A few weeks ago, I picked up The Dante ClubBilled as a literary DaVinci Code, it is set in Boston just after the Civil War. Longfellow has begun has translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, with help from some famous names (James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. to name a few), only to find their work acted out by an unknown “Lucifer” who is systematically killing members of Boston’s upper class.

The reviews I’ve read all agree that this is a fantastic first novel, I’d argue that this is a fantastic novel - the first being a bit irrelevent. The characters - men who I only know from their rather stuffy portraits at the MFA or in downtown office buildings, each come to life with personalities of their own. I’m a few pages shy of the ending, and am trying to stretch it out for all its worth. Add it to your nightstand, and soon you’ll be looking to read up on Longfellow’s poetry (I’ve already downloaded his complete translation of the Divine Comedy from Project Gutenburg).

While I was at that site, I clicked over to the audio section and took a trip down memory lane. Between 1988 & 1995 I saw over 100 Grateful Dead shows. Most of my tape collection has been lost, but thanks to the hundreds of dedicated traders out there, you can now search and download shows from the 1960s through the 1990s. Right now I’m listening to a tape I lost in 1990 -
Date: May 8th, 1977, Venue: Barton Hall, Cornell University Location: Ithaca, NY. I’ve also begun collecting some of my favorite concerts - Foxboro 1990, the last Boston Garden shows and trying to remember which of the three nights of that swing through Chicago was worth listening to again.