1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 76: Comrades: Almost a love story

Compare this Hong Kong rom-com to Nora Ephron’s crowd-pleasers (When Harry Met Sally; Sleepless in Seattle; You’ve Got Mail).

Similarities:

• The lovers “meet cute”
• It takes years for them to end up together
• They’re played by big stars
• Maggie Cheung (compare: Meg Ryan)
• Leon Lai (compare: “rom-com” Tom Hanks, with a little of Forrest Gump stirred in)

Differences:

• The lovers are poor immigrants
• They don’t live in apartments that only millionaires could afford
• They don’t have respectable upper-middle-class jobs (a sample of Ephron-movie jobs: architect, journalist, CEO)

The man works for years to rise to the position of sous chef in a modest restaurant.

The woman, even more driven, holds an endless succession of jobs (hustles, really), several at a time:

• McDonald’s cashiering
• For-profit language school recruiting
• Stock trading
• Bootleg music vending
• Tour guiding
• Massaging
• Being “kept” by a gangster

But this isn’t a sordid movie, at least not tonally; it really does feel like something by Ephron.

The lovers pursue and retreat from each other, stringing the audience along. There are good arguments for their coming together, and for their remaining apart. What will the lovers choose? Or will fate choose for them?

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They become friends because they’re lonely. Both have moved to Hong Kong from the mainland. One of them knows that the other is an immigrant; the other does not. The truth is revealed only gradually.

It won’t be these characters’ last move. The story takes them from China to Hong Kong to New York: least free, freer, freest.

Hong Kong, it seems, is the intermediate stage in a “natural” progression from China to the United States, whether or not the mainlanders who stop over in Hong Kong admit it. Their behavior in Hong Kong points to it. They take English classes. They eat U.S. food and watch U.S. movies. Mickey Mouse is a recurring image. One older Chinese immigrant, who has spent her life running a brothel of Thai immigrants, is obsessed with the actor William Holden.

On the other hand, the immigrants regard the mainland as shameful. They hush up their origins. If they cling to certain relics of the past, they keep them secret.

A pop star, Teresa Teng, dominates the soundtrack. Mainlanders in Hong Kong revere but won’t openly listen to her, lest they be detected as not native to Hong Kong.

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The character who bucks the trend is Pau, a good-natured gangster played by Eric Tsang (who reminds one of Peter Lorre).

The woman involves herself with Pau during a difficult time. Pau isn’t stupid. He notices the lovers’ feelings for each other. Ruthless in business dealings, he’s surprisingly tolerant of his “kept” woman’s longings. Perhaps he can afford to put up with her equivocal feelings because, paradoxically, he isn’t a striver. He may pursue money, but he’s outside the usual hierarchy of advancement. He’ll always be riffraff; he knows what he is; he is contented.

He, too, moves to New York, and observes wryly that the rough-and-tumble neighborhood where he has ended up isn’t very different from where he began.

Meanwhile, the lovers are kept at arm’s length from each other by their mainstream notions of success.

This is my favorite image: Cheung on the left, Tsang on the right, Lai and his mainland bride in the middle. Four characters, three couples. The dream, on both continents, is for romantic and material success to issue predictably from hard work and prudent choice. But success is more capricious. The route is tortuous and unclear; at some junctures, travelers must be downright lucky.

Copa América

Biden and Trump are debating, but I’m watching Bolivia vs. Uruguay.

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Uruguay and Argentina are the cream of this tournament and should reach the final. I’d say that apart from them, only the Colombians have much of a chance (but I’d be speculating, since I missed their opening game).

By “much of a chance,” I mean about three percent.

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Among the also-rans, several teams have had matches spoiled by red cards: Ecuador, Peru, and the USA.

I’m a modest person … I don’t like to gloat … but Ecuador’s red card was the least stupid of the three.

A Panamanian also was red-carded; but his punishment came late in the game, and it was for a proper, honest-to-goodness patada.

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Happy birthday to my dear friend, Grace, the Salvationist.

Today also is the fifth anniversary of my dissertation defense. (I just pulled that volume off the shelf. For a double-spaced work, the typesetting really is aquittable.)

It must also be the fifth anniversary of my last meeting with Dick Miller and Nick Sturgeon. 🥺

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R.I.P. Kinky Friedman, the Jewish Texan who wrote hilarious murder mysteries, set in Manhattan, in which he cast himself and his friends as detectives. (This description barely scratches Friedman’s surface.) I learned about him during the first lecture of my first college U.S. history class. I have no idea why he was mentioned, beyond the obvious fact that he was too important to omit.

Children in the dunes

Today my sons climbed upon kitchen counters; removed baking supplies from cabinets; tore open sacks and twisted off bottle caps; dumped flour, sugar, honey, cream of tartar, etc. onto the kitchen and living-room floors (and upon themselves); erected block buildings amidst dunes of flower and sugar; and drove toy cars over the dunes.

This was done not all at once but throughout the day, in recurring cycles of sin, punishment, repentance, and forgiveness. (One doubts the genuineness of the repentance.)

Why did you permit the recurrence of these misdeeds? What were you doing all day?

• Cleaning this or that part of the house
• Cleaning this or that child
• Scolding/threatening this or that child
• Punishing this or that child
• Comforting this or that child
• Eating lunch
• Lying next to this or that child, trying to lull him to sleep
• Inadvertently dozing off

What with these distractions, it’s easy enough for the other (unattended) hellion to quietly wreak havoc.

Why wouldn’t you deal with them both together, instead of always leaving one to do mischief?

Believe me, I tried. They were confined together in Baby Jail for a time. It was borderline cruel and unusual.

And, after a child has forfeited his TV privileges, there is little that can hurt him; he may as well go “all out”; nothing remains but to flout the prison guard.

Just let the children play! Let their whims and imaginations run free! They aren’t hurting much.

I tried this, too (it was how I was able to eat lunch). Letting children play is a nice idea. But, eventually, they must come out of this blessed state – the kitchen can’t remain unswept forever – and then, strife is redoubled.

I don’t fancy myself an outstanding parent – my efforts are mostly directed toward survival and the satisfaction of extremely basic needs (theirs, mine) – but some days, I worry I’m downright lousy.

A Pole’s woes; the “clásico del Pacífico”; plans for Samuel

More Euros. The Germans look decent … the Spanish look very good but depended on an Italian “own” goal for their second victory … the English look putrid … the Dutch and French played a tedious, scoreless draw … the French have yet to score (they did provoke an Austrian “own” goal; the Euros’ official tally, so far, is five).

Poland’s excellent but perennially luckless goalkeeper, Wojciech Szczesny, committed a penalty-kick foul with his face. He only received a yellow card.

(I first saw him in the opening match of the 2012 Euros; he committed a delicate penalty-kick foul then, too, and was ejected.)

The Copa América has begun. Argentina defeated Canada. Chileans and Peruvians kicked each other all through their scoreless draw; quite a few were incapacitated (their rivalry is known as the Pacific Classic).

Frodo et al. have ventured into Moria.

Samuel watches Scooby-Doo.

He was waitlisted by and then accepted into our preferred preschool. A relief; but I grieve that this summer will be his last before he heads out into the world.

Euros

Congrats to Turkey – now Türkiye – and to Georgia for contesting the best match, so far, of these Euros. Thrilling stuff, especially the closing minutes.

Congrats to Romania. Congrats to Germany for rising from the dead. Anti-congrats to Ukraine, England, and (shudder) Scotland.

The French underwhelmed in their first match – except for N’Golo Kanté, now of the Saudi league, who returned to the national side after a two-year absence. He was astounding. I think he covered every square inch of grass. He made his excellent teammates, Rabiot and Camavinga, look ordinary.

If he keeps it up, he’ll be the tournament’s best player.

“But how does one stream all of this soccer, John-⁠Paul?”

Subscribe to ViX ($6.99/month); access:

• the Euros
• the Copa América (beginning Thursday)
• Argentina’s and Brazil’s World Cup home qualifiers
• the UEFA Champions League (fall, winter, spring)
• various domestic leagues (Mexican, Colombian, etc.)
• telenovelas
• telenovelas about soccer

Should you choose not to subscribe, there is some free content as well.

I am not being paid to recommend ViX.

I had an entertaining dream last night. As well as I can recall, it involved hostage-taking, jewel-thieving, and deportation to Texas under the witness protection program.

June’s poem

Alas, this is how I often feel, re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring.

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From Nancy Mitford’s Highland Fling:

Receiving no answer beyond a frigid stare, Albert, with a deep sigh, disposed himself upon the stone, sitting cross-legged like an idol. He then produced a slim volume from his pocket. “I presume you have read ‘The Testament of Beauty,’ sir?”

“Never heard of it.”

“Oh, sir, you must have heard of it. A very great poem by our Poet Laureate.”

“No, I haven’t; I expect it’s immoral stuff, anyway. Kipling ought to be the Poet Laureate, to my mind.”

“Alas! Philistine that I am, I must disagree with you. I cannot appreciate Sir Rudyard’s writings as no doubt I should. ‘Lest we forget, lest we forget,’ ” he chanted. “Have you a favourite poem, sir?”

The general remained silent, his eye on the horizon. As a matter of fact he had a favourite poem, but he could not quite remember how it went –

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig my grave and let me lie.

Home is the hunter home from the hill,

And the hunter home from the hill.

Something more or less like that.

The actual poem (Stevenson’s “Requiem”):

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Body-text fonts, pt. 28: Iowan Old Style

Halftime in Philadelphia: Ecuador 2, Bolivia 0. Ecuador using subs. Some ought to be starters.

Ecuador wearing white. Bolivia wearing very pale green shirts with dark green shorts and stockings. These outfits do not exactly fan the flames of patriotism.

For a while, I listened to a livestream with amateur Bolivian commentary. It sounded like this: We’re una porquería. … Come back, Marcelo Moreno Martins! … Hee, hee, Brazil is going to tie the USA.

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This month’s typeface is Iowan Old Style. Some computers arrive with it installed. Supposedly, it’s one of the “ten most popular text serif fonts, as selected by Identifont users over the past seven days.”

I’ve seen no evidence of this out in the wild. Who, exactly, is using Iowan? Maybe I look in the wrong places.

People should use Iowan. It’s lovely.

I own just one book set in Iowan. Fortunately, it has 600+ pp. – plenty from which to sample.

Here’s the italic:

And the roman:

Argentina 1, Ecuador 0

I viewed the second half of Ecuador’s “friendly” match vs. Argentina, preparatory to this summer’s Copa América (which, for reasons of greed, is being held in the United States). It was played in Chicago. Ecuador lost; our coach is still clueless; we are devoid of strikers; Argentina is a cut above. Even so, I enjoyed the game. Such players as Moisés Caicedo and Willian Pacho give pleasure no matter what the rest of the team is doing. And by now I have a great liking for these Argentinians. They may not always win, but everything they do is purposeful; and the goal Di María scored tonight was pure artistry. “They teach you not to toe-poke,” the commentator said, “but this is when you toe-poke.” (Right, but who are these morons teaching children not to toe-poke?) De Paul’s pass was lovely, too, and Romero should be credited for moving to an unusual position to receive it.

I also liked that the Ecuadorians and Argentinians kicked each other hard but still joked with each other on the field. (They might not have been so friendly in, well, a non-“friendly.”)

Also gratifying (more so, result-wise): Colombia beat the USA, 5–1; and Uruguay beat Mexico, 4–0. David and I noted that the Uruguayans barely seemed to try, except for their poor wingers who had to keep running into empty space, and poor Darwin Núñez who had to stay with them to convert his tap-ins.

🥺

Sad news about this restaurant – the only local place I know of that sells Gaeng Hung Lay.

The owners are nice people. This really is too bad.

A GoFundMe page is here.

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I’m re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring. The last time, I was in the fourth grade. I remember being bored while the hobbits made their way through the Shire. Get to Rivendell! I thought. How many hundreds of pages can it take? How many meals must they stop for? And who cares about the sale of Bag End to the Sackville-Bagginses? Now I relish all of this. Each of the four principal hobbits is lovely. The chapter about Farmer Maggot is a delight. The good farmer displays an abundance of “country” virtue: industry, forthrightness, loyalty, hospitality, courage. Also, alas, undue suspicion of outsiders, even of fellow hobbits.

Hobbits who live in different Shire quadrants consider each other “queer.” Eastern Shire-dwellers like to mess around in boats, and some even befriend elves; Westerners … do not. These differences are the basis of their mutual mistrust.

This silly thinking, all too pervasive in the real world, is best corrected indirectly, by way of literature. Consider some real-life rivalry (e.g., Democrats vs. Republicans). Each tribe is prepared to defend every point, almost to the death. Absurd … but it’s hard to see the absurdity once you side with, or against, one of the tribes. The habit of scrutinizing each point reinforces the enmity.

It’s better to approach one’s adversary having first learned to smile at the hobbits’ silly disputes.

I remember my boss at IU saying that most first-year English papers end up arguing, Everybody just needs to get along. Not a bad position to take, until it becomes untenable. It turns out that orcs have real-life counterparts who must be kept at bay.

The problem is, it’s all too easy to mistake Farmer Maggot, a “stout fellow” if ever there was one, for an orc.

I wish I had known you better, Frodo – to his great credit – tells the farmer.

Onions

A work in progress.

In a rice cooker, combine:

Yellow onions, peeled, 2

Water, 2/3 cup

Butter, 1 tbsp

Pasta (e.g., bowtie), 2–3 oz

Meat: bacon, 1–2 oz; tuna, canned, 5 oz; leftover fried chicken; or what have you

Seasoning: oregano, cayenne pepper, mustard, what have you

The goal is to end up with tender, buttery, whole onions. Their layers should slide off each other at the touch of a fork. They should be slurpable.

The pasta adds calories and soaks up water. Some of it gets seared to the bottom of the pot (especially if it’s cooked with tuna). I like this.

But sometimes I eat the onions over toast instead.

Karin can’t stand onions, so when I cook this dish, I open the windows and turn on the ceiling fan.

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“Speed Is NOT a Die Hard Clone!” says my friend Andrew.

Turns out, Die Hard is basically just 12 Angry Men. An “everyman” vanquishes foes one at a time in a contained space.

This invites us to consider other riffs on the 12 Angry Men plot. (Actually, they precede 12 Angry Men.) (1) And Then There Were None. Murderers on an island get their comeuppance one at a time. The difference: there’s no “everyman”; the avenger is unknown. From this comes the “slasher” genre. (2) The Man Who Was Thursday. Anarchists are brought over to the side of law and order, one at a time. The difference: the location isn’t contained; the action spills over into several countries.

Those precedents are from the same century. What older ones might there be? Making this or that allowance, we might consider such questers as Jack the Giant Killer, and then Herakles, Odysseus, Beowulf, and Sinbad. Perhaps this would be straying too far.

The defining limitation appears to be how contained the setting is. 12 Angry Men has all the others soundly beaten along this dimension.

As for overcoming foes: in Kind Hearts and Coronets, an “everyman” bumps off, one by one, heirs to a coveted inheritance. If Thursday is kind-hearted and redemptive, KH&C is deathly cynical. You can support contrasting morals on the same frame.

I said Thursday’s setting isn’t contained, but, in a sense, it is: all the foes are together in an early scene, eating breakfast on the same veranda. And maybe spatial containment is just the most obvious kind. What matters is that there are foes one is given, as opposed to foes one seeks out. In 12 Angry Men, givenness is visceral because the foes are all in the same room, all story long. But there are other ways of depicting this. Foes can all show up for the same meal, or in the same family tree.