Between Dignity and Despair – First Impressions
I didn’t like this book very much. I thought it was a rather unique book at first, as Marion Kaplan compiled a bunch of anecdotes from Holocaust survivors together and fitted them into this book, giving us a truly realistic and personal view of the Jewish life in Nazi Germany.
The anecdotes are heartbreaking, touching and celebratory all at once. You cheer when you read a German standing up to a Nazi soldier during the 1933 Jewish boycott, or Germans insisting on continuing their friendships with Jewish friends. And then there are stories of Jewish women having to perform sexual favours in order to get their immigration papers, or how Jews were slowly excluded from the most basic of clubs. It’s incredibly interesting to read, and the glimpse into Jewish life is fascinating and truly different from a normal ‘historic’ book.
The problem is Kaplan won’t stop hammering it in on how ‘brutal’ or ‘cruel’ or ‘painful’ it was for the Jewish people. Kaplan uses the word ‘brutal’ 4 times in 3 paragraphs, and by the end of the Introduction(!) I was already screaming ‘Yes, I know Jewish life was painful; everyone knows that, so stop using all these loaded words!’ Kaplan doesn’t need to tell us that it was horrible to live in Germany in the 1930s; the anecdotes she collected speak volumes already.
The way she writes is weak, and the anecdotes are the only things that hold this book together. Firstly, for all her attempts to show that the Jewish experiences were diverse, she does a fantastic job in colouring the German side the same shade of evil. All Germans – be it a civilian or a member of the SS – behave the same. There are the occasional hopeful stories, but it seems like the Germans are never human. They are simply grouped into a single word – ‘Germans’. Coupled with the loaded words Kaplan loves to scatter in what moments she can spare between anecdotes, the whole thing just smacks of bias.
Granted, Kaplan writes the book wholly from the viewpoint of the victims in Nazi Germany, and after some thought, I could let the German homogeneity and loaded words slide. What I cannot forgive, however, is speculation, and getting horrendously biased sources.
At times Kaplan attempts to give us a brief summary of the events that happened in a certain year, and the aftermath of said event. No historian in their right mind can ever say “Well, I have no sources on this, but I can say that…” You can’t do that. You are not a historian if you speculate on events that you have no proof for. Kaplan, unfortunately, speculates so eagerly and explicitly, and she actually used the phrase “There are no sources, but…” She seems to want to capitalize on the Jewish suffering so badly she winds up adding on more theories of how Jews suffered when she even lacks the evidence for it. I can assure you that the lack of proof is not going to add on my sympathy for what happened in the 1930s. It makes me pissed that I’m reading a completely biased source and now I have to take all the anecdotes I read with a grain of salt.
Also, getting data from German sources about almost anything Jewish in the 1930s would be biased. Percentages will be skewed, attempting to show progress, or just for propaganda. The same thing can be said for Jewish sources. Isn’t there a possibility that the percentages might have overinflated? I can’t remember which year the data was published, but either way, there is a possibility that it might be biased, simply because you’re taking Jewish data for Jewish suffering in WWII. There isn’t any comparison to German sources or even independent sources for balance. I cannot just take Jewish sources as fact and leave it there. Once again, Kaplan seems to want to bludgeon us on the head with the phrase ‘THE JEWS SUFFERED IN WWII!’
I KNOW. IT HURTS BAD, AND YOU’RE NOT EXACTLY HELPING MY SYMPATHY ANY.
I don’t think Kaplan wanted this to be a historical or accurate source. She has provided us with anecdotes, and we all know how tricky the memory can be. I can accept that, but when Kaplan switches to a summary of events that everyone knows (translation: turns historian), takes percentages from biased sources and conjures theories out of thin air, I have reason to disbelieve anything she says.
Chinese and Japanese
It’s so cold I have a headache. Ow.
Okay, time to wail about where this post (and its responses) went wrong. I tried to let the thing slide into ‘I forgot’ territory, since my attention span is the equivalent of a retarded bunny, but I forgot to disable emailing comments. So I got this comment in my inbox today, and I’m going to complain.
(Summary: Some chick decides Japanese and Chinese are pronounced the same, and assumes different pronunciations = two different names. Other people agree, also throwing in the fact that one’s name stays the same between languages. German, Spanish and English are a few of the languages that are used for comparison. In short, nobody believes that, in Chinese, Sakura’s name is ‘xiao ying’. Everyone thinks it should be just Sakura, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron).
1. My language is not your language.
It was rather shocking to see the amount of arrogance and assumptions everyone had in thinking Chinese and Japanese were pronounced the same and calling other people morons for thinking otherwise, or that Chinese was part of some odd universal language law that said people’s names stay the same when crossing between the language barrier.
Yes, throw in German/English, Spanish/English, Language learned in high school/English as your basis for comparison. Hey, if GERMAN/SPANISH/LLIHS does that, then it means EVERY LANGUAGE does it too!
No, it does not. Coming from a community that has already shown itself to accept that every single rule is subjective (even with topics of incest, bestiality and rape), it just made me wonder how on earth they managed to lump languages under one single umbrella with a Universal Rule to rule them all. Even English in itself doesn’t follow its own rules; why should every language need to have something in common?
The problem lies with the Japanese kanji and Chinese characters. Chinese does romanize (or Chinesefy?) English names, but the Japanese kanji creates a new rule altogether. Kanji is, essentially, traditional Chinese. Some phrasing has changed over the… decades? Millennium? (like how the kanji for ‘teacher’ are the Chinese characters for ’sir’), but regardless, kanji names are still pronounced the Chinese way when speaking in Chinese, simply because they are Chinese characters.
They are not different names. Simply because the kanji characters are pronounced differently doesn’t mean they’re two unique names with no relation to each other. Think Latin and English. In Latin, the endings of names change depending on their case, but in English it stays the same. They’re still the same person, even though they have like, 4 different versions of their names. (For the record, I took Latin too, so I have the relevant knowledge to make this parallel).
2. No one is a moron. Only you.
Go ahead and backpedal by saying the Japanese/English speakers don’t pick up on the different intonations, so for some reason, the rant is still valid(???), but that makes you look more of the moron. You don’t know for sure if the Japanese can pick them up – you’re not a native Japanese speaker. I learned both Japanese and Chinese (and Latin, hee), I can tell the difference, and that is the limit of my experience. Don’t overstep your boundaries by proclaiming that no one can tell the difference just because you – the native English speaker – can’t.
And yet again, I see projection all over. I find it incredibly infuriating when people assume things they don’t know about applies to everyone else at large, and think themselves knowledgeable when they draw parallels between languages that don’t actually exist. Look, if you don’t know the language and how it works, don’t draw parallels, because you don’t know what the other line actually looks like.
I think it will be extremely heartening to see people rein this this psychological mindset when talking to a public. I too, like to submit to projection when making snarky remarks, but not in terms of making logical arguments that will be judged by the public, in which this rant obviously did. Said person ignored my comments and continued her tirade of ribbing the fanfic author whom she was complaining about.
The lack of knowledge in people isn’t what bothers me. It’s the assumption of knowledge that creates this horrid atmosphere of ignorance and arrogance.
In short: Don’t rant about languages you know nothing about.
Moral Relativism
Having someone call me a ‘moralfag’ the other day made me wonder about my position on moral relativism. I’ve always held the position that nothing is inherently good or evil – it completely depends on the social situation and culture. Gwen and I had a pretty long discussion about that for her Philosophy 101 class, and she was arguing on the side of absolutism while I was on relativism. The people who interviewed me at SMU a long time ago were also Not Happy on my views of relativism. They mentioned something about paedophilia but in my anxiety, I cannot remember what nonsense I spouted in defense of relativism.
Anyway, there was an argument raised against moral relativism that I read about quite recently. Abolishment of slavery can be considered moral progress, but according to relativist theory, Lincoln was a bad man, because he acted against the cultural norms of his era.
I’m not quite sure what to think of this. Lincoln was unpopular in the South at the time, and he was certainly seen as a bad man for freeing slaves. Right now we see abolishment of slavery as moral progress, but that itself lends to the argument that morals are relative in differing cultures (or eras).
Consider the reasons why slavery is a bad thing. It subjugates an entire race; it inflicts pain and suffering; it results in social classes; it causes discrimination. Yet, all these can be argued. Stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination are automatic processes in our brains, and it is the social norms that prevent us from actively discriminating. The obligatory question is then ‘why is discrimination a bad thing’? Why do we consider equality as important? If equality is so important, why aren’t we all turning Communist? Why did countries that adopted Communism fail, then? This then lends itself to the even bigger question of the social structures in any given country and the psychology of people… which is mind-boggling, frankly.
What is more concrete, however, is pain and suffering. Pain is the body’s way of telling to GET THE FUCK OUT OF WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING (BDSM not included). It’s then quite natural that removing human-inflicted suffering from an entire race of people is considered ‘good’.
If so, then isn’t there some things that are inherently good? Removing pain is good, inflicting pain is bad? The body that reacts negatively to something (universally) is considered bad? However, pain doesn’t quite answer the morals of more abstract things, like copyright infringement… and other things that doesn’t cause physical damage.
I get the feeling that copyright infringement or theft of property hearkens back to the ages when food was scarce, and people had to barter for goods. Any sort of theft meant a lower chance of survival. I’m sure this is pretty much the evolutionary theory of something, and any type of evolutionary theory, in my experience, is a load of hogwash.
Are constructs of the human mind then supposed to be considered morally good or bad? Are there things that everyone in the entire world universally share? Expression of feelings, like smiling and anger, seem to be shared by many different cultures and are considered universal… does the same go for moral values?
Anyway, I should read up more on moral relativism. I shouldn’t be so clueless about this when I’m in support of it.
The Little Mermaid on Broadway
Having watched a boot of the Little Mermaid on Broadway, I managed to catch about 10 minutes of it before the audio syncing issues really got to me and I stopped. I’m sorry, but judging from those first 10 minutes (and intermittent glimpses of other scenes) I can’t help but feel like we’ve been shortchanged by having this nonsense on stage in place of Beauty and the Beast.
The first scene that I managed to get through was, quite predictably, ‘Fathoms Below’. You have an enormous, cheesy looking ship with blue chiffon at the bottom which are supposed to be waves. It felt like watching a bunch of high school kids doing a musical with a larger than average budget. I think they tried to make Eric look handsome by giving him a baggy shirt that shows off his chest every once in a while, but not with that hair (they gave Eric long hair, and in an attempt to keep some resemblance to the animated version, they decided to curl his fringe. He just looked hilarious).
Anyway, after the song, there’s dialogue. Eric talks of wanting to meet the girl of his dreams, the princely life is not for him, etc etc. His friends dissuade him, etc etc. Ariel’s disjointed voice then echoes from the speakers.
Then Eric goes, and I quote: “Follow that voice; to the ends of the earth if you have to!”
I burst out laughing when I heard that. Yeah, face treacherous waters, get shipwrecked, and have all your men drown because of a funny sounding voice you heard 5 seconds ago? Not happening.
I remember reading an article somewhere about TLM wanting to be more Italian(?) Opera-ish in terms of design and costuming. I’m not sure when that got kicked in the head, because the costumes look awful. Everything’s a shiny mess of sequins and satin, Ariel’s tail sticks out of her butt and looks like it was constructed for the Ghost Lantern Festival, Ursula’s tentacles are wires for an oversized wedding dress, and I’m not sure what they did with poor Sebastian. I think my eyes may have tricked me, but I think they gave Sebastian a Persian hat with eyeballs sticking out of it.
As usual, the singers do a brilliant job, which isn’t surprising, seeing as this is a Broadway musical and Disney’s loaded with cash to hire said brilliant singers. What I was disappointed though, was the orchestrations for ‘Her Voice’ (the only song which I played through, next to ‘Fathoms Below’). Maybe I’ve been too used to the Concept Cast Recording, but the full orchestra took the mystic and romance away somewhat. It became just another loud, bombastic, kitschy song about love. There’s nothing ethereal about it anymore, and that aspect was something which I greatly loved about that song. I thought if they’d just keep it to that simple piano melody and throw in a couple of violins it’ll do just fine. It’s a minimalistic song, not a ‘Kiss the Girl’ remake!
Of course, take this at face value, given that I am a huge Beauty and the Beast fan, and TLM might have bittered my view somewhat. Also, I probably watched this about a month ago, so my memory will definitely play tricks on me. But whatever. I thought I should get this out.
ETA: Apparently the NY Times didn’t like it either.
Lair: First Impressions
Save for the fact that my cousins got me this game, everything else about it is crap, at least for the first 5 missions, because that was where I stopped. Lair is set in a fantasy-medieval era, where the Uruk-hai, sorry, Mokai are at war with the Asylians because of some volcano that blew up both their homelands and they decided to blame each other for it. You control Rohn, an elite member of the Asylian Sky Guard, which basically means that you sit on a dragon and let your pet do the fighting for you.
Factor 5 attempted to shoehorn the SixAxis’s motion sensor function by making the entire game control that way. In order to navigate your dragon around, the controller has to physically tilt left/right or up/down. It feels like they were rejected for developing the game for the Wii and they decided to project it onto the PS3 instead, with disastrous results. The controls are extremely sensitive, yet horrendously inaccurate. A brief tilt downwards would send my dragon diving to the bottom, and at one point, when I tilted my controller left, the dragon wound up going right. Maybe the up/down function messed with the left/right controls or something, so I suppose my controller was pointing UP while I was tilting LEFT, which probably made the dragon very confused, and decided to go RIGHT instead.
The whole ‘wrist-flick’ maneuvers were horrendous as well. Apparently if you want to make a 180 degree turn, you have to flick the controller… upwards? Not that the odd directional positioning mattered, at any rate. I was never able to flick my controller fast enough, and sometimes the dragon would make a speed dash instead, which put me even further away from where I was supposed to be.
I won’t gripe about the believability of the wide turns, but in essence, it’s a horrendous thing to navigate with when you’re in battle. There’s a dragon on your right! Okay, tuuuuurn… take your time, whatever. By that time you’ve actually lined that enemy up in your sight, he’s firebombed you and disappeared. The wide turns got even more annoying at the end of the last mission I played, which was killing off enemies on a straight, tiny bridge. Doing turns on that bridge was a nightmare.
It was incredibly hard to do accurate navigation, as a result. On one occasion I had to navigate my way through an arch, and apparently I didn’t dip low enough or a wing wasn’t in range of the hole or whatever, so I wound up bouncing off the damned architecture and had to circle my way around it instead. I was subsequently accosted by the wide turn problem again, where I had to fly off into the distance in order to properly position myself and come back facing the right direction.
After I had firebombed the dragon quota, they sent in a bunch of ‘Tauros’ on the bridge, and I was supposed to wipe them out. This was where the fault of the lock-on system came into play. I could not get a proper lock on any of the tiny Tauros on the bridge. The computer did the locking-on for me, and half the time I would swoop near a Tauros only to realize the computer had targeted a nearby catapult instead, and I would be faced with a big brick wall while the camera tried to get back into place. Other times had me attempting to target the Dark dragons, and having hit the ‘dive’ button, I would suddenly swoop 50 miles away from the bridge to target some shitty ice dragon. I then had to do the laborious wide turn and then fly all the way back, while my allies were shouting at what a moron I was for leaving the battleground.
The bugs in this game are of mention, seeing as bugs don’t bother me most of the time (I had freezing issues like everyone else on Assassin’s Creed, but unlike the other anal fanbois, I just reset the game and tried again) and I don’t actively try to break the game. These bugs were bad. I had some incredible screen tearing on the fourth mission that I couldn’t see where I was going (not like I knew where I was anyway), and the clincher came in the fifth mission.
I was flying under said archway when this dragon decided to attack me from behind. Apparently the game wasn’t prepared for that, because all of a sudden, I was stuck under the arch. After giving my controller a good shake my dragon broke free, but the camera wasn’t. I was still looking through the archway while my dragon flew off and merged with a bunch of other equally similar looking dragons in the distance. Whenever I tilted the controller left or right the camera would do the same, and I found myself staring at castle walls, or the camera would bypass the wall entirely and I’d be looking at the interior of the castle, which was a black screen. Soon after, for some inexplicable reason, I was reunited with Rohn and co. again. As usual, I was 50 miles off to sea after this shenanigan and everyone was yelling at me for being an idiot. The game then abruptly ended because I didn’t maul enough dragons on time or something (yeah, being stuck under a fucking archway would do that).
Speaking of which, there should have been some counter to note how many targets are left before you advance to the next level. I couldn’t see the Tauros at all, and I had to make a couple of passes on the bridge (coupled with horrendous navigation, wide turns, squinting and getting motion sickness) before I actually nailed every last one. The game congratulated me by having the enemy drop Rhinos on the bridge. They were dispatched in exactly the same way as the Tauros, except now you had to shake your controller up and down like you were having a seizure before the dragon finally picked him up and threw him into the sea.
Since this game was touted Blu-ray and supposedly plays fantastic on 1080i resolution, that automatically meant it would look like crap on my 14 inch TV screen. Everything is supposedly rendered in ‘gorgeous detail’, but the little soldiers on the ground just looked like shimmering dots on my screen. I had to adjust the damn screen size, and even the options menu seemed to insult me for it – they titled it ‘adjust frame size’, which I felt was a completely moronic choice of words. I scrolled up and down the options menu looking desperately for ’screen’, ‘resolution’ or ‘widescreen?’ and by luck I decided to try this frame size thing out. I didn’t have any display problems with Assassin’s Creed (save for the tiny font), so I’m just going to chalk it up to Lair being stupid.
I suppose my ‘first impressions’ has gotten way out of hand, so I’ll just stop here. Overall, I don’t like Lair. Nothing is good about it; not even the aesthetic side of it. The voice actors all sound gruff in varying degrees of deepness, the soundtrack sounds like Troy’s (complete with Incoherent Female Wailer), and the story is pretty much ‘we’re at war, go beat the bad guys’. I suppose if you like playing with a retarded version of the Wii you just might enjoy Lair.
Atonement
I managed to catch Atonement (which may or may not have been… y’know) and I’m not quite sure where to put my sentiments. I think it’s awesome because of the story, but then again, that wasn’t the product of Joe Wright’s genius, because the movie was based on a book.
Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite movies. It had gorgeous countryside locations, the story was told well, and… it felt like every shot had a purpose. I think Atonement tried to be both an art film and a commercial one as well. You have odd details that are mentioned once and never mentioned again, flashbacks, movement patterns which are supposedly for aesthetic reasons, and finally there’s a long 4 and a half minute tracking shot of the evacuation at Dunkirk. Maybe it’s just the Film Studies geek in me that realized all this, so I probably should start watching Pride and Prejudice again with this new critical eye, but in short, I didn’t like Atonement as much as I liked Pride and Prejudice.
Maybe because the plot wasn’t linear, maybe because it was too much of an art film than a commercial one, or maybe I just came in with the wrong expectations. It’s sort of like going in to see Lost in Translation with more plot, I suppose. That film still bores me.
I think the whole point of the movie was to see it from Briony’s point of view, but that, as a result, pretty much left Cecilia and Robbie as empty shells you can’t identify with. I suppose I did feel a little cheated at the end, even if the movie did drop audio clues the whole way.
Anyway, I still recommend watching Atonement, simply because of the big twist at the end, and it’s JOE WRIGHT. Try to find subtitles, because you can’t make head or tail with those accents. Keira talks in a fast and clipped manner, and sometimes it’s just so fast you can’t decipher it at all (for me, anyway).
