:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Friday, April 08, 2016 ::

(Partial) Reading List 2015

There was no annual 2015 Reading List post at the new year because I lost the scrap of paper I'd scribbled it on when I moved house. I am clearly not a Millennial. However, I have recently found another partial list in a box so here's some of it at least:

Bill Drummond - 100

Richard Wiseman - Quirkology

Scarlett Thomas - The End Of Mr. Y

Richard Adams - Watership Down

There should be a lot more but I failed to keep track of it. I'll endeavour to do better this year.

:: Dan 8.4.16 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Wow, it’s been a long time. Sorry about that. Not only were there only two blog posts last year, my annual reading list, that was written over Christmas, has taken me 6 weeks to get around to hitting publish on. That’s pretty impressive slackness by any standard. Oh, and the gusset.co.uk domain has been allowed to expire as of last year, so a lot of the archive is currently unavailable. If you want to know what we are up to we are both on twitter (@dangusset & @gusseteer). There’s some sounds on bandcamp and my flickr is still live.

But don’t despair. Things are afoot. I would say things are afoot for 2014 but let’s not get carried away with ourselves. Things will appear as and when they are ready. In the meantime, here’s a list of some books I've read.

Neal Stephenson - Some Remarks
George Orwell – Diaries
Jonathon Swift – Gulliver’s Travels
Aesop's Fables
Hans Anderson's Fairy Stories
Roald Dahl - Boy / Magic Finger / Going Solo / Esiotrot
Kenneth Grahame - Wind in the Willows
The Conet Project - Recordings of Shortwave Number Statsions (book accompanying the CD boxset)
J.G.Ballard - The Drowned World & Cocaine Nights
Terry Jones - The Curse of the Vampires Socks
Tom Gauld - Giant Robot & You're All Just Jealous of my Jetpack
Enid Blyton - The Brer Rabbit Book
Rudyard Kipling - The Man Who Would Be King
Tom Rath - Strength Finder 2.0
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Rime of the Ancient Mariner (and other works)
Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

:: Dan 14.2.14 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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There's a new release, by Sean Perkins and Dan Pope (aka Gusset) over on WEFT Records and availble through Bandcamp.

:: Dan 3.10.13 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Although this blog is currently dead it and I don't know if it will ever be revived, it still seems like the best place to collect my annual reading list, so here goes...

Anthony Bourdain - Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
William Gibson - Distrust that Particular Flavor
Oliver James - How Not to F*** Them Up
Graham Jones - Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops?
Ted Hughes - Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow
John Osborne - Radio Head: Up and Down the Dial of British Radio
Robin Ince - Robin Ince's Bad Book Club: One man's quest to uncover the books that taste forgot [I have a spare copy of this as I got a dumplicate for Christmas. If you'd like it drop me a mail or tweet @dangusset and offer a suitable bad book in return]
Dave Gorman's Found Poetry (Booklet) [bought at a gig but available online exclusively via his own site]
Jason Oberholtzer - I Love Charts [you should buy this because it is (a) very funny and (b) has one of my photos in it]
Ted Hughes - The Hawk in the Rain
Ted Hughes - Selected Poems 1957-1967
Daniel Goldmark - Tunes for 'Toons: Music and the Hollywood Cartoon
Jim Bob - Driving Jarvis Ham
Roger Taylor [not that one] - Art, an Enemy of the People [interesting chapter on early jazz and how the categorisation as art affected it. Didn't convince me that this was necessarily a bad thing although that wasn't it's intention it was implied. Interesting to see the same thing happen again with hip-hop / footwork / juke and any other 'black' music that white people decide to adopt.]

Plus assorted bedtime reading for the little-man, which I can't list in full but included:

Thomas Story Library Ultimate Collection - 65 Books Boxed Set - The Engine Shed Thomas & Friends
Rudyard Kipling - Just So Stories
A. A. Milne - When We Were Very Young
Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Roald Dahl - The Giraffe And The Pelly And Me
Kaye Webb - I Like This Poem: A Collection of Best-loved Poems Chosen by Children for Other Children in Aid of the International Year of the Child
Rudyard Kipling - The Jungle Book
Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island
Tove Jansson - Moominland Midwinter
Roald Dahl - James and the Giant Peach
A. A. Milne - Winnie-the-Pooh
A.A. Milne - The House at Pooh Corner
Carlo Collodi - Pinocchio The Tale of a Puppet
[sadistic violence in every chapter, who thought this would make a nice Disney film?] Roald Dahl - The BFG
Roald Dahl - Revolting Rhymes
Richard Carpenter - Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac [DNF]
T.S. Eliot - Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Rudyard Kipling - Kim

And just in case anyone should wish to buy me anything my wishlist is here ;-]

Labels: Literature

:: Dan 31.12.12 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Stewart Lee - The Perfect Fool
Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe
Stewart Lee - How I Escaped My Certain Fate
Tim Key - 25 Poems, 3 Recipes and 32 Other Suggestions. (An Inventory)
Marcus Berkmann - Fatherhood: The Truth
Raymond Briggs - When the Wind Blows
Bob Dylan - Tarantula
Kurt Vonnegut - Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction
Tara Rodgers - Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound
Nouritza Matossian - Xenakis
H.P. Lovecraft - The Whisperer in Darkness (Collected Stories - Volume 1)
Philip Ball - The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can't Do Without It
R. Murray Schafer - Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World

Plus assorted bedtime reading for baby, which I can't list in full but included:
Tom Baker - The Boy Who Kicked Pigs
Tim Burton - The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy: And Other Stories
Spike Milligan - The Essential Spike Milligan
Lewis Caroll - Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass
Edward Lear - A Book of Bosh: Lyrics and Prose of Edward Lear
Roger Hargreaves - Mr Men: My Complete Collection
Eric Carl - The Very Hungry Caterpillar & The Very Quiet Cricket
Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler - A Squash and a Squeeze, The Gruffalo etc
Roald Dahl - The Twits, George's Marvellous Medicine, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator and Danny Champion of the World

Labels: Literature

:: Dan 31.12.11 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Back from the dead, gusset blog lives! Please note that this blog has been superseded by the gusset tumblr but that the long neglected gusset.co.uk website is currently undergoing a major revamp, he says hopefully. To whet your appetite for the new year, here’s my traditional annual reading list post and some short commentary.

Charlie Ayers - Eat Yourself Smart Rare I read a cookery book cover to cover but this one has enough of interest to do just that
Dave Simpson - The Fallen I’ve fallen massively for The Fall in the last year or so and this book is an essential guide, if only the editions could keep up with the line-up changes
Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan One of his best
Jean-Dominique Bauby - The Diving Bell & the Butterfly Not as dislikeable a character as the reviews would have it, absorbing read
Isaac Asimov - Second Foundation Read out of sheer determination more than anything, little to recommend it
Dr. Paul Parsons, Martin Rees, Susan Blackmore - 30 Second Theories Good bathroom book
Kurt Vonnegut - A Man Without A Country Very good collection of essays and short stories. The opening piece by his son tells a lot.
Lawrence Pomeroy - The Mini Story - Out of print story behind the design classic, for those interested in the mechanics only
David A. Vise - The Google Story Seems very out of date now, things are almost changing too fast here, see The Fallen
SPQR - Identity Protection – Nice little self-published number with some handy fake cash
Bill Drummond – 45 If Drummond isn’t one of your art heroes you should read this and re-evaluate your opinion, in my opinion
Augoyard / Torgue – Sonic Experience: A Guide to Everyday Sounds A dry academic work but a useful reference
Alison Benjamin & Brian McCullum - A World Without Bees They’re gone! No, it’s ok, they’re back again
Carly Wong - Post Box Portrait Another self-published work and one that has got Carly a lot of attention, go girl!
Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man And The Sea My first Hemmingway and definitely not the last
Mark Simmons - Bristol Black & White Beautiful photo book, sadly missing one amazing shot that he dared not include as shown during his lectures, hopefully later editions will right this
Bob Dylan - Chronicles (Vol 1) Fascinating writing style, as engrossing and enigmatic as his songs, I really hope there’s a Vol 2 on the way
Kurt Vonnegut - Armageddon in Retrospect Another great Veonnegut collection, although I’ve read some many this year they are now blurring
Charles Stross - Accelerando A rare abandoned read but I just couldn’t get into this, for too clichéd
J.G. Ballard - Empire of the Sun A brilliant dramatized story but I was a little disappointed to find out later how far it strayed from his real life experiences
Jon Ronson - Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness Not one of Ronson’s best but by separating it from reading close to the others (at Spokesy’s suggestion) it was much more enjoyable for it. “MONTY!”
Charles Jencks - Bizarre Architecture Dated photography of crazy buildings
Philip K. Dick - The Game Players of Titan Dick on cruise control but the usual invigorating torrent of ideas
Andrew M. Butler - The Pocket Essential Philip K. Dick Handy reference, although the plot summaries are simplified to the point they all seem the same. Maybe they are?
Kurt Vonnegut - Welcome to the Monkey House Thanks to Sarah for the loan. Some of these stories really stick with me
Louis & Joe Borgenicht - The Baby Owner's Manual The most readable baby care book I’ve found, not the most detailed reference tool but good starting point and easy to dip in and out of
Kevin Meredith - 52 Photographic Projects Lots of ideas to try in future, as childcare permits!
Gore Vidal - Myron Interesting but not amazing, less disappointing ending that Myra and good to see the character back but not outstanding
Kate Pollard - Totterdown Rising Considering the convoluted (and still ongoing!) planning arguments in this area this is a very readable summary of what happened during the road building period of the '60s and '70s and its effects on a community
Kurt Vonnegut - Galápagos Took a while to get into this one but enjoyable
Mary Shelley - Frankenstein Interesting to see all of the character background that is always missed out of screen versions, but light on detail and heavy on the illness and fainting. We may be desensitised these days but there are only so many times I can read that the creature is “too gruesome for words / for human eyes to behold” without getting annoyed that it is never described.

Previous: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Labels: Literature

:: Dan 7.1.11 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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A Terry Gilliam original presented to photographer/assistant director Mark Egerton on completion of 12 Monkeys. Picture taken at Mark's "Images" exhibition at Photographique in Bristol, 11-24 Feb 2010. He's a thoroughly nice chap and hopefully doesn't mind me posting this here. Please follow the link to his site and check out his work.

I've just been reminded of this by the publication of Sylvain Margaine's book, Forbidden Places: Exploring Our Abandoned Heritage, which among many other fascinating abandoned spaces includes shots of the power plant used in the film, with 12 Monkeys stencils still sprayed over it.

Review spotted in the Jan 19 issue of the IET's E&T magazine.



And while I'm on the subject, check out the current issue's analysis of mash-up cultures potential in buisness:



"Different meanings and applications of mash-ups."

"Mash-ups are widely available for public use on the Internet, but are only just beginning to fulfil their potential in business environments. Organisations are looking at ways in which they can integrate mash-ups with existing software to display information collected from multiple data sources in order to aid business efficiency."

"Maps used to be simply scaled-down aerial diagrams of places containing navigational information. Now they contain layers of changing digital information, and it's a serious management issue, E&T explores."

"Mashup standards: crucial to enterprise acceptance"

"Mashup tools: enterprise enablers for the mashed age"

"Open-source ideas. Want to tap into new business? The old way was to brainstorm, but that's so last year. Today we set up reward-based 'ideagoras' - effectively a 'mash-up' management strategy. And it works."

"When Web 2.0 sneezes, everyone gets sick. Web 2.0 facilitates greater communication. But where consumers gather, so will the fraudsters and patterns are emerging on how fraudsters are utilising the weaknesses in social networks and Web 2.0."

The day I hear a board director in my office use the phrase mash-up I will fall off of my wheely chair. It doesn't look like this but I like the picture.


[source]

Labels: Art, Film, FOSS, Maps, Mash-up, Photography, Technology, Urban Exploring, web 2.0

:: Dan 29.3.10 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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:: Dan 29.3.10 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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