Random Thursday

Scattershooting while making frantic preparations to defend the Gazette against the inevitable attack by WikiLeaks sympathizers who are targeting high profile websites.

While most people probably look for novels to read during summer vacations, the year-end holiday season is also a good excuse to look for some light reading, especially when curled up by a fire and accompanied by a steaming mug of coffee as a howling north wind propels tumbleweeds across the front porch. If you agree, here are a few recommendations.

Tim Dorsey authors an ongoing series of semi-related, genre-busting novels set primarily in Florida. They’re what you might get if you mashed up Florida Monthly, True Crime, and Mad Magazine. Or, if you prefer movie metaphors, they’re the result of retaining the Coen Brothers and Monty Python to remake Scarface. If a series of books whose primary recurring character is a serial killer can be described as delightfully zany, then Dorsey has nailed it. I’ve read Triggerfish Twist, The Stingray Shuffle, and Hammerhead Ranch Motel (and I’m starting on the latest offering, Gator a-Go-Go), and they’ve been uniformly entertaining and ever-so-slightly disturbing…in other words, the perfect mindless reading choice as an antidote to the holiday frenzy. (Now, here’s something weird. The preceding links lead to Amazon.com’s website because even though I’ve download all of these titles to my iPad via Apple’s iBook Store within the last two months, iBooks no longer lists any of Dorsey’s books. Would love to know the story behind that. Update: OK, the iBooks store once again has the books.)

If “action thrillers” are more to your liking, check out Whitley Strieber’s Critical Mass. Be forewarned, however, that this novel is almost too realistic in its depiction of a scenario in which radical Islamic terrorists literally take the world hostage. Strieber goes to great lengths to describe the mindset and motivation of jihadist Muslims, and the effect is chilling. His eye for technical details, ala Tom Clancy, adds a riveting context to a complex and all-too-plausible plot. (I read this one in good old fashioned treeware form, from the Midland public library no less. What a quaint experience!)

Then there’s Jim Butcher’s Side Jobs: Stories From the Dresden Files. Harry Dresden is Chicago’s only professional private investigator who also happens to be a wizard (as in Harry Potter, not Gilbert Arenas). Side Jobs is a collection of short stories and one novella describing Butcher’s battle with the supernatural forces of evil that inhabit the spirit world of Chicago, although, inexplicably, he never strays into Chicago politics. Too scary, I guess. Anyway, the stories are infused with humor and all the elements of good fantasy, and are mostly PG-rated in style. There’s a whole series of Harry Dresden novels, and this book is a good way to gauge your ongoing interest.

Let’s talk music for a minute, as long as we’re on the subject of holiday diversions. The “Pick of the Week” at Starbucks is a free iTunes download of Pink Martini‘s arrangement of the Christmas standard, We Three Kings. I sampled it last night, along with other cuts from the group’s new “nondenominational holiday” album, Joy to the World, and I was pleasantly surprised by the unique arrangements of some old favorites, and the inclusion of some songs I’d never before heard.

For example, Elohai, N’tzor is based on the Jewish Amida, the “Standing Prayer,” there’s a version of White Christmas sung in Japanese, Auld Lang Syne is set to a rollicking samba beat, Ocho Kandelikas is a tango combination of Spanish and Hebrew, Silent Night has verses in its original German, as well as verses in Arabic and in English, and the familiar Carol of the Bells is presented in its original Ukrainian form of Shchedryk.

If you’re a Christmas purist, this is perhaps not the best choice, but if you enjoy hearing different takes on the holiday season, this is a great addition to your collection. And for those of us for whom Christmas is all about Jesus, the multi-ethnic approach to the album is an actual (however unintentional) reminder of the universal Gift that God gave to the world, manifested in the Savior’s birth.

And, finally, give a listen to Colt Ford‘s Chicken and Biscuits and decide whether it represents all that’s wrong with country music today (A duo with rapper DMC? A song called Hip Hop in a Honky Tonk, featuring Amarillo native Kevin Fowler?) or if it’s the embodiment of how country artists can embrace changing musical tastes without losing those “down home” roots. As for me, I just happen to think it’s a lot of fun.