Invasion of the Killer Brains

Wouldn't that be a great title for a B-movie?  Maybe it already is... but anyway, I'm trying to retrain my brain.  Hard ask with a brain such as mine, but if I'm going to be studying again next year, it's good to get used to reading in an academic type format again... goodbye, sweet novels, I knew you well.

So, that having been said, I'm reading some pretty interesting stuff at the moment.  I mean, it doesn't all have to be stuffy toff reading!  Okay, so I am reading Karl Marx's Theory of History: a defence by G.A. Cohen... maybe not everyone's idea of exciting bedtime reading, but still... makes quite the change from Sookie Stackhouse, that's for sure.  And Fight the Power by Chuck D from Public Enemy (they are touring out to lil' ol' EnnZed next year, and I've always meant to read this book... every time I check it into the library, I try to get it out, but it always has a hold on it.  Not this time though).  Also I've just started Alien Constructions: Science Fiction and Feminist Theory by Patricia Melzer.  Which is super interesting, though it's mostly about SF-type films rather than books.  I'm not fussy though.

Digressing back to SF-esque writing now, despite Ray Bradbury scaring the pants off me when I was a kid (I didn't sleep properly for nearly a month after reading Something Wicked This Way Comes), I still love him.  And I love him even more after reading this article, which was published in the New York Times in June 2009. There has been a lot of kerfuffle in the library community about closures and restrictions and price increases and stuff.  It would be real easy for me to go, 'Aww, that's just the States'... but the fact is that the recession has affected the whole world, which creeps me out no end, you know, how it really is becoming like the economic version of Chaos Theory, where a butterfly flaps it's wings in the Amazon and Wall Street crumbles.  I know it's a lot more complex than that, but it just seems that way to me.

Scary Shit... Look out for the Dust Witch!!

I'm also re-reading the Vampire Chronicles books by Anne Rice, which is solely the fault of this lady.  I have to admit that when I'm reading a novel, I get a bit lost in the story, and don't tend to think about the ramifications of why stuff happens (or why I like what I like, which to a self-absorbed type such as myself, is actually the more interesting question, to me anyway).  But in talking to Robyn, she's made me think a lot more about the narrative, not just the way in which the story is told, but the deeper meaning in the text.  I know that all sounds a bit sixth-form English class, but it's pretty interesting.  Plus we have great conversations about music.

Before this turns into another rant-pants though, I'm gonna sign out and take my cupcakes out of the oven.  It's my buddy's birthday on Tuesday, so me and the Lad are going over for a visit, bringing cupcakes and gifts... I know, right?  Above and beyond.  Good for the karma though!