Read and Review

One of the best things about being abroad is the free time I have for reading. Over the past few months I've read over ten books. In the last week or two I've read more than five. Oh yeah, I've put in spoilers. If you care about that shit I advise not reading much more.




I began my trip overseas by reading "Sex at Dawn." The non fiction "anthropological" book primarily argues against the institution of monogamy. The book focuses on the failings of marraige and the trappings of sexual chasteness. The authors argue that humans are sexual animals, one of the more sexual beasts that crawl the earth. The book compares man-beasts lecherous nature with those of chimps and bonobos, who are not only our closest biological relatives but also as driven by their genitals as we are. The testicle size and penile length of our close cousins is even compared to ours. Did you know that human males have the largest dicks, far outsizing the crawling gorillas of the jungle? Women have the largest breasts as well. We are not the top list in terms of testicle sizes, Chimps and Bonobos outsize us. Bummer.

Along with the length and size of our loins the authors also talk about other physiological aspects of human sexual nature including women's tendency to be outspoken while in the act of coitus. Why is that? The authors ask. The writers argue that the tendency for women to be talkative is an alert to let other members of the species that she is ripe, and well willing (at least at the time).

The authors also depict societies in which there is no parental certainty as being advantageous to the offspring. The children are well taken care of as there is no validity to the male parent so the responsibility is shared, and so are the impregnation duties in some societies.

The strength of this book is simple it just restates an obvious fact, humans are highly sexual beasts. When we are not fucking, we are wanting to fuck, looking at each other fuck (usually in some sort of mediated form), and planning on who to fuck next. The problem with human sexuality as it is today hasn't been solved by the glorious institution of monogamy, nor has it been doing much better under the rubric of polyamory especially in "radical circles." It certainly doesn't help that capital is always dabbing its finger into the pudding. Until somehow our world becomes a different place, with different mores, its still tisk, tisk, to human sexuality in whatever its social incarnations.
I love short stories. They are short and succinct. I think the talents of a writer can oft be seen in their ability to weave a short tale. F.Scott Fitzgerald never struck me as a short story type. I found his large collection in a bookstore in San Francisco. I picked it up because it was long and I figured it would pass the time whilst abroad. Its been three months since I read the collection. My recollections aren't that accurate. I don't remember each story, nor do I care. The stories are mainly about a middle class man's love and pursuit of an upper class woman. BORING!!! As a caveat I'd like to mention that if an upperclass woman adored me, with more than her love perhaps some financial backing, this working class prole would be happy. Fitzgerald's fascination with upper class women and adoring middle class men has probably a bit to do with his personal life.

My housemate gave a presentation on a Graham Greene essay. The essay was "Can I borrow your husband," or something like that. The story told of a newly wed couple who come to an inn in Europe or some other banal place. The narrator of the story is a writer onlooking the events. The new bride, whose name is Poopie, a rather unfortunate name don't you think, is unaware of the true gender dynamics of what happens. The couple comes to the inn where a homosexual couple are staying, they decide to stay a little longer in hopes of turning the groom. They jaunt about the countryside with the new groom and seduce him.

The seduction and the stealing of a partner continues, well in some ways, in Graham Greene's novel "The Quiet American." The title is quite ironic, as the antagonist is a rather naive and annoying American. Again the narrator is a writer, a reporter in Vietnam. The narrator is dating a local girl, ooh how exotic. The woman has the bare outlines of a personality, with the majority of her character being flushed out by her sister who merely wants her married off and secure. The antagonist, a bastardly American attempts to steal the local girl away. The narrator and the antagonist have a gut wrenching conversation in the trenches and luckily by the end of the novel the antagonist is dead. Thank the gods for that. A dead American is a quiet American.

I've read a couple Ernest Hemingway books now. I think I wrote about "Across the River and into the Trees" The bookstores here in Bangkok aren't that great. The largest one is in Siam Paragon. Their literature section is poor with classics but little of interest. So I picked up another Hemingway Novel. Continuing on the theme of amorous woman; "The Sun Also Rises: Fiesta" follows a stoic narrator, surprise, surprise. The narrator has an affair with a woman who is engaged. Then she runs off and has other affairs with other men. Everyone goes to Spain to some some bullfighting, very macho! Her finance comes along on the fiesta. The narrator, the fiance, a guy she slept with and one more dude go out to together. Bulls are killed. Sentences are short. The woman runs off with a bull fighter. He is bludgeoned by the jealous ex lover (not the narrator). The fiance gets drunk. The woman stays for a while with the matador. He is young, talented, and apt to hit the ceiling of his talent. Their youthful relationship fails. The woman goes back with the narrator. She needs someone. Hemingway's women are so fickle, oh how typical.

In my continuing pursuit of happiness, or some sort of Thai literature education I've scoured the book stores for more Thai literature. Mad Dogs and Company by Chart Korbjitti is the third novel I've read by the SEA award winner and a definitive departure from the other novels I've read by the author. The story follows a few friends as they grow up in and around Bangkok. The friends become hippies and hang out in Pattaya. They have problems with their families, grinding against institution of the family. They grow out of their "situations" and eventually find redemption and the eventual approval of their family to a greater or lesser extent. Like Hemingway's novels the women in this novel are barely there. The women are wives, or mothers with little to any decision making ability. Poo! Poo! I might become a feminist one day if I keep reading about boring women. It was an okay novel if you like reading about partying and working class thai dudes getting drunk. Oh yeah and the ending is quite trope. One of the friends is a writer who has been forwarded some money to write a book, but at the end, the writer doesn't know what to possibly write about and then... an IDEA! Write about life with his friends. How novel! A novel of 510 pages in fact, which makes me wonder if Korbjitti was paid per page.

While out of chronological order, in terms of when I read them, I think Sightseeing by Rattuwat Lapcharoensap is more than worth mentioning. Lapcharaoensap's collection of short stories is by far one of the best english written pieces of Thai literature that I've come across. I highly recommend this book. The first story is quite amusing and presents a different perspective of the farang experience, and dealings with the west in a different light, with perhaps a hint of resentment. Let me hear it kids! That's right Schadenfreue!

The story; "Farangs," opens with a island thai boy. His mother has been jaded by the tourists that come through, with a fair amount of lineage, the boy's father was an army officer that stayed awhile then vamoosed. The mother's bitterness isn't a part of the boy's pysche who falls for an exotic american girl who, gasps, wears a budweiser bikini. What a slut! The american girl has a fight with her boyfriend. The thai boy has a pig. She sees the bovine and loves the beast. The thai boy is smitten. The boy takes her on an elephant ride. He sees her boobs. They have dinner. He brings the pig. Her boyfriend comes along. "Oh I'm sorry about the isaan prostitute darling, it was all just fun and games." She forgives him. They walk on the beach. The thai boy scolds his misfortune and walks off to the beach. He climbs a tree and consoles his fate with his friend. The boyfriend and that budweiser thong come jaunting along the beach. They see the pig. The male goes on a hunting quest. Aghast the thai boy starts to throw hard mangoes at the stupid farang. The thai friend joins in. They hit the girl too. Well aimed! It was nice to read a story that had a go at some farang.

I enjoyed the story because of its different way of dealing with the West. Thai's normally deal with the West in a couple ways. In "The Ambiguous Allure of the West," a collection of essays on colonialism in Thailand, Thongchai Winichakul writes an excellent essay "Coming to Terms with the West: Intellectual strategies of Bifurcation and Post-Westernism in Siam." The title is long, and the essay excellent. Winichikaul describes the main ways in which the West has been dealt with. Winichakul states that Thais have dealt with the West in a way that has created an almost Manichean division between Thainess and the West.
"Bifurcation is based on interlocking series of binaries that now dominate much public discourse.

West Vs Thai
Other Vs Self
Worldly/material vs Spiritual, religious, moral
Outside/outer vs Inside/Inner
Decadent vs Pure
Public, work vs Private Family life
(p.139 Coming to Terms with the West)

The sense of Thai idenity (kwaambpenthai), Thainess, is a crucial aspect of Thailand and this sense of being is oft created in opposition to other identities. Winichakul points this out in his excellent "Siam Mapped," the daily morning radio programs that talk about what is wrong with other countries, and juxtapose it with how good Thailand is. The problems of other countries are evil while Thailand is good.

Winichakul marks the influence of the West, and the lack thereof on the academy. The author hilariously points out the disappointments of Thailand never having been colonized. An extended quote is worth reading:

While Thais are proud of never having been colonized and of not requiring a European tongue as their second language, the effects of the language barrier on Thai scholarship have rarely been considered. It is certainly politically incorrect in Thailand, and probably even a taboo among Thais, to suggest that Siam may have suffered any negative consequences from not having been colonized. However one negative effect has been a greater limitation of the flow of scholarship between European and Thai languages than in formerly colonized countries, simply because there is a smaller number of scholars on both sides of the Thai-Western relationship who are linguistically skilled enough to facilitate the cross-border flow of scholarship as translators, interpreters, or most importantly , as intellectual interlocutors (p. 147 Coming to terms with the West Thongchai Winichakul).

Hilarious! I would be better read in Thai literature if only Thailand had been colonized, aw schucks!

While keeping in the country I read "Bangkok Pool Blues" a short look at the BKK pool scene by Tom Crowley. Its quite good and gives a quick glimpse at the subculture. It also has a few short looks at some of the characters in the scene. Its quite good and succinct.

I've continued on my noir track in general with "L.A. Confidential," by James Ellroy. I've seen the excellent movie starring Guy Pearce, Rusell Crowe, and Kevin Spacey. The convoluted plot follows the careers of three detectives, a thuggish cop, a goody goody, and a third who is quite fond of drugs and scandal sheets. Ellroy's writing style annoyed me at first. It comes across as almost stream of consciousness. The short sentences are brief and non-attached. The narrative was long and complex. It wasn't especially good but it was good to read as I took in during my extended vacation in koh samui.

The most recent book I've read was much better. Iain Banks "The Wasp Factory," is the second novel I've read by the sci fi author, although this novel, his first, is not science fiction. The first person narrative is told from the perspective of a young man, about seventeen years old, stuck on an island in scotland. He's had some sort of accident when he was young and now spends his time blowing up shit and having imaginary battles around his home. While he was growing up into a hyper violent young man he killed three people, according to him though it was just a phase. The story is driven by the arrival of his brother, who went mad.

The older sibling went crazy as he worked at a laboratory during med school. The older brother was taking care of some children in a hospital late at night. Many of the youths were just born and had deformities. The brother was having difficulty feeding one. The baby giggled and looked at him stupidly. The child had a plate on his head for some reason. A fly came out of the plate. The brother lifted the plate and saw, gasp, a handful of maggots that were laying in wait to be born into flies. The brother went mad.

The story is a bildsungroman highlights both ritual, gender, and the awesome aspects of the grotesque. Its a tight ass book focusing on a young killer.

Speaking of kilers I've read a couple of the Dexter series, out of order. The books by Jeff Lindsay are easy pulpy reads which are not nearly as good as the television series. The books are still quite fun to read. I wouldn't recommend them that much.

Along with all the reading I've also been watching a fair amount of tv series and movies. Notable recent watches have been Suckerpunch, which sucked. There were hardly any boobs in it. A lot of violence, mainly cgi. It was meh.

I saw Rango. It was quite cute.

Finally I've been watching Mad Men. Its excellent, and mainly looks at white people's dealings with gender. Of course the class background is quite important and goes largely unspoken as does the relations between people. The show gains its poignancy by what goes unsaid. It'd probably be easy for some hack academic looking for their master's degree to write about the show and Hollywood's portrayal of gender.

Hopefully I'll do more reading while I'm here, once I remember what words mean.

Imperial Bedrooms

A week or so ago I went to Barnes and Noble. This is rather a banal store but that day I was excited because Bret Easton Ellis' new novel "Imperial Bedrooms," was out. I picked up a copy right away. I brought it to the cashier and told her I was excited about reading it.

"Cool," she replied. "Do you have a Barnes & Noble card?"
"No," I said.
"Would you like one? It save you 10% on your next purchase of $30 or more."
"Nah."
"Do you need your parking validated?"
"Nope. You're pretty good at the list of things you have to say to customers."
"Thanks," she replied in a dead pan voice. "I'm also good at dealing with the constant rejection."

The minimalistic novel is easy to read with its terse style. The bareness of the writing allows its salient yet unsaid emotions pour forth. The exuding feelings mainly deal with the lead character, Clay, a successful screenwriter's rampant narcissism. Ellis points to Clay's neuroticism with his opening quote of Raymond Chandler. "There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself."

Clay returns to L.A. just as Ellis returns to the same characters as he did previously in "Less than Zero." "Imperial Bedrooms" is a sequel to Ellis' first novel of glamorous vapidity of young rich kids in the 80s. The kids do coke, do each other, and listen to the Pyschedelic Furs. Its awesome. "Imperial Bedrooms" is set in modern times and in a the oh so modern world of Hollywood (not the town but the spectacular ambiance).

The novel is dark and empty. This is depicted early on when Ellis describes the view from the balcony of the main characters condo.

"The view is impressive without becoming a study in isolation; it's more intimate than the one a friend had who lived on Appian Way, which was so far above the city it seemed as if you were looking at a vast and abandoned world laid out in anonymous grids and quadrants, a view that confirmed you were much more alone than you thought you were, a view that inspired the flickering thoughts of suicide. (p12,13)"

The majority of the characters in Ellis' first novel abound and the feelings are the same. Clay moves around without a moral compass, and has a variety of ambiguous relationships. His primary relationship is with a young actress whom he has the hots for, but her agenda is unclear. She stays with him for a week but its unclear completely why. Clay has promised that he can get her a part in his upcoming film, in which he is the screenwriter, but the producers nix her due to her poor acting ability. He strings her along as he becomes not only fixated on her but also emotionally dependent.

Clay and the girl fall out eventually due to a variety of soap opera incidents, for example; she's revealed to be a former prostitute from a highly selective service and has slept with many of his vapid friends. His vapid friends have also fallen madly in love with her, coincidentally enough.

The novel also demonstrates Ellis growth as a writer. While retaining the minimalistic style of his first novel he also describes a vivid and surreal scene of violent debauchery reminiscent of the infamous "American Pyscho," made famous not for the movie adaptation, nor for the gratuitous violence but for the lengthy rants on Genesis and Phil Collins.

What is also interesting about this novel is the use of technology. The main characters repeatedly use email and text messaging as valid ways of communicating with each other. Most contemporary novelists seem hesitant to talk about the way in which modern tech has changed the way in which we talk to each other.

The end of the novel, this isn't a spoiler by the way, is much the same as the beginning. Nothing has happened, the compass still spins directionlessly mad, the vapid despair of life in modern society is retained and the main character still clings to the safety of narcissism. All too true.

Check out Details interview with Ellis here. I enjoyed the interview

A Glowing Review

“All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players; they have their exits and entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”

William Shakespeare As You like It

The young waiter dons the wares of his profession; a white shirt, a tie, black pants, with matching shoes. His face his clean shaven, his pockets full with pens and his personality is shellacked with a smile. He goes to the table and acts out his performance with the regularity of a professional, he knows his lines, and repeats them accordingly. The illusion cast by society is set, the restaurant is draped in hospitality, the actor moves about with ease, and the process proceeds ad infinitum according to the rule of capital.

Outside the floor the young actor engages in other moments of mimicry. While one motion on stage is for survival the other is for pleasure, for play. It is here in the moments outside the world of work that I was able to see a young mimic in movement.

The small play house, brought together by PianoFight, is located in the financial district of the mission in San Francisco. Amongst the towering artifices to business lies a small stage. One enters via a street level entrance, the only mark of entry is a sandwich board that announces the evenings events. The night’s performance was part of Shortlived, a 13 week competition running in SF and LA. The competition features several one act skits. The audience votes on the skits and through a tournament style elimination one play is proved the most entertaining spectacle.

Rob Ready and Dan Williams, founders of PianoFight, let the curtains rise to humorous antics and give aways. The two gave gifts out to audience members who correctly answered questions in regards to the play structure. When asked how many plays there would be I screamed out “Obama!” My populist non sequiter won me a can of Budweiser. I left it unopened, not to be drunk until the above went forward with his promises to the mensch… I would die a thirsty man.

The first play of the evening was a romance of sorts. A young couples are at a mechanic’s. The woman’s auto has been fixed by a mechanic who seeks to overcharge. The woman is indignant, her beau seeks to gloss over the mess and get on with life, no matter the monetary cost. A fight ensues, a make up, and the curtain drops. Entertaining enough for its length.

The second performance was more cumbersome to the mind. A young man and woman were spot lit on stage. They engaged in a conjoined monologue recounting their days as serial killers on the run. The woman was dressed like Uma Thurma in “Pulp Fiction,” while her male love interest was garbed as a blonde haired “Ramones” punk. The young punk forgot his lines, and the woman two thirds of the way through the lengthy act engaged in a slow dance on the stage reminiscent of the cinematic moment when Thurman sashays for John Travolta. The two danced together with choreography. I grew bored in my seat, sucked into it with ennui.

The third play was an interesting idea but poorly executed. The play “Inner Dialogues,” had two young men meet up at a coffee shop on a first date. The two didn’t engage in actual conversation, but rather their inner thoughts were spoken aloud. One character’s thought process was blatant while the other were more muddled, it seemed as if he was in actual dialogue. The ending, of course, had them speak what they were actually thinking, a painful trope.

The last play, which I viewed as the herrpunkt of the evening had the spotlight shone on young Joe Scheppers, our favorite waiter, and his straight man, Cooper Carlson, in Maybe Tov. The play written by Pamela Davis had Scheppers as the visual dynamite in the tragic comedy about a young man, who just MAYBE engaged. His confusion is set immediately as he discusses with his pal the circumstances of his pseudo proposal. The hilarity is in the ambiguity of a pivotal point in our young actor’s life, a moment that I found not too funny as my many proposals to the ladies of the world have been shot down in cold blood! Cruel! Cruel World! Yet my ability to truly empathize with Scheppers was what made the play rewarding.

Scheppers brilliant performance was in taking on the role as if it was his own, he wore the skin of anxiety like he wears his waiting outfit, but with more exuberance. What really made the play worth seeing though was not the act, which shone so brightly that it lit the darkness of my soul, but in seeing Scheppers afterwards. His eyes lit with eagerness, with a peak of performance. He was a man who had achieved a goal, beautifully, a goal that weren’t as rote as the motions set out by work.

The Story of Crass by George Berger

In the fall of 1999 I was a senior in a rural high school outside of Albany New York. My friend from high school, who had previously graduated the year before, was coming home. He was the other punk in town. I picked him up from the greyhound bus station. His large glue encrusted mohawk barely fit into the car. He put the tape in and that's when I first heard Crass. The discordant muck was jarring enough for me to classify it as punk and the righteously indignant lyrics fit my understanding of what it meant to be political.

Ten plus years later I don't listen to Crass much. I prefer the more melodic songs of Morrissey, Bronski Beat, She Wants Revenge, and a slew of others who attained more than a modicum of skill with their instruments. While my musical preferences have changed my interest in who and what Crass were has not. When I saw a copy of “The Story of Crass,” by George Berger at a recent Gilman show I picked up the book.

The book is composed of interviews with the members (sans one) of the band and include the voices of Gee Vaucher, Joy De Vivre, and Eve Libertine. The predominant voice of the previous media about the band mainly centers on member Penny Rimbaud, no doubt due to his proclivity for writing (Shibboleth, The Last of the Hippies and The Diamond Signature). Hearing from the others of the band fills out the picture of Crass, although Rimbaud's voice is still prominent with the author often referring to Rimbaud's “The Last of the Hippies.”

The beginnings of Crass start with, gasp, art school. Gee Vaucher, a working class girl, met the middle class Penny Rimbaud at a local art school they both attended. Later Rimbaud would move into the Dial House located in the rural landscape of England. Rimbaud points to the importance of the Dial House when he says:

“The place was, and is key and central to Crass. I don't think Crass would have had the physical environment in which to be created, it wouldn't have had the background on which it based its creation.But not only that, the very fact that it was a very secure environment which had minimal upkeep and costs, which had sufficient room for a large number of people to live for bugger-all made it central. It was, and remains, a central facility. (p. 165)”

Rimbaud and Vaucher would go on to join the Fluxus inspired artistic theatre group Exit. In recalling Exit Gee Vaucher said “We were part of the Fluxus movement. And before that we were affectedby the Situationists. We were affected by street theatre – by the idea of taking something out of the four walls and off the canvas. (p.33)”

The backbone of a art gave the band a helping hand in the design department. Their infamous logo was made and soon became stenciled everywhere. Along with their iconic logo was the artistic collages of Vaucher. Each album was put together not only with a pre-fixed price record but a long booklet which included the ranting of Rimabaud and the poster art of Vaucher. As if that was not enough the band also began to dress in all black, defining an aesthetic that would separate them from the rest of the punks. This separation was taken further when they were deemed by the punks, and the critics, as living up to the ideals to which they spoke. The Dial House was communal, their diet vegetarian and their shows were often put on as benefits for various far left causes. The members of the band subsumed their individual desires for a collective existence as Crass, for better or for worse.

The band's coherent aesthetic still contained problems. Talking later of “Yes Sir I will...” Steve Ignorant says “I hate that fucking record – that and Ten Notes on a Summer's Day are just two piles of garbage. The fun had gone, but I didn't know how to say it. Because we were Crass, and because Crass lived together, it didn't ever stop. So your personal life was part of Crass, and Crass was part of your personal life – it's all intertwined. So the way that you were was Crass and the way lived was..., you could never switch off. Even if I went to the pub or a gig, I was always careful not to get drunk in front of people cos it might backfire, I might get seen. So, yeah, it was quite a restriction and it stopped being fun. (p 244)”

While it was the style of Crass that made them popular it was the very same style (that pervaded their everyday life) that led them to breaking up, and becoming stagnant as a group and amongst themselves. Penny Rimbaud states how Crass' opposition to the status quo, to their static position as an alternative authority caused , can become inadvertently crystallized.

“When creativity is in opposition to destruction, inevitably destruction prevails. To a very small degree, that was one things we initially didn't realise. The moment creativity falls into the trap of being in opposition, it's becoming defined – the whole purpose of creativity is that it's channeling and describing undefined areas – its bringing form from formlessness. The moment the form is defined (by auhtorities, by the state, by the schools, by parents, by the church) then we're no longer in a creative situation.”

The above quote smacks strongly of the idea of ressentiment, a Nietzschean term that depicts a sense of resentment and hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration. In Crass' case their ressentiment was directed at the State and Capital, against society as a whole. With ressentiment there is a sense of weakness or inferiority and perhaps jealousy in the face of the "cause" which generates a rejecting/justifying value system or morality. Here we can see Crass' embrace of vegetarianism, pacificism, and anarchism. This set of morality attacks which or denies the perceived source of one's frustration. The ego creates an enemy in order to insulate itself from culpability, it allows one to have a righteous anger against the enemy, a forever feeling of victim-hood.

While I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the way it highlighted the art background and hippy values of Crass was ultimately very disappointing for me personally. I hate hippies, and its sad that one of the greatest punk bands were hippies. Working class member Steve Ignorant saves the day, (a little bit, even if he wasn't a hippy he sure did hang out with a bunch) when he said in reply to being called hippies; “That used to drive me up the right up the fucking wall! I hated that. … the hippy thing used to drive me mad because I never was a hippy and never will be. (p. 163)”

Phew at least one of them wasn't a fucking hippy.

The book is available from PM Press

Down and Out

Recently I was at a party, all the attendees were tired and my lack of charm (if there is such a thing) precluded me from a bed. I was hoisted upon a futon. The cold of the night infused itself in my bones as I attempted to sleep. Several times I woke from being frigid. When I did manage to sleep I dreamed of others on beds with blankets, content, cozy, and oblivious to my plight. I cried out in my semi-consciousness, angered by my discomfort. A few moments would be spent attempting to warm myself but would give way to the inevitable harshness of cold. Hours went by between slumber and wakefulness, but the chill was always there. Poverty is much the same experience. A constant irritable distress, a feeling of never being in the right place and unable to escape a labyrinth of one's impoverishment.

Orwell in his “Down and Out in Paris and London,” depicts his days in Paris and London as an impoverished lumpen proletariat with unsentimental accuracy. In the first, and more interesting, part he describes his position as a plongeur in various hotels and restaurants. The dishwashing job was precarious, as he would be hired for meager wages and demanded to work to the bone. The job was also contractual, with a contract being made out for a day, a week, or at the longest a month. The long hours and continual days on the job precluded him from living a life outside of work. The moments away from work were spent in the escape of sleep, or in the temporary stupor of drunkenness.

The tales of Orwell's work in restaurants immediately made me recall the excellent booklet put out by www.prole.info, specifically I'm referring to their “Abolish Restaurants” piece, whose lay out is almost as excellent as their pointed critique of the service industry. For instance Orwell points out the ways in which the set up of restaurants pit employees against each other while also making the main emotional qualities of work swing from frantic haste to drudgery.

“Hotel work is not particularly hard, but by its nature it comes in rushes and cannot be economised. You cannot, for instance, grill a steak two hours before it is wanted; you have to wait till the last moment, by which time a mass of other work has accumulated, and then do it all together in a frantic haste. The result is that at meal-times everyone is doing two men's work, which is impossible without noise and quarrelling. (p. 75)”

The authors of “Abolish Restaurants” extend the point made by Orwell,

“Everyone who works in a restaurant is pushed to work harder and faster. The boss has an interest in getting more work out of the same number of employees or in getting the same amount of work out of fewer employees. … The stress of the rushes gets to everyone in a restaurant. Almost all the workers dip into the wine, whiskey, and tequila when the boss's back is turned. ...When we go to sleep we hope we won't dream about forgetting an order or being yelled at by a boss. (p.22)”

In the second half of the novel Orwell tramps it through England. Following other underclass men from hotel

lodging, to salvation army, to precarious work places, Orwell survives on a daily diet of bread (sometimes with margarine) and tea. What is most interesting about this period is how the tramps themselves imagine themselves as not being fully bottomed out. This is in direct contrast to one of Orwell's popular and striking quotes from the book.

“It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleausre, are knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the

dogs – and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety. (p.21)”

What is implied here is an acceptance of one's poverty and state of being “down and out.” What actually happens though is both that admission of being truly at the bottom of the barrel and an attempt to separate oneself from that position, namely through creating an identity that is somehow different from one's peers in poverty. For example Orwell's companion Paddy tirades against other tramps, calling them lazy and that pointing out that the other tramps were scum. For Orwell:

“It was interesting to see the subtle way in which he disassociated himself from “these here tramps.” He had been on the road six months, but in the sight of God, he seemed to imply, he was not a tramp. I imagine there are quite a lot of tramps who thank God they are not tramps. (p. 199)”

Here we see that poverty is not just a material state but also an ideological one. If one is able to separate one's self from the ideological being of poverty perhaps you somehow escape the plight of poverty, or at least the poor would like to think. Of course the material aspects of capital point to something different than the ideological notions of the underclasses.

In tone the novel is similar to Miller's Tropic of Cancer. In Miller's tale of semi-poverty in the 1930s in France, Miller is constantly on the hunt for free food, wages, and alcohol. Of course the hedonistic Miller is oft preoccupied with whoring. An occupation that alludes the characters in London's “Down and Out.” The tramps in london are “condemned to perpetual celibacy.” Orwell points out that women have a commodity that men don't, their sexuality, thus men are more prone to bottoms of unemployment as “...any presentable woman can, in the last resort, attach herself to some man.(p 204)” Women use their sexual bodies to escape the dregs of poverty and “...there is no doubt that women never, or hardly ever, condescend to men who are much poorer than themselves. (p.204).

Along with the voice of Miller, the book also echoes the style of B. Traven's “Death Ship.” In “Death Ship” we see a lumpen proletariat, Gerard Gales, without hope cast onto a death ship. His life consists of constant work and looming death.

While the voice of the novel is common amongst early 20^th century writers, we find fewer contemporary writers who write journalistic or realistic fictional characterizations of work. Is it because work no longer bothers us that its drudgery no longer touches popular culture? There are of course movies such as “Office Space,” “Waiting,” and the popular sitcom “The Office” which depict work but they ultimately tie themselves back into the spectacle of modern capitalism.

That said Orwell, himself doesn't do much to punch a hole out of the 20^th century for escape. He offers reformist solutions for improving the condition of the lower classes. For the tramp what “is needed is to depauperise him, and this can only be done by finding him work. (p 206)” Orwell goes on to outline a socialist scheme of making boarding houses self sufficient through the labor of the tramps, who instead of roaming would stay put and grow food. Of course the boarding houses would need other assistance, thus Orwell relies on the state to provide the other means. What is needed for the tramps I would argue is not full employment but full lives, and that can not be done with the alienating effects of capitalism. What Orwell does lend us is not a particularly capable solution to the plights of poverty but an accurate description, and a poignant illustration of life under capitalism is always a condemnation.

500 days of Summer

Joseph Gordon Levitt is my age. A young man of the modern world. I saw him growing up on "Third Rock from the Sun," a mediocre television comedy series and would see him from time to time on the screen; "The Angel," and "Ten Things I hate about You."

In the last few years I really gained an appreciation for him and the roles he's been in. Specifically in the modern noir "The Brick." Levitt plays a stoic teenager at an unnamed high school. A young love of his dies and he takes it upon himself with help from dialogue inspired by Dashiell Hammett to solve the murder. The film is shot in black and white and is beautiful to look at.

Levitt also got my attention for his role in "Mysterious Skin," in which he plays a young male gay and prostitute. The film by one of my favorite directors Gregg Arakai of "Doom Generation," and the "Living End" fame helps guide us through a story of two young men dealing with sexual abuse.

I'd been reading reviews of (500) days of Summer and they looked decent. Being bored I took it upon myself to go out to the movies. I enjoy going to the cinema. Ever since I worked at the Delmar and then later at the movie theatre in Las Vegas I've become a regular spectator of Hollywood's creations. I realize that most of the movies will lead to disappointment, we get up from our seats to realize that we no longer have a home to go to, that the film provides a temporary escape. Nevertheless there can be nuggets of what it means to be human even in the most awful of spectacles.

I went to the ten thirty show of 500 days. The film is non linear, which is to its credit. It is a simple story. Young man meets young girl. Young man is smitten, young girl is ambivalent. They break up. Young man tries to reconcile the relationship to no avail. The story is immensely aided by Levitt's acting, he plays the male lead along with a sound track full of post-punk glories such as The Smiths. Perhaps one of my favorite scenes was when Levitt initially meets the girl in an elevator while listening to the Smiths. He also wears the same Joy Division shirt that I have which made me identify with him even more... I am prone to fickleness. Along with the soundtrack and acting is that the film is spliced up, here we see day 456, Levitt is depressed, the relationship wracked by the rocky shores of life, then we jump to the day 31 in which they have their first date. The film was also helped by the cinematography which was done well.

I think if I was to view this movie again I would probably see it with some girl that I was dating, after the movie I would shag her.

La Haine!

Its pissing rain. Pouring buckets and buckets. I'm apprehensive about going outside and getting soaked. I should have walked home instead of stopping in this internet cafe to check my email. Oh well.

I've continued to watch movies during my time off. I've seen two that are exceptionally poignant.

The first I saw is a film called Raspberry Reich. The film is basically a gay porno with revolutionary slogans spliced in. The main characters abduct a rich, gay man in order to expropriate money from his father. Sex ensues. Sloganeering ensues. The film is hilarious.

The second film is "La Haine." Released in 1995, it came out on dvd in 2006. I actually thought the film was made in the last year or two. Set in the parisian ghetto, the story follows three lumpen boys on a day of their listless lives. It denotes the anguishing boredom of their situation and their inability to change their social situations. It was painful to watch the characters struggle with their surroundings. They were so... stuck. It reminded me a lot of being younger, of being broke, of being full of rage and being completely impotent to change my life. Another reason I liked the movie, of course, is because their is a muay thai boxing scene in it. Huzzah!

Book/Media review

The last few weeks have given me an enormous amount of free time. I've been sick with a staph infection and unable to train. My time has passed slowly and has mainly been spent consuming media, largely books but a fair number of movies as well. Below are quick reviews of the various books/movies I've bit into. Oh yeah there are probably spoilers in the synopsis if you care about that shit, and if you do you're a dumb ass.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I know a lot of women that have read this book. It seems like everyone with a vagina has read this book, but why? The cast is almost exclusively male. Perhaps it has something to do with the kites? The book is effectively chopped into two sections. The first section is about a young bougeroisie boy growing up in afghanistan in the early 80s/late 70s. He flies kites with his best friend, Hassan, the lower caste boy that leaves next door. Hassan is raped while trying to retrieve a kite. He is sodomized by one of the local bullies who plays a role later in the book. The narrator is plagued with guilt over his cowardice and inability to stop Hassan from being raped. The narrator unable to deal with his emotions distances himself from Hassan. Fast Forward twenty years and the narrator is living in the bay area! Whoop! He spends his free time with his old man at a flea market and marries a nice afghani girl in the stall next door. He returns to Afghanistan which is torn apart by the militant Taliban. He finds out that Hassan was actually his half brother and takes Hassan's son back home with him (Hassan gets it from the Taliban). The book talks a lot about naan, rice, and kebobs which made me want indian food. The writing is decent, but the novel itself is overally sentimental. You might like it if you have a vagina.

Clandestine by James Ellroy

Before I left for Thailand I was really into reading noir novels. I read a ton of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. I also looked into some more modern pulp/noir authors and ended up watching "The Black Dahlila" which has Scarlett Johansen in it along with this other famous dude. The movie is long and meandering.

Clandestine is much the same. Initially it starts off well with a rookie cop on a regular beat with his alcoholic, poetry spewing, partner. The two get a dog, play golf, fuck girls and talk about the wonder. The wonder is basically their fascination with the everyday life of the city. The protagonist, the rookie cop, finds a dead body, gets an award for killing a couple mexicans who run around robbing grocery stores, and marries a girl with a bum leg. He then becomes obsessed with a case involving a girl he shagged during his days as a bachelor. The book starts to go down hill from there. His marriage falls apart and 5 years later he finally figures out "who dun it." The ending is horribly soap operaish and I was glad to be reading it in a foreign country where people wouldn't notice that I was reading such garbage. The awesome thing about it is the gender dynamics. The protagonist sweeps the bum leg girl off her feet with simple lines. "Let's get drunk," "Let's go for a ride down the coast," Let's get married." I wish I was born in those simplistic days of one line seductions.

Odd and the Frost Giant by Neil Gaiman

I don't know why I read Neil Gaiman's stuff. Most of it really isn't that good. Stardust was so so, although the movie was enjoyable. Ansai Boys was quick to read, like American Gods, but both lacked substance. Caroline, one of his children's book was good with its dark "through the looking glass" style. This is another of Neil Gaiman's children's books, well more of a young adult piece. I picked it up for 60 baht, about $2, and it entertained me for an hour. The plot is okay. The winter is long, a little boy in norway, somewhere cold, has to stop the winter. He fools a frost giant (in a not particularly clever manner) and winter ends. Blah, blah, blah. The book has some neat pictures in it but not enough.

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

While out here I decided to read up on statecraft so I brought out "The Prince," and Clausewitz's "On War." The former is much shorter. Its also surprisingly good and has some great quotes in it. Below are some.

"This is because men are won over by the present far more than by the past..."

"I hold strongly to this: that it is better to be impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her."

"Violence must be inflicted once and for all; people will then forget what it tastes like and so be less resentful."

"... the less a man has relied on fortune the stronger he has made his position."

Private Dancer by Stephen Leather

There are a whole slew of novels about men coming over here from some shit hole western country and going to soi cowboii, nana plaza, or pat pong, and falling in love with a bar girl. The book follows Peter, a writer doing a travel book on BKK, and Joy, a bargirl. The novel is written from a slew of different points of view, mainly Peter, some Joy, and a few spots of secondary characters. It shows clearly the cultural gap between Peter and Joy. Peter just doesn't understand Joy and she doesn't really understand Peter. Hilarity ensues which includes Joy treating Peter like an ATM, Peter being butt hurt all the time, and the other characters thinking Peter is an idiot. Peter is an love struck dumbass and dies in the end of the book. Hilarious. A quick enjoyable read.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Cure wrote a great song about this book. I really like it. This was the second time I'd read Camus' short, terse novel. The book, while written in an American style, think Hemingway, has a bit of french flair. The main character kills an Arab on the beach for no reason really, well the sun had him pretty hot but that's a bit of a twinkie defense. He doesn't really feel much ado about it, in fact he doesn't feel much about anything, even shagging his girlfriend. He seems pretty distant throughout the novel but is pretty clever as well. Who wants to get involved these days? Unfortunately his inability to act emotionally gets him killed. Boo hoo. The existential morale of the story is to pretend to have emotions.

Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka

This is a love story about two Hungarian migrant workers who meet while picking strawberries in england. The cover of the book has quotes that say its; "hilarious," "a funny charming rollicking road trip," those quotes are not really true. It was interesting to read about migrant workers doing shit labor but it wasn't really funny. The novel is told in a bunch of different perspectives including a dog's. The main problem in the book is the inability of the two young hungarians to communicate with each other. They always seem to talk past each other, and are unable to understand each other emotionally (note one has a penis, the other has a vagina, thus their difficulties talking to each other). They meet up with some hippies toward the end of the book which is silly. It was an okay read.

Movie Reviews

Underworld: The Rise of the Lycans

I saw the first Underworld with my twin brother James in our small apartment that I paid too much for in Santa Cruz. It was enjoyable with its heavy action, decent plot (for a b-movie), plus there were werewolves and vampires set within a class war dynamic. Huzzah! The second one was good. I think I saw it out here in Thailand. The most recent one was enjoyable. It had a fair amount of blood, a silly sex scene, and an awesome blue gray tint to the entire movie. Oh did I mention there were werewolves and vampires! Wow! The big plus of the movie was the popcorn which I bought for 50baht.

Zach and Miri make a porno

This movie, like other Kevin Smith movies, are supposed to be funny. Remember Clerks, Mall Rats? They were funny. Then Kevin Smith started to suck. Remember Jersey Girl? That movie sucked. The first twenty minutes of this movie were sort of funny. There are funny racial jokes, jokes about masturbating, and funny banter between two gay men. Then I realized it was a stupid romantic comedy that dragged on too long. That's when it sucked. Kevin Smith should quit making movies.

Before Sunrise

Ethan Hawke and some french girl meet on a train. They get off the train and talk, and talk, and talk. At one point they play pinball. They fall in love or something and promise to meet again in six months. The end. Lots of dialogue, little action, no titty shots. Probably a good date movie, especially if your girl is the real mushy type. Has a sequel which I plan on watching soon.

The Edge

Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin get stuck in the woods. They fight a bear. Yes, they fight a bear. Its sort of bitchin. Alec Baldwin was boinking Hopkins wife. Hopkins is the bigger man. Baldwin tries to kill Hopkins and fails, then he dies because he falls into a bear trap. There was obvious foreshadowing earlier in the movie about the bear trap proving once again that Alec Baldwin is an idiot. Although he did boink Christina Applegate or whatever that hoe's name was which I guess gives him some credit. I would have never watched this movie if I wasn't bored out of my mind and in the hospital.