Google Music, on the other hand, had no problem with my library. It even grabbed all my podcasts. And it keeps synchronizing. But I’ll have to rebuild my playlists out there, though.

So, at this point, it’s Google Music for the win. Between that and Spotify, I’ve always got something good to listen to.

To be fair, I still use iTunes as my media hub. Music, movies, television shows, audiobooks, podcasts, apps . . . they all live there. Google just lets me access it over the network. And Spotify is just damn awesome for discovering new music, sharing with friends, etc.

(For what it’s worth, I still really like LastFM as well.)

My expectations are pretty high. Here’s hoping that the extra time they took to launch was to get it right.

Between a networked song library and my Spotify account, I’ll be one happy little fanboy.

Friday evening…
I’m sitting in my underground lair, tapping away on this much-overdue post with little bit of help from a bottle of hipster tonic water and The Real Tuesday Weld.

It’s been over a year since I gave up alcohol, over a week since I gave up meat. And now I’ve got my eye on caffeine. It looks like my primary addiction might turn out to be cold turkey.

Of course, the lair is probably teeming with all sorts of free radicals and dangerous emissions. If the EMFs don’t get me, then the incense probably will.

Death and Other Exaggerations
Having spent the majority of the day sequestered in meetings, I managed to avoid the mild firestorm of rumors regarding Steve Jobs.

Virtually everything I do professionally and creatively is, in one way or another, implemented using something developed by Apple. Most of the entertainment and media I enjoy comes through those devices as well and, in all likelihood, was created using Apple products or deeply influenced by them.

And while there is a pantheon of exceptional minds at work there, no one disputes that Steve Jobs is the Monad.

His resignation last month wasn’t a surprise. Neither will be the news of his death.

I’ll feel it, when he goes.

I felt a twinge of that earlier this evening, seeing the faint edge of the ripples spreading out from the now-unconfirmed posting from CBS News.

He didn’t just change the world. He changed my world.

And I hope he still is — I hope he still will be — for a long while yet.

Life in a Day
Speaking of life and death, of legacy and loss…

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here, but absolutely the best thing I’ve read in a long, long time is Daytripper by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon. I got a copy for my birthday (appropriately enough from my father*) and, after staying up late and sobbing all the way through it, I promptly gave it away the next day to a visiting friend.

Then I bought a new copy. I’m sure I’ll give that one away as well, in time.

It’s just plain beautiful. You should read it.

At the very least, read my soppy, effusive review of it here on Goodreads.

* You’ll have to read it to understand why.

The Music of the Spheres
About a month ago I got an invite to Spotify and it took me about five minutes to realize that springing for the premium level was a no-brainer.

I have to say, it’s completely revolutionized the way I listen to music.

I don’t just have to say it, I want to say it. And I do, to almost everyone who’s patient enough to listen.

I know when something really, really works when I find myself proselytizing for it everywhere I go.

(And it’s not even an Apple product, so that should be even more persuasive coming from me.)

Giving it Away
I spent last night and tonight getting a load of books ready to ship out. It feels good, signing copies of Assam & Darjeeling and Matters of Mortology, wrapping them up in my secretspecial paper.*

I’m really looking forward to sending them off.

It’s a bit of work but I wanted to get it done ahead of the end of my giveaway on Goodreads. There’s ten copies of each book . . . and there’s almost 2,000 people hoping to win one. That feels good as well. I’d send each and every one of them a copy if I could.

The contest ends this weekend, but there’s still time to enter as well. So why not give it a shot?

*Sorry. You’ll just have to buy a signed copy to find out for yourself.

Where the Heart Is
I noticed a few weeks back that there was a house for sale around the block from where we live. It was a nice big place, lots of character and all I needed was a quick peek in some of the windows to start obsessing over it. A quick peek online only added fuel to the fire.

After a few weeks of meandering by it whenever I happened to have the baby out for her walk, I finally got up the guts to contact the realtor about it . . . and received an immediate reply that the house was already sold.

Mild obsession means only mild disappointment. I shrugged it off and went on, operating under the assumption that the gods would lead us to the right place in the right time.

Just like always.

This evening I took the baby for a walk. Following her directions, she led me straight back to the house.

Helping her climb the front steps so she could peek in the front window, I realized I had only myself to blame.

(It’s worth mentioning that my wife — though more than willing to indulge me — did not share my obsession. She notes that the house “looks like a frog” and that she didn’t like the look of the “scraggly-ass” pine trees out front. She’s right on both counts.)

Where the Heart Is, Part Two
My two oldest children are in Ghana. They’ve been there for over a month and they won’t be back until just before Christmas.

With Skype and Facebook and texting it’s barely manageable. I wish they had a more reliable (and more accessible) Internet connection. I wish they were able to spend more time talking with their baby sister. And I wish teenagers were a little more interested in talking to their boring old dad.

I’d also like it if they spent less time around crocodiles.

But it’s a good experience, travel is a real gift at their age, this sort of adventure is a rare thing and blahblahblah . . . hell. I just miss ‘em.

Preview of a Review
I’ve been reading Scott Roche’s Ginnie Dare and enjoying it. I’m looking forward to writing a proper review once I finish, but you probably won’t go wrong if you just go ahead and check it out. It’s a nice, solid Sci-Fi yarn.

Preview of a Preview
Right now, The Cradle is going through the final round of proofreads. At some point this weekend I’ll record a healthy hunk of it for the next episode of The Gospel of Thomas. Because I’m a tease.

The book goes on sale in October. But you’ll probably want to read Assam & Darjeeling before you pick it up (or listen to the preview on The Gospel of Thomas).

Like the lady said: Spoilers, sweetie.

Review of a Review
And, not too long ago, Odin wrote…

One of the reasons I liked this story so much is that it put me in mind of many of the Russian stories I’ve read. Mr. Camp made me feel like I was once again pouring over the words of Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Karamazov where the story is told by the author with minimal dialogue rounding out the scenes.

It’s not often (i.e. never ever) that my work gets compared to Dostoyevsky. While I don’t feel I deserve the comparison, it made me very happy.

And, of course, you can read, listen to, and buy Matters of Mortology here.

Mercury Rising
Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard more people than ever discussing how the planet Mercury being in retrograde was affecting their lives. That I heard anyone discussing it at all was interesting because, well, it’s something I usually haven’t heard people talk about before. Strangers seemed to bring it up all around me.

Also, many of the people I know personally who bemoaned the effect on their communication, technology and so forth . . . well, it seems to me that they’re usually having trouble with their communication, technology, and so forth all year round.

But poor Mercury gets all the blame.

There are some kinds of music — particularly the harder, harsher speed metal or even some of the more artsy experimental composers — which set my teeth on edge and kickstart the flight-or-fight impulse in me. But I don’t know that I’d classify that response as fear. The stories about Stravinsky and the premiere of his The Rite of Spring, that’s a pretty incredible tale of the visceral power of music. The best exploration I know of on that subject is this excellent RadioLab episode.

But, from time to time, music has actually frightened me — and not because it was cacophonous or atonal/experimental. There was something genuinely frightening about the circumstances surrounding it and it’s stayed with me ever since. Here’s the top three…

When my brother was in high school, he’d listen to music late at night in his room. He had a battery-powered cassette player and the music would keep pace with the amount of charge left in the batteries. The longer they’d gone, the slower the music would become — producing some genuinely creepy effects. I can remember the batteries going dead one night while he was listening to “Radio Clash” and the music just started grinding down, slower and slower> I was asleep in my room and I could hear, faintly, “Thiis . . . isss . . . the Raaaadiooo . . . Classsshhhh…” drifting across the hallways, just barely audible.

And then he rewound the tape and listened to it again. Joe Strummer’s laugh at the beginning was chilling and I drifted off into half-waking dreams of a demon band, moping their way through the slow-motion tune. Creepy.

And then there was the night, years later, when I was up late writing. I’d recently discovered the music of Glenn Gould and it was just about the only thing I would listen to. As I said, it was late and I was alone in the apartment, working on a particularly difficult segment for a play that I’d been commissioned to write. It was quiet and I had Glenn Gould on, very low and repeating the album over and over again.

A few hours into writing, I realized that I could hear a voice, low and measured, just on the edge of consciousness. I got up and checked around the apartment — nothing. A while later, the voice edged its way back into my consciousness again. Once again, I got up and checked around, looked outside — nothing.

I stood there, listening.

There. The voice rose and fell again, very low.

I switched off the music to hear better. Nothing.

Turning the music back on, the voice began again and I realized that the voice was on the music, on the recording. I did not know it at the time, but Gould had a tendency to sing or hum along with himself as he played. And, because he had passed away years before, I was more or less listening to the voice of a ghost.

But the creepiest music I have ever heard is the times, late at night, when I would be shocked out of a deep sleep by the sound of the cat walking across the open piano. That strange, discordant jumble of notes was so startling, so strange in an otherwise quiet house.

Worst of all was the time when, hearing the piano, I sat up to go down and close the lid on the keys . . . only to find that the cat was sleeping at the foot of the bed. It was a difficult task to work up the nerve to go downstairs anyway and check on the otherwise quiet house. I found nothing, of course — leaving me with no other explanation for what (or who) might have been playing in the night.

I will say, however, that the theme from the Haunted Mansion — aka Grim Grinning Ghosts — is a genuinely spooky little tune. And I love it. But this is coming from a guy who has Tubular Bells as his ringtone. So.

The shortest is just a second or so, long enough for Eric Cartman to say “Democrats piss me off.”

The longest track is the first section of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. It’s over seven hours long.

Guiltiest Pleasure: Britney Spears’ (I Got That) Boom Boom.

Oddest Track: I’ve got a recording of William S. Burroughs chanting his way through REM’s “Star Me Kitten” — which is certainly odd, deeply disturbing, and remarkably still available if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

Most Mysterious: I have no idea where or how I got “Face Down” by something called Katie Todd Band, causing me to wonder if it’s possible that iTunes is somehow spamming me with unsolicited downloads on the off chance that I might like something enough to buy the album? (Sorry Katie, not this time.)

Favorite Track(s): “Walker” Soundtrack by Joe Strummer. I bought the cassette of this back in high school and listened to it so much that it finally broke. I repaired it with scotch tape and it was a sad day when the tape player in my car ate it once and for all. It went out of print fairly quickly (apparently there isn’t much demand for mariachi music soundtracks composed by former punk legends for unsuccessful independent movies about obscure points in Mexican history directed by lunatics). From time to time, I’d check eBay where CD’s were going for ninety bucks or more. I once debated buying an LP version for forty but decided against it, much to my regret. Once in a while, I’d find the odd track through Limewire — someone who had ripped the LP into MP3, so you could hear the hiss and pop of the turntable and feel like you were really there. A few months ago it suddenly appeared on the iTunes Music Store and there was much rejoicing and clicking of the impulse-buy-gotta-have-it-now-dammit mouse button. And now I’m playing the hell out of it. Just like when I was young.

Although . . . according to the little iTunes playcount thingy, the track I listen to the most is “Comptine D’un Autre Été: L’après Midi” from Yann Tiersen’s soundtrack for Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain — probably because it’s one of the first tracks on a soundtrack I created for the novel I’m writing. I usually end up listening to it at least once a day.

On the soundtrack, it’s called “Family Portrait / Driving to School” and it’s perfect for cold winter mornings, which are finally here.

But this was a bit of a surprise. I’d heard of it and I’d made some assumptions . . . but, well, this was a side of Alan I hadn’t really counted on.