Views from Medina Road

My summer cold has passed with no complications -- no chest cold, cough, etc. -- and I am coming back up to speed. Today is mailing day for the new issue of the magazine, so I was diligent to post the new issue pages today, as has become the practice, though they send me the files and pics a week or more earlier (when the office staff completes the issue and sends files to the printer).

Finally finished the month's monitor-reprint pages, 'new in paperback' and 'classic reprints'. I'm getting more diligent about seeking out expected reprints, mainly by closely parsing the complete forthcoming books lists that the magazine staff compiles, and printing out a 'shopping/spotting list' to take with me on my semiweekly rounds to Borders and Barnes & Noble. I've become so efficient that monthly updates to these pages seem insufficient; there are enough items to post a couple pages in each category a month. Already, today, I've seen several more items for those pages... but those items will have to wait for the next updates.

I see Jonathan has a new look.

Was pleased to see today this Salon article about my favorite singer/band that almost no one else has ever heard of, Neil Finn and his brother Tim and their former band Crowded House. I've alluded to his songs before ("straw daylight desire"). I'm still curious about an aspect of Neil's songs I've never seen discussed (not even in this Salon article) -- the fascinating 'pendant' melodies (as I think of them) which occur at the ends of some songs, after the principal melody has resolved, when Neil launches into a new melody altogether, usually very simple and even minimalist, which decorates and spices and illuminates the main song. Primary example: "Catherine Wheels":

She's gone
vanished in the night
broke off the logic of light
...

Or from what I still think (despite the current album) is Neil's best album, One Nil, the final song, "Into the Sunset".

And I'm away from home
And it's a way of life
...

But you'd have to hear them to understand.