Lost In Translation

Gram Parsons: The Grievous Angel

More often than not I get introduced to a band or artist through a reference and sometimes a tribute album. I didn’t truly appreciate Neil Young until I heard The Bridge tribute album, I’m Your Fan was my first introduction to Leonard Cohen, and I didn’t appreciate The Grateful Dead until I heard Deadicated. Gram Parsons (as a solo artist) has just come on my radar via the excellent tribute album Return Of The Grievous Angel. This is in turn led me to Gram Parsons solo albums G.P. and The Grievous Angel. I guess it's no surprise since he is often regarded as the father of alternative country-a genre, which I am very found of.

Chinese Cafe 8

Chinese Cafe 8, which is located behind Roppongi Hills is known for its fertile decor and tasty Peking Duck. I've been there a few times for gatherings. My friend Sakurako organized a bonenkai ("forget the year party") with some friends earlier this month.

From left to right Lorenzo, me, and Tony.

Norwood

I recently finish my second Charles Portis novel, Norwood. It was another unusual road trip story that is uniquely American and quite funny. However, it wasn’t as funny as Dog of the South and much shorter as well, but still full of small pleasures. The characterizations of certain “types” seem to be right on the money. Portis’ voice is distinctly American and the story is very entertaining due to the distinct and whimsical cast of characters Norwood encounters on his way.

Why Japan Loves The 'Dog of Flanders'

Anne of Green Gables has a competitor as a much loved foreign novel-Dog of Flanders according to this story from The Daily Yomiuri:

BRUSSELS--A Belgian documentary film examining Japan's strange fascination with the tragic novel "A Dog of Flanders" will be shown Thursday at Antwerp cathedral in Belgium--the spot where the titular dog and the tale's lead character, Nello, die on Christmas Eve. The documentary came about after a film director who lives in Flanders, northern Belgium, was puzzled by the stream of Japanese tourists coming to visit the cathedral, as the novel is less well known in Belgium.

Titled "Patrasche, a Dog of Flanders," the documentary is directed by Didier Volckaert, 36, who got his inspiration for the film when he saw Japanese tourists looking tearful as they gazed up on Peter Paul Rubens' painting of "The Elevation of the Cross," which is displayed in the cathedral.

The book tells the tale of Nello, a boy who dreams of being a painter, and his dog, Patrasche. Driven from his village after being falsely accused of arson, Nello battles through snowstorms to get to Antwerp cathedral, as he has always dreamed of seeing Rubens' masterpiece. He reaches the church on Christmas Eve night, only to freeze to death as he gazes upon the object of his dreams.

The novel was written by British author Ouida, pen name of Marie Louise Rame, in the early 1870s. Though famous in Japan, it is little known in Europe, where it tends to be seen as the story of the death of "a big loser," according to Volckaert.

In the United States, the novel has been made into a movie five times, each time revised to have a happy ending.

The mystery is why the original sad ending only strikes a chord with the Japanese.

Trying to clear up the mystery, Volckaert and his colleagues dug up a variety of information and materials related to the tale and interviewed more than 100 people from six countries over three years.

Ultimately, Volckaert concluded that it was Japanese identification with "the nobility of failure" that drew them to the novel.

"The Japanese people, they think they reach a certain level of nobility by accepting defeat or failure in order to preserve things like loyalty, friendship and dedication. This is exactly what happened to Nello and Patrasche. Their death exemplifies such values of the Japanese people," said An van. Dienderen, the 36-year-old producer of the film.

"Patrasche, a Dog of Flanders" is mainly in Dutch, and runs one hour and 25 minutes. A DVD with English and Japanese subtitles can be bought on the Internet.

Osechi: New Year's Food

There's an article in The NY Times on Osechi, traditional New Years foods eaten in Japan. I expect this to be the first year that I sample it:

“New Year’s is a most special time in Japan,” she said. “Everyone is on holiday, it is usually very cold, so people stay home to be warm and eat together instead of being busy.”

Most schools and businesses in Japan close for a week or two around Jan. 1, after a round of parties and cleaning that traditionally mark the end of the year. (Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1873, so the New Year is celebrated now; many Asian countries still mark the new year according to the lunar calendar.)

The foods that accompany New Year celebrations in Japan are called osechi-ryori. Many are made throughout Japan; others vary from region to region. And as with most food traditions in Japan, each dish and ingredient is invested with symbolism.

“Sweet potatoes are for a sweet year, burdock root is for strength, fish roe for lots of babies,” said Naomi Sato, a teacher of English who grew up in Seattle and now lives in Kyoto. “The most important thing is to eat lots of red and white food, like namasu,” she said, referring to a salad of carrots and white radish pickled in sweet vinegar. (In Kyoto, which is famous for its intensely flavored and colored vegetables, the carrots are a deep, dark red.) Red and white are considered the most auspicious and cheerful colors.

But the weight of symbolism does not produce quiet or solemn events, Ms. Hashimoto said. Instead, the new year holiday is a time for big, boisterous meals that begin on New Year’s Eve with toshikoshi (“crossing over”) soba, long buckwheat noodles in broth that are slurped whole to promote longevity and to provide warmth at midnight, when families bundle up and troop out to hear the monks at the neighborhood Buddhist temple bang the gong more than 100 times, marking the passing of the old year.

The Corner

In anticipation for the final season of The Wire, I’ve been watching The Corner a miniseries that was adapted from a book by David Simon and Ed Burns, creators of The Wire. It was a six-part mini-series that originally aired on HBO in 2000 that was directed by actor Charles Dutton. It features several future Wire cast members, including those actors portraying drug addicts who would later play cops or citizens in The Wire (For example, Clarke Peters aka Fat Curt/ Freamon in The Wire). It is a powerful drama wrought from the real life counterparts that are dramatized on the screen and interviewed in the final episode. It is apparent that many of these characters and their stories we used as source material for future episodes of The Wire. However, it stands on its own achievement by showing the the devastation of drugs and poverty in Baltimore, which has plagued other big industrial cities in the US, particularly during the crack craze of the early 90s.

White On Capitalism Again

Curtis White had an excellent essay about a year ago in Harper’s called Capitalism and the Spirit of Disobedience. He has another thought-provoking essay in the “Notebook” section of the December issue of Harper’s called “Hot Air Gods.” He makes an interesting observation about capitalism when he states:

What capitalism has successfully obscured is the fact that the competition it prizes is not just between business entities internal to it but between capitalism as such and all other possible systems of value. Capitalism as an ethical system has succeeded in convincing the people living under it that it is not a system at all but a state of nature. In this way, it has managed to remain above the fray of culture war, and restricted those value systems that might compete with it to competing with each other. In short, culture war is a great comfort to capitalism.

Here’s another astute observation:

…We need to come to an honest acknowledgement of what capitalism is, and that has been made very clear for us in recent months by the Chinese entrepreneurs who fill our pet food, toothpaste, animal feed, and even our Viagra with toxic filler. For the entrepreneur, such filler is poison only if someone dies; otherwise it’s just a profit margin. The game is to take the profit as close to the poison line as possible. When on occasion profit spills over into poison and someone dies, there is a wild wringing of hands (and, in China, death sentences), but soon back we go in search of that ideal balance between profit and death. We see very much the same principle at work in industrial agriculture. Just how much herbicide and pesticide can we put down before it starts killing something more than bugs and pigweed? Here we see the creed of “cost/benefit analysis” presided over with loving kindness by accountants and legions of liability lawyers.

Bigger, Louder, More Frogs

Slate has a good piece about what puts Paul Thomas Anderson above his contemporaries in film:

We may not be living in a golden age of American movies, but a new New Hollywood of sorts has emerged—a cluster of adventurous directors in their 30s and 40s who have figured out how to get personal films made with Hollywood or Indiewood money: Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater, Todd Haynes, Sofia Coppola, Alexander Payne. Many of them have a specialty. Fincher is a visual virtuoso, Linklater a verbal stylist. Payne is good with character, Coppola with moods and music. Tarantino has the encyclopedic geek smarts, Soderbergh the taste for reinvention. With Paul Thomas Anderson, all of the above apply. His thing is that he can do it all.

Back In The World

I really enjoyed Tobias Wolff’s short story collection Back In The World. I first encountered his writing in a Creative Writing class in college when we read the excellent short story “In the Garden of North American Martyrs.” And I recently read his impressive memoir, A Boy’s Life about growing up in the Pacific Northwest. His stories are unusual and haunting in the eerily apt details the give the stories and characters life. The characters in his stories draw to mind comparisons to Raymond Carver, but his writing is different-he makes astute observations that make the stories seem all the more more real:

A car horn honked, a small sound in the silence. He listened for it to come again but it didn’t, and the silence seemed to grow. Again he felt the desert around him.

One of his more entertaining stories is about a Seattle priest who ends up in Vegas with a hysterical and lonely woman in “The Missing Person.” I think all of the stories are strong and have their merits. “Coming Attractions” written from the perspective of a teenage girl is well executed. And I found both “Soldier’s Joy” and “Desert Breakdown” intriguing as well. All in all, this is a very strong collection.

Top Shows 2007

Due to the advances in technology I can enjoy American TV in Japan via the Internet and stay up to date with the latest and greatest shows. This is my list of the best TV aired in 2007.

1) Mad Men: A fascinating look at Madison Avenue admen in the early 60s from ex-Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner. An unlikely subject that is fresh and well written.

2) The Wire: The best show on TV but loses out because it is in its fourth seasons, so some of the freshness is gone. Even though each season has a different focus in addition to the battle between police and drug dealers-this season it was education.

3) Rome Season 2: I watched it straight through from the first episode. Amazing attention to detail, historical, well acted, well written, and it displays the amazing production values you come to expect from HBO.

4) The Sopranos-After 5 seasons invested in this groundbreaking drama it was hard not to be glued to the screen to see what happen next, even if it wasn’t all that earth shattering when all was said and done.

5) Flight of the Conchords-This is another very funny and original concept for a series-a band that infuses their songs into the storyline. I love the parody songs and the dry humor, can’t wait for the next season.

6) Curb Your Enthusiasm 6-having the Blacks move in with JD Smooth was comedy gold as was his divorce form Cheryl.

7) Extras 2-“Are You Havin’ A Laff?” Ricky Gervais’ comedic take on fame and integrity, complete with a more serious than funny Christmas special.

8) Battlestar Galactica 3-Good writing and an intriguing cast keep me invested in this drama, which had a well-made season 4 movie preview special, “Razor.”

9) The Simpsons-19 seasons and they still come up with funny original episodes.

10) Veronica Mars 3-goes out with a whimper, but there were still some entertaining episodes-it would have been interesting to see Veronica in the FBI Academy, but alas it is over.