River Tam and the Fireflies:
T-shirt, watercolor here

Da-shiong bao-jah-shr duh la-doo-tze!?

Gollum as Harry Potter

“The fat hobbit. He knows. Eyes always watching”

Art by Bobby Fasel!
bobbyfasel: Acrylic: Traditional underpainting, digital colorization.

Artist Website: BobbyFasel.com

(Source: bobbyfasel)

Faulkner, 1949

(Source: nobelprize.org)

Noah’s Mill, Small Batch Bourbon

Bourbon has definitely been growing on me as a go-to drink. While my last offering to you, oh readers, was a soft and smooth 80 proof …

Noah’s Mill is a punch-you-in-the-face 115 proof. Drink it neat, or with the tiniest splash of water / one ice cube, to bring out some of its character. Hair-on-your-chest flavorful!

Aged 15 years, this is a small batch bourbon aged in wooden barrels and bottled by hand. You’ll be in the $50 - $70 range per bottle, but you’ll notice the superior flavor and taste, not to mention the smoothness, you won’t find in cheap or younger whiskey.

If you’re drinking it neat, the flavor is intense but not to the extent of being hot or burning going down. If you go back later and try it on different levels of water, you’ll have a pretty noticeable different in flavor. I recommend you give that a try: to me the flavors shifted depending, and I have friends that enjoy more water in it than I ended up with myself.

A big bourbon, robust flavor, great aroma - enjoy, my friends!

It brings me no joy (alright, some joy!) …
to be finishing up my last glass out of this bottle.

[Ken Kesey]

Rightly considered Ken Kesey’s magnum opus, I first read this book while backpacking around Europe, and it was able to captivate me despite my constant adventures and changing scenery. I was left with the still-present desire to spend some quality months in the American Northwest.

”‘Sometimes a Great Notion’ has Shakespearean themes played out against a raw, burly Oregon backdrop. Still the heavyweight champion of Northwest novels. Huge, bold, sprawling, brilliant. Unrivaled, unchallenged, unsurpassed.” ~ Bruce Barcott

The story explores the collision between past and present, the conflict of traditional and modern, and does this amidst a portrayal of family and labor discord in the American Northwest (the family is in the logging business).

Kesey (who is perhaps best known as a counter-culture figure of the ’50s and ’60s) uses his novel to explore the “split in our individual and collective will – the will to conquer and destroy, and the will-less desire to sink into the land, to let Oregon weather and the wet land’s fecundity that is like a low-grade fever run through us.”

Before you take my recommendation on this one, make sure the unique writing style and techniques aren’t going to turn you off. Don’t pick this up if you’re looking for something casual that won’t require your full attention.

Kesey opens each chapter with a prologue (generally omniscient and objective), and then inside the chapters he explores multiple points of view, constantly shifts and re-aligns tenses, and jumps between first and third person / past and present.

There is no obvious announcement when speakers change, so it can be disorienting at first, but you’ll come to notice the subtle and consistent signs that alert you to a shift.

The style encourages you to examine the relationship between truth and interpretation - the different character voices create the sense that there is no truth outside of individual perspective.

An exciting read. If this sounds at all interesting to you, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Bottom line: a masterpiece of American literature and often called by critics “one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century.”

You are so sneaky, Tumblr Dash.
signed - BooksnBrew

Why wasn’t this in the manual!?

Ebooks *are* for chumps … but yes!

Source: xkcd - Kindle

Don’t Panic?

The Great Gatsby for NES (8bit!)

http://greatgatsbygame.com/

Love Fitzgerald, and who doesn’t love NES games?
Full-screen mode is an option.

“I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and
I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”

Let me know when you beat it?

Russian artist’s illustrated version of The Hobbit published decades ago.

The characters have a unique look and feel, from an older looking Bilbo with awesome body-fur, to good ole Tom, Bert, and Bill Huggins.

“A burrahobbit?
 What’s a burrahobbit got to do with my pocket, anyways?”

Felicia Day + bookshelf porn

Felicia Day is one of my not-so-secret crushes. From Dr. Horrible to The Guild to Dragon Age, she stole my heart long ago.

Photo Source: Flickr

How can you not love her?