Narrative Disorder… in Japan!!

Err… wow. I almost hate to admit it, since I always prefer open source if I can get something suited to my technical ability (i.e., I’m not brave enough to go linux), but I am seriously impressed. Windows Live Writer may not have a flash Flash upload media gui but it has something better - it does exactly the same thing simply (and without the flaws). With the same process as you’d use to insert a picture into a word processing file it uploads right into your blog server using the default path and name structure in the settings on your WP dashboard. It is UTTERLY compatible and takes no more configuration than inputting the blog URL.

Writing in this window is definitely much more enjoyable than using the dashboard to write a post. I can insert more media more easily than I can on the dashboard, my categories have been imported into Writer so no need to reenter them as I was concerned I would. 

I can control my layout more (see how this is an indented block quote? All I did was hit tab at the beginning of this sentence!) and use all the usual keyboard shortcuts for editing and formatting and all with the added bonus of my lovely cherry blossom graphic on the wysiwyg page - of course that’s not quite as it would appear on the blog but it feels more customized who doesn’t like that?

If you aren’t quite ready to publish, you can store drafts either to your blog admin and/or locally (which means you can keep blogging your "where is my adsl!!" rants offline when moving or having ISP issues hehe) You can also Open any already published post or page right from WLWriter and edit it then simply click publish to update your changes.

If you need to manage your blog outside of the writing process there is a simple link to the right of the writing window which takes you to your dashboard underneath a "view site" link. A button with a speech bubble icon (which looks as though it may light up when there are comments to manage) which takes you directly to the comment page of your dashboard.

And there is plenty to keep you occupied, click the "Add a plug-in" button at the bottom of the insert list to the right of the editor frame and you have not only hours of potential procrastination but inspiration for the potential of your blog with many plug-ins to enhance your blogging experience. For example after I have finally published this I will be gong back to my Geisha of Gion review and testing a couple of plugins which allow you to link Amazon info to book images.  These plugins installed smoothly and easily just like any other application and required no ftp into my wordpress file on my netfirms server which would be beyond many bloggers. This also means that if you have more than one blog on different platforms, or wish to change platforms you do not need to find plugins to do the same job for each platform and install them and work out how to use them twice!

I’ll be testing this for a while to see if there aren’t glitches afterall but at the moment I’m pretty well sold (can you tell?) If you want to try it yourself you can find the download page or more information by clicking here

Oh and by the way, you can set it to remind you to add categories and tags before you publish hehe

Proud clutterbug that I am I am nevertheless spending today trying to get my digital world in check. I can handle cluttered phsycial spaces because my memory is physical (I know I reached over here when I put that down…) but I’m really having trouble with email at the moment. Which addy to use when signing up to a forum or buying software (thus opening that addy up to spam possibilities) and which to use as personal email or for reciepts via email…? Sigh. While doing this, or probably more truthfully while procrastination from the sheer mind-boggliness of the task, I decided I was tired of dreary old Thunderbird and before I went the whole hog on Incredimail I thought I’d see if Microsoft’s next generation of Outlook Express (a program I always thoroughly abhored) was actually any good. When downloading WLM I was offered the chance to install Windows Live Writer - a desktop blogging tool which is apparently compatible with wordpress.

So this is essentially a test post to see if it posts at all and how it connects tot he wordpress dashboard. Certainly the layout of text and images is good but there seems to be no upload media option as from the WP dashboard (if flawed.) It looks as though if the picture above is to show I will have to use filezilla if I want it hosted on my server. It is possible that I could get myself a Skydrive account, another MS/windowslive project which appears to give everyone 5gig of password protected space. Whether you can use Skydrive to host images I have not yet investigated but I would prefer to host my images on my own site along with my other wordpress files.

Time to press publish and see what we get.

Standing in my local secondhand bookshop I had a desire to read something about Japan and found myself looking at ever-so-slightly foxed copies of both "Geisha of Gion" and "Memoirs of a Geisha". I knew that Iwasaki had been Golden’s muse for "Memoirs", indeed she had sued him for revealing that fact, and so, ever the historian, I decided upon autobiography over fiction.

Geisha of Gion is a prettily drawn insight into the Karyukai of Kyoto and life within the Iwasaki Okiya, where Mineko, born Tanaka Masako, began training at the age of five. Her memory and descriptions of kimono and the details of her arts are exquisite. I particularly appreciated that she does not shy away from using the proper Japanese terms and then interpreting them for us, rather than simply using English substitutes as one often finds in books edited by Americans for Americans. If you are looking for a book filled with Japanese culture then it certainly meets that criteria and I certainly appreciated that element of the book. However that was not, in the end, the element which I found most intriguing.

One of the reasons autobiography is it’s own category rather than being lumped in with non-fiction is not only to classify it as written by the subject of the book but also because classifying autobiography as non-fiction is problematic. No matter how well researched, the content will always be from the point of view of that one, intrinsically biased, person (indeed there is no real research requirement unless the author wishes to impose one upon themselves, legal clearance that is doesn’t defame anyone is all that is really required.) Sometimes the author’s bias or desire to impress a particular belief upon the reader is so glaring that it adds an element of fascination in itself. While neither "Memoirs of a Geisha" nor its author are never mentioned by name, Geisha of Gion is nevertheless heavily influenced by Golden’s work. It is clear that Iwasaki wishes to correct some of the impressions left by Golden particularly in two respects: the suggestion that a geisha is a high class sex worker and that Iwasaki’s father simply sold her to the okiya against her will.

The first issue is simply stated and backed up by, amongst other cultural experts, my Japanese teacher Prostitutes exist, Iwasaki informs us, but they are oiran (courtesan), not geisha(entertainer or artist.) The mizuage (or coming of age ceremony) for the two types of women is different, for both it occurs when the geisha first menstruates and at both her best clients receive small pink cakes with a tiny red nipple on top, representing a breast. The difference lies in that for the geisha it is simply a celebration of her coming into womanhood and parties are held and gifts received, only for the oiran is the girl’s virginity sold to the highest bidder. Geisha do not give sexual favours for their fees. Geisha often have boyfriends (who sometimes become husbands) but sexual liasons are carefully managed and outside of the professional requirements of a geisha. How much of Iwasaki’s story is sanitized in this respect is of little consequence.

The second impression Iwasaki is at pains to make is that of her father’s character as a loving father, sadly misunderstood by her four older sisters who were also sold to the okiya and to this day are still angry and or bitter to varying degrees. I found it heartbreaking to read as this woman now in her thirties and a mother herself insisted that at the age of five she and she alone made the decision to go to the okiya to become a geisha like her sisters. Again and again she describes how her father resisted the okiya ‘mother’ when she requested their youngest daughter come into her service. She describes how when she first agreed to go to the okiya it was simply some kind of trial which she could have ended at any time - a special arrangement because the okiya mother was so desperate to have this child as her heir because she was so very beautiful. I have no doubt that Iwasaki believes everything she has written in this book but I simply don’t believe that her father had not entered into a similar contract as he did with his other four girls, nor do I believe her protestations that he was so concerned for her welfare. She describes how, at eight years of age, she went to court to be adopted by the the okiya mother (as she had to be to become the heir to the okiya) and took the Iwasaki name. The judge asked her to say which family she chose to belong to - after choosing the okiya, she promptly threw up. Clearly she was desperately torn by the decision and yet she wants desperately for us believe that her father was a loving man, or at least that her father loved her if not her sisters.

Of course if his situation was such that he needed to sell his daughters into service then that is sad but understandable and perhaps he was a loving man - unfortunately Iwasaki presents an enormous paradox regarding this. She explains fairly well the reason that he was forced to sell his first daughters (very much against their will to this day) and yet she is also keen to impress upon us how successful her parents were as artists, particularly her father - revered and also … making very good money, certainly at least by the time the third fourth and fifth daughters are sent. Nor does it explain why the couple went on to have so many more children - eleven in all (her mother is described as having a weak constitution) five of girls sent to the okiya. But Iwasaki does not present her father as an angel - she reveals man prone to sudden violence when angered but who treated her as special and mostly she was spared the violence. In fact she seems disturbingly proud when describing violence or raging committed by her father in defence of her after her brothers and sisters had teased her in some way or, in one shocking case, when a chicken has pecked at her and has its neck wrung in front of her when she is three years old. Clearly she cannot deny the violence and neglect her father displayed towards his children but she is determined to believe that she had a special place in his heart.

The overwhelming sense that she is special was no doubt encouraged by her father and by her being given the place of atotori - or heir to the okiya - at such a young age (she was wanted by the okiya because she was so breathtakingly beautiful even as a three year old doncha-know?) and narcissism permeates every line of this book. One is left with the impression of an extremely sad little girl who, desperate for attention, love and a place in the world, latched on to her place in the okiya and became, quite simply, a spoiled brat. This manifested in what was no doubt an extraordinary dedication to her arts but a failure to mature socially and emotionally. Iwasaki displays the same sudden explosive temper as her father and his mother before him had, sometimes in legitimate defence of herself but sometimes far too violent for the situation or sheer tantrums (such as the violent destruction of the fur coat of the wife of a man with whom she had an affair for many many years) and she describes each one with the same utter conviction that she was justified. When she describes the cattiness and cruelty of the other geisha, first within the okiya and later, seemingly, across the karyukai of the entire country, she puts every incidence down to pure jealousy and protests that she siply didn’t understand it. I’m sure jealousy was a large part of it and any woman knows how bitchy and cruel women can be to each other but the character displayed by the author is certainly one which would not endear itself to other girls and I have no doubt she did not help the situation.

Geisha of Gion is definitely worth the read, not only for the insight into this area of japanese culture but as a fascinating study of the effect this odd situation in which she suffers being abandoned by her birth parents but is sold into a life in which she is paid deference at an age when she has no abiility to understand it as anything other than that she is superior to all around her. There are many stories of being sold into service and being treated poorly (as were her sisters) but this is a different psychological story and a new one for me. It would be fascinating to read the accounts of other sisters - particularly Kuniko who lived in the okiya with Mineko. Kuniko did not have the potential (read beauty) as a geisha and so was essentially a maid but she had intelligence and so became an integral part of the behind the scenes in the okiya and, it seems, a much more grounded personality than her sister and would have quite the tale to tell.

Something a little lighter and shorter today - I happened to surf over to ABC1 during kids hour the other morning and Superman and I watched this in both shock and hysterics!

I have to say I also highly recommend hunting down South Park’s Spoof on “Great Expectations”which was entitled simply “Pip” after their wonderfully innocent British character who is himself a Dickensian inspiration. Even if you are not usually a fan of South Park you should really check it out - it is truly genius - I literally got a stitch from laughing so hard!

That’s my last comment about the golden, glistening abs in the movie (seriously, at one point I thought I was looking at shields in the distance - it was their abs!) Enough has been said about the abs elsewhere, in fact they and the ‘HooHah’-ing pretty much dominated most of the pre-release reviews. I suspect I know why… there’s not a lot else to talk about - if you don’t want to piss off the nice people who provided the reviewer tickets.

Before I lose all of you who turn off as soon as you suspect your taste will not be agreed with, especially by a woman-who-can’t-understand, let me say this: I do understand. In this era of political correctness and psycho-therapy there are few films or stories where a man can really enjoy a good, manly “HOO HAH!!” I get it. But just because there are so few doesn’t mean we have to celebrate one so poorly executed. Yes the shots looked like the comic. Fine. Go buy a second copy of the comic (in the big, beautiful A3 format) and have some pages framed. It’s art. But this film was excrutiatingly poorly written, directed and acted (though this was probably due to the direction.)

What is betrayed here is a lack of understanding of basic screen-craft. Film has different requirements to a comic. It is not static. It is more immersive - the audience is trapped in that dark theatre with nothing to experience but what is on the screen for every, consecutive minute. Until the DVD release, they cannot put the film down and pick it up again hours later when they are ready, having been refreshed by some other life activity, to dive back into the weighty, brooding, oh-my-god-the-honour-of-it-all mood that not only dominates but overwhelms this film. Asking an audience to have the same emotional reaction to each scene simply does not work - because you lose them. This has nothing to do with the attention span or intelligence of the audience - it’s basic emotional law that we become immune to emotional experiences (no matter how extreme) repeated ad nauseum. In practice this means that when your protagonist’s side-kick declares that his extreme grief is due not to the patriotic death of his son but “because I never told him I loved him” we laugh. Admittedly, the line was both corny and totally incongruous and it is possible that was the reason there were giggles but I submit that if simply ratcheting-up the same emotion constantly worked, even dialogue as bad as that would have simply washed over us in the maelstrom of emotion - it happens all the time in good action films.

One of the reasons this film is such a disappointment is that action films are masters of the emotional roller coaster - it’s why they are so popular. Good ones keep us on the edge of our seats never quite knowing what is going to happen next, hitting us hard just as they have made us laugh. Nothing unexpected happened in 300 and, frankly, after the first 30 mins nothing new happened, nor did the same things even occur in some different way: rousing speech to men, fight, rousing speech to men, bad guy or wife POV, rousing speech to men, fight, rousing speech to men. Seriously, the way these poor actors were made to pose and change cameras between each sentence had me dreading the next two hours ten minutes in - this wasn’t acting, it was voguing.

Several reviewers have touched on the historical accuracy of the film. Those of you who know I am an historian at heart were probably waiting for the bit in which I slam the ‘revisionism’ but I’m not going to because I think it’s irrelevant. A film needs a good story and, whatever inspires it, artistic license is valid AS LONG AS IT IS NOT PRESENTED AS TRUTH (like that damned “King Arthur” movie urgh.) The inspirations from Herodotus’s Bk 7 are clear:

• there was a contingent sent to the pass (it was to hold off the Persians for as long as they could while the army of Greeks that we saw at the end of the movie prepared for battle);
• that contingent was made up of many greeks, but at the end, knowing they would be defeated, Leonides sent all but the Spartans and Thespians home to join the preparations for the larger war;
• there was a traitor who gave away the path behind the Greeks (he was from Milas not from Sparta but their recently exiled King Damaratus was also in Xerxes company informing on them - so squish these two together and maybe that’s where the malformed creature comes from);
• in fact they make an entire scene directly from: “… it became clear to all, and especially to the king, that though he had plenty of combatants, he had but very few warriors.”

So the story provenance is fine - all that is required, as far as I’m concerned is that its own internal continuity be intact and it is. The film as a whole is presented as David Wenham’s character telling a story to the troops before they march on the very enemy in the story - it is supposed to be propaganda (something not the sole domain of nazis as Paul Byrnes of the SMH would have us believe - check out OUR recruitment posters from the WWs). Frankly, though, the writers’ would have done well to follow Herodotus a little more closely - the story structure is better!

I am sure that, even as I write, someone is penning an article declaring that these movies (I am of course including Sin City which I would rate above this one) are a whole new genre to themselves. I’m sure there will be a carefully crafted definition which turns each shortcoming into a deliberate and brilliantly executed requirement of the genre - and every critic of the movie into a nouveau-philistine. The truth is that what we have here is a story created for another medium painstakingly recreated without respect for the new medium and the result is a ‘moodie’ NOT a movie.

*For those of you interested in the real history this is a short but excellent article on Spartan society and its structure (you’ll note these men fighting for freedom ruled over a ‘country’ in which their slaves outnumbered them 10 to 1) and this is a link to the text and commentary on the relevant Herodotus.

I was going to write a review of Sin City which is yet another totally shallow, in fact empty, group of characters a la Mr. & Mrs. Smith but my husband wrote his first and it covers everything I was going to cover (he reads every screenwriting book I bring home so it really does) and, since he is a collector of comics and a Miller fan, he can compare it to the original so I think it’s more relevant and I’m just gong to link to it here: MICHAEL’S SIN CITY REVIEW.

We are big War of the Worlds fans in our house and not just of the book - Jeff Wayne’s Rock Musical Version often blares from the speakers (nice and loud so as to cover up our voices as we sing along) so, I had thought a lot about how it would be adapted to a modern Hollywood blockbuster because it wasn’t going to be easy.

When you think Hollywood blockbuster, especially starring Tom Cruise, you think (well, okay, I think) big Hero pic - and the problem with War of the Worlds is that there is no Hero - or, rather, the Earth kinda saves itself. I had a couple of ideas - would Tom be a scientist (a popular hero in recent years)- THE scientist to discover that if everyone can just lay low, the germs will do their work? Well, no because that wouldn’t be enough to make him a hero. Perhaps he (still a scientist) could make the realization and engineer the bioweapon to spark the victory or perhaps he could be the warrior who delivered the missile (though we aren’t as enamoured of military heroes these days) Of course, the latter sorts of changes would destroy Wells’ intent but, hey Hollywood does that (and, let’s face it, if you’re updating a story - that’s exactly what a modern defence force would do, no?)

To my surprise, Speilberg stuck to Wells’ intent and left the fabulously designed aliens and the plucky Earth germs to play out their own story and we simply follow a parallel story of a father and his children coping with the situation. It’s a sweet story, Fanning and Chatwin are excellent as the siblings who trust only each other after the dissolution of their parent’s marriage and the gradual development of the relationship between Cruise and Fanning , after Chatwin’s character disappears, was, I felt believable. I think it would have strengthened the premise (which I take to be Fatherhood after divorce) for Chatwin’s character to stay with them and for Cruise’s character to have to become a champion in his eyes, too but that’s just me.
I’m still not really sure what the purpose of Tim Robbins’ character was, I know it was so that Cruise’s character could kill something but story-wise I’m still confused. Why was Cruise the only one to notice him standing out there waving his gun and why did Robbins give up trying to flag down survivors after Cruise and Fanning joined him? I won’t do more than mention the fact that Otto’s Boston street appeared to be untouched by what we had been told was World-Wide destruction - enough people have gone into that…

In the end, I felt neither cheated nor fulfilled having seen this film and based on the discussion between my three friends afterwards: “So, what did you think?” “Hmm, don’t know really.” “Yeah… It was alright.” they felt the same way. I guess, when it comes down to it, we all want to see the good guy actually defeat the bad guys - somehow.