All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.
Fascinating copy from a spam email I received:
Concerned with your size and hardness? Study this, here’s the answer!
A gift given in secret soothes anger, and a bribe concealed in the cloak pacifies great wrath. God gives every bird its food, but does not always drop it into the nest. A creaking door hangs longest.
Indeed.
Think I’m in Love | Cell Phone’s Dead by Beck
Beck has a new album on the way, this one produced by Nigel Godrich, who also did Mutations and Sea Change. Two new tracks, complicatedly leaked and then retracted by Beck.com and Beck’s MySpace page, give a sense of what we’re in for.
Despite advance word that this was going to be a hip-hop album, the first leaked track, “Think I’m in Love,” is anything but. A melodic, mid-tempo love song of sorts, with spare production that sounds possibly incomplete, “Think I’m in Love” picks up where Sea Change left off: with a fragile psyche working its way back from a horrendous breakup. It’s pleasant enough, but I don’t think it’d make me turn my head if I didn’t know it was by Beck.
“Cell Phone’s Dead” is another matter entirely, reaching back to Beck’s old abstract raps over eclectic soundscapes. The funky bassline sounds like a sample from Herbie Hancock’s “Wiggle-Waggle,” off the Fat Albert Rotunda album, over which echoey percussion rattles around as Beck raps. But then comes the jungle break, full of lush sounds and hoots, so that the track is like a conceptual mashup of “Hell Yes” and “Nobody’s Fault but My Own,” with a pinch of Odelay jitters thrown in. Let’s hope the whole new album is this sonically interesting.
On Tuesday, August 8, at 7:30 p.m., the 82-year-old Korean Living National Treasure dancer Kang Sun Young will perform at the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, along with her troupe of 60 dancers and a 14-piece Korean traditional orchestra.
It’s extremely rare for a Korean performance to be staged on this scale outside of Korea. From what I know of Korean dance, it should be a moving and powerful experience. You can read the press release for details.
The Korean Mission to the UN is giving out tickets, so if you’ve got any interest in coming with me, please let me know by July 25.
America is Waiting | New Feet by Brian Eno and David Byrne (My Life in the Bush of Ghosts)
Dhyana and Donalogue | Speaking in Tongues I | Sacred Stones by Sheila Chandra (Weaving My Ancestors’ Voices)
In 1979, Brian Eno and David Byrne, who had been working together on Talking Heads records, embarked on a remarkable project, the result of which was the 1980 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Lavishly reissued by Nonesuch, Bush of Ghosts sounds perhaps better today than it did then. Inspired by then-obscure African and Arabic music as well as the nascent hip-hop scene and its elision of the roles of composer, performer and curator, Eno and Byrne set out to create the music of an imaginary culture.
There were twists and turns along the way — fascinatingly described in the intelligent new liner notes by Byrne — and the final product, made up of rhythm tracks and found vocal samples, captured the zeitgeist of an uncertain time during which convulsions in the Third World intruded on the consciousness of the First. The period during which the album was made was one of relentless coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis. It also saw the independence of Zimbabwe and the kidnapping and murder of the American ambassador to Afghanistan. In America, Ronald Reagan was elected president. The album’s vocal samples of African and Muslim singers, African-American and white American preachers, angry political talkshow hosts and laughing exorcists create an ominous swirl of cross-cultural superstition and ecstaticism that reflected the atmosphere of those times and resonates strongly today.
“America is Waiting” probably reflects the atmosphere of the hostage crisis most clearly, but its mood of expectation, condemnation and menace could have come straight from today’s talk radio. “New Feet” is an outtake that uses beautiful samples of Muslim (I think) singing. You can listen to snippets of all the tracks at the Bush of Ghosts website, which is chock full of goodies, including a remix site, and well worth a look.
A very different approach to voice across cultures is that of Sheila Chandra, the first English pop singer of Indian descent to chart a hit. On her album Weaving my Ancestors’ Voices, she specifically wanted to move past the idea that fusion is about mixing up exotic instruments, so she limited herself to voice and drone. The fusion is all in the vocal style. “Dhyana and Donalogue” is an adaptation of a very old Irish ballad, with some wordless Muslim-style lament thrown in. “Speaking in Tongues I” is a bravura performance of Indian spoken percussion. And we end with “Sacred Stones,” a gorgeous blending of Christian and Hindu prayers and harmonies. Amen, Shiva!
There are certain flavors that I will always associate with summer: fresh blackberries hot from the sun and picked straight from the vine, chocolate milkshakes like my grandmother used to make when my best friend and I would watch Scooby Doo, ice-cold lemonade.
For Koreans, the flavor of summer is apparently naengmyeon (냉면), or cold buckwheat noodles. Today the New York Times profiles this chewy treat, which I have to admit I never liked. Lately my colleague Young has been trying to convince me to give it another shot, so I will soon be indulging in this peculiar Korean dish once again. Hopefully Kang Suh, which she says is the restaurant to go to, will do a better job than the hole-in-the-wall student eatery near Daehagno in Seoul where I developed my current dislike.
Update: Looks like no Chicago after all, or at least not until the end of August. Jenny’s been extended in Pennsylvania instead. Ah, well.
Original post: Like a Mississippi sharecropper, it looks like Jenny is goin’ to Chicago. Okay, not much like a Mississippi sharecropper, considering she’ll be going as a business consultant to develop a cost-benefit analysis for what could turn out to be a very large transportation project. She’s scheduled to leave her current project with CIGNA at the end of the month and begin her new gig in August.
In terms of travel, Chicago may actually turn out to be less arduous than all of the schlepping to Philadelphia and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for her current project. Jenny was told that travel time for the new gig would probably average two to three days per week, and while it’s unclear how that would be divided up, that would be a distinct improvement over the ongoing four-day travel schedule she’s been on. Of course, these things have a way of expanding. However it works out, though, I’m glad Jenny gets to move on (finally!) from her first project as a consultant and start a new adventure in a new city.
Bonus: A theme song, of sorts, for Jenny’s new assignment (gotta listen to the very end) (via music (for robots)).
It’s features like these that make me envy those friends of mine who have become obsessed with Italy or France. Of all the countries in the world to snare my passions, why did it have to be the one that thinks larvae are a tasty treat for the kiddies?
When we were in India in 2002-2003, our favorite hotel was one we didn’t even stay at: Killa Bhawan. Located in the honey-hued fort walls of the historic Thar Desert city of Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, the hotel was run by an affable Brahmin who was wise enough to see the value of inviting non-guests up to his extraordinary terrace for chai and conversation. We were given a look at the gorgeous interiors, put together in conjunction with a French designer, then ushered up to comfortable wicker chairs on the crenellated curve of the fort wall, where we drank in the views along with the sweet spiced tea.
India was an enervating and difficult place to travel, but Jenny and I could see heading back to Jaisalmer simply to while away our days at the Killa Bhawan. More even than its stunning location, what so impressed us about the Killa Bhawan was its immaculate, lush sense of style. Its color schemes — Rajasthani oranges, pinks, greens and reds against tan sandstone and dark wood — became a kind of shorthand for all that we found most compelling about Rajasthani style. Alas, the tight spaces of New York apartments are more suited to the clean lines and simple elegance of East Asia, while its more northerly light works better against the muted shades of those temperate countries than with the bright juxtapositions of the Indian desert. But one day I do hope to decorate a home, or part of a home, in the style of Killa Bhawan. And in the meantime, you’ll notice that the look of this blog owes a bit to the color and feel of that remarkable hotel.
When Ghengis Khan died, his legacy was so powerful — and so disputed — that his family homeland was closed to all outsiders and remained closed until after the fall of the Soviet Union nearly 800 years later. This and other fascinating and bizarre facts about history’s most prolific conqueror can be found in Jack Weatherford’s engrossing if somewhat undercritical biography, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. And what better time to learn about this astonishing figure, who really did reshape the political landscape from Manchuria to Central Europe, than now, as the Mongolians celebrate his octocentennial?
Song of General KIM IL SUNG | Don’t Ask My Name | Children’s Music 1 (Music Gallery of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)
애국가 (Aegukga) (National Anthem of the Republic of Korea)
Been hankering for creepy marches and disturbing paeans to terrifying totalitarian dictators? Your search is over!
In honor of North Korea’s recent erectile dysfunction, here are a few tracks from the DPRK’s charming Music Gallery, as filled with joy as everything produced in the jolly North. My Korean isn’t good enough to understand most of the lyrics, and I’m not about to go wandering around the South Korean UN Mission in search of someone to translate North Korean propaganda ditties, so unfortunately I can’t tell you exactly what these tunes are about. I did catch the children singing “김정일 ... 우리 아버지” (Kim Jong-il … uri abeoji, or Kim Jong-il … our father) at one point, but you knew that was in there somewhere.
In the interest of fairness, I’ve also included the national anthem of the Republic of Korea, whose title translates to The Patriotic Song — you may recall hearing it following some short-track skating event in the Winter Olympics. It’s better than the North Korean stuff, although I find it disappointing that so many Asian countries have gone for poignant yet rousing anthems in the European classical tradition. Like, wouldn’t it be cooler if the national anthem of Indonesia was the Kecak, or if India’s was a raga that took 45 minutes? If Nepal can have its wacky flag, shouldn’t someone have a truly bizarre national anthem?
Oh, and if you happen to be wondering why a “weekly” feature appears as sporadically as Weekly World Music, let’s just say that I’m on summer schedule, and also that I’m sorta lazy. I’ll try to keep up with it every week, but some weeks it’ll slide. Life is full of broken promises.
