May 31, 2007
Media memes
- Alive Not Dead archive
meme: def. an idea, behavīor, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture
I first heard of Murakami when Grace gave me a copy of his first, auto-biographical novel, Norwegian Wood for my birthday. I thought it was excellent so I snapped up a couple more of his novels on my next trip to the U.S. last April.
Over the course of the month, Murakami came up again spontaneously in conversation:
- With JTo while playing pool and he brought his copy of Kafka on the Shore...
- With Rancho over dinner before the Heavenly Kings screening asking me if I had read Kafka on the Shore and if I had a copy of Murakami's new novel...
- With Terence when I lent him my copy of Ryu Murakami's excellent and lurid In the Miso Soup... I scooped up a bunchy of Murakami novels and didn't realize that I had picked up this one accidentally. I actually had already finished the novel when Terence remarked that what I had read was NOT Haruki Murakami but rather another popular Japanese pop author (and also directed Audition!) ... T is a fan of both authors so already knew the difference. Well, it was great anyways.
- I was just scanning over Crystal's Myspace page (she's our next artist to be added to Alivenotdead!) and see that she's in the middle of Kafka on the Shore also.
I'm in the middle of reading Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle... probably his best reviewed novel...
So far, it's definitely a good read as his writing is involving, but it seems to be a bit meandering as compared to Norwegian Wood.
On the topic of Beatles songs and catchy stuff -- My laptop is set to play chronologically through all 9.3 hours of all the Beatles songs ever recorded. Actually -- I mostly skip through the early stuff to Rubber Soul because I'm not a big fan of the moptop period. I've had one particular song stuck in my head for the past two days and just can't get it out so I'm going to "infect" you guys, too. I love this song...
Incidentally, this is the very last time the Beatles ever performed together -- their 1969 surprise, public performance on the top of the Apple Studios... the historic concert was summarily cut short after 45-minutes by their neighbors at Barclay's Bank across the street who had the concert shut down. Can you believe that? Those stuffy idiots shut down the final concert of the most important band of all time.
On the topic of Beatles songs and catchy stuff -- My laptop is set to play chronologically through all 9.3 hours of all the Beatles songs ever recorded. Actually -- I mostly skip through the early stuff to Rubber Soul because I'm not a big fan of the moptop period. I've had one particular song stuck in my head for the past two days and just can't get it out so I'm going to "infect" you guys, too. I love this song...
Incidentally, this is the very last time the Beatles ever performed together -- their 1969 surprise, public performance on the top of the Apple Studios... the historic concert was summarily cut short after 45-minutes by their neighbors at Barclay's Bank across the street who had the concert shut down. Can you believe that? Those stuffy idiots shut down the final concert of the most important band of all time.