theme: post-Thanksgiving reflections

10 Things To Be Thankful For This Year! [from globalexchange.org]

1. The Bush Era is over, we were spared a McCain sequel
   
2. The US elected its first-ever African American President - Barack Obama
   
3. 350,000 young people signed onto Power Vote - pledging to vote for candidates who support clean renewable energy
   
4. The Green Economy is the fastest growing sector of the US economy
   
5. The Iran War Resolutions were defeated - people power won over AIPAC
   
6. U.S. consumers are choosing hybrids over hummers and other gas guzzlers
   
7. Chevron is being brought to justice in a US law suit for human rights abuses committed in Nigeria
   
8. Democrats admit NAFTA needs to be amended
   
9. Green Festival has expanded to five major US cities and reaching more than 100,000 people every year
   
10. GX has been a leader in the social justice movement for 20 years, and is committed to continuing the struggle for 20 more

Take Five

Being Thanksgiving Day afterall, I figured I deserve a break. I never thought I'd see this day, but Dave Brubeck is playing at "The Blue Note" this weekend, his only New York annual appearance, and somehow I'm going! I mean, it's Brubeck, the "Take Five" giant of jazz, the one name all genre aficionados should worship. The man is music history and I can't wait to see him play. For that, I am thankful. And for the fact that he's still alive and kicking at 87! Talk about living legends... This is the next best thing to going back in time and seeing Miles Davis play pre-1991.

Here's "Take Five" during Brubeck's prime - Paul Desmond and all:

Lizzo Day 236

Not having seen the first (1972's) version of this, I so happened to generally enjoy last year's remake of Sleuth:

Back in 1972, Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine starred in a film version of Anthony Shaffer's play Sleuth, as two men who face off over a woman in a witty, cerebral game of extended one-upmanship. Their marathon work netted them both Best Actor nominations. Thirty-five years later, a new version of Sleuth, directed by Kenneth Branagh, remains an acting showdown. Caine is back, but now he's playing the older man to Jude Law's young upstart. Their battle is, again, over a woman, but almost nothing else remains the same. While the original film was written by Shaffer himself, this time the play has been very loosely adapted by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, and he's made the piece faster, meaner, and weirder. [as briefed here]

... then I ran into a few negative reviews but only bothered to actually read one of these: Richard Corliss's, in the view of whom comparison with the initial release seems to weigh heavily

In the original movie [...], Andrew was played by Laurence Olivier, widely considered the century's greatest actor; and Michael Caine, who came to movie fame as the charming cad Alfie, was Milo. In a promising symmetry, this Sleuth has Caine playing the older man and Jude Law, who starred in a 2004 sequel to Alfie, as his young rival. [...]
Yet Pinter, in adapting the play, betrayed a carelessness bordering on contempt. The original is a two-act story that takes more than two hours; the new one synopsizes all that plot into the first hour, then adds a third act that diminishes, demeans, defames both the material and the actors. [...] The reason that the first film version [...] worked is that Mankiewicz filmed what Shaffer wrote. It's a play about role-playing, an unapologetic display of actors doing their tricks, putting on masks, throwing their voices — all the delicious stunts that say the theater is a game. [...] What's clear from the opening shot of Branagh's version is that he desperately wants this Sleuth to be not the record of a play but a real, filmy film. Unfortunately, his notion of film is a combination of bizarre camera angles and an alternation of baffling long shots and punishing closeups. [...]

Inattentive to such details as outlined above [and many more, as can be read in the Times review], to me, 2007's version of Sleuth seemed witty though brief, a delightful break from one's usual weekend evenings' telly shows - and so much more so for the case of Portuguese television. Surely the unit that one uses to measure against plays an important part in one's appreciation (or dislike) of a particular artistic creation... but I still don't think this such an unfortunate theatrical display as outcried in the review above.
Any other takers?

Politikverdrossenheit?

p. 180:

[The] electoral volatility [...] led to much talk of German disillusionment with politics as such - Politikverdrossenheit. Indeed the Society for the German Language proclaimed Politikverdrossenheit to be the word of the year for 1993.

Yet the word to characterise this book it is not. And as the writing at hand has aimed 'to introduce the reader to the legacy that present-day Germany has inherited from both East and West and from the period before 1945', so it has kept up to its promise.
For the student of Germany in an European and international context that I once was, this was a tale full of reminders, but also (new) insights. Some samples, p. 126:

The attempt to defend democracy through the curtailment of civil liberties was the most acute of the moral dilemmas the Brandt government faced.

- [concept sounding familiar?];
p. 145:

Buffeted by the oil shock, challenged by the New Left's rejection of the post-war consensus, undermined by terrorism, and divided by the measures to combat it, the FRG of the Schmidt period might well have seemed on the verge of destabilization. It certainly became more difficult to govern, though the talk then current of 'governmental overload' and 'ungovernability' seems in retrospect greatly exaggerated. What is true is that from the early 1970s onwards West German governments not only faced more complex policy challenges, but met greater institutional obstacles. [...] The increasing weight of the checks and balances has become a familiar feature of German politics and the Kohl government has been subject to them particularly since unification. But at the time they were a new factor and appeared to add to the burdens of maintaining the FRG's stability.
None of these difficulties seems to have diminished the legitimacy of democracy West German style. [...]

All in all, this is a collection of crisp analyses over half a century of German history - and not its mildest half, one should note - done in less pages than one would expect, but with more attention for detail than what appearances would have suggested.
It's also an abounding fountain of history's lessons considering not only explanations for solutions to crises (domestic and otherwise), but also the general context, and putting things into perspective.
Here's the book's OUP page and details: German Politics 1945-1995, by Peter Pulzer.

To Sage or Not to Sage

I have rediscovered sage and its amazing aroma. I swear, can't get enough of it! Must have something to do with staying at home and cooking.

P.S. Thanks, Teo; finally walking, albeit slowly. Hope you guys feel better.

sorry about this misfortune - hope you restart walking soon though!
-- this is written from 1 of the 2 representatives of the House of Flu [just entered the 3rd week of coughing fun!]

The One Thing I Needed...

...was a sprained ankle during exam month. I have a newfound respect for the disabled. And I keep wondering why the subway station by my apartment doesn't have an elevator. Are people on crutches NOT supposed to live on the Uppity - ehem, Upper - East Side? That would be the pinnacle of snobbism. Speaking of crutches, I'd seriously overestimated my upper-body strength. It's not fun, and I still haven't figured out how to carry a cup of tea while hopping around the apartment. The one benefit - 3 days off from school. Oh joy.

Lizzo Day 222

Meragel Ha-Shampaniya otherwise known as The Champagne Spy [2007] is a must see documentary, for the fun of it, for the sake of it, for the irony of it; it covers the life & style of a certain Wolfgang Lotz, known at the time

as a wealthy German horse breeder with an engaging habit of sending champagne and other lavish gifts to well-placed friends. They thought of him as an ex-Wehrmacht captain in Rommel's Afrika Korps who later made a fortune in Australia. [...] To the astonishment of his Egyptian friends, the rusty-haired Lotz was disclosed in 1965 to be an Israeli spy. Lotz's explanation was persuasive enough to save his life. He joined the Israelis, he said, because they had threatened to reveal his Nazi past to the Bonn authorities. Besides, there was the convincing detail that he was uncircumcised. [...]

as Time had nicely summarised. Yet this is just the beginning of the presentation of Lotz's eventful existence, as the double life reference gives little insight to the facts; a more correct reference would be that to paralleling existences, at least up to the point of no return: his disclosure. Mind you, the story telling refers to events ocurring during, amongst others, the Dix-Day War and it references to, amongst others, Mossad's staff personal impresions v actual actions [or lack thereof].
It's equally a sample of what embodying a character for too long may lead to - if the circumstances are suitable.
The best thing about this? It's a real life, as documented.

funny how globalisation goes...

Kenya has declared Thursday a public holiday to celebrate the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency.

[...]

In January, Kisumu was the scene of running battles between members of the public and police after riots broke out over the Kenya's contested elections.

But correspondents say the US election seems to have healed some wounds, with people reported to be saying that Mr Obama's victory is a victory for all Kenyans.

[from: here]