Harvard Is Free For Now

You should download Michael Porter's and Mark Kramer's Strategy and Society before the Harvard Business Review starts charging for it. This is an article that will be linked and referenced by every future academic paper containing the word sustainability. Don't wait and be forced to pay just to find out if it is pertinent to your research.

Thoughtless Criticism

I wanted to write sentences containing such words and phrases as: "FairTrade certification", "engender opacity", "social structures", "anti-market market solutions", and "organization dedicated to creating transparency". But that would take a coherency of thought that was walled off earlier this evening behind some remote sleep centers in my brain.

Oni Wa Soto

I can't believe it's another Setsubun already. Which means tomorrow morning I will be spending a great deal of effort scraping smashed beans from the sidewalk because the soy beans sold here don't bake to the same crispy orbs that can be readily swept up. Fortunately my neighbor is a mellow musician who doesn't let smashed soy beans under his toes spoil his day. Unless he still harbors resentment over my failure to be here when the FedEx guy delivered his ominously big box.

Meta Groundhog

Every year my family does the same thing on Groundhog Day. We watch the movie "Groundhog Day". This is such an obvious tradition, I'm surprised I haven't heard of other families following a similar ritual. I was also surprised that a cable channel doesn't run the movie over and over again today. I suspect that in the early days of cable there were channels that ran "Groundhog Day" marathons on Groundhog Day but doing so now would be considered a sign of an unimaginative program director.

Four-eyed Jesus

The picture on my profile is what I looked like 90 years and two ancestors ago. Currently I resemble Jesus Christ with glasses.

Wong Kar-What?

My first introduction to a non-Jackie Chan Hong Kong movie was "Fallen Angels" by Wong Kar-Wai. The release of this movie was very big in Japan. Part of the reason was Japanese/Taiwanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro who was already popular in Japan. This movie pushed him beyond heart-throb status and immediately after this movie came out he probably worked on more Japanese than Chinese projects.

I didn't see the movie in theaters and couldn't rent it until demand subsided several months after its video release. I must have watched it at least five times in a row the first day I finally got a copy. In contrast to Jackie Chan movies, Wong Kar-Wai's work is not easily understood, with or without comprehensible subtitles. There is a scene where after a kill the hitman, Leon Lai, gets on a bus and is recognized by an old high school acquaintance who proceeds to try to sell him a life insurance policy. This scene with its juxtoposition of exhilerating violence followed by the extremely mundane is often mentioned in reviews. However, I don't believe the realism and beauty of the images can be appreciated to the same extent as someone experiencing his daily environment unable to comprehend surrounding conversations. Trying to decipher the dialogue in this movie was the same experience I felt trying to make sense of that morning's subway ride to Tokyo Station.

Of the two trailers, I think the Japanese version gives the impression of a movie with more substance, something beyond a violent thrill ride. Is that just a choice of music or a better sequencing of images.

Japanese Trailer


Chinese/English Trailer

Incomprehensible Bliss

I started watching Hong Kong films in Japan shown with Japanese subtitles. Which is the best way to watch the movies. Unless you can read Japanese.

Jackie Chan movies, especially, are much more entertaining when the dialogue is in Chinese and you are not distracted by a comprehensible translation. The plot, even the jokes, are just as easy to follow. However, the script is not covered with the same patina of lameness that tends to tarnish Jackie Chan movies when shown in the U.S.