Double Duty
Still enjoying the halcyon days before I start getting student papers back. It's like knowing when the world's going to end, but just resigning yourself that there's nothing you can do about it, and filling up the time you have left by indulging all your worst habits. Yay!
Watched a movie this weekend that was much more biting and witty than I'd expected it to be from reading the Netflix blurb. It's a Spanish film called Crimen Ferpecto, and concerns the misguided attempts of a department store lothario to become the executive sales manager. The lothario in question has stocked his department (ladies' wear) with a comely assortment of Latina assistants, but has neglected the yearnings of one of his more homely employees to win his attention. She later becomes an auditory witness to the "accidental" murder of his chief rival, and proceeds to blackmail him into sex and marriage. (I'm not giving away the plot--this is the setup.) Needless to say, hilarity ensues, but an hilarity of a somewhat acquired taste (one comedic scene involves the graphic complications of how to dismember a corpse effectively).
Other than the Pythonesque envelope-pushing, the film also provides some rather pointed critiques of, to list a few, consumer culture, capitalism, images of women in the media, marriage, and the fashion industry. The film serves as both an engaging physical comedy and a broad social satire, which made me feel less guilty about enjoying the physical comedy (and the naked babes).
I only mention it here because I could find only a few brief reviews of the film online and I had never heard of it before receiving an e-mail solicitation from Netflix. The director, Alex de la Iglesia, is also someone I've never heard of before, but he's been making films for the last 10 years. If you enjoy any of the qualities in comedy I've mentioned above, poke around for the film. It's well worth a rental. (I've also seen the film's title listed as Crimen Perfecto [the deliberate misspelling is a plot point] and, for those of you challenged by non-English titles, The Perfect Crime.
Another piece of fiction I came across this weekend with multiple levels of engagement was a short story by Nancy Kress (author of a fascinating trilogy regarding a group of children who have had the physical need for sleep removed from their DNA) entitled "Ej-Es." The story comes from what sounds like a rather unpromising anthology of stories based on the songs of Janis Ian (she of "At Seventeen" fame). I can't speak for the anthology because I read Kress' story in a different anthology, Year's Best SF 9, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.
Anyway, the story deals with a jaded anthropologist's attempts to cure a species of pre-industrial people who apparently suffer from a form of severe epilepsy that generates detailed and lengthy hallucinations. She slowly comes to realize, however, that the people regard their "illness" as religion and believe their hallucinations are communications from God. The story offers some challenging ideas on the nature of religious worship and cultural practices (the need of a scientist to solve a problem vs. the rights of a society to live as it chooses), and provides some chilling examples of both scientific and religious fervor. It is one of the best stories, SF or otherwise, that I've read in some time, and the final lines (even if they are written in an alien dialect) have haunted me for days.
Sadly, the story isn't available online as far as I've been able to tell, but I dare say it is worth the price of either one of the anthologies in which it appears. (Though I'm guessing you'd be better off going with the Best SF anthology.)
Speaking of questionable cultural practices, the NYTimes Magazine ran a fascinating and disturbing piece this Sunday on what are being called the hikikomori. These are young Japanese men and boys who, for generally unknown reasons, have retreated to their bedrooms on a rather permanent basis, living there almost exclusively for years at a time. Reclusive, withdrawn, and incommunicative, these boys have grown in numbers and have caused a great deal of concern in a culture that values social etiquette. Speaking as one who generally retreats to the basement on most weekends for long sessions of DVD-watching, CD-listening, and book-reading, I found a lot of emphathy for these hikikomori, even if I don't read much manga or play contemporary video games. Anyway, it's a well-written and sensitive piece, and it's even available online!
Finally, it looks like the tide is finally starting to rise on the presidency of George W. Bush. I haven't been very vocal on my politics lately here at Chazzbot, mainly because there are so many other bloggers who are better at it than me, but the pot, as it were, is beginning to boil. Will the American people at long last recognize the crimes and manipulations of this administration? Will this administration be held accountable, in any way, for its abuses of power? Have we seen the last presidential election in the United States?
On this day celebrating the life of a man who made the human rights abuses of the U.S. government an issue of national protest and, eventually, reform, it's high time for another wake-up call.
Watched a movie this weekend that was much more biting and witty than I'd expected it to be from reading the Netflix blurb. It's a Spanish film called Crimen Ferpecto, and concerns the misguided attempts of a department store lothario to become the executive sales manager. The lothario in question has stocked his department (ladies' wear) with a comely assortment of Latina assistants, but has neglected the yearnings of one of his more homely employees to win his attention. She later becomes an auditory witness to the "accidental" murder of his chief rival, and proceeds to blackmail him into sex and marriage. (I'm not giving away the plot--this is the setup.) Needless to say, hilarity ensues, but an hilarity of a somewhat acquired taste (one comedic scene involves the graphic complications of how to dismember a corpse effectively).
Other than the Pythonesque envelope-pushing, the film also provides some rather pointed critiques of, to list a few, consumer culture, capitalism, images of women in the media, marriage, and the fashion industry. The film serves as both an engaging physical comedy and a broad social satire, which made me feel less guilty about enjoying the physical comedy (and the naked babes).
I only mention it here because I could find only a few brief reviews of the film online and I had never heard of it before receiving an e-mail solicitation from Netflix. The director, Alex de la Iglesia, is also someone I've never heard of before, but he's been making films for the last 10 years. If you enjoy any of the qualities in comedy I've mentioned above, poke around for the film. It's well worth a rental. (I've also seen the film's title listed as Crimen Perfecto [the deliberate misspelling is a plot point] and, for those of you challenged by non-English titles, The Perfect Crime.
Another piece of fiction I came across this weekend with multiple levels of engagement was a short story by Nancy Kress (author of a fascinating trilogy regarding a group of children who have had the physical need for sleep removed from their DNA) entitled "Ej-Es." The story comes from what sounds like a rather unpromising anthology of stories based on the songs of Janis Ian (she of "At Seventeen" fame). I can't speak for the anthology because I read Kress' story in a different anthology, Year's Best SF 9, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.
Anyway, the story deals with a jaded anthropologist's attempts to cure a species of pre-industrial people who apparently suffer from a form of severe epilepsy that generates detailed and lengthy hallucinations. She slowly comes to realize, however, that the people regard their "illness" as religion and believe their hallucinations are communications from God. The story offers some challenging ideas on the nature of religious worship and cultural practices (the need of a scientist to solve a problem vs. the rights of a society to live as it chooses), and provides some chilling examples of both scientific and religious fervor. It is one of the best stories, SF or otherwise, that I've read in some time, and the final lines (even if they are written in an alien dialect) have haunted me for days.
Sadly, the story isn't available online as far as I've been able to tell, but I dare say it is worth the price of either one of the anthologies in which it appears. (Though I'm guessing you'd be better off going with the Best SF anthology.)
Speaking of questionable cultural practices, the NYTimes Magazine ran a fascinating and disturbing piece this Sunday on what are being called the hikikomori. These are young Japanese men and boys who, for generally unknown reasons, have retreated to their bedrooms on a rather permanent basis, living there almost exclusively for years at a time. Reclusive, withdrawn, and incommunicative, these boys have grown in numbers and have caused a great deal of concern in a culture that values social etiquette. Speaking as one who generally retreats to the basement on most weekends for long sessions of DVD-watching, CD-listening, and book-reading, I found a lot of emphathy for these hikikomori, even if I don't read much manga or play contemporary video games. Anyway, it's a well-written and sensitive piece, and it's even available online!
Finally, it looks like the tide is finally starting to rise on the presidency of George W. Bush. I haven't been very vocal on my politics lately here at Chazzbot, mainly because there are so many other bloggers who are better at it than me, but the pot, as it were, is beginning to boil. Will the American people at long last recognize the crimes and manipulations of this administration? Will this administration be held accountable, in any way, for its abuses of power? Have we seen the last presidential election in the United States?
On this day celebrating the life of a man who made the human rights abuses of the U.S. government an issue of national protest and, eventually, reform, it's high time for another wake-up call.
posted by Chazzbot at 10:42 AM
2 Comments:
Isn't the disease=religion thing already in Scott-Card's Xenocide? Where OCD is regarded as a gift from God in order to breed the best administrators
Yeah, but you don't get as much critiquing of that whole "technology as salvation" attitude as much with Card. Though his rewrite of the Book of Mormon (the Homecoming series) takes a few stabs at it. It's become easier to spot the subtext of his novels lately and he doesn't make his readers work as hard as he used to. I think Xenocide may have been the last of his interesting sequels.
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