Reading: Paradise by Mike Resnick
Music: Herbie Mann
TV/Movie: Connections Vol. 1, disk 3
Link o' the Day: review of the Venture Bros. season 3

I'm not going to turn this into an official facebook meme entry. You good folks deserve a rest, but one interesting one I saw floating out there--a shame no one tagged me--was the top 15 albums that changed your life. I thought it was an interesting idea... so let's see...what would I choose? Can I do 15? Let's start easy and do just ten, and maybe next week I'll think of 5 more.


the Chieftains 4 (The Chieftains) - My dad used to play this in his bookstore and it's what first turned me on to traditional Irish music


Steam-Powered Aereo-Plain (John Hartford) - A Friend turned me on to this one afternoon and I've not been the same since. I consider it one of the best bluegrass albums ever made.

The Ever-Popular Tortured Artist Effect (Todd Rundgren) - Maybe not his best album, but one of his more popular. It was my first Rundgren album and it made me a lifelong fan of the rainbow-colored demon.

Never Mind the Bollocks (The Sex Pistols) - Okay, the Sex Pistols were a little silly, but nine out of ten punk fans started with this album. It's the preschool of punk to which we listened to, got excited about, then graduated on to much better stuff like...


Damaged (Black Flag) - this was more like it. And from there I went on to Fear, X, the Circle Jerks

Rock and Roll Heart (Lou Reed) - My first Lou Reed album which was quickly followed by Transformer and then the whole Velvet Underground catalog

Blue (Joni Mitchell) - Changed the way I thought about listening and enjoying female singers. I could still put this on and be carried away.

...from the Hungry i (The Kingston Trio) - Early Greenwich Village folk music at one of its finest hours. "Zombie Jamboree" remains one of my favorite songs to this day


Newport In New York '72: The Jam Sessions Vols 1 through 4 (various artists) - I wore my vinyls of this out and I really wish this would be released on CD. I've only found copies on vinyl and I don't have a turntable anymore. This is probably one of the best live jazz album sets anywhere and it turned me on to a lot of folks too numerous to mention.

The Bothy Band (The Bothy Band) - These guys took trad Irish music out of the concert hall and into the kitchen. Gotta love 'em for that

And that's ten for now. I know five minutes after I post this, I'll think of more, but we'll just have to wait and see if I decide to share further.

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Rumor has it... Cracked magazine is the only publication to have once been owned by the Unification Church and then sold. Lawrence Kim, then head of the church's publishing division was quoted "We're nuts, but come on now. We're not that nuts. We thought we were buying Mad Magazine."

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The last two books that have been currently-in-progress are now out the door. There are some fun projects coming up including the autobiography of the Amazing Kreskin, the letters of Louise Brooks, and a history of Cracked magazine. I expect a new quiz book by Mel Simons to be appearing soon, and there's an interesting book on the creative process coming up featuring interviews with actors, directors and writers.

Another issue of The SFWA Bulletin isn't too far off, the medical journal steams along, and the TumbleTap Presents: 2009 preview will be done soon. I just need to rescan some items and write some copy.

So good stuff. And a good week for getting things out the door. And a good week's start on the spring cleaning. This heralds a decent weekend.


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Today's link goes to a review of the Venture Bros. season 3 that I wrote for Forces of Geek this week. The third season comes out on DVD and Blu-ray on March 24th and I'm psyched. Even if I didn't think that this was the show's strongest season, I'm still looking forward to picking this up.

Check out the review, then hit the top banner and scope out the many other fine pieces at ForcesOfGeek.com.

Cheers!