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Bandit, by Molly Brodak. It’s really good. Selfishly wishing she were still around and writing.

33 1/3: Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros Soundtrack.

Like the best of these little books, I devoured it in two settings. I'd say a good read for anyone interested in the history of video games or perhaps synthesizers. That dude really revolutionized the way video game music worked. Most surprising to me is that he wasn't a music school geek. He played piano at 5 and was in a rock cover band in college, but was focused on the tech side of the arts in school. That main Mario theme is rhythmic genius.

kokorodoko wrote: Sun May 26, 2024 10:20 am Oksana Zabuzhko : Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex

The one other book of hers in stock at my library was a non-fiction work titled "The Longest of Journeys". A sort of primer on Ukraine-Russia relations and political events in Ukraine, particularly since independence, a crash course for westerners. However the goodreads reviews suggest it only exists in Swedish, Polish and Latvian translations, which is rather odd.

In any case, this book is much more engaging than the other one and a very quick read. Particularly interesting so far are the mentions of how Russian-language news media, entertainment and book publishing - aided by Russian capital - continued to maintain a certain dominance across the country throughout the 00s, making harder the formation of shared information outlets and thereby common debates on national affairs, and according to the author did its part in intensifying and exaggerating the idea of a severe divide between eastern and western Ukraine.

I'm less convinced by the reliance on Yuri Bezmenov to explain post-Soviet Russia - namely the idea that the Perestroika and the dismantling of the USSR was a mere "deception" intented to allow the old empire to continue under new forms. This seems to on the one hand rely too much on reports that are hard to corroborate independently, since they come from an insider, and on the other hand to be simply too "good" to be true, like an inverse Russia Today for paranoid anti-communists. Moreover this adds to the already present risk of flattening history in a way that even puts it in line with the preferred view of Russian nationalists - that of the Soviet Union as nothing but a stage of the Russian Empire, with the accompanying notion that some spirit of misfortune is following Russia through time, condemning it to be this way.

On the whole, when treating periods further back in history the account tends to leap between events in ways that provides an imprecise picture. Chrushchev is also named a "true revolutionary", which I'm sure isn't meant literally, but still - Chrushchev is a fake revolutionary (or reformist) if there ever was one.

Anyway the book aimed the light at some areas to explore.

The library also had the recent autobiography of Britney Spears on display, so what the hell. It's not bad so far. Short chapters, easy read. She says her dad was someone who wanted to control everything around him, and his dad being the same. Foreshadowing probably.

I'm currently reading three technical books, kinda work-related: A book on design patterns in software (personal) using Ruby, a book on software algorithms (work book-club) using python, and a book on Ruby on Rails v7 to catch up on the codebase.

Kate Beaton's Ducks, autobiographical graphic novel about her time working in the Alberta oil sands. I used to think her web comics were great, but this is next level, powerful stuff. Could not recommend more highly.

^ That sounds great.

I haven't made any progress on the bear-mangled anthropologist thing, it's not the right book for the bus ride back home after dropping my kid off at school in the morning apparently.

I have now read half of The Music to Come by François J. Bonnet, published by Shelter Press. I like a fair bit of his music as Kassel Jaeger quite a lot.


"This is not a study. It is a manifesto for a peculiar conviction: that music remains to be discovered, that it is still hidden. That, nonetheless, it does sometimes appear, but most often incompletely and unevenly. And that what we have hitherto referred to as “music” is in fact only a preliminary, a prodrome. That all musics produced up until now have been nothing but simulacra, rituals to call music forth. This may sound crazy, and indeed unwelcome. But the sole concern of the following text will be to make this statement legible, understandable, and perhaps even to some extent acceptable. Its hope is that, setting out from a few intuitions, the possibility of a music to come can be formulated. That this obscure becoming will emerge, one trait at a time; that the shape of this music to come will reveal itself, gradually, by way of a cluster of assumptions, the reading of a multiple history, and the examination of damaging paradigms that have taken music far from itself. That the subjectivity of a writing, with all of its beliefs, its errors, its biases, its injustices and its shaky certainties, may yet manage to cast a singular and inspiring light upon the idea of music—this, ultimately, is the ambition of the lines to come."

It's provocative, frustrating, sometimes opaque, as you might imagine from the above. But it's a short little tract that you can carry anywhere and spark your musical imagination while waiting at the doctor's office (or at least this was my experience the past week).

kokorodoko wrote: Sun May 26, 2024 10:20 amSerhiy Zhadan : The Orphanage

If I were in lit class I would use this as narrative analysis because it's a clear example of a thing that fascinates me in how you can make time pass in stories, one length of time or another can occupy the same story-space, and sometimes this gives you the "oh, all that happened in a DAY" moment - I like that.

I read this cover to cover yesterday. Amazing. apparently Gabriel Garcia Marquez had been going through some writers block and happened upon this short novel. Then he wrote 100 years of solitude.

kokorodoko wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 5:42 am John le Carré

will likely seek out some more books by this dude.

Started on Tinker Tailor... or "The Mole", as the corresponding Swedish version is called. Decided to try a translation to see if it allows me to keep focus on the plot better, and also out of curiosity. Generally I've been reading fiction in English where the original work is in English. I do feel that this other way it's easier for me to find a narrator voice (and different distinct narrator voices), which helps with attention and immersion. Me getting more used to reading overall might influence this. Other than that the switch isn't remarkable.

Read the Gatsby one too like this to similar effect. Good book btw. You can read it over a weekend! I could picture the the town, the car mechanic shop, the place where they lived, how they dressed and how they walked, all very vivid.