The artist at work

Flaming bike

Me and the lovedog

Here we are.

Kitaj has died

I like his paintings and drawings and prints.

Cork is good

The Carbon Footprint of Wine Closures

Natural cork with PVC capsule: 11.2 tons of CO₂ per million units

Fake cork with PVC capsule: 24.7 tons of CO₂ per million units

Screwcap from 70% recycled aluminum: 35.9 tons of CO₂ per million units

Glass bottle: 183 tons of CO₂ per million units

[Reported in Decanter, Nov. 2007, p. 45.]

Echidnas

Comments on Into the Wild

For all the time that we spend with Christopher McCandless, he does not emerge as much but a stubborn nature lover with an aversion to bourgeois American life. There is a reason for this: he could pass for any of us. Sexless, a bit bland, utterly conventional in his choice of unconventional heroes (Tolstoy, Thoreau, Pasternak), this kid is a stand-in for everyone who ever considered quitting a job or running a marathon. And because he's—in all respects but one—so very ordinary, he is immediately loved by all who spend time with him: they just project onto him whatever is missing from their lives (generally a lost loved one). In this he resembles the religious figures who've absorbed so many adoring, desperate gazes.

But unlike Jesus and Siddhartha, who were no friends of the nuclear family, this lad's moment of enlightenment, the delayed acknowledgment that kindly old Ron Franz spoke a truth worthy of Morgan Freeman, is an affirmation of the importance of human community, people, family.

The story involves some deep questions, but it's a story with little in the way of event, so the movie's writer and director, Sean Penn, has crafted a complex interweaving of narratives, with various voiceovers, McCandless's postcards and journal, and even grainy footage of events that don't fit into either of the two main narrative strands: events that took place in McCandless's childhood.

I found the story moving in spite of Penn's unfortunate indulgence in narrative overload and lots of fancy camerawork and editing to convey some sense of (1) McCandless's cognitive meltdown on Los Angeles's skid row and (2) McCandless's death by starvation. So elaborate was the first that I thought for a bit that our hero had taken a puff on some crackhead's pipe; so long had the movie been going on by the second that I just gritted my teeth. As I say, I was moved. We all should be, because we're all guilty of the sort of complacency that McCandless never for a moment endured. We all put off our Great Alaskan Adventures, and so we, unlike McCandless, bathe regularly, chat, go to church, eat foods killed for us by others, survive. Many think that they can escape from the dullness such a life generates by trekking in Nepal or picking grapes in Burgundy or finding God, but I suspect that these mean less than not much. Some people, no matter whether they're mopping floors or teaching autistic kids to read, are simply, in every moment, utterly alive. Most live lives of quiet desperation.

Reasons for carrying on

Music. To be more precise, the songs of Mariza, Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos, Harry Nilsson, The Elected, Heaven 17, and The Band. The melodies of Brahms. The splendor of Art Pepper. The sublime majesty of Johann Bach.

Masterpieces. Such as those by Ozu Yasujiro, Robert Bresson, Val Lewton, Jacques Tourneur, Wang Kar-wai, 成龍, Caravaggio, Caro, Newman, Newman.

Friends. You know who you are and who you are not.

Lotus blossoms.

The scent of my nape.

The thought that some day there may be another dog as fine as Cuchulain.

Carver

Tess Gallagher: keeping the sacred flame burning. New edition: ho-hum. D. T. Max: my hero.

侯孝賢計劃拍武狹片

不可思意。

The Supreme Court and Khaled el-Masri

These are happy days for torturers in America. The Supreme Court has implicitly supported the CIA's black operations and extraordinary renditions program by refusing to hear the ACLU's appeal in El Masri vs. Tenet. While the Roberts court was eager to slap Mr. Bush's wrist over Guantanamo, it will do nothing to protect innocent Muslims from being abducted and tortured by an organ of the US government. As a sort of functional definition, no state secret can be of greater importance than justice.
I understand the idea of a social calculus, and the need to weigh the security of a nation against the rights of an individual and the others whose fates would be judicially linked to his through precedent, but I do not understand how operations that are prima facie violations of international law can be construed as defensible elements of national security.

The week of Angela Hewitt

A Bach specialist, Angela Hewitt will be playing the piano in Berkeley on three nights during the coming week and I'll be there for every show. I decided to indulge--plus it's an excuse to see Scott and (I hope) Nat. Hewitt is not a fiery player or a strong-willed interpreter, but she makes pure, gorgeous, thoughtful music. And it's the Well-Tempered Clavier!

My map

create your own visited countries map

Hey!

Am I the only person who laughs hysterically on listening to a seal speak?