Weekly Wikipedia Find: Mono no aware

Mono no aware or 物の哀れ or the pathos of things is a literary concept from Japan. Those wacky Japs. It is critical theory, but not limited to literature as it has been adapted to Japanese culture as well. And it interests me greatly as well. For it is, it concerns itself with, the "transience of things and the bittersweet sadness of their passing."

Of course, of particular note, here, on usage... is that things refers not to objects but to abstracts. I.e. the way of all things. Times. Eras. Fin de siècle. It is all fleeting. Let us mourn.

Wikipedia by Week

Week Thirty-Two: Royal intermarriage
Week Thirty-One: Amputee fetishism
Week Thirty: Turtles all the way down
Week Twenty-Nine: The Diogenes Club
Week Twenty-Eight: E pur si muove!
Week Twenty-Seven: Unico
Week Twenty-Six: Panopticon
Week Twenty-Five: Legendary
Week Twenty-Four: Ostern
Week Twenty-Three: Kilroy was here
Week Twenty-Two: Jack Parsons
Week Twenty-One: The Wold Newton Universe
Week Twenty: Anonymous
Week Nineteen: Monty Hall problem
Week Eighteen: Brown Booby
Week Seventeen: Dieter Dengler
Week Sixteen: New Jerusalem
Week Fifteen: Technological Singularity
Week Fourteen: Numbers Station
Week Thirteen: Culper Ring
Week Twelve: Mary Sue
Week Eleven: Byford dolphin diving bell accident
Week Ten: Deep-sea gigantism
Week Nine: Bloop
Week Eight: Rat king
Week Seven: Gustave Doré
Week Six: Tomorrow
Week Five: Borscht Belt
Week Four: Swampman
Week Three: Chinese room
Week Two: Ambrose Burnside
Week One: Lolita fashion

Music Review

Since I have written film and book reviews for this blog, I feel a certain obligation to tackle music as well. I enjoy music and it has become a large part of my life, as a pleasure. I listen to music everyday essentially. Yet, I don't have the ear for music like I do literature and film. So I can know what I like but I don't know that I can put into words why I like something or write something that convinces of some thing's quality.

Silly or sentimental or just meaningless lyrics won't detract a song for me. Yet, good lyrics will certainly enhance my enjoyment and make the experience of listening to a song more memorable. Mostly, in the music I listen to, I look for a particular sound that strikes me. This is to say nothing of genre. I listen to folk, pop, rock, country, hip hop, electronic, and anything else you may subdivide music into (I won't rally about my dislike for the ghettoizing that is genre classifications here).

That said, maybe a project I can put together for myself is the reading and assimilation of music criticism. I mean this 'blog' as a writing exercise, and such an endeavour would certainly be an exercise.