Eddie-isms

Over Christmas week 2007, my family went on tour in Japan. Among the highlights of that trip was our tour guide, Eddie, whose Engrish was the equal of the estimable standard set by the country he was surveying for us. (His Chinese subsisted on rarefied, literary air, such that I regret that I cannot reproduce those pearls.) Presented here are some nuggets from his linguistic treasury.

On the subway
Going on the subway to work in Tokyo is like going to the Hell. H-E-L-L.

On the packed subway
Sometimes, women lose their shape in the subway. A beautiful girl is 35-23-35. After the ride, she will be 23-23-23.

On Japanese finances
The average salary in Japan is $48,000 a year. This is not a big money in Japan.

On the men who act in the Kabuki theater
The actors are so gentle. Even a woman cannot be that gentle.

On Kyoto girls
There are many beautiful girls in Kyoto.

On Japanese tofu
This is called Japanese tau-fu.

On Japanese competitiveness
The Japanese are very challenging.

On Japanese honor
Chinese people will talk about someone’s mother, sister, grandmother. You can insult a Japanese person’s mother, sister, grandmother, and it’s nothing. But if you call a Japanese person a bakayero, he will kill you!

On the availability of children’s toys
We have the Pooh.

On the availability of name brands
We have many branded goods.

On bathroom breaks (and the similarities between a man and a bus)
We will stop here so you can release gas. The bus will release gas, and you will release gas.

On Mount Fuji
Getting the picture of Mount Fuji is worth one million dollars U.S. Without the picture, your trip is worth nothing.

On the hot spring baths
You are only allowed to wear nothing. If you are shy, use a facecloth. Don’t cover down here; cover your eyes, and no one can see you.

On the deer at Nara’s deer park
This will save your life. The deer’s grand-grand children will come around. Show them your hands like this, so they see you have no cookie. If the deer start to chase you, you must run away fast.

On compulsory tipping
Now Eddie give you a gift, now you give Eddie a gift.


Bonus: Eddie’s pronunciation of “Buddhism” as Buddhi-ism, or booty-ism

The Will to Power

At the University of Chicago, I discovered a low-tech way of keeping drinks cold without a refrigerator. I’m sure I’m not the originator of this method, nor its most extensive practitioner, but I was pretty proud of the fact that I came up with it myself, rather than having it sprinkled down to me along with other secrets of college life.

The trick was to place your can of Coke in the window sill on a frigid winter day. It probably helped to close the window to block out the toasty indoor air, but this went without saying, since on days that frosty, one was unlikely to keep the window open for long. Sitting outside like that, sodas (or “pop,” in Midwest lingo, but that’s a topic for another blog tirade) would get as chilled as in the best refrigerator.

Obviously, this technique was strictly seasonal (and geographic), but Chicago has a long cold season, so for about four or five months a year, I went “green,” using nature’s refrigeration. I considered it the crown of luxurious creativity to sit at my desk with my studies, right beside the window, and be able to reach out for a “cold one” any time I liked, without having to leave my chair.

In my own cavalier way, I had whipped man and his machines, at the same time subjecting nature to my appetite. Unbeknownst to myself, I had become a voracious omniphage, gobbling up nature and man alike, indiscriminate, so long as I was exerting my power over the once-powerful. Nietzsche described all human endeavor as an expression of “the will to power.” Inevitable, perhaps:

Where I found the living, there I found will to power; and even in the will of those who serve I found the will to be master.
- Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part II, On Self-Overcoming

One day, soaring high in my hubris, relishing my triumph over nature and technology, I reached too high, and saw myself brought low. If the window sill works for Moxie and Faygo, I thought, why not keep my lunch out there, too? It was customary in those days of larcenous meal plans to take home a sandwich or three from the dining hall, somewhat on the sly. The contents being generally perishable, it didn’t behoove you to take too much food “to go,” not more than you could eat within a couple of hours, unless – ah! – unless you had a refrigerator.

With my new mastery over the force, er, over nature, who could stop me now? After lunch, I plunked a neatly bagged sandwich onto my window sill and headed off to class. Keep her cold, baby, keep her cold! With the knowledge that I had a nice, non-spoiled snack to come home to, the slate walking paths seemed pillow-soft, and the Chicago wind lost a bit of its bite.

On the walk back that evening, I could almost taste the sandwich as I glided up the stair-rail, like a daredevil video on rewind. I lifted the window, snatched the bag, and prepared to feast.

Horror. Dismay. Revulsion. Think of a moment in your own life that conjured up these words, and then multiply the anguish by a million. It was nearly Oedipal. Such was the feeling that liquefied my bowels upon seeing a gaping hole in the bag, its rim encrusted with sandwich crumbs and some grainy, dark residue, doubtless the foul saliva of a rabid squirrel.

I looked at the window, and discerned the unfathomable violence of this theft and desecration. The window sill was covered by a typical mesh metal screen. Through sheer contempt, this squirrel had chewed a hole through the screen just big enough to fit its savage (and presumably pus-covered) head. Whether he ingested the bits of metal screen (and the paper and plastic that wrapped my sandwich, for that matter) is a matter of conjecture. His malicious intent is not.

To tear open the screen and rip into my sandwich like that was unscrupulous. But to leave behind the defiled ruins of my sandwich – it was like killing someone, then mutilating the body. I had lost my snack, and I almost “lost my lunch” at the nauseating sight.

I had no idea that squirrels had a taste for oven-roasted turkey on a Kaiser roll. That was a valuable lesson learned.

A second lesson: Having surmounted nature, I thought myself invincible, but soon learned that nature, the vengeful mother-beast, ever mounts you right back.

Samus was right

Like the wheel, some things, once invented, don’t require any fundamental changes. A has always been jump, and B has always been attack. Just like A has always been "confirm," and B has always been "negate" or "go back" in menu screens. These are Nintendo staples, going back to the 80s. (Arcade games of the time were fond of designating their buttons with names of moves, rather than letters or numbers.)

It was only during the Sony Playstation era that it became fashionable to switch the venerable identities of A and B (or what in Sony parlance is circle and cross, or some such folderol). This travesty has gained much traction throughout the gaming world, but not a whiff can be found in the world of Nintendo, Jebus be praised.

I am gratified that Nintendo’s current DS ports of old Super NES games faithfully retain the classic control schemes. One might argue that it would be nice for them to have included an option to customize controls. Granted. It would also be nice for them to have included instant replay, an unlockable library of cutscenes, and language options for French, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Tagalog. Hey, why not free t-shirts, too?

One might say that the times being what they are, Nintendo might have accommodated younger players, or older players who have fully conformed to the Sony paradigm. But I know at least one younger player who grew up during Sony’s period of hegemony, and she has no trouble rocking it Nintendo-style. And I personally go between the two with nary a hitch (though my sense of logic winces at the falsity of pressing B to confirm).

Though my preference is clear, I’m not contrasting “what’s right” and “what’s wrong,” but only “what is” and “what once was and can still be.” Though I have no problems with the Sony style, I’ve never heard a practical argument about why this change was necessary. It seems like its true raison d’être was to differentiate Sony from its predecessors.

I may be biased. After all, even as I play Playstation 1/2/3 games, I still refer to the buttons as “A, B, X, and Y,” and am bemused and befuddled any time someone growls at me, “Press Triangle!” NEStalgia is a beautiful thing.

The Cry of the Unrepentant

As with so many tales of Grand Theft Auto III, this one began innocently enough, with a beat cop on my tail. On foot, my vehicle rendered scrap metal, in need of relief, and shooting it out never a sane option, I noticed that I was just outside of the Ammo Nation store, and I wondered if I might be able to take refuge there. To my surprise, not only could I enter the store, but the boy in blue couldn’t follow me in. “I could probably just wait him out,” I thought, surmising that the game wasn’t designed to keep this cop there indefinitely. Minutes passed, dangerous minutes, where the cop stayed put, but my mind wandered to an undiscovered country of mayhem. “If he won’t leave peacefully, maybe I can take him out.” A statement destined to cement my proverbial “life of crime.”

He wasn’t necessarily a sitting duck, but something of a nebulous target beyond the store’s open door. The rather awkward geometry of the game didn’t offer a shooting gallery, but where straight shots didn’t work, I figured an old-fashioned hand grenade would (close does count).

The game offers a rather satisfying and grisly chime every time you mow down a pedestrian or cop, signifying the even grislier acquisition of “cash for crime,” let’s call it. After my grenade launch, hearing the chime and seeing a few hundred simoleons added to my ticker, a little thrill ran through my body, what Nabokov might have called the “tingle” that one gets when experiencing great art. How deliciously perverse, I thought, to know that this helpless badge-wearer was now pushing up daisies, all because the game design wouldn’t let him into Ammo Nation, nor would it let him give up his pursuit of me.

What followed is a unique episode that has assumed the status of mythology, even within the hallowed annals of my illustrious gaming life. I have always maintained that Grand Theft Auto III is a game rife with design flaws, but sometimes these flaws can become a sort of genius in the hands of creative players (and this is perhaps the greatest virtue of its so-called “open-ended” gameplay – its shortcomings are part and parcel of providing a malleable and enjoyable experience).

One dead cop was replaced by two live ones. Kill those, and they are replaced by four. Running low on ammo? Did you forget that you’re holed up at Ammo Nation, where the invisible shopkeep is happy to keep dishing up more grenades? Running low on cash? That won’t happen as long as perished lawmen keep your coffers lined with gold. Occasionally, and increasingly, as the number of live shots coming my way kept rising, those cops would nail me. Yes, their bullets were real, even if their bodies were mostly phantasms. This, too, was irrelevant – Ammo Nation sells health refills in the form of “shields.”

Oh yes, the cops never stop coming, and their numbers and severity only increase. And yet, they could never kill me. I could live forever, but I could never leave that room.

Imagine Sisyphus pushing that boulder up that hill, but instead of it rolling back down, he gets it to the summit, only to see that there’s another hill. Sisyphean the task remains, but obvious futility is replaced by the suggestion of accomplishment, though illusory and fleeting. The reward is the punishment.

Finally, after several day-night cycles had passed, during which the besieging force grew from one lowly squad car to a battalion complete with tanks, heavy artillery, and even Secret Service agents; finally, when I wearied of lobbing grenades out the front door of Ammo Nation, laying waste to generations of Army privates and police lieutenants "two days from retirement”; finally, after having stretched this paragon of “open-ended” gameplay to its absolute terminus (arguably both the zenith and the nadir of my experience with the game); finally, after being so numbed by the endless cycle of death that I no longer valued my own life, I hurled some path-clearing grenades out the door and then lurched out into daylight, fully armed and hell-bent on a valiant last charge against an unbeatable foe, guns blazing and lungs belting out the cry of the unrepentant, as in many a Hollywood war movie. . . .

Half a second later, before I could discharge a single bullet, I was reduced to a bloody stain on the asphalt, and the screen spun my corpse round and round into oblivion.

What’s in a name?

Mere minutes after choosing the name of this blog, Czardoz Contra World, I was struck by an amusing thought. Would readers be drawn to this blog mistakenly thinking that it was devoted to the video game Contra? The name is of course a riff on Nietzsche contra Wagner, the great philosopher’s essay cum diatribe against the great composer. After a coming of age, or perhaps better termed a spiritual earthquake, Nietzsche turns on his former friend and hero, unleashing his often vitriolic prose (and even a bit of impish verse) against Richard Wagner, now become the laughable prophet of mediocrity.

Despite the game’s various merits and numerous fans, this blog will feature no gratuitous discussion of Contra, or its sequels or derivatives. Forgive me, errant Googlers, for here your bullet-riddled vision-quest/nightmare shall not be found.

Perhaps a survey will be in order for choosing a more appropriate name for this blog. Or perhaps this name will stick, despite any perceived ambiguity. After all, does anyone think of rainforests when browsing Amazon.com?

As far as the idea of being “against the world,” this is meant partly in jest. One cannot be wholly against the world if one is still living within the world. But conflict is the seed of not only great writing, but also writing that gets the dogs barking, so why not stick a little skirmish in the name as well? As Brian Cazeneuve put it, “War is on Page One of your local paper. Détente is on page 47.”