BORNE by Jeff VanderMeer

Finished reading it. I give it two out of five stars.

Kiwi jr: COOLER RETURNS

Nothing sadder than when a good band goes bad. I really dug their first album, Football Money, and was looking forward to Cooler Returns, but it's bit of a sophomore slump. I'm only keeping two songs on my iPod because most of the songs sound the same with the singer sticking to the same melody on each song. "Maid Marian's Toast" is decent with its unique guitar work (a slide guitar, perhaps?), and the last track, "Waiting in Line", is awesome with the lead vocalist hitting some high notes . . . excellent way to end things because that tune sticks in your head for hours — great pop song!

57.5

That's how many books I read last year. .5 you ask? I started one at the end of '19 and finished it in January.

Jack Frost

Listened to Jack Frost on Sunday night, then the bonus tracks (#'s 14 - 17) on Monday morning. It was a side project from The Church's Steve Kilbey and The Go-Betweens' Grant McLennan. It's still pretty uneven, but there are some gems in there like:

• "Every Hour God Sends"
• "Birdowner"
• "Providence" (Steve Kilbey's acoustic version is great too)
• "Thought That I Was Over You" (love this verse: Can't you hear the phone ringing / Can't you see the train has come / Can't you hear the Seraphim a-singing / Devil beatin' on his drum)
• "Didn't Know Where I Was"
• "Everything Takes Forever"
• "Bad for You"

Borne, I lied

I'm going back to attempting to finish every book I read, unless it's truly horrible, after reading this interview in The Guardian where the author said, "I’m ashamed of how many I have read and didn’t throw across the room at page 2 because I still too often feel it shameful to not finish a book, even a bad one."

Word playlist

Made a playlist with tunes that have "Word" in the song title. Several songs in my music library I didn't include, like:

• Arcadia's "Say the Word (instrumental)" — already have the A side of that single
• Beatles' "Words of Love"  — already included their "The Word", which is superior, IMO
• Bee Gees' "Words" — they're OK to listen to every once in a while, but not on a personalized playlist
• Barry Manilow's "Say the Words"  — see the Bee Gees
• Trans Am's "First Words" — didn't want to include instrumentals

BORNE by Jeff VanderMeer

Been thinking about this for a while, and yesterday I took a Slack poll at my day job, where I asked who finishes every book and who trashes a book if it's boring. I was the only one who voted that they try to finish every book they pick up, so I'm going to go back and drop books if they're lame. I did that back in the day but stopped because A) it felt like giving up, and B) I was speed-reading and giving up the book within 10% of its total page count. Part of the reason I'm dropping boring books is that I've found if I hate it, I'm then speed-reading from page 100 onwards, and months later I don't remember anything about it (Yun Ko-eun's The Disaster Tourist is an example of this).

Jeff VanderMeer's Borne is the first novel I'm returning to the library. I've given up on other books in the past several years, like Jasper Fforde's Early Riser and Sarah Waters' The Paying Guests, but Borne is the first one I'm giving up pretty early on. After reading 100 pages, I'll return it to the library on Monday. I saw Annihilation recently, a movie based on one of his books, and Borne is pretty much the same: the weird ideas distract from the overall story . . . weird is good but at a minimum.

The Reading Irish!

Started listening to Emma Donoghue's The Pull of the Stars today, and I realized how many great writers that Ireland produces: David Mitchell, Maggie O'Farrell, and now Donoghue, though it sounds like she hasn't lived there for years.

DEATH ON A PALE HORSE by Piers Anthony

Sad to say, the first time I heard of Piers Anthony was when Brendan Kelly mentioned him on the Road to the Skeleton Coast podcast. Anyway, I finished listening to this audiobook last night. I give it 2.5 stars out of 5. Some interesting ideas in there, but I got bored with it halfway through, which makes sense because in the afterword he said his draft was 80,000 words  — the padding he did in the rewrites was to the detriment of the story. Also, his afterword illustrated what an eccentric jerk he is. Didn't appreciate how he badmouthed publishers and especially editors. Like Mates From States sang, "Everyone Needs an Editor".

Bye-bye, Berkeley bike helmet

Just wanted to document my old bike helmet, which I bought in Berkeley, CA in 2014 or 2015. I needed a new one, so my sister gave me one for Xmas. I'm going to miss my old helmet (pictured below), but they say you should change your helmet every three to five years; I don't want to get hit by a car and not have the helmet protect my skull.

Being Human

Last week I finally got rid of my cable. Now I have only Internet. Comcast sent me their Flex console. I was fooling around with it over the weekend and watched Being Human on Amazon. First time I caught this UK series since it came out on DVD about 10 years ago. Still entertaining. If time allows, I'll rewatch the first three seasons.

HAMNET by Maggie O'Farrell

Finished reading this novel tonight. Wow, well deserving of the hype. I give it 4.5 stars out of 5.

Quip #2

Astronomy is poetry.

Twiztid: Generation Nightmare

I was watching the video for Twiztid's "Breakdown" last weekend, so I thought I would buy one of their recent albums. I picked up last year's Generation Nightmare, the first album I listened to since 2009's W.I.C.K.E.D. I'm a passive fan of the Dark Carnival. Only kept 8 of the 20 songs, though I may remove "skit 17" from my iPod.

Belated Lawrence Arms

On November 19th, I ordered some some stuff from The Lawrence Arms. MerchNOW shipped it out on December 21st. I just got it today. Glad I hadn't ordered it as an Xmas gift for someone.

Lawrence Arms: Road to the Skeleton Coast

I've been slowly but surely been listening the Road to the Skeleton Coast podcast, where The Lawrence Arms' Brendan Kelly goes into nerd-numbing detail over his album history. I'm currently on episode 13 from June 26th. The Lawrence Arms' Chris McCaughan is a guest and he talks about their latest album, which is the title of the podcast. He keeps talking about solving problems. That might explain why I'm not a fan of the album (only kept two songs on my iPod, "Quiet Storm" and "How It Rot"). If you're struggling with the songwriting, then the end result is always going to be flawed, no matter how much Epitaph money you have in the coffers.

Dresden Files

I think about this show every once in a while. Only ran for one season in 2007, but I loved it when I caught it on DVD in the late aughts. Just bought the DVD off Amazon today. Looking forward to it!

Delayed Agatha Christie

Once or twice a week, I'll visit The Guardian, New York Times, USA Today, and Washington Post. Usually, after reading a review, I'll reserve a book at the library or put it on my wish lists at Audible and Barnes & Noble. But last night I was thinking about The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Carol Memmott, a review I read over a week ago. Weird how the mind works. . . . 

SURVIVOR SONG by Paul Tremblay

Finished reading Paul Tremblay's Survivor Song last night. I give it 2 out of 5 stars. It's basically a zombie story, and I think they're clichés. And I don't like novels with few scenes—this one felt like a three-act play. Plus, one of the characters, Natalie, was incredibly unlikable; though, Tremblay did do a good job with the language of her British doctor friend, and his characterization of conspiracy theorists was spot on. Plus, I didn't know if a pregnant woman is dead for more than four minutes, her baby won't make it. Last time I'll read a book due a glowing New York Times book review and Stephen King tweeting positively the book . . . when will I learn he's a great writer but his taste in books is sometimes suspect.

http://www.librarything.com/work/24039248/book/194566596

Winter

Since I was babbling about the Death playlist yesterday, thought I would mention another playlist that's cool to shuffle. I started to create Spotify playlist, but J Church's "Winter Comes Again" and Laughing Clowns' "Winter's Way" aren't up there, so I deleted it. Nonetheless, pretty cool playlist: 49 minutes.

Death

Been listening to On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony, so Camper Van Beethoven's "Oh Death" has been on my mind recently. Thought created a Death playlist on my iPod. I would have done it on Spotify, but every time I go there, they don't have at least a handful of songs from my music collection. Too bad. This playlist sounds good on shuffle.

Quip #1

Opinions are like in-laws. Almost everyone's got one.

NOVACENE: THE COMING AGE OF HYPERINTELLIGENCE by James Lovelock

I finished reading this book yesterday. I give it 2.5 stars out of 5. First half is rehashing of past works, and second half is a little underdeveloped.

http://www.librarything.com/work/23210444/book/194378458