On a Mission
“You sound like a man on a mission.” A good friend of mine said that in a recent email. The comment came on the heels of my email full of the trials and tribulations of preparing two books for publication, that is, for self-publication. Actually, all the problems and numerous details involved with both books have pretty much dominated my mind and energy for the past three months, and it’s the main reason I haven’t written anything for the blog for several weeks. One simply can’t do all one would like to, and some off time is important too. And some of the people I regularly exchange emails with are losing patience with my carrying on time and time again about Eros AND PSYCHE and BRIDGE IN THE FOG, like some fanatic who is more obsessed than he realizes. My cousin back in Racine is letting me know she misses my usual email, where I write about various things. People have to understand that getting these books ready for publication is the culmination of essentially twenty years work. I have written each book three times and certain sections up to ten times. Plus there was a lot of drawing over those years—and I had a full time job up until 2003. Retirement and the time I now had helped me turn the corner and turbo-charged me for the remaining laps to the finish line. In any case, it was a long slog and a long time coming to fruition.
The gal I am working with at ALPHAGRAPHICS is sweet and very supportive but she has gotten confused about the order of images in the book. She sent me home Monday with the third sample of the EROS AND PSYCHE, wanting my opinion of the reproduction of the drawings, which had been too dark. The other chore I had was to correct about a dozen minor grammatical errors and I did all that. I was happy with all the drawings too, all but the two that were reduced in size in the introduction. Monday afternoon I brought in the two original drawings for them to scan anew and we have our fingers crossed that will make the difference. When I went through the third sample to my horror I found a drawing missing; it was the self-portrait with the woman coming out of my skull with me balancing a mandala on my right forefinger. It’s important because the commentary has a direct relationship to the image. The problem was in putting it back in where it was suppose to be not only altered the pagination, it left a blank page. My solution to that was to add another drawing, which is what we did. It will be the only case of two images side by side, but it comes in the middle of the book so I think it’ll work okay. I chose the one with clown on a runway with a dark and a light lady attending his act, which should fit right in with no problem.
So if the two reduced drawings are better than before we will be ready to print.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The Belle and the Bull had a Blast
2011_7_18 The Belle and the Bull of the Ball
Yesterday’s celebration of our 50 years of marriage was a splendid, laugh-filled and touching four hours; it was truly an event we will cherish for all the years we have left. It, among all the parties we have held over many years, was special. First of all, Nasima’s ‘slide show’ of 35 images over the years, starting with our baby pictures, went over well and kept repeating itself on TV screen for 3 hour. We chose Joanie Mitchell’s song “The Circle Song” to accompany the flow of pictures, which was an excellent choice, and Nasima timed the song with the last image, the two things absolutely in sync. The first photo after the baby pictures was the Polaroid of the two of us in 1960, the year of our first intimacies and feelings of deep love, at a party with Sue, a very lovely 20-year-old girl, sitting on my lap while I laid a kiss on her cheek. Many people could not believe that the handsome dark-haired skinny fellow kissing her was me. Alas, that small peak of a man grew into a mountain of a man. The very last slide in this parade of images was the reverse situation: Sue is kissing me on the cheek and it looked like she had to climb the mountain to do it. As a matter of fact Nasima picked 15 pictures where we are either kissing or hugging. That was close to a revelation to our audiences who really don’t know or see as us as a romantic couple. Our daughters planned the whole thing with little consultation with us. They chose Greek food because I love Gyros and Suzie loves dolmas. There was a bucket of meat and Tdzekie sauce, along with peta bread, humus, a big salad, and for dessert we had Baklava with vanilla ice cream or watermelon. The watermelon tasted good and was cooling because most of us ate outside under the covered patio despite the 103 temp and the high humidity. It did rain for about ten minutes. After everyone had their fill two musicians in the group got up, a violinist and a flutist did their thing for a short while, which was a pleasant interlude. Then Nasima and Kaia came out of the house with two trays of small paper cups full of champagne. I like the funky touch of paper cups as opposed to elegant glasses. Many toasts were offered, as were many nice things about Sue and I. The memory book is in process, as Nasima has all the cards and commentaries and she will be the one to tie it altogether in a book. I read just a few of the cards and I must say the love and respect for us doth flow like a river.
The spirit of the party was gleeful and buoyant; the chatter was none-stop and various and amusing. Laughter rocked the patio and the shrieks of the kids in the pool added to the upsurge of good vibes percolating through this assembly of 30 hearty guests. I was in extremely good humor as I had taken some canelo prior to going to the party. One of our old hippy-dippy friends had a laugh that could be heard for blocks—a most hearty guffaw. This guy had gone to Europe and India in the sixties and recently, after writing 15 versions of the story, self-published the book, which he titled WANNA SMOKE? He had come to the party without his dentures; he somehow had forgotten them. No problem he said, I’ll drink my dinner. Ryder ran around naked all during the party, just like his mother used to do when she was 4 years old. Liam is now 10 years old and has long hair for the first time and he looked good.
Four couples did not make the party, two because they were out of town. One individual didn’t make it, although his wife and son did. That would be my ex-pool partner. It was a big disappointment with no explanation.
I managed to get through the party on one canister of oxygen.
The “belle and the bull of the ball “ had a blast.
Yesterday’s celebration of our 50 years of marriage was a splendid, laugh-filled and touching four hours; it was truly an event we will cherish for all the years we have left. It, among all the parties we have held over many years, was special. First of all, Nasima’s ‘slide show’ of 35 images over the years, starting with our baby pictures, went over well and kept repeating itself on TV screen for 3 hour. We chose Joanie Mitchell’s song “The Circle Song” to accompany the flow of pictures, which was an excellent choice, and Nasima timed the song with the last image, the two things absolutely in sync. The first photo after the baby pictures was the Polaroid of the two of us in 1960, the year of our first intimacies and feelings of deep love, at a party with Sue, a very lovely 20-year-old girl, sitting on my lap while I laid a kiss on her cheek. Many people could not believe that the handsome dark-haired skinny fellow kissing her was me. Alas, that small peak of a man grew into a mountain of a man. The very last slide in this parade of images was the reverse situation: Sue is kissing me on the cheek and it looked like she had to climb the mountain to do it. As a matter of fact Nasima picked 15 pictures where we are either kissing or hugging. That was close to a revelation to our audiences who really don’t know or see as us as a romantic couple. Our daughters planned the whole thing with little consultation with us. They chose Greek food because I love Gyros and Suzie loves dolmas. There was a bucket of meat and Tdzekie sauce, along with peta bread, humus, a big salad, and for dessert we had Baklava with vanilla ice cream or watermelon. The watermelon tasted good and was cooling because most of us ate outside under the covered patio despite the 103 temp and the high humidity. It did rain for about ten minutes. After everyone had their fill two musicians in the group got up, a violinist and a flutist did their thing for a short while, which was a pleasant interlude. Then Nasima and Kaia came out of the house with two trays of small paper cups full of champagne. I like the funky touch of paper cups as opposed to elegant glasses. Many toasts were offered, as were many nice things about Sue and I. The memory book is in process, as Nasima has all the cards and commentaries and she will be the one to tie it altogether in a book. I read just a few of the cards and I must say the love and respect for us doth flow like a river.
The spirit of the party was gleeful and buoyant; the chatter was none-stop and various and amusing. Laughter rocked the patio and the shrieks of the kids in the pool added to the upsurge of good vibes percolating through this assembly of 30 hearty guests. I was in extremely good humor as I had taken some canelo prior to going to the party. One of our old hippy-dippy friends had a laugh that could be heard for blocks—a most hearty guffaw. This guy had gone to Europe and India in the sixties and recently, after writing 15 versions of the story, self-published the book, which he titled WANNA SMOKE? He had come to the party without his dentures; he somehow had forgotten them. No problem he said, I’ll drink my dinner. Ryder ran around naked all during the party, just like his mother used to do when she was 4 years old. Liam is now 10 years old and has long hair for the first time and he looked good.
Four couples did not make the party, two because they were out of town. One individual didn’t make it, although his wife and son did. That would be my ex-pool partner. It was a big disappointment with no explanation.
I managed to get through the party on one canister of oxygen.
The “belle and the bull of the ball “ had a blast.
Obama's Capitulation
2011_8_02 Obama’s Capitulation
Here I go again jumping on Obama for another poor performance in the latest dust up in Washington; this time the wrangle is over the debt ceiling controversy. The first thing I’d say about that is why didn’t the Democrats separate that issue from the deficit problem? And then once the two thing were inerasably linked why didn’t he revert to the 14th Amendment? Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa explained on the floor of the senate that it was used successfully three times by esteemed presidents—by Thomas Jefferson to expedite the Louisiana Purchase, by Lincoln to help pass the Emancipation Proclamation, and by FDR to hurry along the Lend Lease Loan to England under attack by Hitler. For some reason Obama never took it seriously. He could have used it for leverage if nothing else.
He may live to regret it as virtually nobody likes the bill signed into law today by Obama all by himself in the Oval Office, very odd considering the import of the bill and how long it took to get passed. Usually there is a crowd flanking the President as he signs major legislation. Not this time. The left and the right hated it, and the center held their nose when they voted. Two people were smiling and felt victorious when it was over: John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, the Republican leaders. Boehner told Scott Pelly tonight he was very happy because he got 98% of what he wanted. McConnell doffed his hat to the Tea Party folks for their assistance and was already gleefully preparing for the next encounter with the President, for he knows he’s got his number.
From where I sit the tipping point in this latest disaster, the debt ceiling imbroglio and the final deal was Mitch McConnell who refusal to negotiate with Harry Reid, but only with the “man who could sign the bill into law.” That is code for the man he has consistently outsmarted, outmaneuvered, and over-matched. He has done it time and time again. He is as agile with rhetoric as Obama is, and he combines that with a subtle aggressive style that Obama doesn’t know how to handle. He’s good at constructing pithy narratives and his sound bites are terse, simple, and cogent. He’s a son of a bitch but I have to admit he is a tough gladiator. The Demos have no one to match his skills. He may look like Elmer Fudd and mumble through his teeth but those things disguise a WASP that stings. It’s uncanny how effective he can be, Like Bill Maher said the other night, McConnell knows how to get Obama to bend over and pull his pants down. Amen, brother!
The Super Committee to be formed in a few months is ready made for a stalemate, with six Republicans members who’ll be uniformly against tax increases and six Democrats who will be there to protect entitlements, which means the fierce in-fighting will be fierce and unforgiving, on both sides, but especially with the Republicans with their rigid backbone. If they can’t come to a resolution the deal is they will revert to automatic cuts which will threated the discretionary spending in domestic programs the Demos hold dear and the Republicans will sweat cuts in the defense Budget. And then there is the election, not to mention Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New years while all this bickering will be going on. Should be fun.
Welcome to bedlam!
Here I go again jumping on Obama for another poor performance in the latest dust up in Washington; this time the wrangle is over the debt ceiling controversy. The first thing I’d say about that is why didn’t the Democrats separate that issue from the deficit problem? And then once the two thing were inerasably linked why didn’t he revert to the 14th Amendment? Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa explained on the floor of the senate that it was used successfully three times by esteemed presidents—by Thomas Jefferson to expedite the Louisiana Purchase, by Lincoln to help pass the Emancipation Proclamation, and by FDR to hurry along the Lend Lease Loan to England under attack by Hitler. For some reason Obama never took it seriously. He could have used it for leverage if nothing else.
He may live to regret it as virtually nobody likes the bill signed into law today by Obama all by himself in the Oval Office, very odd considering the import of the bill and how long it took to get passed. Usually there is a crowd flanking the President as he signs major legislation. Not this time. The left and the right hated it, and the center held their nose when they voted. Two people were smiling and felt victorious when it was over: John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, the Republican leaders. Boehner told Scott Pelly tonight he was very happy because he got 98% of what he wanted. McConnell doffed his hat to the Tea Party folks for their assistance and was already gleefully preparing for the next encounter with the President, for he knows he’s got his number.
From where I sit the tipping point in this latest disaster, the debt ceiling imbroglio and the final deal was Mitch McConnell who refusal to negotiate with Harry Reid, but only with the “man who could sign the bill into law.” That is code for the man he has consistently outsmarted, outmaneuvered, and over-matched. He has done it time and time again. He is as agile with rhetoric as Obama is, and he combines that with a subtle aggressive style that Obama doesn’t know how to handle. He’s good at constructing pithy narratives and his sound bites are terse, simple, and cogent. He’s a son of a bitch but I have to admit he is a tough gladiator. The Demos have no one to match his skills. He may look like Elmer Fudd and mumble through his teeth but those things disguise a WASP that stings. It’s uncanny how effective he can be, Like Bill Maher said the other night, McConnell knows how to get Obama to bend over and pull his pants down. Amen, brother!
The Super Committee to be formed in a few months is ready made for a stalemate, with six Republicans members who’ll be uniformly against tax increases and six Democrats who will be there to protect entitlements, which means the fierce in-fighting will be fierce and unforgiving, on both sides, but especially with the Republicans with their rigid backbone. If they can’t come to a resolution the deal is they will revert to automatic cuts which will threated the discretionary spending in domestic programs the Demos hold dear and the Republicans will sweat cuts in the defense Budget. And then there is the election, not to mention Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New years while all this bickering will be going on. Should be fun.
Welcome to bedlam!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Soft-Boiled Eggs vs. Hard-Boiled Eggs
2011_7_11 Soft Boiled vs. Hard Boiled
Agatha Christie is probably the best known and most popular Mystery writer of the Anglo Saxon world in the 20th Century. I don’t think there is much dispute about that. She is Queen of the Genre in that taste sphere.
But her stories, so utterly dependent on a fixed formula, have never appealed to me. I see them as Victorian parlor games, not serious or believable crime fiction. For someone who reads and admires Raymond Chandler, James Cain, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, and of late, Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, one has to smile indulgently at Christie’s work. To think that Jane Marple, a sweet little old lady, could outfox both the killers and the police, well, if you believe that you probably still believe if Fairies, too. Her stories are such bald contrivances and filled with such British stereotypes from the War years I find it impossible to take them seriously. If you like soft-boiled eggs, this is your author.
Now it is true that all mystery novels are puzzles to one degree or another, but Christie’s stories are nothing but a puzzle to be solved and otherwise short on reality. They may be cute and clever within their time period, but hard-boiled fiction is vastly more popular today. Today’s fictional sleuths are more procedurally orientated, more tough-minded, cynical, and gritty, and often they can be damaged goods, like Kurt Wallander and Dave Robicheaux. We seemed to have more respect and liking for the PI or Detective who stalks our ‘Mean Streets’ and occasionally is capable of being a ‘Dirty Harry’ in order to get the bad guys. It’s more a rough trade than a genteel pastime. Harry Bosch can be scary at times, but once he gets a scent he’s relentless. In Mankell’s THE MAN FROM BEJING it opens with the slaughter of 17 elderly Swedes. The murder scene is am orgy of blood and detached limbs. Both Hercules Poirot and Miss Jane Marple would barf at such a scene. It would take more then what they had to offer. The world as we know it is a very violent place and murder as a parlor game no longer does the job. Our sense of reality demands more. The unbelievable success of THE MILLINIUM TRILOGY points to crime novels as more sociological and political commentaries. There seems to be developing a greater appetite for broader subject matter in a crime novel, which was certainly the case with Dostoevsky’s best work. There is also a craving for a studier individualism that can stand up to oppressive Security Services. LizBeth Salander is Wonder Woman for the 21st century. Her creation was one of Larsson’s boldest inventions. Her antics and immoveable resistance to older men who wanted to do her harm thrilled me.
All this is but a prelude to some remarks I would make about a 2004 biopic I saw about Agatha Christie last Saturday night. Olivia Williams plays Christie in her youth and Anna Massey plays her as an old woman. Massy shows up at the beginning and end of the film. When older she is shy, reserved and doesn’t like interviews. The middle section of the film deals with the great mystery of her middle years: her strange disappearance for 11 days. Local authorities had search parties out day after day. People volunteered to help with the search. Newspapers covered the story every day and reporters hounded Christie’s husband, Archie. One thing he did not mention to the police or the reporters was the day she disappeared was the day he had asks her for a divorce. This is what happened: she had thrown some clothes in a suitcase and driven off in the family car, when she had a minor accident with the car, banging her head against the steering wheel. That blow plus the emotional trauma of the pending divorce was too much for her; she slipped into a dissociative state, with amnesia and completely forgetting whom she was. She ended up in a hotel in a nearby town where she stayed for the duration, until a chambermaid recognized her and called a reporter. When her husband showed up to take her home she did not recognize him, which prompted him to find a psychologist to work with her. There are many scenes in the movie with her working with the doctor, who gradually, step by tiny step, brings her back to herself. Slowly the trauma recedes and she considers writing again and at 38 marries again, an archeologist she had met named Max Mallowan, someone she had worked with on a dig in the Middle East. She had a more professional attitude about her writing afterward, and by professional she meant she was quite conscious of how much money she could make. A good portion of it went into her husband’s work. They were married for 46 years and she wrote a total of 80 books. One a year she says in the movie but it had to be more than that unless she started as a toddler. She died in 1976 at age 85. Altogether she sold 4 billion books, in England second only to Shakespeare.
Hercule Poirot, the Belgian dandy who thinks well of himself, was featured in the first 33 books. When she tired of him she switched to the spinster Miss Jane Marple, who appears in 47 books. Late in her life she was asked why she hadn’t combined her two sleuths in one book. Keeping in mind what I said earlier about the nonsense of an elderly spinster helping the professionals on the job she said: ” Hercule Poirot, a complete egotist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster.”
Amen!
Agatha Christie is probably the best known and most popular Mystery writer of the Anglo Saxon world in the 20th Century. I don’t think there is much dispute about that. She is Queen of the Genre in that taste sphere.
But her stories, so utterly dependent on a fixed formula, have never appealed to me. I see them as Victorian parlor games, not serious or believable crime fiction. For someone who reads and admires Raymond Chandler, James Cain, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, and of late, Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, one has to smile indulgently at Christie’s work. To think that Jane Marple, a sweet little old lady, could outfox both the killers and the police, well, if you believe that you probably still believe if Fairies, too. Her stories are such bald contrivances and filled with such British stereotypes from the War years I find it impossible to take them seriously. If you like soft-boiled eggs, this is your author.
Now it is true that all mystery novels are puzzles to one degree or another, but Christie’s stories are nothing but a puzzle to be solved and otherwise short on reality. They may be cute and clever within their time period, but hard-boiled fiction is vastly more popular today. Today’s fictional sleuths are more procedurally orientated, more tough-minded, cynical, and gritty, and often they can be damaged goods, like Kurt Wallander and Dave Robicheaux. We seemed to have more respect and liking for the PI or Detective who stalks our ‘Mean Streets’ and occasionally is capable of being a ‘Dirty Harry’ in order to get the bad guys. It’s more a rough trade than a genteel pastime. Harry Bosch can be scary at times, but once he gets a scent he’s relentless. In Mankell’s THE MAN FROM BEJING it opens with the slaughter of 17 elderly Swedes. The murder scene is am orgy of blood and detached limbs. Both Hercules Poirot and Miss Jane Marple would barf at such a scene. It would take more then what they had to offer. The world as we know it is a very violent place and murder as a parlor game no longer does the job. Our sense of reality demands more. The unbelievable success of THE MILLINIUM TRILOGY points to crime novels as more sociological and political commentaries. There seems to be developing a greater appetite for broader subject matter in a crime novel, which was certainly the case with Dostoevsky’s best work. There is also a craving for a studier individualism that can stand up to oppressive Security Services. LizBeth Salander is Wonder Woman for the 21st century. Her creation was one of Larsson’s boldest inventions. Her antics and immoveable resistance to older men who wanted to do her harm thrilled me.
All this is but a prelude to some remarks I would make about a 2004 biopic I saw about Agatha Christie last Saturday night. Olivia Williams plays Christie in her youth and Anna Massey plays her as an old woman. Massy shows up at the beginning and end of the film. When older she is shy, reserved and doesn’t like interviews. The middle section of the film deals with the great mystery of her middle years: her strange disappearance for 11 days. Local authorities had search parties out day after day. People volunteered to help with the search. Newspapers covered the story every day and reporters hounded Christie’s husband, Archie. One thing he did not mention to the police or the reporters was the day she disappeared was the day he had asks her for a divorce. This is what happened: she had thrown some clothes in a suitcase and driven off in the family car, when she had a minor accident with the car, banging her head against the steering wheel. That blow plus the emotional trauma of the pending divorce was too much for her; she slipped into a dissociative state, with amnesia and completely forgetting whom she was. She ended up in a hotel in a nearby town where she stayed for the duration, until a chambermaid recognized her and called a reporter. When her husband showed up to take her home she did not recognize him, which prompted him to find a psychologist to work with her. There are many scenes in the movie with her working with the doctor, who gradually, step by tiny step, brings her back to herself. Slowly the trauma recedes and she considers writing again and at 38 marries again, an archeologist she had met named Max Mallowan, someone she had worked with on a dig in the Middle East. She had a more professional attitude about her writing afterward, and by professional she meant she was quite conscious of how much money she could make. A good portion of it went into her husband’s work. They were married for 46 years and she wrote a total of 80 books. One a year she says in the movie but it had to be more than that unless she started as a toddler. She died in 1976 at age 85. Altogether she sold 4 billion books, in England second only to Shakespeare.
Hercule Poirot, the Belgian dandy who thinks well of himself, was featured in the first 33 books. When she tired of him she switched to the spinster Miss Jane Marple, who appears in 47 books. Late in her life she was asked why she hadn’t combined her two sleuths in one book. Keeping in mind what I said earlier about the nonsense of an elderly spinster helping the professionals on the job she said: ” Hercule Poirot, a complete egotist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster.”
Amen!
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Hereafter
“Hereafter” is Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial effort, with a rather unexpected subject matter, a love story intertwined with the question of life after death. I knew going in that it was about tricky subject matter; but it wasn’t quite what you might expect or what that title might imply. Eastwood was very sly how he approached his theme; he doesn’t force any religious hokum down your throat and is more concerned with three individuals in an emotional and metaphysical crisis. His primary interest is showing the development of character. First there is George, the psychic (Matt Damon), who views his gift as more a curse than a blessing. And there is one episode in the story that demonstrates what he means. He gets involved with a woman he really likes, but when she insists he do a reading for her it ends in a disaster, for some sexual truths she didn’t want to hear were revealed. George never saw her again. Secondly, there is Marcus, a 10-year-old boy who has lost his twin brother, Jason. He runs through several pretenders and fakes who prey on the naïve and the desperate folks trying to connect with dead loved ones who left without resolution about something or other, which is driving the survivor nuts. Marcus is disconsolate over his loss, until finally he tracks down George. At first George runs from the boy but finally gives in and gives the boy a reading. Once he identifies Jason by holding Marcus’ hands, he tells the lad Jason said he couldn’t come home and Marcus is on his own now and he has to accept that. The contact provides Marcus with a closure. The third party in this triangulation is Marie, a successful anchor on a political television program in Paris. Her near-death experience happened in Thailand when the tsunami hit the coastal towns. She is swept away and when a board knocks her out she drowns or appears to drown, but two men pull her out of the water and perform CPR on her, and lo and behold she wakes up, spits out the water and survives. However, while “dead in the water” she had visions of a brightly lit but foggy otherworldly dimension that was filled with people who drift by. She is unable to return to her old political self, as she is haunted by the vision she had. Finally, she meets a psychiatrist who has collected records of others that have had similar experiences. She writes a book about them titled HEREAFTER. A confluence between George and her happens at a book fair in Paris. Marcus plays a role too in the confluence by telling George what hotel she is staying at. She is not in but he writes her a two-page note that explains his gift and background, saying they must meet. She reads the note and leaves eager to meet him. Both feel like an invisible hand has made sure they cross paths. They embrace like lovers who have finally found the proper soul mate. Their connection solves both their estrangement and isolation, and delights each for they know they are grounded in the same reality. Thus the movie ends on a very high note.
There’s one more thing I should comment on and that’s the opening sequence of the tsunami sweeping through the town off the coast. It’s entirely CGI and it is brilliantly handled, very convincing in every way, including her body underwater after she’s knocked out. Awesome is a word overused but, by god, it’s the only word that fits the scene.
There’s one more thing I should comment on and that’s the opening sequence of the tsunami sweeping through the town off the coast. It’s entirely CGI and it is brilliantly handled, very convincing in every way, including her body underwater after she’s knocked out. Awesome is a word overused but, by god, it’s the only word that fits the scene.
Deatn, the Sublime
2011_5_2 Death, the Sublime
“Departures” is a story about an ex-cello player from Tokyo, Daigo, who returns to his hometown in rural Japan, Yamagata, to start over in the house his mother left to him when she died. His wife Mika was quite willing to leave Tokyo, or at least she tells him she is. Later we learned differently. He needs employment of course, so not long after they settle in he goes to an establishment he thinks is some kind of Travel Agency called DEPARTURES. But it turns out the owner was looking for a trainee for encoffinment, a person to perform the ceremony of preparing a dead body for its “send off,” which is performed in front of the family. It is a practice that has largely disappeared from the big cities of Japan but is still alive in the rural areas. He of course is horrified at the very idea of working with dead bodies, but he needs a job quickly so he decides to take it but keep it secret from his wife, which works for a little while; but when she finds out she is repulsed by him, because he’s touched dead bodies. His employer and mentor on the job had told Daigo “You were born to do this.” He has begun to believe it. Since he refuses to look for other employment she up and leaves him, going to live with her mother.
His journey from an ex-cello player who performed in concerts to a master of enconffinment is fraught with doubts, upsets and gradual improvement in his craft, as it eventually connects with his artistic bent. The first body he cleans, a very pretty young woman, shocks him by having a penis; the second is an old women who has been dead for two weeks, which makes him retch; and in another case he gets caught in a family squabble about the victim’s death.
The owner of the business, Sasaki, a man in his fifties, befriends Diago and considered him his apprentice and brings him along slowly and patiently, being a very understanding mentor to the young man who never expected to be in this circumstance. He keeps telling Daigo he was born to preform this service. The owner isn’t a warm and fuzzy kind of guy, but he is soberly caring and affectionate in his fashion. He shares a meal with Daigo and tells him to remember “the living eat the dead.” He is obviously pleased with how his young apprentice treats the deceased, reverently, with grace, and utmost skill and sense of beauty and ritual. He will make the grade. Eventually Daigo sees himself as “the gatekeeper to the next stage.” As William Blake said as an old man, “Death is like moving to the next room.”
I loved the movie for dealing with a taboo subject, for its sensitivity, and for portraying the Japanese aesthetic sense, which permeates everything to one degree or another.
“Departures” is a story about an ex-cello player from Tokyo, Daigo, who returns to his hometown in rural Japan, Yamagata, to start over in the house his mother left to him when she died. His wife Mika was quite willing to leave Tokyo, or at least she tells him she is. Later we learned differently. He needs employment of course, so not long after they settle in he goes to an establishment he thinks is some kind of Travel Agency called DEPARTURES. But it turns out the owner was looking for a trainee for encoffinment, a person to perform the ceremony of preparing a dead body for its “send off,” which is performed in front of the family. It is a practice that has largely disappeared from the big cities of Japan but is still alive in the rural areas. He of course is horrified at the very idea of working with dead bodies, but he needs a job quickly so he decides to take it but keep it secret from his wife, which works for a little while; but when she finds out she is repulsed by him, because he’s touched dead bodies. His employer and mentor on the job had told Daigo “You were born to do this.” He has begun to believe it. Since he refuses to look for other employment she up and leaves him, going to live with her mother.
His journey from an ex-cello player who performed in concerts to a master of enconffinment is fraught with doubts, upsets and gradual improvement in his craft, as it eventually connects with his artistic bent. The first body he cleans, a very pretty young woman, shocks him by having a penis; the second is an old women who has been dead for two weeks, which makes him retch; and in another case he gets caught in a family squabble about the victim’s death.
The owner of the business, Sasaki, a man in his fifties, befriends Diago and considered him his apprentice and brings him along slowly and patiently, being a very understanding mentor to the young man who never expected to be in this circumstance. He keeps telling Daigo he was born to preform this service. The owner isn’t a warm and fuzzy kind of guy, but he is soberly caring and affectionate in his fashion. He shares a meal with Daigo and tells him to remember “the living eat the dead.” He is obviously pleased with how his young apprentice treats the deceased, reverently, with grace, and utmost skill and sense of beauty and ritual. He will make the grade. Eventually Daigo sees himself as “the gatekeeper to the next stage.” As William Blake said as an old man, “Death is like moving to the next room.”
I loved the movie for dealing with a taboo subject, for its sensitivity, and for portraying the Japanese aesthetic sense, which permeates everything to one degree or another.
To Kill or Be Killed
2011_6_06 Kill or Be Killed
One of the great features of NETFLIX is it helps you catch up on films you missed when they were first released. “Descending Angel” was a HBO film that was released in 1990. I have no recollection of it at all, even though it stars George C. Scott and Diane Lane, a very lovely actress. I decided to order it to check it out and I am sure glad I did but for reasons I hadn’t anticipated. It was a story that looked back at the Second World War, and it reminded me of the novel by Jonathan Littell, THE KINDLY ONES, especially the opening chapter called “Tocata,” where a justification of the Holocaust was offered by an ex-Nazi, a German Officer, who managed to blend end with population at the end of the war. The main character of “Descending Angel,” Florian Strola (George C. Scott) who made it to the U.S. after the war, becoming a very successful antique dealer, was a Romanian Nazi collaborator and a now a prominent member of the local Romanian community. He has successfully covered up his past, just like the German officer of the novel, to the degree even his adult daughter, Irina (Diane Lane), knows nothing about it, seeing him as a survivor of Buchenwald, and that’s all, which was the story he has spun to cover his tracks. But trouble comes in the form of Michael Rossi (Eric Roberts), a young man Irina has fallen in love with and who she brings home to meet her father, hoping to get his blessing. The two men do not hit it off. He then meets a bitter survivor of the camps who witnessed the truth about Florian and his Iron Guard: he actually participated in the slaughter of local Jews. The Bishop at Florian’s church opens a file in the basement of the church and let’s Rossi read it; it further implicates Florian. When Rossi finds out the truth of Florian’s background he confronts the older man who explains what he did this way: “ Things were different then. I was in a world where there were only two kinds of people, those who killed and those who were killed. You have to understand that!” But Rossi finds the old man’s attitude a moral outrage; he has no patience with the old man, as such a rationalization turns his stomach. But it is exactly the explanation offered by the German Officer, albeit with more detail and shrewdness. When I first read the justification, which was so thoroughgoing and stated with such certainty, I was blown away by it. How could the human mind be so morally wayward as to accept the conditions of the Holocaust?
For the sake of comparison with Florian here is a portion of his explanation of why he did what he did.
“What I did, I did with my eyes wide open, believing that it was my duty and that it had to be done, disagreeable or unpleasant as it may be. For that is what total war means: there is no such thing as a civilian, and the only difference between the Jewish child gassed or shot and a German child burned alive in an air raid is one of method; both deaths were equally vain, neither of them shortened the war by as much as a second; but in both cases, the man or men who killed them believed it was just and necessary; and if they were wrong, who’s to blame...I do not regret anything; I did my work, that’s all…I probably did go little far too far toward the end, but by that point I was no longer entirely myself, I was off-balance, and anyhow the whole world was toppling around me. I wasn’t the only one who lost his head…”
And like Florian, the German Officer became respectable, married, had a family and became a successful businessman in, of all things, lace manufacturing.
The rest of “Descending Angel” was rather predictable, with Florian paying a heavy price for his big lie. But the main point of the movie for me was the monstrous justification both characters offer for their actions during the war. Yet, I would not like to be caught up in a similar circumstance. How do I know for an absolute certainty that is a killer isn’t hidden inside me? I don’t. We all have to recognize this as a possibility.
One of the great features of NETFLIX is it helps you catch up on films you missed when they were first released. “Descending Angel” was a HBO film that was released in 1990. I have no recollection of it at all, even though it stars George C. Scott and Diane Lane, a very lovely actress. I decided to order it to check it out and I am sure glad I did but for reasons I hadn’t anticipated. It was a story that looked back at the Second World War, and it reminded me of the novel by Jonathan Littell, THE KINDLY ONES, especially the opening chapter called “Tocata,” where a justification of the Holocaust was offered by an ex-Nazi, a German Officer, who managed to blend end with population at the end of the war. The main character of “Descending Angel,” Florian Strola (George C. Scott) who made it to the U.S. after the war, becoming a very successful antique dealer, was a Romanian Nazi collaborator and a now a prominent member of the local Romanian community. He has successfully covered up his past, just like the German officer of the novel, to the degree even his adult daughter, Irina (Diane Lane), knows nothing about it, seeing him as a survivor of Buchenwald, and that’s all, which was the story he has spun to cover his tracks. But trouble comes in the form of Michael Rossi (Eric Roberts), a young man Irina has fallen in love with and who she brings home to meet her father, hoping to get his blessing. The two men do not hit it off. He then meets a bitter survivor of the camps who witnessed the truth about Florian and his Iron Guard: he actually participated in the slaughter of local Jews. The Bishop at Florian’s church opens a file in the basement of the church and let’s Rossi read it; it further implicates Florian. When Rossi finds out the truth of Florian’s background he confronts the older man who explains what he did this way: “ Things were different then. I was in a world where there were only two kinds of people, those who killed and those who were killed. You have to understand that!” But Rossi finds the old man’s attitude a moral outrage; he has no patience with the old man, as such a rationalization turns his stomach. But it is exactly the explanation offered by the German Officer, albeit with more detail and shrewdness. When I first read the justification, which was so thoroughgoing and stated with such certainty, I was blown away by it. How could the human mind be so morally wayward as to accept the conditions of the Holocaust?
For the sake of comparison with Florian here is a portion of his explanation of why he did what he did.
“What I did, I did with my eyes wide open, believing that it was my duty and that it had to be done, disagreeable or unpleasant as it may be. For that is what total war means: there is no such thing as a civilian, and the only difference between the Jewish child gassed or shot and a German child burned alive in an air raid is one of method; both deaths were equally vain, neither of them shortened the war by as much as a second; but in both cases, the man or men who killed them believed it was just and necessary; and if they were wrong, who’s to blame...I do not regret anything; I did my work, that’s all…I probably did go little far too far toward the end, but by that point I was no longer entirely myself, I was off-balance, and anyhow the whole world was toppling around me. I wasn’t the only one who lost his head…”
And like Florian, the German Officer became respectable, married, had a family and became a successful businessman in, of all things, lace manufacturing.
The rest of “Descending Angel” was rather predictable, with Florian paying a heavy price for his big lie. But the main point of the movie for me was the monstrous justification both characters offer for their actions during the war. Yet, I would not like to be caught up in a similar circumstance. How do I know for an absolute certainty that is a killer isn’t hidden inside me? I don’t. We all have to recognize this as a possibility.
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