Lost In Translation

In The iPod: Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

Neko Case has just released her latest album Fox Confessor Brings The Flood this month and it has garnered some of her best reviews yet. But I still don’t know what to make of it after more than 10 listens. Part of the problem is the length-it’s only 35 minutes long, so it’s before you know it. Her voice sounds great as ever and there’s a strong backing band with the members of Calexico and the Sadies among others. Furthermore, it doesn’t have a lot of hooks or strong melodies. There’s nothing as catchy as “Train From Kansas City”, “South Tacoma Way”, or “I Wish I Was The Moon.” I think it’s less of a country album this time around with more nods to folk and even gospel with “John The Baptist.” The only other song that’s stood out for me so far is “That Teenage Feeling.”

Book Notes: The Interpreter of Maladies

I mentioned that one of my favorite stories in The Best Nonrequired Reading of 2005 was a short story by Jhumpa Lahiri. Recently I read her first collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, which incidentally also won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. It is an impressive collection of stories told from various points of view women, men, (East) Indians, Americans, and children-in a variety of locations exiled Indians in America, second generation Indians in India and so on. But Lahore is able to transcend stereotypes and write stories about love, loss, tragedy, and a whole host of other emotions and situations that are know to humanity as a whole. She is excellent at creating characters that seem true to life, as well as situations that reveal the complexities of the human condition. I particularly liked her stories about relationships: “When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dine”, “Sexy”, and “This Blessed House.” I am looking forward to reading her novel The Namesake in the future as well. She is a gifted storyteller and has a keen eye for observation.

Film Notes: Downfall

It seems like the timing of viewing Downfall, a German film about Hitler’s last days in the bunker, was appropriate since I was reading about WWII in my correspondence history class. It is a humanistic portrayal, but with warts and all personified by Bruno Gatz. I know the film was controversial in Germany since some members of the bunker who survived aren’t so liberal and peaceful in their views. I also know that there is film about The White Rose, a dissident student group that made and distributed anti-Nazi propaganda, and these college students were summarily executed. I am sure there was an earlier version-I is familiar with the story from high school or college German language class. Anyway, the protagonist of this film is a young woman who applies to be Hitler’s secretary out of curiosity as we learn from a real life interview that opens the film. She realizes her folly by comparing herself to Sophie Scholl, a member of The White Rose, who was about her age-she realizes the folly of youth is no excuse. The film has excellent production values, but is mostly shot inside the bunker with Hitler’s crew of infamous Nazis: Goring, Himler, Speer, Eva Braun, etc… Some of the images are quite shocking: wild hedonistic parties as Berlin is under siege by the Russians. It is history and drama all together, but coming in at 2 and a half hours a bit overlong I think the ending could have been edited down a bit. But overall a provocative film about one of the most infamous chapters of the 20th Century.

Curious Guy Part 2: Malcolm Gladwell

Here's a good exchange from the second part of the interview with Malcolm Gladwell:

Simmons: Second question: Can you explain in one paragraph why you're against Vegas?

Gladwell: Where to start? You get there. You can't get a cab. Last time I waited 30 minutes in line at the airport. You get to your hotel, you wait another 45 minutes to check in. It's 120 degrees outside, and inside it's 45 degrees and all you can think about is there's about to be a epidemic of Legionnaires Disease. The food is terrible. Everyone loses money -- everyone. The amount of plastic surgery is terrifying. There are large packs of enormous, glassy-eyed people in stretch pants, pulling the levers on slot machines. (By the way, greatest and most under-appreciated gambling story ever: William Bennett, he of one best seller after another lecturing Americans on moral values and virtue and the bankruptcy of our culture, turns out not only to be a degenerate gambler, but a gambler who only played the slots. The slots! Had he been a great poker player -- even a decent poker player -- I'm in his corner. But the slots?) I digress. Back to Vegas: Why would I want to see Celine Dion, ever (and I'm Canadian)? Or white mutant tigers? Or the Village People? Or Tony Orlando and Dawn? I have more fun walking to the laundromat from my apartment in New York than I do in Vegas.

Alambique

Today I was in Nishi Azabu to apply for a Visa for my trip to China at the embassy and had lunch at Alambique. I had been ther once before fro a friend's birthday party. But this is the first time I've eaten there fro lunch and i was really impressed. There was an appetizer plate and a well made salad (not just lettuce tomatos and corn like you usually get)-see the picture above. The lunch also included wakame (sea weed) soup and a drink (I had coffee). And as you can see in the pictue below, I had tacos rice as my entree. All of the food was really tasty, made with quality ingriedents. The tacos rice was unusual in that they used gourmet cheese and parmasean cheese in the recipe. All this for 900 yen (less than $8).

Have The Sopranos Jumped The Shark?

In the March edition of GQ, Tom Carson asks if the Sopranos have jumped the shark. I have to agree that there were some disturbing trends in Season 5 and I am looking forward to seeing Season 6, which I think has just started, but it may be a case of a series hanging on too long. He points out that Michael Imperioli’s Christopher has been through heroin addiction to seeing his fiancé exposed as an FBI informant and he just keeps chugging along without much damage to his psyche, maybe because the show is really about Tony Soprano-nonetheless that is some steak of bad luck. Also, in Season 4 Tony and Carmela have separated, but by Season 5 they’re back together-another unlikely scenario that makes life easier for the writers. Then there’s the tradition of “The Colorful New Character Who Ends Up Getting Whacked.” And I have to agree with Carson that Steve Buscemi wasn’t at his best as Tony’s cousin, because his idiosyncrasies turned out to be window dressing for his real function as Tony’s problem, but was responsible for the excellent directing of “In Camelot.” As I said, I’ll still tune into the show, but Carson might be right when he says that the writers are catering to the audience’s comfort zone and that Joe Pantoliano’s Ralphie Cifaretto was a turning point for shock effect violence, but story wise it might have signaled the story writing decline as well. That being said the jury’s still out.

Book Notes: The Beauty Queen of Leenane and Other Plays

Last year I read a short piece in Esquire magazine about Irish-English playwright Martin McDonagh, who is keen to write screenplays. He caught my attention by the sample of his dialogue, which reminded me of Mamet, who he lists as one of his influences. He writes in a vein that captures the colloquial Irish brogue complete with all the swear words, which is reminiscent of writers like Mamet, Irvine Welsh, among others. I was also struck by his brashness, he said that he thought theater was boring and drew inspiration from film directors like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. Recently I read a series of plays set in Ireland, Leenane: The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull In Connemara, and The Lonesome West. All of the plays are manifestations of pent up anger, resentment, rancor, bitterness, and spite. There is always bloodshed, sometimes for arbitrary reason, but are really manifestations of pent up frustrations. His world is rural Ireland, where grievances are held for years and everyone knows everyone else’s business. Family ties lead to horrible cruelty. It is both dark and funny, unlike any play I’ve read or seen recently, needless to say-it was a very enjoyable read.

Incidentally I see that he has a play that is currently running on Broadway called The Lieutenant of Inishmore, which was favorably reviewed by John Lahr in this week’s New Yorker.

Post Punk Music

There's a great exchange between Simon Reynolds, author of Rip It Up and Start Again, and Slate.com critic Stephen Metcalf in Slate this week. Here's an exerpt from it:

But perhaps this is a British person's perspective. I get the impression that postpunk in America was always much more of an underground phenomenon. Growing up in the U.K., you would see PiL and Joy Division on TV; they'd even have the occasional hit single. "Pop" has just never been such a dirty word in Britain as it has been for most American fans of left-field music. There was always a tradition of weird, arty groups having hits—Roxy Music, Bowie, or even Sparks, an American group that was huge in England but never got anywhere near the Billboard Top 40. So, in the U.K., I think there is this abiding sense in which "pop" has been thought of as something that could be reclaimed. Whereas in America the default position for fans of alternative music is feeling like the permanent opposition.

Book Notes: No-No Boy

One of the novels that I had to read for my Modern American Literature class was an unusual selection called No-No Boy by John Okada. Okada is a Seattleite who wrote one novel and died at the age of 47. He couldn’t find publication for it in America, but it was published by Charles Tuttle in Japan. I think this must mostly have to do with the content of the novel about a young second generation Japanese American named Ichiro who refused to sign a loyalty oath and refused to join the armed forces; hence “no” twice. I think publishers were reluctant to publish it since it highlights one of America’s more embarrassing and inhumane moments. I was surprised on how well-written it was:

It was the sort of morning that non-Seattleites are always ascribing to Seattle-wet without being really wet and the whole city enveloped in a kind of dull, grayish fog. The rain was there, a finely speckled spray which one felt against the skin of one’s face and which clung to water-resistant garments like dew on a leaf. The temperature was around forty and the clammy chill of the air seeped through the outercoats and past the undergarments and sucked the warmth from the very skin.

I also found his descriptions of post war Seattle and Chinatown fascinating. It was like taking a trip back in time. His characters were well-drawn represented the chagrin and bitterness, and refusal to accept Japan’s defeat that many Japanese Americans must have felt after having been put in internment camps. He was able to capture the confusion and rebellions of people brought up in American by distinctly Japanese parents-they were caught between two worlds. Okada himself served in the war giving propaganda announcements in Japanese. Apparently he had a second manuscript that was left behind when he died, but his wife tired to donate it to the Japanese American Research Project at UCLA and they refused his papers, so she burned them. This novel was republished by the University of Washington Press in 1978. It feels more authentic than another Seattleite’s novel about Japanese American racism, Snow Falling On Cedars.

Film Notes: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is an unusual film that is self-referential and postmodern in it’s little jokes with the meta-narrative going on as Robert Downey Jr. narrates the film ala a Raymond Chandler-esque wise guy detective. Except that he isn’t, he’s a petty thief from New York who lands a lucky break that brings him to LA where he is auditioning for a role and is being trained by a real private detective-Val Kilmer (in what Chuck Klosterman must mean when he calls him “advanced” by playing bent-as in gay). Bridget Monahan is also quite good as Downey’s former love interest and confidant from high school that needs his help in solving the “murder”? of her younger sister. It is classic pulp LA noir with a twist with a lot of black humor and jokes that might come off to some as cheesy or gimmicky, but which came off as fresh and mostly funny. Downey Jr. gets most of the best lines. It moves at a brisk pace, as the plot twists and turns. I was skeptical when I heard that Shane Black, the man who unleashed Lethal Weapon on us, was the writer-director, but the mostly good reviews had me intrigued. And it paid off as great entertainment in the end. I could see how some people might find this smart alecky, but I like how Black infused new life in an old genre-one much loved by me.