Ursula: Moving through 2023 with Books and Music

(buildings in the Balat district of Istanbul)

Hello from Istanbul! I'm Ursula, shortly to be 51 years old. I've been married to my husband Morgan for coming up on 12 years. We're both native Californians, but we have moved a lot beginning in 2013 due to his job as a mathematician in academia. We'll be leaving Istanbul in March after living here for 2 and a half years, and moving to Germany.

In 2022, I managed to read 62 books. That's just slightly short of my hoped-for goal of 65 but you know, that's how it goes sometimes. Morgan and I also fell behind in our goal of listening to the various "best albums of 2021" lists, so we're trying to catch up there and also get into the 2022 ones. This year I'm hoping to post a little about what I'm listening to as well as what I'm reading.

Some books I enjoyed in 2022:

           

Red Clocks - Leni Zumas
A Strangeness in My Mind - Orhan Pamuk
Miracle and Wonder - Malcolm Gladwell (audio; conversations with Paul Simon)
Sleepwalk - Dan Chaon
How High We Go in the Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu
Minor Detail - Adania Shibli
I Saw Ramallah - Mourid Barghouti (NF)

Books Read in 2023

     
.... January .... Ocak .... Januar ....
Pines by Blake Crouch ☆☆☆☆
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan ☆☆☆☆
New Animal by Ella Baxter ☆☆☆☆1/2
At the Edge of the Woods by Masatsugu Ono ☆☆1/2
The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, translation by Robert Graves ☆☆☆☆
The White Mosque by Sofia Samatar ☆☆☆1/2


.... February .... Şubat .... Februar ....
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner ☆☆☆☆

Abandoned
John Dies at the End by Jason Pargin

Currently Reading


Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia


The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout


Kaçırılan Çocuk by Robert Louis Stevenson

I'm looking forward to following your reading again this year. I suffered quite a few book bullets from you this year. I'll also enjoy hearing about your move and life in Germany. Happy Reading!

Happy new thread. I like your list in >2 ursula: . Wish you well with your upcoming move to Germany.

>5 labfs39: Looking forward to sharing reading and moving with everyone! I am hoping to continue a few themes that emerged last year in my reading but we'll see how that goes.

>6 dchaikin: Hello! Thanks for the good wishes, it is always a situation moving between countries.

Hello! Dropping my star. I hope your move goes as smoothly as possible...

How High We Go in the Dark will make my best of 2022 list too. I was very impressed with it.

>4 ursula: Interested to hear your opinion of The Cat Who Saved Books, which I'm interested in because of the title and the cover but know nothing else about (although I have to say that combination of things usually doesn't steer me wrong).

>8 Dilara86: Hello! I appreciate that, we're in a lull right now with things going wrong (or right!) since everything in Germany is closed down till after the new year.

>9 arubabookwoman: Awesome - it was certainly something! My daughter is planning to read it soon and I'm looking forward to what she thinks too.

>10 lisapeet: I'm about 70% through it right now, hoping to finish it before the end of the year. I am kind of unimpressed at the moment. It reads like a fairy tale for simpletons. I don't know, it's possible that I'm just cynical.

Since I said I will also be sharing what I'm listening to here, these were my favorite albums of 2022:



ILYSM by Wild Pink
Surrender by Maggie Rogers

Boom. Done. by Anthony Green
Little Green House by Anxious
Never Before Seen, Never Again Found by Arm's Length

Past Lives by L.S. Dunes
Being Funny in a Foreign Language by The 1975
The Long Way, the Slow Way by Camp Trash

The Hum Goes on Forever by The Wonder Years
No Oblivion by No Devotion

>12 ursula: I love that you’re sharing this.

Happy new year, Ursula!

Not only have I not heard any of those albums, I haven't heard of those groups/singers either. However, I like that there are worlds of musics still unknown.

>13 dchaikin: Happy to share!

>14 LolaWalser: Happy new year, Lola! To be fair, 4 of the albums are debuts (2 previously had EPs), and one band is brand-new. There's some indie rock, a little folk-adjacent stuff, a little post-hardcore, a little post-punk, some pop punk and a fair smattering of emo.

Here are some stats ....

Last year's author nationalities:



It's only the 3rd year since I've been keeping a spreadsheet (2017) that I've had less than 50% American authors.

I'll need to continue like that to make more of a dent in my total chart (2017-2022):



And here are some other overall numbers:

Happy New Year, Ursula. Good luck with your move. I also loved some of your favorites; I might have to go back and revise my 2022 favs. I loved the Paul Simon interview, and How High We Go in the Dark was brilliant.

I look forward to following your reading and listening in 2023. I hope it's a good year for you.

>16 ursula: Oh, I like your charts. It does require a conscious effort to reach a larger percentage of non-American books than American ones.

I'm very curious as to where in Germany you will land.

Looking forward to following along with your reading and new home adventures this year Ursula.

>17 BLBera: Hello and thanks! I know we definitely had some books in common last year, let's see what this one brings. :)

>18 RidgewayGirl: Thanks! It has also required (for me) reading a whole lot more books published in the last 10 years.

And I'll be in Kaiserslautern.

>19 AlisonY: Same, Alison! If I haven't been to your thread yet (I can't remember where I've been ... ), I will be soon.

John Dies at the End by Jason Pargin

Okay, so. I had vaguely heard some time in the past that this was a funny, weird book, so I checked this out of the library and thought it might be a fun first read of the year. I read for 20 minutes and then returned it to the library. It became the first "nope" of the year. Comedy is a weird thing for me, I have a narrow "sweet spot" for it maybe. Over the top can work, ridiculous can work, etc., but this one was not working for me at all. It just had too much of everything, and seemed to be trying too hard. Onward!

Better luck with the next book, Ursula. When is the big move?

Today I listened to one of Morgan's top 10 albums for 2022.



Dissolution Wave - Cloakroom

If my year was the Year of Emo, his was the Year of Shoegaze. This one starts with dreamy, distorted guitars and ends with what might be a tape running down, seemingly being stretched out and eaten by a machine. In between it's apparently a concept album about a miner in space (? I didn't pay a lot of attention to the lyrics, I have to admit). I liked this quite a lot; my favorite track was the country-tinged song "Doubts".

>22 BLBera: We're moving at the end of March, hopefully. Cats are eligible to go on March 27 or later.

Thanks for posting about music as well as books. These could definitely stretch my boundaries. Looking forward to hearing about settling in in Germany as well.

>21 ursula: I read this years ago, it should have been a nope but forged through it. It was a good choice to DNF.

Cool charts, love a good stats overview, how do you get the high quality in pics? My text always ends up fuzzy.

I wish you the best of luck with the international move this year! All my podcasts have been advertising a lifetime subscription to Rosetta Stone and almost every time I wonder if you already have one...

I also loved How High We Go in the Dark and while I didn't rate Minor Detail highly, it might be the book that I have thought of/mentioned the most.

>25 markon: I saw that your thread title included music too! I will have to make my way over there. :) I hope to keep posting consistently about the music I'm listening to. I don't know that I'm any better at describing music than I am at describing books, but I'll keep at it.

>26 stretch: Love hearing that! (Not that you slogged through to the bitter end, of course, just that I probably made a good decision.)

I host my photos at imgur.com. For most photos I post them with a .jpg ending but like you, I got fuzzy results on the charts. I noticed that their link for BBcode was .png, so I tried that instead and voilà! Sharp text.

>27 ELiz_M: Thank you, international moves are always .. interesting. I have not used Rosetta Stone! It doesn't agree with my preferred methods of learning a language. (I need things written down, I need to learn grammar, I hate not understanding what I'm saying.)

I totally get what you mean about Minor Detail - I ended up rating it highly mostly because I found what it did and how it did it so interesting.

Good luck with the move!

I wasn’t around much last year so I missed this at the time, but I see that one of your favourites from last year was I Saw Ramallah. I don’t read much NF but I was inspired to read this having attended (years ago) a reading by his wife, Radwa Ashour, at which she mentioned him and this book. I thought it was excellent.

I look forward to seeing what you think of The School for Good Mothers, on which I have a library hold (CR book bullet from last year!)

>29 rachbxl: I'll look forward to both your impressions of The School for Good Mothers. It's timely, but I didn't think it was as well-executed as it could have been.

I was getting ready to post about another of Morgan's albums of the year and realized I could also post about mine. I had posted about a couple of them earlier in the year in the 75ers group so I'll add those here and eventually (probably) write something up about the others.

From my list:


Surrender - Maggie Rogers (indie, singer-songwriter, folk pop)

Ah, this album is so good. She combines field recordings, folk sensibilities, dance pop, terrific lyrics and a powerful voice. My favorite song on the album is "Anywhere with You".

Roll the windows down, kill the radio
I'd rather hear the wind than hear that song I'm supposed to know
By some fucking bro

From Morgan's list:


Every Moment, Everything You Need - Deserta (indie, shoegaze)

This one started off with soaring guitars in wall of sound. Delicious shoegazey-ness. Solid all the way through but the first track ("Lost in the Weight") and "It's All a Memory" were my favorites.

>29 rachbxl: Yes! It was excellent. I also don't read a ton of nonfiction but I was very happy I picked that one up. How lovely to have attended a reading by his wife. They had a long marriage under difficult circumstances.

>30 labfs39: I am about 1/4 of the way through The School for Good Mothers at the moment and it's fine. It hasn't grabbed me by the throat but it hasn't bored me. That's all I ask about the first 25% usually! I'm interested to see what I think too though now seeing your lukewarm reaction!

>28 ursula: Huh, good to know. Somewhere along the line I got into my head that imgur was .jpeg and imgBB was .png, but that makes sense. imgBB is such a pain about file size, just never occured to me try imgur with a .png file. I'll keep that in the back of my head for next year.

Hi Ursula, Happy New Year and best wishes for your move to Germany this year!

Enjoying your music posts. I have not been aware of any singers or groups that you have mentioned so far.........................

>20 ursula: You'll be well-situated for travel and wine! And the end of March means you'll have months of lovely weather before you get to experience a German winter.

>33 stretch: I admit I didn't think of trying the .png option until I saw that was what the BBcode pointed to.

>34 MissBrangwen: Thank you! Happy new year to you as well. Things should start moving forward soon as people are back in their offices.

>35 baswood: I'll be posting about a bunch of different things as we go, as long as I can keep up with it. Both my and Morgan's lists were sort of focused in a specific area, with a few outliers. We both followed our tastes down a rabbit hole. But we are still listening to the 2021 "best of" lists from various sites because we didn't get through them last year, and now we are also starting on the "best of 2022" lists. In addition to wherever we wander on our own, of course!

>20 ursula: It's my understanding that German winter in that area at least mostly means cold, rainy and dreary. I'm not going to lie, it's my least favorite kind of winter.

Pines by Blake Crouch

First line: He came to lying on his back with sunlight pouring down into his face and the murmur of running water close by.

I feel like that first line is representative of what you'll get with this book: it's a variation on a theme, but it's a competent variation on it. That sounds like I'm damning it with faint praise, but that's not the intention. This is the 3rd Crouch book I've read (previously Dark Matter, which I loved and Recursion, which was fine), and one thing you can definitely count on him for is to keep things moving forward.

Anyway, the narrator wakes up, doesn't know where he is, or who he is. But thankfully he remembers at least who he is after a short time, and he discovers he's in a town called Wayward Pines where things seem not quite right. Discovering how not right things are is a fun ride, and there were definitely some twists I didn't see coming. I saw that Crouch said he wrote this trying to give himself the same feeling he got from watching Twin Peaks when he was a kid, and I didn't watch Twin Peaks but I get where he's coming from. This was an entertaining and fast-paced way to start off the year.

Note: this is the first book in a trilogy and it was made into a (short-lived, I think) TV series.

Reposting what I wrote last year about another one of my year-end favorites when I first found it:


The Long Way, the Slow Way - Camp Trash

This is emo - it's funny, that term has been undergoing a re-evaluation in the wider world and also in my own head. I used to think of it as "bands with singers who couldn't carry a tune" because that seemed to be the trend back in 2005-2007 when I decided I didn't like it. And in the wider world, there were various waves of emo - the one that originated with hardcore and was more screamy, midwest emo, 3rd wave emo, etc. We're apparently on the 5th wave of emo now and I'm realizing that a lot of it aligns with my default favorite genre of music: sad bastards with guitars. In this case, the guitars are often twinkly.

Anyway! This album just spoke to me instantly when I put it on. The musicians all have day jobs and live scattered across the country so the odds of them touring in Europe are small, but I'll be keeping my eye out.

My favorite song on the album is "Lake Erie Boys", but I like the last lines from the last song, "Feel Something":

You and me are gonna see this the whole way through
The people we used to be are gonna see us the whole way through

And the album from Morgan's list that I listened to today:


The Late Great Gold Dust - Gold Dust

This one is folky indie rock. I was actually reminded a bit of Crosby, Stills & Nash - not that there are harmonies like that (this is a mostly one-man show, I believe), but more just in the folk- and country-influenced style of the music. My favorites were "Proof of Life" and "Larks Swarm a Hawk", which ends with the following lines:

Sorrow's not the simplest thing to hold, though
I guess at least it's something I can own

>9 arubabookwoman: that looks good will have to put it on my list

-Today's albums-

From my top 10:

Boom. Done. - Anthony Green

Anthony Green has been making music for around 20 years in various bands like Saosin and Circa Survive, as well as solo. He has a unique voice, and it's undoubtedly not for everyone. But for me, basically everything on this album works for me - his voice, the addition of horns to his usually spare style, and the frank lyrics about addiction and depression. Favorite tracks, hmmm, I'll say "Don't Dance" and "Center of It All" (although "I Don't Want to Die Tonight" was the one that originally grabbed me).

From Morgan's top 10:

See Through You - A Place to Bury Strangers

This is an alternative/indie band in the noise rock/post-punk area. Sometimes it feels very much like noise rock, sometimes a little more like 90s alternative bands like Jesus and Mary Chain, and sometimes even like Cure-adjacent new wave. Morgan was totally obsessed with this album, so I'll come back to it again to form a better opinion. On a first listen, my favorite song was "So Low".

>41 ursula: Ah a connection at last - I am a big fan of The Cure's more depressing albums and also Jesus and Mary Chain have their moments.

>42 baswood: Yay! A point of reference in the dark! ;) I might have guessed the Cure would be one but I did not expect Jesus and Mary Chain, haha.

From my top 10:

Little Green House - Anxious

Another emo band, with a little pop punk thrown in. I saw someone comparing some of their songs to Jimmy Eat World, and although I'm not a fan of theirs, I get where the person was coming from with the comparison. Upbeat, poppy music with some more serious lyrics. Favorite songs: "In April," "More Than a Letter" and my absolute favorite "You When You're Gone".

From Morgan's top 10:

Plosivs - Plosivs

An alternative garage rock/punk band. This one surprised me by often being more straight-ahead rock than Morgan usually listens to. But something he said he liked about it is that it's deceptively simple-sounding, there's a lot going on when you really pay attention to the various instruments. I believe him, but I don't catch that sort of thing on a first listen. Favorite songs: "Pines" and "Iron Will".

On Saturdays I think instead of going in depth about an album I've been listening to, I'll just share an overview of the week. A lot of people share these "Friday 5x5"s of the week's albums.



Friday 5x5

I've got a bunch of different projects going on - we're trying to get through the 2021 lists since we did a terrible job this year, while also doing 2022 albums. And in addition to that, I'm listening to the albums Morgan chose as his favorites of the year, and also picking an artist to focus on and go through their discography, one album per day.

Here are the albums with the most tracks played* in the previous week:

See Through You - A Place to Bury Strangers (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Beautiful Things - Anthony Green (discography listen (finished))
There's Nothing Wrong with Love - Built to Spill (discography listen (in progress))
Sling - Clairo (2021 lists)
Higher Lonely Power - Fireworks (new release)

The Late Great Gold Dust - Gold Dust (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Being Funny in a Foreign Language - The 1975 (my top 10 of 2022)
Twin Plagues - Wednesday (2022 lists)
Pixie Queen - Anthony Green (discography listen (finished))
As Days Get Dark - Arab Strap (2021 lists)

Gris Klein - Birds in Row (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
11:11 - Pinegrove (2022 releases)
The Normal Years - Built to Spill (discography listen (in progress))
Ultimate Alternative Wavers - Built to Spill (discography listen (in progress))
Between the Richness - Fiddlehead (2021 lists)

Plosivs - Plosivs (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Lucifer on the Sofa - Spoon (2022 lists)
S - They Are Gutting a Body of Water (2022 releases)
Boom. Done. - Anthony Green (discography listen (finished)/my top 10 of 2022)
Would You Still Be in Love - Anthony Green (discography listen (finished))

Dissolution Wave - Cloakroom (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Every Moment, Everything You Need - Deserta (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Carnage - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis (2022 lists)
ILYSM - Wild Pink (my top 10 of 2022)
Mystic Sisters - City of Caterpillar (2022 releases)

*Often this is just which album has the most tracks on it, but occasionally it means I've played the songs on it more than once.

The album are fun...even if I don't recognize any artists yet.

Oooh, I'm more "with it" than Dan... :p Nick Cave to my rescue!

>46 dchaikin: Currently they're heavily weighted to the last 2 years, although I'm not yet out of the 90s with the Built to Spill discography.

>47 LolaWalser: *high five* I really enjoyed this one, he really paints pictures with his words. This is more general than Ghosteen, which was very personal, written in the wake of his son's death.

Interestingly, I just discovered that there is a book related to the new album (in title and some content at least): Faith, Hope and Carnage, about which the blurb at my library says:

Faith, Hope and Carnage is a book about Nick Cave's inner life.

Created from more than forty hours of intimate conversations with the journalist Seán O'Hagan, this is a profoundly thoughtful exploration, in Cave's own words, of what really drives his life and creativity.

The book examines questions of belief, art, music, freedom, grief and love. It draws candidly on Cave's life, from his early childhood to the present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years.

Book-related content, although ... avert your eyes if you are sensitive about repurposing books.

Went to the Feriköy Antik Pazarı today hoping to find some old books to take out the innards and turn them into sketchbooks. I didn't find any good candidates in Turkish, but one booth had some old French language learning books that were promising, so I picked those up.



I won't get around to rebinding them until who knows how long after we are in Germany, but I'm happy to have these waiting for me.

Just passing by, Ursula, to see what you are reading. Lots of listening to music going on, as well. Do you still do photography (I think I remember that from previous years)?

>50 ursula: That's an excellent idea. I've also seen old books repurposed as the sides of a handbag and these covers look perfect for that. Of course, I'd need to finish all my current projects first...

>49 ursula:

I have yet to hear Carnage although I've been following Cave and the Bad Seeds more or less faithfully since the eighties. It's unusual, there's only a handful actually living people on my musical radar. However, I'm always leery of learning too much about them, if you know what I mean? Distance is fine! That said, I was bowled over by Patti Smith's Just kids, so well written.

>50 ursula:

Cool idea. With those sturdy cloth spines they look like classic sketchbooks.

>51 NanaCC: Good to see you! Yes, I do still take photos, though less than in previous years since I was sick quite a bit in 2023. The photo up top is mine.

>52 RidgewayGirl: I have bound quite a few sketchbooks from old books I used to get from Goodwill and yard sales in the US. In fact, I'm using one of the ones I made right now. I'll have to post pictures. I've seen the purses made from them too, but that's well outside my skill set.

>53 LolaWalser: I totally get what you mean about not learning too much about people. One usually ends up regretting that. But I still do it!

These are a good range of sizes for sketchbooks. I don't always like to use the same size, so it's nice to have variety.

From my top 10:


Never Before Seen, Never Again Found - Arm's Length

I've seen people describe this as "a faithful love letter to early 2000s emo" and let me tell you, if there were early 2000s emo bands who could actually sing, I missed them at the time. The theme of the album is the tangled nature of family relationships. My favorite tracks (so hard to choose on this one): Object Permanence, In Loving Memory, Dirge.

From Morgan's top 10:


In My Car - Rat Tally

Funny enough, this actually could have ended up on my best albums. I think I originally sent Morgan a song off this to listen to. Anyway, it didn't end up on my list because I hadn't rated all the songs on the album by the time I was deciding. Anyhow, this is indie; her voice is light and her lyrics pack a punch. Favorite tracks: Longshot, Tacoma Narrows, Phone

(side note, when I originally listened to Longshot, I asked if he would put one of the lyrics on my gravestone. It is: "Who knew dying could be so fucking embarrassing?")

I'm not familiar with any of these, but checking them out on youtube - so far I like the Plosivs and Wild Pink.

>56 markon: Oh nice, I'm glad you've found a couple of interesting things!

Here are some views of my current self-bound sketchbook.


I took one of the images from inside the book and pasted it onto the otherwise plain cover.


This is the book - Round the World with Famous Authors (seemed appropriate!)


Here's the paper I used for the endpapers, and you can see that I bound the book with a mixture of white and kraft paper inside.

>58 ursula: That's gorgeous, Ursula. How did you learn the art of bookbinding?

>58 ursula: Beautiful!

>59 labfs39: It is lovely, Ursula. I am also curious about where you learned to do this.

>50 ursula: "avert your eyes if you are sensitive about repurposing books."

When I owned my used bookstore, people would sometimes buy books with this sort of thing, or some other kind of art project, in mind and would feel compelled to tell me that's why they were buying the books. It seemed like they felt the need to apologize or to make sure I was OK with selling them books for that purpose. I understood the impulse, but assured them that once they bought a book from me, they owned it and that I was fine with them making any use of it that suited their fancies. I think it's great that many people feel that books hold a special spiritual (for lack of a better word off the top of my head) quality somehow distinct from the paper and ink they're composed of, but a book being turned into a work of art is a fine destiny for that book, as far as I'm concerned.

There was also a local restaurant owner who would come in and look for old, somewhat beat up hardcovers that were not particularly valuable and buy them for use in her restaurant. She would have her wait staff bring customers their checks inside the books. I thought it was a pretty classy idea for a pizza joint.

>62 rocketjk: She would have her wait staff bring customers their checks inside the books.

I love that idea. I don't eat much pizza, but I would make a point of frequenting a place that used books that way.

Another way I see this mindset show up is when the Friends of the Library would throw donations in the dumpster. People would get very upset and berate us for not finding a home for outdated computer manuals and medical books, the millionth copy of the Da Vinci code, and soiled books. We were told to donate them to prisons or overseas libraries. Really? I was reminded of an article today as I sorted books for a library book sale. I can't find it at the moment, but it compared throwing away books to cleaning out your fridge. You wouldn't keep foods past their expiration dates, right? Or try to give slightly moldy leftovers to the food bank. Slightly off topic, but related to sentimental attachment to books.

>63 labfs39: This is an issue that arises on twitter every few months, like throwing away a mildewed and battered set of classroom paperbacks or that copy of Fifty Shades of Grey is going to deprive the world of something valuable. Once books began to be produced for mass consumption, their value as precious objects disappeared and there's an enormous difference between repurposing an obsolete grammar book and mutilating a pristine first edition of Paradise Lost.

>64 RidgewayGirl: That and some patrons thought that any book published before 1930 was a valuable first edition.

Yeah, people would say to me, "I just can't stand the idea of throwing away books."

You wouldn't believe what some folks would bring to the bookstore in hopes I'd give them store credit. Beat up, water-logged, spines broken, mildewed old paperbacks. I'd say, "Please don't bring me books in this condition." They'd say, "Well, I didn't know what your criteria was, in terms of condition." Often I'd just sigh and say, "Well, now you know." But when I was particularly aggravated, I'd say, "It's not just a question of knowing my criteria. It's a question of judgment. Have you ever seen a book in that condition on a bookstore shelf?" But that would be a rare occasion. When I was in the mood to be a smart ass, I'd say, "In the bookstore business we have a technical term for books like this." "Oh, what's that?" "Recycling.'"

People would come in on the weekends when they knew my kind-hearted employee was there and leave boxes of garbage for me to go through. I couldn't get her to pay closer attention, or maybe she was just too conflict averse to say no. She was a terrific person and a great employee. The customers loved her and she was as honest as could be. But she had one or two blind spots like that one. Well . . . don't we all?

Sometimes people would call me up to see if I wanted their full sets of National Geographic Magazines from 1909, or whenever, to 1994. I'd say, "No thanks." "But it's a complete set!" I'd say, "Why don't you want them?" Then they would get the idea.

But I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I loved having people bring books in for credit and accepted a pretty large percentage of them. It was fun.

>66 rocketjk: And whatever you wouldn't give them credit for, they would donate to the library. :-) Of course, the Friends love donations, and we made enough money to pay for programming, summer reading, etc. But sometimes I would wonder. Americans throw away so much stuff every day, yet there is something about books that stirs a residual reverence for print. It's not intellectualism, I'm not sure what it is.

Ah, the old weeding controversy. I've seen library directors hounded out for bad weeding optics (Berkeley Public Library, I'm looking at you). Anyway, I love those repurposed books. If I had any free time I'd love to learn book binding... I'll put it on the bucket list, anyway.

Well, that sparked a discussion!

I also used to manage a used bookstore, and I was constantly amazed at the people who thought a book had an intrinsic value just by existing. Exactly the types of situations you all brought up - moldy, damaged, out of date, etc. (Side note, it was a books and record store, and the same went for people who were sure their dad's copy of The Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet had to be worth money even though it was one of an enormous run, the cover was damaged, and it had been played to death.)

Anyway, I am not apologetic for my use of the books, I just wanted the pearl-clutchers to know that they should scroll on down. ;)

>60 bell7: Thank you!

>59 labfs39:, >61 BLBera: I learned it ... hm. It's been a long time. Probably from tutorial pages, couple of how-to books, and I guess YouTube. (I honestly don't remember how well-fleshed out the YouTube tutorial community was 11 or 12 years ago.) It's not that hard to put together simple books that will hold together reasonably well - a bone folder, an awl, some beeswax and some bookbinder's thread will do it. Putting covers on is harder, and taking apart a book to reuse is harder. There are also more complicated sewing techniques that are awesome but I never got into because I was doing this - covering up the sewing inside the cover anyway. But if you wanted to separate the covers and leave the sewing exposed, you can do really pretty things like this (not my work obviously!):



Then you're not limited by how thick your original book is either, although for a sketchbook that's less of an issue because anything over about 50-80 pages depending on the paper thickness becomes a little unwieldy.

Aside from showy bindings, it does take some practice to get everything to hang together firmly, but it's a fun process.

Hi Ursula, what a fun thread you have! I am enjoying the music reviews as well as the discussion of book repurposing. I went through a very crafty phase during COVID and bought some battered old paperbacks to paint on and use as scraps. But then I also turn down the corners of pages of books I am reading to mark my place...

From my top 10:


Past Lives - L.S. Dunes

This is a brand-new group made up of members from several different bands that have been around for 20 years or more (My Chemical Romance, Thursday, Coheed and Cambria, and Saosin among others - several of the band members have a lot of other projects). The sound is a mixture of their bands, and also more than that, leaning into the post-hardcore side. Anthony Green (mentioned above for his solo album, also on my list) is the frontman here so again, his voice may not suit everyone's taste. Also, there's a lot of screaming on this one. Favorite tracks: Grey Veins, Permanent Rebellion and Sleep Cult (a surprising doo-wop style ending to the album).

From Morgan's top 10:


Everything Was Beautiful - Spiritualized

Morgan's choices this year surprised me a little, although I think like mine they were partially driven by what he'd managed to listen to and rate in full. I completely expected a list full of death metal and adjacent genres, but here we are with this very throwback sort of sound. The title is unsurprisingly a Vonnegut reference (their previous album was called And Nothing Hurt. The things this reminded me of were all over the place - The Beach Boys, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Animals, generalized blues and country sounds, more I couldn't put my finger on. But it's more than the sum of its parts; those things are intertwined with more modern sounds. Favorite tracks: Always Together with You, Crazy.

>50 ursula: The one with the cockerel is a blast from the past! I never owned it, but either my mother or my uncles did, or it was on the shelves at the back of the class when I was in school.

>70 wandering_star: Thanks and welcome! I used to also have books to take apart for their contents and/or paint in as well, but those had to go when we first started on the journey of endless moving.

The books I read look like no one has touched them, mostly. I'm super careful there, for whatever reason.

>72 Dilara86: The copyright in that one is 1955. It's got some fun illustrations I'm looking forward to cutting out, scanning and using in other projects too!

>73 ursula: Fifties red-and-green illustrations are so distinctive!

>69 ursula: It does sound fun, Ursula. Something to think about. Regarding tossing books. I've been doing some sorting of donations to the public library, and some things are trash, dirty, torn, basically unreadable. It is hard to toss books in the trash bin, but what else can be done with them?

>75 BLBera: I worked with a literacy non-profit that held an annual booksale and we would get donations of decades-old SAT and college guides, not to mention the box of books a cat had peed on. I get that throwing away things feels wasteful, but giving that job to a non-profit who then has to use volunteer hours to take them to the dump is worse than just putting them in the trash can.

We also got donations of genuinely valuable books, which were then sold on eBay, and most books were in reasonable shape and we were grateful for the generosity. We also received a fair amount of porn, which was puzzling -- why donate that? And who would buy used porn? So many questions.

>76 RidgewayGirl:

MEN. Men WOULD. :)

>69 ursula:

The Folio Society published recently the Gormenghast Trilogy with such open threaded spines. Looks very crafty but also somehow... unfinished? My concern would be dust and grime, it can't be easy to wipe them down.

>74 Dilara86: True, the printing style for the illustrations was super common at the time.

>75 BLBera: I don't have a problem tossing them in the bin. Or cutting them up for collage, or whatever other use I think of. I'm not a sentimentalist at all.

>76 RidgewayGirl: The reference books - ugh. Yeah people would bring in stuff like that to the bookstore too. As if anyone needs that.

We also received a fair amount of porn, which was puzzling -- why donate that? And who would buy used porn? So many questions.

Most of them better not thought about too long!

>77 LolaWalser: Haha.

Hm, I don't know about for books that sit on the shelf. My sketchbooks endure some rough treatment anyway so they wouldn't be pristine for long.

The "pages"-related question in the Questions for the Avid Reader thread came at a timely moment for me as I'd just created another silly chart in my reading spreadsheet, showing author distribution over my reading 2017-now.



It's ridiculous looking! I don't read the same authors very often. Those larger chunks are often authors who have a multi-book series on the 1001 list. For a few years, I took one of those on as a year-long project each year. Cao Xueqin, Yukio Mishima are in that category. Otherwise, the pink 1% on the left is Martha Wells for Murderbot books, and there are a few authors with 3 books each, like Jack Kerouac (I think that's enough now, thanks!), Shirley Jackson and J. G. Ballard (I'll read more of those two eventually). I'm like an anti-completist!

I will be curious to see if I have any significant changes to this by the end of the year.

>79 ursula: it’s kinda cool

>79 ursula: One question: can you make it spin?

Also, I love how the lines at the bottom and toward the top are bending, like you've created a ripple in the space-time continuum!

>81 rocketjk: Lol And Jerry's a Doctor Who Fan?

>79 ursula: I thought so too!

>80 dchaikin: I could, yes, but I don't know that I could post the result here easily. ;)

Yeah, I cut off all the names those lines were pointing to because at this stage, it's not very interesting information.

>82 baswood: Maybe he is! I know the catchphrases etc (they're hard to avoid) but I've never watched the show myself.

So, today is my birthday.

Morgan and I went out to a Turkish breakfast for the occasion. It's probably the last one we'll do here before we go.



This was taken before the eggs and the pişi (fried bread, kinda like a doughnut) arrived.

>84 ursula: Happy birthday, Ursula! That looks like a delicious way to start your day of celebration.

Oh, wow. Yum. Happy Birthday!

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

First line: "We have your daughter."

Frida is a divorced mother of a toddler, Harriet. When the book opens, she is having what she will afterwards call her "very bad day". What that means is that sleep deprived, desperate for a break and also facing a work deadline, Frida leaves the house and leaves Harriet there alone. When she returns, CPS has taken Harriet. They give Frida the opportunity to try a new program where she can go to a school for a year and, depending on how she does there, regain custody of Harriet.

So, the school involves some sci-fi aspects, so be prepared for that. But basically the school is supposed to teach mothers how to be ever-present, ever-patient, ever-educational, ever-supportive. Which seems to be what is expected in general, anyway. I doubt that's even possible, and is it even what you want when that means subsuming your entire self into service of your child?

I liked a lot of things about this book, although "liked" is probably not the best word. A lot of it made me really angry and sad about the expectations on mothers. It went on a little too long, but that's my main complaint.

Quote: So it begins, Frida thinks. She is a bad mother among other bad mothers. She neglected and abandoned her child. She has no history, no other identity.

>84 ursula:, >86 dchaikin: Thanks! It was a nice treat.

Happy birthday!

>89 RidgewayGirl: Thank you!

Time for my weekly 5x5



Wild Loneliness - Superchunk [indie rock] (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Superwolves - Matt Sweeney & Bonnie "Prince" Billy [alternative] (2022 lists)
Everything Was Beautiful - Spiritualized [space rock/neo-psychedelia] (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Patient Number 9 - Ozzy Osbourne [metal] (2022 lists)
Married in Mount Airy - Nicole Dollanganger [folk/lo-fi] (new release)

In My Car - Rat Tally [indie rock] (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Past Lives - LS Dunes [post-hardcore] (my top 10 of 2022)
Chemtrails Over the Country Club - Lana Del Rey [pop] (2021 lists)
Link Wray - Link Wray [rockabilly/garage rock] (from a list of albums most influential to Spiritualized)
Household Name - Momma [alternative/indie rock] (2022 lists)

Ancient Melodies of the Future - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)
Keep It Like a Secret - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)
There Is No Enemy - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)
Untethered Moon - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)
You in Reverse - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)

Learning to Be Happy - Kayleigh Goldsworthy [indie/singer-songwriter](2022 releases)
Boat Songs - MJ Lenderman [indie rock] (2022 lists)
Raw Space - Authentically Plastic [electronica] (2022 lists)
Everything - Blankenberge [shoegaze] ("similar artists" exploration)
Perfect From Now On - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)

When the Wind Forgets Your Name - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)
Semi Sweet - Highnoon [dream pop] (exploration of older release after listening to new release single)
Every Moment of Every Day - short fictions [emo] (2022 releases)
songwrights apothecary lab - Esperanza Spalding [jazz] (2021 lists, incomplete album)
Dying Star - Ruston Kelly [country] (exploration from a song in my library, incomplete album)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week: I was doing the Built to Spill discography because they're a band that's adjacent to a lot of things I like, but I've just never listened to them. They're a favorite of Morgan's, so that was fun to be able to talk about it now. My favorite of the albums was 1997's Perfect From Now On.

Kayleigh Goldsworthy really should have appeared on my top 10 of 2022, I just hadn't rated all the songs by the end of the year. Favorite songs: Losing My Mind, Happy Now, I Want to Know. Anyway, this and the LS Dunes and the No Devotion (which I'll talk about shortly) will be appearing on the charts consistently for the next few weeks probably since we are going to see them together on one bill at the beginning of February. It's a dream show and we are beyond excited.

I'll probably come back and finish the Ruston Kelly album. I've been meaning to check out his music in more detail since he was married to Kacey Musgraves. Since then, she put out a "so in love record" (The Golden Hour), and then a "heartbroken divorce record" (Star Crossed). Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to things.

So interesting, even if I don’t know these artists. (I was happy to Ozzy Osbourne just because I recognized him, the only one)

Great lineup. Do you listen to albums all the way through at least once? (Apologies if you said so at the beginning of your thread... my brain is swiss cheesey on Things I Don't Need to Know). I do something called LP Club, put on by NY Public Library—it's like a book club but for albums, and the idea is that we all listen to an album from start to finish, read some of the background material the host links to, and then meet virtually for an hour to talk about it. What I love, aside from the challenge to listen to an LP all the way through and think about it as a complete piece of work, is that it's super all ages, with a rotating bunch of participants who range in age from I'd guess 30s to 70s. And I love it that the older folks are usually super knowledgeable about the music, not in an academic or tiresome way but in an "I followed Janis Joplin around all the little cafés in the Haight in 1967" way.

Happy Birthday, Ursula. Your breakfast looks yummy.

>79 ursula: I love your charts.

Oh, and happy birthday! That looks delicious.

>92 dchaikin: At least I hit one you recognized!

>93 lisapeet: I don't know if I said specifically, but I will note if I didn't listen to the entire album (like I did on those last two). When Morgan and I started doing these album lists, we would always listen to the entire album. Since we fell so far behind on the 2021 lists, we are letting ourselves do 4-6 songs from an album if it doesn't grab us and call it done for those. I will usually listen to the first 5, unless Apple Music has later songs starred (meaning they're most frequently listened to). In that case I'll either listen to those in addition to the others, or I'll substitute it in for one of those. Also for rap albums I will always skip songs with certain featured artists.

But yes, I listen to full albums. Sometimes it's more than that, but not less. (On this week's chart I listened to the Superchunk and the Spiritualized twice each because I had forgotten what I wanted to say by the time I was ready to write about them.)

The LP Club sounds interesting! What kinds of things have you listened to?

>94 BLBera: Thanks, on all counts! I enjoy thinking of new silly charts to make.

>95 lisapeet: Thank you! Turkish breakfasts are an event - specifically this style, called "serpme kahvaltı". Kahvaltı is breakfast, and serpme comes from the verb serpmek - to scatter or sprinkle. So looking at that table it's pretty easy to understand why it's called that!

Belated happy birthday! Love the "scattered" meals--meze, tapas, you name it I'll have it. They are great for dieting too, I found, a little bit of many things easily builds the illusion of a richer meal than it really is.

>82 baswood: Ha! For the record, no, I've never gotten into Dr. Who. I have nothing against the series, I've just never made the attempt.

>91 ursula: I love Link Wray. Also his work with Robert Gordon. Esperanza Spaulding is impossibly talented. Just an amazing musician.

Once, quite a few years ago, I have feeling really crappy about being dumped by somebody I was head over heels about and a buddy of mine, to try to make me feel better, took me out to see Built to Spill at a place called Slim's in San Fransisco and, I have to admit, I just did not get the appeal. Oh, well. To each his/her own!

>97 LolaWalser: Yes, those are definitely good for that. Although a little bit of everything leads to a very full stomach just from making sure to try it all!

>98 rocketjk: I didn't finish the Esperanza Spalding. It was not for me. I got through 6 songs.

I know Slim's! For me, I think Built to Spill will remain adjacent to the things I like. It's definitely Morgan's style, but not so much mine. I enjoyed the discography reasonably well and will revisit some of the albums, but it's not gonna be my favorite band. Although it is interesting that Doug Martsch (singer/guitarist) has said about writing lyrics and the meanings of his songs: "“... a lot already don’t have any meaning, or the meanings they do have are often more subconscious connections than actual meanings. I’m not really a storyteller and I’m not really a lyricist. If I could get out of the lyrics game I would. To me, it’s important that music has singing, and that the singing is actual words, and that the words, they have to be at least okay. They can’t be horrible.”

From my top 10:


Being Funny in a Foreign Language - The 1975

Oh, this band has confounded me for years. Their albums have regularly ended up on the "best of" lists, and so I've listened to them for that reason. And sometimes I'd think I liked them, and sometimes I'd think I didn't. I literally had hundreds of listens just trying to figure out how I felt about them. Then this album was released, and I essentially love everything about it. Most of the reason the band can be impenetrable is that their lead singer is really more like three sarcastic in-jokes standing on each others' shoulders in a trench coat. I could write a novel about my feelings and interpretations of a lot of things, but I won't! I'll just say that this record is concise, sort of synth-poppy, and excellent. Favorite songs: Part of the Band, About You, and When We Are Together.

From Morgan's top 10:


Wild Loneliness - Superchunk

Morgan said this discovery surprised him, since the band has been around for a long time and seems up his alley, but he's never really listened to them. This one reminds me a bit of how The Strokes and The Killers sounded in the early '00s - that kind of sound, yes, but also how it stood out from what was going on at the time. So I'm not saying that this sounds nostalgic exactly, more that it sounds fresh in that same sort of way. Occasionally it also reminded me of The Apples in Stereo, with their experimental, psychedelic style. Favorite songs: Endless Summer, Highly Suspect, and Connection.

New Animal by Ella Baxter

First line: There is a man with kind eyes and crooked teeth in my bed.

Amelia works in the family business, which is a funeral home. She does makeup for the funerals. She has a lot of interesting and seemingly well-adjusted thoughts about our relationships to our bodies as it relates to being dead, although she describes her compartmentalization and also how she copes by having random sex with men she will never see again. Then a death hits close to home and she doesn't know how to face it, so she tries something physical - in this case, meeting up with a man who takes her to a kink club.

Hm, I've been trying to write more about this particularly in response to some criticisms of the book I've seen, and I just don't know where to start, so here goes: Is it healthy to try something like that at a time of extreme emotional distress? Probably not. Is it responsible of someone to take her there when they know what she's going through? Probably not, but at the same time the man is not portrayed as a pillar of responsible BDSM behavior.

In any event, it's a continuation of her fumbling explorations of what it means to be in a body, and the things we do to try to be more present in it, or alternatively, escape it. I found it to be interesting, but if you're not up for some very frank passages about sex and sex-related things, this isn't the book for you at all.

Quote: It's good practice to use the client's personal makeup mixed with some industry standards. For an undamaged face like Jennifer's, you can just use an oil-based, full-coverage foundation. Chemist brands are highly pigmented and do the job well. Most of us are already using the makeup that we will wear at our funerals, unless something severe happens.

Musical quick takes (ie, partial albums that will never make it to a chart):

FLOWERS for VASES / descansos - Hayley Williams [alternative] (2021 lists, 5 songs played) This was terrible. There is a song called "My Limb," which goes like this:

My limb, my limb, my limb, my limb (don't, don't let go my limb)
My limb, my limb, my limb, my limb (don't, don't let go my limb)
My limb, my limb, my limb, my limb (don't, don't let go my limb)
My limb, my limb, my limb, my limb my limb (don't, don't let go my limb)

That wasn't even the worst song I listened to.

Senjutsu - Iron Maiden [metal] (2021 lists, 5 songs played) It's fine. I love some old Iron Maiden, and this didn't ruin anything but it also didn't add anything.

King's Disease II - Nas [rap] (2021 lists, 5 songs played) The song with Eminem was definitely the highlight. He can come up with something that'll make me laugh, like:

Like Rudolph and his homies when they pullin' the sleigh, yeah
That's a lot of bucks flyin' when I'm makin' it rain, dear

But as for Nas himself, eh.

Medicine at Midnight - Foo Fighters (2021 lists, 4 songs played) Sigh. The Pitchfork review said it best (words I don't often say): “Dave Grohl’s lawful-good lifestyle presents an eternal conflict between being unable to hate the guy and being unable to enjoy the music he continues to make.” There was one song that was pretty good, Cloudspotting, but then the next one was so insipid I quit.

Coup De Grace - Ransom & Rome Streetz [rap] (2021 lists, 4 songs played) I remember nothing about this.

Unlimited Love - Red Hot Chili Peppers (2022 lists, 4 songs played) There is no reason for this to exist. Anthony Kiedis' lyrics are trapped somewhere in 1998 and the music didn't have anything new to say either.

TYRON - slowthai [rap] (2021 lists, 4 songs played) Pro: he name-checks Jodorowsky. Cons: everything else.

GHETTO GODS - EARTHGANG [rap] (2021 lists, 3 songs played) I don't remember anything about this either.

25 - G Herbo [rap] (2021 lists, 3 songs played) He mentioned in a song that he was on Forbes 30 under 30, and indeed he was. Apparently he has a foundation supporting mental health causes. Good for him.

Street Sermons - Morray [rap] (2021 lists, 3 songs played) The first song was okay, then it quickly descended into preachiness and when the next song was called "That's On God", I was done.

>96 ursula: LP Club talks about "classics," very roughly, but those have ranged older stuff—jazz, blues, classic rock—to punk, metal, and contemporary. Last few we did were Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin, the Beatles' Revolver, Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, Randy Newman's Sail Away, Beyoncé's Lemonade, Lou Reed's Transformer. Next up is The Wild Tchoupitoulas, for Mardi Gras. Signup is here, if you're interested (and you can get on the mailing list that way too). Not sure how the time differences work out.

>102 ursula: well, I’ve heard of all those dated bands you thrashed. Surprised Iron Maiden and the Red Hot Chillie Peppers are still putting out music. I’ve liked some Foo Fighters in the not so distant past.

>101 ursula: Onto the straining wishlist it goes.

>103 lisapeet: Interesting! Time differences are terrible, I'm currently 8 hours ahead of eastern time.

>104 dchaikin: A couple of things:

1. I express strong opinions, but I'm always open to another point of view.
2. I like stuff from all of those bands! I really do love old Maiden (from The Number of the Beast up to Seventh Son of a Seventh Son), I've seen the Red Hot Chili Peppers live twice, I have a couple of Foo Fighters albums that I think are great (the first 4, essentially), and I've also seen them live. (Morgan's first concert was the Foo Fighters!)

Anyway, if Maiden and RHCP were doing anything of interest, I'd be up for it. But these albums could have happened any time in the last 30 years, and they still would have only been another entry in the discography, not anything particularly great. As for the Foos, the music was fine (if again not very interesting), but I had to quit at:

I've been waiting on a war since I was young
Since I was a little boy with a toy gun
Never really wanted to be number one
Just wanted to love everyone
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this than that?

Last week I listened to Ozzy's Patient Number 9. It was pretty much standard Ozzy too but he had guest guitarists and it sounded at least like it belonged in this stage of his career, or in 2022. In recent years he's done things like a song with Post Malone; he's still interested in what's going on in music, or collaborating, or at least trying to bring something new to his own sound.

Also, sometimes I use a single person's response as a jumping-off point, and sometimes I use numbered lists, but neither means I'm upset or lecturing, or even directing the entirety of my comment at that single person.

(I feel like I have to explain because I have Resting Bitch Face even in text.)

>105 nancyewhite: It caused all sorts of reactions from me, but I always wanted to pick it up again.

>106 ursula: thanks for explaining. Please keep up with the strong opinions. It’s sometimes hard to see the different ways an electronic comment translates from thought while writing to being read in context. My comment was meant to be playful, and appreciative. (And a little self-critical on my own dated tastes.) Hopefully it came across that way.

>109 dchaikin: Yeah totally - I thought you meant it that way, but also when talking about media, sometimes people take opinions very personally! So I tried to cover all my bases. But anyway, it's cool because it gave an excuse to give a little background besides just thrashing the current releases. ;)

>106 ursula: Well, if you are interested, the session that I usually attend is at 5 p.m. Eastern, which would be 9 a.m. for you... bright and early but not ridiculous, depending on if you're a morning person or not.

I saw New Animal around a lot when it came out, but didn't know the plot. That sounds interesting, so noted.

Are you on last.fm/RYM?

>111 lisapeet: Yeah, 9 AM is okay for me, I'm up earlier than that. I hadn't checked and just assumed they would be around midday, which anything after about 7 pm here is a non-starter for me!

>112 slimeboy: Hi! Yep, I'm on last.fm - my profile is here: https://www.last.fm/user/veronikah I guess you probably are as well?

>113 ursula: Yep, I just added you. I'm holysteak.

>114 slimeboy: I see you were consistent with your scrobbling, not like me with my 9 year, 11 month gap!

>115 ursula: Yeah, I would probably just make the full move over to Youtube's subscription service if not for Spotify's account linking feature for Last.fm -- there's just much more to explore there. There was an iPod scrobbling program that didn't properly work which has caused a particular wing of that archival library to be burned.

>116 slimeboy: I don't use Spotify - but yeah I remember the issues with scrobbling from an iPod, and that was a big part of my abandonment of last.fm.

I'm on Apple Music, and there are still some issues (I have to use a 3rd party app to scrobble) but it's mostly painless.

>103 lisapeet: I remember the day I found The Wild Tchoupitoulas in Tower records. They are the Neville Brothers extended family. I’ve seen the Neville Brothers possibly 15 times since 1979.

Time for my weekly 5x5



Sorry Ma! Forgot To Take out the Trash! - The Replacements [punk] (discography listen, complete)
The Things We Think We're Missing - Balance and Composure [emo/post-hardcore] (2013 anniversary list)
On All Fours - Goat Girl [post-punk] (2022 lists)
Death of a Cheerleader - Pom Pom Squad [grunge/pop punk] (2022 lists)
All Shook Down - The Replacements [punk/college rock] (discography listen, complete)

Don't Go Tellin' Your Momma - Topaz Jones [R&B] (2021 lists)
Melt My Eyez See Your Future - Denzel Curry [hip hop] (2022 lists)
LYKE MYKE - Myke Towers [latin/reggaeton] (2021 lists, incomplete album)
Hootenanny - The Replacements [punk] (discography listen, complete)
Different Man - Kane Brown [country] (2022 lists, incomplete album)

As the Love Continues - Mogwai [post-rock/space rock] (2021 lists)
Don't Tell a Soul - The Replacements [punk/college rock] (discography listen, complete)
Let It Be - The Replacements [punk/college rock] (discography listen, complete)
Pleased To Meet Me - The Replacements [punk/college rock] (discography listen, complete)
Tim - The Replacements [punk/college rock] (discography listen, complete)

Maybe You, No One Else Worth It - Brave Bird [emo](2022 releases)
Lacuna - Caravels [post-hardcore] (2013 anniversary list)
Cleanse - Joywave [indie/indietronica] (2022 lists)
The Tipping Point - Tears for Fears [rock] (2022 lists)
40 Oz. to Fresno - Joyce Manor [pop punk/emo] (2022 lists)

Really From - Really From [indie/math rock] (not entirely sure where this came from!)
No Oblivion - No Devotion [post-punk] (my top 10 of 2022)
Thought Form Descent - Wake [black metal] (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
A Dream About Love - Circa Survive [alternative/experimental] (2022 releases)
MAN MADE - Greentea Peng [R&B/neo-soul] (2021 lists, incomplete album)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week: My discography project this week was The Replacements. I listened to Don't Tell a Soul and Pleased to Meet Me a lot in college but never really investigated the other albums very deeply. There's quite an interesting journey from pure punk to what I associate as the sound of The Replacements, and it seems that was a result of first conflict between Bob Stinson and Paul Westerberg, and then Stinson leaving and Westerberg taking the band in the direction he wanted. Don't Tell a Soul remains my favorite but I have a greater appreciation for the rest now.

I'm behind on writing about my and Morgan's albums of the year, but one of each of ours appears here, I'll write about those next.

I didn't end up finishing the Kane Brown album; it was very long. And although I liked some of it quite a bit, it got bogged down in some smarmy albums about god blessing you with love etc and I called it there. I also didn't finish the Myke Towers album, also very long. It was fine, but most of the songs sounded very much the same and it didn't seem that was going to change appreciably on the rest of it.

Pom Pom Squad was fun, the lyrics were interesting and occasionally heavier than the music would suggest. One song reminded me a lot of the Runaways, and then that was followed by a cover of Crimson and Clover, which was not nearly as good as the one Joan Jett did, so I think that was probably a bad choice.

The albums that say they're from a 2013 anniversary list come from here: 25 Classic Emo and Post-Hardcore Albums Turning 10 in 2023.

Ooh, I forgot to mention that the Tears for Fears album was surprisingly good.

>111 lisapeet:, >118 dianeham: I listened to The Wild Tchoupitoulas this morning. I was surprised to learn that "Brother John" is the song I know as "Iko Iko". And also that there seemed to be 2 other songs on the album that used the same song at least in part (or in full? I don't remember that well).

>111 lisapeet: I had just accepted your time up there without thinking about it but after visiting the link I see that they offer a 1 pm Eastern or 5 pm Eastern session - 9 pm or 1 am for me.

>119 ursula: I knew some of the Brave Bird guys in undergrad. The drummer released both a collection of short stories and a tour diary around when that album came out in 2013. No idea if they hold up or not, but a document of time passed, etc.

I don’t know The Replacements, but Let it Be is number #156 on the Rolling Stone 500. I’m curious.

>123 dchaikin: Definitely worth your time. "For Sale: Live at Maxwell's 1986" is another good starting point, as their live work is a key element of their legacy that's lost in translation on the record. Trouble Boys was also decent, as I recall.

>122 slimeboy: Oh, fun! I did not grow up with/go to school with/work with anyone who ever went on to do anything of interest, unless I guess you count "professional disc golfer" as a profession of interest. Cool that one of them did some writing too.

>123 dchaikin: When you get there, I'll be very into hearing what you have to say about it! You said they had done an updated list, I think? I'll have to check it out.

>124 slimeboy: I just watched their SNL performance of Bastards of Young a few days ago. I saw someone say that with their live show you had a 70% chance of seeing a sloppy, drunken mess, or a 70% chance of seeing brilliance. The overlap is where you got both.

At the Edge of the Woods by Masatsugu Ono

WTF did I just read.

First line: My wife had gone back to her parents' home to have our second child, leaving me and my son to manage by ourselves for a while.

On the surface, this is sort of a creepy, surreal story about a man taking care of his young son in their house on the edge of the woods. They are in a country where they are not native; although they've gotten over the language barrier there may still be some sort of cultural barrier between them and the people in the town a short distance away. Much is made by these townspeople of the imps they say live in the woods and will get up to all sorts of terrible things. The father describes the sounds the woods make - laughing, speaking, etc. There are some weird incidents of semi-reality, from the mildly amusing to the outright disturbing. It wasn't clear to me exactly how I was supposed to take all of this, and I often felt like I was reading someone's fever dream. Then I went to Goodreads and saw that it was supposed to be some sort of allegory for climate change? I have no clue.

Quote: I switched on the lamp on the mantel. We use energy-efficient lightbulbs, and it takes a while for them to light up. Little by little, Night was forced back outside the windows. Bits of nocturnal darkness that failed to escape hid in panic under the toys scattered on the floor and in the curtain folds.

>127 ursula: Oh, I have this one. Might need to take a closer look in my TBBR purge.

>127 ursula: I don’t know wtf you just read. I’m a little intrigued

>124 slimeboy: thanks for that. Noting! (The Replacements "For Sale: Live at Maxwell's 1986" )

>126 ursula: "For Sale" captures that essence well. For a period in the early 2010s, discussions of the primacy of their influence was completely inescapable. I always think the extent to which they were self-saboteurs is greatly overstated -- if Nirvana never signed to Geffen, would they have been characterized as "self-sabotaging"? Or would they have existed in the space that a sort of "reliable" indie rock band like Built to Spill does now? It seems to me that the Replacements had a grand ambivalence about the space they inhabited and the space they could inhabit, and that was reflected in what they did -- but does living that ambivalence mean sabotage? I don't really think so.
Unrelated: Do you have a book which you think best captures Istanbul?

>121 ursula: Do you know about the Mardi Gras Indians? Here’s a good page about the history
https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/history/mardi-gras-indians/

>131 dianeham: I knew of their existence; I read that page yesterday while listening to the album.

>119 ursula: Agreed about the interesting path of Replacements albums. I listened to them a LOT in the 90s—it was a work favorite (we had sort of a scruffy workplace and played a lot of music). I must have heard All Shook Down three or four times a week for all of 1995.

>121 ursula: Oh, whoops. I'm terrible on time conversions, for some reason—I'm otherwise pretty numerate, but always do the Google time translate thing whenever I schedule a call with someone not on EST. Which is many times a week, and you'd think I'd have gotten better at that over the years, but no.

>128 stretch:, >129 dchaikin: Sometimes I wonder if I was just not in the right frame of mind, or just being particularly dense. This had some very evocative writing, and occasionally there were some really tense scenes, but overall it felt like ... fantasy? with some jarring bits of horror thrown in. And honestly I wasn't sure quite what was going on a lot of the time. But there are people out there who seemed to love it on GR (a lid for every pot, this wasn't mine!).

>130 slimeboy: Interesting, I was not in any sort of music discussion in the early 2010s so I guess I missed when they were a ubiquitous influence! Agree that ambivalence isn't the same as sabotage, some people stuff it down and some people walk away, walking the line on it has its own pitfalls.

Regarding books that capture Istanbul, I'd say Orhan Pamuk's A Strangeness in My Mind. It's panoramic in scope, covering a lot of years in the city, but also they're pretty recent years (1960s? to 1990s I think). It is a time period that saw Istanbul go from a city with open fields on its edges to the enormous, endless city it is today. It touches on so many aspects of the history and culture, and I think it just gives a sense of the city even as it is today, a lot of the things it talks about are instantly recognizable to me.

>133 lisapeet: That makes me think of when I was working in late 1990/early 1991 and we had a person join the company from Olympia. She brought all kinds of bands we'd never heard of to listen to - you can imagine who they all were! We listened to her tapes a lot.

As I said up there, I listened to the Replacements a lot in college, but I didn't have many peers who were into the same things. My roommate was a top 40 radio listener, and I was in Santa Cruz so there were a lot of Deadheads and fans of similar stuff.

No worries on the time difference mixup. In addition to just the generalized complications of calculating it all the time, Turkey doesn't do Daylight Saving Time, so I'm always either 7 or 8 hours ahead of the east coast, depending. (And I have family in eastern, mountain and pacific time so keeping track of who is 8 hours behind and who is 10 or 11 is a whole extra thing!)

Hazy this morning. Looking from my neighborhood out to the Bosphorous with the Sea of Marmara straight out in the distance and the Golden Horn to the right.

>137 ursula: I love that photo. I imagine you'll miss that scenery when you move. When do you leave?

>135 ursula: Very excited to check that one out! Thank you!

>137 ursula: lovely! (I’m imagining I can smell the history and mythology.)

>138 labfs39: I will absolutely miss the views around here! We're going sometime after March 27, when the cats are eligible to enter the EU.

>139 slimeboy: I'll definitely like to hear your thoughts when you eventually get to it.

>140 dchaikin: You can smell ... yes, let's call it history and mythology!

>137 ursula: Lovely photo - that is a view to be missed!

>127 ursula: I don't think this is for me.

From my top 10:


No Oblivion - No Devotion

This is the second album from the band fronted by Geoff Rickly (Thursday). It's reminiscent of Joy Division/New Order without sounding exactly like that. I didn't listen to Thursday when they were a thing, and having listened to some now I can say they're not going to become a favorite of mine. But this, I love. It sounds full, hypnotic, and Geoff's voice, although not technically great, demands attention. Favorite songs: Starlings, Love Songs from Fascist Italy, Repeaters.

From Morgan's top 10:


Thought Form Descent - Wake

It took a while for me to get to the black metal part of his list, surprisingly. I honestly thought it would be mostly that but I think that like me, he didn't get around to rating everything soon enough to have the top 10 list he might have otherwise ended up with. I don't know that I'm equipped to say much about it aside from a few things I noticed - I was surprised to find some mathy guitars on one of the songs, and I enjoyed the proggy-ness of the songs. (Of course that's a word.) Favorites: Swallow the Light, Observer to Master, Bleeding Eyes of the Watcher.

>141 ursula: lol. Ok…it’s an idealistic imagined smelling

>142 BLBera: I will miss living by water in general, and the Bosphorus and Golden Horn specifically. Ah well.

>144 dchaikin: You know, it's just a city! When we went to New York, my son was 9 and from the second we left the subway he would not stop talking about all the smells! (negative)

The No Devotion Cd looks interesting, if it really has Joy Division influences rather than the more chart/popular orientated New Order. I am not sure I like too many of the Black metal groups - I think I need to be in the right mood for them.

>146 baswood: I think it is definitely balanced more toward Joy Division. Morgan's preferred genres in recent years have been black and death metal, although not exclusively. For me, I think so far I tend more toward what would be considered "blackgaze", or that sort of overlap between black metal and shoegaze.

The Golden Ass by Apuleius, translated by Robert Graves

Knocked this one off the 1001 Books list!

First line: Business once took me to Thessaly, where my mother's family originated; I have, by the way, the distinction of being descended through her from the famous Plutarch.

I think I found the source material for The Emperor's New Groove! Our curious narrator wants to be transformed into a bird to fly around but instead his helper brings him the wrong potion and he's turned into an ass. Oopsies! (Emperor's New Groove reference: this scene)

His life as an ass is not exactly charmed, as you might guess, but there aren't many dull moments. I was wondering how something written in the 2nd or 3rd century and translated from Latin would read, but it was honestly pretty breezy. I mean, as breezy as people whacking the crap out of their beasts of burden can be. The introduction (I don't normally read these before the book, but like I said, I wasn't sure how the reading experience would be without it) gave me some insight into things to notice in the story - namely, how poverty is a result of bad luck, and that bad luck is contagious. Moral of the story: it's best to steer clear of anyone in difficulty, lest their bad luck rub off on you and you end up in the same situation.

>148 ursula: I read this back in college and found it very funny in places. I was not expecting the humor.

Moral of the story: it's best to steer clear of anyone in difficulty, lest their bad luck rub off on you and you end up in the same situation.

Oh Dear

>149 labfs39: I was prepared for more humor, personally. The introduction suggested there would be more than I found. Oh well!

>150 baswood: Haha, I'm not saying it's a great moral, but if you believe it's catching (which he did, in a world of capricious gods), it makes sense.

And here i am thinking the moral has something to do with Isis. I enjoyed this when i read it and it keeps coming up, especially in the Hermetic occult stuff! Like serious thinking stuff.

>152 dchaikin: Hail Isis.

>153 ursula: maybe. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Musical quick takes (ie, partial albums that will never make it to a chart):

Knots - Crash of Rhinos [emo] (2013 anniversary list, 4 songs played) Everything that made me think I didn't like emo.

Pink Noise - Laura Mvula [r&b] (2021 lists, 5 songs played) It was okay, but I didn't feel drawn to listen to the back half of it. Maybe a good choice because Morgan did and said there were 3 lackluster songs in a row.

C'mon You Know - Liam Gallagher [rock] (2022 lists, 5 songs played) Musically bankrupt, still trying to be the Beatles. At least one of the songs sounds like its chorus was literally spliced in badly.

Good Person - Ingrid Andress [country] (2022 lists, 6 songs played) Just boring.

Comadre - Self Titled [screamo] (2013 anniversary list, 8 songs played) I listened to 2/3 of this but then I realized I wasn't enjoying it at all, so I called it. *shrug*

PUNK - Young Thug [rap] (2021 lists, 6 songs played) I'm conflicted; Young Thug is frequently interesting, and I always listen to tracks by other artists where he is featured. At the same time, I wasn't really into listening to all 20 songs on this album. The most interesting one I listened to was definitely "Stupid/Asking", which is written from a woman's perspective talking to him.

a touch of the beat gets you up on your feet gets you out and then into the sun - Aly & AJ [pop] (2021 lists, 5 songs played) I try not to be prejudiced based on silly things like Disney pasts, and as I was listening to the first few songs I was thinking that it was perfectly decent pop. Then the 5th song ("Paradise") started and it was objectively awful; I guess I'll never know if that was a harbinger of things to come on the rest of the album or not.

La Maquina - Conway the Machine [rap] (2021 lists, 4 songs played) Morgan thinks that in past years we've thought Conway was the best out of the Griselda rappers, and that may be true, but I listened to 2 songs about selling lots of cocaine and then another song about selling lots of cocaine but featuring Westside Gunn and Benny the Butcher, and then a song featuring Ludacris which was slightly more about doing cocaine instead of selling it. Enough.

>155 ursula: Top 5 lyricists?

>156 slimeboy: Ooh, I don't really think in top 5's, I'm gonna have to give that some consideration. :)

>148 ursula: Also the inspiration for Cloud Cuckoo Land!

>156 slimeboy: Okay I don't know, I think I have to admit defeat for now, way too many brain cycles spent trying to come up with something beyond Paul Simon and Lana Del Rey! How about you?

>158 BLBera: I didn't know that! I'm not going to read it though because I was not a fan at all of All the Light We Cannot See.

Weekly 5x5



Coral Island - The Coral [indie rock] (2021 lists)
In the Wee Small Hours - Frank Sinatra [pop] (1001 Albums list)
Year of the Horse (Act One) - Fucked Up [hardcore punk] (2021 lists)
Songs for Swingin' Lovers! - Frank Sinatra [pop] (1001 Albums list)
Year of the Horse (Act Two) - Fucked Up [hardcore punk] (2021 lists)

Here, My Dear - Marvin Gaye [soul] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Nurture - Porter Robinson [electronic] (2021 lists)
Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley [rock] (1001 Albums list)
Giving the World Away - Hatchie [dream pop] (2021 lists)
Tragic Songs of Life - The Louvin Brothers [country] (1001 Albums list)

Dark in Here - The Mountain Goats [indie folk] (2021 lists)
Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes - The Ronettes [pop] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Nick of Time - Bonnie Raitt [blues] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Please Don't Take Me Back - Martha [pop punk] (2022 lists)
Birth of the Cool - Miles Davis [jazz] (1001 Albums list)

Permanence - No Devotion [post-punk](getting ready for the show next week ... see below)
Fear of Music - Talking Heads [new wave/post-punk] (discography listen, in progress)
More Songs about Buildings and Food - Talking Heads [new wave/post-punk] (discography listen, in progress)
Talking Heads: 77 - Talking Heads [new wave/post-punk] (discography listen, in progress)
Driver - Adult Mom [lo-fi/indie pop] (2021 lists)

Youth - Citizen [emo/pop punk] (2013 anniversary list)
Paul Walker - Drug Church [hardcore] (2013 anniversary list)
Albatross - Foxing [ emo] (2013 anniversary list)
Heart Under - Just Mustard [noise rock/shoegaze] (2022 lists)
Heart Like a Wheel - Linda Ronstadt [pop] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week: My discography project this week has been Talking Heads. Just like with The Replacements, I have a couple of "most-listened albums" and after that I've listened a lot less. (Today's album is their last one, Naked, and I think I've never even listened to it at all.) Speaking in Tongues and Little Creatures are the ones I have listened to a lot in the past, and I think the former is still my favorite, but Fear of Music is up there too now. Their albums are mostly too short to show up here, but I did 7 of them.

Seeing talk about the RS 500 and the 1001 Albums list, I figured I'd take those on too because I can never have too many lists.

(Also, I'm trying to make sure to listen to an album just for me every day as well, although sometimes it's not a full album.)

The Mountain Goats are a band I've never really listened to, but they have too many albums for my self-imposed limits on the discography project. I might just listen to a few here and there instead of concentrating on them. Also, I want to read another of John Darnielle's books (I read Wolf in White Van last year). AND Morgan just told me that he's involved in an episode of a tv series called Poker Face, starring Natasha Lyonne, so we're going to check that out.

I am gutted that No Devotion had to cancel their plans to open for L.S. Dunes this week. They are the unluckiest band in history; they've had to cancel every tour they've tried to undertake.

The White Mosque by Sofia Samatar

First line: Begin with the glow: the faint beam of a half-forgotten history.

My first non-fiction read of the year.

This is ostensibly the story of Mennonites who, in the 19th century, followed a radical who claimed to be a prophet with a vision of the end times. They followed him on a brutal trek through Russia and into Uzbekistan, where they were supposed to wait for the appointed date for the end of the world. But it's also the story of a second trek, less brutal, that the author is making to find out more information about this journey and the people who made it, a pilgrimage to see ... something. She's not even sure what herself. But it leads to a lot of ruminations about groups and what holds them together, belonging, and how to have true belonging when you are a part of a group and yet your presence challenges the group's self-identity.

The author is a Mennonite whose mother is of the typical German Mennonite stock, while her father is a Somali who converted. She doesn't have one of the "right" last names (German), she doesn't have the right skin tone, features and hair, and she doesn't even consider herself religious but a "secular Mennonite". I'd never heard that phrase or considered that as a concept before. She mixes together threads of her own life, the group trip she is on to visit Uzbekistan, and the journey of the original pilgrims. It's all pretty interesting, but if you don't like things where the author extrapolates from what is known into what a person was thinking or doing or what the weather was over 100 years ago on a specific day, this isn't for you. Also, she writes some intensely long sentences.

For me, this was a pretty interesting look into a world I knew very little about, though it did drag from time to time.

Quote: But if my study of Mennonite literature has convinced me of anything, it's that numbers don't matter. Anyone who is waiting for a critical mass of people of color to transform a white space will wait until Judgment Day. This is because identity is not a question of numbers. It's a question of storytelling. When I want to find stories of Mennonites like my father, I don't go to books about writing but to books about missionary work, because most of the world's Mennonites are framed as receivers, rather than creators, of Mennonite stories.

>159 ursula: I was not a fan at all of All the Light We Cannot See

Nor was I, so I haven't read any of his other books either

Fear of Music is my favourite Talking Heads album - it might make my top 50

>161 ursula: interesting.

And I could use more Talking Heads suggestions.

>160 ursula: I didn’t think Here, My Dear belonged on that list. Better to add another artist than a second rate one by an artist already covered, imo. But the album is entertaining. And they didn’t ask my opinion. 🙂

Secular Mennonites, huh. Whatever next.

One easily thinks of the US as the place with a myriad offbeat religions, but 19th c. Russia wasn't far behind. (Except the US was all "welcome, ye nutters!" and Russia, "scat!")

Are these Rolling Stone and 1001 lists somewhere online for easy consultation? I'd be curious to know how many I've got.

>162 labfs39: The things I didn't like about it make me suspect he's just not for me.

>163 baswood: I'll definitely be spending more time with it!

>164 dchaikin: My personal ranking of the albums:

1. Speaking in Tongues
2. Fear of Music
3. Little Creatures
4. More Songs about Buildings and Food
5. Remain in Light
6. Talking Heads: 77
7. True Stories
8. Naked

Which is totally different than this guy's: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/talking-heads-albums-ranked/

My main problem with Here, My Dear was that it was a double album, which ... I think that if you're going to include a double album it should be for actual merit and not as a curiosity of "this had to be a double album to fulfill divorce settlement agreements." But on the other hand, it certainly showed a different side to Marvin Gaye. I guess I'll have to get farther down the list to have something I'm outraged they left out in favor of this.

>165 LolaWalser: Yes, they're both easily accessible online!

Rolling Stone 500

1001 Albums

Just another day in another store in Istanbul.

Aw!

>166 ursula: I have a soft spot for Little Creatures

>167 ursula: Great photo!

The White Mosque sounds interesting. I'll take a look at it.

>166 ursula: ooh. I made a note of your Talking Heads List.

>167 ursula: cute!

>167 ursula: the cutest!!!!

>166 ursula:

Thanks! So, I have 54 albums from the Rolling Stone list (first match at #478, Something else by the Kinks; last #5, Beatles' Abbey Road), maybe two dozen or so instances of other albums by chosen artists, aaand some undefined but relatively low number of artists I've at least heard. Overall, I have some acquaintance with no more than a fifth of it. Never been cool, never will be. :)

The kedi looks like my first cat, also an orange tabby. He was a sweet boy.

>168 FlorenceArt: There are frequently little "aw!" surprises in stores. :)

>169 labfs39: For a second, I thought you were talking about the cat!

>170 BLBera: Thanks - when Morgan went back hours later, he was still in the same spot.

>171 dchaikin: I'd love to hear your thoughts one day!

>172 liz4444: He was a little sweetie.

>173 LolaWalser: I have no idea how many of the RS 500 I have some familiarity with, I haven't actually looked ahead at all (I just did #485 today, I'm skipping anything I know and dislike unless I feel like it's worth re-evaluating (John Mayer does not qualify, for example).)

The cat actually looks a lot like the one we adopted off the streets here too. :)

I don't think I'm going to finish another book this month, so I'll go ahead and post this now. I don't know if I'll do this throughout the year, but for January I drew my own covers for all the books I read.

 

 

 

>176 ursula: I love, love, love this! Very cool idea. The Apuleius cover is perfect.

>177 labfs39: Thank you! It's been fun to do - I'd like to continue through the year but we'll see if I manage.

>176 ursula: I love this! I hope you can continue; it's very cool.

>176 ursula: I’m chiming in with everyone else. Very cool. I hope you can continue.

>179 BLBera:, >180 NanaCC: Thanks, both of you. I'm intending to at least try!

I saw yesterday that Geoff Rickly (lead singer of No Devotion and Thursday) announced his first novel, called Someone Who Isn't Me. It's coming out in July. It's on a newly-founded press (article in Publisher's Weekly about it), and here is the page with info/blurbs. I know he's a big reader so we'll see if that turns into being a good writer too. He managed to score a blurb from Colum McCann.

And here is a wrapup of January's listening by artist:


Reflective of my discography projects and prepping for the concert. (And that Frank Sinatra had 2 albums on the 1001 list this week)

>159 ursula: Paul Simon is definitely a good pick. What are your peak Lana lyrics? Only "Off to the Races" really lives in my head, for some reason.

>166 ursula: I love this! I've been listening to the talking heads more recently and I really love their live recording of Slippery People, it's probably my favorite at the moment. I haven't been through all their music by a long shot, so I will definitely reference this!

>176 ursula:

That's just great.

>183 slimeboy: "Off to the Races" is a good one. For me, most of Born to Die is up there, definitely. I also like a lot of the stuff on Norman Fucking Rockwell, like "Mariners Apartment Complex":

They mistook my kindness for weakness
I fucked up, I know that, but Jesus
Can't a girl just do the best she can?

Also her lyrics are just so ... weird at times. Like when she released a clip of "Arcadia" and people thought it must be some sort of commercial, or joke, or parody.

My body is a map of LA
I stand straight like an angel with a halo
Hangin' out the Hilton Hotel window
Screamin', "Hey, you, baby, let's go"
My chest, the Sierra Madre
My hips, every high and byway
That you trace with your fingertips like a Toyota
Run your hands over me like a Land Rover

I just love the ... audacity, I guess.

>184 liz4444: Haha, I had Slippery People in my head for days. It finally got out of my head ... and then you mentioned it! Good thing I love that one. :)

>185 LolaWalser: Thanks!

>186 ursula: And now "Slippery People" is in my head. That's OK, I'm fond of it.

I also love your book covers. It's a great project.

>187 lisapeet: It's a catchy one, I'm not surprised we've been sharing that earworm!

And thanks on the book covers, I hope to keep them simple so that it doesn't become a burden. I speak from experience at overcomplicating things. :)

Weekly 5x5



Anthology - Muddy Waters [blues] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list), partial album -1 disc of 2 completed
Happier than Ever - Billie Eilish [pop] (2021 lists)
Damaged - Black Flag [punk] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Born This Way - Lady Gaga [pop] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Sheer Heart Attack - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)

This Is Fats Domino! - Fats Domino [rock] (1001 Albums list)
Here's Little Richard - Little Richard [rock] (1001 Albums list)
Kenya - Machito [jazz/latin jazz] (1001 Albums list)
A Night at the Opera - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
You're Always on My Mind - A Great Big Pile of Leaves [emo] (2013 anniversary list)

Past Lives - L.S. Dunes [post-hardcore] (show prep!)
Solitude - Lord Snow [screamo] (2013 anniversary list)
Queen II - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
Cub - Wunderhorse [rock] (2022 lists)
Learning to Be Happy - Kayleigh Goldsworthy [indie/singer-songwriter] (show prep!)

The Wildest! - Louis Prima [jazz/swing] (1001 Albums list)
A Day at the Races - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
Queen - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight - Richard & Linda Thompson [folk] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Projector - Geese [post-punk] (2021 lists)

Celestial Blues - King Woman [metal] (2021 lists)
These Are Good People - Little Big League [emo] (2013 anniversary list)
Temporary Highs in the Violet Skies - Snoh Aalegra [r&b] (2021 lists) - partial album
NINXS ROTXS - Mabiland [latin r&b] (2021 lists) - partial album
Palo Congo - Sabu Martinez [Cuban/latin jazz] (1001 Albums list)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week:
This is an abbreviated week, I was away Thursday through Sunday in Cologne for the LS Dunes show.

Started my listen to Queen's discography. I remember being little and sitting next to the record player with my parents' giant headphones, listening to A Day at the Races. My phone has a Freddie Mercury sticker on the back of it.

Let's see, what else? A little overlap with my reading here - Little Big League was Michelle Zauner's band before Japanese Breakfast, and I just finished her memoir Crying in H Mart a few days ago (thoughts about that to come soon too). Also, it's probably sacrilege but I might have liked this album better than Japanese Breakfast, or at least better than her most recent album, Jubilee.

I've listened to the Billie Eilish before, but I liked it better on a re-listen. I still think it's too long though.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

I feel like lots of people have read this memoir of the experience of losing her mother, so I'll just say that for me, it was good. It didn't completely knock my socks off, but it was good. I guess I wanted more actual details about the relationship she had with her mother, but I guess it was enigmatic to her as well, so maybe this is how it had to be. Unsurprisingly, since a large part of their bond was forged through food, it made me want Korean food.

Quote: The cowboy boots arrived in one of these packages after my parents had vacationed in Mexico. When I slipped them on I discovered they'd already been broken in. My mother had worn them around the house for a week, smoothing the hard edges in two pairs of socks for an hour every day, molding the flat sole with the bottom of her feet, wearing in the stiffness, breaking the tough leather to spare me all discomfort.

Mountain persimmons - the mother eats - the bitter parts.

(Issa, approximately)

>189 ursula: I recently listened through to all four of my Fats Domino albums and I was surprised in how much depth there was in the arrangements. (I shouldn't have been--those New Orleans studio/production guys were geniuses.)

I have that Little Richard album, in a beat up LP that I found in a thrift shop somewhere long, long ago. Another brilliant R&B musician.

And Louis Prima is a howl. I have a couple of LPs of his. My favorite is called "The Wildest," which features the hilarious "The Pump Song:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I2s6xUIEPY

As you can tell, I'm a jazz/blues/r&b guy with pretty much zero knowledge of popular music/rock after, say, 1990.

Love your book covers. And i do love Freddie Mercury, but have rarely listened to Queen album. Just songs individually. Also, I must admit, I was a little disappointed in the Muddy Waters anthology. But that’s just me.

>191 LolaWalser: Yes, exactly.

>192 rocketjk: It was pretty hard to track down this particular Fats Domino apparently - it wasn't on Apple Music, and when my husband looked for copies of it a lot of them had been transferred from vinyl at the wrong speed. It's a shame, I enjoyed it a lot.

The Wildest is the album on my chart. :) I also liked that one a lot.

>193 dchaikin: I've never listened to most of the Queen albums in any focused way. I don't count listening to them when I was 5! But my husband almost didn't become my husband because while we were first dating, "Under Pressure" came on and he had the temerity to say that David Bowie's voice was better than Freddie's - I almost let him out of the car right there.

I liked the Anthology overall, but it was a LOT, all in a row.

Looks like you just posted so I assume you are ok/safe.

>195 dianeham: I guess because of the earthquake in Gaziantep/Şanlıurfa? Thank you for the concern but it's very far from Istanbul.

>189 ursula: Hope you enjoy Richard and Linda Thompson's "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight" My favourite tracks: Down where the Drunkards Roll and The Great Valerio as well as the title track.

>196 ursula: The last few big ones down in Turkey were felt in Bulgaria so far away is not always so clear cut. :) Glad to hear you are away from it!

>197 baswood: I did enjoy it! I liked the title track as well, I think Down Where the Drunkards Roll too, but as I recall I wasn't a huge fan of The Great Valerio.

>198 AnnieMod: I mean, those were also felt in Istanbul; but they were in places like Izmir, which isn't far from here at all. It depends on a lot of things of course, but Gaziantep is about 800 miles away.

>192 rocketjk: "The Wildest is the album on my chart. :) I also liked that one a lot."

Whoops! My album is "The Call of the Wildest." I knew the cover art was different!

>200 rocketjk: Ah! I saw that there were maybe a few albums that used "the wildest" as some part of the title.