Mikey Erg: BON VOYAGE

I picked up this 7" recently. After listening to it several times, I'm keeping three of the four songs. It's good but not great. Erg plays almost every instrument. Can't help but wonder if his old band The Ergs performed it, would the songs be better? Sometimes a certain lineup can take the mediocre and make it memorable. Anyway, the first three tracks each start out strong, then sort of meander. I hear some melodies in there from The Bouncing Souls' Gold Record. The fourth track is a Beatles cover, which feels like filler — I'm not a fan of the Fab Four after their peak (Rubber Soul and Revolver . . . Rubber Revolver period?), so I didn't listen to that song with the most open of minds.

DUNE: Frank Herbert

Well, it took two months, but I finally finished listening to Frank Herbert's Dune. I give it two out of five stars. Can't believe how revered it is. Dialogue is laughable, and it felt like I was listening to a story written by a teenager or an immature college student. I'm not entertained by royalty, so it was a huge turnoff from the get-go. It's basically a Middle Ages drama set in space.

San Blas archipelago

I watch France 24's news summary once a day. Pretty cool: 10 to 20 minutes of world news. They had this piece last night about the San Blas Islands of Panama. Never heard of it. Watched the video a few times. Looks so idyllic, despite the warnings.

https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20210422-indigenous-islanders-seek-refuge-as-climate-change-reaches-panama-s-shores

The Ergs!: HINDSIGHT IS 20/20, MY FRIEND

Yesterday I finished listening to Hindsight Is 20 / 20, My Friend, a collection of outtakes, singles, and compilation contributions by The Ergs! Because it's 33 tracks and over an hour long, I listened to the first 15 tracks for five times, then I listened to tracks 16 to 33 five times. The second half is much stronger. I kept 21 tracks on my iPod. Can't believe it's only $5 at Bandcamp. What a steal!

Pfizer #1

Got my first Pfizer jab this morning. I was pretty impressed by the setup the Philly government, FEMA, and the U.S. Army had. Nice and smooth. Kinda cool how I showed up a half-hour before my appointment and I didn't have to wait. After getting my shot, I paraded out of the Convention Center, quoting Aubrey Plaza: "I'm gonna live forever!"

Charlotte's confirmation

Today was my goddaughter's confirmation. At the dinner I gave her a communion card (apparently that's my thing — giving an ironic card). Below is what I wrote in it. Don't think she was amused.

Ergs: "Man of Infirmity"

Been on a bit of an Ergs kick lately by picking up their collection Hindsight is 20 / 20, My Friend and the seven-track Jersey's Best Prancers. On the latter there is a great song, "Man of Infirmity". It has shades of their classic track, "Pray for Rain", but that's a good thing.

Blogger, I lied

Gonna quit blogging over at https://johnnyostentatious.com/blog and start blogging here again. My site at GoDaddy doesn't have cool tools like highlighting quotes or embedding videos, like Google lets you do here. Plus, here you have your choice of fonts, albeit limited. 

David Bowie: songwriter, artist, actor, father, prophet

The word genius get overused often, but I think David Bowie might actually be one after watching this interview from 1999 where he predicted the effects of the Internet.

MISS ICELAND by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

Finished reading it last night. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. Really enjoyed it, partly because I once spent a July 4th weekend in Reykjavík. I related to the protagonist, Hekla (reminded me of the creative output I had in my twenties), her friend Jón John (with him being an outsider), and her poet boyfriend Starkadur (his trouble writing, which is how I am now, though my lethargic pace is due to substance abuse in my twenties and thirties catching up with me). I didn't get the ending, but I enjoyed the characters and what life was like in 1960s Iceland. Looking forward to reading another one of Ólafsdóttir's books, Hotel Silence.

Miss Iceland

Lately, when not binging Babylon Berlin on Netflix, I've been reading this Icelandic novel. This passage on page 134 spoke to me:

He was a happy child, but the other kids gave him no peace. ... He was shunned. Children are merciless, but adults are even worse.

Poetry for Dummies

Finished reading this book yesterday afternoon. I give it 2.5 stars outta 5. Sadly, I didn't pay attention to the poetry class I had in college. This book was OK. I did learn some stuff, like poetry needs to be read out loud, and it has a good glossary in one of it appendixes. But the sections on poetry gatherings and writing it weren't of interest to me. Plus, it was published around 2000, so some of it's wildly out of date; and page 194 says "(see Figure 12-1)" — there is no Figure 12-1.

Weird thing was that after placing Poetry for Dummies in my bookcase, I picked up Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir's Miss Iceland, which involves poets. Cue the Twilight Zone music!

News, Podcasts, & Politics

Recently I unsubscribed to a bunch email newsletters I was getting, like AlterNet, Intercept, Jacobin, and New Yorker. I dunno, recently I have little interest in news and politics. I still visit The Guardian once a day and watch France 24's news digest after dinner each night. I can't tell if my partial unplugging is because Trump is no longer president, or if I'm in somewhat denial of the Western World slowing dying with democracy eroding and the impending Climate Change catastrophe. Also, I haven't been listening to The Majority Report podcast too much lately, though I've gone through periods where I don't even download episodes. Oh well, gives me more time to work on all the audiobooks that have been piling up in my Audible account.