May 2020 Journal (Patreon)

Begin the Begin: R.E.M.'s Early Years - Bit of a slow reading month, largely spent catching up on books I've left unfinished for a while (I swear I'll finish Battle Cry of Freedom before the year is out). Got through some short reads though, including this perfectly fun little volume about the incipient years of my favorite band. Having the perspective of someone who's intimately familiar with Athens and the American South brings the book some refreshing authenticity. Far from a transcendent reading of R.E.M.'s music, but a fun little biography nonetheless.

Dr. No (Ian Fleming) - Recently I've undertaken the burden of rereading Ian Fleming for an upcoming project. The results have been a mix of delightful agony and excruciating pleasure. Fleming was clearly a horrible person who laid his vices out on the page, and in the process accidentally wrote some of the most taut and entertaining confessions of a chauvinistic British imperialist ever. Dr. No is a contender for his book, laying out Bond and Fleming's pathologies in a way only a quasi-Weird novel about tentacles and mad scientists could. Vile and bigoted, but brilliant in a Lovecraftian way.