Archive | January 2009
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Revolutionary Road
Revolutionary Road is yet another in the long line of films and books that tries to blow the lid off the secrets of suburbia. The book comes from what might be called the first generation of suburbaphobia that one sees in books like The Man In the Gray Flannel Suit, and continues on still to [...]
Milk
Milk is a solid bio-pic from Gus Van Sant that depicts the life of Harvey Milk as a political activist and elected official.What interested me, though, is neither the veracity of the story nor the acting, but how Van Sant approached the story. Milk is unlike some of his more experimental films such as Elephant [...]
Chinese Muslim’s Pilgrimage to al-Andalus – Synopsis Posted
Bruce Hume posted his synopsis of a Chinese Muslim’s Pilgrimage to al-Andalus. Well worth the read if you are interested in Spanish culture. It is also interesting to see how someone from China manifests their hispanofilism. Written over several years and six visits to al-Andalus (Morocco, Portugal and southern Spain), we see how Zhang Cheng-Zhi [...]
The Reader
When working with the Holocaust in a film or book the question that inevitably comes up is, can one make art from the Holocaust? And if so, to what end? The Reader, even its complexities, cannot escape the difficulty of these questions and stumbles even as it seems to try to question how one should [...]
Posters For The People: The Art of The WPA
Posters for the People: The Art of the WPA is a beautiful book from Social Arts which collects hundreds of Works Progress Administration (WPA) posters in one volume. The posters range from work place safety to public health campaigns to war information and show the wide range of ideas and initiatives the government used to [...]
New Books on Mexican American Culture
The LA Times has an interesting review of two new books on Mexican American culture.Mexican American Mojo: Popular Music, Dance, and Urban Culture in Los Angeles, 1935-1968 (Refiguring American Music) as the title says is about music in LA during the middle of the century and The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican [...]
Yalo & Khirbet Khizeh in Three Percent
Three Percent has two good reviews of Yalo and Khirbet Khizeh as part of their best translated book of 2008. I read both and thought their take on the books were excelent. They also link to an interview with Elais Khoury in Seattle. I’m a little mad that I didn’t have a chance to see [...]
New Issue of Under Hwy 99 Out Now
The new issue of Under Hwy 99 is out now. Isses 1.2 features my short non-fiction, Just a Handshake Is Enough, about the time I met Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in Mexico City. There are also short fictions from Evan Cleveland, Danny Brophy, Billie Louise Jones, Tara Brichetto, Ellie Keller, and Jim Bellarosa. It is worth the [...]
Best Sellers in China 2008
Paper Republic pointed me to Bruce Hume’s list of Chinese best sellers. Most are not in English and won’t make much of an impression. There are some interesting books that sound a little odd. The Tibet Code (4)—He Ma: Latest volume in long-winded tale of mysterious Tibet which begins with sighting of rare Tibetan mastiff. [...]
Chinese Muslim’s Pilgrimage to Al-Andalus
Bruce Hume’s blog on Chinese writing notes a new book in China that sounds interesting. He is giving out English synopsis if you email him. Zhang Cheng-Zhi (张承志), the white-hot Red Guard who mastered Mongolian and Japanese — and then converted to Islam — has just launched En las Ruinas de la Flor: Viajes por [...]
Cipher Journal
Cipher Journal is a journal dedicated to translation. The magazine is a bit of a mishmash but there are some interesting items in translation from India and China.The links page is definately worth a look. The website, though, leaves a little to be desired. Who puts the primary navigation at the bottom of the page [...]
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Or, if space aliens see we love our children they won’t kill us. Keanu Reeves comes to destroy the earth because humans are ruining it. Naturally (because that is how these movies always go), the government over reacts and tries to kill him, which doesn’t help the case for the survival of human kind. Reeves [...]
Bolaño in La Jornada
There was a good article about Bolaño in La Jornada’s Sunday supplement this week talking about Bolaño’s views of exile. According to Gustavo Ogarrio, Bolaño didn’t really believe in political exile because it made him a victim, which he was not. He also thought it was pointless to be nostalgic about the old country “Can [...]
Bolaño Reviewed in the TLS
The TLS has a good review of 2666. The review isn’t as fawning as some and tries to locate the source of Bolañomania. Like a previous El País article, the review finds similarities between Bolaño and the American literary tradition. The author’s exuberant, informal voice echoed that of several American classics; while he cited Huckleberry [...]
Penguin Book Covers
There is a great flicker sited with over 800 cover photos of Penguin books. If you like books it is worth a look.
Embroideries
Embroideries Marjane Satrapi Embroideries is no Persepolis, but that is not to say it is without the same humor that Persepolis had. What makes this book funny are not Satrapi’s adventures, but those of her grandmother and her friends. The women range in ages from their 60′s to their 20′s and the book takes place [...]
In One Story: Groff, Jodzio, Grattan
I finished reading several issues of One Story the other day. I tend to let them stack up and then read them all at once as if they were in a collection of short stories. Four stories caught my eye and I thought it would be good to mention them here since usually its books [...]
