If you’re interested in the history of American pop culture, I enthusiastically recommend the podcast “Who Killed the Video Star?”, a history of MTV up to the present day. Not as in-depth as Tannenbaum’s fantastic oral history, but particularly good for the years after his book.
Learned today that one of my colleagues passed away yesterday, which led to the very sobering realization that I can now almost count on one hand the number of local attorneys with a courthouse practice who were practicing here when I opened my office in April of 1996 and who are still around.
Finished Hanif Abdurraqib’s “There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension” at lunch today. This may be my favorite of his works; such a beautiful book. I can already tell it’s going to take up residence in my heart the same way that parts of “They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us” did.
Newly-appointed attorney ad litem in one of my cases has an app that inserts random bible quotes at the end of her emails, and she’s emailing me a lot this morning. It’s taking quite a bit of self-control to not edit my email signature to include Aleister Crowley’s Law of Thelema in response.
Given the rage of the Magat-brained at a Taylor Swift, it’s a shame the 49ers didn’t recruit Colin Kaepernick this season. Twitter tonight would look like the scene where the Ark of the Covenant is opened.
I started reading Dennis Lehane’s “Mystic River” while I was sick with Covid at the end of last week. I don’t know how I always forget what an incredible writer he is between books, but I do, and this one is right up there with the Coughlin trilogy in my favorites of his work.
Finished my first book of the year this evening - the excellent Bookshops & Bonedust by @travisbaldree.bsky.social, which is somehow even better than Legends & Lattes, his previous one.
Definitely not me sitting in Torchy’s Tacos and getting all choked up in public at the ending.
Started listening to the audiobook of Susannah Gora’s “You Couldn’t Ignore Me if You Tried”, about eighties teen movies, John Hughes, & the Brat Pack - partly because I’m on a film history kick & partly because it’s a good time of year for nostalgia. I loved these films so much when they came out.
After repeatedly laughing out loud in the middle of the grocery store because I was listening to the Sherlock Holmes episode of @midnightpals.bsky.social on my earbuds, I suppose I’ll need to remember to restrict my listening of that particular podcast to at-home hours.
I get that the Texas State Fair has an aspect that is the gastronomic equivalent of “Hold my beer”, but, man, there are some things I’m just not adventurous enough to put in my mouth.
Spent the evening watching Six, the season opener for Broadway in Austin. I would never have expected to use “What if the wives of Henry VIII were the Spice Girls” as a description for anything, but here we are. Fabulous show - highly recommend seeing it if either of those are your thing.
Introduce yourself with three books you love:
The Girl in the Green Silk Gown, by Seanan McGuire
Sacred Games, by Vikram Chandra
Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury
Introduce yourself with three books you love:
The Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny.
The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History, by David Hackett Fischer.
The Weaker Vessel, by Antonia Fraser.
Bonus: Notorious Sorcerer, by Davinia Evans.
