Consider this a happy new year sort of post—
Although I am not a huge subscriber to the philosophy that new year is a time for new beginnings and a cleaning of the slate, I do think it is definitely a recognizable milestone nonetheless.
However, it should be noted...
It's good to take a step back and look at things in the bigger picture.
Life is a wheel. You may be at the bottom now, but, soon enough, you will rise to the top again... only to fall again...
...and rise again.
Keep that in mind.
Cheers and safety to all—
~Austin
The inane blabberings of an admitted music addict. Best viewed in web version.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Moonrise at dusk.
Such a bright contrast between hanging clouds and a near-full moon.
Picked up David Sylvian's Manafon this afternoon. Too early for any clear headed assessments, but I am fairly taken aback by it — even going in knowing it was basically the sequel to Blemish. Stark, spacious, bleak and strangely gorgeous. An involving listen for sure, but worth every second.
More year end wrap-ups forthcoming.
~Austin
Monday, December 28, 2009
Book review: The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Caught the last half of the film adaptation of this book on cable years ago and have wanted to read it ever since. Well, finally got around to it...
The mood and atmosphere of Newfoundland that Proulx conjures up in her narrative is astounding. Very unsettling and simultaneously fascinating. A wonderful swirl of grey confusion that engulfs and envelopes the reader, fully immersing them into the story's setting: a rare feat fully accomplished.
However, everything else is a mess.
I also do kind of like that you never know the main character's first name -- only the somewhat cursed surname that he will forever be latched onto within a certain demographic.
But sheesh, the sentence fragments are jarring. Even the characters speak in sentence fragments, ferchrissakes! It seems a nice quirk at the outset, but by chapter 30, you'll still just be reading because you've made it this far and there's no use in not finishing it now.
I've no clue what the story is supposed to mean. Seems to me like some sort of modern day pseudo-existential tale of a late blooming man that is so pitiful he eventually becomes semi-likable just because we, as the reader, are in his head so much. This fact and this fact alone: not because he has endearing qualities that reveal themselves over time, not because he grows and becomes a new man, no; simply because we hear about what he's doing and his thoughts about the events constantly. Eventually, whether you like them or not, you start to care in a twisted sort of way.
And this is where the book becomes more of a soap opera than an actual well told tale.
The ending seems extremely forced and quick. After three hundred pages of dully narrated uneventful drudge, hey he falls in love again and the other guy comes back from the dead... within the last few paragraphs.
Uhhhmm, what?
Wow.
If you like the mood and ambiance that Albert Camus and Henry James create through pages of meticulous, well-practiced and worthwhile perfected craft, you will find positive, redeeming aspects in the Shipping News. Otherwise, it's got aspects of that mood, but the actual story is negligible, if not completely forgettable.
~Austin
The mood and atmosphere of Newfoundland that Proulx conjures up in her narrative is astounding. Very unsettling and simultaneously fascinating. A wonderful swirl of grey confusion that engulfs and envelopes the reader, fully immersing them into the story's setting: a rare feat fully accomplished.
However, everything else is a mess.
I also do kind of like that you never know the main character's first name -- only the somewhat cursed surname that he will forever be latched onto within a certain demographic.
But sheesh, the sentence fragments are jarring. Even the characters speak in sentence fragments, ferchrissakes! It seems a nice quirk at the outset, but by chapter 30, you'll still just be reading because you've made it this far and there's no use in not finishing it now.
I've no clue what the story is supposed to mean. Seems to me like some sort of modern day pseudo-existential tale of a late blooming man that is so pitiful he eventually becomes semi-likable just because we, as the reader, are in his head so much. This fact and this fact alone: not because he has endearing qualities that reveal themselves over time, not because he grows and becomes a new man, no; simply because we hear about what he's doing and his thoughts about the events constantly. Eventually, whether you like them or not, you start to care in a twisted sort of way.
And this is where the book becomes more of a soap opera than an actual well told tale.
The ending seems extremely forced and quick. After three hundred pages of dully narrated uneventful drudge, hey he falls in love again and the other guy comes back from the dead... within the last few paragraphs.
Uhhhmm, what?
Wow.
If you like the mood and ambiance that Albert Camus and Henry James create through pages of meticulous, well-practiced and worthwhile perfected craft, you will find positive, redeeming aspects in the Shipping News. Otherwise, it's got aspects of that mood, but the actual story is negligible, if not completely forgettable.
~Austin
Monday, December 14, 2009
Now the weather outside is just plain inordinate.
We rarely, if ever, see fog in Reno. Not to mention, fog this thick that sticks around for extended periods.
No, that's not just a fuzzy image; the fog is just that thick.
However, because of the higher elevation of Reno, this is freezing fog. To give an example of how thick it actually is, here's another shot taken from the same vantage point as the last one, except using a flash:
It was pretty much foggy all day. In my twenty two years as a Reno resident, I don't ever recall fog sticking around this long.
Strange times.
~Austin
No, that's not just a fuzzy image; the fog is just that thick.
However, because of the higher elevation of Reno, this is freezing fog. To give an example of how thick it actually is, here's another shot taken from the same vantage point as the last one, except using a flash:
It was pretty much foggy all day. In my twenty two years as a Reno resident, I don't ever recall fog sticking around this long.
Strange times.
~Austin
Sunday, December 13, 2009
The weather outside is frightful.
So I woke up Monday morning to this:
A huge sigh of relief when I heard that school was canceled for the day and I had the day off to shovel and shovel and shovel. We accumulated about five inches of snow over the course of Sunday night and the on/off showers throughout the day Monday. Well, it continued to go on and off all through the week until last night, when it dumped another several inches starting just as the sun was setting and lasting until well into the night.
After a few more hours shoveling this morning, I finally cleared the driveway to my satisfaction:
A quick measurement of the accumulation at the end of the driveway revealed this:
That sort of accumulation is expected up in the mountains and around Lake Tahoe, but we rarely ever see the snow fall heavily enough —and stick around— to accumulate that much.
While shoveling this morning, the sun came out and I snapped these bright shots looking south into the breaking clouds:
We're supposed to see more snow this evening.
*sigh*
~Austin
A huge sigh of relief when I heard that school was canceled for the day and I had the day off to shovel and shovel and shovel. We accumulated about five inches of snow over the course of Sunday night and the on/off showers throughout the day Monday. Well, it continued to go on and off all through the week until last night, when it dumped another several inches starting just as the sun was setting and lasting until well into the night.
After a few more hours shoveling this morning, I finally cleared the driveway to my satisfaction:
A quick measurement of the accumulation at the end of the driveway revealed this:
That sort of accumulation is expected up in the mountains and around Lake Tahoe, but we rarely ever see the snow fall heavily enough —and stick around— to accumulate that much.While shoveling this morning, the sun came out and I snapped these bright shots looking south into the breaking clouds:
We're supposed to see more snow this evening.*sigh*
~Austin
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