Lost In Translation

Pride And Predjudice (2005)

I recently saw Pride and Prejudice and enjoyed it a lot. It was very stylish with excellent attention to the details of dress, manner, and location. There was superb acting-Kiera Knightly in particular was excellent, but the whole casts shines in this classic period piece.

It makes me think back to the film Metropolitan, where Jane Austen is a subject of conversation between the characters Tom, who could be a stand in for Mr. Darcy (Matthew Mac Fadyen)-a decent if socially awkward hero, and Audrey, the heroine of the film. The villain is a socially successful character names Rick Von Sloneker, and could very well be a stand in for the rake Wickam. It’s a compelling story where true love wins in the end. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It would be interesting to go back and watch the Emma Thompson version from the 90s (directed by Ang Lee) and compare the two. In addition, there was a great cinematic sequence at a ball in which the camera track back throughout he ball showing several different characters engaging with each other during the ball-an impressive sequence. A thoroughly well done romance, in which I didn’t cringe once throughout the film-perhaps a first for a romance.

Hannibal Deux

Hannibal is a Tunisian restaurant that I had been to several years ago when I was working at LADO in Nishi Shinjuku. Some guys I worked with knew the Tunisian owner and I was really impressed with the North Africa cuisine. I tried going back several times but it was always booked solid-it was a small place with probably 20 seats at most.

So, it comes as no surprise that they have opened another branch in Harajuku, Hannibal Deux, near Sendagaya Elementary School. It’s a bit of a walk from the station, but it was spacious compared to the other shop and had ample room for our party of eight. They usually try to sell the set menu, but I ordered several ala carte courses-salads, cous cous, and several meat dishes with chicken, beef, and lamb. The meat dishes are usually served in a variety of sauces and sometimes seemed more like stew. We also had a seafood omelet. I really loved the bread and chili paste appetizer. Unfortunately I don’t remember all of the names of the various dishes, but I can’t say that there was anything I didn’t like, save the wine. They offer several different selections of Tunisian wine and we finally found one that was the most appetizing, but that isn’t saying much really. The chef, who resembled Artie Bucco of The Sopranos in appearance and temperament, was accommodating and friendly. I’d definitely go back.

Is Japanese Unique?

There's an interesting profile with linguist Hideo Kindaichi in The Daily Yomuiri today. He debunks the idea that Japanese is a unique, by citing the fact it is vague because of cultural constraints rather than linguistic limitations. This idea was also cahmpioned by Jay Rubin in his book about Japnese Language that I recently read. This is what Kindaichi has to say about the subject:

THe Japanese language is not particularly special at all. Japanese-language teachers don't say the Japanese language is different. We say it's the same. If we explain a Japanese expression like 'mottainai,' we'll find a similar sentiment in other cultures and explain the expression based on the viewpoint of students so that they understand the concept," said the veteran linguist, who has been teaching the Japanese language for more than 20 years both in Japan and abroad.

It is also often said that the Japanese language is not logical when compared with other languages.

"This is not due to the Japanese language itself. It is Japanese people who are responsible for that. If we try to be logical, we can say what we want to say in Japanese. But logic has no priority in our daily lives. In associating with people, we tend to make much of people's sentiments and relationships rather than expressing ourselves logically," Kindaichi said. "It's a matter of culture, not language. People say the Japanese language is vague but, what makes things vague is not the language itself, but the usage of it."

I also have to agree with his basic summations about learning Japanese:

Kindaichi said in terms of hearing and speaking, Japanese is easy to learn, although reading and writing are difficult.

"I think kanji is especially difficult for non-Japanese, but kanji is indispensable in achieving a high-level vocabulary in Japanese. We cannot think deeply and significantly without kanji," he said.

He also finds this kanji problem when he teaches Japanese returnee students as their written Japanese-language ability is limited.

"Kanji is very handy for Japanese people and we use it in various ways. But many returnees cannot use kanji freely. Their Japanese-language world is closed at a certain point," Kindaichi said, implying that learning two languages at once can lead to underdeveloped abilities in both of them.

Therefore, he is against teaching English to Japanese children in primary school.

"I think a second language should be taught from the age of 12 or 13, after students have acquired a solid base in their mother tongue. There's little chance of a bilingual environment in Japan except among ethnic Korean residents," he said. "In teaching Japanese students here, I sometimes feel the lack of their Japanese ability even at the university level. It's unreasonable for them to be forced to learn English further."

However, I think he is being conservative about children's ability to learn languages. In my opinion, elementary school is the best place to learn another language. But kanji is the killer, as is the grammar, for us adult learners. I guess I could do it if I fully devoted myself to it, but there's too many other things that I am interested in. But not being able to identify vocabulary that I already know, in writing is frustrating.

The Movies I've Seen Most

Slate is doing a summer movie focus this week and one of their features asks film makers, critics, and others to name the films that they've seen the most:

The Movie I've Seen the Most

Films that Spike Lee, Peter Farrelly, and Paul Schrader watch obsessively.
Posted Tuesday, June 27, 2006, at 7:13 PM ET

What movie have you seen the most? That's the question Slate asked a collection of filmmakers and critics, knowing that what's addictive is different than what's deemed the best. The answers vary from Ghostbusters to Dr. Zhivago, from Citizen Kane to Election.

I think the films that I've seen most are the Coen brother's Miller's Crossing (40+?) and Ridley Scott's Bladerunner(30+?). They are two films that roommates had when I was in Seattle, that I now own and occasionally watch. The two second most watched are probably two films I had on video tape back in the day: Hannah And Her Sisters and Metropolitan (recently upgraded to Criterion DVD). Some other films that I own that I've been watching a lot recently include: Goodfellas, Rushmore, Lost In Translation and Wong Kar Wai films (In The Mood For Love, Fallen Angels, Chunking Express,Days Of Being Wild).

Which films have you seen the most times?

Once In A Lifetime

My friend Arie was recently visiting and brought me several back issues of The New Yorker and I stumbled across a great short story, "Once In A Lifetime", by the talented Jhumpa Lahiri, author of the excellent short story collection Interpreter of Maladies. Here's a teaser:

I had seen you before, too many times t count, but a farewell that my family threw fo yours, at our house in Inman Square, is when begin to recall your presence in my life. You parents had decided to leave Cambridge, not fo Atlanta or Arizona, as some other Bengalis had but to move all the way back to India abandoning the struggle that my parents an their friends had embarked upon. It was 1974. was six years old. You were nine. What remember most clearly are the hours before th party, which my mother spent preparing fo everyone to arrive: the furniture was polished the paper plates and napkins set out on th table, the rooms filled with the smell of lam curry and pullao and the L’Air du Temps my mother used for special occasions, spraying it first on herself, then on me, a firm squirt that temporarily darkened whatever I was wearing. I was dressed that evening in an outfit that my grandmother had sent from Calcutta: white pajamas with tapered legs and a waist wide enough to gird two of me side by side, a turquoise kurta, and a black velvet vest embroidered with plastic pearls. The three pieces had been arrayed on my parents’ bed while I was in the bath, and I had stood shivering, my fingertips puckered and white, as my mother threaded a length of thick drawstring through the giant waist of the pajamas with a safety pin, gathering up the stiff material bit by bit and then knotting the drawstring tightly at my stomach. The inseam of the pajamas was stamped with purple letters within a circle, the seal of the textile company. I remember fretting about this fact, wanting to wear something else, but my mother assured me that the seal would come out in the wash, adding that, because of the length of the kurta, no one would notice it, anyway.

The entire story is available online here.

In The iPod: Old School

I haven't gotten any newly released music in a while, but I have gotten some older albums. I was inspired by Sofia Coppola's use of New Order in her new film Marie Antoinette, so I got Power, Corruption, and Lies-an album I know well, but never posessed. It still sounds fresh and contemporary to me. I also got Television's Marquee Moon. I really admire old school NY punk/new wave from the late 70s and early 80-The Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, etc...it's my version of classic rock. I also got Whiskytown's Stranger's Almanac, in my effort to put together Ryan Adams complete catalogue. It was also recommended by a friend-it has a lot of the same songs as Faithless Street, but that won't stop me from listening to it though. I do have to say my friend said that the version of "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart' is superior to the Faithless Street version-and I must contest this view, however that's not to say that this arrangment is no good-the song is so great that it can't be done badly.

Addition:  I forgot to mention another recent aqusition: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks.  This is in preperation to read one of the Continuum 33 1/3 books on the album by one the more under rated classic rock bands of all-time.

At The Yakitori-ya

My college friend Arie was in town for his yearly business trip to Asia, so I took him to my favorite yakitori restaraunt in Nakameguro, Kushi Waka Maru. They do all the usual favorites plus some orignal concoctions like tomatoes wrapped in bacon, green peppes filled with cheese and wrapped in bacon, and mushrooms filled with minced chicken-called tanuki "raccoon". Arie like simple hearty fare, so I also took him to Andy's Izakaya in Yurakucho Thursday as well. He enjoyed both imensely. Here Arie and I are toasting nihonshu (sake)in bamboo cups (ochoku).

Note: the photo above was taken with my3.2 megapixel Sharp Vodaphone cell phone camera. I guess I need to start using it more when I don't bring my camera out.

In Young's Birthday 6/17

Last weekend I attended my friend In Young's (wife of my friend Laurence) birthday BBQ party. I didn't bring my camera, but Laurence did. Here's a link to his Flickr site-see if you can spot me in the photos.

Fargo Rock City

Chuck Klosterman is an excellent writer and a very funny guy. I’ve been a fan of his column for Esquire and I’ve read his entertaining book of essays, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. And although I'm not a huge metal fan, but this is one of those books that is as much about the author as it is about the subject. Furthermore, anyone coming of age in the 80s will be familiar with most of the bands that Klosterman discusses in this book, which is a sort of homage to metal bands of his youth. I mean I started out listening to metal bands in junior high school and eventually found new wave and punk music by the middle of high school with a transition to popular Top 40 via MTV. In addition, one of my old Seattle roommates was a total metal freak. So Klosterman is about four years younger than me, but a product of the MTV generation and I would argue that Spokane, my hometown, has more in common with North Dakota than Seattle if truth be told. There are several hilarious quotable passages in this book, but I’ll only mention a few.

In relation to the appeal of heavy metal to young teenage boys (hence the term “cock rock”): “If parents really wanted to keep their sons from getting the neighbor girl pregnant, the best thing they could have done was buy them several Dio albums and the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide.”

In another section he writes about the problem of his CD collection that reflects his 80s metal fetish=which in turn ruins his indie rock credibility, which he turns around to his advantage by claiming to be an Ironic Contrarian Hipster. This is a complicated process-“…it forces you to own over a thousand CDs, and you have to hate all of them. In fact, the only things you can openly advocate are artist like the Insane Clown Posse and Britney Spears.”

Another great quote: “Hating (and sometimes mocking) music is just as important as loving (and embracing) music. They are basically the same emotive function, separated only by the tone of one’s voice.”

I’m glad I decided to read it even though, I wasn’t so interested in the content. I also picked up Killing Yourself To Live, and I hear that he has another on the way, Chuck Klosterman IV.

Events In Tokyo

A friend asked me to mention a couple of upcoming events in Tokyo that he's invovled with. The first is July 2nd-The West Coast Night organized by the PAC-4 (Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC) alumni groups. I've been to a few of their events and they're always fun.

The other event is a charity networking event called Net 22, on the 22nd of July. I haven't been to this event before, but it looks like a good time for a good cause.