Author: Ridley

Well hello there. I’ve got a lot of little things on my mind right now and I’m not sleeping any time soon, so I thought that this would be a good time to unload a few of them.    Tell The Machine Goodnight is a curious novel that I tore through as quickly as anything I’ve read of late. It’s by Katie Williams, and it batted around my expectations like a cat playing with a catnip-filled toy. The inside cover description made me think of a Terry Gilliam-ish dystopia, but that’s not really it at all. The first chapter left me thinking I had the rest of the novel neatly figured out, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.  I’m not certain what I think of the ending, but that’s true of a lot of my favorite speculative stories. It’s science fiction, but it’s more so in the manner of The Twilight Zone than space opera, which, I should point out, was at its best when the endings were a little ambiguous. It’s also nothing at all like The Twilight Zone. It’s an interesting, thoughtful book and it’s a great read.  Speaking of The Twilight Zone, we watched one of the less-famous Richard Donner-directed episodes last night: “Come Wander With Me”. Nicole pointed out just how pitch-perfect the casting was, and how this was so often the case with The Twilight Zone. The other thing that stood out were the production values and, yes, the direction. I’ve seen films that weren’t as tightly constructed as “Come Wander With Me”. It’s a delight to see the craftsmanship involved in telling these stories, even when the stories themselves don’t always hold up. The big downside of this episode? The song is an evil, evil ear worm. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. We’re going to be moving to a new apartment next week, so things are a little untidy around here. We’re going to be staying in the same area; I’m pretty sure the distance between the front doors is around 50 yards. The new place is a little larger, a lot newer (we’ll be the first occupants), and we’re hoping the management and maintenance will be a little more to our liking.  We’ll won’t be on the first floor anymore, which means we won’t have our garden which, for all intents and purposes, has served more as a snail sanctuary than a proper garden. That was fine, as we weren’t going to eat anything we grew. This left us with a bit of a dilemma: What to do with the little creatures who depended on us for food and shelter? Simply leaving would put them in a bad situation as snails are generally considered to be pests.  You can probably guess what we decided.  A little bit of zucchini, some lettuces, and a cuttlebone and our new guests seem quite happy indeed. They’re marvelous little creatures, very relaxing to watching and as gentle as you could want. Given the likely result had we left them, I’m certain we made the best choice for them in bringing them in. I hope they have lovely lives. Maybe one of the reasons that I’m not sleeping so well is that I go “on call” tomorrow. “On call” is the worst. It’s pitched as a benefit to the people who are part of the rotation. No, really. The line of thinking is “At least it’s only one week out of four that you’re expected to be available 24/7 if (when) something comes up.” That’s a fiction, of course, in two ways. One is that you’re expected to be available at all times anyway, at least to some degree. In addition, it’s not really “if something comes up”. There’s no making plans when you’re “on call”. No being away from your computer for more than an hour at the most, so no movies, fast food if you dine out, and no real weekend. It comes with the gig, and the gig is well-compensated, but that doesn’t mean I’m a fan. I recently re-played on of my favorite old PS2 games, Final Fantasy X. It was ported, largely successfully, to PC and I’ve been eager to see if it lived up to my memories. It did in almost every respect. The gameplay itself is not particularly challenging and it’s possible, through a little judicious grinding, to remove most of what challenge there is. It’s still fun, though. The “sphere grid” system for advancing the characters is ludicrous, beautiful, and kind of delightful. The combat is 100% turn based, so once you get your head around it, it’s not especially difficult to get your tactics right. Of course, Final Fantasy games are only tangentially about gameplay, and that’s as true of FFX as any of them. You’re playing a story, a story that’s told with beautiful art, and with some wildly inconsistent voice acting. It all makes a sort of sense that would make you sound like a madman if you tried to describe it to someone, and it’s deeply, deeply sad. The pacing is near-perfect and the ending will give you feels. The only bit that was different than what I remembered is that I had a key part of the story backwards in my head. It’s no less melancholy than I recalled, just for slightly different reasons. And, honestly, it’s just gorgeous to look at. Worth a play (or replay) if you’re in to that sort of thing. I’ve been dreaming of spending some time in a little cabin, somewhere remote, somewhere rainy, and taking a week to get my head on straight. It’s cruel, then, that there’s been a little unseasonable rain this weekend. Not enough to do much of anything beyond make it too humid to go outside, not that we were going to do much of that. There’s packing to be done. In case there was any doubt in your mind, the cliche is true: It’s not the heat, it is the humidity. 100 dry degrees is a cakewalk compared to 90 degrees and moisture in the air.  I guess that’s about it for now. One of these days I’ll get back in the rhythm of writing shorter posts about a single thing. That’s not going to happen until after we settle in at the soonest.  Goodnight all. Sweet dreams….

It’s been some while since I’ve posted anything here. That’s primarily due to the fact that I’ve been enjoying my time on holiday. A sand beach and the smell of the surf are hard to compete with and… You’re not buying any of this, are you? I’ll be honest this time. Watching the country spiral into darkness is taking a toll on me. I have a vague recollection of the Watergate era and this is so much worse that I don’t believe I have the capacity to explain it. Breaking things goes so much more quickly than building them. We’re now having to watch cherished, hard-fought victories discarded literally without a thought.  It’s not just the politicians, of course. The very worst of us feel emboldened to display their racism, misogyny, and…we need a better word than “homophobia”, but you get the idea, without any sense of shame. They gave us the alt-right, gamergate, the sad and rabid puppies, and now comicsgate. It’s largely the same people making the same arguments, trying to cloak their views in a poor imitation of rationality and in unscientific appeals to nature. I wrote a long post about comicsgate a couple of weeks ago and decided not to post it on account of the fact that I’m just tired of it.  Work has managed to get its tendrils into my nights and weekends as well. I put in 4-5 hours today and likely will again tomorrow. I understand that, in part, this is because I let it do so. It’s also just a matter of there being a lot of work to do and not terribly many people to do it. It happens, it’s part of the gig, but it’s one more thing just wearing me out. One of our snails passed this week, too: Poor little Lucky. Lucky had a tough life, surviving unbeknownst to us outside of the tank without any food or care. He was less than a centimeter long when we found him and brought him in to the tank. Tough little guy, The snail groups warn you not to get attached to the runts because they’re not going to live that long, but you don’t always get to choose what you get attached to, do you? Poor guy. I hope he had a good life.  I did manage to get a song in the can., but, appropriately, it’s a 5 minute drone that’s essentially one note and a fractured drum line.  It’s not especially musical, but I’m pretty happy with the sounds. I’ll write more about it later, but I’m currently reading Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep and, halfway through, I’d say I’ve probably learned more important and interesting information that I have from any other book. The TL/DR would be: “Sleeping is important. It affects the health of your mind and body in ways you aren’t aware of, and you need 8 hours of sleep every night. Yes you do. No, really, you’re not special. Get your sleep.”  Which is exactly what I’m going to do now. Good night all. -RK

Read (past tense): So, you love Trainspotting as a motion picture, I’ll wager that you’ll find the book worth a read as well. In some ways the film improved on the book; the cast is cut down to a more manageable level by combining the stories of multiple characters into the primary four (or five, if you count Diane and I most definitely do). A word of warning, though: The book is significantly rougher than the film and that is a bar of significant height. Begbie is more violent, Sick Boy is skeevier, Renton is even more emo, and Spud? Well, Spud’s a mate. Sadly, Diane has but a single chapter, but it’s the one you’d expect. The vast majority of the book is famously written in Scots’ dialect, something that could easily have come across as a distracting stunt. I didn’t find it in the least bit difficult to follow. There are some slang terms I had to look up, but there’s a glossary to help out and I imagine you’ll use it far less than you’d expect. It’s an angry book, full of life, but it’s the life people with no futures choose to live, so it’s horrifying as well. Heroin, of course, figures heavily but you’d be missing the point if you said the book was about heroin or even junkies. It’s about how people react to a hopeless situation. I loved it, but I loved the movie and I imagine I’ll love the musical whenever Irvine Welsh decides to go for his EGOT. Re-Reading: I’m about 3/4 of the way through my second go round with Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing. It’s a beautiful book, as much a fable as it is a novel, and featuring a good deal more Spanish dialogue than I remembered. The pacing is…let’s call it stately. Elegiac? It’s slow, ok? But that’s the right pace for the story. McCarthy’s dialogue reads like a guy who read Hemingway and thought “way too verbose”, but his descriptions of the southwestern badlands are haunting and dense. He’s one of the few “western” writers who can tell a story that (and I hate myself for saying this) transcends the genre. One interesting thing McCarthy has in common with Neil Gaiman is that some of the best parts of the book are the stories within stories within stories. It’s a difficult device to pull off without taking the reader out of the story, but when it comes off, it’s brilliant.  This novel, like many of his, is a little cold, a little distant, and a lot of harsh, but it’s a hell of a book.  Going to read next: I finally, finally found a science fiction short story collection I’ve been seeking for a decade or so now. I read it back in the mid-80s and there were a couple of stories in it which left an unusually vivid imprint in my memory. The problem? I couldn’t remember the name of the collection, the names of the stories, or the author. Even with the aid of the internet, I didn’t have much luck. I thought it might be a collection by Frederik Pohl, so I’ve been combing through his collections at Half Price Books without seeing anything that seemed familiar. Grrrr.  A couple of weeks ago I finally found a combination of search terms to find one of the stories: “The Martyr”. Aha! That, in turn, lead me to the author, Poul Anderson (I was close, dammit!), and to the title of the collection: The Gods Laughed. When I saw the cover, I knew I’d found it. Huzzah. No Half Price in town had a copy, and it seems to be out of print, but no worries. The internet came to the rescue once more. I now have a copy and look forward to re-reading it and probably discovering that it wasn’t nearly as good as I remembered. I’m willing to take that risk.  In case you’re wondering the other story from this collection that stuck with me was called “Soldier From the Stars”. Funny thing: These two, along with a couple of William Gibson stories from the Mirrorshades collection, are the most haunting sci-fi short stories I’ve read and three of the four have a common premise: Humanity ain’t at the top of the galactic food chain. I should probably ask my therapist if that means anything, huh? -RK

Let me tell you a good story about my father. I may have mentioned this at another time, but what good is a story that’s only told once? This is a good one, I promise. My father and I had pretty significant disagreements throughout most of this century, but I never once lost my respect for him and his integrity. He was, to as great a degree as anyone is, a man of his word and would go to unreasonable lengths to do what he believed was right. I could cite dozens of examples, but I didn’t even learn of the best one until he was nearly gone. When my parents were divorced, my mother hadn’t worked for several decades and, as such, her earning power was somewhat limited. The divorce decree included child support as well as alimony. The amount of the alimony was tied to mom’s salary: When she received a raise, the alimony would be reduced by the amount of the raise. This, of course, meant that her earnings were capped until the alimony was eliminated. One night, after receiving a raise and after a couple of glasses of brandy at a company happy hour, she called my father to give him the good news: “Congratulation. You got a raise.” she told him in what I presume was a snide tone of voice. Dad was silent for a second and then responded by saying “You’re right. This isn’t fair.” I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if they had the decree reworked or if they just handled it themselves, but the end result is that he agree to split any raise she received. If she received a $100 raise, the alimony would only drop by $50 and she’d also be $50 to the good.  He didn’t have to do that; the only reason for reworking the deal was his sense of right and wrong which, if I’m honest, was a good deal sharper than my own. That was my dad. This sense of right and wrong got him cheated in business more times than I care to share, but it never changed him. He was a good man in that he could invariably be counted on to act on his beliefs and you can’t ask much more than that. -RK

Our annual-ish 1,100 mile pilgrimage to Marfa, way out in the middle of nowhere, the specific part of nowhere in the trans-Pecos high desert of west Texas, did not go precisely as planned this time around. In fact, the cartographically-minded amongst you might have picked up on the fact that the drive from Austin to Marfa is ~430 miles and, thus, the entire trip would fall comfortably short of 1,100 miles. Very observant of you to pick up on that. Why so many extra miles? That’s a very good question. Our car is approaching its third birthday and our battery recently died on us (I may have left the door ajar), so we thought it wise to have it replaced when we changed the oil. The folks at the shop informed us that the battery wasn’t that bad. It was right on the edge of needing replacement, but when we said we were going out into the desert, they agreed that it would be prudent to make the change.  We hit the road early, by our standards, getting on the freeway before 6:00 AM and pretty much flew out I-10. For some reason, this drive feels as short or shorter than the 200 mile slog up to Dallas. Maybe it’s because we’re going to our magic hideaway in the middle of nowhere, or maybe it’s due to the fact that, once we hit Junction, the terrain is hilly and interesting for the entire trip.  We wound up getting to El Cosmico well ahead of the 3:00 check-in time, so we goofed around the town and hit up our favorite breakfast/lunch spot, Marfa Burrito. It’s cheap, it’s flavorful, the coffee is free, and no English whatsoever is spoken. There are multiple autographed photos of Matthew McConaughey eating there hanging on the walls. It’s that kind of place, in a good way. When we returned a little after 3:00, our tent still wasn’t ready. We sat in the main building, which isn’t air conditioned but at least has fans and shade, bought some souvenirs, drank some coffee, and moved all our stuff to the tent when it was ready at 4:30. It was too hot to even think of grilling, so we headed off to the grocery store to get some noms for the evening, and then took some pictures of decaying buildings near downtown. And then the car wouldn’t start.  This was precisely what we were trying to avoid. Fortunately, a local was able to help us push start it, but we were scared to turn it off again. We drove around town a little and then figured a little highway driving would be the best way to get the battery charged up again. We headed south and passed a border patrol check-point, which meant we were gonna have to stop on the way way back.  Heading north again, we pulled over and spoke to the shaggy teenager in the booth while Paul Blart (Nicole’s description, with which I concur) circled our car with his “probable cause” dog. He saw Nicole’s hair and the El Cosmico sticker, gave the dog’s collar a tug, and the dog went nuts. We were asked to pull over so he could search our car. Fortunately, we were able to convince him to let us keep the engine lit.  We sat on a bench next to a younger woman who was playing good cop to Blart’s bad ‘un. He asked us if we were carrying any drugs, or if I smoked marijuana (a question that drew genuine laughter from us) and went so far as to say that he couldn’t arrest us if we did have any drugs. We chatted comfortably with the woman while he did a half-assed search of our luggage. The dog stayed perfectly calm since Blart wasn’t tugging on his collar, and we were sent on our merry way. We made it back to El Cosmico around sundown, parked the car, tested the starter, and..pffft. Nothing. This was precisely what we’d gone to considerable length to avoid and, I gotta tell you, it’s pretty hard to enjoy a remote paradise when your car is blorked. Grrr. The tent itself was lovely. We decided to stay in a tent for one night before moving to our favorite trailer. It was, however, more of a winter setup than a summer one. It had a fire pit, no breeze, and (obviously) no AC. We might have enjoyed it more without the specter of “what the fuck are we gonna do about the car?” hanging over our heads. We slept in about as late as we could, which is to say, until 6:00 or so, got some coffee, and formulated a plan. We called the roadside assistance that’s included with our car insurance to get a jump. Unfortunately, they had to come in from Marathon, about an hour away. While we were waiting, we called Mazda warranty services. When an old battery and a new battery die in short order, and when the battery won’t charge with driving, that sounds like an alternator issue, or maybe even a slipping belt. Both of those things should be covered under our warranty, so we figured we’d be better of getting to a Mazda dealership than trying to find a mechanic in Marfa or, more likely, Alpine. The Mazda folks agreed, and said that they could tow us to the nearest dealership….170 miles away in Odessa.  Well, crap.  When they guy came to jump the car, we talked to him about what was the likely culprit and he agreed with our diagnoses. We decided that waiting on a tow truck and then riding in the cab for 3 hours was more of a buzzkill than we could handle, so we formed a bold plan: We would drive the car from Marfa to Odessa and hope like hell the engine didn’t stop the entire trip. Did we have to stop for gas? Yep! We got away with it, though, and made it to the Odessa dealership, Sky Mazda, by mid-afternoon.  We left the car with them and they loaned us a new SUV to drive home. Let me tell you a little about the drive from Marfa to Odessa. You know how I said driving to Marfa from Austin seems shorter than it is? Well, this one…

10 all-time favorite albums (as if I could limit it to ten), in no particular order. Albums that really made an impact and are still on your rotation list, even if only now and then. A live album? And not a particularly well-regarded one? What gives? Well…we’ll get to The Real Reason shortly. For now, let’s just consider it for what it is: A well-curated greatest (recent) hits album with some performances that surpass the studio versions. Genesis were an unusual band in that their two live-only members (guitarist Daryl Stuermer and drummer Chester Thompson) added tremendously to their overall sound. The extended instrumental section of “Abacab” is a perfect example of this-it’s a much bigger, fuller song than it is on the studio album. The original U.S. version of this record featured a non-live side consisting primarily of the U.K. EP release “3×3”. “Paperlate” was an extremely Phil Collins-ish single, which is great, but it’s “You Might Recall” that really stands out among the studio tracks. The U.K. release, which is the only version still available, had four live sides, but the fourth was confusingly from an earlier tour. For once, it’s the U.S. version you want. Ok, so why is this album so important to me? This was the, um, genesis of my love of the sound of synthesizer-based melodies, especially with huge drums behind them. “Behind The Lines” and “Dodo” blew my mind, but it’s the medley between “In The Cage” and “Afterglow” that still gives me chills: The life-changing bit starts right at 8:00 but hey, it’s all good.  This album sent me down a long, expensive, frustrating, but ultimately thrilling path of “trying to learn to play synthesizers”. I’m still not good or anything, but that’s not really what it’s about. I love playing with these marvelous toys, and it’s all because of this album. P.S. If you think I’m stopping at 10, you don’t know me very well, do you?

10 all-time favorite albums (as if I could limit it to ten), in no particular order. Albums that really made an impact and are still on your rotation list, even if only now and then. If there’s one album on this last that you take the time to listen to, this is the one I’d recommend. I’d never even heard of this band when I went to see a SxSW showcase at Red-Eyed Fly. I was there to see Stellastarr*, who were excellent, but it was the band who went on before them who really blew me away. They played a spectacular set and closed with an instrumental that built into a locomotive of guitar-pop goodness. Based on the band order listed on a sheet of paper, I assumed I’d seen The Unicorns. It wasn’t until I found a band listing in a newspaper and checked out the music on…was it YouTube then? I’m not sure, that I learned the band I’d seen was Ambulance LTD. Bought the album the next day and it’s been in heavy rotation since. This is, start to finish, about as close to perfect as any album I’ve ever heard. Every song is wonderful (assuming you like indie guitar pop). It wanders between dreamy, folksy, straight-ahead rock and even a hint of post rock with an ease that shouldn’t be possible on a debut album. Unfortunately, it was also their last. Label troubles ensure that we would get only one more EP out of Amulance LTD (the good but not perfect “New English”) and then nothing more. The singer, songwriter, and guitarist Marcus Congleton can’t perform as Ambulance LTD or use the band’s name for promotional purposes. He’s currently a member of Drug Cabin, along with ex-Pretty Girls Make Graves’ Blake Thelen. Every now and again, you can hear some of that Ambulance spark in the music, but it’s not LP. In fairness, nothing else this decade is.

10 all-time favorite albums (as if I could limit it to ten), in no particular order. Albums that really made an impact and are still on your rotation list, even if only now and then. Another early-2000s albums that received great reviews but no radio airplay, Electric Version was a revelation to me. I finally got to hear it for the first time on the jukebox at Casino El Camino and fell in love instantly. Everything that made me happy about music is contained the the first four songs. Power pop, soaring harmonies, delirious lyrics, and just plain giddy fun.  Wasn’t music always fun? Well, no, not really. Grunge was not fun. Industrial is not fun (except, of course, for PWEI). I love me some Radiohead, but OK Computer and Kid A are not fun. I loved all that stuff, but wasn’t even aware of how little joy there was in the music.  Electric Version, for me, brought back the sing-along choruses and hooks-upon-hooks that first made me love the rock and the roll. That’s the primary impact. The unabashed fun of it. Oh sure, Dan Bejar wanders in and delivers “Testament to Youth in Verse,” the most gorgeous paean to teen celibacy you’ll ever hear. Bejar, (whose solo band, Destroyer, is also one of my favorites) brings a loose and cynical voice to the proceedings, keeping it from becoming too…not twee, but too….much?  Love this record so, so much, in case you couldn’t tell.

  10 all-time favorite albums (as if I could limit it to ten), in no particular order. Albums that really made an impact and are still on your rotation list, even if only now and then. Welcome to the 2000s (for now at least)! In the early years of this strange, new millennium, living by myself in a new town, I had more time on my hands than I had music to fill it with. Radio was (and remains) an unproductive place to look for new music. Fortunately, I has Spin magazine and the MUCH music channel. Between the two of them, I found more great new music than I had during any other period of my life. That brings of, naturally, to Mr. Leo and his Pharmacists. Hearts of Oak was an album I bought on the  basis of great reviews and a ton of mentions on end-of-year best lists. None of that gave me any sense of what to expect with how it would sound (“dancing about architecture” indeed, and I understand the irony of what I’m doing now). What it sounds like, in a nutshell, was brilliant. I was intrigued by the intro, “Building Skyscrapers in the Basement”, but it was the riff that starts “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?” that made me start giggling like a loony alone in my apartment. I didn’t just like this album; I loved it from the first listen. It’s guitar rock with a nod or two to Thin Lizzy and The Jam, heart-on-the-sleeve sincere with a complete lack of hipster irony (so, of course, hipsters loved it).  I like Ted Leo so much as a person that I’m sure my bias affects how I hear his music. That may matter when it comes to giving recommendations, but from the point of view of my own enjoyment, I see no reason to separate them. Hearts of Oak is great, in no small part because it restored my belief that great music was still being made, I’d just stopped looking for it.