Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

I wonder why "Jesus H Christ" is the only record I`ve written about in this factoid. Considering myself quite a fan I don`t find this normal so this situation is going to be changed. And a brand new album from the Chumba camp is the perfect occasion to do just that. "A singalong and a scrap" is yet another record where the former punky anarchists use folk music as a weapon targetting their goals. If you didn`t know that they are a bunch of anarchists you`d never guess. You`d probably never know that the beautiful romantic "When Alexander met Emma" is a song about a couple of anarchists who wanted to asassinate the president of the US. "Fade Away" is another beautiful song, which sounds a bit like sober "Pogues" without Shane McGowan. "Bella Ciao" is done acapella without the bombastic feel of a live performance. When I heard it first I didn`t like it at all but after repeated listens I found out that what I first thought to be a failure may be an improvement after all. The opening "Laughter in a time of war" is also quite good. Heck, I like this record! And it`s not only because I like the message - I enjoy the performance even without it! This may not be a breathtaking experience, it doesn`t expand your mind and it doesn`t strike you instantely as a genius piece of music but it`s very solid and I like it, as I already said.

Once again Austrians dissapoint me. The title of the book promised that it would be a football-story, something I would find it quite easy to enjoy. Yet it proved to be misleading. Bloch is a fellow who was a football goalie once but who is a monteur nowadays and who gets sacked from his work. So he just goes arround, doing nothing in particular, nobody really cares about him anymore. He tries to make contact to people he used to know but they don`t have interest for Bloch anymore. So he strangles a woman without any reason, goes to a town near the border where nobody needs him as well. The main morale of the novel is found at the end of the book when Bloch watches a game of football and the trick for a goalie to be successful is shown - you have to remain calm and make the striker shoot the ball into your hands when he`s taking a penalty shot. Peter Handke didn`t hit the goal with me, I would rather say that he shoots like Oleg Blagonadezhdin (a Latvian playe most notorious for hitting pigeons more often than hitting the goal).

I was through with something like a quarter of this book when I suddenly realised that I knew what was going to happen next. And it wasn`t because the story was so predictable. It was just that I knew of the story. It goes like this - a doctor is called to a hospital but ends up with a prostitute mainly because he has some trouble with his wife (both of them admit to have had way too much interest in other people). Then he meets a friend of his whom he hasn`t seen in quite a while who happens to be playing the piano in some secret events where he needs to wear an eyepatch. So Friedolin (that`s the hero) asks the friend to let him go to the place of the secret meetings. I was on a tram where I was reading the book when it occured to me that this was a trivial story and that I had seen this on film. Then I came to the conclusion that Tom Cruise was involved in the film as Friedolin (only with a different name ). "Eyes wide shut" is the title "Traumnovelle" is nowadays known for. The book itself doesn`t tale place in America as you`d probably guess but in the Vienna on the edge of 19-20th centuries. The story itself is quite similar to what Stanley Kubrick made in the film. Even the parts with the sexual orgies are there. I won`t say this is the greatest story I`ve ever read but it was quite interesting for sure.

I had read this collection of stories before. But if can write about films that I don`t watch for the first time why couldn`t it be the same with books? Only I`d probably prefer re-reading stuff that strikes me as brilliant. Chapek`s stories don`t really achieve that. I considered him to be a very funny writer indeed when I was much younger (oh, it`s the old me talking right now) but nowadays I don`t find him particulary amusing. Basically he`s just a second-rate Jerome K. Jerome - not too daring and not too funny. His humour does work well on some occasions but on others his jokes fall completely flat. His writing style doesn`t impress me either. The rating is mostly given for the memories of reading it for the first time and not for the actual impression I have now.

Modern life is rubbish. That`s a quote by Blur I guess. But modern literature is rubbish as well. Especially if we`re talking modern German literature. Ok, maybe not all of it stinks but books like this one do for sure. It`s the story how a woman goes through several relationships one less interesting than the other. Eden Plaza is the place where she meets one of her men. This is a perfect example of an empty book, the bad thing about it is not that it`s not interesting but the fact that there`s absolutely nothing in it. It doesn`t stand out for anything. It`s just one more book. Some more cut trees is all that it can produce. I may be a little harsh on Mrs. Leupold but the only reason why one could read such a thing is trying to maintain his knowledge of German. Since it`s just what I`m doing it I can`t complain. Yet there are undoubtely zillions of better books than this one. Even the books that are worse are probably better than it - for some of them are at least interesting to read. If "Eden Plaza" would be found on a shelf I`d call it filler. If I read it all by itself it`s still filler without any stuff to be filler for.

I`d been intending to see this film for quite a long time yet due to different circumstances it never happened until today. Why did I want to see it? Because I was told that it was really good. Or maybe I don`t remember correctly and I was just told to watch it without having mentioned how good or bad this film was. Basically this film is a fiction version of the same thing "Inside Deep Throat" tells about. It`s about the porn industry in 1970s-1980s. Ok, it`s not really about the industry but about several people involved in it. There`s Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) - a guy with a big dick and little brain. There`s Rollergirl - a porn actress than never takes her roller skates off. And by saying never I mean never. Then there`s Jack Horner - a middle aged dirty movie director (quite similar to Gerard Damiano IMHO) who happens to be played by Burt Reynolds. Then there are other characters including a crazy for country music black man, a homosexual fatso named Scotty, a dude who`s wife has sex with everyone in front of everyone etc., etc. Still the story never really got me into this film, it may be crafted very professionaly, giving an insight in the industry, visually interesting, yet it still didn`t convince me that this was a great movie. To be completely honest, the best thing in this film to me was the closing titles to the sound of "A living thing" by ELO. Yeah, the ending itself was kinda sissy but that`s no Ingmar Bergman we`re talking about after all.

Jacky Zucker (full name Jacob Zuckermann) is a Jewish fellow living in modern Germany who`s life hasn`t been particulary successful after Eastern Germany ceased to be (he was a sports journalist back in the days of the GDR but has become some sort of a sluthouse owner nowadays). Jacky has a very bad relationship with his wife, his daughter doesn`t speak to him and he doesn`t seem to have too many friends. He also has a lot of debts and his only chance to stay over water is to win a billiard tournament that`s gonna be held in Berlin the very next week. Yet everything changes when a telegram arrives that his mother has died and that he and his religious brother Solomon will get a heritate only if they make up and spend a week together as a good Jewish family. The problem is that Jacky doesn`t feel Jewish at all, and his wife isn`t Jewish even by blood not only by heart. But what doesn`t one do for money? So the whole thing gets kinda silly but it`s perfectly good for a person like me - a one that knows enough about Jewish traditions, about Germands, and for a person that doesn`t have anything against a good laugh. And a good laugh you will get from this film without a doubt.

Amazingly despite being written by a German playwright that I haven`t even heard of "Closed because of richness" proved to be quite a nice little comedy. Max and Rosa, his wife, suddenly win a lot of money (it`s not mentioned how they win it) - 11 millions in total. After that they close their little shop and start having fun from life. Since neither of them is prepared for that sort of situation what they do is simply buying junk and throwing money away as if it was won in a lottery (and it probably was). They encounter a lot of people that want to benefit from their stupidity and they allow those people to achieve their goals. Max and Rosa are basically good-for-nothings that could have done fairly well when they were normal people but money spoils them instantly. I doubt that this play has any lasting value but I can imagine fairly well to see this performed on stage and I suppose I would like it there as well.

A whole lotta Faulkner indeed! Although Mr. W.F. hasn`t really stunned me with any of his works this is the fourth of his novels I`ve read. The action takes place in the most typical place which Faulkner has ever written about - the American South. The heroes are typical Faulkner`s material as well - John Sartoris is the main hero of the book (or was it Bayard Sartoris, I`m not really sure), and there is even a man named Snopes involved in the story. The novel consists of several episodes from the American Civil war. Those episodes are only loosely connected and a tight structure is surely not the the purpose of the book. There`s a young Sartoris kid and his black friend that took on adventures a bit similar to that of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer - this whole thing is quite similar to the kids in "Intruders in the dust" which I also found to be a bit influenced by Mark Twain. Probably the main difference between Faulkner and Twain is the time when their books were written. Faulkner provided an updated for the 20th century requirements version of Mark Twain. Although this "update" provides several advantages in terms of literary qualities and depth it also has a few drawbacks. Whilest Mark Twain is easy to ready and understandable Faulkner is terribly complicated. I already fealt it in "Sartoris", but after having read "The Unvanquished" in the original and not in a Latvian translation I have to repeat my sentence once again - it`s hard to read Faulkner, and not always you`ll be rewarded for your devoted and hard work.

A good play is as good on paper as it is on a stage. Having hever read anything by Arthur Miller before I was prepared for everything - from a new "Hamlet" to "Dukes of Hazzard" in written form. The whole situation is quite simple - there`s Victor (age circa 50), his wife Esther (the same age), Walther (Victor`s younger brother) and Solomon - and old Jewish antiques dealer. Victor never finished his studies because he had to support his father that became some sort of a living vegetable after his business collapsed. Now, some 15 years after the father`s death Victor and Esther have finally decided to sell all the stuff his father owned. Walther who`s a successful doctor (and not a retiring policeman like Victor) comes to meet his brother and to settle the differences between them that the brothers couldn`t overcome for many long years. Solomon is nearly ninety years old and he`s not willing to give a high price for the deceased fathers posessions. But what will be the price for Victor and Walther becoming friends once again? The whole thing isn`t the best thing I`ve ever read but it`s been long since I read a play this consistently interesting.