Lost In Translation

Hillary Clinton-Daffy Duck or Tracy Flick? Both?

In Slate Jeff Greenfield entertaining explains about how certain political personalities take on the characteristics of the unflappable Bugs Bunny and unhinged Daffy Duck, it has a lesson for Hillary Clinton:

How did we reach the point at which Sen. Clinton, the clear Democratic front-runner six months ago, needs clear wins in Texas and Ohio to mute the calls for her to end her campaign?

There's no unified field theory that answers this question: You can give more or less weight to Obama's political magnetism, the tactical and strategic miscalculations of the Clinton campaign, the delegate-allocation rules that weakened the punch of Clinton's big-state wins, the crucial difficulty of a former first lady who embodies Restoration competing in an election in which change is the watchword. And here's another explanation for this remarkable reversal of fortune, one that represents for me one of the few really reliable rules of presidential political warfare: Bugs Bunny always beats Daffy Duck.

As shaped by genius animator Chuck Jones—he didn't create the Warner Bros. icons, but he gave them their later looks and personalities—Bugs and Daffy represent polar opposites in how to deal with the world. Bugs is at ease, laid back, secure, confident. His lidded eyes and sly smile suggest a sense that he knows the way things work. He's onto the cons of his adversaries. Sometimes he is glimpsed with his elbow on the fireplace mantel of his remarkably well-appointed lair, clad in a smoking jacket. (Jones once said Cary Grant was his inspiration for Bugs. Today it would be George Clooney.) Bugs never raises his voice, never flails at his opponents or at the world. He is rarely an aggressor. When he is pushed too far and must respond, he borrows a quip from Groucho Marx: "Of course, you realize this means war." And then, whether his foe is hapless hunter Elmer Fudd, varmint-shooting Yosemite Sam, or a raging bull, Bugs always prevails.

Daffy Duck, by contrast, is ever at war with a hostile world. He fumes, he clenches his fists, his eyes bulge, and his entire body tenses with fury. His response to bad news is a sibilant sneer ("Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin!"). Daffy is constantly frustrated, sometimes by outside forces, sometimes by his own overwrought response to them. In one classic duel with Bugs, the two try to persuade Elmer Fudd to shoot the other—until Daffy, tricked by Bugs' wordplay, screams, "Shoot me now!"

In a separate video post at Slate Hillary is compared to the plucky female lead, Tracy Flick, played by Reese Witherspoon in Alexander Payne's underrated Election:

River Sakura

There's a river that is lined with cherry blossom trees starting from Kakio station which is a 15 minute walk from our apartment toward the other Odakyu line that intersects with Shinyurigaoka. Today I walked there to see the cherry blossoms and it was pretty impressive

Native Speaker

My friend Edward recommended Native Speaker by Korean American writer Chang Rae Lee, so I picked it up in a used book store and forgot about it. Then when I read Gary Shyteyngart’s The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, he thanked Chang Rae Lee for helping him become a novelist and that reminded me of the book on my shelf, so I picked it up read it. Both Shytengart and Lee have written New York novels about identity in what is probably the most cosmopolitan city in the world. Both novelists are also mainly concerned with identity-what is an American, why is it important to keep a connection to one's parent's culture. Lee has written an intense novel about the would-be assimilation of a Korean American who still doesn’t feel as if he belongs. This is mostly due to the personal tragedy of the death of his young son that does little to give him a foothold, nor does his job as a corporate spy help him understand who he truly is. These things make him more of “an invisible man” than give him little sense of self-identity. I was totally drawn into the world of Henry Park and felt like a tourist in his life living in New York and learning how his Korean heritage effects him and view of the world. It is unsurprising similar to the Japanese worldview that is inspired by Confucian thinking with a focus on the family, sacrifice, and respecting elders. I was surprised by how much I liked this novel and was drawn into the world created by Lee.

Itabashi Yakitoriya

This is a tasty little yakitoriya thats on the way to Tobu Nerima station in Itabashi where Daito Bunka's Tokyo Campus is located.

David Simon Film References

(SPOILER ALERT SEASON 5 OF THE WIRE)

After the last episode of The Wire there were multiple interviews with David Simon and I noticed that he referred to several classic films when discussing ideas that he incorporated into the show. For example, in the second to last episode where Omar gets shot by Kennard, the little shorty from the corner, was supposedly inspired by Sam Peckinpa’s The Wild Bunch, which I had never seen in its entirety. So I checked it out to see if the cultural references were there. The opening sequence where a group of kids put scorpions in a red ant nest and watch the carnage easily informs the beginning of the Wire episode where Kennard and some other kids are torturing a cat. One of the Wild Bunch's feared killers is killed from behind by a lesser character a child, but it’s not clear that I was the child who killed him or one of he other soldiers who shot from behind. He also mentions the idea that not all heroes are not all good, and this goes back to watching Kelly’s Heroes (which was also an inspiration for the brilliant Three Kings) with his sons who realizes that the good guys are doing something, robbing a bank that isn’t good. This is something the cops and politicians do all the time on The Wire. Somehow I missed these earlier cultural touchstones, but I found both of them entertaining in their own right as well.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

A friend lent me a copy of Marjane Satrapi’s comic novel Persepolis: The Story Of A Childhood. I saw the movie version that had elements of this book and its sequel Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return. The film used several scenes from the first volume, but there were several other delightful episodes that didn’t make the film. I can’t imagine having grown up in such a turmoil filled country with fanatics. It’s a very powerful first hand account of living through the Iranian revolution. The drawings are simple but provocative. I’m looking forward to reading volume 2.

Herzog and Morris

The Believer March/April edition has an interesting free interview with directors Werner Herzog and Errol Morris:

WERNER HERZOG[FILMMAKER]

IN CONVERSATION WITH

ERROL MORRIS[DOCUMENTARIAN]

“FOR YOU TO STEAL A CHARACTER OR A STORY ISN’T REAL THEFT.
BUT TO STEAL A LANDSCAPE, THAT IS A VERY, VERY SERIOUS CRIME.”

Things Werner Herzog and Errol Morris have done together:
Visited serial killer Ed Kemper in prison
Visited Plainfield, Wisconsin, to investigate the murderer Ed Gein
Dug up Ed Gein’s mother’s grave to see if she was still there (almost)

Food Hut

The Food Hut is a little lunch spot that I just happened upon near Shnyurigaoka station, where my gym is. They specialize in lunch take away with tacos and hotdogs. It is run by an American and his Japanese wife. They plan to open a full-scale restaurant nearby in a couple of months. The tacos are pretty good sine its really difficult to find Mexican food, let alone well-made "tex mex."

Criterion's The Ice Storm

Over at The House Next Door, Andrew Chan takes Criterion's new selection, Ang Lee's The Ice Storm to task. I remember really liking the film, its period design, the cast, and the bulky metaphors. Is it really that bad?

More Japanese Cowardice

It's rare to see brave Japanese step up and take a long look at themselves and their history, instead we get fear, cowardice and ethnocentric moves like this:

TOKYO — A Tokyo cinema decided against showing a controversial documentary film by a Chinese director on the war-related Yasukuni Shrine, citing the potential "inconvenience" it may cause to other tenants in the same building, an official of movie theater operator T-Joy Co. said Tuesday.

"The film is talked about so much that it may create trouble and we don't want to cause inconvenience to building tenants," a T-Joy official was quoted as telling Argo Pictures, a distributor of "Yasukuni" by resident Chinese director Li Ying.

Wald9 Cinema in Shinjuku Ward, operated by T-Joy, was among four cinemas in Tokyo scheduled to premier the documentary on April 12, along with a few other cinemas in Osaka and Fukuoka.

The film tells the stories of people involved with Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo who have varied feelings about the war and the shrine, and focuses in particular on a swordsmith who manufactures "Yasukuni Swords."
Some Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers called for an unprecedented preview of the film, questioning if it was appropriate to grant a 7.5 million yen from state coffers to fund the production of the documentary that they said appeared to be anti-Japan. A preview was given March 12 by Argo Pictures on condition that it was open to all lawmakers.

Constitutional scholar Yasuhiro Okudaira of the University of Tokyo criticized the theater's decision, saying a cinema that decides against showing the documentary "consequently is endorsing the idea of those people opposed to its release and is depriving the director of freedom of expression."