Catch Up

Eight music releases from 2013 that I got into in 2014:

1. Framtid - Defeat of Civilization 
2. Dreamdecay - N V N V N V 
3. Una Béstia Incontrolable - Observant Com El Món Es Destrueix 
4. Wire - Change Becomes Us 
5. System Fucker - System Fucker 
6. Radioactivity - Radioactivity 
7. Lumpy and the Dumpers - Sex Pit 
8. Mind Spiders - Inhumanistic

Finally an update, and more of the same

Instead of another list, here's a very unprofessional update and three six item lists. I remember when no one but people I talked to regularly read this. And now no one does, haha.*

Ryan is in a new band called Nailbastard with Sol and Cole from Dislich, the singer from Behold, who I haven't met, and another guy I haven't met. I guess they recorded some songs at Spokane Falls Community College onto tape. I'm impressed! Maybe he'll post some pics. They've already played a couple shows.

Ian's in Olympia, and in some band called Vexx, and one called Dirty Joe. They've got recordings and play real shows and stuff. Who knows?

I'm (Keith is) in a new band called Mysterious Skin. The name absolutely comes from the Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie. We've been halfassedly practicing since November, and really got our shit together in the last couple months. We played our first show last Thursday with some band that had members of the Blood Brothers, Aiden, and Trial. Hillarious! It's me, Jen, Tyler, and this guy Mikey. Playing with new people is strange. Ian started the band and then quit sometime this winter. We still use three songs he helped write. I think we'll have a demo by July fourth. 

Final Temporary Top Six Favorite Albums In Order:

1. Wire - Pink Flag

2. This Heat - Deceit

3. Totalitär - Vi Är Eliten

4. The Kinks - Arthur

5. Repulsion - Horrified

6. Insect Warfare - World Extermination

The First Six Favorite Authors I've Read At Least Two Books By Who I Can Remember Without Looking At My Bookshelf:

1. Samuel R. Delany

2. William Gibson

3. Thomas M. Disch

4. Ursula K. Leguin

5. Kazuo Ishiguro

6. Fritz Leiber

Six Favorite New-To-Me Movies Seen So Far This Year, With Some Commentary (Also, In No Order):

1. Frances Ha (I've watched this four times, that's very unusual for me. The first couple times I was close to tears by the end.)

2. Sonatine (I've watched this twice; it's just really easy to put on. It's pretty much everything I want when I'm in the mood to just watch something.)

3. If... (A couple people told me I should watch this years ago. I was a lot more impressed with it than I thought I would be.)

4. A Field In England (Saw this in the theater. WOW!!)

5. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Took me a couple tries to get through this. The soundtrack the third time definitely helped. When I finally "got" it, I was completely enthralled in a very different way from other movies. It was a new way of watching for me. It was kinda similar to binging on rated R movies after high school, but less stupid.)

6. Le Deuxieme Souffle (I've been slowly watching all of Melville's films. This is my favorite black and white one I've seen so far.)

* feel free to skim using the bolded words.

A Comics List

Twenty-Two Favorite Comics (off the top of my head):
Cola Madnes - Gary Panter
Twilight - Howard Chaykin & Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez
Blade (2007) - Mark Guggenheim & Howard Chaykin
Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Bodyworld - Dash Shaw
The Incal - Alejandro Jodorowsky & Moebius
One Hundred Demons - Lynda Barry
Manhunter -Archie Goodwin & Walt Simonson
Dreadstar (1-26) - Jim Starlin
Ode to Kirihito - Osamu Tezuka
The Punisher: Kingdom Gone - Chuck Dixon & Jorge Zaffino
Kull the Conqueror (1982, 2-10) - John Buscema, Klaus Janson, & more
Nausicaa - Hayao Miyazaki
Wish You Were Here - Gipi
Maggots - Brian Chippendale
Daredevil - Anne Nocenti & John Romita Jr.
Enigma - Pete Milligan & Duncan Fegredo
Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld - Ernie Colon, Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn
Black Hole - Charles Burns
The Dark Knight Strikes Again - Frank Miller & Lynn Varley
Travel - Yuichi Yokoyama
Wet Moon - Ross Campbell

Two More Lists

Inspired by listening to Wire and the Ramones a lot.

Tentative Top Five Favorite Albums:

Wire - Pink Flag
This Heat - Deceit
Repulsion - Horrified
Totalitär - Vi Är Eliten

Insect Warfare - World Extermination

Best Band:

Ramones

3 Lists

With some prior thought and somewhat off the top of my head. 

26 Movies I Recall Referring to as a Favorite:
Kwaidan 
Heavy Traffic 
Coonskin 
Happy Together 
Walkabout 
Le Cercle Rouge 
Army of Shadows 
Seventh Seal
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
High and Low
Blade Runner
Brazil
Starship Troopers
Road Warrior
Alphaville 
Wizards 
Santa Sangre 
Heavenly Creatures 
Gomorrah 
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 
A Prophet 
Subway 
Red Desert 
Henry Fool 
My Own Private Idaho 
Starman

Tentative Top 5:
Heavy Traffic
Heavenly Creatures
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Army of Shadows
Blade Runner

26 Albums I Recall Thinking of as Near Perfect or A Favorite (Post High School):
Converge - Jane Doe
Neurosis - Through Silver In Blood
Split Enz - Time and Tide
The Kinks - Arthur
Mogwai - Young Team
Totalitär - Vi Är Eliten
Wretched - Libero Di Vivere, Libero Di Morire
ELO - Out of the Blue
Repulsion - Horrified
Twelve Hour Turn - Perfect Progress, Perfect Destruction
Insect Warfare - World Extermination
Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
Fugazi - The Argument
This Heat - Deceit
The Knife - Silent Shout
Sepultura  - Arise
The Marked Men - Fix My Brain
The Buzzcocks - Singles Going Steady
Prurient - Cocaine Death
Wire - Pink Flag
Discharge - Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing
Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town
Bastard - Wind of Pain
Discordance Axis - Inalienable Dreamless
Coil - Scatology
Rattus - WC räjähtää

Favorite Albums 2013

It's almost X-mas in July, which is my official halfway through the year marker, so here's the list of my favorite new-to-me albums I've gotten into in the first half of 2013, in mostly reverse chronological order. I've also been purposefully re-listening to a lot of old favorites I haven't heard in years, but that could be its own list:

João Gilberto - João Gilberto (the 1973 one)
Bert Jansch - Bert Jansch
Teenage Fanclub - Songs From Northern Britain
Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque
Pete Swanson - Man With Potential
Junior Murvin - Police and Thieves
Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Split Enz - True Colours
Razor - Evil Invaders
Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind
Violent Future - Demo
Naomi Punk - The Feeling
Steve Roach - Structures From Silence

NEW YEAR POST

Favorite New-to-Me Music of 2012:

1. Steve Roach - Mostly 'Structures From Silence' and 'The Magnificent Void'. As soon as I got internet at home again I got serious about getting into New Age and Ambient music. Steve Roach is my favorite so far. This is the most recent fave but it's on my mind the most.
2. Disclose - I've known about them for years but really started listening to them all the time this year. Every release is great but I listened to 'Nightmare or Reality' the most.
3. Enya - I found some Enya cassettes at a thrift store which reminded me that I liked New Age. When I was an early teen Enya was the only non secular music my dad would play on Sunday.
4. Darkthrone - I didn't really get Darkthrone till this year. I don't know why I didn't try earlier.
5. Death Metal - I continued listening to lots of Death Metal as usual. My favorites that I got into this year were Grave, Dismember and Bloodbath.
6. Billy Bragg - This was my walking around music for the first half of the year. I only listened to 'Back to Basics'.
7. King Diamond - Also from earlier in the year. I don't think I could have appreciated it any earlier in my life. I listened to 'Conspiracy' the most. 

I listened to way less Pop/Rock 'n Roll music than the year before. Also I feel like I didn't spend as much time listening to music as past years but that's probably cause I broke my mp3 player in a car door halfway through. 

Music Goals:

• Record at least two Smuts releases
• Record at least two solo releases
• Practice guitar more
• Listen to more Jazz and Classical music

Personal Goals:

• Read as many novels as comics (read less comics!)
• Write more (letters, journal, lyrics, etc.)
• Start School
• Be less negative
• Take care of myself more.

Tim Blood's Year In Reading

In 2007 I started keeping a list of every book I read. What follows is 2011's list.

A lot of re-reading this year. A lot more 'educational' and a lot less 'recreational' than years past, which makes it difficult to pick 'favorites'.
Though I'm satisfied and looking forward to 2012's reading lists. I'm shooting for 50 books. Ambitious.

2011:
“The Atom Station” – Halldor Laxness
“Pan” – Knut Hamsun
“Special Orders” – Edward Hirsch (twice)
“Hunger” – Knut Hamsun (twice)
“The Best American Short Stories 2009” – Edited by Alice Sebold
“The Writer’s Portable Mentor” – Priscilla Long
“The Shell Collector” – Anthony Doerr
“The Double Helix” – James Watson
“The Time Machine” – H.G. Wells
“Brave New World” – Aldous Huxley
“Freedom” – Jonathan Franzen
“Prelude to Revolution: France in May 1968” – Daniel Singer
“Plaza of Sacrifices: Gender, Power, and Terror in 1968 Mexico” – Elaine Carey
“A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968” – Paul Berman
“The Tiger’s Wife” – Tea Obreht
“Orientation and Other Stories” – Daniel Orozco
“The Mezzanine” – Nicholson Baker
“Out Stealing Horses” – Per Petterson
“A Journey into the Past” – Stefan Zweig
“Earthly Measures” – Edward Hirsch
“Everyman” – Philip Roth
“Mysteries” – Knut Hamsun
“Humboldt’s Gift” – Saul Bellow
“Fear and Trembling” – Soren Kierkegaard
“Invisible Cities” – Italo Calvino
“The Orange Eats Creeps” – Grace Krilanovich
“Victoria” – Knut Hamsun
“Blackbird and Wolf” – Henri Cole
“Of Human Bondage” – W. Somerset Maugham
“Against Interpretation and Other Essays” – Susan Sontag
“Selected Poems” – James Schuyler
“The Virgin Suicides” – Jeffrey Eugenides
“Tadao Ando: The Geometry of Human Space” – Masao Furuyama
“Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self” – Marilynne Robinson

American: 21
Norwegian: 6
British: 4
Icelandic: 1
Italian: 1
Danish: 1
Swiss: 1
Japanese: 1

Fiction: 22 (Novels: 14, Novellas: 5, Short Story Collections: 3)
Poetry: 5
History: 3
Philosophy: 2
Literary Criticsim:1
Writing: 1
Memoir: 1
Architecture: 1

Total: 36

Favorites in no order at all:
Hunger, Mysteries, Pan by Knut Hamsun (I read Hunger for the first time in 2009, but it's still a favorite)
Special Orders by Edward Hirsch
The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr (I read it for the first time in 2008, but it's still a favorite)

Right now I'm reading "Sources of The Self: The Making of the Modern Identity" by Charles Taylor and "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides. Who knows will I'll finish those two mammoths.