one quick snakebite

I cropped out the reason the dog was allowed to be so cavalier with the snake.

Moon Duo, Mazes
My Morning Jacket, Circuital
Thomas McGuane, Driving on the Rim
Fucked Up, David Comes to Life
Oneida, Absolute II

Video Game Design Camp: I'm making teenagers make their own video games, which is like urging narcissists to ground their own mirrors. Some are bogging down in the details, others are attempting to be disruptive, a couple aren't sure if they know what they are doing. The full spectrum of teenaged life. Teaching them this is like saying, here is how your native language, that I don't really understand myself, works. Just as well, their insults are terrible.

I've never read Thomas McGuane before Driving on the Rim. I've read that his early ones, particularly Ninety Degrees in the Shade, are lacerations of America the way folks did it back in the 70's, and that his mid-career ones like Nothing But Blue Skies are lovelier, rhapsodic looks at Bein' Out West. He's also written a nonfiction book names Some Horses which sounds so corny it might just work. I've never read any of those, and I'm starting to feel like I may never finish this one, a book in possession of all these traits. It's one of those books where I'm loving every minute I read it, just not every day that it's taking me.

I feel that same way about every Oneida album I've heard, and will probably feel that way about this new one on the bus ride home. Mazes by Moon Duo is my favorite album of 2011. There is almost nothing there except for a glowing, perfect, ember of the campfire of rock and roll. It is like one quick snakebite: succinct.