Saturday<\/p>\n
Let’s keep it short. It’s Saturday. I have better things to do than waste time online writing little missives for myself.<\/p>\n
I had planned<\/em> on Saturday being a productive<\/em> day … do some shopping, some cleaning, you name it. But last night Jen called and asked whether I wished to join her and Christoph for some shopping — she at TJ Maxx, he at B&N — so I got up relatively early this morning to the sound of Ethan Stoller’s BKAB, showered, had a couple cups of coffee, and headed out the door after 9:30 for a trip west. B&N it was for me; I opted for a few hours of browsing books, music, and movies over clothes, kitchen supplies, and candles this time around.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was a good boy<\/em> and held off when it came to spending money. I browsed the books and found quite a few that interested me, so I wrote them down in my notebook; I can check them out from the library later, or, in certain instances, buy them.<\/p>\n By writing them here I do not lose them in case I lose track of my notebook.<\/p>\n Dahlquist, Gorden, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters<\/em>. — I first saw this a few months ago at the University Bookstore. Big, blue, hard cover … it has received mixed but mostly positive reviews … a flawed but promising and ambitious project, so I’ve read.<\/p>\n Albahari, David, G\u00f6tz and Meyer<\/em>. — I translated an Albahari piece years ago. Bosnian\/Serbian Jewish writer now living in Canada. I almost bought this one.<\/p>\n Foster, M.A., The Book of the Ler<\/em>. (omnibus edition containing The Game Players of Zan<\/em>, The Warriors of Dawn<\/em>, and The Days of the Klesh<\/em>) — it’s a trilogy published by DAW Sci-Fi, and seems to be a collection of older works. It looked interesting, a tad bit philosophical, perhaps.<\/p>\n —, The Transformer Trilogy<\/em>. — also published by DAW, same author.<\/p>\n Holt, Tim, Falling Sideways<\/em>.<\/p>\n —, Dead Funny<\/em>. — these two looked amusing.<\/p>\n Gaiman, Neil, Fragile Things<\/em>. — Gaiman’s most recent. If he writes it, I’ll buy and read it.<\/p>\n —, Anansi Boys<\/em>. — his previous work. I haven’t yet read it.<\/p>\n Kemmer, Julie, Carpe Demon<\/em>. — by the author of California Demon<\/em>, it appears to be fantasy-comedy … no idea if it’s any good.<\/p>\n Brooks, Terry, Straken.<\/em> — now available as a trade paperback.<\/p>\n —, Jaka Russ<\/em>. — now available as trade and mass-market paperbacks.<\/p>\n —, Tanequil<\/em>. — now available as a trade paperback. Here we have the three most recent (I believe) Shannara books by Brooks. These are my guilty pleasure books; if it’s Shannara I’ll read it, regardless of the formulaic and increasingly repetitive nature of the novels. They are engaging in a way, but I’ve always been interested in the connection between the world of Shannara as a future history and our<\/em> time.<\/p>\n Zafon, Carlos Ruiz, The Shadow of the Wind<\/em> — it seems to be an Umberto Eco-esque or at least Perez Reverte-esque semi-intellectual novel. My type of page turner?<\/p>\n Simmon, Dan, The Terror<\/em> — it’s new and only in hard cover. I still have to read Olympos<\/em>. I generally go for Simmons’ sci-fi and have ignored most of his “horror” work, but if I find the time I would like to give this a try.<\/p>\n Donaldson, Stephen R., The Runes of the Earth<\/em> — the most recent Thomas Covenant novel … these are not a guilty<\/em> pleasure in the mode of Brooks … Donaldson is a truly gifted writer, but when it comes to his works I’ve only read his Covenant novels.<\/p>\n In the “Bargain Books” upstairs I found Roger Penrose’s massive The Road to Reality<\/em> for about $6 or $7 … I nearly took it, but I won’t read it any time soon, and I have an electronic copy already. Also in the “Bargain Books” section I saw Roy Porter’s Flesh in the Age of Reason<\/em>, but the “aesthetics” passages were too anemic to bother with, so it wasn’t worth the $7 or $8 price tag.<\/p>\n On March 9 at 7pm Tad Williams will do a “Meet the Author” deal at B&N (West-Towne-ish store).<\/p>\n I saw a variety of “serious” romance novels grouped together on a shelf — the point<\/em> was the naming pattern: The Mathematics of Love<\/em> (Emma Darwin), The History of Love<\/em> (Nicole Krauss), and The Alchemy of Desire<\/em> (Tarun J. Tejpal) … why no combinatorics of love<\/em>, physics of passion<\/em>, semiotics of seduction<\/em> …? Those might be in the pipelines already.<\/p>\n I browsed through the computer books downstairs, focusing on the Ruby, Python, Web-Development, and even SQL volumes. I feel I should try Ruby on Rails, but to do so what I should<\/em> also do is reinstall one afternoon (after, of course, backing things up) and then do a fresh fink<\/em> or similar install … I want a working X Window system for some Linux\/Unix apps. Then get a custom Apache + PostgreSQL + Python + Ruby setup going. And Ruby on Rails. Migrate from<\/em> PHP (I’m currently just doing my blog-ish stuff with it anyway; the rest is in bash), and so on.<\/p>\n Jen arrived, we met Christoph upstairs, and we ended up looking at movies and DVDs quite a while longer. We finally<\/em> left, drove to Whole Foods, and sampled a lot of items. Chips, salsa, bread, battered calamari, hummus, brownies, BBQ-beef … if\/when one visits Whole Foods one does not need regular meals, for one can just sample his\/her way through the store. Drinks extra. The prices are so high that I have little interest in buying things there … but, oh, the stuff<\/em> is tempting!<\/p>\n I finished Bowie, finished Dead Can Dance, and am now most of the way through Death Cab for Cutie (last song) — Deep Forest (only one album, “Music Detected”) next. Perhaps Aaron’s party this evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saturday Let’s keep it short. It’s Saturday. I have better things to do than waste time online writing little missives for myself. I had planned on Saturday being a productive day … do some shopping, some cleaning, you name it. … Continue reading