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Many thanks to those who read and/or commented on the vanished places post. Are there other places you wish were still there? Or, are there places you've revisited that were different from how you remembered them? What kind of things jog your memory?
Finally, do you have a preference for digital or analog time? How well do the two systems -- which are kind of as different as handwritten vs. word processed notes -- sync in your mind's eye?
I have two alarm clocks: one digital 24-hour electric clock radio and one battery-powered 12-hour analog clock that faintly glows in the dark. For me, they work in tandem.
Today's Rune: Defense.
The original Café Diva was at 12th and Spruce, Center City Philadelphia. In 1992 and early 1993, I lived right across the street in a small attic flat at 1220 Spruce Street. Nga Mai was the proprietor; it was the last place where I played a full game of chess. There were books to read, there was good coffee and there were tasty sandwiches. Lots of people liked to hang out there. The second incarnation was at 140 S. 20th Street, Rittenhouse Square.
Are there any places you used to frequent that no longer exist in anything but memory and photographs?
Today's Rune: Initiation.
I love postal systems. They go back thousands of years and are an attribute of culture and civilization. I dig the US Postal Service -- it's incredibly fast. But the reality is this: changing technologies and practices are sapping its funding base. Something has gotta give -- or take.
We could go to widespread seven day service: there's no rational reason not to. Conversely, we could cut a couple of days of service per week. Another option would be to declare Red Letter Days once or twice per month, encouraging everyone to post letters. In the US, that'd probably go over like a lead zeppelin, however. What we need is a led zeppelin. Something luckier than the Hindenburg, to boot. Hell-bent for leather as we are, email and mobile phones and texting have sped things up so much that tons of mail these days is junk, not much better than snail spam. What are we gonna do about it? What can we do about it? Any thoughts on the matter? Something must be done.
At top: USPS flow chart. Bottom: artist's take on Japanese address system. ZIP equals Zone Improvement Plan, not to be confused with Dow's Ziploc system. In Japan, addresses are typically in reverse of the US system.
Today's Rune: Flow.
You like music? You like cultural survival? You got an open mind and heart? If any of these apply, you just might totally dig Buena Vista Social Club,
Wim Wenders' 1999 documentary. It's amazing stuff, vibrant, visually colorful, musically terrific.
Ry Cooder and crew assemble old school Cuban musicians and singers for recording sessions in the studio and on the road. We catch all sorts of glimpses of Cuban life and texture, embracing but not limited to music, cars and architecture. There are many touching snippets, interwoven with beautiful singing and sumptuous instrumentals. Swirling (and dizzying) takes of Ibrahim Ferrer's dueting with Omara Portuando, folks talking in their domeciles and in various interiors and exteriors -- it's all memorable. And I loved seeing dudes in their 80s and 90s smoking cigars and taking a nip, quite hale and hearty and happy.
Today's Rune: Journey.
Revolution and civil war: that was the widespread pattern in the wake of "The Great War," World War One (1914-1918). One of the things to sort out was the balance between religious and secular power. Typically, governments tilted toward secular power, as in Turkey, Russia and Mexico, for instance, if not so much in Ireland.
In Mexico, armed backlash came in the form of La Cristiada, the Cristero War of 1926 to 1929, a Catholic uprising fighting against government seizure of church-owned properties. This uprising, including men, women and children, was successful enough to end in a sort of de facto compromise: the state would leave space for the Catholic church. Once the church made peace, however, many of its followers were left hanging, or put against a wall and shot by government enforcers of the new status quo. Others fled to the USA. It was a bloody process, indeed, and included the assasination of one of the last big leaders of the Mexican Revolution, President Álvaro Obregón, in 1928.
Stay tuned for Cristiada (ca. 2011), Dean Wright's epic film version being shot in Mexico as of this post and reportedly including Peter O'Toole, Rubén Blades, Eva Longoria Parker and Karyme Lozano, among many others.
Today's Rune: Warrior.
"The good fellow and the bad fellow, the fellow who is strange." That's the literal machine translation for Kim Ji-woon's wild and woolly 좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈 / The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008), based on a certain Sergio Leone 60s classic with similar name. The premise: basically the same as in the Leone version, only set in Manchuria during the 1930s, with Japanese forces on the take and everyone else in the region reeling, fleeing or plundering. Love the idea -- fantastic! I'll be checking it out later this month.
Today's Rune: Breakthrough.
Finally checked out Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima (2006). It's excellent and has the primary ingredient found in all the best war movies: empathy for more than one point of view. This one's almost entirely in Japanese and shows the doomed defenders of Iwo Jima before and during the 1945 battle. Only a couple hundred Japanese soldiers survived -- out of about 18,000 men. Ken Watanabe is superb as the thoroughly professional commander, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi; the entire cast is terrific. The world needs something like this from the Vietnamese point of view for the US-Vietnam War.
In addition to Letters from Iwo Jima, these are among my choices for best non-documentary war films, in no particular order:
Oliver Hirschbiegel: Der Untergang (2004) / Downfall (2005)
Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio Masuda: Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
Sergei Bondarchuk: Waterloo / Ватерлоо (1970)
Francis Ford Coppola: Apocalypse Now! (1979)
Jean Renoir: La Grande Illusion / Grand Illusion (1937)
Aleksandr Askoldov: Комиссар / Commissar (1967)
David Lean: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, Gerd Oswald: The Longest Day (1962)
Richard Attenborough: A Bridge Too Far (1977)
Lewis Milestone: All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Stanley Kubrick: Paths of Glory (1957)
Sam Peckinpah: Cross of Iron (1977)
John Guillermin: The Blue Max (1966)
Kathryn Bigelow: The Hurt Locker (2008/2009)
Wolfgang Petersen: Das Boot (1981)
Peter Weir: Gallipoli (1981)
Let's not forget Gillo Pontecorvo's La battaglia di Algeri (1966) /Battle of Algiers (1967) and Queimada (1969) / Burn! (1970)
What did I miss?
Today's Rune: Journey.
