Archive for February 2006

I bought Kate Bush’s Aerial yesterday, and it’s, ooh, about the most indulgent album I’ve ever bought.

• It’s a double album.
• The discs have names: the first is A Sea of Honey and the second is A Sky of Honey.
• The second disc has both a “Prelude” and a “Prologue.”
• One song consists of her reciting the digits of pi. (Also, the song is called π, not pi.)
• Another ends with bits of whispered, breathless French.
• Another starts with a very softly-spoken sound engineer saying: “Yeess, I need to get that tone a little bit lighter there … maybe with some dark accents coming in from this side. Mmmm, that’s good…”
• The title track has Kate Bush giggling for over a minute, to the sound of birds chirping.

It’s very lush and mostly pretty though.

You might like: King of the Mountain clip, high quality .mov, works on iPod.

Isn’t it a beautiful thing to, after two years, go back to your little neighbourhood Japanese restaurant and find that everything’s exactly the same as when you left ? The prices haven’t changed (except for Coke), the little cardboard “Sold Out” signs are still in operation , the charming hand-illustrated sign on the front still advises “No alcohol / No bare-feet” , the staff still consist of Japanese exchange students who take your money with both hands, and who are presumably responsible for the hand-lettered cardboard “business cards” that you get with your take-away .

Actually, maybe it is depressing that nothing has changed. (Are you surviving, little Japanese neighbourhood restaurant? Are you prospering?) And why is charm so important? Why do I want you not to change?

It’s all about the food , right?

(Miyoshi is 85 Swan St, Richmond, Victoria, Australia, and is rated T for tasty.)