Mozart's 250th Birthday - 27 January, 2006

Selection Expired on 02-27-2006: Fazil Say (piano): Mozart's Piano Sonata K.331 in A Major- Rondo Alla Turca

Right On! Stephen Harper

This post was sent from the mobile iPAQ hx2755.

After four terms of a scandalous Liberal controlled government, the Canadians elected a conservative PM at last night's national election.

It was the Canadian version of the blue state red state struggle. The blue provinces won Stephen Harper will take the helm as the new conservative Prime Minister, whose positions are more aligned with President Bush.

Eat Drink Man Woman

My penchant for old movies has had me watched many a commercial-free Turner Classic Movie (TMC) features on television. And now, Comcast cable also offers its subscribers free full-length movies on the On Demand channel. Like TMC, many of these free On Demand flicks are from yesteryears. But as Peter Bogdanovich once said, there are no old movies, just movies I haven't seen. Ang Lee's "Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)" was a movie I had not seen until a few evenings ago.

This movie title "Eat Drink Man Woman" reads like a line from Neil Simon's comedy Murder by Death (1974). In this parody of the British cozy mysteries, the character Lionel Twain (Truman Capote) castigated Inspector Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers) for the mangling of the English tongue. Wang was scorned for speaking English without articles, pronouns, and prepositions. The tongue-in-cheek subtext of Twain's irritation with Wang, of course, was Capote himself, an accomplished writer in real life.

Many from non-English speaking countries are learning to speak (and write) the lingua franca trippingly or haltingly the language of Shakespeare. Modern English words such as "hi" and "bye" have already grafted comfortably into the everyday Taiwan-Chinese vocabulary, as evinced in Eat Drink Man Woman . Yet, it is the eloquence of this four-word vernacular which speaks volumes to the immense richness of the Chinese language.

The original movie title comprised of four traditional Chinese calligraphic characters: 飲食男女. The literal and sequential translation of which reads: Drink_Eat_Male_ Female. These elemental word-characters and their meanings are known to every grade schoolers where traditional Chinese calligraphic scripting are taught.

There are no grammatical equivalents for gerunds, transitive, intransitive verbs, or tenses in Chinese. Thus the word-character Drink(ing) or Eat(ing) can be either a noun or a verb, depending on the syntax and context where they are placed along other words in a sentence. When Drink and Eat are paired in tandem (not Eat before Drink as in the subtitle), it became a couplet with further amplification in meaning. With the sum greater than the parts, the two-word phrase transformed to connotate "sustenance" or "to maintain life".

Vis-à-vis the ubiquitous scripting of today's Chinese, as examplified in the screen version of the words, Drink and Eat, the latter two words of the movie title Male and Female were shown as very old calligraphic variants. The significance of this change in scripting was interesting, if intriguing to note. This hieroglphic-like couplet of the "male and female" characters could lend to mean the biological imperatives of mating is as old as time. It is as necessary as eating and drinking.

When these two couplets were further paired as in the movie title, we have the adage "Drink_Eat_Man_Woman". A terse, quintessential statement that says : The circle of life requires sustenance.

In this Taipei family drama, Ang Lee aptly juxtaposed the varying affects of food and love, as it should be, to impart a verisimilar and sumptuous lesson on life.

Fair and Balanced Ended at PBS

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Reports on PBS I noted in November 2004 has lasted longer than I would have thought.

The Journal Report has finally worn out its welcome at the liberal wing's public broadcasting mothership. Starting this weekend, it's new home will be the Fox News Channel.

Beware of Juicyfruiter

Juicyfruiter of juicyfruiter.blogspot.com is a spammer of sorts. (S)he -yes, this person uses different male and female names - and leaves a boilerplate at many blogs. Some of these blogs where (s)he commented on are not even written in English. The juicyfruiter invitation reads as follows:

"I read over your blog, and I found it inquisitive, you may find My Blog interesting. My blog is just about my day to day life, as a park ranger. So please Click Here To Read My Blog...

Instead of doing his job out and about as one expects, this supposed park ranger sure has a lot of time surfing the blogosphere using various aliases. (S)he should be fired . The taxpayers must not put up with this public employee not doing the work (s)he is paid to do.

On a Rainy Saturday Afternoon

Another winter storm front has arrived. It's wet and windy out, and some streets are flooded in the 'hood. After visiting my auto mechanic, I picked up a rotisserie chicken and some freshly baked French bread and settled in to watch some telly.

I went through some channel surfing and settled between a NFL playoff game and the US Ice Skating Championship. As for the latter, I was more interested in naming the tunes the skaters selected for their long programs. My enjoyment of the program was not so much who skated good or bad. Since the commentators could care less about the musical titles nor the composers, my enjoyment of the program was to name the classical selections the skaters chose. The skaters and their coaches or choreographers, however, adhered to a very shallow classical repertoire. As such, it was fairly easy in naming the pieces.

And for the football game, as of this post, the Seahawks leading the Redskins 14 to 3, in the third quarter of the playoff. My thought is already turning to read Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian.

Staff Rotations Completed

The routine staff rotations are completed for the duration. Two current senior command staff will be replaced in and before March. There will no assignment change for me. As staff, I along with a handful of others, will be assigned to another top brass in March.

Our Group's First Fatality in Iraq

One of our staff sergeants' 21-year-old son was killed in Iraq on 6 January, 2006. Our group related first combat loss in Iraq.

Ouch!

Tonight, on nationwide television broadcast, the Texas Longhorns edged the USC Trojans at the Rose Bowl, 41-38. No USC three-peats for the national title.

(USC coach, Pete Carroll, is from our neck of the woods.)

A Blustery and Rainy New Year

There is nothing quite like a rainy wind to start off a new year. It rinses away last year's gathered debris and sere leaves on the roof as it does the cobwebs of the mind.

A fresh start for redeeming the time in this new year.

Another Year is Dawning

Another Year Is Dawning

Words: Frances Havergal, 1874*
Music: Samuel Wesley


Another year is dawning, dear Father, let it be
In working or in waiting, another year with Thee.
Another year of progress, another year of praise,
Another year of proving Thy presence all the days.

Another year of mercies, of faithfulness and grace,
Another year of gladness in the shining of Thy face;
Another year of leaning upon Thy loving breast;
Another year of trusting, of quiet, happy rest.

Another year of service, of witness for Thy love,
Another year of training for holier work above.
Another year is dawning, dear Father, let it be
On earth, or else in Heaven, another year for Thee

* Frances Havergal originally wrote the words to this hymn as a po­em for her New Year’s greet­ing cards.