Music and Words

What I’m Reading:

The Game by Neil Strauss

I was in Poland looking for something to read in English. Though I am perfectly capable of reading in Polish, it takes forever. I read one paragraph… and by the time I’ve sounded out all the words, I have no idea what the point was, so I re-read for meaning. It takes about 2 months to read an average novel, versus… 2 days? Anyway, this book I found by sheer accident, and I bought it based on its cover. Sad but true. When I saw it was a book about the “secret society of pick-up artists”, my curiosity was activated. I would recommend that anyone who is single read this, mostly because it’s complete nonsense. And if you’re married and want a new appreciation for your non-single situation, you would enjoy it as well because it makes you think, “thank god I’m not single.” In any case, for men who want to pick up party girls, here is your handbook.

Since then (it was November after all), I’ve also read, well, started to read Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas. Yup, the same guy who wrote The Three Musketeers. I was thrilled to find out there was a sequel. What’s even better is that the Musketeers are not fool-hardy, reckless youths with sharp swords, they are now middle-aged, pudgy, lazy political bastards. It’s fabulous. Dumas himself was reaching middle age when he wrote it, so it’s full of REAL-ness, if you can handle such things.

Of course you could always watch the really cheesy movie that I’ve seen about 10 times (hey, I was 13 years old when it came out!) starring Charlie Sheen and D’Artagnan. Can you tell I had a childhood crush? I don’t even remember the actor’s real name, he’s been immortalized as a French dude from the 18th century in my subconscious.

What Else I’ve Read Recently:
World War Z by Max Brooks
Greek Tragedies Galore…
The Oresteia by Aeschylus
Medea by Euripedes
Antigone by Sophocles
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
Thoughts Without a Thinker by Mark Epstein
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
and then… everything else I could find by Robertson Davies.
My definite favorite Roberston Davies novel: The Cunning Man
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Now that I’m temporarily settled, I will just share some of my favorite albums… check ‘em out, and buy CDs direct from the artists, if you can!

1) Beck – Guero
2) Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man
3) Paul Simon – Graceland
4) Bob Marley – Catch A Fire
5) Martina Topley-Bird – Quixotic

6) Janis Joplin – Live (this is great if you can scream along and are feeling disgruntled by the opposite sex – especially “Piece of My Heart” and “Me and Bobby McGee”)
7) Leonard Cohen – The Future (I’m feeling patriotic)
Ben Harper – Diamonds on the Inside
9) Maxwell – Embrya (great vibe, just don’t get too turned on while listening)
10) Maxwell – Urban Hang Suite (even sexier than the above)

11) Aretha Franklin – anything, if you can handle the pain and the soul
12) The Doors – Strange Days (a tribute to my teenaged years)
13) Radiohead – OK Computer
14) Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain (I have about 4 alternate titles for this album in my mind)
15) Enigma – M.C.M.X.C.a.D. (another 90s favorite)
16) Beatles – Rubber Soul, or Abbey Road (still can’t pick a favorite)
17) Janet Jackson – All For You (great for dancing in the living room)
18) Nirvana – Unplugged in NY (for the 90s angst ridden teenager living inside all of us… nah, Kurt is classic.)

Leah joined me for one leg of my ‘cross Canada trip – from Calgary to Winnipeg – so we shared the musical choices once again.

What We Listened to in the Car:

1) Neil Young – I’m guessing we will listen to Neil Young and we haven’t even left yet…
and we did!! But just one album: After the Gold Rush
2) The Guess Who – Best Of…
3) Stevie Nicks – Trouble in Shangri-La
4) Robert Cray – Best Of
5) Little Junior Parker – Junior’s Blues: Duke Recordings.
6) Muddy Waters & Howling Wolf – Muddy and the Wolf

And then, on my own, the selection gets a bit more…eclectic, shall we say

7) Leonard Cohen – The Future
8 ) Janelle Monae – Archandroid
9) Maroon 5 – Songs about Jane (hey, I’m allowed brain candy once in awhile too!)
10) Spacehog – The Hogessey (I really just wanted to hear ‘In the Meantime’)
11) Great Thinkers of the Western Intellectual Tradition (this ain’t music – The Old Testament
12) GTOTWIT – Gospels of Mark and… (I forgot already…)
13) GTOTWIT – The Pre-Socratic Philosophers (I love these guys, arguing about whether the “stuff” of the universe is fire, water, or air… for some reason none of them postulated that is was all just muddy earth)
—– turned noise off for awhile, don’t want to overdose brain —–
14) Zero 7 – Simple Things (great waking up album)
15) Marvin Gaye – assorted (a tribute to the entire generation who were conceived to the music of this man )
16) Nirvana – Unplugged in NY (I am a teenager from the 90s, after all!)
17) GTOTWIT – Plato’s Republic Book 1
18) GTOTWIT – Plato’s Republic Books 2 – 5 (wow, I thought I was done after book 1)
19) Audioslave – Out of Exile (this is great stress release when there are truckers riding your tail)
20) GTOTWIT – Plato’s Republic Book 6, 7, infinity!! aaahhhh!!!
21) Michael Jackson – HIStory
—-another day has passed…—
22) Joni Mitchell – Both Sides Now
23) Bill Hicks – Goatboy Rises (recorded live in London – insolent and true)
24) Eric Clapton – Unplugged
25) Martina Topley-Bird – Quixotic (love this album)
26) Amr Diab – assorted (for dancing while driving, with the upper body, ouch my ribs, arabic style)
27) Bill Withers – assorted (for the soul)
28) Prince – assorted (for the body )