Miles Davis - Kitchen Listening Blue

Listening to Miles Davis while reading James Kaplan's 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool. The book covers the period of jazz in the late 1950's to the early 1960's. Focuses a lot on the making of Kind of Blue among other albums of the period and of course I started this set off with that album from 1959. Then went back to 1957 for 'Round About Midnight and then Milestones from 1958.

It's nice having a lot of Miles Davis albums, compilations and box sets in my collection.

George R. R. Martin - The Authors List

George R. R. Martin - The Authors List. 6 Novels. Game of Thrones... I read all five books of that series A Song of Ice and Fire in 2011. One right after the other. A few years later I read another novel. I was never really into reading fantasy novels very much but this was something a little different. It was more like a medieval alternate history but with some dragons.

I did enjoy reading the books and then of course I watched the TV series that went on for 8 seasons running between 2011 and 2019. A new prequel series just began on HBO in 2026. I guess I should check it out.

George R.R. Martin books I've read:

• A Game of Thrones, 1996 - Jul 2011
• A Clash of Kings, 1998 - Aug 2011
• A Storm of Swords, 2000 - Sep 2011
• A Feast for Crows, 2005 - Oct 2011
• A Dance with Dragons, 2011 - Dec 2011
• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, 2015 - Jan 2016

Fish Fry Tonight

We were going to go out last night for our usual Thursday dinner but realized that with the Sabres playing our favorite spots would be a little crazy so we went out this evening instead. We went to Coles and I had a fish fry. Becky had a Buffalo Wrap. Lots of delicious fries too.

We got there around 5:30 and it wasn't very crowded but by 6 the place was filling up and when we left around 7 every table was full. The food was wonderful as always and the service was great.

Canisius Library Today

I went down to the Canisius library today to pick up some books. I have been planning to do this for awhile. It's been quite a few months since I've last been down there. So after cutting the grass today I got in the car and went down the street to my old workplace. It was a Friday afternoon so I was expecting it to be quiet there... I was wrong.

It's also near the end of the semester so the library was quite full of students. I first talked with Matt and caught up with what was happening at the library. I also had a nice conversation with a grad student working the desk. Then I went down to the lower level to see if Kris was there. She wasn't. Then I went and got the books I was looking for. They were books on my to-read list that I hadn't been able to get previously from other sources.

I also went up to the second floor. It was a shock to see all the books were gone but the college did do a great job renovating the space for it's new use which is not being a library. It is more of a student study center... without books. Last year I was surprised to see that thousands of books were discarded from the stacks on that floor and tossed into trash bins. The books that were kept were all taken down to the lower level and reorganized which is still an ongoing process.

New Lawnmower - Cuttin' Grass

I got the new electric lawnmower up and running this week. A couple of days ago I cut the front lawn. It was an easy job because the bad weed has been somewhat under control in the front. Then it rained a couple of days so I waited for the back lawn to dry out the extensive weed. So yesterday I tried the mower out with the heavy weed in the front of the backyard. I filled a very heavy bag full of weed from the mower's catch container.

Today I went back out there and did the rest of the backyard. It took about an hour because of the heavy weed. I also did it in four sections and loaded a full white trash bag for each section. That's a lot of heavy weed bags overall. 

The mower did a great job cutting the weed and grass. I didn't do the weed whacking trimming yet though. It's going to rain tomorrow so I'll probably wait until Monday.

Hugh Howey - The Authors List

Hugh Howey - The Authors List. More science fiction. 6 books I've read by this writer which I started reading in 2014 with Wool from the Silo trilogy. When the Silo TV series came out in 2023. Then the Beacon 23 TV series was released later the same year on a different network. Apparently his novels make good television shows. I did watch them both. The third season of Silo is coming out this summer.

In 2024 I read Beacon 23 and the Sand series. All have been interesting science fiction stories.

Hugh Howey books I've read:

• Wool, 2012 - Sep 2014
• Shift, 2013 - Aug 2015
• Dust, 2013 - Sep 2015
• Sand, 2014 - Jul 2016
• Beacon 23, 2015 - May 2024
• Across The Sand, 2022 - Jul 2024

Doris Lessing - The Authors List

Doris Lessing - The Authors List. I read 6 of her books including 5 from the Canopus In Argos: Archives series. More science fiction. She was an interesting writer and I liked her books of what she called "space fiction" which I discovered in the early 1980's. The first novel I read was Shikasta in 1981 followed by the rest of that series during the 80's and a dystopian novel from 1974. 

This was a fascinating and challenging science fiction series. I think it would be interesting to read a biography of this writer.

Last year I put this series of paperback books in one of our nearby Little Libraries one by one over a week or so. The books were always picked up the next day.

Doris Lessing books that I've read:

• Shikasta: Re-Colonized Planet 5, 1979 - Aug 1981
• The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, 1980 - Oct 1981
• The Sirian Experiments, 1980 - Jun 1982
• The Memoirs of a Survivor, 1974 - Jun 1983
• The Making of the Representative for Planet 8, 1982 - Jan 1984
• The Sentimental Agents in the Voylen Empire, 1983 - Apr 1984

Fish Dinner Wednesday

Tonight we had a nice fish dinner. Salmon with rice and an avocado salad.

Richard Thompson - Kitchen Listening

Kitchen Listening. We spent some time playing a couple of incredible Richard Thompson albums and enjoyed the kitchen stereo. Today I put on a couple of his more interesting albums. Started with Acoustic Classics from 2014 which is a collection of acoustic versions of songs from his back catalogue. Lots of great music. Then I followed that up with a live album from 2003 titles 1000 Years of Popular Music where Thompson performs what he considers the best songs of the last 1000 years. This was another very fascinating listening experience. This set of music played for about two and a half hours.

He has always been one of my favorite performers whom I've seen in concert several times both solo and with Fairport Convention. I have about 30 of his albums in my collection.

The Hidden History of the War on Voting - MAGA Dystopia

The Hidden History of the War on Voting: Who Stole Your Vote and How To Get It Back - Thom Hartman, 2020. MAGA Dystopia.

Last night I finished reading this incredible book that clearly documents the numerous cases of voter suppression throughout American history and especially in recent years while exposing the Republican myth of voter fraud. This problem continues and is getting worse with all the latest gerrymandering and GOP laws to limit voting. Everyone should read this book and the author will probably be writing a second volume focusing on the current MAGA dystopia and hopefully the backlash of the American people.

The book discusses how the modern American oligarchs have stayed in power using voter suppression, massive misinformation campaigns from their bought and owned right wing media and through explicit and overt racism. Republicans have repeatedly been shown they need to depend on election fraud and treason to "win" elections and it has been this way for many decades.

It was also interesting to read about how much the role of slavery had in the creation of the Electoral College and it's racist legacy. Here are a few of the fascinating issues and solutions discussed in the book... Abolish the Electoral College, make election day a national holiday, universal mail-in voting, extensive early voting, all elections are Federally protected and monitored, affirmative right to vote as part of the Constitution, a national popular vote, abolish partisan gerrymandering and the Senate should represent citizens not states. Lots more issues too.