BRIAN LIBBY

Nye You're Talking

This past weekend, with temperatures in Portland surpassing 100 degrees, Valarie and I headed for our favorite oasis. In the otherwise junky beach town of Newport, there is a little neighborhood called Nye Beach that we absolutely adore. It's a cluster of restaurants, used book stores, a couple bakeries, and hotels, all very walkable and adjacent to the ocean. Although the Sylvia Beach Hotel is the lodging most people know (it's famous for rooms themed after different noteworthy novelists), we far prefer the adjacent Nye Beach Hotel, which has an unlikely but charming sort of tropical, Key West ambiance. Contrary to the overwhelming majority of hotels I've stayed in, this one has a lot of personal touches in terms of its decor. And while it can be rough around the edges in terms of broken bathroom tiles, terrible TV reception and burned out light bulbs, we can also stay there for not much more than $100 in a room with two ocean-front balconies and an in-room jacuzzi. While Portland sizzled the last few days with record temperatures (I really hate July and August climate), we strolled along the beach amidst a picturesque fog and breeze, all checking in under 65 degrees. Like it says in the Bible's 23rd Psalm, it "restoreth my soul".

Tony's Place

Recently while talking with Valarie I was reminded of a tongue-in-cheek idea I had in college with my friend Brian Gawronski. Everybody knows how Tony Danza seems to only act in TV shows in which his character's name is Tony, a la Taxi and Who's the Boss. So Brian G. and I came up with this sitcom called Tony's Place, in which Danza plays Tony Riggolotonio, the proprietor of a pizza parlor from which the show takes his name. Tony's motto would be, "When you come to Tony's Place, I take care of 'ya." And of course he'd get involved in the lives of his patrons, the result a combination of frequent hilarious hijincks and occasionally poignant dramatic lessons. I can almost hear the theme song (yet to be written) playing in my head. Too bad the sitcom is all but dead, becaues we'd surely have a hit on our hands.

Lines For Bass and Geography

I was flipping TV channels last night and caught just a few minutes from a documentary about Sting in which a couple of people analyzed what made The Police's distinct sound. One person talked about how, while Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland played expressionistically with shimmering guitar and lots of brushwork on cymbals, Sting played raegae and jazz rhythms on bass. (Of course Sting was not the only person to do this.)

It reminds me of a larger feeling I have about integrating other genres and other countries' music traditions into rock. Too often I think it's done very heavy-handedly. Whether it's sitar, gamelan percussion, classical harpiscord, or steel drums, I think often when these instruments come in they are a distraction, because the person playing those instruments is playing in the style or genre with which that instrument is associated, even though they're ultimately playing in a rock song. I prefer the idea that one play either with foreign style to rock with a rock instrument (guitar, bass or drums), or you play with a traditional rock style using a non-rock instrument.

Ironically, despite citing Sting during his days in The Police as example of the right way to blend rock with other influences, his later solo career is in my mind a lesson in how not to do it. There are songs of his where any number of international influences suddenly burst in, be it Arabic or African or Caribbean. I like the idea of trying that, but the music has to add up to more than a sum of its parts, and the parts need not be so visible.

Astronauts in Huggies and Potty-Mouthed Honor Students

This week I went to Houston for an article I'm writing about a NASA program that allows teams of college students conduct experiments under zero-gravity conditions, aboard the KC-135 "vomit comet" plane. While there, two moments stood out.

First, during a tour of the Johnson Space Center, we were given a talk about astronaut uniforms by a woman from NASA who designs them. She was explaining all this ultra high-tech material that goes into the suit, so as to protect humans from extremes in temperature, air pressure, radiation and so on. Someone asked her how astronauts go to the bathroom while in the suit, and she pulled out what appeared to be simply an adult sized pair of disposable diapers. Apparently NASA has another name for the apparatus, and they're sensitive about people calling them diapers. But it cracked me up to think of these heroes that millions of people idolize (not without reason, of course) floating in outer space, acting as the Magellans of our time, and having to poop their pants in a big 'ol pair of Huggies.

Second, while at a pre-flight meeting just before the students went aboard the KC-135 for their in-air, zero-gravity experience, they were warned by a NASA videographer that swearing on the trip was strictly forbidden. If any naughty words were uttered, the perpetrator would be erased from the video of their experience. Afterward I asked the videographer if these kids were really able to keep from swearing, considering the incredible and thrilling moment they were experiencing. (The trip supposedly makes the biggest roller coasters seem tame, because the plane achieves weightlessness without entering outer space by flying almost straight up and straight down in a bunch of parabolas.) The videographer told me that while most students were able to keep from swearing, the ones he had the most problems with were usually "females from prestigious universities". I love the reverse stereotype at work here, and would happily shake the hand of any such perpetrator.

Oldboy and the latest Hollywood crime

Tonight on DVD I saw the Korean movie Oldboy by South Korean newcomer Chan-wook Park. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes this year and is absolutely incredible. Explaining the plot can't begin to do justice to the movie, but basically, as IMDB explains it: "A recently paroled middle-aged man, who spent 15 years in prison without any explanation as to why he was jailed, seeks revenge on those who brought him down."

At various moments, Oldboy reminded me of, in no particular order: The Manchurian Candidate, A Clockwork Orange, The Truman Show, The Fugitive, Weekend, and Kill Bill. So it got me wondering: When is it going to be released in American theaters? (I saw it on a friend's Asian-imported Region-3 DVD.) Well, thanks to Universal Pictures, it may never be.

Universal has apparently bought the rights to Oldboy , but so they can re-film it using white American actors and a different director. As if that weren't bad enough, Universal's box office hopes for the remake will be such that they'll prevent the original Oldboy from being released, so as not to compete with their version.

I know this is far from the first time this kind of tactic has been used, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. Sure, this is a business, and you can call me naive for saying this, but I still maintain an expectation for companies to at least show some semblance of artistic integrity. When will I learn?

Luckily you can buy a multi-region DVD player these days for less than $100, and the web makes getting ahold of a Oldboy copy pretty easy. Not a happy ending, but with that proverbial kernel of hope that makes for your typical ending.

Al Qaeda and the November Election

Today Department of Homeland Security head Tom Ridge announced intellegence indicating that Al Qaeda is planning a major terrorist attack to disrupt the November elections. If that's true, I think Al Qaeda is not just dangerous, but stupid too.

Although both the Democrats and Republicans are resolved to fight terrorism, it is the Republicans who are more inclined to be hawkish when it comes to unilateral action in the Middle East as a response to that terror. That's precisely what Al Qaeda is trying to stop the United States from doing. They want the US out of Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. But if there were to be a major terrorist strike shortly before the presidential election, it would help George Bush secure re-election much more than it would erode voters' support for him, as happened in Spain. We'd rally around the president, like everyone (even me) did initially after September 11. Does Al Qaeda really want to support George Bush? Talk about strange bedfellows...the Bush family's connections to Saudi Arabia and the Bin Laden family residing there not withstanding. But maybe Al Qaeda knows how dangerous Bush is for the United States even better than its people do. Maybe they think that he's more likely to take the bait on the kind of full-on religious war they seem to want to fight.