This is what Shakespeare had to say about music:

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
The motions of his spirit are as dull as night,
And his affectations dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music- The Merchant of Venice, Act 5, Scene 1, ( Read more... )

My pace from earlier in the year hasn't picked up any, which is why I've read a pathetic 37 books thus far this year. That'll be less than half of what I read last year, and honestly if I didn't go on vacation that number would be even lower. I knocked off 5 books in North Dakota, 7 in New Mexico and 2 more in Chicago. Cut them out and I'm down at ( Read more... )

Wednesday, October 12 - My coworker Jason (motto: old skateboarders never die, they just break a few more bones) and I will be catching NOFX at the House of Blues. Opener is Antiflag. Both bands have been on my bucket list for a while.

Thursday, October 13 - The new CityMusic Cleveland season opens this weekend with works by Beethoven, Ligeti and ( Read more... )

It turns out that going to the gym really cuts into the time available to read, so this list is somewhat shorter than it might otherwise have been.

I've previously stated that I wasn't a big fan of The Walking Dead, as I found it to be unimaginative and cliched to the point that I stopped reading about finishing the first four trade paperbacks. ( Read more... )

The excitement and socialness of summer has cut back on my reading, but I've still managed to read a few things since last time.

First and foremost, I knocked off the five extant collections of Scott Pilgrim, soon to be a major motion picture. These came courtesy of zodarzone; I read the first two at Rock Band night and then borrowed the whole stack. The ( Read more... )

Quite a few things have been added to the list since last time. Let's review some of the highlights, in no particular order.

I knocked off some recent additions to some of my favorite series. I greatly enjoyed the Weber/Flint Honorverse collaboration Torch of Freedom, which is in the Wages of Sin trunk. The first main-line book in 5 years, Mission ( Read more... )

I have previously discussed the ongoing efforts to rewrite Pulp Fiction in the style of Shakespeare. In that spirit, I give you The Two Gentlemen of Lebowski.

They say once is chance and twice is coincidence... I wonder when the third shall arrive.

Also, if you need a handy Shakespearean insult, you've got options.

If you keep a resolution for a year, you've resolved. If you keep it past that, it's a habit. Let's here it for habits. Here are some highlights from my reading list for the first two months of 2010.

I started the year off with the very heavy, oft quoted, rarely read Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville. There's a lot of very good ( Read more... )

With a month to go I'm at 79 books and 25 graphic novels. Since last time, I've read several more books worth mentioning, and many not. Here are some highlights, in no particular order.

I'm pretty sure that Richard III is my favorite Shakespearean play, even if it's not the midnight cult classic here that it is in Jasper Fforde's world. Does ( Read more... )

The summer really slowed my progress on the great books resolution. Or perhaps more accurately, it brought it to a screeching halt. Since my last post I've only finished one Shakespearean play and one inarguable 'great' book. So I'm going to highlight some of the highlights, as it were.

Tom Robbins - Jitterbug Perfume. This is apparently popular ( Read more... )