Happy Birthday Etta James

Sunday Kind of Love


Great music Thank you Etta.



For most of the past year I have been living to the beat of my own drum. Somehow while in this zone I have been ahead of so many curves I cannot honestly count them. Since I stopped working on 'Level Crossing', taking a break as it were, I haven't been nearly so conscious of my own observations and where they intersect with our western culture. Until today.

Yesterday I rambled on about translators and interpretation and this morning I started reading my latest copy of 'Cinema Scope'. I had been looking forward to the Andrea Picard piece for some time and in an attempt to savour the moment  read the essay by 'Jia Zhangke' first. Zhangke is a great Chinese director responsible for 'I Wish I Knew' which premiered ( North America) at TIFF 2010. In his article 'The Bullshit Logic of Patriotism' he recounts his address and introduction to the Toronto audience which required the services of a translator. He qualifies the translator's credentials, in this case a young Chinese woman who emigrated to Canada when she was eight years old, whose colloquial Chinese was excellent but formal speech caused some difficulty. In Zhangke's audience remarks he had stated "a history without details is only abstract" which the translator had trouble finding exactly the right words. Instead in her version it became "a history without details is unclear."

An agitated woman in the audience stood up and shouted that he translator was "distorting the directors words". English to Chinese and back to English and Chinese I guess is the exchange that followed. Zhangke recalls this incident to build the foundation for what are his thoughts on 'Patriotism' and 'Cinema'. It is an interesting article.

This is where I pound my chest. Hear it? Zhangke is an important world voice who happens to be Chinese. I knew absolutely nothing about him or the documentary 'I Wish I Knew" when I lined up for the screening. I bought my ticket on the strength of the images I had seen depicting modern day Shanghai. It looked like how I remember the 'Rust-Belt' in it's glory days with it's filth and decay. China is different from the American experience (which we enjoy here too in Ontario; Quebec and B.C. are unique and separate.) so it is not my intent to draw any inferences what so ever beyond the translated event. In my world view Zhangke is an important figure and what he says given the context of the circumstances should be important in the way that one word can change everything. Based on yesterday's rant, I rest my case.

The weather today in Southern Ontario is quite different from the recent experience. Coincidentally a radio talking head commented that Tuesday mornings are the most depressing of the week. It occurred to me that this might be more true today given relative mild temperature and general gloom of a cloudy day. So what do you think the very next musical selection was? A dreary mellow piece of tripe. This is precisely the time to play something completely different. Something like this:

B-52's

Seems pretty simple to me.

By the way if you ever want to feel humble about what you think you know about film read 'Andrea Picard'. This girl is too much. She blows my mind. I am so glad she works in Toronto; we are lucky and richer for it.

Finally lest I be misunderstood cloudy days are just fine with me especially in winter. This 'gloom' thing is a very Toronto response.