Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr When you win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, as Doerr did for his wonderful All The Light That We Cannot See, it can be a bitch to follow it up. So why not build a story around five main characters who occupy 700 years of time? If nothing else, the sheer scope of the book will make it stand out. There is no good way to summarize this book.
Holy shit! There aren’t a lot of big, important, communal memories surrounding Kansas football. For those of us who were in school in the early 90’s, there was the Monte Cozzens game, when KU beat Oklahoma. For the few of us who stuck it out through the cold, there was the Tony Sands game. The Mangino era brought an epic win over Nebraska, an Orange Bowl victory, and a game-winning, fourth down play against Missouri in the snow.
I’m not sure how I had never heard this story before. Nearly a decade before Pearl Harbor, the American military ran a series of war games in which an attacking force wiped out the forces sheltered at Pearl by launching a sneak attack from the north on a Sunday morning. Which is exactly what the Japanese would do nine years later. Only the Navy decided the attack wasn’t fair and rather than learning from their failure, nullified the results.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Luna Moth” - Lola in Slacks Kind of a terrible band name. But this song cooks, so I’ll allow it. “When This Gets Out” - The Persian Leaps Rock ‘n’ roll, bitches! These guys sound like an updated version of The Smithereens… “A Girl Like You” - The Smithereens …this song to be specific. “Oh My God” - Lula Wiles I’m currently reading a book about the effects that Amazon has had on our society.
Chart Week: November 6, 1976 Song: “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” - Gordon Lightfoot Chart Position: #3, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for two weeks. This entry is cheating a little bit, as I’ve written about this song before. However, I heard not one but two countdowns last weekend that included it, so I take that as a sign from the Music Gods that they want me to share it again.
Another CYO basketball season is in the books. Thanks to a big win last week, with a guest coach on the bench, L’s team solidified itself as the solid middle of her league: they lost to each of the top three teams and beat each of the bottom three teams. Fourth place, bitches! Last Wednesday we played St J. This was my first game handling all of the coaching responsibilities with both of the usual coaches out-of-town.
Today I begin a new series. After most KU basketball games, I will do a brief collection of thoughts.[1] My goal is to keep these in the 500-word range, although exceptional performances may require more than that. The season opener went from concerning to a snoozer. KU could not shake Michigan State early, but a 9–1 run to end the first half and Ochai Agbaji taking over in the second half made the last 10 minutes of the game kind of boring.
KU fans have put in their time suffering through the bulk of another football season. College basketball has finally arrived! The Jayhawks will take on Michigan State at Madison Square Garden tonight to kick off the hoops season. I think this is going to be a very interesting and important year for KU. Like most of the college hoops world, the Jayhawks took advantage of the relaxed transfer/eligibility rules and plugged a number of holes on their roster.
Chart Week: November 2, 1985 Song: “And We Danced” - The Hooters Chart Position: #23, 13th week on the chart. Peaked at #21 the week of October 26. (Fear not, music trivia fans! After a long dry spell, I’ve got three, maybe four, of these posts queued up for the next couple weeks.) “Who the fuck are The Hooters?” Those were Bob Geldof’s comments in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine after promoter Bill Graham forced him to include the band on the Philadelphia stage of Live Aid.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “I Don’t Wanna Wait” - The War on Drugs Not that there was much doubt, but pretty sure based on the past week alone The War on Drugs will be my most listened to artist of the year. The new album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore, is fantastic. I’ll post a review next week where I will share more thoughts, but the band has entered hallowed territory by releasing four-straight absolute bangers of albums.
A fast start slowed by baseball playoffs and the beginning of the NBA season. Movies and Shows Halloween Wars Halloween Baking Championship It’s holiday baking season, bitches!!!! L and I only made it through a couple episodes of Halloween Wars, so it gets an incomplete. But S and I wrapped up HBC on Halloween night. Renee was a shocking winner. Adina had been the best baker the entire competition, Guillermo came on strong late, and I was sure they were ahead of Renee in the final bake.
The CYO basketball season got back to action last week, and L’s team had two games. It was their best week of the year. Tuesday we played St E, the church where all three of our girls went to preschool. Games against teams like St E are always tricky. They don’t have a grade/middle school, so are reliant on word-of-mouth within the parish to get enough girls to come out for a team.
I swear October is the fastest month. It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating L’s birthday and now here we are on November 1 bracing for the onslaught of Christmas commercials. Hell, they started Saturday, from what I could tell so we’re already in it. Fall break, a trip, and lots of basketball helped to make the month speed by. Two weeks ago we were in the midst of one of the warmest Octobers in Indianapolis history.
October 2021 Someone put out a new album last week. The War on Drugs - 122 Trace Mountains - 52 Sam Fender - 40 Middle Kids - 31 The Cranberries - 23 Complete stats available at my Last.fm page.
Well, folks, we made it! Today is War on Drugs release day! By the time you’ve read this I’m sure I’ve listened to I Don’t Live Here Anymore at least twice. My plan is to stay up late Thursday and listen as soon as it hits Spotify. We’ll see if that worked or not. I’ve read three reviews, and I’m not sure my expectations could be any higher. Two of the reviews say it’s the band’s best album of their career.
Good grief am I behind on these. That makes total sense, though, because my reading pace has slowed to a level not seen in years. I’ve finished just one book in the past four weeks. I went nearly three weeks without starting my next reading project. Normally I break out in hives if I don’t immediately start a new book. I guess I needed a break. Open - Andre Agassi I don’t know why I never read this.
A couple links to share as I continue my rebound from fall break and attempt to ease back into a routine. One last Bond link, this one about how John F. Kennedy both helped the Bond series become popular and used that popularity to further his fame. John F. Kennedy was a vocal Bond fan, and the media loved to draw parallels between the fictional spy and the real-life president—so much so that their personas became intertwined in America’s cultural subconscious.
It was a very good weekend with some very good friends in Nashville. This was our first-ever trip to Music City, USA, and we had a great time. The four couples caravanned down on Thursday afternoon. We had a rental in the very cool area known as 12 South, not too far from downtown. Our house was fantastic. Very stylish, lots of room, and it served as a good home base for our adventures.
A strange week for scheduling around our house. The girls began their fall break yesterday, so we had some social activities Tuesday night plus an impromptu sleepover for C and some of her friends. We did our annual “flu shots and lunch somewhere that has ice cream” outing yesterday. S and I will leave later today for a little jaunt away without kids; the girls will leave with an aunt and cousins tomorrow for a couple days in Cincinnati.
Another busy weekend filled with sports of various sorts. Friday night was the biggest high school football game in Indiana this year: 6A #1 Center Grove at 5A #1 Cathedral. Center Grove was ranked in the top ten nationally in every one of those “polls.” Cathedral was ranked as high as 14th but more often down in the 30s nationally. Both teams were undefeated. Neither team had really been challenged all season.