Daily Archives: 14 March 2007
Of COURSE it is!
This is the best one I’ve heard all day. Apparently Juche is considered to be a religion by Adherents.com. You can read their rationale here – but there’s really nothing there you weren’t probably expecting. Anything that so totally dominates so many people’s lives with only faith as its basis can only be a religion – state ideology or no. North Korea is a seriously weird place.
A Corpse in the Koryo
OK, where to begin? I’ve spent the past five days picking at this less-than-300-page-novel. It’s called “A Corpse in the Koryo,” and it’s more or less for North Korea what Gorky Park was for the Soviet Union: a crime thriller set in a totalitarian state purporting to show us something of the details of daily live in such a place. Unlike Gorky Park, however, this one claims to have been written by someone actually familiar with North Korea (Gorky Park‘s author had been to the Soviet Union on a couple of tourist ventures but wasn’t any kind of studied expert
Why Don’t You Just F-f-f-ade Away?
Here‘s how you know when it’s time to quit: Roger Daltrey walks off the stage after the first song at a Who concert recently claiming he has bronchitis. What he really has is “old age” and Hasbeen Syndrome, along with “I’m still in this formerly great band which lost two of its essential members” disease. I’m a huge fan of the Who, don’t get me wrong. They were my absolute favorite band for a couple of years way back when. Quadrophenia is hands down the absolute best of all the “classic rock” genre albums, one, indeed, of the greatest rock
