Bastard Book Report

We sat on the patio outside his room and talked for two hours. I was really nervous, because he was one of my heroes. And I was also afraid that he wouldn’t be really smart anymore, that he’d be a caricature of himself, like happens to a lot of people. But I was delighted. He was as sharp as a tack. He was everything I’d hoped. He was really open and honest. He was just telling me about his life and about writing his songs. He said, “They just came through me, it wasn’t like I was having to compose them. That doesn’t happen anymore, I just can’t write them that way anymore.” Then he paused and said to me with his raspy voice and little smile, “But I still can sing them.” -Steve Jobs, on his meeting with Bob Dylan. [in Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson]

Any of yous don't have the Jobs biography and need some fine holiday reading for your damn Kindles, this is a real page-turner. I'm no accomplished reader like our edumacator and book-blogger, but iRecommend this anyway.

What To Read While You're Not Listening to the New Ryan Adams

First Take Pity on yourself for not loving Ryan Adams the way Dave and I do, then go an read a nice article from the AV Club that circles an idea from a nice article about Noel Gallagher by Chuck Klosterman on Grantland (my new favorite web-site?) back to Ryan Adams and the inevitable 'Heartbreaker' comparisons every one of his albums gets, then read this interview with DRA, again from the AV Club.   Reaction papers on my desk by noon tomorrow.

Sam Spade is a Private Dick

I just finished reading The Maltese Falcon. I'm surprised I hadn't read it previously as I spent most of my teens reading detective fiction. I guess I was more into English locked-room whodunnits than hard-boiled American crime fiction. Although Hammett more or less invented the genre, it has been so overdone in the years since it is almost difficult to not laugh out loud at some of the now stereotypical moves Sam Spade makes. The thing that surprised me was the fact that a novel published in 1929 in America would make no bones about having a gay character or talking frankly about female nudity. I have never seen the movie either, although I plan to rent it sometime this week.

Read Any Good Books Lately?

There's a spreadsheet you can download here that lists the 1001 books you must read before you die. I, sadly, am only in the mid-thirties. There are several authors represented I have read another title by, but according to the list, I'm in trouble. I'm curious to know how many of these titles you bastards have read. My money is on Jay or Andrew for highest count.