I like to think that someone out there, possibly in Taiwan, is learning more than they ever thought they’d know about Santa Barbara County politics, after following my series of portraits of the Board of Supervisors. This week I take on Gail Marshall who has been the most controversial of them all–and not intentionally.
I also got to review Laurel Canyon, which stars the lovely Kate Beckinsale. Which reminds me, whatever happened to Whit Stillman? Isn’t he due for a new movie sometime?
Author: tedmills
Latest Goleta Valley Voice writing, March 2003
Talking about writing, here you can read my article on 2nd District Supervisor Susan Rose, my review of Gus Van Zant’s Gerry, and my review of The Actors from the London Stage’s version of The Tempest.
This weekend I’m in Los Angeles
This weekend I’m in Los Angeles, hanging out with me friend Scott. I’m currently typing this on the big fancy computer he uses at his very very very big videogame company that will remain nameless.
On the way down here last night I listened to KPFK broadcasting various bits from the protest that was happening at that moment on Sepulveda in Westwood. That was interspersed with people calling in to vent on the war, most of it making sense (being KPFK) but with one guy mentioning the Illuminati (also being KPFK). Unbeknownst to me, there were protests in Santa Barbara on Thursday and Friday, the former being completely chaotic with people crossing the freeway, trying to stop it. I guess all seemed quiet where I was.
Anyroad, today’s a sunny day, and we are off to Hurry Curry to get some Japanese curry for lunch. Then maybe a pop nextdoor to Giant Robot.
Later!
Out of despair, rage, and
Out of despair, rage, and screaming impotence, comes my friend Jon’s blog, called, for now, Broad Spectrum Antibiotics. (Don’t ask why). That’s two people I’ve got to start blogging this week–my karma is being polished somehow.
The Enchanted World of Sleep – Peretz Lavie
As you can see to the right, I finally finished Peretz Lavie’s The Enchanted World of Sleep. Lavie only gets really technical in a few chapters, but for the most part his look at the science of sleep is a pleasant “lay person” read. What did I learn?
* Before electrodes, scientists used to measure the moment of sleep when a patient would drop a tennis ball from their hand. In my case, it’s a shot glass, but the theory is the same.
* There are 4 stages of sleep, and then REM sleep, and that’s when dreams come. It’s also when we lose all muscle control. When waking up from dreams, people usually go to another stage. However, in very rare cases, people can awake in the no-muscle contol part and feel like they’re paralyzed. I hope this never happens to me–how freaky is that!
* There is no set time to sleep. If you can survive on 6 hours a night, then you need 6 hours of sleep. People who sleep 10 hours per night aren’t necessarily more rested. In fact, they’re probably more sleepy.
* I really wish the test case in their dream research, Mr. R, would publish a book. He could wake up from REM sleep and recount long, short-story like dream narratives. They reprint one in the book and it’s very good.
* Animals don’t have REM sleep, but they do dream, and that stage is called paradoxical sleep (meaning the animal is most at rest, but also most active in the brain.)
* The world record for going without sleep is 264 hours.
The last third of the book is on sleep disorders, namely insomnia, jet lag, sleep walking, sleep apnea, and narcolepsy. He also has some good things to say about children and when they “should” go to bed. A majority of parents force their kids to go to sleep at 8 p.m. so the adults can watch TV or whatever, then appear amazed that their children won’t sleep at the chosen time, or that they then wake up at 5 a.m. Thankfully, I was never raised that way…and that’s why I’m writing about this book to an audience of three people at 2:36 a.m.
Anyway, I also finished the MOJO magazine special on the Beatles early years. That might still be hanging around some newsstands. You’d think there wasn’t much left to say about the Beatles, but because the writing staff is so good (Mark Lewishom is on there among other major music journalists) they have some insightful things to say, none of which I can remember right now.
So..now I can get stuck into The Iliad, which seems appropriate in this season of war and suffering.
Meanwhile, I love to see
Meanwhile, I love to see how people access this blog. While a lot of come here looking for news and war and news and – did we forget – war, one person found my site by searching for “Real Golden Fuck”. I’ll let you puzzle that one out yourselves.
Apart from my blogging comments
Apart from my blogging comments on Divine Intervention, I got write a full blown review of it for the Valley Voice. Here ’tis.
Divine Intervention Turns a Comic Eye on Occupation
Twenty-Four Eyes
This Saturday I managed the catch the last film of the Susan Sontag-curated “Classics of Japanese Film” series at the LACMA.
TWENTY-FOUR EYES
A devastating study of nearly two decades in the life of a teacher who comes to a small island in the sea of Japan and the twelve students (hence the 24 eyes) in her care. Starts off idyllic, but soon the War in Manchuria, then the Pacific War comes to disrupt the lives of everyone. Director Keisuke Kinoshita works the audience with this classic melodrama, and I would say half of the theater was reduced to blubbering tears, especially near the end where
Apparently, all of Sontag’s choices have had either a subtext or a context of anti-war sentiment, and Keisuke Kinoshita’s “Twenty-Four Eyes” struck chords with many in the audience, especially the war fervor that grips the students as the film develops, the accusations against the teacher of being “unpatriotic” , the grim economic future that ruins the educational chances of many of her students, the indoctrination through the schools. You could almost feel the audience bristle after some of the more anti-war lines, none of which I can remember now. The film was shot and framed beautifully, and the most horrific of realities understood through the most economical of shots (as the war progresses and the island have lost all their first generation of youth, we have a brief scene of younger teenagers (I assume something like 15 or so) being groomed and sent off to die as kamikaze pilots. It’s a chilling scene of war madness, but Kinoshita doesn’t give us music cues or scenes of villagers talking about what was happening; he just lets it play out (he also didn’t have to explain it to his audience in the ’50s.)
Ten years ago we would have watched this and thought abstractly about war and the toll it took on the Japanese. Now we see the film and it’s like gazing into a mirror, and beyond that, the abyss.
Unfortunately, the film is not available on video or DVD as far as I know. Here’s hoping you can see it sometime in the future.
It’s Friday and my profile
It’s Friday and my profile on Naomi Schwartz has come out in the Valley Voice. For those of you outside S.B. County who don’t know that Schwartz is one of our County Supervisors, the article may mean nothing. But give it a shot anyway.
Full circle with Naomi Schwartz:
First District Supervisor looks back on her career and ahead to looming state crisis