Quickies — Volume 1

A catalog of cool stuff to read, see, and hear

Books

These three are on my read-soon stack, though I don’t offer a precise definition of “soon.” My wife gave me a new clip-on reading light for Christmas, and since these are all physical books, they will all get to try the clip in the new year.

The Potemkin Mosaic, by

Mark Teppo

(a friend I’ve know for many years) is a novel-like narrative about a dream doctor who discovers that someone is editing his mind. It’s the book you might expect if Tim Powers wrote Inception after reading House of Leaves. Teppo also has a newsletter, The Creative Brief, you should check out.

The question of free will has always fascinated me. Given my understanding of the universe and physics, I don’t see how free will can exist, but I certainly feel like I have free will. Sapolsky’s Determined explores what it means if free will doesn’t exist and is just an illusion. I’m looking forward to digging into this.

The Invisible Dragon was a recommendation from

Ted Gioia

, and you can read excerpts in his newsletter, The Honest Broker. The author, Dave Hickey, was a renegade art critic who dared suggest beauty was essential to art. I’ve paged through this a bit and Hickey writes with a wonderful conversational style that veers into sophisticated scholarship whenever it suits him. I can’t wait to read more.

Music

These three albums were all released in 2023 and I heartily recommend each of them. They come from different corners of the music world, but all feature fabulous guitar playing.

Frontier’s Edge by The Budos Band is an instrumental album of 70’s psychedelic fuzz played with a jazzy, funk-rock style. Classic. I will probably write a deeper review/story of this in the future, but you can start priming your ears now. I particularly enjoy the interplay of the horns, guitar, and keys while the bass and drums accentuate the funky rhythms.

Imposter Syndrome by British guitarist Sophie Lloyd is her debut album of original music. Lloyd started as a YouTube prodigy posting “shred versions” of popular rock songs and then went on to tour with Machine Gun Kelly. On this album, though, she ventures out on her own with support from a range of musicians including Lzzy Hale from Hailstorm, Tyler Connolly from Theory of a Deadman, and Marisa Rodriguez from Marisa and the Moths. The songs are rocking and the guitar shredding is immaculate.

In Between Thoughts…A New World by Rodrigo y Gabriela is another great album from these acoustic alchemists, but on this one they bring in the flash of electric guitar and the sweep of orchestral strings. Their style mixes the flavors of flamenco, heavy metal, and jazz into a lovely elixir of sound. Given that the album’s inspiration emerged from the study of nondualism, I feel a future review/story working away in the back of my mind, but you shouldn’t wait until then to enjoy this delightful set of songs.