Sunday, July 30, 2006
maquey fields in the oaxacan valley
When I've got a bunch of things going on, so much so, I tend to drop out of communication. It's been a busy summer, sort of relaxing and sort of anxiety forming. You can see photos my from trip to Oaxaca, Mexico or see a picture of my new car, my first new car, in which the planets aligned and I recognized it. You can also my new school I will be experiencing my first year as a teacher, Menchaca Elementary. So, three firsts, all big, hence the anxiety forming capabilities. The plus side of all this was petting burros in the forest in Cuajimoloyas, the look on the cashier's face at the thrift store as I bought three giant teddy bears, and of course driving the ultra-smooth Nissan Versa with the new car smell and CD player (I thought a tape player was luxury!). I've also been collecting a lot of music from the public library and burning CDs. Columbian cumbias and gaitas, anyone?
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of possible interest
read
the old capital - yasunari kawabata
young twin views both modern and more classic worlds of japanese life and culture at the same time. rich with quiet imagery, cold weather, busy fabric shops, and parades.
mysterious skin - scott heim
no, i haven't seen the movie, but i enjoyed this and didn't feel overly creeped out (it could have been that i was in the mountains while i read it). a story told by the main players about, among other things, the way people remember and deal with trauma early in life. as some interested in the serious study of ufo abductions, i appreciate that the author was both knowledgeable and respectful of the subject, though his main character eschews this possibility as to the source of his mystery. written about 10 years ago.
shiva 3000 - jan lars jensen
supervisual adventure in the past/future of india a la strange science fiction. mortals interact with the hindu gods in interesting ways, among other things.
do androids dream of electric sheep? - philip k. dick
i am reading this novel for the second time, and have seen the movie based on it, 'blade runner', repeatedly, which is something i rarely do with books and movies. it is so rich, both as a movie that was overfilmed and heavily edited (making it difficult to follow) and as a short novel. the original story, published in 1968, is much more broad in what it discusses. parts of the story, like where deckard is picked up by an alternate san francisco police force, is straight out mindgames. i think i'll finish this one slowly.
the futurological congress - stanislaw lem
in the city of shy hunters - tom spanbauer
psychotropic short read about a chaotic future, a pause, then a perceived better reality in the future's future. this book has fantastic words in it, so many new and invented for the future. what amazes me is how this book was ever translated from the polish..
in the city of shy hunters - tom spanbauer
currently reading - early 1980's ny - spanbauer's previous novel's main character was a half-indian bi-sexual adolescent living in a pink brothel in montana in the 19th century. this novel already nods to the previous (killdeer references, etc.), and is a hefty read i'm already hooked into after 25 pages..
middlesex - jeffery eugenides
i like novels about gender/sexual identity. i've bought a few copies of this one for friends. the mind that conceived 'virgin suicides' created this stalwart multi-generational tale of hermaphroditism, among other things. the arrangement of the timeline kept me moving straight through, not wanting the story to end.
listen
devendra banhart - cripple crow
it didn't take much time to get into this. somehow the first listen to a different album over a year ago was more edgy. 'mama wolf' and 'dragonflys' are among my favorites here.
the cure - faith
i picked this one up again after about a 10 year hiatus, on ebay for $1.69, because no matter how many times i listened, it only got better and more unique in my memory. if you think you know (and like/dislike) the cure but have never heard this album, i would recommend a listen. it's really a perfect album, as some reviews have said.
federico aubele - gran hotel buenos aires
i heard this first through the 'eighth street lounge' compilation 'den of theives'. mellow and rich, dub-esque delays and pauses. all in spanish with lovely female vocals.
le pop 2 - various artists
smooth, downright catchy french pop that is fresh and innovative
ammer und console - on the tracks
all in german. vocal tracks are various people speaking into handhelds while spying on what seem like random people in random cities (or this is as far as my german comprehension will take me). chill and on-edge computer generated under it all.
adult - anxiety always
i can lay on the floor with the headphones on and not move through this whole album. tight cheap synth sounds, conceptual composing, detroit dialect angsty female vocals. the most interesting husband/wife collaborative i've heard since low.
see
baraka
rich scenes of indigenous in contrast with modern societies and practices ranging from poultry farms to aboringinal dancing.
red dwarf
i've always wanted to like star trek, star wars, dune, and all those pop cultures trappings. i found myself, however, creating my own sarcastic dubbing-over to make it more enjoyable. red dwarf is like that, only drastically more creative and weird. i recently watched the entire first season, which sets the stage for several more years of programming. my favorite episode involves an entire world of rimmer clones. insane!
otesanek - jan svankmajer
a couple desperate to have a child form one out of a tree stump. their intense desire for it to be their child brings it to life. then like a troll baby, the thing eats and eats, cats, carrot soup, neighbors. great cast and special stop-motion effects like jason and the argonauts.
apu trilogy - satyajit ray
from infant to father, following the life of one man through scraping poverty and rural living like only 1950's india can serve up.
logan's run
post-catastrophe domed city where everyone believes that they must/will die by age 30. they must either be killed in a ritual called 'carosel' where they believe they are reborn, or run away and be nailed by official assassins.
from somewhere else
Q: Who invented math? (West Middle School Science Club, Binghamton, NY) I had an uncle once—Dad's little brother, Hale—who claimed that he did, that he'd been plopped down here in time by a demon who wanted to disrupt the universe. The Great Screaming Halt, as he called it, was to occur on November 6, 1988, when a giant slide of glass would float out of the black of the universe and slide as a lens in front of the sun, frying us all. I loved Hale. He'd show up drunk at our house in the middle of the night with all kinds of equations and symbols written on his face and arms, information he said he couldn't afford to lose. Then he and Dad would start arguing about it, Dad being an enthusiastic Christian who believed that the world was going to end not by Hale's abominations but by the ones the Bible tells: fire, plagues, Jesus from the sky, and whatnot. Every time, they'd end up drunk, falling over the floor on each other while I sat and watched, not scared so much as trying to figure out who I wanted to win: Dad or Hale? If they were still going at it when Mom got home, she'd make me go lock myself in the bathroom until the scene broke up (Hale was dangerous, she said; he'd strangled a man); but by then Hale had already made an impression on me. I started trying to come up with my own ideas like Uncle Hale's, based on hours of research and study of numbers barfed out in error by our dot-matrix printer, the static on the TV, what have you. Before Hale died he made real sure that he'd planted his seed inside me—sequestered me with the passion, if you know what I mean, and, really, I point to him as the reason I got interested in school and therefore why I'm sitting here enlightening you and the world's children on the mysteries of science. - Alternative Answers to Some of the Cornell Center for Materials Research's "Ask a Scientist!" Student E-Mails. BY BLAKE BUTLER