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9781952335013

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What artist hasn't John Yau looked at and thought about? What movie hasn't he seen? What poet's or essayist's works doesn't he know? Yau, himself a poet of prodigious gifts, is the indispensable flanêur of turn-of-the-century culture, looking at, reading, and watching everything that passes before him. These essays, reviews, and notices are an essential chronicle of our cultural moment. It's a delight to follow Yau as he brings his keen aesthetic sensibility and stern critical eye to bear on a rich variety of artists, writers, and filmmakers, and shares his findings in a wry, witty prose that never troubles to disguise his scorn for the meretricious and his sheer joyful enthusiasm for the sublime, the ingenious, and the often overlooked profound. --Mark Scroggins I read this book with a notebook open beside me and the desktop on my laptop filling up with the downloaded works and links.... ""Sure,"" I want to say, ""you could go to grad school, or you could ... follow up not only on all the works Yau directly addresses but all the enticing vistas and side roads (in the form of allusions) he keeps opening."" Foreign Sounds or Sounds Foreign is, in other words, a whole education, exciting and nourishing and--because what's collected here is a sharply original and brilliant curriculum--transformative in the best way.... Whether he's introducing us to writers and artists we know too little about or showing us the less well known side of someone familiar, Yau improves our vision, bypassing all ""false solaces"" to get to the only real one: our capacity to attend, connect, and imagine. ""Can we reinvent ourselves before it is literally too late?"" the author asks ... with this collection of wise and generous essays, Yau has conditioned the possibility of such a reinvention--and I am more hopeful than I have ever been. --Laura Mullen Foreign Sounds or Sounds Foreign delights me. John Yau praises and illuminates accomplishments that are all too often ignored.... He reminds us of artists whose work ... unfolds ""a merciless and ultimately disquieting collision of hilarity, discomfort, and confusion,"" so that..., ""Our experience of them is not purely aesthetic."" Yau also introduces us to the Asian actors of Hollywood, who never got to play the hero or whose characters had to die to rescue whiteness, and--although he knows we need ""opaque identities""--he reminds us of how evasive we really are when we think we're engaged in ""post-identity"" modes of writing. I couldn't help thinking of some words from a lyricist only mentioned in passing in this book: ""So don't fear if you hear,"" sang Bob Dylan, ""A foreign sound to your ear. It's all right, Ma, I'm only sighing."" --Barry Schwabsky

What artist hasn't John Yau looked at and thought about? What movie hasn't he seen? What poet's or essayist's works doesn't he know? Yau, himself a poet of prodigious gifts, is the indispensable flane ur of turn-of-the-century culture, looking at, reading, and watching everything that passes before him. These essays, reviews, and notices are an essential chronicle of our cultural moment. It's a delight to follow Yau as he brings his keen aesthetic sensibility and stern critical eye to bear on a rich variety of artists, writers, and filmmakers, and shares his findings in a wry, witty prose that never troubles to disguise his scorn for the meretricious and his sheer joyful enthusiasm for the sublime, the ingenious, and the often overlooked profound. --Mark Scroggins I read this book with a notebook open beside me and the desktop on my laptop filling up with the downloaded works and links.... Sure, I want to say, you could go to grad school, or you could ... follow up not only on all the works Yau directly addresses but all the enticing vistas and side roads (in the form of allusions) he keeps opening. Foreign Sounds or Sounds Foreign is, in other words, a whole education, exciting and nourishing and--because what's collected here is a sharply original and brilliant curriculum--transformative in the best way.... Whether he's introducing us to writers and artists we know too little about or showing us the less well known side of someone familiar, Yau improves our vision, bypassing all false solaces to get to the only real one: our capacity to attend, connect, and imagine. Can we reinvent ourselves before it is literally too late? the author asks ... with this collection of wise and generous essays, Yau has conditioned the possibility of such a reinvention--and I am more hopeful than I have ever been. --Laura Mullen Foreign Sounds or Sounds Foreign delights me. John Yau praises and illuminates accomplishments that are all too often ignored.... He reminds us of artists whose work ... unfolds a merciless and ultimately disquieting collision of hilarity, discomfort, and confusion, so that..., Our experience of them is not purely aesthetic. Yau also introduces us to the Asian actors of Hollywood, who never got to play the hero or whose characters had to die to rescue whiteness, and--although he knows we need opaque identities --he reminds us of how evasive we really are when we think we're engaged in post-identity modes of writing. I couldn't help thinking of some words from a lyricist only mentioned in passing in this book: So don't fear if you hear, sang Bob Dylan, A foreign sound to your ear. It's all right, Ma, I'm only sighing. --Barry Schwabsky

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