Means music. As far as music goes, Moroccans really like Shakira. Wilde wrote, in The Picture of Dorian Gray: “No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.” In Morocco, derija, the mother tongue of the majority of the population, is not considered a language. Imagine: the language in which one comforts one’s child, fights in the street, woos a lover, [...]

Yesterday was a summer concert held by the jazz circle. Our group appeared in the performance. As it turns out, it’s the last performance for both our vocalist and I – the band’s next gig is supposed to happen the same day I leave Saijo. To be honest there have been times lately when I wasn’t sure where my relationship with the other band members fell, but on this day I was truly happy to spend the entire day with them. I think all of us are a little bit [...]

About a month ago during one of the jazz circle jam sessions we played this song. One of the circle’s vocalists chose it. I had been typically unimpressed with most of the circle’s vocalists, so I didn’t exactly have high expectations for him either. Until I heard him sing it. Not only was his English surprisingly comprehensible (he says only when he sings), but his voice was beautiful. It was calming in a way that’s hard to describe. I fell in love with the song and the unique interval used [...]

I completely forgot to post my music suggestion on the last day of March! But that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with posting it a bit late, right? I remember years ago in my hometown the popular radio station was meant to give away a trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but someone at the station dropped the ball, so instead they gave away a post-Mardi Gras trip and called it Tardi Gras. This is something like that, only I’m not giving away anything that cool (or lame, depending on [...]

That’s actually the title of a CD I bought yesterday. It’s also by the band I’m going to suggest to you this month. Their name is 凛として時雨 (Rin toshite Shigure) and I liked them from the moment I heard them, though maybe they’re a bit strange. A few weeks ago one of my Japanese friends invited me to go to an izakaya with him. Me and one other American went. Everyone else was Japanese. It was a good chance for immersion, though when it came to group conversations I was [...]

Yesterday I had an abundance of free time. What do you do with free time while you’re in a city you’ve never been to on the other side of the world? You explore of course! The Japanese word of the day was うろうろ(urouro), which means wandering aimlessly. I started out by having lunch at a cute little cafe near my hotel. My first meal in Japan was beef curry. I’m not a particularly large fan of curry, but this stuff was fairly good, fairly cheap, and it sure filled me [...]

Something’s afoot here. I’m sure you’ve experienced it before—the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon—but it doesn’t make it any less surprising when it happens. I listen to a lot of music. I’m almost always listening, in fact. What I’m generally not aware of is where the artist is from. Some folks can hear the name of a band and BAM, “Oh yeah, they’re from Michigan” or what-have-you. I’m not that guy. But there’s a handful of bands that I’ve been listening to lately that have suddenly, to me at least, been from Scandinavia. [...]