Stix Blog

Hail, Hail Rock & Roll - Bo is gone but Chuck Remains

We lost a big one.  I remember Bo Diddley's first hit back when I was in the 6th grade.  Not long after that we were rushing home from school to watch American Bandstand in a friend's basement.  Lots of younger folks don't realize what Bo added to rock and roll.  Here's an article taking Rolling Stone magazine to task for failure to include the iconic "Bo Diddley" as one its best guitar songs.

Originally posted: June 2, 2008

Rolling Stone's Bo Diddley snub

In a strange way it’s fitting that Bo Diddley died while Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time” issue was fresh on newsstands. He’s not on the list. His omission underscores 1) how underappreciated Bo Diddley was, and 2) how wrongheaded Rolling Stone’s list is. The magazine shows its interest in recognizing rock’s heritage by choosing Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” (1958) as No. 1 instead of a song by one of the more towering guitar-hero types like Jimi Hendrix (No. 2 with “Purple Haze”). Berry earned the top spot by essentially inventing riff-rock guitar playing. Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones owe their existence to his rhythmic style. But then for the next 99 spots, no Bo Diddley? Let’s hear how the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (spearheaded by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner) describes 1987 inductee Diddley: “Bo Diddley broke new ground in rock and roll’s formative years with his unique guitar work, indelible African rhythms, inventive songwriting, and larger-than-life persona. He will forever be known for popularizing one of the foundational rhythms of rock and roll: the Bo Diddley beat. He employed it in his namesake song, ‘Bo Diddley,’ as well as other primal rockers like ‘Mona.’” The beat sounds something like this: BOMP-and-BOMP-BOMP-pause-BOMP-BOMP, and it was picked up on Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” Johnny Otis’s “Willie and the Hand Jive,” the Strangeloves’ “I Want Candy,” the Who’s “Magic Bus,” Bruce Springsteen’s “She’s the One,” the Pretenders’ “Cuban Slide,” U2’s “Desire” and many other songs. Tribune rock critic Greg Kot does a great job describing Diddley’s instrumental interplay on his Turn It Up blog: “His drummer focused on the tom-toms and bass, rarely the snare or the cymbals. Jerome Green's hypnotic maracas were mixed way out front on the recordings so that they were made to sound unusually full and vibrant. They danced in and out with Diddley's guitar lines, which were drenched in reverberation. Other percussion instruments also factored into the mixes, all orchestrated by Diddley into rhythms that anticipated the bottom-heavy thunder of heavy metal, the clipped syncopation of funk and the lighter skip of reggae.” Rolling Stone’s list is for “greatest guitar songs,” not guitar solos or virtuosos, so the omission of “Bo Diddley” (from 1955, the same year as Chuck Berry’s first single, “Maybellene”), “Hey, Bo Diddley” or “Who Do You Love” is tin-eared and dunderheaded. These are groundbreaking guitar songs performed by one of the all-time great, driving rhythm players. And I’ll take head-boppin’, body-shakin’ rhythm over solos any day. Hear for yourself as Bo Diddley tears into “Hey, Bo Diddley” and “Bo Diddley" in 1966’s “The Big TNT Show”: That video was recorded in the 1960s 6 years before Stix was even born.  But here's yet an even earlier look at Bo and his compatriot Chuck Berry in the 1950's at the start of it all.  [by the way, if you are ever in St Louis, Chuck Berry still performs now and then in the Duck Room at Blueberry Hill not far from Washington University.]

The guy on the couch in the clip on Chuck Berry is a guy called Jimmy Clanton who was famous for a ballad "Just a Dream" in the 1950s.  The clip of him and Sandy Stewart is from a 1959 movie called "Go, Johnny, Go" that features performances by Chuck Berry, Jackie wilson, Ritchie Valens, The Cadillacs, The Flamingos & Eddie Cochran, among others.

Here's a video of a tribute to Bo Diddley many years later - see if you can recognize the famous musicians playing back-up. Did you know Frankie Avalon was a trumpet player before he started singing?

I'd post more, but I'm afraid it would extending blog loading time.   Look on YouTube for more Bo Diddley.  There are clips of him with Ron Wood and all kinds of folks.

Rock & Roll will never die.  btw  I saw Ike & Tine Turner and also Chuck Berry live in East St Louis as a kid before they hit the big time.  That's back in the day before tracks were recorded separately and musicians lip-synched. 

Julia

Boomdeyada! I Love the Whole World

Earthquakes in China, volcanoes spouting in Chile and Italy, stock market queezy, elections looming.  Enough bad news in the world.  Let this make your day lovely for a change.

Hat tip to The Anchoress at http://theanchoressonline.com/

Julia

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg are teaming up again for another adventure of Indiana Jones. It will come out on May 22.

You can got to the Official Indiana Jones site here.

How Tosca gets her Letters of Transit

Last night I was watching a DVD of Casablanca - you know with Rick's cafe and old flame Ilsa trying to get Rick (Humphrey Bogart) to give her "Letters of Transit" to get her husband Victor Lazlo, who escaped from a concentration camp away from the Nazis to carry on his fight against Hitler. 

I'm thinking for the first time - this plot sounds familiar.  Sure enough, in Puccini's opera Tosca set in 1800 in Rome where Napoleon's troops have occupied Rome, Tosca's artist boyfriend Cavaradossi is in big trouble for being a patriot scheming to overthrow Napoleon.  He is in jail awaiting execution at sun-up.  Tosca goes to the military bigwig Scarpia and a deal is struck that Tosca will get a written safe conduct out of the country for herself and her boyfriend in return for doing the thing with Scarpia. It turns out a bit differently in the opera than in the movie Casablanca, but the main plotline is the same.  So here is how Tosca gets her Letter of Transit.   She's not as nice a girl as Ilsa.

Just in case you are wondering, the plan is that before the scene above Scarpia has already given the word to his henchmen that the execution will go forward, but the firing squad will use blanks and Tosca can run off with Cavaradossi using the "letter of transit".  Meanwhile at Castel Sant'Angelo near St Peter's (which is being used as a prison by Napoleon's men) in one of opera's most famous tenor arias, Cavaradossi is thinking of Tosca and how he will miss the life he shared with the tempestuous opera singer who loved him with a passion.

 

So Tosca arrives at Castel Sant'Angeloto tell Cavaradossi to play along with the "execution" and then they will escape before anybody finds out what happened to Scarpia.  Here's how it ends:

   

By the way, the parts of Tosca and Cavaradossi are played by the husband and wife team of Roberto Alagna and Angela Gherghiu - who not only can sing, but are great actors and thus much in demand these days.

Julia

The Middle East Throughout History - an animated map

Great map showing all the different empires of the near/middle East and Mediterranean basin.

Julia

How the Limeys see AlGore's Movie on Global Warming

And now here's how The Times of London reports on the UK court judgment requiring warnings about innaccuracies in AlGore's movie if it is shown in British public schools.   The Court pointed to nine particular errors that must be mentioned.  I've bolded in a few places and I have added numerals to indicate the Nine areas. 

From The Times

October 11, 2007

Al Gore’s inconvenient judgment  

Al Gore’s award-winning climate change documentary was littered with nine inconvenient untruths, a judge ruled yesterday.

An Inconvenient Truth won plaudits from the environmental lobby and an Oscar from the film industry but was found wanting when it was scrutinised in the High Court in London.

Mr Justice Burton identified nine significant errors within the former presidential candidate’s documentary as he assessed whether it should be shown to school children. He agreed that Mr Gore’s film was “broadly accurate” in its presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change but said that some of the claims were wrong and had arisen in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration 

In what is a rare judicial ruling on what children can see in the class-room, Mr Justice Barton was at pains to point out that the “apocalyptic vision” presented in the film was politically partisan and not an impartial analysis of the science of climate change.

“It is plainly, as witnessed by the fact that it received an Oscar this year for best documentary film, a powerful, dramatically presented and highly professionally produced film,” he said in his ruling. “It is built around the charismatic presence of the ex-Vice-Presi-dent, Al Gore, whose crusade it now is to persuade the world of the dangers of climate change caused by global warming.

“It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film – although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion – but that it is a political film.”

The analysis by the judge will have a bearing on whether the Government can continue with its plan to have the film shown in every secondary school. He agreed it could be shown but on the condition that it was accompanied by new guidance notes for teachers to balance Mr Gore’s “one-sided” views.

The Government’s decision to show the film in secondary schools had come under attack from Stewart Dim-mock, a school governor in Kent and a member of political group the New Party, who accused the Government of brainwashing children.

#1 - The first mistake made by Mr Gore, said Mr Justice Burton in his written judgment, was in talking about the potential devastation wrought by a rise in sea levels caused by the melting of ice caps.

The claim that sea levels could rise by 20ft “in the near future” was dismissed as “distinctly alarmist”. Such a rise would take place “only after, and over, millennia”.

Mr Justice Burton added: “The ar-mageddon scenario he predicts, inso-far as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus.”

#2&3 - A claim that atolls in the Pacific had already been evacuated was supported by “no evidence”, while to suggest that two graphs showing carbon dioxide levels and temperatures over the last 650,000 years were an “exact fit” overstated the case.

#4 - Mr Gore’s suggestion that the Gulf Stream, that warms up the Atlantic ocean, would shut down was contradicted by the International Panel on Climate Change’s assessment that it was “very unlikely” to happen.

#5, 6 & 7 - The drying of Lake Chad, the loss of Mount Kilimanjaro’s snows and Hurricane Katrina were all blamed by Mr Gore on climate change but the judge said the scientific community had been unable to find evidence to prove there was a direct link.

The drying of Lake Chad, the judge said, was “far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and overgrazing, and regional climate variability”. The melting of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was “mainly attributable to human-induced climate change”.

#8 - The judge also said there was no proof to support a claim that polar bears were drowning while searching for icy habitats melted by global warming. The only drowned polar bears the court was aware of were four that died following a storm.

#9 - Similarly, the judge took issue with the former Vice-President of the United States for attributing coral bleaching to climate change. Separating the direct impacts of climate change and other factors was difficult, the judgment concluded.

Despite finding nine significant errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC”.

In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”

The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts.

— A High Court judge since 1998, Sir Michael Burton, 60, was president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal from 2002 to 2005. He stood in local elections for Labour in Kensington and Chelsea in 1971; Stratford upon Avon in the General Election in 1974; and for the SDP in Greater London Council elections in 1981. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, his wife died in 1992 leaving him to bring up four daughters

The speech, the film, the book

— An Inconvenient Truth is the third-highest grossing documentary ever in the United States, making more than $23 million (£12 million)

— It has so far earned $49 million at the box office worldwide It was shown at the Sundance Film Festival and won an Oscar this year for Best Documentary, Features

— The film is based on a lavishly-illustrated public lecture that Mr Gore has given more than 1,000 times in the US and elsewhere It was directed by Davis Guggenheim, who has also directed episodes of the hit television shows Deadwood, The Shield and 24

— The companion book written by Gore has been on The New York Times bestseller list since June 11, 2006

— Mr Gore has been nominated jointly with Canadian Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his global warming campaign, including making the documentary

— President Bush, when asked whether he would watch the film, responded: Doubt it"

— The documentary has featured on The Simpsons, South Park, Futurama and even in an Ozzy Osborne song, The Almighty Dollar

Source:  http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/corporate_law/article2633838.ece

Go to the article itself and see a lot of background material on the trial, including a slide show of the 9 flaws and their take on "the inspiring but divisive" Gore.   There are also links to a story on the UK's crackdown on cows' burping and farting as part of its fight against climate change and to the latest in the McCartney-Mills divorce, if you like to read about those kinds of things.   And another link to a story that answers the proverbial question:  Why are lawyers miserable?  ha ha ha

Julia

 

Why We Were In Korea - It Paid Off

And here tells the tale about Korea that everybody should know - the incredible blooming of the South part of the peninsula after the UN-sanctioned "police action" .    Arirang is the soundtrack.

Great flick.  Just posted 5 days ago.  May the unification come soon.

Julia

UPDATE:  I just found out that the huge Olympic Stadium featured in the happier middle of this film is sitting on the site of the place where I lived in Seoul in 1969 - the Mapo Apartments !!!  Here's a photo of Stix' older brothers with Miss Chang and her fiance Mr. Che  in the Mapo apartment complex where we lived at the foot of Namsan towards the Han River.  This is the same outfit as the guy in the earlier post singing Arirang except it's colorful and meant for special occasions for kids.  In this case, we were getting ready to come home and the clothes were gifts from Miss Chang who had been their beloved nanny for a year - they spoke Korean with her and learned to play soccer from the neighborhood kids.  Kamsahamnida, Korea.   

Here's a photo of some local schoolkids on a field trip at the Dooksum Park who certainly are faring  much better in cherryblossom time in the spring of 1970 than the poor little boy seen at the top of this post who I hope survived the war.

 

This is the view from our apartment towards the Han River in the background.  There wasn't much on the South side of the river in 1969-70 when we were there.   Everything you see in this photograph is now gone, I believe, to make way for the Olympic stadium and other Olympic buildings.

Chinese Painting Come to Life

And speaking of Chinese -I came across this gorgeous piece of animation on YouTube.  It reminds me of the Korean paintings I have of a Peony with a bee and another of colored carp jumping in water.  A lot of artistry and well as technical know-how went into making this short film. 

I also have some little sketches of chickens, birds and a rainy landscape I got in Korea.  I'll have to look and see if this guy has done other short films like this.  You'll notice that at the end he gives a short glimpse of how he did this one.

Julia

Mr Spock sings about Bilbo Baggins

We used to have a little bitty dog named Bilbo back in the day.  This is hilarious.

Julia

Mesmerizing Video of Sharks Feeding

Great video of sharks feeding on shoals of fish at the Maldives.  The changing patterns are mesmerizing and cool to see even without the sounds of the surf.  As a bonus there's video of a great turtle at the end.   Found this at The Times of London website.

Never thought a film of sharks feeding would be beautiful and calming.   Shark Week on cable TV gives me nightmares. Makes me want to visit the Maldives.  It appears the film was shot from a bridge or pier near the shore.  Wonder what else you would see in the Maldives.

Julia

The Life Aquatic's foreign language soundtrack

Inspired by the earlier post on foreign language soundtracks, I looked up this great scene towards the end of the Bill Murray movie "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" .  Murray plays a Jacques Cousteau-like character who (like Captain Ahab) is chasing a villain of the sea.  In this case a "jaguar shark" who ate his partner.   The strange comments about being 11 1/2 yrs old refer to the child the Kate Winslet character at Steve's side is carrying.  Looks like Steve is back from his obsession with death and is focussed again on life.  You would think the lovely music in the background is evocative of this emotional scene - but what the lyrics really mean is astoundingly odd instead.

The background music is by the Icelandic group Sigur Ros. Here's the lyrics as sung and translated into English.

Starálfur Blá Nótt Yfir Himininn Blá Nótt Yfir Mér Horf-Inn Út Um Gluggann Minn Með Hendur Faldar Undir Kinn Hugsum Daginn Minn Í Dag Og Í Gær Blá Náttfötin Klæða Mig Í Beint Upp Í Rúm Breiði Mjúku Sængina Loka Augunum Ég Fel Hausinn Minn Undir Sæng Starir Á Mig Lítill Álfur Hleypur Að Mér En Hreyfist Ekki Úr Stað – Sjálfur Starálfur Opna Augun Stírurnar Úr Teygi Mig Og Tel (Hvort Ég Sé Ekki) Kominn Aftur Og Alltalltílæ Samt Vantar Eitthvað Eins Og Alla Vegginna

Staring Elf Blue Night Over The Sky Blue Night Over Me Disappeared Out The Window My Hands Hidden Under My Cheek I Think About My Day Today And Yesterday I Put On My Blue Nighties Go Straight To Bed I Caress The Soft Covers Close My Eyes I Hide My Head Under The Covers A Little Elf Stares At Me Runs Towards Me But Doesn’t Move From Place - Himself A Staring Elf I Open My Eyes The Crusts Come Off I Stretch Myself And Check (If I Haven’t) Returned Again And Everything Is Okay Still There Is Something Missing Like All The Walls

All of the vocals are in hopelandic. Hopelandic (vonlenska in icelandic) is the 'invented language' in which jónsi sings before lyrics are written to the vocals. It's of course not an actual language by definition (no vocabulary, grammar, etc.), it's rather a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music and acts as another instrument.  Source:  http://www.alwaysontherun.net/sigur.htm 

The submarine in the film looks a lot like the little one that sits in front of the Oceanagraphic Institute in Monaco that sponsored Jacques Cousteau.  It must also be the inspiration for "We all live in a Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles.  Here's my photo of it from 2002.

And here's the Brazilian singer Seu Jorge doing David Bowie's "Changes" in Portugeuse for use in the movie "Life Aquatic".   There are a lot of Bowie songs in Portugeuse by Jorge that provide the background to the film. 

At the end of the film Jorge sits on the stage alone performing "Queen Bitch" while the credits roll.

Sue Jorge's soundtrack is availabe on CD.

What a movie!   From Netflix you can get the Criterion Collection version with lots of commentary.  I just put it on my list today.

Julia 

Pavarotti Debut in 1961 - La Boheme & Other clips

Above is Pavarotti singing a duet with his father of "Panis Angelicus", the hymn which my own father had as a signature piece in his younger days.   And then Luciano's opera debut in "La Boheme" in 1961

Below is Pavarotti at his peak in 1982 at the Albert Hall in 1982 singing an aria from "L'Esire d'Amore" by Donizetti. 

And here he is as the artist facing death in "Tosca".

Pavarotti at Julliard in the 1970s.

Julia

Pavarotti - The King of the High C's is Dead; Long Live the New King - Juan Diego Florez

Pavarotti made his name with the very difficult "Ah, Mes Amis" from "La Fille du Regiment" by Donizetti who also composed my very favorite "Lucia di Lammamoor".  At the end of the aria there are 9 high C's - very difficult.  Pavarotti threw them off with ease and became a legend.  I found this BBC Channel 4 report about the up-and-coming Juan Diego Florez, a tenor from Peru, performing this aria in January of 2007.  It appears that this is the first staging of the opera in 40 years at Covent Garden because it is so difficult to find the leads who can do it properly.   In 1967 the leads were Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland.   

The 3 1/2 minute report includes clips from the aria, an interview with Juan and a brief clip of Pavarotti doing the same opera.    BTW Juan's drop dead gorgeous!!!

 

Here's the whole aria complete with male chorus at Vienna in April of 2007.  The Viennese audience gave Juan very extended applause which seems to have really moved him.   You can fast forward to about 5:50 where the section with all the high C's starts, but the whole thing is interesting and the male chorus is also very good

I'll try to also find something of Pavarotti at his peak later today.

Julia

Tosca arias - bad Scarpia and good Mario

Also courtesy of The Anchoress is this clip of Bryn Terfel singing the aria in Tosca where the evil Scarpia is talking to himself about his lascivious intentions towards Tosca the opera singer - in the background there is a religious ceremony going on called a Te Deum.  Notice that his evil lyrics are blending  with the religious music.  Kind of like Godfather I where Michael is at a baptism and the film cuts to the various murders going on that were ordered by him.   Notice that Scarpio is frequently just repeating the same note like a creepy drone while the music in the back carries the melody.   

A couple years back I took Stix and his siblings to see Tosca.  I highly recommend it.  A powerful story and great music.   By the way, I saw Bryn Terfel (whom the Anchoress adores) at the Chicago Lyric Opera as John the Baptist in Salome.  He was singing from a dungeon down in a pit on stage for most of the production - what a voice to be heard all the way to the rafters from a pit with no miking.  Salome was the Catherine Malfitano who The Anchoress mentions in that recent post.  Malfitano is the defnitive Salome at this time.  In Chicago in the mid 90s when I saw her, she ended up in a nude body stocking, but the word is that as a young woman she shocked London by ending the dance of the 7 veils entirely nude for real.  Who says opera is boring?         

Just for fun - Here's an interpretive cartoon set to the aria good guy Mario sings as he nears the time for his execution at dawn.  While he's thinking of  his girlfriend Tosca we see that Tosca has killed Scarpio and is headed for the Castel Sant'Angelo to get him out of jail.   Will she get there in time? You'll have to see the opera to find out.

 

Julia

1937 Benny Goodman & Gene Krupa - Sing, Sing, Sing

I love YouTube.  Here's the very famous "Sing, Sing, Sing" by the Benny Goodman orchestra with Gene Krupa on drums. 

Did I mention that I love YouTube?

Julia

Krupa - inventor of the drum solo

On a long road trip recently, we were listening to Rush and talking about Neil Peart.  I check on YouTube and sure enough - lots of Neil Peart drum solos.  So I was looking around and found this gem featuring Gene Krupa, the inventor of the drum solo.  It's from a 1941 movie with Barbara Stanwyck as a nightclub singer and Gary Cooper as a professor studying modern slang terms.  Here he is learning about "boogie". 

 

Before Gene Krupa you didn't have drummer stand-outs - they were mainly in the background.  Gene was known for being part of the band; then came Buddy Rich whose solos were not necessarily part of what the orchestra/band was doing. 

Anyway, Gene Krupa was a cool cat, as they said back then.  Check out the bit with the matches.

Also - note that the instruments are all acoustic.  No miking.  And Krupa doesn't have a huge kit to make his magic.

Julia 

Film on Rape of Nanking set to open in China

The Times of London explains why a new movie with Woody Harrelson and other top stars is going to inflame the Chinese against the Japanese.  I have a couple of photos I will post at the bottom of this article.   Everybody wants all countries to make nice, but the Japanese continue to deny many of the horrible things they did during World War II and also in the years leading up to World War II when they were trying to conquer all of Asia.  Just ask the Koreans who had their language and names obliterated and suffered severely while under the heel of Japan since the early 1900s.  The Japanese are still denying that period was bad for the Koreans!!!

From The Sunday Times

June 1, 2007

Hollywood reopens the old wounds of Nanking

A new Woody Harrelson film is set to open old wounds with its telling of the 1937 massacre of Chinese refugees

Michael Sheridan, Far East

IT could be a long hot summer between China and Japan after a new American film about the 1937 Nanking massacre of Chinese soldiers and civilians by Japanese troops opens in cinemas in China this week.

The decision to show the film in China - it will be one of only a few foreign movies allowed onto domestic screens this year - thrusts Hollywood into the bitterest historical row in Asia.

The Chinese move has perplexed and concerned diplomats in Beijing and Tokyo, who are trying to calm nationalist tensions between the neighbours.

“They are playing with fire,” said a diplomat. Passions over the wartime past set off antiJapanese riots in China two years ago.

The film stars Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway in a mixture of actor readings and grim archive footage, telling the story of how a few westerners protected Chinese refugees, saving them from rape and murder by Japanese soldiers.

It won critical praise at the Sun-dance festival in America but its audience in China is more likely to be inflamed than entertained by its dramatic effect.

Everything about the massacre is disputed. It remains sensitive because members of Japan’s imperial family were implicated in the commission and cover-up of the mass rapes and executions, according to independent historians and war crimes trial testimony.

Japanese ultra-nationalists have vowed to produce their own film, which would probably portray the story as a counter-terrorist operation that may have entailed regrettable excesses.

Last month 100 Japanese parliamentarians incensed the Chinese by saying that government archives in Tokyo showed that “only” 20,000 people had been killed. “China is exaggerating the numbers for propaganda,” charged one. The Chinese foreign ministry said the statement showed “ignorance”. Its spokesman said 300,000 had died.

The exchange came not long after Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, emphasised the themes of reconciliation and joint economic progress during a visit to Japan. But politicians in both nations are ready to exploit patriotic indignation in the run-up to local elections in Japan later this month and a Communist party congress in the autumn.

China gave permission to the directors, Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, to shoot some of the film on location, thereby giving official approval to the project.

The Nanking massacre is said by some to mark the true beginning of the second world war because it turned the Japanese invasion of China into a fight to the death and brought the West face to face with Japanese cruelty. It was the first great atrocity by an Axis power.

Japan had been fighting in China since 1931 and the assault on Nanking, the capital of the Republic of China, was planned by Emperor Hirohito’s imperial headquarters as a psychological knock-out blow to Chinese forces under Chiang Kai-shek.

The armies were commanded by Prince Asaka, an uncle of the emperor. They laid siege to the walled city, containing half a million civilians, on December 8. It fell five days later.

“There was no order to ‘rape’ Nanking,” says Herbert Bix, the latest historian to examine the issue of Hirohito’s responsibility. “Standing orders to take no prisoners did exist, however.”

Before the horrified eyes of 22 westerners who remained in the city, the Japanese army, says Bix, “went on an unprecedented and unplanned rampage of arson, pillage, murder and rape”.

The 16th Division under Lieu-tenant-General Nakajima Kes-ago slaughtered about 32,300 fleeing soldiers and prisoners of war on its first day. The 9th Division joined it in rounding up and executing 17,000 Chinese boys and men on December 17. Three months of bloodshed ensued.

The film tells how the foreigners tried to save victims. They established an internationalsafety zone, relying on nothing more than personal bravery and the prestige of the white man in the colonial era.

A Briton, PH Munroe-Faure, of Asiatic Petroleum, was among those who risked their lives to confront soldiers running amok.

They included a German businessman John Rabe, the so-called “good Nazi”, whose testimony is read by J�rgen Proch-now in the film. Harrelson reads the words of Bob Wilson, a US surgeon, and Hemingway plays Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary teacher.

The postwar Tokyo war crimes tribunal accepted a figure of 200,000 civilians and prisoners of war murdered at Nanking.

The allies hanged General Matsui Iwane, the overall commander in the theatre. Later evidence showed Matsui had ordered his staff to restore discipline and tried to stop the slaughter. His conviction was regarded by some as a miscarriage of justice.

In contrast, Prince Asaka, the senior officer in Nanking, was never tried and denied the massacre. After the war he became a celebrity Japanese golfer.

Such a history of denial continues to inflame a new generation of young Chinese and puts Japanese public opinion on the defensive. The wounds remain raw, as the high court in Sapporo, Japan, demonstrated last Thursday.

It ruled against 42 Chinese seeking compensation for being forced to work in mines and on building sites on the island of Hokkaido during the war. The court cited the 1972 Japan-China accord in which China declared it “renounces its demand for war reparations from Japan”.

As they stream out of cinemas from Nanking, the Chinese audience are not likely to be thinking of such diplomatic niceties.

Source:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2010008.ece

From Wikipedia explaining why the massacre got its name that is not explained in the Times story: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East stated that 20,000 (and perhaps up to 80,000) women were raped—their ages ranging from infants to the elderly (as old as 80). Rapes were often performed in public during the day, sometimes in front of spouses or family members. A large number of them were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped. The women were then killed immediately after the rape, often by mutilation. According to some testimonies, other women were forced into military prostitution as comfort women. There are even stories of Japanese troops forcing families to commit acts of incest.^[14] Sons were forced to rape their mothers, fathers were forced to rape daughters. One pregnant woman who was gang-raped by Japanese soldiers gave birth only a few hours later; the baby was perfectly healthy (Robert B. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun). Monks who had declared a life of celibacy were forced to rape women for the amusement of the Japanese.^[14] Chinese men were forced to have sex with corpses. Any resistance would be met with summary executions. While the rape peaked immediately following the fall of the city, it continued for the duration of the Japanese occupation.

source:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

The following is a news photo emblematic over the years of the "Rape of Nanking" which lasted from early December 1937 to late March 1938.  However, it turns out the photo was taken in the preceding August when Japan attacked Shanghai.   I guess it's meant convey the horror without showing the gory stuff in the real photos of Nanking atrocities that can be found on-line.   I really felt like throwing up when I saw the pictures of what they did to some women.

Wikipedia, again:  According to the pact concluded between General MacArthur and Hirohito, the Emperor himself and all the members of the imperial family were not prosecuted. Prince Asaka, who was the ranking officer in the city at the height of the atrocities, made only a deposition to the International Prosecution Section of the Tokyo tribunal on 1 May 1946. Asaka denied any massacre of Chinese and claimed never to have received complaints about the conduct of his troops.^[21.

Place where the War Crimes Tribunal was held (personal photo):

Do some Googling of your own if you'd like to learn more about Japanese war crimes.

Julia

Tony Soprano as Jake LaMotta, The Raging Bull ?

Very interesting take on Tony Soprano by Dean Barnett at Hugh Hewitt's blog. It really makes sense.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Tony Soprano, the Raging Bull

Posted by Dean Barnett  | 11:14 AM

WARNING – “SOPRANOS” PLOT SPOILERS GALORE AHEAD!!!!

Last night, I had the great pleasure and honor of sitting in for Hugh. The audience is wonderful, and the amazing Generalissimo makes it easy. We covered a range of topics, but by the end of the show I was practically pleading for someone to call in and talk about “The Sopranos.” The last caller did, and she and I together locked in on the same scene from Sunday night that was a small one but perhaps the greatest in series’ history.

The scene I’m talking about will forever be known as “The Raging Bull scene”. Tony, Silvio and Bobby were eating lunch, making preparations for going to war with New York. Suddenly, over the speakers, the classical score to “Raging Bull” began to play. Tony and Sil instantly recognized the soundtrack, and began pantomiming the opening credits to “Raging Bull” where Robert De Niro as Jake Lamotta dances around the ring in slow, almost balletic motion, shadow boxing with his demons as he gets ready for a fight. As Tony and Sil pantomimed the scene, they threw punches in slow motion, laughing, sharing a bit of their heritage.

“Raging Bull” is one of the finest movies ever made and perhaps Martin Scorsese’s greatest achievement. Its protagonist, Jake LaMotta, was a great boxer haunted by demons. Once a lean champion, he grew fat and spiraled into self destruction only to call on his reserves of character and strength to save himself from total ruin at the last moment. The film’s most memorable scene showed LaMotta fighting the more gifted Sugar Ray Robinson for the sixth and final time. It was perhaps boxing’s greatest rivalry, even though LaMotta won only one of their little wars.

In their final fight, Robinson gave LaMotta a thrashing that “Raging Bull’s” magnificent cinematography immortalized. The frame where LaMotta’s blood sprays the first row of the crowd is the stuff of cinematic history. The ref steps in to end the fight, and a beaten but still defiant LaMotta yells repeatedly at the unemotional yet malevolent Robinson, “Ray! I never went down, Ray.”

“Raging Bull” shares with “The Sopranos” an identical overarching theme. At their heart, both are about very bad men who do very bad things and who have limitless destructive appetites. Both protagonists, though, hunger for redemption more than anything else.

IT CAN’T BE A COINCIDENCE THAT “The Sopranos” cited “Raging Bull” at this moment. The characters have mentioned Scorsese several times this season, and Tony Soprano shares much with the LaMotta depicted by “Marty” (as members of the Soprano crew invariably refer to Scorsese). By the end of the movie, LaMotta had lost virtually everything – his wife, his family, his money, his physique. In one heartbreaking scene, LaMotta repeatedly bangs his head against the wall of a jail cell, wondering why he did the things he did. But ultimately, Jake LaMotta never went down.

All great pieces of art engage in foreshadowing. In this season’s first episode, Tony and Bobby mused about whether you hear the killers coming when you got whacked. We knew as they discussed the subject that at least one of them would know the answer by the end of the series.

The Raging Bull scene had to be a piece of foreshadowing. Tony Soprano shares much with Jake LaMotta, from their bloated figures to their coarseness to their cruelty. They also have positive attributes. Each in his own way is introspective. Both are strong men, and both are capable of love and kindness. These are the redeeming qualities that make us root for them, even they both are ugly sociopaths.

When “The Sopranos” channeled “Raging Bull,” I figured it meant two things – Tony would suffer, but Tony would not go down. He has certainly suffered this season. In addition to losing Bobby and Sil to Phil Leotardo’s assassins this week, his family life has shattered. In a way, Tony’s own actions, inactions and miscalculations, like Jake LaMotta’s, have left him alone. He unwisely promoted Christopher, then killed him. His only two trusted and remotely capable associates are dead. His son will never be the man his father hoped he would. His daughter has abandoned her ambitions and is marrying the son of a mobster. His wife is a burden. Even his therapist dumped him.

The question remains whether Tony’s suffering is through. Have we seen him hit his rock bottom yet? In “Raging Bull,” LaMotta lost everything before winning a hard-earned measure of redemption. Will Tony’s rally begin at the start of the season finale, or will we see him sink lower still? I think like Jake LaMotta, Tony Soprano will go on, chastened, wiser, sadder but having at last achieved a small measure of inner peace. Also like LaMotta, he will find some of the redemption that he seeks. But lest you think we’re in for a happy ending, remember this: Tony is such a bad man who has done so many bad things, he is not fully redeemable. Just like Jake LaMotta.

Oh, one other thing. The villainous mobster in “Raging Bull” was played by Frank Vincent, the same actor who plays Phil Leotardo on “The Sopranos.” Things didn’t end particularly well for Vincent’s character in “Raging Bull.”

Source:  http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/618e33ac-f3f0-4403-9ccf-8a3031b6a6ec?trackbacks=true#comments

I'll have to watch that episode, "The Blue Comet", again.  hmmmm

Julia

DaVinci Code, Women & Catholicism

Best take-down of the Da Vinci Code slam of misogyny against "the Church" from iSteve.

The Da Vinci Code, women, and Catholicism

One of the more curious aspects of the cult of The Da Vinci Code is the lack of skepticism about novelist Dan Brown's contention that Catholicism was a vast plot to steal from women the feminist freedoms they had enjoyed under "the pagans" who worshipped "the Goddess."

First, pagans didn't worship the Goddess because if they had, they wouldn't have been pagans, they have been monotheists. Like his New Age feminist sources, Brown is a slave to the intellectual prestige of monotheism. Let's face it, real Greco-Roman paganism, as described in, say, Homer, has a tawdry People magazine Jennifer Aniston vs. Angelina Jolie battle over Brad Pitt quality to it. So, a bunch of goddesses get reduced down to the Goddess because monotheism just seems more respectable.

Second, Brown, with all his talk of "the sacred feminine," is being intentionally hazy about what pagans have tended to mean by it: i.e., fertility goddesses. Now, you can see a bit of a problem for modern feminists in praising ancient conceptions of women as most sacred when barefoot and pregnant, but Dan Brown and his 60 million readers apparently can't.

Third, hostility to paganism -- that's what the Protestants, Jews, and Muslims complained about ... that Catholicism wasn't hostile enough towards paganism. It's hardly a surprise that the Renaissance started in Catholic Italy. Or that the Reformation was a reaction to the High Renaissance in Rome. Here's a minor modern example: my younger son's otherwise perfectly sane Lutheran school refuses to hold a Halloween party because that's too pagan, so it holds a "Harvest Festival." To a Halloween-loving Catholic like me, that sounds like nuts, but it makes perfect sense to Lutherans.

Fourth, doesn't anybody remember basic Roman Empire sociology? Early Christianity particularly appealed to women, especially widows. The pagans, and anti-Christian philosophers like Nietzsche ever since, blamed Christianity for making Rome too soft, too womanly to fight off the barbarians. Historian Rodney Stark says in an interviews:

"Christian women had tremendous advantages compared to the woman next door, who was like them in every way except that she was a pagan. First, when did you get married? Most pagan girls were married off around age 11, before puberty, and they had nothing to say about it, and they got married to some 35-year-old guy. Christian women had plenty of say in the matter and tended to marry around age 18.

"Abortion was a huge killer of women in this period, but Christian women were spared that. And infanticide—pagans killed little girls left and right. We’ve unearthed sewers clogged with the bones of newborn girls. But Christians prohibited this. Consequently, the sex ratio changed and Christians didn’t have the enormous shortage of women that plagued the rest of the empire."

Fifth, the idea that the Catholic Church kept women down is pretty odd: What other monotheistic religion honored hundreds of women as saints? Made the Virgin Mary the second most revered person of all? What other religion made women writers like St. Theresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena part of the canon of religious literature? What other religion encouraged women to found and run giant hospitals? Protestantism? Judaism? Islam?

Here's what I think is the underlying reason this farrago of nonsense is so popular with book-reading modern women: Even though the Catholic Church was more favorable toward career women (e.g., abbesses of convents) than other religions, the Church distinctly stood against the now popular idea that "You can have it all!" -- i.e., a career and sex. The Catholic Church offered lots of careers for women, but the careers required chastity. The Church saw motherhood as a separate career that didn't combine well with other careers, which in the days before effective contraception was more or less true.

So, the real complaint in The Da Vinci Code is that The Pill wasn't invented until 1964.

Julia   

Da Vinci Code Movie Deconstructed

Best Review of the Da Vinci Code Movie bar none is in the New Yorker.

HEAVEN CAN WAIT  by ANTHONY LANE

The story of “The Da Vinci Code” goes like this. A dead Frenchman is found laid out on the floor of the Louvre. His final act was to carve a number of bloody markings into his own flesh, indicating, to the expert eye, that he was preparing to roll in fresh herbs and sear himself in olive oil for three minutes on each side. This, however, is not the conclusion reached by Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a professor of symbology at Harvard, who happens to be in Paris. Questioned by Bezu Fache (Jean Reno), the investigating policeman at the scene, Langdon starts rabbiting about pentacles and pagans and God knows what. But what does God know, exactly? And can He keep His mouth shut?

Help arrives in the shape of Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a police cryptographer. She turns out to be the granddaughter of the deceased, and a dab hand at reversing down Paris streets in a car the size of a pissoir. This is useful, since she and Langdon are soon on the run, convinced that Fache is about to nail the professor on a murder charge—the blaming of Americans, on any pretext, being a much loved Gallic sport. Our hero, needing somebody to trust, does the same dumb thing that every fleeing innocent has done since Robert Donat in “The Thirty-nine Steps.” He and Sophie visit a cheery old duffer in the countryside and spill every possible bean. In this case, the duffer is Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), who lectures them on the Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, in 325 A.D. We get a flashback to the council in question, and I must say that, though I have recited the Nicene Creed throughout my adult life, I never realized that it was originally formulated in the middle of a Beastie Boys concert.  [snip]

There has been much debate over Dan Brown’s novel ever since it was published, in 2003, but no question has been more contentious than this: if a person of sound mind begins reading the book at ten o’clock in the morning, at what time will he or she come to the realization that it is unmitigated junk? The answer, in my case, was 10:00.03, shortly after I read the opening sentence: “Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.” With that one word, “renowned,” Brown proves that he hails from the school of elbow-joggers—nervy, worrisome authors who can’t stop shoving us along with jabs of information and opinion that we don’t yet require. (Buried far below this tic is an author’s fear that his command of basic, unadorned English will not do the job; in the case of Brown, he’s right.) You could dismiss that first stumble as a blip, but consider this, discovered on a random skim through the book: “Prominent New York editor Jonas Faukman tugged nervously at his goatee.” What is more, he does so over “a half-eaten power lunch,” one of the saddest phrases I have ever heard.

Should we mind that forty million readers—or, to use the technical term, “lemmings”—have followed one another over the cliff of this long and laughable text? I am aware of the argument that, if a tale has enough grip, one can for a while forget, if not forgive, the crumbling coarseness of the style; otherwise, why would I still read “The Day of the Jackal” once a year? With “The Da Vinci Code,” there can be no such excuse. Even as you clear away the rubble of the prose, what shows through is the folly of the central conceit, and, worse still, the pride that the author seems to take in his theological presumption. How timid—how undefended in their powers of reason—must people be in order to yield to such preening? Are they reading “The Da Vinci Code” because everybody on the subway is doing the same, and, if so, why, when they reach their stop, do they not realize their mistake and leave it on the seat, to be gathered up by the next sucker? Despite repeated attempts, I have never managed to crawl past page 100. As I sat down to watch “The Da Vinci Code,” therefore, I was in the lonely, if enviable, position of not actually knowing what happens. [snip]

The movie is baloney; the movie is an accurate representation of the book; therefore, the book is also baloney, although it takes even longer to consume. Movie history is awash, of course, with fine pictures that have been made from daft or unreadable books; indeed, you are statistically more likely to squeeze a decent movie out of a potboiler than you are out of a novel of high repute. The trouble with Howard’s film is that it is far too dense and talkative to function efficiently as a thriller, while also being too credulous and childish to bear more than a second’s scrutiny as an exploration of religious history or spiritual strife. There is plenty going on here, from gunfights to masked orgiastic rituals and mini-scenes of knights besieging Jerusalem, yet the outcome feels at once ponderous and vacant, like a damp and deconsecrated Victorian church. [snip]

Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people, except at Columbia Pictures, where the power lunches won’t even be half-started. The Catholic Church has nothing to fear from this film. It is not just tripe. It is self-evident, spirit-lowering tripe that could not conceivably cause a single member of the flock to turn aside from the faith. Meanwhile, art historians can sleep easy once more, while fans of the book, which has finally been exposed for the pompous fraud that it is, will be shaken from their trance. In fact, the sole beneficiaries of the entire fiasco will be members of Opus Dei, some of whom practice mortification of the flesh. From now on, such penance will be simple—no lashings, no spiked cuff around the thigh. Just the price of a movie ticket, and two and a half hours of pain.

Nuff said.  Read the whole review.   Julia

Sophie Scholl was braver than Edward R Murrow and George Clooney

George Clooney is much in our faces these days considering that the MSM is ga ga over his movie presenting Edward R Murrow as such a brave guy.  Well, he was late to the dance, the decisive standing up to Joe McCarthy had already taken place months earlier - Joe was on his last legs due to other folks actions and his ill health.  And why is George Clooney brave for making this movie about ersatz "bravery" that occured before he was even born.

Via  Amy Welborn at Open Book here's a REALLY brave person who defied HITLER by printing and distributing leaflets calling for people to resist the Nazis.  Sophie Scholl got caught and paid for it with her life.  There's a movie about her, too, but you probably won't get a chance to see it although it has won many prestigious awards all over Europe -awarded by folks who think Hitler might have been a bit scarier than Joe McCarthy. It is only playing in selected places. The Academy nominated it for Best Film, but it didn't win in spite of almost unanimous rave reviews.  Contact the US distributors at  www.zeitgestfilms.com if you'd like to have it shown in your town. 

Here's the link to the website for "Sophie Scholl, the Last Days", the movie made from the actual transcripts of her interrogations by the SS which were discovered in the past few years.

This is Sophie with 2 of her fellow resisters from The White Rose website which tells the story of the "White Rose" movement made-up of young Germans who put their lives on the line to oppose Hitler's war machine.  The subversive leaflets suggest "passive resistance" as the best way to silently encourage the downfall of the "government", all with the same heading: "Leaflets of The White Rose". Each of these documents was more hard-hitting than the last.

The White Rose website has the texts of the actual leaflets they risked their lives to print and distribute.   

Here's what the young students were doing according to the website:

The members of The White Rose worked day and night, cranking a hand-operated duplicating machine thousands of times to create the leaflets which were each stuffed into envelopes, stamped and mailed from various major cities in Southern Germany. Recipients were chosen from telephone directories and were generally scholars, medics and pub-owners (which seemed to puzzle the Gestapo -- but who better to spread the word or post a leaflet!). While Hans and Alex alone drafted the first four leaflets, they counted on Christoph Probst to comment and criticize. Jürgen edited the third and fourth leaflets and traveled to Berlin with the dangerous documents. Willi contributed to the fifth leaflet and did a generous amount of leg-work, getting supplies and trying to recruit support outside of Munich. Sophie worked hard at getting stamps and paper (one couldn't buy too many stamps at one place without arousing suspicion) and also managed the group's funds. Kurt Huber contributed to the fifth leaflet and solely drafted the sixth (and final) leaflet, while Hans was apprehended with a rough-draft of a seventh leaflet written by Christoph Probst. All members traveled throughout Southern Germany  (and beyond) to mail stacks of leaflets from undetectable locations. Hundreds of leaflets were also left at the University of Munich, carefully hand-delivered in the middle of the night.
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On three nights in February 1943 -- the 3rd, 8th and 15th -- Hans, Alex and Willi conducted the most dangerous of all the White Rose activities.  The three men used tar and paint to write slogans on the sides of houses on Ludwigstrasse, a main thoroughfare in Munich near the University.  They wrote "Down With Hitler", "Hitler Mass Murderer", "freedom", and drew crossed-out swastikas... this while policemen and other officials patroled the streets of Munich.  It was, by far, the most public, blatant and dangerous of their activities.
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It isn't certain why Hans and Sophie Scholl brought a suitcase full of leaflets to the University during the day on Thursday, February 18, 1943. Upon reaching the University, they passed Willi Graf and friend, Traute Lafrenz, who were leaving.  They made plans to meet later in the evening, never mentioning the leaflets in the case. Together, Hans and Sophie entered the deserted atrium which, in minutes, would be flooded with students exiting lectures and classes. They worked quickly, dropping stacks of Kurt Huber's leaflets throughout the corridors. With time running out, the brother and sister hurried outside to safety. Then they noticed there were still leaflets left in the suitcase. Deciding it would be silly not to leave the few extra documents, they returned to the atrium, climbed a grand marble staircase to the upper level of the hall and Sophie flung the last of the leaflets high into the air. Sophie herself explained it this way: "It was either high spirits or stupidity that made me throw 80 to 100 leaflets from the third floor of the university into the inner courtyard." The dozens of pieces of paper glided freely, landing in a shower at the feet of students who suddenly poured out of lecture halls into the atrium. And standing somewhere in the crowd was Jakob Schmidt, University handyman and Nazi party member, who saw Hans and Sophie with the leaflets. The police were called, the doors were locked, and Hans and Sophie apprehended and taken into Gestapo custody. By some accounts, Hans and Sophie had plenty of time and could easily have escaped before the Gestapo arrived.  Jakob Schmidt became a momentary Nazi hero and was cheered at rallies after the capture of White Rose members.
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Today, there are many memorials of the White Rose throughout Munich and their story is known to every German.  The White Rose may have been silenced too early but their words echo on...
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"Freedom!"

Top that George Clooney !!! 

Julia