I worked a double shift last night, and on the back half of my day I got a copy of Rolling Stone's Top Music of 00 or some such issue in my hands to help kill an hour. When I was a kid Rolling Stone was my parents generation's music rag, but I respected Rolling Stone because even though those geezers were in their 30s they still knew a good thing when they heard it. So, while the cover still had people like Frampton and Springsteen on it, if you turned to the back you would regularly read about bands like The Dead Boys and Sex Pistols, and Rolling Stone loved them. I forget what Rolling Stone said about 1981's Damaged by Black Flag, but it boiled down to they thought that Black Flag was the real deal and it kind of made all the posturing arena rock bands of the time look and sound like some kind of joke. I agreed.Written by Michael Lankton Thursday, 17 September 2009 14:33
No matter how far away we move from traditional media for our sources of entertainment and information, nothing, nothing will ever replace the written word. Books are vitamins for your head. Take your brain out for some exercise and read a book. If you can't come up with the time to sit down with a book, start listening to audiobooks in the car. I have a two hour a day commute, and I actually look forward to getting behind the wheel so I can get back to the book I'm working on.
The 19th century British Royal Navy has always fascinated me, and the stories the revolve around the events at sea during the Napoleonic wars have the same appeal to me that the American western holds for others. The hard life, long spells of mind-numbing boredom and routine, punctuated by fierce life and death struggles against both nature and fellow man make for stories that create vibrant vistas of imagination.
I have long been a fan of C.S. Forester's excellent Hornblower series. I was aware of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, but I had only seen the movie Master and Commander until this year when I set about reading the twenty one book series the characters in the movie are taken from.
