Wonderfully Wordless Wednesday

Bad plumbing Day in Urban Bohemia

Yay - Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia (click the link to go to amazon and hear clips) finally arrived, although not in the great condition the seller promised. It seems to play ok, although there is a bit of hiss on some tracks but I'm not sure if that is meant to be there!

"Songs for the Deaf" by Queens of the Stone Age arrived this morning as well but I haven't had a chance to listen to that one yet. I need something to cheer me up (not that I'm grumpy!) first my washing machine leaked water all over the kitchen floor and then the big knob on the radiator broke off. A man came to fix it, but guess what they don't make that kind anymore and what should have been a quick fix looks like turning into a major drain the whole system kind of a job. I guess I'm having a bad plumbing day.

Hunchermuncher, N and I are going to see Terry Jones (you know from Monty Python) tonight, he is doing some kind of multi-media presentation and talk about his book Barbarians. I'm hoping it will be entertaining, and tomorrow a friend and I are going to see a play called "Pram Face" so i am quite the cultured one this week!

Fly Like a Seagull

Mid Flight
Originally uploaded by pupski.

Maybe Steve Miller should have used sea gull in his lyrics instead of eagle! I took this photo yesterday at Southwold - that's another gull behind him in case you were wondering.

I am still waiting for my Dandy Warhols cd. The seller finally contacted me last night saying she would post it tomorrow - a week after I won the auction - it's just not goo enough. I also won a Queens of the Stone Age cd, which hopefully will get posted a little quicker.

Musing on Air Guitar Anthems

Well I am disappointed. Hunchermuncher and I happened to flick channels to VH1 on Saturday night only to find that they were most of the way through 100 Greatest Air Guitar Anthems. We watched a bit but were going out to the cinema and switched off after about 4 tracks (and when Aerosmith got too much for us).

I was disappointed though. I would have liked to see th whole thing and I REALLY wanted to know what they chose as number one. Hunchermuncher guessed it would be Bohemian Rhapsody, but I thought that by rights it really should be Smoke on the Water.

So tonight i thought I would look for the list on the internet - but to no avail - I can find the programme listed but no list of the tracks anywhere as yet - grrrr.

One of the bands that we did see was Muse, who I didn't know much about. The track was called "Newborn" and I thoought it was excellent. The singer sounds a lot like Tom Yorke from Radiohead, very soulful but the it suddenly goes into some blistering guitar rock - really good - I am planning on checking out some of their other stuff soon!

Hot Chips

Really enjoyed the UK electronic dance band Hot Chip on Later with Jools Holland last night. I had never heard them before but found them refreshingly different from other bands around at the moment - if you click on the link above you can go to their web site and listen to tracks from their album "The Warning".

I also found myself enjoying watching Morrisey. I used to be a fan of the Smiths (although not when it was fashionable!), but have not warmed to Morrisey's more recent work. After watching him on Jonathan Ross a cople of weeks ago I found myself left cold. But I have to say some of those tracks grow on you and his present band are really tight - I just couldn't get over how good they were, and "The Youngest Was the Most Loved" is a brilliant track, well worth a listen.

Dandys where are you?

There I was waiting eagerly at the front door like a dog waiting to bite the postman, and all I got was three measly bills! It's not fair. I ordered "Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia" by The Dandy Warhols from ebay on Monday night. I waited yesterday and when it didn't arrive I was sure that it would come today. Not that I'm desperate or anything.......

Thursday Thirteen - Great Novelists

Thirteen Authors That I Really Admire PUPSKI 1…Louise Erdrich - I find her writing fresh and inspirational, it is gritty without being too disturbing and usually I can't put her books down until i have read the whole thing! Favourite: Tacks 2...Mervyn Peake - The Gormenghast books have been favourite since I was a teenager, but Peake was also a talented artist and illustrator. Reading Peake will take you to a fantastical yet slightly dark fantasy world. 3...T. C. Boyle - I only came to his writing relatively recently. His books are gritty yet humourous with undercurrents of truth shot through. Best read - Drop City. 4...Esther Freud - I really like Esther Freud. Her books are often set in Norfolk and Suffolk and she writes in a way that you feel you might know the chracters. Her books are atmospheric, emotionally charged you find yourself swept along by them like a boat at high tide. Best read : The Sea House. 5...Alice Hoffman - wow, Alice Hoffman is such a great writer, and her books are always different so you never know what to expect. She really knows how to make you attached to a character yet then once you are hooked you might discover some dark secret or quirk that you weren't expecting. Best read: Blue Diary 6...Tolkien - yes corny I know but sometimes those oldies are the best. I have included Tolkien because both Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit made a huge impact on me as a child. I read both of them to my son a year or so ago and really enjoyed them again. you have to admire the mans vision. 7...Ellen Gilchrist - very different from the other authors on my list. I got into Ellen Gilchrists novels when I was about 18, and there isn't one I haven't enjoyed. In reality I would never relate to her characters and i probably wouldn't like some of them. But she writes in a funny and sympathetic manner and I find I want to know more about what happens to them. She has also written several books of short stories which I really enjoyed. Best reads: "Light can be Both Wave and Particle", "I cannot Get You Close Enough", "In the Land of Dreamy Dreams". 8...Tobias Wolff - Most well known for his semi-autobiographical novel "This Boy's Life" that was made into a film starring Robert De Nero and Leonardo Di Caprio. However Wolff is a versatile and riveting writer. His perfered genre seems to be the short story which he excels at. Best Reads: "The Night in Question", "Hunters in the Snow". 9...Michael Doris - Despite the contoversy around Michael Dorris and his death several years ago, there is no getting away from the fact that he was an extremely good writer and depite my feelings abot hihis personal life - I still love his novels. Best read: "yellow Raft in Blue Water" 10...Donna Tartt - although she has so far only written two books, Donna Tartt is a truly excellent writer, I enjoyed her first novel "A Secret History" several years ago, but didn't expect her second to be very good. How wrong I was, The Little Friend is a novel stuffed to the gills with detail, mood and evocative description - yet I never lost the thread of what was goingg on and I was desperate to see how it would all end. My only disappointment was that when I finished that there were no more books by this author to read! 11...Carolyn Chute - I first read work by Carolyn Chute more than 10 years ago and have been slightly disappointed that more of her work has not been published. her novels are are a great mix of humour and drama. Best reads: "The Beans of Egypt, Maine", "Letourneau' Used Auto Parts". 12....Peter Dickinson - I have included Peter Dickinson as he was one of my early influences. One of my middle school teachers read us the book "heartsease" when we were 11 years old and I was entranced (the book was later made into a children's tv series called The Changes). Dickinson writes about a world gone mad, where people have turned against machinery and gone back to living in semi dark ages style. As a child I found these ideas both terrifying and entrancing. The Changes trilogy is well worth a read if you come across them even now. 13...Barbara Kingsolver - Another writer who writes with passion and integrity. I haven't liked all her work, her novel The Poisonwood Bible left me cold. But I loved her earlier work especially "The Bean Trees" and "Pigs in Heaven", Kingsolvers books contain deep insight into the human condition our realtionship to one anotherLinks to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Louise 2. moogie 3. divap 4. lisa 5. fatedhearts 6. karen 7. janet

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