Category: Musings

2023 consumption: a look at some stuff I liked

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Once more, dear friends, it’s time for me to remark that time has really flown this year, and that it seems as if I had only written last year’s one of these a couple of days ago.

Call me Bill. (And call me, Bill.)

Yep, 2023 went fast. It’s been a good year in a lot of ways, and absolutely atrocious in many others. The world continues to go to shit, and so I continue in my mission of providing distraction to those who enjoy it (thankfully, a treasured few do) through writing up what I consumed this year, culturally speaking. If this isn’t you, then punch out now. I’m not sure if this one’s going to be as long as previous editions, but let’s give it a whirl, shall we?

Previous versions are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here if you need an introduction.

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Unyoked with Nev

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A few years ago, an organisation called Unyoked were starting out and they gave away some overnight stays in some of the cabins they owned. The idea is that people go to these cabins – all located in the middle of nowhere, but still relatively accessible – to get away from technology and regular life and have a bit of a break. (It reminds me of the Japanese concept of forest bathing, though here it’s naturally a bit more scrubby.)

G’day Nev.
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Taiko ten years after

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So, a decade ago this week – the 28th, if we’re being exact – I did one of the biggest things I’ve done in my life.

I played as part of a taiko ensemble, on stage at an international competition in Tokyo. We were the only non-Japanese group that year.

And if you’ll look to the left, you’ll see…

We won.

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Planning the pages: 2019 edition

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Another year, another list.

Buncha words. I still should mop the floor.

As I did last year, I’ve decided to try and remove a fair bit of the indecision that surrounds my reading. I’ve got a metric fuckton of unread books to go through, and I get paralysed with choice when I finish something. Which of the thousands – yes, literally – comes next?

So, I made a list. This one might be a bit more legible than last year’s one, but it’s probably just as unattainable, completion-wise. That doesn’t matter, though: the list provides some structure, and something that gives a good endorphin burst each time I can put a red read line through anything. Continue reading “Planning the pages: 2019 edition” →

Movin’ on from Mubi

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So, I’ve just cancelled my subscription to Mubi, the online streaming service that specialises in arthouse and foreign film. I’m a bit sad about leaving, as I’ve discovered some really good things on there – and been made to watch things I’d always meant to get around to – but increasingly I’ve been viewing it with more side-eye than anticipation. I’d like to say that the decision to exit was purely financial – there’s a house being built, after all – but it’s not quite that simple.

CHRIST NOT MORE CHRIS FUCKING MARKER.

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One week, one hundred guitarists

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It’s a nice reminder: two guitarists busily strumming away is a jam; a hundred playing for dear life is a fucking movement.

That quote is something I came across a couple of days ago. It’s Tristan Bath writing in The Quietus about A Secret Rose, a piece by Paris-based composer Rhys Chatham. The whole review is worth reading because it bears some resemblance to a piece I took part in, A Crimson Grail.

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As Malcolm Young would have said, hit the bugger!

The piece, performed as part of this year’s Sydney Festival, is pretty enormous. An antiphonal piece, it generates a huge sound – though not as loud as you’d assume – with elements passing around the audience, who sit in the middle of the performance space. Players can’t really get a sense of how the whole works – not the way the audience can – because they’re so close to their particular section. But for those in the middle, it’s epic, to say the least. Continue reading “One week, one hundred guitarists” →

Planning the pages

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So there’s this.

Words.
Buncha words. Also, I should really mop this floor.

As I wrote just a couple of days ago, 2018 is the year I’m going to take the whole reading challenge thing a bit more easily.

I usually try to shoehorn 52 books into each year in some kind of book-a-week plan. Some years I’ve done more than 100 book per year. But mostly, I feel kind of hampered by there being a goal at all: I know I want to read more, and I know that how many books I read, I feel I should have read more. Continue reading “Planning the pages” →

2017 CONSUMPTION: A LOOK AT SOME STUFF I LIKED

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Oh, look at the time. It’s that time again: the time I write about the stuff I liked or consumed this year, briefly, for the edification of myself and nobody else, most likely.

idolbyi
Previous versions are here, here, here and here if you need an introduction.
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