Category Archives: Entertainment Consumed

My thoughts on Books, Comics, TV Shows, Movies and Music that I want to share.

2012: My Year of the Audiobook

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I have become an audiophile! Or, at least an audiobookphile. 2012 was definitely the year I fell in love with the audiobook. I joined audible at the end of 2011, but only thought of it as a little experiment at the time. I’d always had a bit of a snobbish feeling that we should look down on audiobooks or “books on tape” as somehow being inferior to “real reading”, but I don’t really know why. Having spent a year enjoying some great audiobooks I certainly don’t feel that way anymore.

In fact, I’m starting to wonder if audio books aren’t sometimes superior to their original written form.

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Audiobook Addendum

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I noted in my post on audiobooks yesterday that I was currently listening to Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell. That is no longer true. I finished it about an hour ago and it was great.

I know I’m 4 or 5 years late in discovering this book but I’m very glad I finally did. I’m also glad I listened to this instead of read it, because the narration brings the accents of the characters to life and I think it made it easier to immerse myself in the wonderful cultural flavors of the story. I liked it so much that I can’t wait to start on Buckell’s second book in the same universe (which is not a direct sequel).

I want to listen to that one as well, but I’ve got so much on my Audidble wishlist that I decided I was going to need a better subscription. So Crystal Rain is officially the book that made me upgrade my Audbile membership to platinum.

NOTE: Uh, do to a weird thing I did about changing the timezone my blog is set in this post actually appears before the post on audiobooks I am referring to in it. Whoops.

More Monkeybrain

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Thought I’d do a quick update on the MonkeyBrain Comics titles I’m following which, for now, continues to be all of them.

I originally posted about the MonkeyBrian roll out here. Later I posted about the latecomer to the brand, Masks and Mobsters, here. Since then there have been the following additions:

  • Aesop’s Ark #2
  • Amelia Cole and the Unknown World #2, #3
  • Bandette #2
  • Edison Rex #2
  • Masks & Mobsters #2
  • October Girl #2

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The New Additions to My Jazz Collection

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A little while back I wrote this post about how jazz has started to become a big part of my music listening. A kind commenter, Ed, dropped by and provided a list of musicians he thought I should check out to expand my listening. Well I haven’t checked them all out, but I have expanded my collection a little thanks to his suggestions. I’ve also picked up a few albums of some artists I already had albums of. Here is the complete list of new additions:

  • Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Ugetsu
  • Horace Silver: Horace Silver & The Jazz Messengers
  • Duke Ellington & Johnny Hodges: Side by Side
  • Coleman Hawkins: Centennial Collection
  • Charlie Haden with Liberation Music Orchestra: The Montreal Tapes
  • The Ornette Coleman Quartet: This is Our Music
  • Pat Metheny & Ornette Coleman: Song X: Twentieth Anniersary

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Reading Old Comics: Swamp Thing and Hellblazer

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As I mentioned somewhere here before I’m a fan of comics and a fan of digital comics from Comixology. One of the most enticing things for me about digital comics is the ability to go back and read older material that I may have missed for any number of reasons. In the case of Swamp Thing and Hellblazer the main reason I missed out on them was because I was 3 and 8 years old when these series started and, frankly, if I somehow had heard of them and my parents let me read them, well, they wouldn’t have been doing a very good job as parents. These titles come from Vertigo and nowadays are rated 17+ for good reason.

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On Learning to Love Jazz and Wanting to Love it More

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One of the more interesting, for me anyway, side effects of my recent commitment to writing is my new-found love of Jazz.

I had a short-lived flirtation with Jazz back in my high school days. I was a member of my school’s concert band (don’t laugh – it got me to Vancouver, New York and Paris) and several of my friends were a part of that and the school’s much smaller jazz style band. I remember that our teachers pointed us to a jazz concert series that would be taking place at the local University one year and a couple friends and I were the only ones I knew who decided to take advantage of it. I really enjoyed the music I heard going to those shows but I didn’t really stick with Jazz any further than that. At the time exploring music wasn’t quite so easy or cheap as it is now.

Fast forward to a few months ago and I decided that I wanted some music I could listen to while writing. The problem I quickly found was that I can’t write when I’m listening to music with lyrics. Other people’s words coming in my ears when I’m trying to get my own words out of my head just doesn’t work well. There are some modern albums with vocals, such as Bon Iver’s Bon Iver or Radiohead’s Kid A that I can listen to when writing. On albums like those the lyrics are just another part of the overall sound and easy to block out. There are also some classic rock albums, such as Quicksilver Messenger Service’s Happy Trails that are pretty much just instrumental pieces, but I’m going to leave off with the non-jazz albums there. That can be a post for another day.

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