Last night we played one of the best shows I can remember in a long time. I don’t know why for certain, but I think it was partly because we were all a little bit in the mindset that everything was relaxed and cool. Most of the audience was people that someone in the band knew personally, and when we play for that kind of an audience, there’s a certain kind of “play” that goes on among us… we extend songs, we reprise bits of songs, we make musical jokes… like in the cadenza for one song, Myoung Jae started …

Right, I’ve made a huge addition to the list of sample tracks up for all kinds of music and musicians that I’m usually going on about to my friends. You can see this massive list in the left sidebar on this page, if you scroll down a little bit. The tracks are not all necessarily representative, meaning for example, the Johnny Hartman duo isn’t the track I would choose to represent John Coltrane, but all of these tracks are songs I happened to have kicking around on my webspace, plus some kicking around on other bands’ webspaces. (Most of the …

If you are wondering why I am not posting as much, I finally have things going nicely on my novel, and I am trying to write at least a substantial scene a day. In addition, band practices have kicked in, now at a rate of two or three a week (plus occasional shows), so I am becoming increasingly occupied. I will try to keep on posting, but I am not sure I’ll get back to my original posting rate for a while. I’m also not sure I should try to… but of course I will continue posting here! Of course …

You may need to change the encoding of this page on your computer to view this post properly (under the menu you can find an encoding option). Western European works well. * Je n’ai pas ?rit en fran?is depuis six mois… donc c’est ben difficile. Mon amie Astrid a m’envoyait un courriel, et c’etait ben joyeux ?lire. Le fran?is… je l’ai perdu presque de to?! Quand je veux parler en fran?is, des mots cor?ns volents de la bouche. C’est ben ?range… ouay. En Tha?and, j’ai vu des francophones en parlent du bon h?el, et puis j’ai fait un effort ?parler …

Okay, I’ve been busy with music, personal stuff, and so on. I’ve also been busy at another website where I post. I’m not posting any more today, but if you wanna see what I’ve been thinking about in a more academic vein, my friend Marvin and I are having a discussion over at our New Sophists’ Almanac page. Currently up for discussion are Postmodernism and what’s wrong with it (and Postsolipsism, which is apparently our own homegrown solution to whatever it is that’s wrong with or incomplete about postmodernism); Therapy and Therapy-Culture; the evolutionary psychology viewpoint on Click! and Ick! …

… for an amazing blog. Except of course I cannot say anything about it because, well, it’s a great idea. Hell, maybe could even get some advertising and make some money? It’d be a multi-author thing and I think it might be a damn cool site either way. Better even than Jack and my idea of an Onion-like website called University of Rejection. That came about when we were all Teacher’s Assistants (read: part-time profs) and someone’s undegrad student wrote the following sentence: I just got my Letter, from the University, of Rejection. This was a French student, I believe, …

I think it’s called an ondol, but I could be spelling that wrong (I always seem to hear a vowel wrong these days). It’s a system of heating a room from below, and it uses hot water to do so. There’s usually one under the floor of apartments, and when you sleep on the floor on a yo (a floor-pad) like I do, the warmth radiates up out of the floor and permeates everything… the room, your body. My back feels so good the morning after I sleep on the warm floor, even when it’s on the lowest heat possible. …

I’m not homesick these days, but I know what it feels like. Wanting to make everything simpler, to settle into that room that was always yours to sleep in, the wish to hear those voices that are so familiar even after so long being away. Not just the laughter but also the arguments, the disagreements, and the chores: everything is precious to you. I have a friend who is feeling homesick now. I hope she has a chance to go home and recharge her emotional batteries… we all need to do that sometimes. I hope I didn’t contribute to some …

Why does my body insist on waking up after exactly 7 hours of sleep? I am sick. I need a little more these days. Argh!

I don’t often remember by dreams, but when I do usually they’re odd. My sister once commented that of course, I even dream science fiction stories. This isn’t one I would actually write into a story, so I’ll blog it. I dreamed of my body strapped into a seat. The seat wasn’t connected to anything I could see, but knew I was in a craft, which was moving so quickly that it felt like I was perfectly still in it. My suit was comfortable, the room warm but not too much so. There was no music, only the whine of …