Musing

Honestly I expected more of 2020.  I thought that a year when everyone is expected to stay home would see a whole host of projects released for consumption by all of those bored, quarantined consumers, whether it was a music album or a book or anything else.  I heard a variety of reasons tossed around as to why it didn't happen that way, although they didn't all hold water. So in large part, it meant I continued working hard on the TBR pile of books in SF/F and assessing the music collection where it stands.  I was able to purge quite a few of the 62 books I was able to finish this year, but the CDs are about as trimmed as they can get.  The reading focus moves to general fiction and the philosophy/theology bookcase this year.  Though those collections are smaller, there are books that have been there since college that I've meant to read but just haven't bothered with yet.  The rule here is the same - every book I don't need to take across the country to ...

Sea Wolf's Old World Romance Editor's Note: This is the 4th in a quasi-weekly series of reviews marking my favorite ten albums of 2012. The 10th edition is wrapped into the larger year-end post I call "The Ho Media Awards", which will be published just after the new year. Stay tuned! Sea Wolf's second full length was something of a surprise. It's far more approachable than Leaves in the River . Although it placed third in my 2009 countdown, it lost something of its luster over time. It started feeling like a sell-out effort, which made me worry about LP3. Apparently I was too quick to judge, because this third album - Old World Romance - starts taking cues from the first album and leaving the sheen and the theatrics of the second album in the past. LitR is another one of those albums I love to pull out on rainy days. OWR is similar, but darker and colder. More of an album for snow than for rain (listen to "Kasper" for example and try t...