Lost In Translation

Men Who Stare At Goats

The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson was another of Nick Hornby's suggestions from his excellent collection of columns on books he has bought and read, The Polysyllabic Spree. I saw it on sale at a book store not long ago and picked it up. It started out a little slow for me as it stated chronicling The First Earth battalion, which was created in order to get ideas form people thinking out of the box. This included outlandish experiments like trying to kill goats by staring at them to make their hearts stop, employing Uri Geller the spoon bender, and many other strange and unusual experiments like walking through walls and levitation. The book became more provocative when it showed how these ideas were being used in the war on terror and in Gitmo and Abu Graib by the army's PsyOps (Psychological Operations) battalion. He explains how this administration has filtered more money into these "experimental" programs than any preceding it. The detainees give them an opportunity to try out new methods of interrogation that would break enemy combatants. It included the sensational "soft" news story of playing the Barney song to detainees. Ronson has done a lot of research and talked to many different people and I found his history of other dark dealings like giving LSD to people in the 1950s to see if it made them more likely to to tell the truth and other government cover ups or ruses by other government agencies like the CIA's failed assassinations of enemy leaders. I guess sometimes it comes off as fantastic populist fables like those in The National Enquirer. And it seems as this seedy aspect of American culture and media is much loved and ridiculed by the British and Europeans (Ronson is a British journalist). However, an entertaining and sometimes fascinating book.

Tokyo Love Hotels

Gridskipper had a provocative post on Tokyo Love Hotels last week:

Love hotels exist wherever people make love, which is to say everywhere. The concept of paying by the hour has a sordid quality to it but shouldn’t. In Japan, where housing is notoriously privacy-free, love hotels are commonly accepted but often overlooked by tourists. Cheap, clean, often hilariously decorated, love hotels are the boutique hotels of the night. And as recent study showed that American hotel bedspreads contain an average of 30 genetically different semen stains, one must ask are Sheraton, Marriott et al are just Love Hotels by different names? Maybe though they don’t have sex toy vending machines in the lobby or erotic costumes for rent.

Click on the link above to see the top 10 list.

Watching Beruit Die

There's a moving piece in Salon by Anthony Bourdain, my favorite food/travel writer, about the war in Lebanon:

Watching Beirut die

We went to Beirut to film a TV show about the city's newly vibrant culinary and cultural scene. Then the bombs started falling, and we could only stand on the barricades of our hotel balcony and watch it all disappear -- again.
By Anthony Bourdain

Jul. 28, 2006 | From where I'm sitting, poolside, I can see the airport burning -- the last of the jet fuel cooking off like a dying can of sterno. There's a large, black plume of smoke coming from the south of the city -- just over the rise, where the most recent airstrikes have been targeting the Shiite neighborhoods and what are, presumably, Hezbollah-associated structures. My camera crew and I missed it the first time they hit the airport. Slept right through it. Woke up in our snug hotel sheets to the news that we wouldn't be making television in Beirut (not the show we came to do anyway), and that we wouldn't be getting out of here anytime soon.

Any hopes of runway repair followed by a flight out disappeared two nights ago, when we watched from the balcony of my hotel room as missiles, fired from offshore, twinkled brightly for a few long seconds in the air, then dropped in lazy parabolic arcs onto the fuel tanks.

We knew by that time what was happening in the south: Hezbollah rocketing Israel, the Israeli army mobilizing along -- and even crossing -- the border, firing artillery, reserves being called up. Frightened visitors from other Gulf states and the Lebanese -- including our local fixer -- had headed for Syria, but planes had been hitting that route out repeatedly, making the already unattractive option of camera-bearing Americans crossing into that unwelcoming country even less attractive. An exit by sea was out of the question in light of a total naval blockade. We were stuck. The other American guests -- at first secure in their "This doesn't concern us" and "They won't target us" and "We're just waiting for word" mode, were now visibly worried.

A Little Bit of Europe In Japan

Here's an interesting article from The NY Times about European inspired theme parks in Japan-I haven't been to any yet and can't imagine doing so in the near future:

DESPITE the bracing temperatures, the fields of Huis Ten Bosch are awash with tulips. The air is still, but windmills spin merrily. Towheaded youths stroll along brick footpaths, and ducks quack as they float in pristine canals. As if on cue, the late winter clouds part, and a ray of sunshine drops onto the quintessentially Dutch towers and domes.

Ko Sasaki for The New York Times
Staff members plant flowers at Huis Ten Bosch, a Dutch-themed park in Nagasaki. More Photos »
In fact, everything in this illuminated landscape — from the dikes and canals to the smell of fresh poffertjes (tiny pancakes) in the air — is quintessentially Dutch. But this is Japan, not the Netherlands, and Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki is just one of several Japanese theme parks, from Shima City to Nagoya, offering an idealized distillation of a foreign culture.

Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 5

In Season 5 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David seems to have insulted everyone. So he can get away with huge stereotypes like the dog-eating Korea, the kamikaze Japanese. Sometimes this seems like a lazy short cut to cheap laughs, which the writers often used in Seinfeld as well. He does this with Jews and gentiles in this season as well. He also pushes the envelope with taste as well, since a major plot-line revolves around a kidney transplant for Richard Lewis. And although it wasn't his best season, it's still worthwhile to watch and has some big laughs, one of which is where he combats the small penis myth perpetuated by women who have their own particular problem.

Why We Fight

I recently saw the documentary Why We Fight, and although it was a interesting and well-made, I think it comes across as mostly biased because it provides only one valid view point. It would have been better had he interviewed more hawks, because he interviews the usual anti-war intellectuals (Gore Vidal and Chalmers Johnston for example). However, I find there to be compelling evidence of the military industrial complex's effect on war and the budget of the US. The Bush administration is famously guarded and non transparent about what they spend their money in the war on terror. Talk about amoral corporations-those in the military industrial complex overcharge the government and are in the business of death and destruction. It makes me wonder if Eisenhower was really as anti-military industrial complex as he is said to have been by his relatives in the film. It seems strange to becoming from a former military man, it was also said that he was against the nuclear bombing of Japan. It does provide food for thought bout why every administration has used the military in some capacity from Panama to Iraq and many other places. Chalmers Johnston, in particular, has been writing about this for years. It was an interesting film, but I had the feeling of being a member of the choir being preached at.

The Secret Agent

Ever since 9/11 there have been many a reference to Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, which has piqued my interest. I saw a cheap copy and picked it up recently and read it. I'm hoping to read more classics this summer since I 'll have more time to do so. I've read a couple of Conrad novels before (The Hear of Darkness and Lord Jim), but it has been a long time. The 19th century pacing that requires time to introduce and flesh out the main characters and set up the action. In this novel it takes almost 2/3 of the novel to achieve this goal, despite the fact that the novel is based on a simple newspaper clipping about a bombing gone bad. After that the plot runs much more smoothly and quickly. However, most of the characters are largely unsympathetic from the diplomats to the police and anarchists. There's a good comic scene at the embassy where Mr. Valdmir gives it to his spy Mr. Verloc. The menacing Professor is the character that has been most referred to in these dangerous times due to his steadfast fanaticism. He goes about with an explosive device attached to him just in case of an emergency:

And the incorruptible Professor walked too, averting his eyes from the odious multitude of mankind. He had no future. He disdained it . He was a force. His thoughts ceased the images of ruin and destruction. He walked frail, insignificant, shabby, miserable- and terrible in the simplicity of his idea calling madness and despair to the regeneration of the world. Nobody looked at him. He passed on unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men.

Espionage gives way to domestic tragedy in the end. But the most interesting aspect of this novel for me lies in the origin the fact that the west has been dealing with terrorists fro more than 100 years. In the after word, Conrad refers to the dynamite crisis of the 1880s. It's hard to imagine that this novel was shocking in its day, It is also well-known that Graham Green was a admirer of Conrad and was influenced by this novel when writing his own espionage novels and has been said to have used the Assistant Police Chief as a model for some of his own characters. it wasn't an easy read, but there were some excellent passages. Luckily it was less than 300 pages.

Today's Pictures

Today's Pictures from Magnum Photos in Slate focus on Tokyo today. There's some cool photos like the one of the woman in a kimono using her cell phone on the street, above, from 2004.

Dignity of a Nation?

There's an interesting series of posts about a right wing conservative national bestseller in Japan at Neomarxisme, a blog that often discusses the societal, cultural, and economic realities of Japan by comparative discourse analysis (i.e. comparing it to that of America or Europe). He has some obsessive contrarian critics among the commenters who often veer off topic, but they can be entertaining as well). Here's the intro:

Are You Ready for 「国家の品格」 Week? Upon reading a Mutantfrog post last Friday, I went out and purchased a copy of Fujiwara Masahiko's massive best-seller 「国家の品格」 (Diginity of a Nation) - a book that openly describes itself as "画期的な日本論" (An epoch-making theory of Japan). According to this Time Asia article, this book has sold 2 million copies (now 2,000,001), which is a lot of copies for a book that openly calls for the end of democracy and the return of "warrior ethics." Instead of arguing against imaginary "Nationalist" straw men, we can read this book and critically consider the whether there actually are strong arguments for Japan digging back in its history to find adequate social, economic, and political direction.

Topics include (from the back cover):

* The illusion of capitalism's triumph
* Pride in a civilization based on emotion
* The importance of Japanese and kanji over English
* Knowing the limits of logic
* The revival of bushido (samurai spirit)
* Why foreign aid is unneccesary
* Love of family, love of hometown, love of the fatherland, love of humanity
* Seeking out a "true elite"

So for the next week, let us consider the persuasive arguments of Japan's favorite upper-class, right-wing mathematician. 2 million Japanese readers can't be wrong!

The Shark Has Jumped: The Sopranos Season 6

Spoiler Alert-Don't Read This If You Haven't Seen Season 6 Of The Sopranos

I was driven to the contemplation of whether or not The Sopranos had jumped the proverbial shark after reading Tom Carson's column from GQ earlier this year before seeing Season 6. It is apparent to me after watching Season 6, that it happened sometime in Season 5. That is not to say that I won't continue watching it or that it has no merit. Rather, it is unable to live up to its own lofty standards. It's just hat it was so well-concieved and well-done that it would have been virtually impossible to keep that standard up for so long. Story lines began repeating themselves ("colorful new character gets whacked") and going full circle (Chris addicted to drugs-reahb-relapse/ Carmen-leaves Tony-reconciliation / Tony goes to therapy-gives it up-returns/ Artie Bunko self destructs-regroups-self destructs again, etc...), and some characters seem to have become parodies of themselves (Paulie, Sil, Chris). I like the fact that Deadwood is going to end after Season 3. This will allow it to end on a high note without soldiering on merely for the filthy lucre as The Sopranos have. That being said, second rate Sopranos episodes are still better than 80% of what's on TV.