Reading Murakami has made me look at the world differently. Wonderful. Please pick up one of his books.

Wow, the cultural aire of superiority they exude...REGARD! The eyeball skirt she wears, is a pop transliteration of pop-cultural critique/artist Takashi Murakami, whom thought contemporary Japanese art to be “a deep appropriation of Western trends.” He sought to bring ridicule of this tendancy to embrace the non-Japanese through both classical and pop cultural grammar. Much of that same disdain for the foreign is displayed here, so our "WTF"- response is deeply appreciated. Hurray! We don't Get it!!!

Strong machine 2! I like Mao Murakami, and I like the music too.

Here's another clip with her Dad, Strong machine 1, in Houston in 2009.

I won't go on about the worst as I'm just trying to forget them and it's boring.

FILMS
Dredd. Well cast, looks great, a lean story and a well wrought vision of Mega-City One. Loved it. The soundtrack is great as well.

The Avengers. More superhero films should be made like this, particularly when handling multiple characters. Better than any of the preceding films that built up to it.


GAMES
Far Cry 3. Haven't finished it but this is a wonderful open-world shooter/stalker/explore-em-up. A self-contained world that totally convinces.

X-Com. Great remake/reboot/whatever. This could have gone wrong so easily but speaking as a fan of the orginal 1994 classic, this got far more right than it got wrong.


BOOKS
Sadly, I don't recall reading much this year. In fact I may not have read a book at all. A friend is obsessed with Murakami so I may start there in 2013.


MUSIC
I'm accumulating music fairly organically and randomly from Youtube viewing, games and other sources. But I can't really recall any of the big releases this year. The one thing that made me smile though was Gangnam Style.

TV
Just Breaking Bad. TV is so bad in the UK right now I've long stopped watching it.

The little girl is Strong Machine 2 (Her dad is Strong Machine 1) and the mom is Kasumi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4P2udkMl1o

Thats a vid of Kasumi calling out Strong Machine 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6XqYUhj3-Y

That's Strong Machine 2 and her father Strong Machine 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXTaMxYJtDg

And that is her in the Polysics video "I My Me Mine"

Her name is Mao Murakami



Yeah I've been on this internet thing for a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGG Time.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'ephemeral, bing crosby, japan, neo noir' to 'ephemeral, bing crosby, japan, neo noir, murakami' - edited by JesseoftheNorth

*promote murakami's work. tony takitani was a great adaptation, and hopefully this film will do justice to his strange, beautiful, and unsettling writing.

you're good peeps queafer. i like you

In reply to this comment by griefer_queafer:
Are you kidding? The sequence in Mongolia one of the most brutal, chilling, and poetic in all of literature.

Good shit, I_VAG

In reply to this comment by inflatablevagina:
There have only been a couple i didnt like that he has written, but I also enjoy south of the border:west of the sun. I dont care much for kafka on the shore. Wind up is my fave all time though. I love that guy.
I havent ever met anyone else who had read it!!! youve totally made my day!!!

In reply to this comment by griefer_queafer:
Fucking Wind-Up is one of my fave novels. So mysterious and lyric. I haven't read anything else by Murakami that has come close to that book, though.

Are you kidding? The sequence in Mongolia one of the most brutal, chilling, and poetic in all of literature.

Good shit, I_VAG

In reply to this comment by inflatablevagina:
There have only been a couple i didnt like that he has written, but I also enjoy south of the border:west of the sun. I dont care much for kafka on the shore. Wind up is my fave all time though. I love that guy.
I havent ever met anyone else who had read it!!! youve totally made my day!!!

In reply to this comment by griefer_queafer:
Fucking Wind-Up is one of my fave novels. So mysterious and lyric. I haven't read anything else by Murakami that has come close to that book, though.

There have only been a couple i didnt like that he has written, but I also enjoy south of the border:west of the sun. I dont care much for kafka on the shore. Wind up is my fave all time though. I love that guy.
I havent ever met anyone else who had read it!!! youve totally made my day!!!

In reply to this comment by griefer_queafer:
Fucking Wind-Up is one of my fave novels. So mysterious and lyric. I haven't read anything else by Murakami that has come close to that book, though.

Fucking Wind-Up is one of my fave novels. So mysterious and lyric. I haven't read anything else by Murakami that has come close to that book, though.

I'm 26. My name is Cari. I'm still pretty new here. Maybe a little presumptuous that you are curious about me, but here it is.

I own 2 businesses. I am a photographer and an office manager.
Why am I on the sift?
Peggedbea has been my best friend for over 10 years. I see her every Tuesday and smoke. She told me I needed to play here. I did.

I live in Fort Worth, Texas. It's hot and mostly miserable here.

I enjoy all sorts of beer.In my free time I like to try to play the guitar, bass, and take pictures of myself. I am a huge music fan and I enjoy finding new and interesting things to listen to. I love documentaries and interesting books. (Kurt Vonnegut, Haruki Murakami, Will Self)

My name is because i enjoy vagina names and things that you can blow.

Yeah, they are both amazing. If you liked those I´d suggest Einstein´s Dreams next - I it like if Calvino was writing (invisible cities style) about a loose interpretation of relativity. It is beautiful, poetic, dreamy and a pleasure to read. Invisible cities is also another must from calvino.

lately I´ve been reading murakami - it´s one of the best authors I´ve read in a long time...


In reply to this comment by blahpook:
Love love LOVE both If on a Winter's Night a Traveler... and A Hundred Years of Solitude.

I haven't read the rest. The geeky "in" club I wasn't allowed to join my first year of college had a thing for Einstein's Dreams but I have yet to read that one too...

In reply to this comment by NeuralNoise:
1) Dune
2) Complete works of Fernando Pessoa
3) Schismatrix
4) Brief story of nearly everything
5) If on a winter´s night a traveller
6) The Sandman
7) The Wind-up bird Chronicle
Einstein´s Dreams
9) 100 years of solitude
10) I´ll stop on nine, I can´t, can´t settle on my top 10 so this slot is a huge caroussel.

Cervantes: Don Quixote

Coetzee: Waiting for the Barbarians

Murakami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Calvino: Mr Palomar

Dostoevsky: The Idiot

Thanks! I've fixed it, now it is ready for your viewing pleasure.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
*dead