Jonathan Goldstein was one of the people I met during my first year in Montreal. We never really become close, but then most of the people in our class never became too close to him, as far as I know. But he was always cool.
Category: REVIEWS
Tolkien? Racist? Uh…
Right-Wing analysis Except for the dodgy, bitchy take on Liberals, which should be directed at the extremists only, this is a good criticism of a rather idiotic article about The Lord of the Rings‘ purported racist undertones. I mean, hell, I thought the temptation for evil was something that haunted every character in the story, from Gandalf to Frodo to Boromir… of course, in the logic of fantasy, species are usually aligned with good or evil in general, the same way race used to be (and in many places still is) linked to something like good or evil in the …
New Song, Old Song, Prison Song, True Song
I’m trying to work on a new song for the band, something to expand our sound somewhat; the song is, I’m thinking, going to be a kind of warped version of the story of Bodhi-Dharma, the famed and highly mythologized Indian monk who went abroad and reputedly spread Buddhism across Asia. So, of course, I have a nice musical sample of what I’m going for. Lately I’ve been gravitating toward older and older styles, such as the road-country of Spiritwood as I intend it to be sung, and while I flirted for a while with a somewhat warped blues form, …
The Snow Country – Yasunari Kawabata (…and my musings on Western and Japanese modes of reconciling civilized life with human emotions…)
(I should begin this by saying I don’t know a damned thing about Japan. I know a few books, a few movies, and I’ve known a few people, but my knowledge of Japan relies solely on this. Therefore what I am writing about here involves a lot of what I imagine or induce from the literature and art I know about. It could be grossly erroneous. As always, if you think so, please do comment and tell me what else I should see, read, listen to, or look at. That said…) I have just, a few minutes ago, finished reading …
Mark Twain Scrapbook
Over at Second Story Publications I found a link to a beautiful project called the Mark Twain Scrapbook. This is an exquisite and interesting digital scrapbook bio of Mark Twain. Nice-eu, as is said in Konglish.
Matrix 2, Animatrix…
Over the last couple of months I have not seen a lot of movies. I have been busy enough to actually miss, in the theater, several movies that I was actually interested in seeing. Perhaps the only movie I have managed to see in the theater in the last couple of months is the new Matrix: Reloaded sequel. However, one of my friends here has become a sort of movie dealer to me… he feeds me CD-ROMs with downloaded films on them, and I watch them. Among the many films he has thus made available to me was the Animatrix …
Dabang Band – Bbang Club Show
Dabang Band is playing at Bbang Club in Seoul on Saturday Night. As usual I don’t know exact times, but I think you’ll want or need to be at the club by 8pm to see us play. Here’s a page about clubs in Shinchon. There’s a map on this page though I don’t know how useful it is. There’s also a phone number for the club, if you can call and speak in Korean: (82-2)-362-1089. Of course in Seoul you only need to dial the last part, and in the rest of Korea only the “-2-” prefix. If you have …
Shivaji and the Ecstasy of Butter and Fire
26 March 2003/ Dabang – Shivaji and the Ecstasy of Butter and Fire This track is a bit of an oddity, perhaps the heaviest track on the band’s CD which is titled Pig Over Seoul. It features a poem I’d recently gotten published in Matrix Magazine in Montreal, and which Myoung asked me to read at the studio to fill out the track. I had a horrible cold at the time, which made my voice sound downright evil. I’m happy with the effect. We’re currently trying to figure out how to get someone to perform this poem during some of …
Live Rock Clubs in Sinchon
I’m posting this link for my own use, but anyone else who is curious should also follow it: it’s a page about live clubs in the Sinchon area of Seoul. I need that to get to our gig at Club Bbang (Bread Club) this Saturday.
Apocrypha Live ’98 excerpt
Right now I only have one music download for you of my own. It’s from Apocrypha Live ’98, by Apocrypha, the last band I played (semi-)regularly with in Saskatoon; one of our last live shows (in summer ’98) at a rave hosted by my friend Mike (aka DJ Dekoze) was recorded and actually mastered, produced, la la la. Some of it is bad, some is good. It’s kind of a mix of ambient music, free jazz, and spoken word. Accordingly, some bits sound like the Bladerunner soundtrack and some of my soprano sax work reminds me of Jan Garbarek. The …