There was a book I couldn't get in LA, San Francisco, or Anchorage. But Elliott Bay Book Company said they had a copy when I called. It's a surprise for a relative, so nothing here yet.
But here are some other books I saw on the shelves. Remember books?
HOW TO TALK TO YOUR CAT ABOUT GUN SAFETY - Zachary Auburn
From the Preface:
"My fellow purrtiots, You hold in your hands the only book in print today with the courage to tell it like it is. To stand up to the idolaters, the liberals, the international bankers, and the secret kings of Europe who want to destroy America and replace it with their one-world government. To bring about our downfall, these villains have targeted what is surely our greatest national resource: our cats. They know that no other cats in the world are as cute as ours. American cats have the softest bellies, the fluffiest tails, and the loudest purrs. We are the greatest country in the history of the world, and we have the cats to match. Our enemies know they have no chance of defeating us while we stand tall with our cats by our sides, and so for years these scoundrels have worked in the shadows, trying to weaken us and our cats. Stripping from ur cats their Second Amendment right to bear arms! Undermining the faith of our kittens by teaching them the lie of evolution! Addicting out feline friends to the scourge of catnip! The cats of America are under siege . . ."
BLANKETS, Craig Thomson
From DrawnandQuarterly:
"This groundbreaking graphic novel, winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, is an eloquent portrait of adolescent yearning; first love (and first heartache); faith in crisis; and the process of moving beyond all of that. Beautifully rendered in pen and ink, Thompson has created a love story that lasts."
Rad Women Worldwide tells fresh, engaging, and inspiring tales of perseverance and radical success by pairing well researched and riveting biographies with powerful and expressive cut-paper portraits. Covering the time from 430 B.C.E. to 2016, spanning 31 countries around the world, the book features an array of diverse figures, including Hatshepsut (the great female king who ruled Egypt peacefully for two decades), Malala Yousafzi (the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize), Poly Styrene (legendary teenage punk and lead singer of X-Ray Spex), and Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft (polar explorers and the first women to cross Antarctica). This progressive and visually arresting book is a compelling addition to works on women’s history.
"Known for her trademark folkloric spreads, Caldecott Honoree Ringgold showcases the arrival of people immigrating to America. By way of luscious colors and powerful illustrations, readers embark upon a journey toward togetherness, though it’s not without its hardships: “Some of us were already here / Before the others came,” reads an image with Native Americans clad in ornate jewelry and patterned robes. The following spread continues, “And some of us were brought in chains, / Losing our freedom and our names.” Depicted on juxtaposing pages are three bound, enslaved Africans and an African family unchained, free. The naïve-style acrylic paintings feature bold colors and ethnic diversity—Jewish families, Europeans, Asian, and South Asian groups all come to their new home. Muslims and Latinos clearly recognizable as such are absent, and Ringgold’s decision to portray smiling, chained slaves is sure to raise questions (indeed, all figures throughout display small smiles). Despite these stumbling blocks, the book’s primary, communal message, affirmed in its oft-repeated refrain, is a welcome one: “We came to America, / Every color, race, and religion, / From every country in the world.” Preceding the story, Ringgold dedicates the book 'to all the children who come to America….May we welcome them….'”
THE BATTLE FOR HOME - Marwa Al-Sabouoni
From The Guardian.
". . . With so much of the country destroyed, what will the future look like? People close their eyes, and they wonder: is it even possible to imagine such a thing? Marwa al-Sabouni believes it is – and her eyes are wide open. A 34-year-old architect and mother of two, Sabouni was born and grew up in Homs, scene of some of the most vicious fighting. Unlike many, however, she did not leave Syria – or even Homs itself – during the war. The practice she and her husband still (in theory) run together on the old town’s main square was shut up almost immediately: this part of the city quickly became a no-go area. But her home nearby somehow survived intact, and her family safe inside it. “I’m lucky,” she says. “I didn’t have to leave my home. We were stuck there, as if we were in prison; we didn’t see the moon for two years. But apart from broken windows there was no other damage.” She laughs, relishing my astonishment at this (we’re talking on Skype, which feels so strange, the cars in her street honking normality – or a version of it – with their horns). . . "
ATLAS OBSCURA: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders - Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, Ella Morton
This book is divided by continents and then countries. I randomly opened to a page to a 'hidden wonder' I'd actually been to. On India's northwest border with Pakistan, outside Amritsar, there's a bizarre, but uplifting ceremony held each sundown when the flag is powered at the border called the
Wagah border ceremony. A couple pages later was another choice Indian attraction we had visited - Jantar Mantar, an observatory built in 1728, in Jaipur. The Alaska entries are less compelling. The Eklutha cemetery and the Adak National Forest sign are definitely unique, but not quite of the same magnitude as those Indian entries.
". . . Nein is not no. Nein is not yes. Nein is nein," he explains. The slim manifesto is divided into digestible, tweet-length aphorisms (each on its own page) with a hashtag for a title. "#TechRevolution/ Turn on./ Log in./ Unsubscribe./ Log out." Jarosinski also includes a hilarious glossary of Nein-ish words and phrases. Performance art, for instance, is defined as "six doppelgangers in search of a selfie." Technology particularly draws his ire. He calls Instagram a "marketplace in which pictures of your cat are exchanged for a thousand unspoken words of derision." There are gems on nearly every page. The book might seem tongue-in-cheek, but Jarosinski's cynical aphorisms about philosophy, art, language, and literature hold plenty of truth. . . "
We're in Seattle with our daughter and granddaughter. The other night I read one of her books which included Humpty Dumpty. So far so good. When I was done, she said, "I want to watch the Humpty Dumpty video on your computer." I'd forgotten about that. We'd found some Humpty Dumpty videos on a previous visit. You'd be surprised how many there are. The top ranking one on Youtube is this Indian version:
And then there's this version where doctors come and get him patched up and he decides that no one should sit on the wall. Oh dear, is this a really good lesson? For some things maybe, maybe not. I'm just giving you a link, because this is a long, long video with lots of different nursery rhymes - old and new. But it starts with Humpty Dumpty. It's from Chu Chu TV - another Indian production.
This one also has an ad that I couldn't figure out how to skip. Had to turn off sound till it was over.
If you go to Youtube on the link to the Chu Chu TC version, you'll fjnd lots more versions of Humpty Dumpty.
I can see how totally addictive this can be for little kids. I asked my granddaughter if she could watch it all day and she just looked away with a little smile on her face. I'm limiting it to 15 minutes a day when I'm with her.
"Everywhere you look there are khidmatgars, daftardars, khansamas, chuprassies, peons, durwans, khazanadars, khalasis and lascars. And this my dear Puggly, is one of the greatest of the many surprises of Fanqui-town - a great number of its denizens are from India! They come from Sindh and Goa, Bombay and Malabar, Madras and the Coringa hills, Calcutta and Sylhet - but these differences mean nothing to the gamins who swarm around the Maidan. They have their own names for every variety of foreign devil: the British are "I-says" and the French are "Merdes". The Hindustanis are by the same token, "Achhas": no matter whether a man is from Karachi or Chittagong, the lads will swarm after him, with their hands outstretched, shouting: "Achha! Achha! Gimme cumshaw!'
They seem to be persuaded that the Achhas are all from one country - is it not the most diverting notion?"
In Amitav Ghosh's River of Smoke the pages are sprinkled, sometimes dripping, with words odd to the American ear.
Some, like Achha, are explained, as you can see above, in the text itself. And we'd learned a couple of pages earlier about Fanqui-town:
"And so at last to the foreign enclave - or 'Fanqui-town' as I have already learnt to call it!"
And we'd also just learned about the 'Maidan':
"And so, following my young Atlas, [a coolie carrying his luggage from the boat] I stepped upon the stretch of shore that forms the heart and hearth of Fanqui-town. This is an open space between the factories* and the river-banks: the English speak of it as 'The Square', but Hindusthanis have a better name for it. They call it the 'Maidan' which is exactly what it is, a crossroads, a meeting-place, a piazza, a promenade, a stage for a tamasha that never ends. . ."
But many other words are left there for the reader to either figure out or skip over, or gradually pick up through hearing it used, just like we learn words in our own language. And, after all, the basic linguistic ingredient in this book is English.
It was about this point - page 173 of a 500 page book - that I thought perhaps I should look up some of these words to see how much actually knowing what they mean adds to the reading. I googled up a couple:
I'll never finish the book if I have to look up all these words. But, I thought, maybe someone has already done this.
It turns out Neel [one of the characters in the book] did. While it's not in the book, it's on Ghosh's website. It's not a glossary, he calls it a chrestomathy.
"The Chrestomathy then, is not so much a
key to language as an astrological chart, crafted by a man who was
obsessed with the destiny of words. Not all words were of equal interest
of course and the Chrestomathy, let it be
noted, deals only with a favoured few: it is devoted to a select number
among the many migrants who have sailed from eastern waters towards
the chilly shores of the English language. It is, in other words, a
chart of the fortunes of a shipload of girmitiyas: this perhaps is why
Neel named it after the Ibis.
But let there be no mistake: the Chrestomathy deals
solely with words that have a claim to naturalization within the
English language. Indeed the epiphany out of which it was born was
Neel’s discovery, in the late 1880s, that a complete and authoritative
lexicon of the English language was under preparation: this was of
course, the Oxford English Dictionary (or the Oracle, as it is invariably referred to in the Chrestomathy). Neel saw at once that the Oracle would
provide him with an authoritative almanac against which to judge the
accuracy of his predictions. Although he was already then an elderly
man, his excitement was such that he immediately began to gather his
papers together in preparation for the Oracle’s publication."
I learned about the Chrestomathy at The Asia Collection which adds this insight into the language:
"It wasn’t
until I had almost finished the book that I came across a glossary – and not
just a regular glossary but a chrestomathy (technically, “a
collection of literary selections, especially in a foreign language, as an aid
to learning a language”), no less! The Chrestomathy, appearing at Ghosh’s website, was
originally compiled by Neel, a character in both the first and second books of
theIbistriology, but also an ancestor
of Ghosh, who passed down to him his love of words. Neel, according to Ghosh,
“was of the view that words, no less than people, are endowed with lives and
destinies of their own,” and his Chrestomathy “is not so much a key to language
as an anthropological chart, crafted by a man who was obsessed by the destiny
of words.” Like a number of Neel’s earlier descendants, Ghosh was given the
task of not actually recreating the Chrestomathy but of “provid[ing] a summary
of a continuing exchange of words between generations.” It was in the Chrestomathy, then, that I found
all those words and phrases that had challenged me while I was making my way
through the book. Neel’s research and documentation in the late 19th century
and Ghosh’s “summary” must have entailed painstaking work, indeed. And if you
think all the above is agoolmaul,
agollmaul, atamasha– a puzzle, also, an uproar or a big
fuss – try and work it out as I did with Ghosh’s masterpiece, or better still,
read the book! And by all means use the Chrestomathy to ease your way through
it."
Here's another example of mixing languages.
"Patrão, the munshi's here - Freddy sent him.
Achha, munshiji, he said. Why don't you sit on that kursi over there so we can look each other in the eye.
As you wish Sethji
In stepping up to the chair, Neel had a vague intuition . . . ."
Patrão comes from the Portuguese because Vico is from Macau and this is how he addresses his boss Kursi, like some words, becomes clear in the next sentence, as Neel steps up to the kursi.
But what about munshiji?
From the Chrestomathy
+ munshi/moonshee: see dufter
+ daftar/dufter: This was another word which had
already, in Neel’s lifetime, yielded to an ungainly rival, ‘office’.
This too carried down with it, a lashkar of fine English words that were used for its staff: the clerks known as crannies, the mootsuddies who laboured over the accounts, the shroffs who were responsible for money-changing, the khazana-dars who watched over their
treasuries, the hurkarus and peons who delivered messages, and of course, the innumerable moonshies, dubashes and druggermen who laboured over the translation of every document. It wasthe
passing of the last three, all concerned with the work of translation,
that most troubled Neel: those were the words he would cite when
Englishmen boasted to him of the absorptive power of their language:
“Beware, my friends: your tongues were flexible when you were still
supplicants at the world’s khazanas: now that you
have the whole world in a stranglehold, your tongues are hardening,
growing stiffer. Do you ever count the words you lose every year?
Beware! Victory is but the harbinger of decay and decline.”
Shroff was actually a word we learned the year we lived in Hong Kong. To get your parking ticket validated at the mall, you had to go to the schroff.
I'd note the warning here to the British about their language. Ghosh is a Bengali Indian. English was imposed upon his country and in these books he's stretching his tongue (and maybe sticking it out a bit at the British) and saying, you left this here so don't tell us how to use it. We're going to spice up this language you left behind with all sorts of exotic linguistic ingredients.
Just as the English have discovered how bland their food was when they started eating Indian found, they will discover how bland their language was too before the Indians stopped worrying about writing it 'properly'.
But it's not just words from the subcontinent that flavor this book. Other former British colonies also contribute phrases.
The Cantonese we learned in Hong Kong helped in other parts of the book. Here's where Neel begins writing the Chrestomathy. He meets the Chinese printer who is the author of a book Neel has seen often in the hands of Chinese trying to speak pidgin to the foreigners:
"The title of this short booklet was translated for Neel as "The-Red-Haired-People's-Buying-and-Selling-Common-Ghost-Language'. It was more commonly known however as 'Ghost-People-Talk' - Gwai-lou-waah - and it sold very well . . ."
He does explain the words, but Gwai-lou is what white foreigners are still called, and waah is the word for language. Both still alive and well in my brain. Does it add to one's appreciation of the book to also independently recognize the words? Made me feel good anyway.
That night Neel wonders why a similar book hasn't been written for the foreigners. He decides fate has brought him together with Compton, the printer, and the next day he proposes they do it together. Compton says he had thought of it too but couldn't find a foreigner to partner with him.
"'They think-la, pidgen is just broken English, like words of a baby. They do not understand. Is not so simple bo.'
'So will you let me do it?' Yat-dihng! Yat dihng! [Somewhere from my dusty brain I heard "Certainly! Certainly!"]
'What does that mean?' Neel inquired a little nervously.
'Yes. Certainly.' Do-jeh Compton. [And thank you was one of the first words we learned, though Cantonese has a thank you that is only for physical gifts and another one for helpful actions.] M'ouh hak hei [This is obviously, 'don't mention it'. I get the M'ouh which means 'not' or 'nothing' but I don't remember the hak hei.]
Neel could already see the cover: it would feature a richly caparisoned mandarin. As for the title, that too had already come to him. He would call it: The Celestial Chrestomathy, Comprising a Complete Guide to and Glossary of the Language of Commerce in Southern China."
A final note on doing something I've never done before
Words and books are semi-sacred to me. Highlighting books always seemed like a desecration and I still don't mark books with anything more than a pencil. So it was with a giant effort today that I ripped out the first 115 pages of the book. I told myself what I used to tell students: You should do something you've never done before, every day. I try to do that, but this one was a particularly big one and I put it off as long as I could. But I've invited a friend to be a guest at our book club when we discuss River of Smoke. I've tried to get him a copy but neither Title Wave nor Barnes and Noble had copies. The public and university libraries didn't have available copies. Amazon wanted $46 to ship it in two days. So I decided to give him a chunk of the book I'd already read. If I gallop through the rest, maybe I can finish it before he needs more pages.
I know for many this is no big deal. I've even heard of travelers who would rip out the pages after they read them so their book was lighter. That's not me.
We had dinner at the Spice Route restaurant in the Pavillion Mall on Bainbridge Island. As we were leaving we began talking to one the employees there. It turns out she's from Nepal and, understandably, very upset about the earthquake that just happened. Alaskan readers, if you think this is too far away, she also lived in Homer for two years.
She's trying to figure out how she can get help here and get it back to Nepal. Not only does she need all the things that are needed, she also needs local Bainbridge Island folks to help her organize this. (And Poulsbo folks, you're in this too - that's where she lives.)
I offered to make a video, which I did, but I had to cut it short because my memory card got full. Here it is:
"My name is Usha McCollum. I live in Poulsbo, Washington and I’d from Nepal. Right now the earthquake very affected my family, the whole country, my relatives. I spoke with my mom, a since a long time trying to talk with her two days ago, she sounds like she’s ok, but she didn’t explain what was going on, because she’s old, she’s nervous, and I tried, you know, to make it better for her, but right now even I’m trying to call but I haven’t any connection with her.
But right now I’m just pray, just pray, So, right now, I concerned about Nepal, what can I do about it? You know, for relief, those people, those children, my country. I’m trying to help from where I am in the Bainbridge Island Indian restaurant, I’m trying to think about it, making the posters, making the pictures, whatever, making a fundraiser, making a dinner here, and trying to explain to the community, maybe talk, maybe school, I’m going to start from tomorrow."
She works at the Spice Route Indian restaurant in the Pavillion mall (upstairs) on Madison on Bainbridge Island. You can contact her there at 206 780 3545. If she's not there, let them know why you're calling. If you can help in any way. Go by there and let them know. She's trying to figure out ways to raise some money to send to Nepal. Maybe you can invite her to talk to your school or your organization. Anyone involved in philanthropy or aid programs could give her some guidance for other organizations that she could work with.
And she lives in Poulsbo, so folks there might want to chip in as well.
Lastly, are there any people in Homer who remember her? She came with her then husband Paul McCollum whom she met in Nepal. Or you can email me at whatdoino(at)alaska.net and I'll forward your message to her.
There are two classical concerts I can think of that transported me into another world. Two memorable times when I was transformed from my auditorium seat and disappeared into the music. One was the year I was a student in Germany. I was at a concert in a beautiful new auditorium in Florence and David Oistrack played magic on the violin. The concert ended. The audience mostly left but there were maybe 15 or 20 other people who must have been inside the music with me who continued to stand in the place and applaud in the now mostly empty auditorium. And Oistrahk walked back onto the stage and played an encore for this small group. It was amazing.
A few years later, in Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer, I learned that Ravi Shankar was giving a concert in one of the hotel ballrooms in Bangkok. Despite the uncomfortable folding chairs, the sitar strains entered into my body and took me to another world.
Probably my first introduction to Shankar was watching Sanjit Ray's Apu trilogy with my father, though at the time I wasn't aware of who he was or that it was his music in the films. I became aware of Shankar, as a name and muscian. along with much of the Western world, through George Harrison. I had missed his concert at the Monterrey Pop Music festival, so I made sure I got into this Bangkok concert while I had the chance. Another magical evening. Here's some video of Shankar the same year I saw him.
I never was, to my knowledge, in the same room as Daniel Inouye, but I remember 'meeting' him through radio and television when he was a member of the Senate Watergate Committee. The whole committee was impressive - both Republicans and Democrats took their jobs seriously. While the Republicans challenged any unsubstantiated comments or charges against Richard Nixon, they didn't deny the truth that was unraveling in the hearings. They didn't attack their Democratic colleagues or raise red herrings to distract from the focus on the White House and its role in the Watergate break-ins.
As a young graduate student studying public administration with the summer off, I was mesmerized by the hearings. I was taken, along with the rest of the nation, deep into the workings of government in a way my classes couldn't match. And I was watching a Senate committee that was working as it was supposed to - seriously, deliberately, and intelligently. The committee - Republicans and Democrats - worked together closely to make sure justice was carried out. We got to know each of the committee members and as a Californian whose knowledge of the South was coverage of the civil rights movement and the violent resistance to integration by many government officials, I discovered that there were indeed intelligent Southerners.
Daniel Inouye was one of the most junior members, but he stood out as the only person of color on the committee. He also was missing an arm from a war injury. He impressed me and the nation with his sober
questions and serious dedication to the unpleasant task. His New York Times obituary says:
In 1973, as a member of the Senate Watergate committee, which
investigated illegal activities in President Richard M. Nixon’s 1972
re-election campaign, he won wide admiration for patient but persistent
questioning of the former attorney general John N. Mitchell and the
White House aides H. R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and John Dean.
The Watergate Hearings are my touchstone against which I compare the Senate and the US House today. If you watched the Watergate Hearings, you understand that despite the political divisions, the Senators at least acted like gentlemen and dealt with facts, even unpleasant ones, with dignity. That's not to say that they didn't scheme behind the scenes. But the Republicans didn't balk and stall because their president was being investigated. Today's Senators and House members should all have to watch the Watergate hearings and the impeachment hearings to see how they are supposed to act.
Things I Don't Understand seems to fit well here at What Do I Know? I'm too tired to write usefully about the film now. It shows again Saturday night at the Bear Tooth. There are a lot of characters with issues, including a musician who turns down a paying job as a coffee bean because he has to be true to his art. You can see the trailer at the film's website. The small Alaska Experience theater was full - about 30 people.
The World Before Her - is an Indian-Canadian documentary that looks at the boot camp to train the dozen or so finalists for the Miss India contest and a nationalist Hindu camp for young women. The juxtaposition of the new and old India makes for a stark contrast. For me the most interesting characters were the young woman of ambiguous gender and her father. She is the trainer at the fundamentalist camp and pushes the campers hard as she espouses an extreme Hinduism. Yet she does not plan to get married and describes herself something like half woman and half man. Her father will have none of this because a wife's place is in the house.
Then I went off to the film-maker reception at the Spenard Roadhouse where I talked to a few film makers. Mark Mudry is in the video below. His film Where Dreams Don't Fade, about Kenyan runners, will be screened
Friday Dec. 7 at 10pm at the AK Experience Theater and Sunday Dec. 8 at 7pm at Out North
Somewhere in the filmGo Ganges, JJ says something like, "At some point you just have to accept all the confusing differences and embrace them and then it's wonderful." (That was a very rough paraphrasing.)
It's that willingness to go with the flow, to be curious about India, to try to understand some Hindi and to get permission from the holy man and from the river itself before taking off on their adventure, that both allows them to have thoroughly enjoy themselves in the often difficult conditions of India and to make a movie that reflects their affection for the country. Doing some yoga and learning some Hindi is one level of commitment, but when you put a plastic tube up your nose and pull it out your mouth, you show you're willing to go the extra kilometer.
And knowing that, their humor - most aimed at themselves - is warm and friendly. This is a wonderful way to see India and to see how audacious ideas which seem crazy to normal folks aren't necessarily crazy.
A delightful sequel to Paddle to Seattle and good for the whole family.
It shows again Saturday at 4pm at the Alaska Experience Theater. This is definitely a feel good movie.
Here are JJ and Josh answering questions after the film:
Sunday hunkered down and decided I needed a new strategy (well, actually a strategy period) for the festival. It's now down to seeing as many of the films in competition in as many categories as possible.
So tonight (Monday) it's Between Us at 5:15 at Alaska Experience Theater. This is a feature in competition. The festival website blurb is:
In this darkly comedic drama, two couples reunite over the course of two
incendiary evenings where anything can happen. Grace and Carlo are a
newly married New York couple who visit their old friends Sharyl and
Joel in their huge Midwestern home. But despite their wealth, the hosts
are in a violently destructive marriage. Two years later, the couples
reunite in New York, but now the tables are turned as the young couple
struggles with their marriage, parenthood and financial woes, only to
discover that their old friends are even more successful and much
happier than they were before. Featuring Julia Stiles and Tay Diggs.
Based on the hit Off-Broadway play of the same name. Adapted by original
playwright Joe Hortua.
So, I go for marital discord while my wife is in Seattle and then maybe get some more light hearted fair with Go Ganges. (8pm at the Bear Tooth.) Paddle to Seattle won an audience award here in 2009 and it was a delightful kayak trip from Skagway or Haines to Seattle. The guys didn't take themselves seriously at all and it was a great contrast to the testosterone filled Mt. St. Elias where 'every step could be your last' narration and belittling the American climber who decided not to go on to the top.
This time they are in India and that should be fun.
Yesterday I ended up missing the morning and early afternoon programs. I needed a break and there were things I needed to do around the house.
But I saw two worthwhile films which I want to write about at length later. The first was a documentary in competition - The Road To Apartheid - which compared the Israeli occupation of Gaza to Apartheid in South Africa. While this was clearly a one-sided piece with some glaring omissions, it's a film about an important world issue that needs to be seen and discussed. Unfortunately, the topic is one that many people don't want to hear, especially if the message counters their existing story about the issue. I'll go into this more after the festival is over. It plays again next Saturday at 1 at the AK Experience Theater.
The 8pm film was Shouting Secrets. I was a little skeptical going in - family discord on the res was the image I had from the blurb. But it turned out to be a fine film - the most enjoyable and satisfying film I've seen so far. I have video of the director which I want to post before the next showing at3pm on Friday at the Alaska Experience Theater. I know it's when many people are still working, but how much do you get done on Friday afternoon anyway?
I think Alaska Natives will particularly enjoy seeing Native Americans portrayed like normal people on the big screen. Yes, there is family discord, but it's simply human family discord, not Native American family discord. In fact Swiss director Korinna Sehringer said that she originally wrote with a middle class white family in mind, but decided to change it to make it more universal and more interesting for her. The result was a very moving film that happens to be about a Native American family that everyone can relate too.
I somehow latched onto the "Native Tongue" program and communicated with two of the four film makers. There's a post with an overview of all four films. And one with director Roozbeh Dadvand's (Mossadegh) email interview. And I chatted with Gilles Guerraz* (Lapse)via Skype. But I hadn't gotten hold of Calcutta Taxi's director and assumed it he wasn't coming. But there he was.
They are all playing together
Saturday Morning at
11 am
at the Alaska Experience Theater.
And here's Vikram last night after Deadfall. He was not excited about how close the camera was and when we tried to do it again at a quieter spot it wasn't as natural and he said ok. He is right about the lighting. But you get a sense of Vikram's energy and charm and the after film crowd at the Bear Tooth last night. So, this is dedicated to his mom and his wife.
*I have a lot of video of my chat with Gilles Guerraz. Too much video. I'll try to edit it and post a short bit of it before the film shows again next week.
You can book a package tour to many exotic places around the world. For $2500 - $20,000 plus airfare, you will be shown the sights of anywhere in the world.
Or, for $8, you can go to the Alaska Experience Theater at 11 am and go on four intimate trips - about 20 minutes each. And remember, exotic just means some place you've never been. After all, most people in the world think that Alaska is exotic.
Really, these four films will take you on adventures that are much better than staying home cleaning the bathroom or wasting even more time on the internet. (Don't deny it. After all, you're here. Justify your time here by going to a movie.) And when the program is done there's still time to see if the ski trails are decent enough to use.
And unlike the many package tours that will cost you thousands of dollars, this short tour will take you inside the lives of people you would never meet on a tour.
SATURDAY, DEC. 1, 2012
11AM
ALASKA EXPERIENCE THEATER, 4th&C
The tour goes again on SUNDAY DEC. 9, 2012 11:15 AM. Same location.
Mossadegh
First the tour will take you to Iran, 1959. If you saw Argo, you saw a brief overview of the CIA overthrow of the first democratically elected leader in Iran - Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Six years later, under house arrest, he's ill. An American doctor comes to care for him. Is this his assassin?
Directed by a USC film student of Iranian descent, the film offers an immigrant's view of the events. And Voice of America has a couple of interviews, broadcast in Farsi (I assume) about the film. Check their website.
Calcutta Taxi
Next go wildly through Calcutta trying to find the taxi that went off with your luggage. (The trailer hints this is just a metaphor for seeking much bigger things.) Oh yes, there are demonstrations going on at the same time. I can't find too much about this one. It looks like the film maker is an Indian-Canadian. Based on the trailer, you'll definitely go places you'd never go as a tourist. To get ready, here's a deleted scene they have on the website of a street vendor making Indian cha. India with no visa and no shots.
Naagahaan, Zinat… (Suddenly, Zinat…)
Back to Iran. Today. The Anchorage audience will feel at home in Teheran as the camera briefly catches the snow covered mountains surrounding Iran's capital. I think most people will also be suprised at how much the Iranian middle class life compares to ours, at least in terms of consumer goods. Not as ostentatious, but not so different. A poor drug addict visits a middle class mother to claim the baby she gave up for adoption seven or eight years ago. This film was made, from what I can tell, in Iran, by Iranians. Americans should see more films from Iran so they can realize we have way more in common than not. There's an interview with the film maker here and the whole fim itself is posted.
Lapse
Finally, we head to Paris. A thriller it looks like. You can see Gilles Guerraz, the film maker's, pitch (with English subtitles) at what appears to be a French version of Kickstarter. The trailer shows a beautiful woman disappearing around corners and into alleys and a man who doesn't remember something important, except that he has a feeling for this woman he keeps seeing.
When was the last time you got to Teheran? Or Calcutta? Or Paris? (I think Lapse was shot in Paris, but that's just a guess.) Well, do them all next Saturday (Dec. 1) morning at 11 am at the Alaska Experience Theater. The whole package for just $8. There's a second tour a week later Sunday, Dec. 8.
Here's the Film Festival link to this group of films titled "Native Tongue." Yes, it's true, if you don't speak Farsi or French or Bengali you'll have to read subtitles, though the first two have some English spoken. It's the price you have to pay to see grown up films that weren't made in the US. (Well, the first one was. All this categorization gets confusing.)
The Anchorage International Film Festival comes to Anchorage in less than a month - Nov. 30, 2012 is the opening night. Lots of films come each year and probably most people in Anchorage have no idea that a film on a topic or location of interest will be playing. So I'm trying to alert people to some of the many topics coming. I've already done an overview of the feature films. This one looks at the documentaries. I'm sure there are some topics for everyone.
I'd note here that the makers and stars of the 2009 AIFF Audience Award winning Paddle To Seattle (the tongue-in-cheek documentary of their kayak trip from Skagway to Seattle) will be back with their adventure traveling the Ganges River in India, though the title - Go Ganges - doesn't have the cache of Paddle to Seattle.
So here's a long table. Scan through the topics in the left hand column. Remember I haven't seen the films, I'm just pulling out topics based on the descriptions. Then mark the ones you'd like to see and check the Anchorage International Film Festival website to see when they will show. They range in length from 5 minutes (Solar Roadways) to 113 minutes (YERT - Your Environmental Road Trip). The shorter ones will be grouped together and the longer ones will show by themselves. The schedules aren't up yet.
I'm guessing a lot of Americans don't know much about Sikhs. I don't know a lot, but we did get to go to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India in 2006. The Golden Temple is the center of the Sikh religion. I'm editing together a few posts from that time.
November 10, 2006
We gave up on the idea of going to the Golden Temple at 4 am to see the
Book procession. That turned out to be fine and we got to sleep in a
bit. We were at the Temple at 8:30am. You come into the complex, check
in your shoes and socks, (Yeah, I got to go barefoot!) and then walk
through the water pools (running water to clean your feet). Then up the
stairs to this magical view of the temple shimmering in the middle of
the water. We walked around the temple first, then along the causeway out
to the temple. The place is full of people in all manner of beautiful
and/or interesting types of clothing. Men strip down to their shorts
and bathe in the pool. Women have a more private bathing area. This is
the Vatican of the Sikh world. Built about 400 years ago it is a
beautiful and spiritual place. The chanting inside the temple is
broadcast throughout. You watch Sikhs enter and a look of joy comes
over some of them as they then prostrate themselves toward the temple.
We were there early enough that it wasn't too crowded going into the
temple. No pictures allowed there. In here is the holy Book of the
Sikh world. Beautiful carpets, the walls intricately painted, the
rhythm of the chanting, pilgrims meditating. There is such a spiritual
and calming sense here. Someone gives me a round sweet. Someone else
mimics sticking it in my mouth. Another asks if we have gone upstairs.
We follow the winding stairs to another room with a man reading a huge
book. Views from between the golden 'knobs' surrounding the roof of the
temple.
A really special place. Our short stay in Amritsar
has been fantastic. Then after circling (squaring would be more
accurate) the temple again, we eventually decided we needed to move on.
We stopped in a book store and bought a couple of books and some CDs of
the chanting, retrieved our shoes and wandered out into the world
again. By the way, when I pulled out my map of Amritsar to ask the man
at the book store directions, he said, Put away the maps. Maps are
useless in India. One gains spiritual enrichment by helping others find
their way.
The world. Bike rickshaws, motorcycles, horse
drawn carriages, shops selling all sorts of Sikh related paraphernalia,
people squeezing between the vehicles, horns honking... up the street
and into another oasis - at least today. This is the Jailliawalla Bawg,
where the British massacred about 1000 Indians. If you saw the movie
Gandhi, you saw the Indians protesting in the park while the British
came in through the only entrance and set up their guns. Today it is a
lush green park full of school kids visiting the various memorials to
the dead.
We stopped in a cyber cafe and got all my pictures downloaded to a CD and then into a restaurant for a delicious lunch.
October 25, 2006
We're going to India next week and
so today we met with a Sikh friend to talk about our trip. While
talking about visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar, he told us that
every day "The Book" is ceremoniously carried into the Golden Temple at
4am and then returned in the evening. And - here's the interesting part
- that ceremony is covered live every day by satellite! So we saw a
tape of today's ceremony. Below is more about it from
incredibleindians.com.
Amrit Vela
Amrit Vela means the
pre-dawn moment. It is actually the time when the watch strikes four
o'clock in the morning. The pilgrims wake up and start preparing for a
serene early morning visit to the Darbar Saheb. After reaching the
temple entrance, one must take off their shoes at the 'shoes counter'.
The next step is to dip one's feet at a channel of running water. On the
way to the temple, there are lined up flower stalls, for one to buy
garlands or just fresh flowers for offering...
We were invited to a Seemantham ceremony Sunday afternoon here in Anchorage.
This was a first for me. A delightful first. But I claim no expertise. I can just show you some pictures and offer some information from some sites I found.
[S]eemantham is a function celebrated in the bridegrooms house by parents of bride ,when their daughter is in her first pregnancy usually
7th month before bringing her to their home for delivery
relatives and friends are invited
ladies put colourful glass bangles on the pregnant ladies hands
bangles are also given to lady guests. [From Desitwist]
There are lots of sites giving different and/or verbatim information. One said eight months and some have lots of details. Some are forums where people are asking for information because they would like to put on such a ceremony.
Our friends' parents were here from Bangalore, India and the mother began and then the sister and then other women guests followed suit.
A Tamil-Brahmin site had a very specific list of things that were needed:
Requirements for pumsavanam and seemantham:
Turmeric powder 50 gram; sandalwood powder 10 gram; kumkumam 10 gram; plantain fruit 25;Betel nut 100 grams; betel leaf 200; plantain leaf 6; thodutha pushpam 5 meters; mango leaf bunch 10; ghee 500 grams; haaram for the Aala mokku 6 nos; couple 2; for brass kudam 1; wheat 2kg; raw rice 2 kg; black gram 300 grams; gingilly seeds 100 grams; vraaty 10 nos; sraai thool 2 kilo; cow's milk
200 milli; scented sticks 1 pocket; camphor 1 pocket; Brass kudam 1;
vasthram for brass kudam 1; Bell 1; aasana palagai or thadukku 8 nos;
visiri 1; kuthu vilakku1; oil for deepam and thiri and match box;
Vasthram for aalamokku paal piliya; pethy leaf bunch 1; panri mul 1;
paady 50 grams well drenched in water a day before; Veena music CD 1;
pancha pathra uthirini 1; elakkai; pachai kalpooram vilamichai root;
krambu; coconut 6 nos; ammi kulavi 1; sambhavanai for the kanya girl who crushed the
aaalamokku; small brass sombu for punyahavachanam;
As you can see from the pictures that some of these things had been gathered.
I caught Mumbai film maker and actress Yuki Ellias at the Opening Gala of the Anchorage International Film Festival. Her film Love You To Death, plays Sunday at Out North at 2:30pm. That's the only showing.
In Thailand it was "Jai yen yen" (ใจเย็นๆ) - keep a cool heart. In Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Eagle River resident and Ohio Wesleyan student, Becky Smith, is being told to "please adjust a little."
She writes in her new blog, Hindustan Hamara (begun May 3, 2011 with three posts now):
Part of Bangalore from the air Nov. 2006
Everything in India takes a few extra steps. After a few days at my service apartment, I finally was informed that I had no hot water because there was a boiler that also needed to be turned on. While I'm used to generally just finding a hotel within my price range, here finding a place to stay involved several days of phone calls (thank God for my friend and his dad who took care of that for me) and negotiations to agree on the rate for a two month stay. And that was all before we decided that air conditioning really was necessary for an Alaskan to live in Bangalore. Which brings us to the first lesson of India: "Solpa adjust maadi." In Kannada, the language predominately spoken in Karnataka, this roughly translates to "Please adjust a little, sir."
Becky's just begun as an intern
at Sanghamitra Rural Financial Services (SRFS), a non-profit microfinance institute aiming to raise clients out of poverty by offering microloans and other financial services. I will also be conducting independent research on the profit structures of microfinance firms and its effect on the social and income impacts it has on its clients.
You can follow Becky's summer internship at her blog. I would note that her proud father is Anchorage's Deputy Police Chief, Steve Smith.
Do you know where Bangalore is in India? How many seconds will it take you to find on the map?
[I just found this sitting here as a draft. I thought I'd posted it Saturday. It's a bit out of date, but here it is.]
Q: There are so many movies, how do you pick which ones to write about?
A: You have to embrace serendipity to enjoy a film festival - make some sort of a plan, but be ready to abandon it as things come up. I remember last year going to the wrong venue and just staying there and getting involved in the best ever Q&A with the film maker. The audience members just had a variety of expertise relevant to the film and the discussion verged on brilliant.
So, why is Calling Karma on my radar? Several accidents of life. I started trying to make a list of all the films in competition in each category, but only made it through the features this year. Calling Karma is on that list.
And India has always fascinated me - it's this huge part of the world physically and in terms of population. It's a place where many languages and religions somehow live together - not always peacefully. It's a place where the past still exists intact almost alongside with the modern. It's the biggest alternative to the modern world still on earth. There's a tag on this blog with lots of posts on India.
India has incredible music. And if all the other food in the world suddenly disappeared, Indian food is so varied and so imaginative and so healthy that after twenty years, few people would miss any of the others - even Thai food. (Blasphemy!) But even more important, people who know the world in a completely non-Western way are still respected in India, and that gives us tools for alternative thinking as our extreme rationality and focus on money reveals itself as an insufficiently balanced way to live.
And India has a huge presence in English language literature. Some of that has been translated to film. A lot of this literature has been expat Indian reflections, and mostly from fairly sophisticated and educated Indians. (I'm getting off on thin ice here as I start speculating beyond what I know. But bear with me and take this as brainstorming because if I do the research necessary to document this line of reasoning, I won't get this posted before Karma Calling plays tonight.) I'm not sure how much of the Indian-American experience has been captured directly to film without being a book first. I can think of one example - the two Harold and Kumar movies. And one of the locations that Harold and Kumar was filmed is Hoboken, New Jersey. And Hoboken is where Karma Calling was filmed.
So, that's how this movie got my attention and why I emailed Sarba Das one of the filmmakers who is now in Anchorage and why I'm going to the 8:30 showing at Out North tonight.
So, here's what Sarba had to say in response to some of my email questions.
When we first came up with the idea to make Karma Calling, no one had ever really heard much about Call Centers and "outsourcing" was a relatively new concept. For us, the journey was personal. Back in 2003, my brother Sarthak and I were actually writing a screenplay about a crazy Indian family living in New Jersey much like our own. One day we were sitting down to write and brainstorm, and the phone rang. It was guy named "Rob" with a very heavy Indian accent on the other end who seemed to be struggling a bit with his English and trying to sell us an increased line of credit. My brother, fluent in several Indian languages immediately chimed in with Hindi. Rob seemed relieved. They chatted for sometime and we soon found out that "Rob" was actually "Rohit" and that he was using an American-friendly name because he was a Call Center Operator--something we'd never heard of before. He told us about all of the techniques that they were learning in the call center from watching Simpsons episodes to learn about American Culture to Accent Neutralization lessons. We were fascinated. Rohit took a liking to us and from there on practically every day we'd sit to write, the phone would ring and he would be calling just to chat, just to find out about our lives in America. After a few weeks of these telephone exchanges, we found his stories to be so hilarious that it dawned on me...why not include a storyline in our screenplay about a Call Center Operator calling the Indians living in New Jersey? And so Karma Calling was born...
She just got to Anchorage early yesterday morning - some preliminary reactions:
I have never set foot in Alaska before and I feel so fortunate to be here now with the film. The natural beauty is just awe-inspiring and I'm so impressed with the fervent love of independent filmmaking that seems to have taken hold in this community. Grassroots film festivals like the Anchorage International Film Festival are what allows indie filmmakers like myself to share our work with audiences that we'd never dream to have access to otherwise. It's really an honor to be a part of the festivities.
Is this a great film? Probably not. It might not even be good. But this is a film festival and at the very least, you'll get a glimpse of a couple people's take on the Indian-American experience.
There's a reason Maddy's Ramblings is in my interesting blogs list. He's always writing interesting posts on some topic or another, often linked to Kerala, India. Here's a kernel from his most recent post on cashew fruit.
The book The world cashew industry – an Indian perspective,’ authored by J. Rajmohan Pillai and P. Shanta, unravels the stories of ‘the poor man’s crop and the rich man’s food. “Not many of us know that Keralite’s are the pioneers of the cashew industry in the country. It is believed that cashew was first discovered by the Portuguese travelers in Eastern Brazil. Brazilians devoured the fruit but discarded the nuts. It was again the Portuguese who brought cashew to Goa and planted it along the coast to check sea erosion. The country saw processing and trading of cashew kernels take off in Kollam, Mangalore and Vettapalem in Andhra Pradesh during the 1920s,” says Mr. Pillai.
And since we're talking about India, we had dinner at Hurry Curry last night. We've had take out from there, and last time realized they also have a dining room. It's fast, good, inexpensive, but not at all elegant. And the health inspector isn't, apparently, as enamored as we are. It's also close to my mom's place.
OK, so I was experimenting. Not all experiments work. But, I'll leave it so that when I actually do ones that work, you'll realize that not all do.
Time to get a little perspective on our internal Alaska problems. This Foreign Affairs article by Nicholas Schmidle was emailed to me by a Pakistani friend, so I assume he's saying to me, "this guy gets it reasonably well." Here's the opening:
After eight years of a White House that often seemed blinkered by the threats posed by Pakistan, the Obama administration seems to grasp the severity of the myriad crises affecting the South Asian state. The media has followed suit and increased its presence and reporting, a trend confirmed by CNN’s decision to set up a bureau in Islamabad last year.
And yet, the uptick in coverage hasn’t necessarily clarified the who’s-doing-what-to-whom confusion in Pakistan. Some commentators continue to confuse the tribal areas with the North-West Frontier Province. And the word lashkars is used to describe all kinds of otherwise cross-purposed groups, some fighting the Taliban, some fighting India, and some fighting Shiites.
I admit, it’s not easy. I lived in Pakistan throughout all of 2006 and 2007 and only came to understand, say, the tribal breakdown in South Waziristan during my final days. So to save you the trouble of having to live in Pakistan for two years to differentiate between the Wazirs and the Mehsuds, the Frontier Corps and the Rangers, I’ve written an “idiot’s guide” that will hopefully clear some things up.
1. The Troubled Tribals Bring up the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at a Washington cocktail party and you’re sure to impress. Tick off the name of a Taliban leader or two and make a reference to North Waziristan, and you might be on your way to a lucrative lecture tour. The problem, of course, is that no one knows if you’ll be speaking the truth or not. A map of the border region is crammed with the names of agencies, provinces, frontier regions, and districts, which are sometimes flip-flopped and misused. With only an unselfish interest in making you more-impressive cocktail party material (and thus, getting you booked with a lecture agent during these economic hard times), I want to straighten some things out.
To answer the title question you'll have to read the rest at the Foreign Policy link.
He does have more confidence in his ability to understand than I have in mine.
"I lived in Pakistan throughout all of 2006 and 2007 and only came to understand, say, the tribal breakdown in South Waziristan during my final days."
I always find that the more I learn about something, the more I find out how much there is that I still have no clue about. But he certainly knows a lot of details that most of us don't. And the Afghan-Pakistani border is only going to become more and more important in the next couple of years.
"My fellow purrtiots,
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". . . With so much of the country destroyed, what will the future look like? People close their eyes, and they wonder: is it even possible to imagine such a thing?
". . . Nein is not no. Nein is not yes. Nein is nein," he explains. The slim manifesto is divided into digestible, tweet-length aphorisms (each on its own page) with a hashtag for a title. "#TechRevolution/ Turn on./ Log in./ Unsubscribe./ Log out." Jarosinski also includes a hilarious glossary of Nein-ish words and phrases. Performance art, for instance, is defined as "six doppelgangers in search of a selfie." Technology particularly draws his ire. He calls Instagram a "marketplace in which pictures of your cat are exchanged for a thousand unspoken words of derision." There are gems on nearly every page. The book might seem tongue-in-cheek, but Jarosinski's cynical aphorisms about philosophy, art, language, and literature hold plenty of truth. . . "
