reading, watching, listening

readingwatchinglistening

YES! It’s fucking on!

Reading

Gene Wolfe – Book of the Long Sun
Colin Calloway – One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark
Matsuo Basho – The Complete Haiku
Thich Nhat Hanh – Zen Keys
Arturo Perez Reverte – La Tabla de Flandes. I don’t recommend this book. It starts off with a decently esoteric and atmospheric mystery involving Dutch art, chess, a protagonist that listens to Don Cherry and Lester Bowie, and lots of 80s excess. But it totally went out on a whimper. The last act was excruciating. It was completely mundane, killed off the creeping dread and spelled everything out for you. All in all, a sloppy, easy out ending. Very disappointing after reading El Club Dumas.
David L. Lewis – God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215.
Eugene L. Rogan – The Arabs: A History.
Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson – Invisible China: A Journey Through Ethnic Borderlands
Christopher Tolkien – The History of Middle Earth. Volumes 1, 2, 6, 7. In case you hadn’t figured it out, I am indeed a nerd. This series of books sets out how JRR Tolkien developed both The Silamarillion and The Lord of the Rings. It totally fascinates me from both a Tolkien nerd perspective and a writing process nerd perspective.
Michael Chabon – Maps & Legends, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Wonder Boys
Carlos Ruiz Zafón – La Sombra del Viento
Megan Kelso – Artichoke Tales

Watching

Drag Race and Drag U – basically anything with RuPaul is fabulous with me!
Edgar Wright Scott Pilgrim vs the World – not the awesomest movie ever, but it was pretty fucking fun. And as far as teen movies go, it was pretty alright. Not pandering. Not overly romanticizing. And any teen movie that has the main character acknowledging s/he was being a douche/asshole, is alright with me. Plus, fucking nerdy!
Drew Barrymore Whip It – this is another one that gets added to the list of teen movies that’s decent. Fun. Acknowledging that the protagonist is being a douche.  Delightful!
The Adventures of Pete & Pete – yes! I’ve been told I dance like Artie.
FW Murnau Sunrise – this motherfucker looks so ahead of its time. It’s a silent movie and it’s epic and the way it’s shot blows me away. I wonder what people thought of it when they saw it in the theaters when it came out originally.
Robert Altman Nashville – who’s awesome? Lily Tomlin is fucking awesome! What amazingly wretched music there was in this movie – Henry Gibson’s patriotic songs are so amazingly bad and jingoish. And the “good” songs are equally wretched. The song that Keith Carradine wrote for this I’m Easy was so revoltingly cheeseball 70s.
Lots of cooking channel shows – since we moved we’ve been without our Netflix, so it’s been whatever’s on tv. And since most of that sucks ass, it’s been lots of cooking shows. (ED NOTE – we just got Netflix back up and running.)

Listening

Spontaneous Music Ensemble – Karyobin
Das Racist – Shut Up Dude
Bin Laden Blowin Up – Fear of a Clear Channel Planet
Bill Orcutt, John Wiese and Rhys Chatham Trio – live at the MCA Chicago. They all played separately.
Tomeka Reid, Mazz Swift, Silvia Bolognesi (HEAR in NOW Trio) – live at the Cultural Center.
Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre – Morning Song; The Moment
Iancu Dumitrescu – Ouranos; Galaxy
David S. Ware – Earthquation
Art Ensemble of Chicago – People in Sorrow
G L E A M I N G – Orgonon
Psalm One – Woman at Work volume 3

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