That reminds me, somewhere at some point on the internet, as its been awhile, I remember seeing awesome record covers with some really foxy gals on them. I want to say it was a jazz artist but can't say that for sure. I remember one record's title has something to do with cream and there on the record cover was a gal covered in cream or laying in it, something like that. I would have bought those records if I had seen those in a store and not online.

That's the one. Thanks Ish.

Mee-OW!

I own that Soul Asylum album... it was pretty fun when I bought it (I was 11 or so) have my dad respond to it and then have to explain to me why he did so.





Utopia 3 (or Death in Florence)
George Alec Effinger


I usually like Absurdist stuff, and I've read and enjoyed George Alec Effinger before, but this one is just too much.  Dr. Waters has come up with the path to peace.. by emptying out a city, and have a small amount of people move in and live off the remains.  With no money and posessions, there should be no strife?  It works on a small scale in America, so the world ends up agree to empty the great cities of Central Europe to try it out.

The book follows 3 people in the expiriment, who seem to be the only ones there, though it's implied there are others.   None of them are likable in the least.   It ends up the Dr. Waters is just a dictator, and one of the main character figures out the experiment is alot like communism.  

The trick is, I'm not sure what Effinger is trying to say... he clearly doesn't like Standardized tests, or psychology, but otherwise, it's all just over the top stuff.  Perhaps I missed something?

The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le Guin



To say this book was progressive or ahead of its time does it little justice. Le Guin gives us a fascinating look at an alien culture that examines what makes us human. An envoy from an interplanetary collective called the the Ekumen is sent to a frozen planet populated by a race of ambisexual humans. Through his eyes we get to know this alien race, learning about their customs, their psychology and their unique physiology. While mixed up in the politics of two rival countries his life is threatened and he must journey over the deadly frozen tundra with the only person on this world he has come to trust.

Down and out was the first Orwell book I ever read. It made a pretty big impression on me - I was a teenager at the time - and to tell the truth I still think of it as my favourite book of his. I never knew it was meant to be a novel - always thought it was a straight memoir. Haven't re-read it since then - it'll be curious to see how I like it if I ever get around to reading it again.

I just finished Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm, famous comic novel of the early 1930s - around the same time of Orwell's Down and Out, come to think of it (checked wiki to confirm). Even though I haven't read any of the specific books CCF is apparently making fun of, most of its targets are familiar enough that one can enjoy the comedy anyway.

There's something about the style of wit and satire that was prevalent in English writing of the 20s and 30s that I find extremely attractive. The early Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, Gibbons, Wodehouse, Anthony Powell's first book, ... there's a certain kind of indolent urbanity that seems to put me under its spell, at least when it's done well, even though it's worlds away from any environment I've ever experienced first hand.