Journal

Rising Sun, p. 217

by Dennis••0•Posted inJournal

“The Japanese say it’s because America has become a land without substance. We let our manufacturing go. We don’t make things anymore. When you manufacture products, you add value to raw materials, and you literally create wealth. But America has stopped doing that. Americans make money now by paper manipulation, which the Japanese say is bound to catch up to us because paper profits don’t reflect real wealth. They think our fascination with Wall Street and junk bonds is crazy.”

What strikes me is that this was written in 1992-1993, and even then it was evident to all those with rudimentary knowledge of macro economics that it was an unworkable situation that would one day come crashing down on us. Fifteen years later, in 2008, several large banks and investment firms are in trouble and are all saying ich habe es nicht gewusst.

Another Funeral

by Dennis••2•Posted inJournal

Unfortunately, since my own parents’ deaths, I’ve had the misfortune of attending a few funerals usually in support of others. There was a colleague’s father, my uncle whose funeral I had to arrange because there were no other next of kin capable or willing to take up the charge, and then yesterday a good friend’s father was laid to rest. In all three cases I was struck by a feeling, hard to recognise but easy to understand once you do, of selfishness. You see, while the reason that I came to the funeral was to support my friend, to show him that I care, and to silently let him know that I’m there for him should have need of anything, what I am doing there during the service is focussing on myself, mourning my own loss and indulging in my own grief.

I was dealing rather well with it all, but tears started to well up when people started to give a last salute at the end of the service. It reminded me of something Moulsari had done during that same last goodbye that stayed with me. She had knelt at the foot end of of my father coffin, touched it briefly and ran her hand over her head. It’s a sign of respect in India, one that I always liked and one that I think my father deserved more in life than he got so I was glad to see that this woman, who barely knew him and only knew how important he was to me, showed him such respect. Call me silly but that really struck me to the point that remembering it, ever so briefly, yesterday, made me very emotional.

Internet Movie Firearms Database

by Dennis••0•Posted inJournal

The Internet Movie Firearms Database is, like Al Pacino’s character Lefty says in Donnie Brasko, a “beautiful thing.” It doesn’t particularly make our lives any better, nor doesn’t enrich the Internet in the same way that iMDB has, but you still have to admire the perseverance in setting up, maintaining and contributing to a website like this. Take the 1997 John Woo opus Face/Off, for instance, starring John Travolta and Nicholas Cage. There are more guns in that film than are being smuggled from neglected munition depots in the former Soviet Union, and here’s a guy who’s been cataloging them all! An excerpt:

Castor Troy’s (Nicolas Cage) weapons of choice are two gold titanium nitride plated Springfield Armory M1911-A1 V-10s fitted with custom gold inlaid grips, that he keeps in two small-of-the-back holsters. Among the obvious modifications to the guns include skeletonized hammers, beavertail grip safeties, ambidextrous slide stop safeties, target sites, moderately bevelled magazine wells, and V-10 ported slides/barrels. He uses them both during the first major gunfight of the movie, putting a hole in the windshield of the helicopter Sean Archer (John Travolta) is in and later gunning down several agents in the airport hangar. Later in the movie, when Archer has assumed Troy’s identity and face, he is given these weapons by Dietrich (Nick Cassavettes). He then uses them for the proceeding gunfight as the police raid the building.

Custom Springfield M1911-A1

Rising Sun

by Dennis••0•Posted inJournal

Rising Sun - Michael CrichtonA long time ago, I saw Rising Sun, a rather good film with Wesley Snipes, Sean Connery, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Harvey Keitel. It’s an early 90’s film based on an early 90’s book by Michael Crichton, whom I’ve grown to appreciate more and more over the years. He’s proved to be a suspense fiction writer who bases his work on pretty solid research (or defined assumptions) and manages to tell a technically compelling story while at the same time managing to write  a very compelling story. He can be deep without losing his ability to write stories that read easily. Anyway, he’s my one of my go-to fiction writers when I’m in the mood for something that doesn’t require me to feel bad about my own intellect.

The book deals with the Japana-fear that was sweeping the world late eighties and early nineties, based mostly on the economic powerhouse Japan had become, especially with their trade-surplus at the time. Basically, Japan was the China of the early nineties. I’ve only read the first chapter so far, but it’s very sharply written, painting a clear picture without getting lost in detail. It’s a very sleek and minimalistic book in the way that it doesn’t use more words than necessary. It comes across as very Japanese, where the emptiness in a story is almost as important as the parts that are filled in.

So I liked the film a lot, and had always been curious about the book especially considering my fascination with Cyberpunk, in which corporate controlled dystopia usually has a strong hint of Japanese dominance. (Mostly because at birth of Cyberpunk it looked as if Japan was going to take over the world, economically and then culturally.) I wanted to read some easy fiction, after having read a ton of non-fiction lately. I also wanted an easy read, as the last fiction I read was Nick Harkaway’s Gone-Away World, which is great, but meanders so much that it’s hard to stay focussed on the main storyline which is hardly even there.

My last thought on the book and the film; having seen the film first, I have preconceived notions of the characters and the casting of the characters, and I find myself agreeing with many choices, especially Sean Connery and Harvey Keitel. I’m not sure of Snipes’ casting yet, but it might be a little early to tell.

Thanks Eva for this wonderful birthday gift. :)

A Nagging Injury

by Dennis••0•Posted inJournal

Torn ligament.Recently, someone told me that I was being a big puss-cake for complaining about my injuries on Facebook. In order to avoid that happening again, I thought I’d just complain about it here. You see, I have to complain to someone and seeing as how I don’t like to complain to anyone, I’ll just do it here. If you’re here to read what I have to say, you’ve automatically waived whatever rights you thought you had to be protected from my whinging.

I’ve always been prone to certain injuries, mostly to my ankles, which are notoriously volatile. Ever since I was about six or seven years old, since the first time I twisted my ankle, I have had to be careful with my ankles. I’ve torn the ligaments perhaps a dozen times in both feet, and with every time it seems to be getting worse. I’m also getting older, which in turn means that I recuperate less fast and I deal with the injuries for a longer time.

The unflattering photo of my foot here was from two months ago, when, while defending a takedown during a Shooto class, I miss-stepped and tore the ligaments in my right foot. It was very painful and I can still hear the muffled crunch of my ankle giving way when I think about it (and subsequently have to stop myself from getting nauseous.) The pain is one thing, but the aftermath is far, far worse.

I’ve been taking it easy, training a little bit but not doing anything crazy; little wrestling, little judo, mostly ground work and stand-up. And yet, even after having had a month of little training and quite a bit of relaxation, it only takes one afternoon of heavy lifting while I help someone move their belongings to a new apartment and I’m back to square one. It’s not like I can’t jump, or draw a short sprint or, you know, do heavy lifting, but it just hurts.