Sunday, November 26, 2006
Came by it via Scott McCloud's Making Comics, which is wonderful. He quotes a panel from her Sorcerers & Secretaries.
Friday, November 10, 2006
More books:
The Notebook by Agota Kristof. Amazing. Well, the first (of three) books or sections is amazing.
Like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, it uses a autistic, detached narrative voice. For Haddon, though I enjoyed the book, it is an exercise in "making the familiar unfamiliar," the goal being compassion for the autistic. For Kristof, the autistic worldview is something else entirely. I'd rather not go on about it to much...
"The Curious Incident.." is a wonderful gift for people who don't really like to read. It's short, terribly readable, heart warming and memorable.
"The Notebook" has, I think, an underlying refusal of the conventional way of looking at things. The book is full of everyday despair and mundane human horror. This includes ignorance, prostitution,
That reminds me of another book (that I'm probably not going to finish), The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia. Its a virtuous performance of some kind or other, but it's not really to my taste. Again, we have a super-detached, autistic narrative style. The story combines the everyday (the Mexican-American immigrant experience) with all sorts of fairy-tale, magical realism elements (private wars with planets, people made of paper, bizarre creatures). Plasencia has moments of lyricism and unlikely compassion that I love. But the book constantly redoubles in formal innovation, and acts of imagination for their own sake. It starts to wear on me.
The Notebook by Agota Kristof. Amazing. Well, the first (of three) books or sections is amazing.
Like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, it uses a autistic, detached narrative voice. For Haddon, though I enjoyed the book, it is an exercise in "making the familiar unfamiliar," the goal being compassion for the autistic. For Kristof, the autistic worldview is something else entirely. I'd rather not go on about it to much...
"The Curious Incident.." is a wonderful gift for people who don't really like to read. It's short, terribly readable, heart warming and memorable.
"The Notebook" has, I think, an underlying refusal of the conventional way of looking at things. The book is full of everyday despair and mundane human horror. This includes ignorance, prostitution,
That reminds me of another book (that I'm probably not going to finish), The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia. Its a virtuous performance of some kind or other, but it's not really to my taste. Again, we have a super-detached, autistic narrative style. The story combines the everyday (the Mexican-American immigrant experience) with all sorts of fairy-tale, magical realism elements (private wars with planets, people made of paper, bizarre creatures). Plasencia has moments of lyricism and unlikely compassion that I love. But the book constantly redoubles in formal innovation, and acts of imagination for their own sake. It starts to wear on me.
More interesting non-fiction audio: In Our Time, from the BBC.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Media roundup.
Amazing Discovery: live Afropop
Ali Farka Toure - Live Old Town School Of Folk Music, Chicago 05.07.1994
Ali Farka Toure & Ry Cooder - Live 1995.08.01 Edmonton (Canada)
Baaba Maal - Live 2004.04.16 Otsfm (Chicago)
Baaba Maal - Live Royal Festival Hall (London, Uk)
D'gary - Live 2002.05.26 Bremen (Germany)
Bembeya Jazz - Live Folk&Roots Festival Chicago 07.10.2004
Bembeya Jazz - Live International Jazz Festival San Francisco, Ca 08.03.2003
Orchestra Baobab - Live Hothouse Chicago 2002 - 07 - 17
All hail the p2p revolution for delivery what old distribution channels never could!
Non-Fiction Audio
This American Life - my favorite radio show
Fresh Air
mp3 Audio Books
Assistive Media
World Affairs Council audio archives
Still looking for more...
The Knife (Great 80s style pop)
Bembeya Jazz - Doni Doni
Irma Thomas - Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)
Mamba Percussions - Rythmotom 1
Super Rail Band De Bamako - Pirates
The Hole In The Wall Gang Presents - Breakology
Movies
Yi Yi
Very good Taiwanese film. I especially the actor who plays Ota, a japanese businessman.
The cinematography is terribly beautiful, but it reminds me of something about Asians and classical music that has always bothered me.
First, classical music has almost no improvisation. The classics were composed centuries ago. I've always seen a tension here with American individuality & inventiveness; to play classical music is to work within a frozen tradition.
Asian and Asian-American culture is far more conformist and less individualistic than American mainstream culture.
Secondly, there is the beauty of classical music.
Part of the legacy of the European and American Fine Art Avante-Garde is the rejection or deprecation of the beautiful and the pleasing.
Then there's the legacy of punk and rock: dissonance, rebelliousness, sloppiness and the primacy of attitude.
So you have these two tensions for classical music in a modern cultural context.
It really bothers me when Asian films use classical music oblivious of these dynamics. I think it bothers me because there is something very lively and important in it.
Books
The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong
Describes the early origins of the major religions & philosophy including Buddism, Hinduism, Judaism, Confucianism and Daoism, and Greek philosophy. Truly wonderful. Focuses on drawing parallels and noting concurrencies.
Comic by a wonderful storyteller who can't draw. These collected strips tell a story, but they are far better appreciated as individual episodes. Each strip achieves a maudlin perfection.
Amazing Discovery: live Afropop
Ali Farka Toure - Live Old Town School Of Folk Music, Chicago 05.07.1994
Ali Farka Toure & Ry Cooder - Live 1995.08.01 Edmonton (Canada)
Baaba Maal - Live 2004.04.16 Otsfm (Chicago)
Baaba Maal - Live Royal Festival Hall (London, Uk)
D'gary - Live 2002.05.26 Bremen (Germany)
Bembeya Jazz - Live Folk&Roots Festival Chicago 07.10.2004
Bembeya Jazz - Live International Jazz Festival San Francisco, Ca 08.03.2003
Orchestra Baobab - Live Hothouse Chicago 2002 - 07 - 17
All hail the p2p revolution for delivery what old distribution channels never could!
Non-Fiction Audio
This American Life - my favorite radio show
Fresh Air
mp3 Audio Books
Assistive Media
World Affairs Council audio archives
Still looking for more...
The Knife (Great 80s style pop)
Bembeya Jazz - Doni Doni
Irma Thomas - Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)
Mamba Percussions - Rythmotom 1
Super Rail Band De Bamako - Pirates
The Hole In The Wall Gang Presents - Breakology
Movies
Yi Yi
Very good Taiwanese film. I especially the actor who plays Ota, a japanese businessman.
The cinematography is terribly beautiful, but it reminds me of something about Asians and classical music that has always bothered me.
First, classical music has almost no improvisation. The classics were composed centuries ago. I've always seen a tension here with American individuality & inventiveness; to play classical music is to work within a frozen tradition.
Asian and Asian-American culture is far more conformist and less individualistic than American mainstream culture.
Secondly, there is the beauty of classical music.
Part of the legacy of the European and American Fine Art Avante-Garde is the rejection or deprecation of the beautiful and the pleasing.
Then there's the legacy of punk and rock: dissonance, rebelliousness, sloppiness and the primacy of attitude.
So you have these two tensions for classical music in a modern cultural context.
It really bothers me when Asian films use classical music oblivious of these dynamics. I think it bothers me because there is something very lively and important in it.
Books
The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong
Describes the early origins of the major religions & philosophy including Buddism, Hinduism, Judaism, Confucianism and Daoism, and Greek philosophy. Truly wonderful. Focuses on drawing parallels and noting concurrencies.
Comic by a wonderful storyteller who can't draw. These collected strips tell a story, but they are far better appreciated as individual episodes. Each strip achieves a maudlin perfection.
From How to be interesting:
I agree completely - those are wonderful books in their own right. But they also convey & explore a lifelong passion. I wish I knew of more books like them.
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
The Visual Display Of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
The Visual Display Of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte
All these books are good for their own reasons but they’re also good examples of people who are really interested in stuff that others think of as banal and who explain it in a way that makes you share their passion. That's good.
I agree completely - those are wonderful books in their own right. But they also convey & explore a lifelong passion. I wish I knew of more books like them.
I spoke Tuesday with Tom Tompkins, who has designed exhibits at the SF Exploratorium for twenty years.
He praised the following museums: City Museum in St. Louis, MO., Swiss Technorama in Switzerland.
Tom Tompkins also raved about Akiyoshi KITAOKA, Professor, Department of Psychology, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. He is a creator and collector of visual illusions such as:
.