Forthcoming inspirations

To commence my packing for the cruise ship, I tackled the most arduous part of it: the media I'll be sequestered with for nearly three months. During my undergrad I grew out of the habit of pleasure reading, which I hope to rectify on board.

Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities (currently being read); Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Idiot; Notes From the Underground & The Double; George Orwell - 1984 (no, I haven't read this yet, I know, shame on me); Rainer Maria Rilke - Letters To A Young Poet; Jack Kerouac - The Dharma Bums.

I won't bore you with the full list of CDs I'm taking, but a quick summary include my "desert island" standbys of Herbie Hancock - Speak Like A Child and Thrust, Chick Corea's Now He Sings Now He Sobs, and Jaco's self-titled debut, as well as the requisite dose of Billy Joel, Keith Jarrett, Bruce Hornsby, and hip-hop (K-os' Joyful Rebellion). I'm also taking some CDs I have recently acquired and need to immerse myself in (John Hollenbeck's A Blessing, Bob Brookmeyer's Waltzing With Zoe, a disc of Ligeti chamber music), and discs I've neglected for far too long (A Love Supreme, Mingus Ah Um, Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth, Beethoven's "Eroica" as conducted by Bernstein, and Shostakovich's Piano Concerti #1 and #2).

And in case there are readers unfamiliar with Darcy James Argue, check out his latest set from the Bowery Poetry Club. Fantastic.