MI CASA, SU CASA
Kelly
Jane Torrance writes in the 25 August Washington
Times:
[Quinceañera
is a] surprising film [that] reminds us of an
oft-overlooked facet of American social reality: Many
recent Hispanic immigrants tend to embrace a more
traditional view of morality -- particularly sexual
morality -- than most Americans. Thus, there's a certain
irony -- one not lost on the filmmakers -- in the
anti-immigration stance of some conservatives.
Well, it might be ironic if this facet reflected
reality (which it doesn't: see here
and here)
and if this false claim were oft-overlooked (just ask
Jorge "Family
values don't stop at the Rio Grande"
Bush).
Further on, Miss Torrance gets to the deracinated heart
of the matter:
The filmmakers ... are clearly
in love with Latino [sic] culture. The repeated
sensual [sic] shots of Mexican-American cuisine are
just one manifestation.
Once again, the obiter dicta. I'd sooner believe
in a second Virgin Birth than that the pro-immigration
argument is ultimately about anything other than food. Muy
caliente!
'Give me your tired, your poor, your
gastronomically-vibrant
masses just dripping with delicious salsa ...'
Kevin
Michael Grace, 3.49 am, 25 August 2006►
THE DOUBTFUL GUEST(S)
Seems like every time Jeremy Lott visits he suffers
some injury. You see, when he had last come to Victoria
... (I won't go into it, because it irks Prot something
awful, but if you know how to use Google or my own handy
Picosearch feature -- keywords: New Year's Eve -- you can
find it easily enough.)
The 27-year-old bicoastal libertarian dynamo came to
see me again two weeks ago wearing a T-shirt proclaiming
he'd just shot a clown. I warned him of the terrible
karmic consequences of this provocation, and the frosty
reception he got from Canada Customs should have given him
a clue, but did he listen?
Jeremy got the bedroom, while I slept on the
living-room couch. Which is where my phone rang at quarter
to seven Saturday morning. I swore foully in response. It
was Jeremy from the bedroom on his cell. "Could you
come in here, please?" This did not sound
promising. I considered the possibilities. Had he managed
to destroy the bedding, à la Jim Dixon? A dark
night of the soul prolonged beyond sunrise, perhaps? No,
just a severe attack of torticollis.
But our 48 hours together wasn't all paralysis,
chiropractic searches and forced marches. (Estimated total
ambling: 18 miles.) Jeremy was quite taken with our Spirit
Bears in the City promotion. I had been
somewhat ambivalent about this manifestation of civic
pride, but after seeing Jeremy giving bear after bear a
friendly rap on the nose, I decided I like
them. Others disagree. After several were damaged, Monday
magazine suggested that the culprits were more likely not
vandals but instead art lovers.
What do you think?
Nightmares Bear: No metaphor intended
Despite his many and various kindnesses to me, Jeremy's
new book has not been mentioned in this space. Now I am
mentioned in the acknowledgements, so this might sound
like logrolling, but you really should snap up a copy of In
Defense Of Hypocrisy. It is a
thought-provoking and compelling read.
More logrolling: Jeremy's book
blog is being guest-hosted by our shared,
multitalented and equally kind friend Kevin Steel. He came
to visit last month and I am pleased to report departed
free of injury. Although perhaps a little disappointed.
Before we set out for Tofino, I had enticed him with
promises of nude, acid-besotted, moon-worshipping Wiccans.
The reality was somewhat more prosaic. On the other hand,
the view from the motel was positively psychedelic, and
the on the road back we did see ruminants on top of a
restaurant.
Tofino: Flicka, flicka, flicka, blam, pow
Coombs: Goat, goats, goats on the roof
Kevin
Michael Grace, 4.14 am, 24 August 2006►
THAT SINKING FEELING
"As a convinced free-marketeer ..." So begins
a paragraph
by David Rennie in the 23 August Daily Telegraph.
It doesn't take a psychic to know that whatever
declaration follows this admission will be wholly
destructive of society. As it turns out, Rennie's
declaration calls for Britain to admit defeat on the issue
of wholesale
migration of illegal workers from the
European Union:
I must admit to moral qualms
about welcoming people to live in my country, then turning
them into criminals, just because they want to work for a
living.
I could point that toleration of great numbers of
illegal workers (in Britain as in everywhere else) makes
it much more difficult for citizens to work for a living
(or receive a "living wage") and results in
greatly increased crime,
dislocation, "racism," etc, etc. But Rennie and
his merry band of "free-marketeers" know this
already. The point is, they don't care.
Much as I admire Edward
Luttwak, his coinage "turbo-capitalism"
is already superannuated. Turbo-capitalism is capitalism,
just as "neoconservatism" is conservatism.
"Capitalism" (or the "free market")
now means enslavement to a ineluctable abstraction, while
"conservatism" exists solely to facilitate by
any means necessary the universal imposition of
capitalism's non-negotiable demand of unconditional
surrender.
So the question isn't whether "conservatives"
can "work
with" "free-marketeers,"
"capitalists," "libertarians" and
other such tribunes of pitiless ideology. The question is
how those that believe in God and human dignity can
extricate themselves from the "conservative
movement." Failing that, I would suggest we abandon
politics as a mug's game and learn to cultivate our own
gardens.
The 'capitalist' dream
Kevin
Michael Grace, 11.14 pm, 22 August 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
It is unfortunate for the
Republican Party that loyalty to conservative causes has
been linked with George W. Bush. I have a friend, an
evangelical pastor, who says it's much worse in churches,
where a year or two ago, if he ever questioned what George
Bush did, his faith in God was questioned!
-- Joe
Scarborough
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.05 pm, 22 August 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Strategic bombing has been a
failed military concept for ninety years, and yet air
forces all over the world keep on doing it.
-- John
Arquilla, quoted in "Watching
Lebanon: Washington's Interests In Israel's War,"
Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker, 21 August 2006
Kevin
Michael Grace, 11.57 pm, 18 August 2006►
VERISIMILITUDE
Saw Matt Dillon on The Daily Show yesterday. He
was, of course, plugging his new movie, which at I first
assumed was You, Me And Dupree. Instead, he was
plugging his new new movie, which, strangely enough, is a
year old, an "edgy" "indie" flick
called Factotum.
Watched the clip, which involved a middle-aged
ne'er-do-well being forcibly evicted from his parents's
home. Turns out Factotum refers to the Charles
Bukowski roman-à-clef of the same
name, and Matt was essaying none other than Henry Chinaski
himself.
So when the KMG biopic is released, should we expect Alec
Baldwin in the lead? It goes without saying
that Paul
Giamatti was the obvious choice for
Bukowski/Chinaski, but obvious choices are obvious for a
reason. Matt Dillon is ridiculously handsome and remains
so in Factotum, despite the beard and the reddish sheen applied
to his face, while Bukowski was a gargoyle. The importance
of this cannot be overstated. The cystic
acne which with Bukowski was afflicted was
so grotesque as to be the determining factor in his life.
It could hardly be otherwise, and only a sentimentalist
could disagree.
Of Bukowski it must be said that he is proof, if proof
is needed, that beauty (or the lack of it) is not
skin deep. One hesitates to belabour a man so ill-favoured
by the gods, but Bukowski was as ugly on the inside as on
the outside, and his books, while often funny and
insightful, are ultimately vicious and immoral. He is
frequently compared to Louis-Ferdinand
Céline, but this won't wash. Yes, they
both wrote thinly-disguised autobiographies, but Céline's
life was rather more interesting, and for all his faults,
Céline raged at more than his own wretchedness. His books
are funnier too. And he was, and the importance of this
cannot be overstated, a rather
handsome man.
But all this is merely an excuse for me to tell my Matt
Dillon story. About 20 years ago, I'm in a tavern in the
Bowery, then in the earliest stage of yuppification, when
the star of Rumble Fish strolls in. One of my NYC
acquaintances starts raging against Rusty James, making
the absurd and clearly defamatory claim that he is wont to
pick fights with strangers and then sic his bodyguards on
them. I don't remember whether Matt had any male minders
with him that night, but I do remember it was raining so
hard that everyone inside had been soaked to the skin.
Matt had just sat down at the bar when a yummy blonde
sidles up to him and murmurs in his ear. Immediately
thereafter, despite the downpour, Matt and Ms Yummy leave
together. They return together 10 minutes later, then
separate immediately and for the rest of the evening. Whatever could
they have been up to?
Bukowski, Dillon: Separated at birth?
Kevin
Michael Grace, 12.46 am, 18 August 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Rules for social behavior don't
exist to control people, but rather to make everyone
feel comfortable. I think we've all been in a
situation where, say, you're eating a cheeseburger at
Hamburger Habit and the sun is shining and the birds are
singing and the boy you like called you and your skinny
jeans fit and all is right in the world. And you look at
the table across from you, and a woman is sitting there in
too tight low-rise jeans and SERIOUSLY? You can see her entire
butt and thong. And I guarantee you what happens next:
every girl at your table reaches back to make sure that
her own derriere hasn't made a break for it, everyone then
quietly wonders if she can't feel the draft, and then
everyone can't stop looking at her thong, but not in a hot
way. In, like, a "should I TELL her that her thong is
hanging out, or is she doing that on purpose?" kind
of way. And then she leaves and everyone is relived.
So save us some social angst,
ladies who like to flash your panties on purpose, and cut
it out. Because of you, none of us know whether or not the
girl at Hamburger Habit is thonging it up on purpose or
not, and therefore, we are unable to decide if it would be
sisterly to hand her a sweater to tie around her waist, or
if that would insult her. And all we really wanted was a
cheeseburger.
-- Heather & Jessica, GoFugYourself.com
Lowriser: A peek too far
Kevin
Michael Grace, 11.18 pm, 17 August 2006►
