The LongBow Papers

Liberal-oriented columns, commentary and archived articles on national and international news, politics, and the communication arts--with emphasis on China--by Joseph Bosco, author, journalist, director and actor; Professor of Drama and Communications at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Taiwan, Democracy and Making Sausage

10:46 PM

Democratic politics and sausage-making have a long history of cliche-punditry. This is particularly true of satirical commentary on brand new democracies test-driving a form of politics transplanted from the sausage-selling entity that morphed it precipitously from a right-wing dictatorship into an unsteady, would-be runaway republic. Not to mention doing so in the very close shadow of its natural progenitor struggling with its own 21st Century identity.

But then a political scandal is a political scandal no matter the meat locker it's pulled from, which in this case is not the least bit surprising, since Taiwan's Mr. Chen Shui-bian has been tainted beef from his bovine growth-hormone engineered beginning.

But my overly precious take on this Taiwan matter is far better captured by the reporting of Jim Yardley of The New York Times, which I excerpt and link to below, somewhat belatedly, since it is a few days old, but I have been a bit busy of late:

Corruption Scandal at Top Tests Taiwan's Democracy

TAIPEI, Taiwan, Nov. 18 -- At times, Taiwanese politics is a blend of opera and blood sport, and this is one of those times. Scandal and outrage, lying and humiliation -- all of it messy and delivered in a loud, public fashion -- are consuming political life here, as a virtual death watch has settled over the second term of President Chen Shui-bian.

Mr. Chen, who once aspired to be Taiwan's George Washington, is now accused of being its Boss Tweed. Prosecutors have implicated him in a fake receipts scandal and are planning to put his wife on trial next month. The rival Nationalist Party, salivating over Mr. Chen's troubles, is facing its own scandal, as prosecutors say they are investigating the party's presumptive 2008 presidential candidate for his own fake receipts.

Taiwan's partisan newspapers have been filled with so many suggestive details -- a reportedly ill-gotten Tiffany diamond ring, to name one -- that the noise and acrimony have obscured the more elemental issue that the island's young democracy is being severely tested.

Please continue reading at The New York Times:

10:46 PM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

Monday, November 27, 2006

What's it Like to be Blue and Miss New Orleans?

9:11 PM

The New Orleans Jazz Vipers play at the Spotted Cat, a nightclub on Frenchmen Street. The stricken city's legendary night life is far from silenced, and restaurants and bars stay open into the early hours of the morning. Lori Waselchuck for The New York Times

For various and somewhat obvious reasons, this is shaping up to be one of my bluest holiday seasons in years. While China is my home now and will be for the foreseeable future, this holiday season I am particularly stateside and homeward drawn in spirit, heart, mind, and soul. Nowhere do those parts of me reside more resonantly than New Orleans. It is where I lived for almost 25 years; it is where my son and daughter-in-law (and my grandchild-to-be) live now; it is where my childhood sweetheart and former wife of 31 years lives still; it is where my dreams came true and I wrote my first five books--even my O. J. Simpson book was mostly written there instead of Los Angeles where I was primarily living at the time. It is where my dreams that are not nightmares take me when I am lucky and do not weep and curse in my sleep.

It is New Orleans, America's "Eternal City," and it will recover and be there for me when I truly do go home again someday. Why I and so many others feel that way is nicely captured in the article excerpted and linked to below, from The New York Times:

Back to New Orleans, Gently

By MATT GROSS
Published: November 26, 2006

IT was a Friday afternoon in late October, and the narrow lanes of the French Quarter were quiet. Fresh paint -- pale green, robin's egg blue, canary yellow -- adorned the low, tidy Creole cottages, and the wrought-iron railings of town-house balconies shone blackly in the sunlight. The streets were free of litter, the air unpolluted by the musky odor of all-night parties. But as I wandered the beautiful Quarter, one question stuck in my mind: Where was everybody?

Please continue reading at: The New York Times.

9:11 PM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

Friday, November 24, 2006

Another This You Have to See

2:52 PM

Oooooooooops!

Courtesy of Lady Jayne Stahl

2:52 PM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

This You Have To See

1:21 AM

Yes, I know they are just licking and smelling each other...but it's a nice picture anyway. Best to you and yours for the impending Holiday Season! And remember to breathe--even if it's through your blowhole. Love, Edie

Edie McClurg, one of America's finest actresses and a very dear friend, sent the wonderful picture above. I share it with you. Thanks, Edie. I love you, sweet lady; and miss you bunches!

1:21 AM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

Saturday, November 18, 2006

A Preliminary Note on O.J.'s "Confession"

11:47 PM

These pages and my e-mail box have received much traffic in recent days regarding O.J. Simpson's forthcoming book, "If I Did It," published under Judith Regan's imprint at HarperCollins, which Ms. Regan told The New York Times was "his confession."

While I understand why folks are coming here to find my take on this intriguing, in truth, quite surprising, twist in the O.J. phenomenon, I must beg your patience for a day or two. I am tired, indeed, I am exhausted; I have not had a single day off for almost two months now. I am not complaining, mind you.

The more than two dozen extra hours a week of rehearsals and drama classes that were added to my normal load of journalism classes here at BFSU since the inception of the new English Language Drama program, are labors of love, which I had dreamed of and worked towards from when I first decided to come to China to write and teach some four years ago. And my salary was greatly enhanced to compensate for it. But still I am very tired. Today, Saturday, we had 4 hours of rehearsals; tomorrow, Sunday, will be the same.

Yet, I do want to remark a bit on the book and the two-part interview of O.J. coming on the Fox Network; and I will, very soon. I promise; just not today. Thank you for your visits to these pages, and your e-mails.

11:47 PM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Packing A Bag But Not Going Far

5:33 PM

For the next four days and nights my abode will be the Media Center Hotel close by CCTV here in Beijing. After 3 grueling days spent determining the 23 finalists from the 91 provincial semi-finalists in the 5th Annual CCTV Cup English Speaking Competition, there is no rest for the weary. The semi-finals closing ceremony ended about 6 p.m. last night, and tonight we have a production meeting for the judges and hosts of the finals at the Media Center, and start taping tomorrow.

While I am tired, I must say that I am proud and delighted to continue my relationship with the CCTV Cup; I have participated as a judge or question-master in three of the last four competitions. I was in the States for the 2005 CCTV Cup, and could not accept the invitation.

I am also quite proud of the work the nine judges and two question-masters did in the just-completed semi-finals. I believe this year's finalists are the best crop of talented young speakers yet. The heated competition should make for some spirited TV. The Finals will air in December on CCTV International Channel 9.

While my solid core of detractors will label this post as shameless self-promotion--along with decrying my "qualifications" to do much more than breathe--in truth it is mostly informational for regular readers, friends and students. I will not have my computer over these coming days, so I will not have access to my e-mail. Please be patient with me if I owe you a word or two.

5:33 PM / Editor / permalink 2 comments

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Another Giant Falls

4:27 PM

William Styron 1925 - 2006
My heroes are falling with a quickening, relentless pace these days; it is the natural result of my own aging, of course. The sting is made nonetheless painful for the understanding of it, though. William Styron passed from this life on November 1, my sister's birthday; while that was a special day, I will not need the anniversary of Sylvia's birth each year to remind me of Mr. Styron's passing. I have my memories and his books that will do well enough; but, more surely, my thoughts on those days to come will not be about his death, rather they will celebrate his words and their eternal place in the highest ranks of 20th Century literature post the Second World War.

I got to know William Styron a bit when we both happened to be on book tours at the same time and did a signing or two together. He was touring for his book on the clinical, suicidal depession that kept him from publishing for a decade, "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" (1990); I for my first work of nonfiction, "The Boys Who Would Be Cubs." For all of the externally gruff and hulking persona he was famous for, he was warm, supportive and full of writerly wisdom for a far less known wordsmith than I had nervously, insecurely expected when I first learned I was going to be sitting alone with him at a small table for hours as we signed.

Almost all of his novels brought him as much peer-proffered defamation and thereby personal pain as they did critical acclaim and financial security. But he stood his ground as bravely as any writer could and, for the most part, answered back the only way a writer should: writing the next book, and the next again.

I will not review William Styron's career in this short post; I will only say that his work taught me much, inspired me more, and challenged me as hugely as any writer of his shining generation of masterful story tellers. I will let another legendary wordsmith, Christopher Lehman-Haupt, do the obituary honors. And then after that excerpt and link to The New York Times, I will send you to a thrilling piece in The Washington Post telling the story of a most unlikely friendship between two of the most influential writers of our times: William Styron and James Baldwin.

William Styron, Novelist, Dies at 81

By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT
Published: November 2, 2006

William Styron, the novelist from the American South whose explorations of difficult historical and moral questions earned him a place among the leading literary figures of the post-World War II generation, died yesterday on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where he had a home. He was 81.

The cause was pneumonia, coming after many years of illness, his daughter Alexandra Styron said.

Mr. Styron's early work, including "Lie Down in Darkness," won him wide recognition as a distinctive voice of the South and an heir to William Faulkner. In subsequent fiction, like "The Confessions of Nat Turner" and "Sophie's Choice," he transcended his own immediate world and moved across historical and cultural lines.

Critics and readers alike ranked him among the best of the generation that succeeded Hemingway and Faulkner. His peers included James Jones, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer.

"I think for years to come his work will be seen for its unique power," Mr. Mailer said of Mr. Styron in a telephone interview a few years ago. "No other American writer of my generation has had so omnipresent and exquisite a sense of the elegiac."

Continue reading at The New York Times (Photo by Kathy Willens/The Associated Press):

And then there is this, in The Washington Post:

A Novel Friendship
Two Writers Bridged Their Differences to Find Their Common Heart

By Wil Haygood
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 3, 2006

William Styron and James Baldwin, two of this country's greatest mid-20th-century writers, had a brave friendship that swept across decades and the fault line of race and tears in America. With Styron's death Wednesday, the last breath of that remarkable friendship is gone.

The white novelist, Styron, and the black novelist, Baldwin, met in Manhattan in the 1950s. A Virginia-born Southerner and a Harlem-born Northerner. The former Marine and the gay hepcat of Harlem and Greenwich Village coffeehouses.

Styron was the grandson of a slave owner.

Baldwin was the grandson of a slave.

Styron, huge, tall, lumbered around a room; Baldwin, short, slight, flitted birdlike. In 1950s Manhattan, everyone read the big-time magazines: Harper's, the Atlantic, the Reporter. Baldwin, having cracked the magazines, had started to get noticed. And he had read Styron's first novel, "Lie Down in Darkness."

"For all their differences on the surface, they were so in tune inside," Rose Styron, William's widow, recalled from her home yesterday in Vineyard Haven, Mass. "They talked with each other all the time about race, about growing up."

Continue reading at The Washington Post (photo, Los Angeles Times Via Associated Press) :

4:27 PM / Editor / permalink 2 comments

Friday, November 03, 2006

It's a Boy!

12:28 PM

To the great delight of my son, my yet to be born first grandbaby is a boy. While I would have been delighted with either a girl or boy, my son and his beautiful wife Michelle are exceedingly happy that their first child is a boy. Indeed, there is definitive proof of the baby's gender due to the miracles of modern medical technology, the ultrasound photographs are below.

But first I want to post my son's excited e-mail informing me it was a boy; and then the e-mail announcement and photographs that Michelle is sending friends and relatives.

Dad,

I hope all is well with you. We had the ultrasound today and it looks like you will be having a Grandson !!!!!!!! We are so exited. Attached is the email Michelle is sending to our friends and the pictures.

Love,

Joseph

Hi,

Joe and I wanted to share some of our good news.......... We had the ultrasound today and Baby Bosco is offically a BOY!!!!!!! and it looks like he will be here around the 9th of April.

Joe and I are both so exited and I have never seen him as nervous as when we were waiting for the ultrasound tech to confirm what she saw. The baby was sleeping for the first 5 minutes so she had to prod him and wait for him to move around. In one of the pictures you can see just a foot. It was when he finally started moving about and pushed his foot against the probe.

This has been such an amazing journey so far and week 16 has had quite a few milestones. Not only did we find out the sex but I am finally starting to look pregnant and not like I ate too much dinner (it literally happened overnight) and I think I felt him move. I have been feeling it everyday for about 3 days at different times.

I hope you all are doing well. We are headed off to dinner to celebrate!

Mich

Congratulations, Joseph and Michelle!

12:28 PM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

The Two China Joseph Boscos Finally Meet

12:04 PM

There are all sorts of oddities and coincidences in life. One of the most striking to me was learning that there were two Joseph Boscos who were both American authors and taught at Chinese universities. This phenomenon has resulted in misdirected e-mails and even occasioned a bit of Blog chatter over the past few years. [I should also mention some small political controversy since amazingly enough there is a third Joseph Bosco with connections to China, who occasionally teaches in America. However, I have written about that person elsewhere and wish not to give him and his far-right ideology any further exposure than that which you can discover through some of the links herein.]

I have long wanted to meet the other Joseph Bosco in China, the author of the acclaimed Temples of the Empress of Heaven (among other fine books), and a distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Well, that finally happened last week on the beautiful campus of CUHK during my first visit to Hong Kong (other than its airport once before) to attend a seminar on directing English Language Shakespeare in China as part of the Chinese Universities Shakespeare Festival hosted by CUHK, of which I will write more in another post.

Joe (as CUHK Professor Joseph Bosco prefers to be called in casual circumstances) and I had a most delightful chat--that was all too brief due to schedules--over lunch in one of CUHK's many canteens. We mostly talked about our shared Italian heritage; he is quite knowledgeable on Italian immigration to America during the early decades of the 20th Century.

We also talked about education in China, both in Hong Kong and the mainland. CUHK Professor Joseph Bosco further informed me on the somewhat touchy matter of the growing number of mainland students choosing to attend CUHK over the top schools on the mainland. It is easy to understand why when one tours CUHK's campus and its facilities and meets some of its professors--it is a world class university. This cannot yet be generally said of even the very best universities on the mainland.

In the photo above, Joe is not the old man with a Shakespeare Festival badge around his neck. If all goes well for BFSU in the two semester-long festival competition, the two Boscos will have more time to visit come May 2007.

12:04 PM / Editor / permalink 0 comments