Trying something different this time… I’m going to actually list these in a somewhat loose order of personal significance. Full reviews of all books mentioned can be found on My Goodreads page.

The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
in which a difficulty is earned not by modernist wordplay, but by tackling mercurial and impossible ideas head on, and not without humor. A novel of ideas that is (among other things) also an argument against ideas (or at least against systematizing or simplifying them).

My Friends by Emmanuel Bove
in which the most simple, self-evident language is contained in a perfect novel of quiet humor, sadness, and crystallized beauty; a criminally underread masterpiece.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius by Ray Monk
in which the life of one uncompromising SOB is laid out, showing all the seeming contradictions therein, which in the end turns out to be the perfect vehicle for his ideas (or perhaps the idea itself). A thought provoking book, in which I saw many parallels to Musil’s musings.

Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
in which the trick of hopping around randomly is ultimately trumped by the non-trick of great writing. A very serious game, as one Cronopios was known to say, one that you can put your whole life into.

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
in which a frustrating amount of things keep getting added to the to-do list, though nothing that truly matters is ever addressed; the uneasy feeling produced by this novel rings true for me, and in the end, though nothing is solved, I feel refreshed as if emerging from an ineffably sad dream.

The Atoms of Language by Mark C. Baker
in which a linguist explains the curious logic of all languages, how even the most radically different ones are made up of similar ingredients in different ratios. Also: find out why English is more similar to Indonesian than any other European language.

The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman
in which Ms. Kalman charms us with her drawings of dodos and superfluous tassels and ladies with big hair from the back and hats hats couches hats. A year of jottings and journalings by a quirky and interesting woman.

g-point almanac: passyunk lost  &
g-point almanac: id est by Kevin Varrone
in which is found the best contemporary poetry I’ve read in the last 5 years or so.

Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck
in which time-lapse photography is transfigured into written form, the episodes building one on another like a photograph superimposed, significances becoming apparent that aren’t there for the myopic characters themselves. Surprisingly affecting.

Speaking of the Rose by Robert Walser
in which sentences are like contortionists, able to keep your interest in all ways but what is actually being said (and sometimes in that way too).

A Few “I Must Also Mentions” (in no particular order):

• How Should A Person Be? by Sheila Heti
• Wittgenstein’s Mistress by David Markson
• In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent
• Winter’s Journal by Emmanuel Bove
• Illuminations by Walter Benjamin
• Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer
• Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett
• The Tanners by Robert Walser
• Fermat’s Enigma by Simon Singh

I’m quite ignorant of politics in general, and even more ignorant of politics in other countries, but recently I’ve been wondering about the riots in England. To an American who knows nothing of the context, it seems quite puzzling. But reading some articles online, it seems to make more sense:

Edinburgh might wall off its poor in Muirhouse or Leith, and Oxford might try not to think about Blackbird Leys, but in London, Manchester/Salford, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Nottingham—the cities that erupted on Monday 8th August—the rich live, by and large, next to the poor: £1,000,000 Georgian terraces next to estates with some of the deepest poverty in the EU. We’re so pleased with this that we’ve even extended the principle to how we plan the trickledown dribble of social housing built over the last two decades, those Housing Association schemes where the deserving poor are ‘pepper-potted’ with stockbrokers. We’ve learnt about ‘spatial segregation’, so we do things differently now. Someone commenting on James Meek’s great London Review of Books article on parallel Hackneys mentioned China Miéville’s recent science fiction novel The City and The City, where two cities literally do occupy the same space, with all inhabitants acting as if they don’t. Miéville set it in Eastern Europe, but the inspiration is surely London.

This is illuminating.  But is this situation any better than over here, where we mostly segregate the poor from the rich so as to avoid conflict?  That is equally disturbing. Neighborhoods are cut off from each other, in little pockets of comfortable isolation. Less conflict, maybe, but also less awareness.

Reading about the riots has reminded me of a great passage in The Tanners by Robert Walser that I was reading just yesterday:

How reprehensible it is when those blessed with commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blows—this at least produces a connection, fury and a pounding heart, and these too constitute a form of relationship. But to cower in elegant homes behind golden garden gates, fearful lest the breath of warm humankind touch you, unable to indulge in extravagances for fear they might be glimpsed by the embittered oppressed, to oppress and yet lack the courage to show yourself as an oppressor, even to fear the ones you are oppressing, feeling ill at ease in your own wealth and begrudging others their ease, to resort to disagreeable weapons that require neither true audacity nor manly courage, to have money, but only money, without splendor: That’s what things look like in our cities at present (p. 172)

Walser writes in a stylized hi-falutin manner (often for comic effect), so there is a jarringness, at first, to his diatribes that sound exaggerated when taken outside the context of his books (the speakers often waffle back and forth between hilarious extremes, i.e. he usually delivers a completely opposite speech the next day), but ultimately there is something very truthful in what is said.

SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers. The YouTube clip shows the very end of the movie, and what I write underneath also gives away everything. Needless to say, I recommend this movie unreservedly (it is my favorite movie along with only 3 others that I can call my ‘favorite’). So watch it, then come back and read this entry.

What is it about the celebrations at the end of Fellini’s movies that are so moving? Is it, partially—precisely—that they are so unwarranted? Only after everything is lost does Fellini think the party should start.

I’ve been haunted by that image of Cabiria’s teary eyes looking into the camera right before the movie ends. It resonates so deeply. And much like the rest of the film, it touches the viewer without words, because her actions, body language, and facial expressions say more than any line of dialogue ever can.

At one point she is in a ritzy district of town and walks down a lane. Coming opposite are two tall, obviously wealthy, cultured ladies, their backs to the camera. Cabiria’s short frame is dwarfed by comparison, and on her face, an expression of ‘I’m just as good as you, I can play with the best of them’. But right after she passes them, the facade drops, and you can see on her face all her insecurities and doubts. What a great scene.

This reminds me. Somewhere I heard an interview with an actor who said his best lesson in acting came when he realized that to play a drunk person is not about falling all over the place, but instead it’s about trying your best not to fall all over the place. To show the effort in not falling… because a drunk person is all the time trying to convince people he isn’t drunk.

Likewise, how easy it is to create a character who is naive. But how much more believable it is when that character is trying her best not to be naive, to project a facade of world-weary toughness as Cabiria does. This detail is what makes her character work, what makes you believe that she can actually exist, despite her cartoony proportions.

The attention to detail here is stunning, to the subtleties of every character in the movie, and not just the main ones. In one scene, Oscar the swindler spits out a toothpick before meeting with Cabiria. In another, towards the end, he is wearing sunglasses, a sure sign that he’s ashamed of what he’s about to do.

A scene that was cut: Cabiria finds herself on the outskirts of town, among the poverty of the homeless. But Criterion included it in their version, which was a wise decision. It should never have been cut, because it lends so much more power to the movie as a whole. Here we can imagine Cabiria’s likely fate after the movie ends, after she sold her house and had been cheated out of all her money. Knowing this makes the scene so much more powerful on repeat viewings.

As are many of the foreshadowings of the movie. The push into the river at the beginning is a parallel to the movie’s final betrayal.

Likewise, will the viewer be betrayed? This is what I wonder when Guilietta Masina looks into the camera. For it is Guilietta Masina looking into the camera, and not Cabiria. Or, rather, the possibility that it is both the character and the actor in that one moment, joining the viewer in empathy, is poignant.

She has no right to be smiling here, but she does. Cabiria looks at the audience as if to say ‘It’s okay. Everything will be fine’. The gall of her to be comforting us! Meanwhile Masina is saying ‘It’s okay, it’s just a movie’. But will it be okay? Will Cabiria be okay after the end of this movie? Likewise, will we the viewers be okay out in the world once the fantasy of the movie has ended?

Some say this is a hopeful ending, but I am not so sure anymore. You can see it as naive hope in the face of the cynicism of the world.

Or maybe the ending is a dare. Maybe Fellini is daring the viewer to do exactly that: to interpret the ending as hopeful. Because to feel hopeful after what we’ve been shown is to put yourself in Cabiria’s shoes: naive and willing to imagine a better future despite all evidence to the contrary. Will we dare to take on Cabiria’s fate?

It’s been raining a lot here lately. We’ve run out of options. Everyone has taken to looking out of windows. Here is my cat doing some of that:

If you liked my last post about Google Voice, you might be interested in these. You probably know about Google Street View, but you’d probably be surprised by the amount of unexpected things caught on its cameras.  The trick is finding them, it’s not always so easy.

Matt Bucher looks for artful and unusual photos captured by the Google car on his blog Apres Garde.  He’s also done an interview where he talks about his process.

Google Sightseeing is a great site for more Google Street View related findings.  I love their tagline: Why bother seeing the world for real?

Jon Rafman is another patient guy spending way too many hours on Street View.  9-eyes is a webpage with loads of photos that he’s collected.

Lastly, there’s been a lot of crime witnessed on Google Street View.  See this post. Or Google it to find many more examples.

So I got a Google Voice account about a year ago. One of its features is that when someone leaves you a voice mail, it will automatically try to transcribe it for you. But Google Voice doesn’t know that my parents are speaking Cantonese. So its transcriptions of their messages turn out to be quite entertaining:

Mom (cell): When our mom. He did not send a deadly man planned to do that. They that happy that they might be Hall I. I don’t know. Bye bye.

Here is the audio:

Interestingly, she actually said the English word “plan” in that message, but in the form of “planning” not “planned”.  She also ended her message with the English “bye bye”, which Google was able to transcribe correctly.  I don’t know about this whole deadly man business, though.  What are you trying to tell me, Mom?

Mom (cell): Way it out. I’ll email and I like that. They they Lisa. If you have about the he had bought the house. I need to have dot, com The. Online. I don’t know the phone.

Mom (cell): Hey, if you got busy. My whole life. I cut them. I had a AT from, so on. So in case on and so being from anything on Sunday. So on a thing on the bye bye.

Mom (cell): Maria, pack and I’ve been on my last. I owe you guys. Okay so my ass a whole. It’s on 7 May, lem. I’m 050. I think I’m gonna have to get the not off right there on time on Monday at home today. I’m with us on the hope upon the tower on the mould and everything like that feed off, i’m just towel, so now I’m doing fine looked out it without it up so my god bless. Bye bye.

I started not answering the phone on purpose when my mom called, just to see the transcriptions of her messages and the weird poetry I could get from them.

Mom (cell): May not on the the garbage in my life. The by, that if I don’t know. I got bye.

Mom (cell): Went on on it, but I thought the most central data and just well it off, but I’m not goodbye.

Dad (cell): Right. Jimmy Jimmy about not ready. Lila if you got a phone call and give me a joke and bye bye.

Mom (cell): Hello hello hello. All of that on mon. Hey Dad, It’s me back bye bye bye hey there. Bye bye bye hi.

Mom (cell): Hey my mom and I’m A, I don’t tell you not be able to 1,000 I intended. I expected to see if I don’t know if you don’t mind it is not the Done. Hi. The. I think that the other thing is that they they said they liked homa la. Simon lack of my house I. I hope that you got it. I have but it’s about 510. I’m on my cat harness is 11 films talk to them so important. How fine. A Hi Donna, hey Chinese. Anyway, talk to you at the intended. Hello. I’m not. Bye bye.

Mom (cell): The maximum 10 the Martha. Or might be a M. One last question and some.

Mom (cell): Yes, and on it and I hope that I’m not yet they got it in my on, Hey Jimmy, Lo. Bye.

That last one was weird, because it interpreted something which sounded nothing like “Hey Jimmy, Lo” as “Hey Jimmy, Lo” and why the hell would it think that she said that?  Jimmy Lo is my name.  So does Google Voice just think that my mom would say my name at this point?  Probably Google guesses things based on what it knows about me so things sounding even remotely like my name would probably be guessed as my name.  But yeah, weird.  Here is the audio of that message:

Mom (cell): Rachel not they come out Sunday and I’m gonna with anyone. They are be 45. Okay, see you about the Monty Hall feedback on the can do. A message that part of it might be in my mouth. I will talk to you or that was the one here are you standing there. I don’t know. Bye bye.

Dad (cell): Gimme a. So go ahead. I’m gonna. Thank you. Hi.

Dad (cell): Jimmy call back. Looks good about other.

Mom (cell): Hello. Indiana. You don’t have it in my our deadline little now. Bye bye.

Dad (cell): Jimmy, bye bye. Something tells me that and envelope. We’re going to have a lot, so you guys are going to send this is the last.

Dad (cell): David about where if you’re not gonna behind and stop by pick up the most and that.

Mom (cell): Went along with the S E dot baby are doing on our. I know it by E. I’m on my photo. Yeah savings say bye Walton face. I don’t think I found.

Dad (cell): Gary about list from Google, and maybe we can. I love. Pre-approved.

One thing you should probably know is that when it says “Jimmy” at the beginning of these transcripts, that actually is my parents calling me that.  They call me by my English name Jimmy sometimes, and sometimes by my Chinese name “Nam Nam”.  Although in one of those messages up there it transcribed it as “Gimme”.  Also, my dad doesn’t leave as many messages as my mom, and generally when he does, he doesn’t say as much.  Also, interesting that Google thinks my Dad said “Google” when he said no such thing.

Mom (cell): My name is that may be right. So iPods all but in Idaho and good luck and I. You’ll you’ll be available date I thought. I hope goes all the with the light up pen back, almost, William comes up and I don’t know the new vehicle Golden Gate Dr. So. I’m sorry if I don’t know. Hi will give up on it and coming in front of a going fine, I don’t know and I thought I’d see if I think. Yeah. Bye bye.

Dad (cell): Okay, I got a lot. Bye bye Seattle purebred haven’t bye.

Mom (cell): Bye and I’m dating my last night and hung up. Goodbye.

Mom (cell): Hello help wanted a lot. Bye. Hello testing process. Hello. All, Hello okay. Okay, bye bye.

Mom (cell): Hey. Hello, Well hello.

Mom (cell): The dear. I might be back or what but think about it bye bye.

Mom (cell): Bye, hey i hall. Hey the, well, the telephone with voice up so case with the potluck. Does that sit down with such a fun in fact and where you left. So, is the third party. My not. Bye bye.

Mom (cell): But it on them. I just want to go. It is doing that on something or not it at and Brendan refund that the most. I did lose so I’m glad to drive you know it is man. Bye Daisy’s night Sunday that if I miss him on my side. Hey, Chucky, and I’ve put all I get a basement. At this the program. And I said, I guess I need to know if I I got the reply.

Mom (cell): Waiting on on the history I hit him. Hey, Linda gate and I wanted to see and tell him that bye bye.

Dad (cell): Thank you, that they are doing well and It’s other. Do not call her. Hello.

Unfortunately, at this point Google must have changed their algorithm.  Now it won’t transcribe anything that it recognizes is in another language.  Instead, it just says “Unable to transcribe this message.”  How lame!

Yesterday, I received a voice mail from a computer automated system from Kaiser Permanente.  Google Voice took the call and transcribed it.  The idea of Google (a computer) transcribing what Kaiser (a computer voice) was saying made my head go in loop de loop circles, but also seemed very poignant.  The machine miscommunicating with the machine.  Here is what Google transcribed:

Kaiser: Hello Yeah, this is Kaiser Permanente, you calling for you. Yang. Hello we’re calling to share some important information, to help make sure you’re getting the most out of your new benefits. Yeah, he’s call us back yo free. Yeah one. Yeah. 877. You re 57. Yeah 7626. Again, your number is 1. Yeah. 877. You re 57. Yeah 7626. Thank you for your time. And remember. Today is a good day to thrive. Bye bye.

And here is the audio:

Why did Google keep thinking Kaiser was saying ‘Yeah’ and ‘yo’ like some punk? Thrive, indeed!

“the silence will begin full of dogs” —Julio Cortázar

I’ve been reading articles on the web about this phenomenon in Moscow.  Apparently there is a steady population of stray dogs in Moscow who have evolved several different survival strategies.  Some primarily hunt mice and other animals, some scavenge for food in dumpsters.  But there is one group of strays in particular who have learned how to navigate the city.  Every day they commute into the city via the subway.  They know when to get on and when to get off the trains, moving alongside humans, and once in the city they know how to cross the street by waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green.  They’ve also developed a very intuitive sense of who to beg for food and who to leave alone.  Here is a good story about it (but the first part about the crazy woman (though interesting) is kind of distracting to the main point which is how amazing these dogs are): Moscow’s Stray Dogs: Exiled or Admired?

(full reviews of all these books can be found on my Goodreads page)

NONFICTION

The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
in which Ryszard shows us Africa around the end of colonialism (not that it ever ends). He makes it a great read as it is satisfying in many ways: as history, as memoir, as anthropology, and as travel writing.

Kabloona by Gontran de Poncins
in which Gontran, being French, and the year being 1938, travels to arctic Canada to study the Eskimos and writes this piece of anthropological gem, both interesting as a study of his whitey attitudes and as a study of the local population and their strange habits. This one is special, people… a highly entertaining book.

Broadsides from Other Orders: A Book of Bugs by Sue Hubbell
in which each chapter is lovingly dedicated to explaining away one little critter, often as common as the daddy longlegs or the less heard-of camel cricket which I’m sure lives in your basement as we speak, although “explain away” is inaccurate as there’s still so much we just don’t know about them.

ALMOST NON-FICTION

Emigrants by W.G. Sebald
Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
Vertigo by W.G. Sebald
in which Winfried Georg, being German, being inscrutable, lulls me into deep meditative conversation in which I stop caring what is being talked about. He often writes from a very serious place, of memory and architecture and place; his fiction is a combination of essay, memoir, old photos, and a lot of walking.

I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
in which Chris and husband decide to woo an acquaintance, Dick, by writing him love letters. This novel, which is obviously thinly veiled nonfiction, soon leads to a series of postmodern investigations taking the form of epistolary novel, feminist manifesto, art criticism, tell-all memoir, critical theory, personal essay, and diary. Bonus: makes for great reading in the men’s locker room.

FICTION

Recollections of Things to Come by Elena Garro
in which magical realism was written before magical realism was even defined. And oh she does it so well, so much better than mr. marquez. This story, a political one but not in an annoying way, is told by the town itself. It is a devastating story, and one that made me read nonstop.

The Confusions of Young Törless by Robert Musil
in which you will think it is another coming of age boarding school novel, but this one searches so deeply it reminds me of Rilke’s poetry, in its ability to wrestle with the most complex spiritual, philosophical, and psychological themes.

Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
in which Fate smiled down on me and told me I had to read it as the copy I bought for $5 in Chicago was SIGNED by JB himself with the note: “for Jimmy or be that James”. A novel about religion but also about many things, he goes down deep into the empathy of every character and the result is powerful.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Sun City by Tove Jansson
in which Ms. Jansson writes about childhood and old age with equal skill and a light touch; this writing serves its function without an ounce of fat. The episodic tales unwind around flawed yet human and lovable characters.

The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda
in which she writes about devastation in a series of incremental impressions from a naive character, but one whose grief, though she doesn’t understand it herself, also catches the reader by surprise.

Skylark by Dezs? Kosztolányi
in which a very ugly daughter and her parents have their routines disrupted when said ugly daughter leaves to visit a relative. A funny, sad book.

Pan by Knut Hamsun
in which Mr. Hamsun outdoes his own masterpiece Hunger, having written here an even better, more complex portrait of the mind’s infatuation and raw feverish irrationality.

SHORT FICTION

Selected Prose of Heinrich von Kleist
in which so much is merciless and violent, and the people in these stories, poor things, are moved around by cosmic forces into monsters without their knowing it, swept up in the reconfiguration like a bit of bread in the bowels. The Marquise of O… in particular is one of the best stories I’ve ever read.

“It is in the realm of the abstract that the more important things happen in these times, and it is the unimportant that happens in real life.” – RM