...the past is history and the future is a mystery.
All alcohol smells the same to me, of sadness and loss.
My dad had a saying about computer-driven gear: Let a man get used to walking on a crutch and he can't walk without it.
Pinhead: "All is death, woman. All is pain. Love breeds loss. Isolation breeds resentment. No matter which way we turn, we are beaten. Our only true inheritance is death. And our only legacy, dust."
"I think babies cry when they're born because they're born with the knowledge of all the terrible shit that's gonna happen to them. That's why I never had kids. Every life is a death sentence. We just forget it later in life like dreams we lose the second we wake up. Whether we worry about it or not, the shit's still going to fly. The important thing is we're here. At least for now."
The Endless Rose by Carlos Maleno: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/books/review/new-this-week.html
A History of Fear by Luke Dumas: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/91059-pw-picks-books-of-the-week-december-5-2022.html
Winterland by Rae Meadows: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/books/review/winterland-rae-meadows.html
Been seeing a lot of obits on Hilary Mantel. Never heard of her, but I checked out her Wikipedia page and decided to put Fludd on my B&N wishlist.
Also put on there Hiron Ennes' Leech and Steven Novella's The Skeptics' Guide to the Future: What Yesterday's Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorrow.
I saved Antoine Maillard's Slash Them All to my Barnes & Noble wishlist: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/90321-pw-picks-books-of-the-week-september-19-2022.html
The Measure by Nikki Erlick: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/books/review/the-measure-nikki-erlick.html
Ever since I tried reading Kim Newman's Something More Than Night back in March, I've been thinking about Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, so I picked it up over the weekend at Barnes & Noble. Then I figured I might as well get Robert B. Parker's Poodle Springs (Chandler wrote the first four chapters). Wish I hadn't given it away. Oh, well. Was only about $10.
By the way, because of a Parker blurb on The Big Sleep, I tracked down the review it's from: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/08/books/crimemysterythe-big-text.html — pasted below is the first half where Parker shows what a great writer he was and how well he understood Chandler:
RAYMOND CHANDLER'S literary career began late and inauspiciously. Forty-five years old, out of work and drinking too much, he set out in 1933 to make a living writing stories for Dime Detective and Black Mask. He wrote too slowly to make much money. And most of his short stories are, at best, of their time and place, more interesting for what they led to than for what they are. Reading them, we can watch Chandler experiment with voice and point of view, trying out protagonists. We get our first glimpses of the rich, dark Southern California world that Marlowe would inhabit, a world that would be as completely rendered, and as fictive, as Yoknapatawpha County. Chandler did not, as is often alleged, capture Los Angeles. He invented it.
While Chandler appears to have written some poetry and done some literary journalism in his youth, his professional writing life began when he got $180 from Black Mask magazine for "Blackmailers Don't Shoot." He published his first novel, "The Big Sleep," in 1939 and his last, "Playback," in 1958. He was neither prolific nor inventive. His seven novels all rework previous inventions. But what emerged from the process is a whole much larger than the sum of its parts.
Chandler's baroque Los Angeles, with its juxtaposition of jacaranda trees and call houses specializing in 16-year-old virgins, is as tangible a location as we have in our literature. No place is boring in Philip Marlowe's world. Nothing is unimportant. Each place energizes the work, and Chandler's novels would be diminished if anything were removed. The people who live in Marlowe's world are equally inextricable. There is no elevator operator who merely runs the car and no thug who provides only menace. All the characters imply a life beyond the novel. In short, Chandler wasted nothing: no character, no scene, no word. For all its romantic luster, his prose is without ornament. It is as functional as a Shaker table.
It is, of course, Marlowe who makes this so. In his narration the American vernacular proves once again capable of telling any story without violating its own authenticity. But Chandler's power doesn't come simply from voice. There is vision. And with his wonderful negative capability, Marlowe sees both the jacaranda trees and the call houses. The trees don't redeem the call houses; the call houses don't blight the trees. Marlowe is indeed, in D. H. Lawrence's phrase, "hard, isolate, stoic and a killer." It is perhaps the price of living on the fault line where the American dream grinds against the American reality.
Marlowe is also compassionate, and funny, and we like him very much (which is perhaps his reward for recognizing that reality is the sweetest dream of all). In Philip Marlowe, Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious -- an innocent who knows better, a Romantic who is tough enough to sustain Romanticism in a world that has seen the eternal footman hold its coat and snicker. Living at the end of the Far West, where the American dream ran out of room, no hero has ever been more congruent with his landscape. Chandler had the right hero in the right place, and engaged him in the consideration of good and evil at precisely the time when our central certainty of good no longer held.
Bad writing is easy to spot, and easy to explain, perhaps because there is so much of it. But what makes great writing better than good writing remains unclear. I have gleaned where Chandler reaped, and I have spent much of my adult life thinking about it, but I have never been able fully to explain how Chandler can do what he does.
I give this novel 3 out of 5 stars. I listened to Egan's Goon Squad back in ’11, and while I don't remember much about it, I recall enjoying it.
Candy House was OK. Too many characters, IMO — glad I have a text-file app on my phone to type in the page number of a character's first appearance.
I almost didn't finish the book with the chapter about the tech head using data when trying to figure out if the girl he works with will date him. I'm not a fan of technology or its evangelical-like adherents.
My favorite chapter was the one that was mostly emails and texts. It showed how Machiavellian the entertainment business can be.
Glad I finished Candy House, though I don't think I'll be reading anything else by Egan.
Ambitious and talented, the two main characters let nothing stand in their way until they’re sucked into the Bermuda Triangle that is marriage, children and homeownership.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/books/review/porn-of-the-self-review.html
I bought Clare Chambers' The Editor’s Wife last night off AbeBooks for $16.31 (it's coming from Delaware, if the USPS does its job for a change) because it was never published stateside. Shame. Sounds interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/30/books/molly-young-recommends-books.html
I give this novel 2.5 stars out of 5. Didn't really like the anti-hero protagonist, but I think the author imagined readers being interested the heroine not liking her.
What was cool about this novel is the post Silent Film world that Vo created. I don't think she mentions any real world celebrities or power brokers in Hollywood, but all the archetypes are there: the king-like studio boss; the leading man the public doesn't know is gay; and the Siren Queen, a diva Chinese actress who is more ambitious than Katy Perry. That said, the supernatural elements were a bit much . . . if I was her editor, I would have had her tone it down because it distracted from the overall story.
Speaking of the story, it was pretty cookie cutter. What kept me reading was Vo's out-of-this-world prose — the chick can write!
Man, what a slog this novel was. Took me 10 days to read its 300 pages. Needless to say, I give it one star out of five.
The characters are really unlikable; and the plotting is so forced, it's like getting a prostrate exam with a lightsaber.
It's not surprising that Leisure Books published several of Pinborough's novels back in the day. Horror after the golden age of the 1980s seems to attract D list talent. Either they're imitating Lovecraft, or they're writing stories with wooden prose and cliched characters.
Insomnia. A novel so bad, it will put you to sleep.
Maybe I'll reserve Alexis Schaitkin's Elsewhere (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/14/books/review/recommended-new-books.html) and Ellery Queen's The Chinese Orange Mystery (https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/89878-10-most-puzzling-impossible-crime-mysteries.html).
Well, disco's not dead. Metric's latest album proves it. Probably the last thing I'll buy by them. I liked when the guitar and synthesizer had equal billing, as in Live It Out and Fantasies; but ever since Pagans in Vegas, it's been 80% electronics.
I'm only keeping two songs on my iPod, the ten-and-a-half minute "Doomscroller", which I faded out around 5:40 and cut at 6:32, and "Enemies of the Ocean", which I probably dig because I'm a tree-hugger. The other seven tracks irritate me— sound like cannibalizing of Synthetica's "Breathing Underwater" and "Lost Kitten".
Kind of a bummer that Formetera is such a disappointment. It's such a regrettable purchase that I stopped following the band on Instagram. Oh well, guess everyone's gotta jump the shark eventually. . . .
Thought I would log when I bought books in my To Be Read pile:
I give this novel 3 stars out of 5. I italicized novel because it's really two novellas in one. Cool gimmick how de Kretser and her publisher don't tell you which story comes first — you need to flip the book over to read the other novella.
I started with Lili in 1980s France. In hindsight, I should've written characters' names down and the page number they first appear (something I do especially with 300-page-plus mysteries where there are more names than at a teachers' workshop). I kinda lost the plot halfway through that story. Maybe it's because de Kretser is Australian, but her writing reminded me of Patrick White, who is the author of The Cockatoos, which The Cure did a song about. Part of the reason I make that connection is because one of Lili's neighbors, Rinaldi, and his girlfriend(?), Candlewoman. Was she a hallucination that Lili saw in window? I'm assuming Candlewoman was a metaphor, but of what?
Lyle's story was much more engaging. I liked how de Kretser satirized those that insist on going by the they pronoun with the character from the IT department. The whole story was really good of how Australia might be in 2040, up until about the last 7 pages. de Kretser totally lost me. Didn't know what was going on. Still, glad I read it . . . not as good as Emily Bitto's The Strays, but nice to read something from Down Under that leans on the literature side.
I give this debut novel 3 out of 5 stars. Was gonna return it to the library after 50 pages because I'm an old-ass man — I can't relate to club-hoppin' twenty-somethings. But Henkel's prose kept me around. Plus Berlin is one of my favorite cities.
I put Ottessa Moshfegh's Lapvona on my Barnes & Noble wishlist; I didn't reserve at library yet. The review I read in the New York Times Book Review makes it sound good, but the reviews at the Guardian and, maybe, the Washington Post weren't so enthusiastic. I'll think about it for now. Got a bunch of novels to get through first from the library that are in my TBR pile. Really want to work on them so I can read some nonfiction, like J. G. Ballard's Miracle of Life, Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, Dmitry Volkogonov's book on Stalin, and Ron Chernow's biography on George Washington.
“I’m not very materially minded,” [[Robert]] Smith [[of The Cure]] says. “As long as I’ve got enough money to buy books and eat, I’m not really bothered.”
https://www.spin.com/2019/07/the-cure-robert-smith-kiss-me-kiss-me-kiss-me-july-1987-interview/
I heard about this thriller in Publishers Weekly. Gave it 4 out of 5 stars. I appreciated how the author touched on class in a Canadian upper crusty suburb. The identity of the serial killer made sense, but some parts of the ending seemed to throw logic out with the recyclables. The death of the bohemian waitress didn't seem to make sense when her son kept quiet about some of the circumstances. Another thing I didn't like is that both the detective and the therapist went to great lengths to protect their families — I think the detective's behavior should have been a little different. But these are minor quibbles. You know it's a good book when you can't wait for the workday to end so you can crawl into your reading corner.
I reserved Ken Kalfus' 2 A.M. in Little America after reading it in today's New York Times Book Review: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/books/review/ken-kalfus-2am-little-america.html
I gave this novel two-and-a-half stars out of five. I italicize novel because it's more of short story collection. For the most part, characters only appear in one chapter. The story looks at humanity during and after a plague. The author has an excellent imagination on how society might deal with a disease that wipes out a great number of people. However, I get the sense that he wanted it to be melancholic, but I found most of the stories depressing. BTW: if you want to read true melancholy, check out Olaf Olafsson's The Sacrament.
One cool thing about How High We Go in the Dark is that a lot of the characters are Asian, with many being Japanese. Nice to learn a little about a different culture.
Oh, and some chapters were pretty touching, like the one with the pig. That pig was more memorable that some bestselling novels I've read.
Returned this novel to the library after 50 pages. I live in Philadelphia, so I took umbrage about "Little Russia" in 1960's Northeast Philly. Yes, there are a lot of Slavs in the Greater Northeast, but my understanding is that most Eastern Europeans didn't come here until the USSR collapsed.
Another thing I didn't like was comic books being central to the plot. Since I'm not 12 years old, I don't consider comics a top-tier art form.
I really enjoyed Hell's Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier by Susan Jonusas. Never heard of the Bender family before reading it. Jonusas does a good job of keeping the book engaging with so little info after the family hightailed it out of Kansas after their murders started to come to light. I gave the book four out of five stars on LibraryThing because it's a little infuriating that the Benders got away with it, though it sounds like living life on the lam wasn't a cakewalk in the wild frontier. What I liked about the book is that it showed how much lawlessness there was in the 19th century Midwest, not just the West.
I read most of this novel over Memorial Day Weekend (Saturday and Sunday). I give it four out of five stars. Good characterizations and the author does a great job of keeping things tense at a science station in northern Greenland with small group of people. And I liked how she name-dropped The Thing — ya can't really set a story in the Arctic without recognizing that '80s flick.
Some things in the last third of the novel confused me:
Nonetheless, very good novel. Nice companion on holiday weekend.
Since I bought Alien on DVD, I picked up the sequel, Aliens, off Amazon Prime. They didn't have just that movie on DVD, and buying the streaming version only cost one dollar more at $5 vs. renting it.
I watched it last Saturday and Sunday nights. It's held up pretty good. James Cameron sounds like a total asshole, but Terminator and Aliens are great films.
The one thing that struck me during this viewing is when Ripley torches the eggs in front of the queen. I dunno, seemed like a waste of time, since the colony was about to blow in less than 15 minutes.
Now that I own it, maybe I'll watch it 10 years or so.
Well, that's two books that turned out to be duds after listening to interviews with the authors on the Majority Report podcast (at least with Looking for the Good War, it got me interested in George Washington, so I picked up Ron Chernow's biography last night at Barnes & Noble).
I give True Story two out of five stars. I'm not a fan of reality TV, so I was hoping the author would shit on that waste of entertainment, but she's actually a fan. Though the book isn't all bad. She brings up Karl Marx several times, which in my mind is always a plus. And she did bring up a few examples of how reality TV is a mirror of our society; for example, The Bachelor's contestants are mostly white and straight.
Like a lot of nonfiction, True Story would have made a better magazine article than a book.
Caught this YouTube clip the other night, and it's fucking genius! Amy Sedaris and her friend said don't ever stress about getting your security deposit back, so might as well do what you want to your apartment. I've been living the wrong way for years!
"Though I find Twitter useful and amusing at various times, the world would be better off without it.”
Michael Tomasky, editor, The New Republic, email newsletter, 5/20/22
Read about A House Between Earth and the Moon by Rebecca Scherm in the New York Times Book Review this morning. Tried to reserve it at the library, but I got too many holds, so I put it on my Barnes & Noble wish list. I dunno, it's got some pretty bad online reviews from regular readers.
Since Apple discontinued iPods, I bought one final one on Thursday, May 12 from Best Buy and picked it up on Saturday — cost me $370.99. Would've gotten it from Apple, except that they sold out in less than 48 hours. Hey, Steve Jobs, that might tell ya there's still demand of that product.
I didn't really need a new iPod because my 256 GB from 12/26/19 still works. Best Buy was all sold out of that size, so I had to get 128 GB. Kind of a blessing in a way because I've downloading stupid shit lately, like Rancid's Out Come the Wolves (my old cassette copy was fine, and I don't like any of the songs I had cut) and one-hit wonders from the '80s; right now I have about 100 GB of music. I synched the new iPod up with my Mac and will only put music on it, no podcasts or videos. I'll still synch my old iPod with my PC and use it to mainly listen to podcasts. FWIW: both iPods have same songs, playlists, etc.
The Ridley Scott kick continues! I bought the Alien DVD on Mother's Day. Watched it twice, the second time with the director's commentary on. Fascinating to rewatch it after at least 10 years. 1979 was a long time ago. Don't think many mainstream movies today could get away with such slow pacing (though the first two Conjuring films came close in creepy, leisurely pacing).
Pretty amazing how much they did with their budget of $11 million; I'm sure there wasn't much waste. And pretty cool how the cast was older, with Sigourney Weaver being the youngest (late 20's) and Tom Skerritt being the oldest (mid-40's) — would've been nice if Scott went into more detail how actor Yaphet Kotto argued that his character couldn't die.
Read about half of this novel on Saturday and tore through the last 20 pages on Sunday morning. I gave it 3.5 stars over at LibraryThing, but it was OK. Reason for the high score is because of Beukes’ prose, Chicago's indie music (circa 1993) as a backdrop, and the time-traveling idea. Regarding the last point, I liked how she didn’t explain away how the house let the 1930’s serial killer travel to different times in the Windy City. Nice touch that he couldn't travel past 1993. On the minus side, it is a serial killer story — they’re so cliched. And I thought about 100 pages could've been edited out. Plus, it would've been a lot cooler if our heroine discovered the house about halfway or two-thirds of the way through the novel, instead of at the very end.
Even though think Elizabeth Moss is overrated, I'm still gonna check out the Apple+ TV series that's based on the book.
I finished Elizabeth D. Samet Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness over the weekend. Took me about a week to read its 350 pages. I heard about it thanks to review in The New York Times and The Washington Post; there was also an interview with the author on The Majority Report podcast (wow, can't believe it was all the way back in December).
Looking for the Good War was OK. I gave it two stars over at LibraryThing. The book doesn't really live up to its title. She talks a little bit how the movie Saving Private Ryan and Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation book mythologized World War II, but it's all scattershot, like a Chris Hedges book. Samet talks about Civil War times and the Vietnam War. I dunno, I had trouble following her mode of thought. Of course, her obfuscation may have been intentional — she is a professor at West Point after all.
One cool thing about the book is that it introduced me to the term “premature anti-fascist", which was what the government classified dissenters who were against countries, like Italy, when the U.S. was still friendly towards such fascist countries.
Another cool thing was that Samet said John Ford was a Confederate sympathizer. Makes sense considering all the westerns he made. Weird that movie buffs never talk about that fact of his legacy.
Since I bought the box set of Blade Runner recently, I thought I would rewatch another Ridley Scott flick, Prometheus, since it's on Amazon Prime. First time I caught the film since it came out on DVD about 10 years ago. I watched it on Thursday night all in one sitting — my hay fever started acting up, so reading my overdue library wasn't working.
Prometheus has held up pretty well. I still find it implausible in the the final third that Noomi Rapace's character would remove the alien from herself then be able to physically strain herself that would injure even a profession athlete. But I've stepped back on my criticism of the alien not being exactly like the ones in the Sigourney Weaver movies; I see now that the Engineers' creation is almost like open software where the alien is different depending on the hosts.
I've gotten into the habit of reading the lyric sheet, if available, of an album I purchased on the fifth listen. Finally got around to doing so for Smoke Or Fire's The Speakeasy.
Technically their third album (though they released some records previously under a different band name), it was nice to see they snapped out of the sophomore slump, This Sinking Ship. Where that album was uninteresting and self-involved, The Speakeasy is awesome and lyrically diverse with its comments on society at large. The album does seem to drag near the end, but I'm going to keep all 13 songs on my iPod. After all, it's probably their last album. As a band, they haven't released anything since 2010, the Year of the Speak Easy.
Tried reserving Kyleigh Leddy's The Perfect Other: A Memoir of My Sister, but my library won't let me because I got too many holds. Maybe I wouldn't have so many holds if it didn't take months to get ahold of a book. Hell, I got holds I placed back in February.
Took me over a month to read Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age.
In my defense, on Saturday, April 16, around 4:30 PM, I saw a mouse in my apartment. It hid under my printer table and overnight two of my white glue traps caught it. I took it out to the dumpster. When I returned to my apartment, I saw another mouse stuck on one of my green glue traps, in front of the heating-A/C unit; the bottom half of its body was on the trap, and it was trying climb up into the crack it had come in: between the unit and the wall. Maintenance came around, Monday I think it was, to stuff steel wool in the crack. On Wednesday afternoon, I heard some squeaking. I thought maintenance might be working on an apartment above or below me. The squeaking became too annoying to ignore. It was coming from a mouse on a black glue trap under my printer table, against the wall. And that night, after I went out for about a half-hour walk, the ugliest mouse I've ever see was on a green glue trap between the dining room area and the kitchen. Its eyes were bulging out and I have a memory of colorful eyebrows, though that could be a trick of my imagination. I think it was an adult because it was bigger than the one from earlier in the afternoon, and its long tail touched my carpet. I took it out to the dumpster ASAP 'cause every minute or so it flayed, trying to get out of the trap, without any luck; and two guys from maintenance — Jeremy again and this time Wes — came around the next day, Thursday, to again plug up the gap between the wall and the heating unit, and also to jam steel wool in other places throughout the apartment. Needless to say, I wasn't reading too much that week, freaked out if more rodents were in my living space 'cause Jeremy said the two mice from Wednesday may have been in there for a few days after he plugged my the wall/heating unit gap on Monday. All told, there have been at least five or six mice in my apartment since I moved in last summer. In the fall, one came in on a Friday night and hid under my black backpack on the floor. When I lifted up the backpack, the mouse darted for the aforementioned crack in the wall. A few weeks later, when I was enjoying my mid-morning snack on a Friday, I saw something crawling under by dining room table. Overnight a mouse's (the same one from before?) lower body got stuck on a black glue trap under my printer table. The property manager said maintenance was too busy to get rid of it, so I had to take the rodent out to the dumpster. Oh, and one more mouse antidote: the other night (Wed. I think it was) I went to take the trash and recyclables out to the trash room. The door was partially blocked. I pushed it open. There was an untied trash bag and an open pizza box on the floor. Next to the pizza box was a mouse wiggling around on a white glue trap. I assumed it was from someone's apartment and they had threw it in the pizza box. So I went down the hall and threw my trash and recyclables in other smaller trash room. UPDATE: I came home on Mother's Day at night and there was one mouse caught on the trap in my bedroom under the heating/AC unit, which was a bitch to get out cuz I wear garden gloves and use pliers to pick up end of trap (had to use gloves to grab trap and move it over lip of that gap), and there was another one under my printer table in the dining room area. The latter was running towards the window, so I'm assuming it came in from the kitchen. Not sure if the one in the bedroom came in from the kitchen as well. So far, the traps have caught seven mice, then there was that one mouse that got away back in the fall on that Friday night.
Anyway, Imperial Twilight was OK, but I gave it three stars out of five at LibraryThing and my library. It's not really about the actual Imperial War, but the events leading up to it. The title is a little misleading, but I'm glad I read it. Don't know why it was such a tough read. Platt's prose isn't dense like other academics (I'm talking about you, Joseph Tainter!) and there weren't an overwhelming number of historical figures to keep track of. I dunno, maybe it comes down to length. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if it were between 300 and 400 pages, instead of 500 pages. And it's probably the only book I'll read about that war . . . would've been nice if more chapters were devoted to the battles, instead of just one chapter.
Oh well, I got an overdue library book to start reading now. It, like the two library holds waiting for me, are nonfiction. Can't wait to finish reading them so I can dive into a novel in my TBR pile. I'm thinking Lauren Beukes' The Shining Girls, then I can watch the film adaption on Apple+, before I cancel it in the summer, after watching the third season of For All Mankind, which premiers sometime in June.
Been meaning to do this for a while, so last week I created a Cheese playlist: 1980s one-hit wonders. Below are songs that didn't make the cut, followed by the 100 songs on the playlist. I tried to stay between 1981 and 1987 because that's what really defined the decade, and my playlist is mostly U.S.-based, though I did include Ultravox's "Vienna" because it's such a great song. When I think of Biz Markie and Rob Base, that's more like 1990. And I didn't include The McKenzie Brothers' "Take Off" because I don't consider that a one-hit wonder, since they also had "The Twelve Days of Christmas".
Wes Clark, Jr. retweeted this on March 28th. Keep thinking of the line “Unfortunately, the old adage that geography is destiny seems to be true.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/28/a-letter-to-the-people-of-mariupol
Whatever you do, do not lay down your arms.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I spent three and a half years of my life where you are now – completely encircled by enemy troops bent on my people’s wholesale destruction. I am familiar with the anguish, frustration, fear, and desperation that you must be feeling. But let me give you the good news first: You will prevail. There is no doubt in my mind that Russian troops will never conquer Mariupol.
For one thing, they do not have the manpower to do so. It takes a lot more troops to occupy and control a city of more than 400,000. The Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina laid siege to our capital of Sarajevo and shelled it for three and a half years, without ever managing to enter. The Russian armed forces do not have the fighting spirit and are nowhere near the determination of the defenders of Mariupol.
I am no military professional or military historian, but I maintain that the Ukrainian military is the best fighting organisation in the world at this time. The Russian military is simply not willing or capable of paying the price to occupy your city.
Let me also give you the bad news: you will pay for your freedom with your lives and the lives of your loved ones – your brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. With every step, you will lose those you could not imagine your lives without. This is not just a war between Russian invaders and Ukrainian defenders. This is an attempt at politicide. The Russian goal is not just to conquer Ukraine, but to wipe Ukraine, as a state, off the map, relegating your history, culture, and people to a footnote in the history books to be written by the future likes of Ivan Ilyin and Aleksandr Dugin.
Now, let me tell you about what comes after. For you, it is never going to be over. This war has already hijacked your lives and the best you can do is embrace the fate that has been thrust upon you. History has been unusually cruel to you. In this war, you are fighting not only for yourselves but for future generations that are yet to be born. It is a crushing burden that you have not asked to bear. To make matters worse, you are also fighting this war on behalf of an ungrateful continent that cares more about warming up its homes with Russian gas than saving your children from bombs and starvation.
Whatever you do, there is one notion you should never entertain: laying down your arms. As we learned from the Serbs in Bosnia, the Russians can only exterminate you – and they certainly will – if you are unarmed. Allowing yourselves to be disarmed is the quickest way to a mass grave.
Indeed, historically, the Russian military is no stranger to this precept – recall for instance the Katyn forest massacre of 1940. Your own history is also full of examples of Russian brutality. The alternative to fighting off the present Russian invasion is something akin to Holodomor. You are paying with thousands of lives to avoid losing millions.
I know this is difficult to remember as Russian artillery is raining down upon you. I know it is of little to no consolation to the many thousands of children displaced in Ukraine or in refugee camps who will grow up without their parents. Having lost my own father to the ravages of war, I know exactly the gaping hole in the heart that this loss results in. However, I must say that I have only come to fully appreciate my own father’s sacrifice after witnessing the tremendous bravery of Ukraine’s people. I hope that this holds for you at least some meaning and tells you of the enormous inspiration that your courageous fight has been to the entire world.
There are many parallels to be drawn between our war for Bosnia and your war for Ukraine. In the 1990s, we too were fighting against a larger neighbour, ruled by a deranged autocrat who sought to rob us of our lives, freedom and identity as a distinct and sovereign people. However, the dissolution of Yugoslavia was of far less consequence beyond the region than the fight for Ukraine. The fate of the world is literally being decided on the Ukrainian chernozem.
Unfortunately, the old adage that geography is destiny seems to be true. In that respect, the only thing worse than sharing a border with Serbia is sharing a border with Russia.
Finally, you need to know that we see you. You are not fighting in the dark. When this is over – and it will be over, when the Russians have withdrawn in shame and defeat, I hope to come to Mariupol to listen to your stories, because that is all that you will be left with. When this is over, I hope to come to a free Mariupol and a free Ukraine to pay homage to your sacrifice.
Two nonfiction books look promising, Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen and The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848–1898 by Dominic Green. Haven't reserved them yet.
Cohen (How to Write Like Tolstoy), former publishing director of Hodder & Stoughton in the U.K., demystifies the act of history-making in this sweeping survey. He documents how European history was shaped by Greek philosophy, Roman mythology, and Judeo-Christian theology and formalized as a discipline by 19th-century German scholar Leopold von Ranke and others. Along the way, he profiles noteworthy historical figures including Isaac ibn Yashush, a Jewish physician living in 11th-century Spain who cataloged inconsistencies in the Pentateuch, and Marc Bloch, a historian turned French Resistance fighter who was executed by the Nazis in 1944. Elsewhere, Cohen examines academic debates over the ethical limits of revisionist history, analyzes the influence of cinema and digital technologies on historical scholarship, and compares ancient historians such as Thucydides and Herodotus, who “wrote to be read aloud,” with Hamilton playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda. Though the biographical minutia threatens to overwhelm, Cohen makes a persuasive argument that history is created by historians as much as by politics, war, economics, and other forces, and convincingly shows how “the rivalries of scholars, the demands of patronage, the need to make a living, physical disabilities, changing fashions, cultural pressures, religious beliefs, patriotic sensibilities, love affairs,” and other human concerns have shaped the understanding of the world. The result is a fascinating and finely wrought history of history.
Critic and historian Green (Three Empires on the Nile) delivers an incisive study of the Western world’s shift from institutional religion to more personal beliefs in the second half of the 19th century. He contends that interaction between “innate religiosity” on the one hand and science and technology on the other produced “the irrational appeals to salvation by nationalism, socialism, and racism that derailed the global civilization, once in 1914 and again in 1939.” Not all the era’s “isms” were so catastrophic, however. The Transcendentalism of Emerson and Thoreau, the Spiritualism of John and Margaret Fox, and the protofeminism of Elizabeth Cady Stanton either encouraged Westerners to take in ideas from the Middle and Far East or expanded the rights-based society first espoused by John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. Green also explores how Charles Darwin’s theories about the “common origins” of all species were disputed by “polygenists” including Josiah Clark Nott and George Robins Gliddon, who believed in “fixed racial differences” between Africans and Europeans, and documents how composer Richard Wagner’s racist ideas were eventually rejected by his devotee, Friedrich Nietzsche, whose conception of the Übermensch looked beyond simplistic moralizing and dubious racial claims. Throughout, Green draws illuminating connections between these transformational thinkers and briskly contextualizes the political, economic, and technological shocks of their epoch. This is intellectual history at its most comprehensive and convincing.
Finished watching the 13th episode of the Blade Runner: Black Lotus series. Very good! The script was a little clichéd in spots and the animation at times felt like I was watching a 1990's video game, but I enjoyed it. Immersed me into the Blade Runner world. Last night, after finishing up Black Lotus, my hay fever had me wiped out, so I finally watched the three short films that were prequels to Blade Runner 2049.
I'm on the fence of buying the four-disc collector's edition of the 1982 film. It's about $60, allegedly new on Amazon from a reseller. I have The Final Cut on DVD, but I don't like how it axed the voiceover and VHS ending with Harrison Ford and Sean Young's characters riding in a car into the countryside. The voiceover was cool 'cause it gave the film a 1940's film noir feel, even though it's supposed to be set in 2019. Sometimes studio notes are make a movie improve a director's "vision".
Oh, and I picked up the score to Black Lotus. It is awesome! Little pricey at $18.34 for 32 tracks (though about a third aren't even two minutes), clocking in at 74 minutes. Listening to it now. I've already added it to my Electro Instro playlist with the Mr Brooks soundtrack, the two albums and one EP from 65daysofstatic, the Contagion soundtrack, Tweaker's instro album, and bis' Low Level.
Pretty cool: The Cure Ukraine T-shirt I bought on March 15 arrived in the mail today. Proceeds are supposed to go to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). It came with a badge (button, for you North Americans). I also purchased a "Primary" mug. It'll all go well with the two-row studded belt I bought recently at Crash Bang Boom at 4th & South Streets.
Finished watching the fourth season on Monday night. I had expected to only watch the penultimate episode because I purchased the season on Amazon and they made an episode available one week after it aired; however, the last two episodes (7 & 8) were available Sunday night around midnight.
I don't regret buying the season, but I'm glad it's over. Show got progressively worse with each season. I was reading reviews of the last episode on Variety and The Guardian, and one writer mentioned that the first season's showrunner, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, wrote the show into a corner at the end of the first season. I think that writer was right. Plus, it didn't help having a different showrunner each season . . . what kind of continuity is that? They probably should have ended it after the second or third season.
The series really lost its way. What made it alluring was that Villanelle was an antihero you were repulsed by, but still sympathized with in some sick way. Of course, that may be an unreliable observation because actress Jodie Comer is so beautiful.
I will give props for not showing the face of the members of The Twelve that Villanelle kills near the end of the series. I dunno, kinda of a bummer when creators have a gift like this series and just go off in unentertaining directions.
The human race just might survive Climate Change. We're not dumb like dinosaurs.
It's been almost a week since I read this article. Maybe all the money spent on my music collection wasn't a complete waste of cash 😁
https://www.phillyvoice.com/music-therapy-mental-health-benefits/
MARCH 28, 2022
laying and listening to music can provide a clinical improvement in overall quality-of-life and well-being, a research analysis finds.
Music can provide significant improvements to well-being and quality of life – not unlike the mental health benefits provided by exercise and losing weight, according to an analysis published by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Making and listening to music may present a "more attractive and effective" non-pharmaceutical alternative to other health interventions, researchers wrote. Their findings suggest music – either on its own or as a supplement to other forms of health care – can reliably improve overall mental health and quality of life.
"Many of us know from personal experience how profound a music intervention can be at times that include surgery, ill-health or mental health episodes," Kim Cunio, associate professor and convener of musicology at Australian National University, told The Guardian.
The use of music and art as health interventions has received more recognition in recent years, particularly after the World Health Organization found substantial evidence that music and art can help prevent ill health and play a role in managing and treating illnesses throughout life.
Previous research has shown music therapy can help reduce symptoms of depression and some menopause symptoms like hot flashes, sexual dysfunction and difficulty sleeping. It found music therapy could be used as a non-pharmaceutical treatment for the management of menopause symptoms.
"All of us are experts in music because we've spent thousands of hours listening to music, codifying it in our brain and responding to it," Cunio told the Guardian. "Is it any wonder that when we listen to music, something remarkable happens?"
In the JAMA analysis, researchers examined 26 studies on the effects of various music interventions, including singing, listening to music and music therapy. They found that singing, listening and playing music all had similar boost on well-being.
The researches noted that music is "reliably ranked as one of life's greatest pleasures," perhaps mitigating the uptake and adherence challenges associated with other non-pharmaceutical interventions, like exercise or weight loss. However, though the benefits of music are within range of those other interventions, they are at the low end.
"Future research is needed to clarify optimal music interventions and doses for use in specific clinical and public health scenarios," the researchers wrote.
In Philadelphia, Audrey Hausig runs a trauma-informed, music therapy practice that is designed to help people facing various mental health obstacles reach a sense of wholeness.
"There's a lot of therapeutic use of music," said Hausig, founder of Philadelphia Music Therapy. "That is wonderful and I encourage it, but it's different from music therapy, which is based on an assessment and a treatment plan, and evaluation."
Music therapists in Pennsylvania do not have official licensure, but they must be board certified, Hausig said. Although New Jersey and Maryland have passed legislation to license music therapists, advocates are working toward it in Pennsylvania.
In her practice, Hausig begins with a check-in for clients to determine how they're feeling and where they are in regard to their goals and understanding of themselves. For instance, when working with people experiencing substance abuse, Hausig begins by asking what their strengths are, what they're proud of, and what is important to them.
"I would ask about goals, and then present ways to reach that goal through music," Hausig said. "It might be writing a song about it. It might be listening to songs and discussing them. It might mean taking the instruments out. It could mean making beats together or singing. If they're adults, we would verbally process it and see what insights they got from it before moving on to another song."
Hausig noted the importance of the therapeutic relationship, saying it is foundational regardless of the type of therapy being practiced. In this way, music can strengthen the therapeutic relationship and provide a way for people to communicate with one another and know they are not alone.
For those using music or music therapy as a way to cope or overcome trauma, Hausig said it can provide them with the space to voice their stories without fear of reliving their trauma.
"It gives a buffer, and helps folks with their feelings," Hausig said. "Feeling it, understanding it, but not having to relive it can be really empowering."
Using music as a method of healing is not a fad. In fact, the earliest known instrument was made 40,000 years ago, signaling that music has been helping people communicate and understand their feelings for thousands of years. Even something as simple as listening to music that explores the feelings a person is experiencing can be empowering and provide listeners with the knowledge that they are not alone.
