Archive for January, 2008
Thursday music
Fiction Plane this time. They closed their set at the concert with this song. Lots of energy, great performance, fun to watch…but it’s still kinda freaky. I suppose I’ll get over it eventually. No sense not enjoying the music till then though.
The Police in concert - and a few surprises
So we saw the Police live in concert at the MCG last night. I’m still not over it, but at least now I can speak and write about it. It was absolutely amazing not just because they rock but because it was so weird to see them at all - they did break up in […]
AKC’s top ten dogs
The American Kennel Club has released a list of the ten most popular dog breeds in the US. Beagles have been on the list since 1915, apparently so that wasn’t a surprise. Neither were the Labs and Retrievers, but I was quite happy to see German Shepherds at number 3.
This just makes me want a […]The price of happiness
In his article In Praise of Melancholy, Eric G Wilson writes:
I for one am afraid that American culture’s overemphasis on happiness at the expense of sadness might be dangerous, a wanton forgetting of an essential part of a full life. I further am concerned that to desire only happiness in a world undoubtedly tragic is […]Thursday music
The Kooks. I first heard this at least a year ago and scribbled the song title (She Moves In Her Own Way) on a piece of paper so that I’d remember to get it. I found that little scrap of paper a few days ago - having forgotten completely about the song and the band […]
“Morality”
I’ve heard the terms ‘moral’ and ‘morality’ thrown around often and what irks me is that it is assumed that these must flow from some kind of religious foundation. So it was heartening to read Steven Pinker’s article The Moral Instinct in the New York Times yesterday. It’s a fairly long article and just about […]
Realism
Ian McEwan on literary realism:
The kind of fiction I like and the kind of fiction I most often want to write does have its feet on the ground of realism, certainly psychological realism. I have no interest in magical realism and the supernatural–that is really an extension, I guess, of my atheism. I think that […]Thursday music
Gosh the week passes by fast when you’re not doing much of anything. Well ok, I’m reading a bit, but I’d do that anyway so it doesn’t count.
This came out when I was in DC and is one of the songs that remind me most strongly of it, even though I hate the ending about […]Thursday music
The Magnetic Fields this time. This adorable but ‘unofficial’ video is by youtube user FreundKateFreund.
The best review of Kahlil Gibran ever
Expansive and yet vacuous is the prose of Kahlil Gibran,
And weary grows the mind doomed to read it.
And it just gets better. This was published in November last year, but it deserves to be referenced again and again. Via the Little Professor.