rob's blog

BOOKS

I got not one, but two new books last night which I look forward to reading and reporting upon in the next few days.

The first one is something I've been meaning to read for quite some time. Ben Edmunds did a book length dissertation on Marvin Gaye's classic What's Going On, and I must say the first two chapters I read before passing out last night left me wanting to read more, but my eyes were so heavy at that point I couldn't. So far Edmunds has set up the stage brilliantly; giving the reader the background on what was happening at Motown and in Detroit at the time, and sewing the psychological profile up that led Gaye to recording one of the most brilliant soul records of all time.

The second book is called Eccentric Spaces by Robert Harbison. Here's the liner notes:

Like all of Robert Harbison's works, Eccentric Spaces is a hybrid, informed by the author's interests in art, architecture, fiction, poetry, landscape, geography, history, and philosophy. The subject is the human imagination--and the mysterious interplay between the imagination and the spaces it has made for itself to live in: gardens, rooms, buildings, streets, museums and maps, fictional topographies, and architectures. The book is a lesson in seeing and sensing the manifold forms created by the mind for its own pleasure.

Palaces and haunted houses, Victorian parlors, Renaissance sculpture gardens, factories, hill-towns, ruins, cities, even novels and paintings constructed around such environments--these are the spaces over which the author broods. Brilliantly learned, deliberately remote in form from conventional scholarship, Eccentric Spaces is a magical book, an intellectual adventure, a celebration.

It sounds interesting, but uh...I don't think this press agent/publishing house could give the author any more of a linguistic hummer. I'll report in on this, too.

Note to fellow Top 100 contributors: I will have those cd_rs done soon. Promise. Things have just gotten crazy this week (and it's only monday).

I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, but it's pretty awesome (thanks Nick!). More DJs need to have promo videos like this. I sure hope Ryan Elliot is paying attention. btw: first person to take this video and overdub funnier music gets Arby's gift certificates mailed to your doorstep. I'm talking classical, circus music, whatever...perhaps some Neil Diamond...anything goes.

You can visit this guy's profile here. It's really disturbing.

Man of adventure/frequent contributor Hardac brings forth two links of not so goodness: having a bad day, and having a worse future.

Someone in the next cubicle over is clipping their nails I think. I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just hearing things.

And finally, I would like to say that I am a proud endorser of Smokey Robinson food products. I couldn't figure out which banner ad to grab, so I'm taking them all.

Yup, in continuing with a precedent set by Veggie pioneer/rock star Linda Macca, Smokey has his own line of gumbo.

I guess those royalty checks aren't as big as they used to be.

Posted by rob at February 1, 2005 06:46 AM