A couple months ago, when I started working on another site, I had the idea that I would maintain both. That in the personal blog here I’d gather the morsels of pieces I didn’t use in the other space.
But of course this was very naive on my part. The other deal has absorbed me as it starts to move a bit, and I never visit over here. I can’t say I never will, but for now I need to direct you toward www.eastwindupchronicle.com
Of course most of you that have reached this site only did so because you googled my name. I write under a different name in the other spot, so you can’t find me that way. Well, here I am, and here I go. Come join me wherever. Or, at the place listed above.
thanks,
Aaron
I hit a lull with the American Mind series but finally bore down and finished the thing. Really glad I did.
Once WWII was over the series took a leap for me, when it started getting into mass culture criticism and theory. One perspective living in Korea has given me is that the identification of culture as being something high or low, and any criticism thereof becomes muddled when one lives in a radically different culture. Koreans sometimes think Americans are dirty because they don’t scrape an outer layer of skin from their bodies as Koreans to in public baths. Americans think the idea of eating a dog or a live octopus is barbarian.
Aside from moral grounds it becomes difficult to criticize one or another. I don’t spend so much time thinking about Korean culture vs. American or Western culture. I accept most aspects of Korean culture for what it is; a several thousand year old culture, which has many admirable features and several that I don’t like.
But one thing I do think a lot about is American culture. My culture. And how so much of America’s ideas about itself have been acquired and developed via Europe. I think many Americans, including myself for some time; have looked at Europe as being somewhat culturally superior to America. Even though America, since its existence, has always remained democratically superior (although, it’s getting more debatable recently), Europe and its culture have often been held in higher esteem, certainly by Europeans, and by many Americans.
American Mind gets to the heart of where this game from, citing the examples of people like Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, who both fled to New York City from Germany during Hitler’s rise to power. Both raised issues of conformity vs. freedom in capitalist America. Fromm was specifically interested in the use of mass culture and its effect on the American populous. How America’s culture became so barren, so devoid of….I suppose all the things that European culture theoretically was…to Fromm.
Surely someone like Fromm would be disgusted at the conformity in Korean society, but, then again who’s to argue that it’s wrong? I’m also sure someone like Fromm had little to no experience living in an Asian culture, cultures that have survived much longer than either German or French culture. Koreans watch more television than everyone in the world, except the Japanese. Who is to argue that’s a waste of time? In any event the European style of life is disappearing, so I suppose it won’t matter much for long. It was unstable 75 years ago, and will be highly unstabe within the next 100 or so years.
American mind goes on discuss the Harlem Renaissance, Nation of Islam, up through the neo-Conservatives, which start with Reagan and continue through today.
I can’t recommend these series highly enough.
My purpose for reading this was mostly because it sounded similar to what I’ve tried to do with my recently finished book. This is a collection of stories, basically, about Indian people set in either the U.S. or India.
It was quite helpful to read. I’ve never read anything written by an Indian writer…or, second generation Indian, actually. But after having lived in Korea a while, I can pick up on certain Asian cultural subtleties that Indians and Koreans share, despite the fact that countries themselves are radically different.
I’m a little surprised this book won a Pulitzer Prize to be honest. Of the nine stories I’d say four or five are pretty great, I especially liked the title piece.
Always wanted to see this one since a former co-worker here in Korea expressed that he’d fallen in love with the lead actress Jun Ji-hyun when he saw the movie. It’s understandable, she has a presence here that’s not so much sexy, but very understanded and classy in a Breakfast at Tiffany’s kind of way. That is to say, she’s absolutely captivating.
Funny enough this is being remade in Hollywood. I’m sure the plot–a girl who, due to some painful memories, comically abuses a boy/boyfriend she meets on a subway–could catch on in the U.S., but there’s no way any actress (in this case someone named Elisha Cuthbert) will manage what Jun did in this movie.
Jun herself is now in “Hollywood” having changed her name to Gianna Jun, staring in something called “Blood: The Last Vampire.” Frankly, it sounds tragic. I saw a couple stills from the film and she’s wearing this school uniform, all dolled up to look pure and innocent.
I have a new expression I penned. You can only fuck like a virgin once. I think that applies here to Gianna and My Sassy Girl.
And I dare say he’s the funniest thing I’ve seen since Mr. Show.
I generally find comedians to be snide, pathetic, egomaniacs who take sadistic pleasure in separating themselves from an audience–only satisfied when they make the audience laugh…laughing at them all the while.
But I think Zach Galifanakis would agree with all that, and that might be why he’s funnier than most anyone else.
http://www.zachgalifianakis.com/
Even though The Puzzle apes a lot of classic American gangster flicks like Resevior Dogs and The Usual Suspects I got a kick out of thriller that came out last year.
I think it goes a bit to far out of its way to come up with a surprise ending…coming off rather far fetched, or perhaps, impossible. But it’s fun. You’ve got the quiet guy, the crazy guy who dresses funny, the sensitive guy with a bad past and the wild young punky guy, all trying to pull off a heist.
My Dad is fond of telling a story about me getting in trouble in my 8th grade U.S. History class taught by Mr. Callahan. How he’d sit up at the front of the class and spend the entire time reading straight from the book. Me, being a pretty active kid, getting bored and doing whatever I could to disrupt the class.
He was, I think I can say now in fairness some 20 years later, an awful teacher. I can remember our text book, a giant tomb, filled with historical paintings of the civil war and words like “emancipation” in highlighted in bold text and defined in the back. Surely we had to memorize the definitions word for word and write them on some sort of quiz.
I think of things like this; evidence of a relatively poor middle and high school education, when I download lecture series by The Teaching Company.
I’m perpetually trying to compensate for guys like Mr. Callahan–and Mrs. Goddard, my 9th grade World History teacher, who now that I’m older and know about such things, must have been just a year or so away from retirement.
I’m being a bit negative here. What I’m trying to say is that I have a soft spot for history, and especially living over here in Korea, I spend some time thinking about my home country and what makes up its psyche.
The American Mind is a series by Allen C. Guelzo, an esteemed professor at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. In it he details some of the ideas, some of which are philosophical (many of which are of course theological), that have shaped American history. He gets into the The Transcendentalists, Pragmatism, Conservatism, the influence of the Enlightenment…and perhaps Mr. Callahan’s favorite; emancipation.
It’s good stuff. Guelzo is an expert, even if his lecturing style is a hammy for my tastes. But the info itself is fun to absorb and doesn’t drag, even when discussing people like Jonathan Edwards or the Puritans. One of the better Teach Company series I’ve listened to.
Another cool one from Andrew Bujalski. This time he heads straight into a “musician moves to Brooklyn” trap, but totally pulls it off. I think these films will someday stand as interesting period pieces into how twentysomethings lived at the turn of the century. Again, nothing earthshaking here, mostly people talking, living trivial lives, worried more about things like bands and kissing than anything too heavy. But we all go through this to some degree and the fact that Bujalski can replicate it so perfectly in a fictional setting is a testimony to him as a filmmaker.
The lead character is in a band called Bishop Allen, which I downloaded at one point. That’s all I’ll say about it.
Boy this was something I was ready to hate. And I did initially. Through 20 minutes of Funny Ha Ha, the second, I believe, film by Bujalski I was ready to turn it off. But then I started to be warmed by the babbling, silly, neurotic and alienated people in the film. Then, I realized I was watching me when I was 25, and suddenly it all began to matter. What can I say?
The lead in Funny Ha Ha is Kate Dollenmayer, who despite her apparent lack of acting experience is a real charm by the end. Part of the film reminded me of Eric Rhomer; one of my favorites. There’s also a little Woody Allen here, and probably more Hal Hartley than I would be aware of.
Not a lot happening here, but some genuinely funny moments. I especially liked the guy (Dave) who had a girlfriend who walks the Dollenmayer character to her car (after a party hosted by he and his partner), in order to attempt one of the most awkward and hilarious passes I’ve ever seen in a film.
Here’s a photo of Dave in action shortly before the pass.
I was in America for a few weeks visiting family and stuff. As is often the case when I go home I don’t have a lot of time to do much of the junk I would regurgitate in this space, but, of course, there were discoveries.
One thing I’ve become more certain of is my opinion of the movie The Bridge, which I outlined in an earlier post. I came to this understanding as I rode across the Golden Gate Bridge, going home from the airport.
What an utterly exploitive glorified 90 minute Youtube piece of shit that film is.
Enough said.
Having to take time from my plodding through Karamazov I found a couple other books to read while abroad. The first was A Good School, by Richard Yates. It was the second book of his I’ve read this year, the first being Revolutionary Road, which I happily place as one of my favorites of all time.
“School” isn’t as good, but considering that the tale of the prep school seems to be well-tread territory (mostly I’m thinking John Knowles here) Yates still manages to breathe life into it. The theme of homoeroticism (and sexuality in general) in prep schools is an interesting one and is something Knowles never touched to my knowledge. It’s not central to the book, but Yates tackles it. At the beginning of the book one of the boys is pinned down and masturbated as a means of embarrassing him, and throughout the book boys are seen hiding their erections from elders and females.
