A bit of this and a bit of that

Steve sent along the best tumblr I have seen in awhile. It relates to the New York Review of Books Classics line. I don't want to spoil the title, so just click through. I am sure you will agree. These books are so lovely and so great, I would love to have a row of them on my bookshelf.

Last year there was a spate of literal versions of videos. As you probably recall, the singing is dubbed over with a description of what is actually happening. The greatest was Total Eclipse of the Heart, but I just came across a version of Journey's Separate Ways. It isn't as consistently funny as the Bonnie Tyler one, but it has some excellent moments. Separate Ways is one of the worst videos ever, so they have a lot to work with.

Over at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum calls for people to read more nonfiction books or risk being uninformed. Its a good piece.

Remember the what's your porn star name game. Well how about the STD name game!

I've got links, piles and piles, so many links that they're wastin'

Did I already post this list of Pavement B-sides? It's worth your time, especially since they nod their heads to Kentucky Cocktail, which is awesome. Can't find an original, but this live version is fairly sweet, the hook comes through perfectly, if some of the vocal goofiness is lost. Only problem is there is no Harness Your Hopes, which is easily as good as your favorite Pavement song. Why Malkmus is not better acknowledged for his guitar work and hooks is beyond me.

Speaking of the Nicene Creeders, check out Carrie Brownstein's letter from Portland, which ends with a Box Elder aftertaste.

Via Am Con Blog, check out Utne Reader's story of the Iraq war told via magazine covers.

I've seen lots of best of beers lists in the past few weeks. Most of the time, I look at them and get the same feeling I do when I drop by Pitchfork, namely, what the fuck is all this? I like this list from Wine Enthusiast, since it includes bottles that cost about as much as a six pack of crap beer, along with the $25 bottles from Russian River.

Check out the world's largest book.

Hee, hee Lost vs. Avatar in the LoLcats style.

Tyler Cowen doesn't like the new Henry Paulson book.

Looks like the Spanish are trying to out-weird the Japanese in game shows.

Mixed linkage

With their oceans of content, it is not surprising that the Library of America is putting out a story of the week. I am happy though that the most recent is a relatively off the wall choice, Luella Miller by Mary Wilkins Freeman. It is from their American Fantastic Tales collection, which I dearly want.

The WSJ gives us a preview of some of the big new books coming this year. I am excited about the new Iain McEwan and the new Jennifer Egan. The big story is a book called the Passage by Justin Cronin. Cronin is a litfic writer who is turning to genre, in particular postapocalyptic vampire tales.

Here is an interesting interview of James Ellroy by David Peace. In it you can learn interesting things like the surprising fact that Ellroy is not a liberal (or doesn't consider himself one.) (via Sarah Weinman)

Here is a fun photo site dedicated to kids dressing up as superheroes. (Via Sullivan)

Woah, Tunnels just came up on Pandora. I forget how fucking awesome it is. Neon Bible is forgiven.

Random

Citizen Reader is hosting a book menages comparing two types of short written works, essays and short stories, using recent efforts of George Saunders and Steven Millhauser as the basis for discussion. Check it out.

Have you read Simon Johnson's piece on the financial industries capture of the US government? Not the happiest of reads, but well worth it. Then follow it up with "My Manhattan Project" an essay from the man who wrote the code that allowed these jackasses to wreck the world economy.

Here is a fun post from Short Stack about the notion (and books that argue a viewpoint) of identifying a year in which everything changed.

Stereogum lists and comments on the Amazon top 100 indie albums of all time. Number one is Bee Thousand, which I like for the hits rather than for the whole album. Still those hits are quite something as in Hot Freaks (scroll down), Tractor Rape Chain and Buzzards and Dreadful Crows.

Hodge-podge

I hope every one is enjoying Christmas. I made the family egg nog and although I dialed it back a bit, it remains best for those with at least a 16 Constitution.

This Sci Fi sound quiz is fun. I scored 85 out of 100. From the same site is news of another Dune movie.

One of the best named blogs of all time, Steamboats Are Ruining Everything, has a number of posts on the dire effects of a decline in reading. They relate back to an article the blogger, Caleb Crain, wrote for the New Yorker.

Check out the vitriol in this discussion of creepy kids books.

The NYRB has republished Norman Mailer's reporting from the 1968 conventions.

The link to which is points is subscription only, but BookDaddy reports that the bulk of our knowledge of the Nordic gods comes from a single text!

Sometimes I'm blogging where all the other people write

Were you aware that the Cure song Charlotte Sometimes is based upon a novel? And the Cure never told, or provided financial thanks to the author. Read the tale here.

Joanna reminds us of a candy long forgotten, the sugar filled plastic fruit. For me, this is a bit too much like Fun Dip.

Want to get yet another take on how the last six years have been really bad for the country? Read this.

Now it is not a big deal that a plane flew over the US with live nukes. This is normal, what is news is that a B-52 flew with live nukes and no one realized it. Still this Wonkette bit is worth reading for the title and the image. Fans of Cold War confrontation will be cheered by this news.

Why was Car Jamming never a single? It's so much better than Should I Stay or Should I Go.

A few items

Man is Denis Johnson's Vietnam epic Tree of Smoke getting some buzz. Check the NYT, (Good morning and please listen to me: Denis Johnson is a true American artist, and “Tree of Smoke” is a tremendous book, a strange entertainment, very long but very fast, a great whirly ride that starts out sad and gets sadder and sadder, loops unpredictably out and around, and then lurches down so suddenly at the very end that it will make your stomach flop) and Esquire. The LA Times takes a more moderate view. Anyway, keep your eyes on it.

In my recollection, The Mist is my favorite Stephen King story. It has the build-up, the scares, the human foibles and failures and a wonderfully ambiguous ending. I somehow forgot the whole religion angle upon which the trailer for the upcoming film. This makes me wonder about books that I fondly remember. How much is due to my reaction at the time and how much would it differ now?

Is there really an anti-pie trend about the land, as this column claims? If so, people need to get their hands on Ken Haedrich's Pie book.

Monday items

Do you need an eye-catching coffee table book? If so, may I suggest Naked Girls Smoking Weed?

Everyone knows that the Imperial March is the coolest musical piece in all of science fiction. Click here for a surf and a classical guitar version. Then there is always the Metalli-version.

Did you know that Biz Markie coined the term "Oh Snap!"? Even if you already knew this, you will enjoy this flowchart for the proper use of said term. Here then is the source document.

Fans of the cringeworthy will dig Miss South Carolina unfortunate response to in the Q&A session.

Nice one from Wonkette.

Mixed greens

Nerd World brings news of a potential Strong Bad movie. I haven't been into that web cartoon for some time, but I hold out hope. Of immediate interest in the same post is the joke trailer with Seth Rogen.

Here is a link to a paper that argues that Soviet economic policies brought them low.

Do you read Gideon Rachman's foreign policy blog on the FT? It's quite good. He is their foreign correspondent and was previously with the Economist. Check his profile on Christopher Hitchens that includes a vignette on Hitchen's idea of fun " Then, seeing that I was a little taken aback, he added: “No, I do understand.” But I could see he didn’t. The thought that anybody might not want to stay up all night, drinking Johnny Walker and discussing Oswald Mosley was all but incomprehensible."

He isn't impressed with Fred Thompson as a foreign policy thinker. He closes with this: "I find it hard - or perhaps just alarming - to imagine Fred Thompson as president. He seemed to me to be not terribly bright. Mind you, look at the current occupant of the White House."

Check out the first of the new Indiana Jones Lego figures. In our house, Lego kits are built once and then go into the giant bin of Lego parts. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to buy the pricey branded ones. Still that Indy is pretty cool.

And finally, here is my kind of blog, Naval Warfare. Each post covers a historically important naval vessel. Here we have the monitor Monadnock. This one ended up traveling all the way to Asia, which is a scary thought for a ship with a few feet of freeboard. I am happy to see that Mt. Monadnock got a ship, as I have climbed this mountain. This is no big feat, as you can easily walk to its approximately 3,500 foot summit. The New Hampshire park service says it may be the second most climbed mountain in the world (after Fuji).

Friday fun

You know, while I remain skeptical that Hollywood can pull off a film version of I am Legend (and yes I am counting Omega Man) , I must congratulate the trailer team for making it all set-up. This is what a trailer should be. We get a very scary opener and then an empty Manhattan. If they can sack up and use the book's ending, then more power to them. The new Invasion of the Body Snatchers looks pretty good as well.

One of my least favorite historians, Howard Zinn, now has a book for teens. Walter Kirn has unkind words for it. (via Reason) Have a look at a severe critique of Zinn's book from the left. I'm rather taken with this line, "But to make sense of a nation's entire history, an author has to explain the weight and meaning of worldviews that are not his own and that, as an engaged citizen, he does not favor. Zinn has no taste for such disagreeable tasks." If you are seeking a left of center history of the US, I recommend you try American Colonies.

Why check the calendar, it's Corpus Christi, time for the Devil to jump over some babies!

The NY Times Book Review has a blog now. Check it out.

Here is an interesting example of how the current perspective can differ greatly from the historical perspective. Airminded reviews press clippings from the time of the Battle of Britain and compares them to our current understanding. It's worth considering as we read the current press. I am by no means claiming for example, that Iraq is going well. Rather it may be that what is really driving the Iraq war will become more clear to the general public some years hence.

Here is an interview with the editor of the New York Review of Books Classics series.

The humor in the lolcats craze has largely eluded me. Somehow this one clicked. There must be something wrong with me as this one is making jokes about a potentially disastrous event.

Odds and ends

Sorry for the lack of posting, work has been really cutting back on my reading time. BLAST. Anyway, I started the very first Aurelio Zen novel, Ratking. It was a tad slow to start and it nearly made a premature visit to the goodbye pile, but I stuck with it and I am now quite entertained.

Did you know that Oregon=Israel and Virginia=Austria? In GDP terms at least. Check this awesome map posted on the Foreign Policy blog. It's part of their regular Tuesday Map feature, which is a treat for cartophiles.

Via Sarah Weinman, news that Stephen King is publishing a novella in Esquire.

Well I should have known that Christopher Hitchens would have something interesting to say. In this Powell's interview about his new book on religion the talk gets around to archetypes, which compels him to say "I wouldn't fuck Elizabeth Taylor with your dick." I of course have selected the most outrageous and least representative quote from this fascinating interview, which is really about religion and its place in society.

Items

Here we have ten books that, if seen in a rider's hands, would make you change trains. I've never seen anything truly disturbing on Max train in Portland, just a few novels. The Metro in DC was all programming books and policy books. (via lgm)

One of my top reads of 2006 was Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea. That book was about Irish and English people fleeing the Irish Famine of 47-48. His new book concerns Irish Americans in the US Civil War. The Scotsman has a profile on O'Connor here.

If you like food writing, this book looks like a must.

Robert Kurson had a hit with Shadow Divers, the story of the discovery and exploration via extreme diving of a Nazi U-boat. His new book is also about pushing physical limits. In this case, the book concerns an experimental surgery to bring eyesight back to the blind. The book is about learning to see again.

It's hamburger month. Portland is about to get Mark Lindsay's Rock and Roll Cafe which is to feature Yaw's burgers, a popular burger from the baby boomer days. The Hollywood burger bar owners across the street probably won't be too psyched.

A few diversions

The Guardian has a roundup on recent Falklands War books. I wager this will be hard to find in the US.

Have you got a lady and you want her gone, but you ain't got the guts? Or maybe you just want to get those unwanted houseguest out a little earlier. Well just lay a few copies of the Big Coloring Book of Vaginas on the coffee table and you should be all alone in minutes.

Here is an older (2005) interview of Neal Stephenson at Reason. In it he explains the varying philosophies behind his novels and how he got to the titanic Baroque Cycle.

Here is a positive review of the new Richard Morgan.

The NYT has a negative take on the new Nirvana bio, although the review itself is worth reading for an interesting overview on the story. In the same paper, this history of smoking and American culture looks fascinating.

Door stopper fantasy novels

The decision to read a fantasy novel is fraught with reading opportunity cost peril. Thanks to Tolkien, nearly every author feels the need to tell their tale in three+ volumes (Ian Graham's Monument is a pleasing single volume exception). And many of them are not worth the time. The Darkness That Comes After mocks one of the greatest offenders, Terry Goodkind, in this lengthy and amusing post. And finally, even in the case of a book worth reading, one can reasonably only a few series per year.

Fully committed, I am now going to complete the Prince of Nothing with the terse by fantasy standards (400 pages!) Thousand Fold Thought. I am also going to try my hand at the hyper-praised Lies of Locke Lamora. This take provides some a nice level headed perspective. Multnomah County Library shelves this in the literature section, so maybe I can count this as a non-fantasy read.

As I ponder my fantasy list, Nerd World brings yet another book to my attention. Fantasy Book Critic comes out on the positive side for this one. And the Darkness That Comes After serves up yet another possibility. What's a fantasy junkie to do?