Ashfall

So, right after watching three documentaries on Pompeii, I watched a South Korean movie called Ashfall (in English) whose Korean title is BaekDu San (BakeDur mountain. The premise is that Baekdu erupts and a team must find a way to steal nuclear warheads from a North Korean facility, with the help of a North Korean double-agent, and then bring a detonator to a mine near the mountain to set off an explosion that will defuse the next big eruption. The movie has one action set-piece after another, starting with the eruption causing an earthquake in Seoul that knocks down a bunch of buildings while our hero, a bomb-deactivator specialist, drives through the falling rubble to try to return to his pregnant wife's side. The movie doesn't really care how we get from one set-piece to the next. Characters just arrive at their next destination in a very efficient way. There is a lot of buddy-antagonist by-play between our South Korean hero and the North Korean spy. They release him from prison so he can guide them to the nukes, but they struggle with him all the way to the end of the story. He is shot by the Chinese gangsters he was trying to use to escape with his daughter, just before they are in a firefight with Americans who are also getting in the way of the mission. The Americans have barged in and taken over the Korean president's HQ, and fire on our hero team, who fight back and fight them off. Never mind plausibility: one does not simply drive into Mordor,.But our heroes not only manage to get the detonator into the mine with five minutes to spare, one of them sacrifices himself while the other drives away and is not swallowed up by pyroclastic surges or crushed by flaming debris.  The pregnant wife is trapped on a bridge in her car when a tidal wave strikes it, but manages to get out of the car, swim her way out of the river without taking off her coat, and hop onto the bus she needed to catch to head to an American evacuation site in Incheon.  She also gives birth right at the moment the mountain is bombed into submission. All in all it was a fairly enjoyable if mindless disaster movie, with a Korean spin on familiar tropes.

I recognized each and every actor in the film from all my Korean drama viewing. Well-known actors were even in minor roles. The movie was a big box office success right before the pandemic hit.

Pompeii

 Today I went with my family to an exhibition at the Legion of Honor Museum in SF: Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave. The show included considerations of architecture and city life but was focused on the commerce, storage, preparation and consumption of food. On display were objects that were used in all these aspects--made of glass, metal, terracotta--- as well as fresco fragments, mosaics, statuary, even carbonised grains and fruits for sale, The god Bacchus, with his panther sidekick, was a particular favorite of the folks of Pompeii because it was a wine-producing region. 

Further Pompeii follow-up: this BBC documentary "Pompeii:The Last Day" gave a lot of work to re-enactors!

Artist Jennifer Marie Keller is generous with her walk-through of the show. She raises the issue of how we displayy human remains in such an exhibition; she would not have chosen to do so, whereas the musuem does display a resin cast of a woman's body as she was found in death. 

 

Here is scholar Mary Beard showing us life in Pompeii before the eruption:

And here is a guided tour of the site of Pompeii itself:

For All Mankind

For All Mankind is one of the best TV shows I've seen in a long time.  What if the first man on the moon was a Soviet cosmonaut? What if the Soviets put a woman on the moon first, and Nixon decided we had to do the same? What if there was a space race with moon bases? What happens when an arms race expands to space? The show combines the technological events of the space program with a focus on the families of the astronauts and the folks of NASA: the test pilot culture, Werner Von Braun, a young girl whose family crosses over from Mexico, high-ranking NASA officials living as closeted gay and lesbians, under scrutiny by the FBI. The cast and production are up to the task and the special effects are outstanding. The finale episode of season two was gripping and gut-wrenching. I can't wait for season three when we go to Mars in the '90s!

The costume designer Jill M. Ohanneson talks about designing for the late sixties and seventies settings of the show:

Podcast round-up

I have become a person who listens to a lot of podcasts. Most of the time, I listen to them when I am on my daily walks, or right before I go to sleep. Some podcasts have accompanied me during bouts of insomnia, although lately then just help lull me to sleep. I will sometimes wake up and listen to the second half of a podcast when I fell asleep in the middle of it. I decided to try to review my podcast subscription list because there are some that I subscribed to but that are no longer active so I forget I have them. Some podcasts I have also stopped listening to because I'm steering clear of stressful content. Others I subscribed to but just never seem to be in the mood to really listen to, so I should prune them from the list. There are more that I haven't included here because the list is too long, but these are the ones I have listened to lately.

 

Ask Me Another. A game show with funny people and musical cues. It's a great one for my longer walk because I can listen to an episode in the time it takes me to do the whole loop and it always makes me laugh.

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! I've been listening to this one the longest. Back when my health was suffering, it was something that helped me get through some rough nights.

Go Fact Yourself A game show with two contestants who answer trivia questions about their "areas of expertise" and who then get to interact with a guest expert on their topic. I became a huge fan of Helen Hong from her appearances on Wait Wait, which led me to this show. I love it when the guests are star-struck by meeting someone connected to their passions. A good bedtime podcast because it makes me laugh and feel happy.

Radiolab. Before it was a podcast, it was a radio show I used to catch while I was in my car on my way to work. There's a big back catalogue I should explore.

99% Invisible. I started listening to this one when it first got going, but stopped for a long time. They are one of the podcasts that creates a page for each episode that includes the transcript and lots of extra nuggets of content, like this one on Japanese name stamps called hanko. I should explore their website.

Ologies with Alie Ward I am a huge fan of this show. It's nerd heaven--interviews with guests who are -ologists, experts in their fields. It's a great introduction to branches of science, and a chance to hear people who are really passionate about what they do talk about their trajectories as scientists. I am fond of Alie Ward's goofy interview style and her inclusion of questions from Patreon supporters in each episode.

Decoder Ring Willa Paskin and her crew create episodes on topics of curiosity to them like ice cream trucks, the Segway, or the stories behind the Jane Fonda workout craze, trying to figure out what they mean and why. Great storytelling. I am never disappointed.

Invisibilia An NPR podcast that looks at "invisible things" often linked to science or sociology. I have only listened to a few episodes but I like it and I plan to explore their back list. Like a lot of NPR podcasts, there is only a brief summary on the web page for each episode, which I find kind of disappointing.

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy (BBC) I just stumbled across this one and plan to make it my bedtime listening.

Arts and Ideas (BBC Radio) There are over 1000 episodes of this show! I just listened to the one on Rashomon, both the film and the stories it was based on. The format is a panel of four experts who bring different perspectives to a topic and it does a good job of bridging the expertise with the popular.

Bookmarks (writers on a book) a micropodcast, but very dear.

Overdue (books you've been meaning to read). I'm a big fan of Andrew and Craig and have fallen asleep to many of their discussions of books because I find their voices comforting. I wish I had a book buddy like this!

Always Take Notes  is for writers and about writing. I have yet to listen to it, but I should give it a shot.

Working a high-quality podcast with interviews with folks about their work, with an emphasis on creativity. Most recent episode I listened to had a conversation with a couple, James and Karla Murray, who are photographers of the streets of New York specifically of graffiti and storefronts. They finish each other's sentences in a totally charming way.

Today, Explained. I often find these really useful and compelling, when the topic is one I can stand to listen to without triggering anxiety.

The Daily is the New York Times daily podcast; like Today, Explained, it treats the big story of the day in some depth. A recent episode on the assassination of Haiti's president used in-depth reporting among the wives of the Colombian ex-soldiers who were hired by what they thought was a security firm and ended up enmeshed in a murder plot.

Recode Daily. Another Vox podcast, this one on tech.

 

Alt.Latino Another NPR favorite that I used to listen to on the radio when I found it randomly, but now can listen to as a planned experience. I have a Spotify playlist of songs I've discovered through this show. I'm very fond of Felix Contreras and his co-hosts.

Aria Code is a podcast by the Metropolitan Opera with WNYC that goes into an aria, its contexts and performances. I love it.

Fresh Air I enjoy this podcast but lament the fact that they don't have the interns pop up a page with informative links for each episode.

Deeply Human with Dessa. Dessa is a great host for this BBC podcast. I have not yet listened to all of its episodes, but I've liked the ones I've heard. I'm really glad I got to see Dessa perform live.

The Kitchen Sisters Present. Radio documentaries that deserve a better web presence than the one they have.

Overheard at National Geographic. Great shows about a vast array of topics. They have transcripts.

Who Shot Ya? defunct since 2020 but a long-running podcast on film with a pop-culture perspective.

Tom and Lorenzo's Pop Style Opinionfest I can't believe they already have 100 episodes! I am a faithful listener.

Pop Culture Happy Hour I listen to this one every weeknight. I've gotten some great ideas for things to watch from their conversations.

They Call Us Bruce co-hosts Jeff Yang and Phil Yu welcome guests to talk about Asian and Asian-American topics. A good mixture of entertainment and other topics.

Code Switch another NPR podcast that I sometimes have to skip because the topics are too anxiety-provoking for my broken brain to tolerate, but I'm always glad when I listen.

$6.99 Per Pound  no longer broadcasting, but two years of conversations from New York with folks in the hip hop, fashion, and young entrepreneurial worlds. Found this through one of the hosts who interviewed BTS and who is a Korean-American who speaks with a charming heavy Queens accent.

The Envelope discusses every Best Picture Oscar-winner with special episodes on award shows.

Pop Rocket I was a faithful listener of this weekly podcast and burned through a lot of their past episodes, and was so sad when it ended.

Lingthusiasm from within the field of linguistics. I should pay for the bonus episodes.

Accentricity about accents and the ways people talk. Scottish. Very educational.

The History of English Podcast a very leisurely stroll through the history of the English language and the history of the British Isles. Was my bedtime listening until I ran out of episodes.

The Allusionist is a podcast about language with Helen Zaltzman who is an original and charismatic host.

A Way with Words a very long-running radio show and podcast with two lovely hosts which takes questions from callers about words and expressions. Charming and sweet.

Lexicon Valley the eccentric John McWhorter is a linguistics professor who talks about language and plays his favorite music. The show was originally hosted by an abrasive and linguistically prejudiced host. McWhorter is taking his show to another space and the show has been rebranded as Spectacular Vernacular with new hosts.  Hmmm I wonder what's up with that.

Bay Curious Bay Area KQED radio documentaries that I need to explore in more depth.

Bird Note also a micropodcast, but about birds.

Home Cooking was a podcast Samin Nosrat hosted during the pandemic, with Hrishikesh Hirway.

The Splendid Table I used to listen to the original show from Minnesota back in the day. I enjoy Francis Lam, but I will always be fond of Lynne Rossetto Kaspar the original host.

Cooking by Ear only nine  episodes, but great radio.

Gastropod this one is waiting for exploration as well--food through science and history.

Land of the Giants three seasons on tech giants Amazon, Netflix, and Google and their impact on our lives. Really great series.

Bag Man is Rachel Maddow's series on Spiro Agnew, criminal and Vice-President.

In the Bubble With Andy Slavitt I have been following Andy Slavitt on Twitter for years because of his role in the Obama administration who was super-informative on policy and politics of the Affordable Care Act and the pandemic. I can't always listen to the episodes because they trigger anxiety, but from time to time I jump in.

The Osterholm Update is a podcast by epidemiologist extraordinaire Dr. Michael Osterholm, whose Center CIDRAP at UMN promotes research on infectious diseases and policy, not limited to COVID. So Minnesotan!

Summer of Soul

 Today I saw Summer of Soul (...or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson. It's also streaming on hulu, but I wanted to see it in the theater because it's a concert film and I wanted the full experience. It was wonderful. Drawing from footage of the Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of concerts held over several summer weekends in 1969,  the film combines performances by an amazing array of Black artists with interviews with performers and with folks who attended the festival. Additional archival footage is used to provide historical context to the event. The film won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the Sundance Festival. There were forty hours of footage so we can only imagine the incredible performances that could not be included. Highlights for me were Gladys Knight and the Pips, Nina Simone, Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples, Sly and the Family Stone, a 19-year-old Stevie Wonder playing the drums, interviews and archival footage of Charlayne Hunter-Gault. The images of the audience are one of the best parts of the film.

 

Great interview with Questlove: "It's Black joy."

Here's a round-table with producers and Questlove hosted by the National Museum of American History:

Easy Living

 Easy Living (1937) was written by Preston Sturges and directed by Mitchell Leisen. Jean Arthur stars as a young woman whose fortunes change when a sable coat lands on her head while she's riding a double-decker bus. I'd seen it years ago and remembered it as funny and entertaining. It's full of pratfalls, mistaken identity, and a great sequence in an automat.

There are several clips of scenes filmed at an Automat on YouTube. At the height of their success, there were 46 in New York City. The last one closed in 1991. There are still automats in Japan and Amsterdam.

Ali and Ratu Ratu Queens

For cinema club, we watched an Indonesian movie called Ali and Ratu Ratu Queens.   A boy goes to New York to find his mother who had abandoned the family when he was five. He finds a place in a household of Indonesian women who are all working to save money to start a restaurant. The film is an ode to New York as a setting for a painful set of encounters between mother and son as she rejects and abandons him all over again. The found family trope and the unconvincing romance subplot provide some laughs and "heartwarming" moments, but mama has a new family now and doesn't want her unwelcome kid to spoil her new family. Ugh. Inconvenient details about visas and out-of-state tuition for the college happy ending are ignored. 

Ryan Murphy's Hollywood

Well, I am not the target audience for American Horror Show, but I did end up watching the Ryan Murphy series Hollywood after all, despite having heard it was not great. It was definitely entertaining in a trashy way: it's a fantasy "what if" story--what if Hollywood wasn't as bigoted as all that. On the one hand, it was bunk. On the other hand, wouldn't we have loved it if a story like this could have happened, where people defied prejudice and didn't get blackballed? Jim Parsons plays a loathsome agent who abuses everyone, but gets a redemption arc and tries to make amends to "Rock Hudson" and decides to make a movie that's a love story between two men. This made me realize that I don't know what the first movie was that portrayed a real love story between two men, before Brokeback Mountain. I found this list on imdb of films worldwide with LGBTQ+ themes and so many of them seem to be bound up in stereotypes, equating homosexuality with depravity, or punishing gay characters to conform to the Hays code, enforced until 1968.  This slideshow is more centered around how U.S. films and Hollywood represented LGBTQ+ themes or characters, although it doesn't mention underground films like Warhol or Kenneth Anger. I did watch The Celluloid Closet on the plane on my way to Spain.

The Marrying Kind

Number two in my Judy Holliday viewing is The Marrying Kind, another film by George Cukor. This was the follow-up to her Oscar-winning role in Born Yesterday, but she is not a ditzy dame in this movie. She and her husband, played by Aldo Ray, are ordinary folks with ordinary lives. As they recount their married lives to the judge who is hearing their divorce case, we see how their voice-over narration contrasts with  the events-- they whine about how awful things were, but we see them laughing and enjoying life. However, we also see how marriage is a trap for her, in the man's idea that he has the last word in his wife's life--when her former boss leaves her some money, he reacts as if she had cheated on him, yelling, blustering, storming out, and generally treating her as if she were dishonest and unfaithful. Earlier we'd seen how he'd gotten drunk at a party and flirted with another woman, then yelled at her. It's the double standard that gets in their way: he doesn't want her to work; he doesn't listen to her; he's doesn't recognize her autonomy. She isn't very effective at countering his behavior, and that's where both the comedy and the realism come in. I wish they'd gotten that divorce but the Hayes Code had them in separate beds and with a happy ending. I really wish that someone had posted a clip of the dream sequence where Aldo Ray, whose character is a postal worker, dreams that he is hauled out of bed by a conveyor belt that shunts him through the postal warehouse like a package.

Born Yesterday

Today I met up with folks who I've been seeing by zoom for months now in my cinema chat groups. We had lunch at Zut Cafe on 4th Street. It was great to get to know people a little better and to feel their presence.  When I got back home, I decided to watch a Judy Holliday comedy instead of the next in the neo-noir series on Criterion, so I watched Born Yesterday. She's wonderful. The best scene in the movie is the gin rummy game. 

 Here's the story of how she rescued the Broadway play when Jean Arthur dropped out at the last minute, and went on to win an Oscar for her role:

Here's the Criterion clip with an overview of her career:

Pose

 I'm in the middle of season two of Pose right now. I watched the first season, then took a break while I was in Spain. I had started it a while back but didn't get through the first episode because I found the tone a little jarring, but this time around I don't have a problem with the declamatory style of some of the actors, and I love the ballroom sequences. Let Trixie and Katya give you the run-down:

Decoding 'Despacito': An Oral History of Latin Music

 Leila Cobo, a music industry insider, has put together a fascinating overview of songs that represent important moments in Latin music (which the industry defines as music primarily in Spanish) from the past few decades. I found out about the book through The Current's Rock and Roll Book Club. The prologue mentions a Pérez Prado mambo as one such moment, but the book itself begins with José Feliciano's 'Feliz Navidad' as an example of a crossover hit that had lyrics in both English and Spanish. The format of the book is drawn from her interviews with the musical artists, producers, label executives, video directors, and others involved in the process of turning a song into a crossover hit. The songs include hits by José Feliciano • Los Tigres Del Norte • Julio Iglesias • Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine • Willie Colón • Juan Luis Guerra • Selena • Los Del Río • Carlos Vives • Elvis Crespo • Ricky Martin • Santana • Shakira • Daddy Yankee • Marc Anthony • Enrique Iglesias with Descemer Bueno and Gente De Zona • Luis Fonsi with Daddy Yankee • J Balvin with Willy William • Rosalía 

While I'm not a fan of the Julio Iglesias song and I left Feliz Navidad out of the Spotify playlist I made from the book, I really enjoyed the trip down memory lane with some of these songs. 

Los Tigres del Norte, 'Contrabando y traición' --the bass is badass:

If this was their breakout hit, it's worth listening to "Somos Mas Americanos" for the full effect.

J Balvin and Willy William, "Mi gente":

 

Rosalía, 'Malamente' (tra tra):

Bossam: Steal the Fate soundtrack

 Just finished watching this satsifying Korean sageuk drama, with a great soundtrack. Some viewers were upset because there was no kiss for the OTP, just hugs and burning looks. But I thought the historical aspects were handled well, and the cast was good. Jung Il Woo was right for the lead part and the second lead actor did a great job in his role. 

This song in particular was very effective (although they didn't include the whole thing in the actual episodes)

Bossam: Steal the Fate OST  full album

artist: Hwang Eri "Song of Bau"

English translation (popgasa com)

잠시 내 말 좀 들어보소 Listen to me for a moment

가던 길 멈추고 이리 좀 오소 Stop your tracks and come here 

뭘 그리 아둥바둥 몸부림치오 Why are you trying so hard? 

가시나 가시나요 Are you leaving? 

날 두고 가시나요 Are you leaving me here? 

가고 또 오지는 못하리오 You can’t go and come back again 

한 굽이 넘어 두 굽이 One round, two rounds pass  

겨울이 가고 새 봄이 오네 Winter passes and new spring comes 

돌고 돌아 제자리요 It turns and turns, back to the same place  

가시나 가시나요 Are you leaving?

날 두고 가시나요 Are you leaving me here?  

가고 또 오지는 못하리오 You can’t go and come back again  

에헤라디아 흘러간다 Time is flowing 

두둥실 강물따라 흘러간다 Floating along the river, flowing  

에헤라디아 흘러간다 Time is flowing  

우리네 인생살이 Our lives are flowing 

잠시 내 말 좀 들어보소 Listen to me for a moment  

가던 길 멈추고 이리 좀 오소 Stop your tracks and come here 

뭘 그리 아등바등 몸부림치오 Why are you trying so hard?  

가시나 가시나요 Are you leaving?  

날 두고 가시나요 Are you leaving me here?

가고 또 오지는 못하리오 You can’t go and come back again 

한 굽이 넘어 두 굽이 One round, two rounds pass  

겨울이 가고 새봄이 오네 Winter passes and new spring comes  

돌고 돌아 제자리요 It turns and turns, back to the same place  

가시나 가시나요 Are you leaving? 

날 두고 가시나요 Are you leaving me here?  

가고 또 오지는 못하리오 You can’t go and come back again  

잠시 내 말 좀 들어보소 Listen to me for a moment 

가던 길 멈추고 이리 좀 오소 Stop your tracks and come here

돌고 돌아 늘 제자리요 It turns and turns, back to the same place

Taking Stock in July

I did this exercise a few months ago, so it's worth trying it again.

Making : still on hold. Not making anything these days.
Cooking : turkey and vegetables in the crock pot with Aleppo pepper

Drinking: coffee, again, instead of tea in the morning, after two weeks in Spain with coffee drinkers.
Reading: Roger Ebert's memoir Life Itself, and Decoding 'Despacito': An Oral History of Latin Music.
Wanting: to return to visiting museums again
Looking: watching movies for my discussion groups: Jennifer's Body, The Last Wave
Playing: I'd like to do some origami again after visiting the origami museum in Zaragoza
Deciding: to be grateful each and every day
Wishing: I lived closer to my daughter
Enjoying: a beer in the afternoon
Waiting: for a sense of freedom in not wearing a mask all the time
Liking: writing in this blog again!
Wondering: how I can chase the blues away
Loving: my girl
Pondering: how to get someone to volunteer to be Alanon secretary to replace me
Considering: when to go see the next movie in a theater
Buying: vegetables and fruit: gai lan and broccolini, cherries and watermelon
Watching: kdramas again
Hoping: to move out of this rut of stinking thinking
Marveling: at how many blessings I have
Cringing: I got nothing for this one
Needing: to be grounded
Questioning: how I can best handle my situation with my mom
Smelling: my meal cooking in the crock pot
Wearing: my cords
Following: the Decoder Ring podcast
Noticing: my craving for crunchy salty things
Knowing: I am making choices about taking care of myself
Thinking: it's hard to follow a train of thought
Admiring: people with gumption
Sorting: contemplating sorting my wardrobe to get rid of things with stains
Getting: these days I'm not acquiring anything
Bookmarking: meet me at Mike's, the blog of Pip Lincolne, whose idea of Taking Stock this is.
Coveting:Japanese snack subscription boxes like Bokksu
Disliking: my trashbag neighbors and their dog
Opening: ni idea
Giggling: Drag Race España
Feeling: a little bit down after my trip to Spain
Snacking: green beans
Hearing: lots of podcasts

Unorthodox

 I read the memoir Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman yesterday. What struck me was the way reading and books were something the author had to hide because learning and curiosity by girls were frowned upon, in a culture that made scholarly activity by boys the highest value. I know the book was made into a series on Netflix, with one of the actors, Shira Haas, who also starred in Shtisel. I will probably watch it soon, after I finish the drama I’m watching. I need to be in the right frame of mind for stories of oppression, even if the ending is an escape. 

UPDATE. I watched the four episodes of the series. It actually takes place after the book leaves off, when the protagonist, renamed Esty in the show, runs away from her marriage to Berlin, and is pursued by her husband and his unpleasant cousin. The show is more about how she leaves a culture where she is misunderstood and oppressed, and discovers music, freedom, and reunites with her mother in Berlin. The story ends before the struggle for custody over her as-yet-unborn child, so the emphasis is on self-discovery. Shira Haas gives a terrific performance. Several reviewers on Letterboxd commented on how unrealistically nice everyone was to her in Berlin, and I have to agree with that--it was rather like a fairy tale.

Jennifer's Body

 I hate horror movies, zombies, slasher films, scary movies. I have never watched Psycho, or Carrie, and I have no desire to see any of the horror classics. But I made an exception and watched Jennifer's Body because I've liked what Diablo Cody has done in the past, and because it's up next for my cinema discussion group. I still didn't like the horror elements but it was interesting to see how the movie goes against genre expectations. The victims are boys not girls and the monster is female not male. The primary motor of the film is the relationship between the two friends. The film was poorly marketed and lots of folks expected to see Megan Fox in a porny role, and didn't know what to make of the female friendship plot. Some viewers in the years since its release have connected with the scene in which the two friends kiss (one of many elements suggesting a queer romance). The depiction of a toxic BFF relationship is what the director Karyn Kusama and Cody had in mind, and the send-up of indie bands as villains delivers the real horror of the film. Cody, Kusama, and Fox have all talked about how painful the mismanaged publicity campaign and sexist backlash against their film was to them at the time. In fact, this piece appeared today about the film's reception, ten years later.

Here's a video essay on friendship and sisterhood that points to the teen girl horror genre that is Heathers and Mean Girls for context:

The Last Wave

 For our discussion group, I watched Peter Weir's The Last Wave (1977). I saw it when it came out, and remember that I was really impressed by it, but didn't remember more than a few images of water and the sense of an unresolved mystery. The film begins with an inexplicable rain storm from a cloudless sky, followed by massive chunks of hail that break windows and wound a child. The entire opening sequence, of children taking shelter from a natural threat in a schoolhouse reminds us of The Birds. From that moment on, the constant rain in the film is ominous and unsettling. When water is discovered to be flooding a house, it seems to be an intrusion of the outside rain, but turns out it be an overflowing bathtub. Later, during yet another storm, trees come crashing through doors and windows. The boundary between inside and outside is transgressed. What kind of explanations is there for the rain of toads, the rain of oil? Are these plagues, omens? As the film explores the aboriginal ideas of dream time and premonitory dreams, the frontier between natural and supernatural dissolves. The final image of the film, of a huge wave, could be a premonition or the actual arrival of a tsunami, but either way the forces of nature will wipe away the urban world of the white Australian settlers in an apocalyptic cycle. 

One of the points of our discussion was that the film takes on the challenge of representing aboriginal ways of knowing as a mystery that the lawyer protagonist wants to solve, even as he is being forced to reckon with his own dreams as a form of knowledge. The film also portrays aboriginal culture as having a presence and a validity which Australian society tries to suppress and deny, and which is does not know. Both Burton the lawyer and Chris, one of his aboriginal clients, are mediators between the colonial structures of the modern white settler society and another way of apprehending reality through dreams, although where Burton's prophetic dream faculty comes from is only hinted at. Chris leads Burton to a cave beneath the sewers, but doesn't go in with him; they will not be allies in this struggle. Burton faces the last wave alone.

Here is an examination of the trailer that does a lovely job of explaining a lot about the movie:

David Mitchell, Utopia Avenue

 On my long long trip home from Spain, I read David Mitchell's novel Utopia Avenue. I've read most of his novels and enjoyed them. This is a novel about a (fictional) rock band in the late sixties, and is also about being an artist. It weaves in a story-line that he has developed in his other novels, which could be called supernatural or fantastical or science fictional. I was glad I had read the other novels first as this part of the book would have been less evocative without having first read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet or The Bone Clocks.  Here he is interviewed about the novel by Neil Gaiman:

Susan Orlean, The Library Book

On my trip I read The Library Book by Susan Orlean. It is about libraries and how wonderful they are, through the story of the fire in the Los Angeles Public Library in 1986. The man suspected of setting the fire was a chronic liar who gave so many different alibis, it convinced the arson investigators of his guilt. Yet they could never prove conclusively that he had done it, and he died of complications of AIDS with the case still unresolved. My favorite part of the book, which I really enjoyed, was the portraits of some of the head librarians of the past who were amazing characters. Here is Susan Orlean talking about her book:

 

And here is more about the fire itself.