Dangling Silver Scissors

“House of the Flying Daggers.”  I hadn’t realized that this was the translation of ‘Shi Mian Mai Fu’ when I went to see it last night.  Friends invited us and we were blessed with remarkably forgiving traffic on a wet evening.   We arrived with a few minutes to spare.

I was told that this was a story I should be familiar with.  Things are set in the founding of Han Dynasty.  I tried my best to piece it together.  Fruitlessly, I’d poked around on Baidu on my phone.  “You know, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu.”    I wish someone had said “四面楚歌“.    Western history remains anchored differently.

We settled in, just in time, to a ceiling full of sharpened silver and a woman off to the write using a scissor, as things go under way.  Unable to anchor or trace the story, I floated from one remarkable set to another. The ceiling full of dangling silver scissors seemed alive, anchored in such a way that they swayed in unison, menacingly. 

The final battle, what I later discern must be the “Battle of Gaixia” is set amidst a sand dune’s worth of red feathers that swirled and fell like snowy blood down on to naked bodies.  Bare legs squirming slowly, up from all the red plumage, like some horrid insect on its back.  These bodies moved at half time while our protagonists spun like drunken, angry roosters.  Yang Liping has directed something visually arresting. 

The next morning I looked on-line.  I couldn’t find any mention of the performance in English.  I found reference to a 2004 movie that Zhang Yimou had done with the same Chinese title.  But when I read about it, he’d set it in the Tang Dynasty.  Finally my older daughter found me the link I was looking for in Chinese to the performance itself. 

http://www.chncpa.org/NewsSearchAct/zxxqAct.jspx?id=1194719

http://ent.163.com/photoview/5B8A0003/572118.html#p=B44190VF5B8A0003&from=tj_review

The national theatre doesn’t register much of an impression as one drives into it, but the building is lovely to walk around in, once the show is done.  The dome glistened on this rainy evening.  I remember I used to know a young lady who’s family was moved to make room for this theatre.   But that is all I remember.

Life Beyond My Own

Now I’m heading home.  The cab smells damp and mouldy.  The rain outside helps to germinate the archeology of putrid spoors resting on the seat cover.  These seats are supporting life beyond my own.  The driver is adventurous, cutting in and out, ignoring the cameras.   We will get home sooner.  And the lively smell is building. 

I had quite a few meetings today.   By the last meeting, in a darkening office with a presentation mid presented, I was on the edge of falling asleep.  I sat there and let other people do the talking and slowly drifted toward the rocks of embarrassment.  I’m in middle school arguing with a teacher.  I’m back.  There is a new slide.  The drift-in, is only really a few seconds, but the pull of the un-retrievable dream is all consuming.  Where was I?

It’s not much better now, riding home in the back of a cab.  I’m tired but not yet sleepy.  Soon I’ll lie down and call it a night.  But for now, I’ve managed, somehow to stay awake.  Perhaps it is this smell has me unwittingly alert. 

Later, at home I read further into “Crime and Punishment” with my older daughter.  Roskolnikov’s friends are starting to get suspicious.   One of them made the mistake of saying something untoward about our anti-hero’s mother.   Hi waxing insanity is forever plausible, immediate. 

The Shandong Place

I haven’t been in China for a week.  What do you want for dinner?  Well, what do you want for dinner?  Let’s go to that Shandong place.  And so we did. 

The “Shandong” place is over in Pinnacle Plaza.  This mall continues to sprout new establishments.  Someone, who had some fame for some reason and who hails from Qingdao opened this place amidst all the competition.     

The inside is simple, with faux seaside gear and request photos of the city.  Immediately after settling in, the table beside ours was filled up by five guys and their bottle of baijiu.  Soon, the familiar smell had reached our table and my younger daughter commented on it.  Half full, forever half full I suggested that she relish the smell.  “Some day, you’ll be far from China and when that smell hits your nose unexpectedly, a thousand memories will come flying back to you.  I was not particularly convincing. 

Continuing on all things olfactory, I asked my daughters, “what is a smell you can think of that could only evoke the US?  My younger daughter said “burgers” but then conceded that burgers were available in China as well.  My older daughter suggested “fresh cut grass.” Nice one, Marcel.  I can smell it now. 

 I have tried to sell my younger daughter on “Shandong” calamari.  It is leeks and squid and she isn’t fooled.  My older daughter won’t move beyond the chicken dish.  My wife and I are left repeating over and over that the dishes they won’t try are delicious. 

Walking Swiftly will Suffice

Recording into the late night in suburban Oakland.  We were notified around midnight that the sound was a bit loud.  The sound of my yelling.  Something more harmonic then?  Something more smoky than shred.

In the morning, after not to many hours of sleep, I lugged my suitcase down the stairs.  I’d had a dozen books shipped to me in the US and most of them where now in this bag.  At the bottom of the stairs, mocking my Frankensteinian plodding was a metallic green humming bird, rising and falling like an impossible little drone.

The ride over the Bay Bridge can be a dreadful undertaking.  But at 8:00AM on a Sunday one just revels at how overbuilt everything feels.  The new bridge has a five-lane route over to Treasure Island.  (Was it named as such before the book was published?)  There is nothing to block the view off the side, except the old, half removed hulk of steel that used to span things.

On time.  Plenty of time.  Car returned, bags checked, sitting down with my espresso at Starbucks.  “May I have a receipt?”  “Oh sure."  She starts going through the garbage.  She pulls up one and throws it down.  She does this five more times.  I'm not looking forward to my receipt.  I suggest they print out another and bring it to me over at my table.  I need to return three more times.  It occurs to me that they wish I would just disappear.  Finally I am presented with a clean receipt. 

A call or two made from the lounge.  No flight announcements are broadcast.  Walking down the hallway I hear my name called out.  I decide not to run.  Walking swiftly will suffice.  Too calloused with it all.

No one in the seat beside me.  No more announcements on the United flights from Jeff Smisek either.  That was fast.  But the crew couldn’t have been more polite.  I told one steward “I’ll see you on the next flight” and he said: “no you won’t.  I retire in two weeks.”  Man did he look happy. 

The Campanile

When I lived in New York, I always left the Empire State building unclimbed.  I have never lived in Berkeley.  Though I’ve clocked in six years in the Bay Area.  And what is Berkeley if not the Sather Tower staring down, signifying the university, pin pricking the name, up on the hill. 

A friend works at the university and we visited her office.  The suggestion was made:  Shall we climb the Campanile?  “Is there an elevator?” I asked, a bit too quickly. “Indeed.”  “Well. “  The promise of the view had already been lodged as something requisite. 

There was a line.  We’d need to wait but only for one cycle of the elevator.  A woman sat in a chair, operating the lift.   She took her role seriously and explained to us what was to be found on the intermediary floors.  I wondered what it was she was reading. 

The top is remarkable.  This is a view you know, implicitly.  Haven’t I seen this before?  Telegraph Avenue runs right down into Oakland.  “Is that the Greek Theatre?”  “No.  That’s the sports arena, the Greek Theatre is sunk down there.” It occurs to me how loud so many of those shows must have been.   Turning west the Bay extends out so broadly north and south, far wider that I’d imagined.

 

What time is it?  Perhaps we should leave before these bells ring.  Down and out to the plane trees in a line that look like they need to be watered.  The cedars smell so dry and fresh, an aromatic tinderbox.   The bells begin.