Note (4 Feb. 2012): I originally wrote this post back in August 2003. However, at the time there were downloadable MP3s in the post. I was, let’s say, not so aware of copyright issues. Anyway, I’ve updated it with embedded videos from Youtube for almost all the original songs today (4 February 2012). ORIGINAL POST (4 August 2003): Lately I’ve uploaded some music to my server that I am recommending via one of my friend’s Korean Daum Cafes. Since I am hosting it here, I’m going to include the links on my own blog. I suppose I shall have to …
Category: REVIEWS
Jonathan Goldstein
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.
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 …