December 30, 2003
Songs of Sahm
Just downloaded the Bottle Rockets' Songs of Sahm, a tribute to the late, somewhat obscure Texas songwriter Doug Sahm. It's a keeper. These guys never fail to blow me away. If you've never heard them, start with The Brooklyn Side. Great songwriting, especially Idiot's Revenge, Welfare Music and Thousand Dollar Car. Not a bad cut on the whole CD.
Here's a review, though I don't really agree with the premise: That Songs of Sahm is somehow an aberration in the Bottle Rockets' catalog. I've always liked the diversity of their sound, and these takes on Sahm's work don't strike me as being out of sync.
An odd thing about iTunes: Not sure how they're setting up their database, but the music often sorts by the first name. So Bob Dylan sorts under the "B"s. Also, they have The Bottle Rockets and Bottle Rockets. They need to field that data. Kinda quirky ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 11:42 PM | Comments (4)
December 29, 2003
Joyce to the world
So what prompted the interest in all things Joyce? It's hardly casual reading.
Posted by Lauren Bonds at 1:35 PM | Comments (3)
Dancing in the Wake
I'm juggling several books right now:
1. After reading Ellmann's biography of Joyce, I decided to re-read Ulysses. During our tree decorating party, I was discussing this with a random LBJ liberal who suggested The New Bloomsday Book, Harry Blamires' guide to Ulysses. Said liberal then sent me a copy of the book. It's incredible. I'm getting much more out of Ulysses this time around thanks to Blamires. And I'm finding it odd that a great writer like Joyce seems to bring out the best in his critics. Both the Ellmann and Blamires books are exceptionally readable.
2. The Ellmann bio spawned another obsession: Joyce's daugher, Lucia. I found myself irked when Ellmann would go through an entire chapter with little or no mention of Lucia. Her story within Joyce's story fascinated me. That's why I was glad when Carol Loeb Shloss released Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake in December, and I immediately purchased a copy. Shloss, unfortunately, is falling short of the standards Ellmann and Blamires set in Joyce sholarship, and I have to admit that I agree with Hermione Lee's review in yesteday's New York Times, where Lee says: "I lost count of the incidences of 'We can imagine' or 'It is safe to imagine' or 'We can speculate' ..."
Shloss indeed reads a lot into Lucia's story that simply isn't supported by fact. I'm only a hundred pages into the book, and Schoss already has implied some sort of incestous relationship between Giorgio and Lucia and that Joyce had incestuous feelings toward his daugher. I'm not seeing any facts that even remotely back up these suppositions.
That being said, I'm still glad to get more detail on Lucia's troubled life. At this point, I'm of the mind that Ellmann had it right: Lucia was mad and Joyce was in denial. He just couldn't deal with it, and I think he also realized his bohemian, artist's lifestyle might have contributed to or even caused Lucia's problems. Shloss asks: ' "Why should Joyce's primary biographer have judged Joyce to be a man of extraordinary discernment in some matters but foolish in judging Lucia?"
Well, because people of extraordinary discernment, even genius, can be wrong. Especially when it comes to family.
3. John Gardner: The Life and Death of a Literary Outlaw. This is a proof copy of a bio that will be released in January 2004. I haven't started reading it yet, but I'm glad it's finally been written. When I was doing my master's work, I wanted to focus on Gardner's "moral fiction." I see him as a progeny of Matthew Arnold on some levels, and I love his books. His guide to writing, the Art of Fiction, is exceptional. But alas. The politically correct world of academia didn't want to have much to do with Gardner and his outlandish ideas that some fiction rises above others. I was steered away from Gardner (and a second idea of doing a thesis on water imagery in the lyrics of Robert Hunter). I regret that. I still think Gardner was a major figure. The Sunlight Dialogues still haunts me. Grendel is a fascinating reworking of Beowulf. It's been years since I read most of his books, but his characters remain vivid in my mind. Can't wait to start reading this bio, and I suspect it will resurrect my Gardner obsession.
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:25 AM | Comments (2)
December 28, 2003
Lost in wireless hell
My obsessive side came out big time during the past week. My cable modem fried, pushing me offline for several days, which made me pretty damned jittery. Think cigarette addict miles from the nearest smoke. I finally picked up a new modem from the folks at Comcast and hooked it up. Nothing. My wireless network was dead as Michael Jackson's career.
So I started tinkering. I was getting a signal from my Apple Airport Extreme. I could see my computers on the network. But I could break out to the Internet.
And I tinkered some more. I found a note in the modem documentation saying I needed a crossover cable to connect the modem to the wireless access point. Went out and bought one. Still couldn't get out ot the Net.
I could, however, hit the Net when I ran a cable straight to my computers. I just couldn't get it wirelessly. So I tried another wireless router I had in a closet. Then another.
After a day and a half, it finally started working. I have no idea how or why. I was tinkering. I rebooted and bang. The deus ex machina of technology made everything right. I'm now using a Linksys setup instead of the Apple Extreme. But I don't care. My Tivo can talk to my Mac and my Mac can talk to my PCs and everyone can romp around on the Internet.
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:03 AM
December 23, 2003
Something new ...
I'm thinking about switching this blog to Movable Type. Here's an unformatted test copy I've been playing with. Let me know what you think. Just to entice you to click, I've put a post there about zombies and Cuban cigars.
Posted by Bob Benz at 5:58 PM | Comments (1)
The Zombie Survival Guide
My staff, incredible folks that they are, gave me a few Cuban cigars and The Zombie Survival Guide. Needless to say, I was on the verge of tears. Now I can survive an onslaught of the undead and enjoy fine Cuban cigars while I do so.
The book is by Max Brooks, Mel's son. Very deadpan. I was expecting it to be a bit more over the top. But what they heck. We are dealing with the undead here. In includes details about the undead, fighting tactics and general strategies.
"Don't be carefree and foolish with your most precious asset -- life. This book is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now without even knowing it."
Guess that could apply to Christmas shoppers, too ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:26 AM | TrackBack
December 22, 2003
Red Bull, tequila and Christmas trees
Our annual tree party was a great success last week. My parents showed up, a wonderful surprise. And we had folks from all over the map in attendance. I'll post a few photos later, but I didn't have time to take pictures during the party. If you have any, I'd love to get copies to post here. Just send me an e-mail.
And there was a moral to this party: Don't mix Red Bull and tequila. Or you'll end up like poor Glenbot.
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:29 AM | Comments (1)
Every dog has his day ...
Yesterday was one of those rare days when everything I did worked on the first try.
-- My Big Green Egg was sick, and I needed to replace a carriage bolt that holds the lid on. I went to the hardware store, bought numerous variations of carriage, nut, bolt, washer ... you name it ... expecting to have to do a lot of slogging to make it work. When I got back, the first one I picked out worked, and I was eating mesquite smoked trout within a few humble hours. Praise the Big Green Egg.
-- I needed a few screws for the hot and cold water knobs in the shower above the garage. Again, I chose several variations of screw, hoping to stumble upon the right one. When I got home, the first package I opened worked perfectly.
-- After considerable debate at the hardware store, I picked a tarp to cover my woodpile. Would 20x12 be big enough? Yup. Perfect.
-- The furnace stopped working yesterday. After much fretting and swearing, I broke down and checked the air filter. Dirty. Clogged. After I cleaned that sucker, I said, let there be heat. And there was heat.
-- Joanne sent me a "God" detector, a small, compass-like device that measures god's presence. As soon as I pulled it out of the package. The dang thing went nuts. Hmmm.
-- And finally, I fixed this blog this morning. After I upgraded my server plan, nothing worked. After a bit of tinkering this a.m., I figured out the problem. Some root paths had changed in the migration. The path to perl had shifted. And bang. It was fixed.
Today I'm going to build a fire, read James Joyce and hide. Nothing good can happen after yesterday's windfall ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:25 AM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2003
O Tannenbaum ...
Well, our marriage has once again survived the annual quest for the biggest Christmas tree in Knoxville.
After deciding the specimens at Suzi's Groovy Garden are too small or not "just right," we drive up Kingston Pike to a lot near Stir Fry Cafe. There it is. Standing ever green in a shaft of light, waiting for us. We walk straight to it and stake our claim. After the guys at the lot struggle mightily to get it to my truck, trim the trunk and then load it, Lara and I cart it home.
"I hope it doesn't come out," she says.
"It won't," I say, Grinchly arrogant. "I've strapped that sucker down in a major way."
Fifteen miles later, when we pull into the driveway, the tree is still there. Christmas Miracle No. 1.
Now it's time for Spiney and I to wrestle this 14-foot green behemoth out of the truck, into the house and then plant it in a stand.
This is where I tend to go GrinchBob.
And Lara is afraid. Very afraid. She doesn't want a repeat of last year, when there was plenty of hollering and shouting and one wayward spaniel got trapped beneath the tree as it was dragged across the floor. It was several hours before Crystal forgave me for that ....
But after several years of this, we have a method. This time, I use every microgram of patience I have (yes, it is measured in micrograms with me; patience is not my strength) to wait for Lara to go into the house, move furniture, corral the critters and prepare for the tree's majestic entry.
Now we're ready. We roll it up and over the side of the truck. Then I start dragging it by the trunk, toward the door. At this point, it's a momentum game. Just keep dragging until it's in the living room.
Next, we have to get the thing upright and in the stand. That's the real challenge. But after a bit of scheming and my final concession that yes, maybe Lara is right and we need to cut off more lower branches, we get the tree hoisted and in its proper place.
No divorce lawyers. No psychologically scarred spaniels. No GrinchBob. Christmas Miracle No. 2.
Don't forget, our tree decorating party is Saturday. Here's the invite.
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:23 AM | Comments (2)
December 8, 2003
Paging John Media ....
A newspaper recently held a meeting for all of its print salespeople. The discussion focused on selling online media, especially interactive banner ads.
After the presentation, one print rep walked up to a friend of mine:
"You know that Rich Media everyone is talking about? I think I know his brother, John."
Hmmm. I want if we can sell any of those John Media ads and make some big bucks ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 7:12 AM | Comments (2)