The Nanjing Massacre, the Japanese, and my Dad

Taken during my father's first year in the airforce, Christmas 1953; photographer unknown

I lived and worked in Japan from 1999 to 2002, during which time I had conversations with many Japanese bearing on the Second World War. The variety of opinions one encounters about incidents like the Nanking Massacre - the title of the important new documentary playing at the VIFF aside, it really should be given as the Nanjing Massacre, to reflect current practice - is considerable; there is no one "Japanese point of view" about the events in China of 1937, when a rapacious and ruthless invading force slaughtered as many as 300,000 Chinese non-combatants and raped countless women, any more than there is a single point of view in North America about the Allied firebombing of Dresden or the internment of Japanese-Canadian civilians... though in the case of many young Japanese, if you ask them about Nanjing, you're likely to get a blank stare and a "Huh?" (Or, in Japanese, an "ehh?").

Ignorance does not always equate with innocence, though, and part of young people's ignorance may be due to Japanese government policy of "toning down" textbooks that mention wartime atrocities (typical story here). Certain political elements in Japan prefer to present the Japanese as the victims of aggression in WWII, rather than the perpetrators, and would rather commemorate Hiroshima than Unit 731. The more extreme manifestations of this desire to cover up past crimes can be quite shocking; if you poke around Yahoo Japan, for instance, you'll find a plethora of sites like this one, advertising a "Nanjing debunking" video - or this one, which claims the various photos of atrocities that have entered the public record (see below) are faked. I remember reading a plaque at the Hiroshima Peace Museum that made brief mention of "alleged atrocities," or such; I can't quote it exactly, but it seemed an attempt to satisfy both camps - acknowledging that it is said as many as 300,000 died, while also noting that this number has been disputed. We need only imagine how well the word "alleged" would go over in regard the Jewish Holocaust - or any other widely-known, historically unquestionable atrocity - to get a glimpse of how unlikely it is such fudged gestures will placate the Chinese.

As it happens, I met and got to know a Japanese history teacher of "massacre denial" stripe, as I have elsewhere recounted; he said in no uncertain terms that he thought Iris Chang, then living, was a propagandist trying to disgrace Japan and get reparations for the Chinese, and he repeated one of the dumber bits of propaganda that the Japanese right have spread, that there were far fewer people living in Nanjing than it was claimed were killed (Hello? It was the CAPITAL OF CHINA, for chrissake. China is not known for its scarcity of people). There's another grotesque story I heard a couple of times from Japanese, about how one of the prison guards executed after the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal for having fed wood to POWs, as a sort of cruel prank, had in fact been feeding his prisoners gobo, a fibrous root that many Japanese eat, sharing it with them out of compassion. He was punished for his compassion - how unjust! It takes a fair level of deliberately maintained ignorance - even in Japan - to let anecdotes like that wash away any hint of wrongdoing.

There are, however, many people in Japan who know better. There's Japanese author Katsuichi Honda, for one - interviewed by David Suzuki and Keibo Oiwa for The Japan We Never Knew, and author of a Japanese history of the atrocities at Nanjing; for his role in bringing what Japan did into the public eye, he has received plentiful death threats (it's rather a shame that the VIFF film doesn't talk about him, but it's really focused on the events of the day). A different Japanese teacher, working at the same high school, initiated a conversation with me about Japanese military aggression and the beheading of prisoners at a Saitama Peace Museum show we went to, saying that he believed that said history teacher - the denier - was entitled to his view, wrong as it was, but that he shouldn't be allowed to teach it to children. (I believe I continued the conversation by talking about Jim Keegstra). Others take a more jaundiced view - "it was a war; these sorts of things happen in war," a view which episodes like Abu Ghraib or My Lai lends some credence to, while in no way excusing those Japanese who deny such things ever took place. Yet others, born long after the war finished, feel these were horrible crimes, but are tired of being held accountable for them, and think it perverse and politically suspect that the Chinese bring these events up again and again (for instance, when Japanese Prime Ministers take trips to worship at Yasukuni Jinja. No reason to be pissed off at that, right?). Most of the Japanese I met who had strong feelings against Japanese Imperial aggression were older, and felt great unease at the steady rehabilitation of the Hino Maru and "Kimi Ga Yo," seeing Japan swinging steadily back to the right, arm in arm with America (so much so that, despite a Peace Constitution that forbids them such things, Japan now has an unofficial army, which is participating in Iraq in what many people feel started as a war of aggression -- by, ironically, the very country that earlier forbid Japan to rearm).

My father has some fairly strong feelings about the Japanese, relating back to two men in their 20's, "Whitey and Edward Kennedy, his brother" who lived a few miles down the street, in the town of Inverness, Nova Scotia, where my father grew up. "As five, six, and seven year old kids, we played kick the can, lacrosse, football, whatever," my father - who would prefer to remain anonymous - recounts. "Edward was quiet and reserved, but Whitey was super friendly. It was during the war, and he had joined up - I believe almost ten percent of Canada had joined up, long before the States. We're talking about 1939, 1940. I would have been six. He'd come out and play with us, and he'd give us candies. He was a little bit on the chubby side, with whitish-blonde hair - that's why we called him Whitey. He'd come out and catch the ball and - he was just a nice guy. I don't know if he was in the North Novies - the North Nova Scotia regiment - but he wore a kilt."

This is a story I've heard often. My father, now 73, has carried these memories for a long time. "MacKenzie King believed Churchill or somebody, that there was no chance of war between Japan and Hong Kong, so he sent them over there. They'd just be garrison troops." In 1941, though - long after they'd conquered China, the Japanese came into Hong Kong, and Whitey and Edward were taken prisoner, an experience which destroyed them. "Maybe three years after the war, they came home. Edward, I don't remember ever seeing him again. He became more reclusive. And Whitey was nothing but a drunk. I never saw him draw a sober breath - he was just shattered by it. And he'd cry and cry and cry. You could ask him anything and he'd cry, and he never played games with us again. Years later, I found out the things they did - at St. Stephens College and things like that. Seventy percent of my life, I've hated and hated and hated the Japanese, because of what they did to Whitey Kennedy."

Ironically, it was my father's strong feelings about Japan - which we'd discuss over The Bridge on the River Kwai or Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence - that got me interested in the country in the first place, and led to my going there. I was able to tone down my father's hatred a little with more positive stories of my time in Japan - and bizarrely, when said massacre-denying history teacher came to visit us with his son, we all ended up at a table at Shabusen in Vancouver - my father, mother, the teacher, his son, and myself - eating Japanese food and drinking beer. "The teacher didn't lessen my, at this point, dislike for the Japanese," my father explains, "but his son did. I enjoyed being with a young person who wasn't in any way responsible; he knew nothing about it, and he's not subject to denial, like some other Japanese are... If you remember, I bought them two bottles - I bought the teacher a bottle, and his son, and he said, 'Well, he's only 16' - but his son's bottle, when he opened it, was maple syrup. Later on, we were in their hotel room, and his son liked my jacket, and I was so happy to even know the guy and feel better about some Japanese person that I gave him my jacket - the only blazer I had, with a BC crest on it. I gave it to him! Hopefully he still wears it."


There are still survivors of the Nanjing Massacre, both Chinese and Japanese, and their testimony makes my father's story pale (I include it here simply because it's a personal connection to what would otherwise seem distant history to me). Various survivors are interviewed for the film. Chang Zhi Qiang, for instance, gives a heartrending account of seeing his mother and kid brother bayonetted, but not immediately killed, by a Japanese soldier - after which, to sooth the baby, his bleeding mother held the infant to her wounded breast and let him suckle. Chang is crying as he tells the story - he was nine years old at the time, and it's marked him for life. It's probably the single most difficult part of the film to sit through, though much of what we hear recounted is upsetting indeed: rapes, mass executions, people set on fire... It's strong material, though presented with the utmost taste and restraint. Most of it is read by actors - most notably, Jurgen Prochnow, reading the letters and diaries of John Rabe, "the Good German of Nanking" -- a Nazi who, with other foreigners, set up a refugee zone and protected thousands of Chinese from certain death; and Mariel Hemingway, reading from the works of Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary who protected women. One can only hope that the film finds a Japanese audience, since there are many Japanese who would profit indeed from seeing it; it's quite chilling that one of the Japanese soldiers shown talking in archival footage about what they did appears to be chuckling to think of it.

My father, watching the film with me, growled: "the bastard."

Note: the official site for the film is here.

Michael V. Smith and Elizabeth Bachinsky on Wolf Lake

Vancouver queer culture advocate, novelist, poet, and filmmaker Michael V. Smith has a new short film in this year’s VIFF, “Wolf Lake,” playing as part of the program Storm Surge on October 7th and 8th at the Pacific Cinematheque. The film is based on a work by BC poet Elizabeth Bachinsky – recently shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for her second volume of poetry, Home of Sudden Service, in which “Wolf Lake” appears. I spoke to both Elizabeth and Michael about the film; the two are pictured above on the Staten Island ferry in New York, where the film played as part of the Scanners Video Festival (an offshoot of the NYFF) earlier this year.

The poem itself has an interesting history; it began as a response to another poem of the same name, by fellow BC-er Matt Rader, who read it at the now-defunct Sugar Refinery one night with Liz in attendance. “I wanted to write a response,” she explains. “In Matt Rader’s poem, two boys drive out to the woods, and they’re going to go hunting or fishing or swimming or something like that. And they come across this guy pulling a woman out of the trunk of his car and carrying her off into the woods. The poem ends with the image of Pete – one of the boys – reaching back for his gun,” as if he’s going to intercede. I asked Liz if she was offended by the piece, and she rather carefully avoided an affirmative answer, explaining: “Guys are always writing about women – I thought, maybe let’s hear from the woman.”

The narrator of Elizabeth’s poem is dead: “It’s a posthumous voice,” she says; “We know who the character is when we’re going into it." Her assailant is an ex-boyfriend, whom she had thought she was still friends with. "I guess I’m like all girls – you’ve got that paranoid thought in the back of your mind that the ones you trust the most are the most likely to kill you. Guys can be really weird.”

After being stabbed, her dying narrator – dazed and betrayed, but not completely surprised at the turn of events – describes a bumpy ride in the trunk of a car, and then being carried off into the woods to be dumped. “You know, you hear about the Body/ all the time: They found the Body.../ The Body was found... and then you are one.” It’s unsettling in the extreme, and one of the young poet’s most compelling works.

Liz reads the poem as a voiceover soundtrack to Michael’s images.

(photo by Dave Aharonian)

Matt and Liz “have a very different understanding” of Matt’s original poem, Michael V. Smith tells me. The filmmaker – a longtime friend of both poets – knew Matt’s piece before Liz had written hers. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that his poem is anti-female, but it’s part of a culture that is, and it certainly doesn’t help the pro-female,” Michael explains by phone, then stops himself. “Well, maybe it does, by showing women as victims of assault. But I think Liz wanted more help than just the spectacle... I really appreciated Liz’s feminist revision of that fiction. Because I understand wanting to hear your stories and wanting to give voice to even literary experiences where you feel silenced. Feminism and queer politics are very similar, and they have a similar agenda, and I am a very feminist guy. So I admired her for that, and I think she made a brilliant poem from the raw material – from Matt’s original source, or, from her perspective, from Matt’s oversight.”

Out of “morbid curiosity,” Michael wrote his own “Wolf Lake,” from the point of view of the assailant, but it has yet to be published. The idea for making the film came later, due to a proposal from Project 8 at Video In to make an 8mm film, and it was decided that the film, too, would be from the point of view of the killer. “Everything was very easy after that. We decided to get (writer and activist) Amber Dawn to play the woman, because we thought she’d look small enough to go over somebody’s shoulder.” Amber Dawn had previously appeared with Smith in his work of experimental pornography, Girl on Girl.

Some of the images of Amber Dawn were shot at Liz’s former home in Maple Ridge, where she was serving as artist in residence. Located in a fairly rural area, it would have been an ideal place for someone to spy on Elizabeth. “It’s just trees, all those trees everywhere,” she tells me. “There’s so many places for people to hide, if somebody wanted to sit and watch you through one of those great big fishbowl windows... Every once in awhile, I’d get a prank phone call, and they were creepy ones. They were like, ‘What are you doing home during the day?” That kind of thing. That one freaked me out!” The closing shot, of Amber Dawn coming towards the camera - which has been viewing her from the concealment of trees - was filmed in Elizabeth’s then-backyard; her character sees the cameraman only as an old friend, not as a potential threat, and smiles broadly. “It’s so creepy, too, because she’s like, wearing my sweater! It’s like, ewww – she’s at my house, on my rocks, wearing my sweater and my Lululemon pants!" Bachinsky laughs. "When it ends, it’s so abrupt. I think it’s brilliant – it’s just beautiful."


Though Matt’s poem is located at Wolf Lake in Comox Valley, Michael and Liz shot the majority of images for the film at Pitt Lake, where Liz lived for awhile with friends when she was 18. “God, that place was crazy,” Liz remembers. "I don’t know how to write about it – wild dogs being born under the house – the dog had her babies beside this leaking sceptic tank, because it was warm. It was nasty. And the place is just so spooky – there’s a real energy to it and it’s not all good.... It was also extremely beautiful, but it’s almost a crushing beauty, you know? The mountains just close right in on you. You just think about how deep that lake is, and you know – when you’re in it, you’re gone. No one will ever find you. That is the most horrifying thought – to find yourself at the bottom of Pitt Lake.”

Oddly, in New York, “Wolf Lake” played as part of a series of predominantly non-narrative shorts focused on landscape. “Our film got in because it was very grounded in Pitt Lake – there were mountains and scenery,” Michael says. The basis for the selection "was purely aesthetic – it had only to do with landscape, and nothing more than that. They didn’t pick it for any narrative interest. It’s really interesting to me. I come from a place where it’s all about the story, it’s all about the human connection and how we connect to the story. I care how you connect to the image only as much as that image works to further your understanding of the story – which is our understanding of humanity. I’m very interested in narrative because I see our lives as broader narrative, and I’m not interested in aesthetics that are devoid of content.”

At Pitt Lake, Smith – who is very familiar with the killer’s eye POV trope of horror cinema, and conversant with Laura Mulvey’s writing on the male gaze and narrative cinema – shot what would become the “very creepy stalker footage,” of “Wolf Lake;” but when the film begins, you don’t realize that that’s what you’re watching. Amber Dawn is at a distance, among others, and we see people enjoying themselves at the Pitt Lake dock; it looks like an entirely innocent home movie, with no obvious connection to the story we’re hearing, save that it’s set at a lake. The viewer remains unaware that it’s stalker footage until the very end of the film – where Amber Dawn approaches, taking us to the beginning of the events in the poem and positioning the viewer as her eventual killer.

“I really like that device of welcoming people in,” Michael tells me. “In some ways my novel, Cumberland, did the same thing. There were some things you knew, and some things you didn’t know. And the things that you knew made you make assumptions, and eventually those assumptions get turned on their head, and you realize that you have been very complicit in some really immoral thinking. In the novel, you think that Ernest is a pedophile, because he has these disturbing dreams, and he has this weird relationship with a kid, and then you realize that his kid has died – and you think he’s done something horrible to his kid. And he hasn’t; he’s just haunted by the loss of his own child. By the end of the book, you realize that you assumed he was a pedophile because you have these stereotypes of what homosexuals are like. I like that kind of device, where you make the audience complicit in the hideousness of our culture, and you make them realize how susceptible we are, and how easily they can fall into the trap of perpetuating that problem.”
The same sort of device operates in "Wolf Lake." “You are just enjoying the filmic experience of spying on this girl, of watching this girl – and you hear this story, and its compelling, and there’s a whole voyeuristic appeal to it. At the end of the film, hopefully you realize that you’ve been in the perspective of the stalker. It’s to make you aware of exactly that thing that Liz is doing, by writing a revisionist poem about a woman being attacked, and telling it from the woman’s perspective, of taking control and power and making people realize that these are very serious issues. I hope that when you realize the stalker footage is stalker footage, by the end of the film, you feel a little disgusted with your own voyeuristic pleasure – that the pleasure of the filmic experience is all predicated upon somebody’s violent action against somebody else.”

Bachinsky was delighted by the trip, her first to New York (“I’m a girl who needs a reason to go to a place,” she explains). “We just had a great time. We walked around town, we ate some food, and we saw so much art – we went to, like, five galleries. The Met was awesome! I loved it!” It's not her first trip with Michael, though their previous tours together have stemmed from their work as writers; she's been across Canada with Smith, with whom she also shares a dayjob. She’s very happy with the project: “Michael did a beautiful job of bringing the location, the images, the narrative all together. I love Michael so much.” Expect both to be in the audience for at least one of the screenings of Storm Surge.

"Wolf Lake" is a chance to see an important collaboration by two exciting and fresh Canadian voices.

Dust, Land, and Water: Three VIFF documentaries

...Thus commences my VIFF coverage. I’ll also have pieces in the next Xtra West on Black, White + Grey and on Paul Schrader’s The Walker. I didn’t manage to excite another Vancouver paper on the locally-made short Wolf Lake, but will have an interview up here later in the week with filmmaker Michael V. Smith and poet/narrator Elizabeth Bachinsky. I’m working on a piece on the Scott Walker film, another on the experimental Hong Kong documentary One Way Street on a Turntable, and finally, will have some writing up on the film about Japanese atrocities in China during World War II, Nanking. These will also appear on my blog over the next week or so, in time, we hope, to serve as previews. Meantime, since there’s a whole new Climate for Change category and award, I thought I’d preview three environmentally-aware nonfiction features that stand out...

Dust

There’s a book by Edward de Bono called How to be More Interesting. It has a kind of embarrassingly self-helpish title, like it’s the sort of thing you might find on the bookshelf of someone who is very, very boring, but in fact, it’s filled with useful exercises, designed to get readers thinking about what it means for something to be “interesting,” and how to apply what they learn to thinking creatively. One simple brainstorming exercise at the beginning asks readers to simply list everything they can think of that is interesting about a frog. From frog mutations and the status of frogs as indicator species, to the use of poison arrow frogs to gather toxin; from frogs’ amphibious nature to their metamorphosis from tadpoles; from amplexus to those long, sticky tongues – there is actually a lot a creative thinker can come up with, each observation opening out onto further questions, tangents and implications: from a frog, you can arrive at the whole universe, if you try.

Early on, in Dust, one gets the feeling that German documentarian Hartmut Bitomsky sat down at some point to a similar exercise, deciding on everything he possibly could say about dust, and what further conclusions could be drawn from these observations. It is unlikely any other film will ever rival Dust for authority or breadth, when it comes to this singularly tiny subject. We get mineral dust from mining; dust from paint pigment; coal dust; dust in the atmosphere; dust on film; dust in the home; dust in a museum; how a plant “defends” itself from photosynthesis-inhibiting dust; the effects of dust on the breather; and the necessity of dust to clouds and rain (since water vapour needs something to adhere to). At moments, there is a feeling of absurd profundity to the observations – one hand claps often; and the anally German – but oft-philosophical – narration has a delightfully quirky quality to it, that may put you in mind of that footage of Blixa Bargeld reading from the Hornbach hardware catalogue; it's much funnier than you'd expect. A theme seems to emerge dealing with our relationship to our environment and what we can and cannot control, which in turn opens out onto questions of mortality, humility, the limits of the human: from dust to dust, with a lot of other dust along the way. One eccentric woman actually has a whole bizarre taxonomical system worked out for the clumped fluff she’s gathered in her home; in another segment, a housewife treats us to a tour of her manic cleaning ritual, which borders on the obsessive-compulsive. Some of the more scientific descriptions of how dust is filtered or tested for toxicity require an alert mind to follow, but the compositions are often beautiful, if fleeting, and there’s ample food for thought. Recommended stuff – but see it caffeinated, so you can keep up. You’ll be amazed at how much there is to be thought about dust.

By the way, there's a really cool, image-rich German presskit online here.

About Water


I’ve followed with interest the work of Michael Glawogger for a couple of years now; I missed Megacities, but found his documentary Workingman’s Death fascinating (I bizarrely can find none of my own writing about it online, though I'm sure I put some on this very blog. Hm). Slumming, in last year’s fest (written about here) made a worthy, if somewhat less overwhelming, fictional counterpart. Glawogger is staking out territory around the relationship between western privilege, foreign “exoticism,” and the effects of globalisation; Workingman’s Death – with a stunning John Zorn score – shows us the darkest side of employment in the developing world, but with an awed eye towards the adaptability of human beings, who in each episode – Pakistani shipbreakers, Nigerian open-air slaughterhouse workers - seem to have come to some sort of terms with their state, horrifying though it may seem from a first world perspective. They’re unsettling films, but beautiful, and deeper and richer than any mere polemic – although polemicists will find much to support their arguments in watching them.

Polemicists, or anyone concerned with the developing world, global warming, or access to water, will find much food for thought and much ammunition in About Water, too (that's a link to the official site) but it lacks the visual impact – I’ll warn you – of Workingman’s Death; the “eye” of the film is much more that of an everyday documentary, with talking-head villagers in Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, and Nairobi describing their relationship to a commodity that most Vancouverites take for granted. The first two parts of the film deal with very different effects of climate change, causing an excess of water in the first case and a shortage in the second; the third (and most Glawoggerly sequence, visually) involves the privatization of water in a Kenyan slum, where, if you want water, you pretty much have to buy from a licensed water vendor – who sits guarding his pipe and praying for scarcity, which means an increase in profits. The Austrian title of the film is actually About Water, Men, and Yellow Canisters – referring to the big plastic containers that people haul from the pipe to their homes or places of business, to give them the water they need for the day. As with Workingman’s Death, you’re mostly allowed to draw your own conclusions; the people interviewed have no apparent awareness that climate change exists, and certainly no outrage – they just deal with the situation with a sort of grim-but-positive peasant resignation, “this is how we have to get through the day.” There are even moments of unexpected humour, as when Bangladeshi feelings about floods are illustrated by a karaoke pop video on the theme (!). It’s not the most exciting documentary I’ve encountered, and could use an injection of passion, but if you bring your own to the theatre, you’ll find much to reward you.

Man on Land

I suspect this film is going to be one of my favourites, come the end of the fest. It’s also topical without being polemical, but there’s a stunningly powerful opening sequence – involving a polar bear – that does in a couple of minutes far more to convey the unnatural, pressing threat of global warming, and to make us recoil in horror at our incompetence as so-called custodians of the planet, than the whole of About Water. Richly cinematic, intense, and quiet, it will abundantly reward the sort of cinephiles and other athletes of perception that found James Benning’s 13 Lakes compelling viewing a couple of years ago. (It’s also as quiet as Into Great Silence, but, I thought, much more successful). I want to say as little about the film as possible, so as not to detract from the experience, but this is a must-see, especially if you have an environmentalist or scopophilic bent. People who bring popcorn or anything else that crunches into the theatre for screenings of this movie should be barred from the festival permanently. The director, Ariane Michel, has a Myspace page, and there's an interview with her here.

Speaking of James Benning, by the way, he has a new film in the festival. I’ve had no opportunity to preview it, and has of yet have not heard back from him – we’d exchanged a couple of emails after 13 Lakes floored me – but I will definitely be looking at casting a glance, which deals with an earthwork by an artist he much admires, Robert Smithson. People who liked the film about Andy Goldsworthy, Rivers and Tides, should probably check this one out, too.

Oh, and you're all paying attention to the fact that there's a new Bela Tarr film out, right? Because you should be.

DOA and the Subhumans fuck up my film festival

Brian bursts, alien-like, out of Gerry's chest; photo by Allan MacInnis

The most horror-movie shot of Joe imaginable. Photo by Cindy Metherel


Dear Subhumans:

Dear DOA:

Look:

I don't get paid for 99% of what I write. The only meaningful perk I get, for all the writing I do, is my VIFF media pass. which I must earn with meaningful coverage of film events. I am currently busy planning a two week orgy of film. I've even taken time off work to maximize film viewing (which actually means that I'm paying indirectly for the pass, but fuggit).

Yeah, yeah, I know - I sometimes get on the guestlist to shows, and I sometimes get cool CDs as swag. It's not that big a break, believe me. Get me on the guestlist to see Ornette Coleman, THAT's what I want to be guestlisted for. Punk gigs and CDs I can AFFORD.

So, like, from my point of view, since your performance schedule really should revolve around me, it's in very bad taste to schedule gigs that I want to see in the same fuckin' week as the VIFF. I will have to MISS MOVIES to see you play. And of course, the chance to see you both play within two days of each other is not-to-be-missed. Subhumans, you guys in particular I'm choked at, because if memory serves, this is the second fuckin' time you've done this to me. Us under-appreciated media whores need to feel like we're cared about TOO, y'know. Stroke our egos. Tickle our expansive bellies. Don't crack jokes about the bald spot.

Like that.

- Allan

P.S. Those of you who, like me, can't watch films ALL DAY, can come see two historical Vancouver punk bands play Thursday and Saturday:

DOA plays September 27th at the Plaza; the Jolts open. I'm told DOA have a new drummer, James Hayden from the Von Zippers.

The Subhumans play September 29th at Pub 340 (at 340 Cambie) with Motorama and Betty Kracker. (Can I humbly request you include "Moving Forward" in your set this time? That's a great goddamn song!).

Soramimi Ni-Ban

I haven't laughed this hard in awhile, but it takes some time to get to the humour in it, if you don't speak Japanese. I speak just enough that I can appreciate how ridiculous all this is, how delightful.

If you haven't read my original post, in which I enthuse about the Japanese art of mishearing song lyrics, do so. Thanks to the ever-playful Sumiyo (and Japanese Youtube videos - link here), I have a deeper appreciation for just how Soramimi works.

Dig: you're watching TV. There's a famous song, in SOME language other than Japanese, playing. There's a little movie - like a dramatic "rock video" -- illustrating what it SOUNDS like is being sung (in Japanese) to the casual Japanese viewer. As the key phrases ring out, illustrative Japanese subtitles appear below, presenting the misreading at hand. For example, some French song - God knows what the original lyrics are, as my Japanese is far better than my French and my Japanese isn't that good - is playing, and we see images of a woman's dress, her long hair, her purse. Then a phrase is sung, in French, that sounds remarkably - and I mean remarkably - like "Okama to sono otosan." We then see an image of a drag queen, whose clothes we've been examining in closeup, sitting on a bus stop bench beside an old man. "Okama to sono otosan" means something like, "the drag queen and that father." Or maybe "The drag queen and that old man."

This is NOT what the original lyric refers to, but hearing it thus creates a ripple of hilarity in the Japanese viewer, because it's really what it sounds like. Ha! The drag queen and that father! Ha!

It's funnier, trust me, if you try it with an English song. For example, there's a Def Leppard tune which has a chorus of, "Are you getting it? I'm a-getting it!" As the song plays, there are images of an older Japanese woman in a white dress walking on the beach, looking at the ocean and holding her stomach, a pained expression on her face. "I'm a-getting it," the subtitle reveals - I needed Sumiyo's help to read it - sounds like "Ama geri de!" (roughly, "because of the old fisherwoman's diarrhea). Not the usual theme of a rock video by far. For "Really getting it?" - the next line - it sounds, with some stretching, like "umi ni dere nee," a sort of slang expression meaning something like, "I can't work in the sea today." (They cheat a little on this one, I think). Then there's a line, " 'Coz I'm a getting it," which I do credit as sounding a little like, "Kesa mo geri de," meaning, "Also this morning, because of diarrhea..."). We fade out on an image of the old fisherwoman squatting behind a log...

No? That STILL isn't funny? Maybe it loses something in translation, or explication, or somewhere. Here's a final favourite from the video clip Sumiyo showed me: a Guns and Roses song with Axl shrieking, "I leave it all behind." This is accompanied with images of a somber room, where mourning might take place, and a tablet with writing on it; the subtitle flashes, "Aniki no ihai" - again, a bit of a stretch, but not as much as you might think, if you hear it; it's a plausible cross-cultural mondegreen. "Aniki no ihai" means, "My brother's Buddhist funeral memorial tablet." (It isn't that funny yet, but wait). The camera tracks up, and we are treated to a framed photograph of a mean-looking Japanese man in a tacky suit and sunglasses. (It helps at this point to know - Takeshi Kitano fans can vouch for this - that "aniki" doesn't just mean brother in the familial sense, but also is a term of affection that gangsters use.) Just as the camera arrives at the photo, Axl - I swear to God - screams, "Yakuza!" Which the subtitles spell out. I have NO IDEA WHAT HE COULD HAVE BEEN SAYING; Sumiyo wanted to know, but EVEN TO ME, in this context, it really sounds like he's saying, "Yakuza," which riffs off the "aniki no ihai" in a bizarre way, shifting its meaning to, "My gangster bro's Buddhist funeral memorial tablet!"

Hahahahaha! My gangster bro's Buddhist funeral memorial tablet! In a Japanese song! Hahahaha!

You know who I have to compile this shit for, don't you? TOM FUCKING HOLLISTON!!! (He apparently was commenting to a crowd during one of Nomeansno's recent European dates that "Nick Drake," if you say it aloud, sounds like a stolen garden implement).

Thanks to Sumiyo, I'm a-getting it!

Saving the Okanagan Ecosystem

Not like me to post petitions here - I'm more concerned with preserving culture than preserving the environment, at least on this blog - but here's a petition all British Columbians (except developers) should be able to get behind. Takes a minute to sign it. I like deserts, don't you?

Thanks for the opportunity to earn karma points, Vic - I imagine I'll still go to whichever circle of hell is devoted to sensualists and aesthetes, but I'll mention your name when I'm down there, for whatever good it'll do me.

Peter Watkins' The Freethinker on DVD!

As mentioned on the homepage for Peter Watkins' site - featuring an extensive and interesting critique of the way mass media currently operate - there is to be a DVD release of his film about August Strindberg, The Freethinker, through Project X Distribution and Torontobritpics. Oliver Groom informs that that it's "a double-disc set (274 mins)," and also that "there's also a special edition of Edvard Munch - again a 2-disc set - with the long version (220 mins) and a few other bits and pieces." (Strindberg is featured as a character in Edvard Munch, since the two men knew each other. Based on what I've seen thus far, Munch seems to be Watkins' masterpiece, though I also greatly admire his Punishment Park - a much more timely film).

Though one imagines Peter Watkins would not approve of my doing so, I must point out - since I am sure a couple of readers of this blog have not yet encountered it - the delightful Strindberg and Helium cartoons, which are a must-watch of a most ridiculous nature. Look, damnit, I'm literate, really (by today's standards) - I just have a sense of humour. It's allowed!

Ruins play Vancouver Wednesday

Here's a shock - Japan's legendary prog-punk twopiece, Ruins, featuring virtuoso drummer Yoshida Tatsuya (or Tatsuya Yoshida, or whatever) and bassist Sasaki Hisashi will play Vancouver this Wednesday, September 19th, at Pat's Pub! Go fuckin' figure - these guys are huge in the weird music scene in Japan, and have numerous CDs on Tzadik; collaborators have included Haino Keiji, Derek Bailey, and Yamamoto of the Boredoms/Omoide Hatoba (actually, I saw Ruins Hatoba once at the Star Pines, I think it was, in Tokyo); still, known quantity that they are - I never woulda known about it if I hadn't bumped into a gig poster this afternoon.

Not sure exactly what they do these days, but they're known for intricate blistering shift-on-a-dime bursts of sonic terror; they DO have a prog element to them, but not in some sucky Yes way. This should be a pretty interesting night of music; drummers in particular should take note - Yoshida's pretty amazing.

Good thing I saw that gig poster.

Zabriskie Point tomorrow at the Vancity Theatre

The above image was shamelessly lifted from Dave Kehr's movie blog; if anyone objects, do let me know! (The whole article from Look is here - thanks to Ellipsis 7 from the Criterion Forum).

One of my favourite films, for years, has been Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (I even worked a reference to it into my Meat Puppets review in this month's Nerve). It's a great trip film, has some amazing images, and, for me at least, it's fascinating to see the older Italian director - who had looked so skeptically at the UK pop scene in Blow Up - seeming to grow genuinely, sincerely sentimental about American youth culture of the 1960's. Some find its antiAmericanism a trifle cliched and hard to take - it's probably a good thing that Antonioni omitted an image of a plane pulling a "fuck you, America" banner from his final cut - if indeed such a thing ever existed - but I'm too overwhelmed by the film's beauty to mind.

By the way, Daria Halprin, pictured above, currently is some sort of yoga instructor in California - click the link to see a current picture. I emailed her awhile back with an interview request, but she never got in touch. She's one of the few people left who one could talk to about the film; Anotonioni, of course, is dead, as of this summer. Mark Frechette, the young man pictured with her, died in prison a few years after the film was made, after experimenting with bank robbery as an expression of his fervor for revolution; he'd been a member of Mel Lyman's cult prior to the making of the film, and abandoned acting afterwards (both the previous links lead to really interesting articles, posted by the same people - highly recommended). John Fahey, who was supposed to score the famous "desert lovemaking" centerpiece, died in 2002, and, it's said, got booted from the project when he got into a fistfight with the director over his views on America. He was replaced with Jerry Garcia - now also dead, of course. I don't think I'd care much about talking with Pink Floyd about this film, though I do love their musical contributions. Daria, where are you?

Showtimes for Zabriskie Point are here (nevermind the uncharacteristic spelling error in the title). It's not on DVD (yet), so I'd highly recommend making it to the Vancity on Friday or Monday to see it.

LATE ADDITION: I've edited the post to add reference to the complete article in Look.

Busy Me, plus Julie Belmas note

Hm. Well, it's been awhile since I've posted, and it may be longer - several articles to work on in preparation for the film festival, among other things. One thing I'll mention - I wonder if anyone has seen Pale Anguish Keeps, an experimental film about prison that Julie Belmas, or Juliet Belmas, made in 1990? There's not a lot of information about it online - one page from Moving Images BC comes up on searches, but it seems to have been taken down. I'm assuming this is the same Belmas who was a member of Direct Action... Anyone know where she is these days?

Ferdy Belland on the Furies, the Dishrags, and so forth

Chris Arnett of the Furies, by Femke Van Delft


Hey, y'all - Allan here. Thought this might be of interest - Nerve photographer Femke van Delft and I were at the under-attended, under-hyped Dishrags/Furies "30th anniversary of Vancouver punk" show; my piece on the night is in the current issue of the Nerve Magazine. Turns out that Nerve writer Ferdy Belland was also there, and submitted his own review, unsolicited. In many ways, his is a better piece - he was there for the whole show, for one, and knows way more background about some of the bands than I do. It deserved publication! So here's Ferdy's review of the night, and a couple of Femke's photos.


The Furies / The Dishrags / Duvallstar / Bug Nasties / Search Parties
Richard's on Richards, Vancouver BC
Saturday August 18th, 2007

This JEM Productions event was hailed by many as the 30th Anniversary of Vancouver's 'Summer of Punk,' and although the surviving attendees of that long-ago concert at the Japanese Hall were somewhat thin on the ground at Dick's that night, it was amazing that no less than two of Western Canada's earliest punk units were reformed in fine form for the show.

Search Parties almost severed the show's jugular before the show's heart could really get pumping, if only because they were so teeth-grittingly lousy. Granted, there was about 30 seconds’ worth of smirked amusement in watching a barefoot, howling young man in a hospital gown, jerking and spazzing about onstage like an electroshocked asylum inmate, slashing half-tuned un-chords from his acoustic guitar while the touchingly cute girls in the band bing-ed and ting-ed along with him on melodicas and Casio organs...all to the Maureen-Tucker-sitting-in-with-the-Shaggs beat of the drummer...but all in all, this is yet another pointless 'art' band you could have seen at Hoko's a few months back. I'm sure they're all nice kids and all, and were on the bill since one of the bandmembers was the daughter of a local punk luminary, but there needed to be an ex-Only staffer onsite to do them any critical justice. I needed a beer, with more to follow.

The electrifying appearance of Seattle's Bug Nasties woke everyone up from their post-Search Parties doze with a galvanizing set of soul-drenched rock and roll that evoked the OD'ed ghost of Johnny Thunders out of an overdriven halfstack. Leading the power trio, vocalist-guitarist Brother James Burdyshaw gets oldschool Sub Pop props from having once fronted Cat Butt, but here he seemed like Malcolm McLaren fronting the Commitments, counterpointed by the endearingly geeky Scott LaRose on bass and drummer Vic “the Stick” Hart (half Al Pacino, half Sonny Bono). Honest-to-Baal groovy rocknroll which would scorch Bryce Dunn’s moptop with their winning combination of garage-mod rave-ups; people began filing out onto the dance floor and frugging, for frug’s sake. The Bug Nasties have no choice now but to return across the border tout-suite, if only so we all can dress up sharp and shake our asses like there’s no more GST returns.

Vancouver’s punk princess Siobhan Duvall strode onstage, celebrating her 40th birthday in glamourous style (looking absolutely sleek and stunning in her high heels and a glittering, skintight crimson dress cut up to here) and chopping out her familiar set of garagey pop-punk tunes, fleshing out her unapologetic Debbie Harry worship with yet another pair of young black-clad journeymen on bass and drums. Although new songs don’t seem to come quickly for Duvall, the personable ex-Bombshells guitarist has been truly immersed in the city’s punk culture for over twenty years, as she happily remarked between mid-set shots of (pink?) liquor. Duvallstar’s set climaxed with a truly killer version of the Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer,” with the Furies’ Chris Arnett sitting in on lead guitar (more on him later).

Jade Blade of the Dishrags - Photo by Femke van Delft

This writer used to bitterly wonder where the hell inept sloppy-pop (cuddle-core) bands like Cub and Celestial Magenta came from, and to finally see the legendary Dishrags in action is to finally understand – and to accept with an open, warmer heart. Every time Carmen “Scout” Michaud missed a beat, it truly touched me. I didn’t feel cheated, and neither did the milling dozens who began filing out of the darkness and up to the stage to catch the love up close. You could see Scout leaning down low over the snare drum, peeking out with a sheepish grin at guitarist Jill “Jade Blade” Bain, but the mood onstage was too lighthearted for any return-snarls of offended professionalism…this was the Dishrags! Only smiles were sent back to the drum riser. Bassist Chris “Dale Powers” Lalonde’s elfin china-doll looks caught a lot of admiring looks from the nose-ringed hardcore boys in the crowd, but punk keeps everyone ageless, as it should. I’ll take the Dishrags over Shonen Knife any day.

The Furies are hailed as Vancouver’s very first punk rock band, even predating DOA, and holy shit - were they a treat to behold. Chris Arnett is one of the very few local frontmen who can honestly swagger cockily onstage without looking like an asshole, even if he’s wearing shades and a sleeveless T-shirt…that ensemble, completed with his dark curls and his overdriven Gibson, made it seem as if Lou Reed was re-writing Bruce Springsteen. The big bad bald bassist bulged his shirtseams with his biceps, and the drummer hacked and pounded the beat until everyone’s head was happily nodding along. Very much a sight to behold as Arnett kept stepping atop the front-end speaker riser to rip through frenetic guitar solos which were almost in key and always on top. The Furies gave one a glimpse into times when ‘punk’ was more about attitude than codified sound, and one hopes that we won’t have to wait until August 2037 for their next set. Calling Wendy Thirteen!

The only real beef I had with the show was Dick’s being half-full, but like the early punk shows that first lit up this rain-sodden burg, it’s always a case of quality versus quantity. We were there, and the coked-out meatheads at Skybar weren’t.

-Ferdy Belland


Chris Arnett of the Furies, photo by Femke van Delft

OJ Simpson versus Billy Wilder

Okay, look, I really don't give a fuck about OJ Simpson, but does anyone else think this is bizarre? Plans to stock Simpson's hypothetical "confession," If I Did It, were scrapped for being in bad taste, after a huge public outcry; the rights to the book were awarded to the family of victim Ron Goldman, since Simpson owes them money from the civil suit that stemmed from the murders; and now pre-orders for the book - to be published in the, I guess you could say, "Goldman edition," with special notes and so forth from the victim's family - are skyrocketing. I mean, it's a viciously appropriate move, and don't get me wrong, there's certainly a concept of justice at work here - a very dark, public, and sensational form of justice - but, uh, on some level, if it's in atrocious bad taste to read OJ's hypothetical confession when he publishes it, is it somehow now in good taste to read it when it's been taken from him? I'll leave aside the motivations of the Goldman family, whose name appears as the author on Amazon - but what's inside the mind of the people who are preordering it in droves? Whose blood are they hungry for? (At this point, it's not even clear whose blood is on the pages - is it STILL profiteering from Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman's death, or is it now Simpson's blood being spilled?). I sorta don't blame Barnes and Noble for deciding not to stock the book, no matter who is publishing the fucking thing.

Speaking of media circuses, anyone who likes devastating critiques of the same, and who has not yet seen Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, should go to the Cinematheque tonight. A great film - darkly funny and very accurate, starring Kirk Douglas as a cynical but energetic reporter covering - and manipulating the coverage of - an artefact-hound trapped in a cave collapse.

Charles Mudede and Zoo: Good News, Bad News

For those of you checking in based on the Q&A with Charles Mudede last week at the Vancity Theatre, the bad news is that I'm not posting the whole of my interview with him here, as promised. The good news (for me) is that this is because a prestigious film journal has expressed interest, and are currently looking at it. Apologies for the change of plans, but they contacted me a couple of days ago, and really, how could I refuse? It will be so much nicer to read in a magazine then on a blog. I will keep you posted as publication date nears. In the meantime, not to disappoint, here are a few outtakes from the interview, re-organized to stand on their own; some passages may seem a bit opaque, but this will all be cleared up when the final version sees print...


A: I was curious about the radio report we here, where it’s said that federal agents are telling people not to talk about Mr. Hands’ real name.

C: That was Tom Leykis. He said that he was receiving calls from Boeing workers saying that federal agents had arrived, telling them not to talk about this guy. We didn’t say that, but Tom Leykis did.

A: You didn’t have any directives not to mention his name or anything like that?

C: No, no. What happened was – the reason we didn’t mention his name was because we wanted a member of the family, his brother, to be part of it. We knew through the horse rescuer, Jenny – we had contact with him. We had promised that we were going to keep his name out of it, but we wanted him to talk about his brother.

A: Which he doesn’t do.

C: Which he doesn’t do. But just to show him that we were not going to throw his name around, we did that.

A: How does his family feel about the film?

C: We don’t know. We don’t know at all.

A: In the scene where the police are insisting the couple are watching the film – why are they so insistent? The owners get upset, but they force them to continue. Did they think they were complicit?

C: No, no, because they needed a case against the guy – because they had to verify the images. It was the only thing they could do, the police were stuck. They could only get’em on trespassing. If those two couldn’t confirm that that was their horse, they didn’t have anything they could do, so they were desperate. And to show the cop’s desperation, we were looking at the film image, and we want to capture – the cops need something, and nobody wants to deal with this – that’s what we were trying to convey. The cops are saying “no no no, you must look at this...”

A: The video we briefly see, that IS the horse and Pinyan?

C: Mm-hm! (Mudede explains elsewhere that it is a video of an earlier encounter between the two, widely circulated on the internet).

A: In your original article, you seemed quite skeptical about what these men were doing.

C: Oh, yeah.

A: Do you have any sympathy for the zoophiles? Do you regard them as damaged men?

C: No, I don’t see them as damaged men, no. I never felt what it was like to screw a horse. I don’t know what it’s like to be in that situation. It doesn’t mean you’re damaged or not, no. We’re saying we can’t resolve that desire in society yet. It doesn’t make any sense to do so. I’m not saying the desire is wrong or right. I’m just saying the desire has problems in terms of functioning in a larger legal framework... I only stand on human values, and human invented values, and I’ve accepted these ones, and I don’t like these (other) ones. I think that drugs like marijuana and cocaine should be legalized, but... these are all questions that are human essentially, and they’re not permanent or fixed or metaphysical. There actually active, fluid, and can change. That’s all I stand on, and so when I look at their values, I say – “no, I prefer my values.” Not because they’re the last values on earth, but because I think that they still are better, in terms that they make more sense to me than the value that you present.

A: How do you personally feel about these men, though? How do you respond to them on a personal level?

C: I have nothing personal against them at all. I’m not angry with them, I’m just saying that right now, it doesn’t make any sense to have sex with a horse, or a cow, and then to eat it. And that’s a big problem with me. I can’t accept that. That’s all.

The Invasion: a waste of time and, presumably, talent

In the age of McCarthyism, it makes sense that an SF thriller that figured both the depersonalization of life under communism and the hysterical American (over)reaction to same would touch a nerve and be seen as a valuable cultural document, but despite its brilliant premise, I've always found Don Siegel's original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) a little short on craft; on a very basic level, it's too threadbare and ordinary a film, too rife with clumsy framings and barn-broad performances to really merit the status of a classic. Really, so is the 1978 remake, which relocates the paranoid thriller to San Francisco; it looks and feels, for the most part, like the mediocre commercial thriller that it is, with a soundtrack that is often grating and some strikingly cliched shots (tho' I retain a fondness for it, since it does take a few satisfying snipes at California consciousness-raising and has a witty W. D. Richter screenplay). The third remake I barely recall, but at the time, it seemed to be about nothing at all, and is perhaps the only Abel Ferrara film I find wholly negligible (beneath even The Driller Killer, which I haven't even viewed in completion); I never understood Ferrara's point in making the film, and may someday look at it again to reassure myself that there probably wasn't one. Could it have been as bad as The Invasion, though, the newest reworking of Jack Finney's original story? I sorely doubt it.

That would be a great opening paragraph to a full-on explication of why The Invasion is a negligible film. Unfortunately, the movie is so negligible that it doesn't even merit a full-on detailing of its faults. It is a clumsily-crafted hired-gun genre film, in which a presumably talented filmmaker, Oliver Hirschbiegel, who directed the workmanlike but somewhat specious The Experiment and the recent Downfall, with Bruno Ganz in a widely-praised turn as Hitler, lends his name and prestige to what might just as well be an instructional video on the dangers of collective action, such is the level of passion on display. The most glaring example of the film's indifferent assembly is a scene where Kidman and the child she is protecting race to the roof of a building to meet a helicopter, as the infected, the running zombies, the (new, improved, and now podless) pod people - whatever you want to call them - run after them; Kidman and kid spill out of the exit just as the soldiers are piling off the helicopter to confront the mass of Enemy Other emerging behind them. We SEE the soldiers with guns drawn, and we SEE the Other massing behind Kidman and her keep. Cut to: Kidman and kid in copter, safely being whisked away with all soldiers apparently on board. What about the showdown on the roof? When did the soldiers get back on the copter? Were shots fired? Are the podfolk, who are aware that Kidman and so forth pose a drastic threat to their collective takeover, simply placidly watching the copter fly away? Presumably you're supposed to be inattentive enough to such details not to mind much what happened: on with the narrative, it's not important. Certainly not important to Hirschbiegel, anyhow; to me, it's an inexcusable display of filmic indifference, and not the only one on hand.

It's on the level of meaning that the film fails most glaringly, however. It rather ridiculously - like the recent sequel to 28 Days Later - suggests that war, violence, discord, wife-battering, and territorial squabblings are all the inevitable consequences of a world where individual identity and emotion are paramount, and that as long as we privilige the latter, we have to accept the former (did this really seem like a profound observation to anyone involved in the making of the film?). After all, one of the symptoms of the titular phenomenon is that (as radio and TV broadcasts in the background demonstrate), as more and more people acquire the alien virus, world peace ensues, with India and Pakistan reconciling, Hugo Chavez and George W. Bush pledging a peaceful relationship, and troops being pulled out of Baghdad. Such horrors must be stopped at all costs! If the filmmakers are suggesting - in the manner of Saul Bass' great, neglected ant-consciousness film Phase IV - that we need to actually be flexible enough to adapt to the challenges of collectivity, if we are to survive, it is in no way explicated in the central drama, in which an alternately stiff and strident Nicole Kidman protects her child and herself from the alien virus, at all costs; we identify with them, and see the podless pods as the enemy, simply because that's the kind of film we're watching and it would require too much original thinking to frame things differently. The possibility that maybe surrendering your individuality is sometimes the right thing to do is never seriously considered, which, really - given the improved world the film hints at - it needs to be, for the movie to amount to anything more than a bromide.

Best thing in the movie: a brief appearance by Veronica Cartwright (from the 1978 version), who still manages to make being neurotic and high-strung seem sexy in her late-50's. Add her to the list of older actresses I covet sexually, alongside Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon, and Helen Mirren. Veronica: the highlights in your hair looked great! By the way, didja realize that one of the minor characters in the 1978 film was played by Lelia Goldoni, from Cassavetes' Shadows? I hadn't, until recently.

Given the spate of horror films that show lone individuals running from an evil, transformed mob - we could also include the remake of Dawn of the Dead on the list - it will be very interesting to see what is done with the new adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend that's bein' cooked up, a text which also poses more interesting challenges than past film adaptations (like, say, The Omega Man) have done justice to. I enjoy so few commercial films now, tho', that I am not holding my breath.

Adrian Mack is Great (let it be known)

5 reasons why Adrian Mack (music editor at the Nerve Magazine) is great:

1. He has never once made a frivolous or unnecessary change to my writing. He does EDIT my stuff, when necessary - it's not that he doesn't do his job or such - but (I truly believe) he recognizes effective prose, and doesn't want to fuck with it to produce mere journalese, or for the sake of asserting hierarchy. This is rare indeed, as is the faith that readers might PREFER to read good writin' to generic newspaper-style prose. When he does step in, it's always for the betterment of the piece. You may think that that is the standard role of an editor, but I actually find it rather exceptional behaviour.

2. He likes the new Meat Puppets CD as much as I do, ie, he has good taste in music (I ain't seen him in his role as drummer - for John Ford, Rich Hope, etc - sufficient times to really evaluate him as a musician, but it's cool that he has been on the other side of the fence, too).

3. The guy can WRITE. I don't scour the local free papers lookin' for him, but when I do bump into his prose, I am almost always entertained - I mean, digging deep for the socio-cultural significance of celebrity upskirts is all right by me (hey, didn't there used to be an MKUltra reference in that column, about how Britney and whatnot were Monarch sex slaves?). I wish his Hinder review were online; I laughed out loud, readin' that one.

4. He knows more about weird conspiracy theory shit than anyone else I know, but, unlike the people you meet who try to convince you that their given conspiracy theory is the correct one, he also retains a sense of humour and distance and is both aware of, and has a healthy respect for, consensus reality, which makes him very entertaining to discuss these matters with. Whatever else he may or may not be, Adrian Mack is not a humourless fruitcake.

5. He's, like, a really nice dude. Ever aware that I work hard for the Nerve for little in the way o' tangible recompense, he sometimes goes out of his way, when I have been exceptionally productive, to provide very thoughtful, delightful daubs of payola for me (he tracked down John Cassavetes on the Cavett Show online and burned me a disc of it, I mean, ain't that great? Find me another editor who does shit like that! Thanks, man!). Don't worry, Mack: I love writing for the Nerve (with the exception o' the odd episode of horrifyingly inappropriate captions bein' attached to my writing by OTHER editors, who shall go nameless and uncredited). And no one else in this no-dick town is gonna pay me for my Meat Puppets reviews ANYHOW.

Cheers to Adrian Mack!

CORRECTION - Charles Mudede Saturday Only

Hey, y'all - I'm being told Charles Mudede will only be in attendance at the Saturday screening of Zoo.

The article, by the way, is here...

Zoo opens Friday at the Vancity Theatre; Charles Mudede will be in attendance

One of the year's more controversial documentaries, Zoo deals with the Enumclaw horsefucking case - a story which fascinates me, but seems to immediately turn off about half of the people I mention it to - particularly reactionary and inflexible young liberals, who are convinced, sight unseen, that it is a work of exploitation. This was not my reaction, and I've actually seen the film - a few times, now: Zoo is, believe it or not, tasteful and reflective and more unsettling - in a calm, creepy way - than exploitive. My only criticism would be that it pulls a few punches - it avoids going into a great deal of detail as to what the men were actually doing in the barn, and you get the feeling that more challenging questions might have been asked the zoophiles, whose interviews comprise most of the narration of the film and whom the filmmakers are at pains to normalize, perhaps feeling that their actions alone will do enough to make them look like weirdos to most people... Still, it's well worth seeing, and seeing again - it's one of those films that leaves you feeling a bit mystified and fascinated, unsure what has just happened to you, turning it over like a puzzle in your mind. Sean Kirby - who was also the DOP for Police Beat, a film I much love - captures the beauty of western Washington State and offers many compelling images - it feels, if a cheap comparison is excusable, like Errol Morris by way of David Lynch. Charles Mudede, co-author of the film (with director Robinson Devor) and author of the article linked about it - click on "Enumclaw horsefucking case" above - will be in attendance Friday and Saturday, and my interview with him (I hope in a more or less unchanged fashion!) will appear in the movie section of tomorrow's Georgia Straight. The film screens in a double bill with Your Mommy Kills Animals, about animal rights activism, which also sounds quite interesting.

It's funny: I made my break into publication with a story on Zev Asher's film on a controversial cat killing case, Casuistry; now I'm fording the wall of the Georgia Straight with a documentary on horse sex. People are going to start thinking I'm strange.

Zombie solidarity, Zoo, Paul Rutherford obit, Furies, Rebel Spell

I am informed that there will be another Zombiewalk, the third, on August 25 starting at 3pm from the VAG. Alas, I am far too preoccupied to make time to lurch around downtown this year - I feel enough like a zombie in my freetime that I scarcely need to pretend I am one. However, as an act of solidarity, I thought I would show a picture I found in a shoebox at my parents, of me dressed as a zombie for a Grade Two Hallowe'en event, I think. I'm pretty sure that's me. I do not believe, at that point, I had seen Dawn of the Dead - my father once took me to a double bill of that film, and Phantasm, in Mission, and I LOVED them, and was warped for life - but I may have seen images of zombies in Famous Monsters of Filmland, which I was very likely reading at that point.

Some stuff:

1. The Georgia Straight on Thursday will be running a feature of mine on Zoo, the film about the Enumclaw horsefucking case. I interviewed Charles Mudede, the author of the article previously linked. Not sure what this will look like in print, but it's my first piece in the Straight, so I'm quite happy. Mudede will be in attendance at the Friday screening at the Vancity Theatre.

2. Jazz fans will be saddened to note that avant-garde trombonist Paul Rutherford, who, if memory serves, performed here a few years ago when the Dedication Orchestra came to the jazz festival, has died.

3. Anyone planning on seeing the Furies and the Dishrags live this Saturday - a show I highly recommend - might be interested in revisiting my interview with Furies frontman/guitarist Chris Arnett. The new CD is great, in a trog-rock kinda way.

4. The next Nerve will be chock-full of me: a Meat Puppets review, a Furies review, a People Like Us review (if Adrian uses it), a writeup on Under the Volcano - which will also get some space here, if I can just make it through a few more things I gotta do. There will also be part two of my Mike Watt interview; part one, dealing with his involvement in the Unknown Instructors, is here, if you are reading this currently; if it ain't August 2007 as you scan these words, you'll have to root through the Nerve's archives to find it, if you care - look at the bottom of their Contents menu. By the way, yes, I realize I have not yet posted the transcript of my Dan McGuire interview here, but no one has complained or indicated interest, so maybe I can just shelve that for now and move on to transcribing tape for this lingering Rebel Spell thing I'm working on, which has only been on the back burner for about five months. Their newest four songs will be appearing online on August 28th at www.g7welcomingcommittee.com, their new label, so it seems like a good time to get off my ass.

Not that I am spending that much time on my ass these days.

Hey, I really need to get laid, if there are any takers.

Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll be Better Tomorrow

Say what you will about him, there are at least three real contributions to my life that Henry Rollins has made, over and above that of his music (which I have enjoyed many times - Black Flag were probably my second musical love - after the Who at age 13...):

1. Turning me on to the Stooges' Fun House and the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat in a very early (1982?) article in Spin magazine. I was 14 and living in the suburbs, having heard of neither band (tho' I think I knew who Iggy Pop was at that point). It changed my listening forever and prepared me for much that was to come.

2. (For better or for worse - ask my friends): Vastly broadening my comfort about talking about masturbation. Hell, he may have even IMPROVED my masturbation, by lessening any leftover Catholic guilts about it through his own openness. I keep sending him letters of thanks, in fact, with a few stories of my own - like the one about how, at age 12, my not wanting to confess to a priest what I was doing in the bathroom for so long probably saved me from a Catholic adulthood, to say nothin' of the possibility of bein' raped by a MIB - but, heh, he never writes back.

3. Turning me on to the novels of Hubert Selby Jr. I don't think I would be quite the same person without having read the immensely painful, but immensely spiritually rewarding, book, Last Exit to Brooklyn, when I was a teen. It's up there with the films of John Cassavetes and Ingmar Bergman, for me, for providing a painfully honest, spiritually serious, questing and passionate take on the human condition, but it does so while resiliently maintaining a lower class perspective, which literature is so generally lacking. One of the people in this documentary I'm watching on Selby - an excellent little film that I highly recommend, called It/ll Be Better Tomorrow; official site here -- talks about Selby's language being the equivalent of the music of Charlie Parker, but anyone who REALLY knows his jazz knows that this is Albert Ayler territory. There are screams of love, pain, ecstacy, sorrow and need from the very depths of the human soul. Except it hurts a lot more than Ayler, noisy as he may get; Ayler's story is sadder, but his music is more rapturous, easier to take. It affirms life in joy; Selby affirms life in tears. In any event: the man deserves great respect.

Anyhow, I wanted to tell y'all about this anecdote from the DVD I'm watching. Selby's novels - especially Last Exit, written in the 1950's - were at times called obscene, because they frankly depict sexual activity (and drug use and violence and homosexuality/transsexualism, and, of course, deep human suffering) and because they have plentiful profanity. The novels are so aware of the pain of the characters that, for all of this, one is more likely to think of Christ's compassion for Magdalen than of pornography, tho'. Even I - a man who has, at times, "entertained himself" ala Rollins with the works of Bataille and de Sade - cannot imagine anyone ready Selby salaciously, whatever controversies his books may once have generated.

That's just the build up to the anecdote, tho': despite all this, one of the various writers interviewed for the film, Jerry Stahl, I believe, tells that when he first met Selby, he confessed that it was strange meeting him, since Selby was "the first writer I ever jerked off to." Selby apparently was taken aback and remarked, "You're sicker than I thought." Then - as Stahl tells it - Selby's voice raised in curiosity: "What part?"

One thing, tho' - don't believe the highfalutin' book critic in the film who tells you, like he thinks he KNOWS sumfin, that the irregular line lengths on Selby's page, where paragraphs stop and start irregularly, are indicative of the pauses between paragraphs. Obvious bullshit, I'm sure - even tho' I'm merely arrivin' at my own deduction here, I would bet dinars to dogshit that it's the correct one: remember that Selby used a MANUAL TYPEWRITER - observe his comments on apostrophes vs. slashes, also in the film, which center on this fact - and that the fastest and easiest way - and certainly the most hands-on way - to drop from one paragraph to another on a manual, rather than hitting the return key, would be to grab the fuckin' wheel at the side of the machine and crank it. I am absolutely positive that this is the method we're seeing at work; pauses my ass, this is sheer impatient pragmatism to get the stuff onto the page as quickly and purely as possible, and damn all the rest of that other meaningless shit.

Anyhow, this is a great documentary - even if you don't know the work of Hubert Selby Jr (and please don't judge it by exposure to any movies you may have seen; neither are very good, tho' Requiem is probably the better).

Post-script: I wonder if Chris Walter has read the book of Selby's stories I gave him? I really, really, really want Chris Walter to read Hubert Selby. Maybe he's the kind of guy, tho', who if you bugged him would dig in his heels? If I were a praying man, I think, I'd be down on my knees for this'un.

Post-script two: I wonder if Oprah is literate enough to have asked Cormac McCarthy what he thought of Selby? I haven't tracked down that fuckin' interview. One o' the Pulp Fiction guys sez it's on Youtube somewhere, but I really don't wanna see it. I mean, cripes, folks - McCarthy gives ONE SINGLE LONE FUCKIN' INTERVIEW post-success and it's with OPRAH? Fuck it.

Post-script three: and, uh, thanks, Henry.

Family Visit, plus Unknown Instructors placeholder

Currently in Maple Ridge, where my Uncle Alex (usually pronounced by my family as "Alec," a practice which I have adopted) is visiting from Nova Scotia. He's an exuberant fellow - a Celtic musician and an enthusiastic teller of Newfie jokes -- so for a change, family is trumping my chronicling of odd culture and Vancouver arts events. Took him to see John Fogerty at Deer Lake the other night, and am currently visiting him and my folks in Maple Ridge, without even a second thought about Koichi Makigami at the Powell Street festival, tho' it makes it the second time I've bailed on one of his Vancouver visits (sorry, Makigami-san!). One thing, though: I owe a brief note to those few Nerve Readers and Unknown Instructors fans who have actually visited my blog seeking the remainder of my Dan McGuire interview. It will be up in a few days, when I have the time to finish transcribing it, I promise. I think both poets and fans of Mike Watt, Joe Baiza, the Minutemen, and/or Saccharine Trust would find it very interesting - and there may be a bit of stuff on Iggy and the Stooges that didn't make it into the current issue of the Nerve.

By the way, if you haven't seen the current Nerve Magazine, or heard the new Unknown Instructors album, His Masters Voice - find a way to listen to the album that suits your conscience and find the new Nerve, since it features Watt, Baiza, and McGuire all in one. I like it a lot, and all the members I spoke to agree with me that it's a lot stronger than their previous venture. It's the first part of a two-part Watt-centric interview, to be followed next month by all Watt; I actually think this month's is the stronger month, tho'.

Oh, and while you're at it, there's also my review of the newest Jandek live album and a concert review of Tortoise (who suck) and Fond of Tigers (who don't), from when they played during the jazz festival.

That's all I can offer at the moment! (Oh, y'all know that the new Razorcake has my new Chris Walter interview in it, right? Alas, it's not so easy to find at the moment - I believe Scratch are all out).