Stuff I've Been Reading Lately Nov 2022

Stuff I've Been Reading Lately Nov 2022

Aside from the Twitter madness, you mean? Not that I'm on Twitter; I use a web browser to keep up with certain writers who've turned Twitter into a microblog rather than use other sites. As with their many predecessors, Twitter seems to be following a lifecycle that's endemic to internet forums. Rise, coast, dive. Forums are a community exercise, and when they cycle into the Asshole Dominated period they rarely recover. That said, I'm not sure that I know of any examples of forums, public ones anyway, that broke out of this cycle successfully. Facebook, perhaps, but I think that they may be inan unreplicable position due to age group specifics. Who knows at this point?

Brad Delong's Slouching Toward Utopia was a good read, I learned details and emphasis that I wouldn't have otherwise known. I have quibbles, especially I think that Delong does himself a disservice in how he treats 1970-2010 due (likely) to scholar's propriety. I wonder also if, coincidentally, Delong got to 1970 or so and started second guessing the continued utility of his framing device. Still and all well worth it for a good tour of the economic history most immediately foundational to our current era.

Mati Ocha's Terra Incognita and The Transcendent Green. Apocalypse LitRPG books, I liked Mati's voice, character, pacing, and very specific, localized settings. I also like that the inherent power progression problem is also well contained here.

James Haddock's books, Stonecutter's Shadow, Hand Made Mage, and several others. There's a real variety of settings here, some overlap but really this is a writer who's happy to work in similar/same worlds but not beholden to "series" writing if he doesn't want to be. That said, Cast Down World is explicitly labeled as Book One, and that's a setting that I look forward to returning to.

Dave Turner's How To Be Dead series was good... though now I think about it I might have already said that. If I did, it's still a good series!

As I look through the rest of my as-read calendar I don't see any others sticking out. Eh, the To-Be-Read has a T. Kingfisher book I haven't dug into yet, a Joe Hill book with unbent corners... I think that's about enough for now, I've got some stories calling me. Later.

A Mountain Rises Beneath My Feet - M.K. Dreysen 11//20/2022

Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts of a moment

***

A mob of egrets grazing the neighborhood yards is a joy. The decorations they leave on my little car, much less so.

This is one of those occasions that I hear the universe giggle.

***

I've seen so little discussion of the current political noise in reference to that which has gone before. We have few guides, granted, and each generation must learn these things, but we appear to be in a moment where those who know that certain noisemakers and their camp followers have predecessors in both movement and violence are not able to make signal. For every Tucker Carlson there's a G. Gordon Liddy, for every New Right there's a John Birch Society.

I understand why someone Biden's age isn't impressed. But those who should be able to support and teach aren't otherwise around to back him up. At least not vocally or with any kind of reach. Of economists and preachers we have plenty, but thoughtful political scientists can't seem to catch a break.

***

I have reason to think of the album this song opens, Straight on Til Morning by Blues Traveler. 25 years since its release; that year was a big one for me personally. The year I met the lady who's blessed my life since.

What's interesting looking back is that, at the time, if you'd given me a time capsule of later music by Blues Traveler, it's actually this one that my younger self would have told you was more appropriate.

I've been wrong before, I'll be wrong again. Really, the universe giggles at us, and often.

It's Business As Usual Again

when the week starts off reading an article in Science where someone actually dug into how the Hierarchy dominates faculty hiring... forget it. I read it, started to work through how you're better off playing roulette and this big long thing about odds in casino games.

Nah, never mind. Got better things to do with my time, right.

Then I came to the end of my week and watched this wonderfully done video by the Professor of Rock on YouTube:

Look, I know the story of how Paul Simon screwed Los Lobos. What David Bowie did to Stevie Ray Vaughan. And many other similar tales, movies books plays you name it and there's so many many ways that not just the money screws people, but other artists do as well. Like they've decided that because it happened to them it makes it ok to pass it on.

And look, Mick and Keith signing the rights back to Richard was the right thing to do. Stipulated.

After 22 fucking years of cashing those goddamned checks?

Though there is one hilarious moment in the middle of this week, driving back to the hotel room for a day gig trip and the streaming service spit out Nickelback's Rockstar, which I haven't heard in a good long while. And I still can't help smiling at the one lyric in that song that I've always wondered is what really got them put into such a bad odor with the cognoscenti: I'll get washed-up singers writing all my songs, lip sync 'em every night so I don't get 'em wrong.

No it's not a koan, but it was a giggle in the middle of a long week. Just glad I got back on the plane before Ian started making its way up the coast. My heart and help will be going out to a lot of folks who are hurting, and will be. Stay safe and sane where you can, people.

Bravo

Black Lucy and the Bard is a fun way to spend some time in front of the TV. The Nashville Ballet dancers enjoyed themselves immensely, Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi played a terrific accompaniment, and writer Caroline Randall Williams adds to the fun by narrating the whole thing (base on her book Lucy Negro, Redux) from the stage.

definitely worth the attention and time spent from this seat. Thank you all, and PBS for the broadcast.

I Think So Brain, But You Should Wear The Catsuit This Time, It Goes So Well With Your Eyes

Describe What You See