Month: May 2012

Random 10 5-11-12

Last week. This week:

  1. “Man Out of Time” by Elvis Costello
    So this is where he came to hide
  2. “All the Way” by Frank Sinatra, guessed by Occupant
    And for all the in-between years
  3. “Julia” by the Beatles, guessed by Thud
    Half of what I say is meaningless
  4. “They All Went to Mexico” by Willie Nelson & Carlos Santana
    Straw hat’s packed up and gone away
  5. “Flowers on the Wall” by the Statler Brothers, guessed by Clayton
    If I was walkin’ in your shoes, I wouldn’t worry none
  6. “When It’s Time” by Green Day
    I’m sorry I don’t take the time to feel the way I do
  7. “Your Long Journey” by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
    Fond memories I’ll keep of happy ways
  8. “Elephants” by Rachael Yamagata
    Like you and I, they must have some temper
  9. “I Don’t Mind” by Slumber Party
    Remind me I’ve been gone for so long
  10. “Drown Soda” by Hole
    Just you wait ’til everyone is hooked

And so it goes. Good luck!

Separated by a common language

Today wasn’t too bad for a Thursday, even if I do feel like I may be getting something like a sore throat again.

Meanwhile, I finally finished reading China Miéville’s novel Embassytown. I’m usually a big fan of his work, but maybe he was due for a disappointment. It’s been nominated for all kinds of awards, but…well, here’s what I wrote over on Goodreads:

Disappointing, which is not an adjective I’m used to applying to Miéville’s novels. This one is full of intriguing (if not always thoroughly realized or convincing) ideas about language, but ultimately the book feels like a short story or novella masquerading as a novel. There’s a rich sfnal universe lurking in the corners here, other worlds and governments and alien cultures briefly glimpsed, but here a lot of it feels like window-dressing, or like padding, or like it’s there just because Miéville is interested in telling other stories set on different planets in the same universe. The book isn’t actively bad, but I never expected it to be genuinely boring.

Wednesday

Heavy rain this morning, which of course meant my connecting train was unceremoniously canceled. I joked on Twitter that the Long Island Railroad should changed its name to Because of Earlier Equipment Failure. (“We can call it BEEF for short,” it was then pointed out to me, which I think is a winning idea.)

The rest of the day continued more or less according to plan, and the rain even stopped somewhere along the way, which was nice of it.