Category: REVIEWS

Music @Jazzin Lab, Sejong City: Tony Lakatos and Thomas Stronen & Time is a Blind Guide

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A couple of months ago, my wife excitedly informed me that she’d discovered the existence of a jazz club in Sejong City, only about a ten minute drive from our home. The place is called Jazzin Lab and they hold regular concerts, of which I’ve now had the chance to attend a couple. Both groups performing were new to me, but both were really outstanding, so I thought I’d do a little writeup while they’re fresh in my mind. 

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December-January Reads

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This entry is part 1 of 9 in the series 2024-Reads

A new year, a new reading list. This one’s for books I read in 2024. As always, the posts come at some delay after reading. I’m also going to go with shorter posts responding to multiple books from now on, which might give me a little more time to, uh, read.  Oh, one more thing: I’ve recently (as of last November) joined a book club. Normally I’m ambivalent about book clubs and wouldn’t join one, but a friend invited me and the book list is interesting enough to make me give it a shot. Some of my readings will be …

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Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings by Peter Pettinger

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This entry is part 23 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag. Quite a lag, as it’s 2024, but hey, that’s how it is.  Here’s some listening for the post. It seems only appropriate, given the topic. I haven’t actually finished this book, but I read the vast majority of it in 2023, so I’m counting it as one of my 2023 reads. So far, I’ve really enjoyed it, which surprised me since I’ve never really dug into Bill Evans’ work before (aside from on Kind of Blue). I was surprised, in fact, when I saw a review …

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Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

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This entry is part 20 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag. Quite a lag, as it’s 2024, but hey, that’s how it is.  Ducks is a sizeable autobiographical graphic novel about Kate Beaton’s time working at the Alberta oil sands projects, and what she learned living and working there. What she did learn living and working there is… well, it’s pretty heavy going, as you will intuit if you know about the ducks to which the title refers. In 2017, a judge ruled that Syncrude (one of Beaton’s employers in the book) was responsible for the deaths …

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Fun Home and Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel

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This entry is part 22 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag. I read this book for a book club I’m now in, which is reading works from this list. (Of which some of the titles are definitely not among the best books of the century, but it’s a list to work with.) Alison Bechdel’s a familiar name: indeed, the famous “Bechdel Test” for media is something I occasionally have brought up to my students over the years. I knew she was a cartoonist, and a few more secondhand details about her life, but that was the extent of …

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The Ice is Coming, The Dark Bright Water, and Journey Behind the Wind by Patricia Wrightson

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This entry is part 21 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag, meaning I read this a while back—in this case, I’ve made my way through the trilogy in the past few months, and I finished the last volume not at all long ago.  I read The Ice Is Coming as a kid, though I barely remembered it beyond that it had a protagonist named Wirrun, who was young member of Australia’s indigenous people. The cover I remember isn’t the one on the edition I have now: it looked like the one on the right. But that cover, …

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The Sounds You Grow Up With

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As I mentioned recently, I’ve been sick with the flu lately. I was lucky to get a rapid-acting treatment (though I had to pay extra for it!) in the form of a medication administered intravenously, but it’s still been necessary to rest, and I’ve been isolating from the rest of my family as we’re trying to avoid anyone else catching it from me. I’ve been too muddled-brained to do much writing, but I have gotten some reading done, and also started studying some music theory again. (Randy Felts’ Reharmonization Techniques, specifically. Like all music theory books, I find I need …

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Harrow County Library Edition, Vols. 1-4, by Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook

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This entry is part 17 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this four-volume set of enormous hardback graphic novels appaears here on my blog at a slight lag, meaning I read this a while back. Not much of one, oin this case, though: I finished this yesterday.  I was completely unfamiliar with this comic series, but it was in the holdings at the local branch of the National Library, so I figured I’d give it a shot. The books were heavy—which is to say, really nice quality, large, durable hardbacks with very thick pages, and they’re striking-looking books.  The stories are fun and …

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