Zoom ...

Hands are better, playing more guitar, but I still seem to be reading more. Watching almost 0 TV, 1-2 movies/month. I'll prolly start watching some college basketball soonish. Reading-wise, a lot more novella length stuff (plus 1 very short story).

1. "Firewalkers", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2020, 165 pages, 45k words. Book 2 of the Terrible Worlds: Revolutions series. Book 1 was blogged here. In a globally warmed world, venturing outside of the air conditioning is a perilous occupation. But, for those with nothing to lose, eh, it's a job. A quick and targetted read.

2. "Flint and Mirror", by John Crowley, 2022, 292 pages, 90k words. There have been so many works of Crowley's that were things that gave me hope. Here's the query of my blog for his stuff. This novel makes you turn the pages, but, overall, I didn't find the content that interesting. And, what should have been the defining turning point of the book, faery rides in support of the Irish vs the English, is a total shit sandwich. :-( Characters, etc., are of course well done. Set mostly in Ireland, towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.

3. "Precious Little Things", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2021, 26 pages, 7k words. Wow, a very short story, apparently the prequel to a novella level piece. A really nice concept, that a moment frozen in time with a wizard casting a spell provides the magical energy for many generations of puppets to animate their puppet children. The Zombie Apocalypse via Pinocchio. :-0

4. "Dogs of War", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2017, 264 pages, 82k words. Book 1 of "Dogs of War". Just purchased book #2 in the series "Bear Head", starring Honey, FTW! Anytime I meet a dog, I immediately ask "What is his/her name?". And then it's "Good boy, Gambino!". "What a good dog, Gambino!". "Good dog!", "Good boy!".

   So now we have the cyborg dog Rex with lots of human DNA, 7' tall at the shoulder, with laser-targetted cannons mounted on his shoulders. And Rex REALLY REALLY wants to be a good boy! Plus his teammates Honey, the uplifted bear/philosopher; Bees, the honeybee group mind; and Dragon, the 12' long iguana/gecko/who knows, who likes to climb buildings to get a nice sniper vantage point for his back-mounted sniper rifle. Plus the sadist who conditioned them all to kill whomever he says, in exchange for a "good boy". Very compelling, very well-paced.

5. "Starling House", by Alix E. Harrow, 2023, 367 pages, 114k words. Harrow has written some really great, compelling stuff lately. Here is the query for Harrow in my blog. I am so sad that Harrow is no longer my neighbor, 30 miles to the SE in Madison County, KY - I read where Harrow was relocating the family to Virginia. :-(

   Well, before they left, they left a gift to their old KY neighbors. This book is set in Muhlenberg County, just like in the John Prine song "Paradise", but in a town called "Eden". The magical Starling estate has some very nice coal seams below it, so, civilization ho! Time to revisit verse 3 of "Paradise".

   Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
   And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
   Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
   Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

   My friend, excellent singer/guitarist Marty Nelson, was playing this song, I got up to sing harmony on the choruses. But, verse 3 came along, I was screaming these lyrics as loud as I could, and crying.

   So, point is, my KY sensibilities were inflamed by this book. It is a great story, not a haunted house, but, maybe, a possessed house, with a purpose.

   I just today was talking with a bridge engineer who had designed a bridge to carry the 250,000# dump trucks carrying coal ash to whatever location they have decided to environmently destroy. He said he always liked to go look at the bridges he designed, but, not that one :-(

   My wife was active in Sierra Club for many years. Maybe ~10 years ago, we went to a site in far western Louisville/Jefferson County, KY. On the east bank of the Ohio River, LG&E had mountains of coal ash: 10 stories tall x 1/4-1/2 mile. The extent of these coal ash mountains was completely jaw-dropping.

   There was a residential community nearby. Their kids would go outside to play, and come back inside covered in coal ash. They complained. LG&E hired "scientists" to come study the problem. "What problem? That coal ash on your children is totally harmless! No problem!". Yeah, fucking right. Driven To Tears.

6. "The Dispatcher: Murder by Other Means", by John Scalzi, 2021, 137 pages, 37k words. The Scalzi novella "The Dispatcher" came out in 2017, blogged here. How was I not notified of these 2 follow-up novellas being published? Kobo is normally pretty good about this, as opposed to Apple & Amazon, who salivate for me to subscribe to their streaming music and all-you-can-eat ebook services. WHICH I WILL NEVER, EVER DO, ASSHOLES.

   Anyway, the premise of these novellas is totally odd and off-the-wall, but, it makes for an interesting universe in which to have murder mysteries. A quick and fun read. The King of Snark almost never disappoints (I didn't like "Red Shirts" much - so of course, it won the Hugo Award).

7. "The Dispatcher: Travel by Bullet", by John Scalzi, 2023, 133 pages, 41k words. Well, I liked #2 in the series, and it was short, so I decided to plow on through to #3. More of the same, a well-paced, enjoyable read. The protagonist has just a little bit too kind of a heart. Good for him.

8. "After Many A Summer", by Tim Powers, 2023, 62 pages, 19k words. What an odd book, but it totally felt like vintage Tim Powers. Short and punchy, and then ... it just ends! Better than the last of his I read.

9. "The Power", by Naomi Alderman, 2017, 343 pages, 106k words. Not sure where I got this from, but, OMG, must read! (Mostly) Women develop the abiity to deliver up to and including lethal electrical shocks from their hands. Mmm, does the balance of power between males/females shift, maybe? We'll find out 5,000 years in the future, when this mess sorts itself out?

   I recommended to my wife, who started watching the Netflix series version. Not sure if she is going to continue. But I told her, as bad as some episodes of "Breaking Bad" were, there will probably be episodes of this show much worse. OMG, I get it, but, well, damn, I'm lying curled up on the floor, kick me in the head, back, wherever a few more times, for good measure.

Okay, removed these 9 books from the Unread collection in the Kobo eBook app on my iPad, Unread collection is down to ... 147 books. Well, I got that going for me. It's always good to have things going for you.

Music In, 2023, Batch 3

• The Mountain Goats, "Jam Eater Blues", 2001, 3 tracks, bandcamp. Mountain Goats is confusing me, publishing a lot of small collections of old tracks like this. So, 3 stars.

• Harry Nilsson, "The Point!", 1970, 14 tracks. Somebody told me I had to get this album, so I did. Hmmm. A theme album about a place where everyone's head comes to a point, except for the protagonist. Social commentary, I guess. I remember the song "Me and My Arrow" (his dog), an OK song but not particularly a fav. The rest of the album is lackluster and additionally has alternating spoken sections advancing the narrative. I really didn't care for it much. 3 stars.

• Chris Hillman, "Bidin' My Time", 2017, 12 tracks, bandcamp. Hillman was the original bass player for The Byrds. He moved into country rock, americana. I changed the genre for this album from Country to Southern Rock. I think I saw where Tom Petty produced the album, and the 3 Byrds' songs on the album are done like Petty did "Feel A Whole Lot Better" - as very faithful renditions of the Byrds' originals, complete with 12 string guitar. Notable to me is my fav Gene Clark song, "She Don't Care About Time".

  I saw Hillman (maybe with Herb Pedersen?) the year (2007?) we had a subscription to Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour in Lexington. I think I remember reading that he was somewhat of a christian cultist. I am sad to say that he may have progressed to christian nationalism. 2 of the songs - "Given All I Can See" and "Such Is The World We Live In" - are full of RWNJ and MAGAt dog whistles. 1 star for those. 4 stars for the rest. Here's 1 of The Byrds' tunes, that he cowrote with Jim McGuinn Back In The Day, "Here She Comes Again".

• Kaidi Tatham, "The Only Way", 2023, 11 tracks, bandcamp. The 4th of his albums I have acquired. I continue to like the Afro-Jazz sounds. 4 stars. Here's "Not Suffering (feat. Matt Lord)".

• Andrew Bird, "Outside Problems", 2023, 9 tracks, bandcamp. These are good tracks, but, Bird has been very prolific lately, and these are all instrumentals, so I think I'm going to go 3 stars instead of 4.

• Madeline Kenney, "A New Reality Mind", 2023, 11 tracks, bandcamp. I 1st saw Kenney several years ago when she opened for Soccer Mommy at The Burl in Lexington. She continues to be very productive, and her style continues to evolve. 4 stars. Here's "I Drew A Line" - nice sax part.

• Willie Nelson, "To All The Girls", 2013, 18 tracks. I saw a reference to this somewhere and decided to give it a go. It is Willie singing duets with 18 different female artists, as complete an all-star list as you can imagine. I would guess all covers, of Willie & other people's songs. Great harmonies, great harp parts, great pedal steel, really fun and easy to listen to. 4 stars. Here's "After The Fire Is Gone", with Tina Rose - originally a Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn song.

• Bonnie "Prince" Billy, "Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You", 2023, 12 tracks, bandcamp. 1 of Louisville's favorite sons does us all proud on this album. Some top notch tunes. Great vocal harmonies. 4 stars. Here's "Behold! Be Held!".

• Aimee Mann, "Queens of the Summer Hotel", 2021, 15 tracks. Aimee Mann is back! And she sounds just like Aimee Mann! And the tunes are great! I can't believe I am just now getting this album - yet another example of the ongoing enshittification of the Internet. This is the 10th album of hers (including the "Magnolia" soundtrack) that I have. I'm sure many of those were purchased from Apple or Amazon, but they won't tell me she has a new album (they used to) because they want me to buy a subscription to their fucking streaming services. No thanks, assholes.

  What a pleasure this album is to listen to! I think most of the harmony singing is her. 4 stars. Here's "Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath".

• Becca Mancari, "Left Hand", 2023, 12 tracks, bandcamp. This is the 3rd album of hers I have. Very nice tunes. I remain a sucker for chill vocals, particularly female vocals. 4 stars. Here's "Over and Over".

My pc in Lexington got fried a couple of months ago - based on the Avast anti-virus package's recommendation, I moved a file into quarantine and lost my mouse - oops! But, yay, it just yesterday, after having been rebooted a few times, started working again! So I moved all the new music from my MacBook, rated all these songs, and now hopefully will be able to sync my iPhone. Fingers crossed ...

Octopuses!

The arthritis in my left thumb was acting up, so I haven't been playing much guitar. (I stumbled on an old blog post from July, 2007 which said that at the time I was taking Naprosyn for left thumb arthritis.) The thumb is better now.

Plus, there really doesn't seem to be a market for my Jaz Dumoz musical act. It has been disappointing to find that the great majority of solo "live" music acts seem to use tracks. Jaz Dumoz was explicitly dinner music rather than dance music - a 1st for me. But more casual restaurants who provide "live" music usually want some dance music. The 1920s-1960s songs that Jaz performs are going to work mostly at more upscale restaurants, and it is very hard breaking into such restaurants' music rotations.

Additionally, I really thought that people of all ages would respond to Jaz's songs - they are such great songs. But by and large younger people treat these songs as old fogey stuff.

I could do a solo Jim Dumas act with looper and harmony box, but then:

1. I'd need to start practicing with the harmony box, which was not usable with Jaz Dumoz.
2. I felt that what Jaz was offering was unique, while there are many other singer/guitarists playing bar standards - Tom Petty, Bill Withers, Stones, Motown, etc.
3. For dance music, tracks are probably better than what I do. You have bass and drums for the beat.
4. I'd much rather play dance music in a rock band.
5. There is too much modern pop music that I have 0 feel for.

So I'm going to back-burner Jaz Dumoz. There's still a few possible gigs pending. I'll keep the (most excellent) web site going, and keep doing a Song Of The Day 1x/month or so. Song Of The Day is currently at #181, I think I'll try to get to 200. So I will go back to playing rock & roll at jams (or otherwise with a band), rather than Jaz tunes at open mics.

The result of less practice time is that I am reading a lot more. Recently I seem to have been finding more novella length sci-fi, which I have been tearing through. Lets start with the octopuses!

1. "The Mountain in the Sea", by Ray Nayler, 2022, 312 pages, 96k words. A species of octopus with language and culture is found! Set against a backdrop of a near future world where "point 5" AIs are in wide use, the 1st generally intelligent android has been created, and most corporations continue extractive madness, there are a couple of 2ndary threads that do finally rejoin the main thread. That junction seemed a little sketchy - overall, the book seemed like it could have been longer, plus, more octopuses, please! I suspect and hope there will be a sequel in the future. A very good read, and an indictment of our human-centric world view.

2. "Station Eternity", by Mur Lafferty, 2022, 489 pages, 133k words. I enjoyed their novel "Six Wakes" - holy moly, that was 6.5 years ago - so I thought I'd try this. Several murder mysteries, including 1 set on an intelligent, organic space station. Interesting races, well plotted, a page turner. This was Book 1 of "The Midsummer Murders", Book 2 is out this month.

3. "One Day All This Will Be Yours", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2021, 125 pages, 34k words. This is Book 2 of the "Terrible Worlds: Destinations" series. Book 1 "Walking to Aldebaran" I recently blogged here. These books seem to specialize in plot twists and possibly monstrous protagonists. This 1 reminded me of "This Is How You Lose the Time War", blogged here, but I think I enjoyed this story more. Some very good thinking about what happens when you try to use time travel as a weapon - followed by causality bonbs. A quick, fun read. Tchaikovsky continues to be my fav active hard sci-fi author. It's great that he is so prolific.

4. "Johnny Mercer", by Glenn T. Eskew, 2016, 408 pages, subtitled "Southern Songwriter for the World". This was not available in eBook, so I read the trade paper hardcopy. I decided that this was probably the best bio of Mercer to read because it is the newest, and Eskew is a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, which houses the Johnny Mercer library with most of his personal papers. I decided to read Mercer's bio after consecutively placing songs #16 & #17 by him into my songbook. This is the 3rd biography I have read in my life, joining Albert Einstein and Harpo Marx.

   New heuristic: avoid books written by southern college professors. Eskew is not a very good writer - long, long paragraphs. And there is this drumbeat that he keeps returning to - that jazz, blues, and rock & roll were not appropriated from blacks by whites, but were part of common southern culture, along with hillbilly (now country) music - yeah, right.

   Mercer was white and a scion of Savannah, GA. He had an ancestor who was a Revolutionary War general, a friend of Washington's, and another ancestor who was a Confederate general - who, of course, "fought valiantly" in the Civil War. Blech. Eskew comes down on the right side of issues of race and racism, but at times it seems that he does so grudgingly. A "See, the south isn't so bad" kind of feel.

   Following Mercer's career, Eskew declares the 1950s "The Age of the Singer" - I had realized with Jaz Dumoz that I was trying to become a crooner, like in the 50s. But the Age of the Crooner came to an end with Elvis. I totally realized that the older or newer pop music I play as Jaz Dumoz or Jim Dumas is delineated by Elvis. Old pop is up to and slightly overlapping Elvis, new pop is Elvis and later.

   At the end of his career, Mercer bemoaned the end of the good old days - he was having as little luck getting work as Jaz Dumoz is! ;-P

5. "Observer", by Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress, 2023, 338 pages, 104k words. Lanza is an influential scientist, Kress the most awarded living sci-fi author. This novel goes all-in on quantum physics, positing that consciousness creates matter, rather than the other way around - and they have hardware and software to prove it! A very nice effort. Kress doesn't push her libertarianism too much, although this is 1 of those stories where a small group of ubermensch accomplish everything.

6. "And Put Away Childish Things", Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2023, 167 pages, 45k words. Book 3 of the "Terrible Worlds: Destinations" series. A nice riff on portal fantasies, particularly "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". Following the theme of this series, the protagonist starts out being completely unlikeable, but does get better with time.

7. "A Stranger in the Citadel", Tobias S. Bucknell, 2023, 220 pages, 68k words. After Bucknell, in response to an email query from me, sent me the ePub files for 3 of his novels currently unavailable elsewhere, I resolved to read all his stuff from then on. He has had issues since the pandemic, but seems to have worked through things. This is an intestering read on a post-singularity society that for a time has outlawed books and reading: "Thou shalt not suffer a librarian to live." A good read, nicely paced.

8. "Ironclads", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2018, 141 pages, 38k words. Book 1 of the "Terrible Worlds: Revolutions" series. Military sci-fi with rich humans heavily mechanized and basically unbeatable, and grunts without weapons to oppose them. Nicely plotted, and with some decent commentary on economic inequality.

So that's 7 ebooks leaving the Unread collection in Kobo on my iPad, which is now down to ... 137 titles. Onward!