whitebait

your ticket to the universe

Just re-reading parts of the one of the early books that started W's academic focus on urban cultures. The preface still gets me right there in the gut.

Shortly after I finished this book, my dear son Marc, five years old, was taken from me. I dedicate All That is Solid Melts into Air to him. His life and death bring so many of its ideas and themes close to home: the idea that those who are most happily at home in the modern world, as he was, may be most vulnerable to the demons that haunt it; the idea that the daily routine of playgrounds and bicycles, of ordinary hugs and kisses, may be not only infinitely joyous and beautiful but also infinitely precarious and fragile; that it may take desperate and heroic struggles to sustain this life, and sometimes we lose. Ivan Karamazov says that, more than anything else, the death of children makes him want to give back his ticket to the universe. But he does not give it back. He keeps on fighting and loving; he keeps on keeping on.

-Marshall Berman, 'Preface' to All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (1982)

cycling in the city

Couldn't agree more - David Byrne on the pleasures of bicycle riding in the city. (Love the Pee Wee Herman reference).

ukelele excellence

Well, if Whitebait had a twentieth of the talent of this guy he'd be weeping for joy ...

... and if you liked that then also check this ...

spin city

David kindly asked in a recent comment for some more video clips so here goes. This one isn't quite animation (Whitebait isn't sure how to describe it) but nevertheless a lovely mix of image and sound that is an old favourite. One of Lauryn Hill's best. The image of the stylus tracking down a New York street is strangely powerful don't you think? Almost uncanny - maybe something to do with its suggestion of the brute strength of the memories of the city that are etched in and through music.

Best listened to at maximum volume.

city of font

Oh. my. god.

This is utterly fantastic.

Alex Gopher: "The Child"1999 Directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet

Go here for more classics. Yes, do watch the A-ha video and marvel at the fact that it is now over twenty years old and still stunning).

Whitebait expects to be spending some time with these videos.

global city-countries

The most important place to London is New York and to New York is London and Tokyo [...] London belongs to a country composed of itself and New York.

-Academic writer on cities Richard Sennett (see also this 2001 profile) in a recent BBC News story (via Space and Culture).

Whose part of your city-country? As a Melburnian, Whitebait's country consists of Melbourne and Sydney (and once upon a time London). But if he was in Sydney he'd be in country of Sydney, Los Angeles and New York ...

late saturday afternoon

Some minutes to spare. Whitebait is at home cooking a fortifying and delicious mushroom risotto for FrauleinDrDr before he takes her to the airport. Was just listening to Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Keys of Life and the disc player has now moved to some Wilco. Both perfect for this time of day. FrauleinDrDr is heading to Sydney to spend some more time as an observer on the set of the hilariously named new reality tv series, Honey, We're Killing the Kids and to do some interviewing of key production staff. It is all quite exciting: the research is being done for a chapter in her book about popular expertise. So far the production crew have been outstandingly nice and have very thoughtful takes on the show itself and some of the ethical dilemmas that making these programs can throw up. Most refreshingly, they have been very happy to talk with a media studies academic. (This makes an interesting contrast with journalists and filmmakers who all too often seem fiercely anti-intellectual in this country and like to perform it. A friend closer to the latter biz maintains that this comes from those being trained in film schools being always encouraged to invest very heavily in romantic ideas of the filmmaker as an artist whose vision can not questioned or reflexively placed within some sort of cultural and historical context of cinematic practice. Why try to understand your work in a tradition when you have been born with an innate cinematic 'vision'! As for journos - well, someone must have written a book about why there is such enmity between journos and pointyheads in Australia (particularly on the part of the former) - but I'll leave it to someone more local, rather than a Kiwi blow-in like Whitebait, to take that up if they wish. That professional defensiveness--more broadly-- is certainly evident in this recent lame attempt at satire).

[Quick drive to the airport]

OK, Whitebait is digressing a mite too much. He should mention that Honey has the following simple but interesting premise: after different types of medical evaluation of the kids of the family participating, the show's presenter, a psychologist, shows the parents  a computer generated image of what they will look like when they are 40. Which, as you'd expect, is often very disturbing. The psychologist then says, "You're killing your kids." The family then gets the chance to see if they can redeem the children's futures over the next three weeks. Having written that and reread it Whitebait has to say, via FrauleinDrDr's initial reports, that it really is a very interesting show. There are UK and US versions of the show (you've got to love the menacing asparagus thrust in the promotional image for the US one) and it will be interesting to see how it shapes up here (not sure yet when it will go to air). When FrauleinDrDr was telling me a few weeks back about the executive producer, who has very generously set everything up for her, she mentioned his really great voice: she only realised a couple of days ago that he was actually the first voice of Big Brother here in Australia!

Meanwhile, having read an on-the-money thumbs-up report from Elanor, Whitebait last night saw Dave Chappelle's Block Party. In the film, Chappelle (a comedian) arranges an 'old-skool' block party in Brooklyn featuring some of his favourite artists like Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, Kanye West, Common, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Cody Chesnutt, John Legend, The Roots, and a reunited Fugees. Chappelle is very funny and such a unembarrassed fan: a few times during the concert you can see him reciting the words of whoever is up on stage. A lot of fun and some great musical performances. Standouts for Whitebait were Dead Prez, Mos Def (that guy is the epitome of cool) and Lauryn Hill (W. had forgotten just how divine her voice is). Also inspiring were the occasional, geeky white backing musicians. One of the guitarists in particular reminded your bloggeur that there is a musical equivalent to the high pant (think Seinfeld) that should be avoided at all costs - having your guitar strapped too high while surrounded by funky black dudes.

[Just got skyped and had a lovely long conversation with a Tokyo friend so the post ends here sorry]

skylines

A recent post saw Whitebait misreading Myrick at Asiapundit and initially missing a great link to Diserio's 'Top 15 Skylines in the World'. It is the kind of list that makes grown anal-retentive bloggeurs go weak at the knees.

His list (including excellent images):
1. Hong Kong
2. Chicago
3. Shanghai
4. New York City
5. Tokyo
6. Singapore
7. Toronto
8. Kuala Lumpur
9. Shenzen
10.Seoul
11. Sao Paolo
12. Sydney
13. Frankfurt
14. Dubai
15. Seattle

Well, Whitebait certainly agrees on his number one and the top four overall. But to W's mind, New York should go to number two, Shanghai three and Chicago fourth. Tokyo, as readers will know, is a much beloved city for Whitebait but it doesn't rank as highly for this bloggeur in the skyline stakes. The dispersion of its skyline into multiple nodes produces a different kind of urban effect that almost takes it out of a consideration of 'skylines' in the conventional sense (though the view from the Rainbow Bridge is outstanding). In a different way places like Rome and Paris, which have sublime cityscapes, are similarly ineligible for this list. But that is a discussion for another post.

Back to the list then.  Sydney seems a bit hard done by here and to Whitebait's mind should probably pip SIngapore. As for the rest ... erm, he isn't sure as he hasn't had a chance to visit those cities and assess yet. Research funding offers welcomed.

BTW, he is not meaning to damn with faint praise when he says if we were to start a 'boutique skyline' list, Whitebait would be nominating Brisbane (viewed from Storey Bridge) as a top contender. It is certainly the best Australian city skyline after Sydney. Biggest ain't necessarily the most impressive.

holiday screenings

So it’s that time of year when some serious listing begins (for a really mental take on this--in the best sense--check Woebot’s beautiful scans of his top 100 records when they are successfully loaded).

So, Whitebait would like to offer his guide to twenty classic ‘city’ films worth watching for the first time or once again. This list is for when you might be lurking at the video shop over the next week or so looking for something interesting to watch. Get more details on each release at imd. Nothing surprising nor obscurantist here – just a mix of generally well know popular/fun/arty stuff. He isn’t arguing that these are ‘the’ best city films (and do pitch in with your own recommendations in the comments please), just the ones that have tended to lodge in his mind for whatever reason. His definition of a ‘city film’ is one where the urban setting or environment takes on the status of an actor, or becomes a key point of meditation.

So, it isn’t enough that the film is just has the city as a backdrop - that would be too easy wouldn’t it.

In alphabetical order (doh!):

1. All About My Mother - this may seem tenuous given the criteria but it gets on the list for that one perfect Freudian scene when Manuela is shuttling from Madrid to Barcelona. A train tunnel, an exquisite musical buildup and then a taxi past Sagrada Familiar.  One of the most exhilarating moments of recent cinema.

2. Bladerunner – is it Los Angeles or really Tokyo? Doesn’t matter as it is still stands brilliantly today as we keep on marching into the cyborg future that arrived 100 years ago.

3. Chinatown – yes, Los Angeles figures strongly. Crooked water politics and noir in the land of sunshine.

4. Chungking Express – crowded and deserted Hong Kong exteriors and the gorgeous Faye Wong sneaking into a policeman’s house to provide a free makeover (life before Queer Eye!).

5. Collateral – brilliant in every way. And a great tongue-in-cheek thriller ending in the sense that like all good recent LA films it slams the idea that there is life in the city beyond car travel - by equating the metro rail system with death.

6. Dark City – familiar sci-fi noir themes but very handsomely and adeptly executed.

7. Falling Down – yes, this film has a crappy racist politics at the heart of it but it is one hundred times more complex and intelligent in the way it goes about these complex politics than detractors will acknowledge. And in doing so it offers some handy insights into the politics of city space and mobility.

8. Fellini’s Roma/La Dolce Vita – Whitebait learnt some Italian for a while and this was a great way to practice. He likes the essay-like Roma just because it seemed a damn weird movie the first time around. And the second time.

9. La Haine – was a film of note before the recent Parisian uprisings but W. suspects it might be even more gripping and pertinent now.

10. L.A. Story – still some great and eminently repeatable one-liners despite the unsatisfying romance narrative at the centre. And a reference to that great Martin poem, ‘Oh pointy birds, oh pointy pointy …’

11. Manhattan – Whitebait remembers a time when he did trust film critics who would write that the latest Woody Allen film was worth shelling out for at the cinema.

12. Naked – a brutal and funny film in equal doses. Life on some very dark English streets

13. Short Cuts – this is tied up in some bad memories for Whitebait (and he still hasn’t plucked up the courage to see it again) but because Raymond Carver’s stories were the inspiration it still goes on the list.

14. Summer of Sam / Do the Right Thing – while DtRT is the acknowledged classic (so damn hot and tense on those New York streets) … SoS goes back to the late seventies and reworks similar themes with another great soundtrack.

15. The Big Sleep – who knew it rained in Los Angeles so much?

16. The End of Violence / Wings of Desire – EoV isn’t a successful film but it has a great eerie take on L.A. and Bill Pulman is in great form. More interesting than satisfying. If you aren’t in the mood for that then go straight to WoD.

17. The Last Wave – a completely different representation of Sydney in its articulation of the unease that remains in a place forcibly acquired from its indigenous inhabitants.

18. Tokyo Story - it is nearly all studio sets and yet it paints a damning picture of the role of the urban in the disintegration of familial bonds and individual selfishness (Beware – the pace is slow in a good way).

19. Sans Soleil – more an essay on memory and therefore quite a different viewing experience. But many of the scenes from Tokyo remain etched in my mind.

20. Wonderland – would contend for number one if that was the objective of this exercise. A moped riding through the streets, trains in the night, a Michael Nyman score, blind dating, London streets, a barking neighbour’s dog who drives a woman to the brink … this is The Poetry of City Life 101. Exceptional.

destruction, metropolitan greatness and morality

These last few months have been like a gold rush for Whitebait in terms of personally discovering exciting new blogs to read. Among these he now includes the amazingly informative asiapundit (aka myrick). Based somewhere in China, though having to find roundabout methods to read his own blog due to government internet censorship, asiapundit is a prolific and sharp chronicler of the broader Asian region.

Some of this is heavy stuff: recent posts about the shooting of Dongzhou villagers protesting against compulsory government acquisition of their land have been really disturbing. And this post about contemporary slavery.

Also see this post (via Frog in a Well) about two agents from US Homeland Security paying a visit to the home of an  undergraduate student at UMass Dartmouth who requested a copy of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book via inter-library loan for a paper he was preparing in a course on fascism and totalitarianism. May you live in interesting times indeed.
UPDATE: debates are occurring as to the truth of the original newspaper story.

But the lighter post Whitebait especially wanted to mention--which sparked this one in the first place--concerns a rumination, originally by imagethief, about Beijing's lack of a filmic monster to confirm its metropolitan greatness. As imagethief observes:

I've come to the conclusion that Beijing cannot be a great, global metropolis until it is attacked by its own giant monster. Thanks to the encyclopaedic reference information contained in two invaluable websites, Stomptokyo.com and Giantmonstermovies.com, I've been able to research some of the cities that have been on the receiving end of giant monsters. Sure, you all know that Tokyo has had a fifty year kaiju infestation that has included Godzilla, Gamera and friends. New York got King Kong on multiple occasions plus, as a bonus, the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (by the way, that's 180,000 feet, or about six times deeper than the deepest part of the ocean). London was attacked by Gorgo. San Francisco got the five-armed octopus of It Came from Beneath the Sea. The list has also has some surprises, including some of Beijing's key, regional rivals and a few cities you'd never expect [...]

A similar topic was also on Whitebait's mind somewhat as he went and saw the immensely enjoyably (but maybe a shade long) Peter Jackson remake of King Kong last weekend. The cgi sets of depression/skyscraper boom-era Manhattan are quite amazing. As might be expected, Whitebait ended up thinking a bit about the original film which is an old favourite which he has seen a few times and used in the occasional course. If considering the urban context, the older film is hard not to read as grappling with some strong conscious/unconscious anxieties about the large African-American migrations to the northern US cities at the time. Additionally, it is also hard not to read the older film at one level as a startling illumination of the astonishing gulf that existed between the depression-era desperation of street life versus the boom and the grandness and ambitiousness of the skyscrapers that were being built at roughly the same time.

But the question that came to Whitebait's mind here (more in regard to the original film where the vibe is stronger he thinks) is one about what New York is being temporarily punished for (before King Kong is toppled)? Why does he ask? Well, Whitebait poses this question after reading the delightful writings of Japanese-based film and culture critic Donald Richie. In his essay 'Attitudes toward Tokyo on film' (1988) reprinted in A Lateral View: Essays on Culture and Style in Contemporary Japan, Richie observes that there always is a strong moral edge to the destruction of western cities on film whereas,

... Tokyo has been destroyed on film any number of times, but never, I believe, because it deserved to be. Usually, Tokyo seems chosen for earthquake or fire or monster-quake simply because this is a place where the most people can be gratifyingly gotten rid of. (192)

In the case of the original Kong film, W's somewhat obvious reading here is that there are some pretty heavy vibes present in the film about the tough urban capitalism that is being/has been embedded as the key social structure in cities like New York. And that issue of race and the sizeable concurrent arrival in the city of southern Black migrants (who are represented as a threatening sexual presence) won't go away. Overall, then, the moral is a Freudian-framed one about not letting the 'primitive' bodily unconscious get out of control in the city. What's quite interesting in the more recent film is the clever way in which Jackson decides to effectively de-sexualize the relationship between Kong and Anne Darrow by re-figuring it as that of one between a big, dumb spoilt kid and his fragile, new toy.

OK, so if all that first draft theorising has turned you off why not listen to some delicious snippets of the incomparable dialogue and actors from the original film. Just to make it weird, and because we are venturing in to the silly season, Whitebait has laid them on top of some incongruous beats and riffs grabbed in haste from his sample drive (but not done as a proper whole track as there is not enough time). Download Leaving New York.mp3 (about 2 MB) here. BTW, the 'I've never been on a ship before ...' snippet  gets a nice reworking in the Jackson film.