That was the week that was
Seem to have been in a mad whirl of activity signifying not much this past week. Looking ahead, there doesn't seem much likelihood of things being different, either. The run up to Christmas always gets like this: it's not that we've left everything to the last minute, as we haven't, we don't need to be shopping for Christmas presents at all now, as that's been sorted for weeks. But we can't help getting caught up in everyone else's frenzy, as the local shopping centre fills up with relentless shoppers, when even trying for a leisurely coffee is fraught. Roll on mid January, when all the sales are over and things return to what we like to regard as 'normailty' Until then, it's 'dawn raids', getting out before the place starts to bulge at the seams.
In other areas, I'm slugging my way through Neil Young's "Waging Heavy Peace", which is definitely the product of a very strange mind. I mean, I thought Bob Dylan's "Chronicles" was the weirdest autobiography ever, a ramshackle spasm of memories thrown onto the page in a take it or leave it fashion. Well, Young's book is very much in that vein. Within a few pages he can ramble on about model trains, early days in Canada, his dislike of digital recording, his car collection, his late friends, touring with Crazy Horse, all in a stream of consciousness spew that kind of laps around your brain and does strange things to your memory banks.
Doesn't help that the fiction book I have on the go is Iain M. Banks' "The Hydrogen Sonata", the last Culture novel. After a couple of hundred pages of densely woven information about a race's preparation to 'Sublime', literally ascend to a higher plane of being, I start thinking of Neil Young as being the avatar of a particularly eccentric Culture ship Mind. He makes so much more sense then.
Just been looking through the list of music I've acquired so far this year. Totals about one hundred and sixty albums, split about fifty-fifty CDs and downloads. Genres of music are as wide ranging and whacky as ever, from indie rock, world music, folk, folk-rock, country, alt-country, Americana, classic rock, jazz, blues. Still amazed to find myself enjoying so much new music. Always thought by now I'd be into tasteful and undemanding light classical or jazz music, but it doesn't seem to have happened, and probably never will, unless I'm suddenly struck down with profound deafness (in which case I'll just have to turn the bass up real high so I can feel the beat). OK, so I admit it, I'm a new music junkie, must have my weekly fix.
In other areas, I'm slugging my way through Neil Young's "Waging Heavy Peace", which is definitely the product of a very strange mind. I mean, I thought Bob Dylan's "Chronicles" was the weirdest autobiography ever, a ramshackle spasm of memories thrown onto the page in a take it or leave it fashion. Well, Young's book is very much in that vein. Within a few pages he can ramble on about model trains, early days in Canada, his dislike of digital recording, his car collection, his late friends, touring with Crazy Horse, all in a stream of consciousness spew that kind of laps around your brain and does strange things to your memory banks.
Doesn't help that the fiction book I have on the go is Iain M. Banks' "The Hydrogen Sonata", the last Culture novel. After a couple of hundred pages of densely woven information about a race's preparation to 'Sublime', literally ascend to a higher plane of being, I start thinking of Neil Young as being the avatar of a particularly eccentric Culture ship Mind. He makes so much more sense then.
Just been looking through the list of music I've acquired so far this year. Totals about one hundred and sixty albums, split about fifty-fifty CDs and downloads. Genres of music are as wide ranging and whacky as ever, from indie rock, world music, folk, folk-rock, country, alt-country, Americana, classic rock, jazz, blues. Still amazed to find myself enjoying so much new music. Always thought by now I'd be into tasteful and undemanding light classical or jazz music, but it doesn't seem to have happened, and probably never will, unless I'm suddenly struck down with profound deafness (in which case I'll just have to turn the bass up real high so I can feel the beat). OK, so I admit it, I'm a new music junkie, must have my weekly fix.