Cutting Edge

What’s the difference between James Clavell and James Michener? One guy’s book was made into a musical and the other one wrote a book that turned into a TV miniseries starring Toshiro Mifune and Richard Chamberlain.

SHOGUN, despite what its name implies, is not a western, but an eastern, in much the same way as THE SEVEN SAMURAI, which is another Toshiro Mifune film when it’s not being called THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. I was watching SHOGUN last night with a friend who was zapping through commercials with the remote and I said, “What did you do, tape this off your television set in 1980?” Yep. Authentic ads and all.

Anyway, southern California looks very lovely, whether its playing the great American West or Japan or even the Australian outback, as in THE THORN BIRDS. Yes, you remember the ‘80’s, some of you—the last final episode of MASH where Alan Alda seems to fall in love with a chicken, and Richard Chamberlain plays Father de Bricassart who seduces young Meggie while she wears a dress the color of ashes of roses…Chamberlain sticks to the TV screen from “Blackthorne” to “Thorn Bird,” heterosexual heartthrob played by a closeted gay guy.

An artist’s life is never easy. It is a constant struggle against a reality that doesn’t exist but everyone’s agreed upon. Art has been abstracted, hung on white walls instead of being the building, viewed as unnecessary in the infrastructure of food, shelter, clothing, warmth. In our earlier forms, the line between life and art does not exist. Existence is art, creation. Subsistence is craft, the creative process of innovation. Perhaps blogging is bringing us back to that point. Dirty Monkeys Smell Bad—Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring more monkeys….

Miyamoto Musashi sits above my headboard. That’s probably not very Feng Shui to have a legendary swordsman hanging over you while you sleep. If I were at peace with myself, maybe I wouldn’t blog. Musashi is seated and has blue feet, well I mean they’re blue socks, and he looks contemplative. I like him. He’s not so bad as the salmon scowling Japanese warrior prints I have residing in my closet, facing the wall. Who wants to wake up and see that in the morning? What does that inspire, other than to put those guys in the closet? Yesh. Regardless of their sexuality, it’s bad enough I have to see the rest of my family in the morning. Worse for them that they have to look at me.

What do you call a Japanese vase? Answer: East Urn.
What do you call a gun battle?—Western.
What do you call a good swordfight?—Deadly.