Strange fruit and creepy conversations

Just done w/chapters 1-3 of American Gods. I had forgotten how creepy that book is.

SPOILER WARNING

At the top of the list of creepy things right now? Shadow's Bone Orchard dream, which is more disturbing to me than the nonchalant conversation he has with Laura, his recently-dead wife. The dream itself is not a happy one, and the sense of wrongness is compounded by what I'm pretty sure is a reference to Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit." (WARNING: the photograph of the lynching that inspired the poem that became the song is on the page linked.) Strange fruit is a hauntingly beautiful indictment of one of the ugliest pieces of US history. The last verse, in particular, in sticking with me as I read AG tonight: 

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, 
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, 
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, 
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

While the context is different, it is relevant to what's happened (and what's to come) in several ways.

In other news, I'm making an American Gods playlist of the music in the book. My list so far:

• "Nottamun Town" by Fairport Convention
• "Masters of War" by Bob Dylan (Why? See here for details.)
• "Iko Iko" by The Dixie Cups
• "Walking After Midnight" by The Cowboy Junkies (Patsy Cline version in the book)
• "Who Loves the Sun" by The Velvet Underground
• "The Fool on the Hill" by The Beatles
• "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday
• "The Midnight Special" by Creedence Clearwater Revival

A fellow 1b1t-er has made an American Gods music spreadsheet (he's also got sheets for people and places).

Queens, cons, and masters of war

Finally started rereading American Gods for One Book, One Twitter, and I'm enjoying the process of chasing down interesting research items I let slide the first time. Bilqis/Sheba, for example, I looked up and remembered. But, I had somehow forgotten the connection to The Candaces (aka the Kandakes of Kush), which interests me for obvious reasons  :) But I'm still annoyed by Bilqis' man-eating hoo-hah, perhaps even more so now that we're "related"  :(

Anyway, Only through ch. 1 so far - have been reading multiple things/spending too much time online/socializing a lot recently, all of which means consuming fewer pages at a time. Some other things I've noted this time:

• Shadow's misgivings about electronic things as "fundamentally magic, and liable to disappear at any moment." Good instincts, Shadow.
• Am curious about the "flashback" Shadow has in prison ("In his imagination, he was leaving another prison, long ago."), but will have to look it up later...
• Looked up the town name "Nottamun." Came up with a strange and slightly disturbing (largely because of the final line) folk song called "Nottamun Town," which led me to Bob Dylan's "Masters of War." Wheels, turning...

You that never done nothin'
but build to destroy
You play with my world
like it's your little toy...

--From Masters of War by Bob Dylan

• The population of Nottamun also set off my spidey sense this time. Looked into it and suspect that I was almost remembering is as the year that Dante's exile began. Exile definitely not unrelated to American Gods.

Off to do things that are neither reading nor tweeting. There's sun to be had!

One Book, One Twitter

I wish I'd known about this One Book, One Twitter thing  sooner - I would have loved to vote. What!? I like voting! And I'd have spread the word (which I also like doing), and maybe could have gotten other friends interested while we'd all have felt like we were helping to pick the book, which makes stuff like this more fun (at least in my head) and...

Anyway, I think it's a neat idea and I'm going to participate. 

The winning book is not the one I'd have voted for (though it is, in fact, a book that I love). I'm interested to see what sort of discussion it generates.

You can find more information on One Book, One Twitter here, at Jeff Howe's blog (he's the organizer).