varieties of cultural ignorance

Posted on March 2nd, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Badness, Music Criticism.

Colin Harper, the writer of the liner notes for the reissue of Bert and John by Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, begins with:

From the strangely compelling cover shot, of two young men playing some now unfathomable board game in a half darkened room on a sunny day, oblivious to the camera, to the total idiosyncrasy of the music inside, Bert and John is an album with an atmosphere all its own.

The now-unfathomable board game in the cover shot is Go.

7 comments.

Kip W

Comment on March 2nd, 2007.

On a scout paper drive in the 60s, I picked up some ex-library editions of Japanese books for tourists (from the late 30s), including a guide to the game of Go. My favorite fact from the book is that large, table-sized boards are made with a hollow space underneath, which is there so that the pieces will make a pleasant sound when placed.

Scraps

Comment on March 2nd, 2007.

Excellent!

ethan

Comment on March 2nd, 2007.

A friend of mine and a coworker recently were eating lunch when another, mutually despised, coworker approached. This other coworker saw that my friend and her friend were eating falafel and started talking about how weird falafel is, but how he kind of likes it anyway (I know! Crazy!), and that in foreign countries people eat weird things. So my friend (who, incidentally, is Japanese, though that only matters slightly to this story) said, "Oh, I know! I heard in this one country they eat raw fish, only they wrap it in rice!" The idiot said, "Oh, yeah, I think I've heard of that."

This is the same coworker who said that he liked living in Boston (where he and my friend work) but that he could never live in Providence (where my friend and I live) because it's not a big enough city. What ignorant jackasses get out of "big cities" is beyond me.

Scraps

Comment on March 3rd, 2007.

Oh, man. That's a good question. Even in New York, it seems to be possible to live here and not care about any of the good reasons why one puts up with the shitty part of living here. If not for the great cultural variety, why?

herm

Comment on March 3rd, 2007.

i didn't realize Go was so obscure. my youngest brother is pretty obsessed with it. he goes to Go club in eugene weekly. there's a state Go tournament up in salem.

Scraps

Comment on March 3rd, 2007.

I don't think it is obscure, but that could just be the circles I travel in. It's possible that if I'd asked in the break room who knew what Go was that only a couple of people would have said yes; I dunno.

I couldn't get obsessed with Go. Like getting obsessed with chess, it has a tendency to take over your life.

Ed Ward

Comment on March 4th, 2007.

When you're a folk nerd in Britain, any board game that's not Ludo is obscure.

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