Chokher Bali

My resourceful friends,

I want to share with you the next item on my list of…well…items to share. This is a movie called Chokher Bali, and it’s based on a novel by one of my favorite (and most prolific and diverse) writers, Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali writer who was a contemporary of Gandhi. Bengal has a rich tradition of literature, and they’ve had it for many decades. It seems that all my favorite Indian writers tend to come from Bengal, seemingly by coincidence.

Chokher Bali is an Indian movie, but not your typical Bollywood fare, even though it stars the gorgeous Aishwarya Rai, with whom we tend to associate Bollywood movies. This movie doesn’t make use of grand sets and flamboyant costumes–though the saris of the women who are not widows are definitely lovely, I think they’re more realistic to the period and the class of people the story is about. However, the main focus is on widowhood, and widows, during this time (and even still now) wore plain white or undyed saris. In this story, they wore them without any kind of ornamentation, no lace or borders or embroidery. Just a length of white or cream muslin, and that’s it.  Here is a photo of what it looks like on Rai:

Another striking thing about her is that she’s not wearing her usual amount of make-up, if any. It’s hard to tell because she’s so beautiful that one would suspect it, but it really doesn’t look like she’s wearing any.

So the pared-down look of this movie, as compared to Devdas, for example, is one of the most prominent characteristics, and I actually find that I like going from one to the other. This movie and Devdas are the only two movies I own, period. I like how they are on the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of flamboyance and ostentation. By the way, if anyone can tell me how it is they are able to wear their saris without cholis (the blouses) without…er…falling out of them, I’d be grateful. This isn’t the regular Bengali style; I know how to wear that (I learned from a Bengali). This is different. Somehow they tuck in the first layer around their waists, possibly higher than their waists, so that the sari doesn’t loosen and give the villagers a real show. However, I have tried and tried to experiment with this style, using a wad of safety pins, which I am sure these women (actresses or real Bengali widows in the early 1900s) did not do, and I have not been able to keep my modesty intact. I simply cannot figure out how they wrap that first layer, and I don’t get a good enough look at the back of the sari (because the second layer goes over the first–that or Rai’s hair, a magnificent cascade that must go to her knees– and blocks the view). I’ve watched the movie dozens of times trying to figure it out, but I’ve had only indifferent luck, and nothing consistent enough to wear outside.

I don’t want to tell you the plot of the movie; being an English teacher (in college), I have a natural abhorrence of plot summaries. However, I will tell you that probably the main theme of it is about how widows struggle, internally and externally, against the strictures placed upon them by a cruel society. It’s no mystery about how widows are still treated in India; sometimes, because they become the “property” of the family they marry into and are blamed if the son dies (ostensibly it’s their bad luck), they’re just dumped and left to starve. Banaras has one of the largest widow populations in India; they go there, I guess, because it is considered (ironically) also one of the holiest places to die in India, and many widows there are just biding their time until they do die. And that time is hastened due to exposure, poor care, and malnutrition.

Rai, playing a character named Binodini, is lucky, though; she is  not dumped and left to starve and, at the beginning of the movie, manages to live in a really nice, upper-class household. However, the treatment she gets and the treatment her friend, Ashalata (a lucky married woman) gets are constantly shown in opposition to each other, and we really see how Binodini chafes against it. We also see, in the contrasts of their characters, how different they are. Ashalata is what one might call more “traditional” in terms of the culture back then: not Western-educated, superstitious, meek, not overly bright, passive, obedient. Binodini, however, is fluent in English and, one might say, a good manipulator–and she has to be smart to be able to do it. However, she’s not evil; she is forced to manipulate because her life is basically over since she was widowed within one year of her marriage. Tagore, I believe, really wanted to emphasize how ridiculous widow treatment is by making Binodini young and beautiful. What I mean is this: according to traditional culture in this region and time, at least (things differ all over India), widows essentially stop becoming women and nearly human. Keep in mind that this is not as strictly enforced now, but back then it was. Widows for one could not ever remarry, while widowers could, no problem. Widows could not do anything to make themselves beautiful (hence the plain white–the color of death–saris) because they were to remain loyal to their dead husbands for the rest of their lives. They could not wear jewelry or make-up, and even their diet was extremely limited–vegetarian, but also avoiding things like onions and garlic (which “heated the blood”) and tomatoes (don’t know why). They could not make themselves comfortable or live in any kind of luxury, and that is shown in the movie by depicting Ashalata and her husband in a lovely, soft-looking bed with lots of pillows and a mosquito net, and then cutting right to Binodini, who’s lying on a reed mat on the floor, no pillow, no blankets. It was like widows had to do everything to make themselves miserable because they did not have the right to enjoy life since their husbands were gone.

Binodini’s hair is a commentary in itself. She wears it, through almost the entire movie, long and free, and that is a silent rebellion against the idea that widows must be ugly (often, widows were required to cut their hair). One of the main beauties of many Indian women is their hair, and you cannot argue that the lovely, thick cascade of it is just gorgeous. Even though no overt mention of it is made in the movie, it’s obvious that she wears it long and free because it is gorgeous and she is not willing to make a martyr of herself because her husband died. The fact that she’s Western-educated and fluent in English probably contributes to her “non-traditional” attitude toward widowhood, and it is this non-traditional attitude that gets her in trouble–but yet also attracts a savior. However, the ending is not at all what one would expect, and in the beginning of the movie, a quotation by Tagore is even shown about it. It reads something to the effect of how he has always regretted the way it ended, even though he wrote it, and he should be censured for it. Certainly I, sucker for happy endings that I am, would prefer a different ending, but it is actually a more thoughtful one than what I would like, and it might even be more true to Binodini’s character. You can watch it yourself and see what you think.

The aesthetic of the movie is not as grand as that of Devdas, but it has an austere beauty all its own that I really like. Rai, of course, could not be prettier, and the saris worn by Ashalata are (to my knowledge) handloom Bengali cottons. Bengal is famous for a kind of fine muslin called mulmul, and the saris from that region are considered by many (including myself) to be the best cottons in India. Certain regions are famous for certain textiles, and Bengal’s claim to fame is cotton. I would, if I could, populate my entire sari collection with Bengali handlooms; they’re my favorite for everyday wear. Also, the jewelry worn by the non-widows is just gorgeous, again, not as blingy as the jewelry in Devdas, but still beautiful and perhaps more realistic, though I don’t know much about that.

There is music, but not the massively staged, choreographed dance numbers, as there are in Bollywood movies. This is just regular background music, and it actually, like the visual aesthetic of the movie, is a bit austere, too. It suits it well, and I would not be surprised if some of Tagore’s own music made its way into the movie. Tagore wrote widely in every genre: poetry, plays, music, novels, short stories, everything, and his music, colloquially known as Rabisangeet, is still played on the radio in Bengal. Generations of Bengali people (aka Bangla) have loved it.

All in all, I highly recommend this movie (duhh, I wouldn’t be writing a blog on it if I didn’t). The pace is slow, and some people don’t like that, but I do, and people who are interested in the twining and circumlocutions of human nature in the context of a difficult society will be fascinated by this movie. I read the novel (I can’t remember if it’s called Chokher Bali or Binodini) and it seemed to coincide fairly consistently with the movie, but it was a library book, and I read it many years ago before seeing the movie, so I cannot tell for sure. However, I remember liking it. Tagore’s writing is extremely accessible, and his poetry is some of my favorite because he loves to make use of charming, delicate imagery. If you can rent this movie–or perhaps even watch it free online–and think that it might suit you, do so, and report back with what you think! I’d be curious to know other people’s opinions of it.

I am not sure what’s in the pipeline next. As you know, my life is upheaved still, so I apologize for the sporadic nature of my blogs. I will try to get back into being consistent–but I haven’t even been keeping up with my e-mails. Hang in there with me.

Thank you for reading!

Kaweco — A Converter That Fits!

I just got a comment from stylin’ reader Bart, who told me the following:

The Monteverde Mini Converter fits the Kaweco Sport fountain pen. Pendemonium sells them (no affiliation).

This was in response to my post some time ago about the Kaweco fountain pens that JetPens had just gotten in. I had written to JetPens and asked them if Kaweco provided any converters, and they said that, due to the small size, they (Kaweco) did not.  But it’s great to know that you can get a converter to fit the Kaweco Sport pen– especially for people like me, who like to match their ink colors to their pen colors.

Thanks a lot to Bart, who kindly wrote in and solved that conundrum for us!

Sita Sings the Blues

My venerable readers,

Today’s item to share is something I learned about just yesterday. It is an ethical and artistic triumph, and I really want to share it with all of you.

This is a new retelling of an old, old story, the story of the Ramayana by Valmiki. But it is told not from the old, patriarchal point of view (i.e., Rama’s point of view); rather, it is the story that is universal to not only women, but men, too: of loving, of being rejected, of feeling unworthy of the rejection, of moving through the places of disbelief and pain to a new birth and self-love.

The story is much more detailed than is shown in the movie, but the movie gets all of the main points: Rama, the good and noble son of a king, is banished by a boon asked by his evil stepmother (it’s amazing how many cultures feature evil stepmothers in their traditional literature) for 14 years, even though he does not do anything wrong and in fact should have been crowned  king of Ayodhya. But Rama, being the dutiful and filial son that he is, doesn’t question his father; he just goes. And Sita, Ram’s wife, being the dutiful wife that she is, goes with him. The story goes on, but from Sita’s point of view. She is kidnapped by Ravana, the evil 10-headed king, and taken to Lanka (now Sri Lanka). Rama goes looking for her, but, unable to find her, he is assisted by Hanuman, the monkey king, who is, according to one of the commentators in the story, an incarnation of Shiva, which is something I never knew. Hanuman flies over to Lanka and finds Sita, and then flies back to tell Rama of Sita’s location and captivity. Rama then puts together a mighty army–in the movie, it is just monkeys (or this monkey-human hybrid), but in the versions that I have read, other majestic animals, such as bears, led by Jambavan, and eagles, led by the eagle king, whose name I forget, join the army.

Rama, Hanuman, and the army then go to Lanka, rescue Sita, and basically raze Ravana’s palace to the ground. Happy ending, right? Wrong. Rama, who is concerned, as everyone back then, with his wife’s purity, believes that she could not have been held captive in Ravana’s palace and not been “known” in the Biblical sense, if you catch my drift. She was very beautiful, and that makes it all the more likely, in Rama’s opinion. Yet Sita knows herself to be pure; she had refuse, despite threats and fear and all kinds of coercion, to give into Ravana’s lustful desires (and for some reason Ravana did not force her), so she basically throws herself into a funeral pyre and emerges unscathed to prove to Rama that she is in fact pure.

So Rama relents (enough to get her pregnant, at least), and it seems as though we’re in for another happy ending. However, enter the dhobi, or the washerman. Apparently the dhobi’s wife got jiggy with someone other than her husband, but she went back to her husband hoping that he would accept her. He refuses, quite vigorously, and says something to the effect of, “I will never take you back, you shameless hussy. Who do you think I am, that cuckolded wimp Rama?” Well, Rama gets wind of this, so he decides that he cannot rule without the respect of his subjects. This is obviously takes place in a time when rape was always a woman’s fault and suspicion equaled guilt. Heck, we still live in these times, in some places and cultures, but we of a Western culture are probably mostly going to be outraged by his treatment of her.

So Rama calls his brother Lakshman and makes him take Sita out into the forest and abandon her there, even though she had previously told Rama that she was pregnant. She is pregnant with Rama’s children, but I think that he might have had a doubt about that; I think he might have suspected that they were Ravana’s children. So he tells her to pack her bags, and then Lakshman takes her on a one-way trip to the bush. Well, in due time, she meets Valmiki, the teacher and the author of the Ramayana, and she tells him the whole story (and that is how the story came into being). Valmiki is then engaged to teach Rama’s children to praise and respect Rama, even though he’s essentially a deadbeat dad.

It eventually comes to pass that Rama’s wandering around in the forest, and he hears these two boys singing his praises, so he goes and finds them and asks to know who they are, and he finds out that they are his own sons. Undoubtedly they’re blessed with above-average looks and charm, so he wants to bring them back to Ayodhya to rule with him. However, that leaves the troublesome issue of Sita, whom he still does not want to honor as the mother of his children and his faithful wife. So he demands that she prove herself yet again, and this time, she says that if she has been the pure and chaste wife of Rama and has not even thought of another man, the Earth herself will take her (Sita) back into her womb. And the Earth opens up in a wonderful musical sequence and accepts Sita back into her womb, while Rama, Valmiki, Rama’s sons, and some various animals and people are left awestruck–and bereft–at this magnificent proof of Sita’s loyalty.

That is the story of the movie. There are many versions, both written and unwritten, of the Ramayana extant, and if you read it, you’ll see much more to it. The creator of this version, though, had to keep it to the basics in order to prevent it from being a monstrous epic, and even as stripped down as it is, it took her five years to make.

That is the basic plot, but what is really interesting about this retelling is other backstories and elements woven into the original story. This retelling can be broken up into five elements, and I will discuss them based on their different artistic styles. Much of the information I am going to relate to you comes from the October/November/December 2010 edition of Hinduism Today, which is where I learned of this wonderful movie. You can also Google it and look on Wikipedia, and you can see Roger Ebert’s review of it here.

Modern, Scribbly Animation

Nina Paley, the gifted animator/artist who created this picture basically single-handedly on her home computer, tells her own story about how she came to make this movie. She lived with her husband in San Francisco, and he got temporarily transferred to India for his work. His contract was extended, so she followed him out to India. She is called to go to a meeting or conference in New York and, while there, receives what Hinduism Today calls a “cryptic” e-mail from her husband saying to not come back. Bam. (And it is obvious that I can relate to this because I got a very similar e-mail on the night of May 19, 2010, from my husband. Dumped in cyberspace.) So, woven in episodically with the story of the Ramayana is the story of Paley’s own sad ending of her marriage and discovery of the Ramayana as she is forced to stay on the couches of friends since she and her husband sublet their SF apartment to friends for the duration of his stay in India.

While at one of the friends’ houses, she discovers the music of Annete Hanshaw and is completely taken in by her voice and lyrics. She also sees a tripartite synchronicity between her situation, that of Sita, and the music of Hanshaw (1901-1985), a jazz singer whose songs were popular in the late 1920s-early 1930s. These songs form a strong central core to the story and really move the story along. It truly is amazing how well they fit the situation.

Paley tells her own story using a kind of mobile, almost stick-figure-like drawing style in a collage-type of animation: certain objects, like the telephone and cars and rugs, look like actual photographs, and they make up the background for the stick figures to move around in. That is the modern and most personal aspect of the movie.

“Betty Boop”-style Animation

All of the musical numbers featuring Hanshaw’s vocals are made with an extremely stylized type of animation that seems to be modeled (I don’t know if it is deliberately or by accident) on Betty Boop (see below):

These are single-dimensional, paper-cutout-looking pictures that move stiffly yet rhythmically to Hanshaw’s vocals. These songs are a glimpse into Sita’s mind, a look at her emotions as she lives the painful and tribulation-ridden story being told. While they are not the direct narration of the plot itself, they are almost more important because we get to see much more of Sita’s personality than is ever told in the traditional versions of the story.

The Mughal-style Animation

This is my favorite style of animation in the whole film, probably because I love the Mughal miniatures, an art form that occurred in India between the 1600s and 1800s, during the Mughal rule. Sita is pictured here with Ravana:

I have always loved the way that the women are portrayed in this style of art, especially their clothing and jewelry, and I so wish that we could dress like this nowadays and not look anachronistic! It is this style of animation in the movie that forwards the plot, and the characters are acted out by voice actors. This is the actual telling of the story, not one of the other three side elements: the music, Paley’s own story, and the commentators, which I describe below. It is interesting to note that Paley painstakingly drew, on parchment paper and using antique watercolors, all of these pictures, so they are not computer-generated. Just gorgeous.

The Comic Book-style of Animation

Another style of animation that helps tell the actual story is the low-budget-looking style of the Amar Chitra Katha comic books in which you can read the traditional story. I’ve actually seen these all over the place.

These are also shown with a collage style, as is pictured above (Sita is here being kidnapped by Ravana, and she’s dropping her jewelry like breadcrumbs to leave a trail so that she can be found. If you look at the bracelet, you’ll see that it looks like a photo of a very modern piece of jewelry, as it is.) This is a modern-traditional style of art, very popular, and it is acted out by the same actors as those in the Mughal-style parts. The way that these characters especially move remind me of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail and its animation scenes.

The Wayang Kulit Shadow Puppets

One of my favorite parts of this movie takes place with this traditional Indonesian form of art.

Commentary about the story–modern and hilarious–is offered by three of these shadow puppets, whose voices are provided, completely unscripted and naturally occurring in a conversation, by “three New Yorkers” (according to Hinduism Today, but beyond that I am not certain of their connection with Paley.) They don’t seem like Ramayana scholars because they exhibit a lot of uncertainty about the story itself; it seems like just a conversation between three educated people who know the story well, perhaps grew up with it, and have thought about it, but who aren’t necessarily experts. Nevertheless, they offer wonderful modern interpretations, complete with slang and idioms that are a laugh-riot in this context. The three people are Manish Acharya, Bhavna Chhabra and Aseem Chhabra. Apparently they sat in the studio while Paley asked them questions, in chronological order, about the story, and their answers, edited to be woven episodically, like all the other styles, into the telling of the story, were as I said completely unscripted and natural. This is my favorite part in terms of material; although I love the Mughal style of art best, I like this part for its irreverent, personal, and modern interpretation of the actions and the characters.

The War and the Triumph

I will not delve too deeply into the details of the struggle Paley endured; you can check it out on Wikipedia or on the site itself (I’ll give you the address and such below). However, in brief, this is the story: Paley threw all of her resources, not to mention five years’ tedious effort, into this wonderful movie, and then she discovered that she could not release it because of copyright laws of the lyrics, not the recordings, but just the words, of Hanshaw’s music. She would have had to pay upward of $200,000 to be able to release it in a customary, money-making distribution. So she settled on paying $50,000 (and going into debt), plus $20,000 in legal fees, to be able to release it for free, to donate it to the public, and you can see it for free at www.sitasingstheblues.com. Apparently she went through hell and high water even to do this, so she has become something of a hero for shared culture and artistry.  She could have, according to Hinduism Today, released it for conventional distribution since she did manage to pay off the licensors (I don’t really understand how these things work; I’m quoting the magazine now, and I found this information on page 38). But she chose a “Creative Commons license to allow the film to reach a much wider audience; to prohibit the copyrighting–’locking up’–of [her] art; to give back to the greater culture which gave to [her]; to exploit the power of the audience to promote and distribute more efficiently than a conventional distributor; and to educate about the dangers of copy restrictions, and the beauty and benefits of sharing.” Certainly all who have seen it have been the recipient of wonderful benefits and the witnesses to terrific beauty.

I realize that I’m late on the wagon to promote this. I tend to stay out of news and politics and only get around to seeing things if they make their way through my narrow channels of awareness. But I’m so glad that this one did because it is truly an artistic triumph, something that we can all enjoy, and an inspiration to which we can all, and I especially do, given my own current situation, relate and that we can all appreciate. All of us who have been dumped, all of us who have felt that we deserved better, and all of us who have moved on to a place of greater strength and self-love can relate to this movie, which is lauded as “The Greatest Breakup Story Ever Told.” I hope that you watch it and that you enjoy it as much as I did.

Note: Paley went into great debt and went through plenty of hardship, financially and emotionally, to release this film, so if you would like to show your appreciation monetarily, you can click on the “Donate” link on her site to donate money. Or just click here to go straight there.

Sketchbook ~full color’S~

My hardy readers,

So the next thing I’d like to share with you is my favorite anime series, which is called Sketchbook ~full color’S~ [sic], which is the closest that I can duplicate the way the title appears on the screen. If you click on the title, you’ll be taken to the anime channel at which I always watch it, but there are other ones available, just Google the name and you’ll see them.

Why is this one my favorite? Many reasons. First, it’s very gentle. The main character, Sora, is a very shy high-school freshman at a nameless high school in Fukuoka, on the southernmost island of Kyuushu, Japan. She has just started at this high school, and the series, which is unfortunately only13 episodes long, tells of her adventures in the school’s art club and of her gradual maturation and ability to come out of her shell a bit. She’s a very thoughtful, kind of eccentric girl who sees the world very unusually, and, as in Episode 13, when she was compared to a late-blooming cherry tree, she goes at her own pace.

The friendliness and politeness of everyone in the series–despite the presence of Negishi-kun, a volatile upper-classman who has a tendency to burst into fits of rage and pique–is one great reason why I love it so much. Nothing bad, nothing embarrassing, nothing upsetting happens in the whole series. There are certainly jokes and puns and tricks played at people’s expense, but they’re the good-natured type that friends engage in, people who truly do like each other and have no malice. If the world were like Sora’s world, I would be a much happier person.

People who like a lot of action would definitely not like this series. Like Sora herself, it is slow-moving and thoughtful. But it is also restful, calming, and I constantly turn it on when I’m nervous about something. I turn it on when I’m getting ready to go to school or if I’m preparing to do something difficult or unpleasant. Or when I’m upset about something. The music is unusual, the prevalence of soft trumpets (an oxymoron, you’d think, but it really works here) is reminiscent of some ballads I remember from the 1970s, but without that corny disco feel. Lots of solo piano, as is very common in anime, and just a tranquil feeling pervades throughout, via the music, the animation style, and the (mostly) gentle voices of the characters. There are a couple of exceptions; Negishi-kun is always yelling, and a hilarious transfer student from Canada, Kate, who has a weird way of speaking (albeit obviously voice-acted by a native speaker) and a penchant for bad puns and misunderstandings of kanji has kind of a shrill voice, if only to emphasize her linguistic gaffes. Overall, though, the voices are calm and soft and even shy, especially in the case of Sora.

I also like the school uniforms a lot. I particularly like the “school” genre of anime, so I’ve seen a lot of school uniforms, but the uniforms of this series are my favorite. Very simple, dignified and classic, and not too trendy, cutesy, or fashionable: a plain black skirt or pants for the boys, white blouse, green (my favorite color, remember, and especially in combination with black; I have always wanted black hair and green eyes) tie, and double-breasted blazer, also plain black, for winters. I wish my school uniform from Catholic school looked like that, but it didn’t; it was a horrendously ugly plaid skirt or, even worse, plaid pants of god-awful itchy polyester, white blouse with Peter Pan collars (God help us) and bright blue sweaters. Why are Catholic school uniforms so ugly? Perhaps because they want everyone to look ugly so that there’s no primping or preening or illicit libidinous activities. That didn’t stop the students in my school, though; they’re right when they say Catholic school students can be the wildest. Something about all the control exerted over you in what you think, what you say, what you believe, how you dress, etc. makes you want to lash out.

But one thing I’ve noticed in anime series about schools that definitely is not true in my experience in any school in the US is that people are not looked down on and criticized for being good students. In the US, even in college, when you’re dealing with freshmen, at least, there is a definite attitude that many (immature) students adopt: the “too cool for school” belligerence. It results in uncooperativeness, mouthing off, disrespect, and shoddy work. I believe, from my experience talking to Japanese friends and watching a lot of Japanese shows, both anime and live action, as well as reading almost exclusively Japanese literature, that this attitude is absent in Japan. It seems to me that, in Japan, they respect school and exhibit genuine shame, not callow pride, when they do poorly. Or at least they’re not overtly proud of doing poorly. This could be changing with the ingress of more and more Western attitudes, of course, but it has been my experience that the bulk of the population still has a healthy respect for education. However, I have had someone, at least one student, in nearly every class I’ve ever taught, who cops that stupid attitude, and it’s just very refreshing to even temporarily become part of a world where it does not even exist.

Then there are the usual great attributes of all the anime shows that I like: people are really cute, all the animals drawn are particularly adorable, which is just the style of these genres of anime. There are, of course, more ugly genres, perhaps ones that would be considered more “realistic”–and certainly these are less idealized–but I don’t ever watch those; my life is miserable enough without escaping to more misery. In Sketchbook, there are animals who regularly appear and who even speak; there’s a quintet of cats: Mike (pronounced /mee kay/, which is the typical Japanese designation for a calico cat, and who is the most prevalent cat in the series; Haa-san, Mike’s friend and bilingual “international” cat; Grey, who only meows (even the other cats can’t understand him); Buchi, a non-Cat-Japanese speaking cat whose human is Kate (only Haa-san can understand him). “Buchi,” according to my research, means “spots” or “freckles,” but Buchi is a luxurious-looking Persian cat, quite a rarity in the neighborhood. And then there’s Kuma (which means “bear”), a lordly cat whose species is often questioned because of his giant head and bunched-up features. He has a very deep voice and refers to himself by the old-fashioned term “wagahai.” The translators use the pronoun “mineself,” which gives a good estimation of the arrogant, antiquated feel of his language. He’s kind of a bully who takes away the top position from Mike in an early episode.

Other animals show up occasionally, but they do not speak Japanese; P-chan is a very adorable chicken whose human is the art club advisor, Kasugano-sensei. And late in the series, Inuo, a stray dog, shows up and is sort of coerced into bonding with Negishi-kun, who coincidentally dislikes dogs. Both of these characters do appear more than once, but they do not speak in any way that we can understand. Nevertheless, they can play pivotal roles, and I like that, too. Also I like that nothing bad happens to them. Kasugano- sensei, unfortunately, has a taste for chicken yakitori, despite the fact that she has this live chicken–something I could never do; it would be like me eating bunnies, something that I can’t even conceive of–but you never see her eating it, which I appreciate.

I’ve watched every episode of this series dozens and dozens of times, and I have gleaned everything that I think I can understand out of it, but there remain some inside jokes and references that remain a mystery to me, probably because I just don’t know enough about Japanese culture and language to get them. I have just today begun reading the manga online, and it does explain some of the references, especially the untranslatable puns, so that helps, but I am only on Chapter 12 (of 76), so I still have much to learn. And, as might be expected, there are more references in the manga that I don’t understand, so many things are as great a mystery as ever. Also, as might be expected, the manga doesn’t have the richness in color and voice and music that the anime does. However, I love the series so much, and I so wish that there were more episodes, that I began reading it just to see something new having to do with these characters and this world. I sure wish they’d make a Season 2.

I think one of the aspects I love best about this series, though, is the artists’ ability to depict sky and shadow. The way that the show the sky just after a rain, or a winter twilight, or a spring sunset, in a lot of the episodes, is truly magical and so realistic, and the sky and shadows add so much atmosphere to the gentle, wistful feeling of the series that I watch it for that alone. I have never seen a series wherein the sky and time of day and season are so subtly yet strongly conveyed, even though season is a very prominent feature of Japanese culture in not only anime but literature and art and traditional clothing. In the culture, there is an awareness of the season that informs all aspects of its art and aesthetic, so it makes sense that season would come through strongly in even this new medium, and I do see that a lot. But never so beautifully and, as I said, subtly depicted as in the sky of this series.

I hope that you check it out if this kind of muted, gentle, slice-of-life genre is something that you’d like. As I said, if you’re into action or mecha (the robot-style of anime), you won’t like this, but if school or just little tidbits of Japanese culture and language and simply observing human nature interest you, I think you will like it. Do check it out, and if you like it, write in and tell us why!

 

 

Devdas

My magnificent readers,

So the first thing I would like to share with you is the movie Devdas. I’ve been watching it over and over. Of all the movies I owned, which was not many, the only ones I have kept were Devdas, Chokher Bali, and a DVD collection of Harold and the Purple Crayon, an imaginative and fun cartoon that I find endlessly comforting.

There’s no better movie to watch when you want to get dressed up than Devdas–at least the most recent release, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, and Madhuri Dixit. This 2002 movie had the distinctive honor of being the most expensive Bollywood film ever to date, and I can see why, as the sets and the clothing and jewelry are nothing short of mind-boggling and awe-inspiring. I must confess that the sheer beauty of these three aspects of the movie are why I keep watching it over and over.

Devdas is a remake of two previous (at least) versions, that, to my understanding, were not as glamorous. And many reviewers love to take exception with the amazing opulence of this version, almost as though to admit liking it would be admitting to shallowness or materialism. It’s as though people are ashamed to simply delve into the richness that abounds through the entire movie, lest they be accused of not being “realistic” or something equally illusory. So I’ll freely admit to loving that flamboyance, secure in the knowledge that I am neither shallow nor materialistic; in fact, the relative penury with which I have grown up makes me appreciate it all the more, and I’m sure that many, many folks in India felt exactly the same way.

But I did not get the feeling that the producers of this movie were just going for bling for bling’s sake. The movie, as grandiose in its melodrama and mercurial emotions as it is in its props, has the feeling of a myth, a story so common to the human condition and so pan-cultural that it rises above the 1800s Calcutta setting to become the stuff of legend. And certainly all of the sets, even the outdoor ones, boast a twinkling magic that give the story a fairy tale quality, and there are always royalty, beautiful princesses, and fabulous riches in fairy tales. I certainly do not hold it against the movie–or its producers–for trying to achieve that “mesmeric” grandeur (as Jackie Shroff amusingly, and probably erroneously translated, says). I think it succeeds beautifully, and I can tell you that I would neither have watched it the first time, nor have kept watching it, nor be writing about it now if it were filmed with the Bergmanesque gloom that other people believe should saturate it.

And Aishwarya Rai, who, as everyone knows, was crowned Miss Universe in some year (thus supposedly being the most beautiful woman in the world, and I just simply have to agree), is so gorgeous that to frame that beauty in anything but the most perfect of saris and jewels would be a travesty! She, of course, would look amazing in a burlap bag, but why stick beans up your nose if you don’t have to? Besides, she wears the equivalent in Chokher Bali, and, while she does not lose any of her enchanting quality in the undyed muslin widow’s sari of that story, it’s certainly less entertaining to look at for a couple of hours. In Devdas, she changes costumes every scene, at the least, and every one of her ensembles is so stunning that I have to mop up the drool.

Pictured below is Aishwarya Rai as Paro in a famous outfit that I understand took 3 hours to pleat and arrange on her.

Although she was not dressed as richly through the entire movie, she was dressed as complicatedly. In the early part, before she is married, she is dressed in gauzy chiffon-looking (but probably cotton, as this takes place in Bengal, where cotton is Queen and where they have perfected weaving it so that it is so light that it looks like clouds) diaphanous clouds of gorgeous, spring-like colors and contrasting cholis. Stunning. I cannot decide which I like better. Because, in the first part, she really does possess that light-hearted, naivete that befits one who is probably supposed to be a teenager in her late teens. (The story is that Devdas, played by Khan, is returning to Calcutta and his ancestral village–and mansion–after 10 years’ education in London. I think that Aishwarya Rai, with her almost knee-length hair unbound and puffy cap-sleeved cholis could barely pass as 19, perhaps, though she really looks like she’s in her early 20s–and that’s no insult, let me tell you–but Khan clearly looks about 35, too old for the story, IMHO. However, I like him so much as an actor and I have had a years’ long love affair with his eyebrows, so I would not replace him with anyone.) Anyway, the early cottons of Paro, so bright and floaty and yet actually fairly plain in terms of pattern, really suit that young-girl quality.

However, the moment she gets married, she is weighted with a gravitas lent her by the intricately embroidered brocade saris in richer colors, like the one above. Other notable ones are similar, but in a deep purple, when she’s getting chewed out for having a courtesan (played by Dixit) illegally in the house, and my favorite (I think…depending on my mood) a gorgeous emerald green, barely seen, when she hosts the Durga puja.

I know people like to twit Rai about her acting, but the only thing I’ve ever had a problem with is the same thing I have a problem with in all Indian movies; they all seem over-acted to me. But I really favor East Asian movies–Japanese, mainly–where the emotions are not worn so baldly on the faces and in the body language. Hollywood movies seem over-acted to me, too. But Bollywood does take it to a new level, and Rai just performs well within the culture of that industry. I really do like her a lot, and in this movie, I think she does a grand job of going from the light-hearted, naive girl to a mature and strong wife, literally overnight. The heavy brocade saris and heavier gold jewelry–the jewelry she wears in her unmarried ensembles is definitely lighter–and the way she wears her hair, beautifully wound in a low bun with ornaments, as opposed to swinging freely before the sindur is put in the part, adds years to her. And I mean that in a good way.

I can’t talk about this movie without mentioning Madhuri Dixit, who plays the courtesan Chandramukhi. People scoff at the “hooker with the heart of gold” as a hackneyed movie device, but remember the context: it’s hackneyed for Americans because in the US, we don’t, despite our Puritan origins and culture even now, have the severe caste and religious recriminations that would lard up even a movie star playing a prostitute (and remember, kissing in Bollywood movies is still very new and very controversial), so it isn’t quite the tired cliché in that genre that it is in ours. We should give them a little credit for pushing an envelope that is not as flexible as we are accustomed to.

Anyway, Chandramukhi also wears amazingly beautiful outfits, specifically when she’s dancing. Below, probably my favorite:

For her dancing sequences, she wears what are called anarkali outfits: a tight-fitting bodice so encrusted with zari (pure gold thread) embroidery and rhinestones and sequins that it looks armored, attached to a light, loose, flared, diaphanous but also heavily embroidered skirt that spins out beautifully when she turns quickly, and over churidar: tight-fitting and also spangled pants, and over that, gunghuru (sp?): low leggings entirely made out of little bells, a traditional “instrument” of dancers in India, so that the percussive nature of their steps can be accentuated by the surprisingly (because there are so many bells) loud tinkling. Oh, and the veil. I read that her two main dancing costumes, this one and another one equally ornate in a gorgeous dark red, weighed 30 kilos, which I guess is about 50 pounds. I assume that includes all the jewelry. I can’t even walk carrying 50 pounds; I cannot imagine how strong she must have been to dance in it. And there was not much room for movement, either, with all that stiff embroidery; it’s as bad (but far more beautiful) as whalebone.

For her times when she was not dancing, she wore a lot of ghagaras, lovely flared skirts, with cholis (cropped blouses). I think my favorite is the one she wears in the dance number with Jackie Shroff and Shah Rukh Khan, when they’re all dancing with bottles of liquor. It’s a deep brown, just darker than her hair (at least on my monitor) with gleaming, but not obnoxious, gold borders. It’s actually plain, but it is so rich in material and quality that it does not seem skimpy or dowdy at all, and the way it moves when she spins…if only we truly dressed like that now and in this country. Even in India people do not wear that sort of thing in this day and age, and I say it’s a shame!

So…these are some of the things I admire so much about the movie. But there are also some funny parts of it as well–and some plain old questions.

The first question I have is how do the women run around, hug each other, dance and sit and stand while keeping the pallu (the loose end of the sari)not only attached to their heads, but the buns of hair. I’ve actually looked online and the only thing I’ve seen is that “they’re pinned on,” but I can see that it’s not with bobby pins because those would show. I caught a glimpse of what looked like small “pull” wrinkles on the sari of Kaushalya (Devdas’s mother), and it looked like they just put tiny straight pins right into the sari and the bun of hair on her neck, but I cannot see how that would hold. I would give a lot to know how they keep the pallu on their heads and still manage to keep their hands free and move at the same time. It’s not easy to do, and the heavier the sari, the harder it is.

One of the funny things that I have to laugh at every time I see the movie is how Devdas’s family reacts to him when he’s shacking up (albeit innocently) with Chandramukhi. I will not say why; I don’t want to give the movie away. But he does stay with her for a time, and her “brothel” is as magnificent, if not more so, than either of the mansions there. It is gorgeous, with marble and spangles and glitter and breezy curtains and lovely pillows all in silk and satin, with chandeliers and magical pools and fountains right inside. But both Dharamdas, Devdas’s manservant, and Paro try to pry him out of the brothel, saying that they cannot bear to see him in that “hell.” Hell! I would gladly live in that “hell” any time; they only have to name it, and I would be there with gunghuru on!

I read a great review on the movie, and, though I do not agree with all that the reviewer writes, one aspect of the review cracked me up. The reviewer refers to Devdas’s self-destructive drinking. She writes, “He ends up living in a brothel under the care of Chandramukti, a courtesan who falls in love with him knowing he can never love her back, and watches as he descends into death from occasional light drinking. (OH THE HUMANITY!)”

I laughed out loud when I read that because I can see what she means. The drinking is so urbane and framed in beautiful cut-glass bottles and small glasses that it really does look like Devdas is just tippling. But if you really pay attention to how much he drinks, despite the loveliness of it, he really doesn’t stop having a glass, flask, or bottle in his hand from the moment he takes his first drink until the end of the movie. They make such a big deal of the drinking because it is strongly implied that he is trying to kill himself via alcohol that the actual liquor is very present. I mean that the drinking is not implied; bottles and bottles of the stuff abounds, so much that they could not have actually been using real liquor. They dance with bottles, they pour it all over themselves, they break bottles and glasses in cheerful and melodramatic furors; the warm Calcutta nights just rain the stuff. The liquid looks suspiciously like tea, yet one has to hand it to both Shroff and Khan when they chug an entire bottle each of tea. Now, if it were whiskey, they’d have to be dead of alcohol poisoning, but even if it’s tea, chugging an entire whiskey-sized bottle (and not 1/5, either) is a man-size job, and they do a good job of it without belching or throwing up. I don’t know that I could do that. And they dance afterward! I’m sure that, if it were liquor and they miraculously survived the alcohol poisoning, they would not be able to put one foot in front of the other, let alone dance in any organized way, but that’s the magic of Bollywood: where drinking is an art form and dancing is a contact sport.

Well, it is getting late, and I have an early day tomorrow, so I’d better stop here. Besides, that’s all I can think of right now to talk about. However, I’m sure I will have more to say; it seems like every scene in the movie brings up something that I admire or think is funny or terrific. And, although I do recommend it, I’m not actually meaning this to be a movie review. If you recall, my goal is simply to share some of the things that are important in my life right now, this in lieu of other important things (such as fountain pens and Japanese office supplies) that I cannot afford to buy and then write about. Devdas was first, and I think the next item in the pipeline is going to either be Chokher Bali, another movie starring Aishwarya Rai, or my favorite anime series, Sketchbook ~full color’s~ [sic]. I can’t remember exactly how they title it, but it’s something like that, and it does have that apostrophe “s” at the end. I have no idea why; there’s no reason for it to be possessive “Sketchbook full color’s what?” but that’s how it is always listed, so I will comply.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my first sharing, and if you want a treat for the eyes, do go rent Devdas. I don’t want to comment on plot or acting because, frankly, I don’t care at all about those. The pure gorgeousness, beauty, opulence, and traditionalism of the movie are what draw me to it again and again. I do have to shut my eyes during some scenes (the sadder or more annoying ones, like a flashback to when Devdas was young and getting his hand hit in punishment by what I guess is a switch (?) by his father), but other than those, it’s a safe movie. It helps that I understand maybe 1/100th of the Hindi spoken in the movie.

Stay tuned for the next important item in my life! Take care!

Are Lamys Lame?

Hello, my grandiloquent readers,

A friend of mine went to the Washington D.C. pen show this weekend and was full of tales of the wonders that could be found there. Mixed in with the delights of high-end pens and people selling pens that do not work for $20 apiece, there were some dark undercurrents of what seem to me like the most petty backstabbing and sniping. I was wondering, is this normal in the pen world? I am a relative novice; there are many, many people out there who know much more than I about this milieu, and, given what I heard, I wouldn’t mind if it stayed that way. I am happy buying my $10-$15 Sailor pens; I find them delightful, and I don’t see the need to drop $1000 that I don’t have on a pen that only aficionados will recognize as being that pricey. However, I have to say that if I had spare millions lying around, I might not hesitate buying a $1000 pen. But I’m sure most of the people who attend those shows are not private millionaires, so they must have to really budget in order to keep up with the Joneses.

Among the more lamentable behavior that I heard about was a certain amount of disparaging of Lamy pens and Noodler’s ink. Now, I wonder, why? I have never tried Noodler’s ink, but I’ve heard great things about it, and I am constantly reading posts and blogs and blurbs of people whose go-to inks are some kind of Noodler’s. Is it that fountain pens are some kind of high-culture icon, that to use something that may be considered “discount” would reveal some kind of lack of class? By using Noodler’s ink, at about $13 a bottle, are you showing that you’re “ghetto” because you’re not using the $28-a-bottle Pilot Iroshizuku? Then what would that say about J. Herbin, whose inks retail at JetPens for $9 a bottle? Does the French name save it from barrio status?

And then there was the Lamy bashing. I do have a Lamy, a Lamy Safari, and it is one of the best pens in my modest collection. It always works immediately, no matter how long it’s been since I’ve written with it, and the line it puts down is crisp and solid without being weepy. Plus, its nib is one of the few that I would try writing on a carbon form, where words need to be pressed down enough to write in triplicate. It’s my most common go-to pen for being on the road because of its absolute reliability and durability, and it actually performs better than some of the more expensive pens that I have. So…does that make me some kind of provincial bumpkin?

I just think it’s a shame that people can become so petty about something that is a hobby. I am the first to admit how captivating the fountain pen can be, and how it really can become a way of life in a way; I certainly don’t use and don’t even own any non-fountain pens. But come on. It’s not like the fate of the world rests on whether the nib has an iridium tip or whether it’s gold-plated steel or solid gold. Who cares if the body is plastic or aluminum or solid gold? Does this help feed the starving, those who drop $8000 for a single pen? Does it bring about world peace, this backbiting and holier-than-thou posturing? It may be naive to say, but the fountain pen, as out of the mainstream as it is, should be an object that brings joy and friendship among those who can well understand and sympathize with that craving, that need to acquire ever more, that admiration of a jewel that is so functional. Why must people use a pen show, which should be a place where people get together and commiserate and take delight in their differences and respective knowledge, as a forum for disregarding and disrespecting others? Shame, shame.

I hope that anyone who reads this, all two of you, if you find yourself at a pen show, listening to some snobby charlatan who’s charging $20 for a pen that does not even work hold forth on how “peasant” a Lamy is or how “other side of the railroad tracks” Noodler’s ink is, I hope you remember my words and are able to tell that fishwife punk to say something civil or just hold his tongue. No matter how crappy a product is, and I am sure that neither Lamy nor Noodler’s is crappy, there is always something good to say about it. Why not focus on those aspects instead of the negative ones? I guess people think they seem more discriminating when they can bag on something and look as though they know what they’re talking about. I don’t find that kind of person discriminating. I find him bitchy. Those kinds of tactics were old in grammar school. It’s time to grow out of them. Rather than saying five negative things, try saying two positive ones and see how the conversation changes direction. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Sailor Recruit: The Newest Addition

My unanimous readers,

This pen, a mere $15 at JetPens, is one that I’ve been eyeing for a long time, and the only reason why I didn’t get it before now is because it cannot be used with a converter. It’s too small and slim. However, now that I have the Private Reserve Cartridge Refill Kit, I can fill up the cartridge (it comes with a free one) when it’s done with any color I like.

I loved this pen from first sight because of its beautiful, unadorned design. It’s pure and simple and very slender. But it’s not so short that it would inconvenience those of you with big hands. I don’t mind really short pens, but this one is longer than, say the Pilot Petit pens (at least unposted) so most people, I think, will be able to use it comfortably.

Like all Sailors, the nib is very very fine. And sometimes, as I’m writing quickly, I have this weird sensation that the letters are just appearing by themselves. This pen is so inconspicuous that it seems that words just happen on the page. I have not had that sensation with any other fountain pen I’ve used. And I have some very small ones.

It is smooth, obviously, and it starts right up when I use it. I love how it feels in my hands, and I feel that I could write a lot with it without getting tired. The line it puts down is solid but not as fine as, say, the Sailor Desk Pens. It’s fairly commensurate with the Manhattaner, but I’d say just a tad finer than that one. However, because its cap does not screw on, it does not have the threads on it that the Manhattaner does, and that makes writing with it a little more comfortable.

The nib is stainless steel, so it is very rigid. Bear that in mind. The body is resin, but it kind of feels like metal to me. It’s more substantial than just plastic, so the pen has a level of gravitas that the Manhattaner, for all of its kawaii properties, does not. (I don’t mean to be bagging on the Manhattaner; I love that pen, too; it’s just the closest thing I can think of to compare the Recruit to, and, if I had to choose one over the other, I’d choose the Recruit, converterlessness and all.)

Yep, I’d have to say that this is one of my favorites. Sailor is definitely my favorite brand now; between this and the Desk Pens, it manufactures my favorite pens. I love the fineness of the nibs and the crisp, clean lines that emerge from them. There’s just something about Sailors in general that makes me think that they know what Japanese-loving fountain pen users want in a fountain pen. I will likely get more Recruits in the future. I loved it the moment I started writing with it, so I highly recommend it, especially for those who want a slim, light pen that seems to write by itself!

Kaweco Fountain Pens: Converter or No?

Hello, party people.

I just heard from Joy at JetPens (man, they are fast!) and she told me that, unfortunately, there is no converter that goes with the Kaweco fountain pens. It’s because of their small size, apparently. Bummer. Bummer!  That would have been so cool. But since I haven’t seen one, I really don’t have an idea how much room is available for a converter.

Nevertheless, it’s OK. Because, if you, like I, have ordered the Private Reserve Cartridge Refill Kit, you can just order a set of the cartridges to go with the pen, and, once you’ve used up the ink in the cartridges, you can fill them up with any color ink you want–even orange!

I tell you, that kit has opened up a whole new world for me. I would not have bought the Kaweco pens because I wouldn’t want to be limited to just cartridges, but now that I have the kit, I can buy any fountain pen I want and fill it with anything I want. It’s immense freedom! I really recommend that kit to you…it’s been wonderful, and I’ve had so much fun filling up cartridges with inks. It’s only $6, and you get two of them. If you’re not too hard on them, they’ll last forever! Go buy a kit! NOW! DO IT! I SAID DO–

*Editor’s note: the previous blog was cut short as the men in the little white coats appeared on the scene with a stretcher and an injection of something soothing. Programming will resume shortly.

New at JetPens: Kaweco Fountain Pens and Inks

My figurative readers,

I just was on the JetPens site, looking to see if there is anything I can’t live without. Predictably, most of it I can’t live without! But they just got in a shipment of Kaweco fountain pens and inks.

I am not familiar with Kaweco; since my focus and preference tends to lie with Japanese fountain pens because of the über-fine nibs, I haven’t really investigated non-Japanese pens too deeply. Kaweco is a German company, and apparently they’ve been making pens since 1883, so, though I cannot say for sure, I bet they’re good.

JetPens has three new pens and eight new colors of cartridges in. Look in their “New Arrivals” section to see them all side by side.

First, the cartridges. They’re international-sized cartridges, and from the looks of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if they could be used in other pens. They look pretty normal, and the product details are as follows:  Pack of six international short cartridges for Kaweco and other fountain pens. So I’m guessing that these cartridges are not proprietary, but I have not tested them myself, so don’t buy them just on my say-so; check with JetPens first. The colors that have just arrived are aubergine purple, royal blue, blue black, black, green, red, turquoise, and sepia. (Sorry, my sepia sucks. There’s only so much a computer can do.)

Next the pens. The first pen is the Kaweco Sport AL, fine nib. It comes in black, gray, and silver. It costs $52, and I wasn’t sure why it was so pricey, but I read that the body is made of aluminum. This will make it pretty substantial. It is short when capped, 4.1 inches, but a nice length, 5.3 inches, when posted, so even you gorillas with big hands out there should be OK using it. Plus, it doesn’t look that thin; it’s sort of fluted all the way around, and given its substantial body and girth, I think it would be fine for the less delicate among us. The cap screws on, which is a nice touch, and a stainless steel nib. I’ve found that stainless steel nibs tend to be more rigid than gold alloys, so be aware. I have no problem with rigid nibs, but YMMV. If you are interested in this pen, git to it now. There are only ten of the black, as of this writing, eight of the gray, and nine of the silver. Man. Either these must be awesome pens, or JetPens didn’t order that many. They must have gone really fast! So haiyaku, haiyaku!

The next pen is the Kaweco Sport Classic, and this one is much more in my price range at $15. (I can tell you now that, as much as I would love an aluminum pen, I cannot afford the Sport AL. Zounds.) This pen is less expensive because it is made of plastic, but the nib is 23 kt gold-plated stainless steel nib with an iridium tip. This pen comes in black, blue, clear, and white, and there are, as of this writing, 19 left of the black, 20 left of the blue (a lovely navy blue and, with the gold writing on the body, a very pretty combination), and no indication of how many are left of the clear and white (so it must be more than 20, but don’t quote me on that). I actually kind of like the white on this pen. It has a gold-colored nib and gold writing on the body, so there’s something kind of beautiful and Christmasy about the white one. I’ve always liked the combo of gold and white, and it’s really beautiful on this pen. Like the Sport AL, it has a fairly large girth and the “fluted” shape and a screw-on cap. Also, the posted and capped measurements are the same, so I’m guessing that the main differences are of the materials they’re made of and the nibs.

After that, we come to the Kaweco Sport Ice. (I like that name…”Ice.”) I think the reason they call this line “Ice” is because, unlike the previous two pens, which are monochrome (i.e., the body and cap are the same color), in this line, the pens’ barrels are clear, whereas the caps are colored, but also clear. So, while the previous ones are all (except the one that’s completely clear) opaque, the caps on these Sport Ices are colored but see-through. I like that, too; they’re very pretty colors, bright and cheerful. I must be in a Christmas mode today because they strike me as kind of Christmasy, too. Maybe because “ice” is in the name. So these little guys are a great price at $15 each, and they come in a lovely royal blue, green, orange, and red. (By the way, the nibs of all of these pens, the Sport AL and Sport Classic as well, are fine. If history holds true, they will be a bit wider than Japanese fine nibs. Caveat emptor.) As of this writing, there’s no indication of how many are left of the blue, 20 of the green, 20 of the orange, and no indication on the red. I’m actually thinking about getting the orange because I like to try to match ink colors–roughly–with the pens they’re in, and I have two orange inks but no orange pen to put them in. OH—well, now that brings up an interesting question: can these be used with converters? I don’t know. I’ll write to JetPens and ask. Don’ t you worry. I’ll find out for you! The measurements of this pen are the same; 4.1 capped and 5.3 posted, and their nibs are stainless steel and the caps are screw-on.

OK, finally, we come to the more expensive but correspondingly beautiful and stately Kaweco Student Fountain Pen. At $43, this pen comes in black (opaque), blue (see-through), and white. The body is made of “injection molded acrylic and chrome plated brass” and the measurements are slightly different: .125 inches capped and 6.375 inches posted. (How’s that for accurate?) As of this writing, there are 20 left of all three colors. They, to0, have fine nibs, and these are stainless steel (silver colored). The details also mention a “high-quality ink feeder,” so I don’t know if that’s something different about this particular pen, or if it’s just a detail they left out of the other ones. Since the price is higher, the feed system might be a little different. The black and blue of this line are particularly beautiful. The white is not bad, but it’s less striking with the silver than with the gold (IMHO). These are not “fluted” all the way around, but smooth, and I like that trait better, too. It seems less “sporty” and more dignified. Plus, they aren’t available in those wild colors.  And, as of this writing, there are 20 left of all 3, so there’s not the rush that there is on the Sport AL.

OK, so that’s the latest in terms of fountain pens at JetPens today! I’ll write to them and ask them about converters and get back to you. In the meantime, check them out! And, if anyone out there has experience with Kaweco pens and/or inks and wants to comment on their particular idiosyncracies, please drop a line and I’ll make sure to bring my lofty readers’ attention to it!

The Other Kind of Indian

My motley readers,

So I was writing to a friend who happened to read the blog about the sari encounters I had yesterday, and she told me that she had been reading a lot about cultural appropriation lately, due to the fact that feathered headdresses are being sold by Urban Outfitters and other “hipster” outposts. I was surprised to read about it because usually I’m pretty up on multicultural conflicts like this, but this particular one slipped totally under my radar. So thanks, friend! You know who you are.

Before I begin my cogitating, here is a link that will lead you to other links that explore this and related issues:

http://bonne-vie.net/index.php/2010/about-that-cultural-appropriation-thing/

In a nutshell, this seems to be the question on the table, and this is my question to you folks out there (provided that more of you have joined my single reader): Is it bad, and why or why not, to wear this feathered headdress thing as purchased by some money-making, non-spiritual company?

Here’s a pic that shows what it might look like at a party (how’d you like to be the girl on the right, thinking you’re so cool, but being shot all over the Internet as the ultimate in insensitive cultural appropriators? Sucks to be her.)

This photo is from “My Culture is Not a Trend.” The related post can be found at

http://mycultureisnotatrend.tumblr.com/post/523529245/via-berrysaymaduug-war-bonnet-gone-wrong

(Note: I have not yet read anything from this blog, so I cannot attest to its…well, anything. I’m totally unfamiliar with it. I am just borrowing a couple of pictures from it to illustrate what this issue looks like.)

And this is, according to someone’s comments on the same blog (so I cannot attest to its accuracy) apparently someone named Lucia Holm, a self-portrait taker, done on commission for one of the companies that make such headdresses.

You get the idea.

So, what is cultural appropriation? Everyone might have a different definition, but here’s mine (highly unofficial): “taking, whether stealing or borrowing, aspects of a culture not one’s own.”

And this issue goes back to the familiar conflict that Native Americans and non-Native Americans have been duking it out over for a long time. From Hollywood’s depiction of “Indians” in the corny Westerns of the 1950s to names of sports teams such as the “Braves” and the “Indians,” to naming vehicles (wasn’t there an SUV called the Navajo?). Now it’s headdresses.

A little background: the kinds of headdresses you see here being sold are knock-offs of a real phenomenon that was specific to a specific region, and they have a specific cultural and spiritual significance.

I think that this one is a little more real.

These headdresses were worn in the Plains regions of the US. (What one might call “the middle.”) These are the Indians that the layperson thinks of when the word “Indian” is brought up because it is the style that has most often been portrayed in the media. (Think Dances with Wolves.) The Sioux, the Kiowa, the Comanche…these are all Plains tribes.  Only men could wear them (so I can imagine that, for traditional Native Americans, seeing women flouncing around in these would be doubly blasphemous), and of the men, only warriors could wear them. And chiefs, I think, but there may be some overlap around who could be made a chief; perhaps only warriors could be made chiefs; I don’t know. However, it is true that wearing one was an honor not to be taken lightly. The feathers in them are, to my knowledge, mainly eagle, and these were awarded based on the warrior’s bravery and deeds. The eagle is protected federally now, but I don’t know if some tribes, the ones that have sovereign status, are still able to gather feathers. They may not. Perhaps a knowledgeable reader can let us know that. However, I know that some eagle feathers are still awarded, but they might be heirlooms…gathered in a time before the eagle was an endangered species. Nevertheless, the cultural significance of the eagle feather is still extant.

There are two obvious sides to this question, with an oblique question that sort of comes in at a 45-degree angle. One side is that wearing such a headdress is not insulting; it might even be honoring the culture(s) of origin. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Anyway, they don’t wear those headdresses anymore (actually, they do at certain significant events), and all of the genocide and stealing of land and not honoring treaties happened a century ago. This is just fashion; it’s not like anyone is doing that anymore!

The other side: Well, the unfairness in terms of access to resources (ever been to a reservation? Not all of them are dirt-poor, but many are.) still exists. Native Americans are still marginalized and mistreated and dishonored and ignored, if they’re lucky, but outright persecuted if they’re not, even to this very day. They should not have to see their cultural and spiritual representations/icons worn as fashion. (Here’s an interesting, if difficult-to-imagine parallel: most Christians know the history of Christianity and how the earliest Christians were persecuted by the Romans, right? Well, what if the Romans had eventually prevailed and wiped out all but a smattering of Christians? And then strolled around wearing crosses and crucifixes because it “looked cool”?)  Are there any devout Christians out there who don’t like to see the Holy Cross sold at Wal-Mart for $1.95 as part of a “gangsta” outfit? (I’ve seen it. It sucks. I’m not even Christian, and I don’t think much of that.)

Now the oblique angle, which I read on that link that I posted above: what if you made your own headdress? Obviously you won’t be catching any eagle feathers, but these hipster ones aren’t eagle feathers, either. What if you did the beadwork or the quillwork and made it represent your own life? What if you added a feather for each brave deed you did? (Please, for my sake, use vegan feathers–imitation ones. Please don’t use real feathers; the birds need them more than you do…but let’s make that another issue. I just don’t want to be propagating the idea that I think it’s OK to steal birds’ feathers for anything.) If you gave the headdress the significance in your life that the traditional Plains headdress had in the lives of the Plains tribes, would that be OK? Keep in mind that you’re still “appropriating” their culture; they didn’t offer this to you.  And if you’re a woman–and I think it is women to whom these hipster headdresses are aimed–that is a doubly difficult question because this headdress is not traditionally allowed to be worn by women. Are we right to impose American/European, Age of Reason ideas of feminism on a tradition that is clearly not rooted in it?

I suppose you want my opinion in this Gordian knot of issues. Well, this is it: I don’t completely know. Obviously I would never want to offend ANYONE for cultural insensitivity. So you would not catch me dead in one of those headdresses because, as it says on the blog, if someone wears one, she looks like a douchebag wannabe. Seriously. Not only does she show that she doesn’t know a fat damn about the culture she’s borrowing from, but she also is basically wearing a big sign that says “CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE ASSHAT” on her head.

But I also don’t want to say that it’s illegal or forbidden for her to wear it. I strongly believe that anyone who would wear such a thing is an idiot because of the obviously heated conflict that will arise from it and, at bottom, the hurt feelings that wearing such a thing would engender. Because, to me, that’s what it boils down to: hurt feelings. And I would never do that to a person because of her culture. Ever. When we wear mockeries of other people’s cultures, we say that we don’t care that those items were hugely important to them. Therefore, we don’t respect the traditions that go along with them. For example, I don’t know if this is true of the war headdress, but I know that it is true of the Kiowa sacred image, the Tai-Me: it was carried and set up by one specific person who was trained in the spirituality of the culture, and who was considered ritually pure enough to do so. Not just any Tom, Dick, or Wind-in-his-Hair could carry it around and be in charge of it. I would be willing to bet that the war headdress evoked similar respect. I know that, in the Kiowa tribe, traditionally women weren’t allowed to hold the weapons. Now, if the same is true of the headdress, but women are now wearing it–and so casually–what is that saying to a Kiowa who’s very traditional? “Your culture isn’t important enough for me to respect.” And for me, that’s not OK.

I would hope that it would not be OK for anyone else, but in fact, it is. There are people out there either ignorant or insensitive enough to wear such a thing. But I don’t think that the answer is forbidding them to wear it. That speaks of a kind of oppression that we never need to go back to again, and nobody knows that better than the Native Americans. Instead, I think perhaps the answer might be ridiculing them out of existence. Sort of like the “song mocking” that some indigenous people did as a form of social control. I am not sure what culture did this; I heard about this in an anthropology class over ten years ago, and it might even be more than one, but I thought it was a clever and effective idea. Basically, someone wrongs another, and everyone involved goes through all of the legal proceedings of the group so that it is definitely sure that he is in the wrong; he did commit the crime. But rather than slamming him in jail or chopping off his hands or killing him, thus depriving the group of a worker/able-bodied human, the tribe or group gathers and basically make songs about him and his crime, mocking him until he really feels the sting of it.

That doesn’t sound like much of a punishment, especially depending on how egregious the crime was. But think back to your school days, when you were the one in the center of the ring of your classmates and peers and that girl you thought was so cute, and it was your Superman Underoos that were around your ankles. Think back to the pointing fingers, the laughter…and the fact that you have never told anyone about that incident. Suddenly, public ridicule doesn’t seem that mild.

So, perhaps that is the answer to this conundrum. Rather than forbidding these wannabe hipsters who are just trying so hard to find a way to belong and be unique at the same time from wearing these headdresses, we can just make songs about how lame they look in their desire, conscious or not, to ridicule another’s sacred tradition. If it was not intentional, then one song session should do it. If it was, then maybe a week’s worth of song mockery should help rehabilitate them. It is a better way than out and out getting angry because, when you’re angry, you look like the douche, and nobody wants that.

However, what about  the asshats who make these headdresses to be sold? And the idiotic buyer who’d stock these lame-ass hipster stores with ill-gotten regalia, hopefully someone NOT American so that he or she can plead ignorance about the bad blood that has gone on between Native Americans and non-Native Americans since the first tribe was given smallpox-infected blankets? I don’t know about them. Maybe the hands-chopping-off is still an option.