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Showing posts with label library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label library. Show all posts

Sunday, November 6, 2016

The Handmaiden Review

The Handmaiden

I saw The Handmaiden last night. Chan-nook's film still has me thinking. A great emotion when a film 
stirs. 


The story is plotted upon from Welsh novelist Sarah Water's book Fingersmith. Water's novels are wonderful in their own right with period details that will keep that book in hands until the end.Chan-nook changes points in the adaptation, the story is loosely after the novel. It is set in Thirties Korea under Japanese colonial rule. The Handmaiden is a lesbian romance set as a dark crime thriller.Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee) is a brooding heiress locked away in a off grid estate, a Japanese castle with and English architectural wing. Her evil uncle (played by Cho Jin-woong) plans to marry her to be able to buy more books. Yes, I said, buy more books. The library collection of hard backs and illustrated manuscripts is part I love. The narrative reveals that the collection focuses on sunga, Japanese sexual and dark illustrations.

Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo), a scoundrel without a penny plans to defraud Lady Hideko of her fortune. Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri) a Dickensian thief with a heart (perhaps cliche). The grounds are spectacular. Chan-nook shares a landscape of rock gardens, blooming cherry and groves of dark pergolas. The film kaleidoscope of greens, ultramarine blue and white are jewels. Chan-nook uses Victorian themes from Waters. Characters wear masks to be English or Japanese. Social ranks are set in stone. Underneath the uncle and his friends who attend sexual readings are depraved. There's art theft, sadism and a dungeon with a hungry octopus. To touch the books Lady wears gloves. Emotions are held back at the dining table and in tuxedo. Underneath is a thriller. 

My son, home from college for the weekend, works on an essay about Japan in the Seventh Century. We spoke about privilege, power and Buddhism in the morning. Western education fails to show how Korean art and spiritualism influenced Japan. I was happy he is reading work he was not exposed to in California High School curriculum. We convinced daughter to take a trip to Korea this summer.Park Chan-nook is one of several great filmmakers from Korea.  I encourage you to see the film in a big theater, as the visual experience is lovely.


Thursday, May 15, 2014

Missing Poem








I started this letter before. I wrote in the steam in the shower glass. Often triggered by experiencing a place we shared, reaching for my moleskin notebook, then only looking at the paper. My eyes waited to read the words. The page remained empty. I have the gift of haruspicy. You live in another place and time, wearing eye glasses that blank out the entrails. Vision is clouded.
I exercised, painted and drank bottles of wine. I read. I prayed in my library. Nothing expelled the specter.
Your platitude, “time will heal.”


I gave it years.

The sore needed wound care. Finally it did seal up jagged.


At three in the morning it would awaken me pounding.


Turned the lights on, there was no bloody hole. Only arrhythmia playing tricks on the amount of oxygen to the brain.


Why are love songs about hearts? Better off with emotions in my feet to help me use that animal flight instinct. When I met you there was another contender. I stopped admonishing my soul. I’m great at stock picking. I conquer adventures.


My children are scarred. Tricked by a tin wind up box with promises, they don’t offer keys.


Splashing over writer’s block, diving from the platform without fear, swim up for my life.


I am at fault. A priest gave me absolution, but that Ash Wednesday cross is tattooed on my forehead.


Time does not heal. Time gives us perspective. The choice to forgive and love again.


I hope you have joy.


Still missing poem.










Photographs from my iphone Boston College Library

Thursday, September 13, 2012

LITERARY EVENT Southwestern Chula Vista




SOUTH WESTern CHULA VISTA LIBRARY 389 Orange Avenue, and telephone number is 619-585-5755 SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 15th



Take the 805 Freeway from either direction (north or south) and take the Olympic Parkway/Orange Avenue exit. Go west on Orange Avenue for about 2 or 3 miles. There's a huge DIP at one of the intersections with a stoplight, so watch out for it. The library will be on the left, with a very Santa Fe color scheme.

Thank you to Joy Whatley, the SouthWestern Chula Vista Branch librarian
Please note I have taken the liberty with the address usually referred to as  SW

 

I am speaking on a panel about contemporary poetry. We should be lively and ready for your questions. This is not a dead poet’s society.

I also will be reading from my book, The Lucky Boy


 

   I am looking for audience members who are willing to be part of my band to perform a work that I have not yet published and will be the first time heard.  No musical ability required. I will be providing recorders, whistles and sound makers for my band members to partake.
 
DEBUT:

The Last Southwestern Willow Flycatcher

Kern River Reserve California
 
 
To give you a background, I will publish the written piece here Friday night.  It is a work in progress. The story is about an endangered bird. The particular bird came to my backyard first in 2009. I took a couple photographs of the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher in my yard and posted them. This brought on a chain of events that is spoken about in the poem.

Birdwatchers contacted me and ended up staying in my yard to document that the lone bird stayed in Orange County, as there are thought to be only eighty of this particular type of bird remaining.

I learned that the number one place they inhabit is nearby Kernville, California a place where my children’s great grandparents first lived. My children are ninth generation Californians. This connectivity raised my interest in visiting the private reserve where these birds settle and to discover how events, places and our time can become part of something bigger than our self. It is also about conservation. Not only conserving our ecology but appreciating every precious moment on this earth.
 
 A video is in progress with a game for the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher and I hope you will enjoy the debut of this poem.