From Hell by Alan Moore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There’s something to be said for the rough style of this graphic novel. It goes quite well with the subject matter. There’s also a bit of - “oh, the gore’s it’s not so bad if it’s in black and white” like Hitchcock’s Psycho. And, like Psycho, there’s the added benefit of us being able to suspend more disbelief because it’s in black and white. Hitchcock used syrup or chocolate, I can’t remember, for the blood. Similarly, we can get caught up in the story and the gore without being taken out of it with the blood being the wrong color. Also, as I’ve mentioned on some of my reviews here and on www.comicpow.com , color affects the way you interpret the comic - is it more cartoony or realistic. I remember a few years back hearing someone having issues with a sci-fi comic because the palette was all wrong. All that said, the lack of color and the rough drawings sometimes made it hard for me to keep track of who was who.

How Music Works by David Byrne

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is not a book about how the mind interprets music or why we make music from an evolutionary point of view (although the topic is explored in the last chapter). It is probably more suitably titled How Music is Made - although I can see why they didn’t pick that title - people might expect a set of steps for making music on their own.

Don’t Know Much About Mythology: Everything You Need to Know About the Greatest Stories in Human History but Never Learned by Kenneth C. Davis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a great primer on mythology. Although it spends a lot of time with the myths we are very familiar with (middle east, Greek, and Roman), it does also cover lesser known myths like Indian and Chinese. The best part of each section is the list of gods. I would recommend the book as a jumping off point for anything that interests you about mythology.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It’s been nearly 15 years since I first saw Fight Club, the movie. Since then I’ve seen it front-to-back maybe twice. But it really stuck with me. As I listened to this audiobook I found myself wonder when this or that scene would come up since the movie turned out to be an incredibly faithful adaptation. There are a few key differences, most notably the ending. But also a more sympathetic Marla in the book. But, for the most part, all the best lines in the movie came from the book. It’s rare for such a perfect adaptation to work, especially with a narrated book. But somehow it did. I also loved the narrator of this version and how he did different voices.

Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present by Dan Mazur

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I received this book as part of the Goodreads.com First Reads program in which the winner recieves a copy of the book in exchange for a review. (It’s slightly more complicated than that, see the Goodreads First Reads terms for all the details)

I love reading these types of histories about culture. I have read similar books about photography and animation published by Taschen. This isn’t my first time reading about the history of comics, I also read 10 Cent Scare and Grant Morrison’s Supergods. Anyone who’s been reading my reviews for a while knows that I love comics and actually run a comics analysis site, www.comicpow.com.

This quarter was a mix of new music, continuing to listen to my music in alphabetical order (by artist), and whatever I happened to listen to on my phone. And that resulted in a little something like this (a lot more ties than usual): 1. The Beatles (243 listens) - For the first time in a long time the Fab Four are back on top. I continue to love their later stuff although their older stuff is played out having spent my childhood listening to oldies.

It’s once again time for my latest Photojojo post. For those of you who haven’t been following my blog for a long time, Photojojo is a digital time capsule service. Every two weeks they send me an email that has my most interesting photos posted to flickr from one year ago.

Scarlett goes to Coney Island.

SuperMario is my main Linux computer and its motherboard was dying. The first signs were the DVD burner no longer being read (knew it wasn’t just that one because I swapped out DVD burners) followed by the front panel USB not working. Then, last week, it stopped booting reliably. It was time to finally replace the motherboard. This was the Linux computer I’d built the first time I was trying to convince Danielle to use Linux (seven years ago) so it had a Core 2 Duo in it. So I’d need a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM. Here’s what KinfoCenter looked like before the swap:

One Year Ago Today: A story about the IRS targeting Conservatives. (Which later turned out to be a somewhat manufactured crisis, since the IRS was also targeting Liberals)

Five Years Ago Today: A photo essay about moving into my first house.

One Year Ago Today: A photojojo pos t - which is getting almost recursive, since that contains photos from the year before.

Five Years Ago Today:  No post