girls were not released from their academic responsibilities until 1:00 Thursday. By comparison, the neighborhood kids all finished the previous Friday, so our girls felt like they got a late start. They do go back a week later than the neighbors, so it all evens out. Friday evening we went out to dinner with our neighbors and then took all the kids to Christmas at the Zoo. It sounds like a lot of fun…
Harry
I didn’t read, or really pay any attention to, the Harry Potter books or watch movies when they were first coming out. Sure, I was aware of the phenomenon. I knew what Hogwarts was. I knew that adults seemed to enjoy the stories as much as young adults. But they came along at a point in my life where I really had no interest in digesting them. However, I loved how Joe Posnanski wrote about reading the stories with his daughters. I made a mental note that, one day, when our girls were old enough, I would try to do the same. The only problem was that our girls weren’t…
Holiday Catalog Insanity
Over the past year or so, Drew Magary has become one of my favorite writers. Whether in his novels and collections of anecdotes about being a parent, his writings for GQ and Deadspin, or just on Twitter, he never fails to amuse me. I might have first discovered him through his holiday-themed posts on Deadspin. You might recall when he shared his daughter’s ridiculous Christmas list and broke it all down for us. Another of his evergreen holiday assignments is tearing apart the preposterous Williams Sonoma catalog. As always, this year’s edition is a delightful read. The 2016 Hater’s Guide To The Williams-Sonoma Catalog As a bonus, he also ripped…
33 Favorite Songs of 2016
I usually offer some State of the Music Union thoughts when I share my favorite songs of the year lists. 2016 got off to a great start and then kind of cruised to the finish. Most of my favorite albums of the year came out during its first six months. There were some albums I was greatly looking forward to that I never connected with. To me, 2016 was a better year for singles than albums. And, because of that, I’m offering my biggest Favorites list ever. A week ago I was toying with doing a Top 50 list. But I did some whittling, and then some more, and then…
Friday Playlist
A special playlist this week. I think I finally got my Favorite Songs of the Year list hammered out yesterday. I’ll finish my write up over the weekend and share it early next week. When I used to do a semi-private podcast, each year before I shared my favorite songs, I would do a review show counting down the #1 songs of all the previous years. Seems like a good way for me to share some good tunes with you. Enjoy! https://open.spotify.com/user/224aiwksicafjldlua6nnpo4y/playlist/3NkobofNzkjLRWftdsbb7G 2004 – “Float On” – Modest Mouse. Famously the song I was listening to when S yelled at me that her water had broke, and it was time…
Fifteen Down, One To Go
My counting may be off – I did make a chart to double-check my numbers – but I’m pretty sure that last night was the 15th, and next-to-last, Christmas program of our girls’ school lives. Every year since 2007 we’ve had at least one school program. 2013 was the sweetest spot in that stretch, with M performing in the St. P’s 3rd grade play, C in the first grade living nativity, and L in her St. S’s pre-K play. And there were a couple years in there when we had two girls in preschool, so they were both performing in different parts of the same program; I count those as…
Weekend in Chi-town
We had a nice weekend up in Chicago, the Mrs. and me. The occasion was for her to attend a conference for work, something we did for the first time a year ago when we went to Arizona. Amazingly, this was the first time I’ve been to Chicago in 15 years, since I ran the marathon in 2001. We’re three hours away! What’s wrong with us? This time around we road-tripped it, dropping the girls off at school right at 7:30 Friday then getting on I–65 for the trip north. Clear roads and the time change put us in our hotel before 10 AM local, so S only missed a…
Friday Playlist
https://open.spotify.com/user/224aiwksicafjldlua6nnpo4y/playlist/3XEkU3WfxctbH0M1KK4oRu A few weeks back, we got a new Japandroids single plus a 2017 release date for their next album. Over the past week, two more artists I’ve spent a lot of time listening to in recent years did the same thing. “Radio Kids” – Strand of Oaks. Someone said this sounded like Ryan Adams doing a Dinosaur Jr. song. I approve of that assessment. SoO’s last album, Heal, was a brutally honest account of both his and his wife’s failures in their marriage. Can’t wait to hear where he goes this time. His new album is out in January. “Do You Still Love Me?” – Ryan Adams. FINALLY! The…