Rock Rebels (Page 2)

Decisions

Quickly after arriving in Chiang Mai and experiencing the North Gate Jazz Co-Op, I realized (not necessarily for the first time) that I have a jazz soul. And this means I want to play with others. Sure, I can borrow a horn like I did in Tokyo and Bangkok. But

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Noodles and Doodles

I wouldn't call it food poisoning but I guess I shouldn't eat kao soi every day. Sucks, because it's like the best chicken noodle soup I've had. Or maybe the food stall silverware is the culprit. I'll never know. I

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Arrival in Chiang Mai

It's pretty great here! Except for the tiger mosquitoes... I opted for a budget flight since overland methods take a full day. I might regret it later, but I doubt it. Chiang Mai is in northern Thailand, a popular destination for tourists and expatriates. I haven't

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City Nights

I stopped by Above Evelen while exploring Sukhumvit and Nana Plaza. Rather different from Silom, which features many Japanese restaurants for Japanese tourists, Nana offered fares of the Arabic, Persian, and Indian varieties. The bar has a nice view, and the music consisted of one DJ (drum and bass) plus

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12 Little Spells - (album review)

http://www.esperanzaspalding.com/12-little-spells/ Esperanza Spalding is a extremely talented woman. Erupting into the jazz scene over 10 years ago, she's recently declared to reinvent herself as an artist. Her project for this transition is 12 Little Spells, a musical experience intended to foster spiritual healing. Released

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Choices

If a dilemma is a choice of two options, a trilemma is three, and a lemma (monolemma) is the only choice, usually in the context of a logical proof. What choices are on my mind? Well, I recently learned that my KPOP top 3--Red Velvet, Mamamoo, EXID--all have comebacks scheduled

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Ancient Sites and Sacred Animals

On my 3rd night, I stopped by a nice Thai shop for some bomb curry. And by bomb, I mean FIRE. Dude is like, "How spicy? 1 to 5?" and I'm like yo in America we go 1 to 10 but that's cool. "

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The Sun in Sunday

I spent the next day chilling in Silom, Bang Rak, and Si Phraya, visiting temples and bearing the harsh tropical sunlight. I'm so blessed to live in a Mediterranean climate zone. It's hard for me to imagine permanently living in countries like Thailand and India where

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Hot Tropics

How do so many people confuse trumpet with saxophone? What, is it that they're the same color, made from the same metal? Nobody confuses a knife with a spoon. Talk about pet peeves! Second night in Bangkok, I phoned around for live jazz on a Saturday night. I

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Arrival in Bangkok

Pokemon is great. Every core game follows the same formula. You play as a young person traveling alone, connecting with people and animals as you explore a region. You learn to appreciate geography and biodiversity. Speaking of biodiversity, isn't it just neat that principles of ecology relate to

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Travel Update

I tell myself I prioritize quality over quantity, only leading to a stack of unpublished writings. Deadlines are important, and they'll keep popping up here on out. The imminent deadline now: tomorrow morning I fly to Thailand. Why? I've been itching for some nomadism for a

opinion

Bees

I have a new friend. He is a valley carpenter bee Xylocopa varipuncta. Xylocopa means carpenter, and varipuncta means very punctual. He visits every day before dusk, hovering around the tulsi trying to steal some pollen. He is a big bee, about as big as my thumb. One of the

opinion

Bumbling Beetles

For many in the world, early August is a time for heat waves, monsoons, and torrid humidity. In my neighborhood, late summer is a time for wildfires and the big bumbling beetles Cotinis mutabilis, the figeater beetle. Two days prior, I set out some old oranges to help hydrate thirsty

Music

Summer Magic (a Review)

Summer heat is in full swing, and then some in certain parts of the world. One nice thing about the season--apart from skimpy outfits, summer bodies, and scorching heat and humidity is a surge of upbeat feel-good, often synthesized, music. After all, it is festival season! But this is not

Art

Profile: Keiichiro Shibuya

I sat around at home watching NHK World, Japan's English-language international propaganda channel, mostly because it offers some interesting programs and news stories that don't reach American news media. One such story is that of an A.I. conductor. The more I watched this story, the

opinion

Heat Islands - An Impromptu Autobio

Global warming is seriously going on right now. We have been talking about climate change for decades. I was in 5th grade, reading TIME magazine, trying (in vain) to rally the other children into planting trees, anything we could do to suck up the C-O-2. I was convinced by the

Music

Red Moon (a review)

Mamamoo consists of 4 young women: Kim Yongsun a.k.a. Solar (main vocals), Moon Byulyi a.k.a. Moonbyul (main rapper), Jung Wheein (lead vocals), and Ahn Hyejin a.k.a. Hwasa (vocals and rapper). Featured on one track is Kang Seulgi from Red Velvet (lead vocals). Please don&

Music

Mamamoo (brief history of)

Happy birthday to me! It was a couple weeks ago, but I got an early present when Mamamoo dropped their new track, "Egotistic." This MV follows in the footsteps of their previous releases, which they filmed on location in New Zealand. The production value of the new video

Science

Convergence of Flight

Within the animal kingdom, only a handful of lineages evolved flight. Birds are the undisputed masters of flight. This is because, in this day and age, birds pose the largest and most powerful flying creatures. Consider the golden eagle and 400 PSI of grip pressure between its large talons. To

Art

Conflicts

I'm going to throw this stream of consciousness in before my post on animal flight. Actually, I have been watching the PBS Eons series of short videos on Youtube. They are very well produced with soft background music from APM, beautiful illustrations of prehistoric biology, and charismatic hosts

Science

Vultures

Today I want to discuss vultures. There are two main varieties and both belong to the large order of fearsome birds, the Accipitriformes. The four families within this order are Sagitariidae, Pandionidae, Cathartidae, and Accipitridae. Let's quickly break them down. Sagitarridae contains the Sagittarius serpentarius, the secretarybird. This