Books are like compressed conversations between the author and you, or me – the reader. In this light, “reviewing” a book has always felt a little wrong. A review is a capsulized response to a book and its author. When someone has poured untold hours of his or her life into something that readers will commit many hours of their lives to comprehending, passing judgment in the space of a few paragraphs feels a little smug. Last year’s How Music Works might well be the crowning achievement of Byrne’s career in the thick of popular culture. I say “might” to honor Byrne’s vitality and acknowledge my own uncertainty: I’m just embarking on my read.
As I set out, three years into writing and publishing Pop & Jazz, it occurs to me that blogging about it from time to time, rather than reviewing it in the traditional way, might be a fitting corollary to Byrne’s writing of the book. Byrne spent many private hours laying the groundwork for something he made public in an instant. I, on the other hand, came into possession of the book instantaneously and will spend many hours unpacking its contents. My side of the conversation will occur not in an explosive burst but in flurries of sparks showered over a stretch of weeks and likely months, during which I’ll be reading other things, listening to who knows what, and writing about much else, both here and in the pages of the zine.
I will of course have “final thoughts” once my reading and tangential listening are in some sense complete. More important, though, for a book so wide ranging and so dialed-in to my own pursuits and interests (reading, music history, the creative process, music and technology, music and place, the art of listening, and of course the music of David Byrne and Talking Heads), I will have immediate and visceral reactions to the ideas at play on each of Byrne’s 345 carefully designed pages. I’ll do my best to share those with you here.
4 December 2013