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Sunday, December 08, 2002

The Best Books I Read This Year. I'll keep the list short: A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Eric Newby The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan Roscoe, William Kennedy The Dying Animal, Philip Roth American Gods, Neil Gaiman Seeing in the Dark, Timothy Ferris The Hard Life: An Exegesis of Squalor, Flann O'Brien Ouch. Of 50+ books read, there should have been beter ones; I include only books I finished, that I'm not still in the process of reading, or that I skimmed.  While there were some other good books I read, these are the best. Still, looking over this list, and the list of books I did read, it's clear I wasted a lot of my time on crap. So maybe in 2003 I can read better books. Of course, I say that pretty much every year. 3:54:10 PM  Permalink  comment []

Best of the Year Mike's best album of the year list; I've been meaning to link to it for a while. A good list! * Don't Give Up On Me - Soloman Burke * The Rising - Bruce Springsteen * Come Away With Me - Norah Jones * Alice &  Blood Money - Tom Waits * Belly Of The Sun - Cassandra Wilson * Good Morning Aztlan - Los Lobos * Higher Ground - The Blind Boys of Alabama * Fashionably Late - Linda Thompson * The Willies - Bill Frisell * Live 1975 - Bob Dylan * Down The Road - Van Morrison * Milk of the Moon - Greg Brown * Silver Lining - Bonnie Rait * When I Was Cruel - Elvis Costello * Lost In Space - Aimee Mann * Jerusalem - Steve Earle * American IV: The Man Comes Around - Johnny Cash * Daybreaker - Beth Orton * 1000 Kisses - Patty Griffin * The Loom's Desire - Laura Nyro Several I haven't heard, but need to listen to. Ralph Stanely's T-Bone Burnett-produced album isn't there, and the most recent Buddy and June Miller work isn't either. This is some pretty amazing music, when you stop and look at the list, a really incredible variety of music. 3:44:31 PM  Permalink  comment []

Surprise, It's the Economy Again, Stupid!. If you measure the success of a president by job creation, George W. Bush is a failure so far. By Floyd Norris. [New York Times: Politics] 11:41:31 AM  Permalink  comment []

The Outsider. "From the moment Bush stepped into office, he's been leading a...disciplined campaign to destroy, dismantle, unravel, undo 30 years of environmental-regulations development." By Interview by Amanda Griscom. [New York Times: Politics] But Ralph Nader and the Greens told us there wasn't any difference between the Republicans and the Democrats! 11:41:08 AM  Permalink  comment []

Specialization is for insects. A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. — Lazarus Long (Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, 1973) [Jinn of Quality and Risk] 11:39:17 AM  Permalink  comment []

Spreading knowledge is good for everyone - that seems like an obvious proposition, and yet it is vitally important to dwell on how critical this proposition is.  If you are at all inclined to think about these things check out Virginia Postel's article in the New York Times entitled When Knowledge was Spread Around So Was Prosperity.  (thanks to Jim McGee for the heads up). [Ernie the Attorney] 11:30:46 AM  Permalink  comment []

Greed and the Obliteration of Cultural Artifacts. Lessig: ...about 37,000 movies were released in the period 1927-46. (IMDb reports 36,386). Of those, only 2,480 are currently available in any format, or 6.8%. The rest are locked in copyright hell. How many of these may be great art which we are not allowed to appreciate? My favourite movies are definitely not Hollywood blockbusters. Art is the fuel of our consciousness. It is too important an area of human life and culture to allow it to rot at the greedy hands of a few pseudo-businessmen and corrupt politicians. [Jinn of Quality and Risk] 11:25:41 AM  Permalink  comment []

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