Assortment of topics: travel, music, pictures

I have so much I would like to talk about, and, I am afraid, not enough time to do so. I will try to discuss at least some of them briefly here. The first is one of my favorite interests: music. The New York Times, which has a wonderful reservoir of music information, particularly coverage of independent, non mainstream acts, has a great article on Otto, a musician from Sao Paolo, Brazil, whose creative songcraft blends electronica with traditional African sounds. There are sample songs and links to youtube video clips on the Times website, also. (I am listening to them as I write this entry, by the way; pretty good stuff so far). Pictures: the late, acclaimed cultural critic Susan Sontag once said, "to photograph is to confer importance." I agree with her sentiment about photography; although I would not necessarily call myself an aficionado, I do think pictures give significance to the seemingly mundane, capturing the artistic and historic in the commonplace. With that in mind, it was truly a pleasant discovery when I just happen to come across a unique blog called The Picture Show on the NPR website. It has photo essays of different places and situations. (I will include photographs on this blog soon). And the final thing I would like to allude to, before I call it a night :), is travel: the current issue of The Smithsonian has an intriguing travel article called Serene Japan; I haven't read all of it as yet, but I can't wait to finish doing so. Until next time.