2005 book 145 (and other stuff)

sebastian barry's a long long way
now, i didn't read the book that won the booker prize this year, but after cloud atlas was robbed last year, and this shortlisted book was beaten by a john banville novel (i am not a banville fan), i am starting to doubt the booker judges. ok, this was no cloud atlas, but it was a moving and powerful WWI story about an irish soldier dealing with the messy horrific terrifying trench warfare, while everything back in ireland is in upheaval (the home rule thing, society fracturing, etc). i'm not generally a fan of books about battles, but this was really well-written and really captured the confusion and chaos of the period.

other stuff: pox world compulation volume 2 release party at 506 last night was awesome! i especially liked seeing summer set, who i've never seen live, and the finks, who i haven't seen in a year or so. an especially nice touch was the pox logo on all the homemade cakes (apparently stencils were involved). hey, just for the record: i think girl drummers can be considered great drummers on their own merit, and not just "for a girl", and i am not generally interested in their cleavage. thank you for your consideration. nice to see all the audubon park boys in attendance, as well as mr. pinky (who i think got some good photos).

also, i saw good night and good luck today--pretty good movie, the guy playing edward r. murrow was amazing, but all the talking (and smoking) heads got a little tiresome for me after a while. christina loved it, so ymmv. i did think it was an interesting allegory for our current political climate--i found myself thinking about how arthur miller went all the way back to the salem witch trials to find allegories for the 1950s, and now the 1950s are the allegory for today . . .