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Archive for the ‘Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’ Category

Jun’ichirō Tanizaki–“The Gourmet Club” (Lucky Peach, No. 1: Ramen: Summer 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Black Mountain, Food, Funny (strange), Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Lucky Peach, Magic, McSweeney's, Neil Gaiman, Paul McCarthy, Short Story, Translation, Yuck! on July 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BLACK MOUNTAIN-Live at Sasquatch, May 30, 2011 (2011).

The previous Black Mountain live show I downloaded from NPR was a real disappointment.  For me the major problem was Amanda Webber’s voice–she applied a really harsh vibrato to the end of every single line.  It was so pronounced it sounded almost like a stutter.  I found it very distracting.

She doesn’t do that here, which automatically makes this set 100 times better (she has a minor vibrato on a few places, which is totally fine).  This Sasquatch concert covers songs from all three of their albums, which really showcases the diversity they explore within their trippy, space-rock, metal sound.  It works like a (brief) greatest hits for the band.

And the band sounds comfortable and fresh in this live setting (the guitars are fantastic and the keyboards add a wonderful spacey feel to the mix).  The two tracks of “Wucan” and “Tyrants” is particularly amazing; it’s interesting that they play four songs from their middle album and only three from their most recent.

Regardless, this release has won back my faith in Black Mountain live.

[READ: July 13, 2011] “The Gourmet Club”

I’d never heard of Tanizaki before and I haven’t really read that much Japanese fiction.  This translation by Paul McCarthy was really fantastic, and I never felt like I was reading a translation.

When I started this story (the first fiction from Lucky Peach), I was concerned that it was going to be the same kind of story as Neil Gaiman’s “Sunbird” (I realize “Sunbird” was published much later than “The Gourmet Club” originally written in 1919), but I’m glad it didn’t.

Essentially, this story focuses on five Japanese men who live to eat.  They are Epicurean to the highest degree, eating only the best at least once a day and often to bursting.  They go through all of the restaurants in Japan, traveling across the island to find new foods.  But they soon reach the end of their new food options. (more…)

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Lucky Peach: Issue 1–Ramen (Summer 2011)

Posted in Anthony Bourdain, Culture Shock, David Chang, David Rees, Eggs, Essays, Harold McGee, Ivan Orkin, John T. Edge, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Lucky Peach, Mark Ibold, Matthew Volz, McSweeney's, Mike Houston, Ramen, Ruth Reichl, Todd Kliman, Wylie Dufresne on July 10, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ROCKWELL KNUCKLES-“Silly Human” (2011).

This song was NPR’s song of the day on July 7th.  I’d never heard of Rockwell Knuckles before.  He’s a rapper from St. Louis and has at least one other album out as far as I can tell.  I was rather fond of this song for, as the NPR page says, he often prefers to be absurd.

This song has fast, manic music–jittery and confusing and the rap over the top of that music, especially the chorus, is equally frenetic and hard to fathom on one listen.  But the chorus has a interesting twisty melody and the lyrics (the ones that I can follow) are bizarre and thoughtful and not typical “street life” lyrics.

I listened to this sevral times in a row, and will defitely check out his full length (which you can stream here, and the songs I listened to are equally weird and catchy).

[READ: July 6, 2011] Lucky Peach Issue 1

McSweeney’s has yet another new periodical to occupy my ever diminishing reading time.  This one is a food magazine which, as the cover states is “the new food quarterly from Momofuku’s David Chang.”  I don’t especially like food magazines (Sarah subscribes to several, but I just can’t get into them–reading recipes to me is the equivalent of looking at XHTML code for most people).  I mean, I like to cook sometimes, but I don’t look for new recipes or anything like that.  So, I am probably the least likely recipient of this magazine.  Not to mention I’ve never heard of David Chang and only know about Momofuku because of the Elvis Costello album.

And then geez, the first issue is about Ramen?  Who gives a fuck about Ramen?  It’s that crappy stuff you buy 10 for $1 at the supermarket.  And you’re really going to devote 174 ad-free (except, obviously lots of mentions of Momofuku) pages to ramen?

Well, yes they are.  And holy shit if it wasn’t amazing.  David Chang is a really funny guy and co-editor Peter Meehan is a great foul-mouthed humorist.  [I have never seen so many “fucking”s in a cooking magazine before–in fact I suspect I’ve never seen any in a cooking magazine before].  The articles were funny and a little low brow (I doubt most cooking magazines mention people throwing up either), but they were engaging and interesting too. (more…)

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