Friday, July 29, 2005


"Duma"
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Many thanks to Brian, who pointed out that Carroll Ballard's new movie, "Duma," will be released on August 5. Released, but in a very limited way: The film's official website has some information about the very few theaters and cities where the film will be viewable. I hope the film is a doozy, and I hope it makes Warners look like jerks for not giving it more enthusiastic backing. Ballard -- who is best-known for "The Black Stallion" and "Never Cry Wolf" -- is an amazing filmmaker. He's of the George Lucas/Francis Coppola generation, and he attended film school with these guys. Coppola -- who produced "The Black Stallion" -- has gone on record with the opinion that Ballard was clearly the most talented of the bunch. Yet Ballard has never received anything like his critical due. This is probably for a number of understandable reasons: Ballard is an ornery, headstrong guy who avoids the limelight; he has made movies that focus on children and animals; he isn't great with narrative; and a number of his feature movies haven't worked out very well. Still, that's no reason not to do what you can to see his new one, or to catch up with his earlier movies -- especially "The Black Stallion." (Pauline Kael once wrote that "The Black Stallion" "may be the greatest children's film ever made.") And why hasn't Criterion anthologized Ballard's legendary early short films on DVD? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 29, 2005 | perma-link | (9) comments

Thursday, July 28, 2005


"House of Flying Daggers" and "The Mystery of Rampo"
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- A couple of days ago I wondered out loud why so few films take interesting chances with color. As it happens, the two films I've watched in the days since I wrote that posting have both showed a lot of daring with color. Now don't I feel like a foolish whiner! Yesterday we caught up with the widely-praised Zhang Yimou martial-arts period drama "House of Flying Daggers." As a production, "House" is nothing if not astounding. An emerald-green ambush in a bamboo forest ... A swordfight between love-rivals in a storybook snowfall ... Lovely, and gasp-eliciting, scenes. Still, I found "House" a bore. Its story, situations, and characters seemed as remote to me as those of every other Chinese film I've seen. And Zhang Yimou's direction, however effective, struck me as heavy-handed -- stiff and regimented, and far more redolent of the will than of the imagination. Still, that production ... those colors ... OK, so the film's look is like Asian calendar art gone cyber-gargantuan. That ain't nothin'. Tonight we watched a Japanese movie I hadn't heard of before, the 1995 "Mystery of Rampo." It's an elaborately produced art-thing: an involuted, Cocteau-esque, reality-and-fiction game that improvises on the life and work of a Japanese novelist who idolized and emulated Edgar Allen Poe. I stayed alert through most of the film thanks to its audiovisual design. Where "House of Flying Daggers" is a hyper-squaresville (if impressive) crash-and-slash action opera, "Rampo" is decadent, arty, languourous, and fetishistic. Unfortunately, the film is also overdetermined, slow, and stilted -- I found it as unengaging on a story/situation/character level as "House." But as a ponderous flip through an especially sumptuous issue of Tokyo Vogue, the film is quite something: Bertolucci meets Miyazaki, at least in terms of look-and-feel. The light, the fabrics, the decor, the compositions, the ultra-subtle sounds ... Lordy, lordy, where "evocative" and "exquisite" go, the Japanese can make the French look like Americans, if that makes any sense. "Rampo" manages to be both amusingly overwrought and annoyingly over-delicate. Yet as a showcase for the kind of poetic things modern film stock, CGI enhancements, and sound recording are capable of, "Rampo" is hard to beat. The Wife reports that she preferred "Daggers," thanks to its kickass action. Arty weirdo that I am, I had an easier time sitting through "Rampo." But anyone curious about the kinds of fun Hollywood might be having with color, light, computers, and sound could do worse than check out these films. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 28, 2005 | perma-link | (5) comments

Elsewhere
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Illustration Friday -- what a great idea for an illustrators' website. A theme is announced once a week. Then, every Friday, illustrators from all over the world link to the visuals they've created in response to the week's theme. There's much in the way of amusement and bliss to be experienced in surfing these links. God bless self-motivated talents, eh? * Broadcasting and Cable's J. Max Robins says that he's never seen the TV news business in such a state of disarray. * I loved the French director Olivier Assayas' recent cyberthriller "Demonlover." (Fair warning: Lots of people considered the movie a pretentious bore.) It turns out that Assayas can write about movies as well as he can make them. He started out as a film critic, and in the Telegraph he offers a lovely and clear-eyed appreciation of the work of the great German filmmaker (and Friedrich von Blowhard fave) Fritz Lang. * Sony laid out a lot of payola to turn cuts by J. Lo and Jessica Simpson into hits. Now Sony is having to fork over yet more -- a $10 million fine. Small question: Who the hell is Jessica Simpson, and why should anyone care about her? (Link thanks to ChicagoBoyz's Mitch Townsend.) * I always want to spit when a critic comes out with the kind of over-large, over-categorical judgment that some critics can't resist: "Such-and-such is the best novel of 2004," for instance. Earth to critics: Since no one has read (or will ever read) every novel published in 2004, please do us all a favor by speaking a little more modestly. There is more to the arts than anyone shall ever know. Speaking of which, here's an amazing collection of photographs of Chinese watermelon carving. I know nothing whatsoever about the artform, but color me impressed and delighted. * Plum has just about had it with the whole low-rise jeans thing. Plum is quite something. Her list of "100 Things You Don't Need to Read" is funny in itself; it also comes together as a cute and fast autobiography. My fave entry on Plum's list: "I have a crappy memory. If I don't write stuff down, I forget it when I see something shiny." #77's a winner too: "I worked in an art gallery when I got out of college, even though it meant I had to eat ramen." There's more life in this collection of short confessions than there is in some literary novels I've read. Plum seems to be one of those amazingly rambunctious and uninhibited young women it's hard not to notice these days. She's also a spirited, sweet, and funny blogger. (California-bred and now living in Pittsburgh, Plum writes a plaintive and touching little posting entitled "Fuck Winter! Fuck Winter Right in the Ear!") The mostly-gal crowd that visits Plum's blog is sweet, foul-mouthed, and funny too. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 28, 2005 | perma-link | (4) comments

Sole Creators?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- One of the biggest surprises I experienced on settling into the culture/media life was how messy questions of attribution often turn out to be. Teachers (as well as our own romantic fantasies) sometimes lead us to think of artworks as being the products of unique individuals. In fact, coaches, friends, technicians, spouses, editors, producers, and even corporations often play immense roles in the creation of cultural works we think of as having been created by one person. A quick handful of examples: Katharine Hepburn was a great actress, but she didn't write her own lines or block her own scenes. George Lucas' movies were certainly better when he was married to Marcia. The editor Michael Korda elicited, shaped, and published the novels of Jacqueline Susann. The British mystery writer Dick Francis stopped writing when his wife died; although the mysteries had always been marketed as being "by Dick Francis," he and his wife had in fact been a creative team. (Small personal note: To my mind, one of the bigger puzzles of the reading-and-writing game is the question, Why do so many readers enjoy imagining that the book they're reading was created by only one person? Why should this matter? Weird.) But perhaps the existence of the blogosphere is blowing some doors open. DesignObserver's Michael Bierut writes a good-natured posting confessing that he hasn't always been the sole creator of his own work, and spelling out how it is that the design process often works. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 28, 2005 | perma-link | (15) comments

Wednesday, July 27, 2005


DVD Journal: "Cellular"
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I'm not sure why the small action thriller "Cellular" wasn't a big hit. Right from its opening couple of minutes, I found it whizbang enjoyable. It delivers a pinpoint focus on great-ride style entertainment; hypercompetent chases and crowd scenes; and fun and attractive performers showing off lots of performing pizzazz. I wonder if the film's marketers made the film appear to be too edgy. In fact, it's a squarer, more eager movie than the film's campaign made it appear. It seems, in other words, like the kind of film audiences love to make their own. For one thing, of course, it has a fabulous exploitation-style thriller hook: A kidnapped woman frantically dials a random number and connects with a shallow beachboy. To try to save her (and, later, her family), these two strangers have to stay in touch via his cellphone. If their connection breaks, it's all over. Wowee: This hook is cheap, it's sleazy, it's too clever by half -- and, I don't know about you, but it's got me watching. Good grief, but I do bow down before an effective narrative hook. Larger question: What's not great about a great hook? Is the creation of an effective hook a trivial achievement? I can't see why we should think so. And "Cellular"'s hook strikes me as being in a class with such classics as "D.O.A." and "Speed." ("D.O.A." -- he's been poisoned; he's got only two hours to live; but in those two hours this hero who, for all intents and purposes is already dead, is going to track down the man who killed him. "Speed" -- if the bus dips below a certain velocity, the bomb goes off.) So: a great hook, a lot of professionalism and energy � But, as it turns out, more than just that. The movie is also full of ingenious twists, turns, double-backs, and surprises; it hustles you past the unavoidable implausibilities very enjoyably; it's canny about judging its changes of pace; it knows when and how to jack the stakes up; and it maintains a cheerfully knock-it-around and enthusiastic tone. It's lean and fresh; it's short, it's exciting, and it's occasionally quite funny. It ain't much -- a B movie with a live spark. But that's a kind of ain't-muchness that I adore. "Cellular" may just be a nifty thriller-exploitation concept well-fleshed-out. But this movie makes that kind of plot-and-concept-driven approach look like the way to go. The writers, directors, actors, and stunt/action teams all gave the film much more than they needed to. David Ellis -- a longtime stuntman, stunt coordinator, and second-unit guy -- directed with a lot of alertness to where the fun might be found. Chris Morgan wrote the superduper, resourceful final script from an original idea by Larry Cohen, with input from the director, some of the actors, and -- who knows? -- maybe the film's caterer too. All the film's participants seemed to be having a virtuosic amount of creative... posted by Michael at July 27, 2005 | perma-link | (20) comments

Saturday, July 23, 2005


Is Something the Matter With Economics?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Is there something dramatically wrong with economics? No way for me to know, of course: I'm nothing but a fan with the most basic understanding imaginable of the subject. Still, a couple of books that I nosed through recently have left me wondering if something in the kingdom might indeed be amiss. "The Changing Face of Economics," edited by David Colander, Richard P.F. Holt, and J. Barkley Rosser Jr., is a roundup of interviews with well-established, mostly academic economists: Kenneth Arrow, Robert Frank, Deidre McCloskey, others. Most of them seem to be working and thinking at least partly in reaction against Paul Samuelson, the economist and textbook author whose Great Society neo-Keynesianism put Friedrich von Blowhard and me off economics back in the 1970s. About time people turned on Samuelson! Oh, was there ever a lot of arrogant talk around in those days about the possibility of "fine-tuning the economy" even as the actual economy was spinning off into previously-unseen whirlpools of stagflation ... The editors courteously give Samuelson space to reply at the end of their book. He handles the challenge in a gentlemanly fashion. Here are some of the interviewee's remarks. From Kenneth Binmore: "Economists traditionally promise more than they can deliver ... We certainly need to melt the boundaries between economics and psychology." From Herbert Gintis: "Undergraduate economics is a joke -- macro is okay, but micro is a joke because they teach this stuff that you know is not true. They know the general equilibrium model is not true. The model has no good stability properties, it doesn't predict anything interesting, but they teach it ... " From Robert Frank: "If you look at the Darwinian framework ... it would seem that you should care only about the things that promote your narrow goals. But the evidence was fairly clear that people did seem to care about more than that. ... You see the concern about status, or the concern about fairness, and then you ask, 'Well this seems to motivate people to incur costs that they could avoid. How is that consistent with our belief that people had a struggle to acquire scarce resources all through the eons?'" From "Buz" Brock: "I'd rather see less ideology and more careful reporting of the true level of uncertainty ... On the one hand I can understand when people remain tied to their model in the face of somewhat contradictory evidence. But on the other hand people who make policy statements when the data might equally well support two paradigms are not following good practice. I think we need more honest reporting of uncertainty." From the ecological economist Richard Norgaard: "My major problem is with the culture of economists and their use of the neoclassical model, not the model itself, because the model is no better or worse than a lot of other models ... Quite frankly, economists are like highway engineers who know how to make perfect roads but who are... posted by Michael at July 23, 2005 | perma-link | (23) comments

Athletes: Genetic Freaks?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- There really are (in some cases) biologically-based differences between (some) people. Heavens, but it feels good to be living in a world where such a thing can be said out loud without everyone within earshot getting hysterical. So let me say it again: There really are (in some cases) biologically-based differences between (some) people. Wow, the sense of relief and expansiveness that I feel! I wonder if younger people have any idea what it was like to get an education in the '60s and the '70s, those decades of extreme Blank Slate-ism. We're all alike; all differences are purely cultural ... If you were trying to move in circles that fancied themselves to be "educated circles," you were obligated to bow down before these two claims. Anyone Who Was Anyone simply knew that they were true, after all. And Anyone Who Disagreed, ipso facto, deserved to be treated as a Nazi until he/she proved otherwise. So it's been fun -- and immensely satisfying -- to watch genetic and biological research pile up showing that biological differences can and do exist between individuals, as well as between population groups. God knows that it's a moment to be relished when scientific findings and common experience jibe. And an even more tasty treat when they contradict and confound the vanities and lies of privileged people. Great Steve Sailer quote: There are lots of important and popular people who don't seem to mind lying, and, indeed, think better of themselves for lying in a fashionable cause. In fact, the more blatant the lie, they appear to believe, the greater the moral credit they deserve. Some interesting data showed up yesterday in a good Wall Street Journal "On Sports" column by Sam Walker. It seems that, for a long time now, docs and researchers have been prodding elite athletes in order to determine if their athletic excellence has some biological bases. Answer: You betcha. As Walker writes: "While genetics is only one part of the formula for greatness, scientists agree that in order to be truly dominant, an athlete has to be -- to some degree -- a genetic freak." Some of the findings Walker cites: Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps has flipper-like feet: size 14 monsters that are as flexible as a ballerina's. Andy Roddick, who owns tennis' fastest serve, can arch his back 44% farther than can the average tennis pro. The soccer star Mia Hamm produces half as much sweat as the average soccer player. While it takes a typical civilian 300 milliseconds to make a reactive decision, the average race car driver is able to react and respond in 270 milliseconds -- a difference that means a lot when your car is going 200 miles an hour. One of the most remarkable physical specimens in the world is the great bicyclist Lance Armstrong. Armstrong's heart is 20% larger than a normal person's, and his body produces one-third less lactic acid than do the bodies of other... posted by Michael at July 23, 2005 | perma-link | (18) comments

Thursday, July 21, 2005


Yoga Notes
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Alan Little explains something key about yoga that many people -- including many people taking yoga classes -- aren't aware of: The practice of the physical postures (the "asanas") is only one part of what yoga is. Me, I'm an enthusiastic novice. Alan's a serious -- even scholarly -- yogadude. BTW, that Patanjali fellow Alan mentions? One of the fathers of yoga philosophy, and a major genius. Yoga philosophy, like the Indian school of philosophy known as Vedanta, makes me completely happy -- as well as completely happy to leave all Western philosophy behind. * Yoga classes in my neighborhood average at least 3/4 women. (Singleguys-eager-to-meet-chicks: Why aren't you taking yoga?) Felicia Tomasko asks, Is yoga different for men? Her general thesis: Yoga is a practice that creates more of a state of vulnerability, according to Miller. He, along with other teachers, hypothesizes that women tend to naturally have an easier time with the emotional vulnerability inherent in yoga practice. Miller finds that yoga practice, particularly the challenging forms like the ashtanga he teaches, is transformative by nature. The practitioner then has to navigate unfamiliar territory and states of being. While these were values supported culturally during the development of yoga, Western cultural ideas do not support male vulnerability. OK, so maybe that's why a lot of singleguys aren't taking yoga ... Still: Wusses. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 21, 2005 | perma-link | (22) comments

Elsewhere
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Excellent casting! * Thanks to Michael Gates for pointing out this beautiful satellite image of Niagara Falls. I don't think I've mentioned recently what a pleasure Michael's blog is, by the way. Michael has a deep interest in words and poetry, and takes wonderful verbal shapshots of moments that catch his eye -- they're haiku-ish prose poems. He's curious about the world, and he's OK with not knowing everything. Michael's brain inhabits a space I love visiting. * The most to-the-point commentary about the proposed "Freedom Tower" at the WTC comes from James Kunstler. * Michael Bierut writes a heartfelt and wonderful appreciation of Moss Hart's heartfelt and wonderful theater memoir, "Act One." * It seems that uncool -- or maybe noncool -- is the new cool. * Arnold Kling takes a mature look at what might be done to relieve African poverty. * For websurfers of a certain ilk, running across an open directory is kind of like striking gold, right? * John Horn's LA Times visit with uber-meatball film director Michael Bay is one to be savored. I cracked wise about a Bay movie here, and I linked to another profile of Bay here. I ain't gonna miss Bay's new movie, "The Island," are you? I'm sure it's almost as much fun as a demolition derby. Ka-boom! * Scott Esposito recalls the days when he thought authors were glamorous and rich. * Let's welcome Bluewyvern to the blogosphere. She has a very likable and confident voice, and she has been having energetic fun with her links. Unlike us oldies, who are forever struggling with the blogging medium, Bluewyvern seems like a natural. She has a freeform multimedia mind, but she can still focus. * All that talk about edible meat being grown in a Petri dish? Alex Tabarrok wonders what we'll call people who eat in-vitro meat but not animal-grown meat. Stephen Bodio thinks that everyone's been forgetting the most important question: How will it taste? * Tyler Cowen suspects that Hollywood's current business doldrums aren't merely cylical. * Kinky Friedman -- musician, detective novelist, and self-proclaimed "Texas Jewboy" -- wants to run for Texas governor. His campaign planks include abolishing political correctness, and (even better) "de-wussification." Enough: I'm on board. * I can't find fault with Shouting Thomas's political point of view either: "The American middle class way of life is great! There is nothing better. Enjoy it!" My own political philosophy, it recently occurred to me, boils down to, "First do no harm." * Marriage can be a challenge even when the two of you finally agree to get more sexually adventurous. (No images, but still NSFW.) * Ariel Levy's memoir about the ineffable Andrea Dworkin is a gem. A highlight of the piece is the revelation that -- although she made a loud point of proclaiming her lesbianism -- no one ever knew Dworkin to have an actual affair with a woman. Am I wrong in thinking that... posted by Michael at July 21, 2005 | perma-link | (8) comments

Gavin Lambert
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- A moment of silence, please, for the under-recognized passing of Gavin Lambert, who died several days ago at the age of 80. Lambert was one of those brilliant, elegant, gentlemanly, and dapper-but-tough figures the arts can't live without. And, yes, you bet he was gay. As far as films went, Lambert was a critic; he edited Sight & Sound magazine; he worked as a flunky for Nicholas Ray; he wrote award-winning screenplays. But he was a beyond-excellent journalist, biographer, and fiction-writer too. I'm a huge fan of his book-length interview with George Cukor, of his biography of the exotic Russian diva Nazimova, and of his story collection "The Slide Area," which seems to me as good as the best of Christopher Isherwood, as well as one of the best-ever evocations of the movie life. Here's Lambert's entry on IMDB. Here's a nice photo of him. Here's an interview with him about Natalie Wood, the subject of one of his biographies. Dennis McLellan's obit in the LA Times is a nice one; so is Sharon Waxman's in the NY Times. The film critic David Ehrenstein, who knew Lambert, recalls his friend here. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 21, 2005 | perma-link | (0) comments

Girls in Their Summer Dresses, and Skirts -- and Thongs
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- How have you found women's fashions this summer? They've struck me as very enjoyable: sexy, relaxed, and even a little elegant, at least by today's hysterical standards. Nostalgia-inducing too, for those of us d'un certain age: The '60s and '70s seem back in a big way, what with the cowboy boots, the flower-power blouses, and the always-welcome denim miniskirt making strong comebacks. I've had girlwatching moments when I could almost hear The Byrds singing "Turn Turn Turn." I've been delighted as well by the vogue for low-slung, flowing skirts. They have a beautiful rhythm and sway. The patterns are loose and sinuous. They're very Gauguin; women walk real nice in 'em. And the newfangled, twinkly materials that are often woven into the traditional fabrics do a sharp job of refreshing the style. What with the sandals and the toe-rings, the effect is cyber-Hindu, or maybe Bali-goes-Silicon-Valley. Very flattering, and very female. Of course it's always fun taking note of the outrages too. The lower-belly and buttcrack exhibitionism seems less aggressive this summer than it was last summer. But this season I've noticed a lot of attention-grabbing, dumbass t-shirts. One shapely woman walked by me recently wearing a tight t-shirt with a legend on it reading: "These boobs are real." Was I meant to give them a squeeze just to make sure? Another gasp-inducer involved a tall, curvy blonde outside Whole Foods. There she stood, yakking on the inevitable cellphone, dressed in a skimpy top and in a spectacularly barely-there bottom: a pink micro mini of the kind a spring break sorority girl might slip on over her Wicked Weasels in order to go get an ice cream cone. Around her hips, in other words, this blonde was wearing no more than eight inches of stretchy almost-nothingness. If she'd bent over just the slightest bit, I'm sure that I would have seen some tanned (and, I'm sure, very smooth) pubic curves. But by then -- like every other straight man in the vicinity -- I'd already tripped over myself and slammed into a telephone pole. Oooh, was I ever outraged! Small historical question: When did it become OK for women to go out in the general public arena wearing what's basically boudoir or beach clothing? Was it Madonna who kicked this trend off? A pleasant development that I may be late in noticing has been lots and lots of semi-transparency. Have you taken note as well? Most of it seems to be part of a peekaboo-layering strategy: hip wraps, see-through blouses worn over spaghetti-strap tops, that kind of thing. Flirty! Fun! Fabulous! Thinking about semi-transparency, I find myself transported back to the late '70s ... Yup, there she is, floating before me once again: Naomi, a dark, voluptuous, moody beauty and fellow officeworker. We lusty young officedudes used to refer to Naomi as the "sexy Israeli army sergeant" -- we pictured her spending mornings cracking down on Palestinians, and afternoons oiling up her olive-skinned toplessness... posted by Michael at July 21, 2005 | perma-link | (41) comments

Storytellers
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Sometimes I marvel at how resourceful the media can be. A number of litbloggers, for instance, have been picked up by newspapers and magazines to work as reviewers -- good show! But there are other times when what amazes me instead is how clueless the media can be. Case in point: If I were a TV or movie person, I'd be spending big parts of my day scanning the web for fresh dramatic and comedy material. Why does no one seem to be doing this? God knows the blogosphere is full of promising stories and storytellers. Yahmdallah's dating adventures could be the basis for the next "Dream On," for example. Nate Davis and Graham Lester tell real-life tales that should be primo meat for indie filmmakers. And why haven't producers who want to exploit the endless appetite for chicklit-style romantic comedy been in contact with La Coquette? Some other bloggers whose stories are just as ripe for the picking: Neil Kramer, whose postings are often hilarious and touching performance pieces about the joys and woes of marriage and singledom (Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, can you hear me?); Searchblog, whose struggles with depression have a moving boho beauty; the Communicatrix, whose scrappy and out-there romantic and career stories are impossible not to relate to, and which she tells in the perfect voice; and Mike Hill, who (in between rants about New Jersey politics) shares cringe-making and perfectly-delicious memories of his years as an actor. What performer wouldn't kill for a part in a movie or sitcom based on these adventures? And what audience wouldn't be amused (and hooked) by watching these stories be enacted? Juicy and fresh material, all of it, and already well-told by excellent storytellers. Hollywood, would you puh-leeze get on the ball? Your material of late has been been striking a lot of us as awfully stale. Incidentally, should any mega-deals result from this posting, I'm more than open to the possiblity of a generous finder's fee ... Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 21, 2005 | perma-link | (11) comments

Wednesday, July 20, 2005


Delbert McClinton
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I'm having yet another "What kind of idiot was I?" moment. This one concerns the Texas blues/honkytonk legend Delbert McClinton. Decades ago, I read something rhapsodic about his greatness. I gave him a few listens, failed to get hooked, muttered something about how the press overdoes everything, goddammit, and that was it. Estupido! With that dumb judgment, I managed to miss out on 20 years of enjoyment. I don't know how or why, but tracks from a semi-recent Delbert CD showed up in my Itunes collection a couple of weeks ago. Ever since I stumbled into this music, I've been listening to little else. So here I am, a rabid new recruit, as eager to rhapsodize as any other Delbert fan. Have you ever had the pleasure? If you were in the kind of ungenerous mood I was apparently in long ago, you might say that Delbert (and his many talented co-conspirators) deliver a competent version of straight-up, flat-out country-blues. Well, that's not quite right. The sound and the voice are nothing if not flat-out, god knows. But Delbert's a natural-born eclecticist. He uses what he wants, and he works in whatever mode appeals. There's nothing in Delbert's music that isn't roots. But the way he brings the ingredients together is something else. Without making a fuss about it, he swirls together soul, blues, border radio sounds, and a whole variety of country musics -- swing, honky-tonk, Texas. Delbert's been around, and he has had more ups and downs than he probably cares to remember. He was born in Lubbock, Texas in 1940; he's just four years younger than fellow Lubbock native Buddy Holly. As a young man, he played backup for giants like Howlin' Wolf and Lightnin' Hopkins; on tour in England in the early '60s, he gave John Lennon some harmonica tips that resulted in the catchy harmonica sound on "Love Me Do." Although he has been nominated for a few Grammys (and has won one or two) and he has had one modest national hit (with "Givin' It Up for Your Love"), Delbert has never been a big star. Needless to say, he's had his battles with a variety of devils too -- booze, drugs, the taxman ... Delbert's an all-around musician: a confident and persuasive harp player as well as an inventive guitarist. As a band-leading vocalist, Delbert has classic Texas-country equipment -- more energy than range, and pipes well-corroded from too much diesel (and no doubt much else). But what he does with that equipment! Delbert is no beady-eyed, deadpan/canny, hold-it-in country singer. You never sense his brain hovering above his repertoire of tricks and stylizations, parceling them out one at a time. Instead, he's loose and out-there. He's also amazingly unapologetic about the soul-man thing -- one of the few white men I'm aware of who can holler "Yowwwwww! C'mon baby! Get on!!!" without looking like a fake, a wannabe, or an ass. At the same time, Delbert's... posted by Michael at July 20, 2005 | perma-link | (9) comments

Governor With a Passion -- Oh, No!
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- When a politician develops a hobbyhorse, watch out. New York's disgraceful governor George Pataki is determined to turn the Albany region into thriving technology hub, and it seems that nothing -- especially expense -- is going to get in his way. The New York Times' Michael Cooper reports that plans for a new microchip project have been announced, helped along by what's expected to be $180 million in state aid. How do residents of Troy, Syracuse and Rochester feel about state tax-money going to help out the Albany region? Cooper also reports that the Governor has already laid out $535 million in state funds to encourage a project called Albany Nanotech. The yield in jobs so far? 645 big ones. My arithmatic can be mighty shakey, but that looks to me like it cost taxpayers almost a million dollars for each new job that was created. Say, I have a thought. Instead of doing things so circuitously, why not just establish an annual $535 million New York state lottery? Take the money from NY taxpayers, then distribute it equally among 645 randomly-chosen, lucky residents. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 20, 2005 | perma-link | (8) comments

Blog-o-Versary
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I just noticed (a few days late) that 2Blowhards has turned three years old. Three years of blogging -- hard to believe! I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of words of writing that represents. It's hard to tell -- wonderfully hard to tell -- because blogging tends to consist not of finite essays but of ongoing conversations. When Friedrich von Blowhard and I came up with the idea of running a cultureblog, we were dipping anxious toes in a blogosphere that was very sparsely populated where cultural commentary goes. The political bloggers were off and running, but it hadn't yet occured to many people that blogging can just as easily serve as a convenient outlet for sounding off about movies, music, books, and art. If memory serves -- and it often doesn't these days, so apologies if I goof here -- the only cultureblogs in existence at the time Friedrich and I started Blowharding belonged to A.C. Douglas and Lynn Sislo. I'm glad to see that A.C. and Lynn are still showing the stuff. They both deserve a lot of credit not just for being classy thinkers and writers but for being pioneers. These days blogging seems almost old-media, and cultureblogging has become a standard part of the blogging panorama. A huge range of people take part, from established pros like Terry Teachout (how does he do it? I mean, and make a living?) to Everyguyblogger, who writes a short posting about how he reacted to the latest "Batman" episode. Thank god for this expansion of the culture-commentary universe. The world of yakking-about-culture seems -- to me, anyway -- a much saner one than it did when the culture-conversation was run entirely by people with professional positions at institutions, publications, and networks. I think I can speak for Friedrich and me both when I say that the pre-blogging conversation about culture and the arts often seemed downright demented. Much that's basic about the experience of culture and the arts was going not just undiscussed but completely unrecognized. The official commentators often seemed to be off in their own la-la world, carrying on discussions with each other in some cloud cuckooland where only their own thoughts and impressions counted. Before we began blogging, Friedrich and I were in the habit of swapping innumerable emails about art, sex, and the movies. (We still do this, by the way.) These emails were continuations of conversations we had as movie/art/lit-struck undergrads three decades ago. Three years ago, we looked at what was on our minds; we looked at what was in the papers and the magazines; and we wondered: How could it be that so much of what we observed, perceived, and thought found zero reflection in the public conversation about the arts? Perhaps mistakenly, we didn't feel that the answer to this question was, "Because you're complete weirdos, that's why." We suspected that, if we took some of our email yaks public, we might play a... posted by Michael at July 20, 2005 | perma-link | (15) comments

Reasons I'm Not ...
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Dodging all question of brains and talent ... * The reason I'm not a philosopher is that much of what I want from philosphy is trustworthy life advice. * The reason I'm not an economist is that I spend zero time marveling that people aren't economically rational. I start with the conviction that people are multidimensional and often confused beings, and I marvel that they ever do manage to act in economically rational ways. * The reason I'm not a Literary Theorist is that what interests me lots more than my own thought processes is the experience of the arts as they're actually lived. * The reason I'm not a photographer is that photographic possibilities leap out at me only after I put the camera away. When I actually do have a camera in hand, no good ideas for photos ever, ever occur to me. See also: Life's Cruel Ironies. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 20, 2005 | perma-link | (7) comments

Saturday, July 16, 2005


Donald on Distortion in Car Ads
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I'm pleased to present some more information, observations, and musings from Donald Pittenger, who has been thinking recently about visual distortions in automobile advertisements. Here's Donald Pittenger. *** (Literally) Distorted Advertising: Car Ads 1920-1970 by Donald Pittenger The 2003 Pebble Beach Concours d'Élégance classic car show included a tent where automobile artists showed their wares. One of the artists was Arthur Fitzpatrick, who was part of the "VK AF" team that illustrated a famous Pontiac advertising series from 1959 to 1972. Fitzpatrick did the cars and (the late) Van Kaufman provided the backgrounds. I loved those Pontiac ads. Kaufman's backgrounds were interesting to look at and skillfully done. Fitzpatrick's cars had wonderful reflections and highlights on their surfaces, the reflections being of Kaufman's artwork. They were a great team, and their success is indicated by the extremely long life of the advertising campaign; Pontiac wouldn't have kept shoveling the money if the ads didn't seem to pull in buyers. So I chatted briefly with Fitzpatrick, happily playing the role of shy fan who had admired his work way back in the days when I was a commercial art major in college. Then I looked over the various reproductions he was selling. Okay, this was two years ago, so I've forgotten the details -- but my impression is that I didn't see many (or any) Pontiac illustrations. What there was plenty of were pictures of Buicks he did before his Pontiac gig. I just checked his web site and see that he now has a lot of reproductions from the "VK AF" oeuvre for sale. Clearly, the Pontiac ads are his claim to fame, so it makes utter commercial sense to offer reproductions. But why did they seem to be so late in coming? Most likely it had to do with negotiating copyright or ownership issues with General Motors or its Pontiac ad agency of the time. But two years ago I was puzzled, so I looked up some "VK AF" examples and noticed something that hadn't fully hit home back when the ads were new: Fitzpatrick often seemed to be distorting the shapes of those Pontiacs, making them lower and wider than the actual cars. But not the Buicks, which seemed normal to me. 1965 Pontiac 1955 Buick Might he have held back selling reproductions due to a small tinge of professional embarrassment? I don't know, and it really doesn't much matter because Fitzpatrick by no means was the only one to distort, and the matter of distorting the appearance of cars is what I want to discuss here. But first let me set the automobile advertising illustration scene. A Brief History of Automobile Advertising Illustration I'll skip the early years and begin with the 1920s. By that decade, cars were getting pretty reliable (a theme of some ads in the early days), so "lifestyle" crept into advertising. This was in the form of either having a scene of some genteel activity such as... posted by Michael at July 16, 2005 | perma-link | (12) comments

Salingaros on the Borromeo
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I'm pleased to run a review of a new recording of a couple of Beethoven string quartets by the brilliant architectural critic, math professor, all-around-civilized-guy, and 2Blowhards fave Nikos Salingaros. Here's Nikos: *** Review of Borromeo String Quartet: Beethoven String Quartets Op. 59, No. 3, "Razoumofsky", and Op. 95, "Serioso" (Image Recordings, 2002) We have here an outstanding first release in what many connoisseurs hope will be a full set of the Beethoven String Quartets. The Boston-based Borromeo Quartet is composed of all young players -- two men and two women. The way they play matches any of the middle-aged central-European gentlemen we have traditionally come to identify with the finest in quartet performances. This recording is so good that I believe it merits a detailed review. ARTISTIC QUALITY. These interpretations rank alongside the "classic" ones of the past, including the Amadeus, Italiano, Vegh, etc. Please take the trouble to verify this for yourselves! That said, I'm going to compare them to three excellent recent complete sets -- those by the Auryn (Tacet), the second Lindsays (ASV); and the Takacs (Decca/Universal). In sheer intensity of playing, the Borromeo equals its competitors. The same goes for control and introspection. Some listeners criticize the Lindsays for rough playing -- the Borromeo achieves the same power and excitement while staying more musical. The Borromeo is as musically perceptive and interpretatively solid as the Auryn, and that's saying a great deal. For example, in the Second Movement of the Third "Razoumofsky", the Borromeo has perfect timing, along with the Auryn and Takacs, whereas the Lindsays are too fast. The Takacs, on the other hand, take the Finale of the Third "Razoumofsky" too fast for my taste, while the Lindsays are too slow. Even though the timing of the Borromeo's performance is actually four seconds faster than the Takacs', the Borromeo feels more natural. In the First Movement of the "Serioso", the Borromeo's pacing is absolutely perfect, while the Takacs (only 13 seconds faster) sound unnecessarily forced. SOUND QUALITY. This recording is simply superb -- I would say truly "state of the art". It surpasses the Takacs, who are compromised by their sound engineers blending out their cello and fiddling with the overall volume for an exaggerated dynamic effect (at times, they have an unpleasant boom). The Lindsays' sound is very good but a trifle boxy. The Borromeo's sound quality equals that of the Auryn, whose superb, transparent recorded sound is the best of all complete sets. Take, for example, the marvelous pizzicatos in the Second Movement of the Third "Razoumofsky". The Auryn's cello is cleanly recorded; the Lindsays' is slightly too prominent; the Takacs' cello appears to tiptoe in and out of the room; whereas in the Borromeo's recording, you can actually hear the cello resonate. Far from being an indistinct boom, it transmits accurate musical information. The same transparent and vivid acoustic is present in the "Serioso" -- the Borromeo's cello is present in the room at... posted by Michael at July 16, 2005 | perma-link | (1) comments

Friday, July 15, 2005


Ewan on Acting in Front of a Blue Screen
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- In movies that make heavy use of computer-generated imagery, the actors spend much of their time acting in unreal environments, or even opposite vacant space that will be filled in by computer only later. How can such conditions not contribute to the hollowness so many people complain about when they watch today's movies? After all, it's the people onscreen -- the actors and their acting -- who have traditionally given audiences their most direct way into films. If we're charmed by the performers and if the performers manage to generate some sparks -- and, of course, if the camera happens to register these sparks -- then we're turned on and borne along by the fiction. But if the spark isn't there? Then you've got echo-chamber emptiness -- movies like so many of the ones we endure these days. Since performing in front of a blue screen (or opposite thin air) gives an actor nothing specific to respond to, he/she tends to wind up doing schtick or being very general. The performers become Photoshop versions of themselves. The human content evaporates, and abstraction takes over. But don't trust me on this. Here's Ewan McGregor on the same subject. Playboy asks him what he has found it like to act in a few "Star Wars" movies. McGregor responds: They were horrendously difficult because you do so much of your work in front of a blue screen. Backgrounds and effects are added later. It's tedious, and there's no soul to them. By the nature of those movies, all the creative work is done afterward. They don't spend nearly as long on the acting as they on everything else. How long do you think it will take the mainstream arts press to understand this point? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 15, 2005 | perma-link | (16) comments

Basic Fairness Questions
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * If Jewish schools can require that none of their students bring non-Jews to the prom, then can schools run by other religions do likewise? Can Catholic schools forbid non-Catholics from attending prom? How about Protestant schools? Should they be allowed to shoo non-Protestants away from their events? And what if this meant that some Jews were forbidden entry? * If it's OK to run a get-together for female bloggers, does that mean it's OK to run one for male bloggers too? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 15, 2005 | perma-link | (38) comments

Mao/Marx
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- "Wild Swans" author Jung Chang has published a new biography of Mao, co-written with her husband Jon Halliday. Some memorable details show up in this interview with Chang and Halliday in the Guardian: At one stretch, Mao didn't bathe for 25 years; he had a taste for deflowering peasant virgins; he ordered his own baby to be allowed to die during the Long March. And -- oh yeah -- there's that thing about being responsible for 70 million other deaths too. Chang and Halliday want everyone to to understand that Mao was every bit as evil as Hitler and Stalin. Meanwhile, BBC Radio 4 listeners have voted Karl Marx the greatest philospher of all time. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 15, 2005 | perma-link | (22) comments

Elsewhere
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Are graphic designers a bunch of drama queens? If not, then why don't they focus more on creating timeless designs? * I haven't yet been hooked by Patrick O'Brian's novels, but I sure enjoyed reading Larry Ayer's account of how he became an O'Brian addict. * Thanks to Vdare's Brenda Walker for linking to this startling Christian Science Monitor piece about radical Islam in Britain. "This young man initially tried to upset his parents by becoming a rapper," says [one source.] "But when his parents stopped objecting, he became a jihadi instead." * Randall Parker is alarmed by the news that Islamic extremists are seeking recruits on British campuses. * Tech Central Station's Sandy Swarc says that dieting may be the worst thing an overweight person can do for his/her health. * Cameraphones and thongs are evidently one of those marriages that were always meant to be. (NSFW, as if you couldn't guess.) * I'm a big fan of the idea of graphic novels. Why shouldn't on-the-page-fiction have visuals too? But in actual fact, I've enjoyed relatively few of the graphic novels I've read. (I do like a lot of Euro-erotica graphic novels.) So I don't know the field well and my judgment isn't to be trusted. Jon Hastings, though, is a true graphic-novel fanatic. How fortunate that he has good taste too. Here's the latest episode in his ongoing series about the graphic novels he has loved. * Jeff at JVC Comments thinks Woody Allen ought to have some sense slapped into him. * L.A. artist Megan McMillan came away from a recent art opening thinking that the graffiti she drove past on the way there had been the visual highlight of her day. * Steve Sailer has been having some easy and amusing sport with that crude and inept neocon John Podhoretz. * It wasn't the Manhattan artscene that went gaga for Impressionism and brought the Impressionist style and approach to the States. Instead, it was the Boston artscene. Huh? Claire Messud explains how that came about. * One of my favorite blog-reading ploys is to toggle between Rachel's blog Tinkertytonk and Neil Kramer's blog Citizen of the Month. Rachel and Neil are both smart, sassy, and funny writers who are equipped with big, quirky personalities. I find reading them in tandem to be as amusingly addictive as watching the best of "Seinfeld." Very sorry to learn that Rachel's been having nightmares, though. * Friedrich von Blowhard must be aching to get there: England's National Gallery has opened a show of the work of George Stubbs. Stubbs seems to me to be one of the least-known major painters, perhaps because he focused his talents so much on painting horses. But what horses! Here's a good online gallery of Stubbs' paintings. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 15, 2005 | perma-link | (5) comments

Prize-Winning Pattie
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Cowtown Pattie -- I'm tickled to say that she drops by these parts on occasion -- isn't just the six-gun-toting, raucous drinking buddy her moniker suggests. (Although let's hear it for raucous drinking buddies.) That cowgirl has got a lot of sides to her. She's thoughtful, curious, free-thinking, and much else too. Pattie also writes some of the loveliest mini-memoirs that I've run across in the blogosphere. Here's one recent example. I often find reading Pattie's blog to be as sweet and touching an experience as listening to the songs of Iris Dement -- which is saying a lot. I'm pleased to see that Kevin Holtsberry and the crew at Collected Miscellany dig Pattie's words too. They've just awarded their prize for short-short-story writing to Cowtown Pattie. Congrats to all. (Thanks to Dave Lull for pointing this good news out to me.) Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 15, 2005 | perma-link | (3) comments

Wednesday, July 13, 2005


"Point Blank"
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Finally available on DVD: John Boorman's legendary (and trippily amazing) "Point Blank." It's a near-abstract crime thriller starring Lee Marvin in an iconic tough-guy role; with John Vernon and Angie Dickinson first-class in hardboiled supporting roles; and featuring some of the flashiest camerawork and editing of the 1960s. Very little that goes on onscreen makes much sense, but the film is satisfyingly sleazy, pungent, and intense anyway. Fans of "Kill Bill" may enjoy "Point Blank"'s somewhat similar style: hallucinatory, over-the-top, getting-high-on-itself. The film was based on "The Hunter," the same Donald Westlake novel that served as the basis for Mel Gibson's 1999 "Payback," which I didn't think was all that bad, really. Boorman is one of the most verbally articulate of all film directors; he published an excellent diary about making his film "The Emerald Forest," and he has edited one of the best movie magazines ever. So I'm looking forward to sampling his director's commentary. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 13, 2005 | perma-link | (3) comments

Computer Help Wanted
Can someone with some geek competence help me out? A few minutes ago, something strange started happening with the blog. Every new occurrence of the word "book" started being captured by some gremlin or other, which turned the word into a link. (Oddly, it doesn't seem to happen when the word is encased in quote marks.) Watch this: book, book, book. I didn't make any of those "book"s into a link. Some bit of evil software did. I don't think the gremlin inhabits my own computer. The out-of-nowhere links first appeared on a comment that MissGrundy left on my posting about Westerns -- how can that have happened via my computer? So: Is the infected party perhaps my webhost? Any hunches and/or tips would be much appreciated.... posted by Michael at July 13, 2005 | perma-link | (18) comments

Great Titles
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Among the many great things about "3:10 to Yuma" is its title. Yet what makes it such a good one? And more generally: Why do some titles strike us as wonderful while others are immediately obvious as duds? Can anything even semi-objective to be said in answer to this question? I took a browse through my shelves and made a list of some of the titles that struck me as hot stuff. So far it includes: "Last Tango in Paris." "Hollywood Wives." "Bad Lieutenant." "Psycho." "My Night at Maud's." "Red Harvest." "The Long Goodbye." "Mayflower Madame." "New Hope for the Dead." "Kiss the Blood Off My Hands." "Bonanza." "Son of the Sheik." "Unforgiven." "Mildred Pierce." "Unfaithful." "Desperate Housewives." "Fight Club." "The Color of Pomegranates." "Vampyros Lesbos." "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." "The Dream Police." "Catch-22." "Knife in the Water." "Women in Love." "The Picture of Dorian Gray." "An Unsuitable Job for a Woman." "After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie." "The Seven Samurai." "Aguirre, the Wrath of God." "I, Claudius." "Barfly." "Goldfinger." "Malice Aforethought." "The Bride Wore Black." "The Postman Always Rings Twice." "No Orchids for Miss Blandish." "Little Caesar." I notice that my list is heavy on crime and exploitation titles. Hmm. I wonder if it's generally true that the best titles are often to be found among the less respectable works. Shakespeare's titles don't make me want to rush to the theater: "Romeo and Juliet." "King Lear." Dickens' titles don't make me eager to shell out either: "Bleak House." "Hard Times." And would I have bothered with Russian lit at all if I were judging by the titles? "Crime and Punishment." "Sketches from a Sportman's Notebook." "War and Peace" -- these simply aren't titles that reach out and grab ya. My own very-favorite writer, the French writer Stendhal, had one of the tinnest of all ears where titles were concerned: "The Red and the Black" has been puzzling people for years, and "The Charterhouse of Parma" -- well, what's that about? Great novels both, but loved by no one for their titles. A good title intrigues and tantalizes. It makes you promise yourself to read that novel or see that movie, and the sooner the better. But I can't come up with any useful generalizations at all about what makes a title a good one or a bad one. Can you? My hunch, or rather cop-out, is this: Titles are mysterious. They're little works of art in their own right. What are some of your favorite novel and movie titles? Do you have any hunches about what makes some of them so good? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 13, 2005 | perma-link | (41) comments

Westerns
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- The other night, The Wife and I watched "3:10 to Yuma," a 1957 western directed by Delmar Daves, adapted by screenwriter Halsted Welles from an early Elmore Leonard novel, and starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. Have you ever caught the film? Both of us found it engrossing, exciting, even galvanizing. Did you know that Elmore Leonard started out writing westerns? I recently got around to reading a volume of his early western fiction: this collection of stories. It's terrific. I love Elmore's current affable shaggy-dog mode. His recent novels strike me as the pulp-fiction equivalent of such sunny, late-in-life wonders as Bunuel's "The Phantom of Liberty" and Altman's "Cookie's Fortune." But early Elmore is something else: tense, dynamic, juicy, full of suspense, jaw-droppingly well-devised, and shrewdly constructed. How could a movie made from this kind of material not be a humdinger? An old videotape copy of "3:10 to Yuma" was gathering dust, so I pulled it off the shelf and slipped it into the VCR. Bingo: loved it. It's probably too scrappy, amoral, and B-movie-ish ever to be thought of as a classic. That's OK by me; many of the official western "classics" strike me as snoozes. "3:10" has carefully-honed, one-step-ahead-of-you dialog; tersely moody and sumptuous black and white visuals; subtle but burly pacing that ranges from the snappy to the quietly explosive; and tremendous non-Method performances from the main actors right on down through the cast-list. It also has storytelling and plotting that strike me as pure genius. First you stare in fascination -- at least I did -- as the full-of-dramatic-potential pieces are moved into place. Then your heart starts to thump as Fate sets about tightening the screws. [SEMI-SPOILERS GALORE START HERE ...] The film stars Van Heflin as a struggling family man, and Glenn Ford as the suave leader of a pack of outlaws. Glenn dallies a few minutes too long with a saloon cutie and gets himself arrested. But he isn't much worried. His band of thieves swings more weight than any law agency in the territory does, and they're sure to spring him soon, if not now then certainly tomorrow. The good guys are terrified: What to do with their dangerous captive? They decide to ship him out of the territory, and pronto. Van -- who needs money to buy water to feed his cattle -- signs on to escort Glenn along his way. Van and some deputies will get Glenn on the 3:10 train to Yuma. Ford -- who was best-known for trusty square roles -- is staggeringly good as a seductively calm bad guy. He's slow-moving, confident, and courtly in a likably insolent way -- a charming snake. Life in a lawless land suits him. When he wants sex, he knows how to warm a girl's heart. When he needs money, he knows where to steal it. As Heflin prods him towards the train stop, Ford keeps up the digs, the teasing, and the taunting.... posted by Michael at July 13, 2005 | perma-link | (16) comments

Friday, July 8, 2005


Afropop and Cuban Music
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I loved reading this Stephen Brown essay about Cuban music. (Thanks to Arts and Letters Daily for the link.) It's a review of a new book by Ned Sublette, and it makes a number of wonderful points very concisely. Here's one example: Sublette is saying that [Cuban] music is organized in a way that is fundamentally different from traditional Western music. If you look for adventurous harmonies or difficult melodies you will be looking for complexity in the wrong places. Here, complexity resides in the layers of rhythm. That flat-out statement would have helped me a lot back when I first became interested in Latin and African music. I loved much of what I was hearing, and on all kinds of levels. But most of those levels were physical and emotional. It took unfortunately long for the essential lightbulb to go off in my slow-movin' conscious brain. Finally, though, it did: "Hey, this is as deep and polyphonic as Bach, only the polyphony is in the rhythms!" In terms of knowledge and experience, though, I remain forever stuck at the World Music 101 (or maybe 102) stage: a few King Sunny Ade concerts, a few evenings moving the hips to Ruben Blades, a stack of CDs, a copy of The Rough Guide to World Music that I haven't spent enough time with ... So my taste isn't to be trusted. Despite this, I can't stop myself from recommending the music of the exuberant soukous vocalist and bandleader Kanda Bongo Man, especially those discs of his that feature his godlike onetime guitar player, Diblo Dibala. These guys made zesty, sparkling music that can put you in a sweet, funky trance and keep you there for many happy hours. But time is limited, life's short, etc. -- I'll never be a worldmusic expert, darn it. Still, I was thrilled to stumble across this Public Radio site devoted to Afro-Pop and Cuban music. There's lots of good free listenin' to be had here. I may never become a worldmusic scholar, but at least I now have the chance to fill in a few holes in my knowledge. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 8, 2005 | perma-link | (7) comments

Foie Gras
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I can't resist passing along a couple of passages from an interview with Eric Ripert, the chef at Le Bernardin, New York City's legendary French seafood restaurant. To set things up: Le Bernardin features fish prepared with French technique but often with Asian ingredients. Sample dish: Chinese spiced black bass in a Peking duck bouillon with Maitake and Enoki Mushrooms. The philosophical emphasis of the restaurant, believe it or not, isn't on dazzle or brio. It's on making a wonderful piece of fish the star of plate, and using all other elements to "elevate the fish." Here's Eric Ripert: The search is for balance and a harmony of flavors in our cooking. And that, I'm sure, is characteristic of every advanced culture ... [In Asian cooking] There's a lot of ritual and a great respect for the ingredient, as with the French. Tuna or Kobe beef in Japan are treated like gold, just as a farm-raised chicken in Bresse, France, is cared for like a baby. They're two different cultures, but very similar. Everything has a reason, and rituals help to elevate the product to the next level. Today there is opposition to serving foie gras. But 30-40 years ago, foie gras was a love story between the goose or duck and the farmer who massaged its throat as he fed it by hand. Of course, at the end of the day, the animal is killed and we eat it. But it was a celebration of life. Ah, the French: precision and cruelty in the service of voluptuous, near-religious rapture. Eric Ripert's comments remind me of something: I've often marveled at the way French and Japanese cultures have their similarities. Let me rephrase that, given my actual inexperience of Japan: The appeal French and Japanese cultures have for Americans seems awfully similar, don't they? Both cultures are hierarchical and ritualized, with an infinite number of prescribed ways to do things. Stuffy! Yet both seem to deliver mind-bendingly intense rewards. It seems key to me that both cultures also seem hyper-aware of the spiritual-erotic-aesthetic dimension. That seems to me the real reason so many Americans have flipped for French art and Japanese art. Neither the French nor the Japanese quarrel over the existence of the aesthetic dimension, or of aesthetic experience. It's always there, available. And, when they want to, they simply enter right into it. I wonder sometimes: Perhaps what drives some Americans around the bend is our native tendency to ignore, repress, or deny the aesthetic dimension of life. We debate it. We politicize it. We get literal-minded and pretend not to know what's being talked about. Being a gung-ho, hard-charging people, we sometimes exploit the aesthetic dimension. We often seem to want to use the promise of satisfaction and/or transcendence to spur ourselves on. We often prefer not-quite-attaining satisfaction to the actual experience of satisfaction. We take our legitimate yearnings and channel them into self-help, into new products that promise to solve... posted by Michael at July 8, 2005 | perma-link | (24) comments

Thursday, July 7, 2005


Elsewhere
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * An intriguing moral dilemma: Do we prosecute the teachers, or congratulate the student? * Dell has just introduced a $99 black and white laser printer. 99 bucks! The Wife and I had to lay out $399 for a basic b&w laser printer only five years ago. * The recent war in Congo may be the most destructive war the world has seen since World War II. Since fighting broke out in 1998, roughly 3.8 million Congolese have died out of a population of about 28 million. It has been a hard-to-understand and nightmarish mess, involving six national armies and dozens of rebel groups and militias, all them doing their best to plunder the country of its mineral wealth. Rape and cannibalism have accompanied some of the battles, and the effect of the war on the country's economy has been devastating. Average annual per capita income in Congo now runs at about $100 a year. The Christian Science Monitor asks why the world's press has made so little of the war in Congo. * Dave Munger writes about how being a blogger has affected his reading habits. He also provides a snapshot of what it's like to work an entry-level job in the publishing business. In another posting, he asks the question many have asked on opening a delivery from Amazon. * Hiromi and Brett try a Japanese love hotel on for size. I'm still readjusting my eyeglasses after reading their well-illustrated posting about booty-shaking. (Probably NSFW.) * Liberal Holland? The country's Immigration and Integration Minister has ordered three Imams who have been preaching anti-Western dogma to leave the country. * Thanks to Claire, who sent in this thoughtful comment about my recent posting about cellphones: Though most people use a cell phone as a way to always be reached, I've found great liberation in turning it off in a way I probably wouldn't turn off a land line. If I want to make a call, I can, but if I'm enjoying dinner or conversation with friends, I turn it off. Other people's tactless cell usage continues to irk me. As for film production, your observations are apt. When less technical skill is required for production, the end product can really suffer. Planning ahead is exchanged for a "we'll fix in post" attitude that's often more expensive than shooting on film would have been. I was also pleased to catch up with Claire's blog. She writes about "Blink" and her fear of snakes, and -- being resourceful and young -- has put her talents to audioblogging too. * Thanks to Eddie Thomas, who turned up this dismaying videotape of an Islamic sermon. The sermon's theme: Everything bad in the world is the fault of the Jews. * Another landmark passed in the demise of traditional photography: Kodak has stopped making black and white photo paper. * I enjoyed playing with this impossible-to-describe Flash whatsis. Click and drag on the main character, and you can... posted by Michael at July 7, 2005 | perma-link | (15) comments

Evan Hunter
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I was very sorry to see that the crime novelist Evan Hunter -- who was probably better-known as Ed McBain -- died of cancer on Wednesday, at the age of 78. I've only read four or five of Hunter's many, many books, but I'm completely convinced that he was a giant. His fiction has a distinctive tone -- a combo of thuggish brutality and sophisticated, melancholy courtliness. His stories are street-wise and soulful, canny and exciting, both hardboiled and operatic. And they're full of living, breathing characters. Hunter had an amazing career that lasted more than 50 years. He was born Salvatore Lombino in New York City and changed his name to Evan Hunter in 1952. He wrote under the names Evan Hunter and Ed McBain, and under many other pseudonyms too. He was nothing if not a workhorse. He wrote ten hours a day, seven days a week; he tried to average eight finished pages a day. He published his first novels in the early 1950s, while he was still in his 20s, and kept it up until very near the end; a new Ed McBain novel is scheduled to be published in September of this year. One estimate of how popular Evan Hunter was puts total worldwide sales of his books at around 100 million copies. Hunter is probably best-known for his many Ed McBain novels set in and around one Chicago police precinct; they're known as the 87th Precinct series. [CORRECTION: James M. points out that I goofed here; the 87th Precinct novels are set in a fictionalized version of New York City. Yet one more example of Why Not to Trust a Middle-Aged Memory.] But he published well over a hundred books, novels as well as collections of stories. His work was the basis for some memorable films, including "Blackboard Jungle" and Kurosawa's "High and Low." He worked on around 75 screenplays, and even did screenwriting for Hitchcock on "The Birds." Hunter/McBain was an important fiction innovator. He was an early writer of what are known as "police procedurals" -- crime stories that are less about criminals vs. heroes than they are simply about how police-people do their jobs. Hunter liked to explain that, in his mind, he wasn't writing mysteries or genre fiction. Instead, he was writing realistic novels about cops. He's also sometimes credited with inventing the storytelling format that would eventually surface on TV in "Hill Street Blues," and later with "NYPD Blue" and many other series: the ongoing soap-opera cop dramady -- a matter of multiple storylines, ensemble casts, and many arcs weaving through many episodes. Hunter -- who wasn't short on ego, and who wasn't shy about proclaiming his own status either -- sometimes growled that he couldn't understand why he wasn't paid royalties from "Hill Street Blues." Whether or not you take Evan Hunter as a major artist -- I certainly do -- probably depends on your attitude towards literature. Is it the lofty,... posted by Michael at July 7, 2005 | perma-link | (10) comments

Outer Life on Choice
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I recently enjoyed swapping emails with the blogger who calls himself OuterLife. Are there visitors to 2Blowhards who haven't yet discovered the pleasures of reading OuterLife? He's a phenomenon, to say the least -- one of the quirkiest and most original bloggers I've run across. No need to take my word for how good he is: Searchblog and Our Girl in Chicago are big fans of OuterLife's blogging too. Here's a passage I cobbled together from a couple of his emails. OuterLife gave me permission to post the passage here: Your "Choices" post is so issue-rich I didn't know where to begin. Here are a few more observations, FWIW: 1. Too much policy-oriented writing, whether left or right or libertarian or whatever, is too abstract. Icy cold ideas clash miles over our heads, almost completely disconnected from life as it's actually lived. I don't think the free marketeers are any different than the rest. I was a young politico once, and after developing a perma-bruise on my forehead from beating it against the same wall over and over, trying to convince you to see it my way, I learned that people pretty much see things the way they want to see them regardless of the logic and force of my arguments. The whole enterprise was more about self-affirmation, surrounding oneself with like-minded head nodders, a massive exercise in group think. I was never one to sit in the stands and cheer for the home team, so I drifted away. 2. I never enjoyed music as much as when I could only afford to buy one record a month. I had to love that record, whatever it was, so I intensely researched each purchase, spending hours at our small local record store poring over albums, cadging a listen from the clerks, trying to get a sense for what I'd like from their limited stock. Even so, sometimes I never got into it, but by and large I managed through repeated and determined listenings to learn to love nearly everything I bought in those stingy days. I had to. Then one day I was employed and an adult and I had enough money to buy multiple albums at a time, and Tower Records built a superstore near me. Woo-hoo! I went wild, buying records like they were going out of style (which, come to think of it, they were). When in doubt, ring it up! And, of course, my enjoyment decreased. I no longer researched what I bought as assiduously. I spent less time getting to know what I listened to, flitting about like a bee from album to album. And my tastes changed, subtly, as I lost patience with difficult works and gravitated towards easier-listening melodic immediately-catchy stuff. Eventually I stopped listening to much music at all. Then a few years ago a friend introduced me to a piece and I put it in my car stereo and it lived there for three months. My... posted by Michael at July 7, 2005 | perma-link | (6) comments

Comments Are Screwy
A few people have written in to let me know that they haven't been able to post comments on the blog recently. Thanks to all for the info. My goof, of course, though I'm not sure what the goof was. I'll do what I can as soon as I can to get the comments working again. -- Michael Blowhard UPDATE: Comments seem to be functioning again. Thanks for your patience, and allow me a moment of intense self-admiration. Yeehah! It ain't often I solve a computer problem ...... posted by Michael at July 7, 2005 | perma-link | (0) comments

Wednesday, July 6, 2005


American Foreign Aid
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I often scratch my head over the facts and figures the media cough up. In what sense are they intended? And from which points of view are they true? It often seems that the closer you look, the more slippery the facts and figures appear. I know nothin' about nothin' of course. But I can use as an example one field I do know well, the arty-intellectual-cultural world. It's often said, for instance, that America has a tightfisted attitude towards the arts. Proof comes from how small the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts is. The NEA's budget is undeniably tiny. And yet, and yet ... Americans spend tons of dough on TV, music, clothes, movies, food, houses, and cars. State and national governments spend hugely on buildings (architecture) and roads (landscape architecture, anyone?). The American creativity biz is a giant one, employing tens of thousands of people. That's not evidence of support for the arts? Even so far as a narrower definition of the arts goes: Why do the complainers never factor in the kinds of help many families give their arty kids? Heaps of private money is spent every year on teaching, coaching, schools, and training. And there's mucho private money spent helping out the kids once they grow up too. I know many, many grownup writers, artists, dancers, and actors who receive help from home. It used to be joked, for instance, that the publishing industry was completely dependent on the generosity of the parents who helped their publishing-biz kids survive despite minuscule salaries. And how long would the gallery-art world and the literary-writing world survive if trust funds were to suddenly evaporate? Are the facts and figures as misleading in other fields? An example: Are Americans really as pennypinching as they're often made out to be when it comes to foreign aid? The usual rap is that we help poor countries out far less than do other rich countries. But this assertion is based on direct government-aid figures alone. (Why-oh-why do people denouncing American tightfistedness so often rely on government figures alone?) John Ray points out an article in The Scotsman reporting on how the foreign-aid scene looks from a more inclusive point of view. Some eye-opening facts: "Private American citizens donated almost 15 times more to the developing world than their European counterparts." "American churches, synagogues and mosques alone gave $7.5bn in 2003 -- a figure which exceeds the government totals for France ($7.2bn) and Britain ($6.3bn)." So perhaps -- as with the arts -- the Euros like to leave many decisions to their governments, while Americans prefer to address matters as individuals. Ain't it nice that there's variety in the world? In any case, as the Scotsman notes, such facts and figures "deal a blow to those who claim moral superiority over the US on aid." Best, Michael UPDATE: The very un-PC John Ray struck me as smart and funny on the topic of women's friendships.... posted by Michael at July 6, 2005 | perma-link | (7) comments

Fat Mexico
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- The Economist reports that obesity and diabetes are on the rise in Mexico -- and dramatically so, with figures for both problems almost doubling in the last 15 years. Amazing fact (subscription and registration required): In 1968 ... [diabetes] was in 35th place as a direct cause of mortality in Mexico, but now it occupies first place, above both cancer and heart disease. With about 6.5m diabetics out of a population of 100m, Mexico now has a higher rate than any other large country in the world. Contributing factors: Urbanization, crap food, and lack of exercise. Pollution and crime are also thought to play roles, as they keep city people from making active use of streets and sidewalks. One conclusion: Walking and rural-style manual labor keep people fit. And, of course, there's always the simple fact of how tempting it is to chow down. I once asked my yoga teacher what I might do, yoga-wise, to get my expanding belly under control. I was hoping for some arcane (but easy!) exercises and postures. She didn't comply. Instead, she said, "Have you ever considered eating less?" Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 6, 2005 | perma-link | (11) comments

Elsewhere
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * A fascinating, wide-ranging posting comes from WhiskyPrajer, partly about what it's like to be a pastor's kid. * Arnold Kling provokes a fun commentsfest with this sentence: "For many college students, the first thing they discover upon graduation is how low-paying and low-skill the job market is for them." * George Hunka muses about the differences between seeing a play performed and reading its text. * John Massengale has put up some terrific postings recently. Here he wonders why the well-being of New York City should be in the hands of auto drivers and traffic engineers. "We've gone too far in accommodating the car, and all it's gotten us is traffic jams, honking horns, road rage and pollution," John writes. Agree or not, it's a well-made case. Here John shows that the NYTimes' current ludicrous-architecture critic is as blind a victim of ideology as their last ludicrous-architecture critic was. * Daze Reader points out this informative Slate history of the vibrator. Teresa Riordan writes: "Since its introduction in the 1880s, the device has, by the most conservative estimates, mechanically induced billions of orgasms." I think the earth just shook. * Dave Eggers wants teachers to be paid more. Fabio Rojas thinks Eggers doesn't know what he's talking about. Tyler Cowen visits El Paso and lists some of what makes Texas great. "I am surprised that the weight of achievement is so unbalanced toward music and food," Tyler writes. Music and food -- I'm on my way now! * Steve Sailer shares some Sailer-esque, un-PC thoughts about sperm banks and bisexuality. * Yahmdallah thinks that many chicklit heroines could use some therapy. * I'd lost track of recovering grad-student Rose Nunez, who I'd thought had abandoned blogging. In fact, she's now at a new address, and is being as rogue-ishly smart as ever. Nice passage: I think that academics in the aggregate, relatively insulated as they are from the normal workings of market forces, are just beginning to realize the dimensions of the public relations problem they've got ... I don't think a 'We're smarter and more open-minded than you provincial hicks' attitude is the best choice, not just because it's condescending, but because it's not too hard to pick apart. Now it may be that Ward Churchill is an extremist rarity among humanities professors (although in my own experience he's not very far from typical), but it's also possible he'll turn out to be their Hindenburg, or at least their Yugo. So if y'all are so smart, professors, you'd better get better fast at defending your guaranteed paychecks. * Rick Poynor wonders why designers tend to make such lousy editors. * Older and perhaps even wiser than he once was, Neil Kramer suspects that he'll let that menage-a-trois fantasy remain a fantasy. * What's your worldview? I'm equally an "idealist" and a "cultural creative." Time to go shopping for interesting eyeglasses. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 6, 2005 | perma-link | (6) comments

Cell Phoned
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I wrote a long while back about being the last hold-out in a cellphoned universe. (Here's a posting about women, men, and cellphone usage. I wrote here about the annoyances of life in a cellphone-beleaguered world.) What I don't like about the devices boils down to two things: They shoot holes in pleasant social arrangements. People yakking on cellphones while walking on the sidewalk talk loudly and wave their arms about. Formerly quiet doctors'-waiting-rooms are now buzzing with inane one-sided gab. Drivers on cellphones really ought to pay more attention to the traffic around them. People dining with you in restaurants feel free to answer calls and talk on their phones for minutes at a time while you sit opposite them. People generally seem less prone to make arrangments and then stick to 'em, and more prone to arrange everything on the fly. Upside: flexibility. Downside: mess. The cellphone may often be a convenience, but it seems to serve just as often as inducement to behave childishly. Cellphones keep you always connected. Ignoring for the moment the advantages of this, heck, I like having stretches when I can't be reached. And I like the way traditional technology shores up some traditional boundaries. The lines between work and nonwork have certainly grown blurrier for many people thanks to cellphones. Is this always an advantage? Not in my book. Well, my days as a principled old-school square are now over. The other day, The Wife brought home a cellphone, gave it to me, and ordered me to start using it. I brought this on myself, darn it. I'd become such an email addict that I'd gotten to the point where I barely use the phone at all in a conventional sense. I use phones these days mainly as answering machines -- a habit The Wife found frustrating. Why shouldn't she be able to call The Hubster and expect him to pick up? So now I have a cellphone, and an agreement with The Wife that anytime the cellphone rings, I'll answer it. I find myself much humbled -- no longer large, proud, and heroic in my principled objection to Stupid New Trends, but instead struggling with the basics of 21st century life. Funny what you find out in such situations. I've discovered, for instance, that I'm really, really bad at talking on a cellphone while walking on the sidewalk. Some people are sidewalk-cellphone naturals, walking about as though they were born with a cellphone wired into their systems. Me, I feel unnerved, like I've awakened into one of those bad dreams where you lift off the ground and begin to fly. As a consequence, when I do need to talk on the cellphone while out on the sidewalk, I find myself a nook or a doorway and stand there to chat, facing the wall. I probably look like a bum who's gone there to take a leak. Humbling. Equally humbling is my discovery that if I... posted by Michael at July 6, 2005 | perma-link | (9) comments