adrian is rad

I just finished Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa by Antjie Korg (pronounced “ahnt-key kroge”). It recounts the events and stories of the Truth and Reconcilliation Commision (TRC) as told by an Afrikaaner poet and South African Broadcast Company (SABC) radio correspondent.

I’ve been reading it on and (mostly) off since about Christmas. It’s not a quick read, certainly, and it is, at times, overly academic or swamped by the language, but it’s undoubtedly a very important and valuable thing to read. There are many sections that are direct transcriptions of the testamonies of victims and perpatrators that are so effecting that I simply had to put the book down. I also found the sections where she reacts to the events very interesting.

Here’s one such passage:

The proceedings are concluded with the anthem. I stand, caught unaware by the Sesotho version and the knowledge that I am white, that I have to reacquaint myself with this land, that my language carriers violence as a voice, that I can do nothing about it, that after so many years I still feel uneasy with what is mine, with what is me. The woman next to me looks suprised when I sing the Free State version of “Nkosi [Sikelel’ iAfrica].” She smiles, holds her head close to mine, and shifts to the alto part. The song leader opens the melody to us. The sopranos envelop; the bass voices support. And I wonder: God. Does He hear us? Does He know what our hearts are yearning for? That we all just want to be human—some with more color, some with less, but all with air and sun. And I wade into song—in a language that is not mine, in a tongue I do not know. It is fragrant inside the song, and among the keynotes of sorrow and suffering, there are soft silences where we who belong to this landscape, all of us, can come to rest.

Maybe this has meaning to me, but not you.

I was just reminded by a voice mail from my parents that today’s my Namenstag.

Happy Namestag to me!

Freuliche Namenstag noch!

I found an interesting site run by the USDA that has nutrional information (for reference) for just about everything (that is a single ingrediant and/ or a raw food). Want to know how much fat a banana has? (about 0.3g.) Are sirloin or ribeye steaks healthier? (sirloin is just about the healthiest cut of steak.)

The information is not organized in the manner I’m accustomed to seeing it, but you can find what you’re looking for if you wade through all the information that you’re not looking for.

Some things, specifically cuts of steak, you need to know pretty specifically about the cut in order to get it to spit out the nutritional information.

According to Pitchfork Mark Kozelek will be putting out an album of Modest Mouse covers.

Mark is known for his work in the bands Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, but I like his solo stuff best. He has a penchant for covering bands, having released lots of AC/DC covers and a John Denver cover. As I reported he covers Modest Mouse live, including Neverending Math Equation and Tiny Cities Made of Ashes at the Tsunami Benefit at Great American Music Hall.

The album apparently comes out November 1 under Mark’s Sun Kil Moon moniker.

Kozelek is also touring with Alan Sparhawk of Low as the Retribution Gospel Choir. I missed their show at the Bottom of the Hill Tuesday because my plane landed as they went on. If anyone sees them, let me know how they are. I haven’t been able to find many concert reviews online.