2021: Personal Message Board

Just posted my roster of the best reads of 2020. Have a look:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2021/01/06/best-books-read-in-2020-the-roundup

Anyone else have a list to post?

My picks for the best films I saw in 2020:

https://cinemaarete.wordpress.com/2021/01/07/best-films-watched-in-2020

A Canadian literary publication reviews my short story collection ELECTRIC CASTLES: A BOOK OF URBAN LEGENDS:

https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/electric-castles-by-cliff-burns

1) I don't know how to break this to you gently but I feel obliged to break off our engagement. We have so little in common. I've read none of those books, only 3 or 4 of those authors (+1 if I count a book of Chatwin's photographs), and haven't heard of most of either.

2) Goodness your book sounds like a lot of fun. Something I'll certainly consider getting.

I'll try to come up with my own list.

#4 Great reply.

My tastes often veer wayyyy off the beaten track so your observation is valid.

I try to draw attention to material that might dip below most folks' radar and avoid escapism like a sucking black hole, both in my reading AND my writing.

Look forward to seeing YOUR list.

Just posted about my recent hip replacement and its aftermath:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2021/01/18/man-reassembling

>6 CliffBurns: Oh my, I am getting ready to celebrate my 5th year post implant!!!! I had broken my hip at work 6 years ago, they were able to put it together, and when I was able to finally walk I realized I wasn't right. Had Avascular Narcosis, which keeps blood flowing to the bone. So got my implant and oh my. First thought I had when waking up was the surprise to have really no pain (aside from the surgery itself) They started me up and walking almost right away and I remember the pt saying 'quit limping' oh, I didn't have to do that any more! There have been ups and downs but the latter became less and less till I really was myself again. Well except now my knees are hurting but thats another story.

Anyway, listen to your dr, do whatever your PT tells you to do, medicate only so you keep a head of the pain but reduce the amount and times asap, and get up and move!!! (My problem is that I am always sitting reading, or on the computer; I have to force myself up and out and am always glad I do!

as for favs of 2020

Had the best reading year in ages: over 60 books, discovered new authors, and lots of great reads

Favorite new to me author: N.K. Jemisin, Celest Ng, Ted Chang

Favorite Fantasy series
Stone Sky trilogy,
The poppy war

Favorite Fantasy stand alone:
A Night in the Lonesome October
How You Lose the Time War

Favorite Historic fiction
Mirror and the Light
Queen of Swords
Daughter of Time
Favorite Hstoric Fiction no one has heard ofA Man on a Donkey

Favorite Sci Fi
Pride and Prometheous

Non Fiction
Mobituaries
A More Heavenly sphere
Mantel Pieces
Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon

Favorite Short Stories
Stories of your Life Ted Chiang

Favorite Children's book for adults too: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Biggest disappointment
Starless Sea
Clemintine

Favorite General Fiction

Little fires everywhere
Girl Woman Other
let Nothing You Dismay
Hamnet
Dutch House
The Pull of the Stars
Finding Dorothy
Great Migrations
The Vanishing Half

and those are just the 5 starred!

Just noticed that I have passed the milestone of having contributed 900 reviews to LT!

That's an impressive achievement, Robert. Thanks for your contributions to our odd, little community of bibliophiles.

21st Century Problems:

Yesterday I had to go out and buy a new mobile phone. The new one comes with Google Assistant on-board.

This morning, I must've activated it when I slipped the phone into my shirt pocket. The next thing I knew, my phone was trying to engage Radio 4 in conversation!

Voice on Radio 4: "Well, what do YOU think?"
Phone: "I think about a lot of things. Today, I'm mainly thinking about supernovas."

I for one welcome the advent of our AI overlords.

Welcome to the surveillance state, Robert. Your synapses are being scanned at this very moment.

Better keep your thoughts pure and your ideology disguised.

Getting a few things off my chest:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2021/02/23/mutant-thoughts-i

A message in verse form to some of the most annoying arseholes I've encountered:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2021/03/03/a-poem-for-wannabe-writers-other-mi...

The cover of my latest book:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2021/04/04/notebooks-2010-2020-the-cover-revea...

>15 CliffBurns: Meanwhile, I've just finished the one before that. That's a nice collection, Cliff; perhaps a bit more suburban than urban at times, but what's in a subtitle? In any case, our idea of the 'urban' now embraces our consensus reality of the media space, and the stories that touch on that have a chill air of weirdness breaking in unnoticed. And some of those stories are more about finding the fantastic in the everyday. Good stuff.

"...some of those stories are more about finding the fantastic in the everyday."

You nailed it, Robert.

Thanks for showing support for my work over the years.

I'm very, very grateful.

My son just released an EP through a label he and two high school friends started years ago. Indie to the core.

You can have a listen here--there's a great Modest Mouse cover for any fans out there.

https://soundcloud.com/harman-burns

Showing off my new look writing space:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2021/05/14/my-new-office-space-and-a-new-begin...

>19 CliffBurns: Beautiful! I'm hoping to be able to set up my own over the summer. Not sure I'll be able to manage something as impressive as the Joyce wall, but I'll continue to come back to your photo and admire from afar!

Last month I won €50 worth of books from a book shop. That's the personal bit--and my excuse for the link to a rather arresting book description which is, given what I know of the shop, very likely not a selling ploy; https://www.thesecretbookstore.ie/collections/art-photography/products/where-am-....

>20 KatrinkaV: It's delightful. Custom designed for me. I'm in heaven.

>20 KatrinkaV: Custom-designed for me. Couldn't be happier, I'm in heaven.

One from the heart:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2021/06/09/remember-a-poem-for-the-nostalgic-a...

I decided to retire the blog, but after a couple of weeks decided I enjoyed writing about sf books too much... so I started up a new on on Medium. This time I'm doing one book per post. Five posted so far...

See https://ian-93054.medium.com/

Congratulations on the new blog, Ian. I've long argued that an intelligent, well-read, literary critical community is still lacking on the web (too much fan-dumb and too many wannabes), so it's great that you're continuing to add your voice.

The long version of my review of Bastani's FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY COMMUNISM, alluded to in this month's book discussion:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2021/08/12/fully-automated-luxury-communism-by...

My youngest kid just uploaded a new song and video on YouTube.

It is a brilliant rendition of Cat Power's "Metal Heart" and you can hear it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZq7bkFHHhU

Just welcomed our third grandchild into the world, everyone doing fine.

The little brute was 11 days overdue--keeping us all in suspense.

Congrats on the new "edition" to your family, Cliff.

Posted a little paean to free speech:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2021/10/20/for-dave-chappelle-and-other-champi...

My review of "Dune":

https://cinemaarete.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/dune-the-review/

As I posted earlier today on social media...

"They fuck it up, the Twitterati
They may not mean to, but they do
They rediscover all the flaws in Dune that be
And add Hollywood's on top as if they're new"

With apologies to Philip Larkin...

Ah, well done.

The Twitterverse allows people to be intolerant assholes in 160 characters or less.

Every so often I break away from fiction and write lyrics to a song. My friend Laird has put music to six or seven of them and this is our latest:

https://soundcloud.com/user-761317347/ballad-of-the-may-queen?si=afef5ee169cf4ee...

Now, why I continually write tunes like a 90-year-old hardscrabble farmer from Appalachia is a subject that I must take up in therapy some day. Murder ballads and homages to George Jones, that's my oeuvre.

>35 CliffBurns: You are in good company, Cliff. The late Clive James had excursions into poetry, but some of them were song lyrics, written for his friend Pete Atkin. Some were slightly scurrilous satirical songs aimed at the music industry of the day, and others were not.

Perhaps the most memorable of them is 'The Joker', a song of angst voiced by a senior Mafioso which foreshadows 'The Sopranos' by some twenty or more years. I first heard it on one of John Peel's late-night radio shows in the 1970s and never knew what it was for years, only that I remembered the recurring refrain - "I cut the pack, I see the Joker". I only looked it up after Peel's untimely passing, and then went out and hunted down the Pete Atkin albums.

Well, I ain't no Clive James but I do my best.

Making ambient music, painting, writing songs...they provide a welcome break from the rigors of daily writing. I just wish the results were more accomplished. My painting, in particular, is pretty shoddy but I do love making a bloody great mess.

New poem on my blog:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2021/11/06/new-poem-7/

This is a cover version of Psychic TV's "Godstar"--a song and video by "Plasticine Cowboy" (my youngest kid).

Absolutely stunning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H-B9NG0GVM

The latest from my youngest--handling both visuals and music, definitely taking their mother's side of the family, in terms of talent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsaij_xXaR4

Yes, there really was a St. Nick:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-gospel-of-st-nicholas

Best wishes and season's greetings to one and all:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com

I am completely negligent and useless when it comes to promoting my books.

So my oldest son took matters into his own hands and this is what he came up with:

https://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2022/01/01/2022-a-new-hope/