Tag: Criticism
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Roughly 1000 words about Power Electronics and Fernanda Melchor
Let’s talk about Power Electronics. It’s a genre of music largely credited to the band “Whitehouse” (which is really more or less just one person, but for the record, I am a fan of those sorts of shenanigans). Whitehouse’s output basically consists of high pitched synth noises, very loud kick drum noises, and shouting. On…
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The Death of ‘Sironia, Texas’ and notes about this year’s reading.
So, “Sironia, Texas” didn’t happen. I got through 100 pages or so, and it wasn’t all that good. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, at least from a blogging perspective. We could deconstruct the text, see what’s working, what isn’t, and why; analyzing what’s bad can sometimes illuminate what’s good. But “Sironia, Texas” also indulges…
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Dog is Life/”Hell Hound”/”Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance/More on Authenticity
I I got a dog a few months ago, and she’s taken a bit of my focus and attention. She’s also brought with her a bit more of a regular structure to things. Dogs are strange, in that they are creatures of routine, but also creatures who very much seem to live in the moment.…
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Authenticity/”Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”/Other ephemera
I- Moaning, the ukulele, and podcasts The reason I haven’t written anything in a moment is because, well, I haven’t been inspired to. It’s a kind of failure: if you’re writing, you should write. I play the ukulele, an instrument that gets a lot of crap for no particularly good reason. I’m an intermediate player,…
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“Between Two Fires”/What I am Reading/What I have Finished
Regular readers of this blog will know of my fondness for the band Cannibal Corpse. And, to be honest, one of the things I like about them is a consistent product. When you buy the new Cannibal Corpse record, you’re going to hear Cannibal Corpse songs. The newer albums will have better production, and they…
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On not Finishing a Book/”The Luminous Dead”/What I am Reading
I want to talk a little bit about not finishing books. My last didn’t finish was “Angkor and the Khmer Empire: A History of Cambodia’s Legendary Temple Building Civilization” which wasn’t a history of anything, but rather a poorly written guidebook which looked like it had been translated via google translate. It was awful, and…
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“The Thing in the Snow”
It’s kind of hard to write about a book like “The Thing in the Snow,” as a lot of what happens in it is very unimportant. By design, this book recounts the absurd and dull. It concerns itself with three caretakers at a remote facility in a perpetually snow bound landscape who perform absurd tasks,…
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Dread Process/Kindle Scribe vs Kindle and Remarkable/What I am Reading.
A little more about dread process; a quick look/review of various gadgets. We’re going to get extra nerdy and picky here. As I have mentioned, I’m a bit of a gadget hound. It’s something I have inherited from my father, I suppose. But I have come to see the value in ‘single use’ devices; I…
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Bangkok/What I Read on the plane/What I am reading
This isn’t a travel blog, but I am in Bangkok right now; it’s just after breakfast time. I had a big bowl of Jok with pork and eggs, and the aunties who run the stall apparently find my lumbering frame and desire to eat Thai food adorable. Bangkok is a unique place; things grow and…
The Lithole 