long november

On Saturday I went to the WFMU record fair. In addition to picking up a few xmas gift items, i picked up big stack of compact disks that I hope to listen to soon. So far I am enjoying the Heavenly States' single. Looking forward to listening to David Kilgour, Stars, Four Tet, and Ulysses, among others. The stack is about 30 deep, but thankfully the cd's were only $1 each.

I have been doing a bunch of reading. I read The Devil in the White City, which came as a birthday gift. I'm not sure that I am too into the book as a work in the discipline of history, but it is very readable and creepy (which motivates one to finish the book.) Perspepolis is good but taking me a while to get through. I enjoyed Auster's Music of Chance, which I hadn't read before. The most recent issue of the New Yorker has a cover by Adrian Tomine, which I suppose is to be expected. Inside there is a story by Jonathan Franzen, which was familiar from the Downtown for Democracy reading of several months back. Too bad that didn't really work out.

Saw r.e.m. on thursday. Opened with End of the World, and for the first three songs it seemed like it would be good. But the new album (which I haven't purchased and wouldn't recommend...bore yourself by listening here) is too dirge and self-important. To be honest the new songs ruined the good old dirges from Automatic for the People. Maybe they were bummed out by the Kerry situation, but the whole event was for me uninspiring.

Saw Secret Window with Johnny Depp on video this weekend. I don't usually like the scary movies, and I wouldn't say I liked this movie. but Depp and John Turturro are interesting to watch. I didn't realize it was from a Steven King story, which explains some of the stupidity of the movie. Still, when does the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory come out? That's what I want to see.