Still one of the best bands I’ve ever seen. More? The Secret South album is here, while Low Estate can be found here.
Take a bit of time if you’ve not heard them. It’s worth it.
Category: Consumption
Feel the Payne
So this afternoon saw me finish the third Max Payne game, the startlingly originally-titled Max Payne 3. Despite my being hamstrung by some weird sinus/skull thing, I really enjoyed the ending; Rockstar (who most non-gamers would probably know as the publishers of the Grand Theft Auto series) took the cinematic roots of the series, whacked it full of booze and sent it on holiday to Brazil.
Croft and Creed
I’ve just finished playing last year’s reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise, called – funnily enough – Tomb Raider.
And it was good. I mean, Uncharted 2 levels of good, if widescreen, epic-setpiece and press-x-not-to-die QTEs are your bag. I mean, check it out:
It’s a gorgeous game. I must qualify: it’s largely muddy browns and greys, all snow and storm – but it is certainly the best-looking game I’ve played on the PS3 thus far. Continue reading “Croft and Creed”
Cobra considerations
I spent some of last night at the excellent Petersham Bowling Club for a bunch of Ensemble Offspring‘s latest (and free!) Sizzle concert. It’s terrible reviewer indulgence to make apologies for one’s behaviour (and missing of parts of the bill) but I will preface mine by suggesting this isn’t really a review, more some random thoughts on the thing. Continue reading “Cobra considerations”
Book review: Loomings Over the Suet
Loomings Over The Suet by Glen Baxter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The last Glen Baxter book I read was The Billiard Table Murders, about fifteen years ago. Like that title, Loomings Over the Suet is a mystery of sorts, full of police procedure and deduction – albeit with fish in buckets and weird looking radio transmitters. And alphorns.
The narrative doesn’t really make sense, but anyone au fait with Baxter’s style won’t expect it to. If laid out on a page, there’d probably be an A4-worth of story. You can read the book in fifteen minutes or so. But then, you’re not going to be reading Baxter for narrative coherence. Continue reading “Book review: Loomings Over the Suet”
Time?
The posting’s been a little slow over the last week or so. Life stuff becomes paramount, sometimes. But should be back to normal sometime soon, assuming this sniffly nose thing doesn’t increase its drip-level.
Anyway, take some meditative creepy time with Tangerine Dream. More will be coming soon.
Book review: A Clash of Kings
A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
So, the second in the lengthy (and let’s admit it, perhaps never-to-be-completed) A Song of Fire and Ice series.
Reading this one took a little longer than the first. There’s nothing in the prose that’s changed too much, but it lacked – until the later battle passages – some of the quickfire snap of the first volume. Perhaps it’s as it spreads itself a little more widely? In the first novel there was simply Westeros and the Dothraki plains, pretty much – other places were mentioned, but the reader could pretty much think “cod-England and that sandy joint” and be pretty well situated. But here there’s more happening in Daenerys’ storyline in actual cities. It’s no longer courtly life versus who-are-these-horse-dudes? hardships. Continue reading “Book review: A Clash of Kings”
Seems legit
Write what you know and read what you like
A story on Slate has sparked a bit of commentary about reading and snobbery. I suppose it’s easy clickbait – nobody wants to feel inferior about their choice of pastime – but once you read the sell, there’s really not a lot more to it:
Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you’re reading was written for children.
Hm. Throughout there’s more of this looking-down-the-nose kind of thing, somehow suggesting that eye-rolling and enjoyment of what may be crap-lit are mutually exclusive. What I don’t understand is where speculation like this
These are the books that could plausibly be said to be replacing literary fiction in the lives of their adult readers. And that’s a shame.
or
But if they are substituting maudlin teen dramas for the complexity of great adult literature, then they are missing something.
comes from. I mean, aside from hanging the whole thing on what adults might be doing.
Continue reading “Write what you know and read what you like”Book review: A Game of Thrones
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
So, knee deep in the fourth season of the HBO adaptation of the cycle, I decided to read the source: George R.R. Martin’s books. And it’s the good choice: having seen the shows I’m already given a mental Cliff’s Notes to the tale, and I’m not likely to be disappointed by how the shows had dumbed-down the books; rather, I’m left in the position of learning how much the show leaves out. Continue reading “Book review: A Game of Thrones”
Yeah nah. 