The Curious Eat Themselves

If any of you pay attention to my list of books that I keep on the side of this blog, you'll notice that this is the title of a book that I read last week while I was stationed in Slana, AK. While he's not the next Agatha Christie, the author, John Straley, spins a pretty good mystery yarn. What makes him unique (and gives me the impetus to mention him here on my blog) is that his mystery takes place entirely in Alaska. And it's pretty obvious that he knows what he's talking about when it comes to the coolest state in the union. Anyway, if you want to read a mystery novel that takes place in Alaska, this might be the book you are looking for.

Update

I've updated my progress count on my current project (The Raven) from 52% to 60%. That's right, over the last four months I've only written 8,000 words. Not much, but better than nothing I guess. In two weeks I quit my summer job, and after a 5-ish day drive through Canada, and a couple days acclimating my family to Utah, I should be able to start writing again full time. This time I'm really going to finish before Christmas! Go me!

Harry Potter

One of my friends posted a status on Facebook that gave me the overwhelming desire to fire off an acerbic reply. Instead of doing it on his Facebook wall, I'll do it here, safely in silence.

This is what he said: "I must be the only person who has NOT read a HARRY POTTER book, or watched ANY of the movies, and has no desire to."

Several other people agreed with this post, arguing how the movies are terrible, and that the books are just kids books. Here's another direct quote from this conversation: "While most people will say you are missing out on some of the best literature of our time, I say it's a kid's book, and you're not missing out on much." (This from someone who hasn't read any of them).

They are so WRONG!

First of all, I can understand not being able to get into the movies. The first few aren't that great (the good ones being 3,5,6, and 7 pt1. I haven't seen 7 pt2 yet, but I'm hearing that it's the best of the lot). But that's a ridiculous reason not to read the books. Everyone knows that a great book rarely transforms into a great movie. Bad movies are made from a lot of really brilliant books. So if the movie didn't work for you, give the book a chance.

But here's what really gets me. Why would you deliberately turn away from some of the greatest literature of our time because of a preconceived idea about genre? Stupid! That's a ridiculous attitude to have!

And, I'll point out that Harry Potter goes far beyond "kids" literature. I don't doubt that there will be college courses within the next 20 years that study Harry Potter from a serious literary standpoint.

So, in short, Harry Potter is awesome and everybody should read it. The End.

Country Feedback

So I bought myself a pretty cool recorder for doing. . .you know, recording. After letting it sit around for over half a year, I finally dusted it off and recorded a master track, a cover of REM's "Country Feedback." The mic sounds a bit muddy at times (while at the same time amplifying all the vocal mistakes), but overall, I think the recording sounds pretty good. It was fun to do, and it felt good to be feeding my art again.