Why Bush is appointing Henry Kissinger, of all people, to head the 9/11 probe is totally beyond me. Doesn't he know that Kissinger is thought of as a war criminal in certain quarters?
I had always wanted to use this in my book, but didn't; perhaps I will in the future, if I ever get my pensionados at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition article published...
From Mary H. Fee's A Woman's Impressions of the Philippines (Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1912), pp. 93-94:
I had a friend, a young Filipino girl, who has been one of the most diligent among the pupils of the American schools. ...My publisher sent me a copy of a primer intended for use in the Philippines.... The publisher had spared no expense in his illustrations, and we were tremendously proud of the artistic side of the book. This Filipino girl had heard me use the expression "poor white trash"... When I took my book to her in the joy of an author in her first complete production, she looked at it a minute and burst into tears. "Poor Filipino trash!" was all she could say for a long time, and I finally pieced it out that she was enraged because the Filipino boys and girls in my book were sometimes barefooted, sometimes clad in chinelas, and wore native camisas instead of American suits and dresses. I pointed out to her that not one Filipino child in a hundred dresses otherwise, but my argument was of no avail. The children in the American readers wore natty jackets and hats and high-heeled shoes, and winter wraps... and she wanted the Filipino children to look the same.
Been swamped with work lately, so I haven't had much time to post -- but here's a link to Playtarot -- not as cool as Joe Rosales's Hello Tarot, but The Chariot looks great.
This was supposed to appear in a forthcoming issue of a magazine that will remain nameless -- I wrote the review in an hour and I still have not seen payment, or the magazine, or the bootleg CD that was promised me.
So here it is.
Chronicles of Doubts Foretold
She’s gone solo, been screwed over by her record company, gotten married (to singer and songwriter Michael Penn, which makes her Sean and Chris’s sister-in-law), and had a film essentially built around her songs (Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia), but in many ways Aimee Mann has not really changed all that much from her spiky-haired days as the lead singer of ‘80s band ‘Til Tuesday. (Remember the video for “Voices Carry,” where, despite the injunctions to “hush” and “keep it down,” she starts yelling in a crowded theater full of tuxedoed operagoers?) The same weary bitterness, a touch of rebelliousness, and her affinity for catchy pop melodies are still very much in evidence on her latest album,Lost in Space (SuperEgo).
In a very general sense, Mann’s songs are about relationships. But popular music has always had a curiously poor vocabulary when it comes to describing them, with the usual songs in giddy celebration of lust or love, or ballads mourning (or cursing) a separation. The songs on this album, in contrast, are chronicles of deaths and doubts foretold, of the moment when the relationship is on the verge of unraveling, or (as she writes in “This Is How It Goes”) “one more failure to connect.” The first track on the album, “Humpty Dumpty,” already strikes a grim tone: “Say you were split, you were split in fragments / And none of the pieces would talk to you.” Her lyrics inhabit the space between people as they sit across from each other silently at dinner, or as they lie awake in bed in the middle of the night, wondering about the person lying next to them. This is Mann’s true gift: her imprecise, sometimes maddeningly oblique lyrics give shape and detail to the unspoken, messy, irrational complexity of human, and yes, adult, relationships. “Oh I could get specific,” she writes in “Invisible Ink,” “but nobody needs a catalog / With details of a love I can’t sell anyone.” And so, because of this vagueness, it’s about everyone and anyone. Now do you know why all the characters in Magnolia get to sing “Wise Up?”
She does not take any stylistic leaps on this album – no useless forays into electronica, thank goodness – for she does not need to; her lyrics already tell the tale. The songs all fall in her usual midtempo range, and are lovingly arranged (even without the presence of her former collaborator, Jon Brion), with a touch of harmonium here and a minimoog there. Michael Lockwood’s guitar is all over the place here, though he has no soaring solos like the one on “Deathly,” from her previous album Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo. (One must also take note of the gorgeous art and design by Seth, writer and artist of the Drawn and Quarterly comic book Palookaville; his tales of hand-wringing desperation and the ache of solitary lives go well with Mann’s songs.)
Aimee Mann is in fine, refreshing form on Lost in Space, though it is clear that her feet are planted firmly on the ground.
Why Reuters couldn't mention that the "international hamburger chain outlet" involved in the disgusting incident was (apparently) a McDonald's is unclear -- worry that the fast-food conglomerate would sue for libel? At least the seat "would be warm and pleasant to sit on."
Ah, the joys of grading. Two quizzes to go and I'm actually distracted enough to post. After a disheartening array of 4 over 20s and 6 over 20s -- for an announced quiz! -- I have my music to relieve the tedium: in this case, Merzbow's lovely Space Metalizer album. I won't attempt to write a review, unlike these folks tripping all over their words (with hilarious results) at Land of a Thousand Dances, and Stylus Magazine trying to review the massive Merzbox (along with Jim Haynes from my favorite record store in the world). I mean, there aren't enough synonyms for "scree," "squelch," "white noise," and "watery electric gurgles," are there?
Some fractured poetry for you on John Zorn (again), from Googlism:
john zorn is a composer and saxaphone player who lives and performs primarily in new
john zorn is uncredited for playing the solo on love is a fist
john zorn is probably not a zionist
john zorn is a true music maverick
john zorn is a sort of enigma to most people
john zorn is performing fast paced
john zorn is the undisputed king of the downtown new york art
john zorn is involved in many different projects and each has it's own unique way of threatening your ears
john zorn is a jazz composer and sax player of extremes
john zorn is going to run out of obscure
john zorn is not above writing hooks
john zorn is certainly one of our favorite modern composers
john zorn is making such a statement at all
john zorn is surely one of the most singular
john zorn is quite a character
john zorn is a genius
john zorn is often considered one of the more vital and influential figures in 20th century music
john zorn is one of those guys who saps a lot of energy from you
john zorn is the curator of tonic
john zorn is heading with weird little boy
john zorn is a brilliant and varied composer/arranger
john zorn is iao waarop oa bill laswell en mike patton
john zorn is many things
john zorn is one of my favourite musicians
john zorn is known for
john zorn is a composer
john zorn is op zijn beurt een inspiratiebron voor een jongere generatie musici zoals zeena parkins
john zorn is the man
john zorn is an american composer and saxophone player with innumerable releases of solo work
john zorn is probably too busy touring and recording to actually perform all of the nasty stuff on his record covers himself
john zorn is still present
john zorn is likely the most prominent figure of the alternative scene in the world
john zorn is a jazz man avant jazz label
john zorn is the only musician i've ever considered suing
john zorn is not that he depends too much on the mundane
john zorn is a incredible musician and composer
john zorn is a very dedicated musician
john zorn is a whole world
john zorn is
john zorn is featured on the plr> upcoming new arto lindsay record
john zorn is deconstructing the music of burt bacharach 'it' is totally different from luciano berio deconstructing schubert or gerd zacher deconstructing
john zorn is a jazz saxophonist who does a lot of avant garde stuff
john zorn is bound to be entrenched in some variety of avant
john zorn is featured in that album as well as drummer jojo mayer
john zorn is home to some truly inspired new music
john zorn is right
john zorn is dan weer een fantastisch free jazzmuzikant
john zorn is your daddy
john zorn is at tonic? when run dmc reunites?
john zorn is a `avant garde' musician/composer and cobra is a war game
john zorn is bringing in his new
john zorn is the reason i started playing the saxophone
john zorn is the eclectic composer and alto saxophonist who founded the radical jewish music movement
john zorn is heard in the right channel
john zorn is available on cd as filmworks vi 1996
john zorn is amazing
john zorn is an extremely outspoken
john zorn is a hero the guy gets ripped apart by reviewers and keeps going
john zorn is the most exciting sax player / producer
john zorn is weird
john zorn is a very serious musician
john zorn is een politieke achtergrond evenmin afwezig
john zorn is a mogwai fan
john zorn is god
john zorn is undeniable
john zorn is a new york jazz saxophonist and naked city and pain killer are bands he has formed with hardcore noise blokes
john zorn is one of my heroes
My John Zorn quote of the week, as seen in The Georgia Straight:
I'm influenced by everything that I look at. It could be a turd on the street. You never know.
And my other (paraphrased) John Zorn quote of the week, allegedly said to someone talking in the audience of an Electric Masada concert in Seattle over the weekend (as reported to the Zorn List):
Well, keep your big fat fucking mouth shut asshole, we are up here trying to concentrate on some music here, fuck! Goddamn what an idiot...
This, of course, from the man who told Madeleine Albright and Vaclav Havel (and I think Lou Reed was in the audience too) to "shut the fuck up."
David Lynch's latest mindscramble of a movie, "Lost Highway," starts off quite unlike the rest of the film: there's a jittery shot of headlights zooming into the darkness of a two-lane blacktop, while an equally twitchy jungle-ified David Bowie sings on the soundtrack. Then the film switches into negative gear for its brilliant first half, an exploration of light and shadow and the chill of domesticity. Bill Pullman is the musician, Patricia Arquette is his wife, and someone's been inside their house; at least the videotapes, which keep popping up on their doorstep every morning with the paper, say so. But it's the visual and aural style that's the showcase here: a barely audible hum fills the gaping silences (there's hardly any dialogue), so much that a whisper sounds like a scream. The hallway in the couple's Southern California home is a literal black hole, absent of light, into which Pullman disappears. (And you thought "Seven" was barely lit.) Everything, including their sex, is performed in this "2001"-like somnolent state -- a perfect metaphor for the sleepwalking in their relationship.
Then "Lost Highway" makes a dreadfully wrong turn into real fucked-up shit territory; too bad Lynch had to pick a hackneyed noir subplot to carry it. And all of it replete with Lynch's trademark barely-disguised misogyny, to boot. Pullman, who by the middle of the movie has somehow been convicted of Arquette's murder, suddenly transforms into Balthazar Getty; Arquette then reappears with a blond wig, playing a gangster's moll. (Another transformation occurs near the end, but by that point it's clear that the audience really isn't supposed to figure anything out.) Suffice it to say that we've also seen this before explored better in "Blue Velvet," except that it's all open to more wild-eyed interpretation: is it all a dream? A meditation on reality and memory? A psychotic fugue? No matter. "Lost Highway" is a great half-baked film.
"Donnie Brasco" is a tragedy, and the opening credits alone tell us this: the keening violins, the somber blank-and white photography, the close-up of Al Pacino's eyes. It's a far cry from films like "Pulp Fiction," which mined similar territory by focusing on a gang of criminal lowlifes. But one of the funnier scenes in Mike Newell's excellent film comes just after a particularly brutal beating, Scorsese-style (people kicking someone on the ground, just like De Niro always does): we see Pacino trying to hammer a parking meter open, trying to get at the quarters. But they're not just a bunch of amateur robbers; they're part of the Mob, after all, which means we get to kick around meatier themes like honesty and betrayal and honor, et cetera. (I guess Newell did explore similar themes in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," but I'm moving off track here.)
Which brings us to the movie title: "Donnie Brasco" is the alias of undercover FBI agent Joseph Pistone, played with such clenched-jaw determination by Johnny Depp that it's easy to forget he was once just the baby-faced cop on TV's "21 Jump Street." (In this film he reminds the viewer that his acting abilities long outstripped such similar pretty boys as Brad Pitt and Ethan Hawke.) Pacino plays Lefty Ruggiero, one of the film's middle-aged losers, who unknowingly takes Brasco under his wiseguy wing. The audience knows, of course, that the son would have to betray the father, and it's this tension, along with Brasco's inner torment, the close attention to garish ‘70s detail and a fully fleshed-out subplot about the Pistone family, which fuels the screenplay, written by Paul Attanasio, creator of "Homicide: Life on the Streets". (There are two other "Homicide" regulars in "Donnie Brasco.") There's a lot of visual humor, too, suffusing the scenes when the gang flies down to Florida, and behave (and dress) badly.
My friend Madeline has this theory about Al Pacino: that he tends to overact when his fellow cast members are bad actors. Case in point: Chris O'Donnell in the awful "Scent of a Woman." But this time Pacino gives a marvelously understated performance -- one of his best -- instead of booming out his lines. Not a single "hoohah" uttered, folks. And he gets bonus points, too, for actually daring to wear an ugly red warm-up suit.
One may not agree with Clint Eastwood's politics, but he could have at least entertained me with "Absolute Power." Despite its being a gleefully anti-liberal tract, "Dirty Harry" still kept me rooting for Clint's wronged cop who has no choice but to go outside the law. In "Absolute Power," he's still looking in; he plays a master thief who breaks into a mansion only to be witness to a crime committed by the philandering President of the United States (Gene Hackman). Somehow the Chief of Staff (Judy Davis) is on the premises and starts a coverup, leaving Clint as the unreliable whistle-blower.
It should have all worked, despite the ludicrous screenplay written by a disappointing William Goldman: the cast, for starters, also includes Ed Harris as the investigator and Laura Linney as the thief's daughter. Given this, it's difficult to see why the film became such an absolute waste of talent. But no one seemed to be having fun, and neither was I; the supposedly nailbiting scenes (the public rendezvous, surrounded by assassins; the murder attempt at the hospital -- sound familiar?) had a tired feel to them, as if the filmmakers knew we had seen them before in countless other flicks and couldn't be bothered to add a little spice. For all his supposed absolute power, Hackman isn't given much material to strut his stuff with, and he remains an unconvincing opponent. Given all the plot's numerous cliches, Eastwood could have at least let all his cast members chew a bit of the scenery, but no such luck. Much of the film can be distilled to a scene early on as Eastwood witnesses the crime: the camera focuses on his great, craggy face, and throughout the whole scene, his eyebrows knot -- just once -- and he remains impassive, as does the rest of the film. Perhaps Eastwood thought his wrinkles alone could carry the movie, but no.
Courtesy of Blogcritics comes a link to The Erotic Earth, a series of photographs of -- well, rock formations that look like buttocks, penises, testicles, sphincters, vaginas and nipples. Kind of like the porn version of the Fortean Times Simulacra Gallery.
I do like her answer to Frequently Asked Question #24:
Who collects Earth Erotica and where do they display it?
As she writes: "Earth Erotica has been purchased by interior decorators for model homes..." (I have to say the model home would look like one of those mirrored love dens from Bill Owens's Suburbia series.)
And later: "Parents use the images to talk about sex with their children." Huh? Like, "Dad, what is that $700 20x30 photograph of a rock formation doing in your bedroom?" "It's a sphincter, son. [Pause.] Son, I think it's time we had a little talk."
And finally my favorite image of all. I'm left speechless.
Good lord. I was looking for reviews of Japanese noise artist Merzbow's Oersted on Amazon.com when their much-vaunted Apparel and Accessories page -- plugged in different banners and tabs and music product details themselves -- spat out this particular gem:
Customers who shopped for this item also wear:
* Clean Underwear from Amazon's Eddie Bauer Store
* Ladybug Rain Boots from Amazon's Nordstrom Store
* Suede Headwraps from Amazon's International Male Store
* Cheetah Print Slippers from Amazon's Old Navy Store
Merzbow listeners wear ladybug rain boots???
Wow -- my favorite film of all time, the magnificent, drug-addled, seriously flawed masterpiece by Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now, was just selected by Sight and Sound Magazine as the greatest film of the last quarter century.
Coppola expounds on the usual themes (and cinematic truisms about the Vietnam War that we all take for granted now) -- that in war lies madness, that this was the first rock-and-roll war, etc. -- but delivers the message with such uncontained, sprawling, self-indulgent ambition that keeps one totally riveted. (Who can forget the hallucinatory opening with The Doors' "The End" and the fiery wall of napalm and the frightening swish of the helicopter blades and a broken-down, liquored-up Martin Sheen? Or the frightening thrill during the helicopter/Valkyries ride?) The fact that the film itself was made as an act of sheer colonial hubris adds another fascinating layer to the movie.
The film is, of course, seriously flawed in that it is not really about the Vietnam War -- there are, after all, hardly any Vietnamese in it, as if already erased, Hegel-like, from the face of the earth, never to be discussed again -- but Coppola at least makes the daring (for a mainstream director) and necessary connection between the war in Southeast Asia and colonialism. (But perhaps he is right, as it really was "the American War" in Vietnam.)
(Unfortunately, the parallels between "Apocalypse Now" and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness end there, as the lamentable director's cut showed; the tedious dinner scene with the French stragglers showed that Coppola didn't get it either.)
Of course, what has always interested me as well is that the film was made in my home province of Laguna, and the fake Angkor Wat-like constructions in Kurtz's compound are still standing in one of the resorts. (I've always wanted to write a paper about the Philippines as a stand-in for various banana republics, or for Vietnam...)
Forwarded from an old classmate -- I'm sure this is copyrighted somewhere, but here goes:
This story happened about a month ago in a little town in Mexico, and even if it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock tale, it's real.
This guy was on the side of the road hitchhiking on a very dark night and in the middle of a storm. The night was rolling and no car went by; the storm was so strong he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him.
Suddenly he sees a car coming towards him and stop.
The guy, without thinking about it, gets in the car and closes the door -- just to realize there's nobody behind the wheel. The car starts slowly, the guy looks at the road and sees a curve coming his way. Scared, he starts to pray, begging for his life. He hasn't come out of his shock when, just before he hits the curve, a hand appears through the window and moves the wheel.
The guy, paralyzed in terror, watches how the hand appears every time they are before a curve. The guy, gathering strength, gets out of the car and runs to the nearest town.
Wet and in shock, he goes to a cantina and asks for two shots of tequila, and starts telling everybody about the horrible experience he went through. A silence enveloped everybody when they realize the guy is crying and wasn't drunk.
About half an hour later two guys walked in the same cantina and one said to the other, "Look, Pepe, that's the idiot that got in the car when we were pushing it."
Ari's entry on Resil Mojares's wonderful-sounding new book -- which he selects as pu-pu platter's first Book of the Month (if you were an online store, you'd be giving us all a discount!) -- raises the question of why it is that a Philippine university press book costs so much money. It's a puzzle indeed -- obviously the paperbacks wouldn't cost $25 in Manila, or otherwise UP professors won't even be able to afford them (certainly not on UP salary). For instance, my good friend Jojo Abinales's book Making Mindanao costs 285 pesos at National Book Stores all over the Philippines, but is marked up to a whopping $24 by the University of Hawaii Press, not including shipping and handling! (My book, Displaying Filipinos, costs about P200 pesos in Manila, but routinely sells for about $20 -- if you can find it -- in the United States.)
I can only assume that the markup comes from shipping and handling, plus various taxes and whatnot? Still, I am all for more money going to Philippine presses, though this looks like a slightly sneaky way of doing it.
# Gucci dress (white): $1,595
# Marc Jacobs thermal top: $760
# Yves Saint Laurent blouse: $750
# Natori handbag: $540
# Dolce & Gabbana handbag: $525
# Eric Javitz hat: $350
# Eric Javitz hat: $225
# Rhinestone hair band (black): $140
# Rhinestone ponytail holder (black): $120
# Rhinestone hairclip (black): $110
# Rhinestone hair bow (black): $110
# Cashmere blend socks (beige): $80
# Beaded purse, two (black): $55 each
# Saks socks, two pair (cream): $38 each
# Donna Karan socks, one pair (brown): $20
# Calvin Klein socks, two pair (gray): $16.50 each
# Calvin Klein socks, one pair (purple): $16.50
You probably already know whose shopping bag these items were found in.