2014 consumption: a look at some stuff I liked

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:

Some things don't change.

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”

Book review: Red Dragon

Red DragonRed 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”

Book review: Movie Icons: 365 Day-By-Day

Movie Icons: 365 Day-By-DayMovie 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.

Book review: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Easy Riders, Raging BullsEasy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is remarkable.

No, I mean it. If you’re a film buff there’s no need to complete reading this review. Just go read the book: you’ll thank me later.

Still here? Well, okay. The work is cobbled together through reams of interviews to provide a more or less seamless account of the rise of the auteur in the ’60s and ’70s. Well, those generally hailed as auteurs – thanks, Pauline Kael – rather than those who actually were auteurs. You know: Ashby, Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas, Friedkin, De Palma, et cetera. (Add to that the associated producers, writers and actors – Nicholson, Beatty, Towne, Hopper and the like – and you’ve a colourful cast looking to smoke, snort, drink, fuck and generally behave badly with anything or anyone around. Continue reading “Book review: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls”

Book review: Bonjour Tristesse

Bonjour TristesseBonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After an intervening couple of decades I revisited Sagan’s novel. I remembered enjoying it greatly when I read it in my teens, and hoped the same memories of cut-glass oceans and desultory fucking-for-effect conniving would hold true.

They didn’t. Continue reading “Book review: Bonjour Tristesse”

Book review: Deep Kyoto: Walks

Deep Kyoto: WalksDeep Kyoto: Walks by a number of contributors
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The offshoot of a blog, this book is a collection of loosely-planned walks through the ancient city (and former capital) with a variety of themes. There’s plenty of history, sure – you can’t really avoid it in a place like Kyoto – but there’s also a lot of personal history brought to bear, here. (Sometimes, a little too much – some of the writers’ digressions aren’t as amusing as they presumably believe, but I accept this may just be a personality clash.) Continue reading “Book review: Deep Kyoto: Walks”

Book review: Setting Free the Bears

Setting Free the BearsSetting Free the Bears by John Irving
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I first read this book when I was about 14. It seemed amazing back then, as it was an excursion into history and kinda-sorta sex and the road and motorcycles and that whole enthusiastic, Dickens-hipster thing. Yeah, daddy-o.

The problem about reading it with an older eye is that it hasn’t aged particularly well. The text is clunky and overcomplex, the characters pretty one-dimensional – Gallen is basically a big-hipped R. Crumb figure with less intrigue – and the whole atmosphere is a little too keep-on-truckin’ to be read without cringing. Continue reading “Book review: Setting Free the Bears”

Book review: Blood’s A Rover

Blood's A RoverBlood’s A Rover by James Ellroy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, JFK, MLK and RFK were all dead by the time this book began, so I was wondering where it would go. Who else could be offed? Thankfully, foreign casino insurgency and a gem heist gone to shit allow Ellroy the chance to work some of his favourite characters (requisite dirty cops, Sal Mineo and Sonny Liston, mysterious double agents, the Mob) into something which isn’t quite as weighed down by history as the preceding books in the trilogy.

The gem heist – and where the gems lead – provides a neat small-scale tableau to provide a break from the Nixon and Hoover machinations. As with the search for rogue drug dealer Durfee in a previous volume, the smaller crime has echoes in the larger political sphere. This time around though, it seems more – human. Continue reading “Book review: Blood’s A Rover”

Book review: American Tabloid

American TabloidAmerican Tabloid by James Ellroy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first in another history-minded trilogy, American Tabloid unpicks the hem of the myth of Camelot while keeping an eye on the main chance. The prose is as jacked-up as half the characters, and it moves forward with a terrifying urgency.

Like his other works, there’s a lot of character specificity and a lot of fine detail evoked. But the Underworld USA trilogy manages to more convincingly convey a sense of momentousness, of this-is-probably-how-it-happened. But it ain’t pretty.

Reading this book is a bit like being repeatedly punched in the face by History. You know something has happened, and you know it’s important and will leave lasting traces for the future. Though you can’t help but feel as if Events had taken you out to an alley and kicked shit out of you. Continue reading “Book review: American Tabloid”

Book review: The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women

The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of WomenThe Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women by James Ellroy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hard on the heels of my reading of My Dark Places comes this, a second exploration of the role of women in author James Ellroy’s life.

You probably won’t want to read it if you’re sick of jacking-off-and-peeping stories. Because – though they’re not as explicitly described as elsewhere – they’re here. That and darkened-room fantasising. The short book reeks of control; of others, of self, and the lack thereof.

Ideally, this should be read in concert with My Dark Places. That book explains the importance of the murder of Ellroy’s mother, and its effect on his life. The Hilliker Curse moves past the mechanics of the death and into how his relationships with women have played out over the years. True, his mother is looming, forever, Continue reading “Book review: The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women”