THE BOX MAN PART ONE - THE BOX MAN BY KOBO ABE

THE BOX MAN by Kobo Abe is a surreal novel (and there is no better world than surreal to describe this book) set in a Japan of what I gather is the near future….People have started dropping out of society and living in large boxes….These are not like the homeless people of today who sleep in cardboard boxes….These are actually people who spend all their time in a box with two eyeholes cut out as well as two holes cut out for their arms….The boxes reach almost to their ankles and they shuffle along….On the inner walls of the box are shelves holding toothbrushes, tools etc….Some other touches-An umbrella that can be opened over the top of the box for rainy weather and a phone book or some other similar object that be placed on top of the head to prevent rubbing the top of the head against the box.

It’s an interesting book that makes valid social criticism about the negative conformist material society we live in globally….It does get a bit too weird at the end to the point of where it almost ceased to make sense but I still liked it….Definitely Kobo Abe’s best book and I’m not one who generally likes surrealist literature.

This book inspired me to create a lesson for my Fine Arts/Performing Arts class….My students working alone or with a partner had to create their own box as a living space….Here was the original lesson handout (which was included with an excerpt of a couple of pages from the book).

Pretend you are a box man like the one(s)in the story and design a box similar to that described in the excerpt from the book.

The finished box will be due the sixth week of the term. You and your group will present it in front of the class.

This last week the project was due….I will be uploading pictures shortly.

THE RIGHT DECISION----UAE AND NOT GRANTING A VISA TO AN ISRAELI TENNIS PLAYER

The United Arab Emirates has decided not to issue a visa to Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer for the WTA event occurring this week in Dubai.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/15/tennis.uae.israel/index.html

As punishment for that, the Wall Street Journal has pulled out of their endorsement of the tournament and the Tennis Channel will not be covering the event on television.

However, I think UAE made absolutely the right decision.

Israel is a democracy therefore when Israel goes on a killing spree like they just did in the Gaza Strip with phosphorus bombs, nail bombs and other weapons of terror aimed at women and children as well as civilians in general, one not only holds the government of the country responsible but also the voters who voted that government in.

As far as I’m concerned Israel (and consequently every Israeli) should be banned from every world event until they cease being a racist, Nazi-like colonial regime based on oppression and mass murder.

And for those people who claim to be progressives and liberals and think UAE’s decision is wrong, what about South Africa in the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s?….It was routine to bar South Africans from competing in events until Apartheid finally was dismantled.

It was absolutely the right decision then regarding South Africa and it is the right decision now to ban Israeli’s world competition in sports or anything else global until they clean up their act.

ON MICKEY ROURKE'S UNLIKELY COMEBACK

I should admit at the outset that I have not yet seen THE WRESTLER the recent film that has sparked the unlikely revival of the career of Mickey Rourke (including an Oscar nomination)….I hope to see it soon however I don’t need to see it to understand that this is one of those underdog/comeback/second chance stories that people love and that is what is driving this.

That is not to say that Mickey Rourke doesn’t deserve this….There was a period in the mid to the late 1980’s where he was my favorite actor….It seemed he was to be the next Marlon Brando or Robert DeNiro and like them he perched his career between disappearing into a character and creating a recognizable persona that followed from film to film….I think RUMBLEFISH is one of the best films of the 1980’s and one of my true favorites but BARFLY, DINER, and ANGEL HEART (which I saw again recently after many years) are also great films….Quirkier stuff like JOHNNY HANDSOME, THE POPE OF GREENWICH VILLAGE, WHITE SANDS, and HOMEBOY (which he also wrote) are also worth checking out.

Sort of like Johnny Depp now, Mickey Rourke seemed to select roles without commercial considerations instead focusing on whether or not they were interesting to him but unlike Depp whose seemingly non-commercial roles hide the usual Hollywood plot structures and endings filled with sentimental goop, Rourke’s choices were extremely eclectic (except for perhaps 9 ½ WEEKS but the less said about that the better).

So what happened?....How did Rourke go from that to straight to video releases or playing the heavy in fifth rate Jean Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone films or really weird stuff like BULLET which has him acting next to Tupac Shakur???!!!!

Well I am not one to repeat Hollywood gossip….Obviously, he has had a lot of plastic surgery so much so his face is only a few notches below Michael Jackson’s in being unrecognizable….It is true that boxing was his first love before acting and his strange return to boxing in the 1990’s was just another example of his increasingly eccentric, erratic behavior during that time.

I am also not one to second guess his role selection especially the fact that he turned down roles in films that went on to be very successful such as RAINMAN and PLATOON while starring in films that weren’t so successful….Personally, I can’t see him in PLATOON and RAINMAN (which is a great movie) would have been very different with him in it….A smart actor knows his limitations and strengths and a great film is often just matching the right actors with the part.

I wish Mickey Rourke well on Oscar night….Life is a strange journey sometimes.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN (IF ANYTHING)???

Once again, I did a descriptive writing class with Year 10 using a painting….The responses ranged from an alien landscape to the afterlife….Also mentioned was a futuristic disco and a zoo….Here’s the painting….What do you think?

ZAC EFRON AS YOUNG HITLER

I can’t think of anything more moronic and vacuous than High School Musical….I don’t mean to sound like an old fart but the TV shows and music and movies we mocked as idiotic when I was young seem like classic works of high art produced during The Renaissance compared to this….High School Musical is the equivalent of cotton candy; sugary sweet, bad for you, and disappears without any indelible trace upon consumption.

The other day, as a joke, I told my homeroom class that High School Musical star Zac Efron was going to star in a movie as a young Adolph Hitler….I was surprised how many of them actually believed it! LOL!!!!

PONDERING THAIPUSAM PLUS HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHARLES DARWIN

In a book as yet unpublished that I wrote about my first couple of years in Malaysia, I spent a little bit of time on attending my first Thaipusam at Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur….I won’t go into a huge explanation of the origins and story behind the Thaipusam celebration but basically it involves people taking on a vow for something they or a loved one need and the repayment is them performing an act for the Gods as an offering.

A lot of these acts involve self-mutilation such as piercing ones cheek or tongue or placing hooks in one’s flesh and then bearing a heavy chariot on their shoulders then walking a distance from one temple to another….In Ipoh, where I live no,w the distance is relatively short perhaps a couple of miles….The latest new form of self- flagellation is sandals with spikes built in that one must walk on the entire distance.

I have physically stood next to people undergoing this prior to walking between the two temples….I have seen the needles go into cheeks and tongues and the hooks go into the flesh….However, I can’t help but feel there is some trick to it….I know the tongue and the cheek are not particularly sensitive and hooks can be placed in skin not too deep without a lot of discomfort.

One should look at the preparation for Thaipusam….A number of weeks before the event, the devotees switch to all-vegetarian diet, start sleeping on the floor, and refrain from sexual relations, alcohol, cigarettes etc. ….It is the purer state of mind created by living this way that allows them to slip more easily into a trance….Being in a trance is the key as that is how one is able to deal with the pain when undergoing the piercings etc….However, the trance seems to consist of a lot of fidgety movement, dilated pupils, weird noises….I have witnessed the devotees smoke a large cigar as they are undergoing this….I am told that this is the custom but it makes me wonder what is in the cigar? (I don’t mean any disrespect here….I just have a hard time believing in things like this and so am looking for a logical explanation….Mind-altering drugs are a possible explanation).

Speaking of science, logic, and the rest, February 12th is Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday….I honestly believe that along with Copernicus establishing the Sun as the center of the universe and Sir Isaac Newton establishing the laws of gravity and motion, evolution is the most important scientific discovery of all time….For me, it perfectly explains nature and man’s place in it….The real beauty of evolution it does not require a belief in a supreme being to function.

On my other blog, I posted an entry a few months back about what I felt was the death of science in today’s society and I did mention evolution in that posting….I received a response from someone I assume of a Christian bent who posted a link to a cartoon lambasting evolution and also college professors and scientists in general….Well, as someone who lived for awhile as a teenager in a rural area of America wherein religious fundamentalists (in this case Christians) tried to get on the local school board with the intended purpose of ending the teaching of evolution or at least forcing the teaching of creationism, I can tell you I regard evolution as a FACT not as a theory and I think it should be called that way.

I’m not a scientist but here are the main arguments (proven I believe) for evolution….

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=12840

http://salmonriver.com/lightscience/evolution2.html

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/03/evolution-is-fact.html

Interestingly enough, last year I read a news article about how the thumbs of today’s children are becoming bigger and stronger due to the overuse of computer games….This is a perfect example of adaptability to the surroundings.

THE BEST PERFORMANCES BY ACTORS THIS DECADE (SO FAR....)

This decade is not over yet but here are some of the best performances in film by actors I have seen the last ten years or so….



JAVIER BARDEM – NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter became an icon of villainy in the 1990’s….Bardem as Anton Chigur is becoming so this decade….An amazing look backed up with the sense of irritation he feels at other’s inability to grasp the unstoppable logic of his murdering ways created the most memorable screen character of this decade
KEY SCENE -The exchange between Bardem and the service station attendant is disturbing, suspenseful, and funny at the same time.




AJ BOWEN – THE SIGNAL
THE SIGNAL is an extremely well-written movie that avoids all horror movie clichés since it really isn’t one but rather is an art film….Bowen as the husband whose wife is having an affair actually finds more sense in the twisted world of the mind altering signal than in reality….As an actor, he really gets inside a complicated character and makes it easy for the audience to understand….One of the most interesting performances I’ve ever seen.
KEY SCENE –Although many of his rambling conversations with people he is about to commit violence against are funny and terrifying, Bowen’s conversation with himself at the end tops everything.





MICHAEL CAINE – THE QUIET AMERICAN
Like Jack Lemmon in last decade’s GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, Caine summons up every bit of pathos for this role and like Lemmon, I believe he deserved an Academy Award for this role and also like Lemmon he didn’t win….Both the original novel by Graham Greene and this film adaptation are the perfect criticism of the neo-conservative mindset and Caine, as the slightly corrupt world weary British reporter, is the perfect narrator for the rise and fall of Alden Pyle.
KEY SCENE – The drunken Caine running through the US Embassy looking for his stolen girlfriend is heartbreaking and powerful.



EMILE HIRSCH – INTO THE WILD
Hirsch downplays this role that another actor might have overplayed in a flashy Christ-like manner….In doing so, his actions (getting rid of all his material possessions, dropping out of the material society) make perfect sense….Hirsch making this character a gentle aesthete instead of a wild-eyed visionary was a great choice and acting is all about choices.
KEY SCENE – I particularly find the scenes between Hirsch and Hal Holbrook as a lonely widower with no kids deeply moving because again they are not overacted….Holbrook is also brilliant in this film.



JON HEDER – NAPOLEON DYNAMITE
Creating a memorable character out of thin air is a very hard task….Heder’s socially awkward and completely nonsensical Dynamite is a memorable comic creation on par with Inspector Clouseau or Chaplin’s Tramp….If he based this on a real person, I would really like to meet that person.
KEY SCENE – Too many to name.



COLIN FIRTH – WHERE THE TRUTH LIES
It’s fun to see an actor who has established himself in a certain type of role go against type in a role….The normally slightly befuddled nice guy, the cool Mr. Darcy Colin Firth as an aging entertainer with a lot of weird sexual habits is really a surprising role and he pulls it off with a lot of emotion and energy.
KEY SCENE – The final flashback of what actually occurred in the hotel room between Firth and Kevin Bacon is a quick moving scene but when Firth realizes the rejection, disgust, and anger shown towards him by someone he deeply cares for, the look on his face is amazing.



DENZEL WASHINGTON – TRAINING DAY
Washington, like Colin Firth, takes on a different role here, a villainous one but also one that it is multi-faceted and leaves the viewer confused until the last 1/3 of the film as to whether or not he really is such a bad guy….I think Washington deliberately plays up his character’s good side (and he does have one…. this is a complex portrait of villainy indeed).
KEY SCENE – Washington’s pathetic speech once he realizes the neighbors in his community are turning against him after being terrorized for so long is made powerful by physical gestures such as his sarcastic laughing….It is almost Shakespearean.



GREG KINNEAR – AUTOFOCUS and LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Kinnear might be the most underrated actor working in Hollywood today and these are perhaps two of his greatest roles so far….As TV sitcom star and sex addict Bob Crane in AUTOFOCUS, Kinnear shows not only a character’s downfall but also that he didn’t have much of a soul to begin with….In LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, Kinnear plays a loser who becomes a winner by following his own set of personal goals….In a movie filled with great performances, Kinnear makes an unlikeable character comedic and, at the end during the performance of his daughter, one could say heroic.
KEY SCENE – In AUTOFOCUS, either the conversation in the car with his son about what the color orange looks like or his final phone call to Willem DaFoe’s character (DaFoe is just as good as Kinnear in this film). One can sense the desperation in both scenes….In LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, there are many but I think the scene where he confronts the agent and realizes that the 9 stop program isn’t just a hokey con but something he believes in is great



ROBERT DOWNEY JR. –TROPIC THUNDER
A great comedic performance in a movie full of them…. Downey as an Australian method actor acting as an African American is an amazing work of acting dexterity.
KEY SCENE – The conversation with Ben Stiller where he states “never go full retard” is something I can watch again and again.



TIM ROBBINS – MYSTIC RIVER
Sometimes it’s not a matter of speaking the lines with emotion or utilizing make-up or changing your physical appearance, sometimes it’s simply a matter of acting the way someone would who had undergone what is in the movie….Robbins, as a survivor of kidnapping and childhood sexual abuse, really inhabits this role with his sloping shoulders and nervous, shambling gait, he is still the child who is frozen at the time his childhood was taken from him.
KEY SCENE – All of the scenes between Robbins and his wife are a tutorial in acting but his death scene where he realizes the irony what’s happening to him is brilliant acting.

The decade’s not over….Let’s see if there will be anymore performances added to this list by the end of 2009.