Author: alexander

Drinker of bad wine and writer of many things. Alexander writes fiction, manages a team of SEOs, and dabbles in food history. He also has a Doctorate in North American Religion and Culture and used to teach at Concordia University.

Categories
Books

Looks like it will a good year, in reading at least

It’s late July and that dastardly summer heat wave is finally over, which means I can get back to being a human and acting like one, rather than hiding in the shade all day reading books. Enemy of the sun, pavement and all other things that give off heat (including the very air itself some days) my apartment became a four room cave of hell, with my only recluse fleeing to Second Cup, the mall or the movies. With my wallet groaning at all the added strain that iced coffee has caused it, I’ve been reduced to counting pennies and paying for film passes with exact change.

Yet, despite the reality that my body was never made to endure this sort of tropical weather we’ve been “enjoying” ( hey, we live in Canada, I only bought tickets for terrible winters, not summers too) it hasn’t been as soul destroying as I may have been making it out to be. I have, after all, managed to plow my way through over 22 books so far this years (more than my previous last year total) and show little sign of giving up. Calming down, sure, but there’s still five months of days left in this year and if I can even remotely keep up my pace I should be hitting some sort of personal milestones along the way.

Though, realistically, the summer always contributes more to my book knock-out tally than the rest of the year combined, largely due to the absence of evening classes and all the reading time they generally require. As exciting ancient texts, commentaries and ethnographic studies are, they aren’t as easy to burn through as all the trashy fiction, Stephen King and other nonsense that make up my usual fare, or entirely eligible for reading list tallies, since they, in effect, are part of other tallies issued by my classes. Competing tallies? Perhaps.

Regardless, it looks like it should be a good year, at least when it comes to reading. The weather, well that’s another beast altogether.

Categories
Updates

Seth Rogen Movies

I realized the other day when I was sitting down in front of the television going over the stack of movies I recently bought that almost all of them are comedies and almost all of them feature Seth Rogen. Somehow that man has not only become identified as one of the premier faces in comedy these days, but also apparently stars in the type of comedies that I’ll buy off Amazon the moment they for $2.50. The strangest thing is that it all just sort of happened; it’s not like there was any sort of concentrated effort on my part to expand my Seth Rogen film collection.

Heck, I don’t even think that had anyone asked me that I would have even said I was a big fan of it. However, evidence is beginning to point to the contrary. Oh my.

For the three of you out there who don’t know who Seth Rogen is, he’s that funny looking Jewish guy with goofy teeth and a big fro that first appeared as the cameraman helping Veronica Corningstone film the kitty beauty contest in Anchorman. After that he got a break as the stock guy working at Smart Tech alongside Steve Carell in the 40 Year old Virgin. From there he’s pretty much been in 2-3 movies a year, most of them either directed or produced by Judd Apatow.

I suspect it all has something to do with fellows like Apatow who have cornered the market on raunchy, rude, and ridiculous young adult comedies these days, especially considering that Kevin Smith doesn’t really seem to care anymore. Yet regardless of Apatow’s writing, directing and producing promiscuity these days he probably wouldn’t have been able to pull it all off without someone like Seth Rogen who combines perfect line delivery and some mighty good improvisation. Also he looks funny, which certainly helps since as humans we haven’t really lost out taste for seeing fat guys get hit in the face with flying objects.

Categories
Tabs

Guitar Tab – Electric President – Safe and Sound

This is an updated tab from the original one I submitted to ultimate-guitar a few months ago. Being as that site constantly voided any corrections I added to the tab, I figured it would be nice if people could find it one way or another.

As usual, WordPress likes to mess with formatting, so I uploaded a cleaner version of the tab in a text file.

The base key is A. Using this key, the chords are as follows:

E A D G B e
A x 0 2 2 2 0
E 0 2 2 1 0 0
D x x 0 2 3 2
F#m 2 4 4 2 2 2

Alternatively, you can play this with Capo 2 as such:

E A D G B e
G 3 2 0 0 3 3
D x x 0 2 3 2
C x 3 2 0 1 0
Em 0 2 2 0 0 0

Anyways, here’s how it looks without a capo. The chords change at the end of each line, but you can easily listen along to the song and figure it out since it follows the same pattern most of the time.

(Piano Chord Opening) A-A-A-A

A E
you took your hits, wear the bruises on the soles of your feet
D
well, whos to say if they’re deserved?
F#m
but you’re turning reckless now, I hear you saying through your teeth,
A
that you’ll take them down first
E
but I saw you flinch when the doctors got their claws in you
D
I saw your smile start to crack
F#m
it’s not so funny when you’re sunk and there ain’t nothing you can do
D
when your options are all dead ends
A
when there’s no way out
E D
I’ll let you build your home in me until the clocks run down
A
when your luck’s run out
E D
call me and I will come and fix you, get your feet on the ground
A
when there’s not way out
E A
call me and I will come and bury you, all safe and sound

A-A-A-A (power chords)

D A E
all this time, you’ve been drifting out with the tide, my friend
D A E
but you can have what’s mine, if it helps you stay afloat
D A E
if I close my eyes, it’s ’cause I can’t watch you drown anymore, my friend
D A E
but I’ll tell you lies if it helps you sleep at night
D A E
and the more we fight, the more we don’t get right, my friend
D A E
the more we fight, the more we don’t get right

A E D
I heard they broke you, that you gave in
F#M
that you dropped and the the fight had left you
A E D
but don’t you worry, it makes no difference
F#M
from the start your options were all dead ends
D A
when there’s no way out
E D
I’ll let you build your home in me until the clocks run down
A
when your luck’s run out
E D
call me and I will come and fix you, get your feet on the ground
A
when there’s no way out
E
call me and I will come and bury you, all safe and sound

The original submission can be found at http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/e/electric_president/safe_and_sound_crd.htm