2010: review

Lifting
I didn’t reach my ‘Road to 400 Goals’ but I did end the year with a personal record for deadlift and weighted in 10 lbs lighter by the end of the year. Most of my lifts remained the same or went up, so I’m happy to have retained muscle mass while loosing a bit of extra weight.

Since I’ve been doing so much heavy work, I’m going to start off the year with a couple months of high-rep, low-weight work with an emphasis on getting my heart rate up.

Reading
51 books this year, not all of them winners, but as I get older I’m getting better at cutting out the garbage quicker. It’s easy to tell the time of year based on what I’m reading, more serious work during the start/end of the year and light stuff over the summer.

Top Ten Books:

  1. Everything Matters – Ron Currie, Jr.
  2. Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace – David Lipsky
  3. After the Workshop – John McNally
  4. Switch – Chip & Dan Heath
  5. Drive – Daniel Pink
  6. Listen to This – Alex Ross
  7. The Creative Writers Survival Guide – John McNally
  8. The Big Short – Michael Lewis
  9. Where Good Ideas Come From – Steven Johnson
  10. A Guide to the Good Life – William Irvin

Music: Listening

Music stuff that last.fm says that I listened to this year(mostly at work):

Artist Play Count
Autechre 657
The Beatles 547
The Rolling Stones 423
Aphex Twin 415
Peter Gabriel 376
Nine Inch Nails 313
Tom Waits 283
Amon Tobin 262
The Kleptones 256
Steely Dan 245
Neil Young 242
The Mountain Goats 218
Galactic 214
Frank Zappa 202
Andrew Bird 197
Uncle Tupelo 195
Son Volt 190
Lyle Lovett 190
Andy McKee 186
Max Richter 181

Other music stuff I remember listening to a whole bunch to in 2010:

Music: Written
I put out three EPs and one full project of music this year, (about 108 minutes of sound). I’m pretty happy with the output and I see a lot of change and progress.

Next Year:
I already have a reading list about 15 items deep. For music I want to get back into Max/MSP and build more interactive processing in Reaktor. I also have a pile of Abersold jazz books that I should spend more time with. The older I get the more I feel a need to dig deeper into harmony.

January 2, 2011 | Filed Under Books, music, personal, Uncategorized | Comments Off 

Reading progress

Updated my reading list for 2010. Pretty happy with the results so far, a decent mix of fiction/non-fiction (and biz stuff, which usually is more like voodoo than non-fiction).

I blew through Lipsky’s book on David Foster Wallace in two sittings. The times that Lipsky inserted himself or his thoughts was distracting, but it was great to dive into Wallace’s head for a nice chunk of time. I was happy with how ended, it would have been easy to be morose, but instead I was left with much happier memories. I like thinking about how much DFW was enjoying the process of writing and how he was looking forward to working for a good length of time.

I have six other books in progress right now, but I should knock out a couple of them this weekend. It’s slightly nutty, but I like the mix right now. I was planning to be working on more music this month, perhaps next week when Jen will be gone for a couple of days. Right now my evenings are nothing but a White Sox game on in the background and a book in hand. Things could be much, much worse.

Overall things seem pretty solid. Made some great progress at work and got rewarded for it, and today finished off a nice project that took longer than I hoped, but it was done the right way.

Yesterday someone at work asked how it is that I seem so happy all the time. I really didn’t know how to answer that. I feel like I’ve been pretty buried for awhile but it’s starting to burn off like fog. It comes and goes in waves, but right now things are well. It’s strange to be happy, but I never lose the feeling of other shoes dropping.

April 14, 2010 | Filed Under Books, personal | Comments Off 

IJ – Infinite Summer

I’ve been participating in the infinite summer read. It’s brought up a lot of memories since the first time I read Infinite Jest was on vacation ten years ago. I had just finished school and Jen and I were going to take a trip westward to visit my friend Nathan. We had little money and I needed a large book for the flight there and back. I found a British printing of IJ in the discount bin at Barnes and Noble. Something sounded familiar about the title, but I knew nothing further. It was large and looked interesting and became my vacation book on sight.

I was tempted by the massive thickness but held out to start reading, I knew that I would need something to occupy hours in the terminals as well as the six hours of flights there and back again. I knocked out a good 50% of the book that week. I have a great memory of Jen and I laying together in a Seattle hostel and reading for a couple of hours.

I finally finished the book during the first week of working at Interlochen. I pretty much pushed aside any and all social opportunities (nothing unusual about that) and did nothing but work and read IJ. I remember finishing it on a Friday evening and being so stunned that it was over that I had to get out of my dorm room and be around people for awhile, so I joined the rest of my co-workers at the local bar. I had gone into a place in my brain that I couldn’t explain but I couldn’t be alone either.

IJ sent me down a spiral of collecting everything I could by DFW, but I haven’t been able to return to IJ for years. I read the rest of his books that summer and grabbed everything I could find online. It’s been a great trip getting here again, and I’m really enjoying the ride again.

July 1, 2009 | Filed Under Books, personal | Comments Off 

Made to Stick

Finished ‘Made to Stick’ the other day. Solid read, like Gladwell without the arrogance but with some practicality.

I like the way that the authors emphasis the use of ‘the story’ and how much more effective and ‘sticky’ concepts are when they are built into a story.

They break ‘stickiness’ into five concepts: simple, unexpected, concrete, emotional and stories. There are definitive examples within each concept that effectively help ideas adhere become easier to recall. I’ve suffered through a fair number of ‘biz’ book but this one was pretty great.

This copy was from the library, but I need to pick up a copy for myself to highlight and underline and scribble over.

May 29, 2009 | Filed Under Books | Comments Off 

dfw

Infinite Jest was a title that rang in my head for some reason, so I picked up the $5 British pressing paperback at Barne’s and Noble while looking for something of decent length to read on my first post-college vacation in spring of 1999. On the flight from Indianapolis to Seattle (via Detroit) I opened the massive novel and dived in.

One of my favorite memories of the trip was lying in the hostel in downtown Seattle and reading Infinite Jest. Just out of college and truly broke, there wasn’t a lot of night-time entertainment available.

I remember talking about David Foster Wallace with my friend Nathan when we stayed at his apartment where I read the first story of ‘A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again’ and I was taken. The rest of the vacation involved hunting through multiple used-book stores to purchase the rest of his work. I spend the rest of the summer reading everything I could find by him, finally finishing IJ at the music camp I worked at that year. I spend a Friday evening in the dorm room while the rest of the team went out drinking.  After finishing the book, I had to get out and socialize, albiet briefly, just to get out of my own head for awhile.

I remember reading ‘The Girl With Curious Hair’ on the beach at Interlochen and finally ordering ‘Brief Interviews with Hideous Men’ from Amazon when I had nothing left to consume.

Reading DFW made my brain echo in a funny but enjoyable way. The struggle and reach to comprehend was always worth the effort. It reminded me of the first time I heard Stravinsky and the opening bassoon of ‘The Rite of Spring’ ran through my head like warm water. Something about it just fit my chemistry and made me care more about what sounds I heard (and with DFW, what words I read).

Last week I was rereading ‘Consider the Lobster’ and surfing around to try and see if any new work was coming out. I’m looking forward to revisiting his work in the near future. The unfortunate passage is going to make the going a bit darker.

“This is water. This is water.” – DFW

September 15, 2008 | Filed Under Books, personal | Comments Off 

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 | Comments Off 

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 | Comments Off 

Population 485 – Michael Perry

Started reading this last night, and it immediately took my back to my hometown. Michael has returned to his hometown and becomes a volunteer fireman. It’s a book that I wish I had an afternoon to lose myself in.

Edit: I really like this line.

“Working-class prejudice never quite shakes the idea of art as frivolity, and frivolity has pink-palms.”

Coming from a small town, this was always something rolling around in my head while I was studying music. How useless it would seem at times.  I still have similar feelings about IT, questioning if I should be doing something that may have a more positive impact.

September 11, 2007 | Filed Under Books | Comments Off