Imperial Palace: Tokyo


The current Imperial Palace (Kokyo) is located on the former site of Edo Castle, a large park area surrounded by moats and massive stone walls in the center of Tokyo, a short walk from Tokyo station. It is the residence of Japan’s Imperial Family.

NewMexiKen photos, 1992

Bright Nights, Big Mountains

A different and amusing look at the Sundance Film Festival from Dallas writer Sarah Hepola.

What Park City has, however, is Save the Children volunteers.

‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’ asks a bright-eyed blond, smiling politely and holding a clipboard to her chest.

Dammit. They always get me.

I sign up for Save the Children. I request a child from Africa, preferably a very cute one.

‘Twenty dollars a month?’ L. says when we walk away. ‘That’s sorta steep.’

I point out that we just spent $12 on fudge….

The D.P. is nice. He comes to Sundance whenever he has a film in the festival, and he spends all day in the theatre. He saw five movies yesterday. The Woodsman, with Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, is terrific, he says. Everyday People, about a black-friendly, Jewish-owned restaurant in Brooklyn, is really good. In fact, everything he’s seen has been worthwhile, and I feel a twinge of guilt for letting half our trip slip by without catching one single film. Long before I cared about celebrity, before I crushed on actors or read Us Weekly (helplessly, ridiculously), I just loved movies. I watched them over and over again — often in one sitting — just to have access to another life, just to see someone else’s sky for a while.

The whole essay is fun to read.

Bush 2004 Campaign Pledges To Restore Honor And Dignity To White House

From The Onion, America’s Finest News Source —

Addressing guests at a $2,000-a-plate fundraiser, George W. Bush pledged Monday that, if re-elected in November, he and running mate Dick Cheney will “restore honor and dignity to the White House.”

“After years of false statements and empty promises, it’s time for big changes in Washington,” Bush said. “We need a president who will finally stand up and fight against the lies and corruption. It’s time to renew the faith the people once had in the White House. If elected, I pledge to usher in a new era of integrity inside the Oval Office.”

Bush told the crowd that, if given the opportunity, he would work to reestablish the goodwill of the American people “from the very first hour of the very first day” of his second term.

“The people have spoken,” Bush said. “They said they want change. They said it’s time to clean up Washington. They’re tired of politics as usual. They’re tired of the pursuit of self-interest that has gripped Washington. They want to see an end to partisan bickering and closed-door decision-making. If I’m elected, I’ll make sure that the American people can once again place their trust in the White House.”

Bush said the soaring national debt and the lengthy war in Iraq have shaken Americans’ faith in the highest levels of government.

Bad boys, What ‘ya gonna do?

From AP via the Santa Fe New Mexican

Mayor Martin Chavez says the television show Cops presents a bad picture of Albuquerque, and he’s banned it from filming in the city.

“The city’s police officers are portrayed in a good light, but the rest of the city looks horrible,” he said. “That has a real impact. That’s all people see, and that’s not who we are.”

Albuquerque has been featured on more than 40 episodes of the Fox series — more than any other city except Fort Worth, Texas, and the county around Tacoma, Wash. The series began in 1989.

How old we can all feel…

when an individual nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress was born in 1990.

Keisha Castle-Hughes was born in 1990 in New Zealand. She is a half-Maori and half-Pakeha (European New Zealander). She was 11 years old at the time Whale Rider was filmed. It was her first acting role.

Oscar

Complete list of this year’s Oscar nominations announced today by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The awards are to be presented February 29th.

Best Picture
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”
“Lost in Translation”
“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
“Mystic River”
“Seabiscuit”

Actor
Johnny Depp, “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”
Ben Kingsley, “House of Sand and Fog”
Jude Law, “Cold Mountain”
Bill Murray, “Lost in Translation”
Sean Penn, “Mystic River”

Actress
Keisha Castle-Hughes, “Whale Rider”
Diane Keaton, “Something’s Gotta Give”
Samantha Morton, “In America”
Charlize Theron, “Monster”
Naomi Watts, “21 Grams.”

Supporting Actor
Alec Baldwin, “The Cooler”
Benicio Del Toro, “21 Grams”
Djimon Hounsou, “In America”
Tim Robbins, “Mystic River”
Ken Watanabe, “The Last Samurai”

Supporting Actress
Shohreh Aghdashloo, “House of Sand and Fog”
Patricia Clarkson, “Pieces of April”
Marcia Gay Harden, “Mystic River”
Holly Hunter, “thirteen”
Renee Zellweger, “Cold Mountain”

Director
Fernando Meirelles, “City of God”
Peter Jackson, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”
Sofia Coppola, “Lost in Translation”
Peter Weir, “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
Clint Eastwood, “Mystic River”

Foreign Film
“The Barbarian Invasions,” Canada
“Zelary,” Czech Republic
“The Twilight Samurai,” Japan
“Twin Sisters,” The Netherlands
“Evil,” Sweden

Adapted Screenplay
Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer Berman, “American Splendor”
Braulio Mantovani, “City of God”
Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”
Brian Helgeland, “Mystic River”
Gary Ross, “Seabiscuit”

Original Screenplay
Denys Arcand, “The Barbarian Invasions”
Steven Knight, “Dirty Pretty Things”
Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson and David Reynolds, “Finding Nemo”
Jim Sheridan & Naomi Sheridan & Kirsten Sheridan, “In America”
Sofia Coppola, “Lost in Translation”

Animated feature film
“Brother Bear”
“Finding Nemo”
“The Triplets of Belleville”

Art Direction
“Girl with a Pearl Earring”
“The Last Samurai”
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”
“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
“Seabiscuit”

Cinematography
“City of God”
“Cold Mountain”
“Girl with a Pearl Earring”
“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
“Seabiscuit”

Sound Mixing
“The Last Samurai”
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”
“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”
“Seabiscuit”

Sound Editing
“Finding Nemo”
“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”

Original Score
“Big Fish,” Danny Elfman
“Cold Mountain,” Gabriel Yared
“Finding Nemo,” Thomas Newman
“House of Sand and Fog,” James Horner
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” Howard Shore

Original Song
“Into the West” from “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” Fran Walsh, Howard Shore and Annie Lennox
“A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” from “A Mighty Wind,” Michael McKean and Annette O’Toole
“Scarlet Tide” from “Cold Mountain,” T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello
“The Triplets of Belleville” from “The Triplets of Belleville,” Benoit Charest and Sylvain Chomet
“You Will Be My Ain True Love” from “Cold Mountain,” Sting

Costume
“Girl with a Pearl Earring”
“The Last Samurai”
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”
“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
“Seabiscuit”

Documentary Feature
“Balseros”
“Capturing the Friedmans”
“The Fog of War”
“My Architect”
“The Weather Underground”

Documentary (short subject)
“Asylum”
“Chernobyl Heart”
“Ferry Tales”

Film Editing
“City of God”
“Cold Mountain”
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of The King”
“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
“Seabiscuit”

Makeup
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”
“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”

Animated Short Film
“Boundin'”
“Destino”
“Gone Nutty”
“Harvie Krumpet”
“Nibbles”

Live Action Short Film
“Die Rote Jacke (The Red Jacket)”
“Most (The Bridge)”
“Squash”
“(A) Torzija ([A] Torsion)”
“Two Soldiers”

Visual Effects
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”
“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”

The feud that never was

NewMexiKen shouldn’t I suppose attempt to ressurect Antonio Salieri on this, Mozart’s birthday, but it seems he—Salieri—is making a bit of a comeback. According to a December article at Guardian Unlimited, “Next year the renovated La Scala in Milan is to reopen its doors with the work Salieri wrote for its very first performance back in 1778. And now Cecilia Bartoli has recorded an album devoted to his music.”

This article and other sources seem persuasive in saying that while there was competition between the upstart Mozart and the established artist Salieri in Vienna, there was cooperation, too; that is, what transpired between them was typical office politics.

As the Guardian Unlimited article notes:

…Mozart’s death, as one respected musical journal wrote, was almost certainly caused not by poison but by “arduous work and fast living among ill-chosen company”.

It was only after Mozart’s demise that Salieri began to have any real reason to hate him. Unlike that of any before him, Mozart’s music kept on being performed. Cut down at the peak of his powers – and with the added frisson of whispered rumours that he might have been murdered – he became the first composer whose cult of celebrity actually flourished after his death.

Salieri, however, had outlived his talent. He wrote almost no music for the last two decades of his life. Instead he spent time revising his previous works. He did have an impressive roster of pupils: Beethoven, Schubert, Meyerbeer and Liszt – not to mention Franz Xaver Mozart, his supposed adversary’s young son. But the composer who had once been at the vanguard of new operatic ideas was not necessarily teaching his students to be similarly innovative…

Of Mozart’s death, the story is more complicated:

So how did this respected musician become the rumoured murderer of the great Mozart? Nobody knows for certain. But in his final weeks Mozart is reported to have believed he had been poisoned, and had gone so far as to blame hostile Italian factions at the Viennese court. People put two and two together and pointed the finger at Salieri. And who could resist a story this good? Certainly not his fellow composers. There are mentions of it in Beethoven’s Conversation Books. Weber, Mozart’s father-in-law, had heard it by 1803, and cold-shouldered Salieri ever after. And 20 years later it was still doing the rounds; Rossini joked about it when he met Salieri in 1822.

As the rumour gathered strength, all denials only served to reinforce it. Then, in 1823, Salieri – hospitalised, terminally ill and deranged – is said to have accused himself of poisoning Mozart. In more lucid moments he took it back. But the damage was done. Even if few believed the ramblings of a confused old man, the fact that Salieri had “confessed” to Mozart’s murder gave the rumour some semblance of validity.

Another interesting assessment of the Mozart found in the film Amadeus can be found in an essay entitled The Amadeus Mozart: Man or Myth?

Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart…

was born in Salzburg on this date in 1756. Theophilus—or Gottlieb—or Amadé means “loved by God” As an adult Mozart signed Wolfgang Amadé Mozart or simply Mozart. In the family he was known as Wolfgangerl or Woferl.

A delightful Mozart web site is Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, complete with music while you browse. Among other things, the site has an analysis of the truth and fiction in the wonderful film Amadeus. (It’s “Amadeus, an apologia” when you open the Biography section. The site is structured in a way that prevents a direct link.)

Fiction or not, watching Amadeus seems like a wonderful way to celebrate Mozart’s birthday.

The Invisible Library

The Invisible Library “is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library’s catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound.”

For example, anyone remember what the author Gordon Lachance wrote? Or Jo March? Or who wrote Fighting Sailor? Or There and Back Again? Do you own any books by Gilderoy Lockhart?

An intriguing site. Thanks to Veronica for the link.

Golden Globes

MOVIES

Best Picture – Drama
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”

Best Actress – Drama
Charlize Theron, “Monster”

Best Actor – Drama
Sean Penn, “Mystic River”

Best Picture – Musical or Comedy
“Lost in Translation”

Best Actress – Musical or Comedy
Diane Keaton, “Something’s Gotta Give”

Best Actor – Musical or Comedy
Bill Murray, “Lost in Translation”

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Tim Robbins, “Mystic River”

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Renee Zellweger, “Cold Mountain”

Best Foreign Language Film
“Osama,” Afghanistan

Best Director
Peter Jackson, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”

Best Screenplay
Sofia Coppola, “Lost in Translation”

Best Original Score
Howard Shore, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”

Best Original Song
“Into the West” from “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,”
by Howard Shore, Fran Walsh and Annie Lennox

TELEVISION

Best Series – Drama
“24,” Fox

Best Actress – Drama
Frances Conroy, “Six Feet Under”

Best Actor – Drama
Anthony LaPaglia, “Without a Trace”

Best Series – Musical or Comedy
“The Office,” BBC America

Best Actress – Comedy
Sarah Jessica Parker, “Sex and the City”

Best Actor – Comedy
Ricky Gervais, “The Office”

Best Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie
“Angels in America,” HBO

Best Actress – Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie
Meryl Streep, “Angels in America”

Best Actor – Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie
Al Pacino, “Angels in America”

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Mary-Louise Parker, “Angels in America”

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Jeffrey Wright, “Angels in America”

Robert Burns…

Scotland’s bard and most famous son, was born on this date in 1759.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o’ auld lang syne.

NewMexiKen, undereducated that I am, couldn’t have told you much about Burns before today. Thanks to The Columbia Encyclopedia courtesy of Bartleby.com (truly one of the web’s great resources) I can tell you this:

Burns’s art is at its best in songs such as “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,” “My Heart’s in the Highlands,” and “John Anderson My Jo.” Two collections contain 268 of his songs—George Thomson’s Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice (6 vol., 1793 –1811) and James Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum (5 vol., 1787 –1803). Some of these, such as “Auld Lang Syne” and “Comin’ thro’ the Rye,” are among the most familiar and best-loved poems in the English language. But his talent was not confined to song; two descriptive pieces, “Tam o’ Shanter” and “The Jolly Beggars,” are among his masterpieces.

Burns had a fine sense of humor, which was reflected in his satirical, descriptive, and playful verse. His great popularity with the Scots lies in his ability to depict with loving accuracy the life of his fellow rural Scots, as he did in “The Cotter’s Saturday Night.” His use of dialect brought a stimulating, much-needed freshness and raciness into English poetry, but Burns’s greatness extends beyond the limits of dialect. His poems are written about Scots, but, in tune with the rising humanitarianism of his day, they apply to a multitude of universal problems.

Taking a whack at Rose

From the Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times

Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News notes that Rose once said: “I am the best ambassador baseball has. My name is synonymous with the game.”

Adds Lincicome: “In the way that Lizzie Borden’s name is connected with hand tools, maybe.”

Charles Curtis…

was born in Kansas on this date in 1860. Curtis was the 31st vice president of the United States, serving under President Herbert Hoover, 1929-1933. Curtis is the only person with non-European ancestry to ever serve as President or Vice President. His mother was part Kansa or Kaw, Osage and Potawatomi and part French. Curtis had a one-eighth Indian blood quantum.

Curtis served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1893 to 1907, and in the U.S. Senate from 1907 to 1913 and 1915 to 1929. He was Republican whip from 1915-1924 and majority leader from 1925-1929.

A description of the book Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution: Charles Curtis and the Quest for Indian Identity (1989) provides this background on Curtis.

A successful lawyer and Republican politician, Curtis had spent his early years on a reservation but grew up comfortably and fully integrated into the white world. By virtue of his celebrated status, he became the most important figure in the debate over federal Indian policy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

As the Indian expert in Congress, Curtis had significant power in formulating and carrying out the assimilationist program that had been instituted, particularly by the Dawes Act, in the 1880s. The strategy was to encourage reservation Indians to reject communal life and reap the rewards of individual enterprise. Central to these developments were questions of ownership, land claims, allotments, tribal inheritance laws, and what constituted the public domain. The underlying issues, however, were Indian identification and assimilation. The government’s actions–affecting schools, the federal courts, Indian Office personnel, allotment and inheritance laws, mineral leases, and the absorption of the Indian Territory into the state of Oklahoma–all bore the mark of Curtis’s hand.

Daddy Wags

From the Los Angeles Times, Bitter Ending

The obituary said he died at home. His good neighbors of Leimert Park smiled sadly when they read it.

Yes, of course, that electrical shed next to the dumpster behind the video store was Leon Wagner’s home.

“The more I thought about it, the more it made sense,” said Brian Breye, a local merchant. “Because the streets were his home.”

Leon Wagner was the first great slugger in Angel history, a 1962 All-Star game MVP, an engaging prince to kings Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.

With his huge smile, loopy swing and funky throwing motion, the man known as “Daddy Wags” once held the Southern California baseball world in his giant palms.

Yet on Jan. 3, at age 69, he died with nothing.

He had no address, no car, little money. His final days were spent wandering the streets in what acquaintances say was a drug-induced haze.

Take time to read about the first Angels hero.

Preserving a Grand Landscape in New Mexico

The most sublime place described in this Sunday’s New York Times Travel Section is, of course, in New Mexico.

Less than four years ago, Congress paid $101 million to buy an 89,000-acre ranch in northern New Mexico of such grandeur and scientific richness it’s been called the Yellowstone of the Southwest. The nation’s backpacking cognoscenti laced up their hiking boots in anticipation. Here, finally, was the chance to tramp across a landscape so iconic of the American West that it appeared for years in Marlboro Man ads and on Stetson hatboxes.

Then the government promptly locked the gates. Managers of the newly renamed Valles Caldera National Preserve needed time to create a plan to safeguard the place from the surge of interest that was sure to come. (When a few “sneak peek” hikes were announced in September 2000, 50,000 people telephoned in one day to snare the 1,500 spots.) But the managers also needed time to digest the mandate Congress had handed them. The preserve is “an experiment in land management” that is run neither by the Forest Service nor the National Park Service but by a trust that is governed by presidential appointees. Valles Caldera is to remain a working ranch while also protecting the environment and accommodating hikers, hunters and other users. As if that wasn’t challenging enough, Congress asked the preserve to try to become financially self-sufficient by 2015, whether by charging fees for cattle grazing and recreation or perhaps even permitting some logging. It is a complex, at times contradictory charge and one that makes Valles Caldera a good symbol of the many issues the nation’s public lands grapple with today….

Some of the West’s great vistas thrust themselves on you with a beauty that is almost oppressive. Valles Caldera is not one of these places. Beyond the windshield, steamship clouds dragged their shadows across Valle Grande, a treeless, harvest-colored valley that ran to a horizon of ponderosa and green peaks. A bull elk lounged in the valley with his harem, his chandelier of a rack rising above the grama grass. This is not the awe-demanding West of Albert Bierstadt but the welcoming West of an Aaron Copland score – a big-hearted landscape, heroic, promising, completely American. Seeing it, you realize that you know Valles Caldera from billboards and ads and untold westerns. You feel at home.

As with the two articles below, those who love the west will enjoy reading the whole essay.

The Many Layers of Tucson

Travel writers love Tucson. This New York Times writer loved Loews Ventana Canyon Resort, Mi Nidito restaurant, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Kartchner Caverns and Kitt Peak — especially Kitt Peak.

As (very) amateur astronomy geeks, Scott and I had decided to splurge on the observatory’s advanced program. This allows visitors to stay up all night looking at sky objects with the assistance of a skilled telescope operator.

It costs $350 for one or two people, plus $55 each for a dormitory room where we would crash in the wee hours of the morning, just like the real visiting astronomers. A midnight lunch and breakfast are included. The program can accommodate just four people a night.

We dropped our bags in our spartan room, then joined the larger group with whom we would be spending the early part of the night. At a cost of just $36, the early nightly program takes advantage of the usually clear desert skies to offer an intimate glimpse of fantastically distant objects to as many as 34 visitors.

The Kitt Peak program is particularly extensive because it is one of of the few astronomical institutions financed by the National Science Foundation, and part of its mission is to engage the public in astronomy. Two of the 25 telescopes that dot the mountaintop are devoted to the public each night. The others are for working astronomers….

had seen some of the same objects through our starter telescope at home, but I was thrilled at their beauty as viewed through the high-quality equipment. The globular cluster in the Hercules constellation, 25,000 light-years away, seemed somehow mine.

After the early group departed at 9, Scott and I continued our night with the sightings of assorted stars, nebulae and galaxies. As our guide, Roy Lorenz, showed us the new sights constantly coming into view, we could practically feel the earth spinning. Since we were the only ones there that night, we benefited from the attention of another guide, Adam Bloch, as well, who helped us take two pictures of deep-sky objects with the observatory’s fancy camera.