Reader’s Notebook, 1/11/18
Two books down already for 2018. Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World – Rob Sheffield Oh no, another book about the Beatles?!?! That was my first thought when I saw that music critic Sheffield was releasing his take on the Beatles last year. My initial plan was to skip it even though I…
The Footballs
Good gracious, what a CFP championship game Monday night. Like most folks who were unaffiliated, I was pulling for Georgia. Those downtrodden, underdog Dawgs from Athens. I found it funny that Georgia has this big reputation as a somewhat cursed program. Maybe my humor stems from when I first started paying a lot of attention to college football, and Georgia…
All Together Now
My first book of the year was about the Beatles. So it was a nice coincidence that I was hipped to this website over the holidays. The author is ranking all the Beatles songs in order, roughly one per day. His commentary isn’t a rehash of all the commentary you’ve read a thousand times before about Beatles songs. Which makes…
Big 12 Hoops: A Very Different Year
Last day of Christmas break. The girls go back to school tomorrow. I guess the teachers need an extra day to get grades processed, settled into their classrooms, etc before beginning the second semester. Meanwhile the temperature is finally above freezing for the first time in two weeks. It might hit 60 Thursday! We may be able to see our…
Friday Time Waster
Here is one of the greatest things I saw over the holidays. “Euverus” used the game Cities: Skylines to test how traffic would flow at a 4-way intersection using 30 different road configurations. I love the examples with no controls, especially the little software glitches that allow vehicles to pass through each other. And some of the higher-end examples are…
Friday Playlist
Back to the sharings of the musics! https://open.spotify.com/user/224aiwksicafjldlua6nnpo4y/playlist/42sFTC2INbcqt6rg41nr5S “Man Uncouth” – Line & Circle. Holy 1983! These kids clearly listened to some early R.E.M. and Smiths albums. This is some good shit. “Cut Yr Teeth” – Kississippi. There are hints of shiny, jangle pop in this song, but it never really sheds its rougher exterior to reveal that brightness. Which…
Reader’s Notebook: Wrapping 2017
Again I’ve fallen behind on my book sharing. Here are my final four books of 2017.[1] I’ve already polished off one book for 2018 and will get to it next week. Fantasyland – Kurt Andersean I’ve mostly avoided the quick, “How Did We Get Here?” assessments of our current political state. They tend to be too depressing and infuriating for…
Belated Holiday Wrap Up
Glory be! After roughly 36 hours without either cable or internet access, our house (and neighborhood it turns out) has been reconnected! So I can finally start unloading some of the accumulated content from the past week-plus. First, Happy New Year! I hope your celebrations, large and small, were fun and safe. Let’s go back to 2017 and review how…