Kodò

On Friday night we saw Kodò in concert in Antwerp.
At first I wasn’t sure if two hours’ worth of drumming would hold my attention, and yet I found that whenever they broke up their set with something different like a dragon dance, or a geisha song accompanied by a shakuhachi, I found myself thinking “Well that’s all [...]

Fisheye

“a lot of people get AIWS when they’re six or seven and grow out of it“.
A fascinating article, found via Warren Ellis’ blog, which suddenly reminded me when I read it this morning that I used to suffer a very occasional, very mild version of the same syndrome during my childhood and adolescence. All of a [...]

I vant to be alone

I was always a fairly solitary child. Despite having two elder siblings and a smattering of close friends, my preferred company was always my own. Once, at a birthday party, I retreated upstairs with the book I’d received as a present (Spiderman, if memory serves), leaving my friends downstairs to party on without me.
While my own [...]

The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to

I can’t remember the last time I physically injured myself. I’m not talking about breaking a nail or banging my head - I mean something that resulted in real bleeding, a large bruise, a break.
As a child I never needed to go to hospital - I’ve never broken a bone (although I did manage to [...]

Feed me weird things

(please note, this is not a Squarepusher album review). 
So there we were with a four-day weekend in front of us and nothing better to do, so we thought we’d pop over the channel for dinner. OK, kidding. This weekend had been planned with military precision two months in advance. An account of the entire trip, [...]

Four naked men in a room

The room is small and dimly lit. The men sit in plastic chairs. A young woman, who is not naked, enters and explains to them how to smear the four different coloured muds on various parts of their (own) bodies. She leaves the room. The lights dim, leaving the room illuminated only by myriad tiny [...]

Things that go hump in the night

As has been previously noted, I sometimes have to battle my inner Englishman who pleads “Don’t make a fuss, don’t cause a scene, don’t complain”. One situation in which I find it very easy to complain, fuss, and make a scene is when someone disturbs my sleep. If you’;re making a noise in the early [...]

Clack, plop

I don’t want to make a habit of posts which consist simply of links to other people’s blog posts, but this one is lovely:
“the chemistry of disappointment has no better aural analogy than the dull, gently slowing rattle of a ball denied entry to its chosen pocket”

The sound of silence

When was the last time you were quiet? I don’t mean not talking, I mean not making any sound of any kind? It’s more difficult than you think. Even if you sit (or lay) perfectly still, there’s still your breathing, your heartbeat, your digestive system. And if you try to move…This came home to me [...]

Look at me

Jing Di, Emperor of China (157-141 B.C., Han dynasty), was considered so sacred that most people couldn’t even bring themselves to use his name, and so he was often referred to as “Foot of the Stair”, because when in his presence you couldn’t look any higher than the bottom stair of his dais. Imagine going [...]