When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious program, it raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But even in the absence of constitutional issues, a political party should resist identification with a religious movement. While religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes, the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For politicians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to oppose the cause of another."
-- former Senator John C. Danforth (R), in a 2005 NYT OpEd

ovies galore below. Up here a quick bit on Kali, and maybe something else if it occurs to me in the next fifteen minutes.

After 7 months of martial arts training, I am now sufficiently-advanced (well, sufficient-intermediate, to be more precise) at Kali that it's no longer enough that I merely execute the maneuvers. It's expected (by me and the Gura and the other advanced students) that I do the new moves we're shown that day, and that I do them with style, grace, precision, etc.

We work on form and positioning and such all along, but it takes a while to move beyond simply trying to get your body to do the basic maneuver. Once you've got the skill to progress though, you begin to discover just how vast a difference there is between doing it tolerably, and doing it like the experts. It's also surprising how subtle the higher level movements are. Thursday night we were doing a two-strike move with a lot of footwork mixed in, and while almost everyone could do it after a few minutes of practice and/or observation, the learning curve between just doing it and doing it like a master is almost infinite.

What I found odd was what I mentioned a second ago. How tiny the changes necessary to improve at it were. Everyone realizes they need to be more fluid, to make bigger circles with their stick and their open hand, etc. What's harder to grasp is that something as small as head positioning, or finger extension, or the angle of the chin will make a huge difference. And not just to experts, who could pick out the tiny change; everyone can see it, even the most beginning students. You can do the same move ten times in thirty seconds, feel like you're doing it as well as you can, and if on the eleventh time you finally look at the fingers of your left hand, as you extend that arm over your head for balance and grace, and extend them precisely as you strike with the stick in your other hand, it 1) feels much better, 2) looks much better, and 3) makes the strike visibly and audibly harder and more precise.

It defies logic; why would looking at your fingers, actually focusing on them, make the stick in your other hand move faster and more exactly? I can't say quite why it does, but the whooshing sound of the stick cutting through the air is unmistakable, and when you watch six other people slowly learn and then finally do it correctly, and see how much better they all look when they get it right, and hear them all tell you how much better you looked when you finally did it right, it's hard to argue with reality.

On top of the body position stuff, we're not getting into the "eye of the tiger" type attitude. We don't call it that, but you've heard the term.  We go with a different movie. The King and I. Yes, an absurd musical (I think all musicals are absurd in concept, actually.) but if you ever see it, even for a little bit, study Yul Brenner's body language and facial expressions.

But analyze the photo, and your reaction to it. Why does he look so bad, rather than just looking like a short bald guy with a big earring? He's got the bald head going on, a look that few non-black men fail to look ridiculous with, and he's got great eyebrows. The way they drop down over his eyes is scary. He's doing something with his jaw too; it's very tight and lifted. But mostly it's in his eyes. There is an intensity; a fire; the eye of the tiger, if you prefer.

Of course being able to see this in others and being able to summon it up yourself is an entirely different matter, as we've been discovering lately in Kali class. Doing a series of moves with your mind neutral is one thing, but doing the same series with an inner fire lit is entirely different. The Gura and a few other experts can summon it up whenever they wish, and it's downright eerie to watch. In a blink they go from someone you know to an entirely different person. An angry, hard person, one who would not hesitate to take you out. That's how they look, anyway, and this is a look gangster types cultivate, for obvious reasons. Walk into a room glowering and exuding energy like this, and you'll definitely be noticed. I wouldn't advise it if you aren't ready to back it up, though.

It's basically acting when we do it (well, we try to do it), but at the same time it's a real feeling or emotion that's causing the look. One guy tonight who is about as good as me at Kali was doing the series of moves, and not doing it poorly, but when Gura pressed him to get intense; to really mean it, he took himself mentally into a place where he could feel like Yul looks here, and goddamn if he didn't start moving a hell of a lot better. Faster, swinging harder, improved form, etc. He wasn't all the way there; he didn't have the regal chin lift and glowering eyes, but you could see in his face that he was so much more into what his body was doing than he had been five seconds before. It didn't last long either; he couldn't sustain it and tired quickly once he was doing it, but damn it was cool while it lasted.

I can't do it, at least not yet. I get into a more intense mental state once in a while, and managed it twice Thursday night while I was doing the moves in front of everyone, but while I felt like I was almost there, it doesn't show on my face to others. It was a strange feeling though; I won't go into the meditation terms of embracing the void or holding the flame or whatever you want to call it, but I definitely lost a lot of my awareness of the surrounding room and the people watching me. And I became far more in tune with my body's movements. I couldn't hold it very well though, partially because I started to lose the footwork and move sequences once I was going for the intensity.  I felt completely connected to my weapon and there was nothing in my head but moving and striking with the stick, but I apparently went too one track in my thoughts, since I lost the cross-shaped walking pattern we were doing, and when I realized I was drifting a bit I lost the intensity.

Yul Brenner's performance in The King and I is amazing since he keeps it up almost the whole time. Our Master recommends the film for Kali, not because there's any martial arts in it, but because of the way Yul holds himself. He is impossibly-regal throughout, and that is what we try to look like and how we try to hold ourselves when doing Kali. Well, the men do, most of the time at least. Women can channel this as well, depending on what they're doing, but they sometimes want to be softer or more flowing and less imperious, as do the men.

This shot of him dancing isn't a great one, since he's got his chin down and is looking where he's about to step (something we try not to do with our stick work), but his posture is still excellent. Very stiff back, right arm high and cocked, weight sliding smoothly from the right leg to the left, etc. Compare him to his dance partner, who is buried in an ocean of satin, but doesn't have any sort of intensity or look on her face. She's just following along in the dance, looking down at nothing in particular, and though the only thing we can see of her body is her arms and shoulders, they're not erect or full of energy.

And once again, I wish I had a video clip of Kali to show, since I think the difference would be very evident even over the Internet.  Although, our Gura's fiancee has filmed her a few times, and he says that some of the intensity and energy you feel in person just does not translate through the film. It's the difference between attending a rock show and watching a concert video; there's just some sort of a vibe to a live performance that doesn't travel through the video of it, except in very rare cases. Which is probably why there are about 10 actors alive today who can simply command the screen. Everyone else, talented though they may be, are just taking up space on screen.

I don't have a list, but you know it when you see it. Bruce Lee had it; watch any scene of him when he's moving or even just staring someone down and there is an energy about him that you simply don't see in everyday life. It's obviously not something every actor wants; it wouldn't come in very handy for Tom Hanks in one of his everyman romantic lead type roles, but in action movies or suspense films it's invaluable. Watch the first minute of Hopkins' performance in Silence of the Lambs, when he's simply standing in his plexiglass cell and talking to Starling, and his energy is so intense it's almost dripping off the screen.

I want to look like that. At least sometimes. Like during the photo shoot for my first book jacket picture, for instance.

As always, the Kali talk went far longer than anticipated.

The sad part is that I can remember my past self well enough to know that nothing I just said would have meant a damn thing to me a year ago.

"I have intensity when I need it! What does chin angle have to do with looking hardcore? Why would you fight better emulating the way a bald guy danced in an old movie?"

All that and more might have flowed forth from my mouth fingers, and therefore I can easily envision many of you thinking those things now. I'm not here to convince you otherwise; I'm just here to blog about me, and I'm not putting on a persona to do it. (Well, maybe a little bit of the Mr. Snark when it comes time to talk about celebrity bullshit.) I didn't set out with change as a goal, but I have changed some since I began taking martial arts classes last Fall. We don't spend a lot of time on it, nor do we meditate or anything like that, but there is a philosophy of sorts that comes with martial arts, when you're really doing them and not just waving your arms and legs around like the guys do in the movies. I didn't anticipate anything like that when I started doing Kali, and I'm not becoming a Buddhist or anything, but I do have different attitudes about various things than I did before I started my martial arts training. I hope that doesn't horrify anyone too terribly.

Anyway, I also wanted to mention the Ipod performance on Thursday. In Wednesday's blog I talked about how well the Monster plug-in sent forth radio signals that I then heard through the car stereo. Thursday was much the same, but with Malaya riding shotgun she was able to experiment some more. She found a good clear station at around 105.9, oddly enough, and she also found that by holding the actual transmitter closer to the antenna (which is on the right front of the car) we got less static and interference.

I can't hold it up there when I'm driving solo, so we're thinking about getting some of those strips that have glue on one side and velcro on the other. I'll stick a bit of velcro on the Monster transmitter, some more on the Ipod holder, and put matching pieces on the dash of my car and Malaya's car, and we'll be set. If we're smart we'll even position the Ipod so that when it's stuck on we can see the screen and easily reach the controls if we want to change songs.

I bring this up since there's a new Japanese trailer (English spoken, with Japanese subtitles and some narration) for War of the Worlds, and sure enough, it's simply choked with shots of the cute blonde girl's tear-streaked face. Maybe that sort of thing is big in Japan, but it's almost enough to make me not want to go see the damn movie after all.  Pity Spielberg had to get old and have children and grow soft, but I guess it happens to almost all of us eventually.  Good thing he's not making Jaws now, or Rob Schneider's wide-eyed, curly-haired kid would stow away on the Orca and then every time the shark appeared there'd be a lingering shot of him (or her) clinging to dad's ankle and sobbing, while even crusty old Mr. Quint grew to like the youngster and died to protect him/her.

And yes, my views on this issue will probably one day be as changed as my views on love and dating and women were from the pre-Malaya era to today.  *sigh*

¤ In other movie news, Fever Pitch is about to open, and fail miserably, with any luck. It's another US movie that's plundered from a foreign film, in this case a movie also called Fever Pitch (Oddly, "pitch" refers to the playing surface in soccer, and the thrown ball in baseball.) that was set in England and was about a guy who was a huge soccer fan and how the girl who falls in love with him tries to reconcile her love for him with his obsession over a sporting team. The US version is about a baseball fanatic, played by Adam Sandler-lite, AKA Jimmy Fallon. He's a Red Sox fan, the girl is played by Drew Barrymore, and the hook for non-romantic comedy viewers is that the team in the movie, the Red Sox, actually won the World Series last year for the first time in like 90 years.  This miraculous event necessitated a rewrite in the plot, but the really annoying thing is that they were filming the movie during the playoff games, and, as critic Sean Burns says in an otherwise-unremarkable review in the Philadelphia Weekly:

I'm not a Red Sox fan and I'm certainly not a Jimmy Fallon or Drew Barrymore fan, and even I noticed them dancing around on the field during the World Series celebrations, though for me it was more of an, "Isn't that Drew Barrymore and that comedian guy I saw once in an SNL promo? What are they doing on the field?" I wouldn't have had any interest in the film anyway, but after I saw them out there, forever tainting the should-have-been glorious celebration of the Red Sox's epic triumph, I've assumed this film would earn about $8 in all of New England, just since every real Red Sox fan hates it for the sin of letting those two idiots out on the field during the post game celebration.

Maybe sheer nostalgia for the World Series win will carry over though, and Red Sox fans won't be able to keep themselves from buying a ticket, if only so they can enjoy the win all over again, while trying their hardest to look at the celebrating players and not at the hugging and kissing and happily-ever-after'ing Fallon and Barrymore?

¤ I'm not entirely sure this isn't a bit of delayed April Fools' news, but anyway, the actor chosen to be the new James Bond is apparently official. And it's no one anyone's ever heard of:

Who? Exactly.

There are lots more pics of the guy on his IMDB profile, but they don't improve things much.

I think the Bond films are due for a downturn anyway; the last few were huge hits, but the last two especially got very silly. Gone was any pretense of a plot or spy thriller, elements swept away to free up space for one improbable special effects sequence after another. I was actively bored and annoyed several times during Die Another Day, the last Bond film, and my review scores reflected that. Pity it'll be Craig who gets the blame for the declining box office, when it's going to be due to the absurd films rather than any star power, or lack thereof, on his part. Though you have to admit that casting an actual movie star wouldn't have hurt. I would mention acting ability, but the films have become so ludicrous that that talent is largely irrelevant.

Ugly actors aside, the British newspaper's announcement that Craig had the role doesn't look to be the last word anyway. Newer news says it's still up for grabs, and that they might even do another one or two with Brosnan himself.

¤ In happier news, there is a film opening this weekend that Malaya and me are interested in. Not the big studio mediocrities Sahara or Fever Pitch; no we wanna Kung Fu Hustle. It's a film by Steven Chow, who is basically a younger and funnier Jackie Chan; plus he can still do his own stunts. People who are into Hong Kong films hold him up like a comedy action god, and most of them say his previous film, Shaolin Soccer, was a total blast. I heard it was good, but I also heard that Miramax's editing ruined it in the American version, and I know they delayed the release about two years and killed its box office opportunities. So I've never rented the Miramax version, while never making any effort to hunt down a non-US version instead.

I am interested in Kung Fu Hustle though, especially since Chow found a new distributor for this one. I'm not sure if it'll be any good or not; the trailers have a lot of funny stuff, but I can't tell if it'll be hilarious or ridiculous. It is being well-reviewed though; 92% positive (33/36) on Rotten Tomatoes is a very good sign.

Unfortunately, it's only opening in NY/LA, though hopefully it'll go wider in two weeks and we can catch it then.

Check out the trailer, if there aren't at least half a dozen things that make you go, "Cool!" then you're not on my wavelength as to what makes a supernatural action movie work. I'd put this one on top of my list for the best trailer of the year. So far, anyway.

Better yet, this is just the first film in a planned trilogy and they're making the other two with vastly-increased budgets, since this one has done so well financially.