Whatcha reading?

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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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I'm picking out books for my rock class in the fall. One of the comments on student evaluations for the last was that they wished I'd done a lecture on new wave, so I'm going to assign this one. But I haven't read it since it came out, so I re-familiarizing myself. (The other books I'll be using, in case you're curious, are Dave Marsh's book on "Louie Louie," which I almost used this past year, and Alice Echols' Hot Stuff, on disco, which I've taught once before and want to try again.)
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

JennyB
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Dr. Medulla wrote:
24 Jun 2020, 7:14pm
Image
I'm picking out books for my rock class in the fall. One of the comments on student evaluations for the last was that they wished I'd done a lecture on new wave, so I'm going to assign this one. But I haven't read it since it came out, so I re-familiarizing myself. (The other books I'll be using, in case you're curious, are Dave Marsh's book on "Louie Louie," which I almost used this past year, and Alice Echols' Hot Stuff, on disco, which I've taught once before and want to try again.)
I haven't read that one, but it looks good. I also like this one:
Image
Got a Rake? Sure!

IMCT: Inane Middle-Class Twats - Dr. M

" *sigh* it's right when they throw the penis pump out the window." -Hoy

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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JennyB wrote:
25 Jun 2020, 10:33am
Dr. Medulla wrote:
24 Jun 2020, 7:14pm
Image
I'm picking out books for my rock class in the fall. One of the comments on student evaluations for the last was that they wished I'd done a lecture on new wave, so I'm going to assign this one. But I haven't read it since it came out, so I re-familiarizing myself. (The other books I'll be using, in case you're curious, are Dave Marsh's book on "Louie Louie," which I almost used this past year, and Alice Echols' Hot Stuff, on disco, which I've taught once before and want to try again.)
I haven't read that one, but it looks good. I also like this one:
Image
I believe I have an ebook copy of that, but haven't looked at it.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Happy Lottery day, Shirley Jackson fans.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


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Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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45) Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose - Tony Hseih. Paperback. 2010. My old manager asked me to read this and I got about half way through the thing when I was let go. I picked it back up when I started the round of interviews so I could have the positive business jargon flowing. Hseih seems a pleasant man who wants to do as much right in the world and do customer service but he can casually lay off 8% of his workforce in paragraphs between going to great raves and learning about what a community is and how it applies to managing a shoe shop online. He writes about how giving talks at different companies made him realise that he was changing the world for the better, which comes off as megalomaniacal. Cold shit masked by a smiley face.
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Kory
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Silent Majority wrote:
27 Jun 2020, 10:00am
Happy Lottery day, Shirley Jackson fans.
It's been on my list forever but I haven't started it yet.
"Suck our Earth dick, Martians!" —Doc

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Kory wrote:
29 Jun 2020, 1:17pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Jun 2020, 10:00am
Happy Lottery day, Shirley Jackson fans.
It's been on my list forever but I haven't started it yet.
There's no actual tips on how to win the lottery, Kory.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Kory
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Silent Majority wrote:
29 Jun 2020, 4:05pm
Kory wrote:
29 Jun 2020, 1:17pm
Silent Majority wrote:
27 Jun 2020, 10:00am
Happy Lottery day, Shirley Jackson fans.
It's been on my list forever but I haven't started it yet.
There's no actual tips on how to win the lottery, Kory.
Well, the procrastination that has kept me from earning my billions the hard-working American way has saved me the time I would have spent on the book, then.
"Suck our Earth dick, Martians!" —Doc

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Bedtime reading:
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Started this last night. Highly recommended by my grad supervisor.

I've started more seriously reading for this punk seminar in January.
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I might snag a chapter or two out of this because much of it is not especially interesting interviews with early 21st c bands. I came away still unclear how the hell this can be punk other than challenging conventional views of masculinity, and that its origins do lie in punk scenes. I appreciate it for being confounding, but are incel anthems really punk?

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Started this yesterday. Read it when it came out two decades ago but haven't returned. But it seems quite promising for the kind of stuff I'm trying to do with this class. Why do some teenage girls become punks? More so, why do girls who seemingly successfully avoid the self-esteem loss that so many teenage girls do so by joining up with a pretty dang male subculture that often still marginalizes them? There's a weird tension there. One of things I liked about this is that it's an ethnography, so the emphasis is on the author's (a Montreal punk) relationship with a couple dozen young women.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

JennyB
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Oh, I want to check out that last book!
Got a Rake? Sure!

IMCT: Inane Middle-Class Twats - Dr. M

" *sigh* it's right when they throw the penis pump out the window." -Hoy

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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JennyB wrote:
08 Jul 2020, 11:23am
Oh, I want to check out that last book!
Pretty sure I'm going to be using it. The one thing that stands out is that, despite doing her research in the early to mid-90s, there's barely any mention of Riot Grrrl. Now, I get that her interest here is on female punks who participate in a male punk subculture and how they have to resist twice over—conventional society and their punk scene—but to sort pretend that this significant alternative isn't taking place is odd. Maybe some classism in that, too, as RG was prominently middle class, whereas most of her subjects were working class.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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46) Everything That Rises Must Converge - Flannery O'Connor. Audiobook. 1965. This is a world mostly made of impatient psuedo intellectual sons treating their sweet Southern, usually racist, mothers like shit and people going to rot in that Hellish New York City. Families tearing themselves apart over points of high pride. Every story is on cruise control for a tragic, hopelessly depressing ending. The writing is, of course, fantastic.
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Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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47) Cuba: What Everybody Needs to Know, 3rd edition - Julia E Sweig. Paperback. 2016. Sweig is the Senior Research Fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and this so dry it resembles nothing so much as a briefing to be laid at the desk of a Dem President, though more evenhanded than that description suggests. It's laid out in an obnoxious Q&A FAQ format ("Why did Cuba and America disagree?") which means no flow is ever found and fascinating stuff like the revolution is given as much time and space as grain subsidies from the Soviets - very little. One of the world's most interesting stories told dully, but I got used to the flashless style. I've learnt that on the whole, modern Cuba is a more moral state than those that oppose it, with low level repression tied to an undeniable passion for social justice. And a land of contrasts.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


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Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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48) The Amazing Spider-Man Collection - Steve Ditko feat. Stan Lee. I've wanted to catch up with the early Marvel years properly since I was eight. I found this worth the wait, loving this read and getting filled with joy from it. The colours, the artwork, the clumsy but achingly sincere salesmanship through out.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Almost done listening to Doris Kearns Goodwin's LBJ audiobook and I have a few observations. Living in the shadow of Trump has made me conclude that LBJ (and Nixon, for that matter) was a competent version of Trump. Narcissistic, paranoid, valuing loyalty over all else, convinced the media and intellectuals are out to get them (and then behaving in a way that encourages it to come to pass), a wounded psyche in search of validation from the public and desperately scared of being rejected, boastful and unwilling to admit error, and a belief that the world is just a series of transactions and that he is the best dealmaker around. But, yeah, LBJ was actually good at it, plus, unlike Trump, LBJ had a genuine charisma and talent of reading the person to know how to reach them.

Also, a passing reference to LBJ and living ex-presidents, it made me wonder (and confirm) who was the last US president who had zero living ex-presidents?
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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