Month: May 2010

Random 10 5/7

Once more from the top. Last week. This week:

  1. “Saturday Night on Utopia Parkway” by Christine Fellows
    Next to the plastic lobsters, a reverent homage
  2. “It’s Lonely at the Top” by Randy Newman
    Listen all you fools out there
  3. “Piece of My Heart” by Janis Joplin, guessed by Clayton
    You know you got it if it makes you feel good
  4. “Throwing Stones” by the Grateful Dead
    It strolls the sidewalks and it rolls the streets
  5. “Iris” by Live, guessed by Kim
    I liked the way my hand looked on your head
  6. “Suffer for Fashion” by Of Montreal
    We just want to emote ’til we’re dead
  7. “Volcano” by Jimmy Buffett, guessed by Kim
    No time to count what I’m worth
  8. “I Can’t Be With You” by the Cranberries
    But it’s bad and it’s mad and it’s making me sad
  9. “Life in a Northern Town” by the Dream Academy, guessed by Clayton
    Like Sinatra in a younger day
  10. “Both Sides Now” by Rachael Yamagata (orig. Joni Mitchell), guessed by Occupant
    And feather canyons everywhere

As always, good luck!

Thursday various

That’s one way of putting it

John Scalzi on Arizona’s new immigration law:

Backers of Arizona’s immigration law have been lately bleating about how they had no choice but to pass it because Washington’s not been doing anything about illegal immigration, but, you know what, you don’t protest your landlord not fixing a broken door by burning down the apartment building.

Uncategorized

One rabbit, two rabbit, three rabbit, four…

I finished reading a couple of books today, both that art therapy textbook I’m helping develop at work and Joe Hill’s most recent novel, Horns. I liked both of them. I think the former, once it’s finalized with figures and an accompanying DVD, will be a valuable resource for any beginning art therapist. It’s also pretty accessible (albeit not immediately of interest) to anyone else. Horns, on the other hand, was entertaining but also kind of problematic — in different ways from Hill’s previous book, Heart-shaped Box, though I still think he hasn’t quite written a novel as good as his short stories. (I’ve also really liked his comic book work so far.) Maybe it’s that Horns spends so much of its time in dark and evil thoughts, in its characters worst impulses — that is, at least in part, what the book is about — makes it a lot less fun than it might otherwise be. But Hill has a knack for creating immediately interesting characters, with whom we empathize, and I can hardly fault him for writing a book that occasionally made me uncomfortable. It’s a little messy around the edges, maybe, even more so than Box, but Hill remains a writer to keep an eye on.

On the way home, I bought a copy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo at Penn Station. I have plenty of books already — hence my short-lived “no new books” policy — and a brand new e-book reader in the form of my iPad, but…well, I’ve heard good things. I’m not really far enough along in it to say whether I’m enjoying it or not, but I am intrigued.

And beyond that, it was just an average Wednesday. The most interesting thing that happened today was reading about the Centzon Totochtin, divine rabbits, and the Aztec gods of drunkenness. It’s for a book on excessive drinking, whose cover designs were circulated around the office this morning. I particularly liked this image somebody drew and put on their blog.

Me, I just put this here.