Love

Following on from the last self-indulgent piece with me venting my spleen about my father, Susana said the most extraordinary thing in the comments. She put me and the word 'love' in the same sentence. When I read it, my eyebrows went up and I froze in disbelief. But only for a second. Then I tilted my head back and laughed.

Truth be known, I have no idea what love means. You don't need to take my word for it. You need merely search this site for the word 'love'. Whilst I couldn't be fagged doing it myself, I'm prepared to bet that it will only appear in the phrase 'peace, love, and understanding' which I use not so much as a banner to rally around, but rather as a cudgel to beat things with.

The word, in and of itself, as a stand-alone description, I, um... 'dismiss'. Which is to say, I dismiss it from my vocabulary. Honestly, what the hell does it mean?

Never mind love, here I'm far more interested in lies and lying. Actually the word 'lie' is just as fraught as 'love' and I tend to avoid it as well. Let's just say that I ponder the nature of misrepresentation. But regardless, if we were to take every lie ever uttered and analysed them to see which one predominated, I'd bet money that the phrase 'I love you' would win hands down.

And go figure that more than a few women have made it clear to me that, but for the want of me saying it, they'd have slept with me. I'm a strange cove, sure, but women who do this always fall in my estimation.

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A while back in Shanghai, there was a woman I fancied. I was directing and she was my producer. She was smart, funny, and sexy. And she told me of her travails with her laowai boyfriend who came to Shanghai every couple of months for business. In between times he lived in Belgium with his wife and kids (Urgh! No one here I hope!). And once or twice a day he would send her an SMS saying some variation of 'I love you'. This made her all gooey. Me, I shook my head. Between words and actions, words are cheap. Hell! He sent these words by SMS, the cheapest means there is.


Me to her - "If I said you were just something to occupy his time when he's here in China and all it cost him was an SMS every day, would I be wrong? Forget his words, what does he do? What is there to say that this guy isn't just some bullshit artist? Men lie you know. Forget his words. What are his actions?"

Anyway, she threw him over. For me, ha ha! Well that was the theory anyway. What with assorted cultural confusions and a plot straight out of a bedroom farce, we didn't sleep with each other. But that was cool, she was going to come to Sydney for Chinese New Year and stay with me. After that I was going to go back to Shanghai and become an in-house director. Sounded good to me. But! - it all went to hell. For reasons that weren't clear she didn't come to Sydney and when I flew back to start up with the directing gig, it was if we were complete strangers.

I had failed apparently. Specifically I had failed to send her an SMS every day telling her that I loved her. God help me! What with her last boyfriend using this precise process to lie his way into her bed, here she was angry with me for not having done the same thing. I shook my head and wondered if she and her Belgian didn't deserve each other. But truth be known, my part in a mad farce aside, I was pleased. If she was that undiscerning, that incapable of distinguishing between words and actions, then she wasn't the chick for me. I never saw her again and packed in the directing caper shortly thereafter. And a good thing too.

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The above was but a single 'I love you' anecdote from dozens. And I don't doubt that you'd all have your own. Truthfully, there are more stories of lies and lying with 'I love you' at the centre of them than there are stars wheeling in the sky. For mine, the phrase is so utterly devalued that it's worthless. There's a lot to be said for saying nothing.

Like the Japanese! The Japanese are their own variety of laconic. They are not a gushy people. Whilst the younger generation, deeply steeped in Hollywood, are changing now, the older generation do not prate on with heartfelt drivel. If you want to see a perfect example of what I'm talking about, go see 'Hana-Bi' by Beat Takeshi. He's a legendary director and Hana-Bi is arguably his masterpiece. And sure it's dotted with action and violence, but mostly it's a 'love' story. Everything that takes place in the film is an act of devotion by our hero for his dying wife. Astoundingly almost nothing is said. No speeches, no declarations. Actions are all. And the actions are unambiguous. The truth lays in what is done, not in what is said.


And if anyone does watch this film on my say-so and wonders, "What sort of a crummy 'love story' was that? No one even kissed anyone!", you'll actually be making my point for me. Your dissatisfaction will say far more about you as a Westerner than it will about the Japanese.

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And then there's the Maori and the Hawaiian people. Culturally, since they're both Polynesian, their cultures are as close as could be. Curiously they seem not to know very much about each other. In conversations I've had with Maori about Hawaiians, and vice versa, no one seemed to know anything. But whatever, they have many many things in common. As a complete dilettante I'm pretty sure I won't get in trouble for saying that the concept of 'breath as life' is central to their shared culture. In Hawaii, this breath/life is the 'ha' in 'aloha'. (It's also the 'ha' in 'haole', their word for white person. There's a fabulous story in that, but I'll sling it in the comments.)


The Maori likewise acknowledge the importance of breath in their custom of touching noses. This functions for Maori like the handshake does for white people. The handshake is an expression of 'peace' insofar as it's a demonstration that one isn't carrying a weapon. Three cheers for white people. Compare that to the Maori, who touch noses so that they might exchange the breath of life. But here's the crucial thing - the breath is always from the nose, not from the mouth. This is not because the nose is special but because the mouth is considered 'corrupt', or perhaps more correctly 'corrupting'. The stink of food is part of this but that's actually the least of it. Breath from the mouth is spurned because what comes from a person's mouth, words sure enough, cannot be trusted. In words lay falsity.

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And then there's that Brazilian chick. This is a looong story, but there I was in her marvellous ramshackle house smack dab in the middle of a picturesqe but down-at-the-heels town two hours from Sao Paolo. She was a Rudolph Steiner devotee and was in the arduous process of setting up a Rudolph Steiner school cum arts-and-craft co-op. And I was going to join her. My head was there. But that too came a cropper. Story of my life. If anyone out there is familiar with the Tora San movies (uber-famous in Japan), that's me. I never get the girl.


Whilst the whole thing was complicated with family and a boyfriend etc. a key moment came in a discussion about 'love'. She looked me in the eye, grasped my hand and told me of the most important thing there is. That being love, sure enough. She even quoted the Beatles to me. And hats off to the Beatles, but between them and my continuum (at the top of this page) with selflessness as the only thing counting, I was, ahem, dismissive. I tried to explain the distinction but got nowhere. It didn't help of course that I didn't speak Portuguese, her English left a lot to be desired, and the Japanese which we both spoke (she being sansei Japanese) was ill-suited to philosophy. But the language didn't matter. She said love and I shook my head. "No, you don't understand," I said. Yeah yeah nobody, just face it - you blew it. Time to do that Tora San thing and smile, wave, and hit the road.

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Bloody Hell! Do I have a point or am I just blathering? Both, ha ha! The point is that for me, words are worthless, with 'love' at the top of the list. And yep, I just used a thousand words to say that. The irony runs rampant.

Never mind me as cleverpants wordsmith - a blog, an audience, and a huge pile of words being put in some kind of order. Bully for that. But back at the house of geriatric indulgence, with me and the old man, it's positively Japanese. Every day is like a scene from Hana-Bi.

Perhaps I brought it with me from the temple - "shiraberi wa dame" - chit-chat is bad. And there, there was a lot to talk about. Here at home there is nothing to talk about beyond Fox Sports and doctors. And I haven't much time for either beyond needing to know what channel to change to and when the appointments are.

Here there is no love. Or certainly no declarations of it. The only thing that counts is 'doing'. For me (or perhaps for an ideal me) all my actions should be an embodiment of selflessness. And I ain't in that picture. And nor are such messy things as emotions. Like 'love' etc. If I was to start in on that, the whole thing would fall in a screaming heap. It would turn the picture into one that was about me. And if it was about me, it wouldn't be about me because I'd be gone.


But here's a picture of me. Or me as played by Vincent Cassel in the movie of my life, that is. Nothing in his head. Nothing in his heart. No thoughts, no love, no nothing - just emptiness. Dig it, it's like Camus' Stranger albeit with a happy disposition and no Arab monkey business. And when Cassel wants to know what his motivation is, he'll be told he hasn't one. "Just go through the motions. Attempt to embody selflessness. Don't ask us what that would look like since no one bloody knows. Just do your best." Says our Vincent - "But why am I happy?". Sorry Vince, no answer to that one neither. You just are.

Truth is, living with my father has been a brilliant experience. The only way anyone could cope with the old man's utter self-obsession is to let go of one's own desires. I'll admit that there's a certain 'reactionary' aspect to this. And I know that no one likes that word - to say, 'I am not that' is full of negative connotation, a thing to be avoided. But if one is seeking selflessness it's no such thing. Everything I wish to shed is here precisely depicted in the closest genetic template imaginable. It is what I am leaving behind.

And Susana, apologies for using you as a prop, ha ha. It's not you, it's just my brain turning a word around. And what a word! A word so fraught, so plugged into insecurities and self-worth, replete with uncountable meanings, stories, variations, and use and misuse, I reckon we're better off without it.

Do or don't do. Actions over words. That's where the truth lays.

Japanese spritzers, Scott Ritter, the G-spot, and other occult knowledge

There I was wandering around my own hard drive and I found some porn! It was the only thing I'd ever bothered saving. It was from a VCD I bought in Hong Kong years ago. I bought it because its cover caught my eye. The Chinese characters on the front said, '500 people!' and beneath that was a photo of hundreds of naked couples, each with their own futon, with the futons laid out in rows in some gigantic sound stage. Sure enough it was a Chinese knock-off of a Japanese thing. I expect it cost ten HK dollars which is about a buck fifty.

Buck fifty or no, it's one of the most extraordinary things ever. It's not an orgy or a free-for-all. All of the people are directed. They all do the same thing. They start with kissing. After ten minutes, with the cameras wandering through the ranks, the director gives the nod and everyone goes to the next foreplay position. And so on and so on. Ten minutes of each thing, with everyone in rows, all facing the same way, all simultaneously progressing through the various positions, man on top, woman on top, etc etc, until everyone 'goes' (nb. the Japanese do not so much 'come' as 'go'. Ha! this and a thousand other curiosities). And then it's all over bar the mopping up with the thoughtfully provided tissues. At no time is there any artifice, pretence, or bullshit. The whole thing is shockingly honest.


Okay, so this is porn but it's also something else. For mine, this is up there with Christo and Spencer Tunick. As art it's the equal of any of these, albeit without the famous backdrops. Viewed objectively, it's like some mad anthropological tableau, a real cultural trip. These people are so polite and considerate of each other! And within these ordered acts of nude uniformity is the wildest array of differences imaginable. I still don't know what to make of it. One could write it off as mere porn, sure. But this is so unlike anything you've ever seen before, and such a mindfuck, that it's beyond that. It's something else.

But! Forget about it! I don't really want to discuss this particular video. I merely insert the preceding as a preface to the following. (Or if you want to view it as me cravenly explaining why I have porn on my hard-drive, you may do so, ha ha.) And otherwise, I have no idea if this vid was a big deal in Japan. Perhaps it was run of the mill? Certainly its not-infrequent incidences of female orgasm and ejaculation are. In Japan, that is. In 'Western' porn (which is to say, Jewish porn) there's no such thing. What's perfectly unremarkable in Japan is completely and utterly absent in the West. And it's this line of thought that has fired my brain.

Okay so I've written about this before. Ever monotonous, me. But here I want to go one step further, make some new connections, and otherwise clarify things.

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But let's leap to Scott Ritter first. Remember him? Way back when, in the weapons inspection phase after Bush the Elder's Gulf War, he was 'it'. He was the good-looking ex-marine who was stomping all over Iraq searching for WMD's. He was certainly all over the media. I saw him dozens of times and you probably did too. He was savvy, sharp, and pithy. He was so good that whenever the media needed an expert on WMD's in Iraq, Ritter was the first, and probably the only, name in their rolodex.

Cue to a couple of years later and we're in the run-up to the idiot son's Gulf War with a media discussion of same exact subject - WMD's in Iraq. On and on, an endless discussion of how Saddam was going to kill us all. Everyone who was anyone, and could string two words together, got on the TV to tell us about Iraqi WMD's. Everyone, except Scott Ritter. And nobody noticed. The only reason I noticed was on account of his name copping a single fleeting mention in a single fleeting newspaper article. It hinted that Ritter was somehow in disagreement with what the US government was telling us.


A minor explosion in the head of yours truly. Scott Ritter! Whatever happened to him? Why wasn't he on the telly? And he disagreed about the WMD's? Huh?! No one disagreed on this! What's going on? Fired with curiosity, I hit the net and discovered that Ritter was saying that there were no WMD's in Iraq at all. Not a sausage. And the media...?

The media, which apparently loves controversy, was utterly uninterested in a fellow who was, a) arguably the expert on the topic under discussion, b) media savvy and camera friendly, with an excellent track record, and c) had a controversial view on the biggest topic going.

I'll keep saying this because it's a big deal - Ritter's complete and utter absence in the media was IMPOSSIBLE.

Well, it was impossible if the media is what they say they are. Allegedly they love controversy. Allegedly they like to get the scoop that no one else gets. Allegedly they love to dig up the truth and win that Pulitzer. Scott Ritter was someone's ticket to all of these things and yet not one single media entity would touch him. Nuts.

The only possible explanation for Ritter's absence is one that pivots on the media as a bloc-media wherein no one may stray from a centrally dictated line. That's the only conclusion possible.

Okay, yawn, everyone gets it. It's all old hat. Well it certainly is on this blog, ha ha. But whatever. I just want to hammer home the principle that if one can figure out what's absent in any given media discussion, far more will be learnt than by attempting to analyse what's present. Or perhaps that should be 'presented'. What's presented is bullshit designed to mislead and confuse. Whatever isn't there has been disappeared because it will lead us to the truth. Or peace. Or health. Or freedom. Or insert-thing-worth-having-here.

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And everything is like this. Certainly everything in the media. For some reason we differentiate the media from Hollywood, from publishing, from games, from the porn industry. This is foolish. They're all the same thing. They all deal with perceptions. And they're all run by same people. Jewish people, natch. To be honest, if the Jewish people had one single talent, it's their ability to posit an imagined reality. No one here will be surprised when I say that, between reality and the Jewish media's posited reality, the latter trumps the former. Just ask the Iraqis! Otherwise you can call this ability lying if you like - no skin off my nose.

And this genius for creating a self-serving reality isn't confined to us understanding that Jewish people are victim/heroes and Arabs are villains. Nor to Christians being slowly turned into precisely the kind of people that Christ emphatically rejected. Nor to the world being convinced that usury and money-as-debt are as natural and inevitable as the sunrise.

Nothing is left out. Everything is viewed through this Jewish lens. Even sex. Sex is a funny thing. How do we learn about sex? Okay so there's the antiseptic mechanics of it that we're all taught at school. And then... And then... It seems that's there's two ways to learn about sex. One is by doing it. I'm going to call this 'education by Chinese whispers'. It's whispered from person to person. The other means of learning about sex is via the Jewish perception machine. Which is to say, porn. And no mistake, porn definitely serves this purpose. How many kids have watched full-tilt porn before they even have their first sexual experience? Most of them?

Fact is, they don't even really need to watch porn at all. Regular sitcom television is now so pornographic it's mind-boggling. To be honest I rarely watch this sort of stuff. But all one has to do is flick around the channels and this is sufficient to get the idea. Has anyone seen Two And A Half Men? Good god. Is it just me, or is this show entirely devoted to the sex life of two men who have a boy living with them? And last night in surfing through the channels I happen upon David Lucas's glabrous bonce (from the comedy show Little Britain USA) filling half the screen as he mugs wantonly over David Walliams' realistically sculpted prosthetic penis (which fills the other half). Do we seriously think kids don't surf through the channels like this? Of course they do.


Okay, sure, it's the parent's fault. Guilty of insufficient vigilance! But vigilance is easier said than done. Not so long ago, finding depictions of sex anywhere was not easy. Now it's everywhere. It's so omnipresent that we barely think anything of it. It's normalised now. So much so, that was you to sit in someone's loungeroom and point out the perversity of what they're watching, they'd take you for some variety of nutbar wowser.

Anyway the trend is unmistakable. Four decades ago TV depictions of married couples required that they not be in the same bed together. And now, not only are they in bed, but it will be made perfectly clear that they are involved in some graphically unmistakable sex act. In fact, it's perfectly possible that it will comprise the entire pivot around which the episode revolves. Seinfeld anyone? Not forgetting of course that the biggest video of whatever-year-that-was was Paris Hilton sucking cock. How many boys and girls saw that? Most of 'em I expect.

Side note 1 - I spent some time in Milan in Italy and met a lot of wealthy young American kids studying fashion etc. It was fun for a while but eventually I got tired of hearing the word 'awesome', and moreover, of the really intense pornographic nature of most of their conversations. I'm not talking smutty double entendres here. I'm always up for that. This was different. "No man, she actually preferred sucking cock to having sex. She said that! And she bet me (right there in the middle of the party!) that she could make me come without touching me except with her mouth. So I said, 'Man, we're getting this on video...''. All with endless interjections of 'awesome' from the mixed company audience. I was at a loss in these conversations. I'd never come across people who talked like this. And nor was there any shortage of them. Shake my head.

And me, I haven't the slightest doubt that these kids are this way because of their immersion in the Jewish media. Not only are our conversations ever more given to sex, but this sex is ever more extreme in its perversity. But this is just more background to my main point, that being about absences.

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The absence in amongst this sea of porn is female orgasm. And had I not lived in Japan, watched Japanese porn, and witnessed the ubiquity of female orgasm, I'd have assumed that it was some variety of chimera - 'a thing that is hoped or wished for, but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve'. As far as Jewish porn is concerned that's female orgasm for you.

Or let's put it this way - women do have orgasms in Jewish porn. Which is to say they scream more loudly when the man comes. But having seen When Harry Met Sally, we all know that it's bullshit. And it is bullshit! Besides, female orgasm results from certain, ahem, physical actions. Me, I have never seen these actions depicted in Jewish porn. Certainly not for long enough for an orgasm to result. So whilst we might vaguely understand that female orgasm is possible, we will never be shown how to bring it about in any useful fashion. (I suspect that if any couple in a Jewish porn movie did manage it, the whole sequence would be left on the cutting room floor.)

Keep in mind that no cultural reference is too obtuse for the porn industry to hang its hat on. 'Splendour in the Grass' was turned into 'Splendour in the Ass'. 'Edward Scissorhands' became 'Edward Penis-hands'. On and on, ad nauseam. Any idiotic thing will do. Except female orgasm.

Straight up and unambiguously now - This absence is IMPOSSIBLE. Which is to say, it's a deliberate act. There is no way known that the porn industry forgot, or is otherwise unaware of, actual female orgasm. It's as simple as that.


Side note 2 - Who remembers the G-spot? I recall a fifteen-minutes-of-fame book written about it in the eighties. And then what? And then nothing. It sank without trace. Not a single ripple interrupted our ever growing exposure to our ever more perverse discussions of fellatio, necrophilia, bestiality etc. In fact I expect that there are people reading this who are scratching their heads, not quite sure what I'm talking about. Well just to make things clearer (ha!), here's the definition of G-spot from my Macintosh's Oxford American Dictionary - 'a sensitive area of the anterior wall of the vagina believed by some to be highly erogenous and capable of ejaculation.' What? "believed by some"? Ha ha ha ha - who wrote this shit? Go to Japan you fuckwit! Check the porn! No need for 'belief' mate, it's all right there spritzing the goddamn camera.

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Okay. So what does it all mean? Why is Jewish porn (hell, the whole media) completely devoid of non-fake female orgasm? Why is that? Remember - like Scott Ritter's absence in the run up to Iraq, this cannot be an accident. Impossibilities like this can only be deliberate.

It's hard to avoid coming to the conclusion that the existence of female orgasm, along with the means of achieving it, are some mad variety of occult knowledge. The masses (the non-Japanese masses, that is) are to be kept ignorant of it. To what end? Why is this so?

I wonder if there isn't some porn-specific variation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion out there that explains why the goyim may not know about female orgasm. "Deprived of this knowledge, the goyim will all run melancholy mad and turn to us for solace" or somesuch.

And whether I have a precise answer for this or no (okay, so it's 'no'), it's not like everything above is rendered worthless. The fact that I don't know the 'why' doesn't change the cold hard certainty of 'who', 'what', and 'when'. These alone are enough to tell us what we're in amongst. The dichotomy of reality and its depiction by the world-is-thus Jewish media is cast in stark relief regardless.

Consider the enormity of this. There is no aspect of our existence that the Jewish definers of reality aren't prepared to distort. Nothing. What's in your head belongs to them. From whom we kill, to how we fuck - all of it - it's all theirs.

And sure enough, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist. Yeah well fuck that. I'm calling it.

your own genuine Obama shrine

Obama is a place and I've been there. It's a middle size town in Fukui prefecture on the West Coast of Japan. It's chock full of Buddhist temples, and one of them is where I went to spend the rest of my life, or seven days, whichever came first. And in this picture postcard temple was a picture postcard shrine called a butsudan. It was pretty much the centre of the temple.


It occurred to me that if some bright spark in Obama started manufacturing genuine Obama shrines they'd make out like bandits. There'd be a photo of Barrack Obama there with candles either side and a little space out the front for offerings of rice, fruit, and cakes etc. An Obama we can believe in! And how better to express your belief than by praying at a shrine that's not only for Obama, it's from Obama.

I don't see why anyone should have a problem with this. Obama is just like all those other things we have to believe in. He said so himself - 'change you can believe in'. Ayah! Another belief, and we have so many already! Anyway, since it's all about belief, you may as well do it properly and have a shrine. A genuine Obama shrine!


Anyway there it was on TV - millions of believers, their eyes full of tears. Reality? Banished. What I saw on TV was so like what one sees in the born-again hallelujah halls it was spooky. And everyone said the same things. It was like listening to a mantra. The American dream was true after all! A black man as president! In our lifetimes! We never thought we'd see the day! If only my grandfather had lived to see this!

Mantras are good. They work to neutralise the brain and stop distractions entering. And who needs to be distracted by little things like Obama's years working at a CIA front company, or his cabinet appointments of the same old warhawks, bankers, and dual citizens, and never mind his abject kowtowing to AIPAC. Between wake-up-and-smell-the-catfood and warm-and-fuzzy, it's a no-brainer. And God bless the no-brainers, say the powers that be. In no-brainers they trust.


And in amongst the 24/7 adoration on the TV, not a single soul had a single word of doubt. No sentiments along the lines of - 'I'll believe it when I see it'. God forbid anyone should stand up and say, 'Meet the new boss, same as the old boss' (or perhaps that should be - Meet the new puppet, same as the old puppet?) What's American for 'Burn them at the stake?' 'Burn them like a steak', I guess. Grain fed, of course.

But really you have to go hats off to the PTB. Obama is a stunning move. And really breathtaking in its cynicism. An African American gets dropped into the Presidency at the precise moment that the whole thing goes tits up. It's like handing the car keys to the teenage boy just as the rings, the diff, and the gearbox are all about to shit themselves. And when it starts grinding metal on metal, guess who gets the blame?


Otherwise, for those not already drugged into stupefaction Obama is the perfect Soma. But never mind Aldous Huxley, how about George Orwell? Honestly, what sort of regime would have a stern looking fellow as its pin-up boy? Is Ronald McDonald stern? Orwell never worked in marketing obviously. Those who've given the world Obama, get marketing.

Speaking of meat products, humans are smarter than cattle. This is obvious since we eat them, and not the other way round. But perhaps 'smarter' is the wrong word. Let's put it this way, are cattle capable of belief? No - but we are. And unlike those stupid cattle there's no way we're going to be led to the slaughterhouse unless we believe it's the right thing to do. And finally, with McSmiley Obama we can all believe again. Those who had lost faith have found it anew - the disillusioned, freshly re-illusioned.

The masses that George Bush had united in disbelief are now back on board. We are one, they all chant. Obama, we'll follow you to hell and back - for that smile, those adorable kids, those reassuring words - anything. And those doubters? Those enemies of the American dream? A black man is president! We waited our whole lives for this! Send them to wherever enemies of the state get sent. It's the least they deserve.


And as the miseries become legion: bankruptcies climb; old neighbourhoods become deserted; the hunger-driven discontent rises; law and order breaks down; the cops go berserk; and reality just generally goes to hell, the freshly minted believers will turn to their leader for solace. They'll light some more candles, put out a votive twinkie, and let the mantra fill their head banishing all distraction. A black man is president! I never thought I'd live to see the day! The American dream is true!

lexicon of nobody

Regulars will know I use a lot of obscure words and phrases here. Certainly I can choose to do so or not. I understand the appeal of not doing so. Foreign readers would be less confused if I stuck to some variation of international English. But I view this as a soft form of dumbing down. And besides, no one ever did this for me, ha ha.

I've been reading English and American writers all my life and none of them saw fit to narrow their vocabulary or explain anything for the sake of Antipodeans. So I would grab a dictionary and figure it out for myself. Often as not I just had to guess. Well now I get my own back, ha!

But don't worry. In a spirit of helpfulness, I have come up with this brief lexicon. It's a simple glossary of Australian English, archaisms and other unlikely words. It's not any variety of exhaustive. If I use a word that I suspect foreigners will be unfamiliar with, I'll whack it in here. Mind you, this is not such a simple matter. I'm constantly surprised to find words that I thought were universal, were no such thing. Just lately I discovered that 'offsider' is an Australianism. Who knew?

Further, it's not my intention to replace the dictionary. You won't find 'Jesuitical' there, for instance. Every English dictionary has it already (and what a marvellous word it is too). Rather, my purpose is to cover words that foreigners won't find in their respective dictionaries. And don't write to tell me that you do in fact have a given word in common use. It may still be unknown to other native, and second-language, speakers of English.

So! Let's exciting English! Yoroshiku.

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Aergia
noun - the Greek goddess of idleness. (Daughter of Aether and Gaia. She guarded the court of hypnos in the underworld. When she could be fagged that is...)

abo
noun - a derogatory word for an aborigine. (Racist epithets aside, in Australia aborigine and aboriginal are interchangable as nouns. It's meaning is simply that of 'original inhabitant')

Antipodes
noun - Australia; Australia and New Zealand (Literally - the far side of the world. Technically for Australia, the 'antipodes' would be Europe, but let's not confuse things)

arvo
noun - afternoon. (As in - 'Seeya this arvo'. This follows in the hallowed tradition of Australians taking words, shortening them, and adding 'o' or 'y' to the end. See telly, below)

Aussie
noun/adjective - Australian. (I understand everyone knows this word. I put it here to make clear the pronunciation, which is 'ozzie'. For some reason, Americans pronounce it 'ossie' with a hard 's'. For Australians, this grates like you wouldn't believe. See 'Oz' below)

bag out
verb - deprecate, derogate. (As in - 'He never missed an opportunity to bag out George Bush.' Is this Australian? Possibly)

bags
verb - to reserve a thing before anyone else has the opportunity. (As in - 'I bags the couch.' Or - 'You can't bags it because I bagsed it already.' Ha ha ha. It looks ugly written doesn't it? Never mind, it is what it is)

bloke
noun - man, fellow. (apparently derived from Shelta, the language of Irish and Welsh gypies loosely based on Gaelic)

Boggo Road
noun - a notorious jail in Brisbane, now closed.

bra
noun - bro, mate, pal. (Short for 'brother', sure enough. This is New Zealander/Pacific Islander English. I always found it curious that 'bro' is pronounced the way it's written. For mine, this makes more sense)

burl
noun - whirl, as in 'give it a whirl'. (I've heard vague rumours that this was originally Scottish. Maybe, maybe not)

c'arn/carn
imperative verb - Come on. (Made famous by Australian playwright David Williamson with his play The Club. The play was about the dramas within an Australian Rules football club, The Crows. The team was urged forward with the cry, 'C'arn the Crows!')

catholic
adjective - embracing many things; of, or catering to, wide tastes. (As in - 'Country and Western, hip-hop, easy listening, you name it, it's all good. My tastes are perfectly catholic'. As for the Catholic Church, it's no accident that it was named thus. For mine, it's a declaration that it is for all, and is an emphatic rejection of any sense of exclusivity)

chestnut
noun - an old story or gag that we know too well. (As in - 'Not that old chestnut!')

chook
noun - a chicken. (Australians, when feeding chickens, will inevitably say - 'here, chook, chook, chook.' I certainly do.)

clacker
noun - rear, derriere. (As in, 'That bloody tailgater was right up my clacker'. I would declare that on the scale of things this word is less rude than 'arse', mostly on account of its comedic resemblance to some kind of sound effect. Without being certain, I'm convinced it derives from cloaca a primitive physical arrangement found in many non-mammals that functions as both waste tract and sexual organs. Okay, so that's pretty yucky, but since nobody has ever heard of a cloaca, clacker is safe to be used in front of children, grandmas, etc)

cooee
noun/interjection - a high pitch cry used in the Australian bush to attract attention or denote one's location to those distant or unseen. (Used in conversation to indicate great distance. Thus - 'We broke down in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing within cooee')

cove
noun - man, fellow. (Dated English but originally from the Romany kova meaning 'thing or person')

crack the shits
verb - throw a tantrum. (As in - 'When he was told there were only light beers left, he cracked the shits.)

cracker
noun - a really marvellous thing, a shining example. (As in- 'Don't miss that new flick. It's a cracker!' Crackers are also small fireworks of the Chinese New Year's variety, as well as those paper things one pulls apart at Xmas to find a paper hat and small toy inside. Do Americans have those? And what do they call them?)

crawl up one's arse
verb - to behave in an obsequious or sycophantic fashion. (As in - 'I'm sick of that bloke, he's always crawling up the boss's arse)

dill
noun - a silly person.

dips me lid
verb - 'take my hat off'. (This is a quote from CJ Dennis' 1919 poem, 'A Sentimental Bloke'. Dennis along with Henry Lawson, Banjo Patterson, and others featured in the then culturally significant 'Bulletin' magazine, and were the first Australians to write in a distinctly Australian vernacular. Whilst not quite reaching his genius heights, they are to the Antipodes what Mark Twain was to the US)

dob in
verb - inform on someone, rat someone out. (This used to be an arch sin in Australia. But under that shit Howard, the Australian Federal Government began running a campaign urging Australians to dob in their coloured, jibber-jabbering neighbours. It wasn't quite that explicit, but everyone got it. PS - Under Rudd, the campaign continues to run. No surprises there.)

fag
noun - a cigarette.

fagged
verb - bothered, as in a tiresome chore. ('The picture fell down but I couldn't be fagged putting it back up.' This is clearly derived from the English public school tradition of 'fagging' whereby younger boys would do the chores of older boys. This doesn't exist in Australia and subsequently the word persists only by way of the past participle)

feeding the chooks
verb - addressing, or otherwise answering the questions of, the media (This was coined by the famous, long serving, populist State Premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke Petersen. It was a clear statement of contempt for the media on his part, and still holds that connotation. Whilst I share his contempt for the media, that's not to excuse him. He was an arsehole)

full stop
noun - a punctuation mark denoting the end of a sentence. ('period' in American English)

furphy
noun - a falsehood, a piece of scuttlebutt, a red-herring. (Furphy and Sons were the manufacturers of water carts in WWI. These carts served the precise function of the scuttlebutt (water barrel) on a ship, ie. a place to stand around and chat whilst having a drink of water. Scuttlebutt is considered to be gossip that may, or may not, be true. A furphy, on the other hand, is never true, as in - 'The WMD's were a complete furphy')

gaijin
Japanese, noun - foreigner. (What I am in Japan. Literally 'outside country person')

g'day
phrase - Hello. (Actually 'hi' would be closer to the mark in terms of the casual nature of this greeting. Neither the Prime Minister, nor any newsreader, would ever begin any formal address with 'G'day'. It is emphatically not 'good day' which would, if anything, denote the end of the conversation and that one were leaving, presumably in a huff. To be honest, no one in Australia says 'good day'. Ever. Otherwise by way of pronunciation, it's closest relative would be 'Gdansk'. The elision of the vowel between g and d should be utter)

get on the fiddle
phrase - to be up to something of a lewd or sordid nature. (Another neologism of Roy and HG. See 'have a spray')

git
noun - a worthless or contemptible person. (I find this word useful as it's fairly gentle and makes no comment on one's birth, sexual orientation, intelligence, physical shortcomings, or race)

gweilo
Cantonese, noun - foreigner. (What I am in Hong Kong. Literally 'foreign devil' or variously 'ghost man'. Cool, huh?)

guernsey
noun - a jersey. (Jersey and Guernsey, both Channel Islands, became synonymous with the distinctive variety of knitted tops traditionally made there. Both words are now loosely used to describe the pull-over tops worn by football players of all codes. Thus, to get a guernsey means to 'be picked for the team' or otherwise 'make the grade')

have a spray
verb - to have one's say, to express an opinion. (I suspect that this is a neologism created by Roy Slaven and HG Nelson, two Australian radio and TV personalities famous for their singularly perverse sports commentary. More than a few of their expressions have entered the vernacular and most of them smutty, albeit in a cryptic fashion)

haiku
noun - a Japanese minimalist poem of three lines. (This is explained in more detail on the haiku blog. I merely mention it here to reiterate its pronunciation, which is 'high-koo'. Also the plural of haiku is haiku)

heffalump
noun - a creature which inspires fear but exists only in one's imagination. (Heffalumps appear in 'Winnie The Pooh' by AA Milne and illustrated by Earnest Shepard. Whilst the characters in Pooh are convinced that heffalumps are very scary things, any children reading the book (or having it read to them) will clearly understand, by way of the illustrations, that heffalumps are merely elephants and not scary at all. Disney later anthropomorphised heffalumps into yet more cute singing characters. I expect AA Milne rolled over in his grave. For mine, the Disney version of Pooh is execrable, a real piece of shit. The original on the other hand is a masterpiece of children's literature)

lamington
noun - a simple cake made from sponge that is cut into cubes (approximately two inches square) and covered in chocolate icing and sprinkled with dessicated coconut. (These are famously made at home and then sold at churches, or school fetes, to raise money for charity. This is known as a 'lamington drive'. Lamingtons taste pretty good. Fancy lamingtons are cut in half and have red jam smeared in the middle before being coated)

lizard of Oz
noun - a reference to the then Australian PM, Paul Keating, who had the temerity to place his hand on Queen Elizabeth's shoulder at an official function (This was the precise headline from an English tabloid. The media's tone was - How dare a commoner touch our Queen! Sure enough, there are commoners and there are commoners. I suspect if the right sort of commoner (Michelle Obama comes to mind) were to replicate the act, no one would say boo. As colonials go, Americans are infinitely preferable to Australians)

laowai
Mandarin, noun - foreigner (What I am in Mainland China. Literally 'outside country person')

mate
noun - friend, pal, buddy. (It's my considered opinion that none of these quite hits the mark. 'Mate' has within it an implicit solidarity, as in 'shipmate' or 'cellmate'. Officers and government officials aside, nearly all Australia's early settlers were one or the other. Subsequently, calling someone 'mate' is an unspoken acknowledgement that one is not a member of the ruling class)

moniker
noun - a name. (This is informal and operates thus - 'Just whack your moniker and address at the top of the form.' Do Americans use this? I only seem to hear Australians say it)

nisei
Japanese, adjective - second generation. (Used solely for Japanese who have settled abroad. 'Ni' means 'two' and 'sei' means 'life' or 'generation'. Ichi, ni, san (one, two, three) thus becomes 'issei, nisei, sansei', ie. 'first, second, and third generation')

offsider
noun - partner, assistant, a person comprising a third party connected to a second party. (Thus unlikely to be used to describe one's own friend. 'I talked to the bloke while his offsider had a cigarette')

onya
phrase - congratulations, well done, bravo. (Short for 'good on you', possibly present in other Englishes but certainly common coinage in Australia)

Oz
noun - Australia. (This was coined in the seventies by Richard Neville (who occasionally still lobs up on counterpunch) in a magazine of the same name. It's an obvious name given the correct pronunciation of 'Aussie')

packed to the gunnels
adjective - very full. (gunnels, a corruption of 'gunwales', are the upper sides of a ship, so called because they had cannon bowsed up against them. A 'wale' was a particularly heavy plank used for the hull)

Pat Malone
adjective/pronoun - alone, on one's own. (There's precious little true Australian rhyming slang but this is one of them. I suspect that there was no actual Pat Malone as such. Under the rules of rhyming slang, this should more correctly be shortened to 'pat', as in, 'He was all on his pat'. Me, I find this somewhat unlovely and prefer the full expression)

piker
noun - a person who backs out of a deal or otherwise chickens out. (In the verb form this functions exactly like 'chicken out' as in, 'He was going to help us move house but he piked out.')

pollie
noun - a politician.

Pom
noun - an Englishman. (The adjectival form being 'Pommy'. I suspect that English people have by now calmed down about this word. I notice The Times Crossword recently had a clue, 'Sounds like English stone fruit', with the answer being 'pomegranate'. Significantly the clue was not 'Sounds like English put down stone fruit', which is to say the clue acknowledges that 'English' and 'Pommy' are interchangeable and that the latter lacks any sense of derogation. Mind you, one can fix that by modifying 'Pommy' with the suffix 'bastard'. But that says more about 'bastard' than it does about 'Pommy', ahem)

Punt
noun - a small bet.
verb - to lay a small bet.

Punter
noun - the average man in the street, literally 'one who bets'. (I don't know about other places, but in Australia the age-old entertainment of the lower classes was to follow the horses. The majority of betting was through the government-run TAB (Totaliser Agency Board). No shopping street in any Australian town is without a TAB. Sure enough, it is now being pushed to the sidelines as gambling is being legalised and put into corporate hands. Who'll give me odds on the inevitability of corruption? Any takers?)

rapt
adjective - happy, pleased. (Who knows why this magical word assumed such a mundane role in Australia? Not me)

rort
verb - to bilk a system (in all likelihood the government) by fraudulent or dishonest means. (The insurance companies had been rorting the system for years)
noun - as above

same same/same-same
adjective - the same as. (Thai-glish usually delivered as 'same same, different' meaning 'just like that, but not quite'. Part of the vernacular of Asian expats)

sansei
Japanese, adjective - third generation. (See nisei, above)

shank's pony
noun - one's own legs as a means of transport, ie. walking. (Shank is not a fellow who owned a pony, it merely means leg)

shat
verb - past tense of shit. (Australians and the English have the irregular verb 'shit' follow 'sit' by way of past participle and past perfect. Thus, sit/sat/sat - shit/shat/shat. Americans have it follow 'hit'. Thus hit/hit/hit - shit/shit/shit. Which is a pity because it's a marvellous word, shat. Oh, 'spit' functions in the same fashion - spit/spat/spat)

stoush
noun - dust-up, brawl, kerfuffle.

telly
noun - television. (Australians have a habit of shortening words and adding a 'y' or an 'o' to the end. Thus 'Christmas presents' become 'Chrissy prezzies'. Foreigners view this as infantile but they fail to understand that it's done in a spirit of archness, which is to say that it's a joke and we all get it. To object to it is to not get the joke)

tuck-shop
noun - a shop, usually by way of a counter, where school students can buy food and drink. (The tuck-shop is usually run by volunteers, invariably known as 'tuck-shop ladies'. The 'tucker' sold in tuck-shops usually consists of pies, sausage rolls, chips, sticky buns, and soft drinks)

tuppence ha'penny
noun - two and half pence. (which is to say, a trifling amount. As in - 'I wouldn't give you tuppence ha'penny for anything he has to say'. In Australia, we shifted from pounds, shillings, and pence over forty years ago but the phrase lingers)

wakarimashita
verb - Japanese for 'I understand' or 'I get it'.

wowser
noun - a prude, a killjoy. (No one knows where this comes from. It's a great word though)

yoroshiku
Japanese, technically an adverb - regards, best wishes. (literally the 'well' from 'please consider me well'. Whilst functioning as 'regards' it does so in a backwards fashion by asking that the second party have regard for the first party, if you can dig it)

haiku of nobody

For those not familiar, haiku is a form of Japanese verse. It's simultaneously possessed of a hard rigidity and is as free as the air. The rigidity comes in the form of its structure which is that of three lines counted off in syllables of five, seven and five. Rhyme is irrelevant. Classically it will evoke images or feelings of the natural world or the seasons. Here are two by Bashō, Japan's 17th century master -

On a withered branch
A crow has alighted:
Nightfall in autumn.

Scent of chrysanthemums . . .
And in Nara
All the ancient Buddhas.

And yes, the syllable count is out. But that's a problem of translation. In the original Japanese, rest assured Bashō got it right. I printed them here merely to demonstrate what we might aspire too.

Perhaps it's just me but I've always enjoyed haiku as an exchange, a conversation. And since I started fiddling around with blogs I've wondered if I might not be able arrange things so that we could all share some haiku. But how to do it precisely?

In rolling this question around in my head a thought occurred to me. And it was on the subject of cryptic crosswords. Believe it or not haiku and cryptic clues are spookily similar. And at the same time are polar opposites. They're both disciplined, word perfect compositions possessed of a minimalist beauty. But a cryptic clue has an agenda. It is a question looking for an answer which will ideally be a punch line. Haiku has no such agenda. It is free of such clever pretensions. It is merely a means of marvelling at the world. How tiresome I am with that phrase, ha ha.

Anyway, my dilemma was how to use a blog, with it's front page and comments section, as a way of having a haiku conversation. Finally it was the comparison with cryptics that decided me. The Times crossword club has a simple template that should work. The editor writes an answer and everyone piles in with their clues and then a winner is announced. So what I shall do is post a picture on the front page. This is the prompt for the haiku. Those feeling inspired can then post their haiku in the comments section, as shall I. And then I, as self-appointed judge (well somebody has to do it) will pick the best one, or two, or three, and put them on the front page. I have no idea if this will work or if anyone will like it. It's merely the best I can come up with. Also I've decided that my own efforts will never grace the front page. And you can't say fairer than that.


Care to join me? The link is just to the right here.

Two Movies

May we discuss Jewish culture? What is it? Is there such a thing? Why is it that everyone reading that sentence had a small electric shiver run up their spine? How many people, right now, have the words 'anti-semite' on the tip of their tongue? Rather than leap in head first why don't we go sideways. And mix some metaphors whilst we're at it, sure. Let's have a discussion that is permissible. I've actually had this particular discussion many times and didn't spook anyone. We all sat round the dinner table and nobody freaked out.

The discussion is about the film Spirited Away by the Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki. It's animated but I hold no brief for animation as such. To that end I'm uninterested in discussing it in those terms. Here I treat it as just another movie, a representation of the-world-is-thus comprised of plot, themes and world-view. When viewed in these terms Spirited Away stands out as being completely at odds with everything I understood, or was familiar with, in cinema - so much so that it left me at a loss when I first viewed it. And yet it was based on a very familiar model. It was a variation of the kind of movie we've all seen many many times, especially if you have kids, ha ha. To wit: a little girl, Chihiro, is separated from her parents and plunged into a world of adventure. Simple stuff. The comparison to Disney is obvious and few who reviewed Spirited Away failed to make it.

Whilst there have been many films following the 'lone child having adventures' model, for the sake of simplicity I'll settle on The Lion King as a useful comparison. Both these films were huge smashes at the box office. Spirited Away broke all records in Japan. Every Japanese kid saw it. The Lion King likewise was watched by just about every kid in America and did such big business it pretty much saved Disney. Kids didn't just see these films once. With the advent of video and then DVD they saw them, in all probability, dozens of times. Anyone who thinks that this doesn't shape a kid is nuts.



I'll do The Lion King first since most people know it better. Loosely, the plot consists of a son failing to heed his father's advice that he not go to a particular dangerous place. Apples anyone? Cue the wicked other, in the role of satan who tempts the son to disobey his father. Our young hero not only succumbs to the temptation but in doing so causes his father's death. Following this, he runs away and effectively leads a life that is a disneyfied version of delinquency. With the father dead and the son absent the wicked other somewhat pointlessly turns paradise into hell. In fact you'd have to wonder why he bothered. If you weren't so distracted by all the singing and dancing that is. Finally, via a requisite plot device, our junior hero returns to do his duty and face down the villain.



The nature of the villain is worth discussing. He is evil - irredeemably so. There is no point coming to a compromise with him. Nor is there any point discussing with him the wrongness of his behaviour. Only a craven fool would even consider it. He is that kind of villain - he who must be killed. Twice. How often must the villain be killed twice in Hollywood? I lost count. And when the villain is dragged screaming down to hell to be tortured and eaten alive, then all is as it should be. Redemption? Never heard of it.



That our villain is limned in such black and white terms is not an accident. His wicked nature did not lead him to his death. Rather, it's the other way around: the screenwriters wanted a fight to the death and to that end depicted him as deserving of it. The final fight to the death was not a result of the plot but rather the purpose of it. Thus it should come as no surprise that after our hero's bloody victory over the devil he is regaled by all of creation. Literally. Not only is he not chastised for any of his previous foolish behaviour but the entire animal kingdom agrees that he is the greatest and most worthy creature there is. Indeed his father appears in an immortal and god-like form and gives our hero a blessing from heaven. Which is to say, the god of the film makers is a god who reserves his blessings for killers.



Wow. So what happened in Spirited Away? Did Chihiro in any way resemble our lion hero? Barely. Chihiro starts the film sooky and self-obsessed but then only briefly - a single minute of screen time. Unwittingly she and her family enter a world of spirits. Her parents, without actually being culpable, are effectively taken and our heroine is lost in a world she doesn't understand. By way of assistance from a sympathetic other she finds herself in, believe it or not, a bath house of animist gods.



Anyone who's seen an unhappy kid on their their first day of school will be perfectly familiar with the nature of her predicament. Indeed she cries precisely in that fashion. Her fear is not of monsters but of an unknown environment that is absent her parents. However unlike the junior lion our heroine has no time for delinquency. She must rescue her mother and father. In fact for the duration of the film she remains selfless, courageous, honest, hardworking, and sympathetic to the plight of others - even those who torment her, if you can believe that.



And who is the villain in this film? Surely there must be one? Perhaps it is Yubaba the witch who runs the bath house? But she takes Chihiro in and treats her exactly as well as everyone else. The bath house is is not a place of suffering. If anything we could declare it a happy place. And what to make of the scene where Yubaba alone recognises the significance of a particular bath house patron (a situation that all had previously misunderstood), rallies the staff of the bath house, and pulls off a tremendous victory that earns the gratitude of a god and ensures the further well-being of the bath house and all whose livelihood depends upon it? What sort of villain is that? Where's the pointless cruelty?



Perhaps the villain is the Kaonashi (No Face in English). He is definitely scary. Wow, he just ate that guy! When he's on a roll, everyone runs for their lives, our heroine included. However, unlike the everyone else she has the presence of mind to plead with him to stop and to consider others. (This is standard in Miyazaki's films. All thoughtless rampagers are asked to see reason and to stop their behaviour). On first viewing of the Kaonashi's rampage any little kid watching will be frankly terrified. But only briefly and only on the first viewing.



On the second inevitable viewing, kids understand that the Kaonashi is not a monster. All he wants is to be friends with Chihiro who was previously kind to him. He is simply confused as to how to go about this. Amazingly, Chihiro refuses to judge him by his early bad behaviour. Here, judgement is entirely absent and forgiveness is s superfluous concept. Indeed upon catching the train to a distant unknown, Chihiro gives the Kaonashi the ticket that would otherwise have enabled her to return. Without moralising, all she asks is that he behave himself. He assents and they peaceably ride the train together.

Extraordinary! When did Hollywood ever have a scene like this? And never was a train ride so beautiful. At the end of the movie we see the Kaonashi happy to farewell Chihiro and sit with Yubaba's sister helping her spin yarn. He wasn't even killed once, let alone twice. Believe it or not, this film has no villain and miraculously it is not dull. Who knew this was possible?



Finally, Chihiro returns to the bath house and by way of forthright wit frees her parents. All rejoice. Yubaba is stumped but receives no comeuppance. That would be pointless. Throughout the story her actions were invariably guided by her responsibilities to those she led and provided for. At no time was she pointlessly vicious or cruel. Compare this to the villains of Disney and Hollywood who are idiotically, even self-defeatingly, vicious. If we weren't watching a movie/tv show and instead encountered such entities in real life we would shake our heads. They'd make no sense.



What's going on here? The most popular movie in Japanese history was completely and utterly at odds with the all-pervasive paradigm of western, which is to say American, which is to say Hollywood story-telling. Unsurprisingly Americans, and those schooled in Hollywoodese, had trouble with this film. Reviewers barely knew what to make of it: Spirited Away was like 'Disney on acid!' and other such idiot descriptions. Nobody said it was 'like Disney except it acknowledged the humanity of all of its protagonists'. Ha ha ha, I crack myself up.

Anyway, in trying to figure out what was 'wrong' with Spirited Away I realised what was 'right' with it and wrong with everything else I watched. And let's not be mistaken. We all watch Hollywood. I'd be prepared to bet that Hollywood product comprises at least 90% of what we watch. Hell, more. And don't think that American TV isn't Hollywood. Of course it is. As for those leaping up in protest - 'But I watch this and that!' - ask yourself if the non-Hollywood product you watch breaks from the Hollywood paradigm, or apes it. We're so used to it we don't even notice. It's like the air that we breathe.



Think about it. How many films or shows have we seen that involved: teenagers knowing better than their idiot parents and being proven right; people heaping insults on and belittling each other and looking cool with it; absurd merciless villains who cannot be reasoned with and must be killed; the righteous smashing of those that would find commonality or seek accord with opponents; a hero who uses lies and other subterfuge to destroy the deserving villain; people for whom co-operation is not an option and must survive by dog eat dog; things such as lying, cheating, stealing portrayed as virtues ...hell, let's just call it 'all that old testament shit'.

Like I said, I've expressed my views on kid's movies at dinner parties, barbecues and other polite venues. Kids are there, they watch DVDs and a discussion ensues. I lived in Japan and China and it suits me to discuss the cultural differences between the Japanese and the Chinese and Westerners. But it's not just me. Everyone grooves on it. Everyone has a story to tell and the conversation goes to and fro. I've stated my take on Spirited Away and The Lion King previously and found people to be fascinated.



Clearly it's permissable to discuss cultural differences by way of cinema. Or is it? May we discuss Jewish culture? Certainly we may discuss other Semites, which is to say Muslims, as long as we all agree how wicked they all are. Does anyone know any Muslims? I do. I found them to be the sweetest, most hospitable people I've ever had the fortune to meet. How is it that the people I've met are so completely at odds with Hollywood Muslims? In Hollywood, Muslims are the very definition of the idiotic villain. They make no sense. They hate us for our freedom, whatever that means. Where in all of the Western Canon was there a villain who hated another man for his freedom? How did Shakespeare miss that one? Um... because there's no such thing?



I digress. May we discuss Jewish culture? Maybe we're not meant to be talking about it at all. So unlikely is this conversation that we don't know where to start. And thus the question - Is there such a thing as Jewish culture? Surely there is. How would we describe it? Don't be scared. We're allowed to speak of the Japanese, the Chinese, and Muslims in this fashion. So. How about Jewish Culture? Oh, and anyone who wants to say that Hollywood isn't Jewish - ha ha ha ha - knock yourselves out. I got no time for such idiot parlour games.



And guess what? I got no time for a discussion of Jewish culture neither. It pivots on an us and them paradigm. Them is the other, the irredeemably evil. Them is those whose humanity is denied. Them can be stolen from, starved, beaten, tortured, killed. And the thing is - if you believe in them you will find them. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those of you out there who believe you have impossibly vicious enemies one way or another you, and people like you, imagined them into reality. Dig it, you're living the Hollywood dream.