She Walks In Beauty

I am almost finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel. At just over a thousand pages, it has provided a thoroughly enjoyable read over the last few months, interrupted by a Hong Kong adventure that left me stuck reading another book for a while. Look for a review in the next few days.

One of the characters in the book is Lord Byron, the famous poet, who in his time was as well known for his scandalous exploits as his writing. During his lifetime, he won fame throughout Europe for his charming good looks, his controversial writing (exemplified by his unfinished Don Juan), his political career and involvement in the Greek war for independence, and his many bisexual love affairs, including rumors that he seduced his half-sister. Truly, the Lindsay Lohan of his time.

In keeping with the poem theme of beauty, here is his most famous poem, 'She Walks In Beauty':

She walks in beauty—like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to the tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face—
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

I will not try and provide any criticism. The poem speaks for itself more eloquently than anyone will ever be able to do so on its behalf.

But how cool is it to have a name like George Gordon, Lord Byron. Another poet with a similar name is Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I need to figure out how I can marry into a Lordship. It will definitely help my writing career.

Stealing Beauty

Here is another poem I wrote a long time ago. It also was influenced by the All This Useless Beauty song. I really love the idea that beauty that has been stored in museums somehow has no use. Of course the title and original idea was also inspired by the Liv Tyler movie of the same name.

It is just one stanza, from an original five. The others are not very good (or should I say, much worse than this one). When I get the time I will work on them and maybe post the whole poem.

STEALING BEAUTY

A fire burns between his legs
spurring him on.
He’s prowling through the night
hidden in the light, the smoke, the heat of humanity
crowded around him with smiles and combative eyes.
His own eyes troll the depths--
of sleeky steel legs, slithering on the dance floor,
of bouncing ball breasts, wrapped to impress,
of whirlpooling hips and sweet-tasting lips--
fishing underneath.
And his sex clanks back and forth
between his legs
like the bell that signs midnight
hoping that by its last chime
it will be
Stealing Beauty.

停用一次筷

I just recently found out from a coworker that Greenpeace has an office in Beijing. I had no idea. When I moved here in 2000, Greenpeace was only operating in Hong Kong because of issues of how to approach the Mainland. There traditional campaign model obviously would not work here.

Well it turns out that they have now opened up multiple offices in China and are working with the government to conduct campaigns and educate officials on how to become more environmentally sustainable.

One campaign they conducted recently was to educate people on the issue of disposable chopsticks. This is an issue near and dear to my own heart, and I always try to bring my reusable chopsticks with me where ever I go.

The numbers are staggering. Chinese factories churn out 63 billion pairs each year. By bringing your own chopsticks you can not only help conserve resources, but you also avoid worrying whether the chopsticks provided by the restaurant are clean or not.

Also heartening, another Greenpeace China campaign is being conducted by several young Chinese environmentalists. The fact that Chinese youth have begun become involved with environmental activism provides hope that the overwhelming issues that China faces will begin to be addressed before it is too late.

Magic & Loss

One of my favorite songs, lyrically, is Lou Reed's Magic and Loss. I think it really encapsulates the human condition.

My favorite line is: "They say no one person can do it all/but you want to in your head/But you can't be Shakespeare/and you can't be Joyce/so what is left instead."

When I first heard this song, I was in University. The idea of conquering the world seemed possible then. This song deals with coming to terms with your own limitations.

But the song also deals with fire, and the passions of our life, and the drive we have to live.

I think this song can be inspiring to anyone. Everyone has a mixture of both magic and loss in their life, and the key to happiness is enjoying the magic as much as possible and not letting the loss hold us back.

Here is the entire song:

When you pass through the fire
you pass through humble
You pass through a maze of self doubt
When you pass through humble
the lights can blind you
Some people never figure that out
You pass through arrogance you pass through hurt
You pass through an ever present past
and it's best not to wait for luck to save you
Pass through the fire to the light

As you pass through the fire
your right hand waving
there are things you have to throw out
That caustic dread inside your head
will never help you out
You have to be very strong
'cause you'll start from zero
over and over again
And as the smoke clears
there's an all consuming fire
lying straight ahead

They say no one person can do it all
but you want to in your head
But you can't be Shakespeare
and you can't be Joyce
so what is left instead
You're stuck with yourself
and a rage that can hurt you
You have to start at the beginning again
And just this moment
This wonderful fire started up again

When you pass through humble
when you pass through sickly
When you pass through
I'm better than you all
When you pass through
anger and self deprecation
and have the strength to acknowledge it all
When the past makes you laugh
and you can savor the magic
that let you survive your own war
You find that that fire is passion
and there's a door up ahead not a wall

As you pass through fire as you pass through fire
try to remember its name
When you pass through fire licking at your lips
you cannot remain the same
And if the building's burning
move towards that door
but don't put the flames out
There's a bit of magic in everything
and then some loss to even things out.

We All Got It Coming

In a recent edition of Fresh Air, David Edelstein reviewed the new Clint Eastwood movie, Changeling. I have not seen the movie, so I will not comment on his negative review. But I do want to respond to his criticism of Eastwood in general, and in particular the dismissal of his Academy Award winning film Unforgiven.

What disgruntled me about Edelstein's review is that he did not seem to really understand the great depth of a film that went great lengths to eschew action and concentrate on its portrayal of morally ambivalent characters in a society that provides only arbitrary justice.

His chief denunciation of the film stems from the fact that most people have labeled it 'revisionist.' In a New York Times review of another Eastwood film, he writes, "After the town's fanatical and sadistic law-and-order sheriff (Gene Hackman) whips Munny's friend (Morgan Freeman) to death, the gunfighter returns to wreak a holy vengeance -- and this so-called anti-violence western ends with a predictable blood bath. True, it isn't a rousing climax, and Munny is presented as hellbound for having returned to his killing ways. But the greater challenge for the character would be walking away from retribution -- or vainly seeking justice via a higher authority."

A genre picture that breaks new ground subverting the traditional conventions of the genre should rightly be labeled revisionist. Any number of elements can be cited in Unforgiven which mark it as a groundbreaking western, including what I consider its unprecedented depiction of the prostitute characters. Edelstein himself refers to another break with canon:

The movie has many dense and beautifully shaped scenes, but its most harrowing is the one in which Mr. Eastwood's Will Munny, a once-notorious gunfighter lured away from farming and parenthood by a large bounty on two cowboys, finally confronts his prey. Munny's last shot hits the more innocent of the two men in the stomach, after which he must listen to his victim's cries (''They shot me, boys, they shot me!'') and pleas for water. Munny's head drops heavily in shame, and he is isolated in the frame: it is the first time that an Eastwood character has murdered a harmless man on screen, and the acknowledgement seems revolutionary.

Indeed, the movie does end in a spectacular shoot out, as Eastwood confronts a saloon full of deputies single-handedly and emerges unscathed. But William Munny's survival in itself represents a break from traditional action movies. As an audience, we have been conditioned to two types of climaxes in a movie with an outlaw protagonist. Either the hero atones for his past sins and finds redemption through love or some other new found virtue, or the hero dies in the end. Sometimes both.

But in Unforgiven, there is no redemption for Eastwood, nor any of the characters for that matter. Eastwood is not coming out of retirement in order to avenge a slighted woman, but to earn the much needed bounty. In fact, the entire movie revolves around an ambiguously defined moral dilemma, in which Eastwood and his partner are seeking a reward for murdering two cowboys who cut up a prostitute but were allowed to walk free for the price of seven horses. Little Bill, the antagonist, clashes with Eastwood because he does not tolerate gunslingers in his town, and is determined to protect the cowboys from vigilante justice. Who is in the right, and who is in the wrong? One of the beautiful aspects of the movie is that everyone follows somewhere in between, with both flaws and redeeming qualities on full display.

I have deliberated a great deal on why we chose to root for the Eastwood character. What endears him to the audience? He's old. He's a murderer of women and children. It might seem that because he has reformed for the love of his wife, we are attracted to his redemption. Except that as soon as he finds out his partner has been murdered, he takes to drinking again and murders anyone who is even tangentially connected to the event, including the saloon owner where the body is put on display.

I have concluded that the one quality every one of the antagonists shares, and which Eastwood definitively abstains from, is pride. Little Bill is exceedingly proud of himself, and pontificates at great length of his achievements to the journalist. He treats the town of Big Whiskey as something of a personal fiefdom. English Bob is smarmy with his British airs, and mocks the republic for assassinating its president, something that could never happen to a monarch. The Scofield Kid brags about his murder count and adorns himself with false bravado to cover his obvious callowness. All three get their comeuppance in different ways.

But Eastwood, an aging pig farmer, a widower with two kids to feed, does not look back on his outlaw days fondly, and finds nothing in his character or his past to brag about. Perhaps the most sophisticated element in this script dealing with multiple themes threaded neatly through a winding narrative is that what is perhaps the central theme to the movie is never actually acknowledged. I do not believe the words pride or arrogance are uttered even once. It is up to the viewers to discover for themselves.

To look at Unforgiven and see a violent movie that preaches against violence is too miss the point and to ignore the complexity of what I consider one of the all time great scripts. The movie is not trying to condemn violence. Instead, it is a portrayal of law, vengeance, and death in a society where no central authority exists. The only authority is violence or the threat of violence. We see different tribes--the deputies, the cowboys, the bounty hunters, the prostitutes--all trying to protect their own and secure justice when one of their members has been harmed.

Anyone who expects justice to be paid out to all those who deserve it has only to listen to William Munny himself. When Little Bill pleads that he does not deserve to be executed like this, Munny responds, "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it." And when the Scolfield Kid regrets his first actual shooting, lamenting that his victim had no idea it was coming while he was sitting in the outhouse, Eastwood concludes "We all got it coming, kid."

Death comes when it will, not when it is deserved, and eventually it will come for everyone. The irony is that the one major character that death has eluded so far is the character that seemingly appreciates it least.