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How to make sure you end up sneaking a power nap in your office at some point during the day: get four hours of sleep the night before, wake up to a dark, cool, and rainy day, and then put on the new Current 93 CD. That last is of course a fabulous way to ensure really f'ed up dreams as well. Heh.

Before I forget again, the recent reading:

36. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen. A new collection of poetry, some of which appears as lyrics on "Ten New Songs", "Dear Heather" and "Blue Alert", and original illustrations. A nice addition to my recent Cohen addiction.
    
    I love this quote from an interview in The NewsHour's poetry series:
    

    LEONARD COHEN: You know, you scribble away for one reason or another. You're touched by something that you read. You want to number yourself among these illustrious spirits for one advantage or another, some social, some spiritual.
    
    It's just ambition that tricks you into the enterprise, and then you discover whether you have any actual aptitude for it or not. I always thought of myself as a competent, minor poet. I know who I'm up against.
    
    JEFFREY BROWN: You know who you're up against?
    
    LEONARD COHEN: Yes, you're up against Dante, and Shakespeare, Isaiah, King David, Homer, you know. So I've always thought that I, you know, do my job OK.




37. Kushiel's Avatar, Jacqueline Carey. The conclusion to this trilogy, in which Phèdre takes on not just one but two impossible-seeming tasks: first she must rescue Melisande's son, Imriel, who's been kidnapped and sold into slavery to a sadistic king who intends to use the boy as a sacrifice to his dark god, then she must learn the Name of God  and use it to free her old friend Hyacinthe, bound as the Master of the Straits. A satisfying ending to the series while leaving enough open to allow for future books in the same setting. Like, say, Kushiel's Scion, the first book in a new trilogy (which I just snagged from the library and am now reading).
    


38. Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson. After living in England for 20 years, Bryson decided to take a seven-week farewell tour around Great Britain before returning to the US and treats us to a fond and irreverent look at his adopted home.


39. A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin. Half a book, and it feels it. Damn, now I'm caught up and have to wait for the next one along with everyone else.


40. All Dressed in White: The Irresistible Rise of the American Wedding, Carol Wallace. An examination of the last 150 years of wedding traditions and how the over-the-top "princess for a day" white wedding came to be the norm.
    

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It looks like they're starting to roll out the ability to "subscribe" to a post and get notified when there are new replies. There's a "Track this" button (the push pin) now on the comments page. Woo!

[Edit: A later posts says that it's permanent account holders only for now, sorry.]