Education – Page 2 – Ripple Effects

Screenwriting: The Visual and the Word

My screenwriting course is wrapping up soon. For the past six months, I’ve been learning a new language, the language of the visual. It’s not as easy as it looks. I’ve to un-learn a lot of ingrained principles of prose writing to re-learn a whole new genre. And it has been an ego-shattering process.

Take this for example. A comment on one of my assignments:

“… I’d also like to see you snip away at excess verbiage in both dialogue and action paragraphs.”

Ouch! That hurts! Honestly, it took me a few weeks to get over that one.

‘Verbiage’. When the word is not used by yourself as a self-deprecating joke, now that’s tough to hear. The reason for such a judgment? Simply because I used complete sentences in my descriptions. The language of the screenplay, I’ve learned, is condensed language, not unlike poetry. It should be spot on, visually driven, and clear.

Readability is the key. I’ve been learning to write a ‘good read’. Reality is, my script will first be sent to the ‘gatekeepers’ of the film industry, and many of them may not be readers (that, I was told). So, nobody wants to see a bunch of words crowding the page. White spaces are what keep them interested. So, make it swift, succinct, use minimum number of words to convey maximum information. Yup, just like that, easy.

Right… so, here are some notes to myself, gleaning from the books I’ve read on the subject of screenwriting, to personalized feedbacks:

Sentence fragments, though frowned upon by English teachers, are welcome in scripts.
Action speaks louder than words: Whatever that can be conveyed by actions, no need for dialogues.
Enter a scene as late as you can and get out before it finishes.
Think minimalist and evocative.
Layers, layers, layers
Avoid clichés like the plague, both visuals and words.
Avoid ‘On The Nose’ dialogues: stating directly what the writer needs to convey, instead of the more realistic everyday mundane, allusive, cut-off, inarticulate, real life conversations.
As with all literature, learn to write subtexts, the undercurrents of emotions and contexts that are meant to be hidden, but only revealed by actions and dialogues.
Do the above with razor-sharp clarity.
The central dramatic question should be clear and simple, but not simplistic.
Have the proper proportion of words and pictures to create a synchronicity of content and poetry.
Don’t insult your actors by writing down specific reactions, or telling them their tone of voice…etc.
Write organically: If a writer knows what is going to happen before writing, then the scene will often feel contrived because it will fail to surprise the writer, therefore the audience.

Now, come to think of these points, aren’t they useful for writing in other genres as well? Except the sentence fragments recommendation, that is, if you’re writing prose. And, the last point exactly echoes what I’ve heard Michael Ondaatje say:

“I don’t know what would happen, I don’t want to know”

Let the scene breath on its own, take its shape and grow.

Or the advice given by Anne Lamott reinforcing succinct writing:

“You listen to how people really talk, and then learn little by little to take someone’s five-minute speech and make it one sentence, without losing anything.”

And… the wonders of paradox: ‘Expressing the visual in words’, ‘Be clear in conveying subtext’, ‘The minimalist creating layers of complexity’, ‘Write organically within the structure’…

Oh… the bittersweet experience of screenwriting.

****

Alaska!

Arti disappeared from Cowtown for a few days and reappeared in Ketchikan, Alaska. That’s the cause for the delay in replying some of your comments from the last post. I decided to rid myself of all internet and phone access so I could make these short few days a real getaway.

But herein lies the nagging dilemma: Is there a better way to access nature other than the commercial route? Arti had to follow the crowd and board a cruise ship, not her choice of transport, but … what are the options?

So here it is, a visual account of my journey at sea to Ketchikan, the south-western tip of Alaska, north of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

We set sail at the Canada Place Terminal. On deck looking out, Port Vancouver’s famous architectural sails look slightly surreal, a virtual outdoor gallery of sculptures larger than life:

Canada Place View from Deck

Leaving Port Vancouver:

Leaving Port of Vancouver

After a couple of days at sea, we arrived at Ketchikan, Alaska. Among other things like being the salmon capital of the world, Ketchikan is famous for its rain, measuring its precipitation in feet, not inches.

Here’s Ketchikan under overcast sky:

Ketchikan under overcast sky

A little more cheery scene:

Ketchikan, Alaska

Ketchikan is also home to The Tongass Rain Forest, the largest national forest in the United States. It is part of the Pacific Temperate Rain Forest Region, which is second in size to the world’s largest Amazon Tropical Rain Forest.

Moss on trees Arti ventured into this area with a naturalist. Together with 15 others in our group, we trod the trails of the Alaska Rain Forest Sanctuary. Here are the sights I’ve sailed all the way for:

Colorful undergrowth

One of the many species of mushrooms, some giant ones grow on trees.

Devil’s Paw, food for the bears. Underneath are poisonous hooks, but the bears deftly eat off the stems of the plant.

Ferns and moss: Even tree branches are covered with moss. As the branches grow heavier, they will break off the tree, fulfilling a natural pruning process.

Momentarily, we came to a creek. Yes, salmon swam up here: Right in the middle of a rain forest we saw gulls gathering, competing with the bears for the salmon in the water. We were fortunate to see a mother bear with two cubs. Here in this fuzzy (sorry, Arti was too excited) photo, you can see, even though ‘bearly’, the mother and one of her cubs on the left:

Bears having lunch

And this next one is out of this world. Gulls flying all around above the creek, a magical, even mythical sight to behold:

Rainforest Gulls

We next visited a reindeer farm. I’ve seen elks and deers in my neck of the woods in Alberta, but this is the first time I saw reindeers. Here’s a curious fella:

When we left Ketchikan, it was pouring rain:

Leaving Ketchikan in the rain

On our way back to Vancouver, we cruised through the Inside Passage. It offered one of the most beautiful sights in the whole journey:

Sailing through the Inside Passage

Of course, it’s Arti’s nature to find ripples everywhere:

The Inside Passage at dusk, the silence punctuated only by the calls of gulls and frolicking dolphins splashing in and out of the quiet water. Yes, I saw the synchronized dances of two dolphins jumping out of the water and diving back in, but it was just too impromptu to capture by my camera.

The Inside Passage at Dusk

This is my best memory, sunset along the Inside Passage:

Sunset in the Inside Passage

*****

bird by bird

bird-by-bird

No, not another Twitter post… It’s the book by Anne Lamott. Here’s what it’s all about:

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’ ”

— Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

Bird by bird… three simple words from a writer father. Lamott carries these words of wisdom with her as she makes her long journey of writing and life. A past recipient of a Guggenheim, now a national bestselling author and writing instructor, Lamott in turn passes on practical advice to her readers and students. In a writer’s symposium, it’s mentioned that The Modern Library calls her book Operating Instructions one of the most significant non-fiction work of the century. Click here for the full hour interview.

Bird by bird is a book full of down-to-earth advice on writing and life from one who has gone through tough times. Coming from the hippie culture, Lamott had to overcome years of drug addiction, alcoholism, and deal with eating disorder and the challenges of single parenthood. I admire her resilience and perseverance. Further, her ultimately finding redemption and had her life turned around was one amazing story.

I’ve enjoyed Lamott’s humour and her sensible instructions, although I admit I couldn’t fully embrace her style of word-use and the occasional trite statements. But the authenticity shines through. You’re reading a writer who has gone through all these hurdles, not just in writing but in life, and speaking to you with genuine openness. Her directions give you a kind of ‘eureka’ feeling: The sudden revealing of something that you thought you’ve found it for the first time. But on second thought, it’s just that she has put it into words for you, you must have known it before, so common sense, so simple.

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Since I’ve been dwelling on quotes lately, I’ll just leave you with some of Lamott’s own words from her book. They don’t all fit into a tweet, but just to point out that sometimes great thoughts take more than 140 characters to convey…. that’s why we have books. But of course, you’ve known this all along.

Getting started:

The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth.

Flannery O’Connor said that anyone who survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life.

The problem that comes up over and over again is that these people want to be published. They kind of want to write, but they really want to be published… Writing can give you what having a baby can give you: it can get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, can wake you up. But publishing won’t do any of those things.

Short assignment:

E. L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” … You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice about writing, or life, I have ever heard.

Character:

… a person’s faults are largely what make him or her likable… They shouldn’t be too perfect; perfect means shallow and unreal and fatally uninteresting.

Plot:

Plot grows out of character…. I say don’t worry about plot. Worry about the characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are… The development of relationship creates plot.

Dialogue:

You listen to how people really talk, and then learn little by little to take someone’s five-minute speech and make it one sentence, without losing anything.

The Moral Point of View:

The word moral has such bad associations: with fundamentalism, stiff-necked preachers, priggishness. We have to get past that… We like certain characters because they are good or decent–they internalize some decency in the world that makes them able to take a risk or make a sacrifice for someone else. They let us see that there is in fact some sort of moral compass still at work here, and that we, too, could travel by this compass if we so choose.

A moral position is a passionate caring inside you… Some of us are interested in any light you might be able to shed on this, and we will pay a great deal extra if you can make us laugh about it. For some of us, good books and beautiful writing are the ultimate solace, even more comforting than exquisite food.

Now here are some quotes you can send, tweet by tweet:

“If you’re not enough before the gold medal, you won’t be enough with it.” [quoting from the movie Cool Running]

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen, widen, and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.

*****

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, Anchor Books, NY, 1995, 238 pages.

The Humanities as an Endangered Species

While there are those who sense that the appreciation of literature and the humanities are slowly fading in our instant-messaging generation, here are some facts. In an article entitled “The Decline of the English Department” in the current issue of The American Scholar, William M. Chace presents the following data from the academic years between 1970/71 to 2003/04, showing the change in college majors:

English: from 7.6 percent of the majors to 3.9 percent
Foreign languages and literatures: from 2.5 percent to 1.3 percent
Philosophy and religious studies: from 0.9 percent to 0.7 percent
History: from 18.5 percent to 10.7 percent
Business: from 13.7 percent to 21.9 percent

The little bio at the bottom of the article tells me that William M. Chace has taught at Berkeley, Stanford, Wesleyan, and Emory, and served as president of the last two. So the figures here do carry some weight and urgency.

These numbers are indeed distressing. If such a trend continues, chances are college English departments would disappear from the face of this earth faster than beluga whales, and philosophy and religious studies as an academic discipline could soon fall off like leaves in autumn.

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Chace points out that there was once a time when majoring in English literature represented an idyllic pursuit. It used to reflect the appreciation of a historical tradition and literary culture. It was a declaration, even a defiance, showing that education was not at all about getting a job. It was a decision made with much self-reflection, innocence, and yes, an idealistic fervor. Here’s his own reminiscence, an English major in the 50’s and 60’s :

With the books in front of us, we were taught the skills of interpretation. Our tasks were difficult, the books (Emerson’s essays, David Copperfield, Shaw’s Major Barbara, the poetry of Emily Dickinson, and a dozen other works) were masterly, and our teacher possessed an authority it would have been “bootless” (his word) to question.

Studying English taught us how to write and think better, and to make articulate many of the inchoate impulses and confusions of our post-adolescent minds. We began to see, as we had not before, how such books could shape and refine our thinking. We began to understand why generations of people coming before us had kept them in libraries and bookstores and in classes such as ours.

Alexander W. Astin, director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, reports that in the mid 60’s, more than 80% of college freshmen rated nothing was more important than “developing a meaningful philosophy of life”. Less than 45% of them felt “being very well off financially’ was a priority.

The trend saw its reversal by 1977, when financial goals had surged past philosophical ones. By 2001, more than 70% of undergraduates rated financial success as a much more important pursuit, leaving behind 40% clinging to the search for meaning as their prime objective in college.

But my concern is very simple, and it needs no statistics to sound the alarm: Who is reading all the ‘great books’? If the English departments are fighting for their raison d’etre, can Literature survive?

Or, can we still hold on to the idealistic view that Literature has intrinsic value of its own, that in great books, we can still find glimpses of how we should live? Further, in the face of strangling economic reality, can we still bask in the goodness of beauty and not become a laughing stock if we insist on the pursuit of meaning?

***

To read the article ‘The Decline of the English Department’ in The American Scholar, CLICK HERE.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

To read my Movie Review of The Hedgehog (Le Hérisson, 2009), CLICK HERE.

It’s all about seeing and being seen.

the-elegance-of-the-hedgehog

Hailed as the French publishing phenomenon in recent years, The Elegance of the Hedgehog has maintained 102 weeks straight on France’s best seller lists since its publication in 2006, and sold over 1 million hardback copies in 2007.

Author Muriel Barbery has created an intellectual delicacy for us to savor. She is a former philosophy teacher in France and is now living in Japan. Only in France you may say, where philosophy is still a compulsory subject in schools. But no, it’s an international sensation reaching as far as South Korea, translated into half a dozen languages, sold its film rights, and garnered several literary awards. The ripples finally reached North America last September… why so late?

This modern tale takes place in a luxury apartment at 7 rue de Grenelle, a prestigious address in Paris. Its eight exclusive units are home to the upper echelon of French society, the elite in politics, finance, lifestyle and education.

Renée Michel knows too well what this is like… she lives here, in the quarter especially meant for her, the concierge. For twenty-seven years she has served the residents well. She knows how to keep her job. Although in her mind, she thinks of them as “a class that reproduces itself solely by means of virtuous and proper hiccups”, she keeps her thoughts very private, sharing only with her friend Manuela, the cleaning maid.

Renée’s self description may say just about what other people see on the outside, if they even care to look at her:

I am fifty-four years old… I am a widow, I am short, ugly, and plump, I have bunions on my feet and… I have always been poor, discreet, and insignificant. I live alone with my cat…

For some reasons, these words attracted me to buy and read this book in the first place. Herein lies the excitement. The reader soon discovers that Renée is an autodidact. A devoted library user, she studies on her own, philosophy, literature, history, art, semantics, Japanese culture… She avidly reads Kant, Proust, and Husserl after work, contemplates phenomenology during work, and considers it not worth her while at either. She names her cat Leo after her favorite writer Tolstoy. On top of her eclectic reading, she listens to Mozart, Mahler, and Eminem. She is a fan of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu whose works formed the classics of Japanese cinema. And she loves Vermeer.

To survive in the social pecking order, Renée has learned to be clandestine.

Cut to Paloma Josse who lives on the fifth floor. She is the 12 year-old daughter of a parliamentarian and his wife, who holds a Ph. D in literature. Paloma’s older sister is a graduate student of philosophy. But within this cocoon of sheltered upper-class family, Paloma might well be the most lucid of them all. Her preoccupation is with the search beyond the status quo, the quest for meaning in this whole idea called life. Among her many profound thoughts is this one:

People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl.

Alas, she concludes in her 12 year-old mind, albeit being a precocious savant, that there isn’t much for her to stay on. To escape her fate in the fish bowl, she is contemplating committing suicide on her 13th birthday coming up in a few months.

The book alternates between the ruminations of Renée and Paloma. Their sharp commentaries present some incisive, and at times, hilarious social satires. Their personal reflections are perceptive and poignant.

Within the confines of the luxury abode, all seems to be mundane, routine, and hierarchical. Until one day, a new tenant moves in. He is Kakuro Ozu. His presence at 7 rue de Grenelle changes the lives of both Renée and Paloma in a most extraordinary way. For the first time in their lives, they have been seen, and appreciated.

Kakuro Ozu is a Japanese gentleman in his 60’s. From his first contact with Renée, the moment she lets the first line of Anna Karenina slip out of her tongue, Kakuro knows he has discovered a hidden treasure. This is more than a concierge he is looking at. No, he does not respect her more for the books she has read, but for the lucidity of her insights.

It’s all about seeking beauty in the mundane.

… like viewing a Vermeer in the hustle and bustle of the city, or listening to Bach in the subway, or watching films that evoke flashes of transcendence…. yes, we’ve all experienced those moments.

Kakuro shares with Renée the ability to notice Art in the most ordinary of life. What does she see in Ozu’s film The Munekata Sisters? The camellia on the moss.

True novelty is that which does not grow old, despite the passage of time.”

The camellia against the moss of the temple, the violet hues of the Kyoto mountains, a blue procelain cup — this sudden flowering of pure beauty at the heart of ephemeral passion: is this not something we all aspire to?

It’s all about beholding eternity in the temporal.

And what beauty, what fate, it is to find someone who has named his cats Kitty and Levin, from Anna Karenina, while yours is Leo, someone who appreciates the meaning behind 17th C. Dutch still-life, someone who seeks the authentic human face behind the façade of social norms… someone whose toilet, even, exuberates with Mozart’s Confutati?

And oh… what an experience in that bathroom at Kakuro’s suite. Kudos to Alison Anderson, I’ve totally forgotten that I’m reading a translation. Just one of the rare cases that shows humor can be translated. And that night, how gratifying for Renée to find so much inspiration in a Dutch painting, a sliding door, a bowl of ramen noodles…

What congruence links a Claesz, a Raphael, a Rubens, and a Hopper?

Are there universals?

And 12 year-old Paloma, with her quest for meaning and authenticity, is soon confronted with something much more engrossing than she had started out to seek…

At times LOL funny, at times, absorbingly heart-breaking. This is one of the rare occasions where I had tears welled up in my eyes as I came to the end, an ending so powerful it propelled me to start from the beginning again.

~ ~ ~½ Ripples

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson, translation published by Europa Editions, 2008, 325 pages.

***

Endnote:

If there are no universals, why would we experience such delight when someone else shares our joy in discovering that same beauty? Why would we seek beauty in the first place?

“… He has set eternity in their heart…” — Ecclesiastes 3: 11

***

To read my review of Muriel Barbery’s Gourmet Rhapsody, CLICK HERE.

Top 100 Books & Summer Reading Lists

Summers come and summers go, reading lists for students tend to remain a constant, or… no?

According to The Boston Globe, the following are a few titles from high school summer reading lists over the years:

1915-1916 (long list of choices for regular year and summer)

Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Works by Stevenson, Twain, and Dickens

1984 (requirements by grade and academic level)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

2009 (recommendations, not requirements)

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

ah… the times they are a-changin.

Instead of (or, hopefully, on top of) reading the original Pride and Prejudice, students today are offered the zombies version… optional, of course. The current view is, students should be enticed to read, not forced to. Reading is supposed to be fun, after all, it’s summer.

Summer

Around the same time, Newsweek published The Meta-List of Top 100 Books of all time. The List is a compilation of 10 top book lists, including Modern Library, the New York Public Library, St. John’s College reading list, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Oprah’s, and others. The Meta-List… the mother of all lists.

Here are the top 30, just for a taste of the selections. For the complete list, click on the above link.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1869)
1984 by George Orwell (1949)
Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929)
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952)
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)
The Illiad and The Odyssey by Homer (8th Century B.C.)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1321)
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (15th Century)
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)
Middlemarch by George Eliot (1874)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958)
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (1951)
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)
Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)
On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859)
The Histories by Herodotus (440 B.C.)
The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762)
Das Kapital by Karl Marx (1867)

… and so on and so forth. You get the idea. Nothing on the top 100 list is later than 1987 (Beloved by Morrison) except Pullman (no. 84), and quite a few dating back to Centuries B.C.

Now, is this literary elitism that has not caught up with the times? Or, has our younger generation been short changed by not being taught to appreciate some valuable cultural legacy? How do we reconcile the discrepancy between what’s recommended to our students and what experts think are the best books ever written? Or, reading tastes vary, people are free to read whatever they like… Any list produced is therefore prescriptive and hegemonic?

Of course, one could argue summer reading lists are not academic syllabi, give our students a break. They’ll have the chance to read these great books at school… or, will they ever?

Still another debate would be the all too familiar struggle even among book lovers: Literary or Popular Fiction, old or contemporary classics? How do we choose? Reading widely or reading deeply?

And, the very practical question: How can I extend my 24 hours?

***

More Great Finds!

Call me greedy. I’ m happy to take the blame. Since this is the last weekend of the gigantic used book sale at the Crossroad Market, I just had to go again for more treasure hunting. If you take a look at my second loot list below, you’d have done the same. As the lady said when I was squeezing my way in,

“It was a zoo yesterday.”

“You came here yesterday too?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure!” (Subtext: What a dumb question… and, why didn’t you?)

So, again, these are all trade paperbacks in mint condition. They are all a dollar each (Canadian).

The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant: 887 pages. Having seen the video of Mavis Gallant reading in a Paris book shop and her conversation with Jhumpa Lahiri, thanks to fellow blogger oh introducing the Granta link, I was elated to find this volume. It looked like it had not been opened, fresh, clean for the picking.

The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe

Short stories, the more the merrier. I was delighted to find this volume: The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, 621 pages. I’ve long wanted to read Wolfe, now’s a good time.

A lady held up a heavy box for me to take this one out underneath: A Fine Balance by Canadian writer Rohinton Mistry. “That’s a good pick,” she said.

“I’ve seen it many times, but think it’s too thick,” I said.

“You wouldn’t want it to end,” she said. What higher recommendation can you get for a book?

One Man's Bible One Man’s Bible by Gao Xingjian, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Chinese recipient of the Prize. Born in China, Gao has been living in France since 1987. The book is translated into English by Mabel Lee, associate professor of Chinese at the University of Sydney. Interesting… although this one I can read the original, the chance of me finding it in a farmers market here in Cowtown, Canada is not great. I’ll settle for the translation.

I missed the Golden Globe winning TV miniseries. So, grabbing the original material is just great. David McCullough’s 721 pages John Adams won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for biography. This is a handsome movie-tie-in- cover edition with many color pictures. What a find!

Talking about wonderful covers. How about this one: Margaret Drabble’s The Radiant Way. I’ve never seen this edition of Drabble’s book. A pleasure just to look at.

And what’s summer reading without beach reads. Here’s my copy of The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. Again, seldom do I see a trade paperback of this title.

Here are the rest of my 20 titles:

Digging to America by Anne Tyler
A Patchwork Planet byAnne Tyler
The Navigator of New York by Wayne Johnston (Giller and GG Finalist)
Larry’s Party by Carol Shields (Winner of 1998 Orange Prize and National Book Critics Circle Awards)
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby (Saw the movie starring Colin Firth, quite liked it.)
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
The Reapers by John Connolly
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Just want to read it before the movie comes out.)
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize)
Durable Goods by Elizabeth Berg
The Gathering by Anne Enright (Winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize)
Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier (Author of Girl With A Pearl Earring)
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

It’s a tall order to read all the 40 books I hauled back these two weekends. It’ll take me years. But as any book lover can attest, it’s good to know they’re on my shelves.

***

Summer Reading 2009

When does ‘regular reading’ end and ‘summer reading” begin? Well this year it’s easy. The gigantic used book sale I went to over the weekend and the loot I brought back make it official: Let summer reading 2009 begin.

The treasures I found were trade paperbacks in like-new condition. And because I had twenty, they cost me just one dollar each. Right, that’s Canadian dollar, even a better bargain. How I found them was an ordeal. They were painstakingly selected under smoldering heat at a farmers’ market. For two hours, I elbowed my way in to grab hold of my targets which I had to eye from a distance over heads and shoulders. But it’s all worth it.

Here’s a picture and a list of the titles I brought back:

Used Book Sale Loot 1

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Simple Recipes by Madeleine Thien
Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam (Giller Prize Winner)
The Sea by John Banville (Man Booker Prize Winner)
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth
Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Stories of Edith Wharton selected by Anita Brookner
The Mapmaker’s Opera by Béa Gonzalez
Always Now The Collected Poetry of Margaret Avison
Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (Pulitzer Author)
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (Booker Prize Winner)
Marginalia: A Cultural Reader by Mark Kingwell
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
Lost Souls by Lisa Jackson
Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood
Exit Music by Ian Rankin

Some of these titles I’ve long wanted to read, like Goodbye, Columbus and Rebecca. Some are just well known titles or authors that I think I should read, like Tolstoy, Franzen and Tyler. Some are winners of book prizes that I usually enjoy, the Booker, Giller, Pulitzer. Some are fine Canadian authors and one of my favorite poets. And some I’m just curious about like A Natural History of the Senses. But one stands out. This time, I’m literally judging a book by its cover:

Front Cover Mapmaker's Opera

Back Cover Mapmaker's Opera

The above are the front and back cover of the book. There’s no title, only on the spine. It’s enjoyable just looking at it. But the title is appealing too: The Mapmaker’s Opera.

Together with the books I’m already reading, plus my long TBR list, I think I’m topped up till next summer.

For More Great Finds, Click Here.

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Of Film and Faith

Now, the reason to be… in Vancouver. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was at Regent College for two weeks in May to learn the language of film, and its interface with elements of theology. I came home much gratified. I’ve delayed writing about the course per se because it would mean the difficult task of capturing the Genie of ideas back and recapping the bottle. But I know I need to do it sooner or later, for I want to record down a learning experience that’s, well, let’s just say epiphany is not too far-fetched a word. It could well be that the little I knew initially made it more gratifying as I could gobble up more to fill the empty vessel.

My thoughts are random here, but that might be the best way to capture whatever that comes to my mind that I think is important and meaningful. Allow me to ruminate freely.

The language of film is multi-faceted, but it more or less can be condensed into the phrase mise-en-scène: what the director puts into the scene by means of setting, camera angle, lighting, staging, wardrobe, blocking… all the cinematic elements. Like the artist of a painting, the director conveys his point of view and aesthetics through a frame or a scene. And for us viewers, it’s a matter of honing the skill of observing the obvious, and the not-so-obvious. Our pleasure is to decipher and savor that which is created on screen. It all relates to the Auteur Theory, the director as the author, the concept of caméra-stylo, the camera as pen.

The power of the cinematic pen is mighty indeed. Take the Disney movie Bambi for example. The screening of Bambi resulted in a huge decrease of hunting licenses sold after it was released, and subsequently the term ‘Bambi Effect’ was coined. Or, the movie Billy Elliot, which resulted in a significant increase in ballet school enrollment.

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Knowing the history of motion picture is essential to appreciate films, and this is the major emphasis of the course. I’ve come to appreciate the pioneers of motion pictures whose works have become the exemplars and the artistic foundations of modern cinema: Vincente Minnelli, Preston Sturges, Charles Chaplin, Fritz Lang, John Ford, Orson Welles, Frank Capra…

Fjilm Noir Third Man Alley

Further, it’s most interesting to trace the influence of German expressionism has on Film Noir, how the idea behind Edvard Munch’s The Scream can effectively be transformed into cinematic expression, revealing the inner state of modern man.

Over the intensive two-weeks, we’d only have time to cover mostly black and white features, savoring their richness in techniques and their multi-layered meaning. I’ve come to understand why the years 1930 to 1946 are called “The Golden Age of Cinema”.

And where does theology come in? While knowing some Kierkegaard and Buber might help, but basically the content is very accessible. Herein lies the ingenuity of the auteurs and their works. The process of exploring the transcendent in the movies viewed by the populace is just fascinating.

Citizen Kane

I’ve learned how Citizen Kane (1941, produced when Orson Welles was just 24!), generally considered one of the best movies of all time, like the Vanitas still life of Vermeer’s time, expresses the theme of Ecclesiastes, and asks the question, “So one has gained the whole world, then what?”

Another theological element is the archetype of the Christ figure, and I’m surprised to find it quite prevalent in many of these early motion pictures. I admit I’ve never watched a Charlie Chaplin movie in its entirety until now. In The Kid (1921) and City Lights (1931), the savior figure is humorously portrayed in the story, and the concept of unconditional love warmly illustrated.

City Lights

This archetype also appears in Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe (1941), where a main character declares the universal significance of the first John Doe two thousand years ago dying for all John Doe’s. Visually, I’ve learned to identify the Pietà and the crucifix image in the composition of a frame in several of the features, an example being How Green Was My Valley (1941, John Ford).

M by Fritz Lang Motion pictures are an effective medium to convey the human condition. In Fritz Lang’s thriller M (1931), the letter obviously refers to the murderer, a child killer that the whole town was after. The not-so-obvious is the depiction of universal depravity, from the police to the masses, the message that we’re all complicit in the moral fabric of our society. Similarly, Mel Gibson puts himself in his movie The Passion of the Christ (2004) as the Roman soldier nailing Christ on the cross.

Fast forward to the 80’s, I was introduced to the renowned Polish auteur Krzysztof Kieslowski. It’s amazing how in Decalogue (1988), the essence of The Ten Commandments and their relevance in contemporary society are transformed into ten independent, one-hour stories and broadcast as a prime time TV series in Poland. Decalogue is an artistically crafted and poignantly executed production that has won numerous international awards. But would we see such kind of meaningful work as a prime time TV program here in North America? The answer is obvious.

On the last day, I’d the chance to savor Babette’s Feast (1987), a highly acclaimed movie from Denmark (Oscar Best Foreign Language Film, 1988). Based on a story by Isak Dinesen (Out of Africa), Babette’s Feast is a cinematic metaphor of goodness and freedom. Its unique story and powerful visual images richly convey the theme of grace and mercy, and the liberating power of compassion. The table prepared before us is free, sumptuous and abundant, but it takes an open heart of full acceptance and gratitude to fully enjoy it. An inspiring film to wrap up my sojourn, creating resonance for the journey ahead.

Babette's Feast

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Vermeer in Vancouver: Noticing the Obvious

For more Vermeer, Click Here to go to my post “Inspired By Vermeer”.

Vancouver Art Gallery’s premier summer kick-off is the impressive exhibition: Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art. The exclusive show of masterpieces from Amsterdam’s renowned Rijksmuseum includes paintings, drawings, and decorative arts from 17th century Holland. After five hours at the Gallery, I left hungry for more Vermeer. Overall it was gratifying, but I was expecting just a few more glimpses of the great master.

Of all the 128 pieces of art work, there’s just one Vermeer painting. Placed at the end of the exhibit, apparently the highlight and climax of the show, is Vermeer’s Love Letter (1669). From his signature point of view, peeking through a partial opening of pulled-back curtain, we look into another room and see a maid just handed her mistress a letter. By the exchange of their glances, it seems they’re sharing a secret understanding. This is another one of Vermeer’s works that’s full of potential stories and rich in subtexts. Actually anyone of them is a novel to be written, not less dramatic as Girl With A Pearl Earring.

Vermeer's The Love Letter

Love Letter by Vermeer (1669-70)

17th century Holland was a new Republic that had just gained independence from Spanish rule. The beginning of the exhibits sets the stage depicting a young nation with great maritime power. Domestically, it was a country marked by a vibrant economy and a rising middle class, as well as the flowering of arts and science, architecture and urban planning.

In the midst of such affluence and fresh hope, some of the artists spoke with their brushes as prophets of their time. Among paintings of naval glory and conquests, as well as glimpses of domestic life of the rich, there are also the quiet displays of still life. I must have seen them before. Why have I not noticed their significance previously?

They are paintings of withered blossoms, burnt out candles, hourglasses, books and musical instruments, and most prominently, skulls, eerie arrays of them, decaying bones and teeth. Why all these objects? The audio commentary confirms that they are Vanitas still life, the term rooted in Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities.” And obviously, they are symbols of the fleeting nature of life, the callous passage of time, the transience of knowledge and human achievements:

Pieter Claesz Vanitas Still Life

Pieter Claesz: Vanitas Still Life (1628)

Skulls on a Table

Aelbert Jansz van der Schoor: Skulls on a Table (1660)

On the piece of writing crumpled up is one last word, Finis, The End:

Still Life with Books Jan de Heem

Jan Davidsz de Heem, Still Life with Books (1625-29)

It’s commendable that the rich and powerful were willing to be reminded thus, considering these were once paintings adorning the walls of their affluent homes, a nagging presence they could not ignore. And they must have paid to have them painted.

One of my favorites in the exhibition is Nicolaes Maes’ Old Woman in Prayer. Maes, a student of Rembrandt, had captured the simple piety of the old woman of lowly means: her earnest concentration, wrinkled face and hardened hands, the earthen wares and simple meal, and above all, her meager possessions on the ledge, an open Bible, a lamp, an hourglass and a prayer book. The warm light on her face almost makes her look divine. Maes did not forget to include a comic relief, her cat at the lower right bottom must have known what’s for dinner:

Nicolaes Maes Old Woman in Prayer

Nicolaes Maes: Old Woman in Prayer (1650-60)

Sources: Skulls on a Table from Vancouver Sun. All other paintings in this post: Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam.

Beauty and Truth

Unlike my previous trips out here, this time in Vancouver is a learning experience. I’m spending two weeks at Regent College on the UBC campus to learn the language of faith and film. The art and architecture of Regent set the inspiring milieu for exploring beauty and truth. Here are a few vignettes:

The True North Wind Tower and Lux Nova Art Glass:

Installed in 2007, the tower stands as a symbol of integration. Its highest point is designed to be in line with the North Star, the beacon of direction through the ages. The structure brings together the seemingly polarized ends of science and art, and accentuates faith in all aspects of life. CLICK HERE to read more about this 40 foot tall distinguished landmark.

Architect Clive Grout designed the self-sustaining, energy efficient True North Wind Tower as a natural ventilation system for the library built underneath it. Artist Sarah Hall incorporated solar cells into a cascade of glass work. They store energy during the day to illuminate a colored, celestial waterfall at night. This is the first installation of solar energy and art glass fusion in North America.

Embellishing this graceful design are twelve dichroic glass crosses, weaving through an inscription of the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic, the spoken language in Jesus’ time. What a magnificent alchemy of art, architecture, faith and science. Just two weeks ago, on April 29th, this beautiful architecture won the prestigious Design Merit Award for Sacred Landscapes from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in San Francisco. CLICK HERE to read more about this Award.

Regent Wind Tower

A closer look at the art glass:

For the magnificent night view, CLICK HERE to go to Regent’s site.

As for the theology library built underneath the tower, it’s another beauty:

Regent Library

Wisdom

A stone-throw away from the Wind Tower is this serene setting:

Garden Bench

Even the wisteria speak to the intertwining togetherness of Beauty and Truth:

Intertwining Westeria Stems 4

Intertwining Westeria Stems 2

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Original Photos and Text by Arti of Ripple Effects. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, May, 2009. If you see them on a site that is not Ripple Effects, then they are copied without permission. CLICK HERE to go to the original post https://rippleeffects.wordpress.com

The Poets’ Corner

poets-corner-book-cover

Just got this from the library, and it’s a gem. The Poets’ Corner is subtitled The One-And-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family, compiled by John Lithgow. Yes, that’s John Lithgow of the ‘3rd Rock from the Sun’. From Matthew Arnold to W. B. Yeats, Geoffrey Chaucer to Allen Ginsberg, it’s more like a high school curriculum than your light family reading. However, the collection includes many favorite selections, ideal to share as literary heirloom.

Lithgow presents fifty poets whose work he had grown up with. He has written a two-page introduction for each of them, a personal response to a piece of literary art. In the introduction of the book, he explains how it all started. Lithgow was invited to host a benefit for a non-profit organization. The fund raiser was for the fostering of creative approaches to educating autistic children. He was given a few poems to read out that night, poignant poetry that speaks to the heart of parents with autistic children. That night, Lithgow saw the power of poems read out, the voice and the words striking a shared chord with deep resonance. Thus planted the seed for this book.

The central theme here is not autism, but the selections here speak to a general and wider audience, humanity at large. The bonus is a CD featuring readings from Lithgow And Friends. I believe that poetry read out loud offers a heightened enjoyment than just from silent reading. I had heard recordings of Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams reading their own work, leaving indelible resonance that I didn’t get from reading off the page.

Here in this CD, what we have are professional performers, experienced and well-trained in the art of speech, dramatically performing these selections. And Lithgow’s ‘Friends’ include: Eileen Atkins, Kathy Bates, Glenn Close, Jodie Foster, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Lynn Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, Gary Sinise, and Sam Waterston… what a cast.

Here are some of my favorites, too bad I can’t embed the sound track. But do check it out from your local library, or even get a copy of your own. It’s a keeper.

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

(Read by Morgan Freeman)

The Pool Players.

Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.

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I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud by William Wordsworth

(Read by Helen Mirren)

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

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The Red Wheelbarrow

by William Carlos Williams

(Read by Jodie Foster)

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

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No Doctors Today, Thank You by Ogden Nash

(Read by John Lithgow… I LOL listening to him)

They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful,

well, today I feel euphorian,

Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetitite of a Victorian.

Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes,

Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle any swashes?

This is my euphorian day,

I will ring welkins and before anybody answers I will run away.

I will tame me a caribou

And bedeck it with marabou.

I will pen me my memoirs.

Ah youth, youth! What euphorian days them was!

I wasn’t much of a hand for the boudoirs,

I was generally to be found where the food was.

Does anybody want any flotsam?

I’ve gotsam.

Does anybody want any jetsam?

I can getsam.

I can play chopsticks on the Wurlitzer,

I can speak Portuguese like a Berlitzer.

I can don or doff my shoes without tying or untying the laces because

I am wearing moccasins,

And I practically know the difference between serums and antitoccasins.

Kind people, don’t think me purse-proud, don’t set me down as vainglorious,

I’m just a little euphorious.

Lithgow and friends have convinced me all the more that poetry is written to be heard.

Poets’ Corner: The One-And-Only Poetry Book For The Whole Family, compiled by John Lithgow, Grand Central Publishing, 2007, 280 pages.