![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jawnbc's Club cultur, No.1
Apr. 15th, 2004 06:11 pmI'm trying to reinvigorate my cultural consumption--high and low, narrow and wide--including all mannter of texts. I feel myself gearing up to do some academic writing--journal articles, to be precise--so part of the reading will be research oriented. Though feeding my intellect certain feeds my spirit. Or often does. Anyhooo
Music: It's Eurovision season, so I've already acquired all this year's submissions via download. As in most years, there's a few turds, a few gems, and a surprisingly good number of quality pop songs. [BTW 'tis a pop song contest, check your music snobbery at the door]. 36 entrants this year, including first timers Albania, Lithaunia, Belarus and Andorra, with Monaco participating for the first time in over 20 years. My early pick, taking into account song, performers' "look", regionalism, and how their live preview performances read on telly: Lithuania, Malta and Cyprus. The contest is 12-15 May in Istanbul, and will be broadcast live throughout Europe and Australia. And perhaps on TV5
In Les invasions barbares, the music of Francoise Hardy plays a small, but integral part. I've heard of her, knew she'd charted in England (singing in English), and was one of the ya-ya girls of mid-60s French music. Supermodel and pop star. Wow, lovely voice, wrote many of her own songs, some cheerful, some not. I heartily recommend the "best of" Verve collection released a few years ago. Suede et chaud comme un nid . . .Recommended
Books: A few weeks ago I tried (again) to read Brick Lane by Monica Ali. It's set in the ex-pat Bengali community in London (in Brick Lane). A few years ago Arundahti Roy's The God of Small Things won the Booker and a whole host of awards--quite the feat for a a first novel. Ali was nominated for lots (currently the Orange Prize), but this is twice it's failed to grab me. Hrm.
Now Eugenides' Middlesex grabbed me. And the Pulitzer committee last year: it won the fiction prize for 2003. It's an (appropriately) epic tale of Cal, a Greek-American lidho's finding puberty very troubling. Detroit in the 60s and 70s, cultural issues, and not quite feeling right--and falling in love with your best friend--are all elements, but it's a great story. Eugenides's Cal is clever, an insightful judge of character, and intersex--in Cal's case due to a genetic defect inherited from intermarriage. Both Cal and the book kept my attention for a fortnight of bedtime reading. Recommended.
Currently: Reading Amsterdam, for which Ian McEwan won the Booker in 1998 (very good so far), spinning various disks.
Music: It's Eurovision season, so I've already acquired all this year's submissions via download. As in most years, there's a few turds, a few gems, and a surprisingly good number of quality pop songs. [BTW 'tis a pop song contest, check your music snobbery at the door]. 36 entrants this year, including first timers Albania, Lithaunia, Belarus and Andorra, with Monaco participating for the first time in over 20 years. My early pick, taking into account song, performers' "look", regionalism, and how their live preview performances read on telly: Lithuania, Malta and Cyprus. The contest is 12-15 May in Istanbul, and will be broadcast live throughout Europe and Australia. And perhaps on TV5
In Les invasions barbares, the music of Francoise Hardy plays a small, but integral part. I've heard of her, knew she'd charted in England (singing in English), and was one of the ya-ya girls of mid-60s French music. Supermodel and pop star. Wow, lovely voice, wrote many of her own songs, some cheerful, some not. I heartily recommend the "best of" Verve collection released a few years ago. Suede et chaud comme un nid . . .Recommended
Books: A few weeks ago I tried (again) to read Brick Lane by Monica Ali. It's set in the ex-pat Bengali community in London (in Brick Lane). A few years ago Arundahti Roy's The God of Small Things won the Booker and a whole host of awards--quite the feat for a a first novel. Ali was nominated for lots (currently the Orange Prize), but this is twice it's failed to grab me. Hrm.
Now Eugenides' Middlesex grabbed me. And the Pulitzer committee last year: it won the fiction prize for 2003. It's an (appropriately) epic tale of Cal, a Greek-American lidho's finding puberty very troubling. Detroit in the 60s and 70s, cultural issues, and not quite feeling right--and falling in love with your best friend--are all elements, but it's a great story. Eugenides's Cal is clever, an insightful judge of character, and intersex--in Cal's case due to a genetic defect inherited from intermarriage. Both Cal and the book kept my attention for a fortnight of bedtime reading. Recommended.
Currently: Reading Amsterdam, for which Ian McEwan won the Booker in 1998 (very good so far), spinning various disks.
