Yuan Shih-k’ai by Jerome Chen

Ah, hostile biography. Today I’ll be discussing what I’ve picked up reading a book about Yuan Shih-k’ai (now just Yuan Shikai), the first President of post-revolutionary China. He’s one of those figures I’d never even heard of, and when I stumbled upon Jerome Chen’s eponymously titled  biography of the man, I decided to read it mostly out of curiosity regarding his role in Seoul in the turbulent 1880s. I’d assumed his involvement there was the main reason the book was in the library’s holdings at all, to be honest, but it turns out he’s actually more like China’s equivalent of Syngman Rhee, except that just before his downfall, …

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Two Videos From a Busyish Day

Today was kind of busy, so here are a couple of videos I found amusing, with comments as to why they caught my attention. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/iC65ufGUvKM” width=”425″ height=”344″ allowfullscreen=”true” fvars=”fs=1″ /] Have I mentioned that at a high school variety night I performed a freejazz/fusion version of this song? Sort of. Same bass line, and I hollered some of the words into the mic before the atonal saxophone weirdness kicked in. (I played my tenor.) I was accompanied by a keyboard bassist named Jennifer Duggleby and a drummer named Mike Murza. I doubt anyone recognized the song. Maybe one or …

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How to Rob a Bank

Jwz has it. Jwz has moved it. And they say you can’t learn anything watching Hollywood movies. This is a crime that just couldn’t have happened without the “heist” genre of films. But reading this, it struck me: there will be a last bank robbery in the world. People will still be hacking banks for as long as that’s possible, but someday paper money will stop circulating, or continue to circulate but become worth less than the trouble it takes to rob it. When it does, there will be no more bank robberies, except as political statements or artistic performances. …

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