Friedrich Dürrenmatt: The Physicists

Well the main thing that I can think of to say about this play is that the enjoyability of any performance would have to hinge on the actors involved.  The text simply doesn't offer a lot.  The idea is intriguiging, and the situation is positively hilarious, but not a lot of it comes across on the page.  It's the sort of humor that would have to be delivered in complete earnest, not witty but sly.  Of the kind that one must think about.  As a result, I can't say that I enjoyed reading it much, but that I imagine I would enjoy seeing it on the stage quite a bit.

David Hirsh (ed): Current Perspectives in Second Language Vocabulary Research

I'm not sure how I feel about including this much academic literature in a blog that has heretofore been a bit recreational, but I am a completist by nature.  I have written without fail about every book I have read for nigh on eight years now, and can't think of a good reason to exclude this volume, even though it will be of little interest to most people.  If, by the way, you have an interest in linguistics and literature, leave a comment and we can become pen pals :D

Which is not to say that I have a lot to offer about this book.  I had high hopes for it, simply based on the title, but the connection to my desired topic was rather tangential.  This is a good thing, though!  In developing my thesis, I have become a bit paranoid that my (in my opinion) rather insightful and potentially significant findings have already been documented elsewhere, and are therefore old hat.  What a relief that this book came nowhere near my topic, instead focusing on such things as whether frequency or manner of instruction has a bigger influence on retention, or the distinctions between productive and receptive vocabulary acquisition.  Both significant, to be sure, and I don't consider the reading a waste of time, but I have found that much more helpful material comes from the psycholinguistic perspective, rather than such a pragmatic viewpoint as this volume represents.

Philemon

I confess to a bit of prejudice before starting this book, because I kinda know how the story ends.  It's like someone spoiled the ending of The Sixth Sense for me . . .

1:4 Knowing what Paul is about to ask of Philemon, this certainly smells like buttering up.

1:8,9 A nice touch, and seemingly sincere

1:10 Wow, I didn't expect to find this so touching.

1:20 Hmm I wonder what other requests could reasonably be made under this logic.

So here's the mystery of this disappointingly brief book: who was Onesimus?  What connection did Paul feel with him, or was this a matter of principle, Paul making a point about the relationship between slaves and their masters?  Paul's sincerity pours off the page here, in a way that one seldom sees elsewhere in his writings, so I choose to believe the former: that Onesimus was indeed a remarkable fellow, and special to Paul in some way.  Is he the same Onesimus that later became bishop of Ephesus?  That seems highly dubious, but a fascinating line of inquiry.  In the dogma of the early church, would the power of love and equality as expressed by Christ and, to a lesser extent, by Paul, be strong enough to overcome social prejudices and human pride?

The Godfather Part II

I'm not quite sure what the draw of this movie is.  I know plenty of people who love it better than the first one, but as far as I can tell the only difference is that there's a lot more Italian.  What made the first movie so powerful in my mind was the beautiful study of Michael's evolution into the eponymous character.  Pacino's performance, Coppola's pacing and cinematography--a liquid, nearly musical piece of art. 

Part II? Not so much.  The people who love this movie seem to be drawn by the why and how of the family's development, and the contribution to the mythology of the Corleones, but the difference between I and II in my mind is the difference between showing and telling a story.  Sure telling us why Michael et al are the way they are is effective, but showing us the process (as in I) is affective, and, in my mind, art.

양인자: 늦게 피는 꽃

이 책은  내가 읽은 셋째의 한국 아동 책인데  공통점이 있다.  세 권 모두 부모가 없어서 고민을 겪는 아동에 대한 내용이다.  한, 두번이라면 우연이라고 생각할 있지만 세번이라면 우연의 일치 아니다.  그 아동 책외에, 내가 읽은 연어란 책도 그러한 내용이 들어간다.  한국 문학의 특징인지 모르지만, 생각해보니 한국 영화에도 많이 나오는 내용같다.  왜 그랬을까?  난 부모가 없는 한국인을 별로 안 만났다.  만약에 한국 독자와 시청자들은 그러한 극적인 주제를 좋아하기 때문일까?  아니면 한국 생활에 외떨어진 마음이 흔해서 비유로 표시하는 게 아닐까?  추신에는 작가가 그 후자를 나타낸다.  자기 성장에 대해서 짧게 이야기한다.  "'빨리 빨리'를 강요하니 얼마나 힘들었겠어요 . . . 언젠가는 자기만의 꽃을 피운다는 거, 잊지 말자"고 들려준다. 

나의 한국 친구를 생각해보니, "맞아, 생활이 얼마나 힘들겠다"는 생각이 든다.  여러분 사방에서 강요를 받고 자기 지위를 높이도록 무리해야 하고, 문제가 생기면 혼자서 풀고 . . . 고립감이 얼마나 심할 것 같다.

Stephen Krashen: The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications

I feel like a dinosaur sometimes.  Other linguists and teachers talk about the "interactive hypothesis" and "communicative competence" and other relatively modern ideas about language acquisiton, and I think to myself, "humbug".  For all the backlash, and certain undeniable limitations, I feel like Krashen was right 30 years ago in asserting there really is only one cause for authentic language acquisiton: comprehensible input.

Now it's not that simple, of course.  There are matters of monitoring, and affective filters and the like, but there really is nothing that can compare to input when it comes to explaining successful language acquisition, both from a pedagogical and a cognitive standpoint.  This is not to say that one can just throw books at a student and step back, or that as a learner I can just read and read and hope to get better.  Too often, I will read something, encounter a new word, look it up in the dictionary and promptly forget it.  That input didn't get put in for some reason--to use more standard jargon, it didn't become intake.  The question that a believer in Krashen, such as I am, must ask is: what's the hangup?

Krashen often (here and elsewhere) identifies the necessary second element as a lowering of the affective filter, an openness to new information.  Others point to the necessity of attention, that one cannot simply receive input, one must also attend to it.  Neither of these explanations satisfy me.  In the specific case of seeing a new word, looking it up in the dictionary, and even then writing it down in an original sentence, the affective filter seems to be lowered, and attention is certainly being given. 

One might say then that the word is decontextualized, and therefore doesn't find a home in the cognitive matrix.  This is also unsatisfying.  I am surely not alone in learning a word or phrase for a specific, sometimes very necessary purpose, using it correctly in context, achieving my intended linguistic goal, and then promptly forgetting it.  For example, take the word 이발 (haircut).  In preparing to go to the barber, I looked the word up, remembered it, used it correctly, got my haircut, and then a month later had to repeat the same process again. And the following month.  And the following month. That linguistic item was highly contextualized, but somehow it did not beome intake.  It found no home in the syntactic matrix. 

Further complicating matters is the not infrequent occurrence of encountering a word once, and immediately acquiring it--even if it was completely decontextualized and unattended, and my affective filter was sealed tight.  For example, the word 호출 (pickup service).  I heard a taxi driver use it once passively, and have not forgotten it since--and this word is neither common nor particularly useful.  Or even more curiously, the word 바작 (a particular container used by farmers for collecting grass).  I read it in a poem once, looked it up, and have never forgotten it.  This word is so useless that native Korean speakers don't even know it exists.  If I try to use it, they tell me I'm mistaken, until they look it up in their Korean dictionary.  What elements are present in this type of experience that are absent when I purposefully try to learn a word, even making flash cards and trying to cram it awkwardly into conversation? 

As much as I agree with Krashen on every point, he comes up short in this department.  He is not wrong, for he doesn't really adresss it.  It's not a disagreement, just a deficiency in the Input Hypothesis, about which you can bet your lace panties I will continue to have something to say.

H. Douglas Brown: Principles of Language Learning and Teaching

I usually don't write about textbooks here, and not only because it's rare that I read them cover to cover.  In general this blog is intended to examine the way we look at literature and media in all forms, and I just don't know that textbooks often qualify as such.  Furthermore, by the time I "finish" with a textbook, I feel like I've already been called to write about in the most sterile ways possible, and wouldn't have a lot left to say that would feel at home in this context.

But this book is an exception, and not only because I did read it cover to cover.  When I say that this blog is about "media", and even go so far as to express that in the title, I mean that it is about the way in which words and images are used to convey a message, about the signs of which the things that we watch, read, and listen to are signifiers, as Saussure would put it.  In that sense, isn't language the ultimate medium?  The signifier that begets and predicates all others?

If that's the case, how does it work?  Before asking what High Noon means or conveys, suppose we asked how in the hell humans have come to agree what "High" or "Noon" are in the first place.  It's amazing, really, that humans even try to communicate, let alone that we've tried to establish some procedure for doing so.  The fact that it seems to work, that we are on occassion able to send some thought into the mind of another, is veritable science fiction.  In this textbook, which is admittedly a mere scraping of the question's surface, Brown makes the well-advised choice of simply presenting some ideas, not all of which are supportable, and encouraging the reader/student to come up with some sort of framework that works for her or him.  In this arena, after all, a framework is all that can be really hoped for. 

As for me, the idea of how we acquire language has gone through some evolutions.  Chomsky works from the theory that in our brain is a sophisticated circuit devoted for the acquisition and employment of lanugage, but it sure doesn't seem that way sometimes.  It feels more like there's a pachinko machine in our brains that we shoot words into, and sometimes one of them goes into the right hole and becomes "acquired".  I've also at times thought of it as a Klondike game, although they call them different things elsewhere.  You know, the game that you can see at arcades or county fairs that has a stack of quarters or tokens  constantly getting pushed forward by some bulldozer-like blade, into which you shoot still more tokens or quarters, hoping to push some off the ledge and reap your reward?  You just keep putting words into the top until you get lucky and something comes out of the bottom.  Woohoo!

Lately though, language seems more like one of those giant funnels you can see at malls or science museums that purports to reproduce the behavior of bodies in orbit.  You slip a coin into the rim of the funnel and watch it gradually make its way to the center.  Depending on the angle at which it enters the vortex, it could take a long time, or plop right into the middle.  That's what language feels like to me lately.  A vortex, a whirpool that pulls things into its center.  There are principles at work, to be sure, gravity, centrifugal force, the weight of the coin, the slope of the funnel, and lots and lots of mathy things.  But just because there are principles at work does not mean that you can plop something at the proper angle and watch it drop straight into the middle.  It does that sometimes! And it's weird! But good luck doing it twice in a row.  Like why did the relatively useless and obscure word 개강 go right into my sweet spot and become acquired after only one exposure?  While the far more useful and lexically simple word 이발 took me forever? Why did I still have to look it up in the dictionary even the fourth and fifth time I tried to use it to tell somebody I wanted a haircut? 

The fact that it's a mystery does not mean that it's random, as Brown clearly, and occassionally wittily presents in this textbook.  I can't say that I recommend it for pleasure, but if you are curious about how those quarters get in your slot, it's a good start.

Titus

After several years of this project, I feel like the end is really in sight.  Only ten books to go after this, most of them pretty brief, but at least one of which promises to be impossible to parse.

1:1 Paul's greeting here is markedly less warm and familiar than certain others, especially those to Timothy. 

1:2 And where exactly did God make this promise of eternal life?  I suppose it could be inferred out of certain passages in the Hebrew texts, but it is certainly not self-evident.

1:7 Bishop and Elder seem to be used interchangeably here.  I am curious about first century ecclesiastical hierarchy.  When did such distinctions develop, and whose idea were they?

1:10,11 In this, widely regarded as Paul's last letter, we still find the specter of circumcision.  What possible "sordid gain" could advocates of such a practice hope for?  Are they like modern moyls in New York who form an influential guild?  Such a thing seems unlikely.

1:15 Now here is a fascinating verse, one that is open to a whole range of theological interpretation.  If "to the pure, all things are pure", as indeed Paul has indicated in other books with regard to consumption of things sacrificed to idols, how far does this principle extend?  Exactly how far can someone get in the name of good intentions?  For that matter, if to the corrupt all things are corrupt, then the idea of conversion, salvation, and generally trying to better one's self takes on a gloomily futile note. 

1:16 Rather than taking such a thing too far, however, it seems Paul simply means that we shouldn't trust the godly words/deeds of ill-indended people.

2:1-9 It is interesting to notice the different lights in which Paul views the members of the congregation.  Theoretically, what is good is good, whether one is a master or slave, male or female.  However the only things that Paul seems to see as univserally desirable are chastity and self-control, having administered this directive to all four groups.  Slaves and women are, of course, both advised to be reverent/obedient to those in authority, but it is perhaps advisable to file this with the other many examples of conextual and social influences on Paul's writing, and not to give it any particular theological weight. It is perhaps more revealing that Paul gives older women the additional directive to be kind, something that is evidently not required of men.  Such a belief can not so easily be filtered out; the idea that kindness is a virtue is not a modern invention, and indeed permeates Jesus' theology.  Lastly, I notice that younger women are not even mentioned, and can eveidently do whatever they like.

2:11-14 Paul is always concerned with purity and uprightness, but I don't recall it being quite so pervasive in his other writings.  Such a focus is, of course, a marked reversal in tone from the Gospels, which focused on such external, positive things as charity, love, and forgiveness.

3:9-11 As strident as the above admonitions could seem, it is good that Paul dials it back a notch here.  He is seemingly telling Titus no to take silly things too seriously, including the deluded words of others, and I find this approach much more in line with the Gospel than the combative direction in which he seemed to be heading.

3:13 As this seems to be Paul's last book before his death in Rome, it is a bit ominous that he is requesting Zenas the lawyer to be sent to him.

Three American Westerns

In viewing movies from AFI's 100 Movies list, I have found myself in the process of constructing a theory of what makes a movie "great".  I started out by evaluating movies according to certain obvious, discrete elements: direction, performance, screenplay, aesthetics etc., but I lately find myself thinking along different lines.  For better or worse, I've lately been evaluating movies (and tv programs too for that matter) by the presence or absence of three things: character, story and idea.  Let's hold three items that I watched recently up to this candle, and see if it holds up.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

I think it's pretty clear by which of the three criteria this item shines, and by which it suffers.  When I look at the use of character in a movie, I find myself asking, "do the people in this film make decisions in a way that I can understand, or do they seem to make decisions because the plot demands it?"  Wrapped up in this question is, of course, the quality/naturalness of the dialogue and the performances.  Neither the writers nor the actors can solicit a "yes" to this question alone.  In Sierra Madre, everybody does a great job, and both screenwriter John Huston and actor Walter Huston (Son and father, respectively) deserved their Academy Awards that year.

When one looks at the story and the idea of the movie, however (are those two things really separate?), the movie begins to suffer a little.  When I think of story, I ask (among other things), "Does each plot element of the movie need to be there to get us where we are going?" And in the case of Sierra Madre, the answer is a pretty forceful "No."  Many things that happened, from the appearance of the mysterious interloper, to the implausible rescue of a drowned boy, seem to exist merely in order to make some other element of the story make sense, almost as though the story were worked out during filming.  As for the idea, it felt tacked on, and the end result is what we have come to see as an "Academy Award vehicle", namely something that exists to highlight performances, rather than to stand on its own merit.

The Searchers

Where the characters in Sierra Madre seemed to exist outside of the plot, the same cannot be said of this John Wayne vehicle.  The main character especially seems to be completely at the mercy of the script, and make decisions purely because he is told to do so.  Likewise, the various plot developments along the way never seem organic, but rather like the product of a committee filled with people who say things like "Wouldn't it be cool if . . ." and "Hey, is there a way to fit in . . ." as rationale.  All of which is not helped by the fact that the central idea is colored by pretty disgusting racism, to an extent that is difficult to explain away with social context. 

Sadly, looking at the movie through this lens fails to account for the one thing that was enjoyable it: namely that it was quite beautifully shot, and really lovely to watch.  Where do aesthetic elements fit into my little schema?  Not sure yet.

High Noon

All three of these movies are trying to do what Western seem to always do: show what a real man is like.  Of the three, High Noon is far and away the most successful.  "Real", of course, in the Western genre means "admirably masculine", but the sense of "human and believable" also applies here.  Gary Cooper's performance and a watertight script  create a character that manages to embody the ideal American male, while still acting like a human.  The story is similarly focused, driven, and relatively free of ornament.  What I found most enduring, however, was the idea of the movie, which seems to be a variation on Sturgeon's Law: ninety percent of everything is crap.  People suck, they really do, and if you, dear reader, manage to have somebody in your life who does not suck, marry them, throw your tin star in the dust, and take that buckboard as far off into the sunset as you can manage.

Juan Ruiz: The Book of Good Love

I'm not really sure how to approach writing about this book.  In fact, I almost feel like I haven't really read it at all.   According to at least one scholar (Spanish literary historian Salceda Ruiz), The Book of Good Love is among "the most beautiful, most humane, and most profoundly moral that literature has ever produced."  What I read, therefore, must have been some other book, because I found it stilted, unfocused and clumsy. Whether a translation can actually capture the spirit of the original is a subject worth considering in any medium, but I feel like a translation into verse is especially suspect. The translator, Elisha Kane, is to be credited for tackling such a task at all, of course.  English rhymes are so scarce compared to those in Spanish, I can only assume that the often forced nature of the end product was unavoidable.  Nonetheless, while he seemed to capture the story and humor of the original, I would be hard pressed to find a single passage that I would describe as "beautiful".  Whether the original was poetic in any way, I may never know, and that leaves me feeling a little dissatisfied.  Unless I plan on learning 14th century Spanish, however (spoiler: I do not), I will have to be content with what I can only assume is a smudged mimeograph of a masterpiece. 

안도현: 연어

난 서울에 거슬러오르기전에 노동현에게서 이 책을 선물로 받았다.  소중한, 순진한, 나를 사랑했던 동현.  그가 아마 우리 은빛연어와 눈맑은연어로 여겼다.  그가 우리 그 물고기처럼 거침을 넘어가고 위험을 맞서고 마침네 같이 죽겠다는 소원을 가지고 있었는 지 이 책을 우리 일음들로 도장 찍었가. 사실은, 난 그런 생각이 완전히 없다. 

난 로멘틱한 남자 아니다.  어떤 남자가 우리 평생을 같이 보내자고 하는 무섭게 내가 바로 도망친다.  그래도 난  은빛연어와 비슷하게 삶의 의미를 찾으려고 헤매오고 있다.  그 의미가 세상에 있는 지 모르지만 알게 된 것 한 가지 있다.  "바다는 지구 위의 모든 대륙과 손을 맞잡고 완전한 하나가 되어 있다.  땅을 물을 떠받쳐주고, 물은 땅을 저셔주면서 이 세상을 이루고 있는 것이다" (121). 지구와 물은 순을 맞잡고 나를 떠받쳐주기도 바란다. 

2nd Timothy

1:1 Not sure what to make, if anything, of the shift from "loyal child" in 1st Timothy to "beloved child" here.

1:3 And even more so now that I perceive real emotion coming through here.  I am especially touched by the relation of Timothy's matriarchal lineage, and find myself constructing a narrative of his life based on this one simple sentence.  I recall that in reading 1st Timothy I was confused by Paul's instructions that Timothy remain chaste, even in the same breath as he said that such a thing was not generally necessary for those serving in positions of responsibility in the congregation.  What was it about Timothy's case that called for heigthened restrictions?  Specifically, of all the sins that Timothy might have been in danger of, why did Paul single this one out for him, seemingly in front of the entire congregation?

The easy answer is, of course, that Timothy's responsibilities were of such monumental import that he could afford the distraction of an Earthly family even less than the bishops or elders of the congregation could.  That argument would indeed close the book on the question, but I am not in the habit of settling for the easy answer.  I am reminded of the persistent hints, both textual and historical, that Paul may have been fighting against his own homosexuality.  The evidence for such a supposition is embarassingly circumstantial, but let us wonder what it would mean were it true.  It certainly does not seem much of a stretch to suppose that Timothy was in a similar struggle, and the their mutual war against the flesh is responsible, not only for their close bond, but also for Paul's rather pointed and public admonition.

1:7 And this reading would dovetail nicely with Paul's emphasis on self-discipline here.

1:12 Referent malfunction.  What is "that day"? there is no day mentioned here.  I am going to make an educated guess and suppose that Paul is referring to the imminent day of his own death.

1:18 Well, so much for that interpretation.  this usage of "that day" is clearly not with any reference to Paul's death.  I guess we will have to assume that Paul is referring to the so-called Judgement day in a way for which Timothy would need no explanation.

2:4-7 Paul seems to be talking in code here.  What would be the "first share" to which he refers here, seemingly indicating that Timothy's reward will be greater than that given to others.  And why does Paul then cryptically tell Timothy to let the Lord tell him what this means?

2:11-13 I am always interested to know from where Paul is quoting whenever he says something like this.  It's not from the gospels anywhere that I recognize.  I am especially curious in this case, because of the interesting turn at the end.  Following the parallel structure that Paul so often enjoys, we might expect the last stanza to read "If we are faithless, he will be faithless toward us", but it does not.  In which case, Paul seems to be using "faith" in the rather narrow sense of "belief in a god".  If that interpretation holds, then this verse is merely a cute aphorism.  But if faithfulness is being used in the more broad sense of "acting with good intent", then this becomes a piece of interesting theology--although it would then contradict the preceding verse, so I don't know that I can really support such a view. Never mind. This is a liveblog, so my ramblings don't always lead anywhere . . .

2:14 Paul, you seem to be reading my mind!  I was just now "wrangling over words" as you say. 

2:17 Okay, so here is a quandary.  This resurrection has not been a central part of Paul's teaching, at least in the portions of it that have been preserved by history.  So the fact that Hymenaeus and Philetus are censured for contradicting what is treated as an established doctrine makes one wonder what exactly the doctrine was.  Even today, most religions have very different ideas about what resurrection means.  What was Paul's exact take?  Whatever it was, it was evidently established enough that he could disown specific individuals for contradicting it.

2:25 I don't know that Paul has followed his own admonition to correct opponents with gentleness here . . .

3:5 This has always been an interesting verse to me.  What exactly does it mean to deny the power of godliness, or, in the translation I grew up with, to have a form of godly devotion, but to prove false to its power. I suppose one interpretation could be offered to the effect that such people don't allow the power of the gospel to transform them from the inside out, and I suppose that's as good as any.

3:6 "captivating silly women" is certainly a nice turn of phrase here, if emblematic of Paul's underlying misogyny

3:16 One of my favorite circular arguments.  All scripture is inspired of God, and benefical for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight," in the translation I grew up with, not much different from the NISV here.  But is this book included in the appelation "scripture"?  If so, it's hardly a credible witness. . .

4:6 again, I find this verse unaccountably touching and poetic. 

4:13 What could possibly be important about this cloak such that it needs to be brought to Rome from Ephesus.  Even with the conveniences of modern travel, such a trip wouldn't be worth it . . .

In all, I enjoyed this book far more than its prequel.  Thematically consistent, by turns poetic and strident, and genuinely touching.  Timothy and Paul were lucky to have each other, whatever their relationship.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Ok, I'm beginning to realize that the AFI really only has one criterion when it comes to selection.  It doesn't really matter whether the film is characterized by a brilliant script, visionary direction and riveting performances.  The only thing that really matters is the title.

To be more specific, what seems to matter is what the title evokes in people.  This is a combination of the film's reputation and the niche it fills in film history.  For example, The General, while not a great film on the whole, instantly brings to mind groundbreaking camerawork and silent film slapstick.  Important from both a technical and a historical viewpoint, onto the list it goes.

In the case of Mr. Smith, the title evokes, especially in people who may have never seen the movie, a sense of national pride, of belief in the political system, and especially the knowledge of what a filibuster is for.  In short, it has to some degree affected the political consciousness of the country, and so onto the list it goes.  It's too bad, though, because it is terrible.  From the blunt soundtrack to the flimsy script to the positively incompetent editing, this movie is from beginning to end a stinker.  The first five minutes are all you need to see what I mean, as the entire movie can be deduced from those painfully recited scenes. 

However, if I seem to resent AFI's choice of such terrible material to represent American film, I take solace in the fact that such prisms of unimpeachable quality as City Lights and Apocalypse Now remain on the list.  I'm still stunned by the quality of those films, so best to end on that note . . .

Apocalypse Now

I don't like war films. There always seems to be a lot of "Hoohah!" and "Fuck yeah!" and nonsense about glory and honor and bravery, none of which means very much to me in that context.  To me, there's more bravery and glory in the simple act of getting out of bed in the morning than in taking a machine gun and blowing shit up.  For that reason such favorites as Rambo and Top Gun don't just leave me cold, I actively hate them. Is there really anything enjoyable in that sort of macho nonsense?  Not for me.

Which is why I am surprised to be writing that Apocalypse Now may very well be the greatest movie I've ever seen.  Nothing about it felt affected or pretentious, and that sort of epic often deteriorates into a masturbatory spectacle.  The performances were impeccable, every last one, to the extent that I often wondered if there was even a script at all.  Certain of the soldiers' monologues especially struck me as uncommonly honest.  Of course, Coppola's camerawork and vision were also spot on, and the overall result was an immensely satisfying ambiguity that kept it far away from anything didactic. 

It is a bonus to my marginally literary mindset that it was not only flawless as a movie, but also literate, weaving in elements of Conrad and Eliot without making those things the centerpiece of the film.  I am pressing my mind to think of a "however", some point that was less than perfect, but I have nothing.  It was a masterpiece of film, and of literature.

이문열: 우리들의 일그러진 영웅

미국에서는 Huckleberry Finn이나 Lord of the Flies이란 책 시민의 80% 이상이 읽었으니까 그 책들을 읽어야 미국을 이해할 수 있다.  그래서 제가 한국을 이해하기 위해 친구에게 "중하생들 모두다 읽어야 하는 책은 무엇이냐"고 물었다.  답은 "우리들의 일그러진영웅"이었다. 

그 책을 읽기 시작했을 때는 벙역 없이 약 10%를 이해할 수 있었다.  한국어 실력이 노파질수록 이해하기가 더 쉬워졌지만 오늘 읽은 마지막 쪽을 50%밖에 이해 못 했다.  아쉽게도 중학생의 수준이 아닌 것 같는다. 

그래도 번역 덕분에 이 첵은 한국 사회를 잘 표시하는 지를 알게 되었다.  다른 독자가 다르게 생각할 수 있지만 제 생각은 엄속대가 일본을 비유하며 문제를 해결한 담임선생님은 미국.  전 미국을 존경하기 때문 아니라 오하려 미국은 별로 좋지 않다고 생각하는 만큼 담임선생님의 해결 방법을 승인하지 않는다.  그래도 한극의 해방에 데한 비유로 이 책만 할 것이 없다고 생각한다.

Philip K. Dick: Galactic Pot Healer

I have long held Dick to in my holy trinity of Sci Fi writers, alongside Vonnegut and Asimov, but this books really serves to highlight the ways in which he can't hold his own alongside the other two.  As always, in Pot-Healer he is observant, profound and very nearly clarivoyant, but as in most of his other works the structure and plot are just sloppy enough that it loses something.  In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I found myself giving him that benefit of the doubt that we sometimes grant out of instinct when a book is generally well regarded, and assumed that the inconsistencies or strange, misplaced beats were purposeful and woven into the overall theme somehow.  Unlike in Sheep, however, those moments were so prevalent in Pot-Healer that I can't bring myself to give Dick the same kind of credit here.

Which is a shame, because he managed to put something into words that I really love:

"What do I really yearn for? he asked himself.  That for which oral gratification is a surrogate. Something vast, he decided; he felt the primordial hunger gape, huge-jawed, as if to cannibalize everything around him.  To place what was outside inside."

This is exactly my experience.  I love to eat, drink, kiss, bite, swallow, anything one can do with one's mouth.  And it is exactly as Dick details: the desire to consume, to somehow be bigger and exterior to something else.  I also happen to have the obverse urge as well:  to sing, fart, belch, talk, yell and otherwise put what was part of me outside of myself, to somehow make my nature part of the greater order.  And so I have a blog.

1 Timothy

1:2 In addition to Paul's usual wishes of grace and mercy, he adds a blessing of mercy here.  An interesting choice.  What could have transpired in Timothy's life to make Paul perceive a need for mercy?

1:3 and also what were they teaching in Ephesus, such that Paul felt Timothy's presence there was needed?  His letter to them didn't have the same warnings as certain other letters, and I found it mostly warm and uplifting, rather than admonitory.

1:4,7 His reference to genealogies and law makes me wonder if there wasn't a problem with Judaizers, such as he observed in other congregations.

1:16 Oh, this is elegant.  Paul tiintroduced the idea of mercy ever so gently in his introduction, no doubt with the intention to develop it more fully here--but not as expected! 

1:18 Here's another interesting bit of trivia.  Evidently Paul received prophecies specifically with regard to Timothy's role.  Could they be the very visions that he hinted at in his letter to the Ephesians, thus prompting him to station Timothy there?

1:20 And what does Paul mean by turning these two "over to Satan"?  Simply that he has given up on them, in which case how could he possibly hope that they would "learn not to blaspheme", or is there some more complex metaphysical dynamic at work here?

2:2 Paul's first direction to Timothy is pretty bland.  He asks for prayers that the authorities will leave them alone. 

2:5 From where is Paul quoting here?

2:12 Paul's doctrine here not only grates, but it does not hold water.  He speaks from his own authority, saying "I permit no woman to teach" instead of indicating that the directive comes from any higher source, but the usual source of Paul's authority--his sound logic and theology--does not hold up here.  He cites as his reason that the woman was deceived and not Adam, but does that no make Adam more culpable than Eve?

3:1-13 Paul's qualifications for Bishop and Deacon are interesting, insofar as there is so little space between them.  The main difference is that Bishops musn't be new converts for fear of being "puffed up with conceit".  Is that really the only difference?  Seniority?

3:16 I'm really curious whether Paul is quoting something here, or lapsing into verse.  If the former, from where is he quoting?  If the latter, is it any good?

4:1 And here's the meat of his theology for this book.  The preceding directives are merely organizational in nature, but here he hits on the real point of his writing: that some are adding unnecessary proscriptions to the message.  He calls it hypocrisy, though I don't know if that's accurate unless they themselves are taking wives and forbidding other to.  At any rate, it makes the point of his outlining the qualifications for leadership clear.  In Ch. 3 he makes a point of saying that deacons and bishops are not forbidden to marry, but they should in fact be married--only once.

5:2 This is not the first time Paul has reminded Timothy to remain chaste.  I'm not clear on his standards here.  If Timothy decided to get married, would it not fall in line with the qualifications set out in Ch. 3?

5:9 What list?  The list of "actual widows"? 

5:12 So a widow remarrying is proscripted?

5:19 this is an interesting translation of a familiar verse.  In my upbringing, testimony from two or more witnesses was required in all cases.  In this translation, it is only against elders that such heightened burden of proof is warranted.

5:24 I really like this verse.  Indeed, some people sins (and good works, for that matter) follow them to the grave, others precede them there.

6:16  Wait a minute, hasn't Paul himself claimed to have seen Christ? 

Man, this whole thing just doesn't feel like Paul to me.  The faulty logic, the poetic interludes, the seeming inconsistencies.  I just don't feel the same voice here.

Unforgiven and The Grapes of Wrath

I didn't originally set out to place these two movies back to back, but I watched them in succession, so naturally the parallels stick out in my mind.  To be specific, both movies focus on a likeable, if rough protagonist, who is laboring to deal with his past mistakes in the American West.  Both movies were enjoyable and orth the time, but the successes of Unforgiven made the two minor weaknesses in Grapes of Wrath a bit more clear.

Firstly, I had a problem with John Ford's pacing and editing in Grapes of Wrath.  I couldn't tell what was so offputting about his transitions at first, but little scenes like focusing on a sign that said "Welcome to Arizona" for a few seconds before cutting to the next bit of plot development just jarred me.  Would it have been so difficult to just have that sign pass by while we were observing something else?  Did it really need it's own shot?  And he did that sort of thing a lot.  Even the scenes that propelled the plot felt popped out of a kit and lain next to each other instead of fitting together like a puzzle. 

Watching Unforgiven next made me realize exactly what was missing in Ford's equation.  Having observed this fault in GOW, I was watching for it and was surprised to realize that Eastwood did the same sort of piecing together, but it wasn't nearly so jarring.  What was the magic ingredient?  The soundtrack.  The presence of a piece of music lain over a series of potentially jarring scene cuts just made me more comfortable, and my mind was fooled into thinking that there were appropriate transitions.  Which makes one wonder, did Ford just not like using music, or was it not yet the cinematic convention that it is now? 

That minor greivance aside, both movies were well worth their place on the AFI's 100 films list, largely with the help of superb performances all around.  Hats off to Henry Fonda for making a potential didactic character quite lovable. 

한국 문화 77

Paul Nation 언어학자가 효과적인 두번째 언어 습득 프로그렘은 가닥 네개가 있다고 한다.  먼저, 의미에 치중하는 입력이 필요하며, 그다음에 언어에 치중하는 이력, 유창성의 연습, 의미에 치중하는 출력이 순이다.  그 네 가지중에 의미에 치중하는 입력의 부족을 여겨 그 부족을 보원하기 위해 이 쉬운 책을 읽었다. 

의미에 치중 하는 입력이란 세로운 무법, 어휘 별로 없어서 무선 뜻이 있는지에 치중할 수 있는 내용을 말한다.  배우는 게 별로 없으나 유창성, 정확성에 큰 더움이 된다.  따라서 읽으면서 배우는 느낌 아니라 습득하는 느낌을 받았다.  이런 학습 덕분에 한국어 실력이 높아지고 있지 않는가?

Kurt Vonnegut: Bluebeard

Up until the last page of this book, I knew exactly what I was going to write about it.  I was going to say that, in spite of having taken the laziest possible route for an author, vonnegut managed to stitch together something that was enjoyable, inventive,and occassionally insightful.

But that last page.

In it Vonnegut reveals that (although I still feel he did it the easy way) he has been developing to it's logical, glorious conclusion, an idea that he stumbled across years earlier in Breakfast of Champions: that at the core of every human, there is an unwavering band of light. I believe this with all my heart, that something at the core of this sack of meat animates it, and makes it worth more than hamburger.  Something not only more valuable, but more resilient than my meat is inside, pulsing with vitality and light, and furthermore the same is true of every other meat bag out there.  If I could just stop looking at the garbage sacks that they walk around in, and notice the neon tube at the core of every other human, how happy I and they would be!  Oh happy meat! Oh happy soul!  Oh happy Brandon!