Home » 2024 » March (Page 2)

Monthly Archives: March 2024

Floating Weeds

Posted on by

Rieko Yagumo and Yoshiko Tsubouchi in Story of Floating Weeds (1934)

Over the last two days, I have had the good fortune to see two great films by Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, one the remake of the other. Although the technology to make sound films existed in Japan, Ozu deliberately made only silent films until 1936.

His A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) is about a traveling Kabuki player troupe that visits a small town. On a previous visit to that same town, the head of the troupe, played by Takashi Sakamoto, had an affair with a local woman who ran a small restaurant/bar and had a son by her. In the intervening years, he sent money for his education and begged the mother to say that he was the boy’s uncle instead of his “deceased” father.

Sakamoto loves spending time with his son, and that arouses the envy of Rieko Yagumo, his mistress on the road. She bribes her fellow actress Yoshiko Tsubouchi to seduce the boy, but they fall in love with each other. Furious, Sakamoto dissolves the acting troupe.

Like all of his films, A Story of Floating Weeds shows a group of people at odds with one another coming together in the end with an enhanced respect and gentleness.

It is no surprise that Ozu remade the film in 1959 as Floating Weeds. It is the same basic story, but with sound and color.

The Same Two Roles a Quarter Century Later

I actually prefer the original silent 1934 version. It was a better story and had better actors (even though the 1959 version had Machiko Kyo in the role of the mistress in the troupe). It was so good, in fact, that I plan to buy the recent Criterion release of both versions on DVD.

Yasujiro Ozu was one of the five or ten greatest film directors who ever lived. Over the years, I have seen over a dozen of his films, and there was not a clinker in the bunch. Even John Ford, Jean Renoir, and Carl Dreyer made some stinkers. But not Ozu. The world lost a magnificent artist when he died in Tokyo in 1963. I plan on discussing his film style in a later post this week.

The Mobs of St. Pat’s

Posted on by

Robert Burns had it right when he wrote his poem “To a Mouse”:

 But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
          Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
          For promis’d joy!

Today was St. Patrick’s day, supposedly a low-key holiday. Martine and I had a sudden yearning for corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes, so we decided to go to the Original Farmers’ Market at 3rd Street and Fairfax. We did not anticipate any hitches. More fool us!

It started with the trip to the restaurant we had picked, Magee’s, which was founded in 1917. We took the 10 Freeway to the Fairfax exit and slowly worked our way through heavy traffic which wiped out any advantage to taking the freeway.

Then, at the Farmers’ Market, there was a huge mob scene at Magee’s, with a long line waiting a place an order and an even longer line waiting for pickup. Most of the crowd were decked in various shades of green, while Martine and I were not. After waiting for the line to inch forward, we made the one good decision of the day, which was to get our corned beef and cabbage at DuPar’s.

There wasn’t even a big line at DuPar’s, which was strange as I think it is a better restaurant. Maybe it doesn’t sound Irish enough. In any case, we had a delicious meal.

If that was all that happened, I would have counted it as a good day. But then there was the trip home. Apparently, today was the day of the Los Angeles Marathon. Every year around this time, they take over the streets in a crescent-shaped swath from downtown to Santa Monica, forcing traffic from normally busy streets onto such parallel roads as Sunset, Olympic, and Pico. I had decided to take LaCienega to Olympic and head due west.

With me were thousands of other motorists. Inching forward and madly changing lanes every few feet. It took us an hour to get home. I did not entertain any kind wishes toward the marathoners. In fact, I was on the edge of cursing them with an old Hungarian anathema. Wisely, I refrained. They didn’t know I was going to venture into their bailiwick for corned beef and cabbage.

Sanctuary

Posted on by

Immigration: Becoming More of an Issue As Time Passes

When it comes to immigration, the United States has been lucky. That is mostly because most of the migrants to our country were not at odds with our civilization. I think of the problems with Pakistanis in Britain and Burmese Rohingya in Thailand, and I see the American prejudice against Mexicans and Central Americans as solvable over time. We were just plain lucky that the peoples of the North and South American continents are not substantially different from us, and that we are separated from Europe, Africa, and Asia by two large and formidable oceans.

Within historic times, there have been long periods of migration that contributed to the destruction of the Western Roman Empire. On my bookshelves is an eight-volume study by Thomas Hodgkin entitled The Barbarian Invasions of the Roman Empire. They tell a long tale of ravages wrought by the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Huns, Vandals, Lombards, and Franks. They are not the only reason for the fall of Rome, but they certainly contributed.

We may soon be seeing hordes of migrants that dwarf anything from the past. The reasons for this are two-fold:

  • Because of the acceleration of climate change, many island, equatorial, and desert regions are becoming uninhabitable
  • More and more countries are turning into failed states, the worst being Somalia, Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Syria, Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras, Mali, Libya, Albania, and DR Congo

In the years to come, the United States will be sen more and more as a sanctuary from the world’s climatic and political ills, even though we see ourselves as having climatic and political ills aplenty. It will be like the migrants of over a century ago who thought the streets of America were paved with gold. Even when they were not.

I don’t think that building a wall along our southern border will accomplish much: the Mexican cartels have discovered that fences could be climbed over or tunneled under. They are now in charge of the coyotes guiding most migrants over the border. In the end, controlling access to the border will probably be more profitable for them than smuggling drugs ever was.

Will the oceans still protect us when the pressure to migrate grows tenfold? I think not. Even now, many migrants crossing over from Mexico are from China and Africa.

What a Coincidence!

Posted on by

I’m Sure Orange Jesus Knew This

I was watching the National Geographic Channel last night when suddenly I sat bolt upright. On her show entitled “Trafficked,” Mariana van Zeller investigates a man who flew to Mozambique to claim an inheritance, only to find himself in jail for attempting to travel with heroin in his luggage—heroin disguised as candy that was given to him by a man from South Africa to give to someone in Nigeria.

Nigeria? Oh oh! Can anything legitimate have anything to do with Nigeria? Apparently, there is a term in Nigerian Pidgin describing the types who are so imprudent as to turn up in Africa for their “inheritance”: that term is maga, which means “easily fooled idiot.” On the show, Van Zeller interviews a masked Nigerian baddy (no doubt a Prince) who points out that the man imprisoned in Mozambique is nothing more than a maga for actually showing up to claim his non-existent inheritance.

Ha ha, it is to laugh!

So when all those flyover country chuckleheads show up at Trump rallies wearing their MAGA hats, is it merely a case of self-identification? “I’m an easily fooled idiot. Lie to me!”

Bumpf

Posted on by

Giving a Boost to the Classics

According to the Oxford dictionaries, bumpf is defined as “written information, especially advertisements, official documents, forms, etc., that seem boring or unnecessary.” That certainly seems to be the case in Amazon Kindle’s store, where one can find the following “titles”:

  • Casino Girl: A Totally Addictive Crime Thriller
  • The Good Husband: A Totally Gripping and Heart-Pounding Thriller Novel for 2024
  • The Orphan’s Homecoming: Experience the Heart-Wrenching Tale of Love and Loss in 20924 with This Gripping … [the rest is missing]
  • A Guilty Secret: The New Twisty, Gripping Psychological Thriller About Friendship and Lies from the … [the rest is missing]

It seems that some of these titles just needed a little help. I think that Jeff Bezos could probably make more money by applying the same principle to literary classics:

  • Romeo & Juliet: Hot Twisty Teenage Love Capped by a Double Suicide
  • Finnegan’s Wake: A Commodious Vicus of Forbidden Love and Obscure Wordplay
  • Pride & Prejudice: She Gave Herself to Her Lover and Somehow Maintained Her Purity
  • Don Quixote: Why Was Dulcinea Shunted Off to the Sidelines?
  • Moby Dick: The White Whale Took a Big Bite Out of His … [the rest is missing]

Let’s face it: People would read more if what we learned from Madison Avenue were put to good use.

Jack Sprat

Posted on by

Hatch Chiles Being Roasted on a Grill

You have no doubt heard the old nursery rhyme:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean.
And so between them both, you see,
They licked the platter clean.

Martine and I are similarly a study in contrasts. She’s a Republican; I’m an independent Libtard. She has irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), so she pretty much cannot eat anything that has a vowel in its name. I, on the other hand, love highly spiced foods, preferably including my favorite vegetable: hot chile peppers. Somehow we manage to get by despite the differences.

I think it all started with my childhood: My father was a member of the American Independent Party and a staunch supporter of George C. Wallace and his racist platform. I was originally a Democrat, but got tired of the whole circular firing squad thing. So I tend to vote Democratic—but not always on the local level and always as an Independent (No Party Affiliation)..

Somehow I think the contrasts help maintain our relationship, which has been going fairly steady for the last three decades or so. I won’t say it’s been going strong, but steady will do just fine, and I will accept it.

Taking a Bite Out of Heimaey

Posted on by

What the Volcano Eldfell Left of Heimaey (2001)

On January 21, 1973 the volcano Eldfell in Iceland’s Westman Islands began a sustained eruption that destroyed a large part of the town of Heimaey. I visited the island twice, in 2001 and 2013. During the second visit, I hiked around the massive lava flow that ate up some 400 buildings and several entire streets.

If you are interested in reading about the heroic fight to save Heimaey, I urge you to read John McPhee’s book, The Control of Nature (1989), which contains an essay entitled “Cooling the Lava.” The Icelanders saved most of the town by spraying sea water at the lava to cool it. Never before had this method been used against this type of disaster. Of course, there are not many towns of any size so close to an active volcano.

The Summit of Eldfell in 2013

As one hikes atop the lava that buried so many homes, one can still see signs indicating the streets that were lost. One such can be seen in the lower left-hand corner of the above photograph. In 2013, work was under way on a museum called Eldheimar for which several houses covered by the lava were excavated.

Just to give you an idea of the horror faced by the Icelanders, here is a picture taken during the eruption:

Pictured here is Mayor Magnus Magnusson of the finishing port of Heimaey, Iceland, who has been fighting to save the harbor from a relentlessly advancing wave of lava from the volcano Eldfell, March 3, 1973. (AP Photo)

Artemisia

Posted on by

“The Triumph of Galatea” by Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1656)

During Women’s History Month in 2024, I would like to honor several women whom I think have made a substantial contribution to our civilization. All of them lived in a time when the very thought of a woman’s contribution in anything other than childbirth, the domestic arts, or copulation was considered to be revolutionary.

The name of Galatea is not mentioned much today, but remember that it is coupled with the name of Pygmalion. Galatea was the statue of a lovely nymph that came to life when the sculptor fell in love with the image he created. It was that tale that led to George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and, later still, to the musical My Fair Lady.

Artemisia Gentileschi was a noted artist in her own lifetime. According to Wikipedia, “For many years Gentileschi was regarded as a curiosity, but her life and art have been reexamined by scholars in the 20th and 21st centuries, with the recognition of her talents exemplified by major exhibitions at internationally esteemed fine art institutions, such as the National Gallery in London.”

Influencers

Posted on by

Some people are influencers. They package themselves as a product and try to sell it via the Internet. As they grab your attention, they hope you will send some shekels their way as well as lots of “likes.”

I used to have a neighbor (the pretty woman in the above photo) who was an influencer in at least three areas:

  • “Female motorcycle rider, moto camping, outdoors, exploring, solo travel.”
  • Wellness and fitness
  • Marketing

She is no longer my neighbor because it turns out she was living on the edge. When you live on the edge, it is easy to fall into the abyss that runs close to the edge.

What happened? She was planning on moving to the East Coast. She put all her valuables onto an open-top trailer and set off with her mother. Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, she blew a tire. Eventually, a tow truck showed up and either changed or patched up the tire. No sooner was she on her way again than the car and trailer caught fire and burnt all her goods to the ground. Most particularly, she felt the loss of her beloved Suzuki DRZ motorcycle.

I sincerely hope she manages to pick up the pieces and get a new start wherever she is.

Although I have been a blogger for upwards of twenty years (on WordPress, the late Blog.Com, and the late Yahoo 360), I am resolutely a non-influencer. I write mainly to express myself and to help put in words what I am seeing and feeling. There is no way you can send me shekels, though I accept “likes.” In fact, I cannot even imagine the existence of a person who would hang on the edge of my every word.

Reader, beware: Wherever there is an edge, there is an abyss. Don’t fall into it.

Thoughts at Midnight

Posted on by

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Even as I read one Dorsetshire author (John Cowper Powys), my mind goes to another who gave up writing novels and wrote nothing but poems for the rest of his life. I am thinking of Thomas Hardy. Here is a short poem by him:

Thoughts at Midnight

Mankind, you dismay me
When shadows waylay me! —
Not by your splendours
Do you affray me,
Not as pretenders
To demonic keenness,
Not by your meanness,
Nor your ill-teachings,
Nor your false preachings,
Nor your banalities
And immoralities,
Nor by your daring
Nor sinister bearing;
But by your madnesses
Capping cool badnesses,
Acting like puppets
Under Time’s buffets;
In superstitions
And ambitions
Moved by no wisdom,
Far-sight, or system,
Led by sheer senselessness
And presciencelessness
Into unreason
And hideous self-treason. . . .
God, look he on you,
Have mercy upon you!