Let's Go Steal Some Gasoline

The picture is the Israeli artwork for the Stones' Tumbling Dice single. All of you can be my partners in crime.

As part of my wholly undeserved but entirely appreciated assortment of graduation gifts, I was given a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble, which is about as great as it gets. And I rocked that thing too, the card was good for $100.00 and I managed to work it so that the final total, after taxes and the 10% discount, was a nickle. Because all of you are interested in everything that I do, my final selections were as follows:


The Road- Cormac McCarthy. I found a paperback copy without Oprah's "monstrous seal" upon it. Which was definitely a prerequisite for buying it.

Three Novels- Samuel Beckett. The three novels are Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable. One of the great accomplishments of the twentieth century that I, embarrasingly, haven't read.

God is Not Great- Christopher Hitchens. I'm about halfway through it, and the writing is as good as one expects from the great contrarian, even if some of his targets are little more than fish in barrels.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets- J.K. Rowling. My least favorite Harry Potter book, but the one I was missing in hardback.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II- Alan Moore. I really needed a copy. Hopefully there's no chance of another terrible movie being made from this franchise.

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth- Grant Morrison. My five (or six, depending on how you count the two sequential Loeb arcs) favorite Batman stories:
1. The Dark Knight Returns- Frank Miller
2. Year One- Frank Miller
3. The Killing Joke- Alan Moore
4. The Long Halloween and Dark Victory- Jeph Loeb
5. Arkham Asylum- Grant Morrison


I include links to Amazon so all of you can join my infernal book club. Don't worry, it's all part of the masterplan.
All in all, a good haul. I also hit Borders, looking for the last two volumes of Transmetropolitan, which have been surprisingly difficult to find lately. I found book 10, but I'm still missing 9. I also bought the collection of Alan Moore's uncollected DC stories, which includes his amazing Superman stories, For The Man Who Has Everything and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, as well as the Killing Joke (which I already had). More or less essential.

House was pretty good last night, although I'm having a harder time caring about whether or not Forman leaves than I probably should. My sister wasn't surprised that I was taken with a story about a young punk who plays chess... I will say that back when I played chess competively (and managed to just keep my head above water by taking out the kids who didn't belong there and pulling off rare upsets of kids much, much better at the game than I will ever be) that smashing another kid's head in with a clock was a temptation that I only barely managed to resist.

The post's title is from a song by A3 called "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlife" (A Dylan reference I couldn't pass up, and a pretty decent song). A3 is mainly known for "Woke Up This Morning", the theme to the Sopranos.