album review – ramblin’ jack elliott – a stranger here

I’ve just posted a short review of A Stranger Here by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott over at Rhum: link.

crappy taxidermy

This site is just… wow.  Like a clown dying, both creepy and hilarious.

(thanks to Erin)

currently reading: on the road

Shamefully, I have never read this before.

Needless to say, it’s a fascinating insight into a strange American era.  The book is filled with tension between the sudden possibilities of life in the postwar United States – the trajectory hinted…

Arizona/Nevada Border

We were stuck in traffic going through the Hoover Dam for nearly two hours – the Nevada police were operating some sort of mysterious checkpoint on the way into the state which slowed traffic to…

american food i have known & (mostly) loved, part 1

As a foreigner, one could be forgiven for having very low expectations of American food.  Mysteriously, what has been selected for export as representative of the USA tends to be fairly vile combinations of grease, beef, sugary bread and fake…

afternoon storms, new orleans

Things I like about the USA:
- the food
- everything is a robot
- it feels like the centre of the world
- the…

chicago

Amazing food, amazing architecture, amazing city.

yosemite

currently reading: the road

I have never read any Cormac McCarthy before.  This is grim, raw, intermittently violent, and relentlessly dark.  The style, which grated slightly at first due to its wilful simplicity (no ‘distracting’ punctuation and the like and very Hemingwayish) has…

currently reading: titus groan

Totally fascinating.  Written by Mervyn Peake who was himself quite fascinating: a brilliant writer and artist who died prematurely of Parkinson’s disease, with many ideas yet to be reduced to written form.  So far the book is…

tools of the trade

…

unscheduled delays

Please excuse the recent dearth of posts – I have had some non-swine related health issues.

Normal service to resume shortly, if all goes well, including the fabulous tale of travellers from a far flung outpost voyaging to the New…

mclaren vale

win 7 ftw

I hate the abomination that is Windows Vista as much as anyone. When I got my current laptop, I went through the painful and annoying process of muddling together an unofficial collection of drivers to get Windows XP working on…

currently reading: slaughterhouse five

So far so good.  I’ve read The Sirens of Titan and Mother Night which I very much enjoyed, and this seems equally good.