Today's playlist (2/28/2008)

Tom Waits- Mule Variations

Today's playlist (2/27/2008)

Pink Floyd- The Piper At The Gates of Dawn
Blimey! Shades of Spinal Tap! I can't believe that 'The Gnome' wasn't a hit single in 1967.

Down- Over The Under

Today's playlist (2/25/2008)

INXS- Stay Young 1979-1982

Judas Priest- Unleashed In The East
Ah, the definitive Priest album for me as well as most other folks.

Still celebrating Bryant History Month with these two albums from my teenage years.

No Depression No More!

Not that it's a big news flash but No Depression magazine will cease publishing after the May-June 2008 issue. I subscribed for a couple of years and loved this magazine. The only reason I didn't renew my subscription is that I didn't have time for reading at all after the birth of my son. NPR had a segment on All Things Considered that covers this sad end to a great magazine.

With The Old Breed by E.B. Sledge

My recreational reading consisted solely of fiction until my mid-twenties. Until that time I had been forced to read so much for school that non-fiction just didn't interest me. I had some extra time during my underemployed years and started reading about Watergate and Julius Caesar. And from there, of course, I started to read too much about war. I thought that I had read most of the acclaimed books about World War II, but I was greatly mistaken. My father-in-law loaned me With The Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge over the Christmas holiday of 2008.

With The Old Breed is considered not only the best first-person narrative of World War II but also of war in general. I can see why. It's a tremendous book, and you'll learn more about war than you want to know.

Some things from the book that stuck with me.

1. 
   Sledge's description of the impact that the initial 1944 Peleliu assault had on him. I was struck by the fact that he says that nothing since that time has been as momentous in his life. From reading his book as well as the introduction to the book, I think that Sledge is a normal, well-adjusted human being. He's not a cold-hearted, emotionally-stunted killing machine. If that's a true assessment, then you get a small sense of the impact of this horrific, extraordinary event.
   
   
   Everything my life has been before and has been after pales in the light of that awesome moment when my amtrac started in amid a thunderous bombardment toward the flaming, smoke-shrouded beach for the assault on Peleliu. (pg 52)
   
   


2. 
   When my grandfather returned from the Pacific theatre he had taken up cigar smoking. He smoked cigars at least through the 1970's. He'd been in demolitions. I learned in this book that cigars were used to light satchel charge explosives. My grandmother had always assumed that it was just a bad habit that he had picked up overseas but apparently it was a job requirement.
   


3. 
   There are several gruesome accounts of battlegrounds where the lightly buried Japanese dead continue to be a disgusting nuisance. Whether digging foxholes for cover or walking down slippery slopes, soldiers frequently ended up covered in maggots from the decomposing enemy that lie about.
   

Today's playlist (2/12/2008)

Cowboy Junkies- At the End of Paths Taken
I'm really conflicted about this cd. While I was listening to it I was really bored. Then I read AMG's review and suddenly I like it. Or maybe AMG guilted me into liking it by suggesting that I wasn't intellectual enough to appreciate its sophistication.

The Ace of Spades

There's a lot of stuff that I don't like about Knoxville, but there's one thing that's really cool about this town: they're not afraid to play Motorhead on the radio. I just heard 'Ace of Spades' on WUTK.

Today's playlist (2/9/2008)

The Rolling Stones- Beggars Banquet
It's a great day in February to be shopping for birthday gifts. Sunny and 55 degrees. And it gets even better when I stumble across Ron Wood's biography in the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble.

Today's playlist (2/8/2008)

Dave Brubeck Quartet- Time Further Out

Today's playlist (2/7/2008)

Kathleen Edwards- Back To Me

Today's playlist (2/1/2008)

Buckwheat Zydeco- Trouble
Metallica- Load