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Love in the Ruins--Walker Percy
Let's just pretend for a minute that I have a rating system whereby I give each book I read a score of 1-100 with the best books rating higher, etc.  If I had such a system, then Walker Percy's The Moviegoer would come it at about a 93.  It is, after all, one of my favorite books.  If The Moviegoer got a 93, then the same author's Love in the Ruins would earn about a 37.  If you subtract the 37 from the 93, then you get a difference of 56.  That 56 would be the biggest scoring variance ever recorded between two books by the same author.

Of course, I don't have a rating system like that.  Even if I did, I doubt I would go around subtracting an author's bad books from his good books to determine the largest difference between literary quality.  That would be a complete waste of time.

The Walking Dead, Volume 10--Robert Kirkman
Speaking of wastes of time, The Walking Dead series hasn't been good since about the fourth volume.  The ludicrous story plods along at a snail's pace and the art gets consistently worse with each issue.  I only buy them out of habit.  If someone knows of a better zombie-related comics series, I'll gladly make the switch.

Black Swan Green--David Mitchell
Wikipedia says Black Swan Green is a bildungsroman.  I think that's a fancypants word grad students use to let other people know that they're grad students.  Normal people would use the term "coming-of-age" novel.  Black Swan Green follows thirteen months (one chapter for each month) in the life of a young British schoolboy named Jason Taylor.  The year is 1982.  Jason is fascinated with the war in the Falklands, pop music, and girls.  He spends a lot of his time trying to impress his schoolmates while avoiding the roaming hordes of bullies that plague his existence.  Jason does his best to ignore the fact that his parents' marriage is falling apart right in front of him.

Black Swan Green isn't nearly as complicated or rewarding as David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, but it's definitely a good book worth reading.  I would specifically recommend it to people who quit Cloud Atlas on page 17. 

Suffer the Little Children--Donna Leon
This is the sixteenth book in Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti series, but only the fourth one I've read.  I read the first three in order and then skipped ahead to Suffer the Little Children just because I happened to find a sharp used copy.  Jumping ahead in the series wasn't as troublesome as I thought it might be, but this effort wasn't nearly as good as the others I've read.  There was far too much going on in this one.  Even worse, much of what was going on wasn't even properly resolved by the end.  I'm going to go back to the fourth book in the series and continue on from there.  If I come to another mess like Suffer the Little Children, I'll probably quit the series.

McSweeney's #32--Dave Eggers (editor)
This issue had an cool premise: Send authors around the world and have them write a story about what's going on in their destination in the year 2024.  Very few of the stories lived up to the potential of the premise, but I'm happy to say that there weren't any major duds in this issue.  I was particularly impressed with Chris Bachelder's "Eighth Wonder".  That's the one to read if you only have time for one.   

Every Man Dies Alone--Hans Fallada
I saw a copy of Every Man Dies Alone at Joseph-Beth Booksellers and ended up buying it because I liked the cover and the story sounded interesting.  I must say this seemingly random decision was a good one.  Every Man Dies Alone will stand as the best book I read this year.  I might even add it to my list of all-time favorites.  I just couldn't put it down.  I read over 400 of the book's 543 pages in one day, and stayed up until 4:30 in the morning to finish it.  I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep until I got to the end.

Every Man Dies Alone tells the story of a German couple who lose faith in Hitler after their son is killed fighting in France.  There's not a lot they can do to publicly protest against the Nazis without ending up in jail or a concentration camp.  They hit upon the idea of leaving anti-Nazi postcards around Berlin.  They hope the postcards will be found and passed around to ferment rebellion.  In reality, most of the cards are turned in to the Gestapo.  The book follows the couple's protest campaign along with the Gestapo's city-wide search for the agitators.

Hans Fallada wrote Every Man Dies Alone over the course of 24 days in 1947.  He based it upon the Gestapo files of real-life postcard protesters, Otto and Elise Hampel.  The author OD'd on morphine just prior to the book's publication, and it didn't receive its first English translation until 2009.

This is a Souvenir: The Songs of Spearmint & Shirley Lee--Eric Stephenson (editor)
This LP-sized book features comics based upon the songs of Shirley Lee and his criminally-neglected band, Spearmint.  Unfortunately, the writers and artists didn't get very inspired by their source material.  The songs are great, but the comics inspired by them are all kind of disappointing.  Even the biggest Spearmint fan out there should just skip this book and spend their money and time tracking down whatever rare Spearmint album is missing from their collection.  I should've bought Songs For the Colour Yellow. 

CURRENTLY READING:
2666: Volume 1--Roberto Bolaño

• The hostesses on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day both served something called "standing rib roast".  I think that's the fancy name for fatty meat covered in blood and gristle.  I ate a lot of rolls instead. 
• I forgot to hold back on my brother's Christmas present.  I meant to wait to see if he'd gotten me something before I gave him his present.  I'd already given him with his gift by the time I realized I was getting stiffed.
• Uncle Tom's usually magical Christmas punch was watered-down and tasteless.  Nobody got even slightly drunk off it.
• As a result of the previous bullet point, the annual Wrapping Paper War was half-assed.  Nobody got hurt and nothing broke.
• Listening to my aunt try to read and interpret her daughter's poem from the current issue of The Cincinnati Review was one of the most awkward and embarrassing things I've ever witnessed.  "So what do you think the 'anti-knot' represents?  Motherhood?"
• Vic Chesnutt died.
• My brother got a Ray Maualuga jersey for Christmas.  I knew that wasn't a good idea because something terrible always happens to the Bengal my brother chooses for his annual football jersey.  Ray Maualuga played about 12 minutes before breaking his ankle on Sunday.
• The Bengals looked like crap and will most likely get kicked during the first round of the playoffs.
• Sherlock Holmes was a terrible movie.  Absolutely terrible.

Here is my favorite Vic Chesnutt memory: The first time I ever saw Vic in concert, I was very surprised to notice that we were wearing identical shirts.  I'm not talking about the same old R.E.M. concert tee or something like that; I'm talking about the same dark blue long-sleeved button-up collared shirt with thin white lines criss-crossing across it.  The chances of two people wearing that shirt on the same night at the same venue...well, I don't really know what the chances were.  I'd say very small.  Later on in the same evening, he sang "Gravity of the Situation" and I cried like a stupid fucking baby.

Vic died on Christmas.  Here's a link to the post I wrote the last time I saw him.  Here's another one where I said Vic's music made life worth living.

I've got one of those stat counters hooked up to my Vox.  It allows me to see which posts are getting hits and where the viewers are located.  I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I assume that when it says someone in Spain is looking at my picture of Scott McCaughey's shoe, then there's actually someone in Spain looking at my picture of Scott McCaughey's shoe.  (For some unknown reason, his shoe is very popular throughout the world.)  I know you can get these things routed all over the place to hide your true location, but I don't get into that.  As far as I'm concerned, Spain = Spain and Oman = Oman.

As Valerae recently mentioned in a post covering similar territory, there seems to be a trend where people from Middle Eastern countries trawl Vox for titillation.  I've noticed over the last six months or so that about a fourth of my hits are coming from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and a mysterious place called Yemen.  From what I can tell, they're not here to read my opinions on books and music.  Instead, they seem to hit the same slightly suggestive images over and over again.  I'm not sure what the internet is like in that part of the world, but I'd assume that their access to smut is severely limited when compared to mine.  They're doing the best they can with what's available to them.

More to the point, I've decided to gather all my most popular titillating images together in one spot.  That way my friends on the other side of the world won't have to waste so much time going through the 2,800+ images in my library.  The attraction of some of the pictures is obvious.  The popularity of others only becomes apparent when you realize I've given them misleading names like "sexy results" and "big cock" (for the watermelon and the rooster sign, respectively).  But anyway, here they are all together for the first time ever.  Enjoy!

I got a box of Christmas cookies in the mail today.  At least I think they were Christmas cookies.  The snowman is definitely Christmassy and the tiny gingerbread men probably count, but I think the pumpkin and the bunny might be leftovers from other holidays.  I'm not sure how the squirrel and the foot fit in either.  And that's to say nothing about the most disturbing cookie of all...the hand that appears to be giving me the finger.  I swear the cookie arrived with its fingers already broken.  I didn't break them as some sort of protest against rampant holiday consumerism.

Of course, I'm cool with unusual Christmas cookies.  I got one of my aunts in the family gift exchange and bought her a cookie cooling rack at Sur La Table.  I had a few dollars left over, so I bought a cookie cutter in the shape of a lobster.  I think it sort of looks like an angel, so I'm going to try to convince her it's the angel that heralded the birth of Jesus.  By the time we get around to opening our presents, she will probably have already downed a good half dozen glasses of my Uncle Tom's notorious punch.  She might just be drunk enough to believe me. [EDITOR'S NOTE: This post counts as my Christmas greetings to you and all my various online associates.  If this saddens you and you'd like more from me, go back and look at the cards I scanned for 2007 and 2008.  Happy Christmas.]

It is with great pleasure and relief that I am able to announce that the second volume of The Ba-Ba Box Set is complete.  The song selection and ordering process took me twelve hours.  I'm not exaggerating either; it literally took me an entire day (spread out over a week) to compile this mix.  And I'm not even counting all the time spent uploading the songs.  I'm just talking about the choosing and ordering.  Let's say I had difficulties and leave it at that.

You might be thinking "sophomore slump", but I say "screw that".  The sophomore slump is for losers.  Volume 2 might go down in history as one of my Top 5 compilations of all-time.  When it comes to finding a great number of great songs that all feature a particular vocal idiosyncrasy and then compiling them into a series of mixes that nobody will ever hear, I totally kick ass.  I'm the best in the world.  Of course, I couldn't have done it without the help of my Vox neighbors.  Homebody, Silverchimes, and Hotrod each recommended two songs that made the cut for Volume 2.  Genuine thanks go out to them...and to everyone who has sent song titles my way.

The first volume in the series was called This Is What It Sounds Like.  I've decided to call the second volume Hey, Let's Try This Again...But With More Songs About Car Crashes.  It had a nice ring to it. 

Here's the track listing for Hey, Let's Try This Again:

1. Chrysanthemums - Care of Cell 44
2. Jessica Fletchers - I Got News (buy)
   
3. Flatmates - I Could Be in Heaven (buy)
   
4. Beards - All About You (buy)
   
5. Crabs - 1863
   
6. Heavenly - Escort Crash on Marston Street
7. Beulah - A Good Man is Easy to Kill (buy)
   
8. New Pornographers - The Electric Version (buy)
   
9. Julian Cope - The Greatness & Perfection of Love
10. Teenage Fanclub - I Need Direction (buy)
    
11. Orange Juice - Wan Light (buy)
    
12. Lloyd Cole & the Commotions - Jennifer She Said (buy)
    
13. Jenny Toomey - Breezewood, PA (buy)
    
14. Go-Betweens - Heart and Home
15. Kingsbury Manx - Grape to Grain (buy)
    
16. Velvet Underground - Who Loves the Sun (buy)
    
17. Dream Syndicate - Until Lately (buy)
    
18. Yo La Tengo - Wizard's Sleeve (buy)
    

Once again, I couldn't just make a playlist.  I had to make cover art, too.  Last time I made a picture file out of each songs' original cover art.  I thought that worked fine, but this time I drew up a mix-specific rudimentary drawing in red ink.  I like the red ink art better, but I also made the old kind of art just in case I got tired of looking at a sleepy-eyed me surrounded by ba-bahs.  I think I'm going to go back and make some red ink art for Volume 1.

I got these guys as a surprise early Christmas present.  Homebody bought them for me from a place called Aaron's Tin Toy Arcade.  They've got a bunch of fun stuff over there for the weirdo on your shopping list.  Just know that you shouldn't bother paying the extra $5 for the gift wrapping.  They'll charge you the $5 and then forget to wrap your present.  Your Christmas will be completely ruined.  And the "Made in China" stickers lead me to believe their "Japanese" Tin Toy Robots aren't actually Japanese.  Very suspicious.  Still, the robots are awesome and they don't look particularly Christmassy, so I'll be able to leave them up all year round.

I'm not supposed to buy music in December.  I'm supposed to leave some things for potential gift-givers, but I haven't been doing a very good job abstaining.  I accidentally bought an intriguing LP by a band I'd never heard of before.  Broken Strings?  I tried to look them up online, but their website is broken.  Their record isn't bad, though.  It sounds like lo-fi Elephant 6 with strange rants about surfing and climbing trees thrown into the mix.  They're on True Panther Sounds, but I bought the LP because the sleeve was purple with shiny art.  I like shiny. I also bought a bunch of cheap CDs including one by Material Issue that I remember listening to many years ago with the guy who lived across the hall from me in college.  He was really into a song called "Kim the Waitress".  The band sort of sounds like a non-shitty Weezer.

I heard about this guy who decorated his Christmas tree with nothing but Uglydoll keychains.  Then he took a bunch of pictures of the Uglytree and posted them on the internet for everyone to see.

I am a bad compiler.  When I first started creating the world's largest collection of ba-ba songs*, I'd write down the performer and title on my list and then rip or buy an mp3 of the song in question.  I got away from the second step and realized last night that there were about a hundred songs on my list that I didn't have in my mp3 folder.  So, I spent a lot of time ripping those songs I hadn't bothered with before.  Ripping songs is very boring.

I'm still missing audio files of about 50 songs.  Some of those are songs I only have on vinyl.  Most of them are songs Voxers told me about that I haven't tracked down yet.  I hope I get an iTunes giftcard for Christmas.  Actually, I hope I get an Amazon giftcard as I'm not a fan of the iTunes store at all.  Their MPEG-4 files can suck it.

But anyway, I gathered all the ba-ba songs I own and stuck them in a playlist.  I have 399 songs in there and it would take me just under a day to listen to them all.  I think I would go insane after about six hours.  Ba-ba songs are great, but too much of a good thing will make me bang my head against the wall over and over and over again.

The playlist shown below doesn't include the 18 songs I selected for The Ba-Ba Box Set, Vol. 1.  Now that I've got the rest of them all together, I think I'm going to put together the second volume in the series.

[* = I have no idea if my collection actually qualifies for this title, but I find it hard to believe anybody else out there would take such a silly sing as far as I have.]