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Saturday, August 16, 2025
Friday, August 15, 2025
Thursday, August 14, 2025
Sayaka Murata
Literature Appreciation
Born on August 14, 1979, Sayaka Murata (村田沙耶香) is a Japanese writer originally from Inzai, Japan. Her father served as a judge and her mother was a homemaker. Murata has described her childhood as unhappy -- she was shy, lonely, and began writing at age 10, drawing inspiration from science fiction and mystery books borrowed from her brother and mother. Her mother bought her a word processor in fourth grade after she attempted to write a novel by hand. After completing middle school, the family moved to Tokyo, where she graduated from Kashiwa High School and later studies art curation at Tamagawa University.
Murata debuted with the novel Junyū (Breastfeeding), winning the 2003 Gunzo Prize for New Writers, and subsequently earned the Mishima Yukio Prize, Noma Literary New Face Prize, and Akutagawa Prize for Kombini ningen (Convenience Store Woman) in 2016. Her style often merges everyday realism with speculative or dystopian elements, unflinchingly exploring taboo subjects such as asexuality, adolescent sexuality, and reproduction technologies.
In a recent The New Yorker article, Elif Batuman profiles Murata's unique worldview -- what Batuman calls "defamiliarization," using science fiction to reveal the absurdity beneath everyday life. Murata is depicted as an outsider who treats the world like an aquarium -- examining it with emotional distance and analytical clarity. Batuman highlights Murata's speculative work Vanishing World, a fictional universe where sex is replaced by artificial insemination and communal parenting -- an inquiry into biological norms and societal expectations. Vanishing World polarizes its audience -- readers either embrace the chilled speculative vision and its shocking climax or find such extremes off-putting.
ai generated, based on Vanishing World
Sources:
Wikipedia
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/14/sayaka-muratas-alien-eye
https://japanincanada.com/sayaka-murata/
https://www.wired.com/story/writer-sayaka-murata-inhabits-a-planet-of-her-own
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/09/sayaka-murata-i-acted-how-i-thought-a-cute-woman-should-act-it-was-horrible
https://eliflife.substack.com/p/the-scambusters
https://www.patreon.com/posts/sayaka-muratas-126334276
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Cage the Elephant - Come a Little Closer
Music Appreciation
"Come a Little Closer" by Cage the Elephant was written by lead singer Matthew Shultz and produced by Jay Joyce. Released on August 13, 2013, it served as the lead single from the band's third studio album, Melophobia. The song achieved significant success, topping the Billboard Alternative Songs chart and marking the band's fourth number-one hit on that chart.
The lyrics of "Come a Little Closer" were inspired by Shultz's experience in São Paulo, Brazil, where he observed the sunrise over the favelas, shantytowns. This moment led him to reflect on the lives within those communities, pondering emotions such as heartache, love, loss, and joy. The song's composition blends alternative and psychedelic rock elements, featuring a dynamic progression that mirrors the emotional depth of the lyrics.
The music video, directed by Matthew Shultz, combines animation and live-action footage. It portrays the band members on an alien planet, facing various monstrous beings. Notably, Shultz is depicted navigating out of a giant whale's stomach and riding a flaming lion through surreal landscapes. These vivid visuals complement the song's themes of perception and understanding.
Sources:
Wikipedia
https://music.fandom.com/wiki/Come_a_Little_Closer_(Cage_the_Elephant_song)
https://musicvideo.fandom.com/wiki/Come_a_Little_Closer_(Cage_the_Elephant)
https://www.discogs.com/release/5231492-Cage-The-Elephant-Melophobia?srsltid=AfmBOopfeYJTAEZ0DHVJpvISGIJrehfdtCjlR6Z9QAu4gy-oDCabmPu5
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Ernestine von Kirchsberg
Art Appreciation
Ernestine von Kirchsberg was born on August 12, 1857, in Verona, the part of the Austrian Empire, and passed away on October 8, 1924, in Graz. She began formal artistic training in Graz in 1873 at the Landschaftliche Zeichenakademie under Hermann von Königsbrunn and advanced her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. There, she was taught by prominent figures including Eduard Peithner von Lichtenfels, August Schäffer, and notably Hugo Darnaut, whose influence steered her toward the atmospheric “Stimmungsimpressionismus” style.
Her career saw early public exposure, exhibiting at Vienna's Künstlerhaus soon after her studies. She later joined the group of "Acht Künstlerinnen," showcasing alongside peers like Marie Egner in early 1900s Vienna. In 1893, she was honored with a prize at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Von Kirchsberg made frequent painting expeditions across the Adriatic region, Styria, Carniola, and South Tyrol, and exhibited work in major cultural centers including Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Prague, and Graz.
Among her notable works are evocative landscapes rendered in both oil and watercolor, including "Waldbach im Sonnenschein," "Sommertag," and "Idyll," which capture tranquil rural scenes with atmospheric depth. Other recognized paintings are “Rast am Wegesrand,” “Dorfkirche,” and “Am Mühlwehr,” the latter featuring a mill weir and noted in a Dorotheum auction catalogue.
Sommertag
Idyll
Waldbach im Sonnenschein
Suburban Villa with Garden
A Mountain Stream with a White Rock, 1885
Sources:
Wikipedia
https://artvee.com/dl/waldbach-im-sonnenschein/
https://www.dorotheum.com/en/l/8674477/
https://www.askart.com/artist/Ernestine_Von_Kirchsberg/11248124/Ernestine_Von_Kirchsberg.aspx
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