Hello, world. I’m MacDara Conroy, and this is my blog.


Weeknotes #730-731

Week 730 was a non-eventful one, subbing and layout bookending a day of press screenings and some review-writing midweek. It’s tiring stuff, though, all that thinking and brain work, so most evenings, after dinner and Great British Menus, I was dead to the world.

Little energy to muster to read the few new books I’ve loaded on my Kindle, for instance. I’m on a short story kick — or rather, I would be, if I were reading them and not just thinking about it — so I’ve got some Joe R Lansdale, some Lydia Davis, some Kelly Link, some China Mieville. Bit of a mix there, I think. I’ve even got Borges in my Tsundoku folder, for the classics quota.

Towards the weekend I was perked up by the arrival of the Power Slam book. At long last! That’s how I’ve been spending my evenings (and some afternoons) during week 731, which otherwise has been a bit of an enthusiasm-sapper. So much to do, so little drive to do it. I did clear out my Gmail inbox, though, so that’s something.

And the promo pile got a shovel, too. The soundtrack to the last few days has mostly been the new Kowloon Walled City, Grievances. You can hear a track from the album here. It’s out next month on Neurot and it’s probably the best thing that label’s released in ages. It’s certainly the first record in months I’ve been compelled to play on repeat. Expect me to write about it in some capacity over the coming weeks. That and a few others I’ve been promising forever. I’m terrible, I know.