Musing

An email circulating in Great Britain describes the sudden arrival of warm weather, something like our first glimpse of 80* a couple of weeks ago. This is one of those few forwards where I know or care what the writer is talking about. Crude language/subject matter warning. Reader discretion is advised. Ah, Tit Monday. It’s not that far off now, That glorious day when, heading into work on the bus, or walking to theTube, or sitting on the train, you find yourself suddenly chirpier than you have been in months. You find yourself smiling at strangers again. There is a mild involuntary tumescence in your trousers that comes and goes throughout the morning with the comforting regularity of a heartbeat. And then you get a text around lunchtime from a mate which says: “At last, Tit Monday!” And you instantly understand why you are so happy. For Tit Monday is that special day in the year when, for the first time, the temperature rises above that magical point which causes girls getting dres...

Album Review: The Alphabet of Hurricanes This fan review of AoH nailed something that I've had a hard time finding the words to explain. In the process, he loses the words to explain it himself. Thirdly: the songs. Usually, when I do this reviewy thing, I walk myself through the songs, but for now I'm not going to do that yet. Which is a very, very good thing. I like two types of music: music that I can't sit still to and music that makes you hold your breath, waiting for and at the same time dreading the end, because of its sheer beauty. Music has to move me, preferably beyond myself, if at all possible to that transcendent plane where you accidentally bump into spectres of words that don't exist or ideas you never had because you couldn't get a hold of them. TAoH strikes a great balance between tracks that are immediately and obviously great and tracks that are growers. This is probably the defining mark of any album that withstands the test of time - it has l...

On Various Matters - Design refresh still pending. Probably looking at a summer roll-out at this point. - Our sidewalk lamps were stolen at some point last night or this afternoon. I'm not sure how best to deal with this, so I'm stuck in a pissed-off funk. - Tom McRae's new album is amazing, and a review that I started and forgot to finish weeks ago will be posted soon. - I've also finally finished The Gathering Storm . WOW. Sanderson is making a serious run to be one of my favorite authors of all time.

On Moral and Religious Upbringing Is it any wonder that there can be no peace in a world where everything is done to guarantee that the youth of every nation grow up absolutely without moral and religious discipline, and without the shadow of an interior life, or of that spirituality and charity and faith which alone can safeguard the treasures and agreements made by governments? And Catholics, thousands of Catholics everywhere, have the consummate audacity to weep and complain because God does not hear their prayers for peace, when they have neglected not only His will, but the ordinary dictates of natural reason and prudence, and let their children grow up according to the standards of a civilization of hyenas. -Thomas Merton, "The Seven Story Mountain" Though it seems harsh on Catholics, this is the only background from which Merton could speak with personal authority. It is safe to say that this statement can be far more broadly applied.

Programming Note Haloscan is going belly-up this month, so I've enabled the native Blogger commenting protocol. This means all of the original commentary that sprinkled the articles is now gone. Not entirely into the ether - I have an enormous XML download that includes all of them. However, the task of reentering them is more trouble than it's worth. Such is the life of free services. In the meantime, enjoy some Bell X1!

The 2009 Ho Media Awards Website of the Year - xkcd Because romance, sarcasm, math, and language have always made the best bedfellows. Book of the Year - Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Angel's Game Nobody writes a novel with the right mix of noir, mystery, fantasy, and macabre deaths like Zafon. TAG is no exception. This book contains the single worst death I have ever had the privilege (?) of reading. It made me laugh and it broke my heart; made me hope and despair; made me pray and curse; and most powerfully, it stuck with me for every minute that I spent between those times when I could sit down with it again. In a preemptive honorable mention, I'm pretty sure that Brandon Sanderson is going to finish out the Wheel of Time saga very admirably, but I haven't gotten to The Gathering Storm yet. My reread is only halfway through Lord of Chaos right now. I started it back in September! Sanderson is worth another mention for his own original works as well. The Mistborn ...

Top Ten Albums of 2009 - #2 Doves' Kingdom of Rust Surprised? Yeah, I bet you are. This was an early pick for the best album of the year before I'd heard a single note. It's Doves! And thankfully, it IS awesome (despite the miserable wait while songs were recorded, re-recorded, scrapped, re-re-recorded, etc.). It flows a little better than Some Cities , if not so well as the first two. Yet the one thing that gets me is the tracklisting. Four new b-sides were released in various ways from this album (counting "The Last Son" and "Ship of Fools") and every single of of them was better than "The Outsiders." Too harsh and with little direction, "The Outsiders" is the biggest reason this album derails at all. The best album of the year, along with the usual year-end awards and the "But What About Album [X]?" list will be out just after New Year's. Happy Holidays!