richardirvine.com

Author: Richard Irvine

  • 25 Albums

    This meme is naming 25 albums that had a profound effect on you, the ones you listened to again and again, and have worn out copies in a number of formats.

    Being a big fan of music, lists and contemplating my own naval, here’s mine, in rough chronological order of when I became obsessed with them:

    Abbey Road – The Beatles
    Born in the USA – Bruce Springsteen
    Louder than Bombs – The Smiths
    LA Woman – The Doors
    Dolittle – The Pixies
    Full Moon Fever – Tom Petty
    Bug – Dinosaur Jr
    Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
    Candy Apple Grey – Husker Du
    Melt – Straitjacket Fits
    Daydream Nation – Sonic Youth
    Loveless – My Bloody Valentine
    Parklife – Blur
    Robot World – Bailter Space
    40 oz to Freedom – Sublime
    The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Underworld – The Orb
    Pet Sounds – The Beach Boys
    Velvet Underground and Nico
    Mutations – Beck
    Selected Ambient Works Part II – Aphex Twin
    Revolver – The Beatles
    Bressa Creeting Cake- Bressa Creeting Cake
    Blue – Joni Mitchell
    Everybody’s Talkin’ – Harry Nilsson
    Dayglo Spheres – SJD

  • Move over, Hal

    How to make hard drives even sexier than they already are.

  • Read: Flesh and Blood – Michael Cunningham

    American family from immigrant background live an increasingly desperate life. Cunningham has an extremely skillful turn of phase, and despite several hard twists and turns in his story (there’s several ‘oh shit‘ moments), the characters’ path seems grimly inevitable. Thoroughly enjoyable.

    Link

  • Soppy Beatles Saturday

  • Read: To Have And Have Not – Ernest Hemmingway

    Wikipedia says Hemmingway reckoned To Have And Have Not is ‘a bunch of junk’. I reckon he’s right. It’s a mish-mash of a couple of short stories.  One’s about Harry Morgan, a hard on his luck fishing boat captain forced to take increasingly desperate measures to feed his family. The other’s about a bunch of utterly charmless writers drinking and shagging about in the Florida Keys. Both stories are shoved up against each other in a fairly artless manner (Heh. A half arse blogger calling Hemmingway ‘artless’. that’s what the Internet was made for, team.). The best bits are the very start, with some enthralling writing about big game fishing in the Cuban gulf stream, and the last three pages.  The rest is fairly forgettable.

    Wikipedia link

  • Read: Grapes Of Wrath – John Steinbeck

    I’m doing a quick, one paragraph review of novels I read this year – so I’ve got a record, apart from anything else.

    Like a roller coaster, the first bit was a bit flat, but when it started picking up speed… I haven’t had a *physical* reaction to a novel like this in a long time – my heart beat faster, my stomach churned, and I swore aloud on the bus. The story of the Joad families’ trip from Oklahoma to California to find work in the depression era is gritty, bleak and graphic. Again, like a roller coaster – just when you think everything’s going to be alright, that’s usually when things turn to shit just that little bit faster. Beautifully written, with characters you want to take home for a BBQ and a bath. Highly recommended.

    Wikipedia link

  • Quote

    From an interview with Derek Powazek (who designed the WordPress theme for this site):

    In many ways, I’m a member of the generation of writers that the web has created. Without the web, I’m not sure I would have ever written what I’ve written, or told the stories I’ve told.

    This is true.

  • Carbohydrate update

    I grew these potatoes using Llew’s method:
    IMG_0314.JPG
    The red ones grew better than the brown-skinned ones.

    And I baked this bread using me Dad’s back of the envelope recipe:
    IMG_0323.JPG

  • Facebook interesting-ness

    Burn friends – get a Whopper!

    Here’s the app.

  • Fav reads of 2008

    I read embarrasingly little that was *new* in 2008. But I did get lots read – thanks, bus commuting and baby-enforced early nights. My best were:

    – East of Eden, with a surprising amount of sex and violence for a book written in 1952 and set at the turn of last century.
    – In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s journalism / novel crossover. Mind bogglingly detailed and chilling.

    Best of the rest were James Ellroy’s The Cold Six Thousand that made me. Want to. Write short sentances, Emily Perkins‘ Novel About My Wife made me want to live in London again, and I’m revisiting an old favorite in my holiday reading, Boy and Going Solo.