Despite Marls' vitriol, I decided to forge ahead with my podcast and I have currently made fifteen episodes.
Fifteen!
My wife hates the name I chose: We Defy Augury. She thinks it's elitist and obtuse. I told her: "that's what I'm going for."
The podcast did not turn out the way I imagined. I thought I would be interviewing guests about what they read and all the interesting insights they had while reading. It turns out that I only like recording at 5:30 AM-- when the house is quiet and my brain operates smoothly-- and I have no desire to interview anyone except myself. My new template for the show is that I am the host and the book is the guest. And I like to throw in a few loosely connected "cameo" appearances, in the form of audio clips, from movies, music, and film.
I have no idea about the legality of any of this. I read short passages from the book and talk about my thoughts. I convert short clips from Youtube into audio and weave those in as well.
Zman?
Anyway, if you want to prepare, my next episode is going to be about Lords of Misrule, Jaimy Gordon's weird novel about small-time horseracing at a rundown track in West Virginia. While I have some opinions about horses and horse racing, I know next to nothing about the sport. The book is a bit of a tough read, like early Cormac McCarthy, but I'm learning a lot about horses, stables, grooming, claiming races, parimutuel betting, and grifters.
If you listen, give me a rating on Apple Music. Thanks!
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I’ve started doing more things around the house since I started working from home. Took back the lawn duties. I cook more (grill/smoker & sous vide are my weapons of choice). Today I began the process of growing tomatoes. A friend of mine has been doing it for a couple of years with great success. He’s got a connect who gives you the plants and then you take it from there with earth boxes. Bought 3 plants today (2 types of beefsteak and one cherry). They’re planted. Hopefully I’m swimming in tomatoes soon.
current situation: jamming out to a punk marimba band at the richmond folk festival. more to come.
Hey Dave, OK, I'll play along, if you permit. First, I admit that I looked up the phrase. Saw that it was from Hamlet. I think it means, and you intend, pretty much what Billy Shakes wrote: forget omens and foreshadowing; it's all random and whatever happens, happens. Worthy premise.
I suppose I should listen to episodes before commenting, but I'm marginally familiar with a few of the authors and works. Whitehead is aces. Railroad and Shuffle are different kinds of works, but equally valuable. Historical fiction/fantasy and straight fiction. I'd also recommend Nickel Boys -- fiction gleaned from a factual tale.
Winslow is gritty authentic and captures crime and law enforcement as well as anyone. The Force is a great treatment of a big city police unit given carte blanche. The Border is national level drug and cartel chasing. It's about 100 pages too long, but when I read the afterword, I understood why. He'd been researching the topic for 20 years and was wrapping up a trilogy. Had much to say. Also, if you've ever seen any of his political ads and social media posts, I wouldn't want to be on his bad side.
Also, a future recommendation: an author named S.A. Crosby has written several books that are good reads, have drawn national attention and won awards. It's kind of southern rural crime noir, with unexpected characters and twists. He's an interesting cat. Lives in Gloucester, Va., grew up fairly poor in what's called the Northern Neck of Va. past Williamsburg and near the Rappahanock River. Held all manner of hourly, blue-collar jobs, started writing. Found a rhythm and now can write for a living. I'd rec Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland.
Dammit. S.A. Cosby. Freakin' auto-correct.
I like a good tomato.
I also like a big egg, which is what the Mets are laying in this critical game right now.
https://youtu.be/OvU26k8Fsv0
I haven't read "the force" yet by winslow-- I'll check it out-- i love that guy. cross between elmore leonard and james ellroy.
and i will definitely check out s.a. cosby. sounds right up my alley .. .
I got name-checked in a post! I would not worry about any legal issues. First, criticism, review, and instruction are exceptions to copyright infringement and you're clearly in at least one of those. Second, copyright damages are calculated based on how the infringing work diminishes the value of the copyrighted work, and no one is listening to your elitist and obtuse podcast as a general matter, let alone listening as a substitute for buying these books.
Speaking of Cormac McCarthy, I started reading Blood Meridian and it's good but also a slog, if that's possible. I think it's best read in one sitting because you have to get into the flow of his prose. Stopping and starting is hard.
Zman providing free legal advise with a side of shade. I like it.
Not too much shade. I'm pretty sure my music reviews and other blather do not impact the market for the music I talk about or the photos and videos I embed. We have taste but are not tastemakers.
Speak for zself
Whit is right. Dave has no taste.
rootsy, are you familiar with scott miller, of scott miller and the commonwealth fame (and w&m class of sometime around me, whit, and dave)? he's playing saturday at the spot on kirk. you might dig his vibe.
I am familiar with him. We opened a show for him about 5-6 years ago. I may give it a go. I like The Spot on Kirk.
Hey Z, McCarthy can indeed be a slog, but much of his prose is gorgeous. And Meridian may be one of the most violent books in American literature. I'd also recommend No Country For Old Men. I read the book after seeing the movie a couple times, and still found it compelling and not quite the challenge of Meridian. The Coen brothers were mostly faithful to the book, but took some detours that give the book some novel edges. Interesting passages by Sheriff Ed Tom Bell -- the Tommy Lee Jones character in the movie.
"blood meridian" is worth it. the judge! the border trilogy is way easier to read but still feels like vintage mccarthy. "the road" is bleak, but i did learn the word "catamite," so there's that . . .
thanks for the legal advice-- when my podcast is bigger than the joe rogan experience, you'll be on retainer.
The prose is gorgeous. And Meridian is violent! I'm losing interest because I'm waiting for something non-murderous to happen.
I don't like to read a book after seeing the movie. When I was reading The Shipping News I marveled at how vivid Proulx's test is, and I had all these images of the characters and setting in my head as hand-drawn renderings. It was wonderful, I never experienced anything like it before. Before I was done with the book I went to the movies and saw a preview for the film version with Kevin Spacey and Cate Blanchett. I couldn't envision anything else but those two after that, and it didn't ruin the book but it definitely spoiled the experience. Spacey was poorly cast as Quoyle.
''the road' is bleak' is an understatement like 'dave is prolix'.
the best movie book thing i ever did was read half of james ellroy's l.a. confidential and then i went and saw the movie-- so i knew the characters but didn't know the ending. that's the way to do it.
that's kinda genius.
Has nobody said Happy Birthday to Mark? Come on, gheorghies.
Hope it was a good one, buddy.
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