Lost In Translation

Penguin Classics: Monsignor Quixote

Monsignor Quixote is Graham Greene’s last Catholic novel, however the way in which he explores faith and religion is quite entertaining. Naïve father Quixote gets a commission for Monsignor on a lark and decides to take some time off with his friend known as Sancho, the communist former mayor of El Toboso. These two have a great fondness for wine and talking of their great religions: Catholicism and communism. Quixote quotes the great religious books and Sancho from Marx and Lenin. It is also homage to Cervantes' masterpiece, which I dully admit to not having read it yet-perhaps this will nudge me toward the classic. I definitely want to read it, but I am a little intimidated by the size of that doorstop. This novel on the other hand was less than 200 pages and very entertaining. Once again it gets the "Penguin Classics" treatment with a thoughtful introduction by John Auchard. 

Three Days Of The Condor

I  recently saw Steven Soderbergh’s film Out of Sight and while in the trunk of the car George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez talk about movies and refer to Three Days of the Condor and the relationship between Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway. I remember seeing it, but I couldn’t remember it well. So I decided to revisit it and it was a charming thriller with a great supporting cast with the likes of Max Von Sydow and John Houseman.  It depicts the gritty 70s NYC well. I can’t help but wonder if there is more homage than the reference in the trunk-the end has a freeze frame-Out of Sight opens with a freeze frame. Soderbergh mentions that the bedroom scene was modeled on a scene from a Nicolas Roeg film, but I can see traces of love scene from this film there as well. I think this belongs with the other great NYC 70s classics like Dog Day Afternoon, The French Connection, Serpico, The Marathon Man, etc.

The Border Grill

I was happy to see a new culinary addition to he neighborhood, The Border Grill, which has well-made Tex-Mex, a good selection of American microbrew beers, and a large selection of tequilas.

So far I've tried the enchiladas (pictured above), burritos, and nachos (pictured below). Like I said reasonably priced and better than your average Japanese Mexican joint.

Ladies And Gentlemen The Bronx Is Burning!

There’s been a lot of talk about the nostalgia of the gritty New York of the 70s when it seemed the city was about to implode. IF there was one point in which that was a distinct possibility it must have been the summer of 1977-when the serial killer Son of Sam haunted the city, a black out resulted in wide spread looting and debilitating arson fires. But it was also the search for leadership of the city as four mayoral candidates clashed for the liberal nomination for what was a bastion of liberality. But there was another drama in the clubhouse and the field of the New York Yankees George Steinbrenner had just bought the team and brought the combustive personalities of Reggie Jackson and Billy martin together. Not to mention the rise and fall of disco and the birth of punk rock were also brewing in this record-breaking heat wave of the summer. Jonathan Mahler was able to weave all these stories together into a coherent narrative in his informative and entertaining book, Ladies and Gentlemen The Bronx Is Burning. It is another spot on recommendation from Nick Hornby via his now defunct “What I’m Reading” columns from The Believer magazine. Mahler uses the mayoral race and the Yankees march to the World Series as the main narratives that tie the story together-with interludes to some of the other significant historical and cultural events that took place that summer like the blackout, Son of Sam, disco, and punk rock. I'm not sure if it can be classified as only a sports book, but I think it has broad mainstream appeal. However, I must admit that I enjoyed the sports aspect of the book-as an avid baseball collector of that era I was very familiar with the principals discussed in the Yankees section. 

Truck Yatai

"Yatai" is Japanese for food stall and recently Meiji University has allowed a collective of mobile food stalls to set up shop on campus at lunch. Monday through Friday there are two different stalls everyday. Tuesday is my favorite day since they have the truck above , Meal Boxx, a Mexican food stall-they serve "tacos rice" and a fajita rice bowl. The truck next to them sells Thai food as well. Most dishes are around ¥500 (about $5). The food varieties range from Jamaican to Japanese favorites like Om-rice (an omelette filled with rice topped with ketchup!).

Out of Sight

I’ve been a fan of Stephen Soderbergh for many years now. But I was inspired to get a copy of his comeback hit based on Elmore Leonard’s novel, Out of Sight. I mainly got it for the extra features, which includes a dialogue with Soderbergh and Scott Frank, who adapted the screenplay. I think their conversation could be a seminar on film making as they explained the process for the script changes and directorial decisions for a majority of scenes. Some of their changes were very effectively, especially the flashbacks, which apparently weren’t in the book, and as Soderbergh points out one of the main scenes isn’t as effective at the beginning of the book, because we’re not invested in the character yet. It also has a great cast with George Clooney (Their first time collaboration), Jennifer Lopez, Steve Zahn, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks, Dennis Farina, etc…It’s difficult what to call this film. Is it a heist film? A romance? A comedy? It has elements of all of these and more. I thought the soundtrack was really effective as well. Soderbergh usually makes all the right decisions in terms of lighting, cinematography and pacing through editing. All in all a really entertaining and well-executed film that brought Sodenbergh and company a lot of well deserved clout and accolades.

Runaway Horses

Runaway Horses is the second volume of Yukio Mishima’s Sea of Fertility teratology. I was inspired to read it after seeing Paul Schrader’s film Mishima again recently. The film incorporates aspects of the novel in to the narrative to explain some of Mishima’s perplexing behavior. The novel reflects Mishima’s death wish fantasy by seppuku, the main character is obsessed by this idea and finally commits the act at he end of the book. It also helps explain Mishima’s attraction to the right wing ideology which informs his suicide when he fails his cou d’teau. There are some direct connects with the first volume Spring Snow in the apparent reincarnation of the protagonist in the hero of this volume and some of the principal characters of the previous book as adults. It was interesting to see which parts of the novel Schrader chose to use in the film and they were in large the main turning points of the novel.

Slate in Japan

Slate's Daniel Gross is in Japan for the week and has been posting stories that are Japan related. For example this one on the popularity of American fast food in Japan:

The image of Japan as being inhospitable to imports is old, enduring, and not entirely unjustified. The government is offering immigrants from South America—many themselves descendants of Japanese emigrants—$3,000 to return home (the better to free up jobs for native-born Japanese). The vista that meets visitors at Narita Airport is hardly more welcoming: masked staffers, health disclosure forms, and a sign warning that people who are coming in from countries such as Bolivia and Brazil must go in a special line. (They're looking for either soccer players or swine flu.) On the 80-minute ride from Narita Airport to Tokyo, I tried in vain to spot an imported car on the road.

Here's another on the financial crisis in Japan:

Combine Japanese cultural tendencies toward formality, politesse, and indirection with the usual central banker's love of opacity and econo-jargon, and you'd expect that a meeting with the deputy governor of the Bank of Japan would be a one-way trip into a cloud of vagueness. But in a meeting Monday, Kiyohiko Nishimura, Yale-trained economist, former Tokyo University professor, and deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, gave one of the most lucid and useful explications of the credit crisis and its aftermath that I've heard—and I've heard a lot of them. And even more surprisingly, it was pretty optimistic.

And this one on the cool biz craze:

But I soon solved the mystery of the failing air conditioner. Japan has eagerly embraced technology and practices that will reduce emissions and combat global warming. It invented hybrid vehicles, has extensive mass-transit systems, and uses wind power. In 2005, Environment Minister Yuriko Koike, a pioneering female politician, was seeking ways to slash energy use. And she came up with the Cool Biz campaign. The idea: Government would cut energy bills by keeping thermostats in its buildings at 28 degrees Celsius—82.4 degrees Fahrenheit—during the summer. It quickly produced results and was adopted by the business establishment as well. Since Japan's energy mavens realized that simply unbuttoning a shirt collar can make people feel about 4 degrees cooler, dressing down became part of the Cool Biz mentality. (Here's an ABC News story on the phenomenon.) The only people we met with this week wearing suits, ties, and cufflinks were Americans—diplomats at the embassy and the boosters from the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan.

Moneyball: NBA Edition

A friend pointed me in the direction of Michael Lewis piece about Shane Battier the "No Stat All-Star" in The NY Times. Another terrific piece from Lewis:

Battier’s game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse — often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates’ rebounding. He doesn’t shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots. He also has a knack for getting the ball to teammates who are in a position to do the same, and he commits few turnovers. On defense, although he routinely guards the N.B.A.’s most prolific scorers, he significantly reduces their shooting percentages. At the same time he somehow improves the defensive efficiency of his teammates — probably, Morey surmises, by helping them out in all sorts of subtle ways. “I call him Lego,” Morey says. “When he’s on the court, all the pieces start to fit together. And everything that leads to winning that you can get to through intellect instead of innate ability, Shane excels in. I’ll bet he’s in the hundredth percentile of every category.”

The Blind Side

I think that when talking about Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side it is almost impossible not to compare it the equally fascinating baseball book Moneyball. But even though there are many parallels between the two books, the Blind Side has a dimension that is entirely its own-it makes a big statement about wealth and opportunity. The book starts out explaining how innovators of the NFL football offenses, like Bill Walsh, created fast attacking pass first offenses that were being disrupted by the left side (quarterback’s blind side) pas rushers personified by the like of Lawrence Taylor. He makes a set piece of the end of Joe Thiesman’s career at the hands of LT on Monday Night football.  I think he does an admirable job of setting up the importance of left tackles and why they make so much money these days. Then we get another story of a poor black boy a freak of nature with impressive physical size and skills that is adopted by a wealthy Memphis family. I can’t do justice to the narrative thread that Lewis weaves. The strength of any of his books is based on his ability to tell an entertaining story.