01.31.06
Posted in Criticism at 12:17 am by Jon Silpayamanant
*edit 05/02/06 01:33* (added link to youtube.com clip of Crowder/Jaa scene)
As I mentioned a while back, I did finally get a copy of ต้มยำกุ้ง(Tom Yum Goong) (and yeah, I’m also playing around with ruby markup if you haven’t noticed, which you might not, if your browser doesn’t support it).
This was last Tuesday–and yeah I watched it right out of the package–from my brother, who also sent me lots of โบตัน(Botan) which I’m surprised that I like, since I really don’t like black licorice at all.
But anyway, back to Tom Yum Goong. Yes, I enjoyed it. Was it “better” (whatever that means) than Ong-Bak? Well, yes and no. It was basically the same story: country boy loses artifact/elephant; country boy goes to big city/country and is out of his element; country boy kicks major ass and gets back artifact/elephant. That’s the short version. I’m not going to post more than some initial impressions (and I had meant to post this last week, but just got lazy and busy) so some spoilers to follow.
What was better.
Well, fight choreography was a bit smoother. There wasn’t the excessive usage of repeated-different-angle shots or slow-mo shots. This was nice, as those just broke the flow of the scenes in Ong-Bak. If anything, Tom Yum Goong went to the other extreme with a couple of phenomenally staged long (in duration) shots. The nearly four minute fight sequence up the Guggenheimesque stairway/balcony to the illegal restaurant was breathtaking and a welcome change from the Western montage-esque cut-n-paste scenes that are familiar to fans of some recent HK kung fu and wuxia pian films.
What editing was done with the fight choreography was exceptionally well done and the flow was even rather than eclectic and spastic flow of Chinese MA films or the (sometimes) tedious long/silent with burst of preternatural action of Japanese MA films.
My favorite fight scene (view it here) would have to be the one between Kham (Tony Jaa’s character) and the Capoeira stylist (played by Lateef Crowder).
What was not better.
There were fewer characteristically Southeast Asian kickboxing moves in the choreography, sadly. So the knees, elbows, clinching, and teeb kicks were nowhere near as prominent as they were in Ong-Bak. So the stylistic differences between the antagonists that use Chinese MA and Kham weren’t nearly as evident as I would have liked.
The next to last fight scene played out as a “how many different ways can Kham break and disfigure his opponents” than anything else. Sure, the first few make you wince, but after 20 or so opponents being downed in this manner it just got a tiny bit tedious.
The editing in general (outside the fight scenes) was absolutely horrendous. Some of it made no sense at all, and i won’t go into any detail here. If you see it, you’ll easily know what I’m talking about (even if you can’t understand Thai).
I don’t know if I’m going to even bother posting more about this in the future. Sure, I’m probably going to break down some of the notable fight scenes into Labanotation since I’m doing some cross-cultural comparisons of movement styles, but other than that, this post may be all I say about this Tom Yum Goong.
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links:Tom-Yum-Goong IMDB entry
Tom-Yum-Goong (ต้มยำกุ้ง) movie website
Tony Jaa fansite
Botan (โบตัน)
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01.30.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:22 pm by Jon Silpayamanant
Americans and Chinese: Passage to Differences
By Francis L. K. Hsu
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01.25.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:25 am by Jon Silpayamanant
So while doing a random search for “belly dance” and “comic books” I came across several references to the Carnival of Stars Belly Dance and Comicbook Convention.
How would you like to do your holiday shopping in a pleasant atmosphere with plenty of free parking while enjoying continuous entertainment? Perhaps you would like to be an entertainer yourself by entering a costume contest in which you could win a trophy or a cash prize? Ghawazee.com, Carnival of Stars™ will definitely be a holiday gift festival with a different twist. This event promises to be a fun day of entertainment with continual live performances throughout the day for the whole family. Our international Market will feature arts and crafts, belly dance costumes, jewelry, comic books, and gifts of all kinds.
Carnival of Stars is a West Coast convention that will be in its third year this November. An interestingly strange combination that’s organized by belly dancer and belly dance instructor and comic book creator, Alexandria, The Beat quotes an article about last year’s convention/”festival” (link seems to be inactive).
Obviously, as a musician that actively performs and collaborates with belly dancers and belly dance troupes; a blogger that is interested in Said and “classical” Orientalism; and creator in the process of constructing and designing a textless comic book as liner notes for a belly dance CD the collision of the two subcultures is very interesting to me.
If I can ever find the time to blog again regularly, I just might have some things to say about all this.
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01.23.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:16 pm by Jon Silpayamanant
The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why
By Richard E. Nisbett
Everyone knows that while different cultures may think about the world differently, they use the same equipment for doing their thinking. Everyone knows that whatever the skin color, nationality, or religion, every human being uses the same tools for perception, for memory, and for reasoning. Everyone knows that a logically true statement is true in English, German, or Hindi. Everyone knows that when a Chinese and an American look at the same painting, they see the same painting. But what if everyone is wrong? When psychologist Richard E. Nisbett showed an animated underwater scene to his American students, they zeroed in on a big fish swimming among smaller fish. Japanese subjects, on the other hand, made observations about the background environment — and the different “seeings” are a clue to profound underlying cognitive differences between Westerners and East Asians. For, as Professor Nisbett shows in The Geography of Thought, people actually think about — and even see — the world differently because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China and that have survived into the modern world. As a result, East Asian thought is “holistic” — drawn to the perceptual field as a whole and to relations among objects and events within that field. By comparison to Western modes of reasoning, East Asian thought relies far less on categories or on formal logic; it is fundamentally dialectic, seeking a “middle way” between opposing thoughts. By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to catergories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behavior. The Geography of Thought documents Professor Nisbett’s groundbreaking international research in cultural psychology, a series of comparative studies both persuasive in their rigor and startling in their conclusions, addressing questions such as: • Why did the ancient Chinese excel at algebra and arithmetic, but not geometry, the brilliant achievement of such Greeks as Euclid? • Why do East Asians find it so difficult to disentangle an object from its surroundings? • Why do Western infants learn nouns more rapidly than verbs, when it is the other way around in East Asia? • What are the implications of these cognitive differences for the future of international politics? Do they support a Fukuyamaesque “end of history” scenario or a Huntingtonian “clash of civilizations”? From feng shui to metaphysics, from comparative linguistics to economic history, a gulf separates the children of Aristotle from the descendants of Confucius. At a moment in history when the need for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have never been more important, The Geography of Thought offers both a map to that gulf and a blueprint for a bridge that might be able to span it.
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01.19.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:16 am by Jon Silpayamanant
Oh yeah! Neil Cohn has a blog! Go read now!
The Visual Linguist
Studying the visual language of “comics”
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01.18.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:15 am by Jon Silpayamanant
Sadly, my brother, Oi, cannot seem to find a copy of the Tom Yum Goong comic anywhere near where he lives. It looks like I might have to order it after all.
On a happier note, I will be getting a copy of the VCD from him. Why I haven’t ordered this myself since its availability last November is still a mystery to me.
On a somewhat related note, since I’m referencing a ‘martial arts’ flick, I had this wonderfully strange dream yesterday about dancing in the streets of Indianapolis while singing Capoeira songs. My friends, especially Drika who is from and in Brazil, got tons of laughs imagining me dancing (at all) while singing in Portugese. That I was able to get others in my dream to sing (though not dance) along was just icing on the cake for them–at my expense.
Now I have to go practice my Rababi singing so that I can get through Tunak Tunak Tun for our first rehearsal with a doumbek player this Sunday. Why I haven’t been singing in Punjabi at all rather than Portugese is a mystery to me.
And here I thought I wouldn’t be as busy these first couple of months of the new year as I have been the last two months of last year. I promise to blog more regularly, really–just don’t hold your breath.
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01.17.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:04 am by Jon Silpayamanant
NPR : Using Video Games to Manage Pain
Pain management is the latest target of software developers: Researchers are creating and testing interactive games designed to help young patients cope with discomfort.
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01.16.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:19 pm by Jon Silpayamanant
So Indy now has real life Superheroes.
Doktor DiscorD of Indianapolis
Link via http://www.warrenellis.com
Here’s Doktor DiscorD’s MySpace ‘about me’ section:
About me:
hi. i’m a real-life CRIME FIGHTING SUPERHERO.
Some say i’m just your average schizoid antihero personality type on the verge of a mental breakdown. Some say i’m already crazy…AND YES!!!(thanks for suggesting) “You’re mad..”
of course im fucking mad,man!!
IM MAD AT BAD!
Aren’t you???
Some people ask “Are you some kind of faggot roleplayer?”
NO. I really go out and fight crime on the streets of Indianapolis alongside my compatriots in the JUSTICE SOCIETY OF JUSTICE.
I got tired of the CRIME.
I got tired of the CORRUPTION and FEAR.
These things won’t go away on their own.
Some say “are you joking?” to which i can only say,
CRIME IS NO LAUGHING MATTER.
what do we consider “CRIME” you might ask…we dont care about victimless crime like drug use or people buying prostitutes. the kind of CRIME we’re talking about is the kind that makes little old ladies afraid to leave their houses.
the kind of CRIME that makes single mothers afraid to walk to their cars at night.
We urge you all to don the mask and make a stand against CRIMINALITY.
Start patrols in your neighborhood with some friends,but be sure to wear a mask…you probably don’t want LOW LIFE CRIMINALS to recognize your face and follow you home to endanger your family/friends.
Join the JSJ along side our numerous other heroes.
Mr. Silent
our hasidic rapper friend Dr. Dreidel and his sidekick The Kosher Kid
Liquid Courage
The Human Robot
The Apostolic Avenger
Cap’n Whiskey
The Hamburger Helper
Absurdo
The Plunisher
and the gynecological justice of The Green Discharge
all characters and their likeness are copyrighted by JSJ inc. (o6)
The JUSTICE SOCIETY OF JUSTICE…offering twice the JUSTICE as the leading competitors!
Who I’d like to meet:
Criminals.
especially Nigger Beater Lad..
i am SO going to kick his racist ass!
i also want to meet other brave souls on the slippery path of righteousness.
…..maybe even the Mayor
I might have to hang out in the streets more often.
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01.14.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:40 am by Jon Silpayamanant
Your Brain on Persian
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01.10.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:48 pm by Jon Silpayamanant
The Shamatha Project
A Proposal for a Longitudinal Study of the Cognitive-Behavioral, Neural, and Emotional Effects of Sustained, Intensive Meditative Attentional Training
Aims and Overview
To the Western mind the promise of ancient knowledge from Eastern philosophies has been an enduring lure. Perhaps the most captivating topic has been that of how meditation may affect mental and physical health. There is currently renewed and vigorous interest in these questions and modern tools from a host of disciplines are aimed at understanding whether meditation holds the keys for self improvement on all dimensions. In this proposal, we describe an ambitious project – the Shamatha Project – that brings together leading authorities in social and cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging, and Buddhist meditative practices to conduct a longitudinal study of how a specific form of meditation affects human perception, cognition and emotion.
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