Aug. 24, 2014
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years Of Pilgrimage is the latest novel by Haruki Murakami. It comes with free stickers. Perhaps that tells you everything you need to know about this book, which is slimmer than Murakami’s recent efforts. The plot begins with an intriguing premise. Tsukuru is part of a group of close friends and is one day expelled from the group for no reason. Unfortunately, the development of the plot is uncontrolled and by the end of novel too many holes have developed for it all to hold together.
Tags: Haruki Murakami, Books, Novel, Fourteen
Aug. 21, 2014
What it is Ulysses is a markdown editor for the Mac. It has a simple drafting model that makes it easy to organise ideas and move between them. Pieces of writing are represented as sheets that can be tagged and grouped together - the grouping can be made manually or using filters. There are no files, the sheets are entries in a single database that is synced with iCloud. Because everything is plain text it won’t eat up your storage space.
Tags: Writing, Software, Blogging, Fourteen
Aug. 19, 2014
I have already given some of the personal background to why I love this album and now it’s time to give a bit of love to the music itself so I’ll stick to giving a track by track account of “A Ghost Is Born”.
If you are familiar with Wilco’s first few albums, you’ll know that A Ghost Is Born is on the line of best fit through Being There, Summerteeth, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Tags: Understated Classics, Music, Wilco, Fourteen, Rock
Aug. 18, 2014
Picking up where I left off at Machu Picchu, we headed down into Aguas Calientes (trans. “hot waters”) by coach and by the time we got there it was torrenting down with rain. So much for exploration. We waited out the downpour in a pizza place and deliberated over whether to buy souvenier snaps from the tour guides. Ironically for a town named after hot waters, it was bitterly cold. One of those places where the sound of running water follows you wherever you go, the best thing about it was the huge trains that ran down the middle of street - big clanking hulks pulling huge passenger trains.
Tags: South America, Peru, Bolivia, Fourteen, Thirteen
Aug. 17, 2014
I recently spruced up a post I wrote four years ago about Biosphere’s wonderful album Substrata. I added the following footnote about the difference between voice samples and found sound:
I suppose I am distinguishing between found sound and vocal samples here. Perhaps there is very little difference, or that one is the other? When is a vocal snippet something more than found sound? Is it the fact that one has meaning?
Tags: Ideas, Music, Biosphere, Fourteen, Electronic
Aug. 17, 2014
Hour of the Star is a short novel by Clarice Lispector, a Ukrainian-born Brazilian author with an interesting life story. This is her last novel and is a remarkable book: inventive, funny, and sad, all at once. I found it in a special selection at the local library dedicated to Brazil because of the World Cup.
First some biography. Born Chaya Lispector in Chechelnyk, Ukraine, in 1920, her family escaped the pogroms and emigrated to Brazil in 1922.
Tags: Books, Clarice Lispector, Fiction, Brazil, Fourteen
Aug. 15, 2014
Finally saw Guardians of the Galaxy today. Here are fifteen observations about the film that may or may not constitute a short review.
At least two Oscars for Best Use Of Body Paint (Green) and Best Use Of Body Paint (Blue) are sewn up. Chris Pratt basically plays Star Lord as “Andy Dwyer in space” and this is fine by me. Best movie to feature a talking raccoon in a long time.
Tags: Films, Science Fiction, Fourteen, Lists
Jul. 22, 2014
Or at least its subversive soundtrack… I listened to The Orb’s amazing live album “Live ’93” the other day (after discovering the insipid “History Of The Future” collection on Spotify) and I was amazed at how countercultural and subversive it was. I was listening to this stuff at the age of 14 and now that I’m old enough to be a parent, that makes me a bit uncomfortable. Actually it does nothing of the sort, because it’s frigging awesome.
Tags: Music, The Orb, Fourteen, Electronic
Jul. 7, 2014
I’ll tell you about punk rock: punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and ah… and ah… heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies and the bodies and the hearts and the souls and the time and the minds of young men who give what they have to it and give everything they have to it and it’s a… it’s a term that’s based on contempt, it’s a term that’s based on fashion, style, elitism, satanism and everything that’s rotten about rock ’n’ roll.
Tags: Understated Classics, Music, Mogwai, Fourteen, Rock
Jul. 3, 2014
The hat in question is a Wilco baseball cap that I bought at a gig of theirs in 2004, the night that Germany got eliminated from Euro 2004. I’d love to show you a picture of it but I can’t, there isn’t even a picture of it from a Wilco merch site: at least not one that Google or Bing images can see anyway. I did manage to find a side-on picture of it in my bedroom in 2005 and zoom right in on it like they do in CSI.
Tags: Wilco, Life Experiences, Fourteen
Jun. 30, 2014
Watter are a “supergroup” composed from various members of Grails, Slint, and other bands. I did not know anything about Hundred Waters before this month: “The Moon Rang Like A Bell” is their second album. In fact second albums by bands I know nothing about are a something of theme because “Sunbathing Animal” is Parquet Courts’ sophomore effort and I don’t know anything about them either. Meanwhile, I’ve meant to write about “The Four Seasons Recomposed” since April.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, June, Grails, Watter, Hundred Waters, Parquet Courts, Max Richter, Fourteen
May. 31, 2014
This month was strange. I didn’t listen to much new music and after last month’s bumper digest there’s probably a reason for that. Not to mention that Spotify gives you more reasons to look backwards than forwards. Nevertheless, this brief post features new albums by Little Dragon and Coldplay, along with the mini-album collaboration between Röyskopp and Robyn.
Little Dragon “Nabuma Rubberband” I discovered Little Dragon, like most people, I imagine, via Gorillaz’ “Plastic Beach” album.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, May, Little Dragon, Coldplay, Royksopp, Robyn, Fourteen