What'cha Reading?

Surprising that nobody has made a movie out of it yet. Probably for the best. Neal Stephenson’s books in general would be incredibly hard to film. (Highly recommend the Baroque Cycle series, BTW.)

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If there’s one sequence I want to see filmed it’s Fido’s Run.

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The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America

As I enter my 40’s, I’m finding myself leaning slowly into non-fiction. Someone posted a small bit in a FB article, and I was intrigued at what the cultural shift may look like.

((I also wonder if the content ties into my obsession with Village of the Giants and the power struggle of the young and older that Bert I Gordon tiptoed around))

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Double katana? It can be wielded one-handed, but…just no, there’s really only one Japanese sword school, or style I can think of where wielding double swords is practiced regularly… and one of them is a one handed short sword ! (Niten-Ichi Ryu - Founded by Miyamoto Musashi)

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There is just a bit but, the way I understood it, it was supposed to be cringe. His name is Hiro Protagonist and he describes himself as the greatest swordsman alive (and he sort of is). He’s not intended to be taken seriously.

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He doesn’t have two katanas, he has a katana and a wakizashi. I don’t recall him ever using both at the same time in the book.

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Ah, thanks !

For a good read, if you haven’t already…

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Two more I’m cracking open heading into March:

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Brand new little book of empty pages. Very convenient size (6"x9"). Six-string tablature plus some little chord boxes.

Yes, I know I should be reading standard notation at guitar, but this is for an intermediate stage of mastering the fretboard (not playing it, but knowing without hesitation where each note is, among the plural possibilities).

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I recently added a new comic to my feed reader: Knights-Errant. While it seems like it’s still getting going, it’s got neat art and setting up an interesting road ahead of it. It’s also about religious warfare, so uh, there’s that.

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Just finished (and enjoyed!) Silver Queendom and The Nice House on the Lake.

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Yeah, this one’s a page turner. I can’t wait to see how it ends.

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I hear the twists and turns are amazing!

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I need to read the Windows 10 book I bought. I have a computer with it installed, but right now all I can do is turn it on and stare at it.

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Over the weekend I finished The League of Gentlewoman Witches by India Holton, the follow-up to her Wisteria Society novel. This one follows a new couple as they search for a powerful amulet. There are pirates, witches, romance & steam, action, humor, and tea. It’s as good as the first book, and I highly recommend it. I believe the third book is due out next month.

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Man, I had to take an on-the-job crash course on “pivot tables”…

Stressed Over It GIF by HULU

That being said, once you have them going, they’re very useful for those “helicopter” and “micro” managers…

Angry Benedict Cumberbatch GIF

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Latest library haul.

And again, an explanation…”The Trial of Adolf Hitler” is an alternate historical novel with the premise that Hitler went on trial at Nuremberg. Having recently been to that city, and therefore having done some recent refresher reading on the Trials, I’m interested in where this goes and how it gets there.

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This just arrived in the mail today. I think I know most of the juicy details of Gödel’s somewhat interesting personal life from other books and lectures, &c., but this should be fun and a biography I can pass around to someone else in my family who’d probably enjoy this. Actually, my sister might like this when I’m done with it (short book, anyway, probably not very technical at all…not Nagel&Newman, probably more Rebecca Goldstein type stuff, if that).

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Also checked out from the library Breslin’s biography of Mark Rothko, thanks to inspiration from @moviegique (almost 100% sure, if I’m wrong, apologies). That’s a doorstopper of a book! But Rothko’s work is an enigma to me — a compelling enigma — so it’s worthwhile to me. Anyway, that’s from Interlibrary Loan (ILL), so I have a time limit to read it…I’ll roll it in flour and look for the crispy coating after shaking.

In general trying to read more to get less time in front of the computer monitor during my leisure time at home.

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You are wrong but damn, that sounds like a good one.

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Oh it begins in a tedious fashion, as many birth-to-coffin type biographies are. I want to know the person who created those curious tableaux, purely out of curiosity.

I will find the MSTie culprit who put the bug in my ear about the Rothko bio, though! Your honor will be saved!

// Anyway, about the Gödel bio…damn! That starts at a quick pace and comes easily! Yes, I knew the main points, you know, his delusions of starvation, anecdotes about him shopping for frozen foods in the dark hours of the night, and the famous story about him, Einstein, and Morgenstern riding in a car to apply for KG’s US citizenship, but not so many details. After all, it takes some doing just to understand his technical work. //

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