Damien Mannion

Some notes on what I'm currently listening to, reading, and thinking about.

If you have any recommendations or comments, let me know!

June, 2022

Listening to

• Eleanor Friedberger - My Mistakes
  I really like all of Eleanor Friedberger’s solo music, and this was the first single from her first solo album. It reminds me of Minneapolis / St. Paul, where I was living at the time it came out.
• The Flaming Lips - The Gash
The Flaming Lips played the last concert that I went to before the COVID-19 restrictions began. It was a great concert, at the Sydney Opera House—one of the best sounding gigs that I’ve been to. This song is off the great The Soft Bulletin album.
• Tori Amos - Putting the Damage On
  This song has only recently made it into my ranking of top-tier Tori Amos songs. Maybe it is the odd intro, but it hadn’t stood out to me until the past year (the same thing happened with “Hey Jupiter”—it wasn’t until I saw it played live that it became a favourite). There is also a great live version of this song.

Reading

• Kent Haruf - Our Souls At Night
• Scott Hawkins - The Library at Mount Char

Thinking about

• Mistakes in research programming and strategies for their avoidance and tolerance.
• Where to start with gardening, now that I have a few areas of soil to tend to.
• Playing through Portal 2 again. I still think the first Portal is quite a bit better.

May, 2022

Listening to

• Sharon Van Etten - Darkness Fades
• Superwolves - I Am A Youth Inclined To Ramble
• Loscil - Submers

Reading

• Kim Stanley Robinson - Red Mars
• Kent Haruf - Plainsong
• A. Scott Berg - Max Perkins: Editor of Genius

Thinking about

• How to present all the details of a statistical model in a manuscript without distracting or alienating readers.
• The best strategy for staying warm through the upcoming Bathurst winter (my first serious winter since Minneapolis, USA, in 2012–2013).
• The writing, scenes, and characters in Don DeLillo’s “Underworld”.