random quote of the day: Exile

"Exile teaches you all about individual fate with universal implications, because it is eternal and has always been with us: We are all dimly aware of our incompleteness, of the thick veils in which we are draped."

- Breyten Breytenbach, from the essay The Exile as African

Random Quote of the Day: Nikki Giovanni

"This country is a land mass that could be called anything, and for people to act like this is some kind of sacred territory is an insanity. It's just a bunch of people trying to live together, and if we're not going to be part of a dream of equality --a part of a dream of that which is the best for us, the idea that people help one another-- if we're not going to do that, then this land mass doesn't any more deserve to be revered than anything else. All it is is where we are at this particular point, and it seems to me that it woud be important and necessary that people respect not the reality but the concept, the dream of the possibilities."

- Nikki Giovanni, in her commentary on Same in Blues by Langston Hughes

Reading lists

I've started reading Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed. I had to read this book for a college course I took one summer during my undergraduate years. Damn, that was a long time ago. And, yes, I was taking a summer course... for fun. I am that nerdy.

Need more evidence... last night I went to see They Might Be Giants in concert for the third time. Again, Yes I am that nerdy.

Anyway, since I am re-reading Mumbo Jumbo, or reading it for that matter. I believe that week I probably skipped over it, being enmeshed in a couple of other books, and, it being summer, enmeshed in the pursuit of girls. But, being the obsessive listmaker that I am, below are the books that I had to read for that class... not in order of their assignment:

Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges (some of the stories)
Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs

Time's Arrow - Martin Amis

Sixty Stories - Donald Barthelme (some of the stories)

Mumbo Jumbo - Ishmael Reed

Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon (first section: I have yet to complete this book, 13 years later)

I am convinced there was a seventh book we had to read, but I cannot think of it right now.

Searching through my bookshelves, I stumbled across books that could have been listed in the Postmodern Literature course, but were actually part of a Sports in Literature course I had to take. The books for that class were:

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. - Robert Coover
End Zone - Don DeLillo

The Natural - Bernard Malamud

Best American Sports Writing 1995 - editor, Dan Jenkins

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner - Alan Sillitoe (film we had to watch)

That's all I can remember for now.

My obsessive brain has had enough.

Random Quote of the Day: fencing

"One footnote: I noticed you don't have a fencing team. Well, I'm going to try my hardest to start one for you."



-Max Fischer, student, Rushmore Academcy, Grover Cleveland Public High School

Random Quote of the Day: The Power of Supertramp

Yes, I did just use the word 'power' and 'Supertramp' all in the same sentence.

Earlier today I was listening to the Magnolia soundtrack, which along with featuring the inestimably awesome Aimee Mann, features two songs by Supertramp. And I never thought I would be quoting them in a positive light, but just read this:

"Oh watch what you say
Or I'll be calling you a radical

A liberal, fanatical, criminal

And won't you sign up your name?

We'd like to be more acceptable

Respectable, presentable, a vegetable"

Must go. I think I hear Bill O'Reilly knocking...

Further Greatest Hits albums

It has been a while since I posted. I will address my MIA status another time, but right now I have additions to make to my Greatest Hits album collection:

The Best of Bill Withers: for those who don't know Bill Withers think Lean on Me; think Lovely Day (just happyness); think Hope She be Happier With Him, which is a horrible idea, but a nice sentiment anyway; and that's Bill Withers was all about, he was just a decent human being, with a hell of a soulful voice; also, think Just the Two of Us; think Ain't No Sunshine. The man was just good.

Ben Folds - iTunes: this may not necessarily be a greatest hits album, but my friend Jay burned this for me and it is essentially a Greatest Hits album, because it chronicles his entire career, and each song has an introduction about it, how he wrote it, why he wrote it, etc. It's a Storytellers for your computer.

More greatest hits updates to follow

Quote of the day

"It is a dismal commentary on our failures to note that in [other countries] many of the leaders who were (and are) most vehemently anti-American, are those who were educated in the United States."

-William J. Lederer, from A Nation of Sheep (1961)