Negative One Sip!

So last week I finished my first book of the semester for my English 355 class "American Prose."
"The American" is a classic novel by Henry James about a wealthy man named "Newman" symbolically standing for "New Man." This book involves the merging of 19th century aristocratic French culture with American culture. Newman has acheived the American dream of starting from nothing and accumulating great wealth, once doing that he has found himself overseas in Paris to become "cultured." Unfortunately Newman does nothing of the sort, if anything he pushes culture upon the stuck up Marquis of Paris and they simply reject him. The main problem of the book is that Newman has fallen in love with a beautiful widowed woman who is incredibly sheltered by her Mother and two brothers. Newman cannot fully comprehend why they would not want him to marry her as a result of all his wealth- to him money can buy everything. The plot twists and turns with lies, murder, and deception, but I'll stray from getting into that in an effort not to spoil a book you probably will never read!

However, I think if you get around to it, maybe America can throw down their copies of "Twilight" and get into a classic that will actually do more than entertain with hot vampire sex. Hmm, actually I've been meaning to get into that book. I'm sure its good as well as thirlling. It's also great when a book gets so big among kids in todays culture, it's like a CD selling big (kind of).


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SO recently I downloaded Ben Nichols of Lucero 's solo album "The Last Pale Light in The West"



This folk album is beautiful. It's Lucero without the harsh electric guitars that usually grind against Nichols' vocals present. So if you liked "The War" By Lucero, you'll probably appreciate these tracks. The classic folk chords bounce off the acoustic guitar accompanied by a harmonica help showcase his voice on a whole new pedestal formulating seven different versions of "The War," "Across The RIver," and "Mine Tonight" by Lucero, only upbeat (well musically, not lyrically)

There's only seven tracks, but all are memorable. My two favorite tracks are "The Judge" (instrumental) and "Davy Brown."

Here is a video I found on Youtube of Davy Brown Featuring Chuck Ragan of Against Me! I saw this tour this past fall at the Middle East.





OH AND...