Lickety splitly? I don't really know, but it might even be lickety splickly...which would make it even better. The album cover captures the whole feel of this song. Please.
The Eagles covered this...made it into white bread..and had a hit. You don't beat this.
By the way, if you didn't know, that's Tom Waits
Oh, and here's the album cover...
Feeling it now?
Don't you just love it when you come across something written that just strikes a chord (so to speak) with you? A song, a book, a poem, a sentence, one word. Maybe even in some Bizarro World alternate Universe sort of way, a blog.
Here's some things that struck me...through the years....and probably not in any type of historical order
The Phantom Tollbooth
I friggin' loved this book when I was a kid. Must have been eight or nine or ten when I read it. I can still picture lounging in the living room...with the orange carpeting (that is still there nearly forty years later), mostly on the couch, my dog Duke hanging nearby, completely immersing myself in this. The living room was the room that didn't have a tv..the tv was in the den. The den. Does anyone have den's anymore?
It was loaded with puns...and metaphors...and idioms and the like. Heady stuff for a kid from Sunset Park. Great illustrations. There was even a map! A map that I frequently referred back to as I followed Milo on his adventures. Unfortunately I've failed passing the fondness for this down generationally. I bought it for my oldest when she was that age...I don't think she ever read it. As a matter of fact, it may have been "donated" now that she is an adult to her little sister....and if I'm imagining that, then frig it, I'm going to the library and taking it out, For MYSELF!, They don't know what they are missing.
Rebecca
I stole the famous first line of this novel as the title of the second post I ever created. That line is an iambic hexameter. Look it up if you don't believe me. I'll wait for you.
Here it is...
This is the infamous "titstick" blog. Lot's of people have told me they liked this one. I do too.
Anyway, Rebecca. I actually read this in a high school English class. Murder, mystery, atmosphere, great characters and plot. I know what you're thinking by that cover...Harlequin Romance..all it's missing is Fabio on the cover. Well, you're wrong. Do yourself a favor, read this book.
Oh, and Alfred Hithcock made it into a movie. It won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1940. For real. You can take that Fabio now and shove it.
Slaughterhouse Five
My favorite book by my favorite author. All time. Forever. Always.
This is the book that introduced me to Vonnegut, led to reading many many more. Others are good, even a few I'd call great ..but this is the one.
This also has an alternate title, which is,
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, a Fourth-Generation German-American Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and Smoking Too Much], Who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors de Combat, as a Prisoner of War, Witnessed the Fire Bombing of Dresden, Germany, ‘The Florence of the Elbe,’ a Long Time Ago, and Survived to Tell the Tale. This Is a Novel Somewhat in the Telegraphic Schizophrenic Manner of Tales of the Planet Tralfamadore, Where the Flying Saucers Come From. Peace.
That second title gives you a flavor for the type of writer Vonnegut was.
Oh, and I've liberally stolen his writing style and have now made it my own. I unabashedly admit to it.
So it goes.
(There, I just did it).
Plainsong
The style of this writer made this one of the easiest, most engrossing books I've ever read. Simple plot, nice character development, incredible scene settings...this is a book that you totally visualize as you read it. A can't put it down, can't wait to pick it up book. Easily the best book I've read in the last five years. Didn't hurt that it was read on Peaks Island, mostly early mornings sitting outside on the deck. Just me, the book, a couple of cups of coffee, and the view looking across to Little Diamond Island
Here was my view
Friggin' Heaven.
Oh, and let's not forget this one
The Amityville Horror
This book scared the hell out of me when I was , oh, I'd say, about 13 years old. If memory serves me, it was written at about a third grade level in BIG FONTS.
I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you (well, maybe the kids), but it was the story of a family that moved into a house on Long Island where a family had been killed by the prior owner. All kinds of crazy shit happened in the house...bleeding walls, ceramic figures that bit you, the feeling of people hugging you, and something about flies...lot's of flies. For a 13 year old, this was pretty heady stuff, since it was all "true". I remember my best friend had a paper route and I used to go "collecting" with him. That's how it was done, back in the day. There was a house that resembled the Amityville house, with the devil eye windows, that we refused to go to, somehow the courage was mustered when delivering the paper in the morning, but we never approached it at night. I guess this meant about a years worth of free papers for the folks that lived there.
Don't now why my font changed there...must have something to do with the memory of that house.
Here's a picture of the house that creeped us out back then...
I guess it's not so bad now...but can you see the windows?
I'll stop there. That's five. Not an official countdown.
...but I'm running out of steam.
So for now..another steal from Kurt.
Peace.
