Thursday 12 July 2018

Politic 34

A veritable collection of noise ear cushions to fill you with warmth on these cold summer nights...

...catch them, hear...



Novachord - Kid Koala

ムスヒ Bonus Mix Track 2 - EVISBEATS

めばえ - EVISBEATS and Phoka

NEW YOKU - EVISBEATS and Chan-Mika

作ってあそぼ - EVISBEATS and 鎮座DOPENESS

チルミーチル - 鎮座DOPENESS and Sabo

Hot Coffee - 韻シスト鎮座DOPENESS and チプルソ

Don't Leave Me - 韻シスト 

Rollin' Rollin' - 七尾旅人 and やけのはら

Relaxin' - やけのはら

Stardust - Tokyo No. 1 Soul Set and スチャダラパー

Emission Nebula - DJ Krush

Sporadic Meteor - DJ Krush and Toshinori Kondo

Back to the Future (Instrumental) - DJ Krush

14th St. Break - Beastie Boys

The Unseen - Quasimoto

Scream Phoenix (Instrumental) - El-P

Take A Rest - Gang Starr

Rising Son - Takuya Kuroda

Everybody Loves the Sunshine - Takuya Kuroda and Jose James

Valuska - Vig Mihaly

Oreg - Vig Mihaly

Untitled - Hatis Noit

Tuesday 10 July 2018

After Life vs. Departures

To paraphrase Nobu-san, our guide around the Okunoin cemetery at Koya-san: "In Japan, when we are born, we have Shinto rituals. When we die, we have Buddhist rituals. My mum got married in a church: New Caledonia."

Buddhism in Japan is often associated with death. When one dies, the ceremonies that take place will often be Buddhist, but as Donald Richie explores, these could be as much for functional purpose as religious belief. But, obviously of course, no one knows what actually happens when you die. Or do we? It depends whether one is thinking about it from the perspective of the body or the soul. 


Yojiro Takita's Oscar-winning 2008 "Departures" see cellist Daigo's (popular hair model Masahiro Motoki) orchestra disband in Tokyo, leaving him doubtful of his talent and so his future. On a whim, he convinces his wife - with little coercion - into moving back to his small hometown in Yamagata, moving into the cafe his mother left him.

Needing work, he responds to an ad with few details, but nice pay packets, and is immediately hired. It soon turns out that his job will be as an "encoffinfer", performing the Japanese noukan ritual of preparing the body before it is placed into the coffin (and then burnt, of course). Not an easy job, he struggles to cope at first and soon feels society's evil eyes once his new job is learnt: perceived as a dirty man for his handling of dead bodies.


As the film progresses, so does his skill, winning over his doubters, including his wife, and finding what would appear to be a true calling: sending the bodies of the recently deceased on their final journey, coming to terms with some of the opportunities missed in life.

Ten years earlier, Kore-eda Hirokazu released his second feature film: 1998's "After Life" (or perhaps its more appropriate Japanese title "Wandafuru Raifu"). Here, there after life probably isn't quite what you expected. Upon dying, you enter a somewhat New England-esque academic building, taking a ticket as if a doctor's waiting room.


On this "Monday morning", you are assigned a counsellor who will pose you the situation: You have a week to choose the one memory of your life which you will take with you for eternity. This memory is recreated by a somewhat haphazard film crew, starring your good self, and the film is then shown to you in a cinema. Once viewed, you disappear for eternity, locked in that memory.

Somewhat fanciful, the counsellors are all people that were either unable, or refused, to make the choice, and thus stay in a purgatory of administration and archiving, forever reliving Monday morning. A series of interviews are conducted with the various recently deceased, with now long-experienced - but still youthful in look - Takashi (Arata) given the task of counselling the man who married his fiancée after he died. Opening up some old wounds, Takashi spends the week contemplating his own favourite memories and finally makes his choice.


The outlooks of the two films are quite different in their thoughts on death. "After Life" plays little on the sadness of having died. Those that enter are quite chipper, one must say, on learning that they've just kicked the bucket. As the Japanese title suggests, it's very much about celebrating the most precious, and wonderful, memories that we have of our lives. This could perhaps be down to Kore-eda's combination of actors and real-life ordinary folk discussing their favourite memories. Using his documentary skills, this is as much an exploration of memory than a mourning of death.


"Departures", however, is very much aware of the sadness of death. Very reminiscent of Shunji Iwai's "Love Letter" in numerous ways, there are moments of sentimentality, tugging at the heartstrings, as well as plucking on the cello strings. Tears and emotion run throughout; the sadness of the families a key theme. A shot of a young child's body being prepared for their coffin accompanied by their smiling photo, hitting home the sadness in the simplest of ways. Though family tears and timely music perhaps dominate, going for more conventional crowd-(dis)pleasing.

This is absent from "After Life", laying people's memories out before them to celebrate and chew on; more philosophical than sentimental. If death hurts those left behind, "After Life" is the memories of life for the deceased; whereas "Departures" is the final memory for the mourners. 

If we're looking at religion in Japanese death, however, "After Life" perhaps lacks any religion. Death is a bureaucratic process than a passing over. As seen in other films, such as Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice", death is likened to the administrative Hell on Earth of waiting rooms, form-filling and box-ticking.


It's also a strange film in that it's very much of its time, serving as a time capsule, with the provision of lo-fi VHS cassette tapes for "clients" to view moments from their lives to help them in their choice. Surely the after life's administrative team can come up with a less archaic system! The recreations also seem to be more "human" and of the "real world", made to a seemingly small budget and limited time frame, far from Hollywood glitz and glam that many of the dead may have wished to achieve in the film of their life. A theme running throughout Kore-eda's body of work, this is perhaps as much a comment on the modern nature of memory and how we try to recreate it in permanent form rather than live in the moment of emotion. A comment as relevant now as ever.


"Departures" features the religious ceremony of the noukan, placing the body in ritual dress, with accompanying make-up. But with even this dying out with the elderly, it perhaps reflects Richie's doubts as to the true religious nature of these "performances". Making the dead look their best is perhaps purely for aesthetic purposes, giving mourners one last perfect memory.


Daigo's skill is very much in-line with Japanese aesthetics: The almost perfect folding with due care and attention of the deceased clothes, creating an intimate one-on-one with the body. "After Life", with its counsellors getting deep into their clients personal lives and directing them towards their perfect choice: Ones who struggle are probed to search deeper; those who go obvious, are challenged to look more inwards, creating an intimate one-on-one with the soul.

Mono no aware, the Japanese sense of the fleeting nature of beauty and the impermanence of all things is alive in both films. Daigo's hard work and skill is - for want of a better word - in vain; the bodies made beautiful, only to be burnt at cremation soon after. "After Life" forces the choice of the single moment that defines a whole existence (and they only give you a week!). The last memory for the living versus the eternal memory for the dead; and perhaps a more Japanese sense of religion than any organised belief system.

Sunday 1 July 2018

Every 14 Days...(44)



Eleven (Mark Watson)

Monsieur Watson, the formerly Welsh-voiced comedian, often states his first two novels, which I have read, are to be ignored. "Eleven", his third, therefore, is the starting point he'd like us to acknowledge. With that the case, you can see a more professional and accomplished narrative forming. But this more mainstream style also loses a little something with it.

Radio DJ and agony uncle Xavier Ireland (an assumed name for a fictional character) having moved to the UK from Australia in mysterious circumstances goes about his life helping people solve their problems by night and avoiding his own by day. Along the way, a chain of events involving ten others gradually begin to come full circle, as Xavier starts to come to terms with his own problems and tries to look forward to a new start.

The cause-and-effect subplot that works its way through the novel perhaps shows a maturing as a writer, but is also a little more conventional in its structuring. "Eleven", while perhaps better written, lacks some of the intrigue of "Bullet Points" and certainly the humour of "ALight-hearted Look at Murder", and as such, breezes by nicely, but soon blends into the background on a bookshelf.

Despite a nice enough read, this isn't quite a Spinal Tap amp, and "Eleven" isn't one louder.

Days to read: 9
Days per book: 15.0


And Then (Natsume Soseki)

Sorekara, I read...That's a Japanese joke.

It was one of my challenges to read all of Natsume Soseki's translated works this year. That probably won't happen, but I'm moving along with them anyway. So far this year I have read "The Miner", and then I read...well, that's an English joke.

Daisuke is doing jack little. From a wealthy family, since completing his education, he has chosen to live on his father's income, absorbing himself in his reading and his arts, unable to decide what the next step in his life should be. Rejecting his family's help to marry him and try and force some purpose into his life, his idleness and "selfishness" soon begin to put strains on his relationships with his family, and indeed some of his friends.

As ever with Soseki, "And Then" is a depth exploration of the human condition. Daisuke's actual desires are clear to us, the reader, but social convention and possible scandal prevent him from making them known to others. Fear of revealing his true desires and holding back stunt life's progress, as can often be the case. But in a time where social conventions must be met, his failure to go with the flow see him more ostracized than if he simply came out with his true, socially unacceptable intentions.

One can sympathise with Daisuke's plight: wanting to live his own life, free of society's restrictions. But it is just as easy to fear for him in his failure to grow up and accept the need to provide. Soseki's deliberately open ending sees Daisuke suddenly alone and like a rabbit in the headlights as the reader asks "What next?"

Days to read: 14
Days per book: 15.0


The Damned United (David Peace)

I'm always a little unsure as to fictional novels based on real life individuals. Fiction set during certain historical events, that's fine. But, basing a work of fiction of an actual person and specific events that happened in their life is a controversial decision and is likely to off a few pisses.

"The Damned United", made into a rather good film with Michael Sheen as "Ol' Big Head", certainly did ruffle some feathers upon its publication, focusing as it does on the career low point of one of English football's best managers. Getting so into the head of Brian Clough, Peace has obviously had to do his research into the man, the legend for a fateful forty-four days that occurred when he was around seven years old.

Switching between the past - his days winning the Division 2 and then Division 1 titles with Derby County - and the present, with the big leap to taking the Leeds United job, a picture of a determined, but obsessed man is painted. Peace's Clough wants nothing more than to outdo Don Revie's achievements at Leeds. Repetition fills the pages of the book, building and building the angst within him.

In terms of getting into the head of Clough, Peace certainly achieves this. Unconventional structure in his writing makes this more snippets of thoughts, rather than narrative flow, with the repetition emphasising the obsessive nature Peace wishes to convey. As such, this is a good, if somewhat fractured, characterisation.

But, whether Peace's Clough is an accurate representation is another debate. Of course, the results are factually accurate, and many of the minor details can be shown to be true. But "The Damned United" is set firmly within the head of one Brian Howard Clough, and only one man could comment on how true it is.

Days to read: 13
Days per book: 14.9


Seventeen (Hideo Yokoyama)

What better way to mark a flight from London to Montreal than reading a book about the largest single aircraft accident in history?!

However, Hideo Yokoyama's "Seventeen" is less about the Japan Airlines Flight 123 crash in 1985, but more about the pains of the North Kanto Times' reporting staff tasked with covering the biggest event to happen on their doorstep.

Yuuki, an ageing reporter, delaying moving into a management position, is appointed Crash Desk Chief, forced to take charge of the situation. An anti-hero, this causes problems for those both above and below in the chain of command. Big decisions need to be made, and Yuuki isn't always the right man for them, particularly when caught in the middle of hierarchical politics and the shallow world of journalism, where depth and reliable coverage of facts are shunned for attention-seeking front page headlines.

Placed alongside the somewhat bland new challenge facing Yuuki seventeen years on of climbing a local ridge with the son of his long-departed friend, Yuuki is again put in a situation where he is out of his depth, his life now comfortable in small-town reporting.

Perhaps due to the translation, but the writing of "Seventeen" is far from award-winning. Somewhat stating the obvious, it lacks any real sense of poetic license and despite some moments, is far too simplistic. Blandly stating facts might be part of reporting, but when reading a novel, one wants something a little more absorbing. As such, you fail to fully engage or sympathise with the characters as it moves towards its inevitable conclusions.

Days to read: 14
Days per book: 14.9