Ao analisar a obra cinematográfica Rashômon (Jap.88min), pude além de ficar impressionado com a riqueza de qualidade de interpretações, constatar uma qualidade empírica de singular qualidade. O conhecimento científico e a pesquisa no julgamento de culpados sobre o crime são de notada presença no decorrer do filme.

A perda de fé na alma humana, que muitas das vezes constatamos quando no tocante ao acontecimento de um crime, é sempre de notada recorrência. A pesquisa educacional ou não, deverá sempre ser a tônica de um diagnóstico eficaz do que deve ou não ser aplicado nas mais diferentes situações e na do filme em si fora o julgamento.

“A vida é delicada e passageira” esta frase belíssima está em vários momentos do filme. Nas passagens, na temática e na essência. Mas, infelizmente, a falividade dos atos humanos estará sempre ao lado de qualquer pesquisa ou de qualquer metodologia de investigação. Pois, todos terão sempre uma versão, uma ótica ou um discurso sobre qualquer matéria que estiver em voga.

O conhecimento como qualquer arma de inclusão ou de manutenção de poder, terá sempre nas mãos de inescrupulosos uma mecânica de que a qualquer custo, fazer impor poderios e esmagar com punho forte os desprovidos e a contaminação de qualquer fato científico é infelizmente um dos desdobramentos corriqueiros.

Quando a cobiça toma conta do filme, na passagem que o homem que escolta a moça se propõe a deixar as suas atribuições para acompanhar um desconhecido em propósito de conseguir espelhos e espadas. Com a cobiça latente nas pessoas, a bestialidade será sempre companheira dos fracos e dos aproveitadores.

As convenções são outro caminho a parte. Quando uma mulher é por alguma circunstância violada sexualmente ou terá o curso de sua história mudado por algo atípico, ela será veementemente achincalhada. Acusamos e denegrimos sem antes fazermos uma investigação ou uma pesquisa de intenções em busca de culpabilidades ou de atenuantes.

As mulheres japonesas têm por sua história um comportamento e um espírito feroz em busca de sua sobrevivência. No filme isto é retratado com riqueza de detalhes, a mulher só sucumbe às investidas do criminoso, quando suas forças são esgotadas e não há por parte do “segurança” dela uma ajuda premente.

Outra circunstância do filme bastante clara é a variedade de percepções do que poderia ter acontecido na real situação do crime. O que houve quem foram os integrantes e quais foram seus desdobramentos. Por isso, é claro e evidente a premissa de que é humano mentir. Fato que infelizmente não poderia ocorrer e que em profusão acontece no cotidiano dos seres humanos.

No caleidoscópio destes aspectos, os homens mentem para si mesmos e com isso contribuem para uma ruína social. Não poderão existir várias versões para uma mesma história e sim um único propósito: O de se investigar, analisar e constatar a culpabilidade ou não das pessoas.

If you are near the Washington DC area, go to the Landmark E Street Cinema (555 11th St NW Washington, DC 20004-1300). Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Rashomon, will be playing this weekend. It is one of the greatest movies ever made and it has influenced countless films. No movie playing right now will be a better experience. I guarantee it.

Fergie  è una delle guest che Traintek amava da tanto
ospitare nelle sue serate ed ecco che il 13 Novembre atterra
nella consolle del Rashomon, per la prima volta in Italia,
dove festeggerà anche i suoi 30 anni,per l’occasione le
aspettative sono alte e la sua proposta musicale sarà
sicuramente al di sopra.
I dj’s set di FERGIE sono adrenalinici, il sound
coinvolgente,dinamico con ripartenze mozzafiato,sarà una
serata da non perdere proprio come tutte le serate Traintek
con sorprese e musica di alta qualità che si accoppiano
benissimo con l’ambiente festoso e energetico che il
pubblico e i dj’s riescono a trasmettere.

TRAINTEK: a Reverse’s Concept

by Megan Dart

(Edmonton) – Comprised of top level wind and percussion players within the University of Alberta’s Department of Music and beyond, the Symphonic Wind Ensemble is scheduled to showcase a groundbreaking repertoire Thursday, November 26 at 8pm in Convocation Hall in the University’s Old Arts Building.

“This performance is an extremely rare and unique opportunity to see some of the very best original composition and performances the Department of Music has to offer,” said Dr. Angela Schroeder, conductor and Professor.

The upcoming performance will give stage to the world premiere of Rashomon by Darlene Chepil Reid, DMus Composition student at U of A. The composition is Reid’s dissertation piece, while the performance itself will prove the culmination of over two years of writing.

“Darlene describes the piece as a work of extremes” said Schroeder “and the instrumentation of a Wind Ensemble allow for these extremes to be carried out in a variety of sonorous combinations and manipulations.”

When addressing the process of composing Rashomon, Reid admits she wasn’t entirely sure how the piece would evolve. “I started with a simple motivic cell then allowed myself to see where the music would take me,” said Reid. “I don’t work linearly – I had no clear understanding of the beginning, middle and end at the outset of the composition, rather I allowed the music to guide me on a journey, much like I hope it does the audience.”

Schroeder also stresses the significance of performing the world premiere of a piece of music.

“It is a great honour for the students and I to learn, interpret and perform something the world has never heard before,” explained Schroeder. “An opportunity like this is rare, and is a wonderful learning experience as well as a great responsibility to represent the composer’s intentions for the very first time ever. We’re all very excited.”

Written in three movements, the piece offers a variety of sound experience; from passive to aggressive, quiet to loud, Rashomon carries listeners on a ride over three very distinct waves.

“The piece,” Reid continued, “could almost be described as telling the same story or viewing the same object from three very different perspectives.”

The structure of the piece was born of the fact Reid composed three endings even though the piece was originally intended to stand only as one movement. “I composed three endings I quite liked. I split the material I’d composed to that point into three different movements and consequently created this wave-like motif.” 

The title – which was chosen after the piece was composed – was inspired by the 1950 Japanese cine drama of the same name, which tails the recount of the story of the rape of a woman and the apparent murder of her husband through the viewpoint of four different witnesses.

Also on the program is the Canadian premiere of Steven Bryant’s Ecstatic Water, a piece for Wind Ensemble and live electronics.

“This piece is somewhat revolutionary in the Wind repertory,” said Schroeder.  “The combination of electronic soundscape with a Wind Ensemble is rare. Bryant uses techno beats and delayed sound ‘entrails’ as well as other electronics triggered live in the performance; he treats the electronic soundscape as any other instrument, lending sound and colour to heighten the sounds of the players onstage.”

The work is inspired by the poetry of Y.B. Yeats. Bryant describes the piece as “music of dialectical tension – a juxtaposition of contradictory or opposing musical and extra-musical elements and an attempt to resolve them.”  

“The five connected movements hint at a narrative that touches upon naiveté, divination, fanaticism, post-human possibilities, anarchy, order, and the Jungian collective unconscious,” Bryant explained. “Or, as I have described it more colloquially: W.B. Yeats meets Ray Kurzweil in the Matrix.”

The program will also include Symphony in Bb by Paul Hindemith, a masterwork for the Wind Ensemble, as well as Bootlegger’s Tarantella by Edmonton’s own John Estacio.

Catch the performance live Thursday November 26 in Convocation Hall at 8pm.  Please visit music.ualberta.ca for more information or follow us on Twitter for up to the moment information on events.

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Don’t miss our next two films!

Thursday, November 5 | 1 pm and 7:30pm
La Strada

Directed by the famous Frederico Fellini, La Strada, meaning “The Road”, is a film about a young girl who is sold out of poverty by her family to an evil man who uses and abuses her while she works as his helper.

Made in 1954, and winner of the Academy Award for Best Film in 1956, La Strada is a tale about struggle, family, true love, and tragedy.

Enjoy this rare opportunity to see this drama at the Brooks!

Thursday, November 12 | 7:30 pm
Rashomon
*At Malco’s Studio on the Square

 
Directed by original Akira Kurosawa in 1950, Rashomon is a film about one crime and four seperate, and different, accounts of it. A woodcutter, widow, dead man, and possible murderer all tell the story of who-done-it and why. Follow the story through flashbacks, allegory, and oral tradition.

Laiden with modern art references, cinematography, symbolism, and philosophy, Rashomon puts the viewer in a unique position where they act as the jury trying to determine the guilty.

This film classic is known to be one of the first influences of Japanese culture on Western society, and was eventually re-made into the 1964 Western, The Outrage.

Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Academy Honorary Award at the 24th Annual Academy Awards, this film is a must see!

To read more about the restoration process of these films click here.

Finally I was able to lay my hands on the DVD of Rashomon in local DVD shop and I purchased it without any hesitation. I had heard and read so much about this famous film by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa that I was dying to see it for more than a decade. Rashomon is considered as one of Kurosawa’s masterpieces. The black and white film made in 1950 is based on two short stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa – “In a Grove” (for the story line) and “Rashōmon” (for the setting). There are many web-sites, including Wikipedia, that give the complete story of the film. So I am not going to repeat the details here.

Very briefly, the central tale tells of the rape of a woman and the murder of her man – a samurai, possibly by a bandit. The story is told by four different narrators, witnesses of and/or participants in the event, as perceived by them. The film unfold the same sequence of events through the perspectives of these four people involved – the bandit, the raped woman, the spirit of the murdered samurai and a wood-cutter who is witness to the entire episode.

In each of the four versions of the story, the characters are the same, as are many of the details. But much is different, as well. In the first account, that of the bandit, the criminal accepts culpability for the murder but refutes the charge of rape, saying that it was an act of mutual consent. The woman’s story affirms that the bandit attacked her, but indicates that she herself may have been the murderess. The dead man’s tale, told through a medium, claims rape and suicide – hara-kiri – by samurai. The medium mentions that he felt ’someone’ draw from his chest the dagger with which he alleges he committed hara-kiri. The only “impartial” witness, the woodcutter, weaves a story that intertwines elements of the other three, but indicating that the bandit killed the samurai. But a commoner puts two and two together and figures out that the woodcutter, too, is a thief and has stolen the dagger used in the murder of the samurai and thus questions the authenticity of woodcutter’s version.

When the movie ends, the viewer is left with four versions told by four intimately involved persons and no conclusion. Whose account of the crime is reliable? One cannot tell. All are distorted in ways that flatter the narrator. The ego and vanity of characters make truth a difficult thing to find.

Indeed a very powerful story directed by a renowned director way back in 1950. All the reviews talked of great performances and great direction and great settings. My expectations were sky-high before I started watching the movie. It is a simple short 90 minute film. To be honest, I started getting disillusioned as the movie progressed. I found the movie shot and acted in more theatrical way than cinematic. The performances of the actors were not as great as said by many critics. The sets were minimalistic – there are only three settings in the film: Rashōmon gate, the woods and the courtyard. The sound and background music, again, very minimalistic – theatre like, and did not really add much value to the film.  As soon as the film got over, I switched off the TV and went to bed, ready to forget the film and laughing at myself for spending my time and money on a movie which now I considered unnecessarily hyped about.

But as I was trying to sleep, I kept on recollecting the four narrations and reason out the reality. Every time I came close to some conclusion one “fact” or the other recounted by one of the narrators pushed me back to square one. A month has passed since I watched the film, yet I have not reached a logical conclusion. The film still refuses to leave my mind and I keep on recounting all the 90 minutes of the film again and again.

My disappointment about this film is now slowly vanishing. I realize that the success of this film is not in the way it is filmed or acted, but in the way it keeps growing on you. No other film has lingered in my mind with all its details so fresh for so long. I attribute that success, first, to the powerful storyline by Akutagawa, and then to Akira Kurosawa for picturizing the film without deviating from the central theme and not just retaining but visually enhancing the substance of the storyline.

Does the film end without a conclusion, as described by many critics?  Not really. All parts of the film, the four versions, reach their own conclusions. The four versions do not tally with each other. No doubts there, too. But that is not the point. The real conclusion, not stated in obvious manner but unfolds visually – the Kurosawa touch – is the fact Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing, as observed by Kurosawa in his autobiography.

———————————

(Photocredits: Internet)

Chi è davvero Asia Argento? Oggetto del desiderio, personaggio borderline, figlia d’arte, musa, madre, attrice, regista. Cattiva, lunatica. O dolce? È un difetto tipico di noi giornalisti quello di definire, incasellare. Quindi questa volta non commetteremo l’errore. Anche perché, lo dice lei, “dentro di noi ci sono cento personaggi”. In cerca d’autore probabilmente. E gli autori hanno dimostrato di apprezzare molto tutti i personaggi che vivono dentro Asia. Lo ha ricordato proprio Mario Sesti introducendo Asia Argento ieri a un affollato incontro con il pubblico al Festival di Roma: Sofia Coppola, Abel Ferrara, Cristina Comencini, Nanni Moretti, Gus Van Sant, e ovviamente il padre Dario Argento sono alcuni dei grandi autori che l’hanno voluta nei suoi film. Olivier Assayas l’ha definita la più grande attrice con cui abbia lavorato. È anche regista, e qui a Roma ha presentato un suo corto che fa parte del progetto Onedreamrush, in cui 42 registi in 42 secondi sviluppano il tema del sogno. Il suo corto, S/He, mostra un gruppo di transessuali che festeggiano in allegria, ed è girato con una pellicola sgranata, colori accesi e un suono disturbante a fare da sottofondo.

Si definisce timida, Asia, e probabilmente lo è. Lunghi capelli neri con boccoli, pantaloni e camicetta nera molto sobri, Asia Argento ci è sembrata soprattutto simpatica, di una simpatia coinvolgente. Una di quelle persone con cui sarebbe divertente andare a bere una birra. Che sia timida lo si capisce dalla sua riposta alla prima domanda. Che cos’ha di speciale per affascinare tanti autori? “Non mi piaccio un granché, e non so cosa piaccia di me a tutti questi autori che mi scelgono” risponde. “Quando troverò la risposta alla domanda probabilmente la mia carriera sarà alla fine”. La risposta potrebbe essere in quel suo lato selvaggio. “Mi piace ‘selvaggio’” risponde ridendo Asia Argento. “È molto meglio che ‘bad girl’ o ‘dark lady’. È qualcosa che mi riporta alla giovinezza sfrenata: è stato un periodo selvaggio in cui ho imparato il cinema facendo il cinema. Durante l’adolescenza, mi sono cercata facendo i film, e non sempre è stato un percorso facile”.

L’incontro con l’attrice romana diventa così proprio un percorso lungo la sua carriera, a partire dagli inizi. “Il primo incontro importante della mia carriera è stato quello con Cristina Comencini, con cui ho girato il mio primo film (Zoo, ndr): avevo undici anni” ricorda Asia. “Mi ha insegnato a dimenticare la sceneggiatura, e a lavorare in gruppo”. “Poi a sedici anni con Michele Placido (Le amiche del cuore, ndr) ho capito che questo poteva essere il mio lavoro” continua. “A sedici anni, con Le amiche del cuore, andai per la prima volta a Cannes. Mi ricordo che andai a comprarmi un vestito a Via del Corso, un vestitino tipo principessa, una schifezza di nylon”. “Nella vita mi sono divertita a recitare in ruoli strani, malati, al limite, personaggi che non ero io. Abbiamo centinaia di personaggi dentro di noi, sta al regista tirarli fuori”. Non era cattiva, Asia. Era che la disegnavano così. Anzi, si disegnava così. “A venti anni non volevo interpretare la brava ragazza borghese” ci svela. “Sono timida, esco poco di casa, e quando esco lo faccio per fare i film.  E quindi voglio fare qualcosa di divertente. Ho scelto questi ruoli ‘selvaggi’, ‘borderline’, perché mi divertivano”. Tra gli autori dei suoi inizi c’è stato anche Nanni Moretti, che l’ha diretta in Palombella Rossa. “Moretti mi faceva ripetere le scene ottanta volte, e le faceva ripetere anche a se stesso” ricorda divertita. “Cercava la perfezione, che non è possibile. Ma è giusto per un attore avvicinarsi ai desideri del regista”.

Lo sa bene, Asia, perché è regista anche lei: uno sbocco naturale per chi è figlia e nipote d’arte, e ha sempre respirato cinema, divertendosi. “Nel cinema ci sono nata, mio nonno distribuiva film in Brasile, mia mamma e mia sorella sono attrici, e poi c’è papà Dario” racconta. “Da piccola guardavo tutti i film, ero ossessionata: mi piacevano i film di mio padre, e gli horror in genere, perché erano proibiti. Li guardavo nei Betamax, quel formato in cui i film non stavano tutti, e si fermavano prima della fine”. Ma non è stato tanto scontato per lei lavorare con il padre. Anzi, è stata una sorpresa. “Ero sul set di Placido, e sognavo di fare un film con mio padre” ci svela Asia. “Fino a quel momento mi aveva solo fatto doppiare il mostro di Phenomena… Venne sul set, e disse: lei farà il mio prossimo film, lo sto scrivendo per lei”. “Trauma è stato un trauma” racconta tra il divertito e l’imbarazzato. “Era la prima volta che dovevo spogliarmi, ed era proprio davanti a papà…”

“Quando dicevo che volevo fare l’attrice, mi dicevano che avrei dovuto fare la regista, perché gli attori erano persone tremende. Così ho cercato di fare l’attrice senza essere tremenda” svela. E così l’esordio alla regia, con Scarlett Diva, è stato un passaggio naturale. “A un certo punto mi è venuta in mente una storia, ho sentito che dovevo farla.

Avevo ventitre anni, ed era diventata una questione di vita o di morte. Scarlett Diva è un film imperfetto, ma credo che la sua forza siano gli errori. Non riesco a guardarlo perché è come leggere un diario dell’adolescenza. È stato il primo film girato in digitale in Italia. Dentro c’era una rabbia che si liberava. E c’era anche dell’umorismo, che non è stato capito”. Non è facile recitare e dirigere. “Bisogna essere come le mosche, guardarsi in giro a 360 gradi, vedere cosa fa l’elettricista, il direttore della fotografia. Bisogna farsi aiutare da tutti, senza farsi sovrastare. Francois Truffaut diceva che il regista è uno che deve saper dare delle risposte. E le devi dare in fretta”. “Il regista è uno scrittore, se firma le sue sceneggiature, è musicista. Il regista è prigioniero delle proprie ossessioni, è un ossessivo-compulsivo”, confessa Asia.

Una regista come lei, coraggiosa, anticonformista, sarebbe un toccasana per il cinema italiano, che pecca proprio di coraggio e imprevedibilità. Ma quello di Asia Argento con il cinema italiano è un rapporto che sembra essersi interrotto, dopo la prima parte della sua carriera. “In Italia mi sento più a casa” si confida. “I miei mostri sacri sono gli ‘ini”: Rossellini, Fellini, Pasolini. In Italia il set è più caloroso, umano, familiare, c’è la sarta che ti fa l’amatriciana. In Francia il cinema è più snob. In America è una vera industria. Poi c’è chi, come Gus Van Sant, lavora in maniera artigianale: una volta sul set voleva fare una carrellata lunghissima, ma non gli bastavano i binari. Così ci siamo messi a spostarli noi, man mano che il carrello si muoveva. Nei film americani in genere non puoi aiutare un elettricista, rischi che ti accusino di fargli perdere il lavoro”. Ma l’America la diverte comunque. “Girare in America è divertentissimo, è come stare al Luna Park: vestiti, macchine, morti, armi, uzi, spari. Hanno di tutto.” Ma non sarà che per il cinema italiano è un personaggio troppo ingombrante? “Non lo so. Forse non mi chiamano perché pensano che io viva ancora all’estero. O perché non ci sono i ruoli adatti. C’è una persona con cui vorrei lavorare: è Francesca D’Aloja: spero che Il sogno cattivo parta presto, e lo farò io. Non è un caso che lavorerò con una donna: facciamo gruppo. Come dicono in Freaks: l’accettiamo, una di noi!”

A proposito di cinema americano, Asia ricorda con piacere l’esperienza con Sofia Coppola per Marie Antoinette. “Sofia Coppola è il potere gentile” racconta con affetto. “Non ha bisogno di comandare, ma ha sempre in mano il set. È una che lascia andare, così ho improvvisato, e lei non ha tagliato molte cose che ero sicura avrebbe tagliato. Neanche il rutto, che è stato un gioco, e invece è rimasto in scena”. A proposito di donne, la Argento si toglie anche un sassolino dalle scarpe. “Perché per lo stesso mestiere un uomo viene pagato più di una donna? E perché su cento registi c’è solo una donna e gli altri sono uomini? In Italia volevo lavorare con delle donne, soprattutto nel reparto tecnico, ma non le trovavo. Ci sono delle brave montatrici, ma è perché stanno là, non hanno un ruolo di potere”. Ma proprio Asia Argento tornerà presto dietro la macchina da presa per firmare il suo terzo film. “Girerò Fucile da caccia, tratto dal romanzo del giapponese Inoue Yasushi. Senza disturbare Rashomon, è una storia  raccontata in tre modi diversi: ci sono tre lettere. È una storia attualissima, un triangolo amoroso”. A proposito di storie, ce n’è una che ronza nella testa di Asia Argento da quando aveva sedici anni. “Due fratelli vanno in guerra, esplode una bomba, e porta via a tutti e due la faccia” racconta sorridendo. “La moglie di uno dei due li porta entrambi a casa per capire chi è il marito. Un giorno la girerò, e sarà il mio Elephant Man”.

È una donna che sogna, Asia Argento. Il suo sogno ricorrente era quello di nuotare nell’aria. È una donna che crea sogni, perché il cinema in fondo è questo. Ma qual è il suo sogno di attrice? Sogna un ruolo in particolare? “Non ho mai sognato Lady Macbeth, né la Pulzella d’Orleans” confessa candida. “Mi fanno un po’ ridere le cose che dicono gli attori per nobilitarsi. Io cerco di tenere a bada l’egocentrismo di noi attori. Non dico mai: questo lo potrei fare meglio. Dico: ammazza che brava sta attrice! Come quando vedo Bette Davis. Ecco, forse quello di Che fine ha fatto Baby Jane è un ruolo che farei. Un bel ruolo selvaggio”. 

Gli “Amici” di Loaded, celebre party della capitale, hanno appena caricato online i dj-set di Andrea Esu e di “2000 and One”, il primo è anche scaricabile, il secondo purtroppo si può solo ascoltare.

2000ANDONE Djset Loaded@Rashomon 10102009 by Letsgetloaded

AndreaEsu DjSet Loaded@Rashomon 10102009 by Letsgetloaded

Para sa lahat ng nanghihingi ng buod ng mga kwetong pinag-aaralan niyo sa Filipino (Si Kesa at Si Morito, Aanhin Ninyo Yan, Kay Estella Zeehandelaar), pasensya na po dahil di ko pa kayo mapagbibigyan sa ngayon. Busy pa ako. Malapit na kasi birthday ko. Haha! Meganon! Bumabanggit. Hinde, kasi malapit na yung periodical exam namin kaya busy ako. Pasensya na talaga. I will entertain requests if I’m not too busy or if I can push through my schedule. Thanks sa inyong pag-unawa.

So I know I’m supposed to be all “YAY FALL 2009 SEASON” , but I really miss Otogizoushi. Which is why I’m writing a review of it!

Let me first say that I love historical fiction and historical anime, ahem Saiunkoku and Twelve Kingdoms? Seirei no Moribito? Ring any bells…? One of my favorite books in elementary school was Dragon Sword and Wind Child, by Noriko Ogiwara, which I found COMPLETELY randomly one day. I was like, oh, might as well read this. It’s about dragons. Imagine my surprise when I found it was a novel translated from Japanese and set in a Japan-like country in really ancient times. Like pre-Inuyasha times. And it was also an amazing book. So that’s basically what got me into historical ASIAN fiction. Historical American fiction? Pshhhh, give me more Noriko Ogiwara any day!

It wasn’t until later that I found out that book was the first in a trilogy, each book a different story about the magatama… of course, America is stupid and only licensed the one book, so now I’ll never find out what happens unless I learn kanji.

So when I was looking for more stuff like Saiunkoku and Twelve Kingdoms, I stumbled upon this show called Otogizoushi. About the five magatama. Dot dot dot… wasn’t magatama what they were always going on about in Dragon Sword and Wind Child, the best kids book ever? And that is how I ended up downloading Otogizoushi (I got it from Anime-Kraze, they’re cool. The video quality [of Otogizoushi, their other shows are amazing] isn’t the best though).

Plot

HEIAN~ My favorite! I was so happy when I figured out it was set in essentially the same time period as Dragon Sword and Wind Child! We need more Heian period anime! Ahem. The plot of Otogizoushi is divided in two arcs, the Heian arc makes up the first 13 episodes and the Tokyo arc makes up episodes 14-2… wait I forgot about the extra episode… hold on right there, I’m confused… Well suffice to say half the show is in 900 CE and half is in 200o CE – which is now.

I’ve seen mixed reviews on this division; it swings both ways: some people love the Heian and hate the Tokyo arc, for others it’s switched. Me, I liked both of them! However, I do think that the Heian arc could’ve been more fleshed out and done with a few more episodes. Although I enjoyed the atmosphere, I don’t think this arc was perfectly executed. But it was definitely interesting.

As for the Tokyo arc, at first I was like, ‘wait, did they ACTUALLY just do that?’ because the whole reincarnation thing can get a little old. But in the end it was kind of cool. The drastic change in storytelling style was also interesting. “Otogizoushi” actually refers to a collection of myths, and in each episode of the Tokyo arc the group encounters a new modern Tokyo myth which ties into one of the magatama. It was actually quite cool to watch it play out, and see how it all connected to the previous Heian arc.

Art and Animation

I could never make up my mind about this. Otogizoushi definitely has a unique style, with more realistic looking characters and most noticeably, non-anime eyes. Yes, the eyes are still big, but they actually look like eyes. The Heian arc had a sort of ink/watercolor looking background. It may have just been the video quality, but the colors always looked a little TOO washed out. I mean you don’t want insane, bright, shonen colors in a Heian period anime, but you don’t want it to look dull either, right? So I want to see what it looks like in HQ. And HD for that matter. Hah.

So in the end I liked the art style, but I think they couldv’e honed that style so it looked better. As for the animation, I feel like it was decent, but it doesn’t stand out in memory. *IT’S STILL PRODUCTION IG THOUGH <3*

Music

The BGM was lovely, as expected for historical anime; for the modern arc, I’m sure it was nice, but not memorable. The Heian OP kinda killed the historical atmosphere but I ended up missing it when the show was over. The first ED was nothing special. I liked the melody of the second OP a lot, and it definitely fit the Tokyo arc atmosphere. The second ED: OH MY GOD. Haruhi totally sang this in Ouran HSHC when she was kidnapped by Lobelia and they made her be in their play! Or she at least lipsynced to it. Thank you, I HAVE got wonderful listening skills and memory.

Characters

I can’t remember if I thought they were well defined or not, but I did like them. They were a good group. And yes, they basically fulfilled all the stereotypes in a traveling/adventuring group; you know, the naive but willful leader, the stoic guy who defends said leader, the guy who’s never serious and likes women but is still a good fighter, the little kid… wait is this Inuyash- ..nnno. But even so, they weren’t BLATANT stereotypes. I like to think they were ACCIDENTAL stereotypes. Hikaru was a good main character, because she was naive but she certainly wasn’t stupid. Plus she could shoot arrows, so she wasn’t completely defenseless either. Mansairaku was also a good character. Even though you actually don’t see much of him, he’s still cool.

Overall

I feel like this has been kind of biased… but I’m gonna wrap it up by saying: this is NOT for everyone. I wouldn’t watch this for action, and I don’t even know if I would watch this for plot… actually I don’t know why anyone should watch this. But if you like Dragon Sword and Wind Child… step right up! You might also want to keep an open mind and try to be laid back when you watch this. Or who knows, you might love every minute of it. I honestly couldn’t say in the slightest. It’s just that kind of show.

EDIT: Holy crap. You can get this from Netflix. I didn’t even know it was licensed. Now I know where to go if I want to see this in quality. Who knows what the subs’ll be like, though. HOLY CRAP. I’m keeping my DLed version, but when I feel like rewatching this I’m definitely gonna go for the Netflix DVDs. I’m very, very surprised that they have it.

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Back to Dragon Sword and Wind Child, I can’t help wanting to write a little more about it now.

It was written in the 80’s by Noriko Ogiwara in Japanese. And it was actually originally released as a stand alone novel in the US very shortly errr somewhat shortly afterwards. This is the cover it had when I read it in like 2000.

Pretty, right? Wahaha. Even though it has that cheesy title that sounds awkward when you say it, it’s not because it’s a translation… no, it was the silly Americans who decided they had to rename it. The original title was Sora-iro Magatama, which means Sky-colored magatama. Granted, that too sounds a bit awkward in English. So the American name stuck when VIZ decided to retranslated and republish it with a shiny new cover in 2007.

And you know what gives me a sliver of hope? 1) The VIZ version was only released about 2 years ago 2) The words “Tales of Magatama” at the top. Doesn’t that smell like a sequel to you?!?! Plus, VIZ followed up their release of The Twelve Kingdoms novel with the sequels to THAT. Maybe if I send them enough letters/hack their website they’ll release Hakuchou Iden and Usubeni Tennyo.

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EDIT

Not to make this long post even longer, but I just really have to add that the Heian arc of Otogizoushi was constantly reminding me of this old 60’s samurai movie by Akira Kurosawa called Rashomon. This may not ring any bells, so I’ll explain: Rashomon is an actual place in the old Heian capital, it’s a gate (mon = gate) at one end of the city for demons or something along those lines. Anyway this old black and white movie is all about Rashomon. So whenever the people in Otogizoushi hung out at Rashomon I was all happy since I totally knew what Rashomon was.

By the way, if you’re into film that’s black and white or you’re completely sick of mainstream, I really recommend Akira Kurosawa. Especially the ones with Toshiro Mifune. My favorite is Sanjuro.

1) The following four paintings were painted live, in about three hours, at last night’s Milwaukee Film Festival afterparty*.

2) Each 15″ x 30″ canvas features one character from one of four different films being screened at this year’s festival.

3) The paintings:

From the hilarious and unsettling BRONSON:

Patton Oswalt’s character from BIG FAN

Danny Trejo’s character from Frankie Latina’s MODUS OPERANDI

The Bandit from Akira Kurosawa’s RASHOMON

All four paintings were raffled off at the end of the night, for a mere $2 a ticket. Which means if you bought one ticket, and won, you essentially purchased a painting of mine for $2. Crazy!

I kinda hope this leads to more movie-themed commissions, ’cause it was a world of fun to make paintings for.

- dwellephant

* Milwaukee United was hosted by the masked mayors of mayhem, Mondo Lucha, who have the best shirts of any group in town. Thanks for the gray one! Brian Gallagher made and edited film on the spot. There was a carnival performance of some sort, but my back was to the stage, so I missed it. But the crowd loved it. DJ Erika Jean and X the Owl soundtracked the  night. And Kings Go Forth played a live set, which was phenomenal. I’m SO grateful to have a band like this in my city. They deserve every ounce of success they get, and more.

Questi giorni se n’è parlato spesso, sia nei dibattiti televisivi, Anno Zero di Michele Santoro ieri ha dedicato la sua prima puntata su questo argomento, sia nei giornali, il 3 Ottobre anche in piazza.

Io penso che il problema sia legato agli interessi personali delle persone, che siano giornalisti, politici, uomini d’affari e quant’altro. Ognuno porta avanti il proprio pensiero, vuoi per necessità, vuoi per ideologia. Ma quando il pensiero si scontra con il potere, con le esigenze di indirizzare l’opinione pubblica (altrimenti si perde il proprio voto) verso un dato argomento, allora si fa di tutto per canalizzare o deviare la discussione su altri ”personaggi rognosi” (Feltri Docet).  Se ci aggiungiamo lo stretto rapporto tra i partiti e i giornali, diventa difficile raccontare la verità (Rashomon docet). Fin quando i giornali, le televisioni dipenderanno dai partiti, sarà impossibile avere un’informazione libera. Intanto il nuovo giornale “Il Fatto quotidiano” curato da tanti ottimi giornalisti ci sta provando, si spera nella tenuta dei suoi lettori, ma anche dall’onestà intellettuale dei singoli giornalisti.

One of the best films I’ve seen in a while:

Tulong sa pag-aaral. Rashōmon salin sa inggles. Kung may typographical errors, pasensya na, masyadong mahaba kaya ang hirap icheck.

It happened one evening. A lowly servant was under the Rashōmon gate, waiting for the rain to stop. Under the broad gate, there was no one but him. On one of the large, round pillars, whose red paint was peeling off in places, there was only a solitary katydid. Because the gate was located on Suzaku Boulevard, you would normally expect to find two or three other people there, waiting for the rain to let up. But there was nobody there but him.

You see, over the last two or three years there had been a series of disasters in Kyoto: earthquakes, whirlwinds, fires and famines. The capital was falling apart in many different ways. According to old records, Buddhist statues and altars had been smashed, and their vermilion-lacquered and gold or silver-foiled wood piled up on the side of the road and sold as kindling. Needless to say, with the capital in this condition, there was no one to repair the gate, and indeed, nobody even gave it a second thought. Taking advantage of this state of neglect, foxes and badgers began to live there. Robbers lived there. Eventually, it had even become customary to take unclaimed corpses to the gate and dump them there. So after sunset, people got scared, and nobody dared set foot near the gate after dark.

In their place, a large murder of crows had flocked there. During the day, countless birds could be seen flying around in circles while cawing at the high ornamental ridge-end tiles. They looked just like scattered sesame seeds, particularly when the sky above the gate turned red at sunset. The crows, of course, had come to peck at the flesh of the dead bodies on top of the gate. Today, however, perhaps because it was late, not a single bird could be seen. But what you could see were their white droppings, stuck in patches to the stone steps, which were crumbling in places, with long weeds growing from the cracks. The servant, wearing a navy-blue kimono that had faded from over-washing, sat down on the seventh-and-top step of the stone staircase. He watched the rain fall while playing with a large pimple on his right cheek, lost in his own thoughts.

A little while ago, I wrote, “A lowly servant was waiting for the rain to stop”. However, even if the rain did stop, the servant still wouldn’t have anything to do. Normally, of course, he would have been expected to return to his master’s house, but he had been released from the service of his master four or five days before. As I wrote earlier, at this time, the city of Kyoto was deteriorating in many different ways. That this servant had been dismissed by his master, who had employed him for so many years, was merely another small side effect of this decline. So, rather than saying, “A lowly servant was waiting for the rain to stop”, it would have been more appropriate to say, “A lowly servant, trapped by the rain, had nowhere to go, and didn’t know what to do”. The weather that day further served to darken the mood of this Heian-period servant. The rain had started falling at a little after 4 PM, and still showed no signs of letting up. For now, foremost on the servant’s mind was how he would make his living tomorrow—how he would get through this “hopeless situation”. As he tried to piece together his wandering thoughts, he listened pensively to the sound of the rain falling on Suzaku Boulevard.

The rain engulfed Rashōmon, and gales of rain from far away pounded down upon the gate with a tremendous noise. The darkness of night gradually set in from above, and if you were to look up, it might seem as if the large, gloomy clouds were suspended from the ends of the tiles that jutted out from the roof of the gate.

In order to somehow get through his “hopeless situation”, the servant might have to set his morals aside. If he refused to do things that he thought were morally questionable, then he would only end up starving to death under a roofed mud wall, or on the side of the road. And then he would be taken to this gate, to be discarded, like a dog. “If I am willing to do whatever it takes to survive…” His thoughts had circled through his head a number of times, and they had finally arrived here. But this “if” would always remain a mere hypothetical. For although the servant acknowledged that he had to do whatever he could to get by, he didn’t have the courage to bring the sentence to its foregone conclusion: “I am bound to become a thief.”

The servant sneezed, and stood up wearily. Kyoto—so chilly in the evening—was already cold enough that he wished he had a brazier. The wind and the darkness blew mercilessly between the pillars of the gate. The katydid that had been sitting on the red pillar was long gone.

The servant tucked his head into his chest, hunched up his shoulders—clad in the blue kimono he wore over his thin yellow underclothes—and looked around the gate. “If there is a place where I won’t be bothered by the wind or the rain; a place where I won’t be seen; a place where it looks like I can sleep comfortably all night; then I will spend the night there”, he thought. Luckily, just then, he spotted the wide, red staircase that led to the tower atop the gate. The only people he might find up there would already be dead! So, the servant, being careful that his simple wooden-hilted sword did not slip out of its sheath, stepped on the bottom stair with his straw sandal.

It was a few minutes later. Halfway up the wide staircase leading to the top of the gate’s tower, the man held his breath, and, crouching like a cat, looked up cautiously. The light of a fire shone down softly upon the man’s right cheek from the top of the tower. It was that same cheek, with the red pus-filled pimple among the stubble. The servant had taken for granted that everyone up there would already be dead. But when he climbed up two or three more steps, he saw that not only had someone had lit a fire up there, they seemed to be moving it back and forth… He could tell this from the way that the muddy, yellow light wavered in the spider webs hanging from every nook and cranny of the ceiling.  A lighted fire… on this rainy night… and on top of this gate… Surely this could be no ordinary human.

The servant crept up to the top step of the steep staircase, his feet as silent as a gecko’s. He straightened out his body as much as he could, stuck his neck out as far as possible, and cautiously peered into the tower. As the rumours had said, a number of corpses had been discarded in the tower, but the firelight wasn’t as bright as he had expected, so he couldn’t tell how many. Although the light was dim, what he did know was that some of the bodies were wearing kimonos, and others were naked. Predictably, the corpses’ numbers counted both men and woman, mixed together amongst the dead. The bodies looked so much like clay dolls, that you might doubt that any of them had ever even been alive. Their mouths open and their arms outstretched, they were strewn haphazardly across the floor. And while the higher parts of their bodies—like their chests and shoulders—caught some of the dim firelight, they cast shadows on the lower parts, and the corpses were as eternally silent as a mute.

The servant instinctively covered his nose from the putrid stench of the rotting bodies. But the next instant, his hand fell away from his face. A strong emotion had almost completely robbed him of his sense of smell.

It was at that moment that the servant first caught glimpse of the person squatting among the corpses. It was an emaciated, little, old, white-haired woman in a dusky-red kimono. The old woman was carrying a lighted pine torch, and staring at one of the corpses’ faces. Judging from the length of its hair in places, it was probably the body of a woman.

For a while, moved by six parts fear and four parts curiosity, the servant forgot even to breathe. To borrow a phrase from the writers of the chronicles of old, he felt as if “the hairs on his head and body had grown thick”. The old woman thrust the handle of the pine torch into the space between the floorboards. She placed both hands on the corpse’s head, and like a monkey picking the lice off its child, she began to pull out strands of the corpse’s long hair, one-by-one. The hairs seemed to be coming out with very little effort.

Each time she plucked one of those hairs, the servant grew a little bit less frightened. And each time she plucked one of those hairs, the intense hatred that he now felt for this woman grew a little bit stronger. No—it is probably misleading to say that he hated her, per se. Rather, it was a revulsion against all forms of evil, which was growing stronger by the minute. At that moment, if someone again raised the question that the servant had been thinking about under the gate—whether he would starve to death or become a criminal—the servant would almost certainly have chosen starvation, without an ounce of regret. Like the torch the old woman had jammed between the floorboards, this was how ardently the man’s heart burned against all that was evil.

The servant, of course, didn’t know why the old woman was pulling out the corpse’s hair, so, rationally, he had no way of knowing if it was immoral or not. But for this servant, on this rainy night, on top of this gate, pulling out a dead woman’s hair was an unforgivable sin. Of course, the servant had already forgotten that until very recently, he was considering becoming a robber himself.

The servant strained his legs, and, suddenly, leapt up from the stairs without warning. He strode over to the woman, his hand on the wooden hilt of his sword. Needless to say, the woman was scared out of her wits.

As soon as the old woman saw the servant, she sprung up as if she had been fired from a crossbow.

“You! Where are you going?”

The servant shouted. He stood firmly in the old woman’s way, as she tripped over corpses in a frenzied attempt to escape. The old woman tried to shove him aside. But the servant still had no intention of letting her go, and he pushed her back. For a while, the two grappled among the corpses without saying a word. But the outcome of this battle was clear from the beginning. In the end, the servant grabbed the old woman’s arm and wrenched her down to the floor. Her arm, like a chicken leg, was merely skin and bones.

“What were you doing? Well, what were you doing? SPEAK! If you don’t tell me, you’ll get THIS!”

The servant pushed the old woman away from him, and, suddenly, he drew his sword and thrust the pale white steel before her eyes. But the old woman said nothing. Her hands shook uncontrollably, her shoulders heaved as she panted. Her eyes were open so wide that they looked like they were going to pop right out their sockets, but still, like a mute, she remained obstinately silent. Seeing this, the servant then realized that he held this woman’s life in the palm of his hand. When he realized this, his heart, which had been burning so fiercely with hatred, cooled down, until all that remained were the feelings of pride and satisfaction that come with a job well done. The servant looked down at the woman, lowered his voice and said:

“I’m not an official from the police department or anything. I’m just a traveller who happened to be passing under the gate a moment ago. So I’m not going to tie you up or anything like that. But it would be best if you told me what you were doing on top of this gate just now.”

The bug-eyed old woman, opened her eyes even wider, and stared at the servant’s face. She looked at him with the piercing red eyes of a bird of prey. And then, her lips—so wrinkled that they were almost a part of her nose—moved, as if she were chewing something. You could see her pointed Adam’s apple moving in her gaunt throat. Then, from that throat, came a pant-broken voice that sounded like the cawing of a crow.

“I’m taking this hair… I’m taking this woman’s hair to… Well, I thought I’d make a wig.”

The servant was disappointed that the old woman’s answer was so unexpectedly dull. Along with the disappointment, those old feelings of hatred and contempt came flooding back to him. And somehow, he must have conveyed these feelings to the old woman. With the hairs she had stolen from the corpse still clutched in one hand, she mumbled in a raspy, toadish voice:

“I see. Well, perhaps it is immoral to pull out the hairs of the dead. But these corpses up here—all of them—they were just the sort of people who wouldn’t have minded. In fact, this woman whose hair I was just pulling out a moment ago—she used to cut snakes into 5-inch pieces, dry them, and go sell them at the camp of the crown prince’s palace guard, saying it was dried fish. If she hadn’t died in the plague, she would probably still be going there now. And yet, the guards said this woman’s dried fish tasted good, and they always bought it to go with their rice. I don’t think what she did was immoral. If she hadn’t done it, she would have starved to death, so, she just did what she had to. And this woman, who understood so well these things we have to do, would probably forgive me for what I’m doing to her too.”

The old woman said something along those lines.

The servant put his sword back in its scabbard and rested his hand on its hilt while he listened to her story unsympathetically. Sure enough, while he listened, his right hand nursed the red pus-filled pimple on his cheek. As he was listening to her story, he felt the courage that he had lacked under the gate a few moments earlier building up inside him. It was leading him in the completely opposite direction of the courage he had when he climbed up the gate and grabbed the old woman. The servant was no longer debating whether to starve to death or become a thief. The way he felt now, the idea of starving to death was virtually unthinkable.

“That’s definitely true,” the servant agreed derisively when she had finished speaking. He took a step forward and suddenly tore his right hand away from the pimple. Grabbing the woman by the scruff of the neck, he said to her in a biting tone:

“Well then, you won’t hold it against me if I try to steal your clothes. If I don’t, you see, I too will starve.”

The servant deftly stripped the woman of her kimono. She tried to cling to his leg, but he kicked her violently onto the corpses. The entrance to the stairwell was a mere five paces away. In the blink of an eye, the servant ran down the steep staircase and into the darkness, carrying the dusky-red kimono under his arm.

For a while, the old woman lay there as if she were dead, but it was only a short time before she lifted her naked body off the corpses. Whimpering, she crawled over to the stairs, by the light of her still-lit torch. She stuck her head into the stairwell door, and looked down to the bottom of the gate, her short white hair hanging upside down. But outside, there was only the pitch-black darkness of night.

Where the servant went to, nobody knows.

Tulong sa pag-aaral. Pasensya na kung maraming typographical error, ang haba kaya.

Si Kesa at si Morito

Salin ni Lualhati Bautista

Mula sa “Rashōmon atbp. pang Kuwento”

Ni Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

UNANG
BAHAGI: MONOLOGO NI MORITO

Sa pagkakatingin sa buwan habang nag-iisip, naglalakad si Morito sa ibabaw ng mga
lagas na dahon sa makalabas ng bakod ng kanyang bahay:

Sumikat na ngayon ang buwan. Karaniwang hinihintay ko nang may pagkainip ang pagsikat ng buwan. Pero ngayong gabi, ang maliwanag na sikat ng buwan ay yanig na sumusindak sa akin. Kinikilabutan akong isipin na ang gabing ito ay magwawasak sa aking kasalukuyang sarili at gagawin akong isang karumal-dumal na mamamatay-tao. Isipin na lang kapag ang mga kamay na ito’y namula sa dugo! Anong kasumpa-sumpang nilalang ang magiging tingin ko sa aking sarili kapag nagkaganoon! Ang puso ko’y di mababagbag sa sakit kung papatay ako ng isang kaaway na kinasusuklaman ko, pero ngayong gabi ay kailangan kong patayin ang isang lalaking hindi ko kinasusuklaman.

Matagal ko na siyang kilala. Kahit kamakailan ko lang nalaman ang kanyang pangalan, Wataru Saemonno-jo, mula’t sapul pa’y kilala ko na ang kanyang magandang mukha. Nang matuklasan kong asawa siya ni Kesa, totoong sandali rin akong nag-apoy sa panibugho. Pero ngayon, ang panibugho ko’y napawi na, hindi nag-iwan ng anumang bakas sa aking isip o puso. Kaya para sa aking karibal sa pag-ibig, wala akong pagkamuhi o masamang hangarin. Manapa, mabuti ang isipin ko para sa kanya. Nang sabihin sa akin ng tiya ko, si Komorogawa, kung paano niya pinagsikapan at pinagsakitang makuha ang puso ni Kesa, nakadama ako ng simpatiya sa kanya.
Naunawaan ko, na sa buong hangarin niya na mapangasawa ito, pinaghirapan pa niyang matutong sumulat ng tula. Hindi ko maisip na ang simple at nakababagot na lalaking iyon ay sumusulat ng mga tula ng pag-ibig, at isang ngiti ang gumuguhit sa aking mga labi sa kabila ng damdamin ko. Hindi ito ngiti ng pag-uyam; naaantig ako sa pagkamasuyo ng isang lalaki na ginagawa ang lahat para makuha ang isang babae. Posible pa rin na ang kanyang masimbuyong pag-ibig ang nagtulak sa kanyang sambahin ang  minamahal kong si Kesa ay nakapagdudulot sa akin ng kasiyahan.

Pero mahal ko ba talaga si Kesa? Ang aming pag-iibigan ay maaaring paghiwalayin sa dalawang baitang, ang nakaraan at ang kasalukuyan. Minahal ko siya bago siya ikinasal kay Wataru, o iyon ang aking palagay. Pero ngayong tumitingin ako sa aking puso, nakikita ko na marami akong motibo. Ano ang gusto ko sa kanya? Siya ang klase ng babaeng kinadaramahan ko ng mga hangaring makalaman kahit noong mga panahong ako’y wala pang bahid-dungis. Kung mapahihitulutan ang eksaheradong pahayag, ang pag-ibig ko sa kanya’y hindi hihigit pa sa isang
sentimental na bersyon ng motibong nagtulak kay Adan sa piling ni Eba. Malinaw ito sa mga pag-aalinlangan ko na patuloy siyang mahalin kung sakaling ang aking hangarin ay natupad. Bagamat nanatili siya sa isip ko sa sumunod na tatlong taon pagkaraang maputol ang aming ugnayan, hindi ko tiyakang masasabi na mahal ko siya. Sa kasunod na pakikipag-ugnayan ko sa kanya, ang pinakamalaking ipinagsisisi ko ay iyong hindi ko siya nakilala ng lubos. Pinarurusahan ng kawalang-kasiyahan, nahulog ako sa kasalukuyang relasyon, na gumugimbal sa akin, gayunman, alam kong mangyayari. Ngayo’y itinatanong kong muli sa aking
sarili, “Mahal ko ba siya talaga?”

Nang makita ko uli siya tatlong taon pagkaraan, sa pagdiriwang na kaugnay ng pagkakayari ng Tulay ng Watanabe, ginawa ko ang lahat ng paraan para Makita siya nang patago. Sa huli’y nagtagumpay ako. Hindi lang ako nagtagumpay na makita siya, kundi inangkin ko pa ang kanyang katawan na gaya ng pinapangarap ko. Sa pagkakataong iyon, ang panghihinayang na di ko siya nakilala nang pisikal ay hindi ang tanging nangingibabaw sa akin. Nang maupo ako sa tabi niya sa nababanigang silid ng bahay ni Koromogawa, napansin ko na malaking bahagi ng aking panghihinayang ang naglaho na. Malamang na ang aking hangarin ay pinahina ng pangyayaring hindi na ako malinis. Pero ang pinakapangunahing dahilan ay hindi siya ang inaasahan kong magiging   siya. Nang magkakaupo kaming magkaharap, natuklasan ko na hindi siya ang imahen ng malabantayog na kagandahang binuo ko sa isip sa nakaraang tatlong taon. Malayo siya sa idolong pinakaasam-asam ko sa aking puso. Ang kanyang mukha, na makapal na nakukulapulan ng matingkad na pulbos, ay pinaglahuan na ng malaking bahagi ng dating kasariwaan at makinis na panghalina. Sa ilalim ng mga mata niya’y nakahugis ang nangingitim na guhit. Ang tanging hindi nagbago sa kanya ay ang kanyang malilinaw, bilog, maiitim na mga mata. Nang makita ko siya sa bagong paninging ito, nagimbal ako, at sa kabila ng aking damdamin ay di ko napigilang iiwas ang aking mga mata.

Kung gayo’y paano ko nagawang makipagtalik sa isang babaeng napakanipis ng pagkakabigkis ko? Una’y itinulak ako ng kakatwang kagustuhan na mapangibabawan ang dating hangarin ng puso ko. Sa pagkakaupong magkaharap, binigyan niya ako ng isang eksaheradong kuwento ng kanyang pag-ibig sa kanyang asawa. Wala siyang iniwan kundi hungkag na alingawngaw sa aking tainga. “Mayroon siyang hambog na ideya tungkol sa kanyang asawa,” naisip ko. May hinala rin ako na maaaring ito’y tulak ng kanyang kagustuhang huwag nang pagningasin pa ang aking pagnanasa. Kasabay nito, patindi nang patindi ang dating hangarin kong ihantad ang kanyang kasinungalingan. Bakit itinuturing ko iyong kasinungalingan? Kung sasabihin ninyo sa akin, minamahal kong mambabasa, na ang sariling kayabangan ko ang nagtulak sa akin para maghinalang kasinungalingan ang kanyang pahayag, hindi ko maitatatwa ang inyong bintang. Ano’t anuman, pinaniniwalaan ko noon at pinaniniwalaan ko hanggang ngayon, na iyon ay kasinungalingan.

Pero hindi ang hangaring makapanlupig ang tanging ngumangatngat sa akin  nang mga sandaling iyon. Pinamumulahan akong banggitin ito- pinangingibabawan ako ng pagnanasa. Hindi iyon basta panghihinayang lang na hindi ko nakilala ang kanyang katawan. Iyon ay hamak na kalibugan mismo na ni hindi nangangailangan na ang kabilang panig ay maging ang babaeng iyon. Marahil ay walang lalaking umarkila ng babae sa isang bahay-putahan na magiging mas hamak pa sa akin nang mga sandaling iyon.

Ano’t anuman, batay sa ganyang iba’t ibang motibo, nagkaroon ako ng relasyon kay Kesa. O, manapa, inalisan ko siya ng dangal. Bilang pagbalik sa unang tanong na binitiwan ko, hindi ko na kailangang itanong pa ngayon sa aking sarili kung mahal ko siya.  Nang matapos ang lahat, sapilitang ibinangon ko siya aking mga bisig- ang babaeng ito na umiiyak na ibinagsak ang kanyang sarili.  At nagmukha siyang mas walang dangal kaysa sa akin.  Ang kanyang nakasabog na buhok at nagpapawis na katawan, ang lahat ay indikasyon ng kapangitan ng kanyang isip at katawan.  Hindi kamaliang sabihin na simula nang araw na iyon, sa puso ko’y nagkaroon ako ng bagong pagkamuhi sa kanya. At ngayong gabi’y papatayin ko ang isang lalaking hindi ko kinamumuhian, para sa kapakanan ng babaeng hindi ko iniibig.

“Patayin natin si Wataru,” bulong ko sa tainga ni Kesa. Baliw na nga ako para gawin ang napakagarapal na mungkahing iyon.  Wala sa loob na inihiga ko sa tainga niya ang nakaraang hangarin ko ns hamunin ng labanan si Wataru at pagwagian ang kanyang pag-ibig.  Ano’t anuman, “Patayin natin si Wataru,” bulong ko, at tiyak na tiyak na bumulong ako nang nagtatagis ang mga ngipin, sa kabila ng aking damdamin. Kapag naaalala ko ngayon, hindi ko masasabi kung ano ang nag-udyok sa akin para gawin ang padalus-dalos na bagay na iyon.  Ang tanging naiisip ko bilang paliwanag ditto ay ginusto kong tagpian ang relasyon sa kasalukuyan, at habang tumitindi ang paghamak at pagkasuklam ko sa kanya, lalo kong kinaiinipan na mawasak ko ang kanyang dangal.  Wala nang mas aangkop pa sa mga layuning ito kundi patayin ang asawang ipinangangalandakan niyang mahal niya, at makuha ang kanyang pagsang-ayon mula sa kanyang pagpapatumpik-tumpik.  Kaya tulad sa isang lalaking binabangungot, nakapanaig ako sa kanya na maisakatuparan naming dalawa ang pagpatay na hindi ko gusto.  Kung iyan ay hindi sapat para ipaliwanag ang aking motibo sa pagmumungkahing patayin si Wataru, wala nang paliwanag na dapat tangkain, maliban sa isang kapangyarihang banyaga sa mga mortal (marahil ay demonyo o diyablo) ang nagtataboy sa akin sa makasalanang daan.  Nagpupumilit at paulit-ulit na ibinulong ko ang ganoo’t ganoon ding bagay sa tainga niya.

Sa huli’y nag-angat siya ng mukha at sinabi, “Oo, dapat mo ngang patayin si Wataru.” Hindi lamang ako nasorpresa sa biglang pagsang-ayon niya, kundi nakakita ako ng mahiwagang kinang sa kanyang mga mata na hindi ko napansin noon. Taksil na babae-iyon ang naging tingin ko sa kanya. Gumuhit sa nag-iinit na utak ko ang iglap na pagkabigo at paghihilakbot- at oo, pagkasuklam.  Kung maaaari lang ay babawiin ko ang pangako ko noon din. Sa gayo’y mapangangalanan ko siyang mang-aapid, at ang aking kunsensiya’y makapagkakanlong sa makatwirang pagngingitngit. Pero hindi ko nagawa. Inaamin ko agad kong nakita na imposible iyon sa saglit na bigla siyang tumitig sa akin.  Nagbago na ang kanyang anyo, na para bang nakita niya ang laman ng aking puso.
Nahulog ako sa malungkot na kalagayanng pakikipagtipan para paslangin ang kanyang asawa dahil sa takot ko na paghigantihan niya ako kapag nabigo akong tuparin  ang aking bahagi ko sa usapan.  Ngayon, ang takot na ito’y
mahigpit at matatag na dumaklot sa akin. Magtawa kayo kung ibig ninyo, sa aking karuwagan.  Ito ang gawa ng isang hindi nakaaalam kung gaano kahamak ang kanyang kalaguyo. “Kapag hindi ko pinatay ang kanyang asawa, papatayin niya ako sa kahit na anong paraan. Kailangan kong patayin ang kanyang asawa at kung hindi’y papatayin niya ako,” desperadong naisip ko, sa pagkakatingin ko sa kanyang walang luha pero umiiyak na mga mata.  Pagkatapos kong bitiwan ang aking pangako, hindi ba may nasilip akong ngiti sa kanyang bibig at biloy na gumuhit sa kanyang maputlang pisngi?  Ay, dahil sa kasumpa-sumpang pangakong ito, idadagdag ko ang krimen na buktot na pagpaslang  sa pinakamaitin na pusong maaaring maisip.  Kung tatalikuran ko ang nakatakdang pakikipagtipan na magaganap ngayong gabi. Hindi, ipinagbabawal iyon ng aking pangako.  Lagpas ito kaya kong batahin.  Isa pa, natatakot ako sa
kanyang paghihiganti. Totoong-totoo ito.  Pero may iba pang nag-uudyok sa akin na gawin iyon.  Ano ito?  Ano ang malaking kapangyarihang iyon na nagbubunsod sa akin, sa duwag na “ako,” para patayin ang isang inosenteng lalaki?  Hindi ko masasabi.  Hindi ko masasabi.  Pero posibleng…  Hindi, hindi maaari.  Pinandidirihan ko siya.  Kinatatakutan ko siya.  Kinasusuklaman ko siya.  Pero gayunpaman, maaari ring dahil mahal ko siya.

Si Morito, na patuloy sa paglalakad, ay hindi na nagsalita pa.  Ang pag-awit ng isang balada ay pumailanlang
sa gabi.

Ang isipan ng tao ay nasa dilim, Walang ilaw na makapagbigay-liwanag.Nagsisindi ito ng apoy ng makamundong paghahangad, Upang
humayo at lumitaw, sa loob lang ng isang iglap.

IKALAWANG
BAHAGI: MONOLOGO NI KESA

Gabi, sa ilalim ng isang lampara, nakatayo si Kesa, nakatalikod sa ilawan, nag-iisip nang malalim at kagat-kagat ang Manggas ng kanyang kimono.

Darating ba siya o hindi, ewan ko. Imposibleng hindi. Lumulubog na ang buwan, pero walang marinig kahit isang yabag, kaya maaaring nagbago ang isip niya. Kapag hindi siya dumating… Araw-araw akong mabubuhay sa kahihiyan, tulad sa isang
puta. Paano ako nalubog sa kahihiyan at kasamaan. Mawawalan ako ng dangal at tatapak-tapakan na lang, sa pagkakabilad ng kahihiyan ko. Gayunma’y kakailanganin kong manahimik na parang pipi. Kapag nagkagayon ay dadalhin ko hanggang kabila ng libingan ang aking pagsisisi. Sigurado akong darating siya. Mula noong nakaraang araw, iyon na ang aking pananalig. Natatakot siya sa akin. Kinasusuklaman niya ako’t pinandidirihan, gayunpama’y natatakot siya sa akin. Talaga, kung ang aasahan ko lang ay ang sarili ko, hindi ako makasisiguro sa kanya.Pero maasa ako sa kanya. Umaasa ako sa kanyang pagkamasarili. Umaasa ako sa buktot na takot na pinipukaw ng pagkamakasarili sa kanya.

Pero ngayong hindi ko na magawang umasa sa sarili ko, napakahamak ko nang nilalang! Hanggang noong tatlong taon na ang nakararaan ay may tiwala ako sa akong sarili, at higit sa lahat, sa aking kagandahan. Mas matapat kung sasabihin nating “hanggang noong araw na iyon” kaysa “noong tatlong taon na nakararaan”. Noong araw na iyong makita ko siya sa silid ng bahay ng aking tiya, isang sulyap sa kanyang mga mata at nakita ko ang aking kapangitan na nasasalamin sa kaniyang isip. Kinausap niya ako nang masuyo at mapagmahal, na akala mo’y walang problema. Pero paano pa maaaliw ang puso ng isang babae sa sandaling matuklasan niya ang kapangitan ng kanyang pagkatao? Nagimbal ako, nayanig, nagdalamhati. Di-hamak na mabuti pa ang nakasisindak na pagkabalisang dala ng paglalaho ng buwan na nakita ko sa aking kamusmusan sa mag bisig ng aking tagpag-alaga, kung ihahambing sa malamultong pagkalunos na nagpakulimlim sa isipan ko nang mga sandaling iyon. Naglahong lahat ng pangarap at pangitain  sa aking puso. Ang kalungkutan ng isang maunos na madaling-araw ay tahimik na bumalot sa akin. Ngatal sa kalungkutan, sa huli ay isinuko ko ang aking katawan, na para na ring patay, sa mga bisig ng lalaking hindi ko iniibig – sa mga bisig ng isang makamundong lalaki na nasusuklam at nandidiri sa akin. Hindi ko na ba makakaya ang aking kalungkutan mula nang buong linaw na maipamukha sa akin ang aking kapangitan? Sinikap ko bang mailibing ang lahat sa hibang na sandaling iyon na sumubsob ako sa kanyang dibdib? O itinutulak din ako ng kahiya-hiyang paghahangad lang na gaya rin niya? Maisip ko lang iyon ay nilulukob na ako ng kahihiyan! Kahihiyan! Kahihiyan! Lalo na noong ilayo ko na ang aking sarili sa kanyang mga bisig, hiyang-hiya ako.

Ang pagka-inis at kalungkutan ay naghatid ng walang katapusang luha  sa aking mga mata sa kabila ng pagsisikap ko na huwag umiyak. Hindi lamang ako nagdadalamhati sapagkat nawalan ako ng dangal, higit sa lahat ay nahihirapan ako’t nagdurusa dahil ako’y pinadidirihang tulad sa isang asong ketongin na kinasusuklaman at pinarurusahan. Ano ang aking nagawa mula noon? Ang meron lang ako’y ang pinakamalabong ala-ala niyon na para bang isa iyong bagay sa malayong nakalipas. Natatandaan ko lang ang kanyang mahabang tinig na bumubulong, “Patayin natin si Wataru,” at dumampi sa aking tainga ang kanyang bigote habang ako’y humihikbi. Pagkarinig sa mga salitang ito, kakatwang nakadama ako ng  sigla. Oo, sumigla ako’t lumiwanag na tulad ng sinag ng buwan, kung  ang sinag ng buwan ay matatawag na maliwanag. Bakit hindi, hindi ba ako inaliw ng mga salitang ito? Ay, hindi ba ako – hindi ba ang isang babae’y isang nilalang na nakadarama ng kaligayahan sa pag-ibig ng isang lalaki sukdulang patayin niya ang sarili niyang asawa?

Nagpatuloy ako sa pagluha sa loob nang may malungkot at masiglang pakiramdam na tulad sa sinag ng buwan. Kailan ako nangakong makipagtulungan sa pagpaslang sa aking asawa?

Noon lamang pumasok sa isip ko ang aking asawa. Matapat kong sinasabing “noon lang”. Hanggang sa mga oras na iyon, ang isip ko’y buung-buong nakatuon sa aking sarili atsa aking kahihiyan. Pagkaraa’y nakita ko ang larawan ng nakangiting mukha ng aking asawa. Malamang na nang sandaling maalala ko ang kanyang mukha, gumuhit sa isip ko ang plano. Nang mga sandaling iyon ay disidido na akong mamatay, at ikinagagalak ko ang aking desisyon. Pero nang huminto na ako sa pag-iyak, nang magtaas ako ng mukha, at tumingala sa kanyang mukha para matagpuan ang kapangitan kong nasasalamin doon, dama ko’y naglahong lahat ang aking kaligayahan. Ipinagunita nito sa akin ang kadiliman ng paglalaho ng buwan na nakita ko kasama ang aking tagapag-alaga. Iyon, tulad ng nangyari, ay iglap na nagpalaya sa lahat ng masamang ispiritung nagtatago sa ilalim ng aking kaligayahan. Dahil nga ba sa pagmamahal ko sa aking asawa kaya mamamatay ako para sa kanya? Hindi, kundi dahil lang sa resonableng pangangatuwirang ito, ibig kong pagbayaran ang pagkakasala kong pakikipagtalik sa iba. Dahil walang tapang na magpakamatay, nasa akin ang buktot na hangaring makapag-iwan ng magandang impresyon sa mga tao. Ang kabuktutan kong ito ay maaari na rin sigurong palampasin. Sa ilalim ng pagkukunwaring mamamatay ako sa aking asawa, hindi ba ako nagpaplanong ipaghiganti ang aking sarili laban sa pagkamuhi sa akin ng aking kalaguyo, sa kanyang pandidiri sa akin, sa kanyang buhong na pagnanasa? Pinatutunayan ito ng isang sulyap sa kanyang mukha na pumawi ng mahiwagang kislap na tulad sa mapulang liwanag ng buwan, at nagpalamig sa aking puso sa matinding pagdadalamhati. Mamamatay ako, hindi para sa aking asawa kundi para sa aking sarili. Mamamatay ako, para parusahan ang aking kalaguyo sa pananakit niya sa aking puso at para sa aking hinanakit sa pagdungis niya sa aking katawan. Ay, hindi lang ako walang karapatang mabuhay kundi wala ring karapatang mamatay.

Pero ngayon, gaano kainam pang mamatay na lang kahit sa pinakakahiya-hiyang paraan, kaysa mabuhay. Nakangiti nang pilit, paulit-ulit kong ipinangako na papatayin namin ang aking asawa. Dahil matalas ang pakiramdam niya, marahil ay natunugan niya sa  mga salita ko kung ano ang mangyayari kapag hindi niya tinupad ang kanyang pangako. Kaya mukhang imposible na pagkatapos niyang mangako ng ganoon ay aatrasan niya iyon. Tunog ba iyon ng hangin? Kapag naiisip ko na ang mga dinaramdam ko mula noong araw na iyon ay matatapos na sa wakas ngayong gabi, nakakahinga ako. Tiyak na ang bukas ay maghuhunos ng kanyang malamig na liwanag sa aking katawang walang ulo. Kapag nakita iyon ng aking asawa, siya’y… hindi, hindi ko siya iisip. Mahala ko ng aking asawa. Pero wala akong lakas na gantihan ang kanyang pag-ibig. Isang lalaki lang ang maaari kong mahalin. At ang lalaki iyon ay darating ngayong gabi para patayin ako. Kahit ang gaserang ito’y napakaliwanag para sa akin,
akong pinahihirapan ng aking mangingibig.

Hinipan ni Kesa ang ilawan. Hindi nagtagal at narinig ang mahinang tunog ng isang nabuksang kandado, at bumaha sa loob ang maputlang sinag ng buwan.

In two days, I’m going to Tokyo.

Woohoo Tokyo!

In honor of my journey, here’s a list of just a few of my favorite Japanese films:

Rashomon (1950) – Akira Kurosawa’s film that marked Japan’s entrance into world cinema.  Led to the coining of the term ‘The Rashomon Effect’. Pretty sweet. 

Seven Samurai (1954) – What is there to say – one of the most famous films ever. If you haven’t seen it you must. 

Battle Royale (2000) – Controversial film about a group of young students are left on an island and told to kill each other until only one student remains (hmmm social commentary?). Dark and funny. I absolutely love this film please watch it!  

Ringu (2002) – One of the first films of the new genre J-Horror, which led to dozens of remakes of Japanese horror films in the U.S. (i.e. The Ring, The Grudge, Dark Water).

So do yourselves a favor and watch some of these movies. You might see what I discoverd long ago – East Asian cinema will take you to a whole other (beautiful) world.

It’s week 2 for my little blog and with classes having just started and a head cold ravaging my senses I was all out of blogspiration (if this is not already a word it should be). Besides, the first weeks of baby bloghood are so unsatisfying: why am I doing this? is anyone reading this? should I take a nap? But today I received an e-mail from a colleague in my department (hello Randall!) who said this regarding my inaugural post, “The Watercooler” :

Interesting comment during your water-cooler post. I’ve also noticed how little we talk about lit and film. I wonder if some of the lack of wc talk is due to a fear of showing ignorance, revealing that you have not seen a particular movie or read a particular book. I certainly don’t want Marianne [our department's Shakespeare expert] to know that I haven’t read most of Shakespeare’s plays and can’t remember much about those I have read.

I say we come up with a log in which every one lists their most embarrassing literary or cinematic oversights.

Upon reading this I thought “Eureka! I have something to post about this week!” So in the spirit of Randall’s e-mail I have assembled a list of the films I am most embarrassed to have not seen:

1. Rambo: First Blood (1982, Ted Kotcheff)
As a child of the 1980s, this is unacceptable.

2. Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
My friend, Ali, is devoting a substantial portion of her dissertation to the films of David Lean. When I admitted that I hadn’t seen Lawrence, she replied “It’s long.” That pretty much sums up why I’ve avoided it.

3. L’avventura (1960, Michelangelo Antonioni)
I have brought this film home from the library at least twice. And then I’ve opted to watch something like America’s Next Top Model instead. Oh the shame.

4. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, William Wyler)
I have read numerous critical essays about this film and even sat though several conference presentations that address this classic WWII flick. Does that count?

5. The Grapes of Wrath (1940, John Ford)
I haven’t read the book either. Nail me to the cross.

6. Shane (1953, George Stevens)
I am embarrassed about this one primarily because I always show a clip from it when I teach the Western to my Intro to Film students. Shhhh, don’t tell them.

7. Pather Panchali (1955, Satyajit Ray)
My knowledge of Indian cinema is woefully thin.

8. Rashômon (1950, Akira Kurosawa)
I know, I know, bad me.

9. Way Down East (1920, DW Griffith)
As with #6, I always show a clip (the one on the ice floe) of Way Down East when teaching melodrama. I should watch this tomorrow.

10. Thelma and Louise (1991, Ridley Scott)
I’m an American chick who was in my teens when this film was released. What the hell is wrong with me?

That was oddly liberating.

Care to share your own list of embarrassing cinematic oversights? Yes, you may use an alias…

Ok, Rashomon by Kurosawa is one of my favorite films. It’s beautifully paced, shot, directed and acted in.
It also was a sort of base for one of my other favorite films Ghost Dog, ok maybe not a base for it but at least plays a basic role in the films setup.
So this guy tries to break it down to make it more easily understandable and adherent to conventional story form.
If you haven’t seen this film, do.
Oh, and praise Jah while you’re at it..

Early morning Wednesday.

* We finally saw Up! tonight. All I can say is if the first ten minutes don’t break your heart you have no soul.

* Blackwater founder Erik Prince has apparently been implicated in a huge swath of crimes by a former employee and a Marine working with the company, ranging from tax evasion and money laundering to weapons smuggling to obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence to crimes of war and even to the murder of federal informants. (See MetaFilter for more.) My now-incredibly-timely review of Master of War is getting bumped up accordingly and will probably be online (updated) at Independent Weekly in a day or so. This is all pretty shocking, even by Blackwater standards.

* In not-completely-frakked-up news, Bill Clinton did a good thing today, a win for just about everybody but infamous douchebag of liberty John Bolton.

* More on the Olbermann/O’Reilly saga from Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher, and David Sirota. While I appreciate that he finds himself in a tough spot here, Olbermann is not doing himself any favors with his behavior; making one type of statement on-the-air and another off makes it very clear what is going on, and makes him look like a fool.

* The 100 Greatest Sci-Fi Movies. Outraged to see Galaxy Quest only squeaking by at #95. And 12 Monkeys quietly buried in the 80s? Nonsense.

* “In Which I Ruin Rashomon For Everyone, Forever.”

* And your short pictorial history of robots.

In the wake of the controversy surrounding the arrest of Dr. Henry Louis Gates last week, I’m struck, yet again, by the pointlessness of our news coverage.  I’m not going to get into the particulars of the case.  That has already been done ad nauseum, and since I wasn’t a completely neutral party who was there, how can I say what went on?  I will say this:  Instead of drinking beers under a magnolia tree, it would have been better had the President joined them in the White House screening room for a viewing of Rashomon.

Last night, while I was skimming the umpteenth post on The Daily Dish about what’s being moronically called Gates Gate, I was struck by the thought of how ephemeral the whole thing is, how although it’s the big thing of the moment, in a few weeks it will be forgotten.  The news, as a concept, is a voracious consumer of outrage.  Based in melodrama, it searches endlessly for heroes and villains and works mostly by manipulating emotions by taking very real people and reducing their sufferings to a kind of marionette show.  You can’t sell papers, even digital ones, without stoking somebody’s discontent or their pity.

The news is grounded in sentimentality, which makes it harder to take any given story seriously for any particular length of time.  Since the story is sentimentalized, it is shallow.  Since it is shallow, it cannot be sustained.  To do otherwise would be like watching the same scene from a soap opera over-and-over again.  And it’s hard to imagine anything that could be duller than that.

Even longer-lasting stories, such as the War in Iraq, are presented in sentimental ways and are presented as a series of distinct sentimental stories rather than as one continuing narrative.  In the case of the Iraq War, it started out with a patriotic pageant called “Shock and Awe.”  This was followed by the desert melodrama “The Looting of Baghdad.”  “Abu Ghraib,” “al Qaeda in Iraq,” “Saddam Down the Spiderhole,” “Crisis in Fallujah,” “Improvised Explosive Device,” “The Hanging of Saddam Hussein,” and “The Surge,” among a plethora of titles, all had their moments in the sun.  And just to be clear, I am not trying to belittle the suffering incurred by the soldiers involved, their families, or the Iraqis themselves.  These are all people who experience these stories not as melodrama but as tragic farce.  Their suffering is real and should not, cannot, be diminished.

And that is part of the hell of it.  By sentimentalizing such a story, the news business does exactly that.  It diminishes the suffering of those directly involved.  It takes something profound and makes it passing fair just for the sake of making a few more dollars.

The chaff of this approach to news is the kind of person we call a celebrity.  These are people of no discernible talent who attain a sort of notoriety, quite often from a scandal, and they work quite hard to remain in the public eye.  I just saw a headline concerning Kim Kardashian this morning that described her as a star, and I’m still not sure why I should know her name at all.  Except that she was involved in some scandal at one time, which made her part of the news cycle.  For the person who gets addicted to the notoriety, life becomes a melodramatic story of various romances and break-ups and career moves.  It’s a very sad thing, this addiction to fame, and I can’t imagine the bottomless, existential dread that must envelope Ms Kardashian every time she looks in a mirror and notices an imperfection.  Michael Jackson was killed by his fame and by the sentimentalized parody of a person he became in its service.

And so the omnivorous news cycle continues, chewing up people and stories and spitting them out as parody humans, no longer noble or tragic but merely pitiable.  And there’s nothing to be done about it because most people prefer melodrama to tragedy and sentimental comedy to farce.  They like everything tied up at the end with ribbons made of avuncular smiles and homebaked pies.  It’s a reality of a kind, a shabby, sentimental one, but that’s what folks like.  For the advantage to sentimentality is this:  When the emotions produced are fake and trite, you don’t have to risk the power of true pain and joy.

In this blog entry, Christian Collet, co-editor (with Pei-te Lien) of The Transnational Politics of Asian Americans, describes his approach to understanding contemporary dynamics of racial and ethnic politics.

Gaining perspective is perhaps the biggest challenge of writing — trying to find a point in time and a place in space in which one has enough clarity, confidence and judgment to articulate an idea.  As Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant Rashomon reminds us, even the simplest of events can have completely different meanings.  “Facts” are often dependent, literally, on where one is sitting.

I draw upon the experience of living in Saigon and near Little Saigon in Orange County, and the questions I have asked myself as an American political scientist living in the Asian Pacific, as a way to introduce the challenges of understanding the contemporary dynamics of racial and ethnic politics.  Pei-te Lien and I designed The Transnational Politics of Asian Americans not only to exorcise our own nagging questions, but to inspire others, particularly in political science, to think more about these problems of method – and how we can come to grips with the excitement and uncertainty of globalization.  Our concern is to not only shed light on the “foreign acts” we see in the news, but to put them in perspective – and bring students closer to them through perspectives that they may have yet to experience.

The challenge, as we describe in the introductory chapter, comes not just from being able to perceive transnational politics, but to capture it accurately and, once contained, to interpret its significance – to think about why it matters and the role it may be playing in Asian American incorporation.  That the volume attempts to marry 20th century history to 21st century anthropology, area studies to ethnic studies, surveys to participant observation should, if nothing else, convey our sense that politics is, in essence, a dynamic, Rashomon-like puzzle. Democracy in the Pacific Rim, we believe, may be open to many interpretations, but Asian Americans remain central players in the unfolding drama.

For more information about The Transnational Politics of Asian Americans, visit http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1980_reg.html