What Can You Now Do on Your Birthday?

Today I am older. It’s been a while now since I’ve been carded (thanks to facial hair), but were I to be, I’d point out I’m almost old enough to order 2 drinks at once! And YES, it definitely works that way. It’s the law.

In case you’re curious about YOUR next birthday milestone, here’s a list up to age 50 (it gets ridiculous after that). Which one(s) are you most looking forward to?

Derby Day & Weird-Ass Horse Names

Facts (and Alternative Facts) About Lunar New Year

Happy New Year of the Rooster, everyone! Also, happy Fire year. Happy year of the West. Happy 5–7PM. In total: Fire-Roasted Western-Style Chicken Happy Hour is from 5–7PM.

Let me unpack that.

The Chinese zodiac, shown below, is a cycle of 12 ‘terrestrial stems’—animals—and 10 ‘celestial branches’—elements. The latter is actually a combined cycle of 5 elements and yin (陰) & yang (陽).

Yes, folks, the first element is the Christmas tree! (#AlternativeFacts) Sorry about those emoji. You’d think they’d have an emoji for wood.

Everyone’s Favorite Bullsh*t Song About Japan!

YorkSpace Library

Four of six members of the Au Brothers Jazz Band are of at least half Japanese descent. Yet—and this may wrinkle a few brows—one of their favorite songs to perform is Harry Warren and Mort Dixon’s 1928 hit “Nagasaki,” or, as I like to call it, everyone’s favorite bullshit song about Japan! (Plug: I should mention that the Au Brothers recorded the song on their forthcoming album—more info here.)

For those of you not yet wrinkling your brows: Surprise!—“Nagasaki” contains some lyrics that are frankly cringe-inducingly offensive. Forget politically incorrect: these are OMFG incorrect.

With sweet kimoner, I pulled a boner, I kept it up at high speed. I got rheumatics, and then sciatics, halitosis, that’s guaranteed. […] Not too gentle and not too rough, but you’ve got to tell them when you’ve had enough

So how can anyone perform this song in good conscience, in this day and age? More to the point: how can a band with so many Japanese Americans not only perform, but SING this song, and repeatedly, with gusto and glee?

The answer, as with so many real-life things, is: it’s complicated.

Modern Jazz vs. Trad Jazz

Imagine a pie. 

Now imagine you get a piece (yay!), but not 1/6th or 1/8th of the pie, but rather 1/70th of the pie. How would that piece look? Could you even remove it from the pie? Now picture taking your thin slice and trying to slice it even further, into say a dozen pieces. Could you do it? What would those tiny slices look like? Now imagine gathering all those wispy micro-slices on your plate in a sad little pile.

That’s jazz.

At a whopping 1.4% of American music consumption¹, jazz is that slice of 1/70th of the pie, and its subgenres—traditional, Afro-Cuban, modern, fusion, etc.—are those all-but insubstantial slices of slice.

1. Nielsen 2014 U.S. Music Year-End Report: http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/public%20factsheets/Soundscan/nielsen-2014-year-end-music-report-us.pdf
 
I say all this to demonstrate the microscopic scale on which we operate when we talk about  TRADITIONAL JAZZ vs. MODERN JAZZ.

Better Person, Better Musician: Responses to the Venn Diagram

 

UPDATE: You can now order the poster, shown at left, at http://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/62141773! Also available are T-shirts, pins, magnets, stickers, mugs, coasters, postcards, and even a clock, notebooks, and more…


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Since I posted my PSA Venn Diagrams back in June 2015, hundreds of thousands of people have viewed it—well, at least one part of it. This particular diagram has been liked/shared in the upwards of 28,000 36,000 48,500 60,000 83,000 248,000 times on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, and the like:

The original Venn diagram.

 
Thanks to everyone who has shared it (without cropping out Pwuth!). Here are some of the greatest comments out there…

PSA Venn Diagrams

Well, it’s time again for another installment of visual aids!—this time, Venn Diagrams for the benefit of the General Public. Yes, through the exciting drama of circles that do and do not overlap, we will find the beginnings of true wisdom.


[UPDATE: a response to the ‘being a better person & musician’ diagram has now been posted at http://pwuth.blogspot.com/2015/08/better-person-better-musician-responses.html!]

Let’s start simple:

White ‘chocolate’ is not chocolate at all. It does not contain any cocoa solids. It may have cocoa butter, but then again, so do your chapstick and body lotion. NOT CHOCOLATE.

The Most Interesting InstaGirl (N)Ever

ShopInstall may be the most interesting girl ever on Instagram, with 74 official hobbies, including cryptography, ghost-hunting, and balancing rocks (and you thought YOU were interesting).

How, and why, do I know this?

It began, as so many things do, with a simple question: what do young people do for fun nowadays? Let’s look up my most recent followers on Instagram and check out what they’re talking about.

White Day & Valentine's Day: BEST Holidays Ever?

What is White Day??

White Day, the Japanese sequel to Valentine’s Day, is now celebrated in South Korea, Taiwan, and China (according to Wikipedia). On March 14th (one month after Valentine’s Day), gifts of white chocolate and marshmallow are given—but ONLY from men to women. Huh? How is this a sequel to Valentine’s Day, you ask?

Well, let’s back up. Japanese society traditionally asks and expects women to be timid, submissive, and deferential to their male counterparts (though modern Japanese society is evolving). In the arena of romance, the woman’s traditional role is to be passive—to BE courted rather than court. That is, on 364 days a year.

On the remaining day—Valentine’s Day—women give men chocolate. Men do not give anything to women; it is a day of strictly one-way giving. It is a chance, a single-day window, for women to be proactive about expressing their romantic interests—nay, a day when they are in fact encouraged to confess their feelings!—in this specific societally-sanctioned way.

Guys, think about this for a moment.

Japanese Valentine’s Day is the best holiday ever.