James Skemp's StrivingLife

I purchased this for an additional (and longer) cable for a Playstation 3 controller. It works perfectly (although I realize now I would have preferred a few feet longer - oh well).

The fact that it comes in Amazon's hassle free packaging is another definite plus, although since the box was rather large, when I received my package in the mail, I thought perhaps it was the Blu-ray movies I'd purchased shaking about.

This is my first AmazonBasics product purchase, but it will definitely not be my last.

I have a difficult time seeing how one can review the actual music on an album, since tastes are so personal, so I'll focus on myself.

I'm a pretty huge fan of Keren Ann's work. I started with the absolutely beautiful Nolita, then the okay La Biographie De Luka Philipse, La Disparition, and then a big shopping spree of Not Going Anywhere, Keren Ann, and Lady & Bird.

The latter featured some extremely beautiful songs. But even though I liked it, based on what I'd now collected of Keren Ann's works, I had a difficult time with La Ballade of Lady & Bird, since it seemed many of the songs were already covered elsewhere, and only a few really jumped out at me. So I kept pushing it off.

Finally I picked it up the other day, since my mind kept coming back to it, and it's truly unfortunate that I didn't realize this was a live album (I though the last two bonus tracks at the end were the only live tracks), because it was definitely a wise purchase.

Keren Ann isn't the main vocalist on every track, but that's what gives it a Lady & Bird feel to it.

Thus far, extremely happy with my purchase.

Update

One note: you may be thinking that live tracks means that the audience will feature in the tracks, in some way. Outside of one song where they start clapping early, we only hear the audience at the end of each song, the one place where they clapped early, and right before the last two tracks begin, which I assume is an encore.

After yet another listen, I also find that I neglected to mention how beautiful the orchestra is, which is unfortunate, since this is one of the major appeals of the album.

Like everyone who's been to a Chinese restaurant, I'm well aware of the 12 animals. Thanks to Philip K. Dick I've got a couple copies of the I Ching around the house, and enjoyed learning about the Asian philosophies during college.

This last aspect of me was pleasantly surprised reading through this short work, as the author does a good job of explaining that there are not only animals for the years one is born, but also for the month, day, and hour. This book touches on their meaning for three of these four, as the daily aspect is seemingly too complex. (Unfortunately, I didn't really get a good idea of where to go if I wanted to find out more, making it hard for me to even call this an introductory work, and a simple search online didn't turn up much either.)

I say the book touches upon their meaning because the latter part of the book, which consists of almost 80% of the volume, is basically the same couple of pages repeated, with very minor changes based on the animal. To me, it reads as a simple regurgitation of a formula. To be kinder, it would be hard not to do this, and they do have nice sections at the end containing a position and chant for meditation, and he speaks of the animals relationship to the I Ching.

All-in-all, though, unless you share this information with someone else, I have a hard time seeing anyone coming back to this more than once. For that reasoning I must give this book 3 stars of 5.

Because of his writing, if the first few chapters were expanded with more historical and philosophical information, I would feel better about giving this 4 stars.

I can't be sure whether the physical product I have will be the same as the final product, but it seems fairly certain, so I'll comment briefly on that.

The binding of this book seems extremely solid, and the printing is nice and crisp. The pages are nice and smooth, of a slightly thicker width than I would have expected. It's definitely built to last.