Tagged “culture”

I loved Jason Pargin’s I’m starting to worry about this black box of doom.

It’s one of those stories that captures the zeitgeist amazingly well (a bit like The Social Network did back at the time). In this case it captures the tendency for folks online to blow things out of proportion; to catastrophise and to think the worst.

The black box has a boogie-man physical form in the book, but it soon becomes clear that it’s a clever metaphor for perhaps the real source of anxiety and division in the modern culture.

I loved the charcacters, the dialogue and the dark comedy. I especially enjoyed Ether’s vain attempts to make Abbot realise that everything isn’t really terrible and is arguably – arguably! – the best we’ve ever had it.

I 100% recommend this book.

I’ve just finished reading Bicycle Diaries City, by David Byrne. It’s a log of Byrne’s observations and insights as he pedals through major cities of the world including Istanbul, London, Berlin, Buenos Aires, San Francisco and Manilla.

It was an enjoyable read that ambled along pleasantly throughout but got much better in the final chapters as he describes his efforts to effect change and his thoughts about how things could be.

This was a great watch. Big Zuu (Zubair Hassan) approached his pilgrimage with good humour, curiosity and genenrosity. And I learned lots from it about Islam in general and muslim men and their friendships in particular.

Chef and rapper Big Zuu makes a pilgrimage to Mecca on a personal spiritual journey to try and understand more about his faith and what it means to be 'a good Muslim'.

I really liked some of the contradictory things Big Zuu tried to reconcile. For example could he be a good mulsim but also enjoy some western ways such as alcohol? How would he feel being in Saudi Arabia (Jeddah and Mecca) in light of negative way the region is stereotyped? And is the fee of nearly £8000 paid to the Saudi government the best place to use his money?

In the end there’s a nice theme where Zuu say he’s not perfect nor will he become so… but that understanding his faith is part of striving to become the best version of himself.

Loved this thoughtful and insightful interview with Jeff Mills by Marcus Barnes.

UK rap legend Rodney P reveals how the first generation of British-born black kids was inspired by the avant-garde musical fusions of black America in the 70s to lay the foundations of modern-day multiculturalism by creating the first black British music culture with the jazz-funk movement.