For a while there it was a battle of the landladies. My old landlady wanted to get the apartment I currently inhabit off of her hands so that she could return to Canada unburdened by any Taiwanese real estate-related issues, but my new landlady kept insisting on fixing every little thing that was wrong with the place before closing. The old landlady would pay some joker to come in and do a substandard job, the new landlady would see it and have a fit, and the cycle would begin anew. Bulbs were replaced, electrical outlets fixed, cracks fixed, etc. This went back and forth for some time, and I did take advantage of the time to do a little house hunting. Other than some smallish places in other outlying areas, I didn’t find anything I was truly happy with. Well, that’s not true; I did find one place I was almost ready to move into, but I decided to follow my own rules and wait a bit before deciding. Sure enough, the place was snapped out from under me. This just goes to show I don’t know what I’m talking about half the time. In any case, finding a new place doesn’t excite me the way it used to, since I already live in a place I’m really happy with. Any other place short of a luxury high-rise is going to pale in comparison, and you’re not going to find many of those reasonably priced and near an MRT stop.

So I ended up signing a lease at a higher rent. The agent had negotiated it down a bit from the new landlady’s original offer, but it’s only a 6-month lease, so I may find myself looking again around Chinese New Year’s, despite her assurance that she wouldn’t raise the rent any more, because I can barely afford what I’m paying now. In any case, at least I won’t have to deal with housing stuff for a while.

This is good, because Dean and I are gearing up to start filming the sequel to Clay Soldiers. We have a script and most of our actors, but this one’s going to be a much larger production than the last, possibly even feature-length. It will be tough, but it should also be a lot of fun and a chance to learn a lot more about filmmaking.

I haven’t heard from one of my best friends in high school, Shawn Lewis, in a while, in fact ever since he got a job working for Dreamworks, but a little googling reveals that he’s been busy, having a hand in Shrek 2 among other things. From this article:

 

For Shrek 2, character TDs Shawn Lewis and Gilbert Davoud teamed up with FX developer Jonathan Gibbs to create a new approach. Dubbed “Dynamic Crowd Control” (DCC), it enabled crowds to be run in the shot with complete character deformations computed at every frame.

 

Cool. Or course, I foresaw this back when Shawn had the first Amiga computer out of the factory while I was still playing Space Invaders on my  TI994A. He and I had a lot of fun making a couple of silly movies in high school. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll be working together again.

Speaking of Shrek, I was watching the DVD of the first movie with the Chinese audio on, and discovered a few interesting things. First of all, many of the spoken lines don’t match the written Chinese subtitles. There are three kinds of Chinese subtitles, one traditional Mandarin, one simplified Mandarin, and one for Cantonese speakers. But the spoken Mandarin track was different about 20% of the time. I caught several translation mistakes, some obvious and others possibly a sign the translators gave up on communicating all of the nuances of the English. Donkey’s “please” when he’s asking Shrek if he can stay with him is translated as “I’m poor”, for example.

All in all they did a good job, though. Chinese Shrek speaks in a soft-toned Mandarin with a neutral accent, while Donkey has a thick Taiwanese accent, and he dips into pure Taiwanese many times. I have to say I find Chinese Donkey every bit as funny as Eddie Murphy’s Donkey; that guy did a great job. Fiona is played by a whiny-ish woman that sounds just like every other woman on Taiwanese TV, and Lord Farquad is equally unremarkable. One interesting thing is that the fellow doing the voice of Monsieur Hood was doing an exaggerated “foreigner” accent, the kind Taiwanese people like to affect to make fun of foreigners’ bad Chinese.  And the wolf’s “gan ma!” when Shrek discovers him in his bed had me laughing pretty hard, too. It’s almost like watching a different movie, and in this case that’s not a bad thing.

Prince Roy has finally received a copy of my book, and I’m guessing that by now he’s finished it, since it’s a pretty quick read. It was fun to read his take on our days back at Tunghai, where we studied Chinese together. Three of us, me, Roy and another student whose name I don’t recall (except for the fact that he liked to take devil’s-advocate positions a lot), rode our motorcycles up the side road and parked in front of the library for a class at the night school building. Roy had, I believe, a black Suzuki Katana, and I had a burgundy Honda Custom 135.

 

I guess I was pretty standoffish back then (I know, hard to believe, enit?), but I do recall avoiding most of my classmates, except for the few, including Roy, who actually wanted to be there and weren’t just in Taiwan for an exotic experience or whose mainland program was canceled because of the Tiananmen-related unrest. I remember I was more dismayed with the fact that they arranged for us to be living with other foreigners (in my case, an actually nice guy with very good Chinese, David Loeb) than the actual decrepit state of the dorms themselves. Roy and I were in the top-level classes, but as soon as I could I started taking actual university courses in Chinese, even sitting for exams in the big hall on top of the hill. Though my grades were dismal and pretty much excluded any chance I had at a Phi Beta Kappa key, I got a lot out of those courses just by being part of a Chinese class environment. In fact, I still stay in touch with my Taiwanese roommates from Tunghai.

In other linkage, Wayne makes an interesting observation (down, after the monkey-brains stuff) on the would-be political pundits on Forumosa. I’d never thought of it that way, but it really does make sense.

I was heading up the escalator after just getting off the MRT at the Zhongxiao-fuxing Station this morning when I heard someone yell, “What, can’t I even take a train?” I looked over and saw a large policeman blocking a small, bookish-looking man.

 

“Where do you work?” the cop demanded, but instead of answering, the little man tried to make a break for it onto the train. The cop grabbed him and hauled him back, repeating his question.

 

It was at that moment I realized I was standing on the left side of the escalator, and in my gawking I forgot that I was supposed to be walking, so that a long line of people had formed behind me. Fortunately they were gawking as well. It isn’t often you see a scene like that here, and I wonder what was going on. Was the cop being an asshole? Was the little guy some kind of mainland spy? I guess, barring an expose in the Apple Daily, we’ll never know.

I caught a ride with Sandman in his Nissan (which, incidentally, smells exactly like the Datsun I drove in the 80’s…must be some kind of material they’ve always used in their cars) up to our friend Jez’s housecooling party on Saturday afternoon. Jez lives in a house, a real, entire house, up in a community just off the road to Wulai. The house itself is kind of cool, with each room painted a different, vibrant color. I’m sure it was the height of luxury at one point, with parquet flooring, a wood-burning stove, balconies and porches surrounded by green mountainside vistas, but these days it’s showing its age. The flooring is scuffed and broken, the paint peeling and the floorboards missing in several places. The insects living nearby seem to think the house is theirs already, showing up in cups and on plates. I even saw some in the refridgerator.

Jez called it a housecooling party since the place was sold and he is moving out soon. I was glad I had the chance to see it before he left. We sat out on the grass of the front lawn as the barbeque warmed up, drinking vodka coolers, chatting and swatting mosquitoes as more people arrived. Dave Chen and the rest of the Muddy Basin Ramblers showed up, and Sandy got to show off the guitar he bought that afternoon. I couldn’t resist the temptation to take a Mirror Project shot. Zoe showed up with her fiddle, and soon we were jamming away, in several different styles. Several people said they were surprised how well the trumpet went with the music; I guess they were expecting something different, louder and harsher most likely. Or maybe they were just used to the arrangement Dave has traditionally used.

As we took a break for dinner, Jez mentioned that some of the neighbors used to have problems with the noise, but I noticed people across the way were actually opening their windows, and later someone was apparently trying to play their drums to the music.

In any case, after we finished the barbeque, which was good if a bit on the charred side, we moved from the dark yard inside to the red living room and continued playing. A bearded fellow showed up with his wife and several children, one of them a curious toddler who loved pushing the buttons on my trumpet. The tyke’s father pulled out a smallish guitar and proceeded to belt out an astonishing range of solos and accompaniments; it was amazing and even a little intimidating, but I saw that everyone else was just having fun with it, so I just relaxed and did the same. Songs came and went, many really, really good pieces I wanted to know the names of, but either we were off onto another piece or I was told and forgot the names of the songs without writing them down. At one point we played Tangled Up in Blue, with one verse, a solo, another verse, another solo, etc. Must have played that song for half an hour or so, but it was all brilliant and exhilerating.

Eventually Dave had to leave, and so Zoe, the bearded guy and some others started to play really fast bluegrass pieces, all sixteenth notes. It was a real challenge trying to keep up with them, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

People were leaving and things were winding down after midnight. I plugged my iPod into the speakers and shared a few things with the remaining guests, like Lift up Every Stone by John Hiatt from his “Crossing Muddy Waters” album. Jez then put on a few CD’s for us to enjoy, but we had to get going. On our careful way through the dark mountains we passed a woman dressed up for a night on the town, walking down the road.

It feels like the last day of school around my workplace these days. Our cute widdle Energy Commission is being upgraded into the large, imposing Bureau of Energy. So, this being a government project, everyone has to move their desks two inches to the right, paint them blue, and turn their computer monitors 42 degrees in a clockwise direction.

I’m kidding, of course; if only it were that orderly. In reality, everyone’s moving their desks to new places, but there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Stacks of books and folders are everywhere, and the cleaning women have their work cut out for them. The new boss was walking around the other day and dropped into our office. Everyone in the room stood up, except for me, of course. The chief thanked me for doing my job, and I said no need. I’m relatively unaffected by this change as I am not officially part of the Energy Bureau. Therefore I am one of the few people (hopefully) keeping my desk in it’s original position.

The other night I made a visit to the Sandcastle; Sandy and his bandmate Tim were jamming along to old jazz DVDs, so I brought my trumpet along. Over the course of the evening several other musically inclined individuals showed up, and we had a great time playing, drinking, smoking and eating over the next several hours. It’s been ages since I jammed with a group instead of trying to keep up with a Carlos Santana or Wynton Marsalis CD at home; my range is shit and my endurance nil, but it was great fun; I hope to do more of it.

My landlords, old and new, are getting together this Saturday to sign the papers. The realtor said I should be there, and I fear they’re going to make me sign a bunch of papers then instead of when my lease is actually up in August. Perhaps I’ll try to negotiate a better deal for my place. We’ll see.

According to the Central Weather Bureau, the eye of Mindulle is passing down the street in front of our building as I write this. Or it would be, if Mindulle still had an eye. The storm has weakened considerably, no doubt due to my shoes’ still-considerable powers, and Taipei hasn’t seen anything more than a bit of rain. Frankly, I’m disappointed.

And now, some movies:

Kirk and I went to see Spider-man 2 last night at the Death Star Mall. I was initially afraid we were sitting too close to the screen to properly enjoy the film, but it was so good it didn’t matter. After seeing Shrek 2, which I enjoyed, and now this, I am beginning to wonder if the rule that Sequels Must Suck is as hard and fast as I once thought. Could The Empire Strikes Back be a precursor rather than an aberration?

One movie I saw that did suck was Love, Actually. If they had narrowed down the number of stories to a mere handful instead of the 27 relationships they glossed over instead, I might have liked it. Particularly as the film had such good actors. But there was nothing to grasp onto at all, leaving a very empty feeling not unlike eating a cheese puff and then wondering if you had one or not. It was as if they scooped out all the clips from Four Weddings and a Funeral‘s cutting room floor and made a movie out of it.

Under the Tuscan Sun, however, is a completely different story. I loved this film, not just for the beautiful scenery, subtle acting and sensual pace, but because it spurns the idea of the tradtional love story, preferring instead to explore more interesting aspects of self exploration. This is the route that Amelie should have taken after it’s phenomenally wonderful first act, but alas, they chose instead to fall into the traditional boy-meets-girl thing at the end. If Amelie, like Francis in Tuscan Sun, had realized how to be happy on her own at the end of the movie, it would have been ten times better and an pretty much a perfect film. Tuscan Sun seems to follow the old pattern in the first act and then quietly departs, the opposite of what happened with Amelie. In any case, normally this kind of film would bore me to tears, but it was so well done I felt watching it the second time was a real treat. And I do have Amelie on DVD as well. It’s not all sci-fi and action in my collection, you know. That said, I’m really looking forward to Zhang Yi-mou’s House of Flying Daggers. Just the title makes me think of my childhood…sniff.

In other news, I’ve been having some trouble applying for a new Hong Kong visa. Normally when a Taiwan passport holder applies for a Hong Kong visa, there’s no problem. But apparently my situation is so unique they feel it necessary to require me to jump through all kinds of hoops, even more than places like Australia or the US require. Hong Kong’s nice, but a trip there’s not quite worth sacrificing one’s firstborn offspring on a stone alter at midnight with a sharpened salamander. If it were New Zealand, meh. Well, maybe, but not Hong Kong.