Reading Update...

Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried (1990)

Sample quote:

"In many cases a true war story cannot be believed. If you believe it, be skeptical. It’s a question of credibility. Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness.

In other cases you can’t even tell a true war story. Sometimes, it’s just beyond telling."

Reading Update...

Mike and Harriet McManus's Living Together: Myths, Risks & Answers (2008)

Sample quote: "Cohabitation is the worst possible preparation for a healthy marriage. It increases the odds of divorce by 50 percent."

Reading Update...

Evelio Rosero's The Armies (2007) [Translated by Anne McLean]

Sample quote:

‘Profesor, he said into my ear, ‘they didn’t kill you while you slept?’
‘Of course not,” I managed to say once I had recovered from the question. And I tried to laugh: ‘Do you not see that I am here with you?’
And, nevertheless, we stood looking at each other for a few seconds, as if we could not believe it.
‘And who was going to kill me?’ I asked. ‘And why?’
‘That’s what I was told,’ he replied.

Reading Update...

Tim O'Brien's The Nuclear Age (1985)

Sample quote: "Is it uncouth to speak plainly? Nuclear war—am I out of key with my times? An object of pity? Am I comic? Here, now, digging, my wife and daughter locked away, the hole egging me on, am I crazy to extrapolate doom from the evidence all around me. Minuteman and Backfire, a world stockpiled with 60,000 warheads? Are the numbers too bald, too clumsy? Am I indiscreet to say it? Nuclear war."

Movie Update...

Bob Dylan's Unplugged (1995)

The best songs on this DVD are "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35" and "Dignity."

Music Update...

Bryan Adams's You Want It You Got It (1981)

Best songs: "Don't Look Now" and "Tonight."

Concert Update...

I saw Bob Dylan at the Murat Theater in Indianapolis on 10/31/10. The best song of the set was "If You Ever Go To Houston." The two photos were taken by a friend of mine that also was at the show.

Concert Update...

I went to see the Guided by Voices reunion tour at the Bluebird in Bloomington, Indiana, on 10/29/10. This video is a taste of that show.

Movie Update...

Imagine (1988)

This is the classic video biography of John Lennon. (I watched it on VHS.)

Movie Update...

The Road (2009)

This movie might give you nightmares.

Reading Update...

War Made Easy: How Presidents And Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death by Norman Solomon (2005)

Sample quote: "As an astute cliche says, truth is the first casualty of war. But another early casualty is conscience. ... Conscience is not on the military's radar screen, and it's not on our television screen. But government officials and media messages do not define the limits and possibilities of conscience. We do."

Reading Update...

The Baseball Maniac's Almanac (2nd Edition) by Bert Randolph Sugar (2010)

Sample Entry:

Players with 400 Home Runs And 10 Steals of Home, Career
Lou Gehrig...493...15
Babe Ruth....714...10

Reading Update...

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum Of Compulsory Schooling (Special Collector's Edition) by John Taylor Gatto (2005)

Sample quote:

The license I have certifies that I am an instructor of English language and literature, but that isn’t what I do at all. I don’t teach English; I teach school. …
Teaching means different things in different places, but seven lessons are universally taught from Harlem to Hollywood Hills. They constitute a national curriculum. … These are the things I teach … ‘confusion,’ ‘class position,’ ‘indifference,’ ‘emotional dependency,’ ‘intellectual dependency,’ ‘provisional self-esteem,’ and ‘one can’t hide.’

Movie Update...

Jonestown: The Life And Death Of Peoples Temple (2007)

This video has haunting interviews with survivors of the Jonestown mass suicide.

Movie Update...

Big Fan (2009)

I give four out of five stars to this movie.

Reading Update...

Keys To The Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (2004) by Oliver Trager

This book answers the question: What do Bob Dylan and the song "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" have to do with each other? Answer: Dylan played an instrumental version of this song to open his concerts in Dallas and Oklahoma in September of 1990.

I didn't read all 724 pages of this book.

Reading Update...

Bob Dylan by Daniel Kramer (1967)

This book has classic photographs of Dylan from maybe 1963 to 1965. Kramer's essay about the photographs is good too.

Music Update...

Enuff Znuff: Animals With Human Intelligence (1993)

Best songs: "Right By Your Side," "One Step Closer To You," and "Rock N World."

"Takin' A Ride" is a classic 'drug song.'

"Mary Anne Lost Her Baby" has to be one of the few, if not the only, anti-abortion rock songs since the Sex Pistols' "Bodies."

Q & A from LewRockwell.com

Q: “What is the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist?”

A: “About two years… if you are really paying attention.”

Very Amateur Photography

July? of 2010 by Meredith

Reading Update...

The Underground Baseball Encyclopedia: Baseball Stuff You Never Needed To Know And Can Certainly Live Without by Robert Schnakenberg (2010)

This book is hilarious and great. What else can I say about a book that has entries on Strat-O-Matic Baseball and Jack Kerouac?

Sample entry on Ty Cobb: "Crabby, bigoted Hall of Famer who carved out a well-deserved reputation as one of the game's archetypal bastards. An unreconstructed racist of the old-school Southern variety, the so-called Georgia Peach set a standard for villainy that no player of his magnitude has ever quite matched."

Reading Update...

Shoot Out The Lights by Hayden Childs (2008).

This book is from the 33 1/3 series of books.

Overall, this book was disappointing. My rating is 2 1/2 stars out of five. The music criticism in this book raised the rating by about one star.

The fiction part of the story was not good. Sample quote: "Bonny didn't die the night I went to murder her, but twenty-five years later she did. Sandy Denny didn't die the night she fell down the stairs, but a month later. After the fall, it doesn't matter whether you fell on your own or if there was a hand there to push you. What matters is who you touched along the way, and how fast they'll come running when you need them."

Blech.

Movie Update...

Weary Blues From Waitin' DVD (2010)

This documentary covers the years of 1966 through 1978 in Dylan's career. The best parts of this DVD are the interviews with a couple of the musicians that played on Blood On The Tracks.

Music and Movie Update...

U2: Live, Under A Blood Red Sky (CD/DVD)

Recently, the CD and DVD were re-released as a combination CD/DVD package. I borrowed the re-release combination CD/DVD from the local library and I have to say that the CD and DVD hold up pretty well. I had not watched the video release since about 1990 and I still liked it. Of course, the DVD has its turgid moments, but it was 1983 and Bono is the lead singer, so what do you expect?

Anyway, "Electric Co." still is my favorite song on the CD side of the equation.

Reading Update...

Bob Dylan Revisited (2009)

Overall, I was disappointed with this book because there are too many literal interpretations of the lyrics in the drawings. ("Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is most guilty.)

My favorite chapter is "Not Dark Yet" by Zep, which is simple and tasteful.

Is this the best bullpen cart ever?

Seattle Mariners, 1982

I read in an article that the Mariners' relief pitchers refused to ride in it.

Music Update...

Faster Pussycat by Faster Pussycat (1987)

I've been listening to this album on my MP3 player. I agree with Robert Christgau that side one is much better than side two. This band may be a poor man's Aerosmith or New York Dolls, but most of their songs on this album still rock.

Movie Update...

The Messenger (2009)

There is plenty of comedy relief in what could have been a very dark movie. I give 4 1/2 (out of five) stars to The Messenger.

Movie Update...

I watched this movie a couple of nights ago after I borrowed it from the local library.

I hope that this post does not get me placed on the TSA "Watch List." If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you should watch this movie.

Reading Update...

Michael Pollan's Food Rules (2009)

Sample quote: "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk." (Rule #36)

Classic Football

The fun never stops with this game. It's for kids of all ages, from 2 to 102.

Our Garden

After the planting (6/6/10)...

Our Garden

In the beginning (6/6/10)...

Reading Update...

Bill Kauffman’s America First!: Its History, Culture, and Politics (1995)

Sample quote: “Only when we restore to Americans their birthright—local self-government in prideful communities that respect the liberties of every dentist and Baptist and socialist and lesbian and hermit and auto parts dealer—will we remember what it means to be an American, first.”

Reading Update...

James Jones's The Thin Red Line (1962)

Sample quote: "A small group explored the little Japanese camp for booty and discovered there the first evidence any of them had seen of cannibalism. They had all heard rumors, but this was no rumor. A dead Japanese man, who apparently had died from artillery inflicted chest wounds, had been strung up from a branch by his heels and strips of flesh about two inches wide had been cut from his buttocks, lower back and thighs. ... The charred remains of the little campfire where they had cooked him was only a few feet away. ... They obviously had been given little or no rations to sustain them, and curiously enough nobody was very shocked or horrified by the cannibalism. In this mad jungle world ... it seemed far more normal than not normal."

Old-fashioned gas pump

I love the rolling numbers instead of the digital display. By the way, this photo was taken at a gas station that is located at a crossroads outside of Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Reading Update...

George Orwell's Homage To Catalonia.

This book is Orwell's personal account of his time as a P.O.U.M. militiaman during the Spanish Civil War.

Sample quote: "This war, in which I played so ineffectual a part, has left me with memories that are mostly evil, and yet I do not wish that I had missed it."

Reading Update...

Bill Kauffman's Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals And Front- Porch Anarchists (2006)

Sample qoute: "I wish to testify that in my best moments I am not aware of the existence of the government. Though I respect and feel myself dignified by the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution, I do not remember a day when the thought of the government made me happy, and I never think of it without the wish that it might become wiser and truer and smaller than it is."

When did they stop making these kinds of cassette cases?

Last week, I bought this cassette at a Half-Price Books for $0.50. The album is the Mamas and the Papas' "If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears." I don't think that I had seen this kind of cassette case. By the way, the sound of this cassette is ... awful. Does anyone know why the sound is so awful?