Boy Gordon

I never quite understand the logic behind those men who refuse to let women enter into competition with them. They do not want to have women in golf tournaments, baseball games, hockey games, auto racing, etc. The reason is usually that women do not have the physical/mental abilities to compete against men in those arenas. What is puzzling to me is that if they opened it up and be fair about it, and if they were right about women's abilities, then women would not be able to make it to the game anyway. In that case, their refusal is meaningless. But what if they are wrong? What if they are lying? What if they know that women may beat them? And what if this is precisely the reason they refuse? Some years ago there was a case in the US where parents of male high school wrestlers banded together to keep a girl from wrestling. After all their arguments, from patronizing (don't want to get the girl hurt) to obscene (can't let people touch the girl all over) were refuted, the truth came out. The spokesman of the parents group said that it would harm his child's self esteem if he got beaten by a girl. Now it is truly sad to go from my son might hurt her to my son might have to touch her privates to she might beat my son! If the poor little boy cannot take a girl in wrestling, he should get better or accept that a girl is a better wrestler that him. Now, that will make him a man. But if he becomes like his father and hide from real competition through hypocrisy, then he will stay a cowardly little boy. If these people truly believe man is superior to women and thus should rule, then they have no reason to block women from participating in anything.

Truth in menu

Nothing is more irritating when eating out than misleading menus. I can forgive a fun place or a mom-and-pop shop trying but misunderstanding the dish. I can even enjoy the humour and effort. It takes all my joy out of dining when a restaurant with pretension to excellence knowingly gives dishes the wrong name. I recently had such an experience at Lift, the new hot bar-restaurant in Vancouver. First I ordered a California roll, which my friend highly recommended. Not only was it not made with the ingredients of California rolls but also it was fried! I found it rather strange but did not complain, because my friend was right, it was very good. The next course however was maddening. I ordered a very expansive seafood paella because I wanted something brightly flavoured and a little toasty. What came was not that at all. It was a little mushroom risotto with a few grilled prawns over it. It was made with competence but nothing unusual. The chef, or whoever made that menu, should know that risotto and paella are two fundamentally different philosophies on making rice. As the result, I had exactly what I did not want on my plate. If it were not for politeness to my company and empathy for the waitress, I would have sent it right back to the kitchen. Is it too much to ask that they simply get the correct name of their dishes? At least get it in the ball park. I would even settled for the right country.

Sins of Fathers

It is difficult for non-American to understand a film like Red Dawn. Usually the ridiculous premise is explained away by calling it an expression of Cold War paranoia. It is curious though since it is the imperial power contemplating itself being conquered. The psychology here is most interesting. The only way they can reference the emotion and narrative of this fantasy is by borrowing from their enemies. This complete role reversal helps to explain and suppress the guilt of being the oppressor. Instead of being the oppressor, they inhabit a fantasy wherein they are the victims. It is just too hard to face it if the fantasy is the exactly replica of reality. So, it employed a fantasy that is the inverse of reality instead. The most telling thing in Red Dawn is that the Cuban commander thinks that he is there to help Americans, reciting lines like a good American military man would in other movies. When the US was exercising police power and interfering with everybody, the horror of this action on others returns to visit like a ghost in a mirror. And in so doing, the horror in reality is perversely justified not only as necessary but also just. It is no accident then, tomorrow, decades after the Vietnam War ended and no US military personnel is being held as POW, John McCain’s experience in the “Hanoi Hilton” is shown as a mini series for TV. Why, after all these years, someone would deem this a good time to do so? Well, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay come to mind. Horror returns in fantasy form to give unspoken justifications to horror being committed. It is a twisted thing, a boomerang of logic, but it is how fantasy works, what the imperial powers usually do to try to quiet that unpleasant little voice in the back of their psyche.

Truthful Advertisement

Are companies so desperate to get people’s attention that they inadvertently tell the truth in their TV commercials? Take the car ad that has a car buyer locking himself and the salesman in a minivan and gesturing wildly just to pretend to be negotiating forceful for fear that his wife may see what a pushover he really is. The ad wants us to think that the car is worth every penny of its listed price. But if we look carefully at it, it is really saying that only a dumb coward would pay the listed price for that car. If you want to be a bumbling fool, then by all means rush out to the lot and buy a minivan at whatever price they are asking. Or, consider the fast food ad wherein a man drives up to the takeout window with two kids to pick up a bucket of chicken. He dumps the chicken into a pot and says “and mom thinks daddy doesn’t cook.” It is cute and all but is it telling us that their customers are impotent idiots who can’t even lie convincingly? More telling is when you put them together and the conclusion is inevitably that if you believe their ads, you are nothing but an idiot! So finally, there is a hint of truth in advertisement, however hidden and untended. Maybe one day, they will tell us what crappy cars they make and we will still rush out trying to outbid each other for them. Now, that would truly be the brave new world!

Summer Returns

At long last, summer returns to Vancouver, and with it the sun, the colours and the sounds. Flowers bloom and birds chirp, everybody knows that. But to me, summer is about people. With the heat, patio doors are opened, dinners are served outside, and children play between sprinklers on the front lawn. It is as if wall dissolved and we are again neighbours to each other. Soon we will be exchanging vegetables from our gardens, complaining to each other about the heat, and feel like human again. In the winter, when we hear our neighbours, it feels like voyeurism. But in the heat, it has a feeling of community, a sense of togetherness. At the moment, the heat takes a little getting used to, but the promise of what is to come makes the effort more than worth it. This is certainly happier time than a few month from now when we are tired of each other and wish for winter to come soon.

Grand Vin de...

So many of the people who “know” wine really tick me off. You go to a wine shop or a restaurant with them, and they act superior by looking down on wines below a certain price and from “lesser” areas. This is particularly so in Hong Kong. “We drink only French!” “This is not even classified!” You hear them say. And then, they open a newly released first growth, mispronouncing every word on the label and drink the poor thing like nectar. While I am an advocate of drink what you like, this is a little beyond me even. A new bottle of great Bordeaux is about as good drinking as paint thinner. Its only advantage is that dense tannin only kills your taste buds and stomach lining while turpentine kills your entire body. My complaint is not even the waste of good wine while committing self-destruction, but how empty their “knowledge” is. Really, how difficult is it to pick a good wine from US$100 bottles? They had all better be damn good. And they will be, every one of them. So, what is the challenge? Where is the “knowledge”? Just because their bottle says “Grand Vin de Bordeaux” does not mean they know what they are drinking. The real challenge that shows me someone really knows his wine is when she can pick a bottle of US$10 wine that rivals the US$100 bottles! Now that requires a great deal of knowledge and exceptional sensory memory. Ignorance hidden behind money and pretensions is simply hypocrisy. I have no doubt that the mates of these “connoisseurs” of wine are those who mistake price and label for fashion style.

How Chinese/Japanese can you be?

I was thinking about Kurosawa Akira today. While film lovers outside of Japan consider Kurosawa quintessentially Japanese, he has often been called too “western” in Japan. This is not unique to Kurosawa or to Japan. Same thing happens to some of the best Chinese directors. Zhang Yimou and Wang Kar-Wai are often called “"not-Chinese-enough”" or that they make movie for foreigners. I often wonder what would these “"critics”" mean if and when they consider something “Japanese” or “Chinese” enough. For Japanese, I suppose it would be Mizoguchi Kanji and Yamada Yoji; and for Chinese, Xie Jin. These are all great directors but hardly revolutionaries. They pushed and developed the established film languages to their heights but did not get them into new realms. This is not to say they are any less great than Kurosawa or Zhang, just as Virgil is not any less great than Homer. But then, it would be equally wrong to put down the more revolutionary artists, particularly when the “new” is grown from the old with nutrients from foreign sources. Every new style of Chinese poetry came to be by incorporating foreign poetic and musical forms. And Japanese once considered literary works written in Chinese to be the only ones that deserve attention. I suspect that these people’s complaints are simply expressions of their inability to understand the films they are seeing. However pitiable that may be, ignorance and stupidity do not form any valid basis of criticism. Plus, what is considered to be "Chinese/Japanese" are more direct descendents of Russian and American film traditions than anything home grown. Now that is sadly mistaken.

Military recruitment "ethics"

The U.S. Military is trying to appear to be cleaning up “recruitment feud” by making their recruiters take “recruitment ethics” refreshment courses. Now that is something, military recruitment ethics! If advertisements for consumer products are required to provide accurate information and consumer warnings, why are military recruitment advertisements not required to do so? This is not only in the U.S. but also in every country that I know of. A medicine that may cause impotence must say so in its TV commercials. Death and paralysis are certainly much greater adverse side effects than impotence. Yet, there is not even a hint of getting paper cuts in any military advertisements. With the amount of high-tech learning and extensive travelling in an advanced first world armed force, one would think that paper cut from menus and guidebooks are common occurrences. If paper cut makes people wince, they should at least be told that soldiers might be burned alive in cockpits, warships or armoured vehicles. Governments always talk about the honour and glory of sacrifice, why not make burning alive a desirable heroic act? Instead of cleaning up recruiters, all militaries should be made to be honest on their advertisements first. At least tell young people that service increases their chance of meeting shrapnel, which may cause erectile difficulties.

Sounding witty

What sets jazz apart from other current musical genre is wit. No that other genres have no wit, but that it is a constitutive part of jazz. No other music not only allows but requires the musician to show off his or her wit structurally with improvisational solos. It is not enough that the playing is technically virtuoso in every way but must show wit. This is why great classical musicians in general embarrass themselves playing jazz. Classical musicians can be playful, charming, or even free, but wit is another thing. Wit is a special kind of humour, it brings not belly laughs but knowing smiles. It requires intelligence to execute and intelligence to receive. And above all, it is a humour of the language itself. With words, for example, their meanings are not changed so much as its usage slided slightly. In this 'slide', seemingly incongruous things are put together with humour. In music this often shows up by tweaking the rhythm and/or melodic lines to reference or introduce another piece of music. Like with verbal language, this feat requires a thorough knowledge and understand of the language (the jazz language) to accomplish. Jazz fails when it takes itself too seriously to allow for wit or references without intelligent humour. For then it become academic in the worst sense.

Eating alone

I used to hate eating alone. I still do in some ways. More and more though, the virtue of dining alone becomes evident. One can have a purely personal relationship with ones food without the distraction of others. Without the fainthearted’'s shock over everything, without the snob’'s look of disapproval, without vegetarian'’s, well, being vegetarian, and conversations, one can savour every morsel and every slurp. It is hard to fully appreciate a fine piece of hontoro when someone else is asking you, "“how is it?"” Without interference, the diner can experience his own taste fully and without pretension. When I cook at home and dine alone, this is only more so. The entire process of cooking and eating is focused. Perhaps it is the ultimate self-indulgence, a closed circle of tending to oneself. I do it for no other than myself; I look for approval from no other than myself. To do it too often closes oneself from the world. I do not recommend that. But sometimes, when one needs the company of oneself. I heartily recommend dining alone, and do put some effort into it.

Corrupt and Unholy alliances

The Canadian government survived a confidence vote by the skin of its teeth today. The corrupt alliance turned back the unholy alliance. I suppose this is better than the alternative. The Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois have no real program for the country together other than to overthrow the Liberal Government. The two ideological enemies came together just to grab power. At least the NDP joined the Liberals to advance progressive policies that really do nothing but bring the Liberals back closer to itself. It seems Conservative Leader Stephen Harper will turn out to be the loser. If he cannot topple the government when the Liberals are at an all time low, can he succeed when the Liberals rebound? Plus, with Belinda Stronach's defection across the aisles bringing discordance within the party to light, one cannot help but ask if that party has any cohesian behind closed doors. Afterall it is an alliance between the Progressive Conservative and the Reform Parties, not because they like or agree with each other, but to take power pure and simple. Will it change name again? Or the Reformers and the Progressive Conservatives will get a divorce after the short marriage? I personally favour a name change: back to the stillborn Canadian Reform Alliance Party!

National midlife crisis

The United States is getting ready to open up space for its military. It will no doubt start a new round of global arm race. It is increasingly apparent that we are starting on the decline and fall of the American Empire. The threat of the big stick was once enough to exercise superpower; now, they have to swing that stick wildly for fear of no one is listening to them. This makes for a much more dangerous time. The more that stick is swung, the more people will get hurt and less effective it becomes. Pierre Elliott Trudeau once said, “Living next to (the USA) is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly or temperate the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” Well, with advancing age the beast is no longer friendly or temperate. Let’s just hope we do not get crushed too badly before it gets over this midlife crisis to accept tranquil old age.

Going nowhere

Sometime I think maybe I am just getting old. But then the things that make me think so are most enthusiastically practiced by my age group. For instance, I do not understand why people pay their hard earned money to walk nowhere, bike nowhere and dance with no one wearing the most unflattering clothings in nondescript smelly rooms. Are we so alienated from the world and ourselves that our most basic physical activities have to be alienated from their functions also? You take the elevator down three floors, drive ten blocks to your stairmasters and stationary bikes on your lonesome. Someone once told me that it is a good way to meet people. For crying out loud, I certainly hope bad lighting and the lack of oxygen have the same effect on the human body, particularly the eyes, as alcohol! The only gym I enjoy is Weingut Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium, and its products not only taste good but do wonders to your eyesight too.

I ain't no connoisseur

I am convinced that at least 51% of the so-called wine connoisseurs do not really drink wine at all. They may buy wine, read about wine, sample wine, pair wine with food, disapprove of other people’s choices of wine, or maybe even bath in wine, but they do not really drink the damn thing. They are people who give wine drinkers a bad name. Consider this, wine is a food product, grape juice semi-fermented some months before consumption. At the places where wine has been in production for hundreds, even thousands, of years, most people usually do not even know what kind of wine they are drinking. They sit down in a restaurant and a carafe is on the table. They go to a farmhouse with buckets, barrels or bottles and fills up on wine like gasoline. They drink it, enjoyed it and not think too much about it. They are not connoisseurs, they are just people drinking wine and know what they like. Connoisseurs ruin the whole thing. They read Hugh Johnson, and demand what he likes. They pay great sum for it, for a hand full of styles. They become didactic because they do not know or trust their own tastes. And wine becomes the same everywhere, that hand full of styles. Herein lies the irony: connoisseurs prides themselves at being above consumerism, but they are the driving force behind the worst of it.

Seriously cultural

It always confuses me when people complain about the lack of quality in popular culture. I am not even thinking about the general lack of quality that sort of defines the popular in popular culture (though that is certainly true). I am thinking instead of the suggestion that once upon a time (wherever that may have been) there was generally great quality in popular culture. A baby boomer may recount nostalgically that in the 60s, the time of Dillon and Joplin, pop music was full of giants. He probably no longer stays up late, so he has not seen the late night infomercial for 60’s compilations: discs and discs and more discs of the most trite bobble gum pop in human history! A “serious” art lover may counter that in the great classical age, geniuses like Mozart and Beethoven ruled the scene. The misguide thing probably is not serious enough to read how these two distained the prevailing mediocre wind of their days. To find true greatness, one must shifts through pop culture like a miner shifts through rubbles, and if you are lucky you may find just a speckle of gold dust that you may hold and treasure. But then, most of the time, it is like fishing: just enjoy the scenery.

lawnmower man

I mowed my lawn today. It is the most unreasonable and misguided thing we do in our everyday life. We take a plant and grow it in a foreign place. It refuses to grow where we wish it and grow where we fight with all our technological might to prevent. It wants to be tall; but we make terrible noise, pollute the atmosphere, and risk heart attack and sunstroke to cut it short. It needs friends; yet we poison them, burn them, cut them and root them out. It is because of this resulting loneliness, I am convinced, that grass do all it can to make our lives difficult. Think about it, our lawns are prisons and we the jailors holding the inmate grass. It is not surprising then it does all it can to send seeds into our flower and vegetable beds. It just wants to hangout with friends. It wants its children to be free.