Tientsin Mystic review 河神 (Season 1) Make way for the River God

Dan Wild

Fog swirls over a bridge in 1920s Tianjin. A well-dressed young man is fleeing a group of ruffians. He runs onto the bridge. He’s trapped. He jumps into the river. He struggles underwater, trapped by some seaweed. A long-faced man appears in front of him, upside down. The next day Ding Mao, son of the …

Cosmogony 67: the Zentrians

Dan Wild

It is believed the Zentrians tie in with the multiverse theory, although no one has been able to prove this. Indeed, there is no scientific proof that the Zentrians even exist. Whether they are a race, an entity or a collection of spiritual beings is pure conjecture. The favoured explanation of conspiracy theorists is that …

Robert Schumann: Advice to Young Musicians

Dan Wild

The Gutenberg Project has made available to the general public many rare and obscure literary works. One such trinket is Advice to Young Musicians by composer and writer Robert Schumann (1810-1856). Schumann is an eccentric and interesting figure in Western music, known today for his varied output of lieder (songs), piano works, orchestral compositions and music …

Unpacking a Life – The Wanderer’s Art of Moving (Part 1)

Dan Wild

I’ve moved a lot over the years, maybe more than I should have. Perhaps this makes me a wanderer. I am less of a physical wanderer now, at least at the moment, but over fifteen years I lived in four different cities, often moving within cities. I first left Sydney for Canberra. Fittingly perhaps, as …

Cosmogony 766: Bad Ends

Dan Wild

Seventy kilometres north of Crete 581d’s capital, Reticulum, lie the Bad Ends. Most citizens avoid the Bad Ends. The Bad Ends became bad when Phineas Guthrie founded Conscious Follicles. Since then, hairdressing has often had links to organised crime. Jeremiah Kibbles moved into the area soon after, starting his business at the back of a …

Cosmogony 1243: Binary Loans

Dan Wild

A money lending chain founded by Nostradamus Noke in 2910, in ninety years Binary Loans grew from a small payday loan business to a successful franchise operating on both Crete 581d and Crete 581f. It avoids the Cretan 581d corporate tax rate of 30% by sending its revenue to holding companies on Crete 581f where …

Reducing demand for Arts degrees is a step back for Critical Thinking

Dan Wild

As you’re likely aware, the Australian Government recently doubled the cost of arts/humanities degrees. Its reasoning? Universities should focus on vocational degrees so students are job ready. I did a humanities degree, majoring in English and history. And I’ve had a solid career. First as an editor, then as a communications consultant working in a variety of fields, from …

Thanks for the music: Canberra, Ornette Coleman, Brenton Holmes

Dan Wild

I spent five years of my life in Canberra. It was here I really began my journey into jazz. Having taken jazz piano lessons with Paul Dal Broi, I advertised in the classifieds as a pianist and received a response from Eric Pozza who runs the Canberra Jazz blog. Eric plays bass and for a couple of …

The Lost History of the Tablet – from Athens to the iPad

Dan Wild

On October 17, 2011, I had a satirical piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Heckler column. It can no longer be found online. Down with you Archivists! The article was a little nod to the great Steve Jobs who had recently left our Earth. I reproduce the article below from my only surviving newspaper …

Work, mortality and coffee

Dan Wild

It’s been several weeks since my last update and to be honest, Covid-19 has hit my motivation like a punch in the stomach. It’s a shock on a global scale, flooring health services around the world and sending economies into a tailspin. On a personal level, it has made the futures of many of us …