Russo: Bridge of Sighs

Finished ‘Bridge of Sighs’ last night when I should have been working on homework.  For the second Russo novel in a row, I wish I stopped reading before the last 50 pages. As in ‘Empire Falls’ the cliches stand out to the point of distraction. When the Magical Negro appears I wanted to throw the book away. In ‘Empire Falls’, the school shooting made me mad enough to mark the page to know when to stop when I get the time to re-read it. Two great books that made me want to rip out 50 pages of them and put them back on the shelf.   ’Bridge’ was absolutely fantastic up to the appearance of ‘Miss Cleo’ and I’m frustrated that I allow that small part to soil the rest of the book.

January 29, 2008 | Filed Under Books | Leave a Comment 

distraction

Every once in awhile I get the urge to dive back into music, to load up the laptop with music software and start being creative again. I blame it on two things; feeling like what I do now is not creative, and my brain trying to keep me from doing what I should be doing (in this case, homework).

Since school has turned into a somewhat useless exercise in going through the motions, my brain is trying to save itself from boredom. Calculating the traffic intensity of base stations is not all that thrilling. The pathetic part is that the music I used to create doesn’t even interest me anymore. Knowing how simple it is to create most music has taking away alot of the excitement I used to have. What used to really interest me was the development of new sounds and experimenting with audio synthesis. There’s been hardly anything new in that area for at least 10 years, and the same sounds and processes are pretty deadening. I suppose most of the work has moved onto subtle improvements rather than ground-breaking experiments.

January 20, 2008 | Filed Under music, personal | Leave a Comment 

Lunchtime Reading

I’ve been trying to spend my lunch hours at work reading. It’s a nice break from IT and gives me time to use the part of my brain that isn’t swearing at servers.

My brother passed along a section of Richard Russo’s newest book a few weeks ago, and I just ran across it today. Pages 1234-125 captures the most accurate telling of adolescence that I’ve ever read. I couldn’t get that section out of my head and went back to re-read it at least three times.

“We shared, all of us, a powerful sense that what was at stake on those crowded stairs was nothing less than the rest of our lives, that our every move in that gymnasium had an unimaginable significance, that we were being watched, judged, elected, or damned. “

January 18, 2008 | Filed Under Books | Leave a Comment 

TB: Tale of God’s Will

Terence Blanchard’s ‘A Tale of God’s Will’ is my favorite jazz recording of last year, and probably in my top five music purchases as well.  It reminds me of Pat Metheny’s ‘Secret Story’ in it’s scope and ambition. Its difficult to marry the jazz ethos alongside a symphonic score, but Blanchard does an amazing job, without becoming sappy or overdone. 

January 8, 2008 | Filed Under music | Leave a Comment