Tag: Reading

  • “Burnt Offerings”/”The Warriors”/Book vs Film/What I am Reading

    Happy Bloomsday, nerds. Earlier this year, I read “Burnt Offerings”, a book which was the basis for the 1976 film staring Karen Black and Oliver Reed. That movie scared the living shit out of me as a child; particularly a sequence with a hearse and its driver, who’s rictus grin is burned not only into…

  • You Will Never Read it All/”Necroscope”/What I am Reading

    When you’re dead, the amount of things you haven’t seen or watched will far exceed the number of things you have. Every hour, 30,000 hours worth of content are uploaded to YouTube, for example, so even if it was your fondest desire to watch it all,  it would rapidly become impossible to do so. Quick…

  • “From Russia With Love”

    “History is moving pretty quickly these days, and the heroes and villains keep changing parts” —Ian Fleming I have hazy memories of the Bond films; I remember watching them with my father when they were on “The ABC Movie of the Week”— and while I remember their titles, I’ll be damned if I can tell…

  • Attention Span/What I am Currently Reading

    Periodically, I’ll read in a bar. I know there are some folk who think that’s a bit silly, but honestly, relaxing in a corner with a couple of beers and a good pulp-y novel can be sublime. I wouldn’t recommend reading “Gravity’s Rainbow” in a bar (although getting wasted just might be the key to…

  • Physical Books/”Only Revloutions”/”The Unfortunates”

    I meet periodically with a group of people in a bar in the afternoons, before the bar is open to the public. There’s a wide range of discussion, watching of Saints Football, and on occasion some tomfoolery. One of the regular attendees is a fairly staunch advocate of print books; I’m a fairly hardcore Amazon…

  • Finishing “The Recognitions”

    I finished “The Recognitions” last night. I’ve written about it as I rolled along, so you can go back and read prior entries if you’re wanting to see how things evolved. It’s an excellent work, and despite its reputation for difficulty, I found it readable. It did take me longer to read than other novels…

  • “The Sirens of Titan”/“Player Piano”/Developing Artistry

    “Machines have less problems. I’d like to be a machine, wouldn’t you?” -Andy Warhol At the start of this year, I got the idea that I would re-read (and in come cases, read for the first time) the novels of Kurt Vonnegut. It was originally going to be the entire focus of this blog, but…

  • Long-form works/75% of “The Recognitions”

    I’ve always dug long-form works. The first album I can remember buying with “my own money” was Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, which I definitely got because the “we don’t need no education” line pissed off parental types (as an aside, that line is a lot more clever than it first appears to be), but was…

  • “Bottom’s Dream”/“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”/Finishing or not finishing something you hate

    “Tekeli-li!” I got a copy of “Bottom’s Dream” on the secondhand market; Dalkey Archives sold out ages ago. The book got a print run of 2.500. My copy was still in shrink-wrap, unopened. No one had read it. I once remember reading a review of Morton Feldman’s “Second String Quartet” which was released in a…