Today's review: the state of early education in Texas. No really. I know I don't usually post about such things in the "real world," but I'm a rule breaker if nothing else. Well, that's not true either... but moving on!
So, early education in Texas: what's my stake in this? I'm not a parent, a teacher, a pre-K student, an administrator, or a lobbyist. Hell, I've been known to say I don't even like kids (which is changing, I'll admit). However, I did get a good education (that started with pre-K) myself. A really good one (thanks mom and dad...). Good enough to be able to recognize that 1) The way our country works, good schooling gives you a massive leg up for doing well in life. Not a guarantee, but an advantage. 2) Kind of on the other side of that, education, poverty, and crime are so inextricably interconnected that to make changes in one area will affect the others. Not that a good education makes you a rich or a law abiding person. But there's an unmistakable relationship between those three things. 3) Looking at 1 and 2 together, we (as Americans, Texans, member of the human race, whatever) should be focusing way WAY more attention on improving our education system. Because as it stands, it kind of sucks.
If you want to get into specifics, private education is actually doing OK, I'd say. Public schools in wealthy areas are probably also doing pretty well. But with poorer districts, the situation may be a little more... wavering. Some things have been done to address this, like voucher programs (sigh...), but actually changing the system so that ALL public schooling is quality- that's what needs to happen. Access to a good education for everyone.
But how to pull off such a massive overhaul? For a start, go to the start of the education system itself. What can be done to improve pre-K? What can be done to make sure that that glorious, everyone's-invited access is achieved?
The 81st session of the TX legislature is going on right now, and there are several bills that address these things, the front runners being HB 130 and its counterpart SB 21. If enacted, these bills would do a couple of totally sweet things: expand access to quality preK for districts that want it by way of government funding AND increased community involvement. Also, they would improve the quality of existing pre-K by, for example, lowering student to teacher ratios, increasing training hours for educators and administrators. For way way WAY more detail on these pieces of legislation and the early education movement in Texas in general, check this out (and also have a glance around bloggersunite.org, which is, and I don't use this phrase lightly, a wicked cool website.)
I've read some bloggery where other Texans out there have responded to this bill, and a major point of contention is as follows: more government support of pre-K means more government involvement, less parental responsibility, and wasted tax payer dollars on glorified day care. Some people have informed, intelligent reservations that come from this point of view; others are, I'm sorry, idiots. To the former (I'm not going to argue with someone who still slings around the "commie" as an insult), I offer this study. It confirms the ongoing benefit of HIGH QUALITY pre-k, and it shows a positive cost-benefit analysis of investing in high quality pre-k: an equivalent of $3.50 returned for every $1 spent. And that's a conservative estimate! Point is, even from a libertarian point of view, investing in early education will actually result in LESS government as well-educated and prepared children grow up and exert less pressure on government programs and resources. We should be able to see the big picture in a state that claims 'everything's bigger here', right?
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Chabon and on and on: a review of Gentlemen of the Road
I read Michael Chabon's totally awesome mega-novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay a couple years ago, and since then, I'd been meaning to pick up some more of his work. As usual, it was only several months ago that I bought one of his more recent novels, Gentlemen of the Road (2007), and as usual, it took a few more months before I settled into reading it. And AS USUAL, it took no time at all to blow through. What's totally out of the ordinary about today, though, is that I'm getting to the review mere HOURS after finishing the book. Like 12, I'm not even kidding.
Gentlemen is, before all else, an adventure story. It follows two long-time traveling companions (gentlemen of the road, you might call them) in tenth century AD Europe as they tumble in and out of situations of varying degrees of stickiness, from getting caught in a gambling swindle at a road-side inn to ushering revolution into Khazaria, the area of Europe and the Middle East now roughly corresponding to Turkey. In keeping with certain adventure story tropes, the companions are opposites in many respects, but they complement each other and come together at crucial junctures. Amram is an Abyssinian; dark and built like a tank; unexpectedly tender-hearted; fearsome with his ax (which is pretty awesomely named Defiler of All Mothers); handy on the shatranj board. Zelikman is a Frank; skinny and blond (I imagined a resemblence to Tom Petty); brooding and solitary; nimble with a sword; handy as a surgeon. Both are impressively multi-lingual; sarcastic and quick with a come back; of a tragic past; absolutely, if at times begrudgingly, committed to the other; of questionable or at the very least, unpredictable morals, but ultimately good; Jewish. As they scheme and improvise their way across South-Eastern Europe, they encounter and unwittingly join up with the Arabic Hanukkah and the Khazarian Filaq, also- despite another range of binary oppositions- Jewish and suffering from the loss of loved ones. The main adventure in the novel becomes the rag-tag group's effort to establish Filaq in his rightful place as the ruler of Khazaria, taken over by the usurper Beljan.
Just looking at the cast characters, one might guess that a lot of themes and issues for analysis may emerge from this novel, primarily, Jewishness. Some reviewers have criticized Chabon for NOT developing this aspect of the book, but I would argue that Gentlemen contains other thematic Easter eggs (if I may use such a gentile term) which invite further thought. For example, the relationships the characters have with animals- particularly horses and elephants- plays a major part in foregrounding the historical setting, moving the plot, and fleshing out characters. While I only scanned a google search-ful of reviews, the absence of a mention of animals in other critics' write-ups of this novel surprised me. A second element that really caught my attention concerned language and communication: the over coming of language barriers, communicating with animals through language or body signals, life in a multi-lingual world, 'reading' non-verbal texts like the earth and people, writing on objects, it goes on. Chabon heavily incorporates the details of the communicative process into Gentlemen, not only by way of the plot, but also in comparisons (of which there are a glorious many) and figurative language. Maybe it's because I've been reading up on metafiction lately, and I'm seeing connections that weren't intentional, but I think the theme of communication and in particular, language, runs as a huge, if subtle, undercurrent of this novel.
And speaking of language, the literary quality of Gentlemen is pretty fantastic. The way Chabon paces his narrative with his sentences surprised me with its efficacy. Usually, I'm against overly wordy sentences that harbor meticulously detailed descriptions or roving comparisons, or that bring the reader all over time or space before getting to the point and might require a couple of readings to keep track of all the clauses, but I actually enjoyed them here. Maybe it's just where I am in my own experience as a reader; maybe this would be a good time to try and get into Faulkner, I don't know. In any case, Chabon's sentences, similes, and descriptions here are as meandering, whimsical, at times violent, but generally good-hearted, and enjoyable as his protagonists and their story. I will admit, I did some underlining.
In a nutshell, here's what Gentlemen isn't: Kavalier and Klay, life-altering, heavy. Here's what it is: an adventure tale, a fun read, literary, swash-buckling.
Gentlemen is, before all else, an adventure story. It follows two long-time traveling companions (gentlemen of the road, you might call them) in tenth century AD Europe as they tumble in and out of situations of varying degrees of stickiness, from getting caught in a gambling swindle at a road-side inn to ushering revolution into Khazaria, the area of Europe and the Middle East now roughly corresponding to Turkey. In keeping with certain adventure story tropes, the companions are opposites in many respects, but they complement each other and come together at crucial junctures. Amram is an Abyssinian; dark and built like a tank; unexpectedly tender-hearted; fearsome with his ax (which is pretty awesomely named Defiler of All Mothers); handy on the shatranj board. Zelikman is a Frank; skinny and blond (I imagined a resemblence to Tom Petty); brooding and solitary; nimble with a sword; handy as a surgeon. Both are impressively multi-lingual; sarcastic and quick with a come back; of a tragic past; absolutely, if at times begrudgingly, committed to the other; of questionable or at the very least, unpredictable morals, but ultimately good; Jewish. As they scheme and improvise their way across South-Eastern Europe, they encounter and unwittingly join up with the Arabic Hanukkah and the Khazarian Filaq, also- despite another range of binary oppositions- Jewish and suffering from the loss of loved ones. The main adventure in the novel becomes the rag-tag group's effort to establish Filaq in his rightful place as the ruler of Khazaria, taken over by the usurper Beljan.
Just looking at the cast characters, one might guess that a lot of themes and issues for analysis may emerge from this novel, primarily, Jewishness. Some reviewers have criticized Chabon for NOT developing this aspect of the book, but I would argue that Gentlemen contains other thematic Easter eggs (if I may use such a gentile term) which invite further thought. For example, the relationships the characters have with animals- particularly horses and elephants- plays a major part in foregrounding the historical setting, moving the plot, and fleshing out characters. While I only scanned a google search-ful of reviews, the absence of a mention of animals in other critics' write-ups of this novel surprised me. A second element that really caught my attention concerned language and communication: the over coming of language barriers, communicating with animals through language or body signals, life in a multi-lingual world, 'reading' non-verbal texts like the earth and people, writing on objects, it goes on. Chabon heavily incorporates the details of the communicative process into Gentlemen, not only by way of the plot, but also in comparisons (of which there are a glorious many) and figurative language. Maybe it's because I've been reading up on metafiction lately, and I'm seeing connections that weren't intentional, but I think the theme of communication and in particular, language, runs as a huge, if subtle, undercurrent of this novel.
And speaking of language, the literary quality of Gentlemen is pretty fantastic. The way Chabon paces his narrative with his sentences surprised me with its efficacy. Usually, I'm against overly wordy sentences that harbor meticulously detailed descriptions or roving comparisons, or that bring the reader all over time or space before getting to the point and might require a couple of readings to keep track of all the clauses, but I actually enjoyed them here. Maybe it's just where I am in my own experience as a reader; maybe this would be a good time to try and get into Faulkner, I don't know. In any case, Chabon's sentences, similes, and descriptions here are as meandering, whimsical, at times violent, but generally good-hearted, and enjoyable as his protagonists and their story. I will admit, I did some underlining.
In a nutshell, here's what Gentlemen isn't: Kavalier and Klay, life-altering, heavy. Here's what it is: an adventure tale, a fun read, literary, swash-buckling.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Bend it like Bendis: a review of "Total Sellout"
So I've inadvertently taken a break from posting. As seems to be the case with any good habit, it's a lot harder to keep up than a bad habit [she paused, listening to the rain drone against her window and watching the smoke from her cigarette curl into nothing against the tinged gray of her laptop screen], like smoking or narrating one's everyday life in the style of melodramatic detective noir.
Speaking of which, last night, I finished (finally) Brian Michael Bendis' Total Sell Out. Now I knew as soon as I picked up this collection of etc. work from a sale rack (what was it doing there?!) in Olympia that I was going to love it. How could I not? I've been a fan of the guy since his Daredevil run, and if you haven't read Alias yet, o my god, go pick it up. Right now! Bendis' ear (and eye) for dialogue is consistently good and often hilarious, and his use of the comics medium to tell a story fills the formalist's heart with glee.
But enough preamble, let's get down the book itself, shall we? Total Sell Out is a mish mash of "a lot of autobiographical pieces, a lot of smaller crime fiction pieces, and a lot of schticky nonsense." Bendis himself assumes a cartoon form and guides us through the whole thing, always with a quip and fantastically expressive slash eyebrows. The first section includes a smattering of these autobiographical stories. He uses a variety of styles, from cartoon and caricature to the photorealistic snapshot look that the Bendis fan will recognize immediately from his crime comics. He follows with another similarly multi-styled section of OTHER people's stories. Most of these little bits of daily life and observation got a chortle out of me, if not a prolonged guffaw, although one or two were gut-wrenchingly sad. Next up, "Schtick" includes a handful of Bendis' favorite editorial cartoons, along the same lines of the previous sections in their range of visual styles and conversational or observational humor. "The Collaborations and other stuff" rounds out the narratives, featuring short pieces authored by the likes of Warren Ellis. Bendis punctuates his collection with several pages that fall under the category "portfolio" and a few essays that served as introductions to various graphic novels and trades. I.e. lots of goodies for the patient reader.
If I haven't already made it abundantly clear, Total Sell Out is good for a laugh, a couple actually, but that's not the only reason it's a worth while read. For comics aficionados, Bendis tells some amazing stories from his life in the industry, featuring escapades with David Mack (drool) and a blood feud with late Poison Elves creator Drew Hayes. He gives a bit of an 'in' to his creative process (or the obstacles to it) with the rather magnificent wordless strip "Borderlands." For comics theoreticians (not mutually exclusively from the above mentioned fan boys and girls), his experiments with the comics form offer a truly inspiring glimpse at what the medium can do for a narrative. And they give the uninitiated a peak into Bendis' oeuvre in general. I'm just going to go ahead and say that again. Ooooeuvre.
And that wraps it up for this installment! Give this volume a go for some insight, entertainment, and if nothing else, to show our dear Mr. Bendis he is loved. Hair or no.
Speaking of which, last night, I finished (finally) Brian Michael Bendis' Total Sell Out. Now I knew as soon as I picked up this collection of etc. work from a sale rack (what was it doing there?!) in Olympia that I was going to love it. How could I not? I've been a fan of the guy since his Daredevil run, and if you haven't read Alias yet, o my god, go pick it up. Right now! Bendis' ear (and eye) for dialogue is consistently good and often hilarious, and his use of the comics medium to tell a story fills the formalist's heart with glee.
But enough preamble, let's get down the book itself, shall we? Total Sell Out is a mish mash of "a lot of autobiographical pieces, a lot of smaller crime fiction pieces, and a lot of schticky nonsense." Bendis himself assumes a cartoon form and guides us through the whole thing, always with a quip and fantastically expressive slash eyebrows. The first section includes a smattering of these autobiographical stories. He uses a variety of styles, from cartoon and caricature to the photorealistic snapshot look that the Bendis fan will recognize immediately from his crime comics. He follows with another similarly multi-styled section of OTHER people's stories. Most of these little bits of daily life and observation got a chortle out of me, if not a prolonged guffaw, although one or two were gut-wrenchingly sad. Next up, "Schtick" includes a handful of Bendis' favorite editorial cartoons, along the same lines of the previous sections in their range of visual styles and conversational or observational humor. "The Collaborations and other stuff" rounds out the narratives, featuring short pieces authored by the likes of Warren Ellis. Bendis punctuates his collection with several pages that fall under the category "portfolio" and a few essays that served as introductions to various graphic novels and trades. I.e. lots of goodies for the patient reader.
If I haven't already made it abundantly clear, Total Sell Out is good for a laugh, a couple actually, but that's not the only reason it's a worth while read. For comics aficionados, Bendis tells some amazing stories from his life in the industry, featuring escapades with David Mack (drool) and a blood feud with late Poison Elves creator Drew Hayes. He gives a bit of an 'in' to his creative process (or the obstacles to it) with the rather magnificent wordless strip "Borderlands." For comics theoreticians (not mutually exclusively from the above mentioned fan boys and girls), his experiments with the comics form offer a truly inspiring glimpse at what the medium can do for a narrative. And they give the uninitiated a peak into Bendis' oeuvre in general. I'm just going to go ahead and say that again. Ooooeuvre.
And that wraps it up for this installment! Give this volume a go for some insight, entertainment, and if nothing else, to show our dear Mr. Bendis he is loved. Hair or no.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Scott Pilgrim versus my inability to say anything bad about Scott Pilgrim
Just a shorty short today, my adoring public.
The highly anticipated fifth volume of Bryan Lee O'Malley's unclassifiable and awesome Scott Pilgrim series- Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe- came out a week or so ago. I bought it on a whimsical and unplanned trip to the comic store even before I had started my re-reading the previous four volumes master plan. I wasn't worried though, because each book in the series is so enjoyable it takes roughly pi seconds to blow through. I was able to muster the patience to make it through those four, which was no small feat. Not only was I clawing to get some new Scott Pilgrim action, the cover of Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe is shiny. Gold and shiny!
To re-cap, the premise of the series is fairly simple: boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy has to fight and defeat girl's seven evil exes before they can officially be together. Then there's the glorious cast of side characters, many of whom you probably know/ are. Subspace highways, dastardly robots, unexplainable glowing heads, and musical battles to the death round out the series' refusal to be placed into a genre. Even a heavily hyphenated one. Ok, MAYBE a heavily hyphenated one. AND, O'Malley's incorporation of pop culture into his story is legendary; from band t-shirts to character stats to the manga-reminiscent visual style, you can't escape contemporary nerd culture here. And it's awesome.
So anyway, what can I say about the latest ish? O'Malley is still up on his game, and the fifth installment of Scott's tangles with love, life, and rocking gets two eight-bit thumbs way up. Scott and Ramona's relationship takes a rather serious turn and there's a bit of people coming-and-going, which adds to the slightly somber-er tone of the story. Still, there's plenty of silliness and snidely sarcasm to go around, and Kim Pine (my favorite!) gets lots of screen time... panel time? While I wouldn't say it's my favorite, I did have to fend off a wave of forlorn nausea when I reached the last page.
Random fact: for the Scott Pilgrim movie (please god, let them pull this off without ruining it), evil ex Roxie will be played by Mae Whitman, the very Mae Whitman who lends her voice to Katara on Avatar: the Last Airbender. There are not enough exclamation points in all of existance to express the blowness of my mind upon learning this.
The highly anticipated fifth volume of Bryan Lee O'Malley's unclassifiable and awesome Scott Pilgrim series- Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe- came out a week or so ago. I bought it on a whimsical and unplanned trip to the comic store even before I had started my re-reading the previous four volumes master plan. I wasn't worried though, because each book in the series is so enjoyable it takes roughly pi seconds to blow through. I was able to muster the patience to make it through those four, which was no small feat. Not only was I clawing to get some new Scott Pilgrim action, the cover of Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe is shiny. Gold and shiny!
To re-cap, the premise of the series is fairly simple: boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy has to fight and defeat girl's seven evil exes before they can officially be together. Then there's the glorious cast of side characters, many of whom you probably know/ are. Subspace highways, dastardly robots, unexplainable glowing heads, and musical battles to the death round out the series' refusal to be placed into a genre. Even a heavily hyphenated one. Ok, MAYBE a heavily hyphenated one. AND, O'Malley's incorporation of pop culture into his story is legendary; from band t-shirts to character stats to the manga-reminiscent visual style, you can't escape contemporary nerd culture here. And it's awesome.
So anyway, what can I say about the latest ish? O'Malley is still up on his game, and the fifth installment of Scott's tangles with love, life, and rocking gets two eight-bit thumbs way up. Scott and Ramona's relationship takes a rather serious turn and there's a bit of people coming-and-going, which adds to the slightly somber-er tone of the story. Still, there's plenty of silliness and snidely sarcasm to go around, and Kim Pine (my favorite!) gets lots of screen time... panel time? While I wouldn't say it's my favorite, I did have to fend off a wave of forlorn nausea when I reached the last page.
Random fact: for the Scott Pilgrim movie (please god, let them pull this off without ruining it), evil ex Roxie will be played by Mae Whitman, the very Mae Whitman who lends her voice to Katara on Avatar: the Last Airbender. There are not enough exclamation points in all of existance to express the blowness of my mind upon learning this.
Friday, January 30, 2009
A double take for Gene Yang's American Born Chinese
When Gene Yang's American Born Chinese came out in 2006, critics and readers received pretty it favorably; since then, I've seen it on many a 'must read' list of graphic novels, contemporary biography, graphic novel biography, and so on with the composite subgenres/ media. When I found myself wandering my local comic shop after pay day, I finally picked up a copy. On the back cover, Derek Kirk Kim, a friend and colleague of the author, was quoted "As an Asian American, American Born Chinese is the book I've been waiting for all my life." Now I'm not Asian, but with a statement like that, I felt quite secure that I had picked a winner.
I read the book a couple nights ago and it breaks down about like this: Yang tells three stories, alternating between them with each new chapter. In the first, he relays a folk tale of a monkey king who strives to be human, and he includes lots of other archetypal myth/ legend type themes and figures. And kung fu (whoooa.) In the second, the reader follows an Asian-American boy, Jin (a.k.a. probably the author), through his adventures and mishaps in third and fourth grade with his best friend Wei-Chen. The third story recalls a TV sitcom (laugh track and all) in which an all-American high-schooler, Danny, is visited and inadvertently terrorized by his inexplicably Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee, himself a grab bag of Asian stereotypes.
When I finished the book, I can't lie, I was a little disappointed. Not that it wasn't a diverting read, I did blow through the whole thing in one sitting. And there were parts that made me laugh, others that made me cringe with that wonderful mix of sympathy for the marginalized characters and guilt for being a white devil myself. But that's a whole blog in itself. My point is I definitely engaged with the book, just not as much I thought I would. I'd had all these expectations, not just from the anonymous background murmur of criticism, but from Derek Kirk Kim. Derek! This book was not as life-altering as you led me to believe. I noticed on the ever-provident facebook that I wasn't alone in my disillusionment. But as I scanned the reviews on the living social visual bookshelf app, I found that I had qualms with the comments people left. Could be I'm just antagonistic. Or maybe what I (and others) failed to realize is that the real brilliance of the book doesn't come across without some thought and analysis after closing the back cover. English major to the rescue!
One example of Yang's story-telling innovation lies in the fact that he doesn't weave his three narratives together, as one might expect from a multiple narrative text. Rather, at the last minute, he pulls the proverbial curtain aside so the reader finds that the Monkey King, Jin, Wei-Chen, Danny, and Chin-Kee are sort of all the same character or at least related in unexpected ways. And not in a metaphorical, character foil sense; literally, Yang draws one character morphing into another. Or pulling off his head to reveal his true identity. And, good heavens, that's what this whole yarn is supposed to address in the first place. Identity I mean, not self-decapitation.
The moment all three stories come together marks another pretty awesome element of American Born Chinese that didn't dawn on me until after I'd set it down: the mythical folk tale, the personal history, and the caricature collide, and any sense of realism/ continuity within each story goes right out the window. When one of the mythic characters shows himself to be one of the main characters from the present, who was an analog for ANOTHER character all along, the divisions the reader had developed between those parts of the book are just obliterated. There's this serious rupture, but the story goes on, accepting everything that's happened as it ends. As I've studied biography (just a bit), especially of the graphic variety, I've found that writers and artists do some really amazing things with blurring and/ or exposing the lines between the factual things that happened to them over the course of their lives and the internal feelings and memories that accompany those experiences. In these terms, just wow- Yang has integrated not just personal history and memory/ internal experience, but CULTURAL history and experience into one biography. Now I'm no expert on the biographical genre (if genre is the right word), but I've never seen this particular mish-mash narrative technique pulled off quite the way Yang does it. It's brilliant. Ok Derek Kirk Kim, you've got me there.
I read the book a couple nights ago and it breaks down about like this: Yang tells three stories, alternating between them with each new chapter. In the first, he relays a folk tale of a monkey king who strives to be human, and he includes lots of other archetypal myth/ legend type themes and figures. And kung fu (whoooa.) In the second, the reader follows an Asian-American boy, Jin (a.k.a. probably the author), through his adventures and mishaps in third and fourth grade with his best friend Wei-Chen. The third story recalls a TV sitcom (laugh track and all) in which an all-American high-schooler, Danny, is visited and inadvertently terrorized by his inexplicably Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee, himself a grab bag of Asian stereotypes.
When I finished the book, I can't lie, I was a little disappointed. Not that it wasn't a diverting read, I did blow through the whole thing in one sitting. And there were parts that made me laugh, others that made me cringe with that wonderful mix of sympathy for the marginalized characters and guilt for being a white devil myself. But that's a whole blog in itself. My point is I definitely engaged with the book, just not as much I thought I would. I'd had all these expectations, not just from the anonymous background murmur of criticism, but from Derek Kirk Kim. Derek! This book was not as life-altering as you led me to believe. I noticed on the ever-provident facebook that I wasn't alone in my disillusionment. But as I scanned the reviews on the living social visual bookshelf app, I found that I had qualms with the comments people left. Could be I'm just antagonistic. Or maybe what I (and others) failed to realize is that the real brilliance of the book doesn't come across without some thought and analysis after closing the back cover. English major to the rescue!
One example of Yang's story-telling innovation lies in the fact that he doesn't weave his three narratives together, as one might expect from a multiple narrative text. Rather, at the last minute, he pulls the proverbial curtain aside so the reader finds that the Monkey King, Jin, Wei-Chen, Danny, and Chin-Kee are sort of all the same character or at least related in unexpected ways. And not in a metaphorical, character foil sense; literally, Yang draws one character morphing into another. Or pulling off his head to reveal his true identity. And, good heavens, that's what this whole yarn is supposed to address in the first place. Identity I mean, not self-decapitation.
The moment all three stories come together marks another pretty awesome element of American Born Chinese that didn't dawn on me until after I'd set it down: the mythical folk tale, the personal history, and the caricature collide, and any sense of realism/ continuity within each story goes right out the window. When one of the mythic characters shows himself to be one of the main characters from the present, who was an analog for ANOTHER character all along, the divisions the reader had developed between those parts of the book are just obliterated. There's this serious rupture, but the story goes on, accepting everything that's happened as it ends. As I've studied biography (just a bit), especially of the graphic variety, I've found that writers and artists do some really amazing things with blurring and/ or exposing the lines between the factual things that happened to them over the course of their lives and the internal feelings and memories that accompany those experiences. In these terms, just wow- Yang has integrated not just personal history and memory/ internal experience, but CULTURAL history and experience into one biography. Now I'm no expert on the biographical genre (if genre is the right word), but I've never seen this particular mish-mash narrative technique pulled off quite the way Yang does it. It's brilliant. Ok Derek Kirk Kim, you've got me there.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Phonies at the Symphony
Last Friday night, by the graces of the god of free tickets, I got the opportunity to go see the Dallas Symphony Orchestra with a friend of mine. This was a fairly classy event, so the following review will be about as high brow as I get. Unless we're talking about Stephen Colbert.
Anyway, we took the DART train downtown to the Meyerson Symphony Center, which I recommend doing if you're into irony of the class-based variety. The other symphony attendees were about as ostentatiously middle to upper-middle class as you get for a Friday evening, but I was surprised by the number of younger people there. Not only those of junior high, high school age- I imagine someone had arranged a class trip- but also 20-something couples and groups. I guess I shouldn't discount my own age group for taking part in such white collar festivities. Especially as I WAS there myself...
The program for the evening began with the Shostakovich Violin Concerto #1 (the proper phrasing for which can be found in the liner notes, not in my expertise of wording pieces of classical music) and ended with Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. Now I'm not an expert in classical tunes, but I will say this- those old Russian composers, damn; they're just amazing. No one channels suffering and angst into an art form quite like they do. I've been a conscious fan of Tchaikovsky since I was a little kid prancing around to the Nutcracker Suite, and the pieces I heard Friday really hit that home for me. The melodrama that these guys conjure up, it's breath taking. Literally; there were points where I noticed I was holding my breath. So the score one for the scores; the musical selection was top notch.
With that in mind, you might say that blasting ol' Shasta and Pyotr Ilyich from my stereo might be just as soul-shaking as listening to it in a concert hall. There are a couple reasons you'd be wrong. First, and this is by no means restricted to Friday evening's events, the people at the symphony- they must be emo. Maybe they were getting into the music in their own heads, but physically, there was nary a demonstration that they were enjoying what they were hearing until the applause. No head bobbing or foot tapping; no jumping at shows, I tell you! I was struggling to keep from dancing in my seat, and after a drink at intermission, this was no easy task. I know it isn't appropriate to get into it that much in such a setting, but I have to ask- isn't that a touch ridiculous? Classical music is like the most respected art in the (western) world, so would it be a stretch to say that it's among the best art? Wouldn't that mean the most moving, by some definition? I know I'm jumping around a bit here, but you get my point- art is supposed to move you and it's completely backwards to perform it in a setting where being moved in certain ways is not proper. So from this point of view, listening to these pieces out of a symphony hall would facilitate a superior experience because it would allow lots of flailing and jumping around to the music. And that is my digression.
On the other hand, watching musicians perform can add something to the experience of a piece, and this was absolutely the case on Friday. The DSO has recently come under new conductorship (conduction? conductor-ing?)- Jaap Van Zweden. This guy was such a blast to watch; all the stuff I just said about symphony patrons above applies in NO WAY to our tiny Belgian leader of the band. He was all over the place, stomping and waving kinda goofily, like I might have, had I been in the comfort of my own living room. And he gets away with it BECAUSE he's the conductor- you see how this works? Not fair! Still, it was great to watch him do his thing.
Funnily enough, all of my training in the Classical arts (if you wanna call them that) was in ballet, and reading back over this, I notice that I'm thinking about this experience in terms of movement and the body. So there's some continuity for ya, where maybe you expected an informed point of view?
Anyway, we took the DART train downtown to the Meyerson Symphony Center, which I recommend doing if you're into irony of the class-based variety. The other symphony attendees were about as ostentatiously middle to upper-middle class as you get for a Friday evening, but I was surprised by the number of younger people there. Not only those of junior high, high school age- I imagine someone had arranged a class trip- but also 20-something couples and groups. I guess I shouldn't discount my own age group for taking part in such white collar festivities. Especially as I WAS there myself...
The program for the evening began with the Shostakovich Violin Concerto #1 (the proper phrasing for which can be found in the liner notes, not in my expertise of wording pieces of classical music) and ended with Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. Now I'm not an expert in classical tunes, but I will say this- those old Russian composers, damn; they're just amazing. No one channels suffering and angst into an art form quite like they do. I've been a conscious fan of Tchaikovsky since I was a little kid prancing around to the Nutcracker Suite, and the pieces I heard Friday really hit that home for me. The melodrama that these guys conjure up, it's breath taking. Literally; there were points where I noticed I was holding my breath. So the score one for the scores; the musical selection was top notch.
With that in mind, you might say that blasting ol' Shasta and Pyotr Ilyich from my stereo might be just as soul-shaking as listening to it in a concert hall. There are a couple reasons you'd be wrong. First, and this is by no means restricted to Friday evening's events, the people at the symphony- they must be emo. Maybe they were getting into the music in their own heads, but physically, there was nary a demonstration that they were enjoying what they were hearing until the applause. No head bobbing or foot tapping; no jumping at shows, I tell you! I was struggling to keep from dancing in my seat, and after a drink at intermission, this was no easy task. I know it isn't appropriate to get into it that much in such a setting, but I have to ask- isn't that a touch ridiculous? Classical music is like the most respected art in the (western) world, so would it be a stretch to say that it's among the best art? Wouldn't that mean the most moving, by some definition? I know I'm jumping around a bit here, but you get my point- art is supposed to move you and it's completely backwards to perform it in a setting where being moved in certain ways is not proper. So from this point of view, listening to these pieces out of a symphony hall would facilitate a superior experience because it would allow lots of flailing and jumping around to the music. And that is my digression.
On the other hand, watching musicians perform can add something to the experience of a piece, and this was absolutely the case on Friday. The DSO has recently come under new conductorship (conduction? conductor-ing?)- Jaap Van Zweden. This guy was such a blast to watch; all the stuff I just said about symphony patrons above applies in NO WAY to our tiny Belgian leader of the band. He was all over the place, stomping and waving kinda goofily, like I might have, had I been in the comfort of my own living room. And he gets away with it BECAUSE he's the conductor- you see how this works? Not fair! Still, it was great to watch him do his thing.
Funnily enough, all of my training in the Classical arts (if you wanna call them that) was in ballet, and reading back over this, I notice that I'm thinking about this experience in terms of movement and the body. So there's some continuity for ya, where maybe you expected an informed point of view?
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Van Zant-tastic: Milk review
O December, you really do make it a challenge to get ANYTHING done. I started this review this weekend and it's still sitting here. Gah! Not that I'm on a time line or anything, but when things you like to do keep getting pushed to the back burner, well, you end up with burnt goods. Or some other extended metaphor... Anyway, end rant.
A few nights ago- Saturday- I found myself without a thing to do; heavens! So after sulking for a bit about my non-life, I got over myself and marched my butt to the theater down the street to see Gus Van Zant's latest cinematic effort, Milk. And wow, there is a LOT of good to say about this movie. Coincidentally enough, as soon as I got back home, I saw that a friend of a friend had written a stirring and thoughtful review, so for more reactions to the film, do start there.
In Milk, Van Zant tells the story of Harvey Milk, a gay businessman turned activist and politician in 1970s San Francisco. The movie reconstructs his life from his 40th birthday in 1970 as a suit in New York who has "done nothing with his life" to his assassination in San Francisco's City Hall in 1978. The plot shifts between his personal life- his lovers, friends, and aspirations- and his political career, making particularly clear how the two merged. If wikipedia is to be believed, Van Zant does a bang up job of getting his facts straight. The cast was great, which I spose one would expect from such a reverent project. Sean Penn stars as the approachable, ambitious title character, James Franco, as his adorable lover (can he just not be cute for one damn minute?), and Josh Brolin as an angry but impotent co-politico (can he just not play a dastardly conservative politician for one damn minute?).
A few nights ago- Saturday- I found myself without a thing to do; heavens! So after sulking for a bit about my non-life, I got over myself and marched my butt to the theater down the street to see Gus Van Zant's latest cinematic effort, Milk. And wow, there is a LOT of good to say about this movie. Coincidentally enough, as soon as I got back home, I saw that a friend of a friend had written a stirring and thoughtful review, so for more reactions to the film, do start there.
In Milk, Van Zant tells the story of Harvey Milk, a gay businessman turned activist and politician in 1970s San Francisco. The movie reconstructs his life from his 40th birthday in 1970 as a suit in New York who has "done nothing with his life" to his assassination in San Francisco's City Hall in 1978. The plot shifts between his personal life- his lovers, friends, and aspirations- and his political career, making particularly clear how the two merged. If wikipedia is to be believed, Van Zant does a bang up job of getting his facts straight. The cast was great, which I spose one would expect from such a reverent project. Sean Penn stars as the approachable, ambitious title character, James Franco, as his adorable lover (can he just not be cute for one damn minute?), and Josh Brolin as an angry but impotent co-politico (can he just not play a dastardly conservative politician for one damn minute?).
While Milk was a finely made film, had it not been historically grounded, it wouldn't have hit home quite so intensely. At the end, while the credits began rolling, photographs of the real people that had been portrayed by actors flashed on screen with short captions reporting what they went on to do after the events recounted in the film. Of all the emotionally charged moments in the film- and there were plenty- the images of the actual faces got to me the most. O reality, you cut me to the quick! I may be alone with that reaction, but still, I think it's the "true" rather than the "story" that makes Milk (the movie, not the guy. or the frosty beverage) so successful, especially given our immediate political climate. Not only is Prop. 8 and its backlash probably going to be in the forefront of the audiences' minds, but the messages of hope and change that Milk espouses would be equally at home in an Obama speech.
I majored in history when I was in college, so I'm in no way qualified to say that for the most part, we Americans don't know our own history. Some of us know some stuff, maybe even the basics, but unless an individual lived to see one or another event unfold, s/he might never come into contact with it. And even living at the time of a particular event is no guarantee you'll know anything about it. I don't want to insult the intelligence of the population, but you can't tell me it isn't easy to remain ignorant about the past if you really want to.
Without going on a tirade about the deficiencies in our education system and maybe even cultural attitudes about the past, let's just say that stories like Harvey Milk's tend to fall by the way side; I'll admit, I didn't know a thing about him going into the movie. His story and the history around it, they're important. Not just because of what's going on with anti-gay legislation right now, and not just so we can add to our arsenal of pub trivia knowledge (Who began the AIDS quilts? What was the Twinkie Defense? O, they're in there!). We should know the back story of our country- the hypocrisy and failings of American mythos and the people and movements that refuse to bend to them. And we should know the stories of the little guys (and girls. ahem) that go up against the norm. American history (and identity, I daresay) started with a bunch of outsiders who said 'fuck this' and did things their own way, and while our humble beginnings as a nation are all filled to the brim with a lot of seriously evil shit, that sentiment is part of who we are. Damn it.
I majored in history when I was in college, so I'm in no way qualified to say that for the most part, we Americans don't know our own history. Some of us know some stuff, maybe even the basics, but unless an individual lived to see one or another event unfold, s/he might never come into contact with it. And even living at the time of a particular event is no guarantee you'll know anything about it. I don't want to insult the intelligence of the population, but you can't tell me it isn't easy to remain ignorant about the past if you really want to.
Without going on a tirade about the deficiencies in our education system and maybe even cultural attitudes about the past, let's just say that stories like Harvey Milk's tend to fall by the way side; I'll admit, I didn't know a thing about him going into the movie. His story and the history around it, they're important. Not just because of what's going on with anti-gay legislation right now, and not just so we can add to our arsenal of pub trivia knowledge (Who began the AIDS quilts? What was the Twinkie Defense? O, they're in there!). We should know the back story of our country- the hypocrisy and failings of American mythos and the people and movements that refuse to bend to them. And we should know the stories of the little guys (and girls. ahem) that go up against the norm. American history (and identity, I daresay) started with a bunch of outsiders who said 'fuck this' and did things their own way, and while our humble beginnings as a nation are all filled to the brim with a lot of seriously evil shit, that sentiment is part of who we are. Damn it.
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