this blog post title is taken from Mud’s Tiger Feet, covered here by Gus and Fin. This is their cover of Are Friends Electric? And this is their cover of Don’t Fear the Reaper. I think Don’t Fear the Reaper is one of the stupidest songs I have ever heard in my life. But I feel like Gus and Fin make it not stupid.
So one week in the new year has passed and what I can say is that it was remarkably like any number of weeks that occurred in the last year and in many years prior to that. Well maybe not so much because in weeks gone by, the media was not saying that birds and fish and crabs and corporate bankers were dying in legion numbers. Ok, maybe not the corporate bankers. Anyhoo, what we have forsures are the dying animals and the illustrious people at The Hairpin were not only able to comprehensively collate the data but also discern telling distribution patterns which you can see here. It is worth noting that none of that crazyass shit is happening in India because we’re Indians and we don’t do crazyass shit like that, not even our birds and fish and crabs. I mean the REAL Indian birds and fish and crabs don’t do crazyass shit like that. We did have the plague once though. Remember when we had the plague? In 1994? Which was an excellent year for Tamil cinema in terms of musics I feel. And we didn’t get the plague down here either. So maybe a good year all round but not if you had the plague and had no access to Tamil movies at the time or did not appreciate them also.
Anyway, in an effort to retain some ragged credibility as an alleged writer, I thought I should write about some of the books I have read recently. Which I haven’t really read in the traditional sense because I fall asleep when I try to read actual books because I am old. However, I have listened to a few audiobooks which I understand don’t really count as real reading because real reading involves pages and the smell of the pages and the turning of the pages and curling up against and around significant others with cups of coffee and sweaters and things like that. I am sorry for not doing all those things but these audiobooks are free and for me, that is more important than turning smelly pages.
Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger, Jr– Sometimes we read/listen to something and think, why am I doing this to myself? I often thought this while reading/listening to Ragged Dick, which for some reason is not gay porn but, according to the everknowing wikipedia, ‘a juvenile novel by Horatio Alger, Jr. about a poor bootblack and his rise to middle-class respectability through good moral behavior, clean living, and determination.’ So it is what it is and all I really have to say is that it would make a great Tamil movie and it is also lolololo in the same way that elderly bigoted people are lolololo because they are old and they are going to die soon anyway so whatever.
The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith– I could go on and on and on and on about why I liked this but I am really trying to do the shorter blog posts thing so I will just say I liked this for many reasons and I don’t understand why it isn’t more famous or maybe it is and I didn’t know. This particular audiobook is also the happy marriage of a good piece coupled with a good reader.
The Club of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton– Sometimes I go to this place where I am reading English words or hearing them and I understand what they are supposed to be as single words but they make absolutely no sense to me as a whole. I think this might be a family thing because once I was watching CSI with an illustrious family member and said illustrious family member turned to me and said ‘I can’t understand anything they’re saying’ and I said ‘Neither can I’ and she said ‘Oh good, I thought it was Telugu dub or something. It’s English, no?’ and I said ‘Yes.’ And she said ‘But we can’t understand it for some reason’ and I said ‘Yes’ and she said ‘Ok’. I don’t know why this happens but it does- I can recognize the words and I can hear them but they are just not understanding for me. This is what happened to me with this audiobook. I understand this is a collection of ‘mystery short stories’ and that is totally what they were for me. They were very mysterious and I would love to know what it was about and what those words were saying.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald– I haz a sad because the audiobook I heard was actually quite good but it also had a sermon sneakily sneaked in there which we are encouraged to distribute among people because Jesus said so or something so I’m not linking to it because Jesus told me not to. I have heard people orgasming about how epic this book is and all I have to say is homibabas, I totally totally get what you’re saying. Totally.
I am currently trying to read Moby Dick, which I am reallyreally happy I didn’t have to read for school or in order to save my life because I honestly do not know how I would have gotten through this. When I am older and wiser, I hope I will be able to appreciate this one better because like many things I have read/listened to, I can understand there are amazing things happening but I can’t quite grasp them. It’s like being on the wrong side of the door and knowing great things are happening on the other side. Also, I feel like I know a lot about whales now.
And now, some things I appreciated from Def Poetry
And now, musics also.
okbai.