Not only do they have nuclear mutually assured destruction, the US & China have economic MAD. Nowhere is this more obvious than Apple’s supply chain. If either govt disturbs it, Apple’s stock tanks, or Chinese manufacturing gets wiped out. (Or both.)
This song is on my extensive “Mysterious Café” playlist. “The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships.” I’ve joked for a while that with its combination of an ethnic Chinese singer, lounge-like sound, and moderately smoky vocals, it evoked Shanghai in the art deco 1920s and ‘30s. Now I’m paying more attention to this official video, and… It’s shot in Shanghai! And those lyrics!
I guess I got it right.
I heard yesterday that Sakamoto had died. It was from cancer, and not wholly unexpected, but it still saddens me.
The first CD I bought was the soundtrack to Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. That meant I also had to buy a player for it, and then hook it up to my big receiver (the fashion of the time). Both the movie and CDs themselves came out in 1983, but I didn’t buy the disc until 1987.
Here’s “Forbidden Colours” the haunting main theme, with vocals by David Sylvian.
From the Hollywood Reporter :
“In summer 2018, it emerged that Sakamoto had found the music so bad at his favorite Japanese restaurant in Manhattan (he had long divided his time between Tokyo and New York) that he contacted the chef and offered to create a playlist. He went on to do the same for a new bar and restaurant the chef opened, without payment or fanfare.”
(The restaurant was Kajitsu, in Murray Hill. If you go to their website, you’ll find it’s now advising you to look at *.jp domain… because they’ve closed, and retrenched.)
Sakamoto won the Oscar for the music in The Last Emperor, which frequently looked like one long music video for him. But perhaps my favorite score he did was for Tony Takitani.
I’ll miss him.
Lexicon. Wild rephrasing of the original from the movie Chasing Amy:
“‘What’s a Nubian?’… Bitch, you almost made me laugh.”
Now, in my defense, this may have been a mashup with a story from my college days. Professor Leonard Pronko put on one of his periodic kabuki productions, this one titled Lancelot Bewitched. The lead, Kevin Costello, was teased by a number of my friends (Mark Vargas, Cathy Kerry, Topher Jaworski, others). Imagine the following delivered to Kevin in the exaggerated style of kabuki:
“Threeeee times! You broke character threeeeee times! And weeee saw you!”
So I may have taken the laughing and the breaking of character, and merged them.
It’s a theory, anyway.
TIL: When an ambassador presents their diplomatic credentials to Japan, they take a horse-drawn carriage to the Imperial Palace. Fiji did that today, in the first horsey ride since it was suspended by reaction to the pandemic.
From the Analects of Kǒng Fūzǐ (15:19), who is frequently Anglicized as Confucius:
Ames & Rosemont: The Master said, “Exemplary persons are distressed by their own lack of ability, not by the failure of others to acknowledge them.”
Lyall (Proj. Gutenberg): The Master said, His shortcomings trouble a gentleman; to be unknown does not trouble him.
Legge: The Master said, “The superior man is distressed by his want of ability. He is not distressed by men’s not knowing him.”
A. Charles Muller: The Master said: “The noble man suffers from his own lack of ability, not from lack of recognition.”
So the next time you’re thinking you don’t get enough comments…