14 書香人生 B O O K S & R E V I E W S SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2010 • TAIPEI TIMES Hardcover: US CD Reviews: Taiwan The No. 1 planet

for alien tourists Loh Tsui Kweh Commune (濁水溪公社) Suming (舒米恩) Loh Tsui Kweh Commune 20 Years Project Self-titled/Debut Original Album When mankind is kaput and extraterrestrials Himalaya Records (舒米恩首張創作專輯) arrive here, they might find Wonder Music ‘ (The Book)’ of use — for a giggle

ou never know what to expect from Loh Tsui Kweh Commune (濁水溪公社), uming (舒米恩) continues to impress with this brilliant debut solo album. by JANET MASLIN also known as LTK. After 20 years and five albums — which include classic NY Times News Service, New York The 32-year-old Amis Aboriginal, best known as the front man for the Yrecordings that have influenced several generations of Taiwanese punk and S indie-rock group Totem (圖騰), has set out to push Taiwanese indigenous indie musicians — the band has released an album of full-on electronica dance music beyond its traditional borders. arth (The Book) is a mock music that oozes 1980s nostalgia. The Taitung native is not the first to apply a modern pop twist to Aboriginal textbook by writers for Publication Notes I didn’t know whether to laugh or dance when I first heard this record. folk, but his songwriting skills clearly stand out among the rest. E With Jon There is not one trace of extreme guitar noise or any of the bizarre and vulgar Throughout this eleven-track album, listeners will hear the familiar chants of Stewart — or “the authors of the obscenities that have made the band one of the most notorious — and beloved “Naruwan” and “Ho hai yan” (吼海洋) backed by breezy bossa nova chords and popular television program The John — indie groups in Taiwan. electronica beats. Daly Show,” as they put it in a fake Instead, Loh Tsui Kweh Commune 20 Years Project takes the band’s music But it’s not just the drum machines and catchy pop hooks that make the Wikipedia blurb on the book’s back to the other extreme. The music is slick and smooth, and the lyrics, mostly music sound fresh. Suming brings a sense of nuance to the stories of his heritage cover. It is conceived as a handy sung in Mandarin, are about romance and heartbreak. on songs like the uplifting Kasasetek no mita (Our Promise). guide for extraterrestrials who But all eleven tracks are unmistakably LTK. Bandleader Ko Ren-chien (柯仁 The lyrics to Kapah, which translates from the Amis as “young men,” read arrive on this planet after humanity 堅) has made an art out of celebrating taike (台客), which used to be a derogatory like a traditional courting song, with lines like “Are there any guys who are has become extinct, in case those term referring to Taiwanese working-class culture. The 40-year-old has outdone good in school?/Are there any guys who are good at making money/Are there extraterrestrials want to know what himself in writing the songs for this album, which begins with an instrumental any guys who are good at spearing fish?/Are there stong guys?” Suming’s they’re missing. It explains everyday titled Taikno Music. smooth-driving, funky electronica groove adds humor and playfulness to this details about how we live(d), from Ko says this collection was inspired by the music he grew up listening to, display of machismo. our use of the fork (“a way to hurt particularly bands like Depeche Mode and Duran Duran. And it’s just plain fun to hear Suming get away with using auto-tune on his food one last time before eating it”) Eternal Love treads dangerously close to parody when Ko croons “Stay with voice on another ice-cool dance track, Kaoying (Beautiful Girls). He doesn’t to our wearing of pants. me” in English — you could almost picture him with his hand on heart and a sound cliche and the effect works well with the Amis lyrics. “We put these on one leg at a mock wince. But the hooks are relentlessly catchy and for the most part, never Despite the dance-floor vibe that dominates the record, Suming gives a time,” it says. “You may require a let up for the rest of album. Other standout tracks include Aerolady and Girls on clear nod to his roots with Fulad (Moonlight), a beautiful instrumental different approach.” EARTH (THE BOOK): A VISITOR’S the Avenue, which are pure 1980s cheese, from the reverb-drenched snare drum composition performed on the reed flute and an a capella tune sung by a Earth adopts a faux-scientific GUIDE TO THE HUMAN RACE smacks to endless flurries of arpeggios. chorus as the final track. tone to explain the planet, its Indie-pop producer Ciacia (何欣穗) provided most of the backing female vocals With this album, Suming has clearly brought his music to a new level, and is life forms and their quantifiable Written and edited by and her lush harmonies are the perfect foil for Ko, who sounds like he has just one to watch if you haven’t started yet. — David Chen characteristics. Like the Daily Show , , hijacked an unsuspecting karaoke party and is having the time of his life. this parody delivers wittily framed At LTK’s 20th anniversary concert earlier this month, the band didn’t absurdities in a sweetly dead- , perform any of these new songs, but they didn’t need to. During a set break, they pan way. So there are statistics. and Josh Lieb hired professional dancers to perform a racy strip tease with the album as their (“Length of day (in days) — 1.”) sound track. — David Chen There are charts. (Time We Were 244 pages Willing to Wait for a Baked Potato: Grand Central Publishing from 8 hours in 1900 to 1 second in 2010. Lifetime Food Consumption of First Slices of Wedding Cake: 2.1.) It’s My Time (夢想啟航) There is a handsomely 林育群 illustrated Periodic Table of the Lin Yu-chun ( ) Synthetic that includes such Publication Notes Sony Music elements as Wo (Wite-out), G (Gummi), Jq (Je ne sais quoi), DD Extreme (極限) (Silicone) and Li (Listerine). And Hsu Chia-ying (徐佳瑩, aka Lala) there is a set of FAQs (“Future in Yu-chun (林育群), aka Little Fatty (小胖), released his first full-length Asia Music Alien Questions”) for each topic album, It’s My Time (夢想啟航), a mere five months after his appearance on covered here. For instance: L Taiwan’s blockbuster pop idol competition show One Million Star (超級星光 Question: “How many different 大道) singing I Will Always Love You went viral across the world. Lin’s story as living beings existed on Earth when an overweight, underappreciated child who overcame a mountain of ridicule to you were there?” ne Million Star (超級星光大道) champ Hsua Chia-ying (徐佳瑩) proves realize this moment of glory no doubt invites good will. Answer: “3,000 quintillion.” she is the show’s only alumnus who is capable of shaping her On this debut album, Lin follows in Susan Boyle’s footsteps by singing mostly Question: “How rough an O own musical persona with Extreme (極限), her highly anticipated covers of familiar tunes. estimate is that?” follow-up album. Showing unrelenting ambition, and probably aiming too high, Lin tackles four Answer: “It is the exact number.” Having composed and coproduced all 10 of the album’s tracks herself, female superstars on one disc: Whitney Houston’s version of I Will Always Love That happens to be a perfect Hsu shows she is an all-round musician who calls her own shots. Written in You, Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On, Mariah Carey’s Hero and Christina example of what Charles Seife’s the aftermath of Hsu’s very public breakup with her One Million Star beau, Aguilera’s Fighter. new book calls “proofiness”: Extreme is full of existential contemplation and morose imagery, which Lin’s performance is a note-by-note imitation of the original stars’ an exact-sounding number that makes it a most daring and unconventional Mando-pop album. phrasing, right down to their breathing. He’s a gifted impersonator with an represents the antithesis of Title track Extreme (極限) is an electronica-infused number that explores impressive vocal range. But the album’s producers cranked out watered-down knowledge. And although such a man’s ability to face extreme challenges, while Time Master (時間大師), accompaniment music that sounds like that found in KTVs. numbers can be as funny as Earth PROOFINESS: The Dark Arts of also dance driven, probes how today’s decisions might be proven wrong in With Fighter, the album’s only up-tempo track, Lin displays a never before makes them, they are dangerous Mathematical Deception the future. seen spunk and defiance. too. Seife identifies a phenomenon Hsu’s songs are mostly melancholic and exhibit self-doubt. Fear of The undisputed highlight is the album’s sole original track, Under Your that we see all around us, whether ByCharles Seife Height (懼高症), the album’s infectious second single, is a folksy ballad in Wings, written and produced by Carey’s Grammy-winning producer Walter in advertising claims, crowd which she questions her ability to overcome vertigo to climb the blissful 295 pages Afanasieff expressly for Lin. The song expresses Lin’s gratitude to his estimates, voter polls, economic heights of romance again. The morbid Ruined Love (殘愛) depicts a ruined mentor, and shows he is capable of crafting his own interpretation of a song analyses and warnings about the Viking love that both parties have decided to abandon. with grace. extent of global warning. “If you Disco (迪斯可), a sarcastic and funky track, portrays a brokenhearted girl Lin’s cover of Lionel Richie’s Hello, a track included on his previous EP, was want to get people to believe who must feign happiness to continue dancing at a disco. omitted. That’s a shame as Lin breaks into an unusually playful improvisation something really, really stupid, The ballads here don’t have the catchiness of Hsu’s previous output, such towards the end. just stick a number on it,” Seife them. It also pays particular attention as I Ride a White Horse (身騎白馬) and Humming a Love Song (哼情歌), nor Though lacking innovation, It’s My Time does hold together as a cohesive succinctly claims. to the 2008 Senate race in Minnesota, are they as exuberant or joyous as her debut album. album that drives its inspirational theme of perseverance home. We all know what he means. So with its heated legal argument over Perhaps the album’s most prophetic track is song Oasis (樂園), which Whether or not Lin’s 15 minutes of fame will fizzle out like his predecessor in some ways “Proofiness” is just one ballot full of write-in votes for sees an oasis in the future where flowers bloom. With this musically complex William Hung’s did, depends on whether the rising star can parley his vocal stating the obvious. But it’s one “Lizard People.” Really. and metaphorically rich album, Hsu is well on her way to finding that spot. talent and amiable personality into credible music of his own. The album’s only of those books that validates The Daily Show writers deal — ANDREW C.C. HUANG original track hints he has the potential to do just that. — ANDREW C.C. HUANG pre-existing perceptions, making with political craziness like the them more egregious and much “Lizard People” fight nightly. And easier to see. After all, Seife has the previous Daily Show book, dug up a pair of articles from (The Book): A Citizen’s The Associated Press, one with Guide to Democracy Inaction, Hardcover: UK the headline “AP Poll: Americans more than covered politics and Optimistic for 2007” and the other government. So Earth doesn’t go with “Poll: Americans See Doom, there, concentrating instead on Gloom for 2007.” Since these reports civilizations, structures, artifacts and No deity, but many universes ran on Dec. 30 and Dec. 31, 2006, physiology. A photo that purports and were based on the same survey, to show half of a naked Larry King Hawking and furious religious reaction as the a deity in The Grand Design. if we are to exist, leaves little a closer look at manipulative number wearing only one red suspender paper’s writers could muster. In the opening pages, there room for alternation,” they state. Publication Notes crunching is surely in order. is used as a gruesome anatomy Mlodinow’s new Other media outlets followed are a few mentions of clerical “That is not easily explained, and Proofiness, subtitled “The Dark lesson, a la the naked United States suit — “Bang goes God, says attempts in the middle ages to raises the natural question of Arts of Mathematical Deception,” Supreme Court in “America.” The theory is about life, Hawking,” a tabloid announced make philosophical sense of why it is that way.” The answer, can be seen as part of the life cycle rest of this book’s illustrations are a the universe and — while rabbis, archbishops and the heavens and that is about it the authors say, lies with M- of The Daily Show. It owes its whole lot better than that. religious historians filled letters — until we reach the last chapter. theory. (The M apparently stands title to the “truthiness” of Stephen The early sections are everything — pages and comment slots with “Spontaneous creation is for “master, miracle, or mystery.” Colbert, who was once a twinkle in dependably great looking and except God waves of apoplectic outrage. the reason there is something The authors are unsure which.) the eye of The Daily Show, though sporadically funny. (Planet Earth, It has been a dispiriting rather than nothing, why The vital point is that M-theory he might not put it that way. And the aging hottie: “Despite a experience. Setting religion the universe exists, why we allows for the existence of 11 the same kind of sneaky logic that pronounced equatorial bulge and By Tim Radford against science, as the media exist,” Hawking and Mlodinow dimensions of space-time that is nailed by Proofiness is regularly receding polar iceline, she still The Guardian, London has quite deliberately done in announce at this point. “It is not contains not just vibrating spotted by the eagle-eyed staff of stubbornly maintains a jaunty 23.4- For those who have spent the this case, achieves little for necessary to invoke God to light strings of matter but also “point The Daily Show. Incidentally, Seife degree axial tilt that belies her 4.5 past few weeks on a caving our attempts to understand the blue touch paper and set the particles, two-dimensional takes care to make his politics billion years.”) The mock-textbook holiday or who have been on a the complexities of modern universe going.” membranes, three-dimensional sound neutral, or rather, to make style gives the writers an easy visit to the glaciers of Svalbard, cosmology, the specific aim And that is just about it. The blobs and other objects that himself appear equally enraged template, even if they seem to be the news that Stephen Hawking of Hawking and Mlodinow’s rest of the book is an attempt are more difficult to picture.” at number fakers whatever their supplying filler from time to time. has published a new book book. Worse, the furor suggests to account for the strange Simple, really. political leanings may be. Inflating But this book, like the show, — his first in a decade — may that at the beginning of the nature of reality as revealed by Crucially the laws of M-theory the size of a crowd to 1 million is the is best when it takes on subjects come as a surprise. For the 21st century, in our apparently astronomers and physicists; to allow for an unimaginably large The Grand Design: New Answers same offense, whether perpetrated of real substance. (Masturbation rest of humanity, however, the rational, secular society, the reconcile the apparent absurdities number of different universes. to the Ultimate Questions of Life about Glenn Beck’s “Restoring jokes don’t count.) That’s why the information will by now seem declaration by a leading scientist of quantum mechanics with Thus we exist because the laws Honor” rally (Representative funniest material is about religion as stale as a day-old pizza. that God was not involved in the the mind-stretching features of of our particular universe just By Stephen Hawking Michele Bachmann) or a Million and science. Take special note of Certainly, the blizzard of front- universe’s creation is deemed to special and general relativity; happen to be tuned to the exact and Leonard Mlodinow Man March (Louis Farrakhan). the tippy-toeing around Islam (“a page stories that has greeted be newsworthy and deserving of and to explain why the forces of parameters that permit the 199 pages Beware an exact-sounding beautiful harmless happy daffodil”), publication of the first extracts front-page headlines in national nature are apparently fine-tuned existence of hydrogen, oxygen, number, even if it’s more credible the calendar of December religious from The Grand Design has newspapers. to allow the evolution of complex carbon and other key atoms and Bantam than 3,000 quintillion. According holidays for all persuasions been extraordinary and, over the Nothing could be further creatures such as ourselves. As which also generate laws that to Seife, nice round numbers (“Mission Impossible IV” premiere past three weeks, has given the from the truth, of course. Like Hawking and Mlodinow note, allow these entities to interact convey an automatic message of for Scientologists, “Charmonukkah” scientist the kind of coverage most other physicists, Hawking only the tiniest altering of the in ways that build up complex exaggeration. So do precise-sounding for “Blues Judaism”), the claim that modern authors would sell has never expressed a need for constants that control nuclear chemical combinations. Other successful conclusion to a search measurements of concepts that are that the word Torah is “German their souls for. God in his equations and has synthesis in stars would produce universes are not so lucky. that was begun by the ancient ill-defined, and so do voter polls, for ‘kindling,’” and the map of “Hawking: God did not create only made previous mentions to a universe with no carbon and no M-theory is the unified Greeks when they started to thanks to systematic and statistical Jerusalem. That map includes “Holy universe,” the London Times tease his readers. Fortunately, oxygen and therefore no humans. theory of physics that Einstein puzzle about the nature of errors. Those are different kinds Missile Attack Rubble” that “burned announced on its front page, a most of them have had the wit “Our universe and its laws was hoping to find, state the reality. “We will have found the of mistakes, and this indignant, for eight nights, despite only one splash story that was followed to appreciate this point. In fact, appear to have a design that both authors, and if it is confirmed grand design,” Hawking and excitable book is eager to explore night’s worth of explosives.” up for several days with as much there is hardly a mention of is tailor-made to support us and, by observation, it will be the Mlodinow conclude.