YOU'D LIKE TO COME IN COLORS NOT SURE WHICH ONE....SOME THOUGHTS ON THE MUSIC OF THE CARS

One is tempted to write off the music of The Cars as pop fodder….Their first album was certainly overplayed on the radio….Ric Ocasek has to be one of the worst lyricists I’ve ever come across….His alliterations and metaphors aren’t clever and a lot of his language is the worst sort of obvious clichés….The music of The Cars was always a battle between slickness and rock and roll and slickness finally won out in the 80’s on the last two Cars albums.

However, the battle made for engaging music on the first four cars albums especially their second one my favorite of theirs CANDY-O….Theirs is the template for much of American new wave music with synths fighting it out with guitars and detached vocals….Was it just me or was the late Benjamin Orr a much better singer than Roc Ocasek? More emotive, with more range….The drums were also real and in fact a key indicator of their slide downhill was when David Robinson began to use electronic drums.

I know for a lot of people in my age range early to mid 40’s The Cars’ music holds a lot of nostalgic value….I always felt The Cars had a professionalism about their music that was at least on the first four albums not just for the sake of being commercial just five guys making great music.

Here’s my favorite Cars song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s6OmepnqDk

ORGANGATE, ISRAELI LIES, WHO ARE THE NEW NAZIS????

The cries of anti-Semitism and blood libel that poured down on Swedish reporter Donald Bostrom when he wrote about Israel’s unauthorized use of Palestinians for organ donations was predictable and was followed by the usual claptrap of “see how they lie about us that is why Israel cannot follow international law we are endangered blah blah blah”

Well guess what? It’s true Israel took organs from dead Palestinians without any prior approval….Who knows what information is coming next?

How can we be expected to believe anything Israel says when they deny using human shields, deliberately targeting civilians and all the other human rights violations anyone who has remotely studied the issue knows are true?

Israel has the superior weapons, all the intelligence factors in place, all the pull with America, and many other advantages that make them the dominant power in the region and allowed them to intimidate critics worldwide and thumb their nose at the United Nations but all this has been gotten through genocide, land theft, and generally speaking outright gangsterism.

It’s also built on lies….Israel always immediately lies when caught once again flaunting international law and committing atrocities.

But in this particular case, I have to ask one question….After the separation ghetto wall, checkpoint humiliations, atrocities especially last December’s Gaza excursion, and now organ harvesting and new allegations about human experimentation….

HOW IS ISRAEL ANY DIFFERENT FROM NAZI GERMANY AGAIN?

Here’s more info about Organgate (These links are courtesy of Whatreallyhappened.com the best news website out there)….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKmb2AQXZqY&feature=autoshare_twitter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/11/israel.sciencenews

http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/2009/08/jews-threaten-to-kill-swede-donald.html

THE BROKEN COMMANDMENT BY SHIMIZAKI TORSON

One of the most enjoyable things about a work of fiction is when it provides an introduction to a real life problem or cultural difference or conflict….THE BROKEN COMMANDMENT by Shimizaki Torson is one such book.

The issue here is the plight of the Etas in turn of the century Japan….The Eta were basically the lowest caste in Japanese culture like the untouchables or Dalits in India….For example, they were not allowed to hold good jobs, sit in train compartments with non-Etas or live in housing with non-Etas or even serve tea to non-Eta if they received a visit in their homes.

Ushimatsu, the protagonist of THE BROKEN COMMANDMANT, works as a schoolteacher, a job he would not have if his true Eta ethnic identity is known….From a young age, Ushimatsu’s father told him never to speak of his Eta orgin to anyone.

The inner turmoil caused by this and the injustices he witnesses against other Etas is the conflict here….The turning points are the death of Ushimatsu’s father, his relationship with a famous writer who is publicly known as an Eta, and politics at the school where he works wherein the principal is trying to get rid of him (despite his being very good as a teacher) in order to promote someone else with political connections.

There’s a lot of “mind talk” that is the main character engaging in discussions in their head….Lots of agonized soul searching that can be a bit repetitive….

This is well-written book that tells an interesting story and is also informative but it could have been edited better….Say 40 or 50 less pages would have made this an even tighter narrative.

There were a lot of things I liked about this book especially Ushimatsu’s fumbling, gentle romance with the daughter of an elderly colleague who is forced into an early retirement….I also found the happy ending satisfying and logical.

It is always interesting what meanings people find in novels….I came across this view

http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~caitlin/papers/broken.html

which ascribes homosexual overtones to this book….LOL!!!! I don’t see that at all!

THE BOWING NONSENSE....

Courtesy of Keith Olbermann who has truly become the main source for debunking Republicrat nonsense and spin and lies….

President Obama’s bow?

Well he’s not the first….

Here’s President Nixon bowing to Emperor Hirohito the man who presided over the bombing of Pearl harbor….

Here’s President Eisenhower bowing to Charles DeGaulle leader of FRANCE for god’s sake

Here’s George Bush and the pope

Here’s George Bush holding hands playing kissyface with Saudi Arabian royalty (insert sexuality joke here)

THE WAITING YEARS BY FUMIKO ENCHI

My appreciation and love of Japanese literature notwithstanding, I can’t help but comment on the deep strain of perversity in Japanese literature….This is of course a reflection on how life was or is lived not a creation of a writer’s imagination…. The details contained in a book like THE WAITING YEARS by Fumiko Enchi are taken from real life….This explains in many ways coupled with the death/honor obsession that while I am as already noted a fan of Japanese literature I am not a Japanophile the way I am an Anglophile.

THE WAITING YEARS concerns Tomo the regal and formal wife of a government official at the turn of the last century who is asked by her husband, a notorious womanizer, to find him a concubine….This would be a woman ostensibly hired as a maid but whose job is to be mistress….Tomo who suffers poor self-confidence due to coming from an impoverished background goes along with this which in turn sets into motion other events….

What I appreciated about this book was how Enchi would show what was on the mind of one character and then shift to the mind of another character and show their viewpoint….I also liked the ending which found one small cutting comment by someone who has been taken advantage of their whole life is enough to start the dominoes falling.

Most of the characters are impressions rather than fully realized personalities (other than Tomo the strongest character here) but that’s okay….Often, Enchi makes a comment about a character by showing what they are wearing or how another person sees them even Yukitomo, the husband who besides sleeping with the barely pubescent virgin concubine rapes a maid(also a virgin) and sleeps with his daughter in law….

This seeming ease of narrative is a trademark of the best Japanese writers and at times, Enchi reminds me of my favorite Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata.

The truth is THE WAITING YEARS is also a very strong feminist novel….One that shows the powerlessness of women at this point in Japanese history….That alone makes this a very important novel in Japanese literary history.

STOP ME IF YOU THINK THAT YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE

STOP ME IF YOU THINK THAT YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE, one of The Smith’s last singles and one of their more well-known and covered songs is striking both lyrically and musically.

The lyrics are a powerful contrast between images of violence (car accidents, beatings, going to the hospital, so much pain Buddhist monks would want to kill people) and the love that remains unchanged despite vague allegations of lies and other trust issues not elaborated on….The singer’s loyalty to another person cannot be questioned despite the torture he has endured is one interpretation.

The music is wrapped up in the beginning of the song where it rises to a false beginning than rises again….Everything about this quickly builds a tension that is partially released once Morrissey starts singing the name of the song….I find the music and melody of this song complex and interesting….I was just noticing how the beginning of LOOMER of My Bloody Valentine copies the beginning riffs.

There is such a grand sense of promise in this song….It portends something of great import before it happens and while you are listening to it and in the middle when the opening riff comes back again it is almost like a breather, a break for the listener to collect their thoughts.

This just provides more evidence that Johnny Marr was in many ways the secret weapon of The Smiths….His melodies and unique guitar tunings and song arrangements made Morrissey interesting although I find what Moz has got to say interesting enough on its own….This song also contains one of Marr’s few genuine guitar solos.

Here’s the song….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btOyj3qM_Dk

and here’s the original cover for the single when it was released….

DESPERATION, THY NAME IS YANA

For the last two months, I have been receiving SMS’s and phone calls from a Malay man looking for a girl named Yana….From what I can understand, she must have had this number in the past although that doesn’t really make sense as I have had this number for more than two years and these calls and messages are new to me….More likely it was the old female trick of giving a phony number out to a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The tone of these messages is funny….They have gotten more and more desperate as if there is a deliberate attempt at ignoring him as a suitor but she couldn’t have possibly given him a wrong phone number because he is such an amazing guy.

Actually, this all brings back to me my single days and what a desperate, unhappy, feral time being single was and how hard it was to meet a good person through all the hard bitter gasping women and all the competition there was from other males when you did find someone….Of course, I should add that these comments apply to American women only and when I did want to find a quality relationship or get married, I turned to women from Asia as their intelligence level, knowledge of the world , and morals were so much better.

But I was never a chaser….If a woman didn’t like me so be it….I would move on….Chasing someone in the hope you can beat someone into submission through the sheer power of your personality coupled with expensive gifts and the like is a frustrating, miserable, and silly venture.

I think the attraction between two people is something that at its root is very natural and easy….To labor over this and make it so difficult is to deny love and the human experience.

GOODBYE TO BERLIN AND THE WORLD IN THE EVENING BY CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD

GOODBYE TO BERLIN ,Christopher Isherwood’s collection of interlinked semi-autobiographical stories set in the time right before the Nazis came to power in Germany, contains the line on the first page “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking." ….There is no better description of what a good writer does and by a good writer I mean a writer who doesn’t allow himself to get in the way of what he is trying to write.

GOODBYE TO BERLIN is famous for is rendering of the decadent world of the Weimar Republic Germany where anything goes at all hours like what we associate with Thailand today perhaps even more in your face is more than that….It is its characters-The clever, thrifty but ultimately caring landlady, the gay couple struggling to keep it together in a climate of fear as the Nazis become more powerful and Sally Bowles the most famous character to come out of this book….But this is not Liza Minelli from CABARET all warm insincerity and overdone free spiritedness….The Sally in the book is a much sadder figure….Taken advantage of, cheated, leading a sham life and ultimately self-destructive.

THE WORLD IN THE EVENING I guess would fall under the heading of a more conventional novel….While I was reading it, there were several times I thought what’s the point….However, I am glad I stuck with it because despite elements that seemed sappy or spoke towards that Hallmark tendency of some writers to try to wrap everything up neatly, the growth of the character and the ending are satisfying….

Stephen Monk, the protagonist, leaves his wife after catching her in what he assumes is an affair….Being independently wealthy, he runs away from Southern California to his godmother’s house in rural Pennsylvania where he promptly fractures his hip after being hit by a car….

Have you ever had something happen that seemed catastrophic at the time but forced you to sit down and think about your life and ended up being a blessing in disguise?....That’s what happens here as Stephen is not only forced to confront his current situation but more importantly his first marriage which ended in the death of his famous novelist wife….

The wisdom given here is one must learn to love themselves before they can really love others….Clichéd? maybe but explained well….I liked how in the first person narration of the Stephen character left out a lot of his selfish and bad acts and he had to be reminded of them by other characters most notably his second wife….I also didn’t understand the inclusion of a couple of neighbors of his godmother who happened to be a homosexual couple until Stephen himself revealed an affair he had with a man during his first marriage….The key here is not bisexuality but the egocentric insecurity of Stephen which led to this behavior….The gender of the person didn’t matter….The contrast of a regular homosexual couple with Stephen is further meant to show how damaged he is.

Christopher Isherwood studied and wrote about Eastern religions and there is that very perfect sense in this book about things happening when you are ready for them and information given to you at the time you can make use of it…This book goes overboard occasionally with needless dialogue but one thing THE WOLRD IN THE EVENING shares with GOODBYE TO BERLIN is Christopher Isherwood’s ability to create three dimensional characters who act in unpredictable ways the way real people do.