Album of the Day: Jack White - Blunderbuss

Released about a month ago, this is Jack White's first solo album. It topped quite a few charts and unless you've been living under a rock you've heard it. But it's good, so listen to it again :)

Rating: *****

Comment: Half of the White Stripes, all of the fun

Movietime: Chronos, Baraka, and Samsara

Baraka and Chronos are both non-narrative/abstract films by Ron Fricke, and both are a treat for the eye. Vast landscapes, time lapse shots, stunning architecture, people of various cultures doing their thing. Chronos was originally an IMAX feature, it's a shame I didn't get to see it in that format. That said, I was glad to have found a copy at all, and watching it on a huge screen in HD was still pretty damn impressive.

Neither movie is new by any means, Chronos is from 1985 and Baraka from 1992. I only found out about them through Samsara, a 2011 sequel of sorts to Baraka, which I've read about but haven't seen. It piqued my interest, I found and watched the other ones, and now I'm looking forward to seeing it immensely.

Rating: *****
Comment: Breathtaking imagery

Album of the Day: Gravenhurst - The Ghost in Daylight

Today's album is Gravenhurst 2012 The Ghost In Daylight, and what an album. Haunting, beautiful, driven. There isn't a song on this album I don't like, and I can listen to several of them over and over and over. And I do. Good stuff.

Rating: *****

Comment: I could have this on repeat all day long

The Reading List: Irredeemable & Incorruptible

I can't believe I still have this awkwardness in describing these things. Look, I think "comic book" sounds vaguely like I'm describing an issue of Donald Duck magazine or like I'm 12, and "graphic novel" sounds incredibly pompous.There's just no way to win this one.

Anyway, I've just went through Mark Waid's entire 37-issue run of Irredeemable and it was a pretty wild ride. The basic premise, I guess, is "what if a super-powered individual, a superhero if you will, snaps". Apparently much of earth gets decimated. I really wouldn't recommend it for 12-year old readers of Donald Duck magazine. But it's a pretty gripping story. The series "Incorruptible" is kind of a mirror image version of the tale, where a super-villain, reacting to the destruction wreaked in Irredeemable, finds himself turning into a hero. There's this neat kind of symmetry to the whole thing.

Highly recommended read.

Rating: *****
Comment: Loses steam in the middle for a bit before picking up again but what a ride

Playlists Galore!

I enjoy putting playlists together and sharing them with other people. The internet has advanced a lot here but it's not quite there yet. You can build playlists with YouTube, but unless you can find "official" videos the songs have a habit of disappearing one by one. And listening on a mobile device like iPad or the like is... adventurous at best. There are several other services which let you do this, but you either have to sign up to listen, the interface or music selection is meh, or it just doesn't work that well.

So far the easiest service I have found is grooveshark, and my only gripe there is they're still coy about letting you listen to your playlist on mobile devices. Can't win them all.

Anyway, here is my growing collection of playlists for every occasion, enjoy. I hope the titles are somewhat descriptive.

Album of the Day: Rue Royale - Guide to an Escape

Today's record is Guide To An Escape by Rue Royale, a husband-and-wife team. I saw them on tour and was instantly hooked. Good stuff.

 

Official website

Rating: *****

Comment: Not a bad song on the album 

The Reading List: REAMDE, The Boys, and Sweet Tooth

So on my trusty Sony ebook reader I've been working my way through Neal Stephenson's latest novel REAMDE, which is World of Warcraft meets Chinese hackers meets Russian mafia meets Islamic terrorists set in China and the American/Canadian outback.  Or something like that. Despite that awkward introduction, it really is quite enjoyable - a real page-turner.

On the iPad, thanks to the excellent reader app CloudReaders, I've been going through all available issues of The Boys, one of the most fucked-up superhero universes you will ever find. Power corrupts, and super-power corrupts superbly. And The Boys are there to keep the supers in check. Brutally. Along the way, the story takes time to investigate the origins of these super-powers, appalling levels of corporate corruption, the history and background of the members of the Boys, and it's all pretty hardcore. Not for the faint of heart.

I've also started on Jeff Lemire's Sweet Tooth, which I've heard described as Mad Max meets Bambi. That seems about right. With religious prophecy thrown in. And mutated animal-kids. It's really very good.

REAMDE
Rating: *****
Comment: Neal Stephenson remains one of the better current SF writers

The Boys:
Rating: *****
Comment: HOLY SHIT

Sweet Tooth:
Rating: *****
Comment: Mad Max meets Bambi. 'Nuff said.

Shortbread time!

I get these cravings.

Recipe

Album Of The Day: Gabriel Rios - Ghostboy

Since the sun is still out and the skies are blue, a nice summer swing album seems in order.

 

Rating: *****

Comment: Yay summer!

MiniBBQ!

Since the weather seems to be holding.

Movietime: Battleship

Hasbro, the games company which brought you Transformers, has now made an entire feature-length movie about the game "battleship", you know, where you take turns guessing where the other player's ships are on a grid. They added aliens to make it more interesting.

Can I get off this planet now?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440129/ 

Rating: *****
Comment: I can't believe I watched this garbage

So yeah

I wanted a voice on the internet again. Hi, internet!