Now reading...

[fasstrack]

Amazing what you can get online: https://sfy.ru/?script=producers

Here is Dick Shawn singing Love Power in the 1968 movie:

 

Edited May 14, 2016 by fasstrack

[Royal Oak]

Tom Woolfe - The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Interesting, but I get the impression you had to be there. 

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, rdavenport said:

Tom Woolfe - The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Interesting, but I get the impression you had to be there. 

Problem is, if you were there, you probably don't remember it.

[Royal Oak]

47 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Problem is, if you were there, you probably don't remember it.

Quite!

[BillF]

Re-read this for the first time in almost 50 years. Profound - a major work - though I'm saying nothing original in noting this. 

[A Lark Ascending]

Finished this. Very good (if that era of popular music interests you). Marketed from what is only really a passing, tongue-in-cheek assertion about 1971 being rock's greatest year, this is actually a fascinating account of music and the music industry in transition. He's hugely enthusiastic about the music, very down to earth about the 'celebrity' musicians. Instead of the usual portrayal of them as mighty stars and 'artistic' geniuses, you end with a more believable image of young men and women of talent catapulted by sudden stardom into a world they don't really know how to handle (the pretensions of the Stones [not their music] come in for a fair amount of flak, not just Jagger (the obvious target) but the cult-of-Keef too). One of his main ideas is how unformed the management/marketing side of rock was at this time and how the first steps towards the machine of today were being laid around this time. One of his more provocative assertions is that 1971 was the year of punk; 1976/7 was revivalism (he also sees 1971 as the year when rock started to look back nostalgically on its past, creating the heritage element that figures so largely in its current marketing (not just rock!)!   

The other weird thing is how the book shows the imperfection of memory. There are records and bands pinpointed to a time here that I've always remembered in the following year. Probably an accident of when I heard them - I've always associated the T. Rex phenomena with 1972 but it actually kicked off the year before...probably the result of being subjected to endless T. Rex by a cousin I was staying with one summer!   

*******

Just over half way with both 'Mahler' and 'The Reformation' - both excellent but long, dense books. E.T.A. late June!   

[Jazzjet]

10 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

Finished this. Very good (if that era of popular music interests you). Marketed from what is only really a passing, tongue-in-cheek assertion about 1971 being rock's greatest year, this is actually a fascinating account of music and the music industry in transition. He's hugely enthusiastic about the music, very down to earth about the 'celebrity' musicians. Instead of the usual portrayal of them as mighty stars and 'artistic' geniuses, you end with a more believable image of young men and women of talent catapulted by sudden stardom into a world they don't really know how to handle (the pretensions of the Stones [not their music] come in for a fair amount of flak, not just Jagger (the obvious target) but the cult-of-Keef too). One of his main ideas is how unformed the management/marketing side of rock was at this time and how the first steps towards the machine of today were being laid around this time. One of his more provocative assertions is that 1971 was the year of punk; 1976/7 was revivalism (he also sees 1971 as the year when rock started to look back nostalgically on its past, creating the heritage element that figures so largely in its current marketing (not just rock!)!   

The other weird thing is how the book shows the imperfection of memory. There are records and bands pinpointed to a time here that I've always remembered in the following year. Probably an accident of when I heard them - I've always associated the T. Rex phenomena with 1972 but it actually kicked off the year before...probably the result of being subjected to endless T. Rex by a cousin I was staying with one summer!   

 

And if you have Spotify you might want to listen to David Hepworth's 'Never A Dull Moment' playlist :

 

[paul secor]

44 minutes ago, Jazzjet said:

And if you have Spotify you might want to listen to David Hepworth's 'Never A Dull Moment' playlist :

 

No thanks. I heard too much of that stuff back in the day. No reason to relive it.

[A Lark Ascending]

1 hour ago, Jazzjet said:

And if you have Spotify you might want to listen to David Hepworth's 'Never A Dull Moment' playlist :

 

That could be fun! Who needs a Tardis! Merci. 

[BillF]

Seemed logical to return to this one following my recent rewarding return to Bellow. A technically far more conventional novel than Herzog, though. Very plot-dominated - not surprised to read that a movie was made of this - which I haven't seen.

[jlhoots]

Craig Johnson: The Highwayman

[Tony]

almost finished.  Highly recommended

Tony

 

[ghost of miles]

[jlhoots]

Steve Hamilton: The Second Life Of Nick Mason

[Tim McG]

Great book...especially for those of us battling multiple-myeloma or know someone who is:

[A Lark Ascending]

No. 13, I think. Set against the backdrop supplying arms to the Republic at the time of the Spanish Civil War. Surprised more of these have not been adapted for TV/cinema - only 'Spies of Warsaw' as far as I've noticed.   

[Leeway]

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT - Fyodor Dostoevsky

In the oft-maligned Constance Garnett translation, which I rather like actually. I read this in college, when I found it fiercely compelling. This time around, I was less enthralled, even recognizing its many masterful moments. I recall my Russian teacher in college, in response to my enthusiasm for Dostoevsky, telling me that as one gets older, one tends to become more of a Tolstoyan, and I think that has been right, at least in my case. I'm sure that's not the case for everyone. BTW, does anyone else find the Epilogue weak and maybe even unnecessary (most are)?

[ejp626]

1 hour ago, Leeway said:

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT - Fyodor Dostoevsky

In the oft-maligned Constance Garnett translation, which I rather like actually. I read this in college, when I found it fiercely compelling. This time around, I was less enthralled, even recognizing its many masterful moments. I recall my Russian teacher in college, in response to my enthusiasm for Dostoevsky, telling me that as one gets older, one tends to become more of a Tolstoyan, and I think that has been right, at least in my case. I'm sure that's not the case for everyone. BTW, does anyone else find the Epilogue weak and maybe even unnecessary (most are)?

That is certainly a truism, but not true in my case.  I still rate Dostoevsky and also Turgenev above Tolstoy.  Demons is definitely an under-rated novel in my opinion.

I didn't mind the Garnett translation of Crime and Punishment but didn't have much to compare to (in my teens).  I will be tackling Crime and Punishment in the P&V translation (and probably comparing to Garnett) in a year or so.  I don't remember the epilogue, but I'm looking forward to it.

[BillF]

 

Highly popular fiction in the UK nowadays, less so with me. Readable all the same.

 

Highly popular fiction in the UK nowadays, less so with me. Readable all the same.

Aaargh! The Curse of the Double Post strikes again!

[paul secor]

5 hours ago, BillF said:

 

Highly popular fiction in the UK nowadays, less so with me. Readable all the same.

 

Highly popular fiction in the UK nowadays, less so with me. Readable all the same.

Aaargh! The Curse of the Double Post strikes again!

It won the Man Booker, but I was very disappointed. Not much there, to my mind.

[BillF]

1 hour ago, paul secor said:

It won the Man Booker, but I was very disappointed. Not much there, to my mind.

Yes, very slight - a feeling I also often have about Ian McEwan's prize-wnning efforts.

[paul secor]

Stephen Benatar: Wish Her Safe at Home

Memorable and fairly disturbing.

[ejp626]

Still working through Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle, but it is pretty slow going.

I'm also reading Brigid Brophy's In Transit, about a traveler stuck in an airport.  Like O'Brien's Night, it is another book clearly inspired by Joyce and other High Modernists.  It tries to dabble in absurdity, perhaps a bit like Flann O'Brien, but it tries too hard.  There is a 10 page section where the narrator forgets what sex he/she is, which doesn't work at all.  I suppose I might change my mind, but for the moment it is not recommended.

[paul secor]

Steve Hamilton: A Cold Day in Paradise

There have been a couple of articles in the papers recently about his problems with his former publisher and his new novel. A good friend sent me a link to a WSJ article and mentioned that he had some contact with Mr. Hamilton when they were both technical writers for IBM. I decided to read his first novel and it's generic, but well written generic. I'll try another at some point in time.

[jlhoots]

Louise Erdrich: LaRose