After watching part of a CNN program on the discord and distrust that exists between India and Pakistan, after following the blame-game that is ongoing in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina, after living in a country for two years where everything the Vietnamese say and do is regarded as a potential precursor for another invasion of Cambodia, I'm reminded, constantly, of the most prophetic, powerful, eloquent words spoken in the twentieth century -- not by Churchill or Chamberlain, Carter or Clinton, Kate or Allie, Puffy or Diddy, but by Rodney King, victim of the L.A.P.D., who said sometime after getting the holy shit kicked out of him: "Can't we all just get along?"
That's what it all comes down to, doesn't it? That's what are parents try to teach us from the get-go, isn't it? Get along. Behave. Listen to others.
But the older I get, the more I realize that we all are infants. We all want to do what we want, when we want it, to who we want. This does not discount goodwill, no, because every aspect of human nature has its flipside that sometimes cancels out its own inverted image; it does, however, seem to say that we never really do 'grow up'.
Just think up the shit that we fight over. Land. Money. Pride. The fact that you believe in one spiritual deity, and I believe in another. I mean, seriously. Just look at Northern Ireland and Lebanon and Iraq; just examine the histories of these places, the wars of these places. It's all about people with different beliefs not listening to others of other beliefs. Over the years, over the centuries, the original beliefs become almost irrelevant to the violent cause; what matters is the grudges that have been developed. The great thing about kids is that they are born without grudges. They don't know jackshit about diddlysquat, and that's a great, almost holy thing. They are blank slates waiting to be filled. It's just so often that we give into our own, baser natures, and paint those slates with darkness. We paint them black, as the Stones might say.
I don't know. It's just, this is a fucked-up country. The news out of The Cambodia Daily seems to be getting worse and worse. The convenience store down the road from me had two of its clerks shot in the legs a few (late) nights back, the shooter being a customer who took umbrage to the fact that the staff actually asked him to actually pay for the bottled water he was holding in his drunk, trembling hands. And the Phillipines Embassy, another place just around the corner from where I live, had the apartments across the street from it attacked by drunk s.o.b. with an AK-47, out to settle a grudge.
People in the west truly underestimate the pride involved in 'saving face' over here in the orient. If you insult somebody, if you demean them, accidentally or otherwise, you could get killed. (In Cambodia, I'm talking about.) What usually happens, especially in the countryside: A group goes dancing; somebody's toes get stepped on; a fight ensues; shots ring out. Add alcohol and AK-47 and the bad shit starts to go down. As a foreigner, I don't stay out late and mind my own business, and everything's cool. (Usually.)
But in a poor country, when the gap between the have and havenots is fucking monstrous, when everybody, I mean everybody, has in some way, shape or form been affected by five years of Khmer Rouge rule, the normal rules of what we consider civil society don't apply. The rich keep getting richer, and the poor stay poorer. The rich get drunk, arrogant, and offended. The poor sap working the till at the Star mart gets shot in the legs. And the homeless and the motodops will stroll on by, looking for an accident, waiting to see if anybody's dead, and, if so, what comes next. Who cleans up the body? Who takes it away?
The thing is, I see the news and read the news and all of these huge, important, complex international issues are little different than the dude who steps on the toes of a wealthy drunk. Can we all get along? I don't know. The evidence says no.
Except for the other parts, the daily 'please' and 'thank-yous' that make life worthwhile, the endless examples of kindness and mere civility that we take for granted. I notice the bad stuff and forget about the good stuff.
Maybe we can't get along, collectively. But individually, man to man, woman to woman, we can and do still reach out -- not in malice, but in tenderness. And often, more often than one would think, somebody is more than ready, almost anxious, to reach out to us, too.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Saturday, September 17, 2005
INXS, SEMI-ERECT SCIENCE FICTION, AND WHY THE FACT THAT WE'RE ALL DESCENDED FROM PRE-HISTORIC SLUDGE IS NOT NECESSARILY A BAD THING
The other night I was crashed out on the couch, simultaneously watching the second-to-last week of Rock Star: INXS, reading the final few pages of a nifty sci-fi book titled The Light Of Other Days, and eyeing my newly-bought copy of philosopher and Trappist monk Thomas Merton's autobiography, The Seven-Storey Mountain, that lay abandoned on the floor on the other side of the room. In my world, these three things are related. (My world is just like your world. Only skewed.)
For those not in the know, Rock Star: INXS is an American Idol style competition, the end result being that the winner becomes, you guessed it, the lead singer of INXS; I've caught a few episodes here and there, and, given that there's only one week left to go, I'm somewhat intrigued as to who will be the eventual winner. Moving right along in my capsule summary, The Light Of Other Days is a novel written by Stephen Baxter (who writes hard SF, 'hard SF' being science-fiction that has a lot of science on top of the fiction, but, come to think of it, this one particular book is not all that hard, in terms of the science -- let's call it 'semi-erect' SF) and Arthur C.Clarke, of 2001 Fame. Thomas Merton is a famous (?) writer and monk who spent most of his life in a monastery in the United States but still managed to connect and correspond with the outside world, and given that he spent most of his life trying to maintain a spiritual relationship with the universe, is it somewhat ironic that he died while slipping on a bar of soap while washing in the tub in Thailand? You tell me.
This is the thing. I don't usually like to read while I'm watching TV, because I'm not bright enough to do two things at the same time, and even if I were, I'm sure that something would get scrambled in the process. Something would be lost. This night, however, I desperately wanted to see who would be voted off Rock Star: INXS, but I also was eager to finish the last few pages of this really cool science-fiction novel because it was, well, really cool. So I did both, read and watched. And learned something in the process. I think.
The Light Of Other Days is about a time in the near-future where science has developed to a point where wormholes in the universe can be harnessed to basically be used as viewing devices -- meaning, you can log on to your computer and 'create' a wormhole through which you can spy on anyone and everyone you like. Want to see what's happening in a suburb of Moscow? Just type in the coordinates; the wormhole allows you to shift the perspective, zoom, do close-ups, whatever. The book's characterizations are a bit clumsy, me thinks, but the development of the legal, political, and, ultimately, moral developments are fascinatingly explored.
Because this is the thing: not only can you 'watch' what's going on in the world through these womrholes, but you can also use them to view things in different time periods of the past (but not the future). So historians can look back at the war of 1812, or Vietnam, or the second season of Lee Majors' The Fall Guy, when shit really started to get good. Oh, but that's not all. Eventually the technology develops so that you can link the wormholes to a person's own personal DNA, which means that one can, theoretically, view the developments of one's own life, of one's own ancestors, as easily as watching an A & E miniseries. Think about it. You could see your mother being born, your mother's mother, your mother's mother's mother, watching the events of life like a movie made just for you and your heirs. But that's not all. The end of the book pushes this concept to the ultimate limit, where two of the character's view the history of their own DNA.
What does that mean? Glad you asked. It means that they go back in time. I don't just mean 'back in time' like Bill and Ted or Marty McFly went 'back in time'. I mean baaaaaack in time. They see their grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's grandmother being born. And then further. They trace a single chromosome of their own DNA to its ultimate origin -- meaning, past people, past apes, past dinosaurs, all the way to single celled organisms, to half-celled organisms, to cells that exist in way pre-historic rock, to...
I don't know if I should tell you this part. Let's just say, the book goes back to before the beginning of life on earth, and provides a conclusion that is startling, sensible, and a harbinger of what humanity needs to do in order to avoid or prevent a piece of asteroid from destroying the earth five hundred years from now. It's a fanastic end to an intriguing book. Too many science-fiction or horror stories don't really push their concepts to their ultimate conclusions. This one does, then beyond. Big time.
And yet, I'm reading the truly cosmic, near transcendent final few pages of prose while trying to figure out if the Canadian chick or the Canadian dude are going to get booted off of Rock Star: INXS. Here I am, through the beauty of fiction, realizing that all life is ultimately futile, that all humanity is, essentially, descended from primordial sludge, that life is nothing more than a neverending series of evolutions that leave us, the people, the ones intensely involved in the process, as little more than bystanders to our own eradication, and yet fuck, was that a good song that Marty sang, the one called 'Trees'. He deserves to win, that dude.
I don't know how humans do it. Thomas Merton didn't either, the monk, which was why he disconnected himself from the world -- to be closer to the God he loved. We could all do that, true, but then we wouldn't be involved in the really important decisions of life, like deciding who fronts an Australian rock band most famous for the fact that its lead singer killed himself while jerking off with a noose around his head. Contemplating the essential mystery of life while secretly rooting for one rock star wannabe over another is something that only a human could do. Something only we would want to do.
I know that it doesn't matter who wins or loses the competition. I know that speculations about the future are a random game at best, a futile, cautiounary warning. I know that what works for one soul will not work for another. But I watch reality rock shows, and read science fiction, and wonder about the lives of monks. And sometimes I do all three at the same time.
I don't think all of this proves the existence of a God, no, but it does prove the existence of myself, the acknowledgement that I exist, that I ponder, that I can consider cosmic themes while listening to cool tunes. That may not mean anything, no, but if feelings are all we have to by, then I'll take those. If only for a night.
(And I do hope and think that Marty wins the competition, by the way.)
For those not in the know, Rock Star: INXS is an American Idol style competition, the end result being that the winner becomes, you guessed it, the lead singer of INXS; I've caught a few episodes here and there, and, given that there's only one week left to go, I'm somewhat intrigued as to who will be the eventual winner. Moving right along in my capsule summary, The Light Of Other Days is a novel written by Stephen Baxter (who writes hard SF, 'hard SF' being science-fiction that has a lot of science on top of the fiction, but, come to think of it, this one particular book is not all that hard, in terms of the science -- let's call it 'semi-erect' SF) and Arthur C.Clarke, of 2001 Fame. Thomas Merton is a famous (?) writer and monk who spent most of his life in a monastery in the United States but still managed to connect and correspond with the outside world, and given that he spent most of his life trying to maintain a spiritual relationship with the universe, is it somewhat ironic that he died while slipping on a bar of soap while washing in the tub in Thailand? You tell me.
This is the thing. I don't usually like to read while I'm watching TV, because I'm not bright enough to do two things at the same time, and even if I were, I'm sure that something would get scrambled in the process. Something would be lost. This night, however, I desperately wanted to see who would be voted off Rock Star: INXS, but I also was eager to finish the last few pages of this really cool science-fiction novel because it was, well, really cool. So I did both, read and watched. And learned something in the process. I think.
The Light Of Other Days is about a time in the near-future where science has developed to a point where wormholes in the universe can be harnessed to basically be used as viewing devices -- meaning, you can log on to your computer and 'create' a wormhole through which you can spy on anyone and everyone you like. Want to see what's happening in a suburb of Moscow? Just type in the coordinates; the wormhole allows you to shift the perspective, zoom, do close-ups, whatever. The book's characterizations are a bit clumsy, me thinks, but the development of the legal, political, and, ultimately, moral developments are fascinatingly explored.
Because this is the thing: not only can you 'watch' what's going on in the world through these womrholes, but you can also use them to view things in different time periods of the past (but not the future). So historians can look back at the war of 1812, or Vietnam, or the second season of Lee Majors' The Fall Guy, when shit really started to get good. Oh, but that's not all. Eventually the technology develops so that you can link the wormholes to a person's own personal DNA, which means that one can, theoretically, view the developments of one's own life, of one's own ancestors, as easily as watching an A & E miniseries. Think about it. You could see your mother being born, your mother's mother, your mother's mother's mother, watching the events of life like a movie made just for you and your heirs. But that's not all. The end of the book pushes this concept to the ultimate limit, where two of the character's view the history of their own DNA.
What does that mean? Glad you asked. It means that they go back in time. I don't just mean 'back in time' like Bill and Ted or Marty McFly went 'back in time'. I mean baaaaaack in time. They see their grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's grandmother being born. And then further. They trace a single chromosome of their own DNA to its ultimate origin -- meaning, past people, past apes, past dinosaurs, all the way to single celled organisms, to half-celled organisms, to cells that exist in way pre-historic rock, to...
I don't know if I should tell you this part. Let's just say, the book goes back to before the beginning of life on earth, and provides a conclusion that is startling, sensible, and a harbinger of what humanity needs to do in order to avoid or prevent a piece of asteroid from destroying the earth five hundred years from now. It's a fanastic end to an intriguing book. Too many science-fiction or horror stories don't really push their concepts to their ultimate conclusions. This one does, then beyond. Big time.
And yet, I'm reading the truly cosmic, near transcendent final few pages of prose while trying to figure out if the Canadian chick or the Canadian dude are going to get booted off of Rock Star: INXS. Here I am, through the beauty of fiction, realizing that all life is ultimately futile, that all humanity is, essentially, descended from primordial sludge, that life is nothing more than a neverending series of evolutions that leave us, the people, the ones intensely involved in the process, as little more than bystanders to our own eradication, and yet fuck, was that a good song that Marty sang, the one called 'Trees'. He deserves to win, that dude.
I don't know how humans do it. Thomas Merton didn't either, the monk, which was why he disconnected himself from the world -- to be closer to the God he loved. We could all do that, true, but then we wouldn't be involved in the really important decisions of life, like deciding who fronts an Australian rock band most famous for the fact that its lead singer killed himself while jerking off with a noose around his head. Contemplating the essential mystery of life while secretly rooting for one rock star wannabe over another is something that only a human could do. Something only we would want to do.
I know that it doesn't matter who wins or loses the competition. I know that speculations about the future are a random game at best, a futile, cautiounary warning. I know that what works for one soul will not work for another. But I watch reality rock shows, and read science fiction, and wonder about the lives of monks. And sometimes I do all three at the same time.
I don't think all of this proves the existence of a God, no, but it does prove the existence of myself, the acknowledgement that I exist, that I ponder, that I can consider cosmic themes while listening to cool tunes. That may not mean anything, no, but if feelings are all we have to by, then I'll take those. If only for a night.
(And I do hope and think that Marty wins the competition, by the way.)
Thursday, September 15, 2005
THE LOOK
The other night I saw the look in the eyes of one of my students. I had had that look many times in the past, but it's rare that I see it reflected back at me. She had something she wanted to say, and she was nervous about saying it, and it was not because of a lack of confidence in her English abilities but because she was concerned, deeply concerned, about what my reaction was going to be.
The day before she had begged, pleaded, practically demanded that the final exam be held three days earlier than planned. Go figure. A student wants a test earlier than scheduled? Whatever. I just wanted to make sure proper protocol was followed. She talked to the administration, the administration talked to me, and it was a done deal.
Ah, but that was then.
Because now she stood before me humbled, chagrined, downright embarrassed. The words stumbled out of her mouth. She had talked it over with some of the other students, and a few of them were upset about the change in the date, and well, you see, would it be possible, by any chance, to go back to the original test date? She would talk it over with the management herself, if possible, and she was very, very, very sorry to have caused any disturbance. It was all her fault, she said. All her fault.
She was scared shitless to tell me that she had backtracked. She was worried what I was going to say. I was the teacher, and teachers are given a great deal of respect over here, and she was probably anxious about the fact that I might be ready to rip her a new asshole.
I almost smiled, but stopped myself from doing so. I remember -- long, long ago -- approaching teachers and asking them something difficult, asking them for a favor, asking for forgiveness. It is not an easy thing to do, because our teachers are not people but alien beings from a solar system far, far from our own. Gauging their potential reaction is slightly hazardous, if not downright nuclear.
I told her not to worry about. No big deal. Problem solved.
She looked relieved. I hope she was relieved.
At some point in time, I have become the guy at the front of the room. (If only for a little while.) The guy who you approach with a certain degree of caution. When did this happen? Why did this happen? Not sure. But there it is.
I haven't felt like she felt in awhile, but I'm almost certain that I'll feel that way should there be an afterlife, and should I stand before any kind of Christian/Muslim God whose precepts I should have been following a little more diligently.
"But this is the thing," I'll say. "I had an inquisitive mind. I didn't necessarily doubt what you were saying, no, but I wanted to keep my options open."
"Right," this skeptical God will say, followed by his own David-Spade-from-SNL-impression: "Bu-bye..."
And down I will go, to that other place.
So I can empathize with my student, because I've been there, done that, and I'm sure I'll be there again, in her position, asking sympathy from a strange and unknowable ruler, at some future point in time.
And in case you were wondering, she sheepishly came by the next day and asked that the test be changed yet again. The fear was a little less in her eyes the second time around. I guess that's progress.
The day before she had begged, pleaded, practically demanded that the final exam be held three days earlier than planned. Go figure. A student wants a test earlier than scheduled? Whatever. I just wanted to make sure proper protocol was followed. She talked to the administration, the administration talked to me, and it was a done deal.
Ah, but that was then.
Because now she stood before me humbled, chagrined, downright embarrassed. The words stumbled out of her mouth. She had talked it over with some of the other students, and a few of them were upset about the change in the date, and well, you see, would it be possible, by any chance, to go back to the original test date? She would talk it over with the management herself, if possible, and she was very, very, very sorry to have caused any disturbance. It was all her fault, she said. All her fault.
She was scared shitless to tell me that she had backtracked. She was worried what I was going to say. I was the teacher, and teachers are given a great deal of respect over here, and she was probably anxious about the fact that I might be ready to rip her a new asshole.
I almost smiled, but stopped myself from doing so. I remember -- long, long ago -- approaching teachers and asking them something difficult, asking them for a favor, asking for forgiveness. It is not an easy thing to do, because our teachers are not people but alien beings from a solar system far, far from our own. Gauging their potential reaction is slightly hazardous, if not downright nuclear.
I told her not to worry about. No big deal. Problem solved.
She looked relieved. I hope she was relieved.
At some point in time, I have become the guy at the front of the room. (If only for a little while.) The guy who you approach with a certain degree of caution. When did this happen? Why did this happen? Not sure. But there it is.
I haven't felt like she felt in awhile, but I'm almost certain that I'll feel that way should there be an afterlife, and should I stand before any kind of Christian/Muslim God whose precepts I should have been following a little more diligently.
"But this is the thing," I'll say. "I had an inquisitive mind. I didn't necessarily doubt what you were saying, no, but I wanted to keep my options open."
"Right," this skeptical God will say, followed by his own David-Spade-from-SNL-impression: "Bu-bye..."
And down I will go, to that other place.
So I can empathize with my student, because I've been there, done that, and I'm sure I'll be there again, in her position, asking sympathy from a strange and unknowable ruler, at some future point in time.
And in case you were wondering, she sheepishly came by the next day and asked that the test be changed yet again. The fear was a little less in her eyes the second time around. I guess that's progress.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
AH, ASIA
Even while watching only a few minutes of what is surely one of the worst movies ever made, The Next Karate Kid, I can detect a glimmer, a gleam, a smidgen, a barely concealed taste of what brought me and keeps me in the Orient. Or thereabouts.
(And yet, who am I to declare that it is a terrible film? Who am I to judge what does and does not bring comfort to the afflicted? Banal and simplistic it is, but so is life, and perhaps a young girl watched this film on the last night of her grandmother's life, the two of them seated by side, the child slightly annoyed by her Grandma's labored, restless breathing. The next morning, with the grandmother dead, that is all the child could remember -- her breathing, and the film, that silly film. It is what she will remember for the rest of her days, whenever she scans its title in the video shop shelves, and it will remind her of the cruelty of children, and also of the goodness of children, how the mere comfort of their presence can ease our final days.)
The fourth installment of the series features Noriyuki 'Pat' Morita as the wise old Okinawan sage named Miyagi, and two-time Academy Award Winner Hilary Swank as the young, troubled teenager named Julie. (Are there any other kinds of teenagers in the movies?) The flick is filled with the usual stereotypical karate hokum and eastern mysticism, but I happen to eat that shit up like it's Captain Crunch. (After all, you're talking to the guy who actually thinks that The Karate Kid III is a brilliant capstone to the Daniel-san portion of the series, masterfully showing the young lad's torment as he istempted by the Dark Side, personified by the Cobra-kai dojo's minions, only to be ultimately redeemed by his long-standing friendship, dare I say love, with Mr.Miyagi. Very underrated, this third installment is. Daniel looks into the abyss, and the abyss looks into him, and he emerges triumphant. The film ends with the same tournament that ended the first film; his cycle of growth comes to full and final fruition. It is all that my thirteen-year old self desired. It is enough. Hey, I never said I was sane.)
When you live in Asia, you're confronted by Asia -- the reality and the myths, intertwined. You see what you want to see. And sometimes what you don't want to see forces itself upon you. It is as vile and corrupt and wondrous and comforting as the emotion-filled streets that line the hometown of your youth. It is what you want it to be, Asia is.
For me, Asia has been been, and always will be, mystery. Intrigue. That which has somehow slipped through the cracks of life back home, glimpsed only in the fleeting glances provided by the Chinese restaurant kitchen door as it swings to and fro. Why are people drawn to the incense and the rituals, the martial arts and the philosophical Buddhist malarkey inherent to the region that are otherwise unrelated but grouped together under the nonsensical heading 'Asia'?
Because in western, secular life there is little need or regard for those questions that we cannot answer, or shudder to answer. In western, religious culture the answers are laid out before us in grim, humorless tablets of stone that are filled with tales that read as if they were the bland, ghostwritten memories of a celestial C.E.O.
But Asia. Ah, Asia. Asia is filled with fucked-up food and wandering monks and ancient rituals and stifling heat and nonsensical languages. In Asia it is possible to stroll into a community of citizens that have somehow amalgamated the musings of Confucious, Buddha and freakin' Victor Hugo into one spiritual stew of contemplation. (As happened to me in Vietnam in June, at the Cao-dai temples.) In Asia the traveller is reminded, should he delve deeper, that life is ancient and simple and messy and clean.
It is an illusion, of course; there is nothing exotic about Japan for the Japanese, and nothing mystical about Cambodia to the Cambodians. (At least, not the way that I would define it.) But we choose our illusions, and, as Guns 'N' Roses knew so long ago, we use our illusions, too. As the comic once said: "It's not that life is short -- it's that death is so damn long." Knowing that, believing that, some find the illusions of Asia more palatable, more three dimensional, than the cold and familiar tomes and tones of home.
Give me Mr.Miyagi trying to catch that buzzing fly between his chopsticks, if only for a little while longer. Give me blood-red sunsets on oversized picture books. Give me the chanting monks and the cadence of confusion that exists, for me, at the heart of Asia, at least for one more day. Give me the throb of life, real or imagined, that beats beneath the surface of this land, and others like it. The illusion will end, sooner, perhaps later, but for now, let the facade do its magic dance one more time, and I will try with all my heart to keep up with its erratic and desperate beat.
(And yet, who am I to declare that it is a terrible film? Who am I to judge what does and does not bring comfort to the afflicted? Banal and simplistic it is, but so is life, and perhaps a young girl watched this film on the last night of her grandmother's life, the two of them seated by side, the child slightly annoyed by her Grandma's labored, restless breathing. The next morning, with the grandmother dead, that is all the child could remember -- her breathing, and the film, that silly film. It is what she will remember for the rest of her days, whenever she scans its title in the video shop shelves, and it will remind her of the cruelty of children, and also of the goodness of children, how the mere comfort of their presence can ease our final days.)
The fourth installment of the series features Noriyuki 'Pat' Morita as the wise old Okinawan sage named Miyagi, and two-time Academy Award Winner Hilary Swank as the young, troubled teenager named Julie. (Are there any other kinds of teenagers in the movies?) The flick is filled with the usual stereotypical karate hokum and eastern mysticism, but I happen to eat that shit up like it's Captain Crunch. (After all, you're talking to the guy who actually thinks that The Karate Kid III is a brilliant capstone to the Daniel-san portion of the series, masterfully showing the young lad's torment as he istempted by the Dark Side, personified by the Cobra-kai dojo's minions, only to be ultimately redeemed by his long-standing friendship, dare I say love, with Mr.Miyagi. Very underrated, this third installment is. Daniel looks into the abyss, and the abyss looks into him, and he emerges triumphant. The film ends with the same tournament that ended the first film; his cycle of growth comes to full and final fruition. It is all that my thirteen-year old self desired. It is enough. Hey, I never said I was sane.)
When you live in Asia, you're confronted by Asia -- the reality and the myths, intertwined. You see what you want to see. And sometimes what you don't want to see forces itself upon you. It is as vile and corrupt and wondrous and comforting as the emotion-filled streets that line the hometown of your youth. It is what you want it to be, Asia is.
For me, Asia has been been, and always will be, mystery. Intrigue. That which has somehow slipped through the cracks of life back home, glimpsed only in the fleeting glances provided by the Chinese restaurant kitchen door as it swings to and fro. Why are people drawn to the incense and the rituals, the martial arts and the philosophical Buddhist malarkey inherent to the region that are otherwise unrelated but grouped together under the nonsensical heading 'Asia'?
Because in western, secular life there is little need or regard for those questions that we cannot answer, or shudder to answer. In western, religious culture the answers are laid out before us in grim, humorless tablets of stone that are filled with tales that read as if they were the bland, ghostwritten memories of a celestial C.E.O.
But Asia. Ah, Asia. Asia is filled with fucked-up food and wandering monks and ancient rituals and stifling heat and nonsensical languages. In Asia it is possible to stroll into a community of citizens that have somehow amalgamated the musings of Confucious, Buddha and freakin' Victor Hugo into one spiritual stew of contemplation. (As happened to me in Vietnam in June, at the Cao-dai temples.) In Asia the traveller is reminded, should he delve deeper, that life is ancient and simple and messy and clean.
It is an illusion, of course; there is nothing exotic about Japan for the Japanese, and nothing mystical about Cambodia to the Cambodians. (At least, not the way that I would define it.) But we choose our illusions, and, as Guns 'N' Roses knew so long ago, we use our illusions, too. As the comic once said: "It's not that life is short -- it's that death is so damn long." Knowing that, believing that, some find the illusions of Asia more palatable, more three dimensional, than the cold and familiar tomes and tones of home.
Give me Mr.Miyagi trying to catch that buzzing fly between his chopsticks, if only for a little while longer. Give me blood-red sunsets on oversized picture books. Give me the chanting monks and the cadence of confusion that exists, for me, at the heart of Asia, at least for one more day. Give me the throb of life, real or imagined, that beats beneath the surface of this land, and others like it. The illusion will end, sooner, perhaps later, but for now, let the facade do its magic dance one more time, and I will try with all my heart to keep up with its erratic and desperate beat.
Monday, September 12, 2005
ORWELL, STONE, NADER, LIFE AS A FAILURE AND THE TONY DANZA DOCTRINE
What most people fail to realize about Who's The Boss is that the whole show went to shit when Tony Danza shaved his head. Out came the crewcut, down came the ratings. The fact that he and Angela, his live-in employer, finally became a couple that season, thus depriving the show of the core of its reluctant romantic sparks that flew between the two leads like errant drops of fire, has been cited by some as the source of the program's demise. (A similar change in relationships happened to Moonlighting, when Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis finally toppled into bed together. That was a big deal, that particular episode was; I remember discussing it with my Grade 6 class and teacher Mrs.Macmillan in our daily front-of-the-room discussion group, so I guess even eleven-year olds were hip to the show. I actually thought the show got better when the romance angle died down; it allowed room for Willis's partner, Curtis Armstrong, to show off his comedic chops. You may, or may not, remember Armstrong in his brilliant performance as 'Booger' in Revenge of The Nerds, surpassed only by his low-key but magnetic performance as Jamie Foxx's manager in last year's Ray.)
I think what happened, however, is that Danza lost his hair, then lost his zeal. His power. His confidence. You don't cut Samson's mane, you don't tug on Superman's cape, and you don't slice Tony Danza's locks. So say I.
And yet recently, as far as I've been able to gather from this side of the Pacific, Danza's career has been positively booming; he's rebounded nicely from the crewcut calamity of a decade past. He got nominated for an Emmy for The Practice, popped up in last year's critical smash Crash, and even hosted his own talk show. He probably pees regularly throughout the night, too. (Nothing, of course, in either his personal or professional life, will surpass his brilliant performance in the criminally underrated Cannonball Run II.)
After Who's The Boss tanked, he tried two other sitcoms, which also tanked. But I'm sure these failures invigorated Danza. I'm sure there were dark and lonely nights when he wandered the streets of Los Angeles, forlorn, desperate, wondering if it was his radical haircut that did him in, or a public tired of his folksy Italian-American persona. He probably became the modern equivalent of Dostoevsky's Underground Man, is what I'm thinking. From those depths, that despair, he plotted his eventual ascension. I'm sure of it.
Living in Cambodia, I've come to see despair and despondency and failure as some of the more common traits of the human condition. (Tony Danza cutting his locks and bombing big time has more in common with Cambodians than Bill Gates or Donald Trump, is what I'm thinking.) The rich get away with anything and everything, getting even richer in the process; the poor remain powerless, becoming poorer. On days when I'm feeling low and broke, when I think that I should be in a higher status of life and living, I look around at the myriad people even lower than myself and think: This is real, this is good, this is noble. One of my favorite quotes from Oliver Stone is his own recollection of reading Down and Out in Paris in London by George Orwell, when Stone, too, was in a similarly dark and gloomy time. He learned then that it was okay to be down, okay to be fucked-up, okay to not know who you were or where you were going. That is the place where you learn. And he learned and learned and learned.
So much of the TV I see and the movies I watch are about what we want and how we can get it. It's about things and status and glitz and bullshit. So much of it is designed to our baser, insecure natures, warning us that we, too, could soon become losers. I'm reminded of a quote I read from social activist Ralph Nader in an old biography, where he tells a group of high-school students that they should disregard all the media advertising that is highlighting their own petty facial insecurities and concentrate on something bigger and larger than that. Don't buy into their game, is what he was saying.
These are thoughts that elevate and ennoble; these are thoughts that are worthy of a Danzanian-like renaissance within all of us. As I've written about before, so much of life tells us to fear failure, shun failure, beware of failure, but failure can contain within it the seeds of our own ascension. Sometimes you cut your hair clean off, your show bombs, and you become nothing more than a late-night joke from a third-rate comedian. But the hair grows back, right? And who's to say that more talk-shows and film roles don't loom on the horizon? And if failure comes, and defeat is inevitable, well, let it be a failure of the soul and the spirit, not a failure centred around the fact that we just, can't, get those damn pimples to recede. Let it not be a failure of the human condition that is, at root, nothing more than the equivalent of a botox-like regression into our past.
My recent skin-tight haircut has nothing to do with Tony Danza's experiment of ten years ago, of course, but now I'm starting to see the benefits. A cleaner, sleeker feel. Less to worry about. Less to stress about. Maybe that haircut doomed Danza in the short-term, but propelled him into his own long-term. Who knows. All around me are the dregs of society, the ones who will work their entire lives but have nothing to show for it, and yet I can't help but feel that they, like the immortal Danza, like you, are concentrating on the real stuff of living, the true arc of life, independent of others' expectations and goals, and that they (and you) will eventually achieve a moment in time, somewhere in time, that will allow a certain sense of enlightenment to brighten their day, like a supernova, before burning out and leaving only the resonant afterglow behind.
I think what happened, however, is that Danza lost his hair, then lost his zeal. His power. His confidence. You don't cut Samson's mane, you don't tug on Superman's cape, and you don't slice Tony Danza's locks. So say I.
And yet recently, as far as I've been able to gather from this side of the Pacific, Danza's career has been positively booming; he's rebounded nicely from the crewcut calamity of a decade past. He got nominated for an Emmy for The Practice, popped up in last year's critical smash Crash, and even hosted his own talk show. He probably pees regularly throughout the night, too. (Nothing, of course, in either his personal or professional life, will surpass his brilliant performance in the criminally underrated Cannonball Run II.)
After Who's The Boss tanked, he tried two other sitcoms, which also tanked. But I'm sure these failures invigorated Danza. I'm sure there were dark and lonely nights when he wandered the streets of Los Angeles, forlorn, desperate, wondering if it was his radical haircut that did him in, or a public tired of his folksy Italian-American persona. He probably became the modern equivalent of Dostoevsky's Underground Man, is what I'm thinking. From those depths, that despair, he plotted his eventual ascension. I'm sure of it.
Living in Cambodia, I've come to see despair and despondency and failure as some of the more common traits of the human condition. (Tony Danza cutting his locks and bombing big time has more in common with Cambodians than Bill Gates or Donald Trump, is what I'm thinking.) The rich get away with anything and everything, getting even richer in the process; the poor remain powerless, becoming poorer. On days when I'm feeling low and broke, when I think that I should be in a higher status of life and living, I look around at the myriad people even lower than myself and think: This is real, this is good, this is noble. One of my favorite quotes from Oliver Stone is his own recollection of reading Down and Out in Paris in London by George Orwell, when Stone, too, was in a similarly dark and gloomy time. He learned then that it was okay to be down, okay to be fucked-up, okay to not know who you were or where you were going. That is the place where you learn. And he learned and learned and learned.
So much of the TV I see and the movies I watch are about what we want and how we can get it. It's about things and status and glitz and bullshit. So much of it is designed to our baser, insecure natures, warning us that we, too, could soon become losers. I'm reminded of a quote I read from social activist Ralph Nader in an old biography, where he tells a group of high-school students that they should disregard all the media advertising that is highlighting their own petty facial insecurities and concentrate on something bigger and larger than that. Don't buy into their game, is what he was saying.
These are thoughts that elevate and ennoble; these are thoughts that are worthy of a Danzanian-like renaissance within all of us. As I've written about before, so much of life tells us to fear failure, shun failure, beware of failure, but failure can contain within it the seeds of our own ascension. Sometimes you cut your hair clean off, your show bombs, and you become nothing more than a late-night joke from a third-rate comedian. But the hair grows back, right? And who's to say that more talk-shows and film roles don't loom on the horizon? And if failure comes, and defeat is inevitable, well, let it be a failure of the soul and the spirit, not a failure centred around the fact that we just, can't, get those damn pimples to recede. Let it not be a failure of the human condition that is, at root, nothing more than the equivalent of a botox-like regression into our past.
My recent skin-tight haircut has nothing to do with Tony Danza's experiment of ten years ago, of course, but now I'm starting to see the benefits. A cleaner, sleeker feel. Less to worry about. Less to stress about. Maybe that haircut doomed Danza in the short-term, but propelled him into his own long-term. Who knows. All around me are the dregs of society, the ones who will work their entire lives but have nothing to show for it, and yet I can't help but feel that they, like the immortal Danza, like you, are concentrating on the real stuff of living, the true arc of life, independent of others' expectations and goals, and that they (and you) will eventually achieve a moment in time, somewhere in time, that will allow a certain sense of enlightenment to brighten their day, like a supernova, before burning out and leaving only the resonant afterglow behind.
Friday, September 09, 2005
THE ETERNAL VIAGRA OF THE SOUL
'Despondency makes one hanker after lives never led. Why have you given your life to books, TC? Dull, dull, dull! The memoirs are bad enough, but all that ruddy fiction! Hero goes on a journey, stranger comes to town, somebody wants something, they get it or don't, will is pitted against will. "Admire me, for I am a metaphor." '
David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas
The above sentiment, especially the last two sentences, spoken by a character in David Mitchell's fantastic latest novel Cloud Atlas, pretty much sums up everything of worth (and I do mean everything) that was taught to me in countless Creative Writing and Screenwriting seminars over the years. Save yourself the money, read the sentences a couple of times, and start writing.
(Oh, and David Mitchell, in case you're wondering, is a phenomenal young novelist out of Britain. He spent a few years teaching in Hiroshima; his second novel, number9dream, is set in Japan. His first novel, Ghostwritten, is an astonishing book about a creature that passes through the centuries hopping in and out of bodies, eras, continents, and his latest novel is, well, something I can't quite figure out. He is a serious, literary fantasy writer, one who writes, sentence for sentence, the wittiest, most meaningful prose going. Check him out.)
I've often thought the same thoughts as Mitchell's imaginary chap. For a good many years, I did little more than read and (try to) write fiction. Lived and breathed the stuff. Imagined anything and everything around me as something suitable for a fictional story yet to be written.
It was, and is, a great way to live. Fiction puts meaning into life, which is inherently meaningless. And the love of words, the love of language, is a passion that can only get richer and fuller as one ages; it's an affair that never ends. It's the eternal viagara of the soul, I guess you'd call it. (Okay, maybe you wouldn't, but I would.)
However, the best thing I've learned during these past six years abroad is that books, and fiction, have a limit. When life got to be too much for me (which started at about, oh, two), I delved into books. Into stories. Living abroad, I've maintained my obsession with the printed word, but a great deal of my interest has shifted towards history and biography, of Asia in particular. Of Japan and Cambodia. Of evil men and great men. I never used to care much about the real world, but now I think about it a lot. That may sound strange, but for many years there was very little in the actual world that held my interest as much as the fictional worlds Stephen King or Clive Barker or John Irving or Sherwood Anderson or Joyce Carol Oates or Norman Mailer or Ed McBain or, occasionally, when I was brave, Faulkner.
It's funny. The other night, in one of my evening classes, I did a quick survey and found out that none of my students followed the news, on TV or in the paper. I started to give them (lighthearted) shit about it, until I stopped and thought. When I was their age -- sixteen and seventeen and twenty and twenty-one -- I didn't follow the news either. So what the fuck was I was fulminating about? (Full disclosure: I'm not sure what 'fulminating' means, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with blowing off steam, blabbing, whatever, and I needed an 'f' word for the alliteration to work.)
Now I like the balance -- sometimes ficiton, sometimes non-fiction.
But oh, that pull. That gravitational suction that fiction gives you. It takes you in and takes you away. You delve inside and dive inside and lose yourself and wonder if the real world can ever be as magical and rounded.
It can be, is what I've found out. Books like Cloud Atlas reaffirm your faith in fiction and your faith in life -- that it, too, could be, if you're lucky, as wondrous as the words on its pages.
David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas
The above sentiment, especially the last two sentences, spoken by a character in David Mitchell's fantastic latest novel Cloud Atlas, pretty much sums up everything of worth (and I do mean everything) that was taught to me in countless Creative Writing and Screenwriting seminars over the years. Save yourself the money, read the sentences a couple of times, and start writing.
(Oh, and David Mitchell, in case you're wondering, is a phenomenal young novelist out of Britain. He spent a few years teaching in Hiroshima; his second novel, number9dream, is set in Japan. His first novel, Ghostwritten, is an astonishing book about a creature that passes through the centuries hopping in and out of bodies, eras, continents, and his latest novel is, well, something I can't quite figure out. He is a serious, literary fantasy writer, one who writes, sentence for sentence, the wittiest, most meaningful prose going. Check him out.)
I've often thought the same thoughts as Mitchell's imaginary chap. For a good many years, I did little more than read and (try to) write fiction. Lived and breathed the stuff. Imagined anything and everything around me as something suitable for a fictional story yet to be written.
It was, and is, a great way to live. Fiction puts meaning into life, which is inherently meaningless. And the love of words, the love of language, is a passion that can only get richer and fuller as one ages; it's an affair that never ends. It's the eternal viagara of the soul, I guess you'd call it. (Okay, maybe you wouldn't, but I would.)
However, the best thing I've learned during these past six years abroad is that books, and fiction, have a limit. When life got to be too much for me (which started at about, oh, two), I delved into books. Into stories. Living abroad, I've maintained my obsession with the printed word, but a great deal of my interest has shifted towards history and biography, of Asia in particular. Of Japan and Cambodia. Of evil men and great men. I never used to care much about the real world, but now I think about it a lot. That may sound strange, but for many years there was very little in the actual world that held my interest as much as the fictional worlds Stephen King or Clive Barker or John Irving or Sherwood Anderson or Joyce Carol Oates or Norman Mailer or Ed McBain or, occasionally, when I was brave, Faulkner.
It's funny. The other night, in one of my evening classes, I did a quick survey and found out that none of my students followed the news, on TV or in the paper. I started to give them (lighthearted) shit about it, until I stopped and thought. When I was their age -- sixteen and seventeen and twenty and twenty-one -- I didn't follow the news either. So what the fuck was I was fulminating about? (Full disclosure: I'm not sure what 'fulminating' means, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with blowing off steam, blabbing, whatever, and I needed an 'f' word for the alliteration to work.)
Now I like the balance -- sometimes ficiton, sometimes non-fiction.
But oh, that pull. That gravitational suction that fiction gives you. It takes you in and takes you away. You delve inside and dive inside and lose yourself and wonder if the real world can ever be as magical and rounded.
It can be, is what I've found out. Books like Cloud Atlas reaffirm your faith in fiction and your faith in life -- that it, too, could be, if you're lucky, as wondrous as the words on its pages.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
SOMETHING ELSE
The students over here are something else. This morning one of them asked me if I would look over a story that had been translated from Khmer into English. I said, sure why not. Had he done the translating? No, his friend. Okay. So, why, exactly, was I looking over his friend's translated work? Well, his friend's teacher had given them an assignment in which they had to translate a Khmer story into English.
So follow this chain of logic. My student gives me an English document that he wants me to correct for his friend's school assignment. Upon completion, he will then give this document to his friend, who will then give it to his teacher, who will then, most likely, give it a high score, because it has, of course, been double-checked and corrected by a native speaker. Which goes against the whole point of the assignment, which was to see how well he could translate something on his own.
I tried to explain to my student after I finally figured out what he was asking that this was, you know, wrong. And that it's also slightly loony -- asking your own English teacher to correct your friend's English assignment for his English teacher.
The thing is, over here, everybody helps each other out. I understand that. That's part of the culture, and it's a postive aspect of human nature that should be nurtured. The other thing, though, is that cheating is so common and bland that it's not even cheating anymore.
Or let me put it this way: If you've gotten to the point where you don't see anything wrong in asking your own English teacher to essentially do your friend's English homework, then that says that something is slightly off-kilter in the mainstream educational system. There was no hint of deception or malice in his request, either; it was matter-of-fact. Even took me a bit of explaining for him to get what I was saying.
It also illustrates a blatant stereotype that is, I believe, a little bit true -- Khmers are much more intuitive than logical. Meaning, they don't reason things out. They rely on emotion more than we westerners do. So doing the math and wondering what his English teacher would say regarding this request when given the full details was probably not on my student's mind.
What followed in the class was an intriguing discussion related to the reading in the book, which had featured extracts from a wonderful little novel called Sophie's World, which basically traces the history of philosophy through a series of letters written from an unknown philosopher to an unsuspecting young girl named, you guessed it, Sophie. I asked the class to think of five philosophical questions, and so the rest of the time was spent discussing the existence of God, reincarnation, the feasibility of evolution, Buddhist female monks telling children that heaven exists below the clouds, and what, exactly, the Big Bang is. (Not that I'm sure.) Philosophy is a tough subject to broach in an ESL class, but their instincts were sound, their questions original, their inquisitive impulses human and deep.
Like I said, they're something else, these students are.
So follow this chain of logic. My student gives me an English document that he wants me to correct for his friend's school assignment. Upon completion, he will then give this document to his friend, who will then give it to his teacher, who will then, most likely, give it a high score, because it has, of course, been double-checked and corrected by a native speaker. Which goes against the whole point of the assignment, which was to see how well he could translate something on his own.
I tried to explain to my student after I finally figured out what he was asking that this was, you know, wrong. And that it's also slightly loony -- asking your own English teacher to correct your friend's English assignment for his English teacher.
The thing is, over here, everybody helps each other out. I understand that. That's part of the culture, and it's a postive aspect of human nature that should be nurtured. The other thing, though, is that cheating is so common and bland that it's not even cheating anymore.
Or let me put it this way: If you've gotten to the point where you don't see anything wrong in asking your own English teacher to essentially do your friend's English homework, then that says that something is slightly off-kilter in the mainstream educational system. There was no hint of deception or malice in his request, either; it was matter-of-fact. Even took me a bit of explaining for him to get what I was saying.
It also illustrates a blatant stereotype that is, I believe, a little bit true -- Khmers are much more intuitive than logical. Meaning, they don't reason things out. They rely on emotion more than we westerners do. So doing the math and wondering what his English teacher would say regarding this request when given the full details was probably not on my student's mind.
What followed in the class was an intriguing discussion related to the reading in the book, which had featured extracts from a wonderful little novel called Sophie's World, which basically traces the history of philosophy through a series of letters written from an unknown philosopher to an unsuspecting young girl named, you guessed it, Sophie. I asked the class to think of five philosophical questions, and so the rest of the time was spent discussing the existence of God, reincarnation, the feasibility of evolution, Buddhist female monks telling children that heaven exists below the clouds, and what, exactly, the Big Bang is. (Not that I'm sure.) Philosophy is a tough subject to broach in an ESL class, but their instincts were sound, their questions original, their inquisitive impulses human and deep.
Like I said, they're something else, these students are.
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