The Margin

Magnificent Seven

2009-06-26T09:45:00.001-06:00

I was originally doing some light research about another Clash song ("Ghetto Defendant") for a music blog I write for, when I came across this performance of "Magnificent Seven". It, too, has been on my mind lately as I wrote a short screenplay a few months ago that used it in a scene. But this live version is so, um, alive that I decided to write about it instead -- especially because it nicely bookends the other song from 1981 I wrote about the other day.

"Magnificent Seven" was apparently the first rock/hip-hop song recorded and released, beating out "Rapture" by a few months. The lyrics were a stream of consciousness doing by Joe Strummer, and in that the song is pretty amazing by itself. The recorded version on Sandanista! is a great dancey-punk number, and I suppose the funky bass and beat were the first to hook me on it.

In this live version, recorded for the Tom Snyder Show in 1981, many more themes and influences play out. There's a heavy dub flavor with the guitars. The lyrics are delivered with more of a punk growl. It's less night club-oriented and more rock-club oriented. Above all, this is a rock band, and they could/should (have) give(n) lessons on TV performance.

But addressing the lyrical content: this song is about the post-modern urban rat race.

Ring! ring! its 7:00 a.m.!
Move yourself to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and you bankers, too
Must get up an learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet.

It's about consumerism, superficiality, and the silent toil of the masses. And then there's a little economics lesson about opportunity costs:

Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
Its our profit, its his loss
But anyway lunch bells ring
Take one hour and do your thaanng!
Cheese-boigah!

But ultimately, it is not rich versus poor. It attacks what lurks for all of us. After it describes the hollowness of the salary man, it preaches about the emptiness of the workingman:

So get back to work and sweat some more
The sun will sink and we'll get out the door
It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin' anywhere?

There's also a video for the ensuing interview, but it's a little disappointing. They are all kinda nervous without guitars in their hands, and for the first two thirds they resort to Sex Pistols-style rhetoric.

Giants and Toys (1958)

2009-06-24T17:33:00.003-06:00

This film, made roughly 50 years ago, could easily be remade now and be relevant.

It takes place in post-war Japan, where society is trying to adjust to a modern, American way of life. This means a fascination with space toys, candy, and convertibles. But it also means getting cutthroat in business. Rivals are now treated with malice, not honor, and a man (or woman) must work restlessly in the rotten pursuit of money.

The plot outlines several relationships -- business, mentor, romantic, friendship -- and tests them all. There is a great dichotomy between the old feelings of being faithful to one's country and the new, individualist culture. What's interesting is that one gets the sense that these characters have swapped company for country, and, still loyal, the Japanese are now less honorable.

If remade, it could evoke great films like Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) and Wall Street (1987) and explore the moral landscape that brought us to the current economic situation we all find ourselves in.

The end of Giants and Toys is bittersweet and wonderfully ambiguous; it leaves the viewer to make sense of it for himself. That is what we all will be doing in a few years.

A Super Idea

2009-06-19T07:17:00.002-06:00

I really don't have anything more to add to this idea, but it really merits posting. Adding supermarkets in dense city cores is such a no-brainer solution to increased nutrition, neighborhood walkability and economic vitality.

(link courtesy of The City Fix/ New York Times)

The Bookseller

2009-06-14T16:24:00.002-06:00

I recently returned from a trip to Spain. Among other places, I went to Valencia. It was during my semi-drunken wanderings there that I saw this bookstore and met its owner. The store was delightfully unorganized and smelled absolutely wonderful. The man eyed me somewhat distrustfully and actually discouraged me from looking around. I asked him if he had any books on economics. He replied he only had books on art, poetry and philosophy, and perhaps I should go to another bookstore. I suggested that economics is very much like a philosophy. He warmed to that, and we began to chat. I told him how important his store was in the face of Valencia's "Disney-fication", and he let me know he was closing in two months. No one wanted to buy books anymore.

We talked for a good while, though I didn't understand everything he said in his mixture of Spanish and Catalan. He told me a bit about life during Franco's regime and mentioned JFK's name a few times. He repeated "freedom's not the same then as it is now" a few times as he recalled the past. I was sorry I couldn't buy an armload of books from him on the spot.

Over a Barrel

2009-04-27T16:59:00.003-06:00

This piece was published a few days ago. It was a follow-up to another entry on the same subject in the same blog. Both were commentaries on a paper about oil shocks and their relation to recessions, written by the same author for the Brookings Institution.

The main thrust of the article is an interesting one, and one that goes much farther in explaining our current economic situation than many that simply try to point a flashy finger. It makes the case that the significant run up in gasoline prices last summer pierced the bubble and down everything tumbled. The reasoning goes like this:

Yes, there was risky lending going on, but by and large, people were able to make the payments on their too-much houses. Unfortunately, the buying and subsequent building spree caused people to farther out to find these homes, putting a greater share of their income in their gas tank with every few minutes extra commute. That was all fine and good for the consumer at $2 a gallon gas, but as it went quickly to $4 the additional strain on budgets was too heavy, and people could no longer meet their financial obligations. This caused the foreclosures that the banks hedged against by buying insurance, and so left AIG and others holding the bag.

$150 oil may not have been the only cause of the global recession, the article is quick to point out, but in my mind it goes a lot farther in explaining the global increase in food and commodities pre-bubble-pop, the cause and effect relations of prices, and the subsequent wildfire-like speed of the worldwide meltdown.

Stray Dog

2009-04-19T07:13:00.006-06:00

I watched Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog (1949) last night, and while it doesn't have the gravity of Rashomon (1950) or Seven Samurai (1954), it is still a very good film. Set in post-war Japan, the film explores human nature, and society's influence on one's decisions. Several great scenes explore the poverty and chaos of occupied Japan, and there exists the sense that one must participate in soft crime to stay afloat. In that, it reminded me of the blurred line of the law in Casablanca (1942). Kurosawa keeps his good guys good and his bad guys bad, but he calls into question the circumstances that determine the bad ones' descent.

Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura star in this Kurosawa film as well, and they bookend the plot perfectly as rookie cop and cunning, soft-touch detective. Uncredited is the sweltering heat that plays an dominant role in keeping the characters agitated. The film also shows Kurosawa's interest in the American pulp detective novel; a genre he would revisit with more polish and success in High and Low (1963).

Definitely worth watching.

Decible Debate

2009-04-16T15:52:00.004-06:00

I listened for a bit to the mayoral candidate debate last night, and one thing I heard (OK, more than one thing...) seemed so backward. On the subject of Austin as "The Live Music Capital of the World" (a contentious point, anyway), the candidates were asked if the development downtown would cause Austin to stop being the mecca for live music (sic). All but one said that we must preserve Austin's music scene and relax noise ordinances downtown to give the clubs freedom to operate so that everyone will come downtown to have a good time.

So wrong.

Why create a centralized zone in the city for entertainment? The idea is to create urban nuclei throughout the city so that everyone isn't driving from A to B to C, especially while intoxicated, but rather have A, B and C in their own neighborhoods. Austin's downtown development will bring with it the amount of services it needs. In fact, I would argue from first hand knowledge that making downtown Austin inhospitable to residents via the removal of noise ordinances will cause people to stay away from it, thereby wrecking any real community to support the clubs on more than just the weekends.

Make a special exception for SXSW weeks, sure. But don't provide incentive for bars to only open downtown or Austin will end up one giant suburban sprawl.

Meet the Boss

2009-04-15T06:19:00.004-06:00

I collect watches. I used to be enamored with vintage Seikos, but in the last years I have been slowing turning over my collection. Now I concentrate on newer Seikos; they are built so well and keep such good time. They are a pleasure to own. I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of my most recent acquisition: the Seiko SKA 293, aka "the Boss". It earned the moniker because when it came out in 2005, it was of the biggest Seikos at 44mm wide and 14mm thick, and a sharp stylistic departure from traditional Seiko Divers. With its kinetic movement charging its battery from the motion of the wearer, it offers the accuracy of a quartz with the ease of an automatic.

Can't wait for it to show up in the mailbox!

(photo credit: Tarod of Spain. !Gracias!)

I Was Born a Keynesian

2009-04-14T09:53:00.003-06:00

News of the current success (so far, so good) of the stimulus-funded projects reminded me of a conclusion I came to as a teenager.

As I drove across a bridge in bad shape in the late 1980s, it occurred to me that with high unemployment and low interest rates, municipalities could borrow cheaply to improve their sagging New Deal era infrastructure and put all them folks to work. Little did I know that I had arrived at a theory developed by John Maynard Keynes about 75 years earlier, and less did I know that those ideas wouldn't be in fashion for another 20.