I've been poking about on YouTube quite a bit recently. YouTube really makes it easier to create interesting blog posts, I think. Or maybe it just makes it easy to be lazier.
In any case, I've been delving into lots of Morrissey and Smiths footage, and there's a lot of interesting stuff to choose from. I would blog about my favourite (so far) interview footage of Morrissey, as there's a great deal I feel I could say about it, especially in as much as it seems to show a more loquacious Morrissey than we seem to see these days. However, it's late, and I feel that it might be a little redundant of me to blog it, since it has already been blogged.
Instead I will blog the YouTube clip inset. I don't know who Johnny Carson is, but it's a clip from his show. Morrissey performs two songs, both from the flop album of the early nineties, Kill Uncle. The first of these is the hugely under-rated Sing Your Life. Morrissey is at the height of his rockabilly phase here, and his performance is quite astonishing. I felt quite revivified after watching it. The second song is the fairly forgettable There is a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends. This version is a little more interesting than the album version.
And remember, "you have a lovely singing voice/a lovely singing voice/and all of those who sing on key/they stole the notion from you and me".
I am stunned that you don’t know who Johnny Carson is. Anyway, great clip.
“I am stunned that you don’t know who Johnny Carson is.”I’ve led a sheltered life. Was he something else in a previous existence, apart from a talk-show host? The name sounds like it could belong to someone. It’s one of those names.
I’ve just found this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xEzGIuY7kwAs far as I can make out, someone has recorded a rap song about me. Got one or two of the facts wrong. Otherwise, spooky.
:up:
H Y A K U N I N C H O writes:I came across your blog after searching “Nagai Kafu” on the web. I am about to embark on a dissertation of Japanese writers and am considering including Kafu. Is there a particular Kafu novel you could recommend? I do not mind if you just give me the names of Japanese titles. I believe he is identified with writing about Tokyo – this interests me.By the way, what other Japanese writers interest you?
Interesting Post! :yes:
Hello Hyakunincho.Will you be reading the novels in English or in Japanese? As yet there are very few English translations of Kafu’s work. I would recommend starting with Lane Dunlop’s translation of During the Rains and Flowers in the Shade (in one volume). You should also get hold of Edward Seidensticker’s Kafu the Scribbler, which is divided into biography and translation. I really don’t agree with Seidensticker’s opinions about Kafu, though. I find him arrogant to the point of being offensive. For instance, in some cases he doesn’t translate a whole story, only a part of it, saying that since there was no dramatic unity in the first place, this doesn’t ruin the piece. Who the hell is he to decide that? So, that’s my personal gripe. Edward Seidensticker? I wouldn’t have him in the house. But he writes a very informative biography, and his translations are better than many of the translations of Japanese literature that one comes across (many of which are criminally poor). You might also be able to find a translation of Geisha in Rivalry, though when I last checked the Net, it was out of print and being auctioned at outrageous prices. Professor Stephen Snyder has written some brilliant criticism on the works of Kafu (Fictions of Desire), which I recommend wholeheartedly, and there is also a translation of Kafu’s American Stories, which somehow survives unskillful translation with elegance intact. If you will be reading in Japanese, my own recommendations for essential Kafu are Ame Shosho, Bokuto Kidan, Yume no Onna (this one is a very under-rated early novel influenced by French Naturalism), Udekurabe, Okamezasa and Tsuyu no Atosaki. You might also want to read Tanizaki’s essay on Kafu (I forget the title, but it’s collected in the Tanizaki zuihitsu along with the famous in’ei Raisan.I hope the above is helpful to you. If you need to know more, please feel free to send me a message via Opera. Other Japanese writers who intereste me are Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, Dazai Osamu, Higuchi Ichiyo and Mishima Yukio. I mainly go for the tanbiha writers between Meiji and Showa (inclusive).
“Interesting Post!”Thank you.