I have a new favorite band called Rend Collective Experiment.
Hailing from Ireland, they have been around for a couple of years, but I had never heard of them until I went to a Chris Tomlin concert a couple of weeks ago where they were the opening band. I highly recommend their album Organic Family Hymnal. It's a collection of new songs and old hymns made new. Definitely worth checking out.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Thousand Cranes Vase
Somewhere in a museum in Korea, there is a piece of pottery called "Thousand Cranes Vase." No one knows who the potter was, but it has been dated to the 1100s and is a beautiful example of celadon pottery with an inlay pattern or design. It amazes me that something this beautiful was made by hand so long ago.
From what I understand, the vase is thrown on a wheel, then each circle and crane and other designs are carved out and a piece of clay in a different color is formed to put into the place that has been cut out. Here is a picture of the actual Thousand Cranes Vase.
Pretty neat. This is inlaid with black and white clay. The green color comes from the glaze after it is fired. Search for images of Korean celadon pottery and you can see lots of other examples, but I think this is one of the best.
This vase and the technique used to make it are some of the inspiration for the Newbery Award winner I read in March.
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park takes place in 12th Century Korea and tells the story of an orphaned boy named Tree-ear who lives a hard life under a bridge with an older, crippled man named Crane-man. Tree-ear's life is mostly about survival - finding enough food and clothes, staying warm, but then, through a series of events, Tree-ear becomes an apprentice to one of the master potters in the village named Min.Eventually, Tree-ear is sent on a long journey to the court of the King to try to win a pottery commission for Min. Of course, along the way he faces many trials and hardships, but eventually,...well, I won't tell how it ends, you'll have to read it for yourself.
I didn't think I would like this one, but it turned out to be not so bad. Check it out.
Friday, March 25, 2011
A Guilty Pleasure?
When I was a senior in college, I took a class on 19th century British literature. It was a fantastic class. We read and dissected works by Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot, Thackeray, … I don’t even remember who all we read, but I do remember that I loved everything.
One day, at the start of class, the professor (I can’t remember his name now) asked what were our favorite “guilty pleasure” reads. No one spoke up, probably because most senior literature majors don’t have time for pleasure reading, so the professor admitted that he liked “wasting” his time on novels by Philip Roth.
Anyway, I’ve always remembered that professor’s assessment of Roth’s work and have wondered if there is any truth in it.
This month I finally got around to reading Philip Roth‘s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, American Pastoral which won the award in 1998.
The plot of the story revolves around Seymour “Swede” Levov, a successful business and family man in the 1960s. His life is more or less ruined when his daughter, as a protest to the Vietnam War, plants a bomb in the local post office/general store and then disappears after the bomb goes off killing a man.
Obviously there is a lot more to the story than that brief synopsis, but you’ll have to read the book yourself if you want to find out more. I will tell you that the whole story is very bleak, and there is no happy ending. Despite the subject matter, and lots of profanity it is a very readable book, and I will most likely be reading more Philip Roth in the future.
But is it a “guilty pleasure” read? Maybe. Especially if you compare it to the likes of Vanity Fair or Wuthering Heights. But I think it has a lot to offer on its own merit, and I definitely wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen reading it on the subway.
One day, at the start of class, the professor (I can’t remember his name now) asked what were our favorite “guilty pleasure” reads. No one spoke up, probably because most senior literature majors don’t have time for pleasure reading, so the professor admitted that he liked “wasting” his time on novels by Philip Roth. Philip Roth! Really? A guilty pleasure? I had never read anything by Roth at the time, but I was very much aware of his presence in the literary world. I knew that he had won the Pulitzer and National Book Award, and every year his name is thrown around as a possibility for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Anyway, I’ve always remembered that professor’s assessment of Roth’s work and have wondered if there is any truth in it.
This month I finally got around to reading Philip Roth‘s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, American Pastoral which won the award in 1998.
The plot of the story revolves around Seymour “Swede” Levov, a successful business and family man in the 1960s. His life is more or less ruined when his daughter, as a protest to the Vietnam War, plants a bomb in the local post office/general store and then disappears after the bomb goes off killing a man.
Obviously there is a lot more to the story than that brief synopsis, but you’ll have to read the book yourself if you want to find out more. I will tell you that the whole story is very bleak, and there is no happy ending. Despite the subject matter, and lots of profanity it is a very readable book, and I will most likely be reading more Philip Roth in the future.
But is it a “guilty pleasure” read? Maybe. Especially if you compare it to the likes of Vanity Fair or Wuthering Heights. But I think it has a lot to offer on its own merit, and I definitely wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen reading it on the subway.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
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