|
ON THE COVER | NEWS & VIEWS | THE TOWN DANDY December 6, 2007
Video game Jeanne D’Arc Jeanne D’Arc I had the fortune of winning a PSP in a contest a few weeks ago, and in my hunt for an inaugural game for the system, I spotted Jeanne D’Arc on a shelf in a local toy store. Because the cover sports an awesome girl with a sword and because no one does medieval European history like the Japanese, I picked it up. Jeanne D’Arc is historical fantasy with a plot that seems a little too familiar. The Level-5-developed title has a lot of the elements of your average Japanese role-playing game: a heroine whose home is put to the torch by agents of a diabolical figure (in this case Henry VI of England) under the influence of a demon summoned by the real villain, who is a sorcerer. Jeanne and her childhood friends set off to fight back, spurred by Jeanne’s discovery of a magical, demon-vanquishing armlet. They are accompanied by a cute animal companion, required in all Japanese RPGs — in this case a giant purple toad. The rough placement of the story within the framework of a well-known legend is what rescues the plot from being completely pedestrian. The game, a tactical strategy RPG in the style of Final Fantasy Tactics with few deviations from the formula, has a map of locations through which the player travels. Most locations have battles, though some also have shops and plot-revealing cut scenes. On entering a battle, the player chooses various characters with different abilities and arranges them on a large grid. The player and the computer take turns moving all of their characters and making them attack or use an item in their inventory. Think of a chess game in which all of the pieces have big swords and bigger hair. Jeanne D’Arc adds a few little power-ups — such as squares where your attacks have a greater impact — but these don’t affect game play much. One thing I really liked about the game is that each character has a backstory. You aren’t controlling a bunch of nameless soldiers. Your characters are also fairly customizable. Usually each character in an RPG is locked into a career path for the benefit of the story, and usually the healer is a demure woman. This irks me. Jeanne D’Arc let me create a butch male healer who swoops to the rescue whenever one of my little chess pieces is hurting. Jeanne D’Arc is nothing new, but it’s fun, and the development of the minor characters involves the player in a way that’s refreshing for a tactical RPG. The quality of the graphics and sound are exceptional for a handheld game; I found myself humming the fight tune in the shower, so I guess the music’s more memorable than most. That said, if the narrative keeps following history, it’s going to be a bummer to see a character I’ve developed for 40 hours get burned at the stake at the end. Oh well. — Kea Johnston, San Francisco Bay Guardian
The Tenth Muse: My Life In Food The opening scene in Judith Jones’ memoir, The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food, says it all: Her mother was well into her 90s, and she had one question for her daughter. All she needed was an honest answer. Jones braced herself for something heavy-duty. But her mother needed to know: “Tell me, Judith, do you really like garlic?” Absurd to ask? No. It was a moment of truth, because if garlic smelled bad, according to Jones’ mother, it must mean that those who handle it and eat it smell bad, again according to Jones’ mother. Garlic was “alien.” It was “vulgar.” But Jones answered in the affirmative. In fact, she told her mother that she “adored” garlic. And soon enough in The Tenth Muse, she’s explaining to readers how even as a child, growing up in New York City, she was just crazy about organ meats; how, in Paris in the late 1940s, she went positively ga-ga over a forkful of brains; and later in life, how her late husband had been right: A bite of fried beaver tail leaves her feeling “ravished.” How, then, to explain Jones’ love of all things cooked well, especially since she was reared on the blandest of English-inspired, postwar American cooking? Jones doesn’t explain. Some things just are. What she does reveal is quite enough, and it’s straightforwardly put and always of interest. As in: The fact that Jones once shared an apartment in Paris with a little-known painter who turned out to be Balthus. The fact that, at Doubleday’s office in Paris, Jones helped to secure the publishing rights in America for a manuscript headed for the “reject” pile: Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. And the fact that, as an editor at Knopf in New York, Jones was instrumental in shaping and seeing into print a manuscript that had been turned down by other American publishing houses: Julia Child and Simone Beck’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a book that revolutionized America’s thinking not only about French cooking but about America’s food habits as well. Jones credits a host of others in that revolution — Craig Claiborne, James Beard and Charles Williams, among them. (That’s Chuck Williams of Sonoma County.) But Jones deserves her fair share of credit too — only she doesn’t claim credit. She tells it like it was as a cookbook editor who expanded our knowledge of world cuisine to include traditional Middle Eastern dishes (in the books authored by Claudia Roden), traditional Italian dishes (author Marcella Hazan), traditional Indian dishes (author Madhur Jaffrey) and traditional Chinese dishes (author Irene Kuo). Stateside, she championed Edna Lewis, whose The Taste of Country Cooking rescued close-to-lost African-American recipes and the very idea of “food memories.” And on the subject of memories: The Tenth Muse closes with nearly a hundred pages of recipes — recipes drawn from Jones’ past, such as the lowly croquette, to a three-page recipe for French bread, which trims the 11 pages that Julia Child devotes to the baguette in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. II. And as for the “tenth muse” in The Tenth Muse: Call her Gasterea, who presides over all the pleasures of taste. Brillat-Savarin named her. Judith Jones does a heartfelt job honoring her. — Leonard Gill, Memphis Flyer
I’m Not There Director and writer Todd Haynes’ new film, an unusual, eccentric biopic of Bob Dylan entitled I’m Not There, stars six different actors, including Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, portraying the enigmatic singer/songwriter in different stages of his life and career. With the wide release of at least two detailed documentaries on Dylan (D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back and Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home), this odd approach seems to make sense. The soundtrack, which refers to an unreleased Dylan song, recorded with the Band (which this soundtrack includes), could have been, regardless of intentions, a poor tribute. Fortunately, this is not the case. Organized by Randall Poster, Jim Dunbar and director Todd Haynes, the two-CD soundtrack is a strong collection of Bob Dylan covers, which is already a loaded subject, considering how many covers of Dylan songs have previously been released and made into “hits.” Calexico and “the Million Dollar Bashers” — a “superband” consisting of Steve Shelley (drums), Tony Garnier (bass), John Medeski (Hammond B3 organ), Tom Verlaine (guitar), Lee Renaldo (guitar), Smokey Hormel (guitar) and Nels Cline (guitar) — provide the bulk of support behind various artists. The “Bashers” accompany a diverse group, such as Stephen Malkmus (formerly of Pavement), Karen O (lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Eddie Vedder. While some of the stronger cuts come from the support of Calexico, backing Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Iron & Wine, Roger McGuinn, Willie Nelson and actress/singer Charlotte Gainsbourg (daughter of Serge Gainsbourg, who also appears in the film as Dylan’s wife). James’ cover of “Goin’ to Acapulco,” originally released on The Basement Tapes, is outstanding; his soulful Southern vocal compliments the South-of-the-Border orchestration of Joey Burns and his band Calexico, with near perfection. Other highlights include Yo La Tengo (whose rave-up version of “I Wanna Be Your Lover” is an aural combination of the mid-’60s Stones performing the McCartney/Lennon “I Want To Be Your Lover” with the Highway 61 Revisted-era looseness, especially with the Al Kooper-esque organ), Mark Lanegan (whose bullfrog-deep vocals can deliver a new darkness to “Man in a Long Black Coat”) and Antony & the Johnsons (the ever-difficult task of successfully pulling off “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”). There are some pedestrian, or flat, renditions in this collection, including “All Along the Watchtower,” where the Million Dollar Bashers’ musicianship could not salvage Vedder’s lifeless delivery, while Mason Jennings, covering “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” merely emulates the original. What makes a successful, or even brilliant, cover? When artist makes the song his or her own. It is Sufjan Stevens who gives the most notable translation of Dylan’s work, with a dizzying version of “Ring Them Bells” (from Oh Mercy), which contains surreal elements of Stevens’ form of pop/folk, mixed with fragments of vaudeville and country music. It’s a perfect metaphor to Todd Haynes’ vision of what his film intends to be: not a mere re-creation, but rather a personal inspiration. Hope the film can stand up to its soundtrack. — Mark Shikuma, Journal critic ON THE COVER | NEWS & VIEWS | THE TOWN DANDY Comments? Write a letter!
© Copyright 2007, North Coast Journal, Inc. |
