Noir

Three months ago, I discussed my reactions to having read Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.  I explained how a travel article investigating the "noir-ish" qualities of present-day San Francisco had led me to read the book that had later spawned the famous Humphrey Bogart movie of the same name.

I'd seen the movie before, but many years ago.  But last Thursday, I saw it again.  Thanks to the Seattle Art Museum's 37th annual Film Noir series, which a friend and I are attending.  If my reading of the book gave me flashbacks to my earlier viewing of the movie -- especially in my picturing of the various characters in terms of the film's stars -- viewing the film on Thursday gave me continual flashbacks to my reading of the book during the summer.

I often say -- read the book, skip the movie.  This time, however, the film so perfectly brings the book to life, with so little violation to either the letter or the spirit of Hammett's tale, that all I can say is read the book first, then see the movie.  Or vice versa.  It really makes no difference.

The Maltese Falcon is the first of nine movies to be shown in the series.  It's also the only one with which I'm familiar -- obviously my education in noir is only beginning.  The remaining films are:

Out of the Past

He Walked by Night

Abandoned

Shakedown

711 Ocean Drive

The Big Combo

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue

House of Games

I look forward to my further initiation into the genre. I'm learning the rules: Trust no one. Especially not the Fat Man. Or the beautiful woman who throws herself into your arms.

Scottish independence

"Declaring that the UK was holding its breath as the people of Scotland make up their minds, Cameron said that voters should understand that their decision will be irreversible."
--The Guardian

Really?

Hey, I'm just a damn Yank, and it's none of my business whether the United Kingdom remains "united," or separates into four units -- England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- or even into all its constituent counties.  My love of novelty makes me kind of excited about the concept of Scottish independence.  (And maybe Scottish customs officials would be less rude than their present British counterparts?)  But my love of British history would also make me upset at such a break-up.

In the same way, I hated colonialism, but I also hated to see the Empire break up.  Such are the contradictions of the human heart.  Or at least of Rainier96's heart.

But back to the prime minister.  Is he really saying that Scottish independence would be absolutely irreversible, even if the Scots came to London, hat in hand, and asked to be re-joined?  The way a split atom of uranium 235 can't be tacked back together again?  Even though Mr. Cameron is now pleading with the Scots not to break his heart and go their own way?

 I care hugely about this extraordinary country, this United Kingdom that we have built together. I would be heartbroken if this family of nations we have put together – and we have done such amazing things – was torn apart.

So he says with one breath.  "But," he seems to be saying with the next, personifying Professor Henry Higgins,

I shall NEVER take her back! If she were crawling on her KNEES!
Let her promise to atone,
let her shiver, let her moan,
I'll slam the door and let the hellcat FREEZE!

No currency union with England!  No, sir!  We won't even allow the Scots to use the pound sterling!  No representation in Brussels (I assume).  Will England even vote against Scotland joining the United Nations? 

The British -- certainly the English -- have a worldwide reputation for equanimity.  I suspect they never mean "never" -- even when they say they do.  I hope the United Kingdom remains united.  If not, I hope the Scots thrive as an independent nation, within the Commonwealth and retaining their allegiance to the Queen. 

But if they don't thrive, and if their future leaders should walk quietly into Parliament at Westminster and seek reconciliation, I suspect that -- after an appropriate amount of sputtering and muttering and "I told you so"s -- the English would gladly welcome them back (as did Professor Higgins with Eliza), and re-unite with Scotland.

And they'd all live happily ever after.

Return to Laos

In 2007 -- the year I began writing this blog -- my nephew and I joined a group of about ten travelers for a visit to Laos and Cambodia.  Oddly enough -- as it now seems -- I never posted my post-trip impressions in my newly minted blog.  I did, however, post a number of photos -- and a photo may indeed be worth a thousand words.

We crossed the Mekong river by ferry from Thailand into Laos.  From that point, we visited the usual tourist destinations -- Luang Prabang and Vientiane in Laos; Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat, and  Lake Tonle Sap in Cambodia. We also hiked and bicycled through rural areas, visiting many small villages, shops and schools -- all in a setting of great scenic beauty.

Luang Prabang is the ancient royal capital of Laos.  It was a beautiful city, studded with temples and surrounded by forests and waterfalls and hiking trails.  We rented bikes and pedaled out of town to one of the waterfalls, and to a bear reserve.  At the time, I assumed that this was the first and last time I'd ever be in Luang Prabang.  I was wrong.

Next month, I'll be staying in Luang Prabang for ten days, visiting the partner of the same nephew I traveled with in 2007, together with my great niece Maury (who will be celebrating her fifth birthday while I'm there).  Maury's mom, after working for a number of years in Sonoma, has taken on an interesting job in Luang Prabang, working for an organization that promotes local handicrafts, especially textiles.  My nephew, at present taking post-grad classes in California to pick up his teaching credential, will join them at the end of the academic year.

In addition to seeing my relatives in their new environment, I'm looking forward to spending enough time in their beautiful city to pick up a feeling for its lay-out and tempo and daily life, a visit that will contrast with our rushed -- but certainly enjoyable -- visit to its major tourist attractions seven years ago.  Readers can anticipate hearing more about my visit in future posts.

Students playing ball

Over the weekend, two major universities -- Stanford and USC -- vied on national television to determine which could make the most costly errors and hand a football victory to its opponent.  It was close, but Stanford threw the final and determining interception.  The game, and my resulting disgust, are immaterial to the post that follows.  Only my mood has been affected.

The current issue of the Stanford alumni magazine contains a lengthy article entitled "Game Changer?"¹  The writers discuss college sports from a number of angles. The article results most directly from the recent ruling by an NLRB regional director that the granting of university scholarships to Northwestern University athletes causes them to be "employees" of the university, entitled to unionization and to collective bargaining for employee benefits.  The ruling has been hailed by many as striking a blow against "exploitation" of college athletes for the financial gain of their school. 

The implications for college sports -- and especially for smaller schools and for the financial ability of colleges to support minor sports at all levels -- could be profound.  The hearing examiner's ruling is under appeal to the full NLRB, and probably will end up in the federal courts.  Athletes at other schools have brought lawsuits directly against their schools that are pending in various federal courts.  (In August, for example, a federal judge ruled in O'Bannon v. NCAA that certain NCAA rules prohibiting compensation to former student athletes for a school's use of their images constitute an anti-trust violation.)

The Stanford Magazine article discusses many of these implications.   The article also discusses a question that has long bothered me -- the relationship between a university and its athletic program.  I have suggested on occasion, more or less facetiously, that colleges should go the logical next step -- contract with professional teams and license their use of the university name and colors.  Alumni could then continue to cheer for their schools -- with the concomitant urge to make annual donations -- and the school could focus on educating its students.  Obviously, Stanford's administration has similar concerns.

Stanford's president, John Hennessy, notes that Stanford sympathizes with the problems faced by many student athletes.  But calling them "employees" is not the solution.

Hennessy says such a result would destroy much of what Stanford values about athletics.  Rather than fielding teams of students who represent fellow students and the university, sports like football would essentially become mercenary enterprises -- a professional minor league.  In that event, he asks, "Why become involved in it?"

My question, exactly.

Stanford has been "going along to get along" with the Pac-12 and the NCAA.  It has accepted compromises -- like adding a twelfth game to the schedule, and adding games on week nights -- with which it feels uncomfortable.  But the school has been walking uncomfortably close to a line it doesn't want to cross.  It sees itself in serious danger of being forced by future events over that line.  Failure to keep athletics subservient to a school's academic program

would likely rupture the currently warm relationship between students who are athletes and those who are not.  "Here we are, Nerd Nation," Hennessy says.  "But not if we're paying the players."

The article warns of possible changes to come, should changes in the balance between schools and their athletics programs continue in their current direction.

It might mean leaving the Pac-12 and throwing in with like-minded schools, probably other highly selective privates.  (Imagine a conference made up of, say, Stanford, Rice, Vanderbilt, Duke, Notre Dame and Northwestern.)  Or the Cardinal could simply play at the Division III level, where athletic scholarships aren't allowed.

Leaving the Pac-12, which in its various mutations has been the Cardinal's conference since the school's earliest days, would be a sad change for its students and alumni, as would the school's decreased ability to compete with Cal in the Big Game. 

But I, for one, would support some such move rather than have Stanford accept a view of the  "student-athlete" (already a euphemism) as a professional, a view that is already increasingly covertly accepted by other large schools across the country. 
--------------------
¹Antonucci & Cool, "Game Changer," Stanford Magazine, Sept.-Oct. 2014.

When the surfing was good

"The 'eighties'," he sighed.  "Hawaii was Hawaii then.  Unspoiled, a land of opera bouffe, with old Kalakaua sitting on his golden throne."  ...  "It's been ruined," he complained sadly.

It is mandatory for anyone who has visited Hawaii more than once to tell everyone within earshot, "It was so much nicer [or "uncrowded" or "romantic" or "authentically Hawaiian"] last time I was here!"

You won't be cured of such comments -- for of such is human nature -- but you may gain a little perspective from reading Earl Derr Biggers's 1925 detective novel, The House without a Key.  The novel, ostensibly about the solving of a Honolulu murder, is interesting to us today primarily for its extensive description of the physical and social world of Honolulu in the 1920s. 

Parenthetically, the novel also introduced to the world that master detective for the Honolulu Police Department, Mr. Charlie Chan.  Detective Chan's role in the novel (and in the following year's movie) was somewhat minimal, but his character spawned a series of five more Charlie Chan novels, a large number of Hollywood films, radio series on four different radio networks, a television series in 1956-57, and several series of comic books.  A cultural icon, obviously, but one largely forgotten today.

Biggers wrote his novel at the Halekulani Hotel on the beach at Waikiki.  The hotel's famous indoor-outdoor restaurant and bar has been named for many years the "House without a Key."  I haven't been able to determine whether it was named after the book -- a best-seller in its day -- or vice versa.  The murder and much of the plot takes place in the Waikiki mansion of a Honolulu businessman, an estate that seems to be located at or near the present location of the Halekulani.  The novel makes a point of the fact that the house -- like almost all Hawaiian houses at the time -- was never locked.

The novel reminds us that the 1920s were an era untouched by today's mass tourism.  Honolulu was reached by a week-long voyage by ship from San Francisco.  Everyone knew the arrival times of the next ships. 

Waikiki was a romantic stretch of beach, occupied by only a few hotels catering to the upper crust of American society -- primarily, in this book, at least, New England society.  Waikiki -- today merely a district of Honolulu -- was separated from the city proper by about three miles of rice paddies and other farmland.  A streetcar connected the two areas, and is frequently used in the book, even by the wealthy who owned their own cars. 

The hero -- John Quincy Winterslip, an impossibly young, strait-laced, and naïve thirty-year-old Boston banker -- has come to the islands to visit his Aunt Minerva, a middle-aged woman who the family fears has stayed too long in Hawaii and has succumbed to its lotus-eating charms.

Her mind strayed back to the Honolulu she had known in Kalakaua's day, to the era when the Islands were so naive, so colorful -- unspoiled.  Ruined now, Dan had said, ruined by a damned mechanical civilization.

Her wistfulness is a theme that runs throughout the book, a longing for a lost Hawaii, a longing that seems so strange to us now, living in an over-crowded era when Honolulu in the 1920s itself represents a long-lost paradise. 

A reporter covering the murder investigation sounds the same theme, discussing the harbor:

"As far as I'm concerned, the harbor of Honolulu has lost its romance.  Once this was the most picturesque water-front in the world, my boy.  And now look a at the damned thing!"  The reporter relighted his pipe.  "Charlie can tell you -- he remembers.  The old ramshackle, low-lying wharves.  Old Naval Row with its sailing ships.  The wooden-hulled steamers with a mast or two -- not too proud to use God's good winds occasionally.  The bright little row-boats, the Aloha, the Manu, the Emma.  Eh, Chan?  ...  oh, well, those days are gone for ever now.  Just like Galveston or Seattle.  Yes, sir, this harbor of Honolulu has lost its romance."

This is a book you can read and enjoy for its atmosphere, and for its sense of history.  You can ignore the rather dull and formulaic "mystery," as well as the controversy over the "racist" portrayal of Charlie Chan's smiling, outward appearance of passivity and his "ah so!" use of the English language.  Enjoy it for its atmosphere, and also for its striking reminder that the golden age always exists a generation or so earlier. 

To Biggers's characters of the 1920s, the golden age of Hawaii was that of the 1880s, just as the golden age of Paris for the young hero in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris was that of the 1920s.  And as a character in that film reminds us:

Nostalgia is denial - denial of the painful present... the name for this denial is golden age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one's living in.

We know this to be true, as did Earl Derr Biggers in 1925.  But we don't care, because nostalgia for a golden age is so bitter-sweetly satisfying and fulfills so  well an apparent human need to believe that a better world is not only possible but was once, "for one brief shining moment," actually achieved.

Indulge yourself.  Remind yourself of a forgotten Hawaii.  It's a fast read.