Simon Rimmele

Thanks to the recent creation of Columbia's own Japanese Film Club, fans of Japanese cinema no longer need to make the extended trek to downtown art-house cinemas or snuggle up alone with a laptop and a Criterion Collection DVD. Founded this semester by Sam Walker, Cathi Choi, Xueli Wang, and Alex Plana, all CC '13, the young club aims to share its enthusiasm for Japanese cinema with both committed cinephiles and other merely curious students. The club is the newest of an expanding array of official and unofficial Columbia clubs dedicated to foreign cinema. In recent weeks, the club has already screened several staples of classical and modern cinema, including Yasujiro Ozu's "Tokyo Twilight" and Shinoda Masahiro's "Pale Flower." Sam Walker, a tentative East Asian languages and cultures major, admits to having been somewhat intimidated when starting the club as "a freshman who wasn't even studying film." He nevertheless brought with him a passion for Japanese cinema and culture in general, which he traced back to his first time watching Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" in high school, an experience which, he said, "opened my eyes to the power and beauty of film." A simple talk with Columbia's EALAC faculty yielded an available weekly room and access to a projector, and with only these resources, the Japanese Film Club was born. This semester the club has chosen to screen films the organizing members themselves "have seen and loved"—films they want to share with the Columbia community. The club's most recent screening, Masaki Kobayashi's "Harakiri," is a heart-wrenching story of dignity, loyalty, and family amid the suffering and societal turmoil of feudal Japan. The screening drew a mixed audience of film majors, casual fans, and Japanese language students looking to test their skills in an entertaining way. Despite the good turnout, the founders hope to expand the club's audience while keeping the atmosphere relaxed. By showing a greater variety of films and possibly leading discussions among students and guest speakers, they agree that they would like both to attract more and more members of the community and to expose them to different aspects of Japanese culture that are often overlooked by people interested in traditional Japanese pop-culture. Walker said he hopes "to reveal another side of Japanese culture to those who may not have experienced it. ... Ideally, the club could spark an interest in Japanese literature as well." As often seems to be the case for campus clubs, though, lack of time—rather than lack of interest—may dissuade some students from attending. Keir Daniels, GS '12 and a first-year Japanese student, became interested in the club after seeing fliers posted across campus during recent weeks, but said he has not been able to make it to any of the club's events thus far because of other time commitments. For now, the club remains a casual affair, with screenings every Thursday night. This week, for the last screening of the semester, the club will be showing Masahiro Shinoda's "Double Suicide," an innovative on-screen adaptation of a traditional Kabuki theater piece. Even if end-of-the-year stress could discourage potential moviegoers from attending this week's event, it's a worthy alternative to watching DVDs in a dorm room.

Mark Twain, a pioneer of modern American irony, died 100 years ago this year. For a man who never seemed comfortable with the changes of his own time, it is suitably ironic that many of the thoughts he struck from his own writing are both available for the public to see and still strangely relevant a century later. Timed to coincide with the long-awaited release of Twain's own autobiography next month, the Morgan Library & Museum (36th St. and Madison Ave.) is hosting a fascinating exhibition titled "A Skeptic's Progress," containing some of Twain's most personal thoughts. A century from now, literary historians will be disappointed by literature's transition to the digital age, and the corresponding disappearance of a literal "paper trail" tracing an author's changing thoughts. The bulk of the exhibition is made up of just these—Twain's own handwritten notes, heavily revised, with words or entire pages sometimes unceremoniously crossed out. Twain's chicken-scratch handwriting is nearly unreadable, but to do only that would be almost missing the point. The small changes belie larger shifts in the author's own thoughts. In one manuscript of his novel "Pudd'nhead Wilson," Twain crosses out an ugly racial slur meant to act as a stand-in for "stupid" or "foolish." Other pieces of the exhibition show Twain's abandoning subtlety for his trademark incredulous satire. Twain traveled the world in the 1890s, where he was both confronted by and came to abhor what he saw as the hypocrisies of western imperialism. He prefaces a passage about the killing of Tasmanians by Australian setters bluntly­­: "This chapter is an indictment of the human race." Twain later struck the entire sentence from the page, as he was surely aware of contemporary social and commercial constraints. For a literary exhibition, "A Skeptic's Progress" is also a surprisingly visual collection. As a highly successful author even in his own day, Twain had several artists accompany his world tour and essentially draw his thoughts as they came to him. Several of the original paintings, called gouaches, are on display. The visual medium, in particular, conveys that Twain could not quite make sense of the rapidly changing world. Many depict the darker sides of imperialism and modernization, and seem nightmarish and surreal. Twain himself appears in one piece, dressed only in his pajamas, as if to question the viewer about whether something this strange could possibly be real. If there is one consistent theme to "A Skeptic's Progress," it is that Twain himself had a difficult time comprehending the changes around him. It seems as if the only way he could make sense of the world was to relentlessly poke fun at it. This skeptic's "progress," then, may have carried the same dark double meaning it did for the larger changes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Twain's own progression was largely a reaction to larger forces of "progress" that seemed both inevitable and somehow questionable to him. Any fan of Mark Twain or of the biting literary satire that owes so much to him would be well rewarded by this chance to see a changing world, this "strange place, and extraordinary place," through the mind of an American icon.

The irony of technological progress is strangely evident in the world of the vending machine—any poor soul whose Skittles have gotten stuck on the machine's little twisty-screw-thing can attest to this. No law or greater power will answer the futile banging of clenched fists on Plexiglas. Nevertheless, vending machines have an established place at Columbia, where full meals and balanced diets are few and far between. Luckily, vending machines on campus are abundant and especially helpful for students who don't want to leave their study space as the weather turns cold. Around campus, vending machines are not always in plain sight, but rest assured, one is probably close at all times. When in doubt, students can close their eyes and listen for the dull hum of those non-judgmental purveyors of things both yummy and salty. Most offer the standard fare of unhealthy foods, but what sets the best apart from the rest is not quality, which shouldn't be expected to begin with, but quantity. For this, be brave and leave the familiar main campus for the unbeatable open market at the International Affairs Building. Just outside the auditorium of 417 IAB lies a veritable "miracle mile" of deliciousness. Thirteen—13!—separate machines flank either side of the narrow hallway and, much like a gang of schoolyard bullies, seem to surround the weak-willed and take their lunch money. There is even green tea and Italian Illy coffee. After all, this is a building of international affairs. Best of all, an ice cream machine sits hidden in a corner a little further down the hall, seeking to reward the brave and adventurous with Toasted Almond Bars. For more adventurous Columbians, a few vending machines around campus supply a more specialized fare. The energy drink machines in Butler 214 sell weird neon potions that make most students jittery and uncomfortable. The hot dog machine on the fourth floor of Lerner offers, well, hot dogs—sodium, nitrates, and nitrites all come packaged in this particular triumph. On one occasion, a sausage and bun were already sitting in the dispenser—how long it had been there was not detectable. It may still be sitting there. Food from a machine will always be a sad alternative to something better. Still, despite student disdain and repeated avowals to eat better from now on, vending machines are there for desperate times, lighting the way with their eerie fluorescent glow.