NPR has a feature on Miriam Makeba. I love that I can listen to NPR pieces from China online. She is a fascinating singer with a new album out who hates being referred to as “the click click girl.” Her talk about growth as an artist and discovering her role allowing her to take on the name “Mama Africa” is inspirational to me.
I checked these guys out on BBC Radio 6’s album of the day. All I can really say is “go Norway” for producing so much music I want to get my hands on.
I will certainly get my hands on this album as soon as I have the ability to, and for now, I will be satisfied downloading the tune available.
The band has a nice little site, well not so little and slow loading from here, but everything is slow loading from here.
*wanders away cheering that bossa nova isn’t dead*
I’ve just been a bookworm of late. Yesterday I finished reading Cory Doctorow’s Eastern Standard Tribe. It was a fun romp, and as a lightweight it’s no wonder I finished reading it so soon.
The idea of a troupe of people around the world working on a certain homeland’s sleep schedule doesn’t surprise me at all, and of late I find myself doing just that because of network issues. It’s hot and stuffy, and if I get up at 4AM, I can chat with my East Coast buddies while they’re still at work. It’s fun to see that extrapolated out in a book, and of course, being a MA native, I enjoyed seeing the MassPike’s E-ZPass mentioned and suggested as the tool to launch something exciting.
I didn’t find the whole book as intriguing or thought provoking as Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, but I do get the feeling of someone who knows what I’ve been going through, living and working abroad while still having a deep seated cultural connection to someplace else. Besides, the book is just a lot of fun.
The 2004 Cartoonist’s Choice Awards are certainly exciting to me. Many of my regular reads are up there on the list. Just think, this time next year, with my webcomic having been running for months, I will be able to vote too! Excellent.
This year, I am happy to sit back and see what happens, but just so you know, I think the most talented comics on there are Scary Go Round, Something Positive, Count Your Sheep, and Ozy and Millie.
The reason I picked up Hunting Unicorns is that it reminded me of Ruth Ozeki for some weird reason. Interestingly enough, inside the back cover is an ad for a Ruth Ozeki book. I have a fascination with contemporary British writing. Look at my list of favorite writers, and the number of UK folks should stand out.
Bella Pollen’s foray was a quick read for me. Two days of reading that would have been finished in one if I weren’t hanging out with friends.
Culturally, I find myself best able to identify with books that crash cross-cultural and identity issues straight into each other. What can I say, I am fascinated by anything that may bring me closer to some internal revelation.
That is certainly ground covered here. The main characters are pushed into an awkward romance and the awkward terms of their own cultural identities. Some folks love celebrity gossip, but I eat this stuff up.
Without selling out the book too much, I’d like to point out my favorite writing device in this book. The story is revealed by two narrators, which is not strange, but one of those is dead. This is not some mythical sci-fi twist or even spiritual aspect of the plot, rather just a matter of fact. The post-mortem witticisms of tht extremely flawed narrator are spectacular.
In the end, it certainly gives me some new thoughts on the role of narrator in the story.
In this US, the book is still in hardcover, though for UK friends it is already in paperback, which is the edition I picked up here in Shanghai.
Ozy and Millie’s June 17 strip is just brilliant. I am highly enjoying Millicent’s search for evil. The idea that it might reside in Ozy is just too funny.
I received an email not too long ago lamenting the absence of a comic from my list of links and favorites. Truth be told, while I spend a lot of time on comics, I come nowhere near to knowing all that’s out there. Share the love, if you are so bold, and recommend some to me, since I always work hard to bring them to you. I appreciate recommendations.
Mitch in Wonderland is worth taking a look at, especially in relation to some stuff that I had written about not too long ago. I had mentioned the fact that most of my friends are guys. This is just the way of the world for me, though I’m not complaining. Every once in a while I wonder if it points to some kind of issue in my social interactions, but for the most part I am resigned to the fact that I communicate better with guys. One of my gripes comes from the inherent difficulty with dealing with women, the idea that there can be so many games going on.
I can count on one hand the amount of women I interact with and don’t sense that kind of game. This bothers me to a great degree, since I don’t like stupid games. There are many women I like, but I can’t stand inane competition over things that really don’t matter and just make someone feel bad. In the comic, Matt examines the differences in the way men and women see the world, or at least other women. I know this maybe simplistic and maybe shallow, but I think it’s funny, and having at one point had a tiny foot in the fashion industry, I feel like it’s pretty accurate. Of course, this issue is visited in more depth in the next day’s comic.
I’ve already spoken before about reading The Gunslinger, but now that I’m three books further into The Dark Tower, I’d like to revisit.
Firstly, I can say that I found the whole thing engaging and captivating. There was a huge break between publishing The Drawing of Three (book 2), The Waste Lands (book 3) and Wizard and Glass (book 4). I can definitely see why.
The Drawing of Three brings in more players in the story from our world. Seeing the cross between the dying world that The Gunslinger set up, and our current world, and how Roland sees things is a pleasure. The book read really fast, and I found myself on the edge of my chair and rooting for the characters. This even though I didn’t like some of them.
The Waste Lands was exhausting and a large story in and of itself. Any Stephen King readers know that the books are no lightweights when it comes to page count. Watching Roland and Jake reconcile their obstacles left me tired and worked up. The idea that a story can be told well enough to exhaust me is impressive.
The other joy in such a long story is to watch the continual growth. In a good book the characters grow, they are dynamic. Well, in this series the characters grow pretty continually and are very dynamic. In Wizard and Glass, Roland learns to feel again, and we are introduced to his past. Not only is he feeling, but he’s able to admit it. Learning about his past and his ghosts gives an even greater depth and added mystique to a rough stone-like man. I cannot contemplate composing 2100 or so pages of text while maintaining any kind of mystique.
Still, all this reading and taking a break and I feel tired again here after Wizard and Glass. It’s a long journey, not only for the characters but also for the reader, and I’m glad I won’t be able to get my hands on the rest of the books for a little while. The 7th book won’t be published until late September. The Dark Tower series is excellent, if you ask me, but certainly something to pace yourself through. Granted, I need multiple inputs and read several books in the same time frame (though haven’t while reading this… the multiple storylines were engaging enough that, supplemented with some online reading, I was fine).
I took a gander and was extremely amused.
Count Your Sheep is celebrating its first birthday. Much kudos to Adrian Ramos for some great work.
I think this particular strip from the 11th is very poignant and worth remembering in the big scheme of things.