The Reader_010925_Coltrane Program Introduction A poem for Coltrane, the melodist poet Three years ago, City Light Books published Will Alexander’s poetry collection titled “Divine Blue Light: for John Coltrane” It was a must read for fans of Coltrane and radical poetry. For Will is never the kind of poet to write for popular accessibility. He challenges and explores, just like what Coltrane exemplifies in his playing. This episode of The reader begins with a live rendition of Coltrane’s most popular Rogers and Hammerstein classic “My Favorite things”, a live recording of a performance in Belgium back in 1965; and ends with another live recording made in France the same year, one of his more progressive iconic work “Ascension”. The two pieces marked nails a paradox of human artistic desire to advance in the substantial sensibilities of art, in Coltrane’s case, modern jazz. We have included a clip of his explanatory quote on music, at the beginning of “My Favorite ...

The Reader _180825_Arif_Innais Program Introduction Arif met Innais I met Arif (Dirlik) in Chinese University during his re-visit some years in the late 80s. He’d a short sting at CU I believed, because he provided mentorship to some brilliant CU students during those years, one of the gang became the CEO of an international NGO on the environmental front. The Social Movements Resources Centre under the Federation of Student Unions of Hong Kong Universities invited Arif to a talk on globalization, which was the topic at the time. Featured here are excerpts from the recording of his talk. I’d dreamt up this piece of sonic montage where Arif met up with Innais (Xenakis) somewhere up there, and replying to Arif’s logistics of theoretic tatoos, Innais swamped him up with his seemingly impromptu creations of String Quartet juxtapositions. So it gave birth to this dialogue of two beautiful souls who died more than two decades apart. Sometimes in life, logics and poetics col...

The Reader 040825_Nancy Baldwin Historical and political gentrifications Being an Asian American, retired writer Nancy Baldwin (whose given name by birth was Lai Shui Wen) returns to The Reader to share her insights on the coming publication of her memoir “One thousand layers of water and cloud” in Chinese. Besides explaining the necessity of her generation of Taiwanese women to break the silence of their agonic past, Nancy was entreated to speak about her views on the current political situation of her country which puzzled many. She conveyed her strong faith on the American constitution but expressed uneasiness facing the separatist atmosphere and the stern harshness of Immigration officers at the US borders. Being Asian and female, she scorns the manipulative policy that put social communion on cold ice.

Echoes of Okinawa     This episode of The Reader is a basket of sounds and verses collected on a recent visit to Okinawa. I used a long time find, Matthew McKinney’s live rendition of his emotional “War is Over, Forever!” as the opening tune, because Okinawa was commemorating her brutal saga 80s year after.  The trumpet was a field-recording by a youngster sitting under the tree of a large collective tomb of unknown sacrifices of war on the day when I visited.  I went to the Okinawa Museum in Naha, and saw this beautiful calligraphy of a Japanese verse on display.  Photography was forbidden, thus I took out my handy recorder and started reading the English translation underneath.  I mixed my recording inside the museum with the kid’s trumpet.  The next verse was taken from writings on a cross made to deter American soldiers from killing, when they rampaged the fields of Okinawa during their invasions.  I sampled a hip-hop beat and lay over it the writings on the cross,...