Updates

And apologies

I've been quite busy these past few days preparing for a project (numerous, actually), so I apologize for my sparse posts. In fact, this won't change much over the next few days.

In the meantime, here are some posts I'm working on:

- Who was the real Annie Le?

- Review of a delightful documentary The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story about the prolific duo who gave us so many musicals such as Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and the list goes on.

- My recent attendance of my former professor's presentation on how (and why) he made his latest experimental/art film. At Q&A I was the only one to pose a question, but I will be discussing that further, and why I find the answer Mr. Elder gave me inadequate.

- And please take a look at The Thinking Housewife's demure explanation of the "O-Movement." Of course, the original O-Movement was formed by our very own Ms. Oprah Winfrey, who tries very hard never to be lewd, and whose pleasures seem to lean towards the sensual. I'm beginning to realize that our Original O is quite prudish - but that is for another post and another discussion.

Oprah and Martha

Dark and Light


Popular television hosts need something which attracts their viewers back, again and again. Martha Stewart does this with her meticulous "home shows," which range from cooking segments to craft demonstrations. Martha brings in expert guests for almost all her shows. But, she's no detached hostess. She herself can cook up sophisticated dishes and arrange a beautiful bouquet of flowers, as good as many of her experts.

Oprah, on the other hand, invites guests and tries to get into their psyche: why were they drug addicts? What made them kill their wife, their daughter, the random stranger? How does a person survive, and overcome, a devastating disfigurement like the loss of limbs during an accident, or even a whole face after a shooting incident with one's husband (the topic of one of her new shows in the fall season)?

Martha goes for the outward, visible light. Oprah narrows in on the invisible, interior darkness. Oprah knows best how to delve into people’s heart, to get a glimpse of their scarred souls.

This is what she did during the two-episode interview of Whitney Houston. Whitney, after years of a terrible marriage during which she made terrible decisions, including a descent into drug addiction, came out of it looking stunning - slim, youthful and beautiful. Oprah, stodgy and overweight, sat across her with her questions ready at hand.

Whitney, in her happiness at her recovery and at returning to her beloved fans once again, answered Oprah's probing questions with candor. She fully trusted Oprah, and was willing to answer questions she was clearly uncomfortable with. And Oprah probed on, with a strange fearful look in her eyes, unable to keep up with the superior force of the happy and buoyant Whitney, whose spirit was of someone who had truly survived and shelved the inner demons away.

I wondered why Oprah had that startled, frightened expression in her eyes throughout the interview. I think it is because she is used to reaching, at some point, that dark and unsettled corner of her guests' souls. She's used to the darkness, and not the light. I think Whitney derailed her. She expected something much more negative from Whitney, and despite the sad and tortuous story that Whitney related, all she got was something positive instead.

Oprah can rule with negativity. She can continue confidently with her questions. She is superior to her guests on whom she can then bestow her empathy. "You can get better. I know, I've been there, and look at me now," she seems to be saying, and continues with her interrogation. Yet, with Whitney, the truly happy newly formed Whitney, she couldn't find this dark corner at which she can ever so generously throw her empathy. Whitney had indeed crawled out of her dark soul and reached the light. And Whitney’s frankness about her past, which she discarded into the open like a dried corpse, left little for Oprah to delve into.

I realized later how much probing Oprah had tried to do when Whitney came on live on Oprah's show after the end of the pre-taped interview. Whitney was detached, and distanced herself from Oprah. And Oprah's narcissistic radar picked up this recoil, and rather than welcome Whitney as best as she could (like a true hostess), she asked, "Did you regret doing the interview?" Whitney was clearly upset that she had said (or been baited into saying) too much, but in her wisdom, realized that she needn't revisit this painful past again for future inquiring and curious fans. But Oprah, predictably, was the buoyant one this time, realizing that she had indeed gone further than she had thought, had delved deeper and found more hurtful corners than she had expected. So this was one more successful interview, by Oprah's standards.

But Whitney has indeed overcome her dark past, however much it is possible to close off fourteen years of one's life. Oprah would be better advised to see how Whitney, with her bible close to her heart, came to this victory, rather than return to her addictive circular probings of people's unresolved miseries.

Such is the crippling psychology of Oprah, the Queen of Narcissism, who cannot shake off her own dark and tragic background – because that's what it’s all about - and has to revisit it with her guests daily, monthly, ad infinitum, in her ceaseless attempt to understand it. Perhaps she should opt for the truly positive, productive and lively shows that Martha Stewart brings, who like most human beings resolves her tragedies in private and decides to focus on the beauty of life rather than its dark and inert recesses.

Charm and Mischief at One Hundred

Manoel de Oliveira's sparkling, winking gem of a movie

Flying Pigeons, from Getty Images by Evan Kafka

The entry ticket for films at the Toronto International Film Festival is a bit stiff, even for hard-to-find movies, so I had to do a bit of intuitive work and make a quick decision to make my one choice for this season. I had planned to watch a series of very short experimental (or art) films, mainly this one, described as:

[A] meticulous digital painting, offering one minute, one second and one frame of shimmering and breathtaking beauty through its diaphanous and forever-changing palette.

At times I feel that such filmmakers are really stuck in the experimental phase. "A forever-changing palette?" Isn't it time to get out of the palette and go into some depictions? But, I can imagine that it is beautiful.

Well, tickets were sold out, so I had to think fast - the days were numbered, after all.

Recently, I had watched Fellini's And the Ship Sails On which I describe as:

Sometimes, as filmmakers get older, they infuse a certain innocent, childlike charm into their films.

I remembered seeing Manoel de Oliveira in the TIFF program. He is one of those underrated masters - an unknown Fellini. I had watched a film of his made in 2006, which made him 97 years old! That short little film, Belle Toujours, which I review here, surprised me for its lightness and mischief. The main character, "[an] old man, now in his late seventies, [who] is clearly enjoying life with his cigars and whisky," was the uncontested star. But, besides this light heartedness, I recognized de Oliveira's love for sumptuous interiors, which he shoots in rich saturated colors, and a certain moral probing.

Now de Oliveira is back with this new film - Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl. That makes him 100 years old! Surely this will be a treasure, full of light touches, rich colors, a revival of aesthetics and more of his subtle nudge at morality (or immorality, as the case may be), in the sharp mischievous way that only very old folks can deliver.

This short one-hour movie was an adaptation of a short story about human frailties, deceptions and resilience, packaged in the beautiful city of Lisbon. It is a small, glittering gemstone, which winks at us.

Some memorable scenes:

* What looks like a still photograph of a tightly cropped clock tower and streetlight comes to life as pigeons fly into the air and across the tower. A flat image suddenly becomes cinematic, and even dramatic.

* Across the narrow street from Macário’s, the protagonist’s, room live a mother and her daughter. Macário can see them as they move across the window, or stand by the small balcony to view the street life below. As Macário imagines how beautiful and full of life the mother must have been in her younger days, the airy curtain is blown aside by a small breeze to disclose a portrait, clearly of the mother in her younger days, hanging in the back of the room.

* De Oliveira warns us of the blonde girl from the very beginning (although we soon forget). As she realizes that Macário is watching her from the room across the street, her young and innocent face assumes a calculating and seductive expression.

* Every scene, interior or exterior, is filled with beauty: in the furniture, the paintings, the streets, and the buildings. Even the rooming house where Macário ends up for a while has its own austere beauty.

* Clair de Lune is played on the harp during an evening of culture and poetry at the home of a rich man. Macário and Luísa are both there, where Macário declares his infatuation for Luísa. Surely, this famous Debussy piece is in honor of Luísa.

* Shots of Lisbon by the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, in full warm daylight, or in the evening hours illuminated by building and streetlights, appear regularly throughout the film.

I’ve dealt mostly with the images in the film. The story is equally compelling. It is much more austere, yet the sparseness of the story contrasts well with the sumptuous visuals. And despite its uncompromising nature, the story is a kind of a morality tale, where Macário can become a better person if he is willing to learn.

Perhaps people who live in such magnificent surroundings, despite their mundane, and even cruel, lives are urged to reach for better and elevated things, fortified by the beauty of their surroundings.

Here are two other movies by Manoel de Oliveira that I have reviewed:
- Belle Toujours
- The Fifth Empire - Yesterday as Today

Is David Frum Trying to Make American Conservatives into Canadian Conservatives?

I think he's simply a careerist elitist

Here is an article about David Frum's website The New Majority, and his "new conservatism," by American Thinker writer J. R. Dunn.

The article distinguishes between the American and Canadian character, which I think is correct, and discusses how Frum’s Canadianness obstructs his view on American conservatism. But, I don't think that is how Frum sees things.

I think that Frum, like many conservatives in the U.S. and Canada, and probably in Europe too, is just sliding ever closer to the liberal state of mind. But I don't think he was a genuine conservative to start with.

Frum in a CBC interview of him soon after his book Comeback Conservatism that Can Win Again came out in 2008, talks about a new type of conservatism. He says the following in the interview:

We're moving toward new formations, not conservatism as we've known it, and not liberalism either... and there are going to be big prizes for the people who can figure out how to get there first.

So, these new "formations" are neither conservative nor liberal, and in fact the compensation for those that come up with this new movement is...big prizes.

I think Frum is actually a careerist, and an elitist. That together with his liberalism, which shows its face regularly, makes him unable to accept true conservatism. I remember reading somewhere that he thinks conservatives should reconsider homosexual marriage. That was about the time when I stopped taking him seriously.

But, what about the elitist part? Dunn is correct in saying that Frum doesn't relate to ordinary Americans, and uses Sarah Palin as the example. I don't think Frum dislikes Palin because she represents the "Yanks [who] are simply a louder and more rash version of anybody you’d find above the 49th," nor is it for any principled reason relating to her tenuous conservative positions, but simply because he is an elitist. I think it is the same reason he dislikes Rush Limbaugh.

Frum recently wrote in the National Post:

[We] are afraid that Palin's distinctive combination of sex appeal, self-pity, and cultural resentment has a following in today's GOP.

Nothing about Sarah’s ideas or positions on conservatism; all about the superficial Palin effect.

Elitism, these days, I think is a liberal trait. Those loud and raucous conservatives, wherever they may be, need the civilizing presence of elitist careerists liberals like Frum. Of course, in Canada, one will be hard pressed to find such raucous conservatives, and it is these elitist liberal Canadians who want to teach those conservative Americans a lesson or two on decorum.

So Frum’s talent might be most beneficial south of the 49th, where there are more of those rambunctious conservatives to civilize. In fact, he is now an American citizen – after a long American residency. With his new website, and his quest for a new movement, he is setting the stage for a new and prosperous career.

Frum isn’t really inventing anything new, or corrupting Americans with the passivity and liberalism of his native Canada. I think he’s just gauging the direction of the wind to make sure that he is as relevant today as he was yesterday. In that regard, he might be one less Canadian Americans can do with.

Fellini and Music

But his first love is film

A musical interlude on wineglasses

I recently watched Fellini's And the Ship Sails on once again. Sometimes, as filmmakers get older, they infuse a certain innocent, childlike charm into their films. This is what Fellini did so delightfully in his film about a cruise ship’s funereal sail to the home island of a deceased opera singer, where her ashes are to be thrown. It all sounds heavy-handed, but as I said, nothing could be more lighthearted (and serious, as only the lighthearted can be) than And the Ship Sails on. Here is a long, and well written, synopsis of the film.

But, as complex as the film is – I never said Fellini opted for mindless simplicity in this film - one of the themes that permeates throughout is music. And how music (according to Fellini, anyway) is the great leveler - of peoples, of races, of love and even in death. And we're taken in during those moments of musical cinematography.

* In the enchanting sequence of the "wine glass concerto" Fellini, in his mischievous humor, has two cranky musicians perform their piece in the kitchen, with cooks and aristocrats listening and applauding.

* The ship's upper class, mostly musicians and artists, decide to go down to the netherworlds of the boiler room. One of the laborers asks them to sing. This sets off a rivalry between the singers - like some kind of operatic duel. But, still in this moment of aggression and competition, the beautiful music shines through, and the laborers below cheer with appreciation.

* Serb refugees, who magically appear on the ship's lower deck, are joined with the ship's regular passengers, in an exotic dance to Serbian folk music.

* And near the end, there is the scene of the young concert conductor, who is obsessed with the deceased opera singer. As I wrote in my first blog on this film:

The most whimsical [scene] is the resurrection of the dead diva through a film projector, obsessively hand cranked by a deeply admiring conductor.

As her silent image (paradoxically, for this singing star) flickers in black and white on the makeshift screen of scarves strewn across a rectangular shape, the lovely, light music of Debussy's piano suite "Clair de Lune" provides the perfect sound.

All this while the ship is sinking.

A makeshift screen for the film projection in a sinking ship

This is Fellini's beautiful conjoining of film and music, of sound and image, of color and black and white. And it is also a concise condensation of his portentous outlook of where all this might lead us (this film is set in the months before WWI). I think it is the most memorable scene of the whole film.

And from this scene, it is obvious that Fellini's first, and true, love is film. He bookends his film with black and white silent shots of him and his crew, replete with cameras and stage sets, in the process of filming. This is done as though in memory of the early, soundless era of the first films. An era in which the actual story of the film is set, albeit in full sumptuous color.

Well Done!

Americans won't let their country run away from them

When Americans insist on being American, it is an example to the rest of the world.

This weekend's march in Washington was one of the most exhilarating things I have ever watched. Finally, a people that won't let its country run away from its principles. Americans refuse to behave like the suicidal Europeans, and the passive Canadians. And they should be an example to all.

Meanwhile, here in Canada, universal health care was snuck up on the people. Actually, the doctors put up a fight initially, but ultimately the people's psyche wasn't able to overcome this socialist intrusion. Some say that the cold winters and huge landscape require a particular type of cooperation amongst people, which set the stage for government interventions to enforce this cooperation. But, rugged individualism is not thwarted by the weather, or the sparseness or breadth of the landscape. I think it is something more fundamental, some inability to grow up, something in the psyche that is still clinging on to bigger authority, that induces one socialist scheme after another in Canada. After all, Canada is still part of the British Commonwealth.

I cannot ever see such a popular movement coming out of Canada as the one we saw (barely - news coverage here was at a minimum) in Washington this weekend. Canadians are partly too self-conscious to go out on such a march. But, they also inherently believe in the system, however much they may talk about changing it. It has become a kind of addiction - like any welfare system. That, and fear of the unknown (how will we pay the bills?) keeps Universal Health Care a bastion of Canadian identity.

Still,  some are hopeful that with bursts of private systems here and there, this behemoth will slowly be eroded. But, I wouldn’t count on it. The Conservative Party, the party most likely to turn things around (somewhat), is forced by popular demand to abandon many conservative principles, and is slowly becoming a centrist government. I don’t think Canada even has a right-oriented party anymore. And unless some outrageous incident provokes the anger of ordinary Canadians (it has happened before!), such a turnaround is but a dream.

So, universal health care, with its constant horror stories, is here to stay. And huge marches, demanding that big government remove itself from people's decisions, will never happen.

Jihadis Going for Armageddon

Full speed and full force

"Twin Towers" by Dolores Wesnak, 2002

This was it. This really was the beginning of the war. The Armageddon. Jihad in full force, in full speed, fully intentional. Islam entered the United States in the most dramatic of ways. It was not creeping sharia, or even stealthy jihad (whatever that is). It certainly wasn't hijra.

It was Jihad, in all its glory and all its euphoria. In the name of Allah, for the sake of Muslims, to purify the world of the apostates and infidels and render it immaculate for Islam, the jihadis bombed the iconic towers of America. They were going for the jugular.

We should have got this by now. Some of us do, others are stuck on categorizing Islam and Muslims into various unconnected parts. But Islam is united and Muslims are one. They take apostasy and contradiction of the Koran very seriously.

I don't know when they'll strike again, these jihadis - the avant-garde of the Muslims. Hijra and creeping sharia will work for a while, but after so many centuries, Allah is impatient. That is perhaps his greatest weakness. Yes, he's waited for twelve hundred years (well, six hundred after being kicked out of Spain), in the sidelines with thuggeries and violence here and there. But, his violence betrays his agitation. He is not a calm god.

Now he wants the big prize. The whole Western world is wavering under the anticipation of his wrath. Will he wait, or will he strike again?  

"No," he says, "not those interminable twelve hundred years. Not that tortuous wait, not that endless patience, it goes against my nature! But now I have that stooge in Iran, he’s mad enough and smart enough to start with my nemeses, those Jews, right across from his god-forsaken country. We’ll then just go from there."

"What's taking them so long to get it?" he chuckles to Mohammed who sits across from him, still in shock at what turned out to be paradise.

Oprah, the Most Powerful Every Woman in America

Throws a big bash in her honor

Criss Angel, the Mindfreak illusionist

Oprah hosted a block party to send off her 24th season in her hometown of Chicago. She closed off a whole street and opened up her bash for the public. Her crew worked 24/7 to pull off the spectacle of a "flash mob" with hundreds of people dancing in unison to a song by that multi-culti group the Black Eyed Peas.

Did Oprah dance? Well, yes. But she mostly jumped up and down in her chirpy yellow sweat shirt/black pants combo, her ponytail bopping like a young girl's. Oprah is embracing her body, like she tells everyone else to do, because that is the only explanation for her unflattering get up. This leaves us wondering when she'll start one of her weight loss programs again.

Jennifer Hudson, another Chicagoite, came on to sing "I'm every woman" which Oprah mouthed the words to. Hudson later talked to Oprah about her new baby. This every woman, this every Oprah woman, the representative of Chicago, is actually a single mom, with a "fiancé" conveniently standing by. Don't hold your breath for a wedding, and if that, for a long marriage. Single motherhood is after all second only to sainthood.

Oprah has to think of her audience, which is mostly middle class, and middle America. So she brought in James Taylor who sang his ballad "How sweet it is to be loved by you," as Oprah shouts out to the crowd "Chicago!" Of course, everything revolves around Oprah, everyone loves Oprah, especially this 20,000 strong crowd. And there were the hip (not hop) Rascal Flatts who cover a lot of ground with their country rock pop style.

Oprah has to bring in the magic, the angels, the mysticism. After all, she is a great proponent of the spiritual movement The Secret. Magician Criss Angel (not a real angel) did the trick for her, by channelling his Mindfreak TV act to make random word guesses.

So, why Chicago, and why this huge block party on the 24th season and not the 25th silver anniversary? My own, non-mindfreak, guess is that this is "The year of the Chicago." Barack is from Chicago after all, and Oprah alienated her loyal female followers when she openly campaigned for him. But, everything is always about Oprah first. With Barack successfully in the White House, Chicago still belongs to Oprah, who is the most powerful every woman in America.

Ms. Palin

Not much of a revolutionary

Sarah Palin's family at the Republican National Convention

Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has an article on the Wall Street Journal where she talks about health care. There are many interesting things about this article - I won't go into the content, but rather the style.

Firstly, it contrasts with many of her Facebook articles, which are like short research pieces replete with footnotes. Her WSJ article is almost a call to action for "ordinary" Americans. Yet, Facebook is a networking website, more in line with the type of article she wrote for WSJ. So, unpredictable Sarah is going against the grain once again, using an informal setting to distribute her more formal articles.

I think this is a clever strategy, since it pulls in many ordinary readers who would not be attracted to WSJ. And it also gives credibility to Palin, since she's using Facebook more like the WSJ than an informal networking site.

But, the more interesting part is this. At the end of her WSJ article, her name is signed off as Ms. Palin. I suppose there are very few options left. "Former governor" reminds people of her strange resignation from state politics. She is no longer a vice presidential candidate, nor is she the Vice President, thus calling her "Former vice presidential candidate" would again remind people of the negatives.

But, why not Mrs. Palin? Why resort to the Ms. title which is more liberal than conservative, more feminist than traditional? Well, Ms. Palin is neither conservative nor traditional. In fact, she is a member of an organization titled "Feminists for Life" whose anti-abortion platform also supports single motherhood (including single mother college girls), and motherhood and careers, amongst other things. In keeping with that membership, Palin became the focus of a strange video called "I am Sarah Palin" taped by prominent "conservative" women of the non-MSM. For anyone versed with feminist history, this "slogan" strongly resembles the hard-core feminist song "I am woman, hear me roar," with lyrics like this:

If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman

So, why not Mrs. Palin? Well, a Mrs. Palin would not have the frazzled family life that Palin clearly has, with a daughter who is a single mother. The father of this grandchild was recently interviewed on Vanity Fair and voiced his experiences – mostly negative - with the Palin family. I don’t know how true or false his statements are, but surely Palin contributed to this young man’s anger (and betrayal) when she used him to placate her daughter, allowing them to do many things including sharing a bedroom together in her mansion in Alaska. The ironic part is that the article is titled (tongue-in-cheek, perhaps, and referring to other pop culture moments) "Me and Mrs. Palin."

A Mrs. Palin would have concentrated more on her family than her career, give or take our human tendency to err even in the best of conditions. As bloggers and even a few MSM conservative writers have noted, a Mrs. Palin would have most likely avoided the difficult family circumstances which now seems her lot. In fact, there are regular circulating rumors that her marriage is not as stable as it looks.

But, even if she had taken family first, and run for these political positions later in life after Track, Trig and Willow are grown, keeping a Mrs. before her name would give her a different approach to politics than a Ms. I can imagine she would actually be more conservative, more traditional, and with fewer contradictions between her label as a conservative, and her behavior as one. She might even have been a truer role model to the women who are trying to grapple the incredible pressures they face as working women with young families in tow. She might have been a true conservative.

Using a Mrs. would actually be a revolutionary act, which would alter her (and women’s) state of mind, liberating us out of the feminist hole which we’re all trapped in. Imagine, liberation and revolution, all in one sentence, and having nothing to do with feminism or the 1960s.

For more blog posts I did on Sarah Palin go here, here, here, here,  here, and here. And my article at the American Thinker is here. It looks like I took her seriously from the beginning.

Are You a Paul or a John Guy?

Or a Beatles or a Rolling Stones...

"English Tea," from Paul McCartney's 2005 album 
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard

I've always somewhat acknowledged that the Paul and John duo made the Beatles into a genius band. But, I've always liked Paul best.

Recently, I wrote a post on Paul's rise from the depths of his band Wings' mediocrity. I specifically reviewed Paul's 2005 album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, where I was surprised to find the Beatles style reawakened. Perhaps I made too rash a conclusion in defying what is commonly accepted about the brilliant Paul/John duo. But, Paul's witty and lyrical songs much later in his life somehow meant to me that he was the leader (please note that I didn't write genius) behind the duo.

I think that Paul's musicality was derailed by his over-possessive and omnipresent wife, as I wrote in my previous post. Paul seemed to have regained some of his Beatles greatness after her death (and during her illness with cancer, as I explain later on). Perhaps I'm still giving too much credit to Paul, and if John had outlived his own intrusive wife (or just lived longer), he might have improved on his disappointing solo years. But, I will continue to be biased and say that I doubt that John would have risen to these expectations.

"Little Willow" from Paul McCartney's 1997 album 
Flaming Pie

Paul's wife Linda was diagnosed with cancer in 1995. As harsh as this may seem, I think this left room for Paul to compose his songs undisturbed - hence the lovely "Little Willow" from his 1997 album Flaming Pie.

Here is an interesting, and eye-opening, discussion on the Paul/John duo and genius. When will we get a group now that could surprise us like the Beatles did, with fresh new takes on life? Such an absence is a heart-aching loss to humanity, I think.

Indians Will Be Indians - Comments at Bad Eagle

Rules of engagement


David Yeagley has put up my blog post on Indians both on the Op-Ed section and in the forums of his website Bad Eagle. This includes comments I made to questions he and other readers asked me about my post.

I know my post was severe. But, perhaps, the more you expect from people, the tougher you are on them. Perhaps David is right that indeed we project a lot onto Indians.

But, Indians are making large, and sometimes, uncontested demands here in Canada on land rights, historical reparations, and other very important cultural and social issues. I don’t think we should hold them at arms length, relating to them on some nebulous spiritual level. They make concrete demands, and we should respond with concrete rebuttals (or acquiesces). No one is exempt from our rules of engagement as a nation. No one gets to write his own methods of interaction, all by himself based on some untouchable premise. Indians are no exception.

Like Clockwork: Update On Mercer IV

Mercer as the nihilistic Usual (Ultimate) Suspect


I have a post up at Our Changing Landscape, continuing with my theme of critiquing non-liberal writers. Once again, Mercer is at the receiving end of my words.

Hosta Leaf

Watercolor study in green