What’cha Reading?

[bounty]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbNFKKfcWcQ

[Sancho]

Yee-Haw! Ride ‘em cowboy.

From the book, here’s old Pop talking to Destry, about Destry, not knowing the man he’s talking to is Destry:

“Fact is,” he said to Destry, “that a woman can make a pile of words, but not much sense. You know how it is! But it takes a man like Destry to come along and make ’em hop into their right place.”

Yup, yup, yup, howdy, howdy.

[bounty]

seems to me I just recently read that, but im not seeing written in the list of books I have.

belated justice (or revenge) is a great theme for a story.

[Sancho]

Ya know, I’d seen the movie with Jimmy Stewart years ago and it doesn’t even bear a slight resemblance to the book. The book was surprisingly good, nuanced, not at all a cookie-cutter western, although there’s still plenty of fightin’ an shootin’ an horse ridin’ an stuff.

Presently reading (rereading) Wise Blood, by Flannery O’Connor. I just couldn’t shake the idea that it shares some ideas with Crime and Punishment. It begins:

Hazel Motes sat at a forward angle on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car. The train was racing through tree tops that fell away at intervals and showed the sun standing, very red, on the edge of the farthest woods. Nearer, the plowed fields curved and faded and the few hogs nosing in the furrows looked like large spotted stones.

Oh yeah, Miss Flannery can write!

[bounty]

I did a quick internet look for the book title, wondering if maybe "destry" appeared in some other max brand book. at the wiki page I noted there were three movies made from the book, so apparently the story's pretty popular.

[Sancho]

I’m reading Twilight Territory, by Andrew X. Pham. It’s a novel set in 1942 during the occupation of French Indochina (Vietnam) by the Japanese.

So far, so good.

[bounty]

are you sure you are actually reading and not listening to books on tape at 1.5x normal speed??

[Sancho]

I'm on a roll.

Ya know, I've never been able to listen to audio books. I tried them a few times in the car, but it just doesn't work for me. I'd rather listen to the radio. Seattle still has a few good independent radio stations. We have a station outta Bellevue College that has a program for just about every kind of music that anyone can think of. Their afternoon guy, Ian Hughs, is always coming up with something good, something I’ve never heard before. I’ve listened to his show so many times, he seems like a personal friend. He’s got an easy-going delivery naturally chills everybody out, and since he’s on during drive-time he’s probably personally responsible for preventing more road-rage incidents than anybody else in town.

91.3, KBCS. Give em a listen. They have an app.

Oh alright, one more plug. They also have a Hawaiian show on the weekend. It’s hosted by the “Hula Sisters.” These women make you feel like you’re part of a big Hawaiian family. It’s like you’re out at Ala Moana Beach Park on a Sunday afternoon with all your aunts and uncles and cousins, grilling up some wings, sipping a Heineken, playing volleyball, kids splashing in the water, and somebody brought his ukulele. Anyway these gals will get to laughing and joking and playing music and every once in while there’ll be a minute or two of dead air. Then the sound will cut back on and they’ll be just howling in the background — “Oh, we’re sorry. We forgot to turn on the mic. Wooo! How about a little music from the islands…”

[bounty]

I just saved the station to my favorites and i'll take a peek in every once in awhile. right now its got one of those great old-fashioned twangy country tunes in the "walkin' the floor" program.

as a kid, I remember liking the don ho episodes on I dream of Jeannie.

I just started and gave up on dune and defaulted to a favorite standby, a lee child jack reacher story, past tense.

im thinking of re-reading whichever one the new series is based on, and then giving the series a viewing.

[Sancho]

Oh man, I like twangy ole country music. It reminds me of the music my granny used to play on her radio. She had an AM radio and tuned it to one of those 3-letter flame-thrower stations, 50,000 Watts (plus). The kind of station if you got too close to the antennae, you could pick up the signal in your dental work.

There’s a lot of new stuff coming out of the islands. With the first few notes on a Hawaiian steel guitar, my blood pressure ratchets down at least 10 points. So there’s that.

With KBCS I like to test my boundaries. They’ve got a Latin Jazz program, a Hip-Hop program, all kinds of stuff. There’s a weekend show of 70s Funk. The DJs go by - Funkscribe and Megabooty, two white kids, but they know their Funk, and also they’re damn good.

Anyway, enough of that. I took a side trip to read Stephen Crane’s novella Maggie, Girl of the Streets with Poppin over on another thread. And now I’m back to Twilight Territory. I’ll probably need a good detective novel after this one. Tana French’s new book is out now. Might read it next. The Hunter.

[bounty]

i didn't grew up liking the old twangy stuff, despite being a fan of hee haw which might have been influenced more by the women than the music. now I like it though.

but I think music is all the niftier when it comes with memories.

have I recommended any of Jeffrey deaver's Lincoln rhyme novels to you?

[Sancho]

Call BR-549, ask for Junior.

I’ll check out Deaver. I haven’t read anything by him.

[bounty]

gloom, despair and agony on me
deep dark depression, excessive misery
if it weren't for bad luck id have no luck at all
gloom, despair and agony on me.

make sure to get a Lincoln rhyme one!

if you like the book to movie trail, and an introduction to the characters the bone collector might be a good place to start.

[bounty]

im reading I am legend by Richard Mathison. its the book that was made into a movie with will smith playing the lead. I usually prefer reading the book after the movie. I find that order actually makes the comparison enjoyable as opposed to critical.

in this particular case its interesting to note that the main character in the book is a white man with long blond hair and so casting will smith was a departure from that. I don't remember if the movie actually uses the word "zombie" but I do know in retrospect that's how I viewed it. however, the book makes it clear the main character sees them as vampires.

the dog relationship, which was very sad in the movie, is very different in the book, and there is character in the book who is not in the movie that creates a paradigmatic change between the two.

[Sancho]

So I downloaded The Bone Collector on my kindle. I’m looking forward to starting it. Twilight Territory has been fascinating, mainly from a historical standpoint. Also it’s good to see this slice of Vietnam’s history from a Vietnamese perspective.