Hey, Hey We're The Thermals

Brian has a good article about the Thermals in this week's Weekly. I haven't had a chance to pick up the new disc yet, but damn if "A Pillar of Salt" isn't one of the best tracks I've heard this year. Every album these guys put out has 2 or 3 tracks that just absolutely blow me away. Good stuff.

Here are three of my faves for your downloading pleasure:

Thermals - A Pillar of Salt (mp3) from The Body, The Blood, The Machine
Thermals - How We Know (mp3) from Fuckin' A
Thermals - No Culture Icons (mp3) from More Parts Per Million

The Revolution Will Not Be Accessorized

Book #32 of my 2006 reading list was The Revolution Will Not Be Accessorized, a compilation of pieces previously published in NY Style mag BlackBook.

The Revolution... comes jam packed with an outstanding line-up of authors including superstars like Joan Didion, Naomi Klein, William T. Vollman, Irvine Welsh, and Augusten Burroughs as well as Rain King favorites such as Ryan Boudinot, Neal Pollack, Douglas Coupland and Chuck Palahniuk. As with all compilations The Revolution... is pretty hit and miss, though on the whole I found it to be disappointing given the quality of the writers. The mix of fiction and non-fiction, topical pieces and interviews, works well when you're flipping through a magazine but doesn't translate as well to a book you're reading from front to back.

Some of my favorite works from the book included Meghan Daum's "L.A. Bourgeois", Bruno Maddox's "The Angriest Book Club In America", Jonathan Ames' "Sneakers Make The Boy", Mike Albo's "The Big Sell" and Victor Bockris' "Ghostwalk".

Fantasy Football 2006

The 2006 Reckless Bacon fantasy football league just kicked off with our draft on Thursday. We have a 14-team league with 20 players per team. This year we got to keep 7 players from our 2005 squad. Here's the guys the Seattle Gators will be rolling out there this year. Here's hoping they can improve on last year's 8-8 debacle.

QB Peyton Manning
QB Jon Kitna
RB Willis McGahee
RB Corey Dillon
RB Frank Gore
RB Chris Perry
RB Ciatrick Fason
RB Cedric Houston
WR Randy Moss
WR Reggie Brown
WR Eddie Kennison
WR Michael Jenkins
WR Jerry Porter
TE Kellen 'The Soldier' Winslow Jr.
K Josh Brown
D Brian Urlacher
D Keith Bulluck
D Lofa Tatupu
D Jason Taylor
D Kawika Mitchell

I Burn

Here's an amateur video for the (vastly underrated) Toadies "I Burn" one of my most favoritest songs. It really kicks in around 2 mins 10 secs into the tune.

The Littlest Hitler

It must be my lucky month! First Kevin Moffett gets a book published and now Ryan Boudinot too? The reading life is about to get very, very good.

Via UBookstore:

"Thursday, September 28 is going to be a good day. One of the brightest young literary lights in Seattle, Ryan Boudinot, will come by to read from his first published collection of stories, The Littlest Hitler. His work is funny, smart, dark, disorienting, thought-provoking, shocking, assured, contemporary, and wholly original. We totally dig it and you will, too."

McSweeney's #20

Book #31 on my reading list was McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #20. This quarter's edition of the literary journal is a nice hard bound copy containing 13 short stories, a preview of Chris Adrian's new novel, and 50 full cover illustrations. As the McSweeney's site says, it's 'a handsome, handsome issue, brimming with fulfilling things.'

By far the most fulfilling thing in the book is Kevin Moffett's excellent "Statement of Purpose" and the exciting news that his short story collection titled Permanent Visitors is set to be published in October. That makes me a very happy man. That one's going right on the old Amazon wish list.

The rest of the stories combine to make this a slightly above average McSweeney's edition. Besides Moffett's piece, other favorites include Susan Steinberg's "To Sit, Unmoving", Aaron Gwyn's "Mate", Jack Pendarvis' "The Big Dud", and Roderick White's "Elsewhere".

Gavin Dickey Update

Former Gators Quarterback Gavin Dickey who was selected by the Seattle Mariners in the June draft is now officially signed and well into the start of his professional career with the Everett AquaSox. I haven't made it up to see him play in person yet, but it looks like he's off to a bit of a slow start batting only .225. On the bright side he's getting a ton of playing time, is second on the team in stolen bases and has shown some power. A good article on Dickey and his transition from Gator QB to the minor leagues can be found here.

"It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not too many guys get to run out of the tunnel to 95,000 people screaming. Playing in the Swamp is one of those things you can't explain." -- Gavin Dickey on playing football at UF

The Rain King on MySpace

Welcome to the 21st century Mr. Henderson. Bellow's Henderson the Rain King now has his very own MySpace site. The premise of the site seems to be trying to gather enough momentum to persuade Hollywood to make a Rain King movie. Not sure I want to see that as such adaptations usually only lead to disappointment, but I'm still psyched to have ol' Henderson on my friends list.

2006 Reading List - Books #1-30

The first thirty books from my 2006 reading list:

1. The Dirt - Motley Crue
2. The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil - George Saunders
3. A Man Without a Country - Kurt Vonnegut
4. Chance - Amir Aczel
5. McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #18 - Various
6. Science Friction - Michael Shermer
7. Oh the Glory of it All - Sean Wilsey
8. Yes Man - Danny Wallace
9. Mother Night - Kurt Vonnegut
10. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003 - Various
11. All The President's Pets - Mo Rocca
12. Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk
13. Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis
14. Vox - Nicholson Baker
15. Summer of '49 - David Halberstam
16. Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut
17. Don't Get Too Comfortable - David Rakoff
18. Fantasyland - Sam Walker
19. Airships - Barry Hannah
20. Typical - Padgett Powell
21. From Bauhaus To Our House - Tom Wolfe
22. Cathedral - Raymond Carver
23. McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #5 - Various
24. Black Hole - Charles Burns
25. The World Is Flat - Thomas Friedman
26. McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #19 - Various
27. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
28. In Persuasion Nation - George Saunders
29. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
30. A Woman Named Drown - Padgett Powell

Previously: My 2005 reading list

A Woman Named Drown

Book #30 of my 2006 reading list was Padgett Powell 's second novel A Woman Named Drown.

I've blathered on about how much I dig Powell before. The man can just flat out write. In A Woman Named Drown his lyrical prose, understated humor and ear for Southern dialect is back in full force. Though the story line behind the novel isn't as strong as some of his other works the prose is powerful enough to carry it through and is just a joy to immerse yourself in. If you're new to Powell I'd start with Aliens of Affection or Typical but if you're already a fan of his work I think you'll find A Woman Named Drown to be a nice addition to your reading list.

For a good in-depth review and summary of the book check out T.C. Boyle's New York Times book review here.

"We did towns. Quincy, Panacea, Sopchoppy, Carrabelle, Blountstown--the best town names in the world. We even tried to take a tour of Chattahoochee, the largest state asylum. We'd try something like that and never think of something like Disney World." -- Padgett Powell

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Book #29 on my aught-six reading list was Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize winning epic The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Holy crap Batman, this is a long book. Clocking in at 636 pages it sets a new record for my book reading challenge. Between this tome and last years reading of The Fortress of Solutide, I've now clocked in almost 1,150 pages of novels about comic books reading. Not bad given that I don't own any comics and never collected them growing up.

Don't get me wrong though the book is actually quite good despite its length. As Jill is fond of saying, "if your book is longer than the Bible it'd better be better than the Bible." That's a tall order but Chabon delivers the goods and manages to cleverly avoid the scriptural trap of spending the first hundred pages covering how Superman knew Wonder Woman who beget Aqua Boy who lived to be 1,000 years old and so on.

Salon has a well written review of the book here and Wikipedia has a summary here. And how many books have their own fan site?!

If you're too lazy to read it you're in luck as it looks like the wheels are in motion to turn the novel into a movie (perhaps a trilogy?). One rumor on the interweb is that Natalie Portman might be cast to play Rosa, which would be pretty frickin' sweet.

Real Madrid vs. DC United

Just got back from the Real Madrid vs. DC United match at Seahawks Stadium (I still refuse to call it Qwest Field). Somehow United managed to battle the heavily favored Real team to a 1-1 tie. It looked like Real was playing about 3/4's speed, they had no Ronaldo (I couldn't even find him on the bench), and Beckham only played the first half, but still they had to be pretty disappointed leaving Seattle with a lowly draw against Freddy Adu and his cohorts. As passing soccer fans we found the game to be a little on the boring side (think pre-season NFL). There were flashes of excitement, but we spent most of our time unsuccessfully trying to find Posh Spice in the audience.

Hey ladies, anybody seen my jersey?

Abe Books Ads

Abebooks.com is celebrating their 10th anniversary with a pretty clever ad campaign featuring books that never were. My personal favorite George W. Bush's Whoops. I Was Wrong.

Web Demographics

Here's a cool site from the good folks over in MSN land. You can type in any URL or web search and find the demographics of the people who search for the page. For instance, type in Oprah and you find that 76% of the searches come from women and that 25-34 year olds make up the primary market. The site is a lot of fun to play with to see what exactly people search for.

Type in my URL and you'll find the sad but probably true fact that most of my readers are boys under the age of 18. Awesome.

Now It's Overhead

One of my favoritest bands is Athens-based Now It's Overhead. If you don't already have their first two albums I'd highly recommend grabbing both. Their new album Dark Light Daybreak is due out in September but can be pre-ordered now directly from Saddle Creek. You can check out a few tunes here:

Now It's Overhead - Wonderful Scar (mp3 from s/t)
Now It's Overhead - Hold Your Spin (mp3 from s/t)
Now It's Overhead - Wait in a Line (mp3 from Fall Back Open)
Now It's Overhead - The Decision Made Itself (mp3 from Fall Back Open)
Now It's Overhead - Walls (mp3 from Dark Light Daybreak)
Now It's Overhead - Let Up (mp3 from Dark Light Daybreak)

Better Know A District - DC Style

One of the funniest Colbert Report interviews I've seen in awhile. The actual interview starts about 2 minutes into the clip, but the whole thing's pretty good.

Smart Carpet

File this one under Orwellian. What's next? Hidden cameras that'll film your every movement as you walk around a building...oh, they already have those? Hmm....

"A new kind of floor covering has been invented at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan that determines the weight, age, and sex of the individuals strolling across." --Engadget

Has anyone patented smart grass yet? If not I call dibs.

P.S. for the record I told ya'll in June that Mel Gibson was crazy