Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

Hey! When did this blog get redesigned? I might actually start visiting again! Sorry, OT.

Neil Gaiman is one of those authors whose work goes straight to the Priority section of my to-read bookcase. The others are Terry Pratchett, Tim Powers, and David Drake.

And Mr. DeLong has the perfect, well, you can guess.

If you liked Stardust, you must read American Gods.

And if you liked that, I heartily recommend Expiration Date.

I thought it was a wonderful book, and regret finding him just recently. Of course, the upside is I have found a lot of good stuff to read, but I can't help wishing I had known more about him earlier.

But mediocre tiramisu leaves you sad and wanting.

I do remember my first tiramisu - in the early ninties, in an italian bistro in Santa Barbara, right on State Street.

mmmmm.

(How do I insert line breaks?)

It's a good one ... but how about Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-the-Mist as an alternative contender?

But then Patti's version of "Gloria" is even better...

I enjoyed the illustrator for Stardust, Charles Vess. I have the 4 issues of 'Ballads and Sagas' that he illustrated as well as the portfolio for the series.

I agree with all of Brad's recommendations---space opera, desert, and opera---except the song bit. I mean, "Welcome to the Jungle" really is the best rock-and-roll song ever. Possibly possibly followed by "I Hate Myself for Loving You" and "Paint it Black."

But I have long realized that I have no taste.

I prefer the 10,000 Maniacs version of "Because the Night", myself. Natalie Merchant - need I say more?

Probably, but still.

There are, of course, more than a few competitors for the "perfect rock n' roll song," starting with the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" and working through Derek and the Dominos' "Layla", Springsteen's "Born to Run", and too many others to list. That's a debate that can go on for an eternity.

The Perfect Dessert is Chocolate Tequila Sorbet, the signature dessert of Taqueria Poblano in the Del Ray section of Alexandria, VA. That is all.

Fiffle. The perfect novel of faerie is
Diana Wynne Jones's _Fire and Hemlock_.

Notwishstanding my deep admiration of Gaiman, I strongly recommend Faerie tale by raymond Fiest as the ultimate novel of the Good Folk.

Little, Big! Little, Big! Little Freakin' Big, by John Crowley!! it's only about 10,000 times better than Gaiman's Stardust. Hell, I like Pratchett's Lords and Ladies better. but back to the point: LITTLE, BIG!!!

Lord Dunsany, The King of Elfland's Daughter.

That is all.

Don't forget, as a culinary critic Brad DeLong makes a good economist. Can anybody remember the post where he described something new he had discovered to drink, which one respondent (not me) described as a "tisane from hell"?

I hope and trust that his literary taste is not positively correlated with that; I have some grounds for optimism, based on some of his past recommendations I have seen endorsed by others who have previously shown themselves sound.

Well, I will look up the Vernor Vinge book, but I've not been impressed by Neil Gaiman. Too cartoonish for me. I know his background, but I don't think in any of his prose he's gone beyond to become an excellent writer.

I really liked Vinge's A Noun Preposition The Noun books, but I find them both have a certain amount of preachiness. Like, we get beaten over the head in A Deepness In the Sky with the concept that the Emergency is socialism and the Qeng Ho are wonderful, well, you know...(I'm not spoiling anything here.) Not as bad as L. Neil Smith or a couple of other "radical libertarian" SF writers, but I guess I can forgive him since Ursula Le Guin is also preachy in the same way on the other side of the aisle.

I do look forward to finding out what pattern he has been setting to tie Fire and Deepness together.

For, I think, more subtle philosophizing in SF, I still have to say that my favorite is CJ Cherryh.

And I do have to agree with some of Anne's complaints about the new format and the lack of debate here. I don't post here *that* often (though I read regularly), but I remember having very rapid-fire arguments about things like Nader and free trade. In this format (slow upload of posts and preapproval and the time it takes for the post to appear), it seems impossible to do that. Maybe I'm using it wrong?

You and I have very different ideas about opera, I guess. There's some very lush and beautiful music-making on that recording, but opera is music and drama both, and that recording doesn't succeed in making the story come to live for me. A beautiful butterfly that's been caught, killed, and embedded in a sparkling crystal paperweight may be a perfect butterfly in one sense, but in another sense it's no longer a butterfly at all.

Lots more life in the Leinsdorf/Nilsson/Bjorling recording (I may be misspelling some of that) even if the music-making is less polished. Also: The Stokovsky recording is fabulously lively and theatrical, if you can get past the very idea of Stokovsky's skillful but sacrilegious enhancing of Puccini's orchestration.

Actually, the Gobi is the perfect desert (all those fossils, the still-exotic ambience).

I'm agnostic on the question of dessert.

Among Novels of Faerie, my favorite is "The Iron Dragon's Daughter" by Michael Swanwick.

For Space Opera -- most of Iain Banks' Culture books are canonical, especially "Consider Phlebas".

The summit of Rock-&-Roll is occupied, IMHO, by Television's "Marquee Moon".

I don't have an argument with tiramisu.

Don't you respect your distinguished colleague over in the Music Department? Joseph Kerman says Turandot is a "perverted" opera, and he's right. I suppose its possible for there to be a perfect recording of another trashy Puccini opera, but in that case the word "perfect" doesn't quite carry the same weight you intend to give it.