A rare misfire from Ed Brubaker.
Oh well, his next is coming in December, titled “Where the Body Was”, hopefully that’ll get him back on track. (But when’s the next Reckless?)
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This one is neat, because (i) everyone seems to know about Jimmy Bruno’s “six” (ii) while I know what every scale and mode sounds like, I never learned a “system,” just did what people seemed to do on records.
At any rate, I just pick one and it’s good practice for me to just read through and see what’s what.
Doesn’t hurt me none, and it’s in certain circles as famous as other systems. TBH, I feel I know a lot of this already from Pat Martino’s Linear Improvisation book, but I find this is worth a look for me.
This one is actually pretty cool. Yeah, I remember some of the cowboy chords, but this is kind of a new approach for someone who still isn’t 100% on knowing the fretboard (in the sense of: “give me a C#minor triad, second inversion, go! now add a sixth on top!”).
It’s not stuff I haven’t been learning on my own, or from copying masters of the guitar, but to me it’s part of the journey of learning the fretboard cold. Bmaj7, 7th on top, F#13…now Fm6, how many ways to play it!"
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The King in Yellow
One of the earliest American horror novels, inspiration for Lovecraft and many other horror writers. The first four stories are great, it drops off a bit after that.
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That’s been on my list for ages, but I never quite get around to it.
Right now I’m reading What If 2, applying Science™ to ridiculous questions.
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Is there an Earth vs. Soup chapter?
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Very first question is “What would happen if the Solar System was filled with soup out to Jupiter?”, from Ameila, age 5.
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I absolutely love the What If books!! The first one was my introduction to XKCD, and I was so excited when the second one came out. I didn’t finish How To before it was due back at the library, I need to give that one another shot.
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And the answer is “nothing good”, but that’s the answer to every What If? 
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The fun bit is finding out the whys and hows of that nothing good!
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I’d forgotten my pre-order for this but 42, the posthumous collection of Douglas Adams’ writings, has just turned up on my Kindle.
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James Blish - Black Easter (or Faust Aleph-Null)
In a world where Black and White magic exist and are as much a part of life and the economy as regular business, an arms dealer hires a Black magician to carry out two killings via the medium of demon-sendings, in the interests of protecting certain investments and copyrights.
But he has a third contract in mind… and it’s a biggie.
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Finally. A book that dumbs down sight reading (or, if one prefers, “fretboard-knowing”) enough that I can pick it up pretty easily.
Ideally, I want to be able to pick up any of the Real Books (old-school ones from the trunk of some dude’s car, or the Chuck Sher Real Books), turn to a standard or a jazz tune, and just play the melody by reading. Without just faking it by playing it by ear, since I likely know most of the tunes at least by recognition.
Or read through various voices from Bach (soprano, alto, tenor, or bass, say) or books of transcriptions, without sweating it or needing to “compute” the notes by figuring it out. Becoming second-nature, really, is the idea for me.
Don’t care about chords too much…just melodies. If I know where each note is without thinking about it, I’m confident I can just add in whatever notes I want to form chord fragments from experience with keyboard instruments.
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Good yarn, reminded me a lot of Emmanuel Carrère’s The Adversary (Writer sees a reflection of himself in a horrible criminal, tries to figure out what stops him from also becoming a horrible criminal). The politics of Ireland in the 1980s make for an interesting backdrop.
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I just got a copy of this delivered. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it mentioned here somewhere, but maps are cool, and stories about crazy things in maps are cool. I’d read it anyway.
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It’s a shame that title’s now unavailable for your memoirs, though.
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Yep, I was the one who mentioned it. I got it last Christmas. Very interesting book.
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Ah, well, I’ll just write about my time working on the New Jersey Turnpike instead and call it The Phantom Tollboo-. Oh, you can’t be serious!
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Hapgood’s “Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings” is an excellent and thought provoking read. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend it.
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