Tag: Arts

Book Group, Books

Book 428: Girl In A Band – Kim Gordon

Geoff W

For our second book in our year of biography/autobiography/memoir books someone chose Kim Gordon’s Girl In A Band. It’s a look back on her time in the band Sonic Youth (never heard of them) and about her life as an artist. Seriously though, not my thing. I looked up a few of their most well-known songs on YouTube and was like “nope.” I just need a bit more structure in my music. It’s probably the same reason I don’t like jazz. I’m also still not quite sure what the difference is between New Wave, No Wave, Punk, and Post punk, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.

If I’m honest, I wasn’t looking forward to this book, or at least two more that we’re planning to read. It’s mostly because I know nothing about the subject matter, but it’s also because I don’t find the subject matter interesting. That being said I did find enough in this book to keep me mostly engaged.

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ARC, Books

Book 364: Burn After Writing – Sharon Jones

Geoff W

There seem to be two types of self-help/reflection books that are making huge impacts on the book selling industry these days. You have the artsy “adult coloring books,” of which I’ve bought plenty for relatives and recommend to friends. And you have the ones more suited to those that love words and wordplay like How to Be Happy (Or at Least Less Sad) and Burn After Writing.

These books/journals/art projects ask you to take time out of your everyday life and either forget about it (coloring) or look at the things that have the potential to make you happy or sad and dissect them. They use activities like drawing, list-making, word associations and many other activities to get you to think about things differently than you do on a regular basis.

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Updates

July Recap 2015

Geoff W

2015 07-28 Abandoned BoatGoodbye July and Hello August! I don’t necessarily hate the summer, but the heat and humidity always get to me in a way that cold and snow can’t. It’s seriously warmed up here in Boston we’re facing our third 90º+ (32C) day this week and I feel so groggy and slow .

Some of this comes from my finally kicking my butt back into gear and walking again, every step right?!, but the heat is just oppressive, it makes me not want to do anything. On the plus side, spending most of my time in Southie, I do get to walk along the ocean and there’s usually a great breeze so it’s cooler, but it’s still so hot! When this posts I’ve already walked more than 40 miles! Hopefully I can keep it going.

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Books

Book 333: The Bitterweed Path – Thomas Hal Phillips

Geoff W

This response is a bit scattered. It’s as close to stream-of-consciousness as I will ever get so enjoy it.

I jumped this book up my list because someone was getting antsy. For some reason, he didn’t think I wanted to read anything he suggested, or that I didn’t like his last recommendation, Last Summer, so I’ve made a deal with him that I’ll read a book at least every other month from him (talk about dictating!). Thankfully I’ve really enjoyed both books he’s recommended so far. His next recommendation is Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour and these recommendations don’t even include the ones of his that I WANT to read!

I was a little torn on John Howard’s introduction as it felt a bit misleading, but it did provide an excellent history of Phillips life and the setting of the novel. Howard wrote about his own experience as an LGBT academic and activist, and the self-serving nature of getting this book re-published for its early LGBT themes. He mentioned Phillips lack of acknowledgement about his own sexuality, which was interesting, and noted that none of his other books did as well as The Bitterweed Path and didn’t contain LGBT themes.

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