Blue Murakami

I had something else lined up for today, but then came across the essay "Jazz Messenger" by Haruki Murakami in the book review segment of yesterday's New York Times:

"Practically everything I know about writing, then, I learned from music. It may sound paradoxical to say so, but if I had not been so obsessed with music, I might not have become a novelist. Even now, almost 30 years later, I continue to learn a great deal about writing from good music. My style is as deeply influenced by Charlie Parker’s repeated freewheeling riffs, say, as by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s elegantly flowing prose. And I still take the quality of continual self-renewal in Miles Davis’s music as a literary model."

The piece isn't that long, but like most of what I've read from Murakami, it's intriguing and entertaining. It also gives me an excuse to link to his website, which rocks a dope soundtrack, and a bunch of other cool features.