Weave my disgust into fame

* "Art is spirituality in drag" -- Jennifer Yane

* Haruki Murakami discusses his birthday [via book slut].

excerpt:

"Delivered in the burnt-out ruins left after the intense bombing raids, we in Japan matured with the cold war and the period of rapid economic growth, entered the flowering of adolescence and received the baptism of late-60s counterculture. Burning with idealism, we protested against a rigid world, listened to The Doors and Jimi Hendrix (Peace!) and then, like it or not, we came to accept a real life that was neither very idealistic nor imbued with rock 'n' roll. And now we are in our mid-50s. Dramatic events occurred along the way - men on the moon, the crumbling of the Berlin wall. These seemed like meaningful developments at the time, of course, and they may well have exerted some practical influence on my own life. Looking back now, however, I have to say in all honesty that these events do not seem to have any special effect on the way I balance happiness versus unhappiness or hope versus despair in my life. However many birthdays I may have counted off, however many important events I may have witnessed or experienced first hand, I feel I have always remained the same me, I could never have been anything else.

"These days when I drive my car I put silver-coloured CDs by Radiohead or Blur into the stereo. That's the kind of thing that shows me the years are passing. And now I find myself living in the 21st century. Whether or not the person I think of as me undergoes any essential changes, the earth never stops circling the sun at the same old speed."

* New music tips from 'My Life in Heavy Metal' author Steve Almond.