Mr Kay

went to see peter kay on sunday. Funny man, air shovel!!!

mad to think he sold out the point for 6 nites

Justified Ancients

We I bought a couple of cds the other day which I'm working through.

Blues & Jazz.

John Lee Hooker - I think Benny had introduced me to him. I got this and the squirrel nut zipper album in the excellent Freebird Record shop in Dublin

I can't remember who told be about the squirel nut zippers but I think it was benny, I think they're like the canadian cherry poppin daddies - modern swing

I also got a best of Son House, I've been fascinated by this guys since watching the Martin Scorcsese documentary on the blues. The recording quality is fairly poor so I'm looking forward to having a good listen to it with the head phones on.

And finally a double album including Lee Morgan's The Cooker and Lee-Way both early albums of his recorded before The Sidewinder.

Long time coming

Hey there, been a long time since I posted but I've got something to share.

Recent book - Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, this was one on loan from the library. Plugged as being a forerunner of the modern spy novel. I got about halfway through it and had to put it down out of sheer boredom. Unless you have been sailing I'd say you might find this book particularly confusing and somewhat boring. I got them impression I left right before it was going to get "exciting" but I wasn't holding out great hope.

In the interim I was reading the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, which I forgot was one of the 1001 Stories of the Arabian nights. Actually I'd say its 7 of the nights. Very short little book which I read on the plane to Berlin. A little bit repetitive but I could see how a 10year old would have enjoy this.

So I've switched to a recent €2 purchase of For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemmingway which, so for, is great.

I'm Back

Wow,

nearly a year since the last post. We'll I'm hoping to get back on the bus now so I should be ploughing through the auld books.

I am currently reading Bound For Glory by Woody Gutherie. For those of you who don't know Woody is a now legendary american folk singer popular in the 50s who was one of the majoy influences on Bob Dylan. Having read bob Dylans autobiography (Chronicles Vol1 - whens he gonna publish the second vol!!!) - he waxed lyrical about his love of Woody and how is teens were spent doing all he could trying to dig up woody albums that he didn;t have or know about.

I suppose back then there was no itunes or allmusic.com, where you can instantly find out the completed discography of any artist. It would have been a mystery. How many albums? In which order were they recorded~? Woody was a bit of a vagrant and recorded stuff here and there so I imagine it would have been a real task to get a complete collection.

And thats pretty much what the books is about, Woodys travels around America most around the time of the WW2 although it does also give a great back ground to his childhood.

Interesting fact the gang of kids he used to hang around with were called the Boom Town Rats. This was down to the fact they were based in one of the oil boom towns of the early 1920s (I think). I think its great that this is where Geldof got the name for his band (I stand to be corrected)

The book is very reminiscint of the Grapes of Wrath by John Stienbeck (one of my favorites). And the poverty and hunger people faced seemed devastaing.

So yeah a great book, with illustratons by the author.

Never realised there was a film made of it until I just searched for images there, must check it out.

Keep em comin

g

The Godfather

Another good book,

very easy to read, a real page turner. Perhaps the most interesting thing is the differences between the book and the film,. for instance there is a whole story line revolving around Johnny Fontane, the Frank Sinatra type character, which is completely omitted from the film. In addition there is a whole chunk of the story about Connie which we don't hear.

The book is in many way more violent and darker to some degree. However it has to be said that the Godfather character does not come across quite as charismatic as Brando. I suppose this is testament to the great actor. Although the author tells us of the respect and the awe people hold him in, theres something about his dialogue of its delivery thats missing.

The ending is also different, I suppose they didn't need to set it up for a sequel.

I've now moved on to satanic verses.

Great Expectations

Howdy,

Well, another Dickens novel. This is one of his latter novels. Whereas the earlier one I read (Oliver) was one of his earlier. This was also initially serialised in a newspaper and you can still see that in it.

The book start off great, with one of my favorite lines. The book is set in three parts. The inital part is pip growing up and highlights a turblent part of his life where he comes across many wierd and wonderful characters. I like this part of the book the best because Dickens is soo good at creating characters. The second part out lines his education in london and the third part ties up the loose ends.

As it turns out many of the chacaters double up, and this means that there is a lack of new characters. hard to explain unless you read it. I have to say I found the book very hard to follow in places and quite labour intensive in others, much like Oliver. Pip isn't a particulaly likable guy, he doesn't learn many lessons, he seems niave.

The strong characters suffer and the weak characters prosper. but maybe thats life.

So long, on to the Godfather, light stuff alltogether.

Til then

g

The God Delusion

Well


there I was reading Great Expectations, and hey what a book, but I'm still ploughing through it, and I downloaded some audio books of bittorrent. These were the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and How to Know yourself by the Dalai Lama. In some ways it seems our future informed societies could be based on these two books.


I started into the Dalai Lama book but the guy reading it really wrecked my buzz so I gave up on it and started listening to the God Delusion.








It is actually read by Dawakins and (I Think) his wife. This works really well as it breaks up the monotony of a single persons voice. And one person will to the quotes while the other does the narrative.




The books itself is enlightening. From the outset it makes no apologies for saying the purpose of the book is to convert you to atheism!!! An outlandish claim. Why would anyone want to be an atheist. Someone who believes in nothing. Some one whose life is empty. Some one too weak to pray or lacks the conviction to live by the lords laws.


However when you think about it - atheism is a brave stance. It means I need no crutch. I need no compensation. This life is it, so live it well, get on with it and rejoice in simple things.


Am I an atheist? I think some part of me is since becoming an adult. And this isn't just a disillusionment with the church, I think all Irish people have taken a step back in recent years. I personally I no problem with the church at a local level. But I suppose my problem is that I am a devout scientist, but that sounds so stale, perhaps what I mean is that I am an enlightened person and I refuse to believe that the world is flat, that the sun revolves around the sun, that the earth is 6,000 years old, that we all originated from adam and eve and more recently from moses.


To think that we are expected to believe that every single living object on the planet was on that ark, never mind that all the animals, but think it means we all originate, whites, blacks, Chinese, aboriginal, from Moses. I think its funny when some racists say blacks aren't as evolved. Surely if you believe in the Moses story you would have to say they are more evolved because they had to evolve black skin since the time of Moses where as we westerners still looks the same. And in fairness who believes that Moses looked like Charlton Heston. Isn't that just the was the church of old and subsequently Hollywood wants us to think of them, to feel some association. Surely moses must have looked a lot darker than us. Lets not even get on to Jesus.





At any it I can't stand here and say yes I agree with creationism. How do I balance the two? I see the religious right in America as the inevitable conclusion of christian faith in the western world. America sneezes..... We are typically about 2 decades or may 15 years behind them in our culture, e.g. bottled water (everyone remembers the guy from ballygowan being laughed off the late late) obesity, technology.


I think the label of atheist carries such heavy connotations with it. I think what I would like is to keep trundling along with popping into church every now and then, the alacart christian, which I think so many of the irish are, but stay true to my inner beliefs. Do I get my morals from the church. I don't think so. Will I be happy when I am close to death to have a priest stand over me and say hey don't worry I'll make sure you get in, when really I can imagine looking up at him and saying, yeah but come on, I don't really believe in heaven.


The question is what am I clinging on to here. I think part of it could be that its all too awkard now to back out of. Am I trapped? Imagine if I was come out! I would have to call off the church wedding, could I swear what I have to swear? Is there too much at stake?


Part of me says just tag along and keep your head down, it'll be all ok. But is that good enough. Is that what I want my life to be???