Category: Musings

  • “The Other Name”

    As this blog has evolved, one of its tropes has become comparing things to music; music is my other passion, and I’ve spent a lifetime reading and listening to odd things. I have a comparison here, and I’ll get there, but there are a few things to get out of the way: These are the…

  • “Bubblegum”

    I wrote a bit about “Bubblegum” earlier– trying to determine, before I was done, if it was worth it’s own length. It’s 780 pages, which is a fair chunk of reading to commit to, and I had mixed feelings about it while reading it. It’s a work of great imagination, and can be archly funny.…

  • Falling Behind/What I am Reading/Future Plans/Back on the Horse

    I have fallen behind in my reading, which happens from time to time. My band had a gig opening for surf-punks Daikaiju, which I enjoyed a great deal. The book I am reading “the most”, “Bubblegum” is kind of a weird slog– I’m enjoying it, and the story, but it seems overlong. I like long…

  • More “Moby Dick”/Ambient Novels/Sunn O)))/Drone Novels

    I. Apparently it’s “Moby Dick” season. I have learned through a friend that someone I follow on twitter (who’s work/twitter I admire) is also heeding the call of the wretched sea™ and like me is around halfway through. I finished “The Town-Ho’s Story”, and shortly after that “Moby Dick” turns heavy into encyclopedia mode, with…

  • Finishing “You Can’t Win”/What I am Reading

    At the end of the day I decided to finish “You Can’t Win”. It’s fairly rare I get that far in a book and don’t finish; and it wasn’t a very complicated read, so I went through to the end. I didn’t have a big change of heart about it, but there was a wonderful…

  • In Which the Author Stops Apologizing/What I am Reading

    One of the things I have found about writing a blog that you update frequently is that certain themes emerge whether or not you want to. For a while, I struggled with my role with the blog, eventually deciding “gee, I’m a critic”. I’ve played with the notion of “status vs. contract” novel, and described…

  • “The Pallbearer’s Club”/Booktube/A Definite Title

    A couple of anecdotes: A little bit ago, I was wasting time watching YouTube, which is something I do a little too much of, if I am being honest. There was a video on the movie “Incident in a Ghostland” which I saw some length of time ago, and decided to watch. The youtuber appeared,…

  • A Lull/”The Phantom Tollbooth”/What I am Reading

    Not a whole lot of reading going on this week. My band played its first two shows, so there was a lot of practicing and moving gear and drinking beers. I did a quick re-read of “The Phantom Tollbooth”, a book I first read as a child, which I think helped me develop what some…

  • Roger Ebert/Criticism/”Ghoul”

    Roger Ebert was basically America’s critic for a large chunk of his career. He was an excellent writer, and had a canyon deep understanding of the medium he spent most of his time writing about. He was also a passionate and thoughtful critic: watch this clip of him arguing with Gene Siskel about the film…

  • 32 Short Films about Zombies with a Cameo from Andy Rooney

    “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” -Samuel Beckett I was gonna write about “Ella Minnow Pea” for this week’s long entry, but I’m gonna keep that one in my back pocket for now, and instead go on a bit of a tangent. Here’s a selection of very short essays which are related to writing…