China Newsweek
If you scroll down to the bottom of the front page today at China Newsweek’s site you’ll see a picture of me and a link to an actual article in actual Chinese. I knew this was coming and did the interview and everything; still this is very surreal and strange to me, like a dream in which you’re in your own house but it doesn’t look like your house, and then your toast turns into a flying saucer and you explode. You know, just as an example.
Even if you don’t read Chinese you can kind of figure out the article from the untranslatable english words: “Jonathan Coulton…Thing a Week…Baby Got Back…Hip Hop…Sir Mix-a-Lot…Radiohead…In Rainbows…” you get the idea. Actually, if you read just the english words, there’s kind of a battle between me and Radiohead near the end, which is hilarious.
Freakonomics Reader Questions
Over at the Freakonomics blog they’ve posted my answers to reader-submitted questions. I think I wrote too much – who do I think I am, Robert Redford?
Robert Redford Is Not a Native Speaker of English
I am not making this up. Here is what it says on page one of the Sundance Christmas catalog (I mean “Holiday Catalog”). This is supposedly a message straight from Robert Redford. And I quote:
“Holidays again. Forgive me while I dodge the rumble of the million footed throngs that have succumbed to the marketing ether for Christmas and its days.
Holiday. Can we, without disappointing the children and others who long for the surprise of gift giving, just look to a different value to digest, wherever you are? Those details that are natural and sometimes hidden? That have a satisfying and long lasting lifespan? Things that you miss when you’re away? That when someone might remind you, you say, oh yes, how wonderful. And of course the most vivid of details: loved ones who are there in body and spirit.
Happy holidays from all of us at Sundance.”
Wait, what? It’s like he snorted a bunch of pulped Christmas cards and fragments of them shot up into his brain, and then he got really high, punched an intern in the face, and dictated this – IN CHINESE. Seriously, what happened here? $100 to the first person who can explain this to me.
Gibson Robot Guitar
Aw, come on! Are you kidding me? Thanks Michael, for calling this to my attention…
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