Here's another thing I've been meaning to post. I've still been listening to quite a bit of music, even though I'm in a country where terrible pop songs reign supreme on the radio and with my naive middle school students. I remember that a lot of you liked music as well, so I thought I would suggest some good albums that I've heard from this year:
Girl Talk - Feed the Animals
This is like the Where's Waldo of music. He takes awful rap and pop and combines them with old instrumentals that match the vocal melodies well to make something completely new and really interesting. I think you can download this one for free and give a donation if you like it.
Hot Chip - Made in the Darkness
Good dance music.
Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
One of my favorite bands. This is different from their first album, but still good.
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Afrobeat rock.
Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down - We Brave Bee Stings and All
Really catchy laid back pop/rock.
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever
Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
Fleet Foxes - Ragged Wood/Fleet Foxes
Man Man - Rabbit Habits
Ratatat - LP3
Santagold - Santagold
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
The Roots - Rising Down
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Gnarles Barkely - The Odd Couple
Islands - Arm's Way
The Black Keys - Attack and Release
And here's some good stuff from last year:
Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
The National - Boxer
M.I.A. - Kala
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are you the Destroyer
The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
!!! - Myth Takes
Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Battles - Mirrored
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters
Pinback - Autumn of the Seraphs
Daft Punk - Alive 2007
Menomena - Friend and Foe
Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover
Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
White Rabbits - Fort Nightly
Justice - Cross
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
The Good, the Bad & the Queen - The Good, the Bad & the Queen
Feist - The Reminder
Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Lupe Fiasco - The Cool
Saturday, July 26, 2008
It's Noon on a Saturday
I woke up at 5:30 AM and played soccer like I usually do. I joined a morning soccer club a couple of months ago and they are gooooooood. Before, I was going to the local soccer field every evening and practicing my ball handling skills. Sometimes, I would get to play, such as the time with the LG engineers that make the cell phone display screens and HDTVs, or the time with the subway drivers, but mostly I would just practice my dribbling on the sidelines while some official game or practice went on. A few times, I got to play with the 40+ year old team for the county when they scrimmaged and didn't have enough people. I could usually hold my own, but they were good. A couple of months ago they were scrimmaging and I got to play in the last 20 minutes. I did OK and nutmegged a guy near the goal, but the sweeper got the ball and then nutmegged me. After the game, the sweeper invited me to come and play soccer in the morning with his group. I've been going nearly every morning before school, from 6 to 7 AM.
Soccer is so much fun to play when the people you play with are good. It can be a very boring game when the players lack the necessary skills to trap and pass the ball, because the ball just ends up going around the field without any thought like a six year old playing pinball. They get the ball and they look down and kick it as hard as they can. However, this is far from the case with the morning crew I get to play with. These guys are good. They make the game look like an art. Each game is a masterpiece of one touch passing. I went to the World Cup qualifiying game between South Korea and North Korea, and the technical skill of the players then and of the players I play with seems quite marginal. A guy I was guarding a couple of weeks ago took a shot from 35 yards out and struck the ball with no spin and it went straight into the upper left-hand corner of the goal. Another guy hit a volley from 25 yards out with his left foot and powered it into the goal. Later, he made a goal from the halfway line when he noticed the keeper was off his line. I went to a picnic at one of their workplaces and the cupboard was so full of their soccer trophies that they had to put them out on the counter. The point is, they're very good, and it makes the game incredibly fun and challenging.
They're as nice as they are skilled as well. Today we played for a couple of hours, and then drove to the nearby town and had cow intestine soup for breakfast. Yum. This was the second time I've eaten it and it didn't seem so gross or weird. The first time it felt really weird, but now I knew what to expect. Of course, as with every Korean meal, we drank soju, the Korean hard liquor, and macoli, a rice wine. After our delicious breakfast we came back to our town and went to a convenience store and bought some more alcohol. There was a traveling market going on so we bought some ginormous prawns and clams and cooked them on a portable gas grill outside the convenience store, and ate seafood and canned fruit and drank for the next couple of hours. It's now noon, and the only thing that could make the day better was if the beautiful Angie was with me.
Soccer is so much fun to play when the people you play with are good. It can be a very boring game when the players lack the necessary skills to trap and pass the ball, because the ball just ends up going around the field without any thought like a six year old playing pinball. They get the ball and they look down and kick it as hard as they can. However, this is far from the case with the morning crew I get to play with. These guys are good. They make the game look like an art. Each game is a masterpiece of one touch passing. I went to the World Cup qualifiying game between South Korea and North Korea, and the technical skill of the players then and of the players I play with seems quite marginal. A guy I was guarding a couple of weeks ago took a shot from 35 yards out and struck the ball with no spin and it went straight into the upper left-hand corner of the goal. Another guy hit a volley from 25 yards out with his left foot and powered it into the goal. Later, he made a goal from the halfway line when he noticed the keeper was off his line. I went to a picnic at one of their workplaces and the cupboard was so full of their soccer trophies that they had to put them out on the counter. The point is, they're very good, and it makes the game incredibly fun and challenging.
They're as nice as they are skilled as well. Today we played for a couple of hours, and then drove to the nearby town and had cow intestine soup for breakfast. Yum. This was the second time I've eaten it and it didn't seem so gross or weird. The first time it felt really weird, but now I knew what to expect. Of course, as with every Korean meal, we drank soju, the Korean hard liquor, and macoli, a rice wine. After our delicious breakfast we came back to our town and went to a convenience store and bought some more alcohol. There was a traveling market going on so we bought some ginormous prawns and clams and cooked them on a portable gas grill outside the convenience store, and ate seafood and canned fruit and drank for the next couple of hours. It's now noon, and the only thing that could make the day better was if the beautiful Angie was with me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)