Don’t mind telling you, I’m pretty happy about how my reading year has gone so far. I’ve finished 14 books, well on my way to reaching my goal of 25 books and 100 short stories by the end of the year. AND, since every book I’ve read so far was written by a female...
Reading List: My Last (And Next) Five Books, March 2017
The election of our first woman president was a momentous occasion, and I decided to commemorate the milestone by reading a lot of books by female authors this year. Oh, wait… Turns out, we didn’t elect a woman president. (Well, WE did, but the Electoral College chose someone else, but that’s another story…) I’m...
Reading List, July 2016: My Last (And Next) Five Books
What are you reading? It’s one of my favorite questions. Here’s a list of the books I’ve read recently, along with my best guess at the next few. I do this every once in a while on Shoulblog: previous posts are here and here and here and here and here and here. This time, it’s...
Reading List: July 2015
Whoa. Hey, it’s been a while, sorry. Let’s get this blog (re)started with a reading update. Haven’t done one of these in a couple of years, but for those of you who followed this thread in the past (here and here and here and here and here), there’s some good news at No. 1. Here,...
List: Top Five Story Songs — No. 1
This week, it’s been all about Story Songs, those songs that adopt their own meanings, sometimes far from what the original artists meant. Previous editions are here and here and here and here. And finally, we come to: 1. Stay Free, by The Clash. Way back then, in the early early 1980s, we wrote...
List: Top Five Story Songs — No. 2
2. Christmas In Cape Town—by Randy Newman. This is possibly the darkest, ugliest song that Randy Newman has ever written, and he’s written some ugly ones. Consider yourself warned: Listen. The thing you have to understand about Randy Newman, though, is that he often writes songs from the viewpoint of despicable characters—polar opposites from...
List: Top Five Story Songs — No. 3
3. Sunday, Bloody Sunday, by U2. October 27, 1985: Denkinger screwed up, and the Cardinals were ticked. After the nightmare finish to Game 6 of the 1985 World Series, it was easy to see that Game 7 was going to be a powder keg. The only question was, who was going to set it...
List: Top Five Story Songs — No. 4
4. King Horse, by Elvis Costello. King Horse on Spotify. This is, without a doubt, the best juggling song ever. It’s from Elvis’ best album, Get Happy!, which I was listening to quite a bit in the winter of 1981-82, when I learned how to juggle. Besides being a great song, it has lots...
List: Top Five Story Songs—No. 5
“You see, I knew that song so long before we met, that it means so much more than it might” —Elvis Costello, King Horse Elvis is onto something here, I think. There are certain songs that take on meanings that are far beyond whatever the songs are “about.” Surely everybody has their own songs...
Reading List, May 2012: My Last—And Next—Five Books
Here we go with the latest “reading list” post, representing the last five books I’ve read. This one took a little longer than the last installment, only because I’ve been kinda busy with work, and I got bogged down a little in the science of No. 3. Still, five books in less than four...