i was going to update this blog more frequently, but i guess i got distracted for awhile. here's hoping i can do a bit better in the future.

i wanna try something new at this point, i think i want to segue this blog into something more than just a place for random rants. i am going to start writing about the music, movies and books that i consume as part of my daily life.

this week's music:
the new matt bauer ep: i saw this guy twice in the last week and both times he was performing material from his new album. the new songs all have that same hauntingly beautiful feel that has made "window hill" off his previous album one of my favorite songs of this winter.
paul davis's podcast: this can be found on his blog which is located at: http://anginamonologues.blogspot.com/ and it is full of folky goodness.
murder by death - until morale improves, the beatings will continue: i am listening to this song as i write this and i felt i had to include it, even though it is not particularly new. it has a really fantastic sound that i wish the band replicated in their other tracks. plus, the line "i'll drink whiskey instead of water 'cause i can't stand to be sober in this place" really appeals to me.

this week's movies:
v for vendetta: i really liked this film, but the group of people that i went with came out of the movie as a mixed bag. i think part of the problem was that all of the advertising for the movie made it seem very action-oriented when in reality it was much more psychological. i would have known that the story was not particularly action-packed if i had read the graphic novel first. but, in hindsight i am actually glad that i did it in this order with this particular film. i am not sure that i would have enjoyed the movie as much if i had seen it first because it takes several departures from the story that helped with the pacing and tone of the movie but might have upset me if i had known about them at the time.
9 songs: i put this movie in my netflix queue because i was curious to see what it was all about, pitchfork made a pretty big deal about it a few months ago because it featured all of these indie bands performing live as well as on the soundtrack. i made it about 9 minutes into the movie before i started fast forwarding to the live performances. from what i could tell, the movie is essentially a concert DVD interspersed with sex scenes and really boring pseudo-poetic rants about antarctica.

this week's books:
slow river - nicola griffith: this book took me a lot longer than normal to finish, which is strange, because normally if i like a book i will have it done in a day or two. this one took me more like two weeks, it wasn't a particularly dense read and i actually liked it for the most part. i liked her other book stay a lot more. that book felt like it was a woman writing andrew vachss, whereas the characters in slow river were just not as compelling.
the summer country - james a. hetley: i just finished this book earlier this evening, i found it at the library while looking for something by an author with a similar name. the jacket blurb was fairly interesting even though i don't usually like books that mix fantasy and modern times. however, this book also had a positive review from lynn flewelling (author of luck in the shadows, one of my favorite books of all time) and that is enough for me to give any book a chance. i am going to let her words speak for me in this case; "a wonderful debut, by turns beautiful and utterly brutal."