“Poor
Jimmy”. My kids thought I was
talking about Hendrix, which is certainly two points towards my B.F. Skinner
award. No, the last movie was
“Tommy” and in this one the hero is “Jimmy.” I couldn’t resist.
I showed them the opening trailer for Quadrophenia and we ended up
taking it all in yesterday, Sunday.
I saw a double feature of that movie and “The Kids Are Alright” when I
was my older daughter’s age.
I remember that opening scene in Quadrophenia with Jimmy on the scooter
set to “Can You See the Real Me” and feeling such a surge of inexplicable
emotion that I wanted to rip the armrest off the theatre chair. Thirty-five years on, sitting in front
of a lap top, with tame acoustics, my daughters took it all in a bit more
pensively.
And as remembered, it works as a film a lot more
effortlessly than Tommy’s frosting, on top of more frosting abstractions and
cameo after cameo distractions.
The accents are thick, but my older one had recently been saying how
“cool” she thought British accents sounded, a clear mark of distinction there,
and so I could tell she was concentrating. “Why do they (the Mods) hate the other guys (the Rockers) so
much? I have tried to explain that
while I never took a tire chain to anyone over band preferences, these were
extremely serious matters from about their age through college. Friendships were certainly made and lost over
these matters with abrupt unpredictability.
There were a number of things I enjoyed about the film, that
hadn’t recalled among them were the first scene when Jimmy has it out with his
dad, and his dad worries that Jimmy is mentally unstable, like his uncle, his
wife’s brother. This not only
shocks Jimmy, and references the line from “Can You See the Real Me,” but ends with them both laughing about
the uncles unfortunate demise which is somehow unexpectedly tender. Or the sequenced way in which
four distinct parts of his life fall apart, before he boards the “Five
Fifteen.” And looking back, this
time, as expected, Janet Maslin gave it a respectful, encouraging review in
1979, though I’d disagree with her take of the ending. http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F07E2DA1039E732A25751C0A9679D946890D6CF
In an unrelated effort we’ve picked “1984” back up where we
left off before summer vacation.
Winston is secretly writing seditious thoughts to himself and one of his
epiphanies is that the only way anything could ever threaten the Party’s power
would be if the proles decided they’d
had enough of it all, and decided to stand up. And so, later, watching Jimmy in the public bath, eating
boiled cabbage and fried eggs, laboring away at this or that dead-end job, I
pointed out to her: “You see,
these are the proles. This is who Orwell was talking
about.” It’s idle but interesting
imagine what Eric Blair might have made of the Rockers and the Mods and Hippies
and the Punks. He’d probably have
dismissed it all like some grumpy Kingsley Amis, though I suppose, like Ringo in "A Hard Day's Night" he'd have cast himself as a Mocker, relieved most likely that England had more color and better food than he 'd predicted or ever knew.
I’m not sure if Hamiet Bluiett would provide the proper
soundtrack for a youth movement though it could certainly stimulate some
contemplation and perhaps the urge to thrash about wildly. Born in Brooklyn Illinois, which I’ve
since found out was the first black majority community in the United States, in
1940, I came to Mr. Bluiett through his association with David Murray and the
World Saxophone Quartet, he is blowing his big baritone sax majestically in my
ear on this tune “Happy Spirit” from his 1977 release “Resolution.” Now he is honking. Don Pullen is on keys and I can
remember seeing him play when I was at college and he wore two enormous bells
on his ankles, which he shook, as he played.
A professor who probably grew up without any malaprop
alliterations to his name until everyone had a Windows operating system, Bates
Gill has some very measured things to say about Sino-Japanese relations in this
recent interview, in which his flashing green cautious optimism for China has,
not unlike David Lampton’s warming moved to flashing yellow as the danger of
miscalculation rises.
We may need to scrutinize some of
our past assumptions more carefully because it seems, contrary to their own
interests, the Chinese are disturbing their external environment and creating
unstable, less trusting relationships with their neighbors.
China, he continues, has not been able to translate its
manifest hard power into commensurate soft power, so that China is more
powerful, but not “more secure.”
He frankly tells the Asahi Shimbun that he does not see a diplomatic
solution for Senakaku/Diaoyu island dispute because both sides positions have
ossified too retractably. Reading,
it seemed to me that he gave Japan, perhaps too easy a ride, demanding they do
little more than acknowledge there is a conflict. This comment that “I don’t see how in today’s China there is
any mood to forgive and forget,” could certainly be put to Japan, as well,
where there is no real mood to confront or atone for matters from 70 years
ago. Japan has a much more stable
perch from which to show initiative rather than exhaustion with these issues.
Thinking of the party I am envisioning my daughters hosting,
with Chinese speaking kids coming over to a play with all the new English
speaking friends, I’d like to hope that they would each be helping in bridging
the linguistic divide. But what if
simply two camps were formed, and they struggled with loyalties? This sort of article, another in a
series by respected sinologists highlighting that the climate is, in fact,
deteriorating, gives me pause, about the world my daughters are now inheriting. I bet we could bridge the two language groups today. But how long before they harden into
teen camps of Mods and Rockers, with much, much more than black leather jackets
and green war-time parkers to divide them. Second listen now and I’m still not sure I understand Hamiet
Bluiett’s “Resolution” but the need for it or something like it is waxing
full. Stability, prosperity,
mobility and the freedoms Chinese people increasingly enjoy are doomed, if the
Party decides to once again 一刀两断[1] with neighbors, like Japan.
[1] yīdāoliǎngduàn: lit. one knife to cut two segments
(idiom); fig. to make a clean break / firm resolution to break off a relation
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