Yesterday at the Motown Museum

Never can say goodbye ... no, no, no, no ...

Rest in Peace: Michael Jackson

I can almost hear him saying "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, peace at last!"

What I mostly feel is sadness. Maybe you younger folks just think of him as a freak and an alleged molester ... but I remember him when he was a little boy and I've been a fan of his for a while. Not recently though. (Remember how good Thriller was?)

I just feel sad that he couldn't transcend the weirdness before he died.

Ha! It humbles me. Will I transcend my own special weirdness before I kick?

Post-modern Alice in Wonderland?

Wanna see something weird? A post-modern Alice in Wonderland?

Yahoo has photos that Disney has released.

The make-up is incredible.

Updated Book List 2009 June

Copyrighted image courtesy of K. Smokey Cormier

This is what the book list looks like now:

Book List 2009

1. A History of Cambodia - David Chandler
   
2. A History of Modern Indonesia - M.C. Ricklefs
   
3. A House in Gross Disorder - Cynthia B. Herrup
   
4. A Point of Light - Zhou Mei
   
5. A Spy's Revenge - Richard V. Hall
   
6. A Will For Freedom - Romen Bose
   
7. Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
   
8. Armed Communist Movements in Southeast Asia - Lim Joo Jock, Vani S., Eds.
   
9. Asian Labour In The Japanese Wartime Empire - Paul Kratoska, Ed.
   
10. Beating the Blues - Thase & Lang
    
11. Between Two Oceans - Murkett, Miskic, Farrell, & Chiang
    
12. Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
    
13. Blood On The Golden Sands - Lim Kean Siew
    
14. Captains of Consciousness - Stuart Ewen
    
15. Chinese Customs - Henri Dore
    
16. Clay Walls - Kim Ronyoung
    
17. Colonial Masculinity - Mrinalini Sinha
    
18. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
    
19. Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavic
    
20. Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Charles Mackay
    
21. Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
    
22. First Person Singular - Joyce Carol Oates
    
23. Folklore of Tamil Nadu - S.M.L. Lakshman Chettiar
    
24. Force 136:Story of A Resistance Fighter in WWII - Tan Chong Tee
    
25. From Pacific War to Merdeka - James Wong Wing On
    
26. Gaijin - James Clavell
    
27. Gandhi's Truth — On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence - Erik H. Erikson
    
28. How I Adore You - Mark Pritchard
    
29. I Am America (And So Can You) - Stephen Colbert
    
30. In Pursuit of Mountain Rats - Anthony Short
    
31. In The Grip of a Crisis - Rudy Mosbergen
    
32. Kempeitai:The Japanese Secret Service Then And Now - Richard Deacon
    
33. Kempeitai - Raymond Lamont Brown
    
34. Krait:The Fishing Boat That Went To War - Lynette Ramsay Silver
    
35. Kranji - Romen Bose
    
36. Labour Unrest in Malaya - Tai Yuen
    
37. Lest We Forget - Alice M. Coleman & Joyce E. Williams
    
38. Life As The River Flows - Agnes Khoo
    
39. Living Hell - Goh Chor Boon
    
40. Luntaya Acheiq: An Illustrated Book of Burmese Court Textiles - Punvasa Kunlabutr
    
41. Malaya and Singapore During the Japanese Occupation - Paul H. Kratoska, Ed.
    
42. Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan - Melody Ermachild Chavis
    
43. Modern Japan, A Historical Survey - Hane Mikiso
    
44. My Island in the Sun - Khor Cheang Kee
    
45. Nakshi Kantha of Bengal - Sila Basak
    
46. Niels Lyhne - Jens Peter Jacobsen
    
47. Nonsense - Robert J. Gula
    
48. No Cowardly Past - James Puthucheary
    
49. Operation Matador - Ong Chit Chung
    
50. Orientalism - Edward W. Said
    
51. Outwitting the Gestapo - Lucie Aubrac
    
52. Pearl S. Buck, A Cultural Biography - Peter Conn
    
53. People's War, People's Army - Vo Nguyen Giap
    
54. Primitive Art - Frank Boas
    
55. Prometheus Rising - Robert Anton Wilson
    
56. Raffles - Maurice Collins
    
57. Reading Lolita In Teheran - Azar Nafisi
    
58. Red Star Over Malaya - Cheah Boon Kheng
    
59. Rehearsal for War - Ban Kah Choon & Yap Hong Kuan
    
60. Rethinking Raffles - Syed Muhd. Khairudin Aljunied
    
61. Revolt in Paradise - K'tut Tantri
    
62. Rosie - Anne Lamott
    
63. Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye (The Biography Of A Master Film-Maker - Andrew Robinson
    
64. Screenwriting 434 - Lew Hunter
    
65. Shanghai Refuge, A Memoir of the WWII Jewish Ghetto - Ernest G. Heppner
    
66. Sherpas Through Their Rituals - Sherry B. Ortner
    
67. Singapore & The Many-Headed Monster - Joe Conceicao
    
68. Singapore The Air-Conditioned Nation - Cherian George
    
69. Singapore The Pregnable Fortress - Peter Elphick
    
70. Sisters in the Resistance - Margaret Collins Weitz
    
71. Soldiers Alive - Ishikawa Tatsuzo
    
72. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce Vol. I - Anthony Reid
    
73. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce Vol. II - Anthony Reid
    
74. Strangers Always A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai - Rena Krasno
    
75. Stress and Mental Health in Malaysian Society - Tan Chee Khuan
    
76. The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
    
77. The Autobiography of An Unknown Indian - Nirad C. Chaudhary
    
78. The Bengal Muslims 1871 - 1906 - Ahmed
    
79. The Birth of Vietnam - Keith Weller Taylor
    
80. The British Humiliation of Burma - Terence R. Blackburn
    
81. The Devil Finds Work - James Baldwin
    
82. The Discourses - Niccolo Machiavelli
    
83. The Double Tenth Trial - C. Sleeman, S.C. Sillein, Eds.
    
84. The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600 - 1800 - C.R. Boxer
    
85. The Emergence of Modern Turkey - Bernard Lewis
    
86. The End of the War - Romen Bose
    
87. The Eye Over The Golden Sands - Lim Kean Siew
    
88. The Gift - Lewis Hyde
    
89. The Gravedigger's Daughter - Joyce Carol Oates
    
90. The Jungle is Neutral - F. Spencer Chapman
    
91. The Lives of Agnes Smedley - Ruth Price
    
92. The Old Wine Shades - Martha Grimes
    
93. The Malayan Union Controversy 1942-1948 - Albert Lau
    
94. The Mak Nyahs Malaysian Male to Female Transexuals - Teh Yik Koon
    
95. The March of Folly From Troy To Vietnam - Barbara W. Tuchman
    
96. The Mind's I - Hofstadter & Dennett
    
97. The Nanjing Massacre - Honda Katsuichi
    
98. The Origins of The Second World War in Asia and the Pacific - Iriye Akira
    
99. The Plague - Albert Camus
    
100. The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore - Christopher Tremewan
     
101. The Price of Peace - Foong Choon Hon, Ed.
     
102. The Rape of Nanking - Iris Chang
     
103. The Remembered Village - M.N. Srinivasan
     
104. The Right To Die - Humphry-Wickett
     
105. The Rise & Fall of the Knights Templar - Gordon Napier
     
106. The Scents of Eden, A History of the Spice Trade - Charles Corn
     
107. The Sky Book - Richard Misrach
     
108. The Tin Drum - Gunther Grass
     
109. The Ugly Chinaman - Bo Yang
     
110. The War in Malaya - A.E. Percival
     
111. The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
     
112. Three Came Home - Agnes Newton Keith
     
113. Time Bombs in Malaysia - Lim Kit Siang
     
114. Tokyo Rose - Masayo Duus
     
115. Virtual Reality - Howard Rheingold
     
116. War & Memory in Malaysia & Singapore - P. Lim Pui Huen, Diana Wong, Eds.
     
117. Who Won The Malayan Emergency - Herbert Andrew
     
118. Wilt on High - Tom Sharpe
     
119. Witness to an Era - Frank Moraes
     
120. Women in the Holocaust - Dalia Ofer, Lenore J. Weitzman, Eds.
     
121. Writers' Workshop in a Book - Cheuse and Alvarez
     
122. You'll Die in Singapore - Charles McCormac
     
123. You'll Never Get Off This Island - Keith Wilson
     
124. Your Memory: A User's Guide - Alan Baddeley

The astute reader will notice that, as usual, quite a few new titles have crept it. While I would never refer to any reader of mine as a fart (ass-toot?), I will admit to being a creep when it comes to books. Slow, creeping accretions to my book lists abound. I admit it, and hang my head, if only to read a little faster (it's a great angle if you adjust the light right). In the event, I will publish an updated list at the beginning of July, since I've read enough to brag a little and hint to any friends who might read this that they could, without shame, think of getting me pizza, or a cheeseburger, or cake, even, to congratulate me for my efforts.

Although, quite frankly, the current reading is mostly pretty grisly WW II Pacific Theatre material. Why do I read this stuff? Leave a comment. It'll keep me from eating chocolate till I pass out, or something.

Oh, yeah, check the previous book list and reviews.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I know that this book needs no help from me ... people are buying it and reading it -- and enjoying it. It's a good good book. I just finished it meself and loved it. It had everything I wanted at the time. I had been watching serious things on DVD and wanted to read something that lifted my spirits but wasn't fluffy. Plus, I wanted a story set in a place very different than my own. Boy, did I get that in spades! So the setting was wonderful for me -- lots of outdoors AND it's an island ... I love oceans, rivers, lakes, creeks ... even puddles. So there you go. Yes, and I loved the characters. The story is told in a series of letters. The main character is a writer. The story moves along quickly. There are no wasted words. And the characters made me laugh out loud. What more could you ask from a book? Well ... yes, substance. There's that too.

I highly recommend it.

Note: My list of books that I've read from January until end of June (with short reviews) will be posted here sometime in the first two weeks of July.

Liberals, Sparks, Stencils and Much Much More ...

Stencil in San Francisco, 2006

Dear Reader, have you discovered http://fora.tv/ yet? It’s a website you can go to and see videos of various lectures, performances, discussions, author presentations. I just watched one called “Why Jesus Was a Liberal: Rev. Scotty McLennan” and another one “Electricity Theater with Omega Recoil.” The latter was about these two guys -- John Behrens and Sparky Jewell -- who combine science, art, electricity, and sparks. A really fine one featured Russell Howze who is the author of Stencil Nation and the founder of StencilArchive.org.

I encourage you to visit http://fora.tv.