The Bitter Disappointment Of The Wrong Song Version

"In the Mood For Love"- Wang Kar-wai's masterpiece about a man and woman who find romance through the personal tragedy of spousal betrayal- sets the bar high for all other art films.

The film has the requisite color saturation that gives it that "yesteryear" feel. It's set in the  60s and its heroine wears a fashionable collection of high-collard cheongsam dresses.

The hero wears dark suits and smokes constantly; both to deal with rising emotions and to look cool squinting sadly into his own nicotine haze.

The spurned better halves decide they won't cheapen their relationship with sex (or will they?) They meet in a cafe and drink from jadeite cups. They stare longingly into the rain. They ride in taxis and let the full gravity of their predicament sink into their shoulders and weigh them down.

Theirs was a proper sort of love.

            

Of course it can't go on forever, and so they part. And in one of the most romantic scenes to ever be trapped in celluloid, the man goes to Cambodia and whispers the secret of his love into a crack in the stone of Angkor Wat and seals it up with moss and mud. 

I was so taken by the film that I painted a small and crude portrait of the lead actress, Maggie Cheung.

One of the most magical parts of the film is the soundtrack. Nat King Cole croons in Spanish lending a dreamy quality to the ambiance. The best track by far is a the cello-heavy "Yumeji's Theme," performed flawlessly by Shigeru Umebayashi. 

I used to have it on a CD but then I lost it. I went looking for it on iTunes and found several versions performed by people I had never heard of. I selected one and downloaded it. 

It sounded fine at first; the song begins with the plucking of violin strings. (I suppose it's hard to screw that up.)

Then came the cello. It sounded like a soloist from Ms. Swanson's fifth grade beginning orchestra class had been forced to play in a tropical downpour. Nay! I shan't even profane the efforts of the imaginary pupil of the imaginary Ms. Swanson. This was deliberately awful!

It sounded as if some hateful wretch who failed as a musician decided to program his synthesizer to sound like a cello that's been warped by humidity and is being played by a sausage-fingered troglodyte. 

It was awful! And I paid 99 cents for it! 

Don't be fooled by cheap substitutes. I learned the hard way.

The Egypt Of An Age Now Gone

I don't remember how Egypt first caught my attention but I remember it becoming somewhat of an obsession with me when I was in High School.

"I'm going to be an Egyptologist," I told the grandmother who had invested in my college education.

"No you're not," she replied.

I went to journalism school instead.

I still poured over books with paintings of brightly colored birds and crumbling images of Pharaohs carved in stone which had failed to stand the test of time. 

Idealistic images of the country always manifested in my mind's eye: golden skies, palms heavy with fruit and the ubiquitous felucca listing to one side on the always tranquil Nile. 

I bought books on hieroglyphics and the source of the Nile and marveled over Howard Carter's success at finding the unplundered tomb of Tutankhamen out in the Valley of the Kings. I wanted to unearth something as glorious. 

I'm afraid that all the beautiful hand-drawn images I studied from bygone days gave me a desire to know a land long altered. 

Also, some of the images now seem to serve as a forewarning for the Revolution that would unfold in my time. There is only so much subjugation a People can take.

As you can see, the image at left bears a few of my favorite Egyptian things; a hazy golden sky, feluccas, and the pyramids. Men take a moment out of their working lives to relax and talk.

Below is an image of Murad Bey, a member of the Mamlukes who were from Circassia, Georgia and Mingrelia. They were a slave class trained for warfare but they eventually used their training to seize control of the country.

The man at right is Mehemet Ali, the son of a Turk who wiped out the Mamlukes in 1811. He was not to be trusted or trifled with.

Inevitably, the Europeans arrived. In Egypt this was known as "The Age of the Wanker." It was marked by a lot of pasty people leaning on and/or stealing important historical artifacts and speaking to the locals like they were deaf donkeys. Oh, dear. 


As history has shown, there is nothing like a little colonialism to shake things up with the locals. If you want to leave a wound on someone else's civilization that will sting for centuries to come, this is definitely the way to go.


It is truly a remarkable thing to wander into the lands of another People and conquer them for "their own good." It takes a certain amount of mental flexibility to ignore the fact that said people had thrived for ages without your pats on the head and management of their daily affairs, yet, somehow the French and British pressed on.

 

 Here are Dr. Livingston and Henry Morton.  Morton thought it would be a good idea to play "pet the crocodile." Lucky for him, Livingston quickly intervened. The gentleman with the oar has just discretely whispered to his companion, "Can you believe this fool?"

Below is a drawing from the book "Having a Wonderful Time" by Tom Pohrt. In it, a young girl named Eva and her orange tabby named Sam decide to visit a land that looks a lot like Egypt although it is never named.

Eva meets a camel named Cassis who takes them to an Oasis for lunch.

The waiters are crocodiles and one even wears a fez. This image reminds me of a poem from Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland:"

How doth the little crocodile 

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in,

With gently smiling jaws.

The book is a lovely bit of escapism and I enjoy giving it a read every now and again.

As you can see, I'm enamored with an Egypt now gone and one that never was.

               

Another Fine Weekend Comes To An End

Another weekend has come and gone and in a few short days I will be off to visit my uncle in New Zealand.



The chair above is not a real Eames but is a good replica and extremely comfortable to a tired back. 


I bought the irises this afternoon and while I was out to dinner with a friend one of them opened. 

Ah, the simple pleasures!

A Brief Overview of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy."

Although the woman at the rental store hinted that it wasn't an "action" spy film, I had no idea just how sedate the beginning of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" would be.

The first half hour of the film could easily be renamed; "White Men Calmly Going About Their Daily Business."

The pace picked up slightly when one nondescript white guy broke into a trot up a flight of stairs.

Sometime later, a group of white men moved a small end table from one corner of a room to the other.

Intense!

No really, I get it- it's not that kind of a spy film.

But somehow the plot hooked me and I enjoyed watching Gary Oldman do his thing.

Also, Colin Firth was there, grinning and looking sly. Countless romantics will remember his turn as Mr. Darcy- a Mr. Darcy not opposed to swimming through his own ancestral duck pond and emerging from it with his white shirt clinging enchantingly about his pecks.

Desh it awl! I feel a swim is in or-dah!

As you can clearly see the man has talent. Even his wet hair is acting the daylights out of that scene. The face seems to say: Oh, hey Eliza. Why yes, I am a damp, steaming mass of desirable man cake!

So, in conclusion, "Tinker, Tailor, Darcy, Shirt" was a good film and you should see it or something.