Lost In Translation

The Western Wedding Ceremony

The wedding ceremony itself was quite an experience. Here we see Edward waiting during the march as dry ice makes it's first, but not last appearance. There was also a bubble machine, light changes and abrubt music cues throughout the ceremony. All the while a cameraman filmed (the screen to the right played real time images) the ceremony. A photographer also shadowed the action, taking photos the whole time. The attendants were constlantly darting in and out guiding and instructing the participants, and pacing the ceremony so that it would end on time.

Here Edward and Jelessan are serenaded by the little girl in English.

A big plastic cake with a slot for a real piece of cake for the cutting of the cake. The attendants on Edward's side are his cousin Robert from London, and his mother in traditional dress. On Jeleesan's side is her mother and I believe her uncle.

Pre-Wedding Reception

Above is Dave, a freind of Edwars's who I met in Sydney and a few times in Japan, Edward and myself. I must say that the Korean wedding process was interesting indeed. The bride and groom met the guests in a sort of pre-wedding reception room, where we would take photos and say hello. There was another wedding party next door that was also meeting and greeting. Did I mention that this all is taking place inside Muhak Stadium where soccer matches were being played throughout the day, apparently a popular choice for weddings. Edward and Jeleesan had taken some wedding photos prior to the event which were on display-my favorite is bleow-there's snow falling in the foreground, which you might be unable to see.

Here's Jeong Ha, the bride's older sister and the bride, Jeleesan, in the little reception room.

Edward's guests, Tomoko (Dave's girlfriend from Japan), Dave, Ritsu (an old friend of Edward's who I haven't seen in aobut 6 years), her husband Tomo, and Edward's friend David Chen, a Chinese-Australian
now living in London.

Edward is currently teaching at a small elementary school about two hours away and invited all 54 of his students to the wedding-adding to the general mayhem. Here are some of them with his sister Clare. The cute, small girl in front speaks English very well and sang a song during the ceremony later.

The lovely attendants had these awful blue and yellow uniforms.

Nick Cave And Ballads

I came across this great Nick Cave interview. It seems more revealing than other pieces I've been reading about him latley:

The resurrection of Nick Cave

The most talented romantic Christian poet rocker in the world talks to Salon about his new record and his return to songwriting form.

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By Thomas Bartlett

Nov. 18, 2004

In 1997 Nick Cave released an album called "The Boatman's Call," completing one of the most dramatic and unlikely transformations in popular music, from dangerously out-of-control frontman of the visceral, confrontational and frighteningly loud Australian post-punk band the Birthday Party, to contemplative balladeer and master writer of love songs; from Goth hero, heroin junkie, and icon of excess and violence to a man who had secured his place among the greatest and most respected of living songwriters.

"The Boatman's Call" was not just a triumphant aesthetic arrival; it was also a great record: 12 songs focused starkly on Cave's clumsy baritone and simple piano playing, chronicling a romantic relationship, from tenderness to pain to bitter anger (the record is rumored to be based on Cave's relationship and breakup with PJ Harvey). "The Boatman's Call" belongs with Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" and Lyle Lovett's "Road to Ensenada" on any list of great breakup records. As a display of rock songwriting, it has few peers.

It was also the kind of landmark record that can be very difficult to follow. Cave and his band, the Bad Seeds, released their next studio album in 2001, "No More Shall We Part," a dense, intricately complicated record that had a few brilliant moments, but for the most part felt overworked, overthought, and stale. Last year came "Nocturama," a sloppy, indifferently written record that replaced overthinking with thoughtlessness and was easily the worst that Cave had ever made. It began to look as though "The Boatman's Call" might have marked not only the highpoint of Cave's career but also the beginning of its rapid decline.

Earlier this year, I met with Cave as he prepared to release his two-CD record set -- "Abattoir Blues" and "The Lyre of Orpheus." He spoke at length about the progression from "The Boatman's Call" to the present, and while he didn't, in so many words, say that his last two records were bad, his tone -- and his inability to even remember one of the titles -- made it clear that his esteem for them may be as limited as mine.

"'Boatman's Call' is a hugely important record. The two records after that are living very much under its shadow," Cave said. "'Nocturama' was a record that was supposed to be made quickly in every possible way. Write the lyrics fast, write the music fast, record it quickly. Everything was done in a casual way -- the cover, even the title. And that was because we felt a need to get away from the solemnity of, [pause] that record before that."

Click here to read the rest of the article.

There was another article about a new book on ballads that seemed like an apropriate companion to this article:

Love is red, death is blue

Greil Marcus and Sean Wilentz discuss their amazing new anthology of writing about the American ballad -- and wonder whether Republicans sing better songs of passion and murder than Democrats do.

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By Charles Taylor

Nov. 17, 2004 Open up the new collection of essays "The Rose & the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad," begin reading the real and imagined stories that make up its investigation of American ballads, and you will believe that the air itself has become a radio. Songs are all around you, with their inevitable tales of lost love, or love turned to murder or other forms of death, swirling through the air, not so much raising the dead as reminding you that those people and places you thought of as dead were always with us, waiting for their moment to reclaim their hold on you.

The songs speak in the language of dread and mystery, of glory found and damnation fallen into. In his essay on "Barbara Allen," Dave Marsh writes about the outcome of the song, the intertwined rose and briar emerging from the graves of the spurned lover and the haughty girl who rejected him, as being both necessary and right. Marsh is talking about accepting the fantastic as fact, and yet doing so in a way that doesn't take those strange wonders for granted. The lives described in these songs are lives lived in the face of something that fills us with awe and fear, something bigger than ourselves, whether God or fate.

That is not a bad way to make art, or to experience it. And the writers that editors Sean Wilentz, the Princeton University historian, and Greil Marcus, the cultural critic (and former Salon columnist) whose books include "Mystery Train," "Lipstick Traces" and "Invisible Republic," invited to contribute essays on the American ballad of their choice respond with the awe and delight and reverence of being in the midst of something bigger than they are. Among the writers here -- a lineup that includes Joyce Carol Oates, Stanley Crouch, Sarah Vowell, Paul Berman, Steve Erickson and Howard Hampton -- are musicians: David Thomas, leader of the great art-punk band Pere Ubu; Rennie Sparks of the alt-country duo the Handsome Family; Anna Domino of Snakefarm; Jon Langford of the Mekons.

Again click here to read the rest of the article.

Grand Motel

Edward and Jeleesan arranged the accomodations for us, including his mother and sister, and Edward mentioned that we were staying at a motel. As you can see from the photo above, it is of the hourly rate variety-known in Japan as a "love hotel." According to Edward, it was cheaper and closer to his apartment than the legitimate hotel in the area.

Murakami Fever

I came across this interesting article about Haruki Murakami's (one of my favorite contmeporary authors) appeal in China from The Daily Yomuiri:

China hit by 'Murakami fever' epidemic

Satoshi Saeki / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

BEIJING--The works of celebrated Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, 55, are enjoying a burst of popularity in China, and his famous "Norwegian Wood" has sold more than 1 million copies.

The epidemic of "Haruki Murakami fever" seems to be supported mostly by the younger generation living in big cities. Among the nouveau riche and burgeoning middle class who grew up amid China's rapid economic growth, Murakami's novels have become must-read books.

"What attracts people to Murakami's novels the most is not only his concise, beautiful and humorous writing style, but also the lifestyle that he depicts, in which the character enjoys loneliness, emptiness and boredom," said Lin Shao Hua, professor of Ocean University of China, who translated the collected works of Murakami that were published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House. "His novels have been translated in the United States and European countries as well, but the popularity of Murakami in China is the highest in the world."

"Norwegian Wood" is the first Murakami work that Lin, 52, translated in 1989. Since then, a total of 27 Murakami novels have been published in China, including "Kafka on the Shore," which sold 260,000 copies.

It is said to be a miracle to sell 100,000 copies in China, and the popularity of Murakami novels there is legendary.

At the same time, young novelists have started imitating Murakami's style. Early this year, a parody whose title roughly translates as "No wood in Norway" was written by a female novelist.

Despite the large differences in political systems and ideology between Japan and China, Murakami's works have turned out to be very popular in China. Why?

According to Lin, most of the readers are either students or middle-class people aged around 30.

In June 2002, Lin handed out questionnaires about Murakami's novels to about 100 of his students who major in foreign languages. Among respondents, 47.4 percent said his novels provided them with viewpoints and methods to understand the world and society, while 36 percent said they sympathized with the solitude and loneliness of the character.

"It's now being said that if you haven't read Murakami novels, you aren't modern," said Shen Wei Fan, an editor of Shanghai Translation Publishing House. "Murakami's novels have taken the fancy of young people living in big cities."

Twenty-five years after the reforms and door-opening policies promoted by the Chinese government in pursuit of modernization, economic growth in China's urban areas has reached a certain level, and a new class of people, to whom Murakami's work appeals, seem to have dominated the market.

China's one-child policy, adopted in 1979 to counter its increasing population, is one of the reasons that led to the popularity of Murakami's novels among young people, who identify with the solitude and loneliness of the character in his novels.

"Compared to other Japanese literature, the distance between the character and the reader seems to be small in Murakami's novels, encouraging lonely young people who grew up without siblings to look for themselves in the novels," Lin said.

People in their late 20s to early 30s are big fans of Murakami, but at the same time are known as the so-called Internet generation, which harbors strong anti-Japanese sentiment. However, they seem to have no difficulty accepting Murakami's work.

Wang Li, 30, who works for a publishing planning company in Beijing, is a great admirer of Murakami.

"I like his writings as they are filled with a sense of cleanliness and transparency, and the novels are written from a universal viewpoint, making it easier for us to accept the content," Wang said.

Compared with traditional Japanese literature, the tone of Murakami's works seems far from pessimistic or oppressive, enabling non-Japanese to read them without understanding Japanese culture.

Arriving and Departing

This last weekend I went to Korea for my friend Edward's wedding in Incheon, which is why I didn't post this weekend. There will be several more posts about the wedding and the trip in the coming week.

I must say that I love arriving places. I got in an hour later than planned due to a wait for a connecting flight from Chicago, but I stillmanaged to meet with some of the other people in town for the wedding. Today I arrived at the ticket check in counter just after noon for my 12:40 flight and there wasn't anyone there, so I missed my flight, but got another at 5 pm, so I got to sober up at the beautiful new Incheon airport, one of the new modern airports that have been recetnly built, the others are in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpar. It is very open, clean, spacious and architectually interesting. But I prefer the Norman Foster designed Hong Kong Airport. I think Tokyo and Bangkok are due for new airports to compete these new impressive Asian airports.

In The iPod: More Nick Cave and The Shins

I’ve really been getting into Nick Cave lately and finally special ordered Murder Ballads, which is as good as I thought, however not on par with his latest Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus nor The Boatman’s Call, however a strong album none the less. “Stagger Lee” has to be one of the most evil, insidious, sinister songs ever recorded and the main reason I bought the album. The DVD also included tracks from this album in: “Where The Wild Roses Grow” (with Kylie Minogue), “Henry Lee” (with PJ Harvey his old flame). But the surprises were “Death Is Not The End” (Harvey, Minogue, and Shane MacGowan contribute to this ditty. “Song Of Joy” is also a great tune.

I’ve really enjoyed The Shins new album, Chutes Too Narrow, as well, when it recently dawned on me that I had their previous album, Oh Inverted World, as well. My friend Eric burned a disk that had Modest Mouse and The Shins on it, but I forgot about it, because I just couldn’t get into Modest Mouse, thus rarely made it to the 9 songs from The Shins at the end of the disk. I particularly like “Know Your Onion” and “Caring Is Creepy.” It's great guitar pop from one of my new favorite bands.

Book Notes:Who Will Tell The People

It has taken me several months, but I have finally finished reading Who Will Tell The People by William Greider. It wasn’t an easy book to read, it deals with government policy, protocol, politics, economics, and history. However, it was a fascinating book, therefore I stayed with it as I read several other books in between its completion. I have been a fan of Greider’s since I started reading his articles about politics and the economy in the pages of Rolling Stone. I think it was one of the first books (One World Ready Or Not) profiled on this blog as well.

It is amazing how accurate Greider’s description of the failings of democracy is today, 12 years after the book had been published (1992)-not much has changed, especially during the build up to the November 2004 elections. Most of his examples come from the Carter-Regan-Bush administrations or before. But he does an amazing job of showing how the power of the people has been transferred over the years into the hands of the rich and powerful. However, he does provide examples of how these powerful forces have been overcome by grass roots movements, and he seems hopeful that someday the true spirit of democracy will be seen in government.

One of his biggest concerns is how government fails in its greatest role upholding laws:

”Corrective mechanisms that are supposed to prevent political manipulations have been purposely weakened. And public inherits a grave injustice: a government that will not faithfully perform its most basic function-enforcing laws.” (107)

Corporations will often accept fines rather than changes business practices that are in opposition to laws passed by the government for the good of the people. How long did it take to get air bags installed as a matter of course in cars?

He goes on to look at the unseemly practice of government officials going from public office to corporations:

”The federal government as a whole ahs been reduced to a training camp for private enterprise-a school in which the students learn the skills and insider knowledge that will be most valuable to outside employers. Under those circumstances only the most dedicated civil servants-or the most incompetent-are willing to remain in the public’s hire.” (116)

I know every administration is guilty of this, but it seems more visible in this one with Condi Rice coming from Exxon and Dick Cheney from Halliburton. The first MBA president, who has run every company that he has led into the ground save the Texas Rangers, scares me-business leaders are beholden to their stockholders-everyone else has to fend for themselves, this model works well when you think of shareholders as the people who gave money to his campaign,

The Democrats are just as guilty of this as the Republicans as Greider discusses in his chapter "Who Owns The Democrats?" And it’s the same sort of big business types who fund Democrat candidates. The move to the center economically happened long before Clinton. This in turn leads to the kind of corporate welfare documented here:

”As it turned out, General Electric was possibly the biggest single winner in Ronald Regan’s celebrated tax cuts. It had corporate profits of $6.5 billion during 1981-1983 and, astonishingly, received a tax rebate of $283 million form the federal government. Its tax burden went from $330 million a year to minus $900 million a year-money the government now owed GE. By rough estimate, the 1981 tax legislation yielded as much as $1.3 billion for General Electric over several years and probably much more in the long run.” (341-342)

In the chapter “The Closet Dictator” he discusses the dangers of globalism, a chapter I’ll guess that led him to write his book on globalism, One World Ready Or Not. All in all, it was a very thought-provoking book. Actually, it riles me up, because there’s so little we can do about it. I guess democracy is a sort of utopian goal that we have to constantly strive for.

Sony PSP

There are a couple of new Sony PSPs on display in the wall at Ikebukuro station, but as the sign says they will not be availaible until 12/12, hence the guards to protect them from theft.

In the PlayStation Meeting 2003, Sony Computer Entertainment revealed details and specifications for its upcoming handheld, the PSP. SCE described the PSP as the "21st-century Walkman," showing confidence in the company's upcoming product, which utilizes a number of high-end components. The PSP will consist of two microprocessors, an advanced sound engine, a 3D graphics engine, a 4.5-inch, 16:9-format TFT LCD screen, and a number of connection capabilities.

Click here to read more.

The Onion AV Club Double Feature 2

There other interview is with Camper Van Beethoven, one of my old college indies faves. I guess with all the 80s band reunions (The Pixies, Duran Duran, etc...), it should come as no surprise that the former indie darlings Camper Van Beethoven have a new album coming out. My friend Chris Wolferman was trying to get us, our other friend Anders and myself, to acknowledge a Camper Van Beethoven song (I believe it was "We're A Bad Trip") as our offical theme song. And I also remember driving to Seattle to see them while attending community college in Spokane, only to have it cancelled on us. Michael Moore included their song "Take The Skinheads Bowling" in Bowling For Columbine, all of this is really nostaligic for me. I forget how much time has passed since the halcyon days.

Camper Van Beethoven By Noel Murray

Camper Van Beethoven's prominence on college radio during its mid-'80s heyday stemmed in large part from its hazy hodgepodge of folk, world-beat, psychedelia, and brat-punk. Student DJs could spin a new Camper song every 15 minutes and not exhaust listeners. That eclecticism extended to subject matter and tone: The group knocked out novelty songs ("Take The Skinheads Bowling"), twisted instrumental experiments ("ZZ Top Goes To Egypt"), and good-time rock ("Good Guys & Bad Guys"), but the band's most enduring quality was its ability to craft catchy, funny songs with rich subtexts, like "The History Of Utah" (a recasting of the Mormon origin story as a hallucinatory reflection of American indolence), "Tania" (a Patty Hearst riff that doubles as a critique of pop decadence), and almost the entirety of the underappreciated 1989 album Key Lime Pie, a vivid, wise portrait of a culture where abundance has become stifling.
Camper Van Beethoven lost vital founding member Jonathan Segel prior to Key Lime Pie, and after the album's mixed-bag success (it produced a mini-hit in a cover of Status Quo's "Pictures Of Matchstick Men," but critics and fans grumbled about the record's dour turn), the group broke up—and not exactly amicably. Throughout the '90s, though, as bandleader David Lowery enjoyed modern-rock radio success with his new band Cracker, the scattered members of Camper Van Beethoven began appearing on his and each other's records, and filling in on tours. Two years ago, the group re-formed for a mini-reunion and began hashing out songs for the concept album New Roman Times, a jaunty tour through a futuristic U.S. where the military-industrial complex dominates the citizenry. On the eve of the record's release, Lowery spoke with The Onion A.V. Club about New Roman Times' point of view, the origins of Camper Van Beethoven's style, and how it feels to return to a band and a lifestyle 20 years after he first attempted it.