A curmudgeon writes.
Sydney’s holding a St Patrick’s Day parade today so it’s fitting that I finished my playthrough of The Saboteur today. Or, as I like to think of it, Paddy O’Guinness Kills Nazis, Sees Boobs.
Heard of it? I didn’t think so. It was pretty quickly forgotten, even by the standards of derivative sandbox shooters. But there was a reasonable mix of Continue reading “The luck of the Irish”
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I came late to Dickens, I think. My mother was always on at me to read A Tale of Two Cities – and I still haven’t, strangely – but I never seemed to click with the novels I tried. I just couldn’t get into his world.
It wasn’t until Year 12 that I had to read Great Expectations for a book report. As was my wont, I didn’t start reading the book until the night before the paper was due. But something strange happened: instead of just skimming, as I’d otherwise have done, I was engrossed. I ripped through the book, paying it closer attention than I’d expected to. I loved it. Continue reading “Book review: Great Expectations”
Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story by Clive Barker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ve shied away from Barker for a couple of years now. I’m not sure why. Like King, he’s an author who I discovered in my teens, and the combination of splatter and verbosity seemed to be something better left behind in advancing years. I’d read Cabal and some of the Books of Blood – inspired by sneaked viewings of Nightbreed and Hellraiser but I kind of found some of his weirdly sensual prose a bit on the nose.
Ha.
In the interim, I understand he’s written some great stuff and some shit stuff. People I know who are fans have been alternately overjoyed and deeply disappointed at his recent work – but I’ll be investigating more closely if the quality of this one’s anything to go by. Continue reading “Book review: Coldheart Canyon”
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is the second time I’ve tried to read The Unconsoled and the first time I’ve actually completed it. A couple of months after the novel was released, I picked up a copy of the enormous hardback, as I was certain the blurb rang true, that I would suddenly fall in love with the world inside.
It didn’t happen.
Instead, I was mystified and more than a little pissed off. Trying to make sense of the book was kind of like stuffing a pillow with smoke: Continue reading “Book review: The Unconsoled”
L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City by John Buntin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Read some Ellroy? Like Dragnet? You’ll probably enjoy this book. It’s essentially a history of the LAPD, though that title wouldn’t have half as much excitement as this one: at once piggybacking on the Ellroy novel/flick and evoking the idea of a titanic struggle between good and evil.
The truth is a little less razzle-dazzle. What we have here is the story of the LAPD presented by focusing on the career of two men – William H. Parker, who would rise to head the organsation, and Mickey Cohen, part of a different Organisation altogether. Continue reading “Book review: L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City”
Charlatan: The Fraudulent Life of John Brinkley by Pope Brock
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
If you ever planned on reading a book on goat testicles, it should probably be this one. It tells the story of John Brinkley, a master manipulator who made millions from the mania for manually mixing your own tired testicles with the most succulent slices of goat gonad for the bedroom-blastin’ revivification of your lacking lovelife, ladies and lethargic Lotharios!
Basically, the book is the less effective surgical version of this:
Brinkley’s story is a proper rags-to-riches tale, built on the back of a lot of nutsacks and a cavalier disregard Continue reading “Book review: Charlatan: The Fraudulent Life of John Brinkley”
It’s a new year, and for me that’s as good a time as any to look at what I did last year. More specifically, to look at my consumption of books, music, games and stuff over the past year. I’m not certain it’s interesting to anyone other than myself, but given that I’m a stats nerd – odd for someone who was definitively crap at them during my university years – and because I’m into recording stuff. What I’ve listened to. What I’ve read. What movies I’ve seen. Et cetera. Some of the data’s incomplete but it’s a reasonable portrait I suppose. This’ll be a long one.
Music
I record most of my listening on last.fm, as I have done for years now. For ten years, this year. Basically, any time I play something on my computer – which, at work, is where I listen to most of my music anyway – or now, on my iPhone, it’ll send a record of it to my profile. I try to record the stuff I listen to at home – usually with this thing – but far less reliably. Given it’s been running for the longest of any recording I’ve done, there’ll be more data here to work from.
It’s a useful source of information – the sidebar listing what I’m listening to comes from last.fm data – and provides enough statistics to keep me happy. For example, the counter on my profile tells me that since 2005, I’ve listened to 132,000 tracks, more or less.
But how did I fare last year? Well, here’s a graphical representation of my top artists for 2014:
As to how those listens were distributed, there’s this helpful chart – which you’ll have to click to read, undoubtedly.
Continue reading “2014 consumption: a look at some stuff I liked”
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I first read this book years ago, in my early teens. My Nan had a copy – a tie-in edition for Manhunter, the excellently neon film version of the story – and passed it on. I devoured it – rather fittingly, given Dolarhyde’s dental proclivities – and the Thomas Harris kick was on.
Fast forward a couple of decades. I’ve just finished watching the string of Hopkins-as-Lecter movies (and that terrible the-war-made-me-do-it flick) and first two seasons of the Hannibal show. The latter takes Red Dragon as its basis, so I thought it’d be a fine time to revisit the novel. Continue reading “Book review: Red Dragon”
Movie Icons: 365 Day-By-Day
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A short review as there’s not much to review. If you know Taschen’s general attention to production detail, you know that the reproductions of film stills that appear within this book are very fine.
There’s not much else to say. It’s a book with a movie (or star) per day. It’s too nice to write on in a diary fashion, and so it is a little bit of a confusing publication. But if you treat it as I did – a way to create a little cinematic break in which to appreciate films you know (and discover ones you don’t) – then it’s a fine tome.
Christmas is my excuse for December’s paucity of posts. I’m sticking to it.
Yeah nah. 