Media Diary: What Did You Consume Today?

**wedge** · 09-14-2011, 10:08 PM

Where's the damn +1 button or favorite star when I need it.

**Karen Mahoney** · 09-15-2011, 03:42 AM

I got totally sidetracked by Greg Rucka's standalone novel, A FISTFUL OF RAIN. It's a cliche, I know, but I couldn't put it down last night and then had to work until 3am to make up for lost time. I still have the last 20% (yeah, I'm reading it on my kindle) to go, but am trying to resist until I've done the stuff I'm supposed to do today. It's so good!!

I also read BATWOMAN #1 and loved it as much as I hoped I would.

**hamgravy** · 09-15-2011, 06:02 AM

Originally Posted by nickellis

Apologies if this ends up being a double-post, stupid network.

- 13 Assassins: Takashi Miike, fairly violent samurai film. Subverts a couple of the usual genre [edit: themes? tropes? other decidedly undergraduate term for 'story-bit'? no idea, but I forgot to write it the first time...] and seems to be at least partly a reply to Seven Samurai (like Unforgiven was a reply to Eastwood's early Westerns). Recommended.

- Tina Fey's Bossypants audiobook: I'm a total sucker for stories of how things were made and am a big 30 Rock fan. Downloaded this yesterday and am about halfway through already. TF narrates, which is good, though some aspects of the production are a little weird (volume levels, lack pauses between chapters).

N

I'm sure you've read or listened to the SNL verbal history then, right? Great stuff there.

**nickellis** · 09-15-2011, 06:15 AM

Ooh, forgot about my favourite new music thing:

http://www.myspace.com/brothersgrimblues If you like the Black Keys, especially Chulahoma, you'll love this. Swamp blues, or something, plus the lead singer and guitarist are from my home town. Where I still live.

Originally Posted by Karen Mahoney

I got totally sidetracked by Greg Rucka's standalone novel, A FISTFUL OF RAIN.

Karen, acknowledging that I'll buy pretty much any comic Greg Rucka writes (particularly love Gotham Central, Queen and Country and Stumptown [mental blank and had to Google that title... wait, Greg Rucka and Jen Van Meter are married?! Whoa! Cool.]), what's his prose like?

**nickellis** · 09-15-2011, 06:32 AM

Originally Posted by hamgravy

I'm sure you've read or listened to the SNL verbal history then, right? Great stuff there.

The what now? Awesome...

Also: note of SNL/American late night comedy in Australia explanation - we don't get (or rather, haven't until very recently gotten) a lot of it.

('Get' as in 'receive', or 'are shown on tv'. We understand it fine. Culturally, as opposed to geographically, Australia's pretty mid-Atlantic.)

So yeah, SNL is almost never shown here, except sometimes in clip shows. Certainly not live. Up until YouTube we might see DVD/video collections, usually centred around performers. I've managed to catch it live once, about two years ago, on a trip to the States (wasn't a brilliant episode...).

A weird side effect of this is that we generally have no context for movies that have spun out of sketches. As far as we knew, the Blues Bros etc were only movies.

As for the talk shows, up until very recently the only one we got was Letterman, and you had to guess by the monologue how old the episode was. As we moved to digital and got more free-to-air channels (TV in Australia is VERY different to the US, especially cable/pay-TV), more of the shows came out, usually the day after, especially Conan, Craig Ferguson and, for a brief, shining year Daily Show and Colbert on ABC2 (think BBC rather than ABC America).

To the best of my knowledge, except maybe on pay-TV, we've never had Leno. I hear that's a blessing.

**hamgravy** · 09-15-2011, 08:24 AM

Originally Posted by hamgravy

Was actually in my car a lot today and I've been sold on the Serius radio that came for free for three months. Hooked on WILLIE'S ROADHOUSE (classic country), BACKSPIN (80s 90s rap hiphop), and XMU (modern indie rock).

Some of the artists I discovered and want to check out:
Tonya Tucker
Big Pun
MC Lyte
Neon Indian
Gardens & Villas

**Karen Mahoney** · 09-15-2011, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by nickellis

Karen, acknowledging that I'll buy pretty much any comic Greg Rucka writes (particularly love Gotham Central, Queen and Country and Stumptown [mental blank and had to Google that title... wait, Greg Rucka and Jen Van Meter are married?! Whoa! Cool.]), what's his prose like?

It IS cool that they're married!

I feel the same about Rucka's comics - I'm even considering trying Punisher, despite not really loving the character, just because GR is writing it at the moment. Re. his prose: dude, it's really REALLY good. His writing comes across as effortless, and yet you can tell he works hard at his craft. He's more well-known for the Atticus Kodiak books (too lazy to check spelling), about a bodyguard, but this one is a standalone about the female lead guitarist in a band who gets caught up with murder and blackmail and has to find her way out. I'm not going to do that thing where I say: "Wow, he writes women so well!" because we all know GR writes amazing female characters.

But. I have to say that considering this is a long 1st-person novel, all from Miriam's POV, Greg smacks it out of the park. He writes first-person women better than *I* do!

**jenifu** · 09-15-2011, 10:50 AM

Yesterday: Watched DVRd episodes of Sons of Anarchy and Daily Show. Also spent a shameful amount of time clicking my way through the American Horror Story interactive promotional website, which left me feeling titillated, intrigued, morbid and icky. WOO!
http://youregoingtodieinthere.com/

**TheTravis!** · 09-15-2011, 11:04 AM

Watched Sons of Anarchy and Daily Show with the above-mentioned Jenifu. Also consumed my weight in comics. While I work today I am rewatching The Way of the Gun.