Life Update and Aim To Write More

I haven’t written on this site in forever, and I miss doing it (especially for the music). Now that life has settled a bit, I plan to write more often.

As a way of catching people up: I bought a place, moved in, and am mostly settled. The major goal now is to decorate and set the place–and, thankfully, EP is doing a great job helping me in this regard. I just switched projects at work and love the new responsibilities and environment. And my hiatus from frequent travel has ended (which probably is not a good thing for this blog).

Now I just have to survive this housewarming party…

Album Reviews

1——>3——>5
Terrible—>Fantastic

5
Namlook, Pete and David Moufang – Art Of Love, The
Namlook, Pete and David Moufang – Home SHopping
Namlook, Pete and David Moufang – Let The Circle NOt Be Broken
Namlook, Pete and David Moufang – Live in Heidelberg 2001
Namlook, Pete and David Moufang – Wagon Lits

4
Alias – Collected Remixes
DJ Vadim – Sound Cather, The
Ghostland Observatory – Delete Delete I Eat Meat
Ghostland Observatory – Paparazzi Lightning
Magnetic Fields – Wayward BUs & Distant Plastic Trees, THe

3
Aa- Gaame
Cinematic Orchestra – Ma Fluer
Eno, Brian – Before and After Science
Gordan, Peter – Fabriclive.36
Hot Chip – DJ Kicks
Masekela, Hugh – African Connection, The
Masekela, Hugh – Boys Doin’t It, The
Masekela, Hugh – Grazing in the Grass: The Best of Hugh Masekela
Masekela, Hugh – Grrr
Masekela, Hugh – Hope
Masekela, Hugh – You Told Your Mama Not To Worry
Octopus Project, The – Hello Avanlanche
Panthers – Let’s Get Serious
Shellac – Excellent Italian Greyhound

2
Antiguo Automata Mexicano – Kraut Slut
Bowie, David – Buddha of Suburbia
Money Mark – Brand New By Tomorrow
Nastasia, Nina and Jim White – You Follow Me
Orb, The – Dream, The
Parts & Labor – Mapmaker
Peterson, Gilles – Fania Dj Series
Third Sight – Symbionese Liberation
Turbo Fruits – Turbo Fruits
Underworld – Oblivious With Bells (yes, yes, Beautiful Burnout is awesome)
Valet – Blood Is Clean

1

Updike’s Rules For Reviewing

More to remind me than anything else:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation–at least one extended passage–of the book’s prose so the review’s reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending. (How astounded and indignant was I, when innocent, to find reviewers blabbing, and with the sublime inaccuracy of drunken lords reporting on a peasants’ revolt, all the turns of my suspenseful and surpriseful narrative! Most ironically, the only readers who approach a book as the author intends, unpolluted by pre-knowledge of the plot, are the detested reviewers themselves. And then, years later, the blessed fool who picks the volume at random from a library shelf.)

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author’s ouevre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it’s his and not yours?