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onelittlebookgeek · 4 years

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Book Challenge 2020 (100 books!!) (I did it!!)

After forgetting to track my reading for three years, I started recording my reading on Tumblr last year again, and I’m committed to continuing that this year!

This year is my final year of my Bachelor’s Degrees (I’m finishing English in June) and I’m planning to do a gap year from September on, so now more university after June (at least as far as 2020 is concerned).

I do not really foresee any issues or obstacles to reading this year, except of course finishing my thesis which will probably take quite some time, so I do expect a decline around April until early June. Although I do have a lot more time off in my gap year, I used to read a lot of mandatory books for my studies, so I don’t know whether having a gap year will mean reading more books. Since I’m not doing any university studying, I am interested in reading academic books by myself, studying by myself. Those books are often longer, denser and just take more time to get through; consequently, I might read fewer books in the same amount of energy and time spent reading.

To make a (somewhat) long story short: my expectations are in line with the amount of books I’ve read in the last years, so I’m expecting to read 75 books this year!

Update: it’s mid-October and I’ve already read 99 books this year, so I’ve finished my original goal of 75 books! Now I’m going for 100 books (which should be easy to do, and after that we’ll just see how it goes!).

The crossed book is the one I’m currently reading, I’ve written reviews for books that have a (x) behind them, with the (x) being a link to my Goodreads review!

Update: Today (November 23) I’ve read 114 books so I’ve finished my challenge of 100 books! Right now, I’m still 25 books ahead schedule! Let’s see if I can keep that energy up!

January

The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin (5/5) (x)

Serpent and Dove (Serpent and Dove #1) - Shelby Mahurin (4/5) (x)

Lethal White (Cormoran Strike #4) - Robert Galbraith (4/5)

Weirdos from Another Planet (Calvin and Hobbes #4) - Bill Watterson) (5/5)

Selected Poems - E.E. Cummings (5/5) (x)

Niets zal ons redden maar een beetje liefde is oké - Henk van Straten (Dutch) (4/5) (x)

, said the shotgun to the head. - Saul Williams (4/5)

Loud and Yellow Laughter - Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese (3/5)

Fireborn (The Aurelian Cycle #1) - Rosaria Munda (4/5)

Sylvia Plath Poems Chosen by Carol Ann Duffy - Sylvia Plath (4/5) (x)

The Comedy of Errors - William Shakespeare (3/5) (x)

Nieuwe Herinneringen - Remco Campert (Dutch) (2/5)

Dido, Queen of Carthage - Christopher Marlowe (3/5)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid (4/5)

Alles wat er was - Stine Jensen (Dutch) (3/5)

Zij in de geschiedenis - Alies Pegtel (Dutch) (4/5) (x)

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (reread) (5/5)

February

Prometheus Bound - Aeschylus (3/5)

The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus #1) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus #2) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

So You Want to Talk About Race - Ijeoma Oluo (4/5)

The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

Educated - Tara Westover (3/5)

Prometheus on Caucasus - Lucian of Samosata (3/5)

March

Reading Old English: A Primer and First Reader - Robert Hasenfratz (4/5) (x)

Still Foolin’ ‘Em: Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys? - Billy Crystal (3/5)

The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

Quick Question: New Poems - John Ashberry (1/5) (x)

Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose - Michael H. Short (3/5) (x)

The Call of the Wild - Jack London (2/5) (x)

The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

April

The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot (reread) (5/5)

And Still I Rise - Maya Angelou (4/5)

Poëzie in Utrechtse Muren - Ingmar Heytze (Dutch) (5/5) (x)

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf (4/5)

Mijn dood en ik - Remco Campert (4/5)

Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster - Mike Davis (3/5)

Native Son - Richard Wright (2/5)

Dido, Queen of Carthage - Christopher Marlowe (reread) (4/5)

May

The Plague - Albert Camus (4/5)

Absalom! Absalom! - William Faulkner (4/5)

Modernism’s Mythic Pose: Gender, Genre, Solo Performance - Carrie J. Preston (2/5)

James Joyce and Sexuality - Richard Brown (3/5)

June

Daisy Jones & the Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid (4/5) (x)

Modernism, Sex and Gender - Alison Pease and Celia Marshik (3/5)

The Burial at Thebes: Sophocles’ Antigone - Seamus Heaney (4/5)

The Host - Stephanie Meyer (reread) (4/5)

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1) - Suzanne Collins (reread) (4/5)

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games #2) - Suzanne Collins (reread) (4/5) (x)

A Terrible Beauty is Born - W.B. Yeats (4/5)

Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) - Suzanne Collins (reread) (4/5)

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism - Robin DiAngelo (4/5)

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Y. Davis (4/5)

The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) - Brandon Sanderson (4/5)

Everything Leads to You - Nina LaCour (2/5) (x)

The Tempest - William Shakespeare (reread) (3/5)

July

Hag-Seed - Margaret Atwood (4/5) (x)

American Slavery (A Very Short Introduction) - Andrea Heather William (reread) (3/5)

Angels & Demons (Robert Langdom #1) - Dan Brown (4/5) (x)

Mythos: A Retelling of Myths of Ancient Greece - Stephen Fry (4/5) (x)

Mean Time - Carol Ann Duffy (3/5)

Lijfrente - Vrouwkje Tuinman (Dutch) (4/5)

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games #0) - Suzanne Collins (3/5) (x)

Sonnets from the Portuguese - Elizabeth Barrett Browning (3/5)

A Room of One’s Own - Virginia Woolf (reread) (5/5)

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (4/5)

Onbreekbaar - Hans Hagen (Dutch) (1/5) (x)

The Penelopiad - Margaret Atwoord (reread) (4/5)

The Importance of Being Ernest - Oscar Wilde (5/5)

Het goede leven: een briefwisseling - Piet Gerbrandy & Andreas Kinneging (Dutch) (2/5) (x)

Constructions of the Classical Body - James Porter (3/5)

August

The Complete Poems - Anne Sexton (4/5)

The Kissing Booth (The Kissing Booth #1) - Beth Reekles (2/5) (x)

The Daily Show: The Book - Chris Smith (4/5) (x)

The Duchess Deal (Girl meets Duke #1) - Tessa Dare (3/5)

Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehesi Coates (4/5)

Fragments - Heraclitus (transl. by Brooks Haxton) (2/5) (x)

Animal Farm - George Orwell (reread) (5/5)

The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings #1) - Mackenzi Lee (reread) (4/5)

Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto (4/5)

Catilina’s Riddle (Roma sub Rosa #3) - Steven Saylor (2/5) (x)

When Dimple met Rishi (Dimple and Rishi #1) - Sandhya Memon (1/5) (x)

Adulthood is a Myth (Sarah’s Scribbles #1) - Sarah Andersen (4/5)

September

Normal People - Sally Rooney (3/5) (x)

Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age - Donna Zuckerberg (4/5)

Sadie: A Novel - Courtney Summers (4/5)

The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus (4/5)

Vloedlijnen - Piet Gerbrandy (Dutch) (4/5)

Red, White and Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston (reread) (4/5)

This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor - Adam Kay (4/5)

Envelope Poems - Emily Dickinson (4/5) (x)

A Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot #10) - Agatha Christie (3/5) (x)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce (4/5)

October

Titus Andronicus - William Shakespeare (4/5) (x)

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hercule Poirot #1) - Agatha Christie (4/5) (x)

Het verhaal van Aeneas - Vergilius (trans. to Dutch) (reread) (4/5)

If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin (2/5)

Lesbia, Verzen van Liefde en Spot - Catullus (Dutch) (transl. by Paul Claes) (4/5) (x)

The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah (4/5) (x)

The Cat Inside - William S. Burroughs (reread) (5/5)

The Murder on the Links (Hercule Poirot #2) - Agatha Christie (3/5)

November

Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid (3/5) (x)

Narratology and Classics: a Practical Guide - Irene de Jong (3/5) (x)

The Murder of Roger Akroyd (Hercule Poirot #4) - Agatha Christie (4/5) (x)

The ABC Murders (Hercule Poirot #11) - Agatha Christie (4/5)

The Great Cat (Poetry Collection) - ed. by Emily Fragos (3/5) (x)

Weapons of Math Destruction - Cathy O’Neil (4/5)

The Northern Lights (His Dark Materials #1) - Philip Pullman (4/5)

Vincent van Gogh en zijn brieven - Leo Jansen (Dutch) (3/5)

My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell (4/5)

The Fill-In Boyfriend - Kasie West (reread) (4/5)

Poirot Investigates (Hercule Poirot #3) - Agatha Christie (1/5)

My 2019 challenge

My 2016 challenge

My 2015 challenge

My 2014 challenge

My 2013 challenge

#2020 book challenge #onelittlebookgeek #2020 #goodreads #goodreads challenge #book challenge

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dazaaaai · 7 years

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A message to the BSD fandom: You have an idea for an ability user? Just do it.

Self-insert or OC? Please, just do it. You have a favorite author you want to include into BSD? Arthur Conan Doyle or Stephen King? Go ahead.

You got really into Japanese literature and found an author BSD hasn't included? Pop them in, they're yours now.

You're from a foreign country and have a Brazilian or Romanian or Turkish author from wherever you know they'll never include? Make them yourself.

You have a modern author you want to include, J.K. Rowling with a Harry Potter ability, or Rick Riordan with Percy Jackson? Yes, please!

Stephenie Meyer is an actual vampire like Lovecraft is literally Cthulhu, ability "Twilight" ? I don't care if it's cringey I love it!

Have an OC that's not an author? Just somebody that you made up? Perfect, that's fine too.

Want a character from a franchise that doesn't make sense showing up in a crazy crossover? I can't wait to see it.

A self-insert, it's literally just you? Absolutely - you're an author, even if it was a twenty page fanfic you never finished or a five hundred word essay you did in grade school, you wrote. You're more than welcome.

And even if they have some unforgivable quality like they have two abilities or want to smooch Atsushi or Akutagawa or even Mori they're more than welcome to do so! Please be super powerful, kick both the Mafia and the Guild's ass, and kiss everybody you like.

Draw. Write. Roleplay. Just create.

I've had so many people message me with "You know [x author] would make a great character!" or "Wouldn't [x ability] be super cool to see?" And yet I NEVER see any material regarding them! It's all the same type of content and I'm desperate for original ideas in a world so open for so many cool things to happen.

I once had a very lengthy conversation about Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto and how she's the perfect woman for Kaiji Motojirou because she loves bananas as much as he loves lemons and I'd pay all of my money to see fanart of her but nobody treats her like an actual OC! Just an idea we toy around with but not one willing to leave our private messages.

There is so much hate in this fandom but if BSD taught me one thing, is the people who can create characters out of nothing are the most powerful people around. People who can be inspired by those who came before them are the most interesting people to look at.

Put your original characters into the universe. Put yourself into the universe. It's fun. It's interesting.

And if ANYBODY gives you any sort of crap for it just send whatever you made to me so I can praise the heck out of it and cuss whoever insulted you out. I love them I want to see them send them to me these things are FANTASTIC and I hoard them like a dragon, give me all the BSD characters I can get, ability users or nah!

#bungou stray dogs #oc #bsd #bungo stray dogs #literary stray dogs #bungou sd #text

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artbookdap · 4 years

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🍃We needed a book like 'JB Blunk' right now. Something about renewal, faith, originality… the excitement of thinking really big and the pleasures of the very small.🌱⁠⠀ Featured spreads are reproduced from the gorgeous, foil-stamped first monograph on the California sculptor and ceramicist JB Blunk, whose sublime, organic and all-encompassing work is only now getting the recognition it has long deserved. "Artists can ignore borders, ask impolite questions, and reveal unknown connections," Lucy Lippard writes. "As in nature itself, acknowledgement of a vast and invisible tangle of origins is crucial. JB Blunk understood this. His ceramics studies, his training in Japan, his friendships with sculptor Isamu Noguchi and Surrealist Gordon Onslow Ford and, above all, his profound love of place, led him out of the gates from the limited ‘world’ of art to a wide-open field influenced by cultures in which there is no ‘art’ in the contemporary sense, where art and life and spirituality are fully merged."⁠⠀ Published by Blunk Books & @dentdeleone ⁠⠀ Edited by Mariah Nielson, Åbäke. Foreword by Mariah Nielson. Text by Lucy R. Lippard, Louise Allison Cort, Fariba Bogzaran, Isamu Noguchi, Alyssa Ballard, Rene Bustamante, Glenn Adamson, Rick Yoshimoto. Interview by Rita Lawrence.⁠⠀ More information via linkinbio⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Please order from your local independent #bookstorehero — many are still shipping or offering curbside pickup! You can also order from local independents via @bookshop_org or #indiebound⁠⁠⁠⠀⁠⠀⁠⠀⁠⠀⁠⠀ Or order directly from @artbookps1 @artbookhwla or artbook.com. ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ #jbblunk @mariah_nielson #blunkbook @kajsashus @faribabogzaran @noguchimuseum @glenn_adamson @rickyoshimoto https://www.instagram.com/p/CAVKsbqpsUX/?igshid=squniylcm2fe

#bookstorehero #indiebound #jbblunk #blunkbook

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psotu19 · 6 years

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They Called Me "Uncle" and I Belonged

Rick Yoshimoto, Lamy, NM

[email protected]

Arlene triggered me when she gave her speech. I grew up in Hawaii, a second-generation from Okiniawa. As a kid, we—the people who came to the island, the Indigenous Hawaiians, plus the immigrants who came to work the plantations—were the majority on the island. It wasn’t till 1960 that Caucasians became the majority. I left when I was 19 and never went back to live. I always felt I belonged there, but after spending so much time away, going back, I felt like I was a tourist. I lost the connection. I didn’t really know what was going on. I ended up on the west coast, in California. Everyone came from away. The Indigenous people there were very diluted, they didn’t seem visible in your daily life. I just felt like I was floating. Now, I feel more connected here in New Mexico because the Indigenous people are so present, as they were in Hawaii. One day when I visited, I was surfing on Kauai with a friend. They way I had grown up, my grandmother took me to the Shinto Temple every weekend. Shinto religion worships nature and ancestors, so I grew up with that, feeling that connection. But now I’m in the water with my younger friend, feeling disconnected. All these kids are there surfing too. I caught a wave, and as I was going back out, three kids looked at me and “Nice wave, uncle!” In Hawaii they call the elders they don’t know uncle and auntie. Different surfers said that three times within the hour. Then I felt, “Okay, now I belong.”

#PSOTU2018 #belonging #community #Indigenous #submission #asian

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books-save-lives · 4 years

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My Reading List Of 2020

The Lightning Thief (book one) - Rick Riordan

The Sea of Monsters (book two) - Rick Riordan

The Titans Curse (book three) - Rick Riordan

The Battle of the Labyrinth (book four) - Rick Riordan

The Last Olympian (book five) - Rick Riordan

The Lost Hero (book one) - Rick Riordan

The Son of Neptune (book two) - Rick Riordan

The Mark of Athena (book three) - Rick Riordan

The House of Hades (book four) - Rick Riordan

The Blood of Olympus (book five) - Rick Riordan

The Hidden Oracle (book one) - Rick Riordan

The Dark Prophecy (book two) - Rick Riordan

The Burning Maze (book three) - Rick Riordan

The Tyrants Tomb (book four) - Rick Riordan

The Tower of Nero (book five) - Rick Riordan

Heart- Soseki Natsume

I Am A Cat - Soseki Natsume

The Woman in the Dunes - Kobo Abe

Norwegian Woods - Haruiki Marakami

Coin Locker Babies - Ryu Marakami

Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto

Sleep - Banana Yoshimoto

Silence - Shusaku Endo

On The Come Up - Angie Thomas

With the Fire on High - Elizabeth Aceredo

I Wish You All the Best - Mason Deaver

Opposite of Always - Justin A. Reynolds

Love From A to Z - S.K. Ali

Four Dead Queens - Astrid Scholte

Magic For Liars - Sarah Gailey

The Grand Dark - Richard Kadrey

Middlegame - Seanan McGuire

Collision - J.S. Breukelaar

Inspection - Josh Malerman

Scythe (book one) - Neal Shuterman

Thunderhead (book two) - Neal Shuterman

The Toll (book three) - Neal Shuterman

The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation - Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Falling Up (reread) - Shel Silverstein

The Merciful Crow - Margaret Owen

House of Earth and Blood (book club) - Sarah J. Maas

Shiver (book one) (reread) - Maggie Stiefvater

Linger (book two) - Maggie Stiefvater

Forever (book three) - Maggie Stiefvater

Sinner (book four) - Maggie Stiefvater

We Were Liars (reread) - E. Lockhart

Reason to Breathe (book one) (reread) - Rebecca Donovan

Barely Breathing (book two) - Rebecca Donovan

Out of Breath (book three) - Rebecca Donovan

The Poisonwood Bible (reread) - Barbara Kingsolver

Trickster's Choice (book one) (reread) - Tamora Pierce

Trickster's Queen (book two) - Tamora Pierce

Red Queen (book one) - Victoria Aveyard

Glass Sword (book two) - Victoria Aveyard

Kings Cage (book three) - Victoria Aveyard

War Stone (book four) - Victoria Aveyard

Broken Throne (book 4.5) - Victoria Aveyard

Throne of Glass (book one) (reread) - Sarah J. Maas

Crown of Midnight (book two) - Sarah J. Maas

Heir of Fire (book three) - Sarah J. Maas

Queen of Shadows (book four) - Sarah J. Maas

Empire of Storms (book five) - Sarah J. Maas

Tower of Dawn (book six) - Sarah J. Maas

Kingdom of Ash (book seven) - Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Thorns and Roses (book one) - Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Mist and Fury (book two) - Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Wings and Ruin (book three) - Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Frost and Starlight ( book four) - Sarah J. Maas

Cinder (book one) (reread) - Marissa Myers

Scarlet (book two) - Marissa Myers

Cress (book three) - Marissa Myers

Fairest (book four) - Marissa Myers

Winter (book five) - Marissa Myers

Stars Above (book six) Marissa Myers

Renegades (book one) (reread) - Marissa Myers

Archenemies (book two) (reread) - Marissa Myers

Supernova (book three) (reread) - Marissa Myers

Three Dark Crowns (book one) - Kendare Blake

One Dark Throne (book two) - Kendare Blake

Two Dark Reigns (book three) - Kendare Blake

Five Dark Fates (book four) - Kendare Blake

Poison Princess (book one) (reread) - Kresley Cole

Endless Knight (book two) - Kresley Cole

Dead of Winter (book three) - Kresley Cole

Day Zero (book four) - Kresley Cole

Arcana Rising (book five) - Kresley Cole

The Dark Calling (book six) - Kresley Cole

Jackaroo: A Novel of the Kingdom (reread) - Cynthia Voigt

Ophelia - Tara Brown

The Fault in Our Stars (reread) - John Green

Five Feet Apart - Rachael Lippincott

Carry On (book one) - Rainbow Rowell

Wayward Son (book two) - Rainbow Rowell

Dear Evan Hansen - Val Emmich

Tiger (book one) (reread) - Jeff Stone

Monkey (book two) (reread) - Jeff Stone

Snake (book three) (reread) - Jeff Stone

Crane (book four) (reread) - Jeff Stone

Eagle (book five) (reread) - Jeff Stone

Mouse (book six) (reread) - Jeff Stone

Dragon (book seven) (reread) - Jeff Stone

#books #reading list #book list #reading list 2020

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playmountain-east · 5 years

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MASHIKO INVERNESS

MASHIKO INVERNESS Harvey Young Ido Yoshimoto Akio Nukaga Hideki Takayama

September 21 - October 6 2019

Recently I noticed that arts and crafts communities are flourishing about 2 hours away from cities. For instance, Ditchling in UK is about 2 hours south of London. In Japan, Mashiko is also about the same distance from Tokyo. So is inverness which is about an hour and half from San Francisco. The arts and crafts community of Mashiko has become synonymous with Shoji Hamada, an influential potter in the twentieth century and a major figure of the Mingei folk art movement. Mashiko is known worldwide as a center for pottery with over 400 kilns, many artists and craftspeople working in a small town surrounded by mountains and hills. Inverness has been the place for many artists like Gordon Onslow Ford, John Anderson, J.B.Blunk and others. Harvey Young, a potter, also set up his studio and shop in Point Reyes. In 1970, he moved to Mashiko and spent his final years in Mashiko. This exhibition is the result of inviting and connecting an artist from Inverness, Ido Yoshimoto, to a group of extraordinary artists who works in Mashiko. 3 years after the passing of Harvey Young when Ido, son of Rick Yoshimoto who worked with J.B. Blunk, met these artists in Mashiko and it all started from there. This Mashiko-Inverness exhibition celebrates the predetermination of fated connection and explores artists who live and work in two places.

Shinichiro Nakahara

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jazzworldquest-blog · 6 years

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JAPAN/CANADA : Pianist/composer Satoko Fujii debuts new trio This Is It! with recording and Canadian tour

Pianist/composer Satoko Fujii debuts new trio This Is It!

with recording and Canadian tour

September 15 – October 8, 2018

Appearances in Guelph, Montreal, Kingston, Ottawa, Vancouver

1538, the trio’s debut CD, earning wide acclaim

4.5 stars “A rambunctious stew of explosive group dynamics and interludes of gorgeous piano ruminations beside prickly percussive keyboard moments. There are also fleeting, bright splashes of notes, odd noises from extended techniques…and driving rhythms in a wide array of time signatures.”—Dan McClenaghan All About Jazz

“The music is of the utmost simplicity, yet the works produce an effect of extraordinary voluptousness, as simple tonal chords drift in and out of focus, while the soloists describe a slow and wayward ascent, climbing higher by infinitesimal degrees.”—Raul da Gama, Jazzdagama

Acclaimed pianist/composer Satoko Fujii, celebrates her new trio This Is It! (Fujii, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, and percussionist Takashi Itani) with a Canadian tour from Saturday, September 15 – Monday, October 8, 2018. The band’s debut CD, 1538, is part of Fujii’s 60th birthday celebration for which she is releasing a new CD every month during 2018. The group will also tour to six US cities including Philadephia, PA; Cambridge, MA; Portland, ME; Brooklyn, NY; Mission Viejo and Los Angeles, CA.

Canadian performances include:

• Sat, Sept. 15, 2 p.m. – Guelph Jazz Festival, Cooperators Hall, River Run Centre, 35 Woolwich St. Guelph, Ontario.

Tickets $20-$25. GJF: Groven/Lumley/Sadhouders will also perform. For information visit http://riverrun.ca/whats-on/gjf-groven-lumley-stadhouders-satoko-fujis-this-is-it/ or www.guelphjazzfestival.com.

• Tues, Sept. 18, 8 p.m. – La Sala Rossa, 4848 St. Laurent, Montreal, Quebec.

The Craig Pedersen Quartet will also perform. Presented by Suoni Per Il Popolo and CKUT. Tickets $12. For information visit https://www.lfttckt.com/tickets/lfttkt-casa-1511276966-20703 or https://casadelpopolo.com/en/la-sala-rossa/.

• Wed, Sept. 19, 7 p.m. – St. Marks Church, 263 Victoria Street, Kingston, Ontario.

Presented by Kingston Jazz Society. Tickets $15 at the door. https://kingstonjazz.ca/2018/08/20/sep-19-satoko-fujii-trio-st-marks-church/

• Fri, Sept. 21, 7 p.m. – Natsuki Tamura Solo, Improvising Musicians of Ottawa Fest, General Assembly, Ottawa.

http://www.improvisedmoo.com/

• Sat, Sept. 22, 3 p.m. – Natsuki Tamura, trumpet; Satoko Fujii, piano; Jesse Stewart, drums, Glebe St. James United Church, 60 Lyon St. S., Ottawa.

https://www.glebestjames.ca/

• Sat, Sept. 22, 10 p.m. – Improvising Musicians of Ottawa Fest, Gigspace, 953 Gladstone Ave., Ottawa.

Tickets $75 festival pass, $40 Saturday only. For information visit http://www.improvisedmoo.com/imoofest-2018/this-is-it/. In addition to the concert by This Is It!, Tamura will perform solo on Friday, September 21, 7 p.m. at General Assembly; Fujii will also perform solo on Sunday, September 23.

• Sun, Sept. 23, 6 p.m. – Satoko Fujii Solo – Improvising Musicians of Ottawa Fest, Gigspace, 953 Gladstone Ave., Ottawa.

http://www.improvisedmoo.com/imoofest-2018/satoko-fujii//

• Sun, Sept. 23, 9 p.m. – Satoko Fujii directs IMOO Orchestra with tenor saxophonist Bernard Stepien, alto and/or baritone saxophonist Linsey Wellman, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, trombonist Rory Magill, guitarist David Jackson, cellist Mark Molnar, drummer Takashi Itani, Scott Warren on sound inspiration – Improvising Musicians of Ottawa Fest, Gigspace, 953 Gladsone Ave., Ottawa.

http://www.improvisedmoo.com/imoofest-2018/imoo-orchestra/

• Fri, Oct. 5, 8 p.m. – NOW Society Creative Music Series #5 at 8EAST, 8 E Pender St., Vancouver, BC

By donation $10-$20. Also performing are two duos: Nikki Carter and Kenton Loewen; Meredith Bates and Elsa Thorn. https://www.nowsociety.org/event/now-society-creative-music-series-5-october-3-5

• Mon, Oct. 8, 4-6 & 6:30-8:30 p.m. Improvisation Workshops – Western Front, 303 E. 8th Ave., Vancouver, BC. Suggested donation $5-$20.

Satoko Fujii leads improvisation workshops. https://www.nowsociety.org/2018-fall-workshops

Pianist-composer Fujii is always searching for new colleagues to help her in her quest “to make music that no one has heard before.” She found what she was looking for on 1538 featuring her latest trio with trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and drummer Takashi Itani. She calls the band This Is It!, and it’s little wonder why. After a long search, she’s found one of her most free-spirited ensembles, capable of playing her compositions with a natural élan as well as soloing with emotional intensity. The album was released June 22, 2018 via Libra Records.

This Is It! evolved slowly over several years from Fujii’s New Trio with bassist Todd Nicholson and drummer Itani. After their 2013 debut CD, Spring Storm, Tamura joined them in concert to form Quartet Tobira, which recorded Yamiyo ni Karasu in 2014. With the departure of Nicholson, the remaining band members played as Tobira – 1 (Tobira Minus One), but as they continued to play, a distinctive trio identity emerged and Fujii rechristened them with an original name. “I always like to have smaller units that can play my compositions,” Fujii says. “I have led small groups like Satoko Fujii Quartet, Satoko Fujii Trio, ma-do, and others since the beginning of my career. Right now, this trio is the one I really like to work with, so I just named it This Is It!.”

Fujii wrote some material especially for the group, but most of the compositions come from what she calls her diary. “When I sit at the piano, I always compose for 15 minutes before I begin to practice. After doing this for more than 10 years, I have 12 books of written compositions. The short pieces in these books can help me to make long pieces. I often turn to my diary books when I start to compose something.”

As Tamura attests in his CD liner notes, these pieces are often fiendishly difficult to learn but they always have structure and flow that sound unforced and that open up new possibilities for improvisers. The trio fully inhabits Fujii’s pieces, taking different approaches to each one. The trust and confidence among them create deeply layered performances that blend melody, sound, and rhythm in endlessly inventive ways. For instance, they each twist and bend the melody of “Prime Number” as they solo, creating variations that build a unified performance. They take the high-intensity title track (1538 is the melting point of iron in degrees Celsius) in multiple directions as they improvise. Tamura shrieks and brays with tormented abstractions while Fujii alternates between high energy thundering and a melancholy lyricism, and Itani’s unmoored rhythms ebb and flow.

Some of the most otherworldly sounds to issue from a Satoko Fujii band are heard on this album (and that’s saying something). It’s often hard to tell who is making what sound. The opening of “Yozora” (which means “night sky” in Japanese) and the dreamy abstractions of “Riding on the Clouds” are bravura examples of the trio’s ability to manipulate pure sound and tone color into emotionally satisfying music. A highlight of “Swoop,” a feature for Itani, is the drummer’s virtuoso command of timbre and his sure sense of construction.

“I just let the band play in their own way,” Fujii says. “I just love to hear how Natsuki and Takashi play my pieces. In music, I like to feel 120 percent free and I think we can do whatever we like. This is the advantage of the music!”

Drummer Takashi Itani plays everything from jazz (Max Roach was an early inspiration) to folk music, to rock. He’s been a sideman with a truly bewildering range of musicians, including singer-songwriter Yoshio Hayakawa; new wave rock guitarist Masahide Sakuma; singer-actor Hiroshi Mikami; Michiro Endo, front man of the influential punk band The Stalin; West coast jazz saxophonist Ted Brown; and best-selling Japanese American pop star Hikaru Utada. In addition he has performed with some of Japan’s most prominent poets, including Mizuki Misumi, Shuntaro Tanikawa, Gozo Yoshimasu, and the late Takaaki Yoshimoto.

Japanese trumpeter and composer Natsuki Tamura is internationally recognized for his unique musical vocabulary blending extended techniques with jazz lyricism. This unpredictable virtuoso “has some of the stark, melancholy lyricism of Miles, the bristling rage of late ’60s Freddie Hubbard and a dollop of the extended techniques of Wadada Leo Smith and Lester Bowie,” observes Mark Keresman of JazzReview.com. Throughout his career, Tamura has led bands with radically different approaches. On one hand, there are avant rock jazz fusion bands like his quartet. In contrast, Tamura has focused on the intersection of folk music and sound abstraction with Gato Libre since 2003. The band’s poetic, quietly surreal performances have been praised for their “surprisingly soft and lyrical beauty that at times borders on flat-out impressionism,” by Rick Anderson in CD Hotlist. In addition, Tamura and pianist (and wife) Satoko Fujii have maintained an ongoing duo since 1997. Tamura also collaborates on many of Fujii’s projects, from quartets and trios to big bands. As an unaccompanied soloist, he’s released three CDs, including Dragon Nat (2014). He and Fujii are also members of Kaze, a collaborative quartet with French musicians, trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins. “As unconventional as he may be,” notes Marc Chenard in Coda magazine, “Natsuki Tamura is unquestionably one of the most adventurous trumpet players on the scene today.”

Critics and fans alike hail pianist and composer Satoko Fujii as one of the most original voices in jazz today. She’s “a virtuoso piano improviser, an original composer and a bandleader who gets the best collaborators to deliver," says John Fordham in The Guardian. In concert and on more than 80 albums as a leader or co-leader, she synthesizes jazz, contemporary classical, avant-rock, and Japanese folk music into an innovative music instantly recognizable as hers alone. Over the years, Fujii has led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music, including her trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Jim Black, the Min-Yoh Ensemble, and an electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins. Her ongoing duet project with husband Natsuki Tamura released their sixth recording, Kisaragi, in 2017. “The duo's commitment to producing new sounds based on fresh ideas is second only to their musicianship,” says Karl Ackermann in All About Jazz. Aspiration, a CD by an ad hoc band featuring Wadada Leo Smith, Tamura, and Ikue Mori, was released in 2017 to wide acclaim. “Four musicians who regularly aspire for greater heights with each venture reach the summit together on Aspiration,” writes S. Victor Aaron inSomething Else. She records infrequently as an unaccompanied soloist, but Solo (Libra), the first of her 12 birthday-year albums, led Dan McClenaghan to enthuse in All About Jazz, that the album “more so than her other solo affairs—or any of her numerous ensembles for that matter—deals in beauty, delicacy of touch, graceful melodicism.” As the leader of no less than five orchestras in the U.S., Germany, and Japan, Fujii has also established herself as one of the world’s leading composers for large jazz ensembles, leading Cadence magazine to call her, “the Ellington of free jazz.”

www.satokofujii.com/

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