Word: monke
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...students like to say, is "half man, half amazing." But when he's breaking boulders with his skull or flying above ground upside down in a full split, that hardly does him justice. Even when he holds still (which isn't often), the 37-year-old Shaolin Temple fighting monk manages to look more mythical than mortal. He's got the face of a Xian terra-cotta warrior?acrobatically piked eyebrows, rampart-like cheekbones?and the kind of body that helps explain why kung fu is called...
...abbot and Yan Ming embody the complex struggle under way for control of the legacy of a Chinese cultural landmark almost as celebrated as the Forbidden City or the Great Wall. It's a clash that pits monk against monk, disciple against master and, at least in one case, cop against banner. And the stakes are high. Shaolin monks' heroism on battlefields, both real and imagined, has been legendary for generations. But like so many institutions of China's imperial past, the temple was violently severed from its historical roots by the political upheavals of the 20th century...
...Ming was five when he arrived at Shaolin in 1969. He had suffered a near-fatal illness and his parents, believing he owed his recovery to Buddha, sent him to become a monk. It was a perilous time to join a monastic order. Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution was in full swing and the temple's remaining handful of monks were so busy fending off gangs of marauding Red Guards and writing self-criticisms that they had little time for new disciples...
...like the one taking place on October 20th at Madison Square Garden, where former Beatle Paul McCartney will headline "The Concert for New York City," an all-star musical celebration of the city (Elton John, Mick Jagger, Marc Anthony and David Bowie are also scheduled to perform). Pianist Thelonious Monk once said "Jazz is New York. You can feel it in the air." But there are also many other kinds of music gusting through the streets of New York beyond jazz and rock; this weekend?s megaconcert is something that?s part of a much longer tradition...
...techno music. The jazz influence is unmistakable in this mix from the opening Medley: “General Science/Ish/Papa LaBas” by Conjure, where we hear the saxophone improvise a haunting melody on a bed of synthetic strings and the piano enter with the syncopated rhythms of Thelonius Monk. As the album progresses, though, there is a clear shift to house music (although the jazz is still a constant influence) mainly in the way that the songs are constructed with an opening chorus, an improvised middle section and return to the chorus at the end. The vocals in many...