Living in China, I’ve had some encounters with other American’s over here to “teach English” who are in fact protestant Christians who feel they must convert, “save”, these lowly Chinese savages and inject bible-speak into every conversation they can. This despite the fact that Confucious, who is 500 years older than the “Christ child”, has had a more lasting effect upon the morality of China than the impact Holy J seems to have had upon the west. The wars, rape and murder keep on and on, but some just won’t shut about him. Unfortunately, many of these boring-ass myths are new to the Chinese students and they indulge the coersation, not to mention they’ll do most “anything to practice English”. I was hoping to vent some of this angst enjoying a film with this name, but the story has almost nothing to do with the title. A better title would have been Gynocide, which is seen written on a notebook at one point during the film. Note the feminist symbol for the T in the poster…

The prologue of this film is straight beautiful, even if a bit heavy handed. There are glimpses of the blunt carnality to come. But the film is more of a psychological thriller/ghost story than apocryphal. Charolette Gainsbourg steels the show from Defoe, but they both have rather solid performances. I wouldn’t have minded seeing her go off even more when it gets to that bit. I didn’t think the violence was as hardcore as some, or as realistic. A man would not carry on so after receiving such wounds. It’s got the fucking and genital mutilation you may have heard about, but not to such great effect. I’m not sure about Von Trier’s overall message in this film – is sort of wreaks of misogynistic paranoia. And you know it’s bad if I’m saying such a thing…. But it’s creepy like you want a scary movie to be creepy. I also give props for making a “small”, non-blockbuster film, and tasteful use of CG for a pleasant change.

In the midst of moving to and adjusting within the lifestyle of China, I haven’t had a chance before now to give proper memorial for an old friend who recently past. Thom was a totally swell guy I hung with quite a bit in the late 80’s/early 90’s.

In high school, I had a friend who’s Mom moved to Canada for several months leaving his older sister in charge. No surprise, this became a party house of sorts, during what we now refer to as “Salad Days”(I believe taken from the Minor Threat song). It was in this era that I first met Thom. He was a year older and went to another high school, but we had similar musical and cultural tastes. In fact we collaborated on a zine called Soma, which I think only ever achieved two issues, and who knows if I even have one buried in my files any longer. But he went on to become program director for my favorite ATL radio station, GA tech’s WREK, where they have a podcast and memorial in the works. I last ran into he and his wife in the winter of 2006(07?) and was pleased to realize he seemed the “same old Thom”. He died in a hiking accident in the Grand Canyon, and while this is obviously horrible, to happen while he was so young, I take comfort in the fact he was spared some more painful fate in possibly not as beautiful a setting. Knowing we all have to go some time, may I say I hope for a similar passage. I wish all the best to his surviving wife and family, and know that all who knew him will always think fondly of him. He was that open and friendly type, without enemies or spite, while still striving hard against a mundane system that deserves to be shaken up-

Missed out on an obit. last Friday, and this one is a little different as I actually once “met” and interacted with him. He read on the UGA campus in what I’ll guess was ‘95, but I can’t reference a month right now. Some friends and I owned a bookstore in Athens at the time and when I walked up to him after the reading, maybe I was being a bit “glory”, but I couldn’t help but throw out the idea that, had he time, it might be cool if he came by. My intention was truly just for him to see and enjoy the place, as it was a bookstore like no other, I wasn’t trying to cash in on some “celebrity appearance”.

But how exactly to spontaneously pitch this?
I guess he wasn’t too impressed, for his response came, and I’ll never forget,
“You have a bookstoaahh?” like a junkie Elmer Fudd doing an impersonation of a New Yorker.

And then quickly some student union handler whisked him away with a promised carrot juice. Surely he was tired after the reading, surely wackballs approached him constantly, and as the sage N. Peart reminds us “one must put up barriers to keep oneself in tact.” I’m not bitter or anything, that’s just my little Jim Carroll story. He came of age in a great city at a unique time in it’s history and wrote some great stuff. I first saw this photo on the inner sleeve of J. Giorno’s compilation “Your a hook”.

J Carroll and P Smith in 1969. photo by Wren D’Antonio

I’m not a visual artist, but have gotten interested in graffiti in recent years. Watching this docInfamy just now, I realized there is something for the voyeur too. And I’m not talking about the thousands of lame pieces you’re gonna see day in day out, but something really weird in a cool place, (for me I guess seeing Botch in the abandoned prison in ATL), then seeing other works by the artist. Touching a bit of the obsession. But for all of the lame ego tricking that goes on with the game, there is genuine curiosity in the mix sometimes.

Like it wouldn’t really change anything to meet the people doing these things, but it would be cool anyway.

This film has gotten much hype and acclaim, all of it deserved. It stands now as a further memorial to the demolished towers, and a beautiful quixotic event in another bleak economic period. I also think it’s really interesting that there was another toll or cost from the event, in terms of the lost friendships and love, which are honestly discussed. A must see! I’ll probably read Philipe’s pick pocket book at some point as well.

When I was traveling around Northern Italy in the Spring of 2004, I kept seeing a book by this American con. Thus began my introduction to Edward Bunker. I read a few of his books soon after, including The Animal Factory. I knew Steve Buscemi made a film version in 2000, but I only recently got around to seeing it. Why this film, with Willem Dafoe and Edward Furlong, wasn’t better received I can only count to the prison subject matter. But I thought it was really well done, including a soundtrack from the enigmatic John Lurie. One IMDB review I saw complained of the plot being “unbelievable”, but it’s completely true to the novel…I think the real complaint was Furlong was too good looking to not get punked, but whatever.

photo Simon Sellers

Here’s one resource page, and goodreads. A heavy hitter of 20th century outre fiction! Two other BBC articles on JGB references in music and as a Seer of the Atomic Age.

Finally found a great Ballardarian animated tribute. I’ll be doing more research on this filmmaker!

So I had a brief orientation with the IRC center in Atlanta and my first day of teacher assisting with classes. The main refugee groups coming into Atlanta right now are from Iraq, Bhutan, and Burma. The main surprise for me was Bhutan, which I had a rather naive impression of (still do): Buddhist kingdom, Shangri-La, where the national moto is “gross national happiness”, as idealized in the awesome film Travelers and Magicians… well, not if your family are Hindu and fled Nepal, possibly generations ago – you must go elsewhere.
That’s one thing you must wrap your head around right away – many Americans think of refugee as someone who had to flee an area where there was a natural disaster, or war broke out, and tend not to think in terms of how long the waiting might go on after that. There are many multi-generational families living in camps around the world. Your father was born in the camp, same as you, and your grandfather died in his 40’s, as the camp lifestyle tends to dramatically reduce lifespan. All you have ever known are this dirt field and these tents, and waiting, stuck in a country that doesn’t accept you as it’s own, even though you were born here. You are destined to become for your host part of the “houseguest from hell” syndrome (a situation I’ve imposed on others myself, for much shorter periods) and would love to move on, if only there were somewhere else to go, and some means of doing it. A lucky few are finally picked and arrive in America, their first impressions: the east side of ATL. Now down to the business of finding a job, at an especially bad time, finally getting a chance at “doing your thing” and “making it”, as well as learning the language, which is where I come in.
Walking with a mix of tiny folks in brightly colored clothes, some with infants swaddled to their backs, with thrift store tennis shoes which worked perfectly into their ersatz fashion, from the MARTA station through the remains of a freak snow, I could almost imagine our trek was in a far more exotic location than the lamer side of sidewalkless Memorial Drive.
I met the main teacher and the “beginners” class started. He did the review from last week and presented the new vocab, going over it for a while, mostly concerning shopping. Utilitarian, functional English ASAP is the focus. “Classroom discipline” is sort of out the window, as cell phones go off with ringtones you’ve never heard but now want, people make doctors appointments in various languages, scragglers come in as much as an hour late, the enthusiastic chorus of peers recites what they can, while older possibly pre-literate folks in the mix stare blankly. When they broke up into groups and the teacher asked me who I wanted to work with, I went for some total beginners, eager to repeat anything I said, but having difficulty beyond that. By the end of 20 minutes I had them answering some questions correctly, but our little shopping skit wasn’t going so well. It didn’t help that I’d had a scattered-ass digression to try and explain the difference between a rebate and a coupon – not level appropriate. But my encouragement was eliciting more response attempts as we went, except for the one older Burmese guy, who I could only get to switch from an expression of confusion to a smile, but I was relieved when I found out this was only the first day of the two dozen vocab words they’ll run all week.
Then came a more advanced class. I guess I made a good impression, because the teacher asked if I was comfortable running the show, while he broke some of the better speakers away into another room to work on job interviews. Sure: trial by fire. The remaining class was much smaller, now mostly Latin, including a husband and wife, their son and daughter in their 20’s, and the daughter’s son, about eight I guess, from Columbia; another 20ish guy from Columbia who literally got here 4 days ago; another guy and his daughter I thought also might be part of the extended family but I later learned where Cuban; and one poor Bhutanese woman who had to remind me to not digress into my pathetic Spanish, as I was trying to soak linguistically from them as well. Jobs I’m hoping to get will most likely take me south in the near future.
We were rolling along nicely, the family dynamic hilarious, the daughter and mom chiding me not to worry about Jorge, the patriarch, “who was slow”; but he wasn’t, giving excellent effort as I attempted to explain the difference between “above” and “on”, when “under”, “bellow”, and “beneath” might be interchangeable, and when they weren’t. Then, when the other teacher came in for a moment, Jorge busts my balls by taking 3 minutes to get out what amounted to a complaint that I was too fast, not as good a teacher as he. But the main teacher backed me up instantly by turning it around on him and insisting he must tell me, working on expressing this sentiment in an intelligible English sentence. After all I had been checking frequently, or trying to, to see if they were with me, getting mostly nods and stares, as the kids came and went for snacks, I let the others explain for the late comers in Spanish, and tried to keep plodding forward, not realizing I was probably saying,
“OKisthatclear? Shouldwegooverthisagain? Oninaboveanddontforgettheoppositeisbelow, sameasbeneathe,OKOKcomprende, OKnext?”. The time flew by, and they were gracious by the end, hopefully my “mastery” of English disguising I was as green to all of this as they.
I did get an email from the volunteer coordinator saying she’d never see some one jump in the first day to that extent before. After all, someone else had done the lesson plan, I was simply handed a ditto and “go”. But I figure it’s like chess and you’ll learn the most by repeated ass-kickings, trying to understand and retain what does and doesn’t work as you go.
On the ride home, I was suddenly getting into BSG conversations with strangers, trying to help an unintelligible black chap make his way from the #12 to the K&G on industrial Chattahoochee. Generally, more – open. I’m not getting all touchy-feely/bleeding heart on you: I’m the same self-centered, decadent prick I’ve always been. I’m just saying, trying to help people feels good, whether they are fully getting it or not.