2010_3_27 How to Train a Dragon
On Thursday Kaia, who is off from work this week, begged me to go to a kid’s movie with her and Connor on Friday. I am not too keen on kid’s movies, but after looking at a trailer online of How to Train a Dragon I decided to say I would accompany her and the boy to the film. Kaia loaded up with all kinds of goodies to take in to the movie, candy, crackers, popcorn, and bottle water for me, milk for Connor, and a Diet Coke for her. Connor was surprisingly quiet during the movie, seeming more interested in his treats than what was on the screen. Apparently, he is more a super-hero kind of fan, and not so much into dragons. As for my response to the film, well, I reacted like an artist: I thought the images were artfully represented that the story was simple and appealing. I thought the two Scottish actors with their thick brogue were interesting sounding Vikings. (The actors were Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson.) The boy-hero in the tale had a funny name: Hiccup. His father, a ridiculously huge figure with a curled and braided red beard, was waiting for his scrawny toothpick thin son to slay a dragon for in Viking society that’s how a boy becomes a man and proud Viking. But Hiccup is a different sort. Unbeknownst to his father he has become close to a black purring dragon whose tail was injured and he fixed it, thus gaining the confidence and affection of the beast. He called his dragon Toothless. So when his father finds out he has a pet dragon he dismisses the boy as hopeless. But he proves useful when the tribe goes after a Great Beast that lives inside a fiery mountain, as Hiccup and his friends, who also ride dragons, outwit the Great Dragon and save the day, thus Hiccup’s true worth becomes visible to his father and everyone else. Hiccup even gets the girl who even gives him a kiss—just a peck, mind you, as this is a kid’s movies. I was so pleased by the tale I told Kaia I’d more inclined to go again to an animated kid’s movie if she asked me. She was happy to hear that. I know she wants me to develop more of a relationship with Connor.
I spent a couple of hours yesterday morning writing a letter to Hal Hoverland. Actually, I wrote for the blog and just framed it as a letter to a friend. It was in regard the post-HCB climate, more specifically, the reaction on the far right. But I had a problem: I could not access my blog, another causality of my computer crashing two weeks ago. I called Nasima for help. She got me in via my Gmail account and then, once I was in, I bookmarked the Dashboard and HT, which is how I got in before the crash. Then I discovered that I had also lost Hal’s e-mail address, but fortunately in this case, Suzie had it. Op-ed writer for the NYT, Charles Blow, also had a column about the post-HCB climate on the far right. It was a similar assessment too. He saw the reaction on the far right as an act of desperation, a feeling summed up in their unanimous cry of let’s “take the country back.” Blow thinks that was a hopeless wish because the country has changed and won’t be going back to the way it was when conservatism was dominant. He said the new leadership of a Black president (Barack Obama), and a woman (Nancy Pelosi), a gay man (Barney Frank), and a Jew (Anthony Weiner) was enough to drive the good ole boy’s club crazy. The Tea Party movement was now the base of the Republican Party and they must abide their wishes and to an extent ape their style and decisions, even if they are obscene and violent. They have to ride their rage and try to funnel it, which is going to difficult. Blow quotes a poll that shows who the Tea Party people are: they are predominately white, Christian evangelicals, less educated, and love Sarah Palin. Incidentally, Palin was in Tucson yesterday in support of John McCain’s primary race against J. D. Hayworth, who’s proving to be a formidable opponent. Today she is in Searchlight, Nevada, bad-mouthing Harry Reid in his hometown. In Tucson she was wearing this fancy black biker’s jacket, kind of unusual on the campaign trail. Maybe she is trying to appeal to the Hell’s Angels.
I copied part of a piece by Tony Blakely, the right wing intellectual who has some standing among thoughtful conservatives. As he sees it HCB is a reversal of market capitalism, that is, from now on the government will tell the insurance companies what they can charge, rather than the charge being based on actuarial risk; and in addition this regulation of business is regulation to the extent “that it constitutes effective ownership of the insurance company.” He goes on to say, rather oddly I think, that the new taxes brought on by HCB will allow our economy “to fund the deathbeds of the destitute.” How he came to that conclusion is beyond me. Socialized health care and other “intrusions” into our market based economy, when combined with the nationalization of GM and Chrysler, the partial nationalization of the banks, AIG, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the stimulus package, TARP, and the $10 trillion debt, means “the center of gravity of our economy” has moved “from the private sector to the public sector.” Blakely sees this switch of emphasis as “the yoke of socialism upon our necks.”
From Blakely’s perspective what Congress did last weekend was contrary to “the unambiguous will of the majority” of our citizens. He writes that he looks forward to next November when that self-same majority will reverse the situation once again, this time back to the way it was before Congress forced the socialization of health care delivery system and other central-government intrusions on the “freedom-loving majority.” (One thing Blakely doesn’t consider is the fact Obama will still be president and would veto any effort to repeal HCB.) If perchance that doesn’t come about, Blakely, in a veiled threat, said the change would have to come in less peaceful ways.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Dear Hal
2010_3_26 Dear Hal,
Well, the Democrats finally got their act together and pulled off a big win—a momentous accomplishment which was not only the right thing to do but it’ll be a great boost to their collective ego. Just when things looked so bad they won the BIG ONE and once that really sinks in they should see what can happen if they resolve their difference and pull together in one direction as a party. Instead of the Health Care Bill being “Obama’s Waterloo,” as Sen. DeMint of So. Carolina had predicted it would be, it turned out to be the swan song of the ‘Party of NO,” who now must pay the price of bad policy and bankrupt ideas. Their high-risk political uncooperativeness has now bit them in the ass, as they are now on the outside looking in. After 30 years of conservative dominance, the tide is now flowing in the opposite direction—and it is about time. What’s worse is they are now tied to the Tea Party movement, a political hothouse full of extremists for a base who will keep the party leaders with their feet to the fire. If any senator or congressman tries to cooperate with the current government, they will be attacked by their base. They are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea—again, due to their high-risk stance vis-à-vis the other party. Their helpers have become their controllers.
It was interesting how the R-Party collapsed yesterday during the reconciliation debate; instead of going on and on with their delaying tactics, they simply gave up and the bill passed after a mere 2 days. Getting 220 votes was a snap, no problem. The Democrats, newly aroused and bursting with new-found confidence, are ready to move on to other pressing issues, and god knows we have plenty of them.
The Obama Administration, through this baptism of fire, has changed dramatically in the past week: Instead of being a wannabe political force, they are the real McCoy, now that they are battle-tested. They have come of age while the GOP is sliding down the slippery slope of their own making, heading into a cesspool of rancor and ineptitude. They keep saying they will win in November and repeal HCB, but it seems like false bravado, mere wishful thinking and quite delusional. In truth they are reeling from this defeat and therefore whistling in the dark with blind faith. The Party of NO is written on their foreheads, like the Mark of Cain. In contrast the Democrats have unfurled two flags. One says Yes we can and the other saysYes we did.
However, there is the matter of the Tea Party folks. They seemed to be upping the ante and want blood. If it is mere bravado and exaggeration remains to be seen. But it is definitely worrisome. Over the weekend some black House members were called nigger and spat upon. Barney Frank was called a “faggot.” Rush Limbaugh, the chief idiot wind of Talk Radio, said,”We have to wipe out those bastards.” Some militia type who lives in Georgia, Mike Vanderboegh, is encouraging other wing nuts to throw a brick through the windows of Democratic offices across the country. There have been several incidents already. One brick had that famous line from Barry Goldwater’s acceptance speech back in 1964 attached to the brick: Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice. Here in Tucson our representative in the House, Gabriel Giffords, had the glass office door to her headquarters shot out. Fortunately no one was hurt. Bart Stupak was called a “baby killer” in the House because he voted for HCB. This time the source was a congressman from Texas. Yesterday morning I was listening to the Dianne Rheims’ show on NPR and some Southern called in to announce he was prejudiced and said he hated blacks because they were ignorant, smelly and animalistic…The moderator cut him off before he got any farther. If this kind of crap comes to a boil remains to be seen.
Jerry P
Well, the Democrats finally got their act together and pulled off a big win—a momentous accomplishment which was not only the right thing to do but it’ll be a great boost to their collective ego. Just when things looked so bad they won the BIG ONE and once that really sinks in they should see what can happen if they resolve their difference and pull together in one direction as a party. Instead of the Health Care Bill being “Obama’s Waterloo,” as Sen. DeMint of So. Carolina had predicted it would be, it turned out to be the swan song of the ‘Party of NO,” who now must pay the price of bad policy and bankrupt ideas. Their high-risk political uncooperativeness has now bit them in the ass, as they are now on the outside looking in. After 30 years of conservative dominance, the tide is now flowing in the opposite direction—and it is about time. What’s worse is they are now tied to the Tea Party movement, a political hothouse full of extremists for a base who will keep the party leaders with their feet to the fire. If any senator or congressman tries to cooperate with the current government, they will be attacked by their base. They are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea—again, due to their high-risk stance vis-à-vis the other party. Their helpers have become their controllers.
It was interesting how the R-Party collapsed yesterday during the reconciliation debate; instead of going on and on with their delaying tactics, they simply gave up and the bill passed after a mere 2 days. Getting 220 votes was a snap, no problem. The Democrats, newly aroused and bursting with new-found confidence, are ready to move on to other pressing issues, and god knows we have plenty of them.
The Obama Administration, through this baptism of fire, has changed dramatically in the past week: Instead of being a wannabe political force, they are the real McCoy, now that they are battle-tested. They have come of age while the GOP is sliding down the slippery slope of their own making, heading into a cesspool of rancor and ineptitude. They keep saying they will win in November and repeal HCB, but it seems like false bravado, mere wishful thinking and quite delusional. In truth they are reeling from this defeat and therefore whistling in the dark with blind faith. The Party of NO is written on their foreheads, like the Mark of Cain. In contrast the Democrats have unfurled two flags. One says Yes we can and the other saysYes we did.
However, there is the matter of the Tea Party folks. They seemed to be upping the ante and want blood. If it is mere bravado and exaggeration remains to be seen. But it is definitely worrisome. Over the weekend some black House members were called nigger and spat upon. Barney Frank was called a “faggot.” Rush Limbaugh, the chief idiot wind of Talk Radio, said,”We have to wipe out those bastards.” Some militia type who lives in Georgia, Mike Vanderboegh, is encouraging other wing nuts to throw a brick through the windows of Democratic offices across the country. There have been several incidents already. One brick had that famous line from Barry Goldwater’s acceptance speech back in 1964 attached to the brick: Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice. Here in Tucson our representative in the House, Gabriel Giffords, had the glass office door to her headquarters shot out. Fortunately no one was hurt. Bart Stupak was called a “baby killer” in the House because he voted for HCB. This time the source was a congressman from Texas. Yesterday morning I was listening to the Dianne Rheims’ show on NPR and some Southern called in to announce he was prejudiced and said he hated blacks because they were ignorant, smelly and animalistic…The moderator cut him off before he got any farther. If this kind of crap comes to a boil remains to be seen.
Jerry P
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The Man from Beijing
2010_3_09 The Man from Beijing
The story opens with a lone wolf finding something to eat in a remote village in Sweden during the dead of winter. What he found was a severed human leg; it provided him with the nourishment he needed to continue his lonely trek to God knows where. That scene is followed by a traveler’s discovery of a horrendous murder scene of 18 people slaughtered by a long knife in the small hamlet of Hesjovallen. Deeply shaken by the shock the traveler calls the police before he dies of a heart attack sitting in his car. The murders took place at night, after the residents had gone to bed, all of whom were elderly, except for one young boy, apparently a visitor. After the local police investigate the scene they discover that the majority of the victims were members of one family, the Andrens. The boy died in a different manner than the others: his spine was snapped in two. In a sense it was a mercy killing, in the sense that he died instantly. They found no murder weapon and only one clue, a piece of red ribbon in the snow. The local authorities were not only horrified and sickened by the brutality of the killings, but they are utterly baffled and can’t imagine what the motive could have been. Such a wholesale slaughter of elderly human beings seemed unthinkable. Who would do such a thing and why? Their first conclusion, understandably, was it had to be the work of a madman.
The Man from Beijing is not another Kurt Wallander novel. This novel suggests something along the lines of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. That is to say it is a genre-leaping tale and an author at the top of his game. It remains to be seen if there is a character the equal of Raskolnikov.
The main character and accidental investigator in this crime story was a middle aged woman, Birgitta Roslin, a provincial judge who held court in the nearby city of Helsingborg. She became involved because two of the people killed were her distant relatives. They were both in their 90s. The Judge had just been put on furlough by her doctor because her blood pressure was too high, which allowed her the time to follow the case. We also are told her marriage was shaky—no sex and a cooling of affections, what sometimes happens to long-married couples. By page 157, where I stopped reading yesterday, she had a better notion than the local police about what might have happened that awful night in January.
The first piece of the puzzle was a parallel event in America, the bloody murder of four members of the Andren family in Reno, Nevada, that were similarly cut down by a long knife. Father, mother and two kids were dispatched the same bloody way. The judge reasoned there must be a connection, but when she reported this online fact to the official investigators they were less convinced and were rather dismissive of her and her interest in the case. After being allowed to visit the home of her relatives she doubled back under the cloak of darkness to ‘borrow’ a journal and some letters she had come across when she looked around the house. She had read about a Swedish man always referred to JA, which referred to Jan August Andren, who was a foreman for the Intercontinental railroad in the 1860s, when the company was laying track in an easterly direction. JA was the boss of a crew of drunken Irishmen and Chinese coolies. He hated both groups equally, only he had more respect for the Chinese for at least they were good workers. But he still thought of both of them as inferior, virtually subhuman and as a consequence he treated them roughly. The Chinese grew to hate him with a passion. He was also a boastful individual who exaggerated his importance and how much money he made.
Mankell also devotes a long chapter to the long suffering Chinese who worked for the railroad, focusing on three brothers who had come to America together but not by choice. They bear witness to JA’s sadistic treatment and only one brother survived to live to tell the tale to later generations. It was San who wrote the history of how cruel the Swede was.
So at this point in the novel it appears we are dealing with a blood feud spread over several generations; it is an eye-for-an-eye situation.
(Two days later) In between Judge Roslin’s peculiar encounters with Chinese officials in Beijing, which include her purse-snatching incident, her stay in the hospital, and being forced to stay in Beijing for an extra day to satisfy police procedures, and her hospitality guide, Hong Qui, discovering that there was indeed substance to the Judge’s theory that there was a Chinese connection to the murders in Sweden. Hong Qui was a pro-Mao Old Guard Communist, while Birgitta Roslin was a pro-Mao protester back in the Sixties, so a chord of sympathy was activated between the two women.
Then there was a long digression concerned with a five hour speech given at an important Communist Party gathering by a scholar at Beijing University who was head of the Department of “Futurology.” His name was Yan Ban and he had spent many hours pouring over this speech which was highly anticipated. He had been commissioned to give this speech as it was felt the country was at a crossroad and the Party was interested in his educated opinion. The speech went on and on but one part of it was especially relevant to the narrative, and that was the idea of moving millions of China’s rural poor to east Africa. I know that China has made political inroads into Africa but for them to contemplate colonizing some countries by immigration pluralities was a pretty far-fetched idea, not to mention against communist ideology. Silly or not, the idea was part of a conflict between the Old Guard and the think-anew crowd that tended to resemble the Russian oligarchs and plutocrats. Representing that conflict were Hong Qui and her brother, Ya Ru, a ruthless and power-hungry thug/politician. Hong Qui also had a conversation with an ex-associate of her brother, Shen Weixian, who was about to be put to death for crime of bribery. He told her that the rumor was that Ya Ru was behind the mass murders in Sweden.
Earlier in the story we had learned that Ya Ru had sent his bodyguard, Liu Xin, on a special mission of great importance to Ya Ru and his ancestors, and now we know that assignment must have been the murders in Reno and Sweden. Xin was the “man from Beijing” of the title. Judge Roslin had earlier shown a photograph of Xin to Hong Qui who did not let on she knew who it was. It was a photograph she had obtained from the owner of a hotel in Sweden where the assassin had stayed, a picture taken by a hidden camera the manager had installed for security reasons. The judge had also discovered where the red ribbon that had been found at the site of the massacre had come from. She had eaten at the same restaurant that Xin had and noticed that the lamps over each booth were hung with four strands of red ribbon. A waitress verified that Xin had sat in that booth to eat where one of the ribbons was missing. What he had in mind was anybody’s guess? The judge realized that the whole charade over her purse was just an excuse to search her hotel room. Ya Ru had agents everywhere.
(The next day) I finished the novel late last night. The penultimate scene involved Ya Ru’s attempt to kill the Judge who he figured knew too much and had to go. He had followed her to a restaurant and while she was way from her table he went to put some ground glass in her coffee, an old Chinese method of getting rid of your enemies. But just as he was about to pour the powdery substance into her cup Ya Ru was struck by a bullet that hit him in the temple and he was dead before he hit the floor. The judge was hustled out of the hotel by a woman who knew Hong Qui. The shooter was a young man named San, who was the son of Hong Qui who was earlier killed in Africa by Ya Ru. (San was also the name of the brother who survived the cruelty of Jan August Andren.) Ya Ru had forced Hong Qui to go with a delegation to east Africa and while there had plotted to kill his own sister, and Liu Xin, his dedicated bodyguard, making it look like a car accident. Hong Qui had figured her brother would attempt to kill her in Africa so she wrote a letter to a woman friend; she told the woman that if something happened to her should give the letter to authorities; it included all her suspicions about her brother’s involvement in the Swedish massacre. The friend also alerted Ho and San, and fortunately for the judge, they had arrived at the hotel in the nick of time.
Ya Ru was a selfish, rapacious, and vindictive person. He saw the current China as a land of opportunity for people like him. You make your fortune, by hook or by crook, by any means necessary. Murder was just a tool for the wise man wheeling and dealing. In contrast, Hong Qui was a more traditional Marxist politician and idealist. Her prime virtues were solidarity and helping the rural poor get under the “red tent” of communism. But not in Africa. She was against the building of personal empires. That was a betrayal of first principles. Hong Qui and Birgitta Roslin were on the same frequency.
The novel closed with a final chapter and a short epilogue. In the last chapter the Judge has sent a friendly letter to a female detective involved with the murder case in Sweden, telling her that the man who confessed to the crime was a liar and a fraud. To prove it she included excerpt from Ya Ru’s diary about Liu Xin waiting to go on his killing spree. Xin explains how he bought a Japanese sword and had it sharpened for this special occasion. Ya Ru had written about the three brother’s mistreatment and death which were an “unbearable persecution” and needed to be ‘justified’ by an equal portion of death and tragedy. He said that final chapter needed to lead to a “necessary ending, revenge.” The Judge closed her letter by saying she would tell them she’d be happy to tell them the rest of the story whenever they might want to hear it.
The epilogue referred back to that lone wolf that opened the novel, this time on his way back to where he had come from. But this time he was shot and killed as he was passing through looking for something to eat. Mankell must have sought some kind of poetic justice by that death.
I would take issue with Mankell’s unimaginative title for the book. A more relevant title would be THE RED RIBBON or the SCARLETT RIBBON IN THE SNOW. No one ever figured out what it was all about, but it served nicely as a mysterious loose end.
The story opens with a lone wolf finding something to eat in a remote village in Sweden during the dead of winter. What he found was a severed human leg; it provided him with the nourishment he needed to continue his lonely trek to God knows where. That scene is followed by a traveler’s discovery of a horrendous murder scene of 18 people slaughtered by a long knife in the small hamlet of Hesjovallen. Deeply shaken by the shock the traveler calls the police before he dies of a heart attack sitting in his car. The murders took place at night, after the residents had gone to bed, all of whom were elderly, except for one young boy, apparently a visitor. After the local police investigate the scene they discover that the majority of the victims were members of one family, the Andrens. The boy died in a different manner than the others: his spine was snapped in two. In a sense it was a mercy killing, in the sense that he died instantly. They found no murder weapon and only one clue, a piece of red ribbon in the snow. The local authorities were not only horrified and sickened by the brutality of the killings, but they are utterly baffled and can’t imagine what the motive could have been. Such a wholesale slaughter of elderly human beings seemed unthinkable. Who would do such a thing and why? Their first conclusion, understandably, was it had to be the work of a madman.
The Man from Beijing is not another Kurt Wallander novel. This novel suggests something along the lines of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. That is to say it is a genre-leaping tale and an author at the top of his game. It remains to be seen if there is a character the equal of Raskolnikov.
The main character and accidental investigator in this crime story was a middle aged woman, Birgitta Roslin, a provincial judge who held court in the nearby city of Helsingborg. She became involved because two of the people killed were her distant relatives. They were both in their 90s. The Judge had just been put on furlough by her doctor because her blood pressure was too high, which allowed her the time to follow the case. We also are told her marriage was shaky—no sex and a cooling of affections, what sometimes happens to long-married couples. By page 157, where I stopped reading yesterday, she had a better notion than the local police about what might have happened that awful night in January.
The first piece of the puzzle was a parallel event in America, the bloody murder of four members of the Andren family in Reno, Nevada, that were similarly cut down by a long knife. Father, mother and two kids were dispatched the same bloody way. The judge reasoned there must be a connection, but when she reported this online fact to the official investigators they were less convinced and were rather dismissive of her and her interest in the case. After being allowed to visit the home of her relatives she doubled back under the cloak of darkness to ‘borrow’ a journal and some letters she had come across when she looked around the house. She had read about a Swedish man always referred to JA, which referred to Jan August Andren, who was a foreman for the Intercontinental railroad in the 1860s, when the company was laying track in an easterly direction. JA was the boss of a crew of drunken Irishmen and Chinese coolies. He hated both groups equally, only he had more respect for the Chinese for at least they were good workers. But he still thought of both of them as inferior, virtually subhuman and as a consequence he treated them roughly. The Chinese grew to hate him with a passion. He was also a boastful individual who exaggerated his importance and how much money he made.
Mankell also devotes a long chapter to the long suffering Chinese who worked for the railroad, focusing on three brothers who had come to America together but not by choice. They bear witness to JA’s sadistic treatment and only one brother survived to live to tell the tale to later generations. It was San who wrote the history of how cruel the Swede was.
So at this point in the novel it appears we are dealing with a blood feud spread over several generations; it is an eye-for-an-eye situation.
(Two days later) In between Judge Roslin’s peculiar encounters with Chinese officials in Beijing, which include her purse-snatching incident, her stay in the hospital, and being forced to stay in Beijing for an extra day to satisfy police procedures, and her hospitality guide, Hong Qui, discovering that there was indeed substance to the Judge’s theory that there was a Chinese connection to the murders in Sweden. Hong Qui was a pro-Mao Old Guard Communist, while Birgitta Roslin was a pro-Mao protester back in the Sixties, so a chord of sympathy was activated between the two women.
Then there was a long digression concerned with a five hour speech given at an important Communist Party gathering by a scholar at Beijing University who was head of the Department of “Futurology.” His name was Yan Ban and he had spent many hours pouring over this speech which was highly anticipated. He had been commissioned to give this speech as it was felt the country was at a crossroad and the Party was interested in his educated opinion. The speech went on and on but one part of it was especially relevant to the narrative, and that was the idea of moving millions of China’s rural poor to east Africa. I know that China has made political inroads into Africa but for them to contemplate colonizing some countries by immigration pluralities was a pretty far-fetched idea, not to mention against communist ideology. Silly or not, the idea was part of a conflict between the Old Guard and the think-anew crowd that tended to resemble the Russian oligarchs and plutocrats. Representing that conflict were Hong Qui and her brother, Ya Ru, a ruthless and power-hungry thug/politician. Hong Qui also had a conversation with an ex-associate of her brother, Shen Weixian, who was about to be put to death for crime of bribery. He told her that the rumor was that Ya Ru was behind the mass murders in Sweden.
Earlier in the story we had learned that Ya Ru had sent his bodyguard, Liu Xin, on a special mission of great importance to Ya Ru and his ancestors, and now we know that assignment must have been the murders in Reno and Sweden. Xin was the “man from Beijing” of the title. Judge Roslin had earlier shown a photograph of Xin to Hong Qui who did not let on she knew who it was. It was a photograph she had obtained from the owner of a hotel in Sweden where the assassin had stayed, a picture taken by a hidden camera the manager had installed for security reasons. The judge had also discovered where the red ribbon that had been found at the site of the massacre had come from. She had eaten at the same restaurant that Xin had and noticed that the lamps over each booth were hung with four strands of red ribbon. A waitress verified that Xin had sat in that booth to eat where one of the ribbons was missing. What he had in mind was anybody’s guess? The judge realized that the whole charade over her purse was just an excuse to search her hotel room. Ya Ru had agents everywhere.
(The next day) I finished the novel late last night. The penultimate scene involved Ya Ru’s attempt to kill the Judge who he figured knew too much and had to go. He had followed her to a restaurant and while she was way from her table he went to put some ground glass in her coffee, an old Chinese method of getting rid of your enemies. But just as he was about to pour the powdery substance into her cup Ya Ru was struck by a bullet that hit him in the temple and he was dead before he hit the floor. The judge was hustled out of the hotel by a woman who knew Hong Qui. The shooter was a young man named San, who was the son of Hong Qui who was earlier killed in Africa by Ya Ru. (San was also the name of the brother who survived the cruelty of Jan August Andren.) Ya Ru had forced Hong Qui to go with a delegation to east Africa and while there had plotted to kill his own sister, and Liu Xin, his dedicated bodyguard, making it look like a car accident. Hong Qui had figured her brother would attempt to kill her in Africa so she wrote a letter to a woman friend; she told the woman that if something happened to her should give the letter to authorities; it included all her suspicions about her brother’s involvement in the Swedish massacre. The friend also alerted Ho and San, and fortunately for the judge, they had arrived at the hotel in the nick of time.
Ya Ru was a selfish, rapacious, and vindictive person. He saw the current China as a land of opportunity for people like him. You make your fortune, by hook or by crook, by any means necessary. Murder was just a tool for the wise man wheeling and dealing. In contrast, Hong Qui was a more traditional Marxist politician and idealist. Her prime virtues were solidarity and helping the rural poor get under the “red tent” of communism. But not in Africa. She was against the building of personal empires. That was a betrayal of first principles. Hong Qui and Birgitta Roslin were on the same frequency.
The novel closed with a final chapter and a short epilogue. In the last chapter the Judge has sent a friendly letter to a female detective involved with the murder case in Sweden, telling her that the man who confessed to the crime was a liar and a fraud. To prove it she included excerpt from Ya Ru’s diary about Liu Xin waiting to go on his killing spree. Xin explains how he bought a Japanese sword and had it sharpened for this special occasion. Ya Ru had written about the three brother’s mistreatment and death which were an “unbearable persecution” and needed to be ‘justified’ by an equal portion of death and tragedy. He said that final chapter needed to lead to a “necessary ending, revenge.” The Judge closed her letter by saying she would tell them she’d be happy to tell them the rest of the story whenever they might want to hear it.
The epilogue referred back to that lone wolf that opened the novel, this time on his way back to where he had come from. But this time he was shot and killed as he was passing through looking for something to eat. Mankell must have sought some kind of poetic justice by that death.
I would take issue with Mankell’s unimaginative title for the book. A more relevant title would be THE RED RIBBON or the SCARLETT RIBBON IN THE SNOW. No one ever figured out what it was all about, but it served nicely as a mysterious loose end.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Nurse Jackie
2010_3_2 Nurse Jackie
Talked to Sam yesterday about the making of the TV commercial; but otherwise the experience is fading fast. As usual, life moves on. Sue and I between last Thursday night and last night watched 12 episodes of “Nurse Jackie,” another HBO serial, this one only half hour long per episode. The story lines are all built around Edie Falco who plays Jackie, a salty nurse who won’t take any shit from any doctor and is filled with empathy and compassion for patients. On the other hand she is a “tainted saint,” because she is a pill freak and she is fucking the Hospital Pharmacist in the hospital while being married with two daughters. Moreover, she is keeping the two lives separate. When she arrives to work she takes her wedding ring off and when she goes home she puts it back on. As a viewer, you say to yourself, this is going to eventually explode in her face, and it does in the 12th episode. The hospital ‘boy friend,’ after finding out she has a kid, follows her to the bar that Jackie’s husband owns and runs. Season two begins this month, on the same day the TV commercial I was in is suppose to debut.
Falco is excellent in the role which seems made for her. She is also surrounded by a complementary staff of considerable talent that she holds together as a cohesive unit. She is forcefully the hub of the wheel and all else circles around her. She has impeccable timing and a fine tuned sense of comic acting. The fact she is a painkiller addict has upset a Nurse associations but everything in the program is played for laughs, and the stress of the job and her double life is obviously at the root of her addiction, which is catching up with her. The thing I like about “Nurse Jackie” is the character of the black humor that drives the story; it is a thread through all 12 episodes. It is clever, consistent and fresh. I love it.
Sue and I also watched an interesting parenting story, a Australian film by Scott Hicks starring Clive Owens, the only name actor in the film. “The Boys are Back” is an unusual film for Owens who is usually an action hero or in romantic comedies. This is a family drama, a story of a single parent, a father, who wants to do right by his two boys.
Joe Warr (Owens) is a sports writer from Melbourne who lives with his wife, Katy (Laura Fraser) and his young son Artie (Nicholas McAnnulty) in a house somewhere outside the city. When we first saw the environment we both thought it was California as it has the same kind of golden hills that California has and the same sweep to the vistas. His mother in law Barbara (Julia Blake) is at the house often and Joe has a tension-filled relationship with her as she would prefer Artie be raised with more discipline. Then tragedy strikes which heightens those differences. Katy is struck down by cancer and dies, with Joe and Artie being there with her as she declined toward death.
Afterwards Joe was determined to raise Artie as he saw fit, as a free-ranging boy full of fun and mischief. (Artie is 6 or 7 years old.) They have pillow and water fights, laughing and roughhousing whenever Joe is home which is often in this period of grieving. He begins to see Katy and he even carries on conversations with her about Artie. He also meets and becomes friends with a neighbor woman, divorced with a young boy and he can ask her to baby sit Artie. She’s an attractive woman and one can imagine a romance blooming somewhere in the future. Joe does have to cope with Artie’s erratic moods; some of them are hard to deal with. Things become even more complicated when his ex-wife sends their 15 year old son to live in Melbourne with Joe and Artie. He is much different kid, more introspective, less physical, and full of resentment toward Joe for not taking him after the divorce, which made him feel Joe had abandoned him. But after a few months the two boys become tight, bond together nicely. But then Joe makes a crucial mistake. He goes to Sydney to cover the Australian Open Tennis Championship and lets Harry (George MacKay) be in charge while he is gone for a few days. But it turns into a disaster as Harry’s mates from school invade the house for a party and nearly demolish the place and Harry is forced to call Barbara and her husband who quell the riot with a shotgun, it was that bad. By the time Joe gets there Barbara has taken possession of Artie, calling Joe incompetent as a parent. As for Harry he’s on his way to London and boarding school. Joe removes Artie from Barbara’s clutches telling her she wants him as a portion of her dead daughter, which seems to hit home with the woman. Shortly after that the two guys fly to London to get Harry back. It takes some doing, but with the help of the ex-wife who thinks Harry should go with his father, the three fly back to Melbourne to resume their life together. The last part of the story deal with their reconciliation with Grandma.
I found the film credible and persuasive as a family drama. One could expect Owens to give a quality performance but it was young Nicholas who was the big surprise. He handled his part extremely well, with verve and authenticity.
Talked to Sam yesterday about the making of the TV commercial; but otherwise the experience is fading fast. As usual, life moves on. Sue and I between last Thursday night and last night watched 12 episodes of “Nurse Jackie,” another HBO serial, this one only half hour long per episode. The story lines are all built around Edie Falco who plays Jackie, a salty nurse who won’t take any shit from any doctor and is filled with empathy and compassion for patients. On the other hand she is a “tainted saint,” because she is a pill freak and she is fucking the Hospital Pharmacist in the hospital while being married with two daughters. Moreover, she is keeping the two lives separate. When she arrives to work she takes her wedding ring off and when she goes home she puts it back on. As a viewer, you say to yourself, this is going to eventually explode in her face, and it does in the 12th episode. The hospital ‘boy friend,’ after finding out she has a kid, follows her to the bar that Jackie’s husband owns and runs. Season two begins this month, on the same day the TV commercial I was in is suppose to debut.
Falco is excellent in the role which seems made for her. She is also surrounded by a complementary staff of considerable talent that she holds together as a cohesive unit. She is forcefully the hub of the wheel and all else circles around her. She has impeccable timing and a fine tuned sense of comic acting. The fact she is a painkiller addict has upset a Nurse associations but everything in the program is played for laughs, and the stress of the job and her double life is obviously at the root of her addiction, which is catching up with her. The thing I like about “Nurse Jackie” is the character of the black humor that drives the story; it is a thread through all 12 episodes. It is clever, consistent and fresh. I love it.
Sue and I also watched an interesting parenting story, a Australian film by Scott Hicks starring Clive Owens, the only name actor in the film. “The Boys are Back” is an unusual film for Owens who is usually an action hero or in romantic comedies. This is a family drama, a story of a single parent, a father, who wants to do right by his two boys.
Joe Warr (Owens) is a sports writer from Melbourne who lives with his wife, Katy (Laura Fraser) and his young son Artie (Nicholas McAnnulty) in a house somewhere outside the city. When we first saw the environment we both thought it was California as it has the same kind of golden hills that California has and the same sweep to the vistas. His mother in law Barbara (Julia Blake) is at the house often and Joe has a tension-filled relationship with her as she would prefer Artie be raised with more discipline. Then tragedy strikes which heightens those differences. Katy is struck down by cancer and dies, with Joe and Artie being there with her as she declined toward death.
Afterwards Joe was determined to raise Artie as he saw fit, as a free-ranging boy full of fun and mischief. (Artie is 6 or 7 years old.) They have pillow and water fights, laughing and roughhousing whenever Joe is home which is often in this period of grieving. He begins to see Katy and he even carries on conversations with her about Artie. He also meets and becomes friends with a neighbor woman, divorced with a young boy and he can ask her to baby sit Artie. She’s an attractive woman and one can imagine a romance blooming somewhere in the future. Joe does have to cope with Artie’s erratic moods; some of them are hard to deal with. Things become even more complicated when his ex-wife sends their 15 year old son to live in Melbourne with Joe and Artie. He is much different kid, more introspective, less physical, and full of resentment toward Joe for not taking him after the divorce, which made him feel Joe had abandoned him. But after a few months the two boys become tight, bond together nicely. But then Joe makes a crucial mistake. He goes to Sydney to cover the Australian Open Tennis Championship and lets Harry (George MacKay) be in charge while he is gone for a few days. But it turns into a disaster as Harry’s mates from school invade the house for a party and nearly demolish the place and Harry is forced to call Barbara and her husband who quell the riot with a shotgun, it was that bad. By the time Joe gets there Barbara has taken possession of Artie, calling Joe incompetent as a parent. As for Harry he’s on his way to London and boarding school. Joe removes Artie from Barbara’s clutches telling her she wants him as a portion of her dead daughter, which seems to hit home with the woman. Shortly after that the two guys fly to London to get Harry back. It takes some doing, but with the help of the ex-wife who thinks Harry should go with his father, the three fly back to Melbourne to resume their life together. The last part of the story deal with their reconciliation with Grandma.
I found the film credible and persuasive as a family drama. One could expect Owens to give a quality performance but it was young Nicholas who was the big surprise. He handled his part extremely well, with verve and authenticity.
Monday, March 1, 2010
New Career Move
Would you believe that at the age of 73 I have made a new career move? I was the focus of a TV commercial made last Wednesday at St. Mary's hospital. Let me explain.
I saw Dr. Berman two weeks ago and we congratulated each other on the 10 anniversary of the implantation of the stent graft at St. Mary's Hospital on Feb. 28, 2000. We both felt like pioneers in regard a procedure that is now commonplace around the country and paid for by insurance. If you will recall I was Berman first patient and the first to be paid for by insurance in the state of Arizona. All things considered, that was something to crow about. Anyway, last Monday I got a call from Berman's office asking me would I submit to an interview about the stent and I said sure. An hour later I got a call from a woman who called herself "a casting director" and would I mind if she came out to tape an interview. (Sue got a big laugh out of the "casting director" bit, thinking it had to be bullshit.) She showed up on Tuesday morning and she and her son taped a two minute spiel on the procedure 10 years and the events leading up to it and in the post-op period. It turned out she was indeed a casting director for both films made in AZ but especially commercials shot here. At that point it was beginning to dawn on me what seemed to be happening. That first interview was essentially an audition and I didn't know it. Just as well, probably. She told me that 5 people have been chosen from the 5 catholic hospitals in Southern AZ and I was chose to represent St. Mary's because of the pioneering operation 10 years ago. And I assume Berman must have told somebody about my background as a teacher and lecturer. The 5 hospitals are operated by a Catholic Corporation called Carondelet. (You don't pronounce the t.) Later on Tuesday I got two more phone calls, one from "the Line Director" who told me to be at the hospital at 1:30 on Wednesday and one from "wardrobe" who gave me a list of don't in terms of clothes and told me to bring 6 shirts. So on Wednesday I played pool from 11 o'clock to a little after 1 PM, and drove to the hospital where I was taken up to the 4th floor where the Hospital had given them some rooms and the use of a corridor, which is where the shoot would take place. There had to be at least 25 people in the crew and I'd bet their average age was under 30 and the corridor was crammed full of equipment and light panels of different tones. There were so many lights the temp in the place I had to stand had to be close to 90 degrees. But first I was handed over to wardrobe and makeup, which was a bit of a hassle because the wardrobe guy didn't like the 4 shirts I had brought and I didn't like what he wanted me to wear. I won that argument, thank god. The makeup gal was nice but fussed over my hair throughout the shoot and even put a bobby pin in my hair.
The shoot itself went pretty smoothly. A nice kid was the director and he treated me well, very respectfully, which I appreciated. I'd say my spiel was a little longer this time, closer to 4 or 5 minutes, and I injected facts about the stent graft and some humor which had the the crew laughing. They had me say a couple of lines, on of which I said one at least 30 times in every conceivable way. I'd say the whole bit took about an hour, maybe a little more. Then the still photographer and two of his assistants took me to three different locations to shoot some stills. One of the young men noticed I was having trouble walking all over the place--the hospital is huge--so he got a wheel chair which I really appreciated. In fact, altogether these kids treated me, as a person and a novice, very well. The told me they like the way I put some personality into my spiel that the other 4 people ( one for each of the 4 other hospitals) did not. They said they would send me a sample of those stills by email so if they do I'll send you a sample too.
How much was I paid you might ask? I got a $25 gift certificate for Target. A friend of mine, of the same age, was in a Starbuck's ad in Seattle, as they needed an older gentleman sitting in the way of the camera, and he got a $20 coffee certificate. The ad I was in will start to be shown on TV on March 22, but only in the southwest I think.
It was a fun and interesting experience.
I saw Dr. Berman two weeks ago and we congratulated each other on the 10 anniversary of the implantation of the stent graft at St. Mary's Hospital on Feb. 28, 2000. We both felt like pioneers in regard a procedure that is now commonplace around the country and paid for by insurance. If you will recall I was Berman first patient and the first to be paid for by insurance in the state of Arizona. All things considered, that was something to crow about. Anyway, last Monday I got a call from Berman's office asking me would I submit to an interview about the stent and I said sure. An hour later I got a call from a woman who called herself "a casting director" and would I mind if she came out to tape an interview. (Sue got a big laugh out of the "casting director" bit, thinking it had to be bullshit.) She showed up on Tuesday morning and she and her son taped a two minute spiel on the procedure 10 years and the events leading up to it and in the post-op period. It turned out she was indeed a casting director for both films made in AZ but especially commercials shot here. At that point it was beginning to dawn on me what seemed to be happening. That first interview was essentially an audition and I didn't know it. Just as well, probably. She told me that 5 people have been chosen from the 5 catholic hospitals in Southern AZ and I was chose to represent St. Mary's because of the pioneering operation 10 years ago. And I assume Berman must have told somebody about my background as a teacher and lecturer. The 5 hospitals are operated by a Catholic Corporation called Carondelet. (You don't pronounce the t.) Later on Tuesday I got two more phone calls, one from "the Line Director" who told me to be at the hospital at 1:30 on Wednesday and one from "wardrobe" who gave me a list of don't in terms of clothes and told me to bring 6 shirts. So on Wednesday I played pool from 11 o'clock to a little after 1 PM, and drove to the hospital where I was taken up to the 4th floor where the Hospital had given them some rooms and the use of a corridor, which is where the shoot would take place. There had to be at least 25 people in the crew and I'd bet their average age was under 30 and the corridor was crammed full of equipment and light panels of different tones. There were so many lights the temp in the place I had to stand had to be close to 90 degrees. But first I was handed over to wardrobe and makeup, which was a bit of a hassle because the wardrobe guy didn't like the 4 shirts I had brought and I didn't like what he wanted me to wear. I won that argument, thank god. The makeup gal was nice but fussed over my hair throughout the shoot and even put a bobby pin in my hair.
The shoot itself went pretty smoothly. A nice kid was the director and he treated me well, very respectfully, which I appreciated. I'd say my spiel was a little longer this time, closer to 4 or 5 minutes, and I injected facts about the stent graft and some humor which had the the crew laughing. They had me say a couple of lines, on of which I said one at least 30 times in every conceivable way. I'd say the whole bit took about an hour, maybe a little more. Then the still photographer and two of his assistants took me to three different locations to shoot some stills. One of the young men noticed I was having trouble walking all over the place--the hospital is huge--so he got a wheel chair which I really appreciated. In fact, altogether these kids treated me, as a person and a novice, very well. The told me they like the way I put some personality into my spiel that the other 4 people ( one for each of the 4 other hospitals) did not. They said they would send me a sample of those stills by email so if they do I'll send you a sample too.
How much was I paid you might ask? I got a $25 gift certificate for Target. A friend of mine, of the same age, was in a Starbuck's ad in Seattle, as they needed an older gentleman sitting in the way of the camera, and he got a $20 coffee certificate. The ad I was in will start to be shown on TV on March 22, but only in the southwest I think.
It was a fun and interesting experience.
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