1974

Over at the Filmspotting forum, they do this thing which is a bit hard to explain . . . collectively, we all pick a past year, and then we watch a lot of the movies (focusing, of course, on the ones that seem to be the best). Then we participate in discussions & votes, and eventually grant awards. The typical stuff, mostly—Best Picture, Best Director, etc.—along with a few more interesting ones like Best Line.

I'm enough of a non-film-geek that the last time they did this, it sounded lame. But I'm enough of a geek that this time, it sounds interesting. So, we've picked 1974, and I'm going to go along for the proverbial ride. To some extent, at least—we'll see how many movies I watch for it, and how much I participate in the discussion.

Stumbling start

I had really expected to post a lot more than this, but in January my "hard drive" (actually a supposedly redundant RAID array) failed and I lost a lot of stuff. Music, movies, all kinds of stuff. It took me a while to get some of it back, and longer still to get over the feeling of (what I can only call) betrayal that the whole episode caused. I'm pretty well back in the saddle now, listening to a lot of new music, etc. But I'm just now getting back to this. I'm actually going to start with a quick movie review, because I was already doing it for another site. But I'm hoping I'll have the focus to start posting music reviews directly.

They is, they is, they is . . .

It wasn't my first choice for a title, nor was it my second, third, or fifteenth. But I'm about 5 or 10 years late to the blogging party, and all the names I wanted have been taken. I have to admit, though, that I'm pretty happy with the name I did stumble across. "Bullet in the Brain" is the title of a Tobias Wolff story from The Night in Question. It is the story of a savage literary critic who gets shot in the head, and among other things, comes to remember what he loved about language in the first place. Obviously I don't expect (or, I hope, need) anything so dramatic. But (1) it's a great story, and (b) the name is at least a bit apropos. And at least as importantly, it wasn't taken.
_____________________________

This blog represents my intention to fulfill a year-old resolution. At the beginning of 2010, I decided to start writing regular album reviews. It is now New Year's 2011, and I'm finally started. I have this unattainable idea in my head that I'll review an album every week. Frankly, though, if at the end of the year I've reviewed 25 of them, I'll be happy with that. Along the way I'll probably post on other random things as well: movies that I've seen, TV shows that we're watching (we have a tendency to discover shows and then watch them in marathons a season or two at a time), etc.

As far as my musical taste, probably the best thing I can do is point you towards my last.fm profile. That will give you the best idea of what I've been listening to lately, and a pretty decent sense of what I listen to overall. Of course, I'm hoping that the contents of this blog will do the same thing, if not quite as concisely.