Immigrant Song

Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese is a compelling tale of mixed identity and outsiderism. This graphic novel mingles three stories: the identity struggles of an Asian-American boy as he passes through middle school, a recounting of the Chinese myth of the Monkey King, and a sitcom-style farce highlighting the misadventures of all-American boy Tommy and his Chinese-stereotype-personified cousin Chin-Kee.

Exclusion is a common theme in all of the stories. The Monkey King is excluded from a heavenly fete because of his primate status; vowing to reject his background, he loses himself to denial (well, and being stuck under a mountain for 500 years). Jin Wang, the middle-school student, struggles with the prejudices of his classmates, taking out his frustration on his less-Americanized friend Wei-Chen. Meanwhile, Tommy feels defined by the embarrassment of his cousin’s annual visits, to the point where Chin-Kee is blamed for all of Tommy’s troubles, from girl problems to difficulties fitting in at his new school.

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Stream South Park…All of It

For the South Park fans out there—every episode of the show can now be streamed free at the show’s web site, South Park Studios. South Park co-creator Matt Stone gave media web site Boing Boing  a simple rationale for the decision: “Basically, we just got really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time. So we gave ourselves a legal alternative.”

I haven’t watched the show regularly for years, but I’ll probably stream a few of the old high points (“Red Sleigh Down,” anyone?) for some nostaglic chuckles. Still, I often find the show to be more frustrating than enjoyable—a lot of people seem to take it as the height of social commentary, but there’s generally not much more than gratuitous violence and swearing, ethnic stereotypes dressed as satire and Idiocracy-esque “you talk like a fag” jokes about anyone trying to engage a complex issue.

Abu Ghraib’s Fog Machine

Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris have an in-depth article in the March 24, 2008 issue of the New Yorker, “Exposure,” exploring the circumstances behind the Abu Ghraib photos. It features extensive interviews with Sabrina Harman and Javal Davis, two of the soldiers who took the fall for following the protocol handed down to them. Among the revelations: the man in the infamous hooded photo was later found to be innocent, and the corpse photographed with the shocking”thumbs-up” poses didn’t die of a heart attack, as alleged. Instead, he was beaten to death by a CIA interrogator.

As Harman says of the latter:

“I just started taking photos of everything I saw that was wrong, every little bruise and cut,” Harman said. “His knees were bruised, his thighs were bruised by his genitals. He had restraint marks on his wrists. You had to look close. I mean, they did a really good job cleaning him up.” She said, “The gauze on his eye was put there after he died to make it look like he had medical treatment, because he didn’t when he came into the prison.” She said, “There were so many things around the bandage, like the blood coming out of his nose and his ears. And his tooth was chipped—I didn’t know if that happened there or before—his lip was split open, and it looked like somebody had either butt-stocked him or really got him good or hit him against the wall. It was a pretty good-sized gash. I took a photo of that as well.” She said, “I just wanted to document everything I saw. That was the reason I took photos.” She said, “It was to prove to pretty much anybody who looked at this guy, Hey, I was just lied to. This guy did not die of a heart attack. Look at all these other existing injuries that they tried to cover up.”

Lost Lives in Iraq

U.S.A. Today has compiled an interactive feature showing each of the 3,982 soldiers who have died in Iraq to date. This somber piece represents an important effort to present the loss at an accessible scale. Each icon lists a soldier’s name, hometown, rank, branch, duty status, date of death, place, and cause. Many feature photos as well, some in graduation gowns, others in camouflage.

A search feature enables visitors to sort the losses by categories including age (33 18-year-olds have died), gender (96 women have died), city (thankfully, no one from my hometown), and more. It’s thought-provoking, and it does a good job of evoking the losses that are easy for most of us to ignore. A similar site for Iraqis who have died would be a nice counterpart, although, sadly, it would have to operate on an entirely different sense of scale.

South By Southwest 2008 Recap

South By Southwest 2008 was a strong year: we saw 20 bands in three days and far more hits than misses. Here’s a quick alphabetical scorecard, highlighting bands to seek out and acts you can safely skip.

Check Them Out

The Airborne Toxic Event
We decided to check them out (see my agonizing in a previous blog post), and they were a lot of fun, with tuneful, catchy hooks—sort of a mix of the Arctic Monkeys and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Concerns about the singer’s voice weren’t alleviated—it was raspy as hell, but he also seemed to be swigging green tea throughout the show, so who knows if he was sick. My friends were a little put off by some excessive stage-grabbing—jumping on the amps, the guitarists leaning soulfully on one another as they solo—but they’re trying to get signed, so I cut them some slack.

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