Lost In Translation

33 1/3: Dummy

Dummy by R. J. Wheaton is another compelling read about the seminal album from the British band Portishead. There's lots of detailed information about how the record was recorded and the impact of the album and the context of the scene from which it came from. I was a big fan of the short-lived triphop genre, in that I have an affection for other bands from the genre like Massive Attack, Sneaker Pimps, and Morcheeba. I enjoyed going back to the album to hear what Wheaton was describing. My only complaint about the book was the haphazard way in which it was organized. It wasn't organized by song order or even chronologically. That being said I learned a lot about the band and the album.

Stories Of Floating Weeds

Stories Of Floating Weeds is a two DVD set of two films directed by Yasujiro Ozu. It is a story he filmed twice, the first version A Story Of Floating Weeds (1934) is a silent feature written by Ozu and put out by Criterion with an updated silent-film score by composer Donald Sosin. This version is surprisingly not melodramatic, which is my overall impression of silent era films. There is an audio commentary from noted Japanese film historian Donald Richie as well. Ozu decided to remake the film, Floating Weeds in 1959, as one of his four color films. Noted film critic Roger Ebert has named it as one of his Top Ten films of all time. ebert basically says that all the work of Ozu is essentially one body and this film is representative of the typical Ozu film highlighting his virtues. Ebert also provides a film commentary for this version of the film as well. The film are quite similar. It is a story of a group of traveling actors, of which the lead actor returns to a small town where he has a lover and illegitimate son whom he wants to see. This upsets his current mistress in the troupe who hires another actress in the group to seduce him to get back at the leader. Family, once again is the theme, but this is not the official version of Japanese society. Every now and then Ozu peels back the official version and pokes at the underbelly of Japanese society. However, the fact that most of the characters subvert their own wills for the better of others seems highly suspect to me, the aging actor feels it is better for him to leave than make his son feel awkward. Perhaps, he does it , because it is what he has done all his life.The film is representative of Ozu's meticulous attention to composition with his expert framing and deep focus background and sparing use of camera movement. He is the opposite of film makers like Kurosawa and Mizoguchi in that his shots are static and the camera very rarely moves-there are no wipes, dissolves, fades, or tracking shots. Everything is shot at low angles and is instantly recognizable as an Ozu film. His stories are always about everyday people and their problems-there is no other genre for Ozu. So I agree with Ebert that this film is highly representative of Ozu's art and craft, but it is also a bit subversive compared to films like Late Spring and Early Summer with this story of an illegitimate offspring and nontraditional family.

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World (2012) is the latest book by Michael Lewis. And once again Lewis manages to explain disasters in the economy with precision and aplomb. There isn't an overall narrative in this book, but Lewis manages to find stories and people that explain what went wrong in each different place. For example, in "Wall Street On The Tundra," Lewis analyzes the mess in Iceland an sees what happens when fishermen try to become traders. It is also due to an aggressive male dominated society that brings them to financial ruin. Next, Lewis travels to Greece to find out how a group of monks were partly responsible for the economic woes that are tearing that country apart in "And They Invented Math." This may be the most fascinating chapter to me for a number of reasons, mainly because of how problematic the government's finances were and how they are related to the Greek character and the way they behave. However, the story of the Vatopaidi monastery is equally compelling. This ancient order to monks traded a lake for several other more valuable properties with the government and made a killing--and people are not happy about this. I read a magazine article by Lewis that would become the chapter on Ireland, "Ireland's Original Sin," which is essentially about Ireland's housing bubble where they were lending money to each other to build more houses and now that they have defaulted they are unfinished or finished and empty. Furthermore, the government has made the astonishing decision to pay back the debt. "The Secret Lives of Germans" looks at the one country holding the EU together and how it is reflective of their people. Germans could have made decisions like Ireland or Iceland, but choose not to--showing their no nonsense and careful nature. America is not overlooked here with the chapter "Too Fat To Fly." Lewis looks at the problems of California and talks with Arnold Schwarzenegger to get his perceptions after serving as the state governor. It is another entertaining and instructive book from a consistently effective writer.

Fires On The Plain

I have been meaning to see some of highly regarded director Kon Ichikawa films after reading about him in various books in the last couple of years. He is considered one of the great postwar humanists along with other directors like Kurosawa, Kobayashi, and Shinoda. I also plan to use one of his films in my Japanese Cinema course in English next year. Fires On The Plain (1959) is the main candidate, however, I still need to see some of his other films. But this one is an interesting anti-war film that focuses on the dehumanizing aspect of war outside of battles. This film looks at soldiers stranded in the Philippines near the end of WWII who try to struggle to survive. It touches on the taboo subject of cannibalism, which was said to have occurred in Papua New Guinea. It is more notable for what is left out of the Philippines campaign: the slaughter of civilians (100,000 alone in Manila) while fleeing, the Bataan Death March (where 10,000 POWs died), forced-labor camps, and sexual slavery. That being said Ichikawa has created a realistic portrait of the existential hell that many soldiers endured at the end of the war, which is an effective anti-war sentiment. Technically the film is well made with interestingly framed shots from various camera angles and a powerful performance by Eiji Funakoshi. Ichikawa and his script writing wife , Natto Wada, have infused the film with many instances of gallows humor as well. It is said that the they removed the Christian subtext of the original novel according to the accompanying essay by Chuck Stephens, which I have yet to read. However, it would be interesting to see the contrast between the two stories.

Thank God For The Atomic Bomb and Other Essays

The author Paul Fussell recently died and while reading one of the obituary pieces I noticed that he wrote an acclaimed essay called “Thank God For The Atomic Bomb,” which sounded intriguing to me. About a year ago I was taking a history correspondence course to renew my teaching license in America I wrote a research paper on the reasons the US bombed Japan. So I was interested in hearing Fussell’s perspective, since he served as a soldier in the European theater in WWII.  It turns out that I had to hunt it down since the book is no longer in print. But it seems that his main reason was to save American soldier’s lives and it follows Japanese civilian lives that would have been lost had the US been forced to invade Japan.  This book of essays, from 1988, also has several other war related pieces: “An Exchange Of Views” with a historian who challenges Fussell’s assumptions about the war, “Postscript (1987) on Japanese Skulls” points out that Americans did take grotesque wartime souvenirs such as skulls home as war trophies, and “Writing in Wartime: The Uses of Innocence” about a wartime memoir that was a fake and used for the propagandistic purpose of bringing the US into war with Germany.  Being a George Orwell fan I also found his essay “George Orwell: The Critic as Honest Man” interesting and informative. Orwell was also inspiration for his essay “A Power of Facing Unpleasant Facts” about the need for intellectual honesty in the world despite the unpleasantness that this often produces. I found his opinions concerning the 2^nd Amendment provocative and timely given the several mass killings in the US recently in his essay “A Well-Regulated Militia.” He makes some interesting points about the distinction between travelers and tourists in “Travel, Tourism, and ‘International Understanding.’” Surprisingly, he is an advocate of “naturist” or more commonly known as “nudism” as “Taking It All Off in the Balkans” attests. However, there were a couple of essays that I couldn’t finish due to lack of interest in the subjects: the pastoral poetry in “On the Persistence of Pastoral,” chivalry in “The Fate of Chivalry and the Assault upon Mother,” and car racing in “Indy.” All in all, it is a provocative collection of essays.  

Lima: Miraflores Once Again

I had a 10 hour layover in Lima, so I decided to head into town rather than wait it out in the airport. I planned to meet Felipe, a Brazialian UCLA Ph.D. student i met in Cuzco for drinks later.

I killed some time at the trendy and cool Cafe Z.

We had psico sours at Huaringas, which was one of the bars mentioned by the NY Times in this piece.

The Map And The Territory

The Map and the Territory (2012) by Michel Houllebecq has many of the qualities of his previous work that I admire. I have to admit that his last novel The Possibility of An Island, was, in my opinion, his weakest novel to date. I enjoyed this one much more.  And once again Houllebecq addresses big themes like aging and death, father-sons relationships, the role of art in a capitalist society, and the representation of reality through art among others.  Most of these ideas are mouthed or executed in the story of the artist Jed Martin, who I think voices many of the author’s opinions-however, it is more complicated than that since Houllebecq also appears as a character in the novel. Some of these issues can be seen in the following extract from the novel:

“We too are products,” he went on, “cultural products. We too will become obsolete. The functioning of the system is identical—with the difference that, in general, there is no obvious technical or functional improvement; all that remains is the demand for novelty in its pure state.”

One of the things I like about this novel is that Houllebecq has experimented with style and genre. The last third of the novel is essentially a murder mystery. (He even admits to doing research for that part of the novel)  The novel is also postmodern in the sense that it is a meta-narrative. The author himself appears in the novel as a character that is ultimately killed. This is often used for comic affect, but it also allows him to make some pronouncements about art and the role of art in society. This calls to mind Bret Easton Ellis’ novel Luna Park, which involves a similar meta-narrative and violent happenings. In a sense, Houllebecq is also something of a science fiction writer since his novels often depict an unlikely fictionalized version of the future. In this novel France becomes a tourist destination for other wealthier countries in the near future--having nothing else to offer the world in his opinion. This may explain why he lives in Ireland. It is a return to form from one of the more provocative writers writing today.

Last Meal: Cuzco

On my last night I went to one of the traditional Peruvian places near the plaza. The dish above is "Chupe de Camarones" (a creamy, spicy shrimp soup).

I was urged by a couple of friends to try "Antichuchos" (beef heart skewers), these ones came with huancaina salsa. I don't usually like organs, but I have to admit these weren't all that bad--but don't bring me down to the "horomon shop" (innards in Japanese) just yet.

Sacsaywamam

Here are the Sacsaywamam ruins north of Cuzcointhe hills--at the end of my Cuzco walking tour.

Cuzco Walking Tour

A military parade was taking place in the Plaza de Armas as I started my Lonely Planet Peru walking tour.

A well-named British Pub near the plaza.

The signs say it all.

This is a former hotel (now two restaurants) where I had lunch the first day--excellent veranda with a view of a square/plaza.

The Hotel los Marqueses. That is not the gay pride flag--

The Church of San Francisco.

Here is the colonial archway of Santa Clara.

The church of Santa Clara.

A butcher at the Mercado San Pedro.

Appetizing no?

Sausages and sausage fillings.

Placio de Justicia.

Plaza San Blas.

A festival at a church above the city.

There were several booths selling roasted guinea pigs--I love the pepper stuck on the teeth--what presentation...