As always, I’m posting about books I’ve read, and it’s at something of a delay. I read this book early in January, but found myself digesting it slowly and thinking about it. Finally, I’m writing (briefly) about it.
I’m continuing with posting about the books I’ve read. The tag has changed to #booksread2023, but not much has changed: the posts get published with some lag—though I’m trying to shorten the lag a little, too. This time, I’m discussing the first half of the Sandman series. I should count that as multiple graphic novels, but, eh, whatever.
I’m late catching up—it’s been one of those weeks—but on the radio a few days ago, Paul Matthews (@ajosshi) discussed our translation of Bae Myung-hoon’s lovely short story “The Peppers of Green Scallion,” which originally appeared in Clarkesworld a few years ago. Listening to Paul read from and discuss the story was a delight for both of us, and he definitely hit on a lot of the things that made us love the story and want to translate it in the first place. You can check out a recording of the discussion over on Arirang’s Check it Out podcast. (Or …
Today, I heard for the first time Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium (1994), and was amazed by it. I’m not a religious person at all, but sacred music is such a massive part of the history of music—Western music, yes, but really all music across cultures—that it’s just one of those things you can’t get away from, if you care about traditional music forms at all. For European classical music, especially, the role of sacred music is huge: a vast amount of the earliest written music was church music, and even into the 19th century you find composers writing masses. Hell, …
It seems like our son is getting into designing games. This isn’t so surprising: he loves playing games and anytime we introduce him to one, he gets right into it. IT was only a matter of time before he started hacking, modifying, and trying to build his own. In fact, the other day he actually sat down and spontaneously designed his first unique game: The other day, he spontaneously sat on the couch and, without a word about it to anyone, he designed a game—and I mean he designed it almost completely, from start to finish! Unsurprisingly, at least …
This post is part of a series detailing my participation in #dungeon23. Feel free to follow the link above to check out the series in order, or see the first post in the series if you don’t know what this project is. Days 10-20 were a bit of a challenge, mainly because our admins at work cheerfully made this week a hellish mess for anyone teaching a winter class. That is to say, this is rough, and yes, there were days when I jotted down a few days’ worth of entries to “catch up”; there were days where I got …
Update: Ooops. I published before I was done. I’ve updated it, making small revisions here and there, and adding the two remaining books I meant to mention. I was going to write about some honorable mentions, but eh, nah. I’m not giving awards, just mentioning books I liked. ORIGINAL POST: Here they are: My Library at LibraryThingI guess I’ll say a few words about which books were the standouts for me last year. You can see that below.
I’m continuing with posting about the books I’ve read. The tag has changed to #booksread2023, but not much has changed: the posts get published with some lag—though I’m trying to shorten the lag a little, too. I’d had a reservation request on file with the local branch of the National Library for Shiver since sometime in early December. It took someone a long time to get it back to the library, apparently. I assume it was in a pile with some lengthier books, because personally it took me less than 24 hours to finish this one. Shiver is a collection of …
Update: This was scheduled to publish on January 1st, but somehow my blog didn’t publish it—I’m not sure why. That’s why it’s appearing now. (But it was the last thing I read in 2022, technically.) Original Post: As with other posts in this series, these #booksread2022 posts get published with some lag. I’m trying to be more punctual, though, and this one’s very recent. This is the last prose book I finished in 2022, though not the last thing I finished reading in 2022. (Look out for one more post in the next couple of days.) While I’ve read a …
I have not much comment, but this song has been running through my mind since the news cycle started to cascade through the Discords and other social media I’m on: If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s elfgame stuff and you would probably know if you cared, but just in case, well, see here, I guess. Social media is on fire with memes and hot takes and links to thinkpieces about it, and I don’t need to add to that. But since I’m trying to start blogging again, okay, a few thoughts: I agree with everyone paying attention …