SPOILER WARNING: The following post discusses the new film Superman Returns, so if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to read this after watching the flick.
There is little in life I love more than the opening notes of composer John Williams score to the original Superman series of films, so it was with a little surprise, if not shock, that I found myself actually dreading hearing that music again, and again, and again during the course of the new film Superman Returns.
This is the thing. Before, I wondered: How are they (the new produers, writers, director, actors) going to top the Christopher Reeve flicks? They were so pure, so potent, so fundamentally perfect. (For me.) As I wrote a few months back, every generation deserves its own incarnation of Superman; what worked for me as a kid will not necessarily work for kids today. Such is life.
And yet, from the beginning frames of the film, my heart started to sink. Why? Marlon Brando's voice; the familiar John Williams score; the credits, identical in texture and tone to the first film back in 1978. I suddenly realized: They're not playing fair.
Here's what I mean. Kids today, toddlers, infants, whatever, they're not going to remember the original flicks; or, if they have seen them, they will seem like relics from the past. Us grown-ups, the ones who loved the originals, have them encoded in our emotional DNA. So by playing the same music, using the same credits, having the story work as a quasi, unofficial sequel to the first two films, referencing familiar events, it all seems like a cheat. That may seem strong. But you have to earn love and respect and awe and wonder. On your own terms, on today's terms, with your own originality and effects and wit. Superman Returns uses our emotional ties to the first films as a way of reinforcing what should be our love for this film.
For me, I don't buy it.
Don't get me wrong -- there's a lot of interesting developments to Superman's character, and the effects are marvelous, and it is entertaining. (Although Kevin Spacey as Luthor didn't do it for me, and the less said about Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane the better. Brandon Routh as the big guy does an admirable job, but his Clark Kent left a little to be desired -- which may be the script's fault, not his. Oh, and the film for some reason disregards Superman III and Superman IV, mostly because most people think they blew, big-time, when the seven-year old in me knows that they are, like, two of the most awesome flicks ever made.)
But it's a cheat. Imagine if Batman Begins, a stellar new entry into the Batman mythos, used a lot of the same music as Tim Burton's film, and continued the story line, and referenced his film ad nauseum. What does that prove?
That's what happens here. To me, it proves a lack of daring; a laziness; an unwillingness to imagine, to conceptualize, a new and different approach to this legendary character.
I saw the orginal films; I love the original films. When I hear the same music as the first film and see similar set-pieces from the first film, updated with more modern effects, I can only groan. They're playing on my nostalgia; they're buying emotion they haven't earned. Some might argue that, because this story is, in fact, a continuation of the earlier films, then it makes logical sense to utilize the same score, storyline, etc.
Uh-uh. I think that's called, let me see, what's the word, copying.
The character is old enough, venerable enough, that he deserves another realization of who and what he is. By constantly harkening back to what worked so well before, they're essentially saying: We're not trying to craft anything new; we'll do what got you off twenty, twenty-five years ago. But the effects are way, way, cooler.
It's just a movie. I know. And the three-year old kid next to me who shouted "Superman!" every...single...time...the man in blue tights appeared on screen obviously enjoyed himself.
It's funny, though. I always loved the Superman music. I always associated it with Christopher Reeve, flying leisurely above the earth, as he does at the end of each of the original four films. The music soars, his head turns, his smile flashes wide.
The new Superman movie ends exactly the same way. Same music, same soaring, same turn of the head.
I've seen this, I wanted to cry out. Do something new, please. Don't copy Christopher Reeve's every motion with the same music and the same ending and expect me to be thrilled all over again.
Every sequel, every remake, every comic-book movie, I ask the same thing: Give me what I love, but different. This flick gave me what I loved, but the same.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
ME, MULTIPLIED (AND YOU, SQUARED, POSSIBLY EVEN CUBED)
Whenever I almost trip and fall down the stairs, or narrowly avoid getting sideswiped by a car, or somehow manage to duck from a piece of concrete a construction worker is carrying that almost, almost takes my head off, I wonder if it's true, what they say about parallel universes. (Of course, I'm not exactly, precisely, entirely certain who 'they' are, but they sure as hell know a lot of shit about a lot of stuff.)
You know the theory: That every time we take a left, another version of ourselves, in another universe, a parallel plane of existence, takes a right. Whenever we go for the Doritos, that other self selects the salad. A multiple number of selves in a multiple number of universes, stretching on into infinity. (Sounds absurd, at first glance, but take a look at the Book of Mormon's beliefs, or the Old Testament, or a cursurory glance at Cruise's Scientology, and you will see that most beliefs are, in the end, kind of kooky. Or very kooky, when you get right down to it.)
I kind of like this theory -- that there is not just one of us but many of us, individually; that we exist, separate, but the same, in another sphere of existence. It almost validates, in some strange way, our own existence. We are, each of us, one of a kind, sure, got that, check, but we are so one of a kind that multiple versions exist in alternating temporal planes. (Yes, that makes no sense, but neither does the theory to start with, so work with me here.)
So. I almost fall down the stairs. That other Scott, in that other realm, does fall down the stairs. He breaks his leg, his foot, sprains his arm. Gets taken to the hospital. In the hospital he is inspired by an old paperback political book on Mackenzie King and says fuck it, then decides to chuck it all, his whole life, to enter politics. Within twenty-five years he becomes Canadian prime minister, only to fall victim to an assassin's bullet while campaigning in Barry's Bay, Ontario. His grave is visited by thousands every year. A theme park is named after him. Even a breakfast cereal bears his moniker.
All of the above is not going to happen in this life, this incarnation of Scott, but the option of other dimensions, quantam existences, holds forth the possibility, if not the inevitability, that we will get what we want, at some point in time, during some deviation of our presence here in this life. If all possibilities are possible, if all lefts can become rights, if all of our decisions have an equal and opposite reaction in the universe just next door, then surely triumphant success is likely, if not our birthright.
The opposite, of course, is also true. We will die young, come down with disease, be framed for murder, end our lives in prison. Possibly we'll be eaten by wolverines. Conceivably we'll be drafted into war, step on a land grenade, have our flesh devoured by cannibals in Sudbury. It's all up in the air; the ascent and the descent are endless.
I'm not sure that scares me so much anymore.
My life may turn out well or vile, prosperous or pauper-like, but so be it. More and more, these past few weeks, especially with the reality of cancer looming in my life (via another's struggle), I've realized that life truly is about the struggle. About the process. About how we change, shift or grow, for good or for ill. The only end is the end, unfortunately; the only conclusion is our own demise. Everything else is a journey towards that date.
Grim, it sounds, I know, but it's not. It means that every day is another notch in the belt, another road taken, another cliche enacted and set in the books. The becoming is important -- not what we become.
So it's comforting, I think, to believe that there are thousands, millions, infinite variations of our personalities, in neighbouring, almost co-habitating realms, that are pursing the same unlikely journey, with a plethora of alternate outcomes. We can't see them all; we can't see any of them, truth be told, except the reality we're in.
But the fact that they (or we, or us, or I) may, may, may be out there, somewhere, just next door, undetected but felt, makes one feel less lonely. It gives us ourselves as our own companions. It allows to belive, if only delusionally, that the decisions we make may not bear fruit, here, now, but somewhere, in some place, we have made a certain kind of peace with ourselves.
Of course, having said all that, I still wonder why the hell I'm so damn clumsy. Couldn't I, just for, like, a day or two, have some of that other Scott's mojo, the one who is suave and slick, the one inhabiting the realm just beneath this one?
Just for a day? That's all I'm asking.
Not sure if it's going to happen, but I'll let the day decide if it does.
You know the theory: That every time we take a left, another version of ourselves, in another universe, a parallel plane of existence, takes a right. Whenever we go for the Doritos, that other self selects the salad. A multiple number of selves in a multiple number of universes, stretching on into infinity. (Sounds absurd, at first glance, but take a look at the Book of Mormon's beliefs, or the Old Testament, or a cursurory glance at Cruise's Scientology, and you will see that most beliefs are, in the end, kind of kooky. Or very kooky, when you get right down to it.)
I kind of like this theory -- that there is not just one of us but many of us, individually; that we exist, separate, but the same, in another sphere of existence. It almost validates, in some strange way, our own existence. We are, each of us, one of a kind, sure, got that, check, but we are so one of a kind that multiple versions exist in alternating temporal planes. (Yes, that makes no sense, but neither does the theory to start with, so work with me here.)
So. I almost fall down the stairs. That other Scott, in that other realm, does fall down the stairs. He breaks his leg, his foot, sprains his arm. Gets taken to the hospital. In the hospital he is inspired by an old paperback political book on Mackenzie King and says fuck it, then decides to chuck it all, his whole life, to enter politics. Within twenty-five years he becomes Canadian prime minister, only to fall victim to an assassin's bullet while campaigning in Barry's Bay, Ontario. His grave is visited by thousands every year. A theme park is named after him. Even a breakfast cereal bears his moniker.
All of the above is not going to happen in this life, this incarnation of Scott, but the option of other dimensions, quantam existences, holds forth the possibility, if not the inevitability, that we will get what we want, at some point in time, during some deviation of our presence here in this life. If all possibilities are possible, if all lefts can become rights, if all of our decisions have an equal and opposite reaction in the universe just next door, then surely triumphant success is likely, if not our birthright.
The opposite, of course, is also true. We will die young, come down with disease, be framed for murder, end our lives in prison. Possibly we'll be eaten by wolverines. Conceivably we'll be drafted into war, step on a land grenade, have our flesh devoured by cannibals in Sudbury. It's all up in the air; the ascent and the descent are endless.
I'm not sure that scares me so much anymore.
My life may turn out well or vile, prosperous or pauper-like, but so be it. More and more, these past few weeks, especially with the reality of cancer looming in my life (via another's struggle), I've realized that life truly is about the struggle. About the process. About how we change, shift or grow, for good or for ill. The only end is the end, unfortunately; the only conclusion is our own demise. Everything else is a journey towards that date.
Grim, it sounds, I know, but it's not. It means that every day is another notch in the belt, another road taken, another cliche enacted and set in the books. The becoming is important -- not what we become.
So it's comforting, I think, to believe that there are thousands, millions, infinite variations of our personalities, in neighbouring, almost co-habitating realms, that are pursing the same unlikely journey, with a plethora of alternate outcomes. We can't see them all; we can't see any of them, truth be told, except the reality we're in.
But the fact that they (or we, or us, or I) may, may, may be out there, somewhere, just next door, undetected but felt, makes one feel less lonely. It gives us ourselves as our own companions. It allows to belive, if only delusionally, that the decisions we make may not bear fruit, here, now, but somewhere, in some place, we have made a certain kind of peace with ourselves.
Of course, having said all that, I still wonder why the hell I'm so damn clumsy. Couldn't I, just for, like, a day or two, have some of that other Scott's mojo, the one who is suave and slick, the one inhabiting the realm just beneath this one?
Just for a day? That's all I'm asking.
Not sure if it's going to happen, but I'll let the day decide if it does.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
EVERYTHING CLEAR AND AVAILABLE
There is nothing like standing in the sand on an almost empty beach.
Your feet in the water. The tide coming in, out. To your left nothing but wide open space, deep blue water, a horizon so far away and almost impossible to reach; to your right, ditto.
Everything is clear and available.
I stood in the water and let the waves do what waves do. I looked up at the sun and was grateful for its heat.
Earlier, by the pool, watching her son bounce his inflatable ball around the deck, the Japanese teacher explained, in her halting but understandable English, why she had left Japan. The Japanese people have forgotten what life is about, she said. Everybody is concerned only about money, she said. Not friends, not family, but money. And she didn't want her son to grow up in that environment. She understood what was important in life now. It's not money, she said. Money is only money.
She looked at us for understanding.
She got it.
I stood on the sand and in the water. Both at the same time. Somehow that is possible. I stood and watched the water and wondered. About the brevity of life.
Someday I will be gone but the beach will remain. The water is not going anywhere. Somebody else will stand upon this same sand on a similar day and ponder similar thoughts. Nothing original about my thoughts, I realized, but then again: who cares? There is nothing original about sand or water, and yet consider what brilliance, what illumination they have given me. Time and time again.
Whenever I feel lost I try to find some beach and some wind and some space and some air. (Not consciously, but I find them.) In such circumstances I can feel small, and thus grateful for my size. There are things bigger than myself that will endure after I am gone. Others, later, decades from now, centuries from now, will travel similar paths and ask identical questions. Such monotony and repetition will then achieve a kind of bland, stubborn grace that remains, for the most part, unrecognized.
But I can feel linked.
There is nothing like standing in the sand on an almost empty beach.
Your feet in the water. The tide coming in, out. To your left nothing but wide open space, deep blue water, a horizon so far away and almost impossible to reach; to your right, ditto.
Everything is clear and available.
I stood in the water and let the waves do what waves do. I looked up at the sun and was grateful for its heat.
Earlier, by the pool, watching her son bounce his inflatable ball around the deck, the Japanese teacher explained, in her halting but understandable English, why she had left Japan. The Japanese people have forgotten what life is about, she said. Everybody is concerned only about money, she said. Not friends, not family, but money. And she didn't want her son to grow up in that environment. She understood what was important in life now. It's not money, she said. Money is only money.
She looked at us for understanding.
She got it.
I stood on the sand and in the water. Both at the same time. Somehow that is possible. I stood and watched the water and wondered. About the brevity of life.
Someday I will be gone but the beach will remain. The water is not going anywhere. Somebody else will stand upon this same sand on a similar day and ponder similar thoughts. Nothing original about my thoughts, I realized, but then again: who cares? There is nothing original about sand or water, and yet consider what brilliance, what illumination they have given me. Time and time again.
Whenever I feel lost I try to find some beach and some wind and some space and some air. (Not consciously, but I find them.) In such circumstances I can feel small, and thus grateful for my size. There are things bigger than myself that will endure after I am gone. Others, later, decades from now, centuries from now, will travel similar paths and ask identical questions. Such monotony and repetition will then achieve a kind of bland, stubborn grace that remains, for the most part, unrecognized.
But I can feel linked.
There is nothing like standing in the sand on an almost empty beach.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
SMALL TOWNS, BIG LIVES
I don't get big cities.
I've lived in big cities for the past ten years -- Toronto, Tokyo, Phnom Penh -- but I don't get them.
My hometown had a population that topped out at around one hundred and twenty thousand; not small, no, but not quite the size of the million-plus inhabitants whose environs I've lived in and around since graduating from university.
The thing is, in big cities, everything's open. Literally, figuratively. It's there. You don't have to look for sleaze, or crime, or weirdos on the street, trying to sell you drugs or women or Jesus or food. They will come up to, say how-de-do, hand you a flyer, drop you a line. Like it or not.
Small towns, small cities, are different.
Big cities seem to think they have a patent on outrageous, odd, borderline criminal behavior. (Just check out Las Vegas's official slogan: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Which practically invites you into a wonderland of debauchery and decadence, no hassles, no after-effects, and, most importantly, friends and neighbours, boys and girls, no guilt. Everything will stay freeze-dried and locked-up in those there parts.) What I've realized, though, is that small towns are every bit as weird and strange and scary and demented. They just don't have billboards to advertise it.
The best writers know this, which is why I've always gobbled up fiction about small-town life. Behind the kids playing street hockey and the kindly, elderly neighbours waving hello, how are you, come again soon, there are the same human foibles, the same pain and longing, the identical confusion that can be found on urban streetcorners.
Right now I'm making my way through Some Came Running by James Jones, a late-fifties novel that reads somewhat dated and yet is also chock-full of astounding and spot-on insights about the way that small-town folk talk and think act. It's the kind of book that writers like Mailer and Vidal and Baldwin and Hemingway and Faulkner and Fitzgerald tried to tackle in their youth, books that sought to encompass the entire spectrum of human behavior. It reeks of ambition. It's long and unwieldly and full of colourful, recognizable characters. The fictional town depicted in the book reminds me of where I grew up; it reminds me of people I know (or think I know).
Novels like this make me realize that where I come from, where I am rooted, has a history and common humanity all its own. I'll never understand big cities, or the people who come from them, but through fiction I can try to convince myself that my own background has a validity and resonance; I can try to make myself believe that the people I grew up with can be understood. If only for a page or two.
I could read and breathe and live in these kinds of books for days, weeks, a life. Books like Paradise Falls by Don Robertson, or Raintreet County by Ross Lockridge, Jr., or Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Books that highlight the grotesque and noble of small-town existence, that acknowledge the common humanity to be found in the corners of rooms, the edge of beds, and in the minute yet mountainous gaps that inevitably exist between the schoolroom bell and the factory siren that calls everyone, eventually, back to work.
I've lived in big cities for the past ten years -- Toronto, Tokyo, Phnom Penh -- but I don't get them.
My hometown had a population that topped out at around one hundred and twenty thousand; not small, no, but not quite the size of the million-plus inhabitants whose environs I've lived in and around since graduating from university.
The thing is, in big cities, everything's open. Literally, figuratively. It's there. You don't have to look for sleaze, or crime, or weirdos on the street, trying to sell you drugs or women or Jesus or food. They will come up to, say how-de-do, hand you a flyer, drop you a line. Like it or not.
Small towns, small cities, are different.
Big cities seem to think they have a patent on outrageous, odd, borderline criminal behavior. (Just check out Las Vegas's official slogan: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Which practically invites you into a wonderland of debauchery and decadence, no hassles, no after-effects, and, most importantly, friends and neighbours, boys and girls, no guilt. Everything will stay freeze-dried and locked-up in those there parts.) What I've realized, though, is that small towns are every bit as weird and strange and scary and demented. They just don't have billboards to advertise it.
The best writers know this, which is why I've always gobbled up fiction about small-town life. Behind the kids playing street hockey and the kindly, elderly neighbours waving hello, how are you, come again soon, there are the same human foibles, the same pain and longing, the identical confusion that can be found on urban streetcorners.
Right now I'm making my way through Some Came Running by James Jones, a late-fifties novel that reads somewhat dated and yet is also chock-full of astounding and spot-on insights about the way that small-town folk talk and think act. It's the kind of book that writers like Mailer and Vidal and Baldwin and Hemingway and Faulkner and Fitzgerald tried to tackle in their youth, books that sought to encompass the entire spectrum of human behavior. It reeks of ambition. It's long and unwieldly and full of colourful, recognizable characters. The fictional town depicted in the book reminds me of where I grew up; it reminds me of people I know (or think I know).
Novels like this make me realize that where I come from, where I am rooted, has a history and common humanity all its own. I'll never understand big cities, or the people who come from them, but through fiction I can try to convince myself that my own background has a validity and resonance; I can try to make myself believe that the people I grew up with can be understood. If only for a page or two.
I could read and breathe and live in these kinds of books for days, weeks, a life. Books like Paradise Falls by Don Robertson, or Raintreet County by Ross Lockridge, Jr., or Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Books that highlight the grotesque and noble of small-town existence, that acknowledge the common humanity to be found in the corners of rooms, the edge of beds, and in the minute yet mountainous gaps that inevitably exist between the schoolroom bell and the factory siren that calls everyone, eventually, back to work.
Monday, June 12, 2006
LISTEN TO ITS STING
I've never been much of a basball buff. Watched two, three Toronto Blue Jay games at the stadium as a kid. Never seen a complete game from start to finish on TV. Always too slow, too methodical, too maturely intricate for my immature mind. And yet within the past few years I've grown increasingly fond of baseball books, especially the kind that follow a team around for a year or two, chronicling the highs and lows and flat-out weirdness of this children's sport played by grown men. There's a sweetness and a poetry to baseball writing at its best that combines the nostalgia of youth and the reality of aging. I just finished one called Slouching Towards Fargo, by Neal Kaplen, which depicts the minor-league exploits of an eccentric, oddball team in Minnesota partially owned by comedian Bill Murray, who routinely pops up at the ballpark for a game and a beer and an amiable chat with the local fans. I read the book and I think: There's something about baseball. I watch a few innings of the game on ESPN over here and I realize: There's something there. It's slow and languid and enables one to find a space for themselves within its lesiurely pace. You can think about life, or about the game, or both. There's a reason why two of the filmmakers with the most complex, ambiguous series of films (Woody Allen and Spike Lee) are rabid fans of this simple, unambigious game, and all sports games. There's a relief.
I can almost see it, if I concentrate hard enough. A year or so ago I planned on following a Junior B hockey team around the frigid small towns of Saskatchewan, Canada for a winter season, writing about their games, families, lives. (I swear.) Didn't work out, but still. I think about it. Only now I'm picturing baseball, not hockey.
Me, in the stands. Maybe in Canada, or America, possibly even Japan. It doesn't matter, as long as there's baseball. Notebook in hand. The sun shining. The grass green. The sun bright, blindingly so. On the field, the players warm-up, while I jot down notes on a small white pad with a big blue pen. About the players, and the people beside me. Perhaps I could follow the team from game to game, town to town, if only for a season. I could learn about who they are and where they want to go. Within the game of baseball there is a clear purpose, and a focus, and an intent. I could see what following that intent does for them, and for me. At the end of the season I might have a book. Or not. At the very least I would have spent some time in the ball-park, outside, hot dog in one hand, lemonade in the other. I now see that the real world is a harsh and scary place, and perhaps there, outside the diamond, within the stadium, a sanctuary could be found, however artificial. I could sit and listen for the crack of the bat and the swoosh of the ball and hold up my hands and wait for that hard round orb to fall between my palms. Wait for its smack against flesh, and listen to its sting.
I can almost see it, if I concentrate hard enough. A year or so ago I planned on following a Junior B hockey team around the frigid small towns of Saskatchewan, Canada for a winter season, writing about their games, families, lives. (I swear.) Didn't work out, but still. I think about it. Only now I'm picturing baseball, not hockey.
Me, in the stands. Maybe in Canada, or America, possibly even Japan. It doesn't matter, as long as there's baseball. Notebook in hand. The sun shining. The grass green. The sun bright, blindingly so. On the field, the players warm-up, while I jot down notes on a small white pad with a big blue pen. About the players, and the people beside me. Perhaps I could follow the team from game to game, town to town, if only for a season. I could learn about who they are and where they want to go. Within the game of baseball there is a clear purpose, and a focus, and an intent. I could see what following that intent does for them, and for me. At the end of the season I might have a book. Or not. At the very least I would have spent some time in the ball-park, outside, hot dog in one hand, lemonade in the other. I now see that the real world is a harsh and scary place, and perhaps there, outside the diamond, within the stadium, a sanctuary could be found, however artificial. I could sit and listen for the crack of the bat and the swoosh of the ball and hold up my hands and wait for that hard round orb to fall between my palms. Wait for its smack against flesh, and listen to its sting.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO LIFE, PERSONALIZED
Kids are always watching us grown-ups. Constantly, covertly, and especially when we are opening packets of barbeque sauce using our teeth, or the front two, anyways.
Last night at Yellow Cab Pizza Company here in Baguio, I demonstrated (unknowingly) to my twelve-year old companion the most efficient and effective way of ensuring that your barbeque sauce (or ketchup) ends up adequately arrayed across your friend chicken (or french fries), and not concentrated in scattered enormous blobs, as is so often the tragic case.
Step One: Fold the packet of sauce or ketchup in two. This will create a sizable bulge in between the two parts.
Step Two: Using your front teeth, gently, delicately rip a teensy-weensy itsy bitsy hole across the bulge, no more than a mosquite-bite in diameter.
That's it. That's all.
Now you can hold the hot sauce (or ketchup) packet between your fingers, and gently squeeze, and what will emerge is an incredibly fine spray that you can then use to seranade your food in equal proportions.
My best friend Mariano Manti taught me that little trick at the age of ten or eleven while we were munching away at McDonald's, and I've never forgotten it, and I use it, unconsciously, all the time.
Last night, though, I happened to notice my twelve-year old friend watching me carefully. He'd never seen anybody do that before. He'd never learned that trick. Everything was new.
Living in a house with assorted infants and toddlers and (almost) adolescents, I've become sensitized to how much kids watch us. The adults, that is. Especially babies, who are wondering who we are and who they are and what the hell it is they're supposed to say or do. They mimic the words, the facial expressions, the gestures. They try to figure out for themselves how the world works, using our body language as informal guide. We're doing our thing, living our lives, not usually realizing we are all, communally and individually, acting as THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO LIFE to some little kid watching our ways.
Makes you feel almost, well, responsible. Not for everybody, no, but for some people. The small people. That little kid across from you in the restaurant, the one with puke on his bib and a smile on his face -- he's watching you. Wondering why it is that blow bubbles in your chocolate milk through a blue curly straw, and whether or not he should, too, should the chance arise. The little girl still wearing her leotards from gymnastic practice at the Dairy Queen is watching you argue with your sister, and wondering why you use your hands when you talk.
It could be almost, well, intimidating, I suppose, this non-stop scrutiny by our height-challenged brethren. But it's also somehow, I don't know, cool. It means that even the least among us can be the noblest of examples. It allows everybody, regardless of status or prestige, position or confidence, a chance to be a tiny, essential part of another's growth.
And, at the very least, it gives us a reason for ripping apart ketchup packets with our teeth in public like a well-trained animal.
I mean, hey -- kids have to learn these important life lessons somehow, right?
Last night at Yellow Cab Pizza Company here in Baguio, I demonstrated (unknowingly) to my twelve-year old companion the most efficient and effective way of ensuring that your barbeque sauce (or ketchup) ends up adequately arrayed across your friend chicken (or french fries), and not concentrated in scattered enormous blobs, as is so often the tragic case.
Step One: Fold the packet of sauce or ketchup in two. This will create a sizable bulge in between the two parts.
Step Two: Using your front teeth, gently, delicately rip a teensy-weensy itsy bitsy hole across the bulge, no more than a mosquite-bite in diameter.
That's it. That's all.
Now you can hold the hot sauce (or ketchup) packet between your fingers, and gently squeeze, and what will emerge is an incredibly fine spray that you can then use to seranade your food in equal proportions.
My best friend Mariano Manti taught me that little trick at the age of ten or eleven while we were munching away at McDonald's, and I've never forgotten it, and I use it, unconsciously, all the time.
Last night, though, I happened to notice my twelve-year old friend watching me carefully. He'd never seen anybody do that before. He'd never learned that trick. Everything was new.
Living in a house with assorted infants and toddlers and (almost) adolescents, I've become sensitized to how much kids watch us. The adults, that is. Especially babies, who are wondering who we are and who they are and what the hell it is they're supposed to say or do. They mimic the words, the facial expressions, the gestures. They try to figure out for themselves how the world works, using our body language as informal guide. We're doing our thing, living our lives, not usually realizing we are all, communally and individually, acting as THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO LIFE to some little kid watching our ways.
Makes you feel almost, well, responsible. Not for everybody, no, but for some people. The small people. That little kid across from you in the restaurant, the one with puke on his bib and a smile on his face -- he's watching you. Wondering why it is that blow bubbles in your chocolate milk through a blue curly straw, and whether or not he should, too, should the chance arise. The little girl still wearing her leotards from gymnastic practice at the Dairy Queen is watching you argue with your sister, and wondering why you use your hands when you talk.
It could be almost, well, intimidating, I suppose, this non-stop scrutiny by our height-challenged brethren. But it's also somehow, I don't know, cool. It means that even the least among us can be the noblest of examples. It allows everybody, regardless of status or prestige, position or confidence, a chance to be a tiny, essential part of another's growth.
And, at the very least, it gives us a reason for ripping apart ketchup packets with our teeth in public like a well-trained animal.
I mean, hey -- kids have to learn these important life lessons somehow, right?
Monday, June 05, 2006
BLAME IT ON THE RAIN
There is something oddly comforting about the reliability of rain. Everything else at the moment seems out of focus, dim, almost invisible; this world has its own pattern and frequency that my ears cannot quite hear. For here it is, mid-June, and the Filipino students are heading back to school. Over here, summer is over. One would think, after seven years abroad, that I would have become used to such chronological disruptions. After all, both Japan and Cambodia have their own seasonal rhymes and reasons that remained forever opaque to me. And yet it never ceases to surprise me, this familiar feeling that things are off-kilter, or slightly skewed, or even simply strange; I can never quite find a firm footing.
Ah, but the rain. Each day, every day, it arrives. Coming shortly after three, or perhaps leaning towards four. In familiar torrents of intensity. In wet outbursts of bravado, as if nature itself had something to prove. Long and slanting sheets of rain, dousing us all. I can walk, wet yet relieved, because what was supposed to happen did happen. I can count on this cadence, if only for a season.
Ah, but the rain. Each day, every day, it arrives. Coming shortly after three, or perhaps leaning towards four. In familiar torrents of intensity. In wet outbursts of bravado, as if nature itself had something to prove. Long and slanting sheets of rain, dousing us all. I can walk, wet yet relieved, because what was supposed to happen did happen. I can count on this cadence, if only for a season.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
THERE IS ONLY ONE CHUCK NORRIS
Almost nobody knows how to shake hands in Asia. You can see it on the news, when the leaders of China and Vietnam meet and greet for official photos. In Japan and Cambodia, if you hold out your hand, and the other person holds out their hand, what you will receive in return is a limp, wishy-washy sponge. The way that you feel when you set down your rod and try to untangle the fish you just pulled from the lake -- the thing just sits there, flopping around a little, sometimes squirming. For some strange reason, this used to offend me. Then someone in Japan told me politely that I had absolutely no fucking clue how to bow, properly, with the adequate amount of respect, and I realized that shaking hands, bowing, kissing strangers on the cheek, are all ways that we acknowledge the validity and worth of the other person, and if we do it wrong, or wimpishly, we're offending them, and disgracing ourselves.
As a kid, I used to extend my left-hand whenever a grown-up-type-person would ever attempt to shake hands with me; being a lefty, this felt the most natural to me. I had to be taught that no, you can't use your left hand to shake hands. Why not? Well, you just can't. Grown-ups make the rules, and those are the rules, so just use your right hand, because that's the way the world works. (Lefties learn early on that it's a righty world, and we backward brothers-in-arms have to make do with pencil sharpeners, gear shits, video-game joysticks and scissors designed for our more numerous brethren. Sometimes the righty world will throw us a bone: "Oooooh, we get green scissors, how kind of you!" A kind of ambulatory apartheid, I say.) The only time I could shake hands lefty-style, legally, was in Cub scouts. God knows why, and He ain't telling.
I've always found shaking hands an oddly intimate act. It doesn't compare with kissing or hugging or heavy petting, but still: you're taking a stranger's hand, and you're feeling their fingers, and grasping their palms. You care connecting, flesh-to-flesh.
That connection is key, especially among equals, especially among rivals. As a moderately successful high-school runner, it was tradition to shake hands with my main rivals before the race, and often after, too. Andy Bosak used to grip my hand hard, Chuck Norris style, letting the pain linger, avoiding my eyes. Was he trying to intimidate me? I knew he had strong hands, but did he think I thought he was going to run the race on his palms? Tom Villum would give a quick, firm perfunctory shake, his mind already on the race, between the lanes. Afterwards, win or lose, we would shake hands, mutter "good race", feeling each other's slick sweat mingle, the icky aftereffects of our desire to punish the other. Sometimes the dude who came sixth or seventh or fiftieth would come up to shake my hand, which always made me feel rather strange, even uncomfortable, like getting a big kiss from a relative you didn't really know. He wanted to shake my hand because I had won a race, and yet if he had seen me at school, my blue-framed Robocop-glasses tucked tight on my face, my nose buried in a book, would he have longed to swap palms? As a runner I was worthy of a handshake, but what about as a reader? Shaking hands is for complete strangers and intimates; everyone in-between those two states made me question their motives. Old insecurities rose to the surface, I suppose. And yet, deep down, in that place within ourselves where all the good stuff rests and resides, I always appreciated having my hand shaken by other runners, no matter what their place in the race. They were thanking me for helping to push them. You don't go around the hallways at school shaking hands every day for a chemistry test well done, but on the track, when the gun went off, we were all engaging in something ritual and primal and expansive. I realized that to question their motives was egotistical and petty on my part, even asinine. We were all in the thing together. Gestures of goodwill enabled us to endure.
I sometimes would tell my students in Japan: Be firm when shaking hands. Grip tight, but not too tight. (There's only one Chuck Norris, after all.) Move your hand up and down two, three times. Look the other person in the eye. Gently release. Do it when first meeting someone, and then again when parting.
I would have liked to have said to them: Shaking hands is intimate, almost holy. You are connecting with another person. We spend so much time in our own heads, but shaking hands is a way to actually reach out to someone, if only for a moment. You are recognizing their place on this earth. That's important. For some reason, it matters.
But I stuck with the basics. The basics are hard enough.
And then I would sit down, and sigh, and ask: "Okay, so, one more time. Exactly how am I supposed to bow?"
As a kid, I used to extend my left-hand whenever a grown-up-type-person would ever attempt to shake hands with me; being a lefty, this felt the most natural to me. I had to be taught that no, you can't use your left hand to shake hands. Why not? Well, you just can't. Grown-ups make the rules, and those are the rules, so just use your right hand, because that's the way the world works. (Lefties learn early on that it's a righty world, and we backward brothers-in-arms have to make do with pencil sharpeners, gear shits, video-game joysticks and scissors designed for our more numerous brethren. Sometimes the righty world will throw us a bone: "Oooooh, we get green scissors, how kind of you!" A kind of ambulatory apartheid, I say.) The only time I could shake hands lefty-style, legally, was in Cub scouts. God knows why, and He ain't telling.
I've always found shaking hands an oddly intimate act. It doesn't compare with kissing or hugging or heavy petting, but still: you're taking a stranger's hand, and you're feeling their fingers, and grasping their palms. You care connecting, flesh-to-flesh.
That connection is key, especially among equals, especially among rivals. As a moderately successful high-school runner, it was tradition to shake hands with my main rivals before the race, and often after, too. Andy Bosak used to grip my hand hard, Chuck Norris style, letting the pain linger, avoiding my eyes. Was he trying to intimidate me? I knew he had strong hands, but did he think I thought he was going to run the race on his palms? Tom Villum would give a quick, firm perfunctory shake, his mind already on the race, between the lanes. Afterwards, win or lose, we would shake hands, mutter "good race", feeling each other's slick sweat mingle, the icky aftereffects of our desire to punish the other. Sometimes the dude who came sixth or seventh or fiftieth would come up to shake my hand, which always made me feel rather strange, even uncomfortable, like getting a big kiss from a relative you didn't really know. He wanted to shake my hand because I had won a race, and yet if he had seen me at school, my blue-framed Robocop-glasses tucked tight on my face, my nose buried in a book, would he have longed to swap palms? As a runner I was worthy of a handshake, but what about as a reader? Shaking hands is for complete strangers and intimates; everyone in-between those two states made me question their motives. Old insecurities rose to the surface, I suppose. And yet, deep down, in that place within ourselves where all the good stuff rests and resides, I always appreciated having my hand shaken by other runners, no matter what their place in the race. They were thanking me for helping to push them. You don't go around the hallways at school shaking hands every day for a chemistry test well done, but on the track, when the gun went off, we were all engaging in something ritual and primal and expansive. I realized that to question their motives was egotistical and petty on my part, even asinine. We were all in the thing together. Gestures of goodwill enabled us to endure.
I sometimes would tell my students in Japan: Be firm when shaking hands. Grip tight, but not too tight. (There's only one Chuck Norris, after all.) Move your hand up and down two, three times. Look the other person in the eye. Gently release. Do it when first meeting someone, and then again when parting.
I would have liked to have said to them: Shaking hands is intimate, almost holy. You are connecting with another person. We spend so much time in our own heads, but shaking hands is a way to actually reach out to someone, if only for a moment. You are recognizing their place on this earth. That's important. For some reason, it matters.
But I stuck with the basics. The basics are hard enough.
And then I would sit down, and sigh, and ask: "Okay, so, one more time. Exactly how am I supposed to bow?"
Thursday, June 01, 2006
RANDOM THOUGHTS ON A RANDOM DAY FROM THIS RANDOM GUY
Random observations:
- The Philippines is probably one of the few countries in the world where one can catch cock-fighting on television, complete with real-time colour commentary. If you want to see chickens kick the holy living shit out of each other, this be the place, friends and neighbours.
- After not watching David Letterman for years and years, I've noticed that his bandleader, Paul Schaffer, is much more vocal than in the past. He makes his presence felt. He tries out jokes, both good and bad, and Letterman doesn't seem to mind.
- All of the taxis in Baguio are named. They all seem to be the same type of cars, and most, if not all, of them are white, and if I were a car expert I would be able to identify the make of the cars, but I'm not, so I won't. The drivers plaster their personal moniker on the sides of the cars. Many of them range from 'Jesus Is Lord' to 'Salvation', par for the course in a Catholic country like this, but there's also a fair number of slightly more eccentric names, such as 'Forrest Gump' and 'Octopussy'.
- The fact that The Da VinCi Code film was rated R-18 made front page news here. That shows you how religious the country is, and how much of a debate a silly novel can create. I actually liked the movie more than the book; the plot is kind of hokey and not entirely probable, but I'm a sucker for mysteries that make no sense and are impossibly complex, so I bought this one hook, line and sinker. I thought Ron Howard, the director, and Tom Hanks, the star, brought a sense of gravity and solemnity to the proceedings at hand, making mostly kooky ideas and scenarios, if not probable, at least entertaining. The film is very long and very slow, but I like movies that are long and slow, so that didn't bother me. Wondering if Hanks has had botox was a distraction, but I find myself watching most movies these days wondering who's been injecting tiny little globs of age-freezing glop into their foreheads.
- I like reading books that I know absolutely jackshit about. I never, ever read the jacket blurbs on the inside of hardcovers or the backside of softbacks; they give too much shit away. I prefer to see if it's gotten good reviews from reputable sources, then dive in for the read. I just finished Ed McBain's 87th precint novel Fiddlers yesterday, which made me a little said, because McBain (aka Evan Hunter) passed away last year, and it's unlikely I'll ever read a brand-spanking new 87th precint novel again. Today I started an old novel by James Jones called The Merry Month of May, which seems to be about the student riots in Paris in the late sixties. It's subject was a myster to me before I cracked the spine, and that's the way I like it. I also recently picked up a used copy of a memoir written by Willie Morris about his friendship with James Jones, so I figured I'd better read more of Jones's novels before I tackle the memoir.
- I just picked up John Irving's latest in paperback, Until I Find You. It's a huge mother, and I'm waiting for the perfect time to savor it.
- I like reading books about baseball, and basketball, and hockey, where the author travels around for a year and notes down observations about the teams and the people and the fans. I don't watch hardly any televised sports, but I like reading about the inner machinations of the people and places that the professionals (and amateurs) immerse themselves in. (And recently I've been interested in learning more about what's actually going on in baseball and basketball, because I don't the rules too well, and I feel the need to keep learning shit, if only to keep life interesting.)
- Cancer is expensive. There are always more pills to buy and potions to trust, and assessing whether or not is effective is a daily exercise in hope and futility.
- Monsoon season has started here in the Philippines, which means it pisses it down for a good hour or two late in the afternoon, and sometimes again in the early evenings.
- I've come across my (stress on the 'my') perfect weight-loss method, which has served me well in recent months, allowing me to burn off twenty or so pounds. Here it is. Cut out all burgers and french fries. (My decades long albatross. Sayonara, my loves...) During the week, eat lots of apples and oranges and bananas, and lots of Kellog's Corn Flakes. (And little else. Sometimes toast. The occasional bit of chocolate.) Fruit for breakfast, fruit for lunch, fruit for dinner. With cereal. No sugar drinks, including juice. Drink only water. Treat yourself to pizza on the weekends. Run thirty minutes four days a week. Walk forty-five minutes to work, and forty-five minutes from work, up hilly Baguio streets, five days a week. Run hour once a week on the weekends. Repeat every week for three months. As LL Cool J recently told Conan O'Brien, when asked how he kept in such superior shape: "If it tastes good, you can't have it." Which is pretty close to the truth. All the good shit is not good for you, so it's gotta go. Add in lots of cardio every day, and your body will respond. Maybe slowly, maybe painfully, but it will respond. Everybody's different, but if you're burning more calories than you're consuming, something's going to work, eventually. It's a long and painful and not very fun process, but the end rewards, a healthy, vigorous body, are worth it. I don't know long I can keep it up, but for now, for me, it works.
- Random sporting achievements by a country's citizens are always great p.r. for a president. A few Filipinos recently reached the summit of Mount Everest, and they returned home to a lavish welcome and parade with the Philippines' President, Gloria Arroyo. The country is almost always on the verge of a military or people's revolt, but who can hate a president when he/she is side by side sporting heroes? It's like when the winning hockey or basketball or baseball teams visit the White House, inevitably presenting Clinton or Bush with a personalized jersey featuring his name and the number 1. (And Clinton, being the consummate politician he was, and is, would always grin and smile as if he'd never seen such a sight before in all of his life. He ain't called Slick Willie for nothing. Seemed so sincere he might, God forbid, actually have been sincere. It's possible.)
- I could watch the Back To The Future trilogy every day and twice on Sunday. Forever. I watched it for the first time in years and years about a year ago, and I have the urge to see them again. Popular entertainment that actually says a lot about who we are, and how we can control our own fate, and how the rhythms of the past extend into the future and fold back into themselves in the past. History repeats, and so do we. Love those films.
- I'm wondering how my school's 40th anniversary went the other weekend. Who went, who was a no-show, which teachers are alive, dead.
- I've been away from Canada for almost exactly seven years. (With more-or-less annual trips home.) That's a long time, considering I'm only thirty. What is that, twenty percent of my life or something?
- There are no good facilities or groups for cancer patients in Baguio. In the Philippines, nobody likes to talk about disease, so they don't. And yet when I go to the cancer ward of the Baguio Medical Centre with Helen, there's always a long line of anxious patients, new and old, waiting for their turn with the one of only two oncologists in town. And they look scared, and uncertain, and composed, and terrified. That's a list you don't want to be on, that list is. And yet there's not any official groups, no newsletters, little visible communal support.
- All the good doctors and nurses are hightailing it out of the Philippines for the States. Big problem here. There are Filipinos all over the world because there are no jobs here in this country. So families are broken up and left behind as the supporters go to Dubai and Cambodia and America and Canada and Finland to work and send back money. And in this religious country, where abortion is banned, sex-ed is non-existent and contraception a rarity, the population just keeps on getting bigger.
- I've already been here seven months, in my third Asian country. That's a long time.
- I've only been out of Baguio City once in the past seven months, and that was nearby, to a water park tucked between the mountains.
- I'm going to Manila for Helen's CAT-scan in a few weeks, to see how far the cancer has (or hasn't) spread. I'm scared and hopeful about what will be found.
- There needs to be more about ovarian cancer in the mass media. It's called the 'silent killer' for a reason. It's usually found late, in the later stages. If I ever run a marathon, I want to raise money for ovarian cancer research. I have to research myself to see how that's done, raising money by running.
- I haven't read Stephen King's two latest books. That scenario hasn't happened to me for awhile.
- Kids are nicer over here. Sounds strange, but I think it's true. More genuine. More open. Usually, the poorer the country, the more fundamentally kind the people seem to be.
- My students asked me what Canadians know about Korea. I had to admit that most Canadians don't know shit about Korea. Or Japan. Or China. Let alone motherfucking Cambodia. My students know about Isaac Newton, and Thomas Edison, and Helen Keller, and Alexander the Great, and the captials of Poland and Sweden. I think Asian students are better educated on world history and current events than their North American counterparts.
- I want to learn more Japanese.
- I want to read more science-fiction, because I like the way that it stretches your mind.
- I'm wondering when Thomas Harris's next Hannibal Lecter book is coming out. I thought the second one in the series, Hannibal, was close to fucking genius. The movie blew it, but the ending of the book was one of the bravest stunts in popular fiction in quite some time.
- I'm thinking more and more that Sam Harris's book The End of Faith is the bomb, yo. It's a full-throttle blast against organized religion in any form, and it takes no prisoners, essentially arguing that we're relying on stone-age texts in a modern world, selectively choosing the passages that we want to use for spiritual fulfillment, conveniently ignoring the less palatable parts, like in the Book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, when God instructs Abraham and us to hunt down and kill our brothers and sisters if they should go looking into other religions, or how the punishment for blasphemy against God is death, as is the punishment for cursing your mother and father. So why should we not believe this part, but believe all the other good, cuddly, touchy-feely love-your-neighbour stuff? Harris advocates a spirituality that arises from our own investigations into our own selves, instead of a culture that advises us to 'respect' other religions when those very same religions state quite clearly that only they and they alone will go the promised land -- everyone else, the non-believers, are fucked. In this world of nuclear weapons and handheld bombs, we can no longer rely on religions that gain their strength from individual readings of texts written by people who had yet to be introduced to the marvels of the wheel. It's strong and controversial stuff, but it's worth a look, whether you agree with his arguments or not.
- Having said all that, if you have cancer, belonging to a church helps.
- I'm really looking forward to the next installment of the Rocky franchise, due this Christmas. For me, the entire Rocky saga mirrors the necessary, familiar progression of a boxer's life: from unknown to champion to success to retirement to destitution to the inevitable comeback. If it works, writer-director-star Stallone will have crafted a touching look at the cycle of one man's life. Adrian's dead, apparently; Rocky hasn't boxed in years. He wants to challenge himself. If anything, what will be clear is that Rocky will once again be the underdog, which hasn't truly been the case since the first film. Let the jokes begin, but for the true Rocky fan, this film will be an event.
- I've got this anthology of Faulkner's writing in my room, but Faulkner still scares the shit out of me. His writing is so dense and local and complex, the opposite of his contemporary, Hemingway, that I can never seem to get into him. Soon, though, soon. One of his Japanese translators went insane, literally, trying to craft a Japanese counterpart to his particularly English idiom.
- I don't think translators get enough credit. At all. Taking two languages like Japanese and English, and translating works of fiction, is a massive, impossible task. Languages are different life-forms, so you're essentially asking somebody to create a whole other life that distinctly resembles another life. And the reason why a book is good is because of the other's use of language, of rhythm, of tone, all of it crafted based on how words collide with one another. So you're telling the translator: Do the same thing, but use a language and rhythm and tone that have nothing to do with English.
- I like the way that the sunlight is shining outside the door to this room. For now, for the moment, it seems almost inviting me to go somewhere I know not where.
-
- The Philippines is probably one of the few countries in the world where one can catch cock-fighting on television, complete with real-time colour commentary. If you want to see chickens kick the holy living shit out of each other, this be the place, friends and neighbours.
- After not watching David Letterman for years and years, I've noticed that his bandleader, Paul Schaffer, is much more vocal than in the past. He makes his presence felt. He tries out jokes, both good and bad, and Letterman doesn't seem to mind.
- All of the taxis in Baguio are named. They all seem to be the same type of cars, and most, if not all, of them are white, and if I were a car expert I would be able to identify the make of the cars, but I'm not, so I won't. The drivers plaster their personal moniker on the sides of the cars. Many of them range from 'Jesus Is Lord' to 'Salvation', par for the course in a Catholic country like this, but there's also a fair number of slightly more eccentric names, such as 'Forrest Gump' and 'Octopussy'.
- The fact that The Da VinCi Code film was rated R-18 made front page news here. That shows you how religious the country is, and how much of a debate a silly novel can create. I actually liked the movie more than the book; the plot is kind of hokey and not entirely probable, but I'm a sucker for mysteries that make no sense and are impossibly complex, so I bought this one hook, line and sinker. I thought Ron Howard, the director, and Tom Hanks, the star, brought a sense of gravity and solemnity to the proceedings at hand, making mostly kooky ideas and scenarios, if not probable, at least entertaining. The film is very long and very slow, but I like movies that are long and slow, so that didn't bother me. Wondering if Hanks has had botox was a distraction, but I find myself watching most movies these days wondering who's been injecting tiny little globs of age-freezing glop into their foreheads.
- I like reading books that I know absolutely jackshit about. I never, ever read the jacket blurbs on the inside of hardcovers or the backside of softbacks; they give too much shit away. I prefer to see if it's gotten good reviews from reputable sources, then dive in for the read. I just finished Ed McBain's 87th precint novel Fiddlers yesterday, which made me a little said, because McBain (aka Evan Hunter) passed away last year, and it's unlikely I'll ever read a brand-spanking new 87th precint novel again. Today I started an old novel by James Jones called The Merry Month of May, which seems to be about the student riots in Paris in the late sixties. It's subject was a myster to me before I cracked the spine, and that's the way I like it. I also recently picked up a used copy of a memoir written by Willie Morris about his friendship with James Jones, so I figured I'd better read more of Jones's novels before I tackle the memoir.
- I just picked up John Irving's latest in paperback, Until I Find You. It's a huge mother, and I'm waiting for the perfect time to savor it.
- I like reading books about baseball, and basketball, and hockey, where the author travels around for a year and notes down observations about the teams and the people and the fans. I don't watch hardly any televised sports, but I like reading about the inner machinations of the people and places that the professionals (and amateurs) immerse themselves in. (And recently I've been interested in learning more about what's actually going on in baseball and basketball, because I don't the rules too well, and I feel the need to keep learning shit, if only to keep life interesting.)
- Cancer is expensive. There are always more pills to buy and potions to trust, and assessing whether or not is effective is a daily exercise in hope and futility.
- Monsoon season has started here in the Philippines, which means it pisses it down for a good hour or two late in the afternoon, and sometimes again in the early evenings.
- I've come across my (stress on the 'my') perfect weight-loss method, which has served me well in recent months, allowing me to burn off twenty or so pounds. Here it is. Cut out all burgers and french fries. (My decades long albatross. Sayonara, my loves...) During the week, eat lots of apples and oranges and bananas, and lots of Kellog's Corn Flakes. (And little else. Sometimes toast. The occasional bit of chocolate.) Fruit for breakfast, fruit for lunch, fruit for dinner. With cereal. No sugar drinks, including juice. Drink only water. Treat yourself to pizza on the weekends. Run thirty minutes four days a week. Walk forty-five minutes to work, and forty-five minutes from work, up hilly Baguio streets, five days a week. Run hour once a week on the weekends. Repeat every week for three months. As LL Cool J recently told Conan O'Brien, when asked how he kept in such superior shape: "If it tastes good, you can't have it." Which is pretty close to the truth. All the good shit is not good for you, so it's gotta go. Add in lots of cardio every day, and your body will respond. Maybe slowly, maybe painfully, but it will respond. Everybody's different, but if you're burning more calories than you're consuming, something's going to work, eventually. It's a long and painful and not very fun process, but the end rewards, a healthy, vigorous body, are worth it. I don't know long I can keep it up, but for now, for me, it works.
- Random sporting achievements by a country's citizens are always great p.r. for a president. A few Filipinos recently reached the summit of Mount Everest, and they returned home to a lavish welcome and parade with the Philippines' President, Gloria Arroyo. The country is almost always on the verge of a military or people's revolt, but who can hate a president when he/she is side by side sporting heroes? It's like when the winning hockey or basketball or baseball teams visit the White House, inevitably presenting Clinton or Bush with a personalized jersey featuring his name and the number 1. (And Clinton, being the consummate politician he was, and is, would always grin and smile as if he'd never seen such a sight before in all of his life. He ain't called Slick Willie for nothing. Seemed so sincere he might, God forbid, actually have been sincere. It's possible.)
- I could watch the Back To The Future trilogy every day and twice on Sunday. Forever. I watched it for the first time in years and years about a year ago, and I have the urge to see them again. Popular entertainment that actually says a lot about who we are, and how we can control our own fate, and how the rhythms of the past extend into the future and fold back into themselves in the past. History repeats, and so do we. Love those films.
- I'm wondering how my school's 40th anniversary went the other weekend. Who went, who was a no-show, which teachers are alive, dead.
- I've been away from Canada for almost exactly seven years. (With more-or-less annual trips home.) That's a long time, considering I'm only thirty. What is that, twenty percent of my life or something?
- There are no good facilities or groups for cancer patients in Baguio. In the Philippines, nobody likes to talk about disease, so they don't. And yet when I go to the cancer ward of the Baguio Medical Centre with Helen, there's always a long line of anxious patients, new and old, waiting for their turn with the one of only two oncologists in town. And they look scared, and uncertain, and composed, and terrified. That's a list you don't want to be on, that list is. And yet there's not any official groups, no newsletters, little visible communal support.
- All the good doctors and nurses are hightailing it out of the Philippines for the States. Big problem here. There are Filipinos all over the world because there are no jobs here in this country. So families are broken up and left behind as the supporters go to Dubai and Cambodia and America and Canada and Finland to work and send back money. And in this religious country, where abortion is banned, sex-ed is non-existent and contraception a rarity, the population just keeps on getting bigger.
- I've already been here seven months, in my third Asian country. That's a long time.
- I've only been out of Baguio City once in the past seven months, and that was nearby, to a water park tucked between the mountains.
- I'm going to Manila for Helen's CAT-scan in a few weeks, to see how far the cancer has (or hasn't) spread. I'm scared and hopeful about what will be found.
- There needs to be more about ovarian cancer in the mass media. It's called the 'silent killer' for a reason. It's usually found late, in the later stages. If I ever run a marathon, I want to raise money for ovarian cancer research. I have to research myself to see how that's done, raising money by running.
- I haven't read Stephen King's two latest books. That scenario hasn't happened to me for awhile.
- Kids are nicer over here. Sounds strange, but I think it's true. More genuine. More open. Usually, the poorer the country, the more fundamentally kind the people seem to be.
- My students asked me what Canadians know about Korea. I had to admit that most Canadians don't know shit about Korea. Or Japan. Or China. Let alone motherfucking Cambodia. My students know about Isaac Newton, and Thomas Edison, and Helen Keller, and Alexander the Great, and the captials of Poland and Sweden. I think Asian students are better educated on world history and current events than their North American counterparts.
- I want to learn more Japanese.
- I want to read more science-fiction, because I like the way that it stretches your mind.
- I'm wondering when Thomas Harris's next Hannibal Lecter book is coming out. I thought the second one in the series, Hannibal, was close to fucking genius. The movie blew it, but the ending of the book was one of the bravest stunts in popular fiction in quite some time.
- I'm thinking more and more that Sam Harris's book The End of Faith is the bomb, yo. It's a full-throttle blast against organized religion in any form, and it takes no prisoners, essentially arguing that we're relying on stone-age texts in a modern world, selectively choosing the passages that we want to use for spiritual fulfillment, conveniently ignoring the less palatable parts, like in the Book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, when God instructs Abraham and us to hunt down and kill our brothers and sisters if they should go looking into other religions, or how the punishment for blasphemy against God is death, as is the punishment for cursing your mother and father. So why should we not believe this part, but believe all the other good, cuddly, touchy-feely love-your-neighbour stuff? Harris advocates a spirituality that arises from our own investigations into our own selves, instead of a culture that advises us to 'respect' other religions when those very same religions state quite clearly that only they and they alone will go the promised land -- everyone else, the non-believers, are fucked. In this world of nuclear weapons and handheld bombs, we can no longer rely on religions that gain their strength from individual readings of texts written by people who had yet to be introduced to the marvels of the wheel. It's strong and controversial stuff, but it's worth a look, whether you agree with his arguments or not.
- Having said all that, if you have cancer, belonging to a church helps.
- I'm really looking forward to the next installment of the Rocky franchise, due this Christmas. For me, the entire Rocky saga mirrors the necessary, familiar progression of a boxer's life: from unknown to champion to success to retirement to destitution to the inevitable comeback. If it works, writer-director-star Stallone will have crafted a touching look at the cycle of one man's life. Adrian's dead, apparently; Rocky hasn't boxed in years. He wants to challenge himself. If anything, what will be clear is that Rocky will once again be the underdog, which hasn't truly been the case since the first film. Let the jokes begin, but for the true Rocky fan, this film will be an event.
- I've got this anthology of Faulkner's writing in my room, but Faulkner still scares the shit out of me. His writing is so dense and local and complex, the opposite of his contemporary, Hemingway, that I can never seem to get into him. Soon, though, soon. One of his Japanese translators went insane, literally, trying to craft a Japanese counterpart to his particularly English idiom.
- I don't think translators get enough credit. At all. Taking two languages like Japanese and English, and translating works of fiction, is a massive, impossible task. Languages are different life-forms, so you're essentially asking somebody to create a whole other life that distinctly resembles another life. And the reason why a book is good is because of the other's use of language, of rhythm, of tone, all of it crafted based on how words collide with one another. So you're telling the translator: Do the same thing, but use a language and rhythm and tone that have nothing to do with English.
- I like the way that the sunlight is shining outside the door to this room. For now, for the moment, it seems almost inviting me to go somewhere I know not where.
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