May 2024
What I've been up-to
This month I had my favourite ever achievement involving prose fiction. This was the publication of Yuan Jinmei’s short story ‘The Singing of the Bluebird’, my translation appeared in Asian Cha. I first translated the piece ten years ago, and it has taken this long to track down the author and find a home for it.
I also kept busy in many other areas.
Activities
My guitar YouTube channel had its most successful month yet, with releases including this guitar lesson, and this Debussy classic.
Monday Mandarin also continues to go from strength-to-strength. The latest video is an introduction to ‘The Incarnations’ by Susan Barker, a name that I think will be much talked about in the literary world in 2025:
Financially I have been feeling the effects of having three weeks off campus work over Easter, so tried my hand at online busking, and set up a Buy Me a Coffee page. It’s made $0 so far, but will get more polished over time.
Output
On May 1st, I released the first new The Kev song of the year. It is titled ‘What a Piece of Work Is Man’ and is about the crisis of masculinity.
I also redrafted the song ‘Believe’. In terms of its premise, it is one of my favourite songs I’ve written, but have never been quite happy with its execution. I expect I will rewrite it every few years:
Wider World
Netflix mini-series ‘Baby Reindeer’ has become one of the most talked about works of fiction of recent years. I have had a fascination with the phenomenon of online abuse since I was viciously trolled by an anonymous user of the now defunct Shenzhen Stuff from 2013 to 2016. It turned out to be a China-based Aussie named Randal Foley.
I have been as prone as the next person to Googling people who I haven’t seen since school and scrolling though the social media posts of casual acquaintances, but actual cyber-stalking is a new invention that very few people even know how to feel about it.
My biggest takeaway from the series is being glad that I never tried that hard to ‘make it’ in the entertainment industry, and just did my own thing, knowing the extent to which people have to sell their souls to achieve fame and fortune. This is illustrated nicely in this song by ‘Radiohead’, which satirises the music industry, and this song which satirises it even more brilliantly.
It is now becoming a matter for the courts whether the series is fact or fiction. Either way, I am reminded of this quote from Flannery O’Connor:
I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.