Lost In Translation

Motherless Brooklyn

A friend gave me Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem a while ago and I finally got down to reading it and enjoyed it despite it’s slightly precious premise: a detective with tourette’s syndrome taking down a Zen Buddhist bad guy. To be honest I was totally drawn in by the growing up in Brooklyn aspect of the story that took place early in the novel that provided the reasoning for the obsessiveness of Lionel Essrog’s investigation into the murder of his friend/boss/family member Frank Minna. The whole tourette’s thing was like showing off, in my opinion, it didn’t add much to the novel. New York is one of the few places in America that still seems very exotic to me-I’ve always wanted to live in Manhattan. I’m not sure that any of his other novels would appeal to me after reading the summaries of them at the end of the book. However, I did enjoy this one, and I would be willing to try another, but I think it would depend on the subject matter.

Japanese Customs:Why The Peace Sign?

A reader asks why the peace sign is so prevalent in photos with Japanese people in the Ask The AV Club section:

Give Peace A Chance

It seems to have subsided in recent years, however, I often wonder why Japanese people flash the "peace" sign during photographs so much. I have noticed these in photos online (not that I'm into cosplay or anything… ummm, yeah) and personally when I was in Ireland, touring various IRA/Catholic monuments where a Japanese tourist group was on the same route as me. I first thought it could be considered a commentary on the subject matter of the monuments; however, the tourists flashed the peace sign in every picture they took, regardless of the background—standing in front of a tourist shop, sitting on a bus, etc. Could this be traced to something in Japanese pop culture, much like suburban white kids throwing gang signs because of all those Tupac videos?

Paddy

Genevieve Koski says "konnichiwa," and offers this:

There are a bunch of theories as to the origin of the V sign—either a peace sign or a Winston Churchill-style victory symbol, depending on which story you go with—in Japanese culture, many of which can be found on the Wikipedia page on the subject. The most widely disseminated seems to be that when U.S. figure skater Janet Lynn fell during the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, she kept smiling and flashed the peace sign even while ass-down on the ice, making her an overnight sensation in Japan. Copycats followed her lead.

There's a lot of pedantic reasoning floating around rationalizing the sign's popularity in photographs—it allows expressiveness in a notoriously reserved culture; it serves as a non-verbal "cheese," indicating readiness to be photographed; and, most oddly, that it draws attention away from the subjects' small eyes—but there seems to be a general consensus on one thing: It's deeply ingrained in the culture. Japan Today asked young Japanese people why they make the V sign, and one respondent said, "I make the peace sign but I don't know why I do it, who invented it and when we started doing this. I think I've been doing it since I was born. The peace sign gesture must have been programmed in my DNA, or foreigners mind-controlled Japanese to make the peace sign subconsciously when we pose for a photo to keep the peace after the war."

Mind control may be a bit of a stretch, but it's worth noting that the sign is extremely present in anime/manga and commercial television, no doubt aiding in its popularity among school kids. The symbol's association with these have no doubt helped link it to the concept of "kawaii," or cuteness, a prominent aspect of modern Japanese pop culture and fashion (think Hello Kitty, sailor uniforms, and pigtails)...

The Savages

I’ve been looking forward to seeing The Savages mainly because it stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, who single-handedly makes any movie more entertaining. On critic used a slot for his Top films of the year with “Any movie starring PSH.” He did not disappoint as the career theater academic who joins his struggling playwright sister in taking care of their aging father who falls into dementia. Laura Linney is terrific as the sister barely getting by as a temp whose life is stagnating, especially in light of the comparison of her role as the opposite steadfast and wise Abigail Adams in the current HBO series John Adams. It also tackles a subject that is rarely looked at in films, taking care of the aged, but I think it reflect reality where offspring often settle far away from parents and the fact that fractured families sometimes create awkward situations where responsibility for the aged and infirm is hard to assign. I was a bit unnerved by the role of Gbenga Akinnagbe as Jimmy, the good-natured Nigerian caretaker at the nursing home. He has played the steely cold killer Chris Partlow on The Wire for several years. That being said he pulled it off. It was a funny, sad and ultimately entertaining film with excellent lead performances.

36 Hours In Chang Mai

The NY Times looks at one the best places in the land of smiles, Chang Mai:

BLESSED with a cooler climate than Bangkok and buffered by lush mountains, Chiang Mai has long served as a backpacker’s gateway to Thailand’s northern reaches. But an influx of Thai artists and Western expatriates has turned this quiet city into a vibrant destination in its own right. Design studios have sprung up in town, fusing traditional Thai with modern twists. Age-old curries are now paired with Australian red wines and croissants. The area around Nimanhaemin Road now looks like South Beach, packed with BMWs and Art Deco homes, alongside contemporary art galleries run by young Thais with purple hair and nose rings. But traditional Chiang Mai is still there. Walk away from Nimanhaemin into the old city and you’ll see shaved monks meditating and backpackers chowing down on banana pancakes.

The Economy Without Growth?

There was an interesting essay in March's Harper's magazine, The Fear of Fallowing: The Specter of a No-Growth World by Steven Soll who discussed three book about economics. I found his discussion of Bill McKibben's book Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future particularly interesting. I always wondered why economies "had" to grow, why not become more efficient-like the idea that Japan's population decreasing means that they have to let people immigrate to continue their economic production,why not scale back or get more efficient? Soll states:

McKibben believes that we can thrive, not just survive, without growth. The view may not be popular, but it is gaining. Robert Solow, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1987 for innovations in growth theory, now calls himself "agnostic" as to whether growth can continue, and is cheerfully willing to contemplate a zero-growth economy. As Solow said to me, "There is no reason at all why capitalism could not survive without slow or even no growth. I think it's perfectly possible that economic growth cannot go on at its current rate forever." This does not mean that productivity wil ceas to increase our quality of life; it means that people might find it increasingly costly to turn productivity into the kinds of things they are now accustomed to buying with their earnings. "It is possible," says Solow, "that the United States and Europe will find that, as the decades go by, either continued growth will too destructive to the environment and they are too dependent on scarce natural resources, or that they would rather use increasing productivity in the form of leisure. There is nothing intrinsic in the systems that says it cannot exist happily in a stationary state."

Into The Wild

I have to say I have heard a lot about Into The Wild, as a book and film, and wasn’t really interested in the modern day Henry Thoreau who died in the wilds of Alaska. But a friend convinced me to see the film version directed by Sean Penn. I have to admit that I was drawn and captivated by the story AND the images in the film. I guess I would even concede that the book is probably pretty entertaining given the fact that I immensely enjoyed Krakauer’s book on overzealous Mormons, Under The Banner of Heaven. I thought I ought to just check it for a little bit one night, and ended up transfixed and watching the film to its grim conclusion at 3:30 in the morning. I guess you have to be that young to make those uncompromising types of decisions that Chris McCandless made about society and his wish to escape it-that led to his death. He'll never know that type of thinking softens with time.

Shinjuku View

This new building houses CITIBANK among other clients in Shinjuku near the South Exit.

The Last Shot

The Last Shot is a non fictional account of the trials and tribulations of four gifted basketball players from a high school in Coney Island in Brooklyn by former Harper’s editor Darcy Frey. I believe I read the magazine article in Harper’s several years ago. (The book was published in 1992) The Lincoln High School players include current NBA player Stephon Marbury, the other three were not as fortunate to make it in the NBA. In fact I found a follow up article, Betrayed By The Game from 2004 by Darcy Frey in the NY Times that regales the sad fates of the other four. This book is about poverty, the ghetto, the failure of schools and other institutions like the city government, the exploitive nature of big time college sports, as much as it is about basketball. Frey tells a compelling story and it is a suitable companion to the excellent documentary Hoop Dreams.

Wong Kar Wai WTF?

Wong Kar Wai's new American film has been getting mixed reviews and doesn't seems as strong as his early work. Slate's Dana Stevens looks at My Blueberry Nights and Grady Hendrix reevaluates Wong Kar Wai's career and suggests he's been making the same film throughout his career and I think he's onto something. For me the pinnacle was realized in his masterpiece In The Mood For Love. But 2046 and My Blueberry Nights (from what I hear) seem like surperfluous variations on the theme of longing that should have been out of his system after making films like As Tear Go By, Days of Being Wild, Fallen Angles, and Chunking Express.

Stevens says:

I've never quite gotten the point of Wong Kar-wai, a cult Chinese director over whom many do, in fact, swoon. In the Mood for Love made me covet a closet full of custom-made cheongsams and a recording of Nat King Cole singing "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás," but I can't for the life of me remember anything about the story. Even so, that film had a resolute purity of tone that convinced you Wong knew exactly what he was doing. My Blueberry Nights feels much more hesitant and awkward, which may be a problem of translation (the script was co-written by Wong and crime writer Lawrence Block) or a function of Jones' first-time acting performance. There's a curious mismatch between the surface of the movie and what lies beneath it. Wong's technique is layered and detailed like a couture gown, but the story it hangs on is as generic as a seamstress's dress form.

Here's some commentary from Hendrix:

Even his collaborators were getting bored. "I feel that 2046 is unnecessary, in retrospect," Christopher Doyle said to the Guardian. "I think probably Wong Kar-Wai realized that somewhere, and that's why it took so long. You do realize that you have basically said what you needed to say, so why say more? I think you have to move on."

But Wong couldn't move on. He had always been fascinated with his childhood in 1960s Shanghai and Hong Kong, and his post-2000 work has been an extension of Days of Being Wild—replicating its cinematography, sets, costume design, and characters. His latest, My Blueberry Nights, is set in contemporary America and should have been a new direction. But it comes off as desperate, playing like a greatest-hits version of his '90s filmography performed by an all-white cover band. His visual motifs of clocks and countertops, no longer carrying the shock of the new, feel as empty and shopworn as fashion advertisements.

Takashi Murakami Japanese Andy Wharhol?

From an article in the NY Times:

Who knew that the first Louis Vuitton boutique in Brooklyn would touch down smack in the middle of an exhibition in one of the borough’s most venerable art institutions?

But there it is, at the Brooklyn Museum, bright and gleaming and blending seamlessly with its setting: a sleek, stylish and sometimes silly survey of the work of Takashi Murakami. Mr. Murakami, who is frequently called the Japanese Andy Warhol, is an astute manipulator of visual languages, artistic mediums and business models. The boutique will sell Vuitton bags, wallets and other accessories dotted with the signature Murakami jellyfish eyes, red cherries or pink cherry blossoms for the duration of the exhibition.