Encounters at the End of the World
SPOILER ALERT
I watched Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World, an account of the filmmaker's journey to Antarctica. In it, he takes a similar approach to his other documentary efforts: using voice-over to identify and develop his exploration of various existential or philosophical questions; or, to borrow a term from one of his earlier films, the Poetic Truth of his subject. Sometime it works, and the resulting words and images are truly compelling; othertimes, all that prevents it from descending into abject pretentiousness is Herzog's apparent naïveté.

Formally, Herzog is a master of his craft. Encounters is smartly edited and perfectly paced, and there are many occasions across the film's ninety minutes during which everything comes together: in preparing for a dive, the scientists don't speak during their ritual, and are likened to priests preparing for mass, and Herzog, following suit, falls silent, and we all descend into the "cathedral" and spend several minutes exploring on our own, accompanied only by music, the strange and lush type with which Herzog always manages to endow his films.

From a documentary perspective, Herzog manages to discover an impressive variety of noteworthy people and events, and records them all in turn. The trouble is that his forced interpretation in terms of poetic reality often conflicts with, or even cheapens, the literal reality of what he apparently didn't plan on finding. Herzog did find a surprising number of truly fascinating people. In some cases he lets them speak for themselves, such as the Native American plumber who had been told that his fingers and "long rib cage" were physiological proof that he was descended from Aztec and Mayan royalty. Too often, however, Herzog takes it upon himself to summarize the tales he was told, justifying this at one point by saying that the story "went on forever". These are problems that could have been solved by proper interview conduct and editing, but by not being prepared to handle this type of material, Herzog damages his subjects. Indeed, he has already sabotaged his own efforts, as by the nature of his poetic truth approach, he cannot be trusted with the literal truth. In condensing the stories of his interview subjects, he has robbed them of their conviction. At points he seems to be tampering with reality by hitting his subjects with questions such as "is this a great moment?", or "you escaped [from behind the Iron Curtain]; how big a drama was that?" The low-point comes during an interview with a Marine Ecologist working closely with penguins, which Herzog had set up with the romantic notion that the scientist was "in his solitude not much into conversations with humans, anymore." Herzog then describes difficulty in getting this man to keep talking, but ends up asking him about gay penguins and penguin insanity, making both himself and the subject look foolish in the process.

Like his other documentaries, Encounters at the End of the World is worth watching. As a documentary, the film contains more than enough substance to hold interest. The flaw is that its maker cannot necessarily be taken at his word, which is, of course, a sticky situation when you're dealing with reality. I would urge you to remember this while watching, but Herzog generally manages to involuntarily remind the viewer of the nebulous nature of the reality that he tries to discover.

Sushi Report: Kikugawa, January 15

Yellowfin: D- [flavorless]
Salmon: A+ [buttery]
Salmon Roe: A- [firm and fresh]
Halibut: D+ [gamey]
Red Snapper: B- [mediocre]

Notes:
This is at least the fifth time I've had a piece of salmon at Kikugawa, and every time it is outstanding. Buttery, bursting with flavor, and a little oily; I wonder if they roll it in MSG or meth amphetamine to fool my decadent American palate. Arrived around 7pm on a Thursday, and the place was still deserted. How do they stay in business?

Let's face it: I've always had a problem with the entire punk set of genres. Even after I learned to accept and eventually seek out A) angry screaming, B) loud noises, and C) instrumental dissonance in music, I still took exception to what I felt to be a lack of musical accomplishment in most of what I heard of the punk aesthetic. I considered it an affront that anyone would go into the studio and make a record using only attitude and anger power, not having bothered with learning to play their instruments or the writing of compelling songs, and I found it irksome in the extreme that so many people apparently enjoyed listening to the resulting boring, bothersome, and structurally retarded music.

Let's continue being honest and sharing our feelings: I still feel this way about a lot of these bands. In addition to the problems with form I described above, the tone put forth by this music was incompatible with my personality and lifestyle; I simply wasn't the Fuck You type of guy that these records were aimed at. Such fundamental clashes would probably have kept me away from the hard stuff forever, if Fugazi hadn't come into my life and my stereo.

I can't recall how it happened, but in a crimson flash, I was listening to Red Medicine over and over again. Suddenly there was a bridge between what I wanted to listen to and what the enemy was playing: a band with roots in hardcore but with tremendous musical integrity. To be honest, I didn't have much use for their earlier records, but things only got better as the band drifted over time toward my side, first with End Hits [the Instrument demos were better], and eventually peaking with The Argument: a record that I considered to be perfection from end to end, put out by some old punkers from D.C.

Once these albums had been played, memorized, and exhausted, I went soft for a long, long time. There were a few visitors: a little Iggy Pop, The Clash, Television, At The Drive-In, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Green Day, Rival Schools; but nothing stuck around for long.

Now, here comes The Chemistry of Common Life from Fucked Up. O, how I love this record; how I love it. I want this record playing at my funeral. I want it to abuse me and then comfort me tenderly as though nothing happened. I want it to have like ten-thousand of my babies. The songs are fantastic, the brutal vocals make me feel like the Fuck You guy that I'm not, and the layered guitar sounds - executed by a man calling himself 10,000 Marbles - reach for a new level of sonic shit-yer-pants: in addition to being lovingly and meticulously crafted and perfectly suited to their context, they just
SOUND.
SO.
COOL.

Maybe these are terrible examples of how I've supposedly embraced the punk sound: Fugazi is universally loved by fans of all genres, and most of the Fucked Up record is rock and roll that happens to have hardcore vocals. But like beloved Fugazi's records, Chemistry affords me a tenuous connection with all the thousands of other recordings that are ultimately unattainable, even if they are, by me, unwanted.

As most of my family have in recent years developed characteristics common to the North American Foodie, the durian was already known to us - though never actually seen, or tasted. Or smelled. Durian is a fruit that grows in Southeast Asia. It is large and heavy, covered with sharp spikes, and those who choose to comment on its heady aroma - what I've come to call the Creature - usually wind up with, say, a comparison with the smell generated by the deepest segment of Orson Welles' large intestine, if it were to be unearthed six weeks after his death, immersed in a slurry made from medical waste and half-digested onions, then consumed and finally deposited by a moose with Crohn's disease.

Though the poor durian's reputation is always proceeded by its own reek, the consumption of its meat is a different story, altogether. This description put forth by a British naturalist is so tender it nearly makes me weep:

The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. ... as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.

Thus, I was happy to arrive at my father's house with a large durian under each arm. I purchased them at Truong Thanh, an Asian market at 25th and Nicollet. We found that yet unopened, the durians produced a quiet, fruity smell that could only be detected in their close vicinity - and was actually quite pleasant. So the durians sat, under the Christmas tree. Each day I would inspect them several times for any sign of a crack in the shell, which would indicate ripeness.

It happened late in the evening. The smaller of the two had developed a crack, a whiff of which now indicated the olfactory demon within, which had taken possession of the poor fruit, like the family dog suddenly set upon by rabies. We placed the durian on the counter and gathered around it. I seized either side of the crack and the fruit sprang open unexpectedly like the alien in Independence Day, and we chuckled nervously like Brent Spiner, performing the autopsy. After removing half of the fruit's spiny jacket, we surveyed what looked like two undeveloped baby dinosaur fetuses which seemed to be made of scrambled egg, as the air in the room was quickly tainted by the Creature - which took the form of something dead and rotting. A glass of water sitting nearby began to bubble and turn brown. Emboldened by the euphoria of finally becoming acquainted with this object which we had thought and talked about, we surged ahead and manipulated one of the gooey lobes onto a plate. Picking apart, we found two hard brown lumps - each of which looked like the pill given to Westley by Miracle Max in The Princess Bride; it much have been a durian seed which restored his life. Finally, we tasted.

This would be the traditional point at which to describe the flavor, but there is very little I can say; it merely tastes like durian. How would you describe something with which there is no comparison? How would you describe the color blue, or the sensation of cold? I can say that the texture is irresistible - very smooth and custardy. The flavor is extraordinarily complex, and develops dramatically as the fruit is worked. It contains a small amount of what is detected in its odor, and a larger portion of what tastes similar to onions, though at the same time a number of pleasing tones can be detected. With so much happening all at once, it's difficult to develop an attitude toward the fruit as a whole - I loved parts of it, and detested others. To eat durian is without question a challenging culinary experience.

We had varying amounts - some just a taste, though my sister and I each had quite a bit. We shot a video of it for Andrew Zimmern. The Creature lingered. After consumption, the aspect of durian that remains is the onion taste, which is about as pleasant as it sounds. Water, crackers; nothing would erase it. Before bed, in an act of desperation, I chewed up two olives stuffed with blue cheese, but even that was in vain. Over the next days and beyond, we all experienced durian flashbacks - a sudden and unexpected flavor recall - while smelling or tasting substances of a wildly varied nature. Apparently durian is like Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans - there isn't a flavor or aroma existing in nature that isn't present in some form in its fruit.

When the smoke cleared, we had consumed two of the five lobes of the durian. Not wanting any more, but not wanting to waste it, we harvested the remaining meat and sealed it within a hermetically-sealed container used for transporting live organs, drove to the other side of town, and buried it, marking the area with hazardous waste sign, as if it were a headstone for a plague victim. I had heard from the same friend that clued me in on where to purchase the durian that it could be made into other treats, such as smoothies or cakes. In the morning we recovered the leftovers and my sister made it into cupcakes, using the fruit both in the batter and frosting. The panoply of flavors did work very well with the sugary sweetness of the cakes, though they were certainly possessed of the fruit's sensory heft and muscle. Though not nearly as complex as the durian on its own, they provided, for better or worse, a summary of what could be found within the flesh of that rare beast, and they even generated their own immature version of the Creature.

We found a few victims to feed the cupcakes to, most of whom took a nibble, nodded, and politely handed the morsel back. Everyone, however, is intrigued by the idea of the Smelliest Fruit on Earth. The gang at work has been interested in tasting durian, though I'm afraid that if I brought some in the Creature would set off the fire alarm, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for seven hundred people being evacuated in the middle of the day. Well, we'll see.