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Wacky Warning labels

My favorite: A CD player carries this unusual warning: "Do not use the Ultradisc2000 as a projectile in a catapult."

Music notes

For you local music fiends, there's a going out of business sale at a campus CD store.

For the rest of you music fiends, you must get your hands on this this Nick Hornby book, Songbook. I got it out of the library last night after finally getting my turn on the reserve list. I haven't started reading it yet, but I find the idea of a book of essays about various popular songs, with a companion CD to be brilliant. It helps that he likes stuff I like too (Ani D., Rufus Wainwright, Badly Drawn Boy, Aimee Mann). It's like a mixtape in CD/Book form. I think I'm going to have to own my own copy. I'm a sucker for books that *look* this good too.

I also got the new Ani Difranco CD last night. I just love going into Magnolia on Tuesdays, in all my work drag. At least the guy behind the counter didn't seem to look at me as strangely as all the customers (yerpretty, I think it was Tom B.--he said he worked in radio). It's a good CD. It's definitely for those that didn't like the Ani sound after she added all the horns and bands and stuff. It's just her, playing and singing it all by herself. I liked all the brass/sax/jazz stuff she was doing, but this is good. Not my fave yet, but good.

Book Notes

I'm going to try to keep a numerical count of what I'm reading this year, as I go. We'll see how long that lasts.

1. Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives & Daughters
Like a good former English major, I read the intro at the beginning of this book. So, I knew going in, that the author died just before finishing it. However, I managed to forget this until I got to the last chapter, which suddenly switched tone and starts out with "Had Mrs. Gaskell lived, what would have probably happened to Molly & Roger was X." AAAAAH! Frustration. But still, this is a *good* read. I love Victorian novels, but so many of them seem to have a lofty theme, that was topical when written, but seems otherwise boring and non-meaningful (without some research) to us now. This one wasn't so much that way. Yeah, it's still all about the marriage plot, but some of the comical characters give it a little bit of skewering, without distracting from our desire to get the guy for the girl in the end.

2. Steve Martin, Shopgirl
I re-read this, since I heard there's a movie version of this in the works. I really like this book. I think you can tell in parts that he's not a novelist by primary trade, and there is one hell of a dangling plot line that never resolves, but overall this is a good book. I'm a bit disturbed by the fact that they've cast Clare Danes as Mirabelle in the movie. I'd rather it be Scarlett Johannssen. At least it's not Kirsten Dunst though. She's definitely too perky for the part.

I'm now reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees, Home Comforts, and Nick Hornby's Songbook.