archive for the ‘Books’ category
13 April, 2007 // Rob // Music, Books, Top Five Friday
As I’m sure you’ve heard, Kurt Vonnegut died a couple of days ago. If you grew up a white male in America in the last 40 years, chances are pretty high you went through a “Vonnegut phase,” and I’m no exception.
I read Slaughterhouse-Five
in AP English, and after that it was all over: I was a fan. Cat’s Cradle, Mother Night, Welcome to the Monkey House, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Breakfast of Champions, and on down the line his books combined historical fiction with humor with science fiction in ways I had never seen before (and haven’t seen done well since). Vonnegut was one of the iconic pillars of my adolescence, and I’m putting together a little musical elegy of sorts to pay my respects. Hi ho, Mr. Trout.
1. So It Goes - Tom Waits
This is an early song by Waits, and I think it sets an appropriate tone for the mix. The title is a reference to a refrain in Slaughterhouse-Five, “So it goes.” In the novel Vonnegut uses the phrase as a transition and as comic effect, usually immediately following some tragedy. The flippant tone of the phrase disperses the weight of the events and gives the narrator an emotional distance from the horrors he’s witnessed.
In the song, “so it goes” seems to be a resignation that what will be will be, and any wish the speaker tries to make are grounded by a harsh reality. In the song it’s used to distance the speaker from his emotions, as well. If he’s resigned to failure, he will never succeed.
2. Man Out of Time - Elvis Costello
I’ll admit to doing a little research for this post, and one of the songs I found to be a direct reference to a Vonnegut work is this one. In Slaughterhouse-Five, the main character, Billy Pilgrim, claims to have become “unstuck in time,” and in this song, the main character seems to be in the same predicament. I’ll be honest: I don’t really remember specific events in the novel that well (it’s been 12 years since I read it!). So I’m trusting the Web on this one, but if nothing else, the two characters’ circumstances are the same.
All that said, the song is fantastic. It’s one of my favorite Elvis Costello tracks because it combines an edginess (the screeching intro and outro) with a fantastic melody. He’s an amazing songwriter and a beautiful singer. Man Out of Time showcases both. (This song isn’t on iTunes! Sorry!)
3. Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
Now I know that Vonnegut’s involvement with this song was an urban legend, but I think the events surrounding the song are enough to warrant its inclusion in this list.
If you’ll remember way back to 1997, an email started to circulate with the text of a speech supposedly given by Vonnegut at the commencement ceremony at MIT. Turns out, some clever or inept soul had mis-attributed the speech to Vonnegut: it was actually a newspaper column by Mary Schmich. Well, the speech took on a life of its own, and in 1999, it came to the attention of Baz Luhrmann, director of Moulin Rouge!, who decided to set the piece to music. And the rest is history.
Even though Vonnegut didn’t write the speech, his name became tied to it, and I don’t think it would have become the phenomenon it did without his name attached. Plus there’s some pretty good advice in there.
4. Sam Stone - John Prine
I selected this song because I was trying to find a singer whose voice was similar to Vonnegut’s. Little did I know, that would be a much taller order than I initially thought. To me the Vonnegut voice includes humor, history, gravity, and a matter of fact delivery. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you John Prine.
Sam Stone is the story of a Vietnam veteran dealing with the ravages of war and a heroin addiction that’s killing him. It’s fitting that the song deals with war, because many of Vonnegut’s novels dealt with WWII. And Prine has written the lyrics in such a matter of fact tone, peppered with humor that it might as well be a Vonnegut short story.
27 March, 2007 // Rob // Books, Web 2.0
I’m starting this post a little late tonight because I’ve spent the last few hours playing around with a new Web app I found on the lifehack blog today. It’s called aNobii, and it’s an online database designed to help you manage, track, and share your reading library. Apparently there are other sites like aNobii, but this is the first I’ve learned about them. I remember a site a long time ago (the name escapes me) that let users list their books and swap them with other users (which is a feature in aNobii, as well), but it didn’t have the levels of functionality that aNobii does.
How it works: you enter your books, either by ISBN or title, and they are added to your “shelf.” You can make your shelf public in order to start discussions, get recommendations, and meet like minded people. Or you can choose to have your shelf remain private, though I’m not sure why you’d do that. The community has a very diverse, international flavor, and it would be a shame not to take advantage of that.
Once I signed up, I started grabbing armfuls of books from the other room and entering them in the database. It took me about 45 minutes to enter 100+ books. There is also an option to import your existing book list from other sources. You can assign ratings, add comments, and specify if you have finished the books or not. The interface is intuitive and fast — one of the fastest dynamic Web sites I’ve ever used. And speed is key here, because aNobii’s core audience is going to be folks with hundreds of books they’ll want to upload and share.
Once you get your books on your shelf, the social networking aspect of the site comes into play. You can see how many other users have the same books or similar shelves as you do. You have access to discussions about your books and targeted recommendations based on the content of your shelf. And, as I alluded to above, you can designate certain of your books for trading.
Because I just signed up this evening, I haven’t had a chance to try out the trading feature. But it works like this: users create Wish Lists of books they want to read, and aNobii matches the books on your list with books that other users have designated for trading. I’m not really sure how it’s a trade unless you’re trading for money. I think this feature needs some refining before it’s really viable (the very young community needs to grow, too).
Another cool feature of the Wish List portion of the site is how aNobii allows you to customize the Amazon referral links. You can choose between all of the different international Amazon stores, and you can specify which currency to display prices in. For example, I have the Japanese, British, Canadian, and American Amazon stores listing prices in US Dollars for books on my wishlist. When I’ve purchased items from Amazon UK and Amazon Canada in the past, I realized what a pain it is to convert the currency. So I think this is a welcome feature.
Overall, aNobii looks like a very promising Web 2.0 app. I’m a pretty big bibliophile. I have a degree in English, and I worked in a book store for seven years. aNobii was pretty much made for me, and it looks like I’ll be spending even more time there in the next few days.
If you’re interested, you can visit my shelf and be amazed at how many books I own and haven’t read.
26 March, 2007 // Rob // Movies, Books, YouTube, One Thing Tube
15 February, 2007 // Rob // Books
i’ve been reminded recently of all the changes in my life over the last year and a half. what has brought all this to mind is the announcement of the release of the the final harry potter book.
you see, starting toward the end of college and continuing for seven years, i worked at waldenbooks. during that time, three books in the series came out, each to greater fanfare than the last. well, shortly after the half blood prince came out, i quit the bookstore.
after a relatively brief period of unemployment, i got a much better job, and in short order, purchased my first new car and then my first home. i’ve been dating my girlfriend for almost two years now and living with her in our new home for almost two months. i have a great life that i’m finally able to fully appreciate.
the blur of the last 15 months, with job hunting, car hunting, and house hunting, hasn’t left me much time to breathe until now. and just as i’m getting settled in my new life, the latest harry potter book is all over the news, bringing back memories of my old life.
and it’s amazing to think about how far i’ve come. also amazing is the fact that, despite the highest highs and lowest lows i’ve experienced in my life, during this time period of great upheaval and change for me, the world kept turning. the sky didn’t fall. the mountains didn’t crumble. and somewhere in there, harry potter finished his adventure while mine was just beginning.
i feel so fortunate to have wound up where i am. and i can only hope that 15-months-from-now rob feels the same way when he looks back.
5. Cross Road Blues - Robert Johnson
