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Oh just thought i'll leave some sound byte even if it doesn't make any contribution. I don't want it to be a year before I posted something. Long live work life, work life is not yet dead... sucks! Hope I snatch one day to do some good blogging! This bitch-rant is dedicated vonly to me and myself!

The Karate Kid - Mr. Miyagi is dead! Long Live Mr. Miyagi!!

I saw The 'new' Karate Kid - should we call it The Kung Fu Kid! - on Sunday last (20 June) and I should say it is 20 shades paler than the original. In spite of a more charismatic Jackie Chan... I found Mr. Han not a patch on Mr. Miyagi (who passed away early this year and in whose memory I spent an entire afternoon watching and rewatching all the three Karate Kid films).

That said, I shall say that Hollywood's attempt to sell China (how much kickback was got in the bargain, your surmise is as good as my guess!) to Americans is disgusting to say the least. Haven't we been through the Forbidden City, the streets of Beijing, the Shaolin Temple, the Kung Fu universities, the glitzy Kung Fu championships, the Great Wall of China? What we do get to see new is the new Americanised condominiums, people of China playing ping pong and violins and basketballs as well as old men sitting around the landscaped parks of Beijing streets that fail to hide China's poor attempts to reduce pollution levels and throwing Afro-Americans into the Beijing crucible. Jackie must have a huge proclivity or affliction towards his Afro-American counterparts - Will Smith, Chris Tucker... and now Will Smith Jr!

By throwing in Jaden Smith on to the streets of Beijing and showing him play basketball in the glorified ghettos of Beijing, if any subtle comparison is made to the streets of Harlem and Pittsburgh... I miss the point! After 2 hours of loud western music and blurring visuals of boys chasing each other through the narrow streets of Beijing, I came home with a headache. It stayed till about another 4 hours.

Though, all is not unwell in the state of The Karate Kid latest. Jaden Smith has worked his "those words relating to the body part that Mr. Han asks him to avoid speaking" and the learning is evident. The kid has a lot of spunk, gumption and attitude. That brings me to the point I want to convey - the new Karate Kid is all about spunk and attitude. And there is no subtlety whatsoever in this 'in yer face' exhibition of Hollywood's latest attempt to make moolah at the expense of the Oriental. I missed the quietness of Pat Morita's Mr. Miyagi, the serenity of the Japanese backdrop, the sanctity of the Japanese home and family tradition, the greenness of the rural Japan, the heart of the Original, the human-side of the villain of the original and his side-kick foil to the American boy Daniel played by Ralph Machhio... and most of all... the SOUL that The Karate Kid (original) had. This new avatar is just two hours of entertainment. It doesn't stay with you or warm the proverbial cockles of your heart.

Mr. Miyagi is dead! Long Live Mr. Miyagi!!

BRER RABBIT CHRONICLES...

SUMMER THEATRE WORKSHOP – CAMP NEUVE 2

CAMP NEUVE – 2

MYT’s summer theatre workshop for youth

For: 12 – 20 year olds

Date: May 3 – 21, 2010 (excepting weekends)

Time : 9.45 a.m to 1.15 p.m

Focus: ENSEMBLE THEATRE

BRIEF: This summer…. get ready to board THE ENSEMBLE THEATRE TRAIN. Masquerade Youth Theatre brings you(th) its second summer youth theatre camp. While last year focussed on introduction to folk and indigenous theatre essentials, this year we focus on getting the ensemble ready to perform. Theatre is a group activity, even when it is a one-actor show, what with technicians and basic stage or production management people required to run the show. Hnece it can be imagined, the magnitude of the need for togetherness and ensemble spirit. How does one quickly put together a team in a month and a good product together. The secret to becoming an actor who can sense and adapt oneself to the needs of the group as well as derive the maximum out of the group… what is it? Come discover that and a whole lot of fun that a big cast ENSEMBLE Production is! At CAMP NEUVE – 2, get ready this summer to board THE ENSEMBLE THEATRE TRAIN.

For fee, app form and/or further details, email masquerade.madras@gmail.com with subject: CAMP NEUVE – 2

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THE FALL OF THE WALL, I and 15 years later...

One of the many events that happened nationally and internationally in recent times that affected me severally is the 20 years celebration of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. For various reasons. Combine with it my recent re-reading and re-watching of Henry Porter's BRANDENBURG (a 2005-06 novel) and the 2006 movie THE LIVES OF OTHERS respectively. Of course, a movie such as GOODBYE, LENIN is always at the back of my mind!

Leaving aside the drama, the sentiment, the euphoria, the pyrotechnics and the laser show that sorrounded this event, the sheer monolithic monstrosity of the history behind the wall's existence leaves me breathless and disturbed... more because when I visited Germany the first time, it was hardly 5 years after the re-unification, when the old habits and memories of a land lost by a tribe of people who had set their store by a system - whether they liked it or not - through sheer habit still hung around like hangover from previous night's party!

I went back and dug into the net, dug into my shelf of German literature, German magazines and newspapers I had brought back upon that first visit. Memories come crowding. At that time, I was just a keen-eyed first time visitor to Germany. I did not comprehend the enormity of my stay. I am now trying to put all the shards of experiences and observations of my day-to-day existence over 8 months in places such as Magdeburg, Berlin, Halle, Leipzig, Wernigerode and other quaint little erstwhile East German towns - irrespective of long or short my stay or visits was/were! I even visited the Staatssicherheit's (STASI) headquarters in Leipzig, which was a very very eye-opening and cleansing visit for my soul.

To see the Nikolaikirche, visit Auerbach's Keller blessed with Goethe's feet, body, spirit and sould, walk about the Denkmal and have an esoteric experience of a Russian Orthodox Church Sunday Mass and then to spend about 2 hours on the Open Day at STASI hq in Leipzig - now to think of all these - I do not know what to do with all these accumulated experiences. This is but one day of the several days I visited Leipzig, when I was not collecting materials for my research or visiting famous and not so famous, but experimental theater houses or tourist sites in the rest of Germany or taking advantage of my several friends inhabiting all sorts of towns and cities all across Germany from Schewerin to Constance, Aachen to Frankfurt-Oder, Aurich to Dresden. This is but one of the 3 visits to Germany over a decade between 94-95 and 2004. How many, how many experiences, how many, how many memories, how many, how many memories now come flooding as a result of waking through the night of 20 years of Fall of the Wall celebrations on the Brandenburg Tor! Thank you DW-TV for bring the event live and better than BBC or CNN or anyone else outside of Deutschland.

I think I shall create a new blog exclusively dedicated to recapturing my German days. One post or even 10 posts won't be enough in the next coming days. For now, after 15 years since my first day, when my friend Thorsten picked me up at Berlin-Tegel, I realise it is a complex socio-political and artistic as well as cultural broom that I am trying to assimilate straw by straw that shall ultimately help me clear the cobwebs of my existence! It is humbling, to say the last word.