Brian Sacawa | Sounds Like Now

“Shamas stands in the open door and watches the earth, the magnet that it is, pulling snowflakes out of the sky towards itself.”
—Nadeem Aslam, Maps for Lost Lovers

Disgrace is a relatively short book but it contains plenty to think about. Set in contemporary South Africa, it’s the story of David Lurie, an amorous 52-year-old university professor, who through an indiscretion with a student, succeeds in losing his position at the university. In order to escape the commotion in Cape Town following his […]

Although I don’t need to make travel arrangements to Boston for NZ’s triumphant return since I’ll already be in the vicinity, I do need to find a way back to Baltimore. In the past, flights to and from Boston have been outrageously priced, so I began by checking out the Amtrak site. $105 for a regional. Not bad, I thought. So just for kicks, I went to Expedia to see […]

Immediately following the 37-day concert tour that I am currently in the midst of, Tim Feeney and I reunite to resurrect Non-Zero with two shows in Boston. On Sunday, November 12, we join the Boston Microtonal Society and the ensemble NotaRiotus for their debut concert at MIT’s Killian Hall, performing music by Bob Hasegawa. Then […]

(Or: why Sacha Baron Cohen is a genius.) Sacha Baron Cohen is the chameleon-like British comedian best known for his HBO series Da Ali G Show. On the show, Cohen interviews unsuspecting people in the guise of three very unique, but equally maladroit, characters.
Ali G, the show’s namesake, is a wannabe gangsta/hip-hop journalist from the […]

. . . and in with the new. It’s not that Typepad wasn’t doing it for me anymore or even that I was unsatisfied with their service, but with all the recent changes in my life I thought I’d give SLN a complete overhaul. This will actually be SLN’s third fourth (or maybe three-and-a-halfth?) incarnation. […]

I decided to pick up this book because it’s supposed to be one of Pamuk’s best. One interesting feature of the novel is that the narrator changes each chapter, providing a shift in points of view and depictions of events similar to Rashomon, but different in that the narrative flows continuously rather than replaying itself […]

As you might have inferred from a previous post, I’m currently reading My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, the 2006 Nobel Laureate in Literature. Among the many themes Pamuk deals with in the novel is the question of what constitutes “style.” The dictionary defines style as “the combination of distinctive features of literary or […]

The subtitle to this post could be any of the following: life update, settling in to a new groove, where I’ve been (not that I’m going to make any excuses). Needless to say, I’ve been uncharacteristically absent from the blogosphere for the past few months despite some sporadic attempts to appease my inner author. Things […]

“The larger and more colorful a city is, the more places there are to hide one’s guilt and sin; the more crowded it is, the more people there are to hide behind. A city’s intellect ought to be measured not by its scholars, libraries, miniaturists, calligraphers and schools, but by the number of crimes insidiously […]