Premier Rock Forum

Glenn W. Turner wrote:Today I finished reading Free As In Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade For Free Software by Sam Williams. I enjoyed the book despite the mediocre writing and numerous typos.

Rest assured they'll be corrected by the open source community in future editions.

I was actually considering reading that, if I can ever get a break from all these tech manuals and shit.

Thanks Brett and chopjob, I've made a Coover list.

Neat feature of two of the Richard Brautigan books I bought: they're ex-library... ex-library from America. Thanks, exchange rate! 'The Hawkline Monster' and 'The Tokyo-Montana Express' are both formerly the property of Edsel Ford Memorial Library, at the Hotchkiss School, and they both still have the library cards inside.

'Hawkline' was loaned fifteen times between December 1974 and November 1988, and 'Express' was loaned eight times between December 1980 and April 1991. The last two times 'Express' was loaned was to the same person, J. Colpitts, who was due to return it before April 2nd 1990 and April 2nd 1991.

(Disclosure: I used to work in a public library, and some days I wish I still did.)

I'm reading Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture and really enjoying it. The book's not nearly as stuffy as its parenthetical title suggests. Actually, it's by a rock critic, Ken Emerson, so he does a good job of tracing the echoes of Foster and Blackface monstrelsy into the rock & roll era. I also had no idea that the first Beethoven symphony performed in America was in Lexington, Kentucky. Good stuff.

Adam CR wrote:I've been reading Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' for what seems like months. I'm not sure that I'd say I'm 'enjoying' it, but it's certainly an unusual and compelling read.

I was reading this at about the same time. Just relentless. I read it in about a week or so and felt enveloped by Sinclair's world, where every penny has eight intended purposes and food becomes a luxury. I began to think about money very differently during my reading and began buying many canned goods.

Since then, two standouts, both lent to me by R.F.F.... Tony Horwitz's 'Confederates In The Attic: Unfinished Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War', an excellent read that changed my thinking about the South--specifically how the South the views the North. Horwitz falls in with hardcore Civil War re-enactors, goes to town meetings to witness locals scrapping over continued use of the rebel flag and gets at the heart of the residual bitterness about "Yankees" dictating economic protocol to the South. Top notch read.

Also just finished Joe Meno's 'The Boy Detective Fails', which was so lovely. About a grown-up Encyclopedia Brown-esque character, fresh out of a ten year stay at a mental hospital. There's a delicateness to it that reminds me of Murakami. But so strongly and wonderfully written--cathartic, Noir-esque characters and some spectacularly laid out pages. Haven't read his other things, but I'm looking forward to all of them.

Life of Pi was good.
I just started One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest for the 5000th time.
Cats Cradle is always great.
If you have a lot of time read the Tin Drum.

Bourrough's Naked Lunch is a classic.

Right now I've been thumbing through Allen Ginsberg's collected poems, and the two novels of William S. Burroughs Jr. "Speed/Kentucky Ham".

I got this in the post last week.
It's very good.

Fury by Salman Rushdie. 'Tis gorgeous.

Skronk wrote:Bourrough's Naked Lunch is a classic.

I dunno... I don't get what all the hoopla's about. I mean, Burroughs was a decent prose stylist and I can appreciate what he did for freedom of speech and introducing experimental techniques in literature, but from an average reader's perspective that book kinda sucked.

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:he does a good job of tracing the echoes of Foster and Blackface monstrelsy into the rock & roll era.

If I heard that Monstrelsy was playing here in Carbondale, I'd probably go check it out.